How To Train Your Batpony

by peter

Chapter 10 How not to marry a Prince part two

On both Equestria and Earth, a farm was a wonderful place for children. There were animals to play with, haylofts to jump out of, trees to climb and manure piles to add spice to death-defying scooter jumps. But currently the young foals, and one snipe, in the Sweet Apple Acres farmyard had other things on their minds than seeing how thick a layer of mud they could accumulate before the inevitable forced bath sluiced off all their hard-won muck.

“So you see, that’s why we need to take that spell book to Twilight,” Curry explained to the whole group of young ponies. She had been afraid that Sweetie Belle would just flat out refuse to consider the idea if it was just her. Adding the rest of the Crusaders, along with Di and Babs, supplied Curry with backup if she needed it. Jake and Pipsqueak were only physically present, because they were more interested in the tortoise that was slowly making its way across the barnyard than in listening to the older ponies. At least once they decided that there were no explosions forthcoming.

“And you decided this all on your own?” Apple Bloom asked, giving Diamond Tiara a jaundiced look.

Curry hunched her head down between her shoulders, The artificial tail, made with real pony hair, hanging off the backside of her magical footie pajamas drooped dispiritedly while the fabric ears on the top of the hood lay flat. “Nope. I wanted to keep trying spells. I was so excited I didn’t stop to think that somepony could have been hurt badly with the last one. Di convinced me I was barking up the wrong tree.”

“So! It was all Diamond Tiara’s idea?” Apple Bloom demanded. While things had gotten better between the two earth pony fillies, there was still a lot of leftover animosity on both sides.

“And what if it was?” Di stepped forward from where she had been standing beside Curry Comb. “You lot were being idiots playing with a loaded crossbow. You already take lessons from Twilight Sparkle, Celestia only knows why she puts up with you. She’ll be happy to teach you how to use the book safely if it can be used. Or don’t you trust her?”

Diamond Tiara was doing everything in her power to argue from a position of maturity. She was very mindful that Curry Comb had bestowed the title of annoying, but wiser, older sister on her, and while she was not happy with the annoying part of that description, she was determined to live up to the rest of it.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Scootaloo chimed in. “You can’t use the book. None of us can except Sweetie Belle. She’s the one who should have the final say over what we do with the book. After all, Curry found it in Sweetie Belle’s backpack. So it belongs to her.”

“Jake could use it,” Curry felt compelled to point out. That gained her looks from everypony, even the ones who had been arguing for keeping the books.

Jake’s ears had pricked up at the mention of his name. Temporarily abandoning the tortoise he and Pipsqueak had been, very slowly, following he looked over at the group. “What could I use? Is it the new plow? Big Mac said I’d have to wait till I practiced some more on the old one before I could give it a try. Did he change his mind?”

“We’re just talking about a book, Jake,” Apple Bloom told him.

Jake’s face twisted in disgust. “Oh. Boring.” He went back to watching the tortoise as it slowly lifted one leg and advanced a couple of inches.

“Yeah, forget I mentioned Jake,” Curry conceded. “Please.”

“I agree with Diamond Tiara.”

The barnyard went so quiet that everypony could hear the shuffling sound as the tortoise took his next step. All eyes – or at least those who were not engaged in intense tortoise watching – turned toward Sweetie Belle.

“What? I’m the one who cast that spell. I felt it wanting to burn the whole tree. The one with our clubhouse in it. The clubhouse we were inside of, remember? I think giving it to Twilight and letting her teach me, and any other pony who wants, how to do the spells in it the right way is a really good idea.”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo could hardly argue with that, though Apple Bloom looked like she wanted to just on general principals.

“To the Library,” they all chorused.

Well. Almost all.

“No, to my Daddy’s estate,” Di countered. “That’s where I hid the spell book, duh. Then to the library.”

