Alicorn in Wonderland

by The Hand of Pony

The Mock Turtle's story

You can't imagine how nice it is to see you again, darling!" said Rarity, or rather the Duchess, as she nuzzled Twilight affectionately.

Twilight was glad to find the Duchess in a better mood, and not singing songs about foal beating. Maybe being suffocated by superfluous pepper can make anyone cranky she thought to herself.

"If I should ever have reason to get a royal chef I hope they would know how to cook. If I even detected a hint of too much pepper I'd probably fire them!" she thought. "Actually I'd probably eat it before gently hinting there might be a touch too much pepper. Sometimes I'm really too nice."

As she was lost in her own thoughts she had kind of forgotten that the Duchess was walking beside her and was more than a little surprised when her voice intruded on her thoughts.

"You're thinking about something darling, and its making you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I'm sure I'll remember it in a moment."

"Who says it has to have a moral?" Twilight said after her heart rate had returned to a more normal level.

"Tut, tut child!" said Rarity, making Twilight fume at being called a child yet again. "Every thing's got a moral, if only you can find it." And she squeezed herself up closer to Twilight's side as she spoke.

Twilight did not like her keeping so close. Firstly because the excess of perfume she wore was enough to gag you, while still failing to hide the smell of pepper; and secondly, because she seemed to be trying her best to push Twilight over as she walked, she was that close. It was taking Twilight some effort to just walk in a straight line. Thirdly, the Duchess was a crazed foal beater, which tended to lessen Twilight's view of anyone. Out of sheer manners alone she did her best to put up with it.

"Soooo... The game seems to be going ok." Twilight said, hoping to keep the conversation on neutral topics.

"Indeed it is," said Rarity; "and the moral of that is- 'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round!'"

Twilight frowned, her insistence on logic about to cause her a lot of grief. "I don't see how that 'moral', and croquet, has any correlation at all. Besides I thought minding your own business had something to do with the world going round?"

"Ah well! It means much the same thing!" said Rarity, leaning against Twilight even harder. "And the moral of that is- 'Take care of the sense, and the sounds take care of themselves.'"

"But...but, those things aren't the same! They're practically opposites! And I don't know what to make of that last moral!"

"I dare say you’re wondering why I don't just sit on you and ride you like the pony you are," Rarity said, like ponies riding ponies was a perfectly normal thing to do. "The problem is, I'm doubtful of the temper of your serpent. Should I try the experiment?"

"Oh no," said Twilight, "that would be really dangerous! This serpent is practically rabid! He'd probably try to bite you soon as you look at him!" The serpent in question stopped grooming his mane to give Twilight a funny look.

"Very true," said Rarity; "serpents and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is- 'Birds of a feather flock together.'"

"I...what?" Twilight rubbed her head with a hoof. "Who mentioned mustard? And serpents and mustard aren't birds, and they definitely don't flock."

"Right, as usual," said Rarity; "what a clear way you have of putting things!"

"Mustard could be a mineral..." said Twilight, deliberately misleading her since she was pretty sure that the Duchess wouldn't know anyway.

"Of course it is," said Rarity, who seemed willing to agree with whatever inane statement Twilight made. "There's a large mustard mine near here. And the moral of that is- 'The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.'"

"Oh," said Twilight lightly, "a mustard mine? Is it next door to the treacle well? Besides, I don't think morals apply to mines. That, and mustard is made from seeds."

"I quite agree with you," said Rarity, who really didn't seem to care what Twilight said, as long as she could get a moral out of it; "and the moral of that is- 'Be what you would seem to be'- or, if you'd like it put more simply- 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"

"I'm pretty sure there's a contradiction in there somewhere," said Twilight, not that she had any way to be sure if there was or not.

"That's nothing to what I could say if I chose," said Rarity in a pleased tone.

"There's no need to trouble yourself to over-complicate that further, I assure you."

"Oh, don't talk about trouble!" said Rarity gaily. "I make you a present of everything I've said as yet, darling."

