Radish and Light strolled through Canterlot’s farmers market, taking in the sights, sounds, and aromas. Ponies were selling produce, homemade goods, gifts, and snacks from the many booths.
Light paused in front of one. She stared at a basket of fat, squat brown root vegetables.
“What… are these?” she asked.
“Jicama.”
“Hicka-what?”
“They’re great. You can make fries out of them.”
She wandered over to the next stall, which had several varieties of bananas laid out.
“Wait… all of these are different kinds of bananas?” she asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I didn’t know there were this many. I’ve only seen the regular ones at the store.”
“Oh, there’s way more varieties than this,” said Radish. “Thousands, actually, depending on how you count them.”
“Thousands!” She started to gather some up in her hooves. “Well, now I have to try them all.”
Radish smiled. “Now you’re the one taking me back. After Celestia fixed things between me and my parents, we actually started to enjoy farm life. I wanted to grow every kind of crop there was.”
“And did you?”
“Well, not every crop will grow in the Flint Steppes.”
“It must have been weird, having Celestia just show up in your bedroom one day.”
“Yeah, it sure was. There were times when I questioned if it really happened.”
“But you two are really on good terms now?”
“Yeah. Things have never been better between us.”
Radish’s bunkmates gathered around a poker table in their common room. Spats dealt.
“So, uh, Rad’s on his second date,” he said.
“Mmm hmm,” said Maple Bar.
“After that is the third date,” said Spats. “And you know what they say about the third date.”
“Okay, I’m just going to put this out there,” said Bunker Buster. “Is anyone else worried about what would happen if Radish has sex with someone who’s not Celestia?”
“Why?” asked Maple Bar. “What do you think could happen?”
“What if, like, the universe explodes because he went against his cutie mark?”
“Oh, come on,” said Zero. “My cutie mark is a dartboard- the universe doesn’t explode when I play backgammon.”
“But you know how you got your cutie mark,” said Bunker Buster. “Rad’s is a big cosmic mystery. The cosmos might take exception to being defied.”
“Well,” said Spats, “if Radish being happy destroys the universe, so be it. It was an honor working with you all.”
“I’m more worried about Celestia,” said Zero. “First Halcyon had to leave unexpectedly, then her niece got married, and now Radish is off the market.”
“Celestia operates on a level far above us all,” said Bunker Buster. “I doubt she has desires like a normal pony.”
“And she’s never felt that way about Radish,” added Spats with a shrug. “It’s not like she’s going to start now.”
“I call this day’s proceedings to a close,” said Princess Celestia from her throne.
Her court stenographer, Cricket, concluded her transcript and started to pack up her things. Celestia stretched and worked out the numbness in her lower back.
“I think we did some real good today,” the princess said.
“Yes, ma’am. I agree,” said Cricket. “I’m glad we finally got those gazebo standards settled.”
“Do you have any plans for the weekend?”
“My sister and I are going rock climbing, ma’am.”
“Ah, what fun.”
Celestia shifted her weight on her throne. She leaned on her hoof with a smile. “So, Cricket… any good gossip around the castle lately?”
“Ma’am, your employees are discouraged from engaging in scuttlebuttery.”
“Oh, come on. Surely you must have heard something juicy. Something that has the whole palace abuzz, perhaps?”
Cricket finished packing her equipment and looked at her princess. “Come to think of it, I heard something about Lieutenant Root recently…”
Celestia leaned forward. “Oh, really?”
“Now, what was it? Something about him… and somepony else…”
“Yes?”
“Oh, I just can’t think of it right now. Maybe an hour in the royal spa would rejuvenate my memory?”
Celestia leaned back. “I don’t think so, Cricket.”
“Okay, maybe I bought too many bananas,” Light said, struggling with the bulk and weight of her purchased fruit. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I’d never want to kill a pony’s enthusiasm for the agricultural arts,” said Radish. “Here, let me get those.”
He put her purchases in his own bags.
“Come on,” said Light, “my shop is a few blocks from here. We can have a tasting there.”
Light led Radish down the streets of Midtown, past vintage clothing stores, bars, and adult boutiques. Her shop was on a sycamore-shaded street, squeezed between a pizza parlor and a barber.
“So, this is it,” she said, unlocking the door. “The rent is really good, because the utilities on this block are really bad.”
