Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat


Truth and Consequences

After a long afternoon working at The Dairy, it was finally time for me to head on over to the dairy. As professional as my suit made me look, I was still a cow wearing clothes - and enough of the locals' casual approach to nudity had worn off on me that I was looking forward to taking all my clothes off and having a good scratch, getting my udder emptied, and then curling up with the cows in the royal dairy herd for a good night's sleep. It was astonishing what you could get used to after a few weeks, if you didn't have much choice in the matter.

However, as I walked into the room with the milking machinery, I was mildly curious to see an unfamiliar unicorn, a pale green mare. None of the other cows were being milked right at the moment, so I simply said, "Hello, there," in passing, and continued towards one of the stalls.

As I started fumbling with my suit's fasteners, the pony piped up, "Please, let me help you with that." I blinked at the unexpected offer, but since I was still relatively clumsy using my hooves, I decided to treat her offer as being as innocent as Rarity with a measuring tape, and nodded my acceptance. Her horn glowed, and the various individual pieces of cloth unfastened themselves, floated up, and folded neatly away; all I had to do was lift my hooves now and then, and shake my head when she was about to lift off the whistle. I nodded my thanks to her, finished entering my stall - and her telekinetic aura surrounded the milking machine's hose attachments, placing them onto my teats. That was a bit more familiar than I'd been expecting; I tended not to let anyone touch my body, even by proxy, whenever I could avoid it. But as the pump started, I started letting down, and I felt the relief of my built-up pressure dropping, I was willing to let this slide.

Normally, I'd have brought up some cud to chew to pass the time, but it seemed a bit rude to ignore a pony who'd just helped me, so I instead said, "Thank you. I'm called Missy; what's your name?"

She giggled lightly. "I know who you are - and I'm Pleasant Dream."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Pleasant Dream. What are you doing down here this evening?"

"Why, waiting for you, of course."

"... I'm sorry, have we met before?" I tried to lean around the side of my stall to get a view of her cutie mark, but the milking machine's hoses pulled me up short.

"No - but I'm here to do anything you might want me to do. And I really mean anything." She batted her eyes.

"Er..."

"I know that you don't like to sleep alone - but you don't have to stay down here. When you're done, why don't we go up to one of the palace's bedrooms, and you can sleep with me?"

"Er..."

"And we can pretend those nasty stallions simply don't exist, and relax, just us fillies..."

"Er... Pleasant?"

"Please - call me Dreamy."

"... I'll consider it. Anyway - uh - while your offer certainly sounds nice, and kind and generous... well... how can I put this delicately?"

"Go ahead and ask me whatever you wish."

"... Right. Well, in that case - while I think I'm getting the 'what' of what you're doing... I'm still a bit hazy on the 'why'."

"Can't a pony offer to help a friend out of the goodness of their heart?"

"Certainly they can. But I just learned your name - are you really sure we're that good of friends yet?"

She giggled. "Oh, I didn't mean me, you silly. I meant your real friends - the ones you're making with all the higher-ups."

I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed. When I re-opened them, she was still there. "Which higher-ups would those be?"

"Oh, I don't know - does it really matter? Loves Together said somepony wanted you to feel special, and he knows I like helping ponies feel special, so here I am!"

Great - so now I knew there existed pony prostitutes. Of some sort. For all I knew, all she was thinking of really was just literally sleeping with me, and it was my own dirty mind filling in anything further... but, well, now I was suddenly thinking of some of the general sorts of stories I'd heard about what went on in the halls of power, such as the Washington beltway - the incumbents bringing all the new lobbyists and brokers into the fold, parties with women and drinking and drugs, the old-timers just being friendly with the newbies and showing them the ropes until the newbies were indistinguishable from those old-timers... so that the whole arrangement could keep on keeping on without any significant waves or ripples from any reformers who wanted to chip away at the privileges of the powerful.

I supposed that I should have seen it coming - I'd talked to Blueblood about a policy proposal, and a few of the more progressive members of the Barn of Lords to find one, a recently-inherited Countess, one Placid Stream of Oxford, who was willing to give the Voluntary Service notion a fair try. And after that trial - it looked like I was on at least one noble's radar, even if I didn't know who it was. Somepony who wanted to make sure I was no more of a disruption than any other potential reformer, starting by showing me what I could have if I played the political game the usual way.

