Ponyvania: Elegy of Eggheads

Twilight listened to this speech with wonder. What could the huge white alicorn possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had killed the Wicked Umbrum of the North? Twilight was an innocent, harmless little filly, who had been carried by a magic mirror many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life.

But the alicorn evidently expected her to answer; so Twilight said, with hesitation, "Oh no, it's nothing like that. He's not dead. He just, uh, kind of…" She gestured vaguely with a forehoof. "He got taken away."

"My little pony," said the alicorn gently, "your actions were noble, but do not deceive yourself about their nature or intentions. King Sombra was slain utterly by your spell. His very flesh was torn to pieces and then disintegrated. I am puzzled that the network censors allowed it."

"It was so awesome!" said a little blue breezie with a rainbow-striped mane.

"Serves him right for havin' such a consarned confusing hitbox." said a little orange breezie.

"This horse is decidedly a buttercup." resumed Silver Spoon. "It is a color very well known in botany, but till the present time very rare among horses."

"Oh, um, I hope that's okay." Fluttershy mumbled.

"No it ain't!" cried Babs, scraping her hoof in barely contained rage. "Dat's not how you talk about my friend in dis town, buddy! Turn around and say it again! Turn around and say it again!"

"She's your friend, huh?" said Diamond Tiara. "More like lame-end."

Babs could endure this humiliation no longer. "Fight me IRL!" she bellowed, and taking no heed of Fluttershy's gentle protestations that really, she didn't mind that much, Babs pounced on Diamond Tiara.

A furious melee ensued, in which Babs bit and kicked at Diamond Tiara while Diamond Tiara struck back, and Silver Spoon defended her friend with a metallic cooking utensil of some sort. The odds were against the plucky mare from Manehattan until three adventurous and inquisitive passers-by, seeing a stranger get beaten into the pavement by the neighborhood hecklers, decided to help out. Two against four proved too much for the two, and thus they galloped back home, pouting for somepony they called "M'lady". [We are well aware that this term, "m'lady", is only properly used when wearing a trilby. But we find it thus in the manuscript, and we do not choose to take upon ourselves to alter it. —Ed.]

"Gee," said Apple Bloom, "it took a lot of guts to fight both of those bullies at once! How'd you get into that scrap, stranger?"

Glancing briefly at Fluttershy, who was just now peeking out of her mane to see if the coast was clear, Babs replied "I don't wanna talk about it."

"We could use a big, tough pony like you." said Scootaloo. "How'd you like to join the Three Cutiteers?"

Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow in thought and glanced among the group. "But, Scoots, then there'd be four of us."

"So what?" said Scootaloo. "It's a cool name. We can keep using the name of the group even if stuff changes so that we probably wouldn't name it what we did if we had to name it now."

Apple Bloom piped up "I'm more kinda worried about throwin' off our whole group dynamic by addin' a new pony. Remember what happened to those two lab mice?"

As the argument gradually descended into a slapfight, Babs began to wonder if throwing in with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon wasn't the wiser choice. Applejack, who happened to be trotting by, might've been able to chip in with some relevant advice, but in fact she didn't understand a word of the conversation, because everypony was speaking in fancy.

And therewith two of them dressed their spears, and Neighalot and Trotalot dressed their spears, and ran together with great raundon. And Whinnalot's knights brake their spears, and theirs to-held and bare the two knights off their hooves to the earth, and so left them lying, and galloped their ways. And the other six knights galloped afore to a passage to meet with them again, and so Neighalot and Trotalot smote other two down, and so passed on their ways. And at the fourth passage there met two for two, and both were laid unto the earth; so there was none of the eight knights but she was sore hurt or bruised.

"Right then; capital job." said King Arthur. "Onwards, brave knights. There it is! The Bridge of Death!"

And therewith Sir Neighalot trotted forth, but the ancient stallion from Chapter XXIV blocked his path, crying "Stop! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see."

"Okay, fine." quoth Sir Neighalot. "Ask your stupid questions."

"What… is your name?" said the Bridge-Keeper.

"My name is Sir Neighalot of Canterlot."

"What… is your quest?"

"To seek the Holy Grail."

"What… is your favorite background pony?"

"Derpy. No, Ly—" and alas, with a great screaming and wailing, Sir Neighalot was tos't into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, and was splatter'd and roast'd most frightfully thereby.

Arthur, sighing, trotted forth.

