VII - Equus ferus caballus
They were falling, falling from the top of the mushroom. They fell through the layer of rainclouds, the sound of the storm deafening around them, the trees rushing up to meet them.
We escaped, Twilight had time to think. At least we were free.
And then over the howling wind and pouring rain came the sound of Luna’s wings unfurling. The whole world tilted, and Twilight held tightly to Luna to keep from falling off as she leveled out of her dive and began to climb back up into the air.
“Yes!” Twilight shouted, “Yes! We’re above the trees! We’re outside the spores!” Her horn lit up with a beacon of light. “Our magic is back!”
Luna broke through the clouds, out into the calm above the storm. She flapped her wings, suspended in the air. “I have never been so happy to see the moonlight,” she said.
“Me either,” Twilight agreed.
“But it has been night for far too long. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding her head, droplets of rainwater falling from her mane.
“Then let us make it tomorrow.”
The sound of wings drew their attention back in the direction of the mushroom. Pegasi were ascending through the clouds, flying in chaotic overlapping paths like a nest of furious bees.
“We must land!” Luna cried, and Twilight redoubled her grip. They flew back into the storm, and the skies were filled with rain and wind and swarming pegasi. They hurled themselves towards Luna, flying at her like arrows. Twilight threw up a magical barrier around her and Luna seconds before a dozen pegasi collided with it, rocking her on Luna’s back. The glowing shield flickered, difficult to maintain with little preparation and violent testing of its boundaries. Another wave of pegasi slammed into it, and this time Twilight lost her grip of the spell completely, the roar of the rain once again filling her ears. She concentrated on reforming the sphere, but still more infected pegasi were descending on them. Twilight was too late. They crashed into Luna, aiming for her wings, her horn, her head. Luna made a rapid twist to avoid them, but they struck from all angles, and then instead of flying with Twilight on her back she was falling with Twilight beneath her. Twilight saw through the chaos Luna’s eye roll back in unconsciousness.
“No!” she shouted, and spread her wings. She held on tightly to Luna and once more the violet magical bubble surrounded them. She needed to slow down before they landed. Pegasi hammered the bubble, and Twilight grit her teeth. No, she thought with each blow, no you won’t.
The canopy was approaching from beneath, faster than it should have been. It was going to be a rough landing. Twilight dropped the shield and unleashed a spell with such intensity and ferocity upon the trees that tiny bursts of light flashed in Twilight’s eyes. She made a monumental effort to pull up out of the dive she was in with carrying Luna’s limp weight, buoyed by magic, and then they crashed to the ground amid scorched trees and burning leaves. Propping herself up with her front legs, Twilight turned in an arc as another great gout of glowing purple fire erupted from her horn, burning back the forest.
Try to cage this, she thought with a certain satisfaction.
“Twilight,” coughed Luna.
Immediately forgetting the blaze around her, Twilight dropped down close to her. “Yes, Luna?”
“Alicorn…” she breathed, “…magic.” Each word was a struggle.
“But,” Twilight protested, “I don’t— You have to!” But even as she said this, she saw it would be impossible for Luna with the injuries she had sustained in the fall. “I don’t know how,” she blurted.
“You do,” Luna said, resting a hoof against Twilight’s chest, “you have always known. Forget what you see…” She turned her head to the side and coughed again. “…And hear Equestria. It will remember what it was.”
Twilight rose to her hooves, barely registering the pain in her broken leg. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly. With that breath out, she pushed everything from her mind: the heat of the fires around her, the jungle, the darkness, the rain, the colossal mushroom, Luna’s broken form at her hooves, everything. She emptied her mind of hundreds of spells memorized, searching for a time when she had performed magic by will alone. The spark that had awakened in her during her entrance exam was there, her link to the unformed raw heart of magic itself. For just a second time stretched on, reducing motion to stillness, burning heat to freezing cold, sound to silence. In the space between two heartbeats, Twilight heard the faint whisper of Equestria that was.
She opened her eyes as scores of earth-bound ponies crashed through the charred clearing in the forest, the second wave of attack from the giant mushroom, but Twilight saw none of them. Before her were rolling green hills, clear skies full of stars, and the lights of Canterlot Castle twinkling in the distance. She rose from the ground, graceful and calm like an air balloon taking flight. Everything before her was surrounded in a brilliant white nimbus, but she found she could dispel that glow with the lightest of thoughts. The sky became clear, the grass, the stars, the mountain in the distance, and then Twilight was back in the clearing, now free of burning trees and pouring rain. Grass lay beneath her hooves, wet with evening dew. She could see the stars in the sky through a hole in the clouds, although the storm raged around her still. Her leg was whole. The horde of charging ponies with orange fungal growths had vanished.
