Strawberry Time: A RariTwi Exquisite Corpse

by SigmasonicX

11. Begin Again (Now in glorious Technicolor!) (nonchalant)

“Wait, wait, let us get re—”

Whatever Twilight was about to say was sharply cut off as time reasserted itself with a deep, lurching scraping sound. The magic built up around the horns of Twilight and Starlight flared suddenly, resuming its flow, and splashed back against the fabric of reality.

Both mares grunted and bent down with the pain of a malformed spell rebounding and dissipating. Rarity immediately rounded on Discord.

“What was that? You did just resume time, right?” she asked.

Discord scoffed, waving the claw he’d just snapped with (it was still smoking lightly.)

“Please, it’s not my fault your accomplished Princess and her perpetual grad student can’t perfectly resume the formation of a mental spell matrix in the time it takes me to snap time back into motion,” he said. “Besides, a little magical splashback never killed anyone.”

A pause.

“Much.”

As much as Rarity evidently wanted to continue tearing into the draconequus, a wing lightly brushed along her back and made her pause. Twilight was shaking her head and shrugging. “It’s not like we don’t know what we’re getting into whenever Discord gets pulled into the crisis of the week,” she said, “and really, we’re fine. We’ll just have to try again when things are…” she grimaced. “Quieter.”

There was an awkward silence as everyone watched the Smooze finish up reconstituting itself a ways away from the group, and somehow visibly sit down to catch its breath.

Eventually Night Glider spoke up. “So, uh, everypony… Princess… not that it hasn’t been a very interesting time, but I think I’m going to head back to Roseluck now. She must be at least a little bit confused.” She stretched her wings. “I’ll, ah, see if we can handle the talking strawberry plant for you, though. Her friends might find it interesting once they stop screaming about it.”

Some awkward goodbyes were exchanged, and Night Glider waved sheepishly at the Smooze as she left. It was the only one who heard her mutter “Rosie, we have got to get you out of this town.”

---

Trixie pointed at Rarity. “So… on to the next problem?” she smiled tightly. “Trixie has been working on her magic precisely for situations like this one!”

Just as Starlight began to nod encouragingly, both Rarity and Twilight raised a hoof to object, canted ever so slightly towards Discord.

“For a delicate matter such as thi—”

“Discord is surely more experi—”

“Nonsense!” Discord waved his tail airily, cutting them off. “It would be harmless to let Trixie try her hoof at this. I’ll be right here in case anything goes wrong.”

A bright orange vest, hard-hat, clipboard, and safety goggles all languidly slid from unbeing onto his frame. “That’s a Spirit of Chaos guarantee,” he winked.

The Smooze burbled quietly by the door. Everyone looked over and saw it adjusting itself, looking contrite.

“Oh, right!” Rarity said. “I’m so sorry you got caught up in all of this. It must have been incredibly distressing.”

The Smooze made a placating gesture, then gestured at the Boutique.

“Not at all! You were not yourself. While I might have gotten a little… defensive of my shop, I never held it against you personally,” Rarity assured. “I’d be delighted to converse with you another time, especially if you have need of my expertise.”

Twilight walked up next to the monochromatic mare. “Rarity is right,” she said, “this was absolutely not your fault, and we deeply apologise for the hardship. Next time you’re in town I would love to know, so that we can show you proper Ponyville hospitality.”

A magenta glow quickly formed around Starlight and Trixie’s mouths, just barely opened to mention something about the frightening regularity with which incidents happened in the small village.

Some pleasantries later the Smooze was merrily on its way, ambling towards the train station.

A throat cleared. Everyone turned towards Trixie.

“Soooooo….” she ventured.

Rarity looked at Discord. Then Twilight. Then Trixie.

“I suppose—” she began.

“Thank you thank you thank you! You’re not going to regret this!” Trixie squealed.

Everypony else stood back a ways, letting Trixie take centre stage. Rarity shuffled on her hooves, eyeing Discord, who was now fiddling with a lanyard he’d spun into place around his neck. She coughed, politely.

“What? Oh! Right, supervising! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and all that,” Discord said.

Forgoing the fanfare for once, Trixie took a deep breath. All the beings in the room felt the gathering of magic around her horn, and they also felt the way a tinge of chaotic energy wove into the pattern she was crafting. A vibrant, multicoloured tendril snaked out towards Rarity, slowly but surely.

Discord, who’d been playing a losing game of cat’s cradle with his lanyard, turned to properly look at the illusionist’s spell.

The light grew and grew, obscuring Rarity entirely for several seconds. There was no speaking, and only the measured breathing on Trixie’s part broke the silence. Eventually the spell tapered off, and as everypony’s eyes adjusted again they beheld… a perfectly normal looking Rarity.

“Did it work?” the once-again-purple-maned unicorn asked. “My mane seems to be the appropriate colour!”

Starlight gave her a quick once-over, leaning in to peer closely at Rarity’s eyes.

“I think it worked!” she said. She then whipped around to Trixie, and repeated with more enthusiasm. “I think it worked!”

“Please, there was never any doubt,” Trixie said. Her enthusiasm and joy at the praise may have been given away by her eyes, but no-one called her out on it. “Simply let the record show that I did this when Twilight Sparkle could not.”

Twilight had walked up to Rarity and was worriedly checking her over completely, horn sparking with diagnostic spells and energy scans. “Seriously, Trixie, thank you. So long as Rarity’s alright I don’t mind that someone else was her knight in shining armour.”

“Darling, does that mean you won’t be trying on that bodyguard outfit I made up for you?” Rarity asked cheekily, trying to peer around Twilight to inspect her own tail.

“Wha—uhh, I mean, of course, Rarity! I’d be happy to!” Twilight replied all too eagerly.

Rarity didn’t reply, but her self-satisfied smirk was audible.

A small gong sounded, and everypony turned to Discord. Of course, he was just pulling a tattered brown robe around himself and bowing in Trixie’s direction. “You are proving yourself a competent student of our ways, young one,” he rasped.

Trixie smiled sheepishly, scuffing the floor with a hoof. “Well, Trixie’s been dabbling, it’s nothing serious.”

“Ah, but it could be,” Discord continued, reaching into one sleeve to produce…

A colourful punch card.

“See, this counts as your first Feat of Chaos! Just twelve more and you get a free gift basket!”

Trixie considered it, then nodded solemnly. She took the card in her magic and made it disappear into the folds of her cloak.

Rarity nudged Twilight with her shoulder. “Should we be concerned?” she asked.

“Hmm, I’m sure Starlight will keep an eye on them,” Twilight replied. “Honestly, I just want to go back to the castle and throw out any strawberries we have in the kitchen right now.”

Rarity hummed in agreement, then raised her voice. “Alright then, crisis averted! All other crises will simply have to wait. Everycreature out, if you please!”

The other three, who’d started conspiring (or at least, conversing in a way that invited suspicion from passerby) looked up at the duo and nodded, waving and marching off out of the boutique with their heads still pressed closely together.

Rarity sighed with the weariness of one who knows the evils they’ve unleashed are barely better than those they’ve put away.

“We’re going to regret this, aren’t we darling?”

“Yes. Yes we are.”

Comments

[Gavier]

This corpse was indeed, exquisite.

[SigmasonicX]

11901263
Glad you enjoyed it!

[FanOfMostEverything]

Always fun to do a full necropsy of an exquisite corpse, watching as concepts fade in and out of the narrative. Thanks to everyone involved in putting the body together. (And poor A. K. Yearling, lost to time and narrative ambiguity.)