Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Desiring an opportunity to meet more ponies, I’d canvased Ponyville in search of employment and accepted a part time job. I was working at a home delivery business, doing ponies’ shopping and pulling carts of goods hither, thither, yon and gone. It was unfortunate about the company’s name, alliteration taken a bit too far, but that was the least of my worries.

Within a week I knew most of the business owners in town and had met scores of individual residents. When a shopping list arrived from a customer, I tracked down the requested items at various Ponyville merchants and delivered them; business was brisk enough that I was usually had two or three orders to fill at any given time. It kept me busy, let me meet ponies, and gave me the wherewithal to service my outstanding debt while I waited for distilling royalties to start rolling in.

On the days that I worked, I took the early shift whenever I could. That left my afternoons open for adventure!

Cutting through one of Ponyville’s quaint, winding, alleys on a cold, dark, morning a scruffy stallion stepped into my path. Maybe adventure was also on the early shift today.

“Deliverin’ tha valuables snapwise be,” he said, “and don’ dast gaze ‘pon me face.”

I drew and studied his face across the sword I held pointed at him.

“Ballsy one, are ye, our lad-o? Best be droppin’ tha wee cutter afore ye git hurt.”

His confident swagger could be backed up by ability, or bluster. The one skill Leon had not imbued upon me was surrendering to mere flash.

Apparently he didn’t recognize me, but I’d seen that bug-eyed so and so before, and said so.

“You look exactly like the piece of shit on the wanted posters all over town.”

An old mare had been robbed recently. So desperately had she held onto her purse that her foreleg had been put out of joint before the blackguard responsible had adopted the expedient of cudgeling her.

“So tha ken of us, eh. Us shouldna ha’ allowed thum harridan her life. Us’d’ve bin warnin’ yon staggery cock-chiller to keep a lid on it, if she’d not taken her a wee street kip.”

“Because you beat a mare old enough to be your great grand-mare unconscious!”

Buck me sideways if he didn’t chuckle.

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t like killing.” I kinda surprised myself with my own vehemence. Robbing ponies was distasteful at the best of times; beating a senior citizen was foul. “But you’ve just about convinced me to make an exception. Surrender, and I’ll be forced to haul you to the constabulary. Otherwise you’re going down right here.”

One hoof went to his belt, but he didn’t draw yet, and I didn’t look away from his crazy eyes.

“Garbage pickup is tomorrow,” I said, “if I stuff you in a dumpster nopony is going to smell you.”

Somepony had lost an entire wagonload of turnips to green rot – the dumpster containing them leaked foul ooze. Terrible waste of a terrible vegetable, but it would serve my purposes.

“Aye and when us gits out, comin’ f’r tha, be. Mayhap us be findin’ tha family firstwise. Tendersome buckworthy young uns, gots tha?”

“Are you bucking stupid in addition to being stupid?,” I retorted. “You’re not getting out because you’ll be dead.”

That might not have been my original plan, but plans change. For example, when he threatened my family, that changed my plans.

With a flourish he drew steel, a bit more than a dagger a bit less than a short sword.

I judged him as holding the weapon as if he knew pretty well how to use it. On another hoof, the crazy eyes gave him a look like the kind of pony who would try to distract you with his knife while he tries to get close enough to attack with his teeth. But I didn’t plan to let him close in where he could use either mode of combat: he had presented me with an opportunity to try out a spell that had supposedly been rendered obsolete by modern protective magic. Everypony, the book had misstated, took precautions against this spell.

The scent of burning began to compete with rotten vegetation. The mugger sniffed the air trying to find the source of the new smell. Finally he found it – and dropped his knife. The blade was already glowing a dull red and his hoof had been badly burnt before he had noticed the pain. Funny how a distraction can work.

This would have a perfect chance for him to surrender and put me in the hotseat for my use of magic. Instead he lunged, and fell back mortally wounded.

“In your next life,” I said, sword ready despite the fact that he would obviously be hitting the ground very soon, “don’t let the anti-magic charm on your sword expire.”

“Arsebuggers!” The epithet lacked conviction, sapped as he was by the injury. “Undid, feckin’ amateurwise, us be. Better ‘tis us dinna pay thum fecking tinkermage’s due f’r a shitecoddled excuse of a cantriping.”

Blood loss was getting to him and he staggered, leaning against the makeshift hearse that would eventually bear him to the improvised burial ground known as the Ponyville Landfill.

“Tell me where the old mare’s stuff is and I’ll make this quick.”

“After fightin’ thudsome hellcatwise, auld bitch didna have sanglier bent bit upon her. Off yon bridge flingsie, with a cobble init, thum sinken be.”

“Right.”

I kept my promise and make it quick.

