Fit the Fourth
||Fit the Fourth||
The dismal and desolate valley narrowed until the four ponies were forced to trot along shoulder to shoulder between the walls of jagged, lightless stone. The baker shivered and closed one eye at the leftmost end of the party; Feather cantered with head held high while humming a tune quick and hearty. The tiny brown pony was pressed at her right with a grimace pulled for his position, and big Mister Butch’s eyes searched for the sight of a Snark with their own intuition.
A tremendous screech pierced the air as though the sky itself had ripped. Caster Fiber’s copper coat paled from his hooves to his ears and he froze in place, throwing his gaze in every direction. The baker effectively dove beneath Feather and squeezed himself into a quivering ball.
Even Butch’s silvery irises shrunk in fright as the scream’s echo lingered and died. “Sounded right like a pencil on a slate,” he mumbled.
“Tis the voice of the Jubjub!” Feather announced, beaming upward at the distant line of muted light that marked top of the narrow canyon. “The voice of the Jubjub! Oh, I can hardly believe it!”
“The voice of the what?” Caster whimpered, brushing down the hairs of his coat.
“The voice of the Jubjub!” Feather said again. “It’s the rarest bird known to ponykind!”
“That’s not surprisin’, considerin’ where it lives,” Butch mumbled.
“How do you know about it, F-Feather?” the baker managed to squeak from under her belly.
She poked her head between her forelegs and giggled at her friend. “I love birds! I know about all sorts of them, and the Jubjub happens to be a specialty of mine!”
Butch snorted. “What d’ya think’s so great about it?”
Feather’s eyes glazed over with a dreamy look. “It’s a fascinating creature, really. The Jubjub is an unusually passionate creature, desperate for attention. It can change the colors of its feathers to any shade it chooses, but rather than using them to camouflage, it tries to stand out! Absurd, if you ask me.”
Helping the baker to his feet, she added, “It also has a terrific memory, Candle Ends. It remembers the face of everything it meets. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from the Jubjub, hmm?” She playfully tapped his snout, bringing forth a tiny smile.
“I don’t understand. Is it dangerous?” Caster asked, backing into Butch’s side.
The red pony moved as if to push him away, but stopped with his hoof in the air when he noticed the tears building up in the small pony’s eyes. Instead he used his hoof to stroke his chin as he said, “If I remember right, it’s a rather polite creature. Encourages charity and coexistence within the animal kingdom or some’n.”
Feather gasped. “That’s exactly right!”
Caster turned his head and squinted at his companion. “How did you know that?”
“I graduated from a university not too long ago,” Butch replied.
The smaller stallion’s eyes widened. “You did? Studying what?”
“Mathematics.”
The baker’s head rose a little, but Caster leapt two feet into the air. “Did you really?” he squealed. “I struggle with mathematics, myself. The Bellsteed tells me I must improve my marks in that subject lest he dismisses me from my apprenticeship!”
Butch blinked and cleared his throat. “Well, uh… I’d be more than happy to tutor you, if you think it would help.”
“I would certainly appreciate it!” Caster said. “Shall we start immediately?”
A genuine smile appeared on Butch’s mouth. “I’d be happy to oblige, so long as it’s not interruptin’ Miss Feather’s exploration.”
Feather shook her head and waved an encouraging hoof. “Not at all! Go on, Professor Butch.”
The red pony launched into a lecture of his numerical learnings. His voice garnered volume and pitch as he spoke while Caster gaped and nodded frequently. As the quartet resumed their walk through the crag and Butch’s sermon ebbed between complex equations and natural history, Feather turned to the baker and whispered, “You see? The song of the Jubjub brings about the most unexpected connections.”
||PP||
“Awwww… isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen, Twilight?”
The mare in question twitched as she peered down at the four ponies trudging along the bottom of the chasm. “What are you talking about? I can’t hear a word they’re saying!”
“Butch and the Beaver just became friends!” Pinkie cooed.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “The Beaver?”
