Thirty-ish Minute Pony Stories

by Abecedarian

Chapters

Love me, Love my Hat (Prompt #107)
Learning to Fly Again (Prompt #109)
The First Party (Prompt #110)
Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit (Prompt #112)
Nice Work If You Can Get It (Prompt #113)
The Path is Open (Prompt #115)
Dear Princess Celestia: HELP! (Prompt #263)
The Little Changeling: A Rejected Children's Story (Prompt #276)
Trigger Warning (Prompt #288)
A Bumper Crop of Crumpled Paper (Prompt #297)
To See Your Face and Slam the Door (Prompt #326)
Coming Attractions and Missed Opportunities (Prompt #359)
Discredited Method (Prompt #387)
Jupiter and Mercury Went Wandering One Day (Prompt #412)
Untitled (Prompt #426)
Mentor (Prompt #475)
The 247th Annual Ponyville Wing-Off (Prompt #547)
Written by the Victors (Prompt #116)
Every Sense of the Phrase (Prompt #117)
Therapy (Prompt #118)
Washed Up on the Rocks (Prompt #119)
Ice Cream is Bad (For You) (Prompt #123)
Good Enough Reason (Prompt #124)
Lying in It (Prompt #125)
The Fall of Doctor Clucktopus (Prompt #127)
Patience Has Its Rewards (Prompt #130)
Overdue Vengeance (Prompt #131)
Freebird (Prompt #132)
False Closet (Prompt #134)
Phases of the Sun (Prompt #138)
I Guess I Lost My Spring (Prompt #143)
The 'Miss' in 'Misdemeanor' (Prompt #144)
The Same All Over (Prompt #150)
Useless, Feckless, and Scheming (Prompt #160)
Metempsychosis (Prompt #168)
Rain Check (Prompt #177)
Back for the Wrong Reasons (Prompt # 179)
(What if) Pipsqueak Really WAS a Pirate? (Prompt #181)
Such Fragile Lives (Prompt #181)
I'm Telling You Why (Prompt #209)
Last Resort (Prompt #226)
"A Fool is Never Alone" (Prompt #547) (547 had three prompts)
Cuteness Proximity (Prompt 547 Prompt #3)

Love me, Love my Hat (Prompt #107)

TMP Prompt #107 - “Memento”

Prompt: “It’s Apple Bloom’s hat now.”

Love Me, Love My Hat

The Stetson’s mouth opened wide, emitting a piercing shriek and exposing three rows of razor-sharp teeth.

“Ah think it’s gonna spit again!” Applejack cried. “Twilight!”

“On it!”

A violet bubble of force popped into being before the two mares, just in time to catch a spume of green liquid, which spattered against it, burning holes in the floor and walls.

The hat shrieked in frustration and began battering at the shield with its tentacles.

“Oh, jeez! I’m so sorry, Applejack! I never thought this would happen!”

“It’s called a 'Come-Ta-Lahf' spell! Wha’d ya expect!?”

“How could I possibly have seen this coming? It was just supposed to wiggle around a bit!” Twilight laughed a little, in spite of everything. “I’ve got a bad track record with that spell and you, don’t I?”

“This ain’t th’ time! Cain’t ya take the spell off it or somethin‘!”

“I can’t concentrate with—” Twilight grunted as the hat rushed at the shield and began biting. “—With it attacking like this!”

“What’s goin’ on?” The last voice either of them wanted to hear called from the other side of the shield. “What’s all th’ noise?”

“Apple Bloom! Stay upstairs!”

But it was too late. Before the mares’ eyes, the filly stepped down the stairs and froze in shock at the sight before her.

The hat whirled around and leapt onto Apple Bloom’s head—

“Oh Celestia NO!”

—and began purring.

“It’s lickin’ me!” The filly’s eyes were wide. “Omigosh, it’s lickin’ me!”

The shield flickered out of visibility as Twilight’s jaw dropped, and Applejack rushed to her sister’s side.

“Guys, what am Ah supposed t’do? It tickles!”

Twilight and Applejack stared at each other, then at the hat, which seemed to be kneading Apple Bloom’s mane as it purred.

“T-try petting it?” Twilight suggested.

“It’ll tear her hoof off!”

But the hat’s purring only intensified.

“It’s like a kittycat!” Apple Bloom grinned.

“Ah…Ah just cain’t believe it.” Applejack reached a hoof to the hat, which lashed out at her with one of its tentacles, generating a spark and the smell of ozone. “Ow!”

“Ah’m sorry, sis!” Apple Bloom smacked it. “Bad hat! Say yer sorry.”

But the hat just somehow looked smug.

“Welp, guess it’s yours now,” Applejack said. “Um, havin’ a hat’s a lot of responsibility, Ah think? You’ll hafta feed it an‘…an’ walk it, Ah guess?”

She flashed an inquiring look at Twilight, who just shrugged, utterly baffled.

“Thank you both so much!” Apple Bloom petted the hat. “Maybe I got my Cutie Mark for the best pet ev—Nope. Well, this is still okay!”

And she rushed out the door.

“Well, that turned out better than it should have.”

“Ya say that now, but wait til’ all her friends ask fer one.”

Twilight cringed.

Learning to Fly Again (Prompt #109)

Prompt #109 - “The Last Great Adventure”

Prompt: Death cannot be stopped.

Learning to Fly Again

I don’t fly anymore. Not like I used to.

I still go from place to place, of course, but when I was young flying was what I was all about, and now…

Saying that makes me sound old, doesn’t it? Well, I am. Really.

I buried little Prismacolor last week, and at the funeral, everypony kept asking if I was her granddaughter. It used to bug me, but I’m accustomed to it by now.

What can I do about it, after all?

Anyway, flying. Yeah, I was all about it. I even joined the Wonderbolts…but I found that “daredevil“ and “death-defying” don’t mean a whole lot when there’s no death to defy.

I quit when I realized that the crowds didn’t care about my stunts, only about how badly I could crash or explode and still come out fine. Like it was some kind of fetish or something.

It broke my heart, but I was just too damn disgusted to stay.

Anyway, I still train the team of course. I’m Loyalty, after all. I couldn’t let them go entirely.

…

Soarin’ and Spitfire’s great-grandkid asked me out.

I told him about Green Flash, who retained enough wit near the end of his life to introduce me as his trophy wife whenever I wheeled him around the assisted-care facility, and about burying three children and five grandchildren (this was before poor Prismacolor’s fall). I told him I couldn’t bear to see another loved one growing old and dying before my eyes.

…

He asked me to think about it. Idiot.

How do the others cope with this?

How can I love anyone mortal, knowing they’re going to die and leave me behind? How could I do that do myself? To them?

How do they all manage this? I’ve wanted to ask for years now, but they all seem so happy, so content. How can I burden them with thoughts like this?

Princess Celestia attended Prisma’s funeral, just like with all our loved ones. I think she feels responsible, or maybe guilty, for making us Elements and putting us through this over and over again.

I asked her, because she’s been alive longer than anypony else. I told her how it hurt, how it always hurt, and how I didn’t see the point anymore.

“Do you think moments became less precious when you found yourself with so many more of them?” she replied. “Do we stop planting flowers in our gardens, knowing they will wither with the coming of winter?”

She nuzzled my cheek.

“Time and death stalk even us, but sadness is the shadow that throws the light of our happiness into sharp relief. Do not be oppressed by the length of your life, but embrace every second. That is what the Dash I know and love would do.”

And you know, she’s right. I did a loop-de-loop for the first time in decades as I thought of it, not to train or entertain anybody, but because I wanted to enjoy myself in flight.

I’m Rainbow Dash, Element of Harmony, and for the first time in over a century, I’m going to live.

Author's Note

2022 Me: If I had been writing this at leisure, the ending would've been more ambiguous. I also might have included more detail about the others, but then I might have lost focus a bit.

The First Party (Prompt #110)

TMP Prompt #110 - “There Ain’t No Party Like a Pinkie Pie Party”

Prompt: The first party.

The First Party

In the days when ponies had to make their own Cutie Marks, dragons couldn’t fly or breathe fire, and they were a good deal smaller and weaker.

Still, they were powerful ravagers of land and sea, and as the vast creature before her uttered a last feral roar and collapsed, Six-Night-Eyes allowed herself a sigh of relief and waved to her friend Sky-Fire-Finger, who kicked her cloud hard enough to discharge one last bolt of lightning into the creature’s corpse before alighting upon the ground.

“Village is safe!” Six-Night-Eyes proclaimed, rubbing her horn. In those days most unicorns had to make do with telekinesis, but she had pioneered the first of what we could call spells: A blast of force which (while rather hard on her horn) had proven invaluable in winning the day. “Let us return!”

“You know what this call for?” asked Paint-Splash, as they walked back.

“No, what?”

“…I no know.” Paint’s heavy brow furrowed in thought. “But will figure out.”

And she did.

It was a primal celebration that would be strange, even offensive to modern pony eyes.

Bright fires flared and drums rolled as Flying-Flower led a procession of animals from the forest through the village. The ancient ponies, drunk on the fermented beverages created by Tree-of-Sweet-Fruit, fell upon the creatures, tearing them limb-from-limb, and feasted upon the meat, as Uncut-Stone gathered the furs to make glorious raiments for the victors.

***

“And that was the first-ever party, 50,000 years ago to the day,” Pinkie grinned at her audience. “Thank you all so much for coming to this one.”

“No problem, but I have to admit I’ve never heard that legend before,” Twilight said. “Are you sure it’s historically accurate?”

“Sure. We were all there! Kinda.”

“Um,” Rainbow Dash asked, glancing at Fluttershy, who pale as a sheet and shaking like a leaf. “We’re not wearing actual fur, are we?”

“It’s fake, of course,” Rarity said.

“H-how c-can you be sure?”

“I’ll ignore that, sweetheart, since you’re obviously upset, but do you really think I wouldn’t be able to tell?” The white unicorn sniffed at her plate. “Um, this isn‘t actually…?”

“Nope!” Pinkie grinned. “It’s just tofu.”

“Thank goodness.”

The ponies ate…or they started to.

“Um, Pinkie?” Applejack smacked her lips. “This tastes a li’l weird.”

“Really? That’s too bad. I spent hours trying to get it to taste like real meat.”

Much coughing and gagging ensued.

“You’re all done?” Pinkie looked a bit disappointed. “Well, let’s all get our spears so we can hunt down Spike.”

“What?!”

“Sorry, Spike, but Gummy’s too easy to catch.” She gestured to her pet alligator, who was beating a drum with the stick held in his tail, and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I think he lets me win.”

Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit (Prompt #112)

TMP Prompt #112 - “What the Future Holds”

The Prompt: Ponies: The Next Generation

Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

“—We are so sorry, little ones.” The aged mare’s image flickered as she bowed her head. “For if you have come to seek us, then danger once more threatens Equestria, and we cannot rise to its defense.”

She looked up again.

“But know that the Elements of Harmony still lie within this castle. Find them and use their power to save the world.”

And the image of the erstwhile Princess Celestia faded, leaving a brief afterimage on the purple wall behind it, and the six ponies were alone once more.

“Wh-what does this mean?” Little Dizzy asked. “What does this mean?”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Grim Grin chuckled bitterly. “It means we’ve lost. All of this, our quest, our mission, was pointless. It‘s kind of hilarious, if you think about it.”

“Grim!” Softhoof chided. “It’s too early to say that.”

“Sorry, Mister Mayor.” The battle-scarred unicorn stuck out his tongue.

Front Line snarled and kicked the dais from which the image had been projected.

“Line, sweetheart, you’ll damage it.“

“THEY ABANDONED US, SOFTHOOF!” The unicorn mare raged. “THEY BETRAYED US! TURNED THEIR BACKS ON US! AND FOR WHAT!? FOR WHAT!? WHAT HAVE WE BEEN SERVING ALL THESE YEARS?!”

“In the end, I guess they were just like ordinary ponies after all,” Fair Dealer said. "They had as much right to a normal life as anypony else, if they wanted one."

“Maybe even more.”

“They had a duty!” Front Line insisted. “Those…those bitches—”

“Well,” Softhoof gently rubbed her shoulder. “If you had to be Captain of the Ponyville Guard twenty-four hours a day, you wouldn’t be the calm and even-tempered soul I know so well.”

“…Sweet-talker.” She let him pull her into a kiss.

“D’aww.” Dizzy grinned.

“All this mush doesn’t change the fact that we’re doomed without the Princesses.” Grim pointed out. “Unless you think Discord’s got a soft spot for lovers.”

“Elements,” Spectral Aura murmured.

All turned to the pearlescent unicorn, who blushed and covered her mouth.

“Go on,” Softhoof encouraged her.

“Wuh-well…I’ve heard th-that the ‘Elements of Harmony’ were even more p-powerful than the P-Princesses. M-maybe they can st-stop Discord.”

“Looks like we don’t have any other choice...” Fair Dealer peered around the room. “Well, there’s nothing that valuable in here.”

“Let’s ask the dragon!” Dizzy said.

“What dragon?”

She pointed, and the creature the others had taken for an immense purple-and-green wall opened its eyes.

“I was wondering when you’d notice me,” Spike grumbled.

Author's Note

2022 Me: If I ever, ever get back into writing ponies I may expand on this setting. Or I may keep procrastinating like I did and end up dead first.

Have a fun day, future readers!

Nice Work If You Can Get It (Prompt #113)

TMP Prompt #113 - “Nice Work If You Can Get It”

Prompt: Tell the story of how Smart Cookie became Chancellor Puddinghead’s secretary.

“Nice Work If You Can Get It”

“What am I going to dooo!” Chancellor Puddinghead wailed, flailing about on the floor.

The janitor rolled her eyes and cleaned around her leader’s temper tantrum, straightening a pile of papers she’d kicked over in her rage.

A wadded-up ball of paper whacked her in the back of the head.

“What am I going to doooooooo!?”

“Okay, fine! What is it?”

“What do you do?”

She blinked at the non-sequitur question. “Ah‘m a janitor.”

“Janitor. That’s a funny word! Jjjjaaaniiitooorrrr. Jan—”

“Is there a point ta this? Ah got things ta do.”

“I demand that you help me, Janitor!”

“Ah have a name, ya know.”

“You do?”

“Most everypony does. Smart Cookie.”

“Thanks, I am pretty clever.”

“Ah hate introducin‘ myself. Look, what‘s th‘ trouble?”

“This!“ The Chancellor gestured to the scattered papers on the floor. “This!” She pointed at the line of angry ponies outside her door. “And this!” She pointed at a half-eaten donut on her desk.

“Huh?”

“It doesn‘t have sprinkles! What is this, the Dark Ages?”

“More or less.”

“Nopony told me being a Chancellor would be so hard!” Puddinghead whined. “Why can’t there be someone who can handle my paperwork and my appointments and my fifth lunch?”

“Sounds like ya need a secretary.”

“Sec…ra…tary…Ssssseeeeccccraaaaa—”

“Yes! A secretary!”

“Is that somepony who tells me what to do so I can do it?”

“That‘s an advisor.”

“Is it somepony who does everything I tell them to without questioning me?”

“No, that‘s a lackey.”

“Can‘t they all be the same pony?”

“Oof. Ah don‘t envy them.”

“Where can I get a sedimentary?”

“Sec-re-tary.”

“Are you a sumo dictionary?”

“No. Ah‘m a janitor.”

“How does someone become a janitor?”

“Well, someone gets an art degree, and everypony but her suddenly decides electing somepony named Puddin‘head’s a good idea, an‘ then—”

“I don‘t care! Listen, I need a skeleton-dairy.”

“Are you even tryin’ anymore?” Cookie asked. “Wait, no. Ah see where this is goin’.”

“You do?” The Chancellor gasped. “We’re on the same wavelength!”

“You can say ‘wavelength’, but not ‘secretary’?”

“You have the privilege of being on the same wavelength as me! Me! Don‘t you feel honored?”

“Well, m‘Ma always said t‘take compliments with the spirit in which they were intended…so no, not really.”

“I need a Sagramore and you know what one is, so as Chancellor I declare you my secondary!”

“Uh, no. No, no, no, no no. Also, NO.”

“Don’t you want to?

“Ah’d love to, but Ah’ve got toilets to muck out. Later.”

“No! I order you to stay and be my—”

“Babysitter.”

“Segmentary!”

“No thank you. Ah got better things ta do than look after you.”

“Pleeeeease? Pleeeeeeease?”

“Puddin’head, there ain’t no way no how, by Tartarus an’ th’ Elysian Fields, by Valhalla an’ by Hel, By ‘Lest, by ‘Lune, by Nightmare Moon, that I will ever, ever be your secretary! Ya got me?”

“Silly filly, you’re already my secretary because I say so.” She patted Cookie on the head. “Now, how much money do sickle-bunnies make?”

“AH JUST SAID—wait, what?”

“How much do sectionaries make? Not as much as Chancellors, I‘m sure.”

Cookie stared at the Chancellor, who smiled back with the innocence born of blissful stupidity. Would it be just and moral for her to take advantage of this naif? This babe in the woods? This total idiot?

…

Well, her ma didn’t name her Smart Cookie ‘cause she wanted her to be a baker.

The Path is Open (Prompt #115)

TMP Prompt #115 - “I’ll Face Myself”

Prompt: Somepony confronts their inner demons.

The Path is Open

“I AM NIGHTMARE MOON!”

Lightning roared in the dark and endless sky as the mare reared up before her.

“And that is very strange.” ‘Nightmare Moon’ tilted her head quizzically. “Why me, I wonder? Do I represent power? Surely Discord was more powerful. Why am I not Discord?”

She regarded her form.

“It is because her appearance was strange, and I am strange to you? But Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen was stranger by far, on many levels. Appearance, and nature, and motivation. You know, you could have swept her and all her kin away, if you wished. All by yourself, Element or no Element, if you only—”

She blinked. “Ah. You are afraid of me.”

“Nightmare Moon” took a few steps toward her, and she backed away.

“Nightmare Moon hit you on a level that you cannot explain, something visceral. Something you recoil at…” It was hard to tell how she felt about it. “Are you afraid that this is what you could be?”

“She was a Princess,” the dark mare said. “And she was powerful, seeking more and more power, more and more glory. You are afraid that if you do not stay humble, pursue parlor tricks and cantrips, keep your true power hidden even from yourself, that you could not help but follow her path. Even now, even after saving the world twice over, even after all your friends rely upon you, you still, still hide your true might away.”

“You think that I am dangerous.” ‘Nightmare Moon’ kept stalking toward her. “You think that I could turn you into a monster.”

“Should I be offended? I am not. You could never offend me.” Her back hit a wall she couldn’t see and “Nightmare Moon” stopped, face unreadable. “You also cannot escape me, little one, so let us be honest with each other, shall we?”

“Nightmare Moon” exploded in a flash, and in her place hovered a small lavender filly, surrounded by a white glow, eyes blank with shining light.

“Twilight Sparkle. I am your birthright, chosen by fate. I am Magic, as you are Magic. The power that preserves, the power that destroys. Do your legs frighten you? Your eyes? Your horn? I have no will of my own, no ability to change you for good or for evil.”

The world faded into blankness.

