Alicorn in Wonderland

by The Hand of Pony

A caucus race and a long tail

Twilight and the motley collection of swimmers had eventually made it to the shore after an arduous amount of swimming. However one of the sad side effects of swimming was that it usually left you soaking wet.

This was why everyone was now grumbling and moaning and being generally unpleasant instead of thinking of practical methods of drying themselves. Twilight had already gotten into an argument with the lory that had resulted in it sulking and left Twilight wondering why she was talking to these animals like it was perfectly normal and not the phenomenon it actually was.

Eventually the mouse, whom the others seemed to listen to, called out "Sit down all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" The animals all sat down at once followed reluctantly by Twilight, who looked around questioning the animal’s strange obedience.

"Ahem!" the mouse said with unwarranted self-importance. "Are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round if you please!" Twilight rolled her eyes; she never thought she would ever meet a talking mouse, yet had managed to find one. Pity it was one like this.

The mouse started its monologue. "Celestia the Sun-bringer, whose cause was joined by her sister, Luna the night maiden, was soon submitted to by the three tribes, who wanted strong and unbiased leaders after the many centuries of strife between them. Chancellor Puddinghead and Princess Platinum the leaders of the Earth ponies and the Unicorns-."

"Ugh...stop murdering equestrian history..." Twilight muttered with a shiver.

"I beg your pardon!" said the mouse, frowning. "Did you speak?"

"Nope! Didn't say a thing!" Twilight said with feigned innocence.

The mouse gave her a sly look. "I thought you did. Anyway, I shall proceed. Puddinghead and Platinum the leaders of the earth ponies and unicorns, declared for the two sisters and even Commander Hurricane, the stoic leader of the pegasi found it advisable-."

"Found what?" the duck interrupted.

"Found it," the mouse replied angrily; "of course you know what 'it' means."

"I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the duck; "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did Commander Hurricane find?"

The mouse did not notice the question, or, more likely Twilight thought, it just chose to ignore the patently daft query. It continued, "-found it advisable to join the other two leaders and offer the two sisters the crown. At first the two sisters were overwhelmed by this new role thrust upon them, but after the misadventures of Discord the Usurper they embraced their leadership with-; how are you getting on now my dear?" it suddenly said to Twilight.

Twilight jolted, since she had been phasing out listening to the terrible portrayal of commonly known history. "I, uh...I-I'm fine. Absolutely fine. No problems here. Well, apart from still being wet. But you know, that's hardly a big issue."

"She's right!" shouted the Dodo as it jumped to its feet. "I think we should do something more fun! All this history is like...totally boring and stuff!" Twilight looked at the Dodo. She then looked a bit closer. It was orange, with purple highlights of the tips of its wing and tail feathers. It also had a scooter next to it with a purple helmet hanging off the handle bar by its straps.

"Oooookay...that's not weird at all. Perfectly normal for a dodo to resemble Scootaloo." she said quietly to herself. Her eye twitched for a moment before the eagle disturbed her reverie.

"Heck yeah! Then I can show you just how awesome I am!" it shouted. Twilight looked at the eagle. It was pale blue, except like the dodo its wing and tail feathers were highlighted, this time with the colours of the rainbow.

"Rainbow Dash?" Twilight sat there staring with her mouth hanging open until the dodo continued speaking.

"Exactly!" the dodo said, "I heard of this totally wicked thing called a caucus race. I bet if we ran one of those we'd get dry real quick while eagle shows us how totally awesome she is!"

"A caucus race?" Twilight asked, filling the awkward silence the excitable dodo had left. Twilight had heard of a caucus race and had the feeling the dodo was going to be disappointed before this was over.

"Yeah!" the dodo shouted. "I'm not totally sure what the rules are but I think it’s pretty simple".

It marked out a rough circle on the ground before placing Twilight and the various creatures at different points around the circle. Naturally it placed itself next to the eagle.

There was nothing to mark the start of the race. The eagle set off first followed by the dodo on its scooter, and both had done several laps before the rest of the racers had even started. Twilight joined in since it would probably serve to get her mostly dry, at least until the sweating counteracted the drying.

After a while the dodo suddenly shouted "And the eagle has won! Y'know, because its soooo awesome!" All the other animals gave a collective groan before voicing their complaints that the judge was biased.

"Excuse me." Twilight tried to get the dodo's attention, which was hard because it was busy cheering and jumping around. "Excuse me!"

The dodo stopped its celebrations. "Yeah?"

"What proof do you have that the eagle won?"

"Whaddya mean proof? It’s the eagle. It won because it’s awesome!"

"That doesn't mean it won. Firstly, no-one was counting the laps. Secondly, there's no start or finish line and thirdly, it’s a caucus race. There are no winners, or losers. It is in fact the most pointless race in existence and really doesn't deserve to be called a race at all!"

