Alicorn in Wonderland

by The Hand of Pony

Pig and pepper

Twilight stood staring at the house, wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the woods, (or at least she thought he was a footman because he was dressed in livery; otherwise, judging by his face alone, she would have called him a fish. She was purposely avoiding thinking of why a fish had legs and was running; some things just didn't need to be thought about lest the brain explode).

The fishy footman knocked at the door. It was opened by another footman in livery, who just so happened to be a sort of familiar looking toothless alligator. Being the nosy sort, Twilight crept closer so she could eavesdrop.

The fish footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, almost as large as himself, and handed it over to the other footman, saying, in a solemn tone, "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet." The Gummy footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, "From the Queen. An invitathon for the Dutheth to play croquet."

Then they both bowed low, and the curls of their powdered wigs got entangled, making Twilight smirk in amusement at that, and at the alligator’s speech. Apparently having no teeth could give you quite the lisp. She sat there watching the two disentangle themselves, and followed the fish footman with her eyes, as he ran back the way he came. The Gummy footman was sitting on the ground near the door and was staring stupidly up into the sky.

Twilight trotted timidly up to the door, and knocked. She then jumped a couple of feet into the air when Gummy spoke to her.
"There'th no thort of uthe in knocking," he said, "and that'th for two reathonth. Firtht, becauthe I'm on the thame thide of the door ath you are. Thecondly, becauthe they're making thuch a noithe inthide, no one could pothibly hear you."

Twilight twitched her ears. There did seem to be an excess of noise coming from within; a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a crash, as if some sort of ceramic kitchenware had been smashed. "So..." asked Twilight, "am I supposed to just walk in? Because that seems a bit rude, even for this place."

The vacantly staring Gummy footman, didn't pay her any attention and went on with his monologue. "There might be thome uthe in your knocking if we had the door between uth. For inthtanthe, if you were inthide, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know."

As he talked, he kept on staring at the sky, even when she waved her hoof in front of his eyes. "You, would never get a job in Canterlot, I can assure you," she said half to the footman and half to herself. "So should I just walk in?" she asked him.

"I shall thit here," he continued, "'til tomorrow-"

At that moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the footman's head. It just grazed the top of his head, and shattered against one of the trees behind him.

"-or the nextht day maybe," he continued, like nothing had happened.

Twilight stared for a moment, shocked, before shaking her head and asking, "How am I supposed to get in?"

"Are you to get in at all?" said the footman. "That's the firtht quethtion."

Twilight huffed for a bit. She could, she told herself, just walk in and see what happened. But she really didn't want to annoy the alligator that was bigger than her, even if he was toothless. "I'm going to have an aneurysm before today's over, aren't I?"

The footman seemed to think this was a good opportunity for repeating his remark, but with variations. "I thall thit here," he said, "on and off for dayth and dayth."

"But what about me? What am I supposed to do!?" asked Twilight.

"Anything you like," was the footman's reply, before he started whistling. Or at least attempted to whistle.

"Argh!" Twilight started banging her head on the door. "Why me? *thud* Why me? *thud* Why m- waah!" The door opened as she was head-butting it, and she fell in, smacking her face on the floor.

She stood up groggily and rubbed her head before sneezing violently. She looked around, finding herself in a kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other. The smoke was coming from a fire, on which sat a large cauldron. Tending the cauldron was a pony she didn't really recognise. The rooms other occupants were a large, grinning cat. A screaming, sneezing foal, and-

"Rarity! Thank Celestia it's good to see you!" Rarity didn't even look at her. "Rarity? Can you hear me?" Twilight sneezed again. "Ugh, what is with all this pepper? And why does that cat keep grinning at me!?"

"Because it's a Cheshire cat," Rarity said suddenly, making Twilight jump; "that's why. Pig!"

That last word was spoken with such violence that Twilight folded her ears and winced. Fortunately, she saw it was addressed to the foal and not her, because she was going to have words, otherwise.