“That’s what everypony will call Caster in a few years,” Pinkie explained. “He uses his knowledge of water and mathematics to become the greatest dam designer in all of Equestria!”
“Pinkie!”
“What? He’s really good! His discoveries made it possible to build the Ponyville Dam hundreds of years after his death!”
“Oh. ‘Dam.””
“Twilight!”
“What?”
The mares stared at each other for a moment before silently agreeing to let the topic go, dropping their gazes back to the ponies hunting for a Snark.
“I think it’s super cute,” Pinkie said, grinning. “After this experience, Butch and the Beaver become the very best of friends. They’re hardly ever seen without each other for the rest of their lives!”
Twilight rubbed her eyes. “Ugh! Pinkie, how do you even know all of this?”
“I’ve watched this a hundred times!” Pinkie said. “It’s a great story!”
Dragging her hoof down her face, Twilight asked, “Okay, so what happens next?”
“I’m not gonna tell you, silly! You just have to wait and see!”
“Well, is it going to happen soon? Because you’ve made it seem like a pretty big deal.”
Pinkie bit her lip and looked at the sky. “Uhhh… yeah, it’s really close! In fact, I bet it’ll happen at the end of this chapter!”
Twilight’s head tilted. “Huh?”
“Come on, they’re starting to climb out of the gorge!” Pinkie said, sprinting along the edge of the canyon at speeds to rival Rainbow Dash—with Twilight’s tail in her mouth. The poor unicorn flapped behind her like a flag, adding a streak of purple to their trail of solid pink.
||PP||
“…and that, my friend, is how you count to three,” Butch finished. A warm gasp filled his lungs as the glimmer in his eyes shook with emotion. “My friend,” he repeated, placing a hoof on Caster’s shoulder. “I am proud to call you my friend.”
With tears of joy in his eyes, Caster replied, “And I’ve learned in ten minutes what books couldn’t teach me in seventy years.” He threw his forelegs around Butch’s neck and they shared a glowing embrace.
The baker pushed his jaw to one side and leaned closer to Feather’s ear. “Is my mind playing tricks on me, or is this normal?”
Feather snickered. “Well, I can’t speak for your mind at the moment, but this certainly isn’t the regular way of making friends.” She scanned the sloping path to the jungle above fondly. “Perhaps the magic of the Wabe isn’t all scary.”
“What are you all doing down there!?” a scary voice exploded down the crevice, making the baker eep and dive. With a sweep of her wing, Feather managed to keep him on his hooves as the voice came down again. “The rest of the crew’s a-waiting! We’re on the right trail!”
“That’s the Bellsteed!” Caster said, dropping his hooves from Butch’s thick neck and standing right beside him.
Feather beamed. “Come on, boys! We may be closer than we think!”
The baker blanched and stumbled after his partner. She offered him a hoof and, using her wings, helped them climb out of the gorge. The entirety of the Bellsteed’s crew, save for the four ponies who had heard the Jubjub’s song, were waiting at the start of yet another trail snaking up an impossibly tall, multi-peaked mountain.
“Hello, everyone!” Feather greeted. “Have you found something?”
“Not explicitly,” the Bellman cried, “but I’ve got a fantastic feeling there’s a Snark within our reach!” He spun and pointed to the tallest peak of the mountain. “Somewhere up there!”
“How is that considered in our reach?” the Boots asked under his breath. The ponies nearest him snickered in agreement.
Butch and Caster appeared and joined the group, flank to flank, with expectant smiles. “Has anything exciting happened while we were gone?” one of them asked.
A green pony, a banker, pointed to the stallion at his right. “The barrister had a super weird dream about…”
“It doesn’t matter a bit!” the captain shouted, tingling his bell. “Let us begin the climb! Has everyone got their thimbles and forks?”
Several of the items were lifted by many colored hooves.
“Excellent!” The Bellsteed spun about, sending his beard flapping in a sudden dramatic wind, and galloped onward.
