Chapter 1: "All Bets are Off"
“Certain Advantages”
Written by The Descendant
CoverArt by CuteSkitty
Used with permission.
Edited by Future
Chapter 1: “All Bets are Off”
The air that hovered around Sweet Apple Acres was so thick with estrogen that it seemed to hang in the atmosphere with a visible pinkish haze.
So substantial was the presence of such an environmental hormone imbalance that even a stallion as manly and endued with excess testosterone as Big Macintosh could scarcely breathe without having the lingering urge to talk about his feelings and eat dark chocolate.
Not that he was opposed to dark chocolate, but in this case pondering the treat led to a rather unpleasant want and wish to read trashy romance novels in a bubble bath by candlelight.
So, as he wheeled Granny Smith towards the podium, Big Macintosh tried his best to think about power tools, sports, and some of the more perfect female flanks that had caught his eye in the last few days.
Even these decidedly macho thoughts were not enough to overcome the decidedly Amazonian ambiance that held sway around the farm. Indeed, so powerful was the feminine influence that hovered around Sweet Apple Acres that at the thought of the word “flank” Big Mac actually found himself worrying whether or not his mark made his butt look big.
Stunned by where his thoughts had taken him, he carefully placed Granny Smith at the microphone, easing her closer so that she wouldn’t hurt herself like last year, and then galloped away from the crowd of young mares and fillies in search of large things made out of metal and wood that he could hit with a hammer while ranting about “the game”.
Clearly, the Sisterhooves Social once more held immutable dominion over the farm.
“Hey now!” Granny Smith called through the loudspeaker. “We’re gonna go an’ get started wit’ the race and all that hooey in a bit! If ya’ ain’t gone an’ get gotten all yer’ flanks registered, do it now!”
After parsing her sentence, a few young mares and their little sisters headed to the registration table.
Two pegasi sat there, registering each group that came forward. One pegasus pony delighted in her task, passing the entrants their colored scarves, recording their names, and generally being delightfully bubbly.
The other pegasus sat with her head across the table, begging for the sweet release of death.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!
Hey, hey… Rainbow Dash!
Heeeyyyyy Rainbow Dash!”
“What. Is. It. Derpy?” replied Rainbow Dash without looking up to her counterpart.
“We’re at the Sisterhooves Social!”
Rainbow Dash gave a low moan and wrapped her head with her forelegs. She didn’t even bother to look up as the hooffalls of what she desperately, desperately, desperately hoped would be the last two entrants fell before the registration booth.
“Oh, my!” called Derpy. “You’re gonna be in the Sisterhooves Social? That’s neat-o! Here’s your bandanas… sorry, that’s the only color that’s left!”
Neat-o? Dash groaned again. Still, she did wonder what was making Derpy so excited.
“And you’re gonna need to put... well, you don’t really need to, do you? I mean, we allllllll know who you are, huh?” Derpy concluded as her voice rose in a giggle.
Dash’s interest was piqued.
She opened her eyes, blinked twice, smacked her lips, and then looked up to see whom Derpy could possibly be getting so excited about.
Upon seeing who it was, Dash immediately took to the air, a plan developing in her mind.
Dash scanned the length of the grandstand, searching for that most beautiful and most wondrous of things… namely, a dupe.
Yes, a dupe. She needed a dupe.
Her eyes panned the crowd that sat awaiting the beginning of the race. What she needed was someone who was slightly too naïve, way too trusting, easily intimidated, and not the fastest on the draw.
“Hi, Spike!” she said, landing near the dragon in a flurry of feathers. She tried her best to hide the deceitful tones that were building in her voice. “Watching the race, huh?”
“Yup!” he answered, smiling up to her in the same innocent smile that he always wore.
She bit her own lip, lest a duplicitous fit of laughter escape her.
“Twilight’s using the mare’s room,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder. “We’re here to cheer everypony on and…”
“Yeah, uh huh. Hey,” she interrupted, barely unable to hide her conniving any longer, “that’s great. Wanna bet on the race?”
“What?” he asked as he startled slightly.
“You know,” she said, giving him a slight punch in the shoulder, nearly sending him tumbling, “let’s bet on who’ll win! Now, I’ll wager that…”
“Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said, waving his clawed hands through the air. “I… hey, I can’t…”
“What are ya’, chicken?” she said, lifting her wings and standing over him imposingly. “C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
She grinned to herself, watching his first defenses come down.
“L-look, I don’t think Twi would like me to,” he said, trying to look away from her.
She leapt through the air with an enthusiastic twist of her athletic body and was right back in his face once again. “Awww, man,” she said, her face painted with treachery, “don’t be so lame, Spike. I thought you were fun…”
“Hey,” he said, a little hurt showing in his voice, “I am fun…”
“There ya’ go!” she said, playfully punching his other shoulder, sending him reeling in the other direction. “I knew I could count on you! You’re awesome, Spike!”
She watched a few more of his defenses fall down, and she could barely keep from trotting her hooves in anticipation as he danced his fingers together.
“Look,” she said, her scheming reaching its endpoint, “I’ll go real easy on ya’! I just want to back the next team to come up to the line… whoever they are. Really! That’s my team, no matter what… and all we’re betting is one week of slavery!”
“One week of what?!” the little dragon cried.
“C’mon, Spike?” she said, making her expression go soft. “If any other team wins, you win! Goin’ real easy on ya’, the last team to come up is mine, that’s all! C’mon, please? Please? Pllleeeaaaasssseeeee?”
Her lower lip trembled, she pouted, and Spike’s last line of protection washed away.
“Oh, well… okay, I guess,” he said with uncertainty.
He suddenly felt his hand being lifted, heard the sound of her spitting, and felt her hoof bump to his.
“Deal!” she cried. “I bet on this last team, you get all the others, and the loser is the other’s servant for a week!”
“Blegh!” Spike answered as he wiped the spit from his hand. “Geez, Dash, I-I’ve never bet on anything before. I, wow, ummm, so… when will the last team get here?”
Dash lifted her eyes, and at once all of the deviousness, the scheming, and the cunning fell out of her as she grabbed him forward and pointed towards the starting line.
“Why, hey,” she said, grinning mischievously and pointing with her hoof, “here they come now…”
Spike focused on the distant starting line where the few other teams of sisters stood awaiting the call to begin the competition. He squinted into the distance…
… and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna took their place at the starting line, the royal sisters nodding to the suddenly very disappointed looking competitors.
When Twilight returned to where she had left her little baby dragon she found him standing there with his mouth hanging so far open that his jaw seemed to be sitting on the ground, resting amid the dust and the discarded bags of Mairsy Doats.
His eyes were distant, and he held his hands out in a position of supreme confusion, his whole expression seeming to say “Why? Why? Why?” over and over in wounded tones.
Nearby, Twilight noted, Rainbow Dash lay on her back, laughing uproariously.
“Spike?” asked Twilight, eyeing him up and down. “What’s going on?”
Spike could only continue to stand there, hands held out, mouth open, and make little whimpering sounds of dejection.
“Dash,” Twilight asked the pegasus, “did you break Spike?”
“I bet… I, I bet him that the next team of sisters… sisters, to come to the line would win!” Dash explained, trying to speak through the laughter that still convulsed her.
“Spike,” she said, turning back to him, “I don’t like the idea of you gambling.”
Spike held his expression of astonishment, his voice continuing to reach out in a series of disbelieving squeaks.
Twilight arched an eyebrow at him before turning back to Rainbow Dash.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Who were the next sisters to join the race?”
