Author's Note
So I rewatched Pulp Fiction (a.k.a. one of the greatest movies ever made) last night and thought to myself, "Hey, what if some of these scenes involved ponies?"
This story is my answer to that question.
Dead Zebra Storage
Starlight and Trixie were standing in Twilight’s kitchen, each with a cup of tea being held up by their magic.
“Wow, Twilight,” Starlight said after just taking a sip of her tea. “This is some really deluxe tea. I mean, Trixie and I would’ve been fine with any old run-of-the-mill tea, but this is really good, right, Trixie?” she continued as she turned to Trixie.
Trixie finished a sip of her own tea before speaking.
“Oh, absolutely!” Trixie enthusiastically remarked. “When you offered us some tea I certainly wasn’t expecting such a delicacy. What flavor is this, Twilight?”
“Knock it off you two.” Twilight dryly stated with a small hint of annoyance in her voice.
Starlight and Trixie quickly exchanged a nervous glance.
“Knock what off?” Starlight asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
“I don’t need you to tell me how fucking good my tea is, alright? I’m the one who buys it, I know how good it is.” Twilight replied as the annoyance in her voice grew. “When Spike goes shopping he buys tea that tastes like shit, I buy the expensive tea because when I drink it I want to taste it.”
“W-we were just saying that…” Trixie timidly tried to interject.
“But you know what’s on my mind right now?” Twilight continued, completely ignoring Trixie. “It isn’t the tea in my kitchen, it’s the dead zebra in my backyard.”
Twilight was referring to the zebra corpse in Trixie’s wagon, said wagon currently being located behind her castle.
“Oh, y-you don’t need to worry about…” Starlight began to explain.
“Don’t tell me what I need to worry about!” Twilight interrupted. “I want to ask you both a question; when you pulled that wagon up to my castle, did you notice a sign on the front that said, ‘Dead Zebra Storage’?”
“Oh come on, Twilight, you know we didn’t see a…” Trixie tried to say.
“DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN ON THE FRONT THAT SAID, ‘DEAD ZEBRA STORAGE’?!” Twilight repeated, only much louder this time.
“N-no, we didn’t,” Starlight meekly admitted as she lowered her head.
“And do you know why you didn’t see that sign?” Twilight inquired.
Neither Starlight or Trixie responded, not because they didn’t know answer, but because they did and just didn’t want to say it out loud.
“You didn’t see that sign because storing dead zebras isn’t my fucking business!” Twilight bellowed.
“W-well, we don’t intend to store…” Starlight attempted to explain.
“Do you realize that Princess Celestia is coming here for brunch today?” Twilight asked, once again interrupting. “And do you realize what she’ll do if she comes here and finds a dead body on my property?”
Again, neither Starlight or Trixie responded, this time because they truly didn’t know the answer.
“She’s going to send me to the moon, understand? No lecture, no magic kindergarten, she’s going to send me to the fucking moon!” Twilight yelled out. “And guess what, I don’t want to get sent to the fucking moon!”
Both unicorns held their heads in shame, realizing just what kind of position they’d placed Twilight in.
“Oh, and I can only imagine what she’ll do to the two idiots responsible for the dead body in the first place!” Twilight added.
Trixie and Starlight’s heads quickly shot up with expressions of fear on their faces. They of course knew how much trouble they’d be in if anypony found out about the dead zebra in the wagon, but they hadn’t thought about how bad it would be if Princess Celestia found out.
Twilight took a long, deep breath in an attempt to calm down before continuing.
“You’re my friends and I want to help you,” she stated, having successfully calmed down a bit. “But I don’t want to end up living on the moon for the next thousand years doing it.”
“Look, Twilight, you’re not going to end up…” Trixie spoke up in an attempt to assuage the alicorn princess.
“DON’T FUCKING ‘LOOK, TWILIGHT’ ME, TRIXIE!” Twilight shouted, losing what little calm she’d managed to find. “THERE’S NOTHING YOU’RE GOING TO SAY THAT WILL MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT THIS WHOLE SITUATION!”
Trixie backed up a few steps and didn’t say another word out for fear of incurring more of Twilight’s wrath. Starlight thought it best to remain silent as well.
“Princess Celestia is going to be here is about an hour and a half,” Twilight said in a very stern voice. “Do whatever you have to do to get that dead zebra off my property; bury it somewhere at Sweet Apple Acres, have some of Fluttershy’s carnivorous animals eat it, hell, sell your souls to a demon so it’ll send it to limbo, I don’t give a fuck, just get it out of here before the princess arrives!”