"Oh goody..." thought Twilight sarcastically." I doth believe my cup of nonsense already overfloweth."

"Thinking again?" asked Rarity, leaning a little harder into Twilight.

"Yes! Yes I am!" Twilight snapped. She was getting rather fed up of morals, and the Duchess. "The right to think is one I exercise freely and frequently!"

"You have just as much right to think, as pigs have to fly," said Rarity, failing to pick up on Twilight's frustration; "and the mo-"

The Duchess's voice, to Twilight's surprise, died away, even in the middle of her favourite word 'moral,' and she could feel the Duchess's body start trembling next to her. Standing in front of them, with a face like thunder, was the Queen herself.

"A fine day, your Majesty!" said Rarity in a thin, wavering voice. Twilight wisely decided to stay silent.

"Now, I give you fair warning," said Cadence, stomping a hoof on the ground as she spoke; "either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!"

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment, much to Twilight's silent relief.

"Let's go on with the game," Cadence said to Twilight, the fear of death making Twilight obey in no short order.

The other guests, as well as their balls and mallets, had taken advantage of the delay to have a rest in the shade. However, the moment they saw the Queen, they hurried back to the game, Cadence merely remarking 'Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Get back to the game, or a ball your head shall make!'

All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with the other players, and shouting "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so by the end of half an hour or so, there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, Queen, and Twilight, were in custody and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Twilight "Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?"

"No," said Twilight. "Why would I want to see a fake turtle?"

"A mock turtle is the thing mock turtle soup is made from."

"Turtle soup? But...but...we're vegetarians!"

Cadence looked at Twilight sternly. "I never said it was a popular dish. Come along and he shall tell you his history."

"Oh good," Twilight thought to herself, "another pointless history lesson." As they walked off, Twilight heard the King say in a low voice to everyone, "You are all pardoned." Twilight smiled to herself. She knew her BBBFF wouldn't just let all those people die without trying to do something.

Soon she and Cadence came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. It looked familiar to Twilight but at the moment she couldn't put a hoof on why.

"Up, lazy thing!" said Cadence, "and take this young mare to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some executions I have ordered," and she walked off, leaving Twilight alone with the Gryphon. The gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes. Then it scowled at the Queen as it watched her walk out of sight.

"Pfft, as if," it said once she was gone. It pointed a claw down to a beach. "Mock Turtle's that way. Enjoy."

'Gilda,' the name just popped into Twilight's head. Apparently this version of her was as surly as her other worldly counterpart. "Y'know, if the Queen was to come back and find you sleeping here I'd bet she'd be pretty upset. It might put her into a beheading mood if y'know what I mean."

The Gryphon rolled its eyes. "Yeah, right. No one ever gets beheaded; it’s all a load of rubbish. That pansy King keeps pardoning everyone."

Twilight sat and tapped a hoof on her chin. "And yet they have an executioner, I wonder why if no one ever dies. I guess some one must get executed sometimes, like for example, lazy servitors."

"You’re not going to leave me alone are you?" Twilight shook her head. "Ugh, fine. Come on." Twilight did so, but not without puzzling over why she kept blindly following others around in this place.

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock. It wasn't hard to spot him since he appeared to be a rather large minotaur. A rather large minotaur wearing a shell around his torso. As they came nearer, Twilight could hear him sighing as if his heart would break.

"Why's he so sad?"

"Pfft, he's just a drama queen, ignore it." They walked up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with eyes full of tears, but said nothing. "This little dweeb of a pony," said Gilda, "has forcibly dragged me here, by order of the Queen, to hear your history. Please make it as painless as possible."

"Mock Turtle will tell her Mock Turtle's history," the Mock Turtle said in a loud, yet deep voice. "Now sit down and shut up until I've finished!"

Both Twilight's and Gilda's rumps dropped to the floor, obeying out of primal terror. No one, including the Mock Turtle said anything for several minutes. Twilight sighed internally, "This is going to take a really long time isn't it," she thought.

"Once," said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, "I was a real turtle."

