Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

The Ball of Cute Tool ...Who?

As Alabaster and I walked out of the Palace, Princess Luna's honesty magic having confirmed the details of our bargain (which had been fun to write out, in order to be clear to us without letting the Princess herself know about our private shenanigans), I felt a thump on my head. Rolling my eyes up, I discovered a red sphere wedged between my left horn and my skull. A filly galloped up, and asked, "May I please have my ball back, ma'am?". I lowered my head to where she could reach it, and as she galloped off, I saw that she had a cutie mark, a hammer and wrench decorated with smilie facies and hearts.

Alabaster sniffed audibly. I raised an eyebrow. She elaborated, "She should be in school."

"Hm. Do you know one of the fastest and best ways to teach yourself something?" She looked at me without answering, so I elaborated, "Be unafraid to play with it."

"That hardly seems dignified."

"I didn't say it was the most dignified way. What is more important, maintaining an appearance of 'dignity' at all times, or having the power that comes from knowing how something works?"

"You say that as if they were mutually exclusive."

"There's less than nine thousand hours in a year, and more things to know than can be learned in a century. If you take ten hours to learn something when you could have taken twenty, you've got ten extra hours to do other things. If you take thirty hours when you could have taken ten, you've just used up twenty hours of your life for no good purpose."

"Ensuring one's peers continue to respect one is a very good purpose."

"That depends on who those 'peers' are. Do they provide more benefit to you than the opportunity-loss you suffer by limiting yourself to their expectations?"

While we still weren't friends, or friendly with each other, or even anything near anything of the sort - it was a reasonably pleasant experience to at least have a conversation with somepony who was at least moderately competent.

---

"And here is the primary text I believe you will find of interest." A good-sized trunk was now sitting in the middle of Alabaster's hotel-suite sitting room. I found it mildly interesting that she'd brought it with her - it suggested that she'd known enough about me even before she left home to bring it with her. Her horn glowed, the trunk unlatched and opened, and there within it was a leather-bound tome whose title was... well, if I could read the antiquated style of Equestrian lettering... the "Equinomicon".

My heart sped up. This wasn't like finding a mint-in-box Optimus Prime toy at a garage sale for five bucks - this was finding the big guy himself with a "For Sale By Owner" sign in his window.

I wanted this book.

I needed this book.

I... noticed something odd in my glasses - the reflection of my eyes had changed. My irises were drooping in the middle, down to a point, like a heart-shape.

I considered the book - and I still wanted it, I wanted to rub it all over my body. I wanted to have its babies.

I thought about some of the descriptions of books with similar titles, and the potentially lethal Alien-esque consequences of having such a book's babies. I still wanted 'em.

I considered that Alabaster hadn't touched the trunk or book herself, and wondered just how much poison might be slathered on the book's pages, and of how many different kinds... and, carefully, I thought that I not only wanted to have the book now, I wanted to keep having the book tomorrow, and next year, and a thousand years from now - and that if I were dead, I wouldn't be able to have the book at all, let alone have its babies.

I noticed that I'd stopped walking towards it, my nose just a couple of paces away from its most-likely-pony-hide-cover. My nostrils flared as I couldn't resist inhaling its scent. I very carefully ran my mind over the available options to ensure that I would be able to keep having it for as long as possible. I was most likely under a mind-affecting spell which was clouding my judgment about certain matters, which would likely result in my death much earlier than my unclouded thoughts would lead to, thus leading to my being able to spend that much less time having this book. Therefore, in order to spend as much time with the book as possible (and its babies!), my most urgent priority was to have the mind-altering spell removed.

I focused myself on that thought, keeping it at the forefront of my mind, as I shaped my mouth to speak the words, "Close. The. Trunk."

There was a long pause... and then, finally, the trunk's lid glowed in Alabaster's pale telekinetic aura, and closed, shutting off the view of the book I wanted to spend the rest of my hopefully very long life with (and babies!). I focused on my eyes' reflection - still heart-shaped.

I managed to speak, "Let me guess. This book has a reputation for driving those who read it mad. And you were going to conveniently neglect to mention anything of the sort."

I dragged my eyes away from the box containing my precious, to look at the mare whose current use to me was measured precisely in what she could do to help me hold onto said precious for as long as possible. Her expression was rather different from what it had been a few minutes ago, in the distant before-time which was ignorable save for those events that had brought me to where I could finally meet my text. "You wanted books that you would value more than a million bits. This is a tome which, I believed, you would prize more than that money." She looked up and down at me, and I took in her apparent confusion as a datum to use to manipulate her to maximize my future time with the book. "I'm... not sure... that is, you..."

My mind was running through various conversational paths to find the one that had the greatest chance of attaining my goal. I stated, "You merely failed to take into account the fact that, by the standards of ordinary ponies, I am already quite mad. However, I have tamed that madness, and yoked it to make it useful to me. I am," I had to force myself to say the words, keeping my long-term goal of eternal ownership of the book in mind, balancing the risk of immediate loss of it against the risk of near-term death and loss of it that way, "on the verge of canceling our bargain due to this abuse of trust and faith. Do you have a counter-spell for the immediately-obvious symptoms?" I gestured a hoof in the general direction of my eyes. She started to shake her head, and I bared my teeth in a rather un-bovine, predatory snarl. "In that case I have a Princess to go see. Safe, if you would kindly levitate this trunk to bring with us?"