Feather exchanged an unsure glance with the baker. “This place is sure weird,” she said, taking up the end of the group as they all began to trek.
The foliage around the twisting path was thick and leafy. Hundreds of trees stretched their branches over the entire length of the trail, creating an effective tunnel through which the motley crew advanced. Strange noises occasionally crackled from both sides, varying from the animalistic chirps of birds and primates to the distinctive grind of sharp scissors. The baker was not the only pony shivering in fear by the time the green banker startled them all with a notable burst of nervous courage.
“Come now, friends!” he shouted, trotting his hooves twice as fast as anypony else without going any faster. “There’s a Snark to be caught! Let’s not laze about!”
In a veritable explosion of energy, the banker galloped ahead of the rest of the group, passing even the Bellsteed.
“Ah ha!” the bony captain laughed, raising a triumphant hoof. “Now that’s the spirit, boy!” As the banker’s green coat disappeared around a corner of similarly hued shrubbery, the Bellsteed looked over his shoulder to say, “What zeal to discover a Snark!”
“I think he’s mad to run off on his own,” Caster whispered to his best friend. Butch nodded in humored agreement.
As if on cue, the stallion’s shriek pricked the ears of the entire crew. He continued to scream as a number of concussive SNAPs punched the air. Scrambling like frenzied ants, the rest of the crew simultaneously tried to run away and help the victim from whatever vicious creature was repeatedly trying to bite him. It resulted in a cloudy pile of wiggling hooves rolling toward the attack.
The moment the ponies untangled themselves and rounded the corner, a furry, long-necked creature with enormous jaws disappeared into the shadows, leaving a twitching mess on the ground who used to be a banker.
“Clover’s cape!” the barrister yelled. “What happened to him?”
“What’s wrong with his coat?”
“Oh, dear…”
The banker’s coat had turned black as coal; his eyes and mane flashed with snowy whiteness. The Bellsteed grimaced and shook his shrill bell, shouting, “Tis just as I feared! He’s been assaulted by a Bandersnatch!”
Feather gasped, leaning away from the thrashing pony drained of color. “What is there to do, Captain?”
“Help him up, lads!”
A number of the crew complied, hoisting the fallen pony onto a stump. There he sat, running his hooves through his mane or beating them against his ribcage, mumbling the mimsiest of inane nonsense.
“Hello?” Feather said, trying to lift his chin and look into his pupil-less eyes. “Good banker, can you hear me?”
“…offered a check for seven-pounds-ten…” he rattled off, looking everywhere but at the pegasus. “…to bearer, to bearer… discounts, yes! And the purple and pink…”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Feather breathed, stroking the blackened pony’s cheek.
“He’s insane,” the Bellsteed said, pulling Feather away. “We’ll have to leave him. It’s getting dark!”
The Boots scoffed. “It’s been dark all day!”
“Not to these creatures,” the Bellsteed said in a low voice that chilled those who listened. “We’ve lost half the day, and we must find the Snark before night, lest we risk the same fate as our good banker here.”
With a final glance at the babbling pony, the entirety of the crew rushed on, huddled close together and peering through the underbrush as keenly as they collectively could.
The baker was close to vomiting, tripping at every other step as his eyes swirled in their sockets. Feather noticed his state and wrapped one wing around him, pulling him close to steady his shivers. “We’ll be okay, Candle Ends,” she whispered, “as long as we all stick together.”
“Y’know,” said a voice from Feather’s other side, “I wouldn’t mind a bit o’ cuddlin’ myself right about now.”
Feather scowled even before facing the Boots. “It’s called comforting. I wouldn’t expect a bully like you to understand.”
“Bully?” The Boots made a pouty face. “Is that how you see me, sweetflank? Well, I musta gotten off on the wrong hoof.” He wagged his eyebrows and adjusted his path, brushing his shoulder against her closed wing. “How ‘bout you open this one up and see how comforting I can be?”
Feather extended her wing for just long enough to slap the Boots in his lopsided jaw. “I’d say this is neither the time or the place, but that would imply a chance in the future.”