Babs had stayed out of the discussion. It really had nothing to do with her, but she could not help but think about how sure she’d been that living on her cousin’s farm for a month would be the most boring vacation she had ever had. If she could, she would slap her past self silly for jinxing her. Then she went and did it again by muttering to herself, “My cousins have got tuh have de strangest life in Equestria. Could de day get any more weird?”

“Oh, my stars. This is so good!” Pearl moaned. Fragments of muffin decorated her dainty muzzle, and she had actually gone to the extreme of using her hoof to make sure no fragment escaped as she licked her chops in a most unmarelike manner.

Her sister Tourmaline had her head stuck in the food basket, vacuuming up every last crumb as she mumbled in ecstasy,  “I know, right! If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d swear they used Zap Apple jam as filling.”

“Please, even if you could find a muffin like that in Canterlot it would cost a hoof and a hock to buy. Daddy keeps his jars locked up in the vault.” There was a bit of a pout in her last statement. She and her sister only got a taste of the jam that foodies ranked at number ten⁽¹⁾ on the list of most desirable foods in Equestria on very special days, and their birthday didn’t count.

⁽¹⁾Zap Apple Jam was originally number eleven on the list when it was first created. But the publisher of Great Equestrian Foods’ magazine had a bit more sense than the creator of the list and removed the number one entry, A bottle of mare’s milk, expressed directly from Princess Celestia, moving Zap Apple Jam to the number ten spot.

Dabbing at her cheek with a damp hoof to get the last fragment of muffin, Pearl’s expression turned speculative. “They must have figured out some way to mimic the taste. If we could get that recipe, we could make a fortune selling these in Canterlot as mock Zap Apple Muffins.”

“Forget the mock! No pony would be able to tell the difference. I mean you and I can’t, and we are as refined as they come. I say sell them at fifty bits a pop. We wouldn’t be able to keep them on the shelves.”

A sour expression crossed Pearl’s muzzle. “But wouldn’t that mean going into trade?” She shuddered at the thought.

“Don’t be silly. We’d just rent the recipe to somepony like Pony Joe, and let him do the scut work. Of course, we would let it get out that we invented the recipe. I bet we could get ennobled for it.”

“For inventing a muffin recipe?”

“Princess Celestia’s sweet tooth is legendary. Her seneschal Kibitz actively headhunts the best pastry chefs in Equestria for the royal kitchen. I heard once that half the noble houses in Equestria are descended from former chefs and candy makers.”

Pearl stopped rummaging through the food basket for any remnants of their meal and looked at her sister with wide eyes. “We have to get that recipe!”

“You don’t suppose it could be in this?” Tourmaline levitated a tatty old notebook that had been inside the basket along with their breakfast, fortunately with a napkin between it and their food. “Maybe the cook left it in there by mistake?”

“No. I don’t know what an earth pony clod was doing with it, but it’s some nerd’s magic school journal.” Pearl picked it up in her magic and leafed through it. “I don’t recognize half of these spells, but the ones I do are so old and out of date that only some unicorn in the back of beyond would think they were worth writing down. I bet they’re like a hundred years old, and the back pages are empty so they didn’t even finish it.”

“Hmph! Guess that would have been too good to be true.” Tourmaline took the book from her sister and floated it in front of her muzzle. Idly, she leafed through it and saw that her sister had been right. The spells she knew were so old they creaked. She was about to toss the thing aside when her idle leafing was interrupted. “There are a couple of pages stuck together. Think there is anything interesting on them?”

“Ewww. I don’t even want to think of what the nerd was doing to stick them together.”

“Oh, grow up. It was likely just a jam sandwich dribbling onto the page. As it happens, I learned a spell for that after I spilled honey all over daddy’s household account book.”

What Tourmaline didn’t say was that it was the first time she ever fully applied herself to her studies. It had taken nearly two days of non-stop swotting through every book and set of notes she had in order to learn what she needed. It was worth it, but she’d slept for a solid day and a half afterward. Even two years later, she shuddered at the thought of what her daddy would have done if he had discovered her accident.