And Luna stood beside her.
Twilight embraced Luna in a fierce hug. Luna hugged her back. “I knew you could do this,” she whispered.
“What… was it that I did, exactly?”
“Uncovered the natural state of the world. Equestria has waited ten thousand years to be itself again, with this unnatural forest growing over it. It wants to return.” Luna looked up at the sky and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the storm was no longer there. It didn’t blow away or vanish in a magical flash: it was simply as if it never existed, free of dark clouds, falling rain, and diving ponies.
“Where are the ponies going?” Twilight asked. “When they vanish.”
“Back to where they were, prior to attack from the parasite. I imagine most of them will be in bed.”
Twilight turned back in the direction of the giant mushroom, looking even more unreal and out of place against the backdrop of stars. She centered herself and saw in her mind the horizon as it once was, broken only by the distant mountains. When she opened her eyes, it had ceased to be.
Luna learned down close to Twilight over her shoulder. “You truly are a most gifted student,” she whispered in her ear.
“Well,” Twilight said with a smile, “some of that has to do with the teacher.”
And little by little that night, they restored Equestria.
Fluttershy turned the page of the book she was reading with her muzzle, careful not to disturb Angel. He had been a good bunny today and had eaten all of his dinner, which meant he could stay up as late as he liked—which meant he would stay awake fifteen minutes past his regular bedtime and then snuggle up next to Fluttershy and fall asleep. She kept reading, unaware that the previous night her tree-house had swelled its proportions over thousands of years, growing with her things still inside it like a seed sealed beneath frozen ground.
“C’mon, one more story!”
“I ain’t tellin’ you another story,” Applejack said with exasperated laughter, “you should be asleep. ‘Sides, you know ‘em all already!”
“Pleeease?” Apple Bloom pleaded.
Applejack sighed. She’d learned that trick from Rarity’s little sister, she was sure, who’d probably picked up the exact pitch to play on maximum sympathy from Rarity herself. “Fine. Just one more! Now,” she said as Apple Bloom settle back down on her spot on the couch, “which one do you wanna hear?”
She told another Apple family story that Apple Bloom had to have heard at least a hundred times before. Halfway through Big Macintosh came inside from a final walk around the orchards, and sat next to Apple Bloom to listen. He had found nothing out of place with the apple trees: no sign they had been overrun by ravenous timberwolves who had systematically devoured all the fruit before their pack loped off towards Canterlot.
“…And then she flies away from the zeppelin, seconds before it explodes!” Rainbow demonstrated by taking a quick zip around the room before landing back in front of her typewriter. “So, what do you think? Awesome or what?”
Tank, her editor and pet tortoise, slowly blinked his eyes.
“You’re right! It would be way better if she got to land and put on her sunglasses before the zeppelin explodes! You’re a genius, Tank!”
Rainbow spun in her chair and started making the corrections to her novel, never knowing her cloud house had dissolved and been a part of the storm that lasted ten thousand years.
“Pinkie,” yawned Mr. Cake, “what are you doing in the kitchen this late?”
“Well, I was looking in the fridge for some yoghurt for Gummy because he likes to have a little yoghurt before he goes to sleep—that’s a funny word, yoghurt, why is it written like yog-hurt but nopony ever says it that way?—and, clumsy me, I knocked over the eggs, and so then I thought, hey, if you break some eggs then you’d better make an omelet!”
“I… don’t think that’s quite the way that saying goes,” said Mr. Cake. “Just clean before you go to bed, alright?”
“Okie-dokie-lokie!”
Mr. Cake headed back upstairs, tired from a full day of his twins. The years’ worth of labor he had performed the previous night, hauling fallen trees to the heart of the Everfree Forest for a variety of mushrooms to grow on, forming a tower that stretched beyond the clouds, went unnoticed.
Rarity lay in bed. Her eyes were wide open beneath her eyemask; she saw not the black silk but instead a dress, a simple collection of shapes and perhaps a hint of color and fabric. The design had been brewing in her mind for the past week, but seeing Princess Celestia the other evening had pulled all the elements into focus. The combination of elegance and simplicity was the perfect starting point for the kind of stitching she’d been wanted to try, and she could clearly see the line of the dress every time she tried to close her eyes…
She sat up and pulled off the mask. Sleep later! Her muse called! She pulled on the robe she wore for late-night bursts of creativity, not as glamorous as the robe she wore in the mornings nor as luxurious as the robe she wore following a long bath but oh so comfortable, and sat at her sewing machine. When the dress was finished, she could even present it to Twilight as a kind of late going-away present. Surely she’d be attending some variety of functions during her time in Canterlot—she couldn’t spend it all studying—and the dress dancing in her mind’s eye would look so good next to the Princess.
