A compilation of short stories written with prompts from Thirty Minute Prompts and the community.
This is a compilation of short stories based off of prompts given by the readers and Thirty Minute Prompts.
I hope you enjoy and feel free to suggest your own prompt. If it is good and I can think of what to write using it, I will write it and give you full credit for the suggestion!
You look through a piece of glass, magnifying what you see: a ship and all of the crew attending the deck.
A yellow Pegasus is seen attending the crows-nest, a blue unicorn manning the sails, and a sharply dressed earth pony directing the helm. A small crew for such a vast vessel, but the three you see are just the ponies on the deck. There may be countless in the bows of the ship.
This ship holds an arsenal that could destroy a small city, or any ship that manoeuvres towards its side. With a total of one hundred cannons split between the port and starboard sides of the ship, the vessel screams warship and of the death that plagues the surrounding waters.
As the bow plows through the rough waves, you take care to steady your hands so that you may keep sight of the war machine through the glass. With a closer look, you see the name that strikes fear into those opposing the equestrian navy: HMS Bumble Bee. An ironic name for such a deadly machine, but with the black and yellow painting scheme the name makes some sliver of sense.
Looking back to the crew, you see that they have assembled to create a line on the deck. Some stumble, not yet having their sea-legs, as the decks sway. More than ninety pairs of eyes stare back at the commanding officer across from them. This new crew learning how to control the ship...
Seeing enough for today, you carefully set the glass back on its stand so that the water inside does not become too rough for your seafaring 'friends'. With one last look at your magic ship in a bottle, and a quick nod, you stumble away wondering if you had too much to drink out of one of the other bottles.
It seems that you have grown a dependence on both the ship's, and the alcohol bottles.
This is a speech given at a (fake) seminar on “Life, the Question and the Answer” with Princess Twilight Sparkle as the presenter.
“We all know the answer: forty-two, but do we know the question? I want to give everypony here a different perspective on the question and answer to life the universe and everything, but before that let me start by saying this: There are many questions that may have the answer “42”. What is seven multiplied by six? How many minutes does it take to fly from Ponyville to Canterlot? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a TrotsiePop?
“We all know the answer to the last one, and it’s not forty-two, Owlowiscious’s uncle made sure that we all knew that the answer to that: “A One... A Two... A Three... Crunch!” But I digress.
“When given the answer, many possibilities for the question pop into our head. We all want to know, but there arises the problem. It is said that if the question and the answer reside in the same universe, then the universe will be replaced with a new one. I don’t believe this because I feel that I have found the question and answer, but here the true problem can be viewed: Everypony has their own question, and their own answer.”
Pointing to different ponies in the audience, Twilight continues, “Her question might have to do with her family, while her question might have to do with what makes her smile.
“We may already know the answer. Unless you have no cutie mark, the answer appears to be your special talent. If you think long and hard, whenever you have some time off, you will find the question. From personal experience, I can say that when you find the question that coincides with your answer, you will know and you will have a happiness that is only rivaled by the magic of friendship.”
After a while later, all of the ponies in the room try to look as attentive as possible with only a core group of ponies genuinely excited and enthralled in the speech. Most breathe a sigh of relief as the presentation winds down. “I hope I have changed your perspective on this topic and I hope you enjoyed this event, have a good time during the rest of this conference. I will be taking questions for the next fifteen minutes and then the next scheduled event, the, the table with some of our greatest thinkers, will occur shortly after we end.”
The equestrian orphanage has a weird system. If a young filly or colt finds a place to live and has permission and the means to live there, they will allow the foal to live there (there are age restrictions of course). This causes some issues in the orphanage system. Many foals are left un-adopted because they are not realized to be orphaned by the community. Sometimes it is hard for the orphanage to keep track of the living standards and the foal itself, and sometimes these fillies and colts go hungry before the orphanage’s financial aid is received.
After years of living in the clubhouse, a certain orange filly has finally been caught in a lie through omission. Only two other fillies knew for sure that this orange filly had no parents. Sadly, they couldn’t help because they had pinkie promised to keep it a secret.