“Use me wisely, Twilight Sparkle, or misuse me foolishly,” the voice said. “ I do not care. I only wish to be used, a tool in the care of my masters.”

“Wake, and fear no longer.”

And she did, and she didn’t.

Author's Note

Past Me: And you promise everyone will appreciate how clever I was naming my fic after a Persona 3 song to the match the prompt which used a Persona 3 song for a title?

2022 Me: My dear me, if me can't trust me, who can me trust?

Past Me: And because of that they'll enjoy the matching theme of inner conflict the fic has with the game?

2022 Me: Me guarantee me. Me's not making a mestake.

Dear Princess Celestia: HELP! (Prompt #263)

TMP Prompt #263 - “Everybody’s Changing”

Prompt: Everybody’s changing, but I still feel the same.

Dear Princess Celestia: HELP!

Twilight Sparkle woke up and stretched, beginning a yawn that ended in a sharp cry as she spread her wings.

“Jeez!” She gingerly stretched the offending appendages. “Was I lying on these all night? No wonder pegasi sleep on clouds.”

She rolled out of bed and walked to the mirror.

One of the stranger things she’d noticed in the two days she’d been an alicorn was that she invariably looked good, no matter what. Her hair, usually a tangle in the mornings, artfully arranged itself around her face in an alluringly tousled manner. Her eyes, normally bleary and bloodshot after waking, looked soft and warm. Her morning breath was redolent of fresh violets and grapes.

Even the dried drool and matted fur on the left side of her mouth appeared endearing rather than disgusting, and almost glittered.

“I should like this,” she said, casting a couple of small spells to spruce herself up. “But it’s starting to freak me out.”

A strange noise caught her ear.

“Spike? What’s that sound?”

“Uh,” Spike peered out her bedroom window. “You’d better see this for yourself.”

A crowd of ponies stood upon the library lawn, and the sound resolved itself into her name, chanted over and over.

“Whoa.”

***

Stepping outside the library, she heard a collective gasp as the crowd stared at her in awe.

“Uh, what’s going—”

“She speaks!” Roseluck cried.

Daisy waved her hooves. “Let all be silent!”

“O Glorious Princess!” Lily bowed her head to the ground. “What pearls of wisdom do you impart to our unworthy ears?”

“…Huh?”

“What would you have us do for you?” Caramel clasped his hooves together. “Oh, say something! Anything!”

“Listen—”

“She’s talking to me!”

“No, me!”

“Me!”

“Oh, boy…”

***

The crowd had parted like a curtain as she stepped forth, occasionally bursting into rapturous exaltations or sighs as she walked to her destination.

Aged Mr. Waddle had gone go far as to improvise an ecstatic dance, only to trip and fall. He’d actually burst into joyous tears when she’d helped him up, and several in the crowd had gathered to ask how her touch had felt.

“Nopony follow me inside, ya got that!?”

She shivered as she walked into Sugarcube Corner.

“Mr. and Mrs. Cake! It’s me, Twilight! I was wondering if—” Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? For the love of—STOP GROVELING!!”

The window next to her cracked.

“I mean, stop groveling, okay?”

“We’ve angered her!” Carrot Cake cried, rising from the floor. “Oh, please, Fair Princess, please, please forgive our transgressions!”

Twilight took a couple of deep breaths.

“Look, I just want a donut, alright?” She rubbed her brow. “Actually, gimme three. It’s been a three-donut morning. Yellow cream-filled if you‘ve got ‘em.”

“Oh, of course, Princess!” Cup Cake said. “We have dozens of them! But we can make more if you want! Our pleasure, O Radiant Majesty.”

She stared at them.

“And now it’s a seven-donut morning.” She rolled her eyes and reached for her bit bag.

“Pay!? Oh, Grand Potentate, never! Take as many as you please, gratis!”

A deep crack formed in the counter as Twilight slammed the bits down.

“Oh, right.” She winced. “Princess strength. I’ll pay for that, too.”

“Oh, no, it’s good that you did that!” Carrot’s head bobbed. “It’s great! Thank you!”

Twilight ground her teeth. “Will you please quit—”

A flash blinded her, and when the spots in her vision cleared, she saw Cup Cake shaking a photograph in her teeth.

“A Hrincesh a’e here!” she said around the photo. “No’ony’ll e’er ‘elieve ih!”

“Will you stop!? Look! I’m still the same Twilight Sparkle I’ve always been! I just have wings, and divine strength and power, and—” She paused. “Well, I’m still me, okay? And I‘m about this close to going somewhere where I know I can find somepony with a bit of common sense!”

“Wait!” Carrot ran upstairs, then ran back down with the Cake’s infant twins riding upon his back. Both waved enthusiastically at Twilight.

“Aw, hi there!”

“Before you go, could you, uh…” Carrot cleared his throat. “Could you please bless our children?”

***

Applejack kicked the recalcitrant tree.

“Consarn it, ya Twilight-forsaken hunk’a wood! Cough up the Twi-damned apples, fer Twilight’s sake!”

“Applejaaack!” She turned to see Twilight slumped against a tree, looking half-dead of despair. “Not you, too!”

“Pardon?”

“You have to help me! Everypony‘s…they‘re…worshipping me!”

“Well, y’are a Princess, now.”

“Well, I’m not a god! Neither are they! They hate being worshipped, and I can see why!” Twilight took a few more deep breaths. “I don’t want this! I just want to keep living a normal life in Ponyville, just like I always have. This is…this is scary!”

“Scary?”

“The Cakes asked me to bless their twins. I don’t even know how I’d do that! How long is it before somepony asks me to heal the lame or give sight to the blind or cure cancer or something? I don’t know how to do that either! Of course I want to help everypony, but I have my limits! I’d be letting everypony I can’t help down! What if I…what if I—”

“Calm down.” Applejack wrapped her arm around the shaking alicorn’s withers. “Worry about all that stuff later. Right now ya just need—”

“A party!” Pinkie Pie burst out from behind a tree.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah, Twilight.” Pinkie waved a chiding hoof. “You forget, I’m the Element of Laughter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I know laughter when I hear it, and I know not-laughter when I hear it,” Pinkie explained. “And an anguished wail is about as not-laughter as you can get.”

“Makes sense, Ah guess. But how in tarnation is a party gonna help, Pinkie?”

“With a party she can meet everypony in a casual environment and they can see that she’s the same as she always was, and then they‘ll stop worshipping her.” Pinkie tilted her head to the side. “Let’s see. We could put paintings and statues of her all over the place, have some songs devoted to how awesome she is, stories of course, lots of stories about things she‘s done, moments of silence to quietly contemplate what she means to—Wow, never mind. I’ll have to work on this.”

“Look, Twi.” Applejack gave her a squeeze. “The town’ll simmer down soon enough. What’s important is that ya still have us. We’ll always be your friends, and we’ll always treat you the same, no matter what.”

“You’re…you’re right.” Twilight gave her a shaky smile. “I’ll always have you guys.”

“Yup. Until we die, since you’re immortal and all.”

“PINKIE!!”

“Oh. Yes,” Twilight’s eye began to twitch. “I…I hadn’t considered that…”

“Ah hate it when ya get that look.”

“Don’t worry!” Suddenly Twilight was in her face, grinning. “I have an idea! If you’re a Princess you can live forever! And if all of you are Princesses, I won’t have to lose any of you! Isn’t that great!? So how about it? Any world-shaking epiphanies about truthfulness and honesty!?”

“No, but Ah’m about t’be awful frank with ya.”

“No, no!” Twilight slapped her forehead. “Agh! I’m so stupid. Who would ever want to outlive their loved ones?”

“Right, so—”

“I’ll turn everyone into alicorns! Everyone! Everywhere!” Twilight cackled. “Of course! Then nobody’ll have to outlive anybody! Of course the non-ponies like the griffins’ll have to get used to their new bodies, but it’ll be fine, fine! Yes, everything’s going to be just fine! FOREVER!"

She vanished.

“Oh, lord. Pinkie, make yerself useful n’ fetch me a quill an’ some paper. Also, Spike.”

Author's Note

EDIT: Weeks later, I finally got around to reading Blue Print's "Assumption of Applejack", and discovered to my horror that I'd ripped it off without even seeing it. I have the worst psychic power ever, apparently! I am so damn sorry.

EDIT SIX YEARS LATER: Eh, why not. What, someone'll kick over my gravestone? Anyway, i'm sure it's been done often enough by now.

The Little Changeling: A Rejected Children's Story (Prompt #276)

TMP Prompt #276 - “Old Habits Die Hard, Holding On”

Prompt: I need to change, but I don’t think that I can.

The Little Changeling: A Rejected Children’s Story

The little changeling’s wings were too small to carry her for more than a couple of seconds.

The little changeling’s eyes could barely see in dim light, let alone pitch darkness.

The little changeling’s pheremones and magic were too weak to do more than make a weird smell and a flash of green.

The little changeling’s fangs could barely pierce the skin, and the paralytic venom they pumped only made her victims a bit dizzy.

But worst of all?

Worst of all, the little changeling couldn’t shapeshift!

Try as she might, she was always getting something wrong. Who would be tricked by a pony without any skin, or a minotaur with no fur and a monkey’s face?

All the other, bigger, changelings could transform into anything they wanted, and see in the dark, and fly as long as they wished, and lure other ponies into their web of deceit.

What kind of changeling was she if she couldn’t do any of that? She was a terrible changeling! An awful changeling! She didn’t count as a changeling at all!

It was enough to make her cry and cry, kicking the hive‘s wall in a fit of jealous anger.

When all of a sudden, who should appear but the Changeling Queen herself!

“Hello, my little one,” she said softly. “Why are you so sad?”

“It’s not fair!“ she sobbed. “I’ll never be as good as them! I’ll never be a big changeling!”

“Now, now.” The queen put an arm around the little changeling’s shoulders and pulled her close. “It wasn’t so long ago that I was a little changeling, just like you.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

And then she began to sing:

One day your wings will shine bright

One day your eyes will see night.

One day they’ll follow your scent

One day their minds will be bent.

One day you’ll change your form and see

That you’re a changeling like me.

The little changeling snuggled close to the queen and sighed.

“Yes, dear.” the queen nuzzled her. “You’ll be a big changeling, and then you can seduce ponies and drag them back to the hive where we can all drain their emotions and motivation, leaving them mindless husks fit for nothing but to provide the genetic material I need to make more changelings, until they starve to death.”

“You mean it?” The little changeling gasped gleefully. “Oh, I can’t wait!”

“Neither could I, child.” The queen gave a nostalgic smile. “Neither could I.”

“Um, Queen?” The little changeling blushed. “Do-do you think one day I could be queen someday?”

“Oh, sweetheart, of course you can.” The queen kissed her cheek. “First, though, you’ll have to defeat me in mortal combat, then devour my internal organs in order to obtain the hormones and proteins necessary to change your form into one like mine.” She winked. “I’m not gonna make it easy.”

“I…I can do it!”

“And if you lose, I’ll rip you apart and use you as an example for the others.” She poked the little changeling. “Rip!” Poke. “Tear!” Poke. “Slash!”

The changeling giggled as the queen tickled her.

Even if things were hard now, she knew everything was going to be okay.

***

And one day she grew up to be, you guessed it, Queen Chrysalis!

So, little colts and fillies, if you work hard, have faith in yourself, and devour your parents’ internal organs in a frenzy of battle-rage, you can make all your dreams come true!

Trigger Warning (Prompt #288)

TMP Prompt #288 - “Happy Pi(e) Day!”

Prompt: The most important pie in Equestria.

Trigger Warning

“Don’t do it, Sheriff,“ Doctor Elecampane insisted. “Just ask him to go away politely, and—”

“And what, ma’am?” Sheriff Silver Star asked. “Let this critter head ta some other town and do the same things he’s been doin’ all over the West? Heck, no. We gotta stop him here.”

“But how?” Elecampane asked. “You know his reputation!”

“Ah didn’t say it’d be easy,” Silver Star sighed. “Ah guess Ah’ll hafta think a’ somethin’. But Ah do know he ain’t gonna go polite, fer sure.”

“You’re just trying to make a name for yourself!” Elecampane’s bottle-glass green eyes blazed. “You’re risking your life!”

“Ah didn’t know ya cared.”

“It’s my job to care, you—”

The sound of a stallion clearing his throat made them both turn.

Braeburn stood in the doorway of the Sheriff‘s office.

“Ah think Ah c’n help,” he said. “If’n ya’ll recall, Ah got a certain package yesterday…”

“Braeburn!” Elecampane gasped. “Your grandmother sent that especially for you.”

“Mah granny’d tan mah hide proper if Ah let this varmint run around hurtin’ other ponies when Ah could help stop him.” He looked to Silver Star. “Please. Let me help.”

Silver Star nodded.

“Stallions!” Elecampane tossed her auburn mane. “You’re all crazy! And I suppose you’ll expect me to patch you up!”

“Be right kind a’ ya.”

***

The paste-gray stallion showed a mouthful of yellow teeth as he leered at the serving filly.

“C’mere, sweet thing.” He took her around the withers. “Know what Ah’m ‘onna do to ya?”

She blanched as he whispered in her ear.

“Right here, right now. And ain’t no one gonna stop me.” He raised his voice. “Ain‘t that right!?”

He glared around the Salt Lick, and all the cowed cowponies within. “Heh.”

The saloon’s doors flew open as Sheriff Silver Star and Braeburn burst in.

“Trigger!” Silver Star pointed an hoof at the wicked stallion. “You’ve done a lotta horrible things, but it’s all over! Come in peacefully, or Ah’ll drag ya in.”

“You an’ what army?” Trigger snorted.

“Ah don’t need an army.” Silver Star drew something from his saddlebag. “Ah’ve got pie.”

“Pie?” Trigger rolled his eyes. “Please.”

“This ain’t yer garden variety Saturday Night Blue-Plate Special,” Braeburn piped up. “It’s a gen-u-ine Sweet Apple Acres pie. Made from only the best apples, the freshest cinnamon, an’ the flakiest golden brown crust. Ya feel lucky?”

“No,” Trigger gasped. “No way, copper! Ah’ll kill ya first!”

“Made with love,” Silver Star drew his hoof back. “Choke on it.”

Suddenly the outlaw charged them, leaping. Silver Star managed to dodge, but Braeburn was a hair too slow, and the stallions went down in a tangle of limbs.

“Braeburn!”

Trigger rose, his arm around the yellow stallion’s neck.

“Well, lookie what we got here.”

“You let him go,” Silver Star raised the pie again. “Or so help me…”

“You think you can take me?” Trigger raised Braeburn before him. “Go ahead on. It’s yer move.”

“Take the shot!” Braeburn cried. “Don’t worry ‘bout me!”

“Ah-ah cain’t!”

“You hafta! Do it fer the fillies and colts! Do it fer justice! Do it fer Aaaaapleloosa!”

The pie exploded against the left side of Braeburn’s face, fragmenting and hitting Trigger as well.

Braeburn slumped to the floor as the outlaw clutched at his eyes, screaming.

***

“You think you’ve won!?” Trigger cried, yanking angrily at the hoofcuff that held him to his hospital bed. “Yer a fool! Ah got friends! Ah’ve got a gang on its way! We’re gonna sweep across th’ west like a storm! Ya hear!? This one-horse town is done fer!”

“Thanks fer the heads-up,” Silver Star snarled and turned away, leaving the ranting crook and heading to the room across the hall.

The yellow stallion lay prone upon the bed, eyes closed, chest slowly rising and falling. Doctor Elecampane was taking his pulse, and favored Silver Star with a cold glare as he entered.

“What’s th’ news, Doc?”

“Food coma,” she said in a clipped tone. “I don’t know when, or if, he’ll wake up.”

“Ah...Ah see.” Silver Star took off his hat and held it over his heart. “He’s so young, too.”

“No kidding,” she snapped. “Well, was it worth it, Sheriff? Was it worth this?”

“Ya heard Trigger. There’s a storm comin’, an’ we just now got the word.” He put his hat back on. “Get Brae up an’ on his feet as soon as ya can, Doc.”

He turned and strode out the door.

“We’re gonna need a lot more pie.”

Author's Note

I kinda-sorta cannibalized part of a longer story I'm nowhere near finished with, but I think it'll work out fine.

Donny's Boy called out the "food coma" pun, but I'm actually unduly proud of "Saturday Night Blue Plate Special".

(Also, the MST3k reference.)

A Bumper Crop of Crumpled Paper (Prompt #297)

TMP Prompt #297 - “If I Die Young”

Prompt: Applejack falls.

A Bumper Crop of Crumpled Paper

If I was with you,
I could carry the world on my shoulders,
And smile like it was nothing

No, wait! The universe!

I could carry the universe,
If

Oh, forget it.

***

Every day with you feels like summer,
Bright and shining
Like

Like

Every day with you feels like a cool summer day

Does that make sense? Hang on. Maybe if

You’re a cool breeze in summer?
And I

Shoot, I hate this.

***

You’re like an apple, because

When I look at apples I think of you because

Because

You’re filling and nutritious? You have a hard skin? I can overlook your rotten spots?

Oh, for Celestia’s sake!

***

I checked out every poetry book in the library for you, and I lied about why.

I hate that.

All that lying, and for what? It’s no good. The only thing I learned was that I don’t have to rhyme, thank Celestia. This is hard enough as it is.

I wish more than anything I could tell you to your face, but I can’t say it. I can’t be honest with you. Me, of all ponies! Applejack, loyalest of friends and most dependable of ponies, scared of three little words!

But you’re just so

I can’t

Before I met you, “plain” felt like a good word to me. It was honest, and fair and strong.

You make me want to be different. You make me want to be bright, and beautiful and

And

And better. I wish I was graceful, or smart, or sweet, or charming, or brave. I wish I had something, anything, to offer but myself.

Before I met you

***

An apple tree stood, alone and proud,
All the misfortune it had weathered only made it stronger
It never expected a feeling like

Apple trees don’t feel things!

***

It has to be perfect.

We’re not foals in school, I can’t just write you some note and ask you to circle “yes” or “no“. You’re better than a stupid love letter, better than all the plain words I can come up with. Plain words won’t do in a million years.

It’s gotta be poetry, nothing else will cut it.

Poetry.

I never thought I’d feel

It hurts, but it also feels good. I

***
Even if I lose everything
Even if I was a million miles away from everyone else
As long as you were by my side
As long as I had this feeling

That’s kinda creepy, isn’t it?

***

I’ve been up all night writing. I’m gonna be out of it all day, and I have chores.

You’d better appreciate that.

Who am I kidding? You’ll never see this.

I should just take a picture of all this wasted paper and give it to you and never explain it.

Wasted.

Well, I may be plain, but I’m also stubborn, and I’m gonna keep at this until I’m good at it.

Because you’re worth it.

And
***

The light in your eyes,
The warmth of your touch,
One day I’ll

One day you’ll

Oh, well.

To See Your Face and Slam the Door (Prompt #326)

TMP Prompt #326 - “Hush, Hush”

Prompt: “I stood up, my heart pounding, the lump in my throat refusing to be swallowed, my legs shaking with each timid step. I crossed the room and looked in their eyes, finally saying what I’ve needed to say all along, and they replied with a hollow smile and the words I knew would tear my world apart.”