When she noted the clock later in the night, marveling at how fast time could pass by when one was “in the zone”, it never occurred to her that the opposite was true; that time could slow to make a single night last thousands of years.
Spike looped the film on the projector and flipped the switch to start it running. “More popcorn?” he asked Owlowiscious, who hooted in in response. Spike plucked a single kernel from the bowl and tossed it in Owlowiscious’ direction; the owl caught it with one deft movement of his head.
“Nice catch,” said Spike, and he slid the bowl across the floor. “There you go, buddy.” The titles of the film appeared on the wall, accompanied by a shrill organ flourish: I Was A Teenage Werepony. So far today, Spike had left his bed around ten, sung to himself as loud as he wanted while he swept the library floor, and bought a bag he’d had to carry over his shoulder full of unpopped popcorn kernels in addition the regular food he needed from the market, and now he was staying up with Owlowiscious watching old monster films. Being old enough to be responsible ruled.
Spike poured a bowl of popcorn for himself and cooked it with a single breath, never thinking Twilight might be doing anything in Canterlot other than studying magic and protocol with Princess Celestia.
Two ponies sat under night sky at Canterlot Castle, both sharing a blanket.
“When should we inform them?” Luna asked, turning back to the stars.
“Not just yet,” Twilight said, resting her head against Luna’s side. “They can figure it out on their own.”
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Great Story :D
2312631
Flight is magic-based - it takes some extra power to put something horse-shaped (as opposed to something bird-shaped) in the air, or at least I say it does for this story. Whatever cuts off unicorn magic also cuts off pegasus magic... and presumably the earth pony strength or connection to nature, but that didn't really come up (although it did take both Twilight and Luna to break down a door).
2313339
Thanks.
Huh, that ended kind of abruptly.
I enjoyed this story beginning to end. But, I agree with nemryn. The ending felt a bit abrupt. Still, great story.
I enjoyed this. Pacing was a pretty consistent issue throughout though. It would have been significantly better if Twilight and Luna's relationship had more time to develop, if you'd had more time to fully explore this rain soaked, overgrown, hive mind controlled Equestria you've created, and more time to explain the magic at play here. As is, it's serviceable, and definitely still enjoyable. This is a very creative idea, and well, and written well. I just wish it would have been about three times as long.
3109313
"Serviceable" is a perfect description of how I feel about this story; I was aiming for something larger, more epic adventure-ish, but I'm afraid I didn't have the stamina for it. It's a thing I know I have to keep in mind for the next big adventure I want to write (and that will probably not have what's essentially a cast of two). I really appreciate your honesty.
Intriguing, the story has a tone that is pretty unique on fimfiction, sort of a dreamy, floaty, action adventure mystery. I think there may be a little bit of an incompatibility between the surreal feel and the adventure tale that doesn't quite mesh together perfectly. That all being said, I liked the story
I'm not sure I understand what this story was intended to do. It seemed like you were going to say something about what it means to be a princess, or maybe about fate, but you didn't really do the latter, and you resolved the former quickly and easily with little in the way of sacrifice. Then it seemed like you were going to do something with the fungus and its ironic loneliness, but you just used it as a threat to overcome. Even Twilight and Luna's relationship felt incomplete.
The ending seemed abrupt, but it ended up working pretty well. The closing scenes matched up very well with the opening scenes and served as an excellent method to close out the story.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. While I can certainly see where others were coming from in saying that a number of the story's elements felt incomplete, I'd make the argument that the incomplete feeling is very fitting for the story, given the ending scenes. Just as the rest of the Mane 6 were unaware of all that was going, we, the readers, were also not aware of everything that was going on. We still saw enough to get a solid picture of what was going on, be it what it means to be a princess, the history behind the parasitic fungus, or the development of the friendship between Twilight and Luna. So the incomplete feeling worked for me.
3673827
3673901
3674077
I've only ever looked through a telescope once in my life and whatever factual information about them that made it into this story came from Wikipedia, Twilight is totally trying not to throw up from a failed teleportation spell in that scene (and pastel ponies can do a ton of stuff their real-world equivalents can't, so why not one more?), and I am willing to viciously defend the use of "they" as a (gender-neutral) singular pronoun in the English language.