“I-I don’t think we’ll need to do any of those things, Twilight,” Starlight said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “We don’t want to cause any problems. Trixie and I will find a way to deal with this nice and quietly.”
“You don’t want to cause any problems?” Twilight reiterated in disbelief. “YOU’VE ALREADY CAUSED PROBLEMS BY KILLING THAT FUCKING ZEBRA! AND AS IF THAT WASN’T BAD ENOUGH, YOU BROUGHT SAID ZEBRA HERE AND MADE IT MY PROBLEM TOO!”
At this point Starlight and Trixie were practically reduced to scared fillies by the constant berating. Realizing that they’d be useless to solve their collective dilemma in such as state, Twilight reluctantly decided to take command of the situation.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” she very authoritatively stated. “You’re both going to do what I say, when I say it. If you follow my instructions, we’ll get this taken care of with time to spare, understood?”
The two unicorns nodded their heads.
“Good,” Twilight continued. “Starlight, go over to the school and get a barrel from Applejack’s classroom, one big enough to fit a body in. Trixie, go out in the hallway and turn left, four doors down on the right side there’s a linen closet, get every sheet, towel, and rag you can out of it. I’m going to go Rarity’s and get some industrial strength cleaning chemicals and supplies. Both of you meet me at the wagon in fifteen minutes.”
Once again, Starlight and Trixie nodded their heads in acknowledgement, and with that the three mares were off to complete their assignments as the clock continued to tick.
Fifteen minutes later, Twilight, Starlight, and Trixie were all gathered at the wagon, each having succeeded in their task.
“Alright,” Twilight resumed ordering. “First, I’m going to go in and put the body in the barrel. When I come out, you two are going to go in and clean the wagon from head to hoof. Start by using the sheets and towels to soak up the worst parts, then give everything a good scrubbing with the rags and sponges using the chemicals I brought. By the time you finish I should be back with additional supplies.”
“Why did Rarity have all these strong chemicals just lying around?” Trixie nonchalantly asked, causing Starlight to facehoof and Twilight to roll her eyes.
“Do you want to waste time asking pointless questions, or do you want to take care of the dead zebra in your wagon before Princess Celestia gets here?” Twilight inquired.
Trixie looked at the ground in a defeated manner.
“S-sorry, ma’am.” She apologized.
“That’s what I thought,” Twilight dryly replied as she made her way into the wagon, the barrel floating in her magical aura behind her.
Starlight and Trixie didn’t have to wait more than two minutes before Twilight came back out with the barrel.
“Okay, get started cleaning, I’ll be back in forty five minutes.” Twilight ordered as she walked away, barrel magically in tow.
“Where do you think she’s going?” Trixie asked Starlight.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Starlight answered as she made her way into the wagon, carrying a bunch of sheets. “Just get in here and help me clean all this up.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Trixie begrudgingly remarked as she too entered the wagon.
Twilight returned to the wagon forty five minutes later, just as she said she would, with half a dozen garbage bags and a book magically floating behind her. As she walked in, she found Starlight and Trixie were just about finished with the cleaning.
“Good job,” she complimented. “When you’re finished place everything you used in these bags, but don’t throw the bags out, just keep them in the wagon for now. Starlight, this book has a spell in it that should get both of your coats clean, I’ve bookmarked the page it’s on, use it after you’ve put everything in the bags.”
“Um, what did you do with the barrel?” Trixie curiously inquired.
Twilight gave an exhausted sigh upon hearing Trixie’s question.
“Stop asking questions, Trixie,” She pointedly remarked. “The less you know the better. Just keep doing what I say and none of us will be sent to the fucking moon, or worse.”
“Sorry I asked,” Trixie mumbled to herself.
“Okay, so what do you do after we fill the bags and get ourselves clean?” Starlight asked.
“Take the wagon to this address,” Twilight instructed as she magically passed a small piece of paper to Starlight. “The pony there will be expecting you. Tell him that you need a new set of ash wood wagon wheels and leave it there, you’ll be able to pick it up later. Once you’ve made the drop off come back to the castle and wait for me in the map room.”
“Got it,” Starlight affirmed.
“Okay, I’m going back inside to finish preparing for Princess Celestia’s arrival.” Twilight stated as she exited the wagon.
After Twilight was gone, Starlight turned towards Trixie with a self-righteous look on her face.
“See?” she smugly stated. “I told you coming to Twilight for help was a good idea.”
“I can't believe I'm saying this, but you were right,” Trixie astonishingly admitted. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Twilight has been through this sort of thing before.”
The two mares shared a nervous look as they got back to cleaning, not wanting to deviate even slightly from Twilight’s instructions.