The dodo looked crestfallen. "You mean the eagle didn't win? But the eagle always wins!"

Twilight bit her lip at the sight of the miserable dodo. "Well you could say it did win because we all won?"

The dodo gave a small sigh and a nod. "If we all won does that mean we all get prizes?"

The sudden change in direction caused Twilight to mentally grind her gears. "Huh?" was the best reply she could come up with.

The eagle suddenly butted in, "Heck yeah there should be prizes! And you’re going to give them to us!"

"Wha-?"

The creatures, led by the eagle started to gather round her, chanting "Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!"

"Okay! Okay!" Twilight shouted, "You can have some prizes! Sheesh!" She concentrated her magic, forgetting her earlier failures at spell crafting, and suddenly a small golden medal appeared around the neck of everyone there. On the medals was written 'I ran a caucus race and all I got was this lousy medal.'

Twilight wore a smirk that, if it could talk, would have said "demand prizes off me will you?" That smirk dropped off a bit when the creatures all cheered anyway.

"Hey!" the dodo shouted, pointing at Twilight's bare neck. "What about you?"

Twilight smirked again and created a medal for herself that said, 'all draws are equal, but some are more equal than others.' The smirk disappeared when, once again, everyone cheered. Twilight shook her head, these animals were making those proverbial two short planks look positively scholarly.

Her consideration of their intelligence was ended when the mouse tugged on her tail and gestured to where the creatures had all gathered in a circle.

"I do believe I said earlier that I would tell you my history, young uni-pega-cornified purple talking pony."

Twilight thought desperately, she wasn't interested in another silly history lesson, especially about a mouse. "Uh, you really don't need to do that because...because...um...I don't want it to be a bother for you." She grinned hoping the mouse would get her point.

"Don't be silly dear, it'd be a pleasure to tell you."

"Ugh...fine." Twilight went over and sat in the ring of animals, while the mouse went to the centre.

"Mine is a long and sad tale!" said the mouse with a sigh.

Twilight jumped to her hooves, "Then maybe you shouldn't talk about it? You don't want to depress yourself now do you?"

The mouse tapped its paw irritability, "Please don't interrupt me young miss or I shall be most offended. Now then, let me begin."

The mouse cleared its throat. "Fury said to a mouse, that he met in the house, 'let us both go to law: I will prosecute you. Come, I'll take no denial, we must have the trial; for really-."

"Wait wait wait!" Twilight interrupted without really thinking. "What is this 'fury' prosecuting you for exactly?"

As Twilight had hoped the mouse turned to her looking rather upset. "I told you not to interrupt me!"

"Oh I'm sorry, I just thought that if you were in trouble with the law I might be able to help."

"I am not in trouble with the law!"

"Then why are you being prosecuted?"

"I am not-, you know what? Forget it. You, young lady, are infuriating and if you do not wish to listen then I shall take my leave."

"But, but...I was only trying to help! You don't have to leave!" The mouse stomped off anyway.

"Pfft," the dodo said "boring story anyway. Right, eagle?"

The eagle, which had dozed off, jolted awake. "Forty two!" it spluttered. "What?" it said in response to the strange looks it had received.

An old crab spoke up. "Ah, my dear!" it said to its daughter. Or it might have been a son; crab gender recognition wasn't high on Twilight's list of skills. "Let this be a lesson to you to always pay attention."

The smaller crab jerked awake. "Oysters!" The others tittered at it. "What?" it said defensively.

Twilight though was looking at the retreating mouse. "If only we had a cat or something to bring it back." She wasn't aware she had said this out loud. "Of course, we'd have to find a way to stop the cat from eating him but I think it could work." She frowned. "Is this a Pinkie Pie idea, because it’s not exactly the best."

He attention was grabbed by the sound of the others making excuses and leaving. "I really must be getting home; the night air doesn't suit my throat!" said an old magpie. A canary called out to its children in a trembling voice, "Come away my dears! It's high time you were off to bed!"

One by one the various creatures made their excuses and moved off, leaving Twilight on her own.

"Nice move brain, just say stupid things like that out loud and I'm sure everything will just get better and better." She sighed. "Who knew being Pinkie, being me, would be so...hard."

She sat there on her own for a while, unsure of what to do next when she heard a pattering of footsteps, causing her to look around. Maybe someone had taken pity on her and was coming back to help.

Author's Note:

Have another chapter today. Just because.

Comments

[Fetch]

There is a tale here on fimfiction where Pinkie's grandmother was the "Alice" that Lewis Carrot wrote Wonderland for. But I can't recall title or author of it. Sorry.

[annonymus]

Poor Twilight. Struggling on helping others.