This secret was kept until one Hearth’s-Warming Eve, where a certain energetic pink mare found said orange mare eating from the garbage cans around Sugercube Corner.
“Hey, silly, get out of the trash!”
Frozen with fear, an orange Pegasus turns to see that she is caught ‘red hoofed’. As she runs away, she hears cries of “Stop!”, “Wait!” and even “Is that Scootaloo?”
When she finally thinks she is hidden, Scootaloo starts to relax. That was a bit too close.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Confused as to why Scootaloo was eating from the trash cans and not with her family, Pinkie Pie runs after her. She keeps her distance until the filly stops.
Cornering Scootaloo in the ally that was used as refuge, Pinkie asks decides that it is better to offer a warm place to talk instead of coming out and demanding an answer in the cold.
--------------------------------------- The thirty minute time limit was reached here, but I wanted to continue this so continued writing! I hope you enjoy the rest! ---------------------------------------
After sitting inside for a while, the young filly opened up and told Pinkie and the Cakes that her parents were lost in a fire and that she lived in the CMC clubhouse. With a gasp, all that was left of Pinkie was a mare-shaped puff of smoke and a swinging door as she flew out the door.
With concern written on everypony’s face, the Cakes offer Scootaloo a bed. Grateful, and tired, Scootaloo is asleep the second her head hits the pillow.
The next day, she awakes to find that she is in an unfamiliar room, in a bed (for once), and with a mare asleep in a chair across the room. It takes a second, but the feeling of being in a hospital is erased as the events of last night rush into her head. Grimacing that her well kept secret has been revealed, she looks back to the loudly snoring mare, finding exactly who she didn’t want to see.
It is obvious that Rainbow Dash knows, why else would she be sleeping in a chair across the room? Now her idol would not want to spend any time with her. Scootaloo had to leave now!
She carefully made her way from the bed to the door, seeming to step on every squeaky board that the floor contained. She was making it along, and it didn’t seem that anything was going to wake up Rainbow Dash, that was until an energetic ball of pink slammed through the door, launching Scootaloo from her place in front of the door into the wall across the room.
With a start, Rainbow shot up and crashed into the ceiling. With a double “OOF” coming from the two mares, and an “OOOW” They both got up and looked at the ball of death that disturbed the peacefulness in the room.
“Come on, everypony is waiting downstairs!” was the only answer the two got as Pinkie made her way down stairs. With a shrug and some grumbling, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash made their way down the stairs and into the sea of eyes that consisted of the Cakes, the elements of harmony, and the cutie mark crusaders. They were all sitting in a circle and there were a few spaces that were all throughout the group.
Scootaloo was overjoyed when her idol and bigger sister asked everyone to scoot down so that they would be sitting next to each other. She may have been wrong about losing her idol after all.
Nopony, except for the Cakes and Pinkie, knew why they were called to meet in this Hearth’s-Warming Day, only that something was wrong and that it included Scootaloo.
Clearly confused and interested at the same time, everypony wanted to ask, but nopony wanted to be the one to break the silence.
“Well, I guess you better tell us what it is we are her to know Scoots,” Rainbow simply stated as the conversation was going nowhere.
Knowing that she had her sister and her friends there to support her, Scootaloo started to tell her story, knowing that in the end she would find something that she hasn’t has for a long time: a real home.
Sitting at a desk making presentations for my boss gets sore on the neck. It’s not like I get the credit for this when she does these presentations. It’s too bad that the novelty of having a job that coincides with my cutie mark wore off about a month ago.
“Too bad Mayor Mare believes that minimum wage is a good paycheck. I'll bet half my wage that she doesn't get this little”
“Ponyville needs a new emblem for the Equestria games! This is what I was thinking.” Mayor states as she hoofs me a crudely hewn drawing of a, for lack of a better term, something on a napkin. “Make sure it is done by Monday!”
The door to the town hall slams shit with an echoing boom as she leaves for the weekend.
“I don’t even get overtime for this!”
After a bit of work and a lot of brooding I, in what sounds like a scream in the empty halls, harshly whisper, “Why did I have to work for the government under a department that has nopony else? All of the nobility and paper jockeys get a couple hours of work and then they are done for the day.”