Dash sat up, looked deep into Twilight’s eyes even as she bit her lip to keep from chuckling, and grasped the unicorn’s head in her hooves. Dash spun Twilight around, facing her towards the starting line.
There stood the two alicorn Sister Sovereigns of Equestria.
“Wow, Spike,” said Twilight, her face a picture of befuddlement, “you’re screwed.”
Spike emitted a low whine. Soon he began to pace back and forth, his hands on the side of his head. Soon he had grabbed Twilight and was staring into her eyes as he bounced up and down in confusion and alarm.
“Twi, what am I going to do?!” he said. “The princesses are gonna trot away with it! They’re just so big, and strong, and magical…”
“I’m sorry, Spike,” she said with a sigh, running her hoof over his frills, “but if this is the only way for you to learn your lesson, then I guess you’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
“Ha! That’s right, Fun Size!” laughed Rainbow Dash. “You’re gonna have to be my personal gopher for a week!”
“But, but,” began Spike, “please, Dash, I didn’t really wanna gamble! I just came here to watch my friends in the race. You know… to watch Rarity leap through the air, her mane shimmering behind her as the graceful curves of her body lift past the obstacles, to see the gentle fall of her lines as her hooves touch back to…”
Spike looked up to see Rainbow Dash and Twilight smirking at him. He blushed brightly and ran his foot across the ground.
“Please?” he asked piteously.
“Sorry, Junior,” she replied as she bopped him gently on the nose.
“But I can’t be your slave, Dash!” Spike said, painting some irony into his voice. “I’m already Twilight’s slave!”
Spike looked back over his shoulder, ready for Twilight to give him a mouthful about his word choice. He had done it on purpose, hoping that he’d just started an argument that would give him a chance to divert attention from his looming gambling debt.
Instead, all that met him was a whimpering Twilight. Her jaw trembled, her bottom lip quivered, and tears were forming at the edge of her eyes.
“Oh, jeez,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose and then looking back up at her. “I’m sorry Twi, I was just being sardonic. I don’t really feel that way. I don’t really think you treat me like a slave…”
Her expression brightened slightly.
“It’s just that, well… you know,” he said, “sometimes I have to work all day, and sometimes I have to keep going even after my arm starts to hurt, and sometimes you bounce furniture off of me…”
Spike pinched the bridge of his nose once more as Twilight spun around in a circle, bawled her eyes out, and then pelted off into the distance before disappearing in a poof of her magic.
“I was being sardonic!” he called after her, waving his arms frantically before sitting in a huff.
“I don’t think that means what you think it means. I think you mean ‘sarcastic’,” Dash said, mentally calculating all of the tasks she’d soon have him doing.
“No,” said Spike in an unhappy tone, “I mean sardonic.”
“Those little fish that some ponies put on pizza?” she said, staring down at him.
“Oh, sit down and watch me lose the bet,” he said with a groan. He crossed his arms in front of himself in dejection, listening as Twilight appeared and disappeared in the far distance in poofs of her magic, still wailing noticeably.
“Don’t mind if I do!” she said, grabbing some popcorn from a nearby barker. With that she stuck the box on his spines for easy access, leaned across him in recliner mode, and watched her shoo-ins prepare to run the course.
Down at the starting line, Celestia and Luna wrapped their bandanas around themselves, took their places, and looked on in astonishment as the other sets of siblings fell down in whimpering, jibbering heaps.
“My little pony!” Celestia said, lowering her head to where Rarity sat in despondent puddle. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Oh, Princess,” Rarity wailed, “forgive me, but this year, I had… had hoped to win the race with my dearest sister Sweetie Belle, to win it for her, you see…”
“And why should this not be the year for you to do so?” Celestia asked, lifting her hoof to the two white unicorns.
“Well,” said Rarity, sheepishly, looking upon the imposing figure of the alicorn, “there’s the problem that you’re… you. You see?”
Celestia arched her eyebrow, and then at once an expression of understanding swept over her features.
“Oh. Oh! Oh my, I do see your point,” the alicorn said in an apologetic tone. “Would you consider it more fair if I dipped my innate magic a bit?”
“Oh, Majesty!” spoke the unicorn, her eyes twinkling, “Would you?”
“Certainly dear!” she said with a smile.
“Buck!” came an invective from the grandstands, the tone seeming to denote that it had arisen from a cyan pegasus mare who had just heard her plan begin to go awry.
“Yes!” came a voice in reply, one that seemed to come from a dragon whelp who suddenly found himself potentially freed from indentured servitude.
“It is only fair, Rarity,” said the Daybringer with a smile. “I am sure I can afford it, and Luna too. Here, let me just…”
The crowd in the grandstand watched, their eyes getting wider, as the elder sister began to decrease the amount of the deep magic that sat within her ancient frame.
Apparently, she hadn’t done it for quite some time.
“Hurrrrrrrr!” Celestia exclaimed, a single shudder going through her. “Murrrrghh!”
The entirety of the assembly looked upon the alicorn as she closed one eye, winced, and danced her hooves.
“Rrruuuggghhhhh… ruh, rugghhhhhh.”
The ponies looked upon their sovereign wordlessly, each blinking in disbelief as their princess made rather indelicate noises.
“Waaaaggggghhhhhhhhhh…”
Celestia’s tongue hung out, and one of her eyes bulged. As a series of shakes coursed the lengths of her body most in the audience felt their eyes only growing wider, and one filly began to cry.
“Majesty, oh dear, I… I didn’t mean…” Rarity attempted to interject.
“Oh, it is no problem, my dear,” Celestia said, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow.
At once she was at it again.
“Brrreeeewwwwwaahhhhhgggg…”
Rarity covered Sweetie Belle’s eyes.
“Princess,” Rarity interjected, “if it’s inconvenient, don’t feel that you…”
“No, no, my dear," the princess said, “I have this one… just let me…”
“Oh, well, if…” began the unicorn.
“Leerrrrrhhummmpphhhfffffff…”
The alicorn groaned, stuttered, and gave another lurid motion that seemed an imperfect mix of pain, incontinence, and modern dance. With that there was an immoral sound, kind of a wet pop, not unlike if someone had thrown the cake down a stairwell at a very good office party.
“There we are, is that better? I certainly hope so,” said the alicorn with a small sigh. “I’ve pushed my magic all the way down to the level it was at the first time I raised my sun. Is that fair, Rarity? Rarity?”
Rarity did not answer, and instead she, along with the rest of the ponies gathered there, gazed at her mane. It was pink. Just pink.
“Well… no, my princess, not really,” mouthed the unicorn. “Forgive me, but you’re still quite powerful… and it is still not quite fair.”
“Oh,” said Celestia, looking a little self-conscious. “I’m sorry, but I can’t depress my powers any further, not without the sun dimming and casting us into darkness, I’m afraid…”
“Yes!” came a voice from the grandstand, one that sounded like it arose from a mare who had just gotten her uncompensated labor force back.
“Buck!” came the voice of a dragon whelp, one who quickly covered his mouth and blushed red in embarrassment.
“Heh,” laughed Rainbow Dash. “Hey, Salty, keep using language like that and Twilight will have me wash out your mouth with the same soap that you’ll be using to clean my bathroom!”
Spike groaned.
“Hey,” she said, bopping him again, “how was that for some sarcasm?”
“Sardonicism,” he said, checking the far horizon to make sure that the wailing Twilight had not heard his cursing. He turned back to Dash to find her blushing brightly.
“Wow,” she said, her own face a twist of surprise. “Aren’t you a little young to know about that?”
“What? Sardonicism? It means ‘in a sardonic way’. Right? Why? W-What do you think it means?”