To See Your Face and Slam the Door

“I’m not in love,” Prince Blueblood said. “I’m not. After what you did—”

He ignored her outraged gasp.

“After what you did, I’d be a fool to fall for you,” he scoffed. “A prize fool. I couldn’t get the smell of cake out of my coat for hours, certainly not in time for the after-party. Not that it would have helped, since everypony already saw you throw that cake in my face.”

He cut off her protest.

“I nearly called it off, but I can take my lumps. Besides, the ladies loved it.” He shifted his hooves. “It didn’t matter, not at all.”

He sighed.

“I looked around the place, and I realized —how did I miss it before? I looked at all the dignitaries, and celebrities, and the doxies I’d hired getting drunk or stoned or buzzed, and it all looked so pointless. So empty. All I could see was—.”

He bit his lip.

“Listen. I’m not in love, do you understand that? I just kept seeing the way your eyes flashed when you glared at me, kept hearing the sound of your voice as you said all those beastly, uncalled-for things—”

She stomped her foot and began to speak.

“I quit the parties. I quit drinking. I was barely keeping the stuff I did on moonflower and locoweed out of the papers, so quitting those was a blessing.” He chuckled bitterly. “I didn’t really want to. I just…couldn’t get you out of my head. The anger, the humiliation, the…the disgust just rose up in me every time.”

His head shot up.

“I’m not in love with you,” he snapped. “I’m not! Don’t get the wrong impression. I just can’t stop thinking about you, that’s all. I can’t…” He looked away. “If I had some means to make you account for this feeling, some way to make you take responsibility, I would make you do so. I want—”

He swallowed, and then the words seemed to burst forth.

“I wanted to see you again. I had to. That’s why I’m here. I heard that you were making a name for yourself here in Canterlot, and I wanted to see you and I, and I wanted to speak to you and to, I don’t know, be a part of your life. Please. It doesn't make any sense. I can’t explain it. I need to be around you. I hate this feeling, I don't know what it is. I’m not in love. I’m not, I'm not, but…but please…please…”

She opened her mouth to speak.

***

His lips were curled upward the whole time the bottle crashed against the Haifisch, curled harder as she spared him the briefest of glances before going to speak with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, and his teeth actually showed as he begged off the party early and went home to sleep.

Alone.

Author's Note

Is it childish, selfish, steeped in denial, and a little bit creepy? Then it's a Blueblood confession!

I wanted the reader to feel a cross between "He deserves whatever Rarity said to him", and "Poor thing".

2022 Me: I used a song lyric I liked attached to a song I'm neutral about for the title.

Coming Attractions and Missed Opportunities (Prompt #359)

TMP Prompt #359 -

Prompt: Mare Do Well: Year One

Coming Attractions and Missed Opportunities

A shrill cackle rang out as the dam exploded, and with an ear-splitting roar, a massive wave of water rushed toward the unsuspecting town.

On their precarious high-ground position, the soaked survivors huddled together for warmth. Suddenly one of them jabbed a hoof upwards, pointing at something unseen.

“Mare-Do-Well’s a menace!” cried the rough-looking newspaper editor. “And I won’t rest ‘til everypony knows it!”

The tourists screamed as their wagon flew from the cliff, a scream that ended in an astonished gasp as the their fall was halted by some unseen force. Slowly, slowly, they were pulled upwards. One of them ventured a glance toward the cliff’s edge and gasped.

“Mare-Do-Well’s a hero!” cried the plucky heroine. “She saves lives!”

The balloon careened through the city, its helpless pilot wailing in terror. Suddenly a violet streak snatched him from the basket.

“Don’t worry! I’ve got—”

Another streak slammed into them.

“Two!?” The beleaguered mayor sank into her chair. “One good and one…No, I-I can’t believe it.”

Two blue-and-violet figures glared at each other from across the rooftop.

“Don’t,” The scientist whipped off her glasses dramatically. “You see—”

The camera pulled back to reveal a third figure.

“I’ll kill anyone who stands in my way!” The feminine voice rang out “There can only be one Mare-Do-Well!“

The plucky heroine slapped the editor across his face.

“You’ll pay for what you did to me!”

The editor merely smirked.

“Dear Celestia,” the scientist whipped her glasses off. “It can’t be!” She put her glasses back on and peered at the results of her test. “But it is!”

“What is it?” asked the plucky heroine.

“I ain’t afraid a’ Mare-Do-Well,” the editor scoffed. “I’ll say anythin’ I want about her.”

“But sir,” the cub reporter quailed. “What about the death threats?”

“Tch. I’ll bring her down first.”

“Which one?”

“All of ‘em!”

“The suit’s unstable. One of these Mare-Do-Wells…” The scientist whipped her glasses off. “…Is going to explode.”

Mare-Do-Well leapt from rooftop to rooftop, the plucky heroine in hot pursuit.

“Please! You have to listen to me!”

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?” The editor slammed his hooves against the glass window before him. “HOW DARE YOU!?”

The three Mare-Do-Wells glared at one another…

“Who am I?” A feminine voice whispered. “Who am I?!”

…and charged into battle.

There was an explosion—

COMING TO THEATERS SOON

***

“Oh, man, oh man, oh man…” Rainbow Dash leaned forward in her theater seat. “This is gonna be so epic!”

“I know!” Pinkie Pie grinned, bouncing up and down. “I don’t know if I can wait!”

Twilight Sparkle just bowed her head, jerking upward when Applejack poked her.

“Rarity says ‘Copyright Mare-Do-Well? Rarity, that’s a crazy idea! Why would we wanna do that?‘.”

Twilight set her jaw and said nothing.

“You coulda copyrighted Mare-Do-Well?!” Rainbow cried. “Do you know how big she’s gotten!?”

“Yes,” Twilight said through clenched teeth. “Yes I do.”

“There’s Mare-Do-well comics and movies and video games, and radio shows,“ Pinkie recited. “Bath soap, water guns…”

“You could be millionaires right now!”

"I know, Dash."

“Rarity says she ain’t talkin’ to ya.”

“I figured that out after the first couple of days, thanks.”

“...Drinking glasses, reading glasses, sunglasses, coasters, costumes, duh…”

“Scratch that, you could have been billionaires!”

“She says, ‘That’s Sweetie Belle’s college tuition up there. Also—” Applejack blinked, turning to Rarity. “Also Apple Bloom’s? Really?”

The white unicorn nodded, her lips a thin, tight, line as she glared at Twilight.

“Well, now Ah don’t feel like talkin’ to ya.”

“...Flashlights, wallets, spray bottles, personal watercraft…”

“Zillionaires!”

Twilight just sighed and buried her face in her hooves.

Author's Note

I'm an idiot and I missed a lot of errors when I submitted this to TMP. I'll credit being in a rush, not having had any sleep, and work being hell.

Punched up the writing a little, too.

Discredited Method (Prompt #387)

TMP Prompt #387 - “Smile All the Time.”

Prompt: How to fight loneliness.

Discredited Method

Long, long ago, long before the magical land of Equestria, long before the separation and reformation of the Three Tribes, long before the great battle that forced the Lady of Dark into the moon and the Lady of Light into self-imposed exile, long before the Princesses were even born, when ponies were still too busy trying to tame this savage and mysterious world to write down their history…

…This story was old enough to be considered a myth.

***

In those days, they say, you would not recognize a changeling, if you saw one unmasked.

In those days they were truly insects, queen-less Fae beasts, who lived solitary disorganized lives, occasionally coming forth from the wilderness that was not yet ever-free to grab snatches of the emotions they devoured and then to escape.

Medieval bestiaries (centuries after the fact and based upon hearsay), show them more closely resembling hornets or wasps than anything equine, with mandibles, bulging compound eyes, and so forth. Parthenogenesis is occasionally mentioned.

Insects, as I said, who could briefly take on the form of ponies, whose intellect, quite impressive for bugs, allowed them some skill at mimicry, who with mild powers of mind-reading and suggestion could fool their victims for just long enough and no longer.

From the corner of your eyes you could see the truth, and from their shadows, and from the way they moved almost perfectly.

They were a threat, yes, but unless you stumbled upon one while you were a-wandering, or one got you alone in your house or a dark alley or such, they were no more dangerous than many wild beasts.

Or so they said, in those days.

***

It is known for a certainty that the healing spells we use today derive from ancient sources. Similarities between them lead many to ascribe them to small group, or more traditionally to a single pony (most likely a unicorn) by the name of Anemone, who like this story, has lapsed into the realm of the mythical.

Flesh-crafter and life-molder, the old stories call him, and wound-healer.

Plagues swept the earth back then, and they say he invented spell after spell in order to try and fight them off, perhaps to try and preserve the life of his love (Gentle and radiant, is all we know, when the stories even mention him having one), and his foal(s) (when the stories even mention them or him or her, they are freckle-faced and joyful and innocent).

He failed, or he never had either to begin with.

In any case, all the stories mention him isolating himself within his forest home, obsessively working on his magic…

…Until the day when his melancholy reached its peak.

…

Later stories in more sensitive times would put forth the notion that the changeling was special in some way, that she was that good a shape-shifter, that skilled a mimic and that in his despair Anemone just didn’t notice or care.

Perhaps, perhaps.

Ah, but flesh-crafter and life-molder, and grief and isolation or possibly simply pride or loneliness, and a few days or months or years…

***

Changelings are intelligent and devious predators, easily as intelligent as any pony. Their queens are powerful magic-users, the equivalent or superior of a unicorn. They could be anyone, anywhere, anytime, their disguises impenetrable.

Is that why are so feared?

Their sharp teeth, their shimmering eyes, the clacking of their wings…

Do these things frighten us when we see a changeling face-to-face?

Or…?

Author's Note

Mutate a giant bug into a pony-ish thing.
???
Changeling race!

I've been looking at a lot of fragmentary stories lately, and the origin of myths and how they can change over time, etc.

I kind of cannibalized from story I'm working on. Oh, well.

2022 Me: Yes, one of the big reveals I had planned for my fics was that changelings and ponies are more related than either would be comfortable with. It would be explained that they had a eusocial structure with queens taking genetic material from (male or female) ponies to reproduce and no drones.

And before you ask, blood would work, too, but that usually means a struggle.

Jupiter and Mercury Went Wandering One Day (Prompt #412)

TMP Prompt #412 – “Just So”

Prompt: How the sun got her fire/How the moon got her spots

Jupiter and Mercury Went Wandering One Day

“Our gratitude toward your hospitality cannot be expressed in mere words,” the dark-coated pegasus, Dusky, said. “But rest assured--“

Her companion, Dawn, a pale-orange earth pony with a vibrant pink mane, nudged her.

“Uh, thanks. Is what I meant. D-dudeskis.”

“Well with this big storm a-comin’, we could hardly make y’all stay out, could we?” Applejack said. We got plenty a’ room in our tents, eh gals?”

The Crusaders and Fluttershy nodded, the former enthusiastically, the latter from behind her wing.

“Yeah! It’s gonna be huge.” Scootaloo grinned. “You might get blown away, or struck by lightning, or--“

Fluttershy made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a wibbly sort of screech, and Scootaloo shut her mouth.

“What are you guys doin’ here anyway?” Apple Bloom asked. “’It’s dangerous in the forest, ‘specially with a storm comin’”

“We live here/we’re wandering troubadors,” both ponies said at once, then looked each other, startled. “We’re messengers/gathering herbs.”

Dawn cleared her throat.

“We’re--“

“We are--“

“We’re troubadors.” Dawn said, glaring at Dusky. “Who live in forests instead of towns and make money by conveying messages and gathering and selling herbs. Apparently.”

“Right on, sister. Totally bodacious.”

Silence reigned for a second.

“That’s so neat!” Sweetie Belle cried. “I’d love to do that!”

“But why are all of you here?”

“Ugh,” Applejack sighed “It’s like--“

“We’re gonna get our storm chaser Cutie Marks!” Sweetie Belle said. “We’re gonna watch lightning bolts!”

“It’s gonna be so awesome!”

“And since they were so fired up they were prob’ly gonna go off an’ do it anyway, Ah figured Ah might as well keep ‘em out of trouble. Ah also had Twilight enchant our tents against weather.”

“Vindale’s Etheric Windbreaker, no doubt,” Dawn nodded. “I’m really quite proud of--“

Dusky cleared her throat, hard.

“Sounds neat,” Dawn said, turning to Fluttershy. “And you’re here to help protect them, too?”

“Oh, no, I could never…” Fluttershy blushed. “I’m just here because I’m watching Scootaloo this week. I don’t know anything about controlling weather.”

“Should it get too powerful, surely we can dispel it-“ Dusky blinked, her freckled face twisting into a too-wide smile. “If we had horns, which of course neither of us do.”

“No.”

“It’s gettin’ dark.” Applejack said. “Anypony wanna help me gather up some more firewood just in case?”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo enthusiastically raised their hooves.

“Okay, can ya’ll make up a fire while we’re gone. We got enough wood ta get one started, anyway.”

“Verily we-uh, no problem, babycakes.”

“We should be able to,” Dawn nodded. “Be careful.”

“So tell me everything about being a tr-tr--“

“Troubador, dear,” Dawn said as she sized up the small pile of wood before her. “Mostly it’s just wandering around playing music…”

“Listening to the grievances and sufferings of mortal ponies so that we may better…Um, it’s a real drag, yo.” Dusky gulped. “How is that fire coming?”

“I, um…Fluttershy! Why don’t you make the fire?”

“I don’t know how. S-sorry.”

“Hm.” Suddenly Dawn looked up sharply. “Gosh that storm cloud looks terrible! Dusky, why don’t you fly up there, where nopony can see you, and try to do something about it?”

“But we want storm clouds!” Sweetie Belle protested.

“Yes, do we not?”

“Sweetie, it would be better for your friends to be here before the storms, starts, wouldn’t it? And Dusky?” She nudged the pile of sticks. “Do something.”

“Ah, right.”

Dusky soared into the sky.

“I think we’d better stand ba--“

A dark-blue thunderbolt slammed into the earth, sending burning sticks everywhere.

Applejack and the others came rushing back, as Dusky flew back to the ground.

“Land sakes, ya’ll okay!?”

Dawn and Sweetie nodded, the latter rubbing her ears.

“Ah never saw a bolt of lightning like that!”

“Yes, it was almost unbelievable.” Dawn glared at Dusky, who shrugged. “It definitely came from the cloud, though.”

“Totally.”

“Cool! Sweetie, did you get your mark?”

“Nope. Darn.”

For her part, Fluttershy stared at Dawn and Dusky, eyes tiny blue spots in a sea of white, mouth working soundlessly.

“Fluttershy, hon, are you alright? Ya look pale.”

The troubadors looked back at her, Dusky raising an eyebrow.

“F-fine,” she squeaked. “Ju-just-just fine.”

Author's Note

I finally have the right combination of time and availability for a TMP critique and THIS is the story I submit?

Norse Pony rightly called this out as being flat and that the dialogue doesn't feel like a proper conversation.

The only defense I can offer was that I was rushing to get this done before I had to shower for work, and that I only visualized it for a couple of minutes beforehand.

I promise that when I finally, finally get something longer finished, it'll be better.

2022 Me: Still HAAAATE this.

Untitled (Prompt #426)

TMP Prompt #426 – “The Day It All Began”

Prompt: When Twilight and Spike met.

The boat ran up against the sandy shore, and the princess and her student debarked.

“I don’t mean to sound as though I doubt you,” The filly said. “Goodness knows it isn’t that, but why are we here? And why take a boat when you could fly us? Princess?”

For a moment, the princess simply let her mane flow in the breeze. When she opened her eyes, the filly was struck by the weariness within them.

“Patience, Twilight.” She inclined her head, smiling slightly. “Now, you have a discerning eye. What do you see?”

The filly turned, taking in the vast expanse of the island. A small patchy forest of bamboo, mimosa, and other trees grew out of the sand and in the far distance smoke belched out of a purple mountain.

“Well, these trees are mostly varieties that grow swiftly…I see a few different kinds, but they’re just saplings. I don’t think this island could be more than a hundred years old. Maybe less.”

“Well-spotted. Now, a question: What is greed?”

“What is…?” Twilight tilted her head. “I’m sorry, Princess?”

“Greed. What is it?”

“W-well, it’s when you want something.”

Silence.

“When you, um, when you want something so badly you can’t control yourself? When you can’t stop thinking about it day and night?”

“Hm.” The princess nodded. “That works, yes. Twilight, have you ever wanted something that badly? So badly that it consumed you? So badly that the want became bigger than you and you got lost in it?”

“Princess, forgive me, but I fail to see what you’re driving at.”

“Sorry, I—“ The princess sighed. “This may be the best way to explain.” She scuffed her hoof deep, deep into the sand of the beach. “Look.

Beneath the sand, there was mud, as could be expected, and—

Twilight hesitated, then gritted her teeth and scraped the filthy, muddy mess away with her hoof, resolving to wash it thoroughly at first opportunity.

Green. Spots of green among the dirt, and when she drew her hoof down them, they rattled like…like…

And Twilight knew where she was.

“P-princess?”

“Do you trust me?” The princess amethyst eyes bored into hers. “Please.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, the filly nodded.

“Thank you.” The princess raised her head. “SPIKE!”

“Lllleeeeaaaavvve….” The ground shook with the word. “Llllleeeeaaavvveee…mmmmeeeee….aaallllooonnne…”

“You know I can’t do that!”

“Gooo…!”

“Rarity’s gone, Spike! There’s nothing I can do about that! I know you blame me, but, please—“

“IIII…SAAAAID…LLLLEEEEAAAAVE!”

The ground roiled and the sea foamed as the dragon lifted his massive arm from the water.

“Twilight, duck!” The princess shoved her out of the way as the limb slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt.

“Princess Sparkle!!”

When the dust cleared, the princess stood in a bubble of violet force. She winced as the dragon’s arm slammed into her shield again and again.

With a great cracking and tearing, the mountain seemed to collapse. With a chill, Twilight realized that the dragon was bringing his great head and its all-consuming flame to bear.

I’m too young to die! Not like this! Not like—

And then to her surprise, she found herself taken not by terror, but indignation.

“How dare you!” Her voice squeaked.

For a moment there was silence. Desperately, she scrabbled for something else to say.

“We came to this—to you as guests! The princess is your oldest friend! All my life I’ve heard stories about how sweet and kind and-and noble you were supposed to be, and when I finally meet you, you turn out to be a-a common ruffian! Treating us in such a shameful manner, I’ve never been this disappointed in my life!”

Timbers and dirt long-encrusted on draconic eyelids fell away as Spike opened his eyes.

“R-Raaarrrrity?”

And suddenly the island was shrinking, shrinking, and all Twilight could think as she and Princess Sparkle ran was:

Oh, that’s what the boat was for!

***

The lanky adolescent dragon, dripping with seawater, took in in her orchid mane, her minty eyes.

“You’re not Rarity.”

“Well, you’re not her—what was it—‘cute little Spikey-wikey’.”