Alabaster's alabaster-white face paled a notch. "Wait!", she hurriedly stated. "A counter-spell is unnecessary - all you have to - er, all an ordinary pony has to do, is be kept from looking at it for an hour. But - they have to be kept from seeing it. You... I don't understand how you're not tearing that trunk open to get at it, so I don't know whether that would work for you."

I smiled at her. She paled another notch, so I stopped smiling. "Perhaps one day I will tell you." I ran my thoughts along the path that in order to extend my life to spend centuries or more with the book, it would be helpful to acquire as many resources in the short-term as possible. "In the meantime, I think it is safe to say that despite your plan, this book alone will not satisfy your debt. Were you forethoughtful enough to bring additional offerings?"

She was - but the Equinomicon was the only book, the other trade-goods she'd brought were just in case I was more susceptible to other enticements than I was to books.

"In that case," I tapped my chin as if in thought, "I believe that I shall take this as a down payment - and once you have finished bringing me sufficient books to finish your side of the bargain, I will uphold my end, and 'remove the curse' of your Canterlot house. I trust that you will agree that is as fair an approach as is possible, under the circumstances?"

She wasn't happy - but she didn't disagree. I had Safe levitate the trunk as we exited the hotel, and once we were out of earshot, I whispered to him through clenched teeth, "I think I'm going to need you to discreetly tie me up for the next hour or so."

---

When I walked into Cheerilee's home, I was still sporting a headache that matched some of my nastier migraines, even after swallowing a hooffull of horse-pill-sized painkillers.

When she saw me, her eyes widened and she hurried over in concern. "What's wrong?" I probed my feelings - my desire to be with her, to help her, to make her happy paled in comparison to how strongly I had wanted to hold onto that book... but while that artificial desire was gone, leaving a mental void, I still wanted Cheerilee to be happy.

"Work," I announced blandly. "Do you have any idea how troublesome it is to arrange to have a book copied, without anyone else coming into physical contact with or seeing it?"

She paused, blinking, forehead wrinkled. "...How?"

I sighed. "A complicated little machine that takes photos."

I turned to grab my saddlebags with my mouth, which was the moment a rather enormous insect flew down and landed on my back. A beetle-type thing the size of a turtle, yellow-bodied, red-backed, with antennas whose tips flared out into a flower-like spread.

About all I could say was, "What."

Cheerilee giggled. "Oh, that's just Lady. She's been my pet for years. I've just been too busy to take proper care of her lately, so she's been at my sister's, but now that there's two of us here...?" She looked at me hopefully.

I rubbed the back of my neck with a hoof, which I'd been doing a lot that day. "I'm too exhausted to refuse anything you might suggest today."

She brightened. "Then how about we go swimming? Relaxing and floating in some water might help you feel better..."

"Um..." I looked down at my hooves. "I don't know whether or not I know how to swim."

---

Turned out cows could float - at least, well enough that with a mask and snorkel, I could just let myself hang in the creek's water without exerting a muscle, and watch the minnows and small fish go about their business, while Cheerilee stretched out on the bank and watched to make sure I didn't drift too far downstream. And she was right - my head did slowly start to feel better.

Which, of course, is precisely when the wandering monster appeared.

Comments

[Langly]

Heh, good thing I always check my facts before I say anything

I always thought Cow's couldn't swim, I absolutely sure they said it once in the news on a flood where a lot of livestock died. Looking back the explanation was kinda ridiculous but little me believed it back then and never questioned it after that

Oh well, new chapter yay Bad Gateway boo

[nemryn]

Wait, so is the book enchanted with Want-It-Need-It or a love poison spell? Some unholy combination of both? Something even more sinister?

(I really like its kerning)

[DataPacRat]

923406
When Missy finds out, I'll be sure to let you know.

In case I didn't make it clear, I will say that she never came into physical contact with it, which likely limits the options.

[Minalkra]

923406
uhm, i'm thinking the intent here is that Want-It-Need-It spell is an attempt to replicate the love poison effects without the unwanted side effects (love without the crazed desire and such). it probably would follow the same rules.

or it's just a book possessed of a maddening alien intellect that was slowly eating Missy alive until rationalization came to the rescue. uhm, i'm probably wrong on both accounts. sorry ...

[Tay the Chemist]

I immediately sense that the 'monster' is the lead character from another story. Perhaps partly because almost all of them are monsters, and those ones now are probably more populous than the actual monster population. Also because, from what's happened in your story so far and other stuff, it's probably able to speak. It's definitely peaceful, and probably human, in my opinion.

[Doctor Whooves]

I'm scared to go away for a few days, in case when I come back you've written another 50,000 words. Your update rate is insane, and I thank you for it.

[RealityDowngrade]

Can't go wrong with LOTR references

tejaswy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/gollum.jpg

Unless it's about Tom Bombidil jk, he's alright

[Haywire_Hakaze]

923406

(I really like its kerning)

...

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