“Nothing!”
Back at the starting line, a pink-haired Celestia turned to her sister.
“Luna?” she said, lifting her hoof. “Will you not do the same?”
“Ha!” laughed the younger sister sovereign. “Nay!”
The Nightbringer turned to the other competitors, and a particularly bloodthirsty smile fell from her that sent several onlookers in the grandstand running away screaming and into the comforting embraces of their therapists.
“Nay, Sister,” she chuckled, “we shall not forgo our strength! Too long have we suffered that we may retain our title, and here upon this glorious field of battle we shall not suffer its loss!”
The eyes of the ponies in the grandstand went wide once more, and even the two contenders in the bet stopped their explorations of grammar as Luna’s words fell across the farm.
“Nay!” she continued. “We seek to strive in divine combat! Let those who should seek our besting suffer the pain of defeat! Our throne is ours alone, and we shall not share it! We shall clutch onto it until Death himself grabs it from our hooves! Let all who seek our undoing feel the power of the moon that courses through this frame!”
Applejack slid Apple Bloom behind her.
“Where art our enemies!? Let them feel the holy wrath of our judgment! We shall smite them all! There shall be wailing, and families shall weep! We shall leave their crushed, broken bodies upon…”
“Luna! Luna, no, dearest sister,” Celestia interrupted, her own eyes a touch wide. “No, dear… this, this is not that kind of competition. This, this is the Sisterhooves Social, in Ponyville, the one we talked about yesterday. This contest is not what you believe it to be…”
“Pray you, sister, the Sisterhooves Social?” Luna said, jumping a touch in surprise. “Oh! Forgive me!”
With that Luna blushed slightly and smiled to the crowd. She dropped her shimmering, starlit mane down to the single tone of blue that she had worn when she had just returned from imprisonment within Nightmare Moon.
“Truly, 'twas but a silly mistake on my part,” she giggled as she dropped her third-pony persona. The crowd breathed easier, and some small chatting and laughter broke out. “My, now I feel the fool! This is not such a competition, is it, dear sister?”
“No, my sister,” Celestia said with a smile, rolling her eyes. She giggled too, and then focused back on the race before them.
“No,” she said with a small laugh, “you were thinking of the National Moon Pie Eating Championship in Hofston next week.”
“Indeed!”
The crowd went stark silent once again, the only discernable noise being that of their jaws hitting the ground.
“Alright! Get yer rumps on the line!” came the gravely voice of the Granny Smith.
At the starting line and in the crowd, various ponies began to wince as the old green mare rocked closer and closer to the megaphone. More than a few remembered her unfortunate eye injury from the year before.
“On yer marks!” she called, rocking closer to the megaphone, causing the crowd to grimace.
“Get set!” she said, bringing her eyes perilously closer to the conical device as she rocked forward once more.
Her chair rocked forward, the crowd gasped…
… and Twilight Sparkle emerged from a poof of her magic, her eyes still bleary, and tripped across the old mare, sending them both to the ground.
“Oh! Mah back!” called Granny Smith.
“I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” answered Twilight as she still blubbered.
“Sardonic!” cried Spike from the grandstand as he waved his arms frantically, trying once again to apologize to his caregiver.
“Oh! Mah back!” Granny Smith repeated.
“Oh dear. Here, please, let me help,” came a strong, caring voice. Celestia’s magic reappeared in her mane for an instant, and with that Granny Smith found herself lying comfortably on a table and surrounded by several virile looking young stallions.
“I say fellows!” called one. “One moment we were at the National Chiropractic and Sensual Massage Seminar, and now here we are at this farm!”
“How very odd!” commented another stallion. “Why, weren’t we about to accept the prize for Most Tactile Chiropractic Team? And now, here we are indeed!”
“Mah back?” Granny Smith said again, a sudden shadow of hope appearing in her voice.
The stallions looked down, and there discovered the incapacitated octogenarian. “My word, lads!” called another one. “This poor mare! Let us not let our newfound titles for Best Carnality in a Massage go to waste as we race to her aid!”
In the grandstand and at the starting line most big sisters placed their hooves over the eyes of their little sisters. As the sounds of oils splattering reached their ears most of the young fillies reached up and did the same for their older siblings as well.
“Go!” whimpered Granny Smith in a libidinous tone, and after a moment the wide-eyed participants at the starting line realized that the word had floated out to find them.
The crowd at the grandstand gave a loud shout of excitement, and with that the race began.
It seemed a slaughter from the get-go.
Spike wailed as Celestia and Luna leapt from the starting line in time, the sisters’ longer strides, easy breaths, and unerring grace instantly leaving the other participants behind. Rainbow Dash could only grin and reach for more of the popcorn in the box she had stuck to Spike’s spines as her inevitable victory approached.
In what seemed moments the royal sisters had reached the first obstacle, the mud pit leap.
The crowd looked on as Celestia lifted her graceful frame, her long legs reaching out before her as she leapt into the air…
… and then fell face-forward into the mud with a sullen splat.
Spike looked up to see that the piece of popcorn that Dash had begun to toss into her mouth was somehow suspended in the air in front of her, and the pegasus herself seemed frozen in place in shock and disbelief.
“Take thee to the wing, my sister!” called Luna, bounding past her older sibling. “Disregard the sodden earth! Obtain thy victory!”
At once the Nightbringer’s wings came open, and the alicorn sprang into the sky…
The misty shoreline of Equestria knows many hidden places. Some of them are well known, and others hang in myths of silent shores and ancient lords. Some are majestic in their sweep, and grand in their beauty.
Some are known to the fiercest of races beyond Equestria’s borders, and it was to one such place that the diamond dog longship Hambone glided on the gentle wind.
Rex walked the length of the longship. The oars were stored, and as he went forward he felt the wind that brought his boat closer to the towering cliffs and short beach of the fjord beyond. Equestria loomed over him and he looked upon his crew, imparting to them his warning.
“We come only for gems,” he said, looking out over the entire complement of his crew, some three-dozen dogs. They sat hunched on the deck, peering at Equestria beyond even as their spears were held high over them.
This was the best crew he’d ever assembled. He still wondered if it would be enough…
“We come only for gems. Take gems, find gems, steal gems. We go. We can not stay long,” Rex said, his voice resolute even at a whisper. “Equestria scary place, dangerous for dogs. Rumors tell of whining harpies.”
He held their gaze as he lifted a fist and told them of their role in the raid.
“We must not stay long. Must not attract the guardsponies. Must, must, must not be noticed by…”
There was the sudden clatter of hooves, and the rustle of feathers as something landed in the boat.
“Curses!” said Luna, stomping her hoof on the timbered deck. “We have but overshot our mark!”
With that she turned, smiled at the diamond dogs with a smile that made the iron fall out of their red blood cells, and took to the air once more.
“… their princesses,” Rex whimpered.
Luna returned to the farm to find that most of the teams had overtaken Celestia. This didn’t seem to be a very hard thing to do, as her sister was hopping along with all four of her hooves firmly stuck in the bottom of a half-barrel.
“I pray you sister,” Luna said, arching an eyebrow as Celestia went thudding past her in little leaps. “You are vexed?”
“Yes,” replied Celestia as she hopped along, “I seem to be having some difficulty with my hooves. You see, the barrel run was next, and whilst you were away I began it.”
Luna’s eyebrow arched higher as her sister skipped along with the barrel half firmly stuck around her hooves, loud thuds sounding out each time she made her little jump forward along the course.