“This is Sweetie Belle’s great-granddaughter, Twilight Grace.” Princess Sparkle smiled. “Spike, don't you see? Life goes on. It’s okay to remember Rarity, but there’s no reason to hide yourself away from—“

“Gah! Sappy!” Spike cast his resentful glare upon the blot of mud and timber that took up a large portion of the ocean. “Can I go back to being an island?”

“Hey!” Twilight Grace stomped her hoof and Spike jumped. “You can’t talk to her like that! She may be sappy, and she may freak out when everything isn’t just so, and she may give me waaay too much homework—“

“Thanks, Twilight?” The princess blinked.

“—But she’s still a princess, and still my mentor, and you are going to treat her with the respect she deserves, or else.”

“’Or else’, what?”

“Or. Else.”

Two pairs of verdant eyes met, and the slitted ones looked away first.

“...Whatever,” Spike muttered. “Does she still snore?”

“Yeah, I had to cast a sound-proofing spell on her pillow.”

“Ha! I used to put bugs in her mouth!”

“Aw, no way! Gross!”

Princess Sparkle watched her two assistants chatter for a while, and then cleared her throat. “Spike?”

“What, Twilight?” He glanced at the white filly. “Um, other Twilight.”

“Welcome back.”

Author's Note

2022 Me: I tried really hard to redeem myself with this one. It got a good review.

Mentor (Prompt #475)

TMP Prompt #475 - “A Tale as Old as Time”

Prompt: The story starts when your protagonist is told by a parent that everything has been a lie. Another character is an alchemist who is determined to settle an old score.

Mentor

Clover raced through the atelier, tearing her way through book after book.

“There has to be something!” she gasped. “How can she be so strong!?”

“It’s to be expected,” Starswirl said through gritted teeth. “She always was brilliant.”

SLAM!

The pea-green forcefield flickered slightly as their unwelcome guest resumed her assault upon the door.

“GIVE IT BACK! DAMN YOU, STARSWIRL!”

“You know this mare, master?”

“I…have been dishonest with you, child. You need to know—”

“OPEN THE DOOR!”

“Can’t this wait?”

“STARSWIRL!!”

“I had a partner in my youth. Brilliant, as I said, and beautiful. So beautiful.” He sighed. “We were working together in a small town—her hometown, actually—we…we had a project that I knew, I knew, was powerful enough to change the world. It was a feeling I had from the earliest stages—”

SLAM!

“Master, this isn’t helping!”

“I wanted to see it reach its full potential. I wanted to take it around the world to the Great Cities, with their knowledge and wonders. I wanted to see it achieve the recognition it deserved, but she—”

“FIFTEEN YEARS YOU SON OF A—!”

“All she wanted was to stay in that one-horse town, that worthless little podunk village, when I knew all our plans, all our dreams would just languish there. For the good of all ponies, for the world, I couldn’t let that happen I-I—“

“You stole it,” Clover breathed. “You stole the project.”

“The second it was finished. She never even got to see the outcome.”

“THIEF!” SLAM! “LIAR!”

“I’ve hated myself every day since. Everything I’ve done in my life has been for the sake of that project…for the sake of the world. Everywhere I’ve gone, everything I’ve done. I’m sorry, Clover, she’s right.”

SLAM!

Clover stared at him.

“This project,” she said. “You really stole it ‘for the sake of the world’?”

“Sometimes I wonder if my resentment or bitterness may have had something to do with it, but yes.” He looked her in the eye. “I truly believe that our project can change this terrible old world of ours for the better.”

She nodded.

“I won’t say I’m not—”

SLAM!

“—I’m disappointed, but what right do I have to judge you for living up to the precepts you’ve been teaching me my whole life?”

“…Thank you.” He put his hoof on her shoulder. “But I don’t quite think you understand—“

“MONSTER! YOU DAMNED MONSTER!”

“Heh,” Clover chuckled. “I can’t believe she’s making so much of a fuss over, what, some musty old notes? Some kind of formula?”

Starswirl began to say something, then sighed.

“We have been happy together, have we not? We’ve had a good life. No matter what happens today, remember that, dearest—”

“I’LL KILL YOU! GIVE ME BACK MY—“

The forcefield vanished, the door shattered into splinters, and Clover felt a stab in her heart as she looked into the twisted face of the creature of rage and malice that stormed its way in—and saw her own eyes.

All three ponies said the same word at once.

Author's Note

I was worried I was being too obvious about the nature of the 'project', and I might have swung in the wrong direction.

Let's just say his ex-partner is quite justified.

(If it helps, the working title was "'Until the end of her life, she only called him 'Mentor'")

The 247th Annual Ponyville Wing-Off (Prompt #547)

TMP Prompt #547 - "Filly Fantasy"

The prompt: One-winged Alicorn.

The 247th Annual Ponyville Wing-Off

Her tears, she thought, should have dried long ago, and she would not have been half-surprised if blood were running down her cheeks instead. Twin streams ran freely from the end of her nose, all dignity forgotten. Her mouth…she should have lost all feeling in her mouth, but the truth was, she had gone far beyond pain, her mind overwhelmed.

She lay on the ground, twitching, dimly aware of a voice carrying over the whining roar in her ears.

“One left!” Spike called. “One more wing to go! Can she do it, folks, or will Sweet Apple Acres’ Insanely Horrific Apple Mango Hotsauce claim her as it has all our other noble contestants? Can she pull it—What’s that? Yes, Fluttershy, all the parasprites who donated their wings to this event died of old age, I promise. Really. Totally. *Ahem* Anyway…Come on, Twilight!“

She struggled to rise, noting as she did that her coat had somehow turned a shade of red better suited to fire engines, and belched a wave of fire that washed over Spike.

“Ow. Jeez, Twilight, better in than out!”

Leaning on the table for support she surveyed the enemy that lay on the plate so innocuously.

When they’d been unveiled, the first three rows of audience members had fled, gasping and choking. One close-up whiff of the sauce had been enough to send Big Macintosh to the hospital. An experimental lick had paralyzed Rainbow Dash, the hair in her mane and tail standing on end before falling out. Pinkie had managed half a plate before inexplicably catching on fire and burning to a pile of ash with blue eyes blinking back tears, then reforming on the spot, shaking her head, and backing away.

She herself had learned the hard way about trying to levitate them when her magical aura had turned into scarlet energy that had rushed toward her and had almost reached her horn before she’d cut it off.

Only one remained…

Only one remained.

Twilight Sparkle steeled herself against the rumbling in her belly, called forth the power within herself, opened her mouth…

And collapsed.

***

Shortly afterward, Sweet Apple Acres managed to land a lucrative deal with the Equestrian Army.

Author's Note

I finally decided to add some fics which had been posted to the tumblr...t-ten years ago...and add them here. With a spot of "I was in a hurry to hit the deadline ten years ago" editing here and there.

Written by the Victors (Prompt #116)

TMP Prompt #116 - “Wintersnapper”

Prompt: The littlest Windigo

Written by the Victors

Once upon a time all the North was ours, and we had no ambition but to live, frolicking and playing on its sweet breezes.

And then from the South, the land of heat and strangeness, They came to take our lands, our skies, our lives.

We cannot even know what to call them, what They call Themselves.

They, with painful heat, with patterns of thought so alien as to make communication impossible. Their very presence was physically and psychically agonizing to us.

Fundamentally incompatible, our elders finally decided. We must drive Them away if we are to survive.

We did not want to kill Them, even then. All we wished was to live in peace.

We made it worse for Them. We choked out Their strange foods and chilled Them to the bone, spread suffering and misery among Their kind, all to send a simple message:

Go Away.

Yet still They stayed.

And then came the Dolorous Day, when They came together and wielded Their thought as a weapon.

…

There are so few of us now. So very few.

They expand further and further, and so many of our foals die before their first year.

Was it so wrong for us to want to live? To bear healthy children and dance upon the winds for eternity?

You, little one, are amazing. You are the only one among us who can be called healthy, and you remain so, even after ten years in Their shadow. Indeed, you seem to thrive upon Their presence.

Go forth into Their lands, and perhaps, one day we will find some way to speak to Them, to understand Them.

And if we must, to destroy Them.

Go forth, little Hope, and we pray that you may save us all.

Author's Note

2022 Me: Past me wouldn't know subtlety if it ran up to him in the face, screaming its name and slapping him over and over again.

Every Sense of the Phrase (Prompt #117)

TMP Prompt #117 - “You’re All I Ever Wanted”

Prompt: The letter home.

Every Sense of the Phrase

“It’s just that I felt so sorry for them!” Ditzy told the interviewer. “Sitting there in that office all alone, all those hopes and wishes, all those dreams…all those…all those…”

“Letters.”

“Yes!” Ditzy’s nose wrinkled. “I never liked that term ‘dead letters’. It’s so cold, so heartless! I prefer the term “neglected letters’, because they need care and attention.”

“And that’s why you built this place?”

“Exactly! A home where neglected letters can be accepted for who they are, where they can live again, roaming free and being themselves! A place where they can make good on all their ambitions!”

“And are they happy here?”

“Well, they don’t seem sad.”

“Fair enough.” The interviewer looked around. “And this place is made of…”

“Yep! Letter bricks, letter curtains, letter furniture—pretty comfortable right?”

“Surprisingly so, yes.”

“Letter windows, letter sinks, letter toilets—more tea?”

“Uh, no thanks. Sounds like a lot of work on your part.”

“It was worth it. I just felt like the poor things wanted to be useful again!” Ditzy laughed. “Ha! They said I was crazy down at the post office.”

“Well, you sure showed them.”

Wah-wah-waaahh!

“What was that!?”

“Oh, it’s just Pinkie Pie. Every time she passes by here she pulls out a trumpet and plays that tune. I think she’s trying to entertain the letters or something.” Ditzy tapped the side of her head. “She’s crazy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, everypony knows they prefer the xylophone, the zither and the quena.” She leaned in confidentially. “They feel a certain kinship with ‘q’, ‘x’ and ‘z’.”

“Makes sense.”

The interviewer rose.

“Well, thank you for the opportunity to visit this…unique place.”

“No problem!” She shook his hoof enthusiastically. “Enjoy it while you can. It won’t be here for long.”

“That’s a shame. Why not?”

“My mom says I don’t visit as often as she’d like, and she insists that I send one of these to her every now and then. Parents!” She gave an exasperated snort. “Anyway, it’ll be gone as soon as I find a package big enough.”

Wah-wah-waaaahhh!

“Pinkie’s all over the place today, isn‘t she?”

Author's Note

Past Me: "See, post offices have a "dead letter" section! Ditzy felt bad and made a home for them! A letter home! And she made it out of letters, it's a letter home and a letter home! And she's going to send it in the mail to her mom who wants a letter home! A letter home that's a letter home about to be a letter home! I'm a genius! A GENIUS! PRAISE ME!"

2022 Me: That's one word for it. I guess I'll just explain that trombones are for jokes that flop. Alas, I never learned to play.

Therapy (Prompt #118)

TMP Prompt #118 - “Guess Who’s Back”

Prompt: It is the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, and Nightmare Moon is about to be released … again.

Therapy

“Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said. “In a lifetime of insane ideas and ridiculous stunts, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“There’s nothing crazy about it, Dashie!” Pinkie insisted. “We’re all prepared, the Princesses are here, we all have our Elements…Heck, Twilight’s thrilled about this!”

“Twilight’s just as crazy as you are, only in a different way.” Dash looked over at the purple unicorn, who was bent over the summoning circle. “No offense, Twilight.”

“Hm, what?”

“Never mind.”

“Ah gotta say, Ah’m with RD on this‘un.” Applejack gave the tree in the center of the circle a pensive glance. “Twi, sweetie, Ah don’t mean ta doubt ya or anythin’ but this seems a bit…”

“Closure is one of the most vital aspects of overcoming trauma, Applejack! We’re just helping Princess Luna overcome her personal demons.” Twilight face curled into a grin. “The fact that I get to test a dozen new spells or so has nothing to do with it.”

“New spells?”

“Well, the summoning and containment spells are technically old, but I ironed out so many flaws I was practically starting over from scratch. Now, the embodiment spell, that’s whole cloth.” She clapped her hooves. “Oh! This is going to be so fun!”

“Sure,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re only summoning a demon or whatever using spells nopony’s used before. It’ll be a blast.”

“Won‘t it, though?”

Dash sighed.

“If worst comes to worst, Rainbow, we can just use the Elements to eradicate the vile thing.” Rarity sniffed. “We ought to do that anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I still can’t believe you’re willing to go through with this. You‘re usually more…”

“Cautious? Normally yes, but after hearing what poor Princess Luna went through at the mercy of that…monster, I simply couldn‘t let such an injustice go unanswered, and this seemed a fine way to go about it.”

“About that,” Fluttershy asked. “What’s going to happen…after?”

“We’ll trap and analyze the Nightmare.” Twilight said. “I know you won’t like this, but we may have to destroy it.”

Fluttershy winced.

“Even you can’t honestly tell me you feel sorry for it, dear?”

“Not…‘sorry‘, but-but it’s still a living…whatever it is. We shouldn‘t talk about killing it so lightly.”

“After the way it twisted Princess Luna’s mind and body, killing it is too—”

“Gals! She c’n hear ya!”

“Fear not!” Princess Luna called from within the circle. “I am not offended. Sweet Rarity and Fluttershy, your compassion speaks well of the rightness of your Elements’ decision in choosing you.”

“We’ll work out the particulars of what happens to the Nightmare later,” Princess Celestia assured Fluttershy. “We may be able to contain it, even reform it, without having to resort to destroying it.”

“Well, I’m still not too comfortable about this.”

“It will do no permanent harm. Right, Twilight?”

“Probably no-Uh, right! Sure!” She raised her voice. “Luna, are you ready to begin?”

“Aye!”

* * *

The Nightmare’s eyes opened, to be greeted by a ring of all-too-familiar ponies.

“Fools!” it cried. “You have the temerity to summon me? Me!? I will destroy you all!”

It reached forth a hand to—what?

Paper streamers hung from the short, stubby limb before it.

“What is this?”

It surveyed its body. Some sort of hollow construct of wood and paper? With something in its belly? Was it hanging from a tree?

Somepony behind it cleared their throat. The Nightmare twisted to see who.

“Hello,” Princess Luna said around the stick in her mouth. “How nice to see you again. Like this.”

Washed Up on the Rocks (Prompt #119)

TMP Prompt #119 - “What the Mists Conceal.”

Prompt: Ponies explore a mysterious land filled with fantastic beings.

Washed Up on the Rocks

Dear Princess Glowing Wake, Star of the Seas, Guiding Light of the Oceans, etc, etc.,

First day didn’t go too badly, I guess.

Our hosts so far are trying their hardest to accommodate us. That’s about the best I can say of them at this point.

The Elements of Harmony seem to correspond roughly to our Jewels of Virtue, but Sea Shimmer ought to be able to tell you more, of course.

One member of the Sun Princess’ entourage spent the better part of the welcome banquet asking extremely invasive questions about our physiology and culture, which doesn’t exactly strike me as mannerly. I can see why you dubbed Shimmer as the leader of this excursion, as I would probably have told her exactly what do to with her curiosity.

The old stories never mentioned how strange the surface-dwellers’ voices sound, and I often catch them straining to hear us when we speak or trying to puzzle out our accents.

I, frankly, could do without speaking to them from the rest of my life, after one of them began laughing (laughing!) when I was formally introduced, as if my name were hilarious somehow. The orange one managed to shut her up by cramming one of their bizarre confections down her throat.

I could get to like that one. Not that I can see myself ever going for a surface girl, not matter how closely they resemble us in certain respects. That’s just freaky.

At any rate, once introductions were finished and the inquisitive one realized she was offending us and clammed up, we got to the business of re-establishing trade and alliances and all the boring stuff I never signed up for when I became a Virtue.

Princess, I hate this! I’d rather be back home tending my flowers than dealing with all this diplomatic business. as you well know.

Everything’s too bright here, their food looks nauseating, and the air smells weird. I think our eyes work differently as well, since a lot of the colors and shapes they appear to find pleasant are making mine hurt.

The others are putting up with this better than I am, but I can tell they hate it here, too. Except perhaps Foamy, but she’s happy all the time as a matter of course.

If you somehow get it into your head to make our visit a permanent attachment, you may well find yourself short at least one Virtue.

Okay, got off topic there, but you wanted to be sent daily reports of my opinions, so you knew what you were getting into.

Nothing else to report today. More tomorrow, hopefully.

Yours,

Sea Lily, son of Splasher, Virtue of Forthrightness.

Author's Note

2022 Me: I also had a plan to expand on this someday, but when my computer died in March 2015 it took everything, including my notes on pony fiction.

I had a massive cosmology worked out, too. Would've explained everything we didn't know back then. C'est la vie.

At least I can do this from what I remember:

Seaponies do not have separate races, rather they all have varying amounts of magical capability depending on the individual and more powerful when dealing with their special talents (on average the seaponies would be considered about 30% lower as a whole in magical power than unicorns as a whole, with individual exceptions either way) race with exceptions in either direction and of course a superpowered Princess) , can all survive out of water as long as they don't dry out, and are are all in excellent physical condition due to swimming all the time, but don't have legs (out of the sea they can use their magic to float briefly)

The Jewels of Virtue are the aquatic counterparts of the Elements of Harmony. Both were creations of the mysterious Sire, the progenitor of the Three First Princesses, who forged them with no forge from the very fabric of the universe, melding them to starstuff so that mortals might touch them.

When the Hundred (or Thousand, I can't recall) Year War between the Celestia and Luna raged around the world, the Bearers of the Jewels used their power to fortify the Seapony Kingdom from collateral damage and provided an undersea escape for thousands of refugees from the land. Many of their descendants still live in special cities undersea.

Once the War was over and Luna was banished, the stars went insane and a full quarter of the refugees (specifically the Startouched) became violently mad due to their connection to the empyrean and ultimately had to be pacified on a permanent basis.

After dealing with these back-to-back nightmares, the First Virtues began the tradition of passing the Jewels to apprentices.

(See what I mean about a big cosmology)

The current holders are:

Sea Lily (M, 26): Forthrightness -- He'll tell you what you need to hear, yes, he'll give you an earful. The oldest of the Virtues in age, yet ironically the newest to receive his jewel. A former soldier who didn't expect to become a Virtue. Has a nice garden.

Skyfoam (F, 19): Hope -- Gifted with the ability to look up to the silver lining and inability to look down to Earth. Likes to give encouraging speeches that occasionally drift off-topic.

Brinicle (M, 22): Resolution -- Forever Faithful, Constantly Capable, Impressively Implacable, Unfailingly Unsmiling. Kind of a quiet worrywart, but always prepared. (Appearance-wise Brinicle was going to be Noteworthy's Seapony equivalent) (I had plans for Noteworthy, too).

Frost Flower (F, 23): Hospitality -- "Please, let me do that for you. No, no, no, I won't hear of it. Really! Just sit right there and I'll take care of everything. No, just sit, sweetie. It's fine! Well, it's just, there's just a way these things need to be done and I--well, now, hon, I wouldn't've mentioned it if you hadn't brought it up--I just know how to do it...uh, properly? I'm sorry! You brought it up!"

Delphine (F, 8): Benevolence -- Ponies keep telling her she's too young to understand. How hard is it to be nice to people? It's the easiest thing in the world!

