Log Twenty-One - Chapter Twenty

Y'know- it'd be times like this I'd reflect on me establishing a certain form of closeness with a pony.  A lavender cartoon pony with pegasus wings, a unicorn horn, and inheriting the ability to fluidly speak perfect English.  Well, the actual language they speak is Equestrian, as I've been oh so humbly reminded from time and time again.  Whatever.  I do find it queer that our language are scarily parallel to this world.  Furthermore, upon my few observational visits around Ponyville from the first month I arrived here I discovered that several ponies here do, in fact, possess architectures and technology that have quite the stark resemblance to our own human handiwork...

So Equestria is not all that primitive how I perceived it to be.

Ahem.  As I was saying—before I railed off from the main subject there—it's times like this I'd be pensive about establishing a romantic bond with Twilight.  Sure I might again sound bigoted by noting such discriminating thoughts but no matter what there is always going to be that boundary in how a person was born and raised to believe.  Maybe if I was a baby raised in Equestria I'd probably have a more lenient perspective of dating ponies, regardless of what species I am.

Despite this- I assured myself that I'm willing to go along with it, even if it completely goes against morals I've abided for years, and there's one of the things about me everyone should know is that I never go back on my word.  Period.  I at least have to make some prime example of my gender, right?

Her horn still radiating magic, Twilight gave another sharp tug on the front of my suit's collar, smushing our lips harder together.  Her showing how deeply touched she was by my monologue was taking my breath away.  By that, I meant it quite literally she was taking my breath away to the point where I needed some fresh air.  I opened my eyes, trying my best to push her off politely so I could breathe.

Twilight seemed to notice my struggle and killed her magic, breaking her lips from mine.  I gasped an urgent mouthful of air and blew it out with "Woo wee!" as I staggered backwards until my back smacked against a wall with a thump.

The mare descended the last two steps of the stairs and shot me a puzzled stare.  "Something wrong, Rick?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, no.  Nothing wrong, really."  I waved a reassuring hand.  "But you were almost sucking the life out of me!" I said, figuratively.  Well, one kind of life, anyway.  "I thought I was going to pass out for a moment there."

"Sorry," Twilight said with an apologetic smile, round shades of pink glowing on her dimples.  "I guess I might have lost myself there for a minute."  She then chuckled sheepishly.  "It's just that nopony has ever said that to me before."

I removed my back from the wall and folded my arms across my chest, quirking a brow.  "Really?" I asked flatly.

"Well I've actually had numerous dates before, although I prefer not to share the info for several good reasons," Twilight said, her mouth twisting into a grimace.  She shook away the grimace and smiled.  "But none of them have ever said such eloquent, poetic words like yours, Rick.  What you said minutes ago was... wow," Twilight purred lovingly at the last word.  "I don't have any words that could correctly describe how perfect that was."

"Yeah..."  I uneasily cleared my throat as I tugged the side of my collar.

I very much want to say it's not suggestive as how I'm interpreting it to be.  I am quite deliberate keeping things platonic, but in rare cases a lecherous idea would involuntarily surface yet only to be shoved back down into the darkest recesses of my mind because I am cognizant of how wrong it is.  I couldn't help it, though.  I'm a grown male after all, and I seriously doubt one man has lived without a dirty thought or two in his entire life.

Anyway.  After some minutes I suddenly remembered about the coronation.  "Anyway, as it just occured to me, how many hours is left until the coronation?" I asked.  "I kind of lost the track of time."

Twilight's serene smile vanished in an instant; her ears slumped, eyes broadly widened, pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks, the corners of her mouth sagging in horror, Twilight squished her cheeks with the flat of her hooves and gasped panickingly, "OH MY GOSH!  I completely forgot all about the coronation!"  The alicorn mare ran up to me and pushed herself onto her hind legs, putting her forehooves on my chest.  She shook me wildly until my eyes were spinning dizzily.  "Why didn't you remind me!?" she shouted.

"I-"

Twilight landed back down on her fours and bolted to the nearest window she could find, observing the sun's position in the clear sky with thoughtful scrutiny.  "It must have been two hours, or an hour and a half at the very least!" she cried.  "How could I have been so absentminded?!'