Rubbing his face, the Boots let out a dry laugh. “Oo-hoo-hoo… so Feather’s a feisty one, eh?”
“She can be,” the pegasus growled, adjusting her saddlebag.
The Boots eyed it with a mischievous squint. “Watcha got in there?”
Feather shot him a deadly glare. “Nothing of yours.”
“Not yet,” he quipped, sticking his muzzle into the bag and removing a small, bound journal.
Feather gasped. “Give that back!” she shouted, diving at the Boots.
He trotted out of her reach, pulling the tiny tome’s elastic band from around the cover. “Let’s see what you’ve got in here…” the earth pony said, flipping through the pages. “Pff. There’s nothing but sketches of birds in here!”
“I’ve been observing with that journal for years,” Feather said, stomping a hoof. “Give it back!”
The Boots revealed his crooked teeth with an even more crooked smile. “Come and get it, sweetflank!” He clamped the book between his jaws and galloped away from the group.
“You idiot!” she called out, flaring her wings. “Didn’t you just see what happened to the—”
Her words were interrupted by a sharp intake of breath as a second stallion chased the thief along the mountain’s path. “Candle Ends!” she called out. “Don’t!”
The baker didn’t listen, locking his eyes on the Boots grimy tail. His heart pumped steadily as his back teeth ground; ears pressed to his head, he bent low and sprinted as fast as he could, closing the gap between him and Feather’s journal.
The Boots glanced over his shoulder and, seeing the baker approach, dove off the beaten path. Without a second thought, the baker followed, filling his lungs again and again with the Wabe’s heavy air.
The Sunlight was even less prevalent there than it was at the bottom of the chasm. Soon he lost sight of the Boots and the book, weaving aimlessly between bizarre trees and bushes. He skid to a stop near a particularly glossy tree, stretching its dozens of red-striped branches up and out of sight. Panic began to take hold as he searched for the path and the safety of his crew.
“Hello?” he shouted, backing against the metallic tree. “Feather? Captain? Can you hear me?”
His heart continued to hammer for a very different reason. The absurd jungle seemed to close in on him as his eyes darted from leaf to giant leaf. “Boots!” he yelled, closing his eyes. “Boots, are you close? We have to get back to the—”
The sound of a rustling bush elicited a tiny yelp from the bluish baker. The overwhelming fear began to chase away his memory, and soon he couldn’t even remember which direction he had come from… or even that he had come from a direction.
“Hello!?” he shrieked. “Anypony? Please, I don’t want to be attacked by a—”
The rustling came again; the baker scrambled to the other side of his tree, peeking between two of its branches as a short creature emerged from the shrub. His jaw dropped to his chest as the low light illuminated it just enough for identification. The wide mouth filled with pointy teeth, the senseless feathers sprouting from its armless body, the way it waddled forward on two stubby legs…. There was no doubt about it. The baker had found a Snark.
“I… I found it!” he squealed, grinning like a madpony. “Ha! Haha! I found it!” He stood up from his position behind the tree. “Quickly, everyone! Come quickly! Here in the jungle, by the tall red-striped tree, I found a Snark! It’s a Snark!” He let out a torrent of laughter and cheers, hopping between the branches to grab the little creature.
To his utter horror, the shining red orbs in its eye sockets glowed with dark ferocity. It opened its razor filled mouth, noiselessly expelling a tiny blue drop of sparkling matter from the back of its throat. As soon as the pellet made contact with the baker’s lifted hoof, it grew into a whirling ripple twice as tall as the terrified pony.
“It’s a Boo-” he tried to say, but the vortex swallowed him without a trace.
||PP||
“Yay!” Pinkie said, clapping her hooves.
“Gaaah!” Twilight screamed, clutching her head. “What just happened?”
“He softly and suddenly vanished away,” Pinkie declared, hugging the other pony on the tree branch, “to never be met with again!”
Twilight wheezed. “H-h-how is that a good thing!?”