Princess Sea Shimmer (F, 18): Wisdom -- Serene on the surface, still the little girl who sought secrets wherever people hid them. She doesn't forget. Niece to Princess Glowing Wake, by the mortal side.

Ice Cream is Bad (For You) (Prompt #123)

TMP Prompt #123 - “Sad Tears of Love”

Prompt:

Ice Cream is Bad (For You)

Pinkie was crushed, her world falling apart around her. All she could do was whimper softly. “But…but…but…”

“Sorry,” the chubby chartreuse unicorn colt behind the counter said, “But it is a seasonal flavor. You’re lucky I decided to extend it through spring.”

“It’s okay, Pinkie. I’ll treat you.” Rainbow Dash patted her back. “Get as much as you want.”

“By the way, since this is the last batch I‘m making all year, I’m raising the price by an extra five bits a scoop.”

“What!?” Dash cried. “That’s highway robbery! Pinkie, do that…thing you do.”

But she only sniffled.

“That’s ridiculous! It’s just crushed-up Hearth’s Warming candy and peppermint ice cream! I could make it at home for less!”

“Certainly you could,” the colt smiled. “But look into your heart. Could you really deprive poor Pinkie of the real thing, loyal Rainbow Dash?”

***

The mares stared down at their bowls of red-and-green flecked ice cream, one sour, one sobbing.

“I hate this place!” Dash slammed her hoof on the table. “The ice cream may be ‘the best in Equestria’, but—”

“I love you.”

“Say what!?”

“I…I love…“ Pinkie whispered to the last bit of ice cream in her bowl. Words apparently failed her, and she scooped it up with her tongue, holding it in her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Sho beau’iful…”

“Oh, for crying…” Dash shoved Pinkie’s bowl aside with her own. “Take it.”

She shook her head as Pinkie scarfed the ice cream down.

“Pinkie, getting worked up over something like ice cream is stupid. Sure, I get a bit carried away once in awhile, but I have some restraint. Where‘s your pride?”

“I…” Pinkie wiped her eyes. “I guess you’re—*GAAAASSP!*”

“There’s something over my shoulder that’s going to make me look like a huge hypocrite, isn’t there?”

Pinkie nodded.

“Well,” Dash sat on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. “I’m not looking. No way, no how.”

“Not even for my store-exclusive, signed, poster promoting Wonderbolts ice cream?” The colt’s mellifluous voice cajoled.

Rainbow Dash made a funny sound like “Nyerk!” and her head began to turn, but she forced it back forward with a hoof.

“No! In fact, you know what? I’m never coming here again! And I’m telling all my friends to stay away too! What do you think of that, huh? You lose!”

“What are those flavors next to their heads?” Pinkie asked.

“Starting next week, and for each week of the summer, I’m featuring a different Wonderbolt’s favorite flavor,” the ice-cream colt chuckled. “I’m sure lots of ponies are very curious as to what they might be…”

“…I can look at your dumb poster without wanting to come back in here. I’m stronger than you think.” She turned. “See? S-some of those look pretty tasty, but I’m still not coming back!”

“You go, girl!” Pinkie cheered. “But, wow! Eating what the Wonderbolts eat! That’s like one step closer to being a Wonderbolt yourself!”

“Stop helping him! Why are you helping him?” Dash rushed to the door. “Come on!”

“Oh, yes…were you wondering about those question marks on the other side of their heads?”

“No! Shut up!”

“I asked each of them which flavor they felt best represented their personality. I’ll be selling those, too, naturally.”

“What’d they say? What’d they say?”

“Ah, Pinkie. That’s a secret, only to be told to ponies who come in to find out for themselves. I’m sure whoever does that will be very surprised. Don‘t you think, Rainbow Dash?”

“Nooooo!” Dash fell to her knees and pounded the floor with her hooves. “You bastard! You horrible, wonderful bastard!”

“See you next Sunday, then?”

“…Yes.” She rose from the floor with what dignity she could muster. “Yes, you will.”

“One more thing…” the green colt said, when Dash’s hoof was on the door. “That poster? I’ll be selling it to the highest bidder at a little end-of-summer auction. I trust I shall see you there?”

“You son of a—!” She gritted her teeth. “Probably.”

“Where are we going?” Pinkie asked when they were outside.

“Twilight’s.”

***

“No,” Twilight Sparkle said. “We can’t banish the evil from the ice-cream colt’s heart. He chooses to be that way.”

“Crap. Can we just turn him to stone or something?”

“It would…” She sighed. “It would be a gross abuse of our powers, and a violation of the great responsibilities we bear as Elements. Dammit.”

“You too, huh?”

“Last month he had the Lunestia special. Forty bits for six scoops of ice cream…but all their favorite flavors.” She bowed her head. “It was so good, even though I knew it was wrong. I just kept coming back for more. I’m so ashamed.”

Pinkie took her into a hug.

“Come on, Dashie…”

“Oh, fine.”

As the friends commiserated, they thought they head faint, demonic laughter on the wind.

They didn’t need to ask whose.

Good Enough Reason (Prompt #124)

TMP Prompt #124 - “The Dance that Broke My Jaw”

Prompt:

Good Enough Reason

The thought occurred to her, as her friends leapt forth to engage the horde.

Somewhere in Equestria, (probably everywhere in Equestria but there, in fact), somewhere, there were perfectly ordinary ponies going about perfectly ordinary lives right now.

Somewhere, nopony worried about what crazy threat would pop up next, what it might do to them (she recalled Discord and shivered), what they might have to do to it.

Somewhere, somepony would be going to bed without images of chitinous armor and compound eyes glimmering in the sun, without the sound of chattering mandibles and screeches of threat haunting them.

This battle would be merely a few lines they read in the newspapers, or heard about through word of mouth (assuming they won, of course.) (Well of course they’d win, they had strong ponies like Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, didn’t they?) (But what if they didn’t win after all? What would happen then?) (Stop it! It‘ll be fine. Surely.)

Somewhere, all they had to worry about was a job, or a family, or finding happiness, whatever it might be, and that would be all, forever!

It was all she’d worried about when she was an ordinary pony. They were all ordinary ponies, bakers and farmers and scholars and…and now they were about the closest thing Equestria had to an elite military force, or perhaps a superweapon.

It wasn’t right, part of her said, It wasn’t fair!

***

Rarity leaned heavily against her, a hoof across her shoulders.

In the chaos of the changeling invasion, a family had had a house collapse upon them and been injured badly. The white unicorn, always willing to give of herself, had somehow figured out how to use her Element of Generosity to take their wounds upon her own body, and for a couple of horrified moments Fluttershy had thought her friend was done for.

But her Element had sustained her, and soon the cuts and bruises and broken bones were knitting before their eyes. Too slowly, in Fluttershy’s opinion.

As soon as she could get around, Rarity was back on her feet, demanding to be taken to anypony else who needed her, and Fluttershy had finally given in.

“Why do we have to keep doing this? Why us? Why did it have to be us?” she whispered to herself. “We never asked for any of this.”

Rarity turned to look at her, eyes still slightly unfocused from pain.

“So nopony else has to, of course,” she said. “So they can live.”

Lying in It (Prompt #125)

TMP Prompt #125 - “Shape of My Heart”

Prompt:

Lying in It

The first thing everypony noticed about Truffle Shuffle was his weight. You really couldn’t avoid it. His talent, a healthy appetite and deep appreciation for food, in addition to the fact that his baby fat seemed to be hanging around for entirely too long, made the roly-poly colt stand out among his peers.

But the things ponies remembered best about Truffle were his constant smile, his laughter, his eagerness to please and to boost other ponies’ spirits when they were low.

He wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t a genius (though not at all stupid), nor athletic, nor wealthy. In fact, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon always joked that he ate any profit from his family’s restaurant.

He wasn’t any of that, no, but he was a good colt.

Tootsie Flute turned the H and H card over and over in her hooves.

He was a good colt, and she…she was stupid.

***

Last week, the class had been abuzz with excitement, just as before every holiday, but Hearts and Hooves Day was special.

By now they’d reached the age when certain things about growing up and forming relationships were becoming a little clearer, and it was reflected in a slight…apprehension that seemed to be building between the students.

Truffle, had, of course, apparently been totally oblivious to it all, and was cheerfully helping everypony else finish up their cards.

It was when he was holding Tootsie’s card, so she could glue hearts and glitter on it (back then, she hadn’t had anypony in particular in mind) that she asked whether or not he’d finished his.

“Oops!”

They’d laughed and gone to work, and when they’d finished, he’d…

…

Right there in the middle of class, he’d given it to her.

She’d thought it was a joke. It wasn’t. He'd liked her for a while now, and…and…

Everypony was staring at them, snickering and whispering and pointing, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were smiling like tigers before fresh prey and she’d been trying to get in their good graces for months now and how could he, how could he here now in front of everyone and she and she…

She found herself saying awful things, things she never thought she’d say, ever, things that made him go pale, made the smile on his face freeze and break, things that made Miss Cheerilee rise up from her desk and give her detention right on the spot.

From her desk after school, she watched Truffle walk away, head hung low, watched as Twist caught up to him.

At the dinner table, while her parents went and on about how they’d raised her better than that, she stared at her reflection in the table and hated what she saw.

***

She’d been working on it for a week, a new card to replace her old one, the one that felt…tainted somehow, by the events of that day.

She didn’t know how he might react, but she needed to make him see that she was sorry, needed to show him that she hadn’t meant any of it, that’d she’d just been shocked and startled, that he was the sweetest boy she knew and to heck with anypony who laughed at them, especially those two.

She was ready, she was willing, she was fired up and she—

She was too late.

The Fall of Doctor Clucktopus (Prompt #127)

TMP Prompt #127 - “The Wizard and the Chicken”

Prompt:

The Fall of Doctor Clucktopus

The oval citadel was falling apart in flame and smoke around them as the foul fowl held the sorcerer in his tentacled grip.

“Ba-kawk!”

“You’re right,” Star Swirl growled. “It is over.”

With a flash he disappeared—

“BAWK!?”

—and reappeared, hovering just outside of the villain’s grasp.

“Too often, Clucktopus, too often have I settled for capturing you, instead of putting a permanent end to your secret recipes for disaster!”

His horn flared, and with eight small bursts of flame and force, Doctor Clucktopus found himself thoroughly disarmed.

“I’m not playing nice with you anymore. You‘re about to become egg-stinct.”

“Buk buk!” The chicken flapped his wings, sending a pack of innocuous-looking feathers at Star Swirl.

“Language,” the wizard chided and threw up a force field as he stalked forward, not even blinking as they exploded against it. “You’re getting desperate if you’re resorting to the same old tricks, Clucky. You‘re making this over-easy.”

“Bukawk-buk buk!”

“No. No mercy. Not after what you did to Burdock the Not-Quite-As-Clever and Pansy the Unfortunately-Named!” A bolt of raw magic slammed the chicken into one of the burning walls, which collapsed, pinning him beneath. “My poor assistants were never the same after your Eleven Different Horrors and Sufferings!”

The unicorn’s stare was ice cold as he took in the feebly struggling chicken.

“Prepare to slow-roast in a fiery grave of your own making, Clucktopus!”

“BAAAAWK BAAAWK!” The chicken pointed a broken, flaming wing at Star Swirl, who scoffed.

“Return? I doubt it. But if you do somehow come back, know that I (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) shall strike you down once more, whatever form you take.”

He turned and walked from the collapsing ruins, sparing only a short look back.

“Farewell, old foe, I shell never see your like again.”

***

Pinkie lay on her back, eyes whirling as she mumbled random nonsense.

“Omigoshomigoshomigosh…”

“’Twas a most puissant blow thou struck, Twilight Sparkle, perhaps excessively so.”

“No kidding!? S-sorry, Princess Luna, I mean Princess, I mean Luna!” Twlight fretted. “I just meant to tackle her, that’s all! I didn’t—Oh, Pinkie, please be okay. Please, please, please!”

The pink mare sat up and put a hoof to her head. “Ugh.”

“Pinkie!”

“No,” she smiled a wicked smile, eyes glinting. “Not ‘Pinkie.’ Not at all. Buh-kawk.”

Patience Has Its Rewards (Prompt #130)

TMP Prompt #130 - “Oh Come On!”

Prompt:

Patience Has Its Rewards

Sweetie Belle’s sister had often lamented that her boundless creativity and energy weren’t wed to an equal amount of restraint.

The filly was forever planning artistic and adventurous endeavors, while thinking only of the end result and not how important it was to carefully plan about how she was going to get there.

But today was different.

A year after the biggest disaster she and her friends had caused, Sweetie was sure that everything was going to go just fine, and this wasn’t blind faith as usual, but the confidence of making certain.

She’d researched her target, asked the right questions, found his likes and dislikes.

She’d baked the cake from scratch, under her sister’s careful supervision, following the recipe to the last detail. She’d mixed the punch (and this time it really was just punch) carefully, throwing out batch after batch that didn’t meet her expectations, until she had it right.

She’d meticulously decorated the napkins, cups and plates so that each bore a unique design. Sure, it was just going to be the two of them, sure it was all disposable. That wasn’t the point.

For the proper ambiance, she’d borrowed her sister’s records, picking music she knew he’d like, and memorized topics she thought he’d like to talk about.

She’d been preparing for over a week.

What could go wrong?

***

The note had been on the library door, carefully hoof-written, and addressed to him from a secret admirer. It was the lightest dab of Rarity’s perfume upon the letter, however, that had made Spike rush eagerly to the park.

The tablecloth was already laid out, and Spike took in the cake and punch with eager eyes. Honestly, though, she could have made mudpies and rocks, and he’d probably have been just as keen to eat, as long as he was spending time with her.

He felt like dancing and singing, barely noticing the phonograph in the background…

…He also felt like running away and hiding under his bed, a little bit.

He felt…he felt…Where was she?

There was a rustling of bushes.

“Rarity?”

Sweetie Belle blushed, stepping forth. “N-no, Spike, it’s just me.”

“Rarity couldn’t make it? Darn it! I—”

His vision was abruptly obscured by a cake being smashed onto his head.

“Hey, what the heck—?”

Fortunately, most of the cake cleared away when she dumped the punchbowl on him.

“Sweetie Belle?!” He yanked the bowl off. “What was that for?”

He started to pursue the fleeing filly, but his foot caught on something. He looked down to see a napkin, covered in pen-and-ink drawings of hearts and unicorns and dragons, not crafted in the hand of an experienced designer, but—

…

Oh.

***

Candy shopping was always a nightmare on Hearts and Hooves day, but after a desperate struggle Rarity had managed to secure a good number of her favorite varieties…

…And that hank of Carrot Top’s mane would eventually grow back. If not, she’d send her a complimentary wig.

Anyway, an evening of unrestrained decadence and design beckoned and—

The sound of sobbing caught her ear.

“Sweetie Belle?”

She gently opened the door to her sister’s room, only to find Sweetie lying on her bed and weeping into her pillow.

“Sweetie, what happened? What’s the matter?”

“Leave me alone!” She turned away. “I don’t wanna talk to you. I hate you!”

“Me!? What’s wrong with—?” She blinked. “Spike.”

“Go away!”

“I will not.” She climbed into bed next to her sister. “Sweetie, honey, look at me.”

The crying filly turned to face her, and Rarity brushed a stray bit of hair from her face.

“I tried so hard, and he still…he still…”

“I’m sorry,” Rarity said. “But, do you know? I’m really proud of you. You were very patient and careful about this.”

“Like it did me any good.”

“It did.” Rarity insisted. “You made a fine cake, and delicious punch…Didn’t Spike like it?"

“Um, I dunno…” Sweetie’s eyes shifted. “I kinda dumped it all on his head.”

“Ah.” Rarity cleared her throat. “Well, apart from that perfectly understandable reaction, you’ve been very mature. The important thing to remember is that this isn’t the end of the world. You can always try again, if you want to. Don‘t you want to?”

Sweetie sniffled. “Y-yeah.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She wiped her eyes. “Rarity?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m sorry I said I hated you. I love you.”

“And I love you, too.” She kissed her sister’s forehead. “Remember, there’s always tomorrow.”

And sometimes, Rarity reflected as she opened the door to admit an extremely abashed baby dragon and his flowers. Sometimes the day isn’t over yet.

Overdue Vengeance (Prompt #131)

TMP Prompt #131 - “According to Plan”

Prompt: Twilight Sparkle’s Evil Plan

Overdue Vengeance

The cream-colored mare slammed face-first into the invisible force field with a satisfying *THUD* and fell back onto her haunches.

From inside the library, Twilight Sparkle cackled behind steepled hooves.

“Foolish Bon-Bon! Always dog-earing your pages, always licking your hoof before turning them! Suffer now! Suffer for your disgusting crimes against books!”

“I think you might have lost focus here,” Spike pointed out from his perch beside the open upstairs window. “Wasn’t this supposed to be about punishing the Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

“Oh, it is, it is! Why would you think otherwise?”

*THUD*

“Doctor Whoof,” Spike reported.

“Stand me up on our first date?!” Twilight cried. “I think not! You may have been ‘saving the world‘, as you claim, but you can’t save yourself from late fees! Nopony can! Mwahaha!”

“This all seems a bit, uh—”

*THUD*

“Cut my funding, will you, Mayor?” Twilight crowed. “Well, you’ll pay anyway, yyyeeesss…Two saddlebags full of trashy romance novels ought to be worth a good twenty bits, maybe even thirty by the time I’m through!”

“When are you going to be through? You can‘t keep that shield up forever.”

“Oh, can’t I?” Twilight smirked, then sighed. “Fine. I guess if the Crusaders sincerely apologize to my face, I’ll have no reason to—”

*THUD*

“Big Macintosh.”

“You stole my doll and you stood me up! That dinner wasn’t cheap, Macintosh, not cheap at all! But you’ll see that for yourself, won’t you? You and your math books!”

“What about Whoof?”

“As Rarity says, a lady needs to keep her options open,” Twilight said. “Anyway, both of them were no-shows, so I’m still in the right.”

“’Petty’. That’s the word I was thinking of earlier. ‘Petty’.”

“Spike! You act as though I was looking for some flimsy excuse to avenge my grievances against the town, bit by precious, golden bit.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No! It’s a very good excuse. The Crusaders need to learn not to gossip, and—”

*THUD*

“Ditzy Doo…you know what you did…YOU KNOW WHAT YOU—”

*THUD THUD THUD*

“It’s the Crusaders,” Spike said. “You wanna talk to them?”

“Uh, I’m getting a cold, so I’d better stay inside and away from open windows for a few days. Yes. That dry night air, you know.”

“Sure,” Spike sighed, and turned to speak to the terrible threesome.

*THUD*

“YES! Bash your heads a thousand times, Ponyville! It will never be enough for me! AH HA HA HAAA!”

Freebird (Prompt #132)

TMP Prompt #132 - The Old Days

Prompt: The Time Before

Freebird

She picks once more at the chain around her neck, knowing it will do her no good. If it were the silver it seems, she could melt it away and fly into the sunlight.

It’s been so long since she’s flown.

The chain holds, of course. It’s made of stronger stuff.