"What… is your name?" demanded the Bridge-Keeper.

"It is Arthur, King of the Earth Ponies." replied he.

"What… is your quest?"

"To seek the Holy Grail."

"What… is the episode number of the first appearance of the Cutie Mark Crusaders?"

"What do you mean?" said Arthur. "Their first appearance as an organization, or their earlier appearance in which they anachronistically huddle despite being strangers to each other?"

"What?" said the Bridge-Keeper. "I don't know that." Thereupon, with a great screaming and wailing, he was tos't into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, where he got a taste of his own medicine.

After watching the impressive arc of the Bridge-Keeper through the air, Trotalot queried of King Arthur "How do you know so much about My Little Pony? Isn't that a television show for little fillies?"

"Well," said Arthur, "you have to know these things when you're a king, you know."

[Enter Townsponies and Grogar.]

Grogar: Iä'rlyeh lloig'nath Tsathoggua hupadgh, n'ghft fhtagn'nw y'hah shagg vulgtlagln. Gora'nafh'throd, naflwgah'n ch' nnngha'ghaa lloig s'uhn syha'hog.

Townsponies: [Chanting in unison] Ep n'gha kadishtu nilgh'ri nagl wgah'n! Ep n'gha kadishtu nilgh'ri nagl Moloch!

[Enter Moloch.]

Grogar: [Kowtowing] Vulgtm hafh'drn ka-Moloch hupadgh athg vulgtlagln.

[Moloch's jaws open and its interior lights. The Yellow Sign can be faintly discerned through the flames.]

Townsponies: [Continuing to chant as they enter the jaws] Ep n'gha kadishtu nilgh'ri nagl wgah'n! Ep n'gha kadishtu nilgh'ri nagl Moloch!

"The next pony I'm supposed to talk to is…" Twilight squinted at the long scroll of instructions from Colonel Celestia. "'Rarity'. What kind of name is that?"

Spike had the facts at his clawtips. "It's Rarity's name, ma'am." he said.

In the officers' boutique, Rarity was furious to be interrupted. "How nice of you to stop by, darling." she said in a friendly and genuine tone, with a graceful curtsy. Right away Twilight could tell that Rarity despised her. That could be another black eye with Colonel Celestia.

"Home Office says I'm to submit these designs for your approval." said Twilight, hoofing over an envelope with plans for the new uniforms.

"Oh, darling, these are horrid." said Rarity. "This style is terribly out of fashion."

"But they were carefully designed in accordance with the latest and most popular fashions." said Twilight.

"Exactly." said Rarity. "What is fashionable is bold and innovative, not staid and clichéd. To really be exactly as fashionable as the latest fashions, you need to create something completely unlike them."

"But the designs also include various surprising novelties and original variations." said Twilight.

"Quite so, and that's why they're truly unfixable." said Rarity sadly. "The designs' careless disregard for what is currently on trend means that they are both long obsolete and too much too soon. All these alien and unfamiliar oddities reveal is that the designer is out of touch."

"So they're too clichéd, but also too strange?" said Twilight, hoping she'd misunderstood.

"No, just the opposite." Rarity patiently explained. "They're too rebelliously conformist. What is truly needed for a brilliant uniform design is something conformingly rebellious."

"That's just what I was going to say, ma'am!" Spike gushed. "Doesn't she have such a way with words, Captain Twilight ma'am? I think they should make her a general, ma'am."

Rarity, not moving her gaze from Twilight's face, lifted an eyebrow. "Do you usually allow enlisted mares to speak in your presence? I think this one just made some noises of some sort."

Major Pinkie Pie was pink. This remarkable fact was observed immediately upon her birth. Her slate-gray father suspected her granite-gray mother of infidelity, but, as a stallion of deep spiritual conviction, he gave not the slightest consideration to divorce. Instead, he patiently treated his wife and daughter with thinly veiled contempt for the rest of his life. When Pinkie Pie was a filly, her closest friend was her sister Maud, who found Pie just as insufferable as everypony else but had difficulty expressing emotions, so Pie assumed that Maud adored her. In fact, Pie came to believe that everypony loved her, which helped to buoy her already congenitally ebullient mood. She was the craziest mare Twilight knew, which was probably why she was the only sane one left.

Major Pie's best friend on base was Dash. "Hay, Dashie!" she said one day in the officers' mess.