“I could very well have simply walked it in a few steps, but I was so taken by the way that Rarity’s darling little sister did it that I felt mischievous enough to try it that way myself. Sadly, all of my hooves are now stuck within. I could remove it easily enough with my magic, but we must be fair, you see.”
Luna looked up to where a rather confused looking Sweetie Belle, Rarity, and the rest of the competitors watched. As they did they were treated to the sight of their ageless and mighty sovereign rolling to her back and waving the barrel through the air in attempt to free herself.
“Well, we can now all look upon this bunghole,” she said with a frustrated sigh. There was a collective gasp in the grandstand, and some older sisters clamped their hooves firmly across their little sisters’ ears.
“My sister!” gulped a shocked Luna. “I know thou art but disappointed in thine self, but such language is unbecoming!”
“What? Oh, oh no, dear sister!” blushed Celestia. “The bunghole is a hole drilled into a barrel and sealed with wax to allow the contents to be emptied at the appropriate time. See, one stands out on this barrel half.”
Celestia wiggled the barrel towards her sister… showing off her bunghole.
In the stands some younger sisters lifted their older sisters’ hooves from their ears and began to lecture them on the descent and evolution of contemporary language.
Back out on the course, the other participants had slowed their progress to watch in disbelief as their princesses struggled to even begin the race. They also slowed down to prevent themselves from coming any closer than necessary to where Granny Smith was making lurid noises as her massage progressed.
In the grass next to the grandstand Spike picked the single piece of popcorn out of the air, studied it, and then placed it back so that it once more floated in mid-air over the unmoving pegasus. It hovered over Dash’s mouth as her shock at the realization that the princesses might not win the bet for her continued to, apparently, emit supernatural anti-gravitational and time-compression forces.
“Whoa,” he said to no one in particular, “that’s freaky.”
Thud, thud, thud.
Together Luna and her barrel-encased sister ran and hopped towards the next obstacle… the crate climb.
Luna leapt to the top easily. At once the other sisters in the race remembered that they were scrambling against ancient and supposedly divine beings and took off once more.
They all came to an immediate stop as the sound of splintering wood reached their ears. They all turned to find Princess Celestia suspiciously absent from the course.
Luna looked down to discover that Celestia had crashed her way down through the entire stack of crates.
“Sister!” she called in alarm.
“Oh, I am fine,” came an embarrassed voice from within the stack of crates. “Do not concern yourself with me.”
“Come along then, my sister,” Luna said. “Rise up! We must carry the day upon this field!”
Silence.
“Sister?”
“I,” began the older sister in a rather sheepish tone. “I do believe I am stuck.”
Luna felt other ponies gathering near her. To her surprise many other participants in the race were returning back and gazing down into the blackness wherein rested the older Sister Sovereign of Equestria… apparently lodged in a crate and entrapped in a barrel half.
“Why do you not free yourself, sister?” asked Luna as more ponies gathered with her at the top of the stack.
“Oh, no… I can get out. It will not take but a moment. It is just that I promised not to use so much of my magic, you see. We must be fair, and all. I am just having difficulty with this one bit…”
Sounds of frustration arose from within the deep, dark reaches of the shattered crates.
“There, there is something wedged… oh, my. It has inserted itself among my barrel half.”
“Princess?” asked Applejack as she and Apple Bloom looked over the side. ”Ma’am? What’s the matter? Anythin’ we can help ya’ with?”
“Oh, no. It is wonderfully noble of you to ask though. Please, do not let me distract you from the race. I simply need to dislodge the part of the crate, that is… is stuck in…”
A silence arose once more.
“Ma’am?” asked the earth pony.
“The barrel is impaled upon some component of the crate, perhaps the metal band. I seem unable to remove it,” came a rather self-conscious voice from within.
“Sister?” asked Luna.
A heavy sigh arose from deep within the crate, followed by a somber declaration.
“I have something stuck in my bunghole.”
Luna placed her hoof to her face.
“Oh no!” called Apple Bloom, alive with worry. “The princess’s bunghole is all in peril and such!”
Applejack stifled a snort.
“Enough of this!” called Luna, and at once deep and powerful magic flew out across the scene. While the other sets of sisters went tumbling from the stacks of crates, Luna’s horn came alight. Soon most were off running again, each attempting to regain their position in the race, escape the onslaught of the Nightbringer’s magic, and get farther away from the splattering oils that flew far and wide from Granny Smith’s massage.
“I shall no longer brook such bungholery!” cried Luna, rising into the air as her magic gathered to her and her eyes shone. “Let what magic sits in me curse these obstacles of competition! Have at thee, cubical storage units!”
Magic as deep and black as the night sky erupted through the crates, and they were tossed high into the air, sailing away to the far horizon.
“Oh,” said Celestia, blinking in her sun, “that was easy enough!”
With that she hopped to her sister’s side, the barrel still stuck inexplicably in place upon her hooves, and together they made their way to the next obstacle.
In the distant fjord Rex kneeled in the bow of the longboat, watching the small flotilla of his diamond dog raiders make for the distant shore. Behind them the familiar frame of his prized warship stood serenely in the misty fjord.
The longboats pulled in time, their muffled oars silently propelling them through the calm waters of the foggy bay.
“Rex?” came the voice of one of his dogs. It was a large one, and his best friend and lieutenant. “Biscuit worry about omen of pony princess. Biscuit worry about what means.”
Rex leaned down and petted his friend on the head. “Biscuit need not worry. Rex knows pony princess cannot be in all places at one time. We go all sneaky now, and all will be…”
There was a whistling sound. The dogs gazed around in confusion, and it only grew louder. Rex looked up just in time to see what looked like a group of large apple crates come plummeting through the sky.
With that they smashed straight through the hull of his warship.
He and his dogs looked on as the Hambone upended itself, spun around on its stern, and sank into the crystal waters of the fjord with a single unceremonious glub, not unlike a toy boat being pulled into a bathtub drain.
Rex slowly put his head in his paws and finished his thought.
“… fine.”
Chapter 2: "Down to the Wire"
Chapter 2: “Down to the Wire”
Thud, thud, thud.
Spike didn’t bother to look up as the sounds of the princesses rejoining the race lifted from the course.
He was far too interested in seeing just how powerful the supernatural forces that Rainbow Dash’s astonishment had created truly were. In addition to many popcorn kernels, the air above the astonished pegasus was now full of cotton candy, Mairsy Doats wrappers, assorted trash, a lounge chair, and Scootaloo.
He was just about to see if he could get one of the portable toilets up there too when all of the objects came crashing to the earth.
As Scootaloo wobbled away on unsteady legs, Rainbow Dash recovered, lit up in excitement, pulled him closer, and then pointed towards the obstacle course.
“Ha!” she said. “You thought that you had me there, didn’t ya’, kiddo? But the princesses are at the pie-eating table now, and they’re gonna have their just deserts!”
Spike was just about to inform her that she meant "desserts", but he instead focussed on how she smiled down at him in a way that made him uncomfortable on a number of levels ranging from professionally, to philosophically, to grammatically.
“Aren’t ya’ gonna say it?” she asked, barely dropping her manic grin.
“S-Say what?” he asked, taking a step backward and bouncing off of a still-dizzy Scootaloo.
“That word,” she said, “the one you’ve been using, and I just used when I said that.”
“Sardonic?” he said, rubbing his head in confusion. “But what you just said was kinda ironic, sorta, not sardonic. Ironic means using sardonicism, sometimes. It usually means the opposite of what ya’ thought was going to happen, so it wasn’t even that, huh?”
Rainbow Dash dropped her smile, and a scowl went across her face as she stared down to the course.