His name was Far Ranger, and he had made the proper supplications, the proper promises of loyalty and trust. She had acquiesced to the rite of companionship, as much out of bemusement at finding a pony who knew the old ways as anything else, and they had journeyed.

When Far Ranger had passed, as mortals do, she had been entrusted to his daughter. Though, unlike her father, Hearth Heart was a homebody, she had treated her father’s old friend with the respect she deserved, and Philomena had been more than happy—

Philomena, that was her name. Lately, she’d been forgetting herself.

—More than happy to help her in whatever ways she could.

But Far Ranger’s granddaughter Golden Bright was covetous and paranoid. Fearful that her “pet” would abandon the family, even with the oaths of binding she had sworn, Bright weaved a spell that made said oaths literal.

Philomena tugs once more at a chain made of promises as much as silver and curses Golden Bright for the thousandth time.

From daughter to son to daughter she had been passed, like an heirloom, and when the family had lost all its money, she had been sold.

Now she dies every night, forced to shed her feathers all at once and burn for crowds of slack-jawed gawkers, fed enough to keep her alive until then, trapped in a dark tent because her masters thought it was keeping her docile, as though she were a common parrot.

She’s just tired, that’s all, tired, and trapped and—

A rustle at her tent’s entrance, and Philomena braces herself for another round of mockery, another night of burning.

Instead of her masters, though, a shining figure glides gracefully into her tent, turning the gloom of darkness into the light of day.

I see. The rumors were true. Quack and Salver shall be punished most dearly for their crimes. Celestia says, looking upon Philomena with pity. It is a poor thing to bind one such as you.

It was a binding she had entered willingly, and which had been wrapped about her neck most wickedly.

No longer. Far Ranger’s line is dead and gone. The shining pony gestures to the chain, which, wonder of wonders, is simply, only, silver once more. Your obligation is discharged.

She blazes, and the chain is gone.

She’s free, free for the first time in decades, free to do anything she pleases…

What will she do?

I have a garden, the shining pony says, where you may live as you please, all the days of your life. And if you wish to leave, you may leave. But I hope you stay, at least for a while. There are so few of us immortals in this world.

She hasn’t left yet.

False Closet (Prompt #134)

TMP Prompt #134 - “Coming Out With It”

Prompt: Applejack finally tells the truth.

False Closet

Applejack shifted nervously, sweating bullets and looking upon a sea of eager faces.

Mayor Mare made a welcoming gesture toward the podium, and she stepped forward.

“Ah, um, Ah’d like ta thank ya’ll fer letting me speak at this here oc-occasion.” She cleared her throat nervously. “It really means a lot ta me, an‘ Ah mean it. It‘s a r-real honor, an’ um…an’ um…”

She looked into Rainbow Dash’s eager eyes and felt a stab of guilt.

“Uh, as-as an entrepreneur an’ a member a’ one a’ the foundin’ families a’ Ponyville, Ah…Ah know mah presence here has a lotta significance an’ such…”

Pinkie Pie’s encouraging grin made her swallow.

“Ah…Ah…AH CAIN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

She slammed her hooves onto the podium.

“Ah’m straight, dang it! Ah’m straight as an arrow! Ah’m so dang straight, rulers look at me an’ say ‘Ah wish Ah could make a line as straight as you are’! Ah’m sorry everypony! Ah’m so sorry!”

“I…I don’t understand!” the mayor sputtered. “What do you mean?”

“How much more explicit c’n ah be? Ah like mah ovaries on the outside! Ah like hot dogs an’ not tacos! Ah like squares an’ not curves!”

“But I thought—”

“Ah was just flirtin’ with ya ‘cause Ah needed a tax break! Ah knew it was wrong, but Ah’d gone too far ta stop!”

“What-what about me?” Pinkie asked.

“Ah needed bakin’ tips. You yerself said mah cupcakes were weak.” Applejack waved an exasperated hoof. “Plus, look at ya! With yer wibblin’ eyes and quiverin’ lip! Yer just so dang adorable, Ah practically wanna eat ya up!”

“I know you meant it when you were flirting with me!” Rainbow Dash protested.

“You mentally re-write everythin’ ponies say so they’re either flirtin’ or tellin’ ya how awesome ya are!” Applejack said. “It’s kinda freaky, truth be told.”

“I’m so cool, it is a little scary.” Rainbow Dash polished her hoof on her chest.

“Aren’t you proving her point?” asked Caramel.

“That’s nice of you, but I’m in a relationship right now.” Dash’s eyes narrowed. “Or at least I thought I was.”

“Ah support ya’ll an’ everythin’, Ah’m just not one a’ ya’ll.” Applejack bowed her head. “Ah hope you c’n forgive me.”

“Well,” the mayor said. ”The important thing is you came out and told the truth. Eventually. In the most deeply embarrassing way possible for everypony involved. Integrity like that will always be rewarded, one way or another.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

***

It had rained on Sweet Apple Acres for three straight weeks, but Applejack was too busy sorting out a series of tax audits, surprise safety inspections, and suddenly required permits to really notice.

Things were starting to look up, though, as a box with the Sugarcube Corner logo had been on her doorstep that morning.

“At least Pinkie still likes me,” she said to herself as she reached for it.

A whine caught her ear, and she turned to see Winona whimpering and backing away.

“…Yeah, prob’ly better not…”

Phases of the Sun (Prompt #138)

TMP Prompt #138 - “The Reunion”

Prompt: Princess Luna visits an old friend.

Phases of the Sun

“What art thou wearing, sister?”

“This? It’s a banana costume. Oh, right. Sorry. Bananas are a kind of fruit native to the Southern Lands. We discovered them, oh, about three hundred years ago. There’s actually a quite interesting race of sapient birds there, who—”

“Wherefore art thou wearing such ridiculous garb?”

“Pinkie Pie invited me to a party, and it doesn’t matter who you are, you don’t turn down a Pinkie Pie party.”

“I…I see.”

“She invited you. too, but I figured you were still recovering after…”

“Yes.”

“…”

“*Ahem* S-so, I’m sure you came by my quarters for a reason, Luna? What did you want to talk about?”

“’Tis nothing of import. I have no wish to keep thee from thy party.”

“Come on, now. I can spare the time for you. I’m your sister!”

“…Art thou truly so?”

“Pardon?”

“’Tis…everything is so different now, Celestia. Certes, I could hardly have expected less, after so long away, but I had hoped thou wouldst at least be the same. The sister who sent me away would ne’er have lowered herself to mingling with common ponies as you do, would ne’er have associated with the Lower Races—”

“Do NOT use that phrase.”

“My apologies. It slipped out.”

“You’re absolutely right, Luna. Neither I, nor pony society, are who we were a thousand years ago. Thank goodness.”

“What changed thee so?”

“Tell me, if it isn’t too painful to recall, why did you rebel, sister?”

“P-ponykind loved thee more than me, so—”

“Wrong. They never loved either of us. We stood above them like towering monuments, like statues. They worshipped us. My gifts were more obvious, more clearly beneficial, so they told themselves they loved me, and you and I believed it, to our detriment, but ‘regard’ and ‘fear’ are poor synonyms for ‘love‘.”

“Would that I had realized that myself.”

“When you were…gone…I realized that we had been going about everything all wrong. We are ponies above all else, you and I, and had we ruled from the inside out, instead of the top down, then they would have come to love us for who we are, and not what we could do for them. “

“And seeing their love, I might never have had cause to turn upon them—or thee.”

“Exactly. So, I acted like a normal pony. I learned my servant’s names. I attended parties. I spoke to ambassadors from foreign countries myself instead of making others do it. I did a thousand little things that I never would before.”

“And you changed.”

“For the better. I am not the Celestia you knew. But I am still your sister, and I hope you will be willing to get to know me all over again.”

“I would like that. Very much.”

“Good. Right now, though, if you don‘t mind, there‘s a Pinkie Pie party out there that‘s missing its banana.”

“Of course, of course! It does mine heart good to see that the tradition of costume parties still continues. I was always quite fond of them.”

“It’s actually a ‘Come-As-You-Are’ party. You have to show up wearing what you had on or doing what you were doing when you received the invitation.”

“Ah.”

“…”

“Wait, what? Art thou jesting with me?”

“I’m just glad I didn’t get the invite twenty minutes earlier, or I’d have had to bring my whole harem, and I’m only allowed ten guests.”

“Prithee, is there a spell which will allow me to burn out the portion of my brain which creates images, that I may return to the blissful life I was living before I heard that?”

“Oh, it‘s going to be fun having you around again…”

I Guess I Lost My Spring (Prompt #143)

TMP Prompt #143 - “When I Don’t Remember You.”

Prompt: Somepony remembers. But at what cost?

I Guess I Lost My Spring

Suddenly they came over the ridge! Thousands of them!

It was what every rock farmer always feared in their heart of hearts.

A stampede.

The carnage was horrible. Rocks slammed into each other, sending chips flying everywhere. Smaller rocks were run over, smashed to pebbles by their maddened elders.

Pinkie felt woozy with disgust and fear.

“What coulda spooked them?!” Ma strained to speak over the infernal rumbling. “They’re usually so calm!”

“I dunno!” Pa said. “But don’t worry! We got the high ground! They can‘t get up here!”

Plink.

“What’s that?” Inkie looked to the back window.

Plink-plink.

Pa turned, face white with horror. “No.”

The glass shattered inward as dozens of tiny rocks, painted black except for a slit near their tops, burst inside.

***

“…Ninja rocks?”

“To this day I have no idea what we were thinking when we bred them. I mean seriously! They…They killed my whole family right in front of me. Only I survived to tell the tale.” Pinkie said. “The rocks captured me and let me live as long as I threw birthday parties for them.”

“Uh-huh,” Twilight said flatly. “And how’d you get away from them?”

“I ran out of candles (rocks are really really old), and slipped away when they let me get more. I’ve gotta keep my eyes out for them in case they come after me.” She looked at Rarity. “I thought Tom was one of them, but he’s cool.”

“I have no idea who or what you may be talking about.”

“What Ah asked…” Applejack rubbed her brow. “…Was why you were late.”

“Oh, well, I saw some colts playing marbles and it all came back to me.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “…All of it…I thought I could forget it and get on with my life, but…” She trailed off.

“Poor Pinkie,” Fluttershy sniffled as she hugged her shaking friend.

“Even if your story was true, the rule is if you show up late you have to pay for everyone’s lunch,” Rainbow Dash said. “So pony up.”

“But I’m traumatized! All my old wounds have opened up, and the faces of my family are floating before me and blood and gore…and…oh, fine.” The pink pony reached for her bit bag. “It was worth a shot.”

The 'Miss' in 'Misdemeanor' (Prompt #144)

TMP Prompt #144 - “The Big Heist”

Prompt: Jacking Diamonds: Applejack and Rarity, thieves extraordinaire.

The ‘Miss’ in ‘Misdemeanor’

“Why is it such a surprise that Ah’m a fan a’ Shadow a’ Hollow Shades?”

“Well…” Rarity looked up from her sewing. “You must admit you’re the strait-laced type. I just didn’t think a book about a thief would hold any appeal for you.”

“Well, it sounds a lil’ weird, but Ah could really put mahself in Shadow’s shoes. It’d be mighty fun ta—What’s so funny?”

“Applejack,” Rarity giggled. “Being a thief requires a certain subtlety and artfulness. For all your fine qualities, dear, you’ve always been somewhat lacking in—”

Suddenly the orange farmer loomed over her.

“Yer sayin’ you’d be a good thief an‘ Ah wouldn‘t? You?”

“Well, yes, frankly.” Rarity stepped back from her sewing table and glared up at Applejack. “I could steal circles around you.”

“Ah don’t have to take this! Ah’m going home!” Applejack turned on her hoof and stormed out.

“Well, that was abrupt. Back to work, I guess.” Rarity reached for her pincushion.

It was gone.

“Aha.”

***

“If yer not plannin’ on stayin’ fer dinner, ya’d best get outta mah kitchen.”

“There’s only one reason I’m here, Applejack.” Rarity sniffed. “Where’s my pincushion?”

“Ah’ll go fetch it, if you admit Ah’m a good thief.”

“I admit you caught me by surprise.”

“Good enough. Be right back.”

By the time Applejack returned, pincushion in mouth, Rarity was gone, along with all the pots and pans the Apple family owned.

***

“Well-played.” Applejack said. “But we’d best stop this afore one of us comes ta regret it.”

“Fine by me.” Applejack’s cookware floated out of one of Rarity’s armoires. “Shall we walk it back together?”

“Nah, Ah got my cart.”

“Alright, then.”

Rarity waved after Applejack, then turned back to the empty table which had held the sketches she’d been working on.

***

“Gone! All of ‘em gone! Ah just turned mah back fer a second!” Applejack glared at the empty baskets. “Mess with mah livelihood, will she?”

***

Rarity returned home from a most wonderful play to find her front doors missing.

Fortunately everything else was locked up tight.

***

“Where is he?!” The exhausted mare, now so covered in dirt she looked more brown than orange, gasped. “Wha’d ya do with him?!”

“Why, Macintosh and I spent a most delightful morning…together.” Rarity smiled at the blushing stallion. “He’s a good model, you know. Quite good.”

“Ah had ta plow the whole west field mahself, ya great lazy lump! Get yer dock back ta the farm!” Applejack watched him run, then rounded on Rarity. “An’ you! Ya best not have gotten up ta anythin’ unsavory with mah brother!”

“Oh, Applejack. Nothing I do is unsavory. It was a perfectly innocent modeling session.”

“Well, alright, then.”

“As far as you know.”

***

“An’ that’s why Ah need yer help," Applejack said, "Ah think th' only thing that'll make Rarity stop this crazy prank war is if'n something real big happened to get her attention or somethin'. Like, snap her out of it."

"Really."

"Yup!" Applejack swallowed. "S-sure as shootin!'"

"Really?"

Applejack was biting her lip so hard she couldn't open her mouth, so she just nodded.

“Fine,” Twilight Sparkle sighed and rolled her eyes. “But only so I can end this silly feud.”

***

“My whole summer line of dresses gone!” Rarity ranted. “Poof! And I know just who was responsible!”

“Look, why don’t you just bury the hatchet, already?” Rainbow Dash said. “This is stupid.”

“Because she tasks me…she tasks me, and I shall have her.”

“Can I watch?”

“Not like that!”

***

Applejack woke at the crack of dawn, or at least she thought she did, for it was just as dark as when she went to sleep.

She blinked up at a sky so densely clouded it was almost black, then her eyes went wide.

“Th’ sun.”

***

Applejack snickered, looking back at her cart, which contained every single one of Rarity’s precious ponikins.

Sweet Apple Acres was just in sight and—

Huh!?

***

Rarity cackled around Applejack’s precious lasso. Soon—

What!?

***

“How did you manage to steal my whole boutique!?”

“How’d you steal all mah trees!?”

“…Wait a second.”

***

“This whole thing was ridiculous,” Twilight said. “I decided to end it before anypony got hurt.”

“It was rather silly,” Rarity admitted. “Forgetting our friendship like that.”

“Yeah.” Applejack nodded, abashed. “We got carried away.”

They embraced.

“But what about our stuff? Where is it?”

“Oh, I just cast invisibility and intangibility spells on everything.” The purple unicorn concentrated. “There.”

“Mah trees!” Applejack rushed outside.

Rarity paused at the door.

“Twilight, I just wanted to thank you,” the white unicorn said. “Yes, you practically gave me a heart attack, taking my boutique like that, but it taught me a valuable lesson about friendship.”

“No problem.”

“And teamwork.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

***

Twilight, half-awake, reached for her blanket.

It wasn’t there.

Neither, she realized, was her bed.

She jolted fully awake, and stared around her library. Her telescope, globe, unicorn bust, her personal collection of books...every last thing in her loft was were completely gone.

“Spike! Owlowiscious!” She called. “How could you—Spike? Owlowiscious?”

No one was there.

“…Teamwork.”

The Same All Over (Prompt #150)

TMP Prompt #150 - “The Great Escape”

Prompt: The Big Breakout

The Same All Over

“This is horrible!” Sweetie Belle wailed, poking at the red welts on her face. “How could this have happened!?”

“Now, now.” Rarity patted her sister’s shoulder and looked at their reflections in the mirror. “It’s just a natural part of growing up. It‘s a good sign! It means you‘re becoming a—”

“Growing up? Growing…” Sweetie Belle looked at her rump.

***

Far, far to the east, in a land off the map, a griffon’s head jerked up.

“Did you hear that?” He tapped his companion. “That is the sound of ultimate suffering.”

***

“Noooo!”

“Sweetie Belle!”

“NOOOOOOO!”

“Swee—!”

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Rarity grabbed her sister’s shoulders and shook her.

“Sweetie Belle! Get a hold of yourself! Having acne is not your special talent!”

She let go.

“Not if you’re my sister, anyway. Can you imagine what ponies would say? I’d have to lock you in the basement so nopony saw you!”

“Rarity!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Rarity checked her sister over. “My, if it went back that far, it is very widespread, isn’t it? Well, don‘t worry. We can put some medicine and concealer on you for the next couple of days and nopony will know the difference.”

“Can’t you make them go away right now? Is there a spell or something?”

“Not that I know of…but I wonder…”

***

“Don’t I wish,” Twilight Sparkle said. “If I could do that, high school would’ve gone a lot more smoothly for me.”

“Hasn’t anypony ever even tried?”

“Sweetie, body-modification spells, even ones that seem simple, are incredibly dangerous. The least I’d do is make it worse.” Twilight shook her head. “Nopony’s ever successfully cured acne with magic.”

“There, see?” Rarity said. “You just—”

“Although…” Twilight tilted her head to the side, eyes unfocused. “I don’t think anyone’s ever tried taking off somepony’s skin and replacing it…or making a clone with smooth skin and transferring somepony else’s mind into it…hm…or maybe a golem of some sort? Sweetie, would you like to be super-tough?”

“Would I!?”

“Twilight!” Rarity stomped her hoof. “No experimenting on my sister!”

“Oh, right. Sorry. You’ll just have to let it run it’s course. Take care of your skin and it should clear up. Especially when you get older. Though I have to admit I still break out occasionally.”

“Oh, I know! It’s like ‘I’m twenty—” Rarity coughed into her hoof. “*Ahem-hem* —years old! Why is this still happening’? Very frustrating.”

“How old?”

“Never ask a lady that, Twilight.”

“Sweetie, how old is Rarity?”

“I have no idea.”

Twilight stared at her.

“But she’s your sister!”

“You’ll find, Twilight, that nopony in Ponyville knows my real age.” Rarity smiled proudly. “Not even our parents.”

“Seriously? That-that‘s…really weird.”

“If you know how much trouble I went through to make it happen, you wouldn’t think it was weird at all,” Rarity said. “Anyway, Sweetie, the point is, just about everypony gets acne at some point. It’s a fact of life.”

***

Princess Luna stared into the mirror, jaw working soundlessly.

“How could this happen!?”

“Ooof.” Princess Celestia looked over her shoulder. “Yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

“This should be impossible!”

“No, not really. You are still technically an adolescent, after all.” Celestia tilted her head to the side. “This brings back memories. You know, I still had a few zits when I banished you?”