I didn't even want to think what the Equestrian version of upper-class drugs might be.

And on the other hoof - the mare curiously watching the machine do its work might just be an overly-friendly pony with an underdeveloped sense of boundaries, who kept up with the local gossip. And whose feelings I could hurt if I handled this badly.

In the end, I just went for a lot of saying 'no thank you'. I think I did hurt her feelings some - but unless I was actually willing to go sleep with (or 'sleep with') someone I had just met, I didn't think I could avoid making her at least that unhappy.


Trying to figure out the hidden motives of an unknown pony politician who might not even exist was enough to send my mind a-tumbling, whirring around fast enough that I knew I wouldn't be able to get to sleep anytime soon. So I sighed, and decided to go look for something that could help me sleep - maybe some warm milk, or hot chocolate, or some lemon, ginger, and honey tea. Celestia's sun hadn't set yet, so I thought that maybe I could find a nearby restaurant or cafe - surely I wasn't the only one who worked in the palace who would want such things. I debated about heading out fully-clothed and fully-armed, but figured that if I stayed really close to the palace, there'd be enough Guard's in earshot to intervene if anything went south. So I adjusted my glasses, hid the Warden whistle under another scarf, tucked in a few bits, and trotted off to investigate the places I'd overheard mention of in the palace.

After a couple of duds, and a bit of asking some of the high-nosed unicorns for directions, I finally found a place with potential. It was no Tim Horton's, but served beverages hot and cold, had booths big enough for me, and seemed to be host to a crowd a couple of notches down from the unicorns who couldn't see where they were going. I made a mental note to bring something to read next time, but for that night, simply sipped my hot apple cider with cinnamon and clove, stared out the windows, and did some pony-watching.

A pair of Big Mac-sized stallions trotted in, a heavily-muscled blue earth-pony with a couple of crossed blades on his flank, and a carefully-coiffed grey unicorn with a standard star-burst, and settled into the booth beside mine. They started talking quietly to each other, which I politely did my best to ignore. Once they'd gotten their drinks, they started looking at me, saying rather disparaging things, and breaking out in laughter - only to glance at me, wait a few moments, and then start again, with an even filthier comment in a louder tone.

I continued drinking my cider and looking out the window, thinking.

Finally, the earth-pony clambered out to stand in front of me, glaring. "What, are you deaf as well as blind?"

I focused my gaze on him. "If a statement made about me is true, then it is true, and there is no purpose for me to be upset about the truth. If a statement made about me is false, then it has no more meaning than the sound of the wind whistling through the trees, and there is no reason for me to be upset about the sound of the wind."

My response didn't seem to be what he'd expecting; he frowned and blinked, then glanced at his companion, who waved a hoof at him to continue. "Well, I say that you and all your milking kind should be kicked out of Canterlot back to where you belong!"

"To which I respond: You are as entitled to your opinion as anybody else."

He placed both his forehooves on my table and glared down at me. "I don't think you take my meaning." He leaned in. "Leave, and show everyone you're just as much a coward as every other cow - not even willing to defend the good name of all your kind."

Deliberately slowly, I picked up my mug and took a nice, long sip of the cider - I at least half-expected it was going to be the last sip I was going to get out of it, so I made sure to get all the enjoyment from it that I could - including an extra little frisson from forcing the pony to wait. Finally setting it back down, I looked up at him, and said, "To use the ultimate weapon: I won't."

"Then challenge me!"

"I won't."

"Get mad, get out, get up - do something!" He pounded on the table, obviously frustrated. I looked around, saw his companion getting up to stand next to him, and most of the rest of the ponies simply watching the goings-on curiously - didn't look like I was getting any help from there.

"Why should I?"

The unicorn sneered, "How much good do you think you'll do when every single noble knows you have no honor?"

"Ah," I sighed. "That sort of 'honor'. I prefer to demonstrate that my word is my bond."