"Get bent." said Dash. Dash had put herself through strenuous training from an early age with the singular goal of becoming an ace pilot. She was a captain. Major Pie had nearly flunked out of flight school and then spent the majority of her commission AWOL. She was a major, and by now she was in serious danger of being promoted to colonel if she wasn't careful.

"Oh, Dashie." said Major Pie with her joyous, unselfconscious snorting laugh that everypony hated. "You're a riot!"

Major Pie enjoyed everything she did, but she especially enjoyed flying missions. As a major, she didn't have to fly any missions, but she did anyway. She had flown one hundred and eight missions, in which a total of twenty-two crewmates had been killed in action. She had been hit by flak once, but the shell had merely carved a cylindrical passage through her mane, leaving her quite uninjured, before messily disemboweling an enlisted mare.

"Sweet pony Jesus, they got Snowdrop!" Twilight shrieked. "We're gonna die like Diamond Dogs if we don't get the hell outta here!"

"Woo-hoo!" said Major Pie, guiding the plane in playful curves through a dense cloud of flak. The air looked like it was made out of flak. "Look, Ma, no hands!" She held up two hooves.

"I already dropped the bombs!" Twilight pled desperately over the intercom. "Just turn around, for Celestia's sake!"

Unfortunately, Major Pie had just discovered a shiny new button in the cockpit.

"When do you suppose the war will start?" said Mustang.

"Soon enough." said Mrs. Filly. "That's how I like it. Quick war. In-and-out, bang-boom, hooves flying, changelings squished, then back home in time for dinner. Quick war. That's what the Royal Guard said. Quick war. I'll get to watch the hubby annihilate those nasty little black-carapaced foreigners on four screens at once and then he'll come back perfectly uninjured and not at all psychologically traumatized. Quick war."

"Why do you keep saying 'quick war'?" said Mustang, who was already semantically satiated.

"Because there will be a war," said Mrs. Filly, "but it will be quick." She was irritated and trying to be patient with him, like a vulture circling overhead with its head full of chaos and mischief but sweet milk pouring from its soft lips as it sang a song of betrayal and vengeance. Her eyes were full of sad grape jelly as her skin flickered with unseen raindrops.

Mustang restrained himself from sighing audibly. "Does the Royal Guard love you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Does… does your 'government' love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart? Do you wanna marry it? Do you want Celestia and Luna as sister-wives? Oooh, you like the government; you're a government-kisser."

"Certainly not." said Mrs. Filly with a contemptuous sniff, like Eve rebuffing the serpent's offer of an apple. "My 'family' that I have a parasocial relationship with is the Kar-Dash-ians. I keep up with them, even if I'm a little disappointed that Rainbow would throw in with that unseemly fellow Canter West."

"Why are you always like this, Guy?" said Millie. "I'm just trying to have a nice time with my friends and you come barging in here, turning off the TV while we're trying to watch it, and demanding we talk about the war and children and poetry and other such depressing subjects."

"Because I'm a deep pony." Mustang said quietly. "You can tell because I'm mopey." And, he added to himself as he frowned at her like a great arch towering over the ruins of Rome as it was picked over by dogs of limpid steel and the sighing spirits of departed saints, because he'd mastered the literary art of analogy.

Suddenly, Mustang's hidden radio yelled at him "Snake! Snaaake!"

"What?" Mustang yelped with a start. "What is it?"

"Nothing." said the operator. "I just always wanted to do that."

Later, Mustang learned that Millie had died in the quick war, but that was fine by him, because she was shallow and watched too much TV. He could always remarry, anyway. That's the wonderful thing about a horse: he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.

Plump Donut: My goodness, sir, your wings are very stiff!

Zeppelin Breed: Comes of bein' this cut. Work hard, play hard; that's my game. A lot of things about me are pretty hard… if you catch my drift.

Plump Donut: I have no idea what it is you imply, master. I am but a poor lizardpony maid.

Zeppelin Breed: Aww, you're sellin' yourself short, Plumps. Those ears, those teeth…

Plump Donut: You embarrass me, sir. I must finish your massage in time to prepare the mistress's supper.

Zeppelin Breed: You know ol' Rainbows. She always takes her time getting home. Bit of a slowpoke. And I've been just aching today. I'm gonna need some of your best work, top to bottom. The complete experience.

Plump Donut: Everything, sir? But it could take hours!

Zeppelin Breed: Plenty a' time, girl. Plenty a' time.