After finally deciphering Mayor Mare’s scribble and creating a rough copy, I log my hours for my measly paycheck and go home. A weekend of working later and I have three versions of the emblem complete for Mayor Mare’s review.
A week later, and I get my paycheck. I count it up and find my measly 52 bits per hour (A/N: two bits = 25 cents). At least it is enough to meet the needs of my house.
A month later:
I wake up and go through my slightly less boring day. After my work on the Ponyville emblem, it came to my attention that one of the colts coming out of school had a photo and visual art cutie mark. As part of the co-op program, he gets to work with me to ‘see the wonders in our profession’. At least I have someone to work with.
Today the banners, with my emblem stating ‘Support Ponyville’ are being put up. It doesn’t seem like anything special, so we stay inside and do some organizing. We just finished a job from the Canterlot Nobility to make the designs for this coming Grand Galloping Gala.
We do get work from a lot of work from other sources, other than Mayor Mare that is. How else would we be able to stay working?
A friend of mine comes in saying that we should come out and see something. I dismiss her, but she insists. As we walk outside, I am shocked to see something that has not happened in the two years that I have worked for this employer: My work has been credited! I have finally been given credit for my work!
Excitement is not the proper word for my attitude. I am overjoyed!
I see a blur of pink a possibly hear the word ‘party’.
I get congratulations many around me as the crowd swallows me in front of my workplace.
A while later, my apprentice and I walk back into town hall. I continue cleaning around my desk when I see a pink slip that somehow found its way under the drafting table.
I tense and fear the worst, pink, except when it comes to a particular party pony, means furloughed or fired. Looking it over, I visible relax, and think, “Nothing can make this day better!” In my hoof sits a letter stating that hard work and persistence win out on time in the workplace.
I am being moved to a private firm. No more government work under Mayor Mare, and no more minimum wages! In fact because of this my wage doubles!
A/N: I know that this is a crappy and patched ending, time ran out and I wanted to keep it less than thirty minutes. If you want me to fix the ending and continue, comment or PM me!
Scootaloo rounded the corner on her scooter, quickly followed by a cart with her two friends, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, hanging on for dear life.
Tonight was the night. The night to gather all of their candy needs for a year! Or a month. Maybe just a couple of days; It didn’t matter. Tonight was Nightmare Night and this trio was going to collect as much candy as they could.
They were of course dressed up in their own costumes. Sweetie Belle was a stereotypical opera singer, Applebloom was an astropony, and Scootaloo was dressed up as the dreaded changeling, the creature that plagued the nightmares of Canterlot residents.
As they ‘flew’ down the street towards their first house, they could just about see their destination. Pinkie Pie gave them the best route to get the most amount of candy, and they planned on following it to the ‘T’.
There were of course waaaay too old to go with the ‘scared-y-ponies’ that hear the story of nightmare night, it’s not like they were scared or anything...
They reached the first house, and received only one candy each. It would take forever to fill up their bags! So they hunkered down and continued on through their list, sometime getting a lot of candy, and sometimes getting just a few pieces.
After hours of trick-or-treating, long after they had to use the cart to carry all of their candy, the trio of crusaders made it back to their clubhouse at Sweet Apple Acres. They started to count out their stash to see what they got and traded what they did and didn’t want.
After their negotiations were done, they loaded up into the scooter and cart, and made their way downtown. They dropped the cart off and started to play some games. After a while, Applebloom noticed that Scootaloo wasn’t with them. They started to make their way over to the center of town hall: where they agreed to go if they were split up.
There they saw a distraught looking Scootaloo. She was sitting next to Rarity, AppleJack and Rainbow Dash, and even with their camaraderie, she looked like she had been abandoned.
Scootaloo must have changed her costume, because she was wearing a timber-wolf suit. As they made their way over, the foals two sister saw them. They were given the chewing out of a lifetime. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle didn’t know what they had done wrong. They hadn’t left their friend here all night; they had spent the night with Scootaloo!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After Rainbow Dash, AppleJack, and Rarity had gathered up the rest of their friends, all sides of the story were laid out to interpret.