Radish read the store’s name off the front sign. “Cat’s Howl? What does that mean?”
“The question is, what does it mean to you?”
“Oh, it’s that kind of thing, huh?”
She led him inside. The store was long and narrow, with aisles of art supplies down the center, and various colorful T-shirts, posters, and bumper stickers featuring odd phrases in wild fonts hanging on the walls.
Radish approached a rack of shirts. “Wait… I see tourists in the palace wearing these all the time. This is where they’re coming from?”
“Yeah! I started making stuff with whatever silly phrase came to mind. It sold pretty well. My friends started suggesting their own ideas, so I would make them and share the profits. It’s turned into sort of a co-op.”
The merchandise featured context-less phrases such as “No, It’s Not ”, “Cool Rocks”, “One Out Of Two”, among numerous others.
“I never knew what any of these meant,” said Radish.
“Well, the real question is-”
“What do they mean… to me?”
“Now you’re catching on.” She spread several of the bananas out along a counter and sat in the stool behind it. “So, which of these do you want to try first?”
Radish pointed to a few of them. “This one is a good appetizer- it’s got a light and airy taste. This one is thick and savory, so it’s more of a main course. And this one tastes like a cream pie- we should save that for dessert.”
Light cocked her eyebrows. “I can’t tell if you’re bullshitting me or not.”
“Try it.”
Light peeled and tasted the first banana. Her eyes went wide. “Son of a nag. How did I never know about this? Thanks for sharing this kind of stuff with me.”
Radish smiled. “I’m happy to.”
A wisp of smoke appeared above Radish’s head, then burst into a scroll.
“Gah!” howled Light, flailing backwards. She fell off her stool and hit the carpet. “What the fuck was that!?”
“Sorry, it’s for me. Twilight Sparkle magically sends me mail sometimes.”
Light climbed back into her stool. “What? Is there some kind of national emergency?”
Radish opened the scroll. “Uh, let’s see… Pinkie Pie found an old joke book and annoyed everyone in town with constant knock-knock jokes…”
“...what?”
“...so the townsfolk called an emergency meeting and… banned knock-knock jokes...”
“What?”
“But it turned out that the joke book was actually a prison for a gremlin, and the only way to put him back was to let Pinkie Pie finish all the jokes, but-”
“Radish!”
“Uh, long story short, everyone learned a lesson about… communicating, or something.”
Light crossed her hooves. “Just how often does Twilight send you stuff like this?”
“I can talk to her about setting some kind of… ‘Do Not Disturb’ schedule.”
“Yeah?” Light looked down. “Then… how about you make next weekend ‘Do Not Disturb’?”
“Are you saying you still want a third date?”
She smiled. “Yeah. I do. You’re pretty different from every guy I’ve dated, and I think I like that.”
“You’re different from all the girls I know. And I like that, too.”
Another scroll burst overhead. It landed on the counter atop the bananas. Radish and Light stared at it.
“You know,” said Radish, “I think this one can wait.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to hear the next chapter of that saga.”
Celly is getting jelly
Something is odd about that pony… she said a word that isn’t a pony word… nah, she can’t be a human who transformed into a pony that is silly… or is it?
Gossip is gossip, but the royal spa is serious business.
Gosh, I sure hope Light can deal with all these high-profile ponies zooming around in Radish's periphery, some folks might get nervous about suddenly being the center of such attention.
So help me Spats if you jinxed this...
Sht: "Not sure if I should hit ya about that or the other thing?..."
Fan: "Not sure about that either. Try again later?..."
Almost can't wait to see what happens on the third date.
This mare sure does like bananas.
Nah, that won't happen
It was an honor to be reading this with you all. If radish destroys the universe might as well be with each other
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Well, the name Light Fantastic always felt...off to me somehow, in a way I could never really put words to. If you're right, that might explain the nature of the off feeling of it. If nothing else, it allows me to use words to adequately describe how it feels off that wouldn't apply to a native Equestrian. It's like someone took the edgelord-iest edgelord name ever and anti-ed it so hard their computer started puking rainbows.
11389873
Clearly anyone he beds gets turned into an alicorn.