I'm not sure what the princesses declined to inform everypony about. What happened to them? To the world? I like the implication that they can somehow find out anyway.
3675453
So far the show has yet to disprove any of my weird-ass headcanon about just where the Royal Sisters come from. I don't really want to see their parents (or whatever), I'd rather think they're a by-product of Discord running things for a while.
That was a strange experience. It bears a lot of resemblance to Apotheosis, with it's dreamlike quality and Twiluna overtones. You do a good job of making weeks of two ponies walking through a jungle seem weirdly compelling.
In the beginning I marveled at the similarities between this calamity and the events of the season four opener. In a way it makes a lot more sense than the vines that made a precision strike on Celestia and Luna all the way out in Canterlot in addition to taking over the borders of the Everfree. I'm not sure what to say about the result of all of this though. It's an interesting idea, that the sisters were so instrumental in reshaping the world, the sheer level of godlike power attributed to alicorns here is also reminiscent of Daetrin's series. Which reminds me that I still haven't done my comment on Tryptich. It's been months, oops.
You've got quite a knack for building atmosphere and ominous foreshadowing. I was pretty happy with how everything fit together in the end. I do have a plot consistency question though. Why did Twilight retain her ability to use magic after crashing back into the forest? Wouldn't the suppression abilities of the fungus return once they were back in it's domain?
3737081
It really threw me when Discord was the root (ha!) cause of the plants going nuts in Princess Twilight Sparkle. I mean, to have the Everfree Forest grow beyond its boundaries is one thing, but to also have it be Discord's fault and the whole thing leading to Twilight stepping up her game as a Princess? There's even a big important tree-thing that's not really a tree at the end of both versions! I thought the writing staff weren't allowed the read fanfiction...
I both like and dislike the idea that alicorns are godlike world-reshaping beings. I dig the weird mythology and world-building that can come out of it, and I love magic systems based on will and intent rather than incantations and formula, but as characters I'd rather Luna and Celestia be fallible and more on the level of everypony else; it's their long life (that just comes from something really simple like an age spell or something) and experience that makes them seem more grand and ethereal. Luna's very distant in this story; she's actually a bit more personable in the show (or, she was, I guess, before she picked up this weird habit of glaring at Twilight), so I'm not really sure I like trying to write the royal sisters as gods.
Twilight blasts a section of the forest open before she crash-lands, burning away the airborne spores.
I liked the image of her setting everything to the torch with a busted leg better than launching a fireball in midair, so I kinda buried the lead in what's going on in that paragraph.
3825709
Had to look that one up. I was thinking more Yggdrasil, but it's not like Really Big Tree is a concept unique to one mythology.
3832549
The most important comment I left on the story is my comment about telescopes in Chapter #1. The A Hoof-ful of Dust still has not fixed it. Given how large the eyes of ponies are in relation to their bodies, a telescope with an aperture of less than 10 CM probably would make the image dimmer than with their naked eyes.
Speaking about A Hoof-ful of Dust, before vowels, semivowels, and the letter H, the indefinite article and possessive pronouns should end in the letter N:
“An Hoof-ful of Dust”
One does not need the hyphen either:
“An Hoofful of Dust”
If it would be a compound adjective like “Mine Average-Sized Human”, then it would make sense.
As it is, I am not certain that a "tendency to hoof of dust" makes sense.
¡Pedantically over-analyzing makes mine inner Princess Twilight Sparkle happy!
3833976
a) The size of the telescope is never stated. Twilight could be lugging something the size of the Hubble around with her, if that's what you need for the science to be correct for observing constellations.
b) Twilight owns a telescope. She might even own more than one, if you think there's different telescopes in Look Before You Sleep and It's About Time. So it's one of those. And if you can tell they have incorrect apertures, then that's the fault of the animators, not me for expanding on the use of their scientifically-inaccurate telescope.
c) It's a piece of fiction based off a cartoon where neither are required to have complete accuracy in describing a telescope in order for the plot to progress. It's dramatic license - do you take similar offense to novels that make up locations for a real-world setting that don't exist in the real world, or when you see a fictional operating system on a computer in a television show? (Don't answer that.) If I was writing about the specifics of star observation or Friendship is Magic was more about teaching science to little girls rather than moral lessons, maybe you'd have a point, but the telescope is just a visual aid to demonstrate that Luna is a little out of touch with the current timeline yet has an initial connection to Twilight Sparkle on multiple levels.