—

“Excuse me, Boss.”

I was stopping off at dispatch between deliveries and Gallry was drifting through the office like he hadn’t a care, or a thought, in the world. He made a point of hiring self motivating ponies and as far as I could tell the business ran itself.

He wafted over to me with a musically nonverbal questioning noise.

“Hmmmm?”

“I was wondering about taking up a collection to take a load of groceries to the old mare who got robbed last week. The paper said she’s out of the hospital, but I’m guessing she’s probably feeling pretty rough from the the beating she got. And to judge from the fight she put up, she must have had all her money in the purse that was stolen.”

It wouldn’t do to let on that I knew how poor she really was – I didn’t care to explain how I gained that knowledge.

“Hey, sure, that’s a really nice idea, Tangent. It really is, but you know she doesn’t really have a lot of friends. Or maybe any. I’m not sure you’ll have much success with a fundraiser for her.”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“I know you’re new to town, but I grew up here and I don’t know what the reason is, but she’s always been alone.”

“A lonely old widow right here in Ponyville?” I muttered. “That should have been in the show, and with a friendship mission.”

“Eh, what?”

“Nuthin’, Boss,” I said. My mind was made up. “I’ll buy her some groceries myself.”

“Whoah, pone, I’m telling you that everypony knows—”

“My husband,” I interrupted, “is the Princess of Friendship. If I have to pick between what ‘everypony knows’ and friendship, then in Twilight's name, I pick friendship!”

I think I snorted as I delivered that pronouncement.

“Okay… pone I believe in you. If you feel that strongly about it, I’ll split the cost with you.”

“Cool, let’s go!”

“Hold yourself a second. It’ll take me a day or two to find out from shopkeepers what she usually buys when she does her own shopping. Can we wait a little and do this right?”

“Uh, sure.” The delay would give me a chance to investigate the riverbed under the bridge. “Thanks, boss. I don’t give an airborne sexual assault on a reciprocating pastry about the bits—”

“A what?”

“A flying buck through a rolling donut. I don’t care about the money, but I think it will do you good to share in this success after being proven wrong.”

“What am I wrong about?”

“You said she doesn’t have any friends. We’ve just demonstrated that she has two.”

—

I had learned that the delivery service catered primarily to two types of customers. There were those who could not do their own shopping due to age or infirmity; we provided a critical lifeline for those ponies. Then there were those who just didn’t have time whether they led a chronically busy life or just needed to save some time for a particular event; if they paid slightly higher delivery fees than those who had no choice, well so be it. Additionally, as a very small third group, there were the occasional pranksters.

“I’m sorry,” the mint green mare was saying as she edged away from the delivery I had proudly presented to her, “I definitely did not order custard and a dildo.”

The custard was some of Ponyville’s best, fresh made this very morning. The dildo was a rather striking example of such an apparatus. The tip curved slightly in a manner unlike human or pony. After a discreetly understated corona, the shaft twisted its ridges down to a distinct narrowing, possibly allowing it to be conveniently captured depending how it was used, before the harness-compatible suction cup at the base. The texture was firm and fleshlike and seemed almost as if it had some faint magical warming applied to it.

“Dunno, Miz Heartstrings, the address has your name on it, so somepony must have sent it to you.”

“I don’t want them.”

“It’s all paid for, so you could at least enjoy the custard…”

“Is the custard safe?”

“I picked it up fresh at Honey Bun’s bakery and dessert shop. If there is anything wrong with it, she has a serious food safety issue on her hooves and could be shut down. I don’t think she would risk her business for a prank.”

“Does anypony know about this?”

“Obviously whoever set it up knows. I know but won’t tell, my dispatcher knows, but she operates under the same customer privacy rules as I do. The mare at the sex shop knows that I picked an item up, but she has no way of knowing who it was destined for. Heck, I haven’t actually picked up deliveries at her shop before, she might think I bought it for my own personal enjoyment.”

“Okay, custard for dessert tonight. Can you discreetly dispose of the—”

She shook her hoof at the pink and white spiraled toy.

“Certainly, ma’am.”

“If I was interested in being penetrated, I wouldn’t have married a mare!”

“I take it that you have indeed been the victim of a prank, and I apologize for our firm’s unwitting part in it.”

“No hard feelings. So do you ponies really deliver absolutely anything? I guess I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes, right?”

“That’s right, G.G.G.G.G.S. can do your shopping for you, no matter what you need! Let me grab you a brochure.” I stowed the dildo in the wagon’s locker when I retrieved an informational packet for Lyra. “Later, big guy,” I whispered to it.

I gave Lyra the brochure and continued on my route.

—

So it went. Soon Ponyville ponies got used to seeing me about my work, and thus I established a modus for my eventual operandi.