Taming Strange. Or: How I learned to stop worrying and make love in public

Picturesque flew with her gentle wing beats back towards her father's office, eyes closed as always. Her name suited her well as she was uncannily photogenic at all times. She thought absolutely nothing about the very odd pony that she just been seen escorting by half the University.

She may never have thought of, or seen him again if it weren't for two of her friends calling up to her from an elegant little tea shop on campus. She didn't pick up her pace to meet then but simply let herself slip gently down towards them. "Bonjour mon ami." She said, slipping back into her native language unthinkingly.

Her friends, a pair of posh unicorn mares, both the daughters of Lords, looked at her with reprimand in their eyes. "Dearie don't you know what you've done?" One cried touching Picturesque's hoof.

The pegasus only now opening her eyes at the unexpected turn of the conversation. "Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas, or rather, What's the matter?"

The other unicorn spoke up. "You were seen being escorted by the Demon of Diogeneighs' Hall!" She sipped lightly at her tea.

"Who?" The Dean's daughter asked.

"That pony you were just seen with is an absolute ogre!" Her friend said, giving a face of disgust. "An absolute beast of a pony."

"He's been in your father's office on disciplinary action more times than any other pony!" The other said.

"Oh dear, then how has he not been expelled?" Picturesque asked, growing concerned.

"Well he's never actually broken any rules perse, but he's got a terrible fiery temper and his delight is to shout at ponies and make them break down weeping!"

"That babbling mess, oh surely not." The pegasus asked not believing that someone who can't form a full coherent sentence could make a pony cry.

"No really my dear, he was removed from the debate team because he gave his opponent a nervous breakdown, and he caused professor Sophistry to file a formal complaint against him because he made his whole class ridicule him." The unicorn having no knowledge of the situation only knew that the ice faced professor had gone to the Dean whining like a school yard tattler.

"But he was limp as a noodle when I took him to the clinic!" The pegasus said, still trying to wrap her head around the situation. This revelation caused the unicorns to giggle at each other.

"My my my! The Angel has conquered the demon it seems!" Picturesque lightly batted her friend's hoof as she disliked her nickname. "But really Picturesque." The unicorn took one of the pegasus' hooves in both her own. "Please stay away from that brute. It would greatly displease your father!"

Picturesque's eyes opened fully for probably the first time in her life. She had never once even thought of displeasing her father. The very idea was tantamount to saying "please don't burn down the University." She shook her head to clear away the unpleasant thought. "Is he really that bad that my Father detests him so?"

"Worse darling! Your father has wanted to find an excuse to expel him since his first day here. But every time he does that fiend argues semantics until your dear father gives up and sends him away. The blaggart." She said sipping her tea testily as if to wash an unpleasant taste out of her mouth.

"Oh mon pauvre père." Picturesque said rising. "Pardon my rudeness ladies but I simply must see him." With that she sprang into the air.

She arrived at her father's office, door still open, a fuming Dean sitting stiffly at his desk. Picturesque had never seen him upset so she didn't know what upset looked like. She trotted in, not even noticing his posture and bearing. She came up and kissed his cheek as she always did. The Dean's demeanor softened as he could never stay mad at his daughter. "My dear, what's this I hear of you walking with a certain young colt?" He said almost all the venom drained from his voice.

"Oh mon pére I've just heard what a terrible pony he is to make you suffer so." She hugged his back, his mood softened considerably more. "He was at the door and he was standing slackened and drooling so that I thought he was having some sort of episode. So I took him to the clinic." The Dean tensed again. He knew all too well what would make a young stallion slacken and drool.

"Oh my dear caring daughter. Even able to show compassion to the lowest of ponies." His mood stiffened again at a new suspicion. "And then you came straight back here yes?" He asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"No, I met mes amies having tea and they told me all about that horrid pony." The Dean relaxed fully. Confident in the knowledge that the Demon had not sunk his claws into his little angel.

Oh you poor poor stupid pony.

The next day Picturesque was flying at the only speed she knew how to, slowly and
gracefully, towards her Literature of Preclassical Prançe class. One of the few classes her father had signed her up for, to give her something to do during the day. It was okay though as she liked literature. The Dean didn't have to worry as the literature professor was one of his oldest lackeys.