Also, are you saying my user name is incorrect? I could have pounded my fist into the keyboard when I registered and it would have been just as valid. Walabio doesn't show up in my dictionary. You're also not as clever as you think you are; the "an before h" rule is on the decline in English at best, it's almost archaic to apply that before a consonant sound like in "hoof-ful", there's no manual of style you could find that would tell you the correct way to ponify words, the phrase "a hoof-ful of dust" is a reference to T.S. Eliot, and the errors you make not only give you away as English Second Language but serve as a reminder that people who live in glass houses shouldn't go slinging stones about. Go be a pedant elsewhere. Please. It's not appreciated.
3837329
I am just having fun being Twilight Sparkle. I do not mean to offend. I know that putting N on the indefinite article and possessive adjectives before H is archaic, but I went with it because it is pedantic. I toyed with using the second-person singular pronoun “Thou” but it made me sound too much like Princess Luna. Only Twilight Sparkle could be so pedantic as to use inverted punctuation in English.
Like a jokingly stated, the only real error is with the telescope. As somepony as well educated as Princess Twilight Sparkle is and is also an amateur astronomer and has used telescopes for years, she would know that first one gathers light, then when things are bright enough to to see, one magnifies details. I imagine something like this:
Princess Luna:
“¿What is this?”
Princess Twilight Sparkle:
“It is a telescope. Its large aperture (pointing to the top opening of the telescope) gathers more light than the pony-eye, thus allowing ponies to see objects which would be to dim for us; while, the eye-piece magnifies the objects, thus allowing us to see details to small to otherwise discern.”
Princess Luna, being the Princess of the Night probably would have learned about modern astronomy soon after her return. Perhaps, Princess Luna should just recognize the telescope, thus allowing us to cut straight to her knowing about the meteors seconds before they appear.
I like your story. All of the corrections are pedantic tongue-in-cheek except the telescope.
I was pedantic about not using “An Hoof-ful of Dust” (sorry, but I was just being Twilight Sparkle in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way) so it is only fair that you tease me too. You are right that Walabio is not an English word. It is the transliteration of Ŭalabio. ¿Ĉu vi scipovas paroli la lingvon internacian Esperanto? In Esperanto, Ŭalabio means “Wallaby”.
I hope that you have no bad feelings.
3833976
"A" vs. "an" is less about letters and more about sounds. If it's a vowel sound to start the word, use "an." If it's a consonant sound, use "a."
Ex:
"A eulogy"
"An hour"
"An apple"
"A car"
3900479
I almost did not respond to this because pretending to be Princess Twilight Sparkle (pedantic) upset the author, but setting all else aside, using possessive pronouns ending in the letter “N” and the indefinite article “An” before vowels, semivowels and the letter “H” is never wrong , although it is old-fashioned and pedantic; so, in formal writing, it is better to always do so. In informal writing, a case-by-case usage is okay.
3900977
I have a source here that explains why I'm right. Specifically, this bit:
This was an interesting story with an intriguing take on the history of Equestria, particularly Discord and pre-Discord. And I'm definitely not the first person to bring up parallels with the season four opener. But in establishing this sort of worldbuilding, you did seem to ignore the elephant in the room: Discord himself. By the time Twilight ascended, he had already been released from his statue and reformed. Plus, Celestia did say in Keep Calm and Flutter On that she had some use for Discord's powers. I can imagine why you wouldn't include him in this story, considering that he would probably break it, but do you at least have some explanation for his absence?
4122902
I'm quite sure I did know the answer to this at one point, but it seems to be eluding me. I think Discord might have been gleefully watching what's kinda his doing unfold and ruin the status quo, but 10,000 years is a bit much even for him to sit on his hands. Maybe he got bored after everything was covered in trees and went to see what's out there in the stars (don't even get me started on the kind of mental backflips needed to explain away other stars with a god around who created the sun).
Oh good, this turned out to be shipping after all. :3
This is a very nice story, but I can't help but feel that the ending is missing something.
Good story, but the ending seemed a bit too easy and sudden.
3900977
Fascinating, but best I can tell from some brief research, you're wrong. The whole purpose of 'an' is to avoid the glottal stop that 'a' causes when the following word begins with a vowel sound. It really is all about the sound, not the specific letter.
Aw, no closure on Celestia? I was thinking that as an Alicorn, maybe she'd remember the time the sun and moon weren't moving as well as Twilight and Luna do. Which wouldn't be pleasant memories for her at all, considering it'd be ten millennia of mind control. Even if not, it would'a been nice to see a closing scene to clarify on the matter.