“The first thing I’m going to do when I win this bet,” she said in a huff, “is have you teach me all of the meanings of all the stuff you said when you were losin’ this bet!”
“There ya’ go!”
“What?”
“Never mind…”
It truly was a race now, and the princesses quickly regained their place at the forefront of the pack, despite Celestia having to hop along due to her self-imposed embarrelment.
The pie table was right in front of them, and the two sisters leaned down and began to devour the pies before them, easily gathering larger mouthfuls as the other sets of siblings struggled to keep up.
Luna reached down for what she thought was her last few mouthfuls, but to her surprise the pie plate was already empty.
She looked up to discover her sister staring wide-eyed into the distance. The edges of her mouth betrayed just the slightest presence not only of her own pie, but Luna’s as well.
“Oh my…” breathed the Daybringer.
To Rarity’s surprise the princess snatched her pie away from her, smiled self-consciously, and then devoured it down to the very pie tin. Rarity looked on in astonishment as the princess then lapped at the tin with squeals of delight.
“In father’s name!” the older alicorn cried, craning her neck to gather the pie that sat in front of Sweetie as well, a shudder of delight running through her as she did.
She then reached for Applejack’s, and Apple Bloom’s… and Dinky’s… and just about every pie within tongue-length…
“Oh, in mother’s name!” called Celestia, falling over onto her back, her body hidden from the grandstand view by the table. That turned out for the best, for as the barrel-half hung over her she continued to pull pies down to herself with wafts of her magic, devouring them with obvious epicurean delight. In the grandstand, several older sisters found themselves having to explain to their younger siblings the type of things that happen when an ageless, supposedly immortal, and supposedly divine alicorn and a pie love each other very much.
“The old problem, my sister?” asked Luna in a judgmental tone, looking down over the prostrate form of Celestia. “One should think that thou hast but conquered the demon within by now.”
Little tremors of pleasure went up the legs of the older sister, and as the other participants in the race sprinted towards the next obstacle even the massage therapists who were seeing to Granny Smith had to turn their heads and gaze towards the hidden form of their sovereign.
“Oh, forgive me, Luna, but I’ve not had pie such as this in centuries!” Celestia called in enthusiastic tones. “I must know!” she cried as the barrel-half spun around as though it were her head. “I must know who crafted these divine pies!”
“Come forward!” lifted the voice of the sovereign, echoing across the farm in a tone both beautiful and terrible, sending more spectators running from the grandstand and into years of expensive psychotherapy.
“Come forward, crafter of these delectables! Come forward and receive the blessings of the sun!” said the barrel-half, apparently.
A single young mare picked her way forward, her body trembling as she went to where the two princesses, and the barrel-half, sat among the rapidly depleting fruits of her labor.
“I-I h-have c-come, Maj-Majesty. I-I m-made these… these pies for the com-competition,” she stuttered as yet another empty pie plate flew away from where Celestia lay hidden.
“You are Allspice, are you not? Fear not, child! I have not tasted pies of this quality since long before your birth! We congratulate you, and we praise you!” said Celestia, waving the barrel-half around.
“Really?!” said Allspice, her face brightening as she lifted it to the barrel-half. “Oh, Majesty, thank you! I…”
“Please, child,” said Celestia in a voice both gentle and chiding as she recoiled the barrel-half, “please do not look directly at my bunghole. It is indelicate to do so.”
Allspice blushed brightly and then looked back down to the ground.
“Child,” Celestia asked in her usual gentle tones, “would you perhaps do me a favor? It is just a small one.”
“Majesty?” Allspice answered. “Of course!”
A momentary stillness hung over the racecourse.
“It is really just a little thing.”
“Certainly, my princess!”
There was a moment of silence.
“Just a tiny favor…”
“Simply name it, Majesty!”
“Very well. Thank you, my child. Now, I am going to teleport you to Canterlot. There you’ll find Joe. He is a retired guardspony who owns a doughnut shop. I already cannot eat his doughnuts in polite company, and I had to meditate for days just to get over my initial addiction to them. I should like for you to please consider leaping into his embrace and falling madly in love with each other. Having done that, I should like for you to spend years and years and years in the throes of nothing short of beautiful, magnificent, wondrous, wanton lust. That being accomplished, you will then have many, many, many, lovely foals who will eventually grow up to become, in the magic of their parents, bakers and confectioners the likes of which Equestria has never seen and who will supply me and my court with such baked goods as these for eons to come…
… and, child, please get right on that.”
“W-What?” breathed Allspice as surprise fell across her face.
There was a single “pop”, and with that Allspice disappeared from the scene.
“Really, my sister?” asked Luna as she eyed Celestia dubiously. The other alicorn waved the barrel-half around and rose to the upright once more.
“What?” asked Celestia as she wiped the pie from her face with her magic. “I asked politely, did I not?”
“I do think that thy hast had your fill of these baked delights,” said Luna as her magic wafted over the table.
“No! Luna, please!”
The remaining pies all disappeared into a nexus of evening magic, and Luna guided her bawling sister on to the next obstacle.
Meanwhile, back at the fjord, things had taken a turn for the theological.
Rex called his dogs to their knees as they gained the high plateau. As the fjord glimmered far below them he raised his arms wide, extended his paws, and called on their divinity to guide their progress.
“Lord Snoopy!” he called. “Give to Rex and dogs their baubles! Give us the strength to go on. Show us the way from atop mighty doghouse in sky! Send to us some sign. Give us some way to know…”
Splat.
Splat, splat, splat.
The dogs looked on in astounded wonder as Rex was soon covered with what appeared to be a few dozen banana cream pies that came falling from the sky. He was soon plastered in their apparently holy crusts, and their seemingly divine meringue dribbled past his ears.
Rex sat there, on his knees, motionless. After a few moments Biscuit approached him and dared run his claws across the sacred moist filling, freeing it from the face of his commander and friend.
Biscuit heard Rex whisper a name, and as soon as he heard it he turned towards another dog that crouched on the beach.
Old Blue fought to his paws, the aged shaman came closer, his dog tags and collars jingling upon his staff. As he approached Rex he could see that the eyes of the diamond dog pleaded with him for answers.
“Old Blue,” Rex asked, a tremble going through him, "what do pies mean?”
Old Blue grunted, shifted his jaw. Soon, sacred words lifted from him as he jangled the staff over the commander.
“Bow wow,” he chanted, “bow… bow wow wow, ruff. Bow ruff, ruff.”
The dogs bowed their heads in reverence.
Old Blue stopped. He lifted the staff, grunting and shifted his jaw once more as he did.
“W-What do pies mean?” repeated Rex.
“Old Blue,” said the shaman, “have no idea.”
With sounds of effort and a creaking of his old bones, he bowed down and lifted one of the more intact pie plates.
“But,” he said as he began to munch upon the remains of the pie, “Old Blue think it time for a lunch break.”
With that he went off, leaving the dogs on the mountain path in the midst of personal spiritual crises.
Thud, thud, thud.
The princesses approached the next set of obstacles, Celestia still hopping about in the barrel-half.
They were made to stop as a bawling Twilight Sparkle appeared out of nowhere, crossed the racecourse in front of them in the midst of her despondency, and once again pelted off into a poof of her own magic.
“I was being…darn…” Spike frantically called to her, waving his arms, hoping and failing to catch her before she disappeared again.
“Hey, Spike?” said Rainbow Dash, her voice cracking slightly. “I… I wouldn’t feel too bad about making Twilight cry like that.”
“W-What? Why?” asked Spike in disbelief.