Twilight coughed politely. "I didn't know that Cheshire cats could grin. In fact, I didn't know that cats could grin. Look smug, sure, but not grin."

"They all can," said Rarity;" and most of them do."

"I don't know of any species of cat that could grin," said Twilight. This was not a conversation she was expecting to have.

"Then you don't know much, and that's a fact."

Twilight was about to defend herself, claiming that Princess Celestia did not pick the ignorant to be her students; but gave up, figuring it was pointless. She started another attempt at conversation when the cook took the cauldron off the fire, and started to fling everything within reach at the Duchess and the foal. The fire irons came first, followed by a shower of saucepans, plates and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them, even when they hit her; and the foal was howling so much already, Twilight couldn't tell whether the blows hurt it or not.

"Geez lady, are you crazy!" Twilight shouted as she dodged the incoming projectiles.

"If everybody minded their own business," Rarity said in a hoarse growl, "the world would go round a good deal faster than it does."

"What? No it wouldn't!" Twilight exclaimed, feeling incensed by the ignorance of this place's inhabitants. "The day is dictated by the rising of the sun and the moon. Princesses Celestia and Luna have to keep to a strict schedule, the variations of which are dictated by the rotating of the world upon its axis-."

"Talking of axes," Rarity said, "chop off her head!"

Twilight looked at the cook to see if she was going to obey her mistress, but thankfully she continued making her overly peppered soup and appeared not to notice. "Is everyone so tetchy here? I was only trying to explain the celestial calendar and its effect over the period of each twenty four hours."

"Oh don't bother me!" said Rarity. "I never could abide figures!" And with that she began nursing her foal, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, giving it a violent shake at the end of every line.

"Speak roughly to your little filly,
And beat her when she sneezes;
She only does it to annoy,
Because she knows it teases."

Chorus (in which the cook and the foal joined, Twilight just stared on in horror) - "Wow! Wow! Wow!"

While the Duchess Rarity sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the foal violently up and down, and the poor thing howled so, that Twilight could hardly hear the words.

"I speak severely to my filly,
And beat her when she sneezes;
For she can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when she pleases!"

Chorus "Wow! Wow! Wow!"

Twilight was horrified. "Was that actually a song about beating foals!? What is wrong with you!?"

"Here! You may nurse it a bit if you like!" said the Duchess, flinging the foal at Twilight. "I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen," and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying pan after her as she went, but it just missed to Twilight's silent disappointment.

Twilight had managed to catch the foal in her magic before it hit the floor, but was barely managing to hold onto it. Its legs stuck out in all directions just like a starfish. The poor thing was snorting like the Friendship Express, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again. Overall the effect was like trying to hold a greased eel between your hooves; how it was slipping out of her magic so easily was...weird.

She gave up trying to hold onto the foal and settled for keeping it enclosed in a bubble, letting it do as it wished as she took it outside. Now she had the foal she took a closer look at it. It was a white unicorn filly, with a two tone pink and lavender mane. There was no denying it, it was Sweetie Belle, although why she was a foal and why the Duchess Rarity seemed to be her mother was beyond Twilight's comprehension.

"It's like that weird rumour that AppleJack is actually AppleBlooms mother, but Rarified. Anyway, let’s get you to foal services, or at least the nearest equivalent this place has."

Sweetie Belle grunted in an in-equine manner causing Twilight to pause and take a look at her. Her muzzle did seem rather flat at the end, and her eyes seem to be smaller than they should be.

"What is going on here?" Twilight asked out loud as Sweetie continued grunting and snuffling. "You’re not seriously turning into a pig are you? That's not right!" She walked on for a bit, the Sweetie pig still safely ensconced in its bubble. "Ooh, what am I going to do? I broke Sweetie Belle!"

Sweetie was definitely a pig now, complete with curly tail and trotters. Feeling ridiculous carrying a pig around, even above how weird this situation was; she released it from its bubble and watched it trot off into the woods.

"I never saw it. I wasn't there. And if I was there I was asleep. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"That's a funny story to stick to."