Scootaloo had calm down, and confirmed that she had not been dressed in a changeling suit all night. This caused some worry within the elements.
Twilight tested for changeling magic on Applebloom and Sweetie Belle and confirmed that they had been fed off of, but that there would be no lasting damage.
The adults, including a Mrs. Mayor who had joined the conversation, agreed that a town-wide changeling test was in order. They would call a town meeting that all would need to attend, and they went their separate ways, seeing as the festivities were coming to a close.
The three friends made up, and Scootaloo was able to keep all of the candy under her name at the club-house.
The changeling, or impersonator, was never found...
The room is cold. Not because the it is winter or the cooling spells are in overdrive, but because of the thoughts tearing their way through my head.
Sitting on these hard, clinical chairs puts the topping on the proverbial cake. It makes an already bad experience even worse.
A door opens. A pony steps out. The distinct clip-clop of hooves on tile make their way towards me in the small, half-inviting room.
I am told that it's my turn to go in.
The distance between me and the door grows. Tunnel vision sets in, and a few would-be tentative steps turn into a perceived year-long quest. Moving towards a gaping hole in the wall, half sealed with a piece of flat, grainy wood, my mind screams at me to turn tail and run. The daemons that are to be battled can wait another day.
Alas it was not meant to be. Uprising waited for another day as a new quest was formed in my head: get to a seat.
Have you ever noticed that those couches in shrinks’ offices are the most demeaning furniture in the world?
It allows the psychiatrist to look at you with contempt and whatever other emotions goes through their overly judgmental, yet nonjudgmental mind without you knowing.
Needless to say, I make my way to a chair.
While this solves the previous issue of not being able to see the shrink’s face, another problem arises. Do you sit in the chair like that green pony with the instrument cutie mark sits on the park benches, or do you lay in them with your head facing forward?
I hurts less to lay in the chair, so I guess that's my decision made.
Quiet.
Awkward silence.
Am I expected to talk first?
There should be something. A clear of the throat, a tapping of a hoof or quill on parchment, something to break the monotonous quiet.
Yet I don't want there to be anything. No distributions from the beautiful silence. Disruptions would mean discussion. Discussion would mean thinking bad thoughts. Bad thoughts would mea—
Changing topic. Some things are better left unthought, unspoken. But that ruins the point of being here. Why be at a shrink if there is not going to be any mono-, or even dialogue. Why waste mom’s money by sitting here in silence.
Finally something brings me out of my musing. A scratch of a quill on a notepad.
Notes. Notes mean observation. He has gotten something out of my silence.
Just as I suspected, he starts by clearing his throat and stating that while he would usually let me sit in that peaceful silence until I wanted to talk, there were a few things that we needed to get underway.
I was talked at. Things I already know were said. Explained to that my situation is bad. Told how I mustn't think that any of this is my fault.
The consolations didn't help.
Gaining a parent after your birth is the most joyful, and painful experience that could happen in somepony’s life. Being adopted means more than just having a parent, it means that you weren't just had. You, out of a crowd of possibilities, were chosen. Picked singlehandedly, shown that you were worth something.
Given that I already had two parents, this hurt too. It meant that one felt so little of me that, despite being able to take care of me, he wouldn't love me enough to keep me as his own.
It is hard to lose a parent through death. It is even harder to have one abandon you. When it happens twice, you start to ask what is wrong with you.
I guess that is why I am really here. To talk about ‘what’s bothering you?’ As if it wasn't so obvious.
I start to participate in the conversation. Enjoy releasing my anger, doubt, and fear of the world into this open, nonjudgmental forum.
Maybe I could do this. Maybe life wouldn't be so bad. Maybe dad will come back and talk, or just sit with me again.
Time’s up. I thank the good doctor, and clip-clop my way back to where I was sitting before.
Mom goes back in, and my little candle-flame of hope slowly, oh ever so slowly, flickers out like a candle with too short a wick.
Doubt starts to creep back into my mind.
The room is cold. Not because the it is winter or the cooling spells are in overdrive, but because of the thoughts tearing their way through my head.
Sitting on these hard, clinical chairs puts the topping on the proverbial cake. It makes an already bad experience even worse.