I raised a finger, mouth still open, "Well I-"

I got cut off once more.  "And I've yet prepared!" Twilight cried as she immediately bolted out the cottage's front door before I had the chance to say anything else.  She quickly flew back in and was fluttering right in front of my face a millisecond later.  "Sorry, I almost forgot!"  She lightly pecked me on the lip.  "Alrightgottagoseeya!"  With that, she departed out of the house in a purple blur.

I idly stood by and watched her figure sinking into the horizon, blinking multiple times dumbfoundedly.  I shook out of my stupor and muttered to no one in particular, "Well then.  Guess I should also get ready for the coronation."  I straightened myself, turned, and ascended the stairs, looking to my left and right making absolute certain the slates were on their respective doors, which they were thankfully, and headed into my bedroom to get my suit and pants so I would look smart.

I've never been to a coronation before, so I had no idea what to expect.  I was just told to get dressed in formal attire, act like a gentleman, and throw compliments here and there.  Sounds simple enough, really.

I rummaged my suitcase where my suit and pants were in and slung them over my shoulder, grabbing my cologne, deodorant, both my toothbrush and toothpaste the meanwhile.  Another thought occurred to me.

Oh yeah!  I forgot about that black fedora Rarity gave me as a 'Welcome to Ponyville' present.  It would go great with the black suit and pants.

I do favor the color black.  In my opinion, I think it's a manly color.

With the necessities acquired, I marched straight to the bathroom and took a nice, clean and warm shower before touching up.  I made extra effort scrubbing my armpits to rid the accumulated odor.  After rinsing and drying off, I wrapped a towel around my waist and stood in front of the mirror cabinet.  I ran a hand down the side of my cheeks to my chin, feeling the rigidness of my sideburns.

Boy, I sure let myself go, I said in thought.  Opening the cabinet, I grabbed a buzzer on the shelf and gently closed the cabinet.  Why Fluttershy had a buzzer still remained a mystery to me, but I didn't question as it was about to prove its usefulness.  As I buzzed away, I could feel the coolness touching my skin.  It felt therapeutic.  I then put away the buzzer back into the cabinet and snatched the cologne sitting on the sink.  I sprayed the fragrance from head to toe profusely.  I put down the cologne and next rubbed my pits with the deodorant.

I took a whiff.  Ah, nothing beats the pleasing smell of AXE products.

Setting the deodorant down beside the cologne, I held up a toothbrush and toothpaste in each hand.  With my left hand I squeezed the tube as a string of the stuff came out like play dough onto the bristles, and with my right hand holding the dental instrument I began brushing away.  Once finished, I sipped the tap water, gurgled, and spat into the sink's drain.  Using my forearm to wipe my mouth off, I seemed to notice an oddity in the mirror...

Part of me was wondering if I was dreaming-like I had too much special sauce, or if someone had spiked the water supply with some kind of hallucinogenic drug since my reflection was holding up its right arm while I held up my right arm.  That's... not right.  If I'm raising my right hand, the reflection should be raising its left hand.

I just stood there, mouth open, holding the toothbrush absentmindedly while I tried figuring out what the hell was going on.  I moved my hand, the reflection's hand moved in the complete opposite direction.  I blinked my right eye, the reflection blinked its opposite eye.  Calmly, I laid the toothbrush down on the sink, and rubbed my eyes with the ball of my palms then returned eying the mirror scrutinizingly.

I blinked my left eye, the reflection blinked the appropriate eye.  Good, everything is back to normal.  As I was about to depart, once again I noticed my reflection was going to the opposite direction where I was originally going.  I backpedaled back to the mirror just as my reflected counterpart did. Okay, I think I might definitely be hallucinating now.

I blinked several times, as my reflection did.  However, after the fourth time I blinked, my reflection's eyes changed color.  The sclera stayed white, but the irises changed to a jaundiced yellow with red pinpricks.

Oh, now I'm understanding what's going on...

I glared at the mirror with a scowling frown.  "Cut it out, Discord."

My reflection gained a mind of its own and started floating around within the frame of the mirror.

"Awww, you're no fun, Ricky-boy."

"Far as our friendship goes, you will address me regularly as Rick," I scowled.  "One slip up and I'll have Twilight relay a letter to Celestia about the whole thing.  She'll never let you live it down until you die.  Which won't happen since you basically can't.  In lesser words, it'll be forever.  So you better watch your step," I said, stretching a devious smile.