The spell was not difficult, just finicky. You didn’t want to destroy the pages or contaminate what was written on them. Five minutes of intense focus did the trick and left Tourmaline staring at a pair of pristine pages, and the spell written on them. “Now this is something special. It seems our nerd had hidden talents. He came up with an original love spell.”

“Those are illegal! Like, lock you up and throw away the key, illegal! Like, get our plots banished to the outlands illegal!” Tourmaline’s twin said in a raised voice, actually looking worried.

Tourmaline laughed cynically. “True. But this isn’t technically a love spell. The creator just called it that. But from the notes and memos, he included it’s clear that it’s a virility spell. And those are a bit a dozen. Half the marriages in Equestria would fail if they didn’t exist.”⁽²⁾

⁽²⁾Tourmaline actually ‘borrowed’ the quote from something she heard her Daddy say to a bunch of his cronies when she had been sneaking down to the kitchen. She wasn’t actually sure why the old stallions found it so funny.

“That might be interesting for when we land the prince. But what good does it do us now?”

“It helps, my dear sister, because this is a really, really, strong one if his notes are to be believed. According to them, the jock who commissioned it had to be tied up and stuck under a glacier-fed waterfall for two days before he could control himself. Now, what do you suppose would happen if we cast it on the prince someplace where we were the only mares available?”

Pearl’s eyes went wide. “Oooh, interesting. We’d have to make sure there are no witnesses. Can’t have anypony knowing we cast the spell.”

Silently, in her own mind, Pearl made a note to be elsewhere when the spell was tried, both to avoid being a witness and so she would not have to see the icky deed. According to her mother, there was nothing more disgusting than a rutting stallion. Thank goodness Tourmaline was so stallion crazy. Pearl could leave the nasty parts to her.

“If there are no witnesses, how will we prove he did the deed?”

“Well, duh, Tourmaline! Once the foal pops out in a month or two, there is no way he’s going to be able to deny what he did. He won’t even try. Even if he’s not smart enough to know, we’ll have proof positive. Eventually, the princesses will know the game is up. They won’t risk the scandal or the health of an Alicorn foal. But I don’t get why we need the spell. We’re hot, and he’s a teenager. One thing goes into the other, or at least so mother says.”

Tourmaline gave an internal shudder and silent thanks that her twin was so stallion crazy. She could safely leave it to Pearl to take care of the distasteful aspect of their scheme to enter the upper echelons of society. With any luck, she’d never have to deal with that aspect of their mutual marriage. The tricky part would be fooling Pearl. The teasing would never end if her sister found out that she was scared to death of actually doing the deed with a stallion, whatever that deed entailed.

“Duh! Right back at you. Of course, we don’t need the spell to get him interested. We might need it to give him the nerve. Like you said, he’s a teenager. We’ll be lucky if he can even look us in the eyes, let alone other parts. With this spell, he won’t care about anything else but doing it.” Here at least Tourmaline was on solid ground. She’d had far more than her fair share of propositions from young stallions who could barely get a word out of their mouth unmangled.

Pearl mused on her sister’s words for a few seconds. Maybe she should say something to maintain her cred as an experienced mare?  Tourmaline seemed to think that it was a big deal that the spell lasted for so long. Maybe mention that? Giving her twin a much-practiced look, she drawled, “You said it took two days to cool down the jock? Everything else aside, you convinced me with that. If this works out we’re going to want to patent that spell. In the long run, it might be worth more than the fake Zap Apple Jam.”

It went almost without saying that Curry’s mission to retrieve the spell book and turn it over to Twilight did not start quickly. The big obstacle was Jake, who insisted on coming along.

Much to Curry’s annoyance, her authority over the big colt had been seriously undermined by Jake’s new father. Big Mac had told Jake that today was a play day, and he was to spend it having fun with his friends. As far as Jake was concerned, that settled the matter. He and Pipsqueak would be accompanying Curry and the older fillies on their newest adventure.