The earth-pony growled something which, while it didn't use actual curse-words, was about as obscene and insulting as I could imagine, involving my supposed parentage and the details of my conception. I was actually rather impressed, even if it sounded kind of well-rehearsed, rather than something he'd come up with on the spur of the moment. The only reason it lost a little something was his assumption that I'd grown up bovine - an entirely reasonable assumption, but an insult involving my mother's udder just didn't catch me as strongly as a truly focused insult could have. I tried to figure out some way to de-escalate matters. I tried going for abstraction, to try to get them focused on intellectual matters instead of their obvious feelings. "Whether or not that's true, I'm at least ignorant about some particular details of the local version of the code duello. From what I read, a gentlecolt or noble-pony can challenge any who they feel have stained their honor - but I have not investigated what happens after that."

The unicorn was giving me a funny look - which was at least better than the earth-pony's expression. He said, "The challenged pony offers the terms of the duel - and their seconds, if any, set the place, time, and are supposed to try to calm-"

The earth-pony glared at the unicorn and growled, "What the buck are you doing? Help me make her mad already!"

I raised my brows. "So that I will then challenge you, and you may set the terms to something you know you will beat me at?" I considered all that had been going on recently - and decided to alter the course of events slightly. "It would be a shame indeed if I were stupid enough to go through with such obvious suicide. I would have a greater chance of surviving if I were to point out that the two of you are bachelor stallions, working closely together, and speculating on your lack of female companionship and implying just how close the two of you really are-"

My jaw snapped shut just in time to avoid dental damage as a pair of hooves swung for my face, one from each of them.

I smiled - in a way. "I believe that that counts as a challenge from each of you, does it not?"


I wondered just how much I'd be able to get away with here - but I had a rather strong suspicion that without taking matters into my own hooves, these two ponies wouldn't have settled for a mere cupcake-throwing match. The unicorn, who was the member of the pair who apparently had the two brain cells to rub together, was starting to look a bit worried - I guessed that I was really throwing him off his script.

"I am not from Canterlot," I said, putting it mildly, "so you may be unfamiliar with the forms of competitive physical effort I, as the challenged party, will choose."

The unicorn glanced at the crowd, who were gobbling this whole thing up as if it were a multi-part series finale - which, given there wasn't any such thing as a TV in Equestria, it may very well have been, for them. He growled, "Just get on with it already."

"Very well." I glanced from the one to the other and back, and finally said, "I choose the Test of Bone, and the Test of Blood." This time both of them looked confused, and the rabble-rabble sounds of our audience rose a couple of notches.

I stared at the earth-pony's eyes. "For you, the Test of Bone - a way for the two of us to prove to all and sundry which of us is more willing than the other to win, and which pits our bodies' strength against each other."

"You mean, like wrestling?"

I snorted. "Hardly. It's quite simple, really, though we might need some help from the audience for the materials. We lie down next to each other, on our sides. A platform is placed on us - if nothing more suitable is available, a door each will do." He looked completely befuddled at this point, as did most everypony else. "And then equal weights are placed on top of both of us. As long as both of us can call 'more weight', more is added. If we continue long enough, our pelvises will shatter, our ribs will crack, our lungs will begin to collapse - but all you have to do to win is be willing to suffer more agony and permanent damage than I am. If I am able to keep up with you for long enough, then you will never walk again, may never stand up again - but you will have the satisfaction of having proven that your body was once able to out-perform that of a mere cow's. Surely that victory is worth whatever price you may pay? That is, is it not, the reason you came here - to put me in my place? Or were you expecting to be able to do so at no cost, with no consequences to yourself?"

By the time I'd gotten to 'never stand up', his eyes were wide and knees were quaking. I decided to go easy on him, so I picked up my half-empty mug, and deliberately placed it onto my other hoof. "There - the first weight is placed, I have begun. All you have to do to continue is say those two little words: 'more weight' - and we can proceed to see who can continue breathing the longest. Or..."

"Or?" His eyes flared with hope.

"Or, I will allow you to surrender before you start - if you publicly declare that not only have I not insulted you, but you owe me a debt of honor, the repayment of which we will discuss in private." He looked torn, so I added, "And which, I promise, you will be able to repay by actions that are both honorable and ethical."

"That!" he said. "I pick that one!"

I nodded. "We'll talk more in a moment - I seem to have another challenge to a duel to deal with, first." I turned to the unicorn, who had turned pale at my description of the 'Test of Bone', which I had made up on the spot based on some of my memories of Earthly witch-hunters' interrogation techniques. "Now, the Test of Blood. I am guessing that somewhere nearby are a pair of blades. Somebody," I said to the crowd, without taking my eyes off the unicorn, "please bring them here." The unicorn looked calmer - perhaps he was expecting a more traditional sort of duel. He was in for a disappointment. "We will also need a pair of clean, empty buckets, as similar as can be managed." He looked confused, and worried again.