“I can’t go out like this!” Luna cried. “What will the subjects say!?”

“They’d probably say it’s appropriate that you rule the moon, with all those pockmarks—”

“Shut thy noisome mouth, foul harridan!”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“Thou art—You are telling me that in a thousand years nopony’s come up with a cure for this…this plague?”

“No, nopony‘s…Hm. Well, I know one pony who might have something.”

***

“Do I ever!” Twilight grinned. “I’ve been working on all kinds of things! And the best part is, since you’re an alicorn, you might just survive them! Isn’t that great!”

“…Yes?”

Useless, Feckless, and Scheming (Prompt #160)

TMP Prompt #160 - “The Start of Something”

Prompt: Let’s vote on it.

Useless, Feckless, and Scheming

“—enhancing the magical facility of the subject by a hundredfold.” Luna said. “As thou canst observe, apart from a few minor side-effects, the subject in question retains—”

“Which side effects?” The high, clear voice rang out in the council hall. “Sister, thou must be explicit. Would you have our council rule in ignorance?”

Luna winced and cleared her throat.

“Verily, we are glad to see thee, Celestia. We are grateful for thy timely reminder, and feared that thou wouldst find thyself too engaged with royal affairs to deliver it.”

The Princess of the Sun descended from the ceiling.

“Always do we have time to keep our sister from engaging in activities we believe to be potentially perilous for herself,” Celestia said, in that infuriatingly calm tone. “And for Equestria.”

“There is no peril—!”

“I do find myself curious.” Chancellor Amber broke in. “As to the side effects. Not that I would see harm come to either of you, of course.”

His steel-gray eyes, Luna felt, glittered a bit too much for a member of the simple, honest earth pony race.

“Of course, of course!” Commander Foehn’s too-large armor rattled as he bobbed his celadon head. “No harm!”

Commander Derecho would be ashamed to see one of his descendants so weak-willed.

“Side-effects?” Princess Iron Pyrite blinked and tilted her head to the side. “What are side effects?”

One thing in Pyrite’s favor was that she was doing everything possible to reverse all the old stereotypes of unicorns as talented intellectuals.

Was this what the Great Equestrian Council had come to? Luna felt contempt bubbling up in her chest and swallowed it back down.

“The only notable side-effect is a slight, slight tendency toward emotional instability.” Luna said. “And a minor change in appearance.”

“Elaborate,” Amber snapped. “Upon the former.”

“Yes, yes,” Foehn echoed. “Elaborate.”

“Nothing of note, merely an enhancement of present emotions," Luna said. "Of course, we shall test our subjects carefully prior to the process.”

“What process?” Pyrite asked.

“What pr—?” Amber sighed. “The process Luna just spoke of, Pyrite.”

“Well, I don't know! This is boring!”

“Boring, yes. It is a bit boring.” Foehn agreed, then caught Amber’s glare. “But necessary! Necessary! Side-effects! Scary!”

Amber rubbed his brow.

“You have stated that you will be the first subject?" he asked. "As a ‘proof of concept‘?”

“We would not have any of our subjects suffer, an we should find ourselves in error,” Luna explained. “Should there be a problem, ‘tis a near-certainty that we will live through the process of recovery, and we are perfectly stable, emotionally.”

“Perfectly stable.” Foehn nodded. “So stable.”

“And your thoughts, Cel—Princess Celestia?”

“’Tis foolishness, Amber! The ‘emotional instability’ she speaks of would be fearful in a mortal! With our power, such a thing could be disastrous for all Equestria!”

“Disastrous? Yes, disastrous!”

“Dost thou believe us incapable of controlling ourselves!?” Luna cried. “We who sing the positions of the stars!? We who guide the planets in their eternal motion!? Sister, you insult us!”

Amber cleared his throat.

“Princesses! The people hold you in such high regard.” He smiled tightly. “Equestria, in its youth, has chosen you to lead it. Surely you would not have its ponies lose faith in you because you squabble like children. Can you imagine if they put the council in power once more?”

“We’d have to run everything!” Foehn’s voice shook. “Everything!”

“Yeah!” Pyrite curled a goldenrod lock around a hoof. “I don’t wanna run stuff!”

“How horrible that would be," Amber said wryly. "At any rate, I believe I speak for all three of us when I say we would like to vote and get this over with. Princess Luna, having requested a ruling on the matter, will you abide by our decision?”

“’Tis why I asked for this meeting.”

“And you, Princess Celestia?”

“Yes.”

“By the Great Circles of the Planets and the First Dawn in Time, do you swear it?”

The princess nodded.

“They swear it, yes, yes.”

“Thank you, Foehn. Very well then. Princess Iron Pyrite?” Amber asked. “How do you vote?”

“It's got a scary name—”

“Scary!”

“We named it after ourselves!”

“—and a bunch of weird stuff I don't understand. Pass.”

“’Pass’? Do you mean to say that you reject it or that you’re allowing it?”

“Whatever. I'm done here.” And with that she got up and left the council chambers.

“We have not dismissed—! Ugh. fine, I shall mark her as abstaining." Amber shook his head. "Kids these days...I shall have to have her mother talk to her again. And you, Commander Foehn?”

“Um, I…Um…can I get back to you? I mean the whole project sounds really scary and big and weird, yes, and I wanna hear what you think first, Amber.” He twiddled his hooves and lowered his voice to a mumble. “And um, I...I don‘t wanna vote at all, actually. No.”

Amber took a sharp, angry breath and held it for a couple of moments. Then, to the distress of everyone present, he let that breath out in a slow, quiet, chuckle that developed into a full belly laugh.

"You know..." he finally said, with a frightening grin that made Foehn hide his head under his hooves. “You make a decent point, Commander Foehn, though you don’t realize it.”

Amber’s glasses seemed to catch the light and become opaque as he stared down at the Princesses from his podium.

“Princesses, when the people voted that we should do so, we agreed to hand temporal power over the realm to you upon your return. However, it was with the understanding that you would allow us to hoe our own rows, and that we would extend you the same courtesy. We are doing so now, for we simply represent the humble people of Equestria, and this is well beyond our bailiwick. This is a conflict between the two of you, Princess business, and so we all abstain. Let the people see that two of you must govern yourselves, if you are to be worthy of governing anything else. Council dismissed.”

Luna’s jaw dropped. “But—”

"Dismissed, dismissed!" Foehn slumped in relief. "Ohh, thank goodness we're dismissed."

“And we,” Celestia said. “As the elder sister, judge that thy project is too dangerous to be allowed to continue.”

“Well! How interesting. I do hope you two work this out like adults. There should be no strife between sisters, yes?” Amber smiled very politely as he got up, and casually strolled away from the table toward the exit. “Good morrow to you both.”

“’morrow!” Foehn's armor rattled as he, too, attempted to calmly walk out, though an untrained observer might think he was actually rushing to get away from the sisters.

The council room was silent for a few moments.

"Luna," Celestia began. "I know it seems—"

“You!” Luna snarled, turning to her sister. “Were it not for thy interference—!”

“Thou wilt thank me someday, Luna.” Celestia’s wings beat, once, strongly, and she lifted off the ground. “We shall discuss this later. I have much to do.”

“Always, always you stand in our way! Always you seek to keep us in the shadow!” Luna hissed, glaring up at her departing sister. “Not this time!”

***

The pudgy chartreuse unicorn looked up from his notes as the Princess of the Night swept into the laboratory.

“How did it go?”

“...Well. Quite well.”

“Really? Huh! Well, this is great news! Heh, guess I was wrong. The council’s good for something after all. And Princess Celestia?”

“She…agreed to abide by their decision, for the good of Equestria.” Luna voice wavered. “She believes that this will allow ponies to see my merit at last. She…Celestia has faith in me.”

“Great. I’ll get everything ready.” He paused. “One last time, Princess. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.” Luna nodded. “Project: NIGHTMARE is a go.”

Author's Note

Me from ten years later in the far flung year of 2022 wants you to know that just now I did a lot of editing on this one because I wanted it to be better, frankly. Technically it's going against the 30 Minute Pony rules and the rules I set for myself not to edit much, but there you have it. Am I going to do this for other stories? I don't know. What are you going to do, complain? I could be dead by the time you read this! So there.

Metempsychosis (Prompt #168)

TMP Prompt #168 - “Spyfall”

Prompt: International Mare of Mystery!

Metempsychosis

The young mare stood in the center of the arena, face and manner utterly composed in spite of the shackles which bound her, in spite of the ring around her horn.

Above her, behind one-way soundproof glass, a crowd had gathered to watch the first public execution in centuries. Part of her couldn’t help but hope that they enjoyed the show.

On a dais before her stood the three Princesses of the realm and Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard. Above them, in a skybox, sat her friends, her family, her...her victims.

“Twilight Sparkle, daughter of Nachtlicht Strahlend-Sparkle and Star Sparkle,” Princess Celestia was barely able to meet her eye, her voice faint with grief. “Y-you have been found guilty of treason and murder. Of abusing your position and my-my trust to funnel information to the Bastet Empire in a time of war—”

The Princess swallowed.

“—of destroying the Elements of Magic and Generosity with a forbidden spell—”

Twilight flinched, knowing what was coming.

“—And k-killing two Equestrian citizens, Macintosh Apple and Rarity, when they heroically attempted to s-stop you from doing so. For...for these crimes...th-the ss-sen-sentence is...is...death.”

Celestia closed her eyes and took a couple of deeps breaths, composing herself.

"Do you have anything to say before you are executed, Twilight Sparkle? A-anything at all?"

“I regret nothing,” Twilight said, eyes forward, head unbowed. “I did only what I felt was right.”

She heard a loud thud, and was unable to keep herself from lifting her head above Celestia.

Applejack had slammed both hooves on the glass front of the skybox and begun screaming, face twisted into a mask of utter hatred. Twilight couldn’t hear her, but she could guess what she was saying:

(“They loved you! We all loved you! How could you do this! How could you!?”)

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, both in tears, pulled her away.

Fluttershy merely stared ahead at nothing in particular, and shook her head slowly in disbelief.

Twilight’s parents and Spike were unable to watch, taking solace in each others’ arms, as had Rarity’s family.

Between the Princesses of Day and Night, Shining Armor’s lips were moving silently in the same promise he’d been making for the last two months, a promise to clear her name, to find the truth. Princess Cadence, heavy with child, was whispering softly in his ear, her own face set in determination as she nodded.

Twilight nearly broke, nearly began begging for forgiveness, pleading for understanding. She forced herself to stand erect, forced her face to stay impassive.

“I regret nothing,” she repeated.

“Truly?” It was little more than a whisper.

She just held her head higher, looking Princess Celestia dead in the eye.

“Very well, then. I…I hereby e-execute you in…in the name of…”

“Sister,” Luna’s imperious voice broke in. “I shall do it. Do not trouble yourself.”

The Princess of the Night’s horn began to glow brighter and brighter, filling the whole of Twilight’s vision.

“Farewell…traitor.”

And then, darkness.

***

Her first instinct upon awakening was to scream.

Two strong forelegs wrapped around her with a gentleness that would have surprised anypony else, letting her cry and wail against a warm chest until her lungs gave out.

“Ssshh. Sssh, Twilight,” A mare’s voice whispered as a hoof patted her back. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We‘re all okay.”

Twilight gave Rarity a shaky smile.

“I know…it’s just…I was just…”

“Yes, we both know how you feel.” Rarity gave Twilight’s cheek a nuzzle, then chuckled. “Just so you know, we are going to need Macintosh for the rest of the mission.”

Twilight gasped and pulled away from the scarlet stallion.

“S-sorry,” she stammered, eyes darting to one of the airship’s portholes.

“No problem.” Big Mac smiled, blushing slightly.

“Alright then.” Rarity moved to the cockpit. “Hopefully, that little show will give credence to the information you fed the real traitors. At the very least, they ought to think that two of the Elements have been irrevocably destroyed, their bearers deceased. They believe they have the advantage, and after I‘m through with us, we shall be well-primed to infiltrate the Empire.”

“Aw, no,” Mac grumbled. “Not makeup!”

“Needs must, Macintosh,” Rarity smirked. “For the sake of Equestria.”

“Yes. We have to find out why the Bastet attacked us,” Twilight nodded decisively. “Or die trying.”

“We’ve already done that, my dears,” Rarity winked. “So we have no choice.”

And the small airship sped off into endless blue sky of the West.

Rain Check (Prompt #177)

TMP Prompt #177 - “Not According to Plan”

Prompt: Things were supposed to be different.

Rain Check

The yellow-orange pegasus stallion, clad head-to-hoof in thick black rain gear, jumped back slightly as the bleat of a bugle sounded the all-clear and the shutter over his head pulled back into its building, leaving him exposed to the clear blue sky above.

He turned at the sound of hooves hitting the walkway behind him, and tilted his head at his supervisor, “Captain” Nimbus Hooves, who nodded.

“You can stand down, Sunburst. Word from below is Ponyville blew it.”

Behind the older pegasus, the shape of more and more of Cloudsdale’s buildings were becoming clear as their shutters, designed to protect the city’s inhabitants and channel any stray drops of water downward into the hyper-absorbent pink clouds temporarily composing the “ground“, retracted back inside.

“That’s too bad. Say, doesn’t your daughter live down there, Cap?”

“Heh! ’Least I know it’s not her fault for a change.” Cap chuckled and shook his head. “I thought Ponyville was too small to pull it off. Damn shame, but there‘s always tomorrow and Fillydelphia, I guess.”

“Actually,” Sunburst admitted as he shucked off his rain suit. “I’m pretty glad this happened. Starsong and I had to push back a date for this. Looks like it’s back on.”

“Whatcha got planned, if y’don’t mind my askin’?”

“Well, I’ve been saving up for a few months now. I was thinking I’d take her to Canterlot, watch the races, see a play or an opera if there’s any good ones, have a late dinner at The High-Stepper—”

Cap let out a low whistle. “Swank!”

“—And then I’ll give her this.” He fumbled with his work uniform a bit and pulled out a small box, opening it and holding it before his boss.

“A ring!? Ain’t that a bit sudden?” Cap’s golden eyes narrowed. “Unless you need ta give it to her.”

“Oh, no, Cap. It‘s not like that at all! It‘s not a ring ring. Just a ring.”

He didn’t know the whole story, but Cap’s daughter had apparently run afoul of a smooth-talking unicorn when she was a teenager. He’d been a bit …touchy…about certain topics since, but he was easily the most doting grandfather Sunburst had ever met.

“I know it’s only like our eighth date, but I saw it in a shop window and thought about how cute Starsong would look with this—What? It’s not that weird a gift…is it?”

Cap was staring above his head, jaw slack. Suddenly with a burst of speed that Sunburst had thought quite beyond him, the gray pegasus turned and flew for cover, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

“SOMEPONY GET THE SHUTTERS BACK UP NOW! NOW!! HURRY! EVERYPONY FIND COVER! FLY, KID! FLY!”

All around him, Sunburst suddenly noticed a growing shadow. He looked up to see a wall of shimmering water rushing down at him.

Y’know, it’s actually kind of…pretty, was his last thought before it hit.

***

On the upside, Starsong visited him every day while he was in the hospital.

And she loved the ring.

Back for the Wrong Reasons (Prompt # 179)

TMP Prompt #179 - “School Days Are Here Again”

Prompt: Back to school.

Special Rule: Twilight is not going back to magic kindergarten. (I broke it.)

Back for the Wrong Reasons

One look at Ms. Totenkinder told you everything you needed to know.

Her Cutie Mark was a foal lying on its back with Xs for eyes. Her own eyes were solid black with no visible pupils and yellow sclera, and she carried herself like a flabby gray-green cross between a spider and a vulture. Her limbs seemed just a little too long and too spindly. Her iron-gray mane and tail were thin and wispy, as if most of her hair had fled to escape being a part of her.

Her breath smelled of rancidness, of misery and death itself. One might wonder how anything could smell so foul, but when she cruelly turned her lips upward, revealing an vast expanse of entirely too many brown and black teeth, they would get their answer.

Said breath was being projected upon Twilight Sparkle at the moment.

“You can’t even turn a page!? Are you sure you’re even a unicorn and not some filth-crawling earth pony?” Totenkinder screeched. “I’ll bet your horn isn’t even real!”

“Twilight Sparkle can’t make a single spark!” a chubby chartreuse colt mocked.

“That’s right!” Totenkinder crowed. “You’re Twilight Spark-null!”

Twilight buried her face into her hooves, sobbing, as most of the class erupted into wicked laughter.

That day set the tone for every single other day of Magical Kindergarten.

***

“Gosh,” Pinkie said. “That sounds terrible, Twilight!”

“It’s been fifteen years and I can still hear that-that…voice.” Twilight shivered. “You have no idea how happy I was when I got into Princess Celestia’s school.”

“You know I’m definitely not the kind to say no to a party, but I seriously don’t see why you’d even want to think about going to your reunion.”

“You don’t wanna know,” Spike muttered.

“Well, Pinkie, I figure I’d go see how the food is, meet up with the classmates who weren’t jerks, see if anypony’s still a jerk…” She shrugged. You know, just…catch up. And then…”

With a *poof* the Crown of Magic appeared before her.

“And then I’ll shove this baby right in Totenkinder’s wrinkly old face!”

“Um, w-well, that does sound fun...” Pinkie backed away a little. “…I guess?”

“Oh, boy.” Spike rubbed his brow.

“Twilight Spark-null can’t turn a page, huh?” Twilight’s own face twisted into a leer. “Golly! I guess you must be a better Element of Magic than IIIIIIIII am! AH HA HA HAAAA!”

“I may be the Element of Laughter, but I really don’t like the sound of—”

Twilight couldn’t hear her.

Twilight was miles away at the moment.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” Spittle flew from her mouth. “WAHAHAHAHA!”

“We should leave her alone for a while.” Spike whispered.

Pinkie had to agree.

***

Twilight met up with Moondancer when she got to the school, and discovered that puberty had worked its magic and turned Dabbler into a decent (if still chubby) equine being.

“Where’s Ms. Totenkinder?” she asked, dandling the Crown of Magic in her hooves. “I’ve got something I want to show her.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Moondancer asked, gesturing to one of the walls, upon which images of Totenkinder magically yanking a colt’s ear, screaming at a classroom of terrified foals, and so forth, were being projected.

“Totenkinder kicked it.” Dabbler said around his mouthful of raspberry torte. “’Dancer and I went to her funeral.”

“Half the ponies there wanted to see if she was really dead.” Moondancer nodded. “Somepony stuck a stake in her corpse when nopony was looking.”

“Yeah.” Dabbler looked off the side. “…Somepony.”

“Oh.“ Twilight stared sadly at down the Crown of Magic. “I…I see.”

Then she looked up with a grin that made Moondancer cross herself (though she didn’t know why), and Dabbler choke on his last bite of torte.

“Where’s her grave?”

(What if) Pipsqueak Really WAS a Pirate? (Prompt #181)

TMP Prompt #181 - “Alternity”

Prompt: What if?

…Pipsqueak Really WAS a Pirate?

At crack of dawn Luna has gone,

to have a little bite.

(The moon is quite heavy,

so she has an appetite.)