“’Cause I didn’t do it! You did!” she said as a wicked smile crossing her face. She laughed as he once more put his face in his palm and groaned aloud.
Thud, thud, thud.
Their progress now unimpeded by emotionally distraught unicorns, the two alicorn sisters made their way to where the hay bales stood.
“Sister!” Luna cried. “We fall behind once more! Let us not tarry! Nay, let us exert ourselves!”
“Careful, Luna,” Celestia said as she hopped forward, joining her sister before the remaining hay bale. “You exerted yourself too much at the first obstacle, and you had to fly back again.”
“You speak the truth,” said the younger sister with a sigh, “and we shall only exert ourselves as much as needed.”
“Just a tiny bit of exerting,” said Celestia, eyeing her sister.
“Of course,” replied Luna, lowering her head.
“Only the sparsest of exertions!” warned Celestia, bouncing up and down, the barrel thumping in tiny, worried, motions.
“Certainly,” replied Luna, and with that she placed her head to the bale.
As it soared out over Sweet Apple Acres, it seemed to only be gaining speed. The two sisters, the ponies in the grandstands, and the masseurs who were still applying their arts to Granny Smith, watched it leave. Only a few stray shafts of hay seemed to escape it as it disappeared into the far, far horizon.
After a moment, Luna spoke.
“I find that this competition doth lack the simplicity of contests I truly enjoy,” she said with a shake of her head. “Truly, it is much easier to simply crush my foes and leave their broken, twisted bones to bleach in your sun, my sister.”
“You are going to be an absolute charmer at the National Moon Pie Eating Championship, Luna,” Celestia said with a heavy sigh, the irony dripping out of her words in such quantities that it soon filled the barrel-half and spilled out of her bunghole.
Duke was a good dog most of the time. Sometimes, however, he was a bad dog. Yes, a very bad dog, indeed.
As the diamond dogs clawed their way up the face of the mountain he was being a bad dog. This was mostly because he wouldn’t shut up.
“Duke not see why we have to climb mountain!” he spat as he lost his grip. His curses rang out across the cliffside even as he and the other dogs struggled towards the top.
Rex knew full well why they had to, and he had explained it thoroughly. This was the fastest way into the interior, and would keep them from being spotted by the regular army and guardsponies. The rock was too hard to burrow through… so climb they must.
Duke was ignoring that, and instead focusing on something else entirely. Something else that, if he didn’t shut up, could possibly get them all in a lot of trouble.
“Oh, dogs see one pony princess, dogs get all scared!” Duke said, turning on a small ledge.
Rex winced even as he heaved himself up to the next level of rock.
“Oh no! Pony princess have scary big eyes and cutie mark on butt! What pony princess gonna do to dogs? Chew grass at dogs? Bat eyes and ask dogs to go away or she cry?”
“Duke!” Rex called as he reached above himself again. “Shut mouth!”
“Oh no!” Duke continued, tripping a bit as his shelf of rock crumbled beneath his paws. “Rex scared of pony princess! Dogs scared of pony princess! Duke not scared of pony princess. Duke think pony princess not so smart, or would have come to stop dogs! Pony princess fly away! Pony princess do what? Ha! Duke think…”
As the hay bale struck him, Duke went tumbling from the mountainside. As his screams sounded out around the fjord the dogs looked on in wide-eyed terror.
After a long moment the dogs that clung to the cliff saw the splash, and after a moment the sound of it reached them.
They hung there in silence for a moment, and then a new sound lifted from the dogs.
“Rex like pretty pony princesses!” came the booming voice of their leader, and soon the mountainside was filled with a chorus of diamond dogs repeating his refrain. As seagulls looked on in confusion the dogs clung to their outcroppings and sang out in a mixture of terror, wonder, and hidden personal truths.
“Dogs like little ponies!”
“Me like pony princess!”
“Biscuit really like her mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne!”
Thud, thud, thud.
Splash.
Rainbow Dash and Spike had no time to argue semantics before the princesses had gained the next obstacle. With a single bound and flap of her wings Celestia had lifted herself into the great vat of the grapes in preparation for the creating of the grape juice.
There were many factors in what happened next. Perhaps it was the enthusiasm of the princess, or the great mass of her graceful body. Maybe it was the unyielding staves of the barrel-half, or the roundness of her bunghole. Maybe it was all of these factors… perhaps it was none.
Whatever it was, Celestia quickly showed herself to be rather proficient at making grape juice.
The tidal wave of purplish waters that washed over the audience and other competitors was, put mildly, appreciable.
After much coughing, sputtering, and hacking, the audience stood and looked back to where the princess landed beside the cask.
“Oh my,” she breathed as she examined herself. As she did she noted how the mud from her earlier fall still clung to her pink hair in two streaks, creating purplish and pinkish hues that stood out on her now lavender coat.
“Oh my!” she breathed again, folding her wings closer to herself so they almost disappeared against her coat. She pulled down her bangs in front until they nearly reached her eyes.
“Why, I almost look like dear…”
Celestia lifted her head and scanned the audience.
“Hello, Spike,” she said, catching his eye. “Do tell me, who do I remind you of?”
Spike blinked. Apart from the barrel-half and the jewelry (and her immense size, supposed immortality, and suggested divinity) Celestia almost looked like…
“Oh, how I do love books!” Celestia said, raising her tone. “I should make a list of all the things that I enjoy about books… and then list the things that I love about making lists!”
“No way,” said Spike, fighting back a smile.
“Now I shall spend the next few hours studying the minutiae of this or that topic of no real importance before writing a detailed summary which I shall develop into a thesis… and then file it away!” she said, hopping a little in her barrel-half to represent the rapturous joy that seemed to possess Twilight at such thoughts.
Spike tried to stifle his laughter, but it erupted from him in a single snort.
“Oh no!” Celestia cried, painting feigned concern into her voice and shaking her head to frazzle her hair. “Something has gone slightly different that I had originally planned! I shall now devolve into a fit of hysteria!”
As a small tremor of her magic washed the coloring from her coat the princess smiled at him, noting how he was now laughing a touch. She and Luna then proceeded on to the next obstacle, the dragon unaware of her departing.
“Hey, hey!” he called out, “Now send your assistant off to fetch something… because you don’t have spares for the spares! Or, or… how about being so concerned with your spell that you don’t seem to realize that you’re hitting him with a rock! Or, hey, how about throwing him across the room because he tickled you! Or…”
Spike was deafened as a single bawl punctuated the air behind him. He turned around to find Twilight spinning around in a circle, dancing her hooves, and pelting off into her own magic as theatrical streams of water washed from her eyes.
“No, wait, Twi! I was being sarcastic! No, wait, was that sardonic? Whatever it was I’m sor…” he cried, once more waving his arms as she disappeared.
“Shoot.”
He turned back to face the smirking presence of Rainbow Dash.
“How long was she standing there?” he asked her.
“Long enough to make it hilarious,” she answered, bopping his nose again.
He groaned again, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sat down to watch the continuing debacle of the race as it unfolded.
Thud, thud, thud.
The two royal sisters approached the next obstacle, the apple toss.
As a few of the spectators finished swimming through the remaining pools of purple, they made their way back to the grandstand seats. They looked down to see the alicorns gaining the long table where the apples sat in the sun.
“Cast them hither, sister!” called Luna, arriving at the distant cask.
“Here they come, Luna!” cried Celestia, and with that she dropped her oak-shod hooves across the edge of the table, like she had witnessed Applejack do earlier.
As she did, a gasp went through the crowd. Each pony there imagined what new sort of mishap or tragedy would befall the princesses, the other competitors, or even themselves in the wake of this new challenge.