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by the occasional sound of Gilda absently scraping her talons on the rocks, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Twilight almost wanted to clap, but her fear of upsetting the giant minotaur kept her mute.

"When we were little," the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though he still sobbed a little now and then, "we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle- We used to call him Tortoise."

"But he if wasn't a tortoise, why would you call him that?" Twilight asked.

"Mock Turtle called him Tortoise because he taught us!" the Mock Turtle said angrily. "You are a dumb little pony!"

"Pshah! How could you be, like, so stupid," said Gilda before she and the Mock Turtle stared at Twilight, who just wanted the earth to hurry up and swallow her. At last Gilda said to the Mock Turtle "Get on with it Mock. Some of us have important things to get back and avoid doing."

"Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mightn't believe it-"

"I never said I didn't!" said Twilight defensively.

"Mock Turtle swears you did!"

"Shut up, dweeb." said Gilda, smacking Twilight on the back of her head with a claw before she could speak. The Mock Turtle went on.

"We had the best of educations; in fact, we went to school every day-"

"You say that like that's abnormal. We've all been to school."

"With extras?" asked the Mock Turtle, a little anxiously.

"Of course," said Twilight, preparing for a little self-aggrandizement, "I was Princess Celestia’s personal student, I had to learn many things including magical theory, and advanced thaumaturgy."

"And washing?" asked the Mock Turtle.

"What? Why would anyone need to learn that?" asked Twilight, perplexed.

"Hah! Then yours was a rubbish school!" said the Mock Turtle in ear splitting jubilation. "Now, at ours, they had, at the end of the bill, languages, music, and washing- extra."

"But you lived in the sea," said Twilight, always willing to poke the hornets’ nest. "Why would you need to wash?"

"I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. "Mock Turtle could only afford regular courses."

"And those were?"

"Reeling and writhing, of course, to begin with. And then the different branches of Arithmetic- ambition, distraction, uglification, and Derision."

"Those sound like some...unusual maths forms, to say the least. And Uglification I've never even heard of."

Gilda snorted in, that's right, derision; she was a good mathematician. "Trust a pony to not know what uglification is. I bet the pretty, pretty pony knows what beautification is?"

"Well, yes." said Twilight. "It means to beautify things."

"Well then, if you can't work out what uglification is, you are as dumb as you look."

And Twilight thought the Hatter was rude. She'd been insulted several times and smacked round the back of the head; and she'd only been here ten minutes. Deciding to say no more on the matter she asked the Mock Turtle "What else did you have to learn?"

"Well there was mystery," the Mock Turtle replied, counting off subjects on his fingers. "Mystery, ancient and modern, with seaography, then drawling- the drawling master was an old conger eel, that used to come in once a week; he taught us drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils."

"And how does one 'faint in coils,' exactly?" Twilight asked.

"Mock Turtle cannot show you, he is too big, and stiff, and muscular! And the Gryphon never learnt it."

"Hadn't time," said Gilda. "I was too busy avoiding my classical master. He was an old crab, he was."

"Mock Turtle never learnt from him," the Mock Turtle said with a sigh. "He taught laughing and grief, they used to say."

"There was definitely more grief than laughter, that's for sure," said Gilda with a growl.

After a minutes silence Twilight tried to change the subject by asking "How much time a day did you spend on these lessons?" By her own admission it wasn't a particularly imaginative question but it served to get the conversation rolling again.

"Ten hours the first day," answered the Mock Turtle; "nine the next, and so on."

"That's a strange way of doing things," said Twilight.

"Well duh!" said Gilda. "That's why their called lessons, because they lesson from day to day."

Twilight thought for a bit. "So the eleventh day was a holiday?" she asked, fully expecting to be called stupid again, for getting it wrong.

"Of course it was," said the Mock Turtle.

Twilight was actually relieved to get it right. Feeling brave she asked "What happened on the twelfth day?"

She was denied her answer because Gilda started whining. "Can we talk about something else now? All this talking about lessons is, like, really boring."