"Ah, yes," the other me said in Discord's voice.  He materialised a comfy-looking red couch with one snap and sat on it.  "I completely forgot about your relationship with Twilight Sparkle."  He chuckled in short hums.

"You have a tendency brown nosing in people's business," I said.

"Then what friend would I be if I couldn't stay in touch to everything you do?" Discord replied his defense.  "Is that so wrong, Rick?"

"In a way, yes," I replied.  "But I guess it'd save me the trouble explaining it to you.  Though I thought not long ago we made it pretty clear about you pranking me.  Reason I didn't holler for Fluttershy is because you caught me in the middle of something," I said pointing down at my towel.  I tightened the towel around my waist and gazed back at the mirror.  "So I'll let you off on this one.  But do it again..."

"I promise this time.  I swear this to you on my great, great, great, great, great, great, great-"

"Okay!  I get it," I said, rubbing one of my temples.

The imposter me clapped his hands together in delight.  "Excellent!  Now, about your romantic involvement with Twilight..."

I held a hand to stop him.  "Whoa, whoa.  There is absolutely nothing 'too personal' between me and her.  The feeling's platonic, and I for one like to keep it that way until we know each other better."

"I one-hundred-percent understand, Rick," Discord said calmly.  "Though you should think about what it'd be like dating royalty."

"Oh, do tell?" I asked intelligently, first mad but now my curiosity piqued.

"So you don't know?  Oh, you will certainly love this."  Discord smiled as he rubbed his palms rapidly.  "When it comes to dating royalty, you should know that it comes with great benefits!"

Discord, at this point, got my attention.  "Such as?" I queried.

"Such as going out for dates.  I hear royalties and their beau can often eat free.  Without tip, even."

"That's hardly a perk..." I said dryly.  "Famous people and even critiques kinda have that sort of thing."

Discord suddenly chortled and held his sides as he rocked back and forth on the plushy red couch.  I even think some of his spittle landed on my cheek, but I didn't grimace and instead rolled my eyes in annoyance.  He sat back upright, flicked away a tear from his left eye, and suppressed a chuckle which almost threatened to escape his lips.  "So serious you are.  I suppose that's a thing you and Twilight have in common," he said.  I narrowed my eyes.

"Whatever.  Just get on with it," I growled.  Discord, with my face's mouth, grinned matronly.  Got to say, I have never seen my mouth smile that wide before.  Rather a disturbing sight...

"Certainly," he replied after gathering his composure.  "And think about it-If the dates you two have planned go swimmingly well, perhaps your relationship will evolve into fiancee status, and if it goes furtherly well you'd be engaged and get married!  Imagine what it'd be like if you can do whatever you want without facing the consequences!"

An even more devious smile spread across my face. "You're absolutely right, my mismatched friend."

That seemed to catch him off-guard. "I am?"

"Allow me to explain.  On Earth, we had something called the United Kingdom.  It was a group of countries under a monarchy with a Queen, and, the Queen is literally above the law."  His demeanor didn't seem to falter.  "In the UK, when someone went to court they went up against the Crown, and the Queen is the Crown.  Therefore, the Crown cannot go up against the Crown."

"Rick, my dear, mistaken boy.  Don't kid yourself, you're not above the rest of the citizens of Equestria."

"No, but as you said I'm dating a princess.  Surely if something happened to you, courtesy of me, I'm sure she'd convince Celestia and other officials to sidestep the issue."  This time, his expression grew angered.  "Right now, you're under my thumb."

"Do you seriously think that Twilight would have a conflict of interest?" Discord commented.

"Is that even a question?  You know what happened when she missed the deadline for her friendship letter."  I could vaguely recall what my dear Shy explained when Twilight goes a little nutty, whether it'd be sleep deprivation or something.  Let's see to it that today does go according to her plan, otherwise for me things would go downhill from there.  "Now be on your merry way, I got to finish up."

The mirror flashed white and got replaced with my regular reflection.  I knew I've got Discord beaten.  "I've waited my whole life to do this..." I murmured as I clasped my fingers.  "The finger pyramid of evil contemplation.  Feels good."

Part of me was riding the euphoric high-horse of essentially one-upping the literal God of Chaos, not to mention having him under my thumb in every sense of the word, and the other part of me was wondering how far I could take it, too.

I guess only time will tell, but, for now, I had to focus getting ready for the coronation.