The professor's tastes were. No. There's no need for pretenses. Illegal. His tastes were illegal. Don't worry though, he gets his comeuppance. The Dean knew of his very illegal tastes and held them over the pony's head. So if anyone got too close to his little angel, he'd tell the Dean, who'd be able to swoop down like a hawk.

She was out of her normal placidity though, as she couldn't get the thought of Roané Haycarte out of her head. All the terrible things she'd heard just didn't match the limp noodle she'd helped walk to the clinic. How could such a pony make grown stallions cry and cause such trouble for her dear father? It didn't make any sense.

Well miracle of miracles she just happened to notice a certain dark brown earth pony with prematurely greyed mane trotting as if he'd had some business in Trotto von Bismark Hall, the central hub of the history department of RCU. Picturesque decided that missing one class wouldn't be the end of the world, plus she just had to settle this issue plaguing her mind.

Haycarte sat front and center, as he did in every class, so he didn't notice when Picturesque slipped in and sat at the very back by the door. The class had already begun and professor Emeritus Scroll Scribe had the nervous face of somepony who knew they had the sword of Damocles dangling above their head.

He happened to be giving a lecture on. "Oh no! Not Neighpoleon!" The pegasus' head hit the desk. "Why? Why does every professor like the Bohaymean Ogre?" She thought to herself petulantly. She sat head leaned on her hoof the single most bored she had ever been. This so called demon sat like all the other students taking notes.

She'd seen more than enough. The pegasus' had no inclination to sit there listening to somepony praising a pony who'd brought her homeland so much misery. She hadn't even shut the door behind her when the roar hit her like a thunder clap. The limp noodle of yesterday was standing on his hind legs hooves digging into the desk.

"NEIGHPOLEON WAS A TYRANT, A MURDERER, AND A WAR MONGER!" Haycarte shouted at the professor who was cowering behind his clipboard. Picturesque poked her head back into the class in shock. Not only at the noise but at the passion of the remark. The pegasus' had never heard anypony speak in such a manner before. It didn't hurt that he happened to be saying what she had been thinking the whole class.

"Now now." The poor professor tried to make his case. "Neighpoleon managed to reign in the chaotic political climate of his time and."

The roaring that rattled the rafters recommenced. "HE SEIZED POWER BY FORCE AND TURNED HIS ARTILLERY ON HIS OWN CITIZENS IF THEY REBELLED!"

The professor, who after having had classes with Haycartes for weeks now honestly should've known better, continued. "He led his ponies to great victories in.

The fillysopher somehow grew even louder. His earlier tone, a forceful rebuke in the tone somepony would warn a pony they were in danger. Now his tone was one of active, personal anger as if he'd been insulted. "HE LED A SERIES OF POINTLESS WARS AGAINST WEAKER NATIONS! IT WAS SO BAD THE PRINCESS HERSELF HAD TO STOP HIM AT TROTTERLOO!" Picturesque was thoroughly enthralled. This pony wasn't being malicious. He was just honestly intellectually offended, and was defending his point. She didn't know how to process this.

The professor pony was now on the verge of tears hiding fully behind his clip board. "He brought the maretric system to Equestria!"

Roané Haycartes plopped down now completely calm. He took up his pencil in his mouth and muttered barely audibly. "No but it was implemented during his reign." Picturesque was stunned. He could just turn it on and off at will. She held a hoof to her heart. Her head was spinning. This wasn't a roaring ogre going out of his way to hurt ponies. This was a pony who refused to allow professors to lie to him, or his classmates.

She flew out of the building and straight to her father's office. She excused her absence from class to her father as a mild distemperament of the soul, and spent the day playing the harp for her father. Her mind kept coming back to the scene that she had witnessed in the lecture hall.

She had never heard a pony be so forceful without malice. Nopony had ever displayed that kind of passion in front of her before, and she was from Prance! Land of cheese, passion, and bad accordion music! Ponies shouldn't speak that way to professors, she knew, but he wasn't wrong. Ponies shouldn't shout at other ponies. But he wasn't wrong!

The professor wasn't necessarily defending the Bohaymean ogre, but he was saying nice things about him. The part she couldn't get out of her mind though despite the ungracefulness of the delivery was. He. Wasn't. Wrong. He wasn't even mad as he'd only spoken, not shouted, the bit about the maretric system.