A bit of breathless anticipation went through the crowd as the apples lurched into the air, each pony in the grandstand wondering what sort of horror would be unleashed. Still others wondered what sort of spectacle they were about to witness.
As the glistening surfaces of the fruit went shimmering through the air, a high, collective whine escaped from those who sat in the bleachers. As the apples came closer and closer to Luna those in the grandstand grasped for their loved ones and breathed deep in anticipation.
The apples fell into the basket with ease.
“Well,” intoned Celestia, “that was simple enough.”
“Indeed!” replied Luna, and with that the two were off to the chicken coop beyond.
The ponies in the grandstand breathed an easy sigh of relief. Truly, the worst seemed to have passed. There was only one real event left, and then the quick dash to the finish. Wiping their foreheads with the back of their hooves the occupants of the grandstand congratulated themselves on surviving the Sisterhooves Social, and laugher began to rise from them.
That was when the first abomination arose from the chicken coop, tearing off into the sky with a cry like the voices of all the demons of Tartarus. The occupants of the grandstand huddled together in one large Equestrian lump, watching as it swooped once, twice, and then flew off to destinations unknown.
They could only stare in further disbelief as it happened again.
“I pray you, sister,” called Luna as the two alicorn sisters departed the chicken coop, carrying an egg between them. “Would this not be easier if you did not keep hatching the eggs with the radiance of the sun within you?”
Even as Luna said the words a tiny chick sprang to life from the egg they had been carrying, the newborn peeping happy.
“D’aaawwwwwwwwwwww!” cried the crowd in unison.
“Perhaps,” said an annoyed Celestia, trying her best to hop carefully in her barrel-half, “though I truly could not unless I risk having my power ebb and the solar system fall out of alignment again.
“Again?” came a defeated voice from the grandstand. With that a prominent Equestrian astrophysicist stood up from her seat, dumped her most recent thesis in a nearby garbage can, and went to sit under an apple tree and ponder her life.
“It would be equally as useful, I should say,” continued Celestia, “if you would not waft the dark powers of the night and your moon into them.”
With that the chick immediately grew to hundreds, then thousands of times its original size. At once its wings grew leathery and its talons sharp. The creature, a chickenodactyl of sorts, lifted into the air, screeched a sound filled with hopelessness and despair, and lifted into the skies above the farm.
“D’aaahhhhhhhhhhhh!” cried the crowd in unison.
“I see much truth in thy words, my sister,” Luna said, watching the creatures swooping to and fro, scattering the other competitors and very, very, very nearly making the massaging team give up their ministrations over Granny Smith. The “massaginists” continued seeing to the needs of the aged mare even as they pelted the chickenodactyls with various loose objects, their emptied bottles of oil, and Scootaloo.
“Mom?” she asked, bouncing off of one of the birds.
“Though,” Luna said as she lifted her shoulders, “if one doth but seek to fashion an omelet, one must break a few eggs.”
“Or turn them into terrifying creatures from beyond the darkest reaches of thought, it seems,” Celestia said, giving one a disapproving glance that sent it flying away over the horizon.
“Indeed!” Luna giggled.
“The moon pie eating competition should be absolutely amazing this year,” Celestia said with a grimace. “Come now, sister, look! The pathway to victory is open for us! We simply must leap the hurdle and dash to the finish! Come now!”
As the other teams lay about in shell-shocked confusion they watched their sovereigns begin the final stretch of the race.
“Yes!” cried Rainbow Dash in a victorious laugh, rising into the air on a powerful beat of her wings. With a loop she landed back beside Spike. “This has been stupid, but it’s almost over the only way it could have ended! With. Me. Winning!”
“I can’t watch!” cried Spike, listening as the princesses thudded their way towards victory.
Thud, thud, thud.
Bump.
Crash.
The tired competitors, the loyal spectators… passing chickenodactyls… they all looked down to see Celestia once more face down in the dust, her barrel-half having been caught upon the hurdle.
“Oh dear,” she said, “I seem to have known some difficulty with my bunghole.”
In unison, the entire gathering of sisters and spectators snorted a stifled laugh.
That is, until the other sets of sisters realized that this was their one last hope of crossing the line first.
“Sister!” Luna cried, a particularly competitive tone dripping out of her that sent Berry Punch and Berry Pinch circling in fear and alarm before they zipped past her towards the distant finish line. “Quickly! Victory eludes us! I shall use my magic to finally remove the obstruction!”
“No, Luna!” cried Celestia, shifting her weight and trying to get back to her hooves… errr, barrel. “Sister! That is not fair! We promised not to…”
Still, it was useless. Luna’s competitive nature arose within her, and at once night magic and a spell of teleportation arose in dark colors around her horn. Her eyes shone, her wings went wide…
… and that’s when a bawling Twilight Sparkle exited a poof of her magic, running straight into the Nightbringer.
Luna’s spell was cast as she fell to the earth, Twilight once more disappearing as the magic arced wide.
Luna’s teleportation spell fell among a small crowd nearby…
The sounds of diamond dogs locked in battle arose over the mountains that lined the cliffs around the fjord.
Nightmarish beings that looked like the unholy result of a drunken escapade in a cheap hotel room between a chicken, a pterodactyl, and an umbrella swooped down at them. As the calls of the abominations reached them the dogs were stunned by the sound. It was a vile noise, one that made them blanch, fall to the ground in fear, and made some wish that they had made earlier bathroom breaks.
They rallied on one another, their spears held high, trying to shield themselves from the onslaught of the chickenodactyls.
In a moment of respite, Rex threw his sword into the earth and extended his paws. He collapsed to the dirt, and then sat up and to his knees.
He looked deep into the reflection in the blade, and then with his arms still held in front of him he leaned back and called out to the sky.
“Lord Snoopy!” he brayed. “Rex seek! Rex and dogs fetch! Dogs come to Equestria to find gems! Dogs only have really, really, really bad time! Why? What must Rex do!?”
He choked a single choking cough, and then went back to his exhortations.
“What must Rex do!? What would you have Rex do to save dogs! What must Rex do to save dogs from poultry-based fate!” he cried, the words lifting from him in a plea.
There was the soft pop of magic.
Rex suddenly felt weight in his hands. There was softness there, and for some reason there was a flowery scent that lifted from… oil? Oil on his paws?
He blinked, leaned forward, and looked at what rested in his paws.
The old, green, wrinkled, oiled mare seemed not to have realized that she’d left the farm and the team of masseurs that had been giving her such welcome and professional service for the last few minutes.
“Now then,” said Granny Smith, her eyes still closed, “Ah think it’s worth talkin’ ‘bout if this here little bit o’ fun is gonna have a happy endin’…”
Rex’s scream echoed out along the mountainside, down the fjord, and out over the sea beyond.
“Come, sister!” Luna cried. “The race is…”
Her head panned to the finish line. As it did it revealed the trembling forms of Rarity and Sweetie Belle standing there as a very nervous looking official smiled, sweated, and prepared to give them their medals.
The entire assemblage turned and looked at Luna.
“… over,” she concluded. “Oh well!”
“That is that then!” said Celestia. “Well played, let us go congratulate them!”
“Indeed!” replied Luna, and with that the crowd picked their jaws off the ground.
The sudden whoop of a dragon whelp lifted from the grandstand, and as he began to dance his dance the sound of a small whine escaping from a pegasus mare provided the soundtrack.
“Dashie is my slave, doo doo! Dashie is my slave, doo doo!” he sang as he bounced around. “Dashie, Dashie, slave, slave, slave, whooty whooty whoo!”