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Yep, I completely agree. She doesn’t seem normal to us when the ponies here just see her as a normal pony. Rather she is a human or an outsider she did shown she didn’t like that Radish got dragon mail which has me wondering if she won’t like seeing Radish involved with the M6, Princesses, or other adventures that Radish will be facing head on?
Also, I kind of wonder what Luna will think of all this... Like we haven’t seen her or heard what she thought of Radish dating this mare yet.
I am totally waiting for the Crystal Empire. It would be really neat to see the Sombra Redemption comic since that was one of the best MLP comics.
11389950
That will cause chaos for all of pony kind
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11389952
It would be funny if Luna was also jealous of Radish being with Light Fantastic.
11389814
Human, Changeling, Outsider, or all three.
11389905
She's not just an artist but an artsy artist, and there is precedent for ponies changing their name in Mrs. Cake pre-marriage. I would not put it past Light to just have changed her name since she's a hipster.
Theory: Radish Root's cutie mark is more of a literary meaning. Maybe his mark is meant to mean he is "fing" with her. Like not in the literal sense but on a mental level? She seems to have a lot of thoughts on him and most are her misjudging or scolding him in some fashion.
I don't know, I'm spitballing here!
Didn't Root already have sex before? With a buffalo girl I thought?
This whole story bring about the question of how much do you think Celestia cares about Cutie Marks. They obviously play a big role considering they help her subjects find their roles in the country and for cases like Twilight help her along her great destiny so she should think they’re very important. But then you have to consider the dark fact she’s probably heard of foals getting their marks and dying shortly after if not the next day. It would be very rare but also bound to happen at some point. Their lives didn’t matter so their destinies certainly didn’t matter either. Makes you wonder how much stock she puts into Radish’s Cutie Mark if any at this point.
11390149
I think it was implied but never stated and even then it would not have been something he shared with his bunkmates. Especially with his cutie mark.
11390045
Radish Root: Professional Celestia Troll
It's the sound you hear when you're walking in the dark and accidentally step on a cat.
Are you kidding? I can’t wait to hear the next chapter of that saga.”
Absolutely yes!
11389850
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4f9m4OYkCY
POV you're light fantastic
11389873
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11391933
Ooor we go to the other end of the spectrum...
11391938
Ah I see you are a pony who knows music. How about this goodbye!
11391942
How 'bout something once you have a few pints in ya?
11391947
Welp, time to dance and drink some “Whiskey in a Jar” to fight this music battle till Radish ends the world
11391951
Or if Vinyl gets involved, something more modern and dance-able...
11391955
Ah yes, the DJ Pony. But can she face the Jazz Cat Dance?
11390151
That... is an interesting idea to explore.
11391958
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/004/590/OBJECTION!.jpg
Ye swinging cat is neither leaving, making an exit, ending things, nor buggering off. Your claim is false for this stream of shitpost post.
11391967
My cat might not be leaving since she loves to swing and dance all night with whisky to spare. But being mean to the young kid I will show you! I can be serious!!
enjoy this little kids song of goodbye be sure to count which animal left the classroom
11391974
Group project for everyone!
11391975
Oh man, I need to play someday. Heard it's a good game. Btw here you go!
11391996
Its a good one. Before AC went waaayyy too heavy with the mmo/rpg elements.
But, times up, and time to go. Cheers gents!
11392007
Indeed, I need to plan when I will play it. Btw here is an awesome version of the song!
I've been a lurker for like, 6 years. And this story is the one that made me actually get an account just so I don't lose track. Excellent work!
I've had a thought... What if Radish's talent lies within the dreams themselves?
That is... What if he's just really good at dreaming of banging Celestia?
And whether or not he can blur the line between dream and reality is purely up to him, not his cutie mark.
Honestly, it would make a lot of sense... What was Radish doing when he first got his cutiemark?
Most likely, he was dreaming of banging Celestia. What has Radish been doing since then regularly
enough for Luna to drop in on him multiple times? Dreaming of banging Celestia. The mere act of dreaming about it very well could be his talent. His journey to potentially court her in real life is just a side effect.
Either this section was a response to my last comment or it was coincidence, either way it made me smile.
I’d watch that.
11389905
Light Fantastic is the name of the second book in the Discworld series, I assume the name is a reference
It could also be short for "trip the light fantastic" which means to dance to music
11774994
You got it. She was named solely for the pun, “she said my cutie mark is a trip!”