Twilight Gets a Puppy
Season 4
By TDR
Flounder to the Finish.
Part 2
[Wilmingtrot, at the mouth of the Cape Foal River]
Adagio was less than thrilled.
She had been outvoted in this particular instance and Aria had set up a plan for at least two more stops before they hit Canterlot in order to gain more strife before trying for the seat of power in Equestria itself.
The first was a little port town that thought it was a tourist town judging by the exorbitant cost of everything, then they would head up the Cape Foal river to a town called Dodge Junction before heading to Canterlot.
That plan was solid and more power was always good, it hardly mattered if she was out voted or not.
No what annoyed her now was not that she was on stage in front of quite a large crowd ready to sing, what annoyed her was 'what' they were to sing.
“Why did we let Sonata choose the song this time?” Adagio grumbled to Aria.
“She won the coin flip.” Aria sighed.
“The coin flip... The one that the two of us were using to decide which song we wanted would be used?”
“That's the one.”
“The one where the only options were heads for my song and tails for yours?”Adagio muttered.
“She takes a lot after dad...” Aria stated rubbing her temple with a hoof.
The music started with a weird warbling cord before a much heavier tune began.
“There are no hoof prints deep underwater,” Sonata belted out in a guttural growl. “Nothing to tie one to a crime. But if you seek vengeance, all you need are instruments of pain!!”
Her sisters gave up and simply went along with it, not even bothering to ask why Sonata insisted on wearing a Bat Mare mask as she sang.
[Ponyville, Fireball's residence.]
“So what happened?” Rainbow Dash asked Spike as she took a sip of her drink. Fireball's ears perked up as she listened in as well. Scootaloo had come home in a funk and then spent most of the weekend nearly killing herself trying to fly with no success.
“I really don't know. I had a test day set up for everyone to show me what they had already and the Crusaders had this awesome routine going, but I kept my response level and told them it was awesome just like I told every one else theirs was awesome. Except for Snips, Snails, and Rumble, but that was only because they broke the stage that we set up.” Spike explained. “It wasn't as if they didn't know I had to remain neutral and when they left they were still talking about improvements.”
“So it was good?” Fireball asked.
“I'm surprised they didn't get cutie marks for it.” Spike pointed out. “It was a little rough, but if they can smooth that out they will win this claws down.”
“Then I don't get it why is Scoots so messed up by this. Did the routine even have any flying?” Rainbow Dash questioned.
“No, it played to their strengths without making them do anything too awkward.” Spike shrugged.
“Then why is she trying so hard to fly again? I keep telling her it will come. Filly's got power and stamina for days, she just needs to focus that into lift. There's nothing physically wrong with her is there?” Rainbow turned to look at Fireball.
“No.” Fireball sighed sadly.
“You think it might be some mental thing. Some sort of trauma?” Spike considered.” Twilight has a block or two like that when it comes to cheese, crowds, and snakes. She can't do any spells that would involve any of those, though she's getting better with crowds.”
“Hmm, yeah that will do weird things to a pony..Fireball?” Dash glanced to the other side of the table as Fireball sat down.
“My mother, her grandmother, is a Squall Mason.” Fireball sighed.
Spike blinked confused not sure what the term was, though Rainbow Dash was on her hooves, wings flared, her chair clattering back across the floor to strike the wall behind her. The blue pegasus had a look on her face that would kill and was on par with a few of Twilight glares.
“SHE'S A WHAT!!!? I'll kill her!” Rainbow Dash snarled.
“Sit down.” Fireball offered.
“I will tear her wings off and beat her to death with them....”
“SIT DOWN RAINBOW DASH!” Fireball shouted. “Mother has been dealt with. She's disowned by the family and shoved in a nursing home near Stalliongrad.”
“That's not enough...” Rainbow Dash growled, but settled down some.
“Non pegasus here I need an explanation. What the heck is a Squall Mason?”Spike offered.
“A cult that should have been hunted to extinction.” Dash growled.
“I'm not fighting that statement. Squall Masons came about around the time of the War of Night and the Equestrian Civil war. They were a group of pegasi led by a Blustery Squall. They saw a way to profit and gain power from the conflict. It might have started as little more than looting battlefields after each skirmish, but it blossomed into actively betraying troop movements and setting up failures of our own troops so they could sell 'better' equipment. Any time they were called on it they pointed out they were only doing it to the dirt hooves and the pin heads and not the clearly superior pegasi race. They gained quite a following by outing the Nox-cal, and started to bring back a lot of old pegasi traditions that had been banned at the unification of the three tribes. By the end of the war they had enough power to force ponies to do what they wanted, entire settlements of pegasi were members of the Squall Masons, whether they wanted to be or not. Those that disagreed or fought with them vanished...”
“Or committed suicide, by jumping off of clouds, with their wings and legs tied..... onto some spears.” Rainbow Dash snarled.
“Eventually Princess Celestia caught wind of this perhaps fifty years after the war ended. She didn't take to kindly to it. Those that she didn't rip from power personally, and very angrily, were forced to go into hiding or pretend they were threatened to obey. Squall himself was tried convicted and was one of Equestria's last known public executions. Sadly that just mayrtered him to his followers.” Fireball continued. “The order just went underground for a while and every so often they pop back up in some shape or another. Several conclaves of pegasi still follow them directly, but so long as they don't do anything Celestia lets them be. It would be near impossible to root them all out completely and as long as she knows where they are, she can keep an eye on them. Thankfully most of their numbers are confined to the older pegasi nowadays.”
“Alright so while this sounds horrid, and not far off the Earth Pony and Unicorn cults I've heard of, why is this a problem for Scootaloo” Spike asked.
“One of the tenants of the Squall Masons is that pegasi are superior than all other races. And that is because they can fly. A pegasi that cannot fly is better off dead rather than bringing the rest down.” Fireball offered as Spike could hear Dash's teeth start to grind.