In just a few seconds, the implements were passed to my table. "Again, this test is quite simple. Pick whichever weapon you prefer." He immediately grabbed one with his hooves, and I slowly and deliberately selected the other, holding it with my right forehoof. "All you have to do," I put my left forehoof on the edge of one bucket, "is bleed more than me." I used to be a regular blood donor, so I had a few mental tricks to deal with what I was about to do - with a delicate swipe, I opened up the top couple of layers of skin on the part of my foreleg I thought of as my forearm. Blood welled out, trailed down by hide, and started dripping into the bucket, with an irregular pat pat pat-pat. "You're bigger than I am - you can probably lose a lot more than I can before you lose consciousness."

He looked at me, at my leg, my knife, my blood dripping into my bucket, at his legs, his knife, his bucket, his legs, back at me... and his nerve broke. He flung down the knife, having it land point-first in the floor. "This is a travesty!" he shouted. "This brings shame to every duel that was ever fought!"

"You came here. Tried to insult me. Tried to get me to challenge you. Wanted to fight a duel on your terms - fight in a way you've obviously practiced many years for, when I've never done anything of the sort." Finally, I lifted myself to all fours, ignoring the blood dripping onto my hoof. "And you have the gall to call me dishonorable!?" I pointed my hoof at his knife. "Pick that up. Or announce you owe me the same debt of honor he does." I tipped a horn at the earth-pony. "Or let all and sundry here know you never had any real 'honor' to begin with!"

He blinked, and looked around at the now-silent crowd. He reached down to the knife, and I tried not to change my stance - if he actually took me up on this 'test', then this would be a lot harder than it needed to be - so I pointed my left hoof at it, using the swing of my foreleg to splash some drops of blood onto it, and onto his own leg, as I declared, "Pick it up." He winced...

... and his shoulders slumped.

I'd won.

Yay me.

I cleared my throat. "Would somebody be so kind as to pass me some bandages?"


The three of us stood in the back of the cafe, next to the entrance to the powder rooms, with all the other patrons having decided to move to the front when I glared at them.

"Let's start with your names."

The unicorn's jaw dropped. "You mean - you don't even know who we are?"

"Would I have asked if I did?"

He started laughing at that - and it was my turn to look confused. "The Great Rudolfo and the Terrific Paul - bested by a cow who doesn't even know who we are!" This sent him into paroxysms of laughter.

I waited patiently for a few moments, before clearing my throat. "Duelists for hire?"

He rubbed tears from his eyes, and answered. "I would never put it so crassly."

"Then how would you put it?"

"Sometimes a lord notices she has a problem. She lets us know. We solve the problem. She feels favorably disposed towards us."

I sighed. "How badly were you supposed to injure me?"

The earth-pony - I still didn't know if he was Rudolfo or Paul - said, "Put holes in you. If you lived, you'd think hard. If you didn't, that was fine, too."

"And I expect both of you are quite good enough to poke holes in me without any real risk of injury to yourself?"

The unicorn nodded. "Quite. We are Great and Terrific at what we do, after all."

I rubbed my forehead. "All I wanted was a quiet drink, and end up in something out of Cyrano de Bergerac. Fine. The way I see it, each of you owes me a life. I could have taken yours - and didn't; so now you owe me the equivalent. Any disagreement?" I looked from one to the other, and they stayed quiet. "But I'm not greedy. So here's what I offer: until such time as you prove to me that you have saved at least one life, then each of you remains in my debt. I'm quite willing to let each of you decide how to go about it: as long as that life would not have survived without you, that'll count."

The earth-pony asked, "You mean... like a body-guard?"

"That would work. Or you can go hang out at a beach to try to save someone from drowning. Or hunt down a monster that would have killed somepony. Or go a-doctoring. Take your pick."

They glanced at each other, then back at me. The unicorn spoke up. "You really didn't know who we are?"

"Of course not."

"Then I believe I can immediately fulfill your condition for at least one of us, as there are certain other facts which will likely kill you if you don't know them..."