Other nitpicks: Was that... romance? Maybe it was just very close friendshipping, but friendshipping doesn't usually cause blushing and whatnot. I know having an adventure together can make you closer etc., but for these events to have sparked a romance is just incredibly sudden and difficult to believe for me. Another thing I had difficulty believing was that Luna didn't know what a telescope is. This is at least a year after her return, isn't it? You'd think someone, somewhere, at some point, would've introduced the Princess of the Night to modern astronomy. Such as her sister. Not to mention, Luna used a telescope during the Changeling episodes. On top of that, telescopes aren't exactly a new-fangled technology; they were already in regular use in the earliest days of sailing ships. Luna could have already been familiar with them before Nightmare Moon even happened, depending on your headcanon for pre-NMM history. I like to think they knew how to build and sail ships before NMM.
The adventure itself was exciting and kept me interested throughout, even if it did take me months to get to it in my Read Later list, lol. Your descriptions of the environs was extremely well done, too. I like the ideas behind how time works, and the parasitic enemy was something I haven't seen done before, not in this fandom at least. Were they inspired by the video game 'Lost Planet'?
I have to admit I couldn't stop a sigh of disappointment escaping my mouth as I read the last sentence. Not because of the writing (off to a slow start, but keeping a nice pacing overall.
) or the story itself (which was quite interesting), or even the implied Twi/Luna shipping at the end 
. 
). I really wanted to see and perhaps learn from the example. But, regrettably, for me the story fell completely flat in that particular aspect. As interesting and enjoyable as it was, if felt nothing like a fairy tale for me. 
See, 2 of the 3 reviewers from Seattle Angels mentioned your story reading like a fairy tale in their reviews. And I really wanted to experience that (for educational purposes mostly
Ah, well. Perhaps there's something wrong with me, though?
I don't suppose they mean about what happened inside the tree...
4444656
Good Lord, that's a terrifying thought for Celestia. I think it's better for her to have been mind controlled and that being an alicorn offers no special protection against chaos-spawned mushrooms.
Also, dammit, she is at a telescope in Canterlot Wedding, isn't she? That scene is one of the very initial building blocks of this story and I obviously didn't want to give it up, but maybe I should have just strangled it and hid it in the closet somewhere for all the reasons it continues to not work. As for whether there's something more than friendship between Twilight and Luna, that's pretty open to interpretation; Twilight could just find the idea of immortal godlike Luna being romantically involved a little blush-worthy. It's intentionally non-concrete.
(I did have some very weird world-building thing that could be used to explain away the absence of ships and celestial navigation, for what it's worth, but it would be a long and fairly pointless aside that I'm probably not going to use again.)
Never heard of that game; the plot's just the end-point of me finding it weird how pony-centric the world is. If the two sisters aren't around to move the sun and moon, what happens? If ponies don't manage the weather and the plants, what happens? And then what could prevent the custodians of this weird inorganic world from doing their job?
4446011
That depends on your definition of 'fairy tale', I suppose. They often dip into the grim and surreal, and exist to (poorly, sometimes) explain some kind of natural or social phenomenon, so it's maybe more a Brothers Grimm variety than Walt Disney. But, yeah, I wouldn't really describe it that way, either; it would be a strange world if products were expected to completely live up to the expectations of their advertisers.
When Twi and Luna finally decide to tell Celestia (for the sake of national security):
Celestia stared down at the two of them "What? No. The two of you had been partaking in some rather strong hallucinogenic fungi. I had to keep watch over you all night, and it wasn't easy when you both decided to swim across the bathtub!"
"No, Princess--" Twilight gestured wildly with her hoof "--It's just the mushrooms making you think that."
"Indeed," Luna agreed, "The fungus has affected your mind, Sister."
Celestia's eyebrow slowly rose. "I am quite certain that it was not I who was under the influence of mushrooms." She held up a large, clear bag with only a few little mushrooms in the bottom. "Now, I am going to go destroy these, before they cause even more mischief."
Both of the other alicorns stared at the orange mushrooms inside, aghast. "Yes... Yes, that would likely be for the best," Luna mumbled.
4461579
I made a subtle joke based on 2 pillars:
AppleBuckSeason, and nauseous meaning to cause nausea:
Twilight causes nausea. I believe that this should be “Twilight feels nauseated. … ”. For the joke to work, one must know the difference between "nauseate", Nauseous", and "nausea".
Very intriguingly done. It almsot felt like the ending was too quick, but you managed it really well. Bravo.