Together the two went down to the finish line, Dash emitting miserable tones the whole way down to where the princesses stood pouring their praise over the other competitors.
There was a poof of magic, and at once Spike stopped dancing. Before Twilight could teleport away again he wrapped her tight in a hug, not releasing her until he was sure that she had calmed.
“I’m sorry Twi! I was being sardonic! Or, depending upon the situation, sarcastic! I don’t really think you treat me like a slave! Well, not all the time, anywho…” he said quickly, not giving her a chance to speak.
He looked up to see that she was pointing down at something, and with that he looked all around himself. There, around Twilight, stood all twelve of his favorite ice cream flavors in large three-gallon tubs.
“Really, Twi? Can I?” he asked, his eyes sparkling. She nuzzled him, and with that Spike had to admit that the day had turned out better than he had imagined it would.
The princesses were now near them, and all of the ponies bowed as Celestia gave a quick shake of her mane, returning it from the pink to the great rolling waves of light and color that drifted on the solar winds.
And, noticeably, she did so without the theatrics that it took to reduce them.
With a simple flexing of her strength the barrel-half flew into splinters. The crowd watched in shock as Celestia’s bunghole was devastated.
Now, with a single flash of deep magic, both sisters cleared themselves of the dust, the sweat, and the juices that had poured over them during the competition.
“Rainbow Dash?” Celestia asked. “Would you come here, please?”
The pegasus lowered her head and walked towards her sovereigns.
“When we but arrived here,” spoke Luna, looking down over the pegasus, “we came not to compete, but to partake in the frivolity. Yet, in an instant, we gathered your meaning when you flew away with such a look in your eyes.”
Dash sighed a guilty sigh.
“We were soon to be on our way to deal with an… issue,” Luna said. With that both sister’s heads turned towards a distant fjord. “But upon seeing what thou had but planned for the poor dupe, we knew our place was here.”
“We ran the race, but in the end what you thought would be our advantages actually turned out to be a distraction and a bother,” Celestia said, painting a motherly tone into her voice. Upon hearing it, Dash was able to raise her head and look at the princesses.
“Rainbow Dash, you are strong, loyal, and brave, and we all make mistakes. I think that there is one thing that you should know, though,” the older sister began.
“Y-Yes, Princess,” Dash said, lifting her face. “You are right, it was unfair of me to force Spike into the bet. I should have considered his feelings.”
“Yes,” Celestia said with a warm smile, “I am very glad that you learned that important lesson...
... but, what I wanted to tell you,” she said, her smile curling up in a smirk, “is that you are screwed.”
As Dash fell back over in a groan, Spike once more began his victorious dance, Twilight joining in with him as they circled the prostrate form of the pegasus.
There was a poof of magic, and as a suspiciously contented Granny Smith rejoined the assembly she gathered up some ribbons.
“Yer’ Majesties,” she said, with a twinkle in her eyes, “we’re really glad that ya’ joined us down here at the Social this year… really, really thankful, as it were. So, here’s some nice ribbons for ya’!”
The sisters’ faces shone as the ribbons were affixed to them, the word “Participant” standing out boldly upon them.
“Come ye’, one and all!” Luna shouted. “Partake in the victory feast!”
The magic of the sisters lifted the treats that had been laid out earlier and placed them on the long tables. Soon all of the ponies were dining happily.
Eventually, the food began to wane. Rainbow Dash yelped in shock as eleven cold, hard containers of ice cream were stacked upon her back, and as she steadied them with her wings she fell into line behind Spike and Twilight.
Spike turned around upon Twilight’s back, looking over his dairy-based hoard even as he dug into an opened container.
“Awww, it’ll be okay, Dash,” he said, patting her head with the back of his spoon. “I’m not gonna be too tough on ya’! Hey, you might even like spending the week as my slave!”
“Bet ya’ double or nothing that I don’t,” she said, attempting to paint what she thought was irony into her voice.
“Oh, sure,” said Twilight in a mocking tone, “go ahead and bet against Spike again! That alllllways works out sooooo well for you!”
Dash lifted her head, snarled, and muttered. “Okay, yeah, now that’s sarcasm.”
“Buck yeah it was!” laughed the dragon.
“Spike!”
As the crowd began to thin, the sisters walked to a secluded spot, and placed the ribbons on the nearby table. The ribbons began to fall…
Meanwhile, the sisters zipped around the course unseen, gathered up some grape juice, skipped over the obstacles in a blur of motion, gathered up some treats, and sat down again.
… and caught the ribbons before they touched the ground.
“Thou wert truly marvelous, my big sister,” Luna said, grinning happily as she began to munch.
“You played your part equally as well, my little sister,” Celestia answered, touching her muzzle to the crumb-strewn face of her sister.
The two ageless, seemingly divine sisters sat there, enjoying their company and the good food of the farm.
“I particularly like how quickly you caught onto my pie-eating farce,” Celestia said with a giggle.
“I noted thee refusing to partake of the banana cream pies,” Luna said. “I recall that you detest them.”
“Horrid things, bananas,” Celestia said as she shook. “I can not understand why anyone would like them. I am also impressed by your creativity with the chickens.”
“Ah, yes,” Luna said with some small satisfaction. “Truly, they were inspired. All too soon they shall but complete their purpose, and return here anon and return to chicks. I do wish I could see the looks on the faces of our guests as they faced them, though.”
“That will end soon enough as well,” nodded Celestia.
“Indeed.”
In Canterlot, Pony “Doughnut” Joe was just finishing his day. It was already one o’clock, and his bakery and cafe were wrapped up nice and tight. He sat staring at the familiar faces in the picture frames above the counter before addressing them with a smile.
“Beanie. Gents,” he said with a bow, and with that he clicked off the lights.
In his kitchen, he put the little cap and his dirty apron in the hamper. He was just about to close the door to the closet when he heard the sound of magic gathered near him.
He sat there, his forelegs wide, as a very deep and a very powerful magic covered him. There was a soft pop, and with the magic cleared.
Joe looked down to find a rather surprised, and rather attractive, mare in his forelegs and lap.
“Hello?” he said, rolling back slightly so that she rested more comfortably.
“Oh! Oh… umm, are… are you, Joe?” she asked, a bright blush going over her face.
“Why, yes, miss… yes, I am,” he said with a laugh, her infectious blush leaping to him as well.
“Hi,” she said. “Hi! I’m… I‘m Allspice.”
“Hello, Miss Allspice,” he said, his gaze still falling down into her eyes.
As she rested there, caught in the warmth of his presence, drifting in his gaze, she made no move to raise herself out of the cradling touch of this gentle stranger.
And Joe certainly made no motion to make her leave…
Around the bakery all went quiet, a lovely silence that was only interrupted by the distinctive sounds high overhead of the cries of terrified diamond dogs being carried back to Canida by chickenodactyls.
Back at the farm, a few more quiet moments passed before Celestia spoke again.
“It is good for them, our children, to see us this way. At least, from time to time,” she said as she gazed over the course once more. “I should hate for them to feel imposed by us, just because we have certain advantages. I like seeming all too mortal, at times, for I should hate for them to ever see us as goddesses or something of that ilk.”
“Goddesses! Couldst thou but imagine?” laughed Luna as she turned some of the grape juice into fine wine. “What nonsense!”
With that the sisters sat quietly, enjoying the company of the other. When their meals were finished they lifted their wings and let the deep magic of their land sweep over them, catching in their eternally tossing manes.
“I shall still rock the National Moon Pie Eating Championship mightily, though,” Luna declared.
“Of course.”
End.