Having wasted time trying to talk the mule-stubborn colt out of coming along, they next had to deal with him carefully carrying the tortoise safely across the barnyard to the nearest orchard and then hunting up his brand new horse collar, his old one being far too large for his current frame. There was no telling how long this would have gone on, but Pipsqueak had finally put his hoof down when Jake wanted to oil his new collar before they left and told Jake that if they kept this up they wouldn’t be able to fit any adventures into what was left of the day.

Finally, they set out. Curry had her hand tangled in Apple Bloom’s mane so she could keep pace with the trotting ponies, and Pipsqueak was mounted on Jake’s back. The small pinto had his rear hooves resting in the middle of Jake’s back, while his front hooves were positioned on the horse collar. “Tally Ho!” he cried out while pointing one hoof in the direction of town. It made for an interesting parade as they trotted down the road. One that drew attention as they entered the town on their way to wherever Di had hidden the magic book.

“Curry!” Lyra yelled out from where she was sharing a table outside the ice-cream parlor with Bon Bon and Sweets. She hopped off her chair and dashed across the street to the collection of youngsters. “I’m so glad to see you. I have a whole new list of questions I wrote down after our last talk.” She pulled out a scroll that unfurled halfway back to Bon Bon and Sweets. “Do you really think they’d send me to a secret lab when I go to your world? Are there really black-clad human men whose job is to make unicorns vanish?”

While Lyra worked her way down her list, Jake with Pipsqueak on his back trotted over to greet his second favorite stallion, and Bon Bon too, who very frequently had free samples to hoof out.

Rarity, who had been providing transportation for Spike, came to Curry’s rescue. She gave Lyra a not so delicate nudge to separate her from the young snipe so the poor foal had room to breathe. “Darling, can’t you see she’s exhausted?”  

“I’m fine, Miss Rarity,” Curry panted. And she really was. She was pleased and proud she was only a bit winded. Using Apple Bloom as a tow pony had been a big help. She was getting better. Soon she bet she’d be able to make the trip easily, even without pony-powered assistance.

Catching her breath, she examined Rarity and her companion. “What are you supposed to be?” she asked the small dragon sitting on Rarity’s back

Spike smirked as he shrugged his trenchcoat more comfortably onto his shoulders while tweaking the brim of his fedora with a pair of claws. “I’m Sam Scales. Can’t you tell? And me and my moll are hot on the trail of an international mail thief.”  

Rarity gave Spike a jaundiced look over her shoulder. “Spike, dear. We have spoken about this. I am most certainly not a moll. Or a dame. Or a floozy, for certain. I will possibly accede to being called a femme fatale if you are willing to take the risk.”

Spike gave a weak laugh. “Heh heh. Sorry. Got a bit too into my character.”

“But Spike is not altogether wrong. We are investigating a purloined parcel. Sweetie Belle, I need you to think very carefully. When you had your little sleepover at the princess’ summer tent, did you happen to find a package in your saddlebags? One about the size of a small book? It is very important.”  

A sudden stillness came over the foals. They exchanged quick, and to Rarity, very familiar guilty looks. Sweetie Belle shuffled her hooves and would not quite meet her sister’s eyes. “Maybe.”

Curry gave a cough as she shuffled a toe in the dust. Like Sweetie Belle she could not meet Rarity’s gaze. “I did find a notebook in Sweetie Belle’s saddlebag, and some ripped paper. It might have been the package you’re talking about.”

Rarity gave a gasp of relief. “Thank the heavens! You have no idea how worried I’ve been. It’s a shame the wrapping was torn, but let me have the notebook and I’ll get it to Twilight right away.”

Curry’s eyes widened as she took note of Rarity’s body language. Up until that instant, she had not for one second questioned her and Sweetie Belle’s right to the spell book. The realization that this was not the case, and that somepony else had a much more justified claim hit her like a brick in the gut.