"Gah!" shouted Twilight, almost falling over in shock. She looked around, desperately trying to find who said that.

"Up here, in the tree Twilight." Twilight looked up into the tree where the Duchess's cheshire cat sat, grinning at her. "Hello," he said when she finally spotted him. "I see the mushroom worked out well for you."

"Discord?" Twilight said disbelievingly. "You’re a cat now?"

"Well yes. I said I had places to go and things to do, and be here as a cat so happened to be those things. Besides, I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"What, being a caterpillar not good enough for you now?"

"Well you know what they say. Variety is the spice of life. And I do like things spicy."

Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. "So still feeling helpful? Because I'd love to know where to go from here."

"That depends," said Discord with a grin, "Where do you want to go?"

"Home." said Twilight flatly.

"Uh, well...no. I can't help you there."

"In that case I don't care where,-"

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go."

"-so long as I get somewhere."

Discord raised an eyebrow. "Are you actually inviting sarcasm? Because I could point in literally any direction and all of them would take you 'somewhere.'"

Twilight just looked up at him, her eyes large and dewy. There was also a cute little pout. Despite the fur Discord started to sweat.

"Ugh, confound you Fluttershy for giving me a weakness to puppy-eyes. Fine, listen up Twinkie because I'm only doing this once. In that direction," he said, pointing a claw to the right, "lives a hatter." He pointed in another direction. "In that direction lives a March Hare. Visit either you like, they’re both mad."

"Mad compared to you? Or mad for this place’s standards?"

Discord raised a claw, "..." he said before lowering it slowly. "That was unkind, especially after I've been so very kind to you." he said with a sniff. "Besides, we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"And how do you know I'm mad?"

"For starters you think you might be Pinkie Pie. Apart from that only mad people come here."

"And you think you're mad because?"

"To begin with, a dog’s not mad. You grant that?"

"Uh...no. You said everything here is mad. So a dog here would have to be mad by default."

"I-I...me...I...uh." Discord fell silent for a moment. "Must you make everything so difficult? I spent ages working on that explanation and you ruined it in seconds!"

"Living the dream Discord, living the dream."

There was several seconds of awkward silence before Discord mumbled "Are you going to the croquet today, little miss anti-fun?"

"Well I haven't been invited, and I'm pretty sure not seeing the Duchess ever again might be good for my health."

"You'll see me there."

"As the cat? Or as something else?"

"As the cat. Being anything else would probably destroy the narrative."

"What?"

"Nothing!" he said quickly, before vanishing. A second later he was back. "Bye the bye, what became of the foal you casually walked off with? I'm supposed to ask."

Twilight sighed and looked at the floor. "It turned into a pig," she admitted quietly.

Discord snirked. "You broke Sweetie Belle?"

"I didn't break anything!"

"Doesn't matter to me, I'm only supposed to ask. Besides, I had a feeling pig-hood was that one’s destiny. Ta-ta Twilight!" he said cheerily before vanishing again.

Twilight waited, expecting him to return again. When it became apparent he wasn't returning she started trotting towards where he said the March Hare lived. "A mad hare, or a mad hatter...those are some excellent choices..." she muttered.

"Did you say 'pig', or 'fig'?" asked Discord when he suddenly appeared on a branch in front of Twilight, giving her a mild heart attack.

"Pig! And stop DOING that! You're going to give me an actual heart attack appearing and disappearing like that!"

"So sorry." he said with a grin; and this time he vanished slowly, starting with his tail, and ending with his grin, which lingered for far too long.

"I'll wipe that stupid grin off his face when I find him again!" she said in impotent anger.

She had not gone much further before she came into sight of the March Hare's house. It had to be the right house because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. Only something mad could live here she reasoned. The house was also bigger than the Duchess' house so she plucked the mushroom out of her little neck bag and set to work on making herself a little bigger.

"I hope the hare's not too mad, I'm not sure how to quantify madness for hares. I may have been better off going to the hatters."