“My older sister took off out of her crib into the air the moment she was born, and it was hard to get her to land. Scootaloo however was always carried around and didn't really try to fly when she was little. She didn't need to when her mother carried her everywhere. She was going to teach Scootaloo when she had the time, but when she was off at work one day my mother decided that she was going to force her granddaughter to fly. As such, she threw Scootaloo off Cloudsdale when she was two years old. Either her granddaughter would fly, or she wouldn't be her granddaughter any more.”
Spike stared.
“Luckily Scootaloo's father was heading home and saw it. He managed to save Scootaloo, though when he was sure she was safe he went after my mother. I always thought he was this slacker goofball who was only coasting by on his looks. “Fireball whistled.”It took eight Wonderbolt's to pull him off my mother before he killed her and twice that number to keep my sister off the old bag when she found out. Mother was disowned rather privately and dumped in a home in the least pegasi populated city that could be found. As far as anyone in the family knows or cares she never recovered from the beating she got and is still ground bound. Scootaloo doesn't remember her, but the trauma of the fall has stuck with her even if she doesn't recall it.”
“Shit.” Spike offered.
“Language... but yeah .”Fireball nodded. “We're pretty sure she'll get over it in time. She loves to fly , she just can't do it under her own power yet.”
“Are you sure?” Spike asked.
“We've sent her to a number of specialists, but so far all of them have said she'd work it out on her own.” Fireballs smirked.”We have proof that it will be the case, after all I can fly.”
“Wait, she did that to you too?” Rainbow Dash blinked then pawed at the floor, her wings nearly buzzing.
“Dash I'm one of the very few non injured pegasi in Ponyville that doesn't have a cloud house. I work for the weather office, in the office, doing the paper work and I never go into the field, why did you think that was?” Fireball questioned.”Flying still unnerves me in the best of conditions.”
“I dunno, maybe that you liked doing the paperwork?”Rainbow Dash shrugged.
“Who in their right mind would enjoy that kind of thing?” Fireball scoffed.
“My Sister.” Spike sighed.
“I said in their right mind Spike.”
“Yeah okay I'll give you that.”
[ Canterlot, Saturday.]
Rahs walked along as Sunset Shimmer strode along in front of him.
Out of those interested in him, she was the one who confused him.
The others he understood, Trixie was an old friend with a hidden crush, classic drama trope there.
Jynx had the opportunity to increase the strength of her blood line if Luna was correct about Diamond Dog and Moon Dog cross breeding, though it seemed what might have started as 'good breeding stock' was progressing to a more romantic interest, if Rarity was to be believed. Another classic trope of strong girl having a sensitive side for the hero of the story.
Applejack, while a bit harder to understand, might have had some feeling for him before she was changed, and now that animal side was bringing out what she felt rather dramatically.
Saturnia well..... okay, there were two of them that confused him, but Rahs was pretty sure that was the whole point of Changeling courtship. To confuse the one you wanted to be with to the point they didn't even know what was going on until the changeling already had them. That seemed to work for Chrysalis at least. He had been there when that agreement was reached and he still had no clue what happened.
Despite Sunset explaining her reasons, he was still in doubt that she was really that serious about dating him, though like the others, he wasn't going to tell her 'no' outright. With the exception of Sunset, he rather liked them all, maybe not in a romantic way, like they wanted, but he had been rather blindsided by this turn of events and none of the plays or books he could find had anything on five females chasing after one male. Unless it turned out to be a romantic comedy, or a tragedy.
He didn't like any of those endings.
So he was still of the mind set that he was going to go into this as he was, and hope that the interest some of them had would die off, or at least, if they were not compatible it would become obvious.
Thus far he expected Sunset might be the first to see something like that, she was smart, almost as smart as his sister. And despite knowing where it came from, Rahs couldn't help feel a draw to the smart ones. Not that any of his other suitors were dumb, but this mare was on a different level.
Plus the bacon flavored magic didn't hurt either.
Thus far she had just led him into Canterlot and into one of the higher end areas of the city.
As usual some of the locals had called the Guard at the sight of him, and as usual the Guards took note of who it was and just had a few pegasi around to make sure no trouble found him.
There was one noble who decided to come out and start screaming at Sunset to take her 'pet' away from this part of the city.
Sunset had made a remark that Rahs was hardly a pet as they hadn't even chosen a safe word yet.
The noble didn't get it.
Rahs did and was quite glad his fur tended to hide his blushes.
Still the noble persisted and found out what happened when you provoked Sunset ' Burn it all' Shimmer.
Granted to be fair, the snob did jab her in the chest with a hoof, while it wasn't hard, he did make contact and thus could be considered an assault by most lawyers.
Rahs hadn't even seen the newspaper cart move before it flattened the complainer.
In the end the Guard watching sided with her and all Sunset had to do was fill out some paperwork.
Still Sunset had apologized for the delay seeming a bit worried her attitude might run him off. Rahs waved off the suggestion, after all Sunset was showing remarkable restraint compared to what his sister might have done.
With no further incidents they arrived at what the Sunset declared was the date location.
While Rahs didn't understand why a 'trade and magic expo' might be of interest to him, let alone a date location, it turned out Sunset was being clever as she led him to a booth.
A booth she had rented and set up with the tagline of 'Find out what your Magic's Flavor is.'
She had printed pamphlets out any everything.
And there was already a line.
“It's a fairly novel and popular date idea back in the other world. They called it a wine tasting tour in some of the local vineyards. I was told you don't drink, so I figured this might be the next best thing.” Sunset grinned.
Rahs blinked as he looked at her, then the line. Well she was getting points for being clever for sure, he had never even heard of anything like this.
But he liked it.