Even worse, it was Rarity's book. Curry loved Fluttershy. After all, she had given Curry a mother, a home, and was the best pony in all of Equestria, bar none.  But there was no question in her mind about who came in at number two on her list of best ponies. She owed Rarity more than she would ever be able to repay. Without the unicorn’s magical outfits, there was no way Curry would have been able to live in pony-land in anything like a normal way. She was too small, too weak, and had no magic of her own. Her magical clothes leveled the playing field, and the only reason she had them was because Rarity had gone out of her way to make them for her.

Rarity gave a startled ‘oof’ as she suddenly found herself being hugged fiercely by a certain snipe.

“I’m sorry! I love you so much.”

“Oh, well, thank you. I’m very fond of you as well, Cur—” Rarity cut off suddenly, her eyes going wide, and then narrowing in suspicion. The last time she’d been the recipient of an unexpected love attack from a young filly, Sweetie Belle had tried to make her breakfast in bed, and had launched a preemptive love declaration in an attempt to mitigate Rarity’s reaction when she found out she no longer had a kitchen. Given the current topic of conversation, it was not that strange that she came to an unfortunate conclusion.

“I thought she was supposed tuh be smart,” Babs said as the rest of the fillies face hoofed at Curry’s actions.

The exception was Sweetie Belle who knew her sister very well. Getting right into Rarity’s muzzle, she yelled out. “Diamond Tiara put the book someplace safe! We didn’t lose it! Or burn it, either! Very much. Hardly singed.” At that point, Sweetie Belle trailed off as she realized she might not be improving her case.

Rarity, who was well on her way to a panic attack, drew a big breath, and then let it out slowly. “Really?”

“Really, really,” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “We were just on our way to get it so we could give it to Twilight.”

“Praise be. We can’t waste any more time, darling. We must recover it at once.” Rarity nuzzled Curry affectionately. “I’m very fond of you as well, dear. But I’m having a teeny tiny problem breathing at the moment. So if you could release me, we can go and recover Twilight’s book.”

Curry released Rarity with a sheepish look on her face before turning and bellowing, “Jake! We’re going!”

A ten-minute trot brought them to the Rich estate, and a particularly ugly nearly lifesized ceramic pony.

Puzzled, Apple Bloom looked around, trying to spot where Diamond Tiara might have hidden the spell book. “Where is it?”

“Arrrhhh, where be the treasure, wench,” Pip chimed in as he attempted to strike an appropriately piratical pose on Jake’s back.

“Treasure? Is it apples? Or apple cake?” Jake moved closer, his eyes lit up in interest.

Diamond Tiara was a pony who enjoyed being the center of attention, so she made a bit of a production of strolling up to the ceramic statue, pausing for a moment to make sure everypony was looking. Only then did she push upward on the stallion’s tail, causing it to swing up and out of the way, revealing a hole into which she shoved her hoof and foreleg.

“That is wrong on so many levels,” Sweetie Belle observed, averting her eyes.

Babs disagreed. “Are you kidding? Dat’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”  

“That’s awesome,” Scootaloo chimed in.

There was a startled whinny, and the thunder of hooves as Jake whirled in place and raced away from the abomination he had just witnessed. On his back, Pipsqueak yelled out in excitement while holding on for dear life.

“Bad experience,” Curry explained in a deadpan voice, before dissolving into helpless laughter. Curry loved Jake, and his distress was more often than not her distress as well, but some things were just too funny not to bust a gut over. It wasn’t like Jake was in any real danger. He was heading straight for Ponyville, where not a pony there would wish harm to him.

“It’s not here!” A despairing wail pulled all attention away from the retreating pony and to Diamond Tiara who had given up feeling around inside the statue and had shoved her head into the odd storage location, making a sight that was going to stick in Curry’s mind far too long.