Chapter 4
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I went upstairs. I had the red cape soaking in hot soapy water, but I doubted if that fur dye would ever come out of the collar. Then again, if milk was enough to wash it out of her fur, maybe I could use milk to get it out of the fabric? I shook my head and turned the doorknob with my magic.
Ravenclaw, um… McDarkwing? I couldn’t remember her name. But she was sitting on my couch.
In my fluffy, fuzzy, lavender bathrobe. I sighed.
She turned to look at me and rubbed her face before trying to smile. “I’m not a weirdo. And I’m sorry for trying to force you to come on a dangerous mission. It’s my responsibility, not yours.”
I rolled my eyes and trotted into the living room, then plopped down into the big cushy chair that I’d pulled off the curb on trash day a few years back. Come to think of it… this was the first time I’d ever had another pony in my apartment. Why did I need extra seating? I guess it just felt better to have a chair off to the side of the coffee table. Which had never had coffee on it. I cleared my throat. “It’s not a dangerous mission. You’d probably just… get force-fed some cupcakes and get hugged more than you’re comfortable with.”
She just kept looking at me. I guess she didn’t know what to say. Fuzzy terrycloth puffed out in a ring around her shoulders as she pulled the bathrobe closer around her neck. At least it looked like she’d scrubbed most of the fur dye out, and wouldn’t be staining my bathrobe.
Her pale blue eyes seemed a much better match for her natural coat color, which was a pale greenish blue (bluish green?), though still stained with remnants of the dye. It looked like her mane would be a striking orange if it wasn’t for the leftover dye still subduing its brilliance. Without the excessive quantities of product in her mane, it fell in a wave around her shoulders and highlighted her eyes.
She almost seemed normal.
“I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your bathrobe.”
“I hadn’t thought about it beforehand, but since I invited you to take a shower, I guess it’s kind of expected, huh? I’m sorry it hasn’t been washed in, uh, a few weeks.”
It almost looked like she was blushing. “It’s okay. You… you smell like frosting. It’s nice.”
Well, there went that normal thing. I felt myself blush a bit. “I, um, I brought the binder,” I said, levitating it up in front of my face, “because it seems like you didn’t bother reading the executive summary in the first section.”
She went back to just looking at me.
I floated the binder over to her and continued, “Because you said, ‘when we locate her’ even though the summary has a map and photos of her castle in Ponyville. And her friends. And a list of villains she’s defeated, and her methods for doing so. And her habits, and likes and dislikes and a whole bunch of other stuff.”
She took the massive scrapbook in her hooves. “Yeah, I skipped all that stuff and started with the ‘narrative.’ It just, you know, seemed more like a story.”
“Well, that stuff’s in the front because it’s important, and—”
“Why are you so obsessed with her, anyway? Are you her nemesis, or vice versa?”
“I’m not—” Okay, I kind of was. “The problem is… Well, the problem is you.” I cringed.
The binder still sat, unopened, in her hooves. “How am I the problem? You didn’t even know I existed until this morning.”
“Yes, and a gaping hole in my life it was, before you showed up.”
She glared at me, her eyebrows low and her lips pinched together. “Twilight.”
“Fine.” I crossed my forelegs across my chest. “You’re not the problem, you’re just its most recent symptom. Everypony with a grudge to settle against Twilight Sparkle looks in the public directory or sees an ad, and comes after me instead. The same with suitors, and every pony who thinks a princess can help their business or their dispute or their disgusting personal problems. They all come after me instead of her.”
“Oooooh.” She held up the binder, peeking over the top of it and grinning with her eyes. “That would explain why nopony in the cafe was surprised to see our ‘duel.’”
“Yeah.” I pulled off my paper foodservice hat and folded it flat, then slapped it against my hoof. “It’s pretty much a daily occurrence.”
“Well,” she said as she sat up straighter, somewhat less intimidating in my lavender-colored bathrobe, “it sounds like we have a common enemy, then!”
A smirk crawled across my face as I leaned forward. “I thought you said she wasn’t your enemy?”
She fell backward and slumped into the couch. “You know what I mean. We share a goal.” She sat up again, tossing the binder onto the other cushion of the couch. “You wish to be free of her… tyranny of… uh, mistaken identity. And I wish to claim my birthright, my destiny!”
“Yeah,” I said, waving a hoof in the air. “The whole princess thing.”
She lifted up one corner of the bathrobe and showed me her cutie mark. “The crown is my destiny. You can’t deny it.”
It was hard to ignore. I sat up and looked closer. Her cutie mark was a very regal crown. It didn’t look like it had been stained with the fur dye at all. “I… I suppose not.”
She nodded, her chin in the air. But when she opened her eyes, her shoulders slumped and she curled up on her end of the couch. It almost seemed like she was trying to get farther away from the binder.
I sighed and got up out of my chair. “I have a big catering gig tonight, lots of cooking to do. If you help me out, I can tell you all about Twilight Sparkle, and you won’t have to read the binder.”
“Really?” She sat up and smiled. “And then tomorrow, we can travel to Ponyville to take what we truly deserve!”
“Eeeeeh,” I said as I fluffed up my paper cap and set it on top of my indigo bangs, just to the right of my horn. “Let’s take it one day at a time.”