Picturesque was in a pickle. She had always been given anything she'd ever wanted before she could ask for it, so she didn't actually know what want felt like. So she was thoroughly unprepared when all she wanted in the world right now was to see Haycartes again, but she needed a legitimate excuse.

She was still lost in thought when Scroll Scribe himself walked in and slapped a portfolio down on the Dean's desk. "Hoof! I've had all I can stand and I can't stand anymore." Dean Grasping Hoof raised his grasping hoof to try to calm the outraged intellectual.

"No! I am professor emeritus of precolonial and colonial history. I will not be treated like this!" The blustering professor started to pace. "He has no respect for his elders, and I demand his expulsion post haste. I-I-I mean the nerve of that pony to call Neighpoleon nothing but a tyrant! No appreciation for the the the subtlety of history. The uh the uh nuance of understanding a pony's character to get an accurate historical description of a pony."

"Well he did fire on his own citizens." Picturesque said matter of factly shocking them both into silence. Both stared in shock as Picturesque had never spoken out of turn once in her life.

Scroll Scribe was off balance. He tried to continue. "Well yes but. Well you see it was a very complicated political situation at the time and."

The Dean reflexatorily came to the side of his daughter. "What's so complicated about it! Some ponies didn't like him declaring himself emperor so he blew them up! You sir would do well to remember that." He rose and held his daughter protectively.

"My little filly is from Prance. She clearly knows how the ponies of Prance felt about their so called emperor better than you do." His face went red and his jowls shook as he shouted. "And you'd do well not to talk so highly of him if you'd like to keep your position Mr. Scribe." He said the professor's name with a sneer.

Scroll Scribe apologized and dissembled like a courtier on the verge of being executed for displeasing his King. "UUUHM yes will I mean clearly I umm Neighpo I mean the Bohaymean ogre I mean was clearly a."

Dean Grasping Hoof knew he had let the professor sweat enough. He hadn't raised himself to Dean of the most prestigious University on the planet by humiliating ponies and making enemies. No, the way you make a sycophant is by bullying them into doing what you want, then making up to them as if it was their fault. Then once they're back on your side you give them the option of doing what you want them to and they jump at it. Celestia help him he loved it.

"My dear scroll, clearly you just need a better understanding of the ponies of Prance. Take some of that excessive vacation time you've been sitting on. Go there! Tour the museums. Get a feel for the history." He wrapped a companionable hoof around the professor's neck. "See the sights if you know what I mean. Her mother was from Prance you know." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Scroll Scribe knew better than to look at the Dean's daughter, but she was what came to his mind when one said the ponies of Prance. The Dean's tone hardened to put the final nail in the coffin. Leave em scared was the way. Make em feel like you did them a favor, but get em running out. "Scroll you are to go to Prançe, and reeducate yourself on the subject of Neighpoleon. And don't come back till you do. IS. THAT. CLEAR?

"YES! umm Thank you Dean uum I'll do just that. Umm I'll leave tonight. Umm I'll do that right now. Thank you Dean. Thank you!" With that he scampered out of the office and Dean Grasping Hoof plopped his generous plot into his chair, smug in his control over his staff.

His mood was ruined when he suddenly realized he had just sided with Roané Haycartes over a professor. One that he had installed! One that owed his career to him! He had handled the situation perfectly of course, but why had he done that?

No. He had sided with his daughter right? She had said Neighpoleon was bad right. Because she was from Prance that was it, wasn't it?

The Dean took a long hard look at his daughter. She sat there, expertly plucking her harp as always. Gentle as a lamb and sweet as an angel. She didn't like Neighpoleon, so nopony was going to like Neighpoleon. That was it, he was sure of it. He told himself this unconvinced, doubt still lingering in his mind.

This wasn't right. He'd handled the situation perfectly of course, but he wasn't done. That damned pony still needed to be knocked down a peg. Measures would have to be taken. The Dean started furiously filling in a formal disciplinary action form.

He stamped it with his cutie mark, and was about to call for a runner, when his darling daughter snatched the paper off the desk and flew out of the office. She called behind her. "Let me take that for you mon pére." Before he could call out for her to stop, she was gone.

Miracle of miracles Daddy had once again given her exactly what she wanted before being asked. She could now without any impropriety go to the stallion's dorm and maybe, if he was in, see the pony that had filled her mind all morning.