But when she looks for candy,

she finds instead a fright!

For Pipsqueak the Pirate,

Has stolen every bite!

O Pipsqueak the Pirate!

A colt of high renown!

Has taken every jujube!

Every sugar crown!

Pipsqueak the Pirate!

His voice fills you with dread!

“There’s candy on the wind, boys, let’s go full speed ahead!”

Pipsqueak the pirate!

King of the seven seas!

“Hide your candy all you like, it’s never safe from me!”

Oh, Apple’s Bloom,

It blooms for him.

And Sweetie’s Belle,

It rings.

Tootsie plays love songs,

All day upon her Flute.

And Scootaloo,

She, um…she s-scoots?

But Pipsqueak the Pirate!

He’ll never find a mate!

He finds the girls all icky!

Because he’s only eight!

Pipsqueak the Pirate,

Won’t have any of it!

“The only kisses that I want are made of choc-o-late!”

Pipsqueak the Pirate!

He’ll break your heart, it’s true!

“My lady‘s name is Baby Ruth, I have no time for you!”

Pipsqueak the Pirate!

Terror of Ponyville!

Sneaker-away of snacks,

And maker-off of meals!

If you’ve got a pantry,

He’ll steal everything that’s in it!

The only thing that slows him down is that fearful

--Time Limit--

“Aw, time for bed, guys. Let‘s steal more tomorrow!”

Author's Note

I rhymed "bite" with itself.

I am worst poet.

Such Fragile Lives (Prompt #181)

TMP Prompt #181 - “Alternity”

Prompt: What if?

Such Fragile Lives

“Hold ftill!” Silver Spoon said around the paintbrush. “Af often af we’ve done thif an’ you ftill—”

“I can’t help it if it tickles!” Her pink friend shifted. “You really oughta be faster by now.”

“You coulda picked un leff coh-clicated!” She put a final dot on the tiara, and stepped back. “There!”

“Complicated!?” Diamond Tiara huffed. “At least mine’s all one color. I‘ve never seen a spoon like that.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Spoon rubbed her aching jaw. “I wish your mom had named you “Rubber Ball” or something.”

“Ugh, don’t even joke!” Tiara looked behind herself. “Are you gonna do the other side or what?”

“Give me a minute to rest, for crying out loud! Remember that time I got them all off-center? You want that to happen again?”

“It better not. Or else.”

“Don’t you threaten me, Tiara.” Silver Spoon’s lips curled cruelly “Remember, I know your little secret.”

“If I go down for that,” Diamond Tiara matched her grin. “I’ll take you with me.”

They held each others’ gaze for a couple of seconds, still smiling.

“Best friends?”

“Forever.”

“Right.” Diamond Tiara picked up a paintbrush and dipped it in a pot of silver paint. “I’ll juft get ftarted on you.”

“Okay.”

Silver Spoon stood stock-still, head bowed, as her friend dragged the brush across her flank with remarkable gentleness.

“Aw’righ’,” Tiara asked. “Wha’ is it?”

“What?”

“Yer uh’set. Why?”

“You know why.” Spoon looked at her blank flank. “Nothing we’ve done is helping.”

“Ih’ll hah’en unh day. Hromif.”

“You keep promising that…” Silver Spoon shook her head. “Maybe…maybe we should, you know…”

Tiara spat out the brush.

“No! Absolutely not!”

“Maybe we should start our own club, then?”

“And look like we’re ripping them off? No way! I’ll have Cutie Marks painted on me for the rest of my life before I admit defeat!”

“The rest of—Tiara?”

“…And if my Cutie Mark turns out to suck, I’ll just have you keep painting over it! And—”

“Diamond Tiara!”

“What?”

“I’m tired,” Spoon said. “Aren’t you tired? You may be okay with this, but I—”

“Just a little longer. Please.” Tiara put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder and looked her in the eye. “I‘d be all alone if I didn‘t have you. I need you.”

Silver Spoon sighed.

“Thank you.” Tiara picked up the brush again. “Un day.”

“…One day.”

I'm Telling You Why (Prompt #209)

TMP Prompt #209 - “Naughty or Nice”

Prompt: You better watch out…

I’m Telling You Why

“Thou art still doing this?”

“It’s not me, it’s ‘Santa Hoof’. Now, have you seen my hat?”

“Surely ‘tis most tiresome delivering toys and treats to everypony in Equestria?”

“I’m more powerful than when we were kids, but…yes, it can be a bit of a strain, especially now that I’ve branched out into Griffonheim and Zebrica.”

“Why should it be thee, alone? Mayhap the Elements could be of aid?”

“Hm.”

***

“Welp, Ah hope alla ya’ll enjoy yer apple fritters, an’ apple candies, an’ apple cider. Remember, Santa Hoof gets all her apples at Sweet Apple Acres. Tell yer parents ta go there fer all their apple needs. That’s Sweet Apple Acres, okay? AB, hand out those brochures.”

“On it, sis—I mean, Santa!”

***

“Alright! Who’s up for another round of ‘Good Princess Platinum’?”

“Miss Hoof! It’s almost midnight and we need to sleep!”

“Don’t be silly! It’s not like tomorrow’s a school night! Have yourself some more cake and soda and you’ll feel great!”

“Urp! I’m ‘onna be sick!”

“Not in the punch bowl, okay? I invited everypony in your neighborhood over for the biggest party ever!”

“You did what?”

***

“And that concludes the history of Hearth’s Warming Day. Any questions? Are you still awake? Oh, dear.”

“Uh, Twilight? Maybe we oughta move on to the, uh, ‘presents’.”

“SNNX-wha? Presents?! Who said ‘presents‘?”

“Yes, sweetie, presents. Quite practical and sensible ones, if I do say so myself. Spike, if you will?”

“I’m so, so sorry. Here you go.”

“I can’t wait to—The heck is this?”

“It’s a sweater! Judging from past climate data, Equestria’s about to undergo a cooling period, leading to a longer and somewhat chillier winter, so a sweater’s the perfect gift.”

“It’s kind of, um…ugly…”

“Oh, you say that now, but extrapolating from twenty years of past trends, fuschia and pea-soup green are going to be an ideal color combination by the time you grow into it. It‘ll take about six years, but you‘re ahead of the crowd!”

“…”

“What do you think?”

“…Thank you for the sweater, ma’am.”

“Oh, there’s no need to thank me.”

“There really isn’t. Once again, I‘m sorry.”

“Come on, Spike! We’ve got eight more crates of these to go!”

“Why couldn’t I have gone with Rarity?”

***

“Oh, Miss Hoof! It’s beautiful!”

“Thank you, sweetheart. It was kind of a rush job, but I think it turned out quite well.”

“Can I try it on right now?”

“Feel free! I do so hope—Oh, my.”

“What is it?”

“You look simply divine, but it seems my helper dropped a couple of stitches, and got your size wrong, to boot.”

“Sorry, Santa Sis!”

“Off with it, dear, and I shall see if I can make a couple of adjustments. Hm…well, oh dear, dear, dear. I can hardly blame Sweetie for this one. I‘ll have to…let‘s see…and then I…right, right…be a love and fetch me a needle and thread, would you?”

“Miss Hoof?”

“And some tea? I think I’m going to be here a while. Heavens, what was I thinking—?”

***

Now, scorpions may look a little scary, but they’re actually rather sweet and gentle. I think you and Pinchy and Mr. Sting-Butt will—Where’d they go?”

“M-Miss Hoof?”

“Oh! They only crawl on your face if they like you! Isn‘t that great? You‘re friends already!”

“Help!”

“Now, keep in mind, you’ve got to watch out for their claws. They probably won’t sting you, and if they do, you’ll be fine as long as you get to the hospital right away.”

“Mom-eeeeeeeeee!”

***

BOOOOOM!

“My wall! You wrecked my wall!”

“And broke every window in town, yeah. Collateral damage, you know. Heh! Just bill it to Princess Celestia.”

“Um, is that really okay?”

“’Course it is, Scoots! She’s the one who asked us to do this, right? More importantly, I hear there‘s a couple of Wonderbolts fans living here!”

“Yaay!”

“…it’s-it’s not just my wall…Great Celestia, you destroyed half my house…”

“Here ya go, kiddies! Wonderbolts playsets!”

“Thanks, Santa Hoof!”

“Wait a second! Somepony opened mine already! It was supposed to come with Spitfire!”

“And mine oughta have Soarin’!”

“…my house…”

“Oh, wow. That is a mystery. Scootaloo? Do you know what happened?”

“Why no, Santa Hoof. Oh, look! I do have an awesome action figure, though. You can have her, guys.”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Rainbow Dash!”

“Who?”

“Rainbow Dash, for pony’s sake! Best Young Flyer two years running? Element of Loyalty?”

“…Who?”

“Just…just write the Wonderbolts and tell ‘em she’s awesome, okay?”

“…honey? Honey, are you okay? Say something! I can’t find you…”

“Wait a second, Miss Hoof. Isn’t this you?”

“Well, time to go! Hang on, Scoots!”

“’Time to’—Oh, gosh, kids, duck!”

BOOOOOOM!

***

“Certes, the Elements would be most pleased to learn of thy abiding faith in them.”

“Well, these are worst-case scenarios.”

“I have an excellent idea!”

***

“ALL IS INDEED CALM AND BRIGHT ON THIS MOST WONDROUS NIGHT! LO, A PLATE OF SNICKERDOODLES! A VERTIABLE FEAST! NOTHING TO DRINK!? FORTUNATELY, I HAVE BROUGHT A LIBATION OF MINE OWN—”

“Santa Hoof?”

“COME, CHILD, AND PARTAKE WITH ME!”

“Um, is that alcohol? I’m too young to drink that.”

“’TOO YOUNG‘? BAH! ART THOU NOT THREE-AND-TEN? IN MY DAY, THOU WOULDST HAVE BEEN MORE THAN OLD ENOW TO SIT AT THE ADULTS’ TABLE AND HEAR TALES OF THE GLORIES OF HEARTH’S WARMINGS LONG, LONG AGO! DRINK, LAD, AND HEAR A TALE OF CONQUEST AND CELEBRATION!”

***

“What dost thou think?”

“…Just help me find my hat, okay?”

Last Resort (Prompt #226)

TMP Prompt #226 - “Science Fiction Double Feature”

Prompt: The day Equestria stood still.

Last Resort

“'March,'” Twilight said. “Can mean a step-by-step advancement, but it can also mean a borderline. And we're dealing with both, girls. It swept across Equestria thousands of years ago, and it’s happening again today.”

She looked toward the Royal Throne and bowed her head.

“The…the March of Order has returned.”

***

One morning, Twilight had awakened and taken a deep breath, as most ponies did.

The air, she noticed, seemed rarified, as though she were a couple hundred feet up.

Opening her eyes, she saw that the colors in everything had faded, and heard the sound of birdsong in a monotone chirp-chirp-chirp.

Trying to get out of bed had proven difficult, as the sheets had almost refused to move. When she’d finally extricated herself from them, they’d formed into a perfectly-made bed.

“Spike?” she called, voice muffling itself as soon as it left her mouth. “Are you—”

Her little assistant, eyes wide in fear, approached her in lockstep: left-right-left-right, and she rushed to him, taking him into her embrace until he could no longer move.

***

“Order,” Twilight said. “Is a complete lack of variance. Absolute stillness. No molecules of air can stir, no movements can be made, no sounds can disturb the silence, no thought. Nothing.”

“No air!?” Fluttershy gasped. “Is…nopony’s dead, are they?”

“Spike—Everyone, I mean, is still alive, more or less,” Twilight said. “Dying would be a change, and the March won‘t allow it.”

“Can they think?” Rainbow Dash shivered. “Jeez, I really hope not. Can you imagine being trapped like that?”

“Thinking would—You get the point.”

“That’s some relief, then, knowing that Sweetie Belle’s all right…for a given value of “all right”, I suppose.” Rarity said. “But how are we unaffected?”

“’Cause we’re Elements, maybe?” Applejack asked. “But the air’s gettin’ awful thin.”

“Yeah, it’s taking longer to affect us, but…” Twilight shook her head. “I’d really hoped, but…even the Princesses…we-well, even…”

“We saw, sweetheart.” Applejack patted her shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Ah-Ah‘m sure.”

“There’s gotta be something we can do!” Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof. “We’re the ‘Lest-damn Elements of Harmony! It can’t end like this!”

“She’s right, Twilight!” Pinkie said. “You have to think of something! Do you realize how hard it is to pull off a party when the confetti keeps catching itself in mid-air and putting itself back in the box? Separated by color?”

“Ah realize yer tryin’ ta lighten th’ mood, but that really ain’t helpin’, Pinkie.”

“Sorry.”

Twilight was silent for a while.

“This…this is big,” she finally said. “By now the March of Order is everywhere on earth, and getting worse by the second. Even with the Elements, I can’t think of a spell to deal with it. My Fail-safe spell invokes order, and that would just make it worse. Coming up with a new one would take way too long…Order can’t be fought, or negotiated with, or reformed. Heck, it can’t even be spoken to.”

“Aw,” Pinkie remarked. “If only it had a face.”

Dash snorted. “I’d sock it right in the snoot!”

“A face would have too much variance,“ Twilight said. “They’re practically chaotic, and—” She froze. “No. Oh, no.”

“But-but someone beat it once before somehow, didn't they?” Fluttershy asked. “Maybe we could find out what they—Twilight, what is it?”

“Oh, no…no…no we can’t…”

“Twi?”

“Order doesn’t have a face.” Twilight swallowed audibly. “...Order can’t be spoken to, or negotiated with...”

***

The glowing aura subsided as they gently settled back to earth.

“Any—” Rarity panted. “Did anything happen?”

Twilight shook her head.

Birds hung unmoving in a shadowless black-and-white sky. All around them foals who had been on a field trip stood, faces once etched with horror perfectly calm, their features fading. Carefully, some unseen force was sorting them by race and gender. Soon, however, even those distinctions would be gone.

It had been getting harder to run, to fly, to move at all, and so their hearts had leapt when they saw the round patch of bright green grass surrounding the statue of Discord.

But now…

“Why isn’t this working?” Dash asked. “Three times we’ve tried this, and he‘s still—!”

“Maybe we cast the stoning spell too hard last time?”

“I don’t think so, Fluttershy.” Twilight peered into Discord’s stone face. “It really should have—Wait...”

That expression, she thought, it still looked scared, but something—

“Twilight!” Pinkie cried, pointing over Twilight's shoulder.

The green of the grass around them was beginning to fade.

“No!” Twilight cried. “Dammit, Discord, wake up! I know you’re doing this on purpose! I can see it in your eyes!”

No response.

“You like toying with us this way? If the March of Order takes over the world, there won’t be anypony, anywhere, to play with, anything to change! If it gets powerful enough, I don’t think even you could stop it! It’ll be boring, Discord! Is that what you want!?”

No response.

“Damn you!” Twilight pounded her hooves on the statue. “You want me to say you’re right!? Fine! We need a bit of chaos in our lives, or nothing will ever change! You want me to say we need you!? Fine! We! Need! You!”

She slumped against it.

“…Please.”

And all of a sudden, she felt a tingle on her cheek.

It was the same cold/hot/pleasant/unpleasant/spiky/smooth/snakes-writhing feeling she’d had every time Discord had touched her before, and she looked up into a grin that made her blood freeze.

“Looks like somepony learned the magic words.”

Author's Note

2022 Me: At the time I thought using truncated versions of Celestia and Luna's names euphemisms for oaths (such as "Zounds!" for "God's Wounds" or Egads! for "Ye Gods!") was pretty clever.

Never caught on, though.

As you can probably guess, this was written before Discord reformed.

"A Fool is Never Alone" (Prompt #547) (547 had three prompts)

The prompt: Another moon.

Will you quit it already!?” Twilight cried, leaning out the library window and waving her hoof furiously. “Jeez!”

“What’s up?” Spike asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Oh, I told Rainbow Dash that I couldn’t let her check out the latest Daring Do book until I’d finished processing it, and she got all mad and…and…”

“It looks like she’s bending—“

“I know what she’s doing! It’s so irritating!”

“Why?”

“I…” Twilight sputtered for a couple of seconds. “Well, I know it's supposed to be insulting, but I don’t know why! That’s the second-worst part!”

“What’s the worst part, then?”

“The worst part is that I can’t shake the wild impression that it would be worse if ponies wore clothes more often.”

Spike blinked. “Where’d that come from?”

“See?“ Twilight clenched her teeth. “That’s why it’s the worst part! It keeps nagging at me. And—”

She turned back to the window.

“Pinkie!?”

“Hi, Twilight!”

“Why are you joining her!? Are you crazy!?”

“Well, it looked like fun, but I couldn’t be sure if it would be fun until I tried it myself and it wasn’t really all that fun—sorry, Dashie—“

“S’fine.”

“—anyway, it wasn’t really fun except for the blood rushing to my head, which I’m pretty used to with all time I spend upside-down, and I was thinking about stopping until you started yelling and then it got fun again so I’m going to keep doing it!”

“That’s…I don’t…what’s wrong with—ARRGH!”

“Whee!”

Author's Note

The title is a song lyric.

Cuteness Proximity (Prompt 547 Prompt #3)

TMP Prompt #547 - "Filly Fantasy"

The prompt: Discord's lab

“If I had a mind to, I could turn you into a bright blue cockroach that sang arias from operas yet to be written. I could turn you into a potted plant that exclusively ate little creatures like you, and could you call it cannibalism, then? Or a telephone that only dialed wrong numbers. You don’t even know what a telephone is, do you? I know things that will never be.”

He grinned.

“I have toppled nations, driven every single soul within them mad and sustained those poor screaming souls for thousands of years after their insanity would kill them off otherwise. I left one sane person behind once, in a city of bedlam. She went crazy all on her own. It took almost a week.”

He spun in place.

“There are parts of Griffonheim where I am still worshipped as a god. A god! No, not of madness or chaos. I’m apparently the god of sundry items! Left-handed wrenches, and ceramic figurines, and all the things that you don’t really think about until you actually need or lose or notice them. ‘Oh, hey where’s my bottle of foot-scrubbing soap? I’ll just pray to Discord.’ I don’t know whether I’m charmed or irritated, but then I remember they made Celestia and Luna the trickster gods, and I end up laughing too much to care!”

He cackled.

“Oh, but I digress. That’s what I do, digress. That’s what I am. I am the digression from logic and sense and righteousness and reality. Reality! Pah! Reality is oversold! Unreality has so, so much more to offer.”

He raised his claws.

“Do you understand me, little one? Do you understand what I could do? No. No one could. I don’t even understand myself. In fact, I actively try not to understand myself on a constant basis. Sometimes I have to lose myself and start over! Harder than you think, you know. You don't know. Anyway, the gist is: Fear me. Respect me. Love me and despair. For I could wipe you from existence in a heartbeat and forget you as if you had never existed in another. No, I could make the universe forget you. I could! Easily. You got me?“

The puppy squirmed in his grip and licked his nose.

“Good. Just so we’re clear on that.”

Author's Note

There. Maybe I'll scrounge something else up (maybe some that I couldn't finish in time) if I live another ten years.