“Because we get to go with him!” Pinkie said, jumping off the branch with Twilight tight in her embrace. They fell toward the Boojum’s portal, passing through its inky membrane just before it vanished with an electric slurp.
The Boojum blinked and waddled away.
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And Twilight's overly rigid thinking makes her life worse....again. This'll come into play today when she flakes out on way a spoiled idiot who can't seem to figure out that it's her cutting and running that wrecked her career comes looking for payback.
Zero editing went into this, so feel free to correct me as much as you feel necessary!
Also, that might be my favorite ending to a chapter of mine ever.
Yay! I knew that if I never slept there would eventually be benefits. That first paragraph had some nice rhyming going on, and I still have no idea what is happening. Not that that doesn't make me want to read the next chapter now.
Agreed.
Purple and pink, eh?
You alternate between calling Candle Ends "the Baker" and the "the Banker" in this chapter. It's a bit confusing.
1717760 zero editing huh? ok then I only found one actually but i wasn't looking.
i think you meant count not could.
1717905 False. The Banker is another character. He's green.
1717924 Thank you!
1717905
Rather obvious he was speaking of another pony since he went out of the way to describe them as if introducing a new a character to the forefront of attention. The green Banker became black and was left behind as he was insane. Yet Candle Ends was still with the group. Big difference.
1717945
My mistake. I actually had that idea originally but somehow around this transition became convinced that maybe they were the same.
"“Not to these creatures,” the Bellsteed said in a low voice that chilled those who listened. “We’ve lost half the day, and we must find the Snark before night, lest we risk the same fate as our good banker here.”
With a final glance at the babbling pony, the entirety of the crew rushed on, huddled close together and peering through the underbrush as keenly as they collectively could.
The baker was close to vomiting, tripping at every other step as his eyes swirled in their sockets. Feather noticed his state and wrapped one wing around him, pulling him close to steady his shivers. “We’ll be okay, Candle Ends,” she whispered, “as long as we all stick together.”"
I think it's because the banker is babbling and ill and then next thing we know Candle Ends (referred to as the baker) is close to vomiting with twirly eyes.
1717905
nuh uh. the banker's a different pony
1717994 That's fine. :} I've been confused by Lewis Carroll before, so it's only fitting that works inspired by him confuse, too.
"He softly and suddenly vanished away... ...to never be met with again!"
Well that was an amazingly depressing ending to an otherwise humorous chapter. Candle and Feather better be reunited somehow... but the way Pinkie said what she did, and the fact that she would know because she's seen this a hundred times, makes me think otherwise.
1717758 ...huh? I think you used a wrong word or two there.
1718963
What I meant is that most of this would go a lot easier if Twilight weren't trying to disprove what she's seeing just because it doesn't fit into a nice little pigeon-hole.
1719243 Oh, now I gotcha. Sorry about that.
1717945
no prob!
Madness. Delightful, magnificent madness
I do believe that should be shriek right there
1731672 Fixed. Thank you! Adorable profile pic, too.
1733456.................. MY TAVI!
This is the place where pinkie got her strange
So the Boojum merely takes one to the Wabe? That seems rather obvious now... D'oh.
Jubjub? You mean the puffball neopet with only two feet and its body? That's what I was thinking of.
I really, really like the way you're beginning the chapters, with a rhyming sequence. Is it hard?
That... was... beautiful...
Also, day two of being Ponkless. Withdrawal is hard, man.
I feel bad for Feather.
This Pinkie just break the fourth wall?
2280985 You're acting like it's out of the ordinary
Awsome story so far but wow so confuseing, even if you go into the mindset that any thing can happen if pinky pie is involed, just don't ask questions. I also really enjoyed the sisters doo, think you could also right a story about the alucorns and there trip to equestra, and maybe one on the CMC's trip in the sisters doo please
Oh my gosh, I can't get over that you ponified The Hunting of the Snark. This is so awesome! Anf you made it work so well!
…Little Birdie?