This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
I like it.
Something tells me this is like a villainous romantic-comedy.
8096162 It's adorable. I wish I had someone like that to help me combat my enemies... Plus, it's the kind of relationship dynamic I seem to have in my own life.
For the record I miss being the weird one.
Feed Twilight enough donuts and she'll get...
Dun dun dun!
High cholesterol!
Muhahaha!
I think it was Slytherdoor MacGriffpuffin.
I wasn't sure about this fanfic at first, but this is actually rather amusing. I am rather curious to see where this goes next....
This is adorable as fuck. I do miss the romance tag though, those two would be cute together
But yeah, I'll eat my rolling pin if Celly hasn't a hoof in directing all Sparkle bothers to Sprinkle
If Twilight Sprinkle was voiced, what would she sound like?
8096407 In my head i imagine her voice as a mix of Twilight Sparkle and Moe from the Simpsons.
8096407 My guess is that she'd sound like Twilight Sparkle's imitation of Pinkie.
8096477
.. diamond tiara doesn't think she is the next princess of equestria... why does she?
I wonder when she will realize her destiny. One so grand that even Princess Celestia shall bow down at her hooves. For Twilight Sprinkle is... The Future Princess of Pastries.
8096407 I sort of imagine her sounding like Daria of that one show with the same name... I think, been years since I seen that show.
Very good chapter, nice work.
Not sure where her thinking is that to become a princess she has to take it from someone else...? I mean just two years ago there was ONE princess. Now there's FIVE. Clearly not a case of taking one crown from someone who was already a princess.
I... is she slow?
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying reading this despite the very many logical flaws and things that can be called into question. Hell, Sprinkle being a particularly unlikable jerk is 90% of the charm of this story. But there is one thing that I can't help but think should have been called into question right up front:
If the mistaken identity problem is causing her this much grief, why doesn't she just change her name?
8097012
Because it's not her fault that nopony in Equestria knows how to read. If anyone should have to change their name, it's Sparkle.
If you ask me, the much better question is why Sprinkle hasn't tried to just get even. Has it really never occurred to her to open up a SCUBA shop, Twilight Snorkel? Like, not even once?
(Onna real tho, did I find some kind of zeitgeist with Anypony for Doomsday? The common pony being criminally stupid was supposed to be hyperbole, and then I write that story and it becomes fact? Or fanfact?)
8097012 Is that even a thing in the pony world? Some fics pull the 'Change your name from birthname to one that represents your CM' headcanon, but even that can be shaky considering some of the birth names... Besides, even if she did, old ads would forever plague her existence.
8097046
A.K. Yearling says hi. (Yeah, I know, pen name, but if pen names can exist, so can legal name changes.)
8097046: That would explain why pony names always seem to coincidentally match their cutie mark and profession.
You want to meet the purple princess too, don't you, Twilight?
8097012
I stand by my assumption that half the ponies who come in probably just saw her through the shop's front window, or see her face on an ad without even bothering to look at the name.
Now we know why Twilight doesn't have to deal with things like that in the show.
Great Celestia I Love this quote!
Its beautiful.
8097701
Could turn out two ways...
The evil baddy takes it like a champ, but never admits to muttering, "Totally worth it" around a mouthful of the best cupcakes ever eaten.
The evil baddy dies inside from awkwardness and embarrassment from all their evil minions looking on with judgmental expressions.
8097012
There are a lot of stories that wouldn't exist if the characters behaved sensibly.
For instance:
Twilight Sprinkle posted a large sign in front of her shop: "Twilight Sprinkle owns this shop, Twilight Sparkle is in Ponyville."
The troublesome visitors stopped showing up.
See? Solve the problem--kill the story. Nobody wants that.
8097876 do you honestly think anybody would read it? do you think they would know the difference between the two names, Ravenclaw didn't.
The most obvious solution is to murder the crap out of twilight sparkle until she die to death, that solves literally all of sprinkles problems.
8098268
Sure, that'd solve all her problems. Well except the whole...you know being charged for murder.
8098749 regicide at that.
Meh
8098749 Nah, she just has to claim to be the real sparkle and the other was an impostor.
And if and that fails murder is like duck tape, if it isn't working you clearly aren't using enough of it.
Coincidentally they do work quite well in conjunction.
8096477 Dear, Sweet Celestia, that's the only way I can imagine her now...
Aw, Twilight Sprinkle is making a friend,
8097012 Because she doesn't want to, it makes perfect sense. There was once a senator whose name was on the do-not-fly list because he shared the same name as a person on the terrorist watch list. Did he change his name? Hell no. He worked to fix the problem.
I'm not just talking about people in positions of power, too- That same issue happened numerous times, and when normal civilians encountered it, they just dealt with it.
Most people do not want to change their name. It is important to their self-identity, and a huge load of legal hassle on top of that. Being mistaken for somebody else by name is in no way a logical reason to change your name.
Hmm. This looks less like a job for Twilight than for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, because there's clearly a misinterpreted destiny at work here.
8102384
Why does her mark remind me of Diamond Tiara?!
8110030
I thought of the same thing... Hopefully if it is DT she gets what she deserves.
This story is so weird yet uncannily entertaining.
Shipping fuel