//------------------------------// // Admit it, you were waiting for 'Him' to show up // Story: Homer in Equestria: The Less Than Epic Saga // by Barry the Brony //------------------------------// Homer in Equestria: The Less Than Epic Saga By Barry the Brony For the first time in a very long time, Rarity was at a loss for words. Oh she could still make sounds, right now she was babbling and sputtering and occasionally trying to say something that could in theory be a word, but it always seemed to stall out as soon as it began to leave her tongue. The reason for said speechlessness billowed and swirled rather gracefully in her magic. It looked like a miniature cloud perfectly formed in a vaguely oval shape, a short thin silk rope attached to one end. “T-this...this is….this is…” Rarity sputtered having at least made the transition to coherent words. “Do you not like it Rarity? I felt bad for using your loofah the other day so I asked Celestia for a new one.” Homer said, gathered with the rest of the girls in Twilight’s castle. Unlike yesterday when Homer had been dressed for the occasion, today saw him in an identical white shirt and blue pants to what he had worn when he had first arrived. Really the only difference was the quality of the material, as Homer couldn’t even begin to remember the last time he had gone this long without needing to scratch his ass. Rarity managed to tear her gaze away from the little cloud staring up at Homer with eyes as wide as saucers. When she spoke, it was in a hushed voice full of awe. “Homer, this is a Cirrus Two Thousand, this is the absolute cutting edge of personal hygiene products, it’s worth more than I make at the Boutique in the better part of a year!” Rainbow Dash let out a low whistle as she peered at the little cloud overhead. “It’s probably worth every bit too, I can feel the pegasus magic woven into every inch of that sucker.” “And...and you’re just...giving it to me?” Rarity said her voice turning into a squeak near the end, cradling the tiny cloud in her hooves now as if terrified it was going to drift away. “Well...yeah I owed you a loofah. I mean I’ve got the one you gave me, now you’ve got one of your own again, isn’t that what friends are supposed to do when they mess up? Make it right?” “You...you…” Rarity stared up at Homer as her eyes started to well up, her lower lip quivering in a way that could have only come from years of practice in melodrama. “And here comes the waterworks in three...two...one…” Applejack counted off and right on cue Rarity burst into tears and leapt at Homer wrapping her arms around his neck. “THAA-HANK YOUU!!! THAA-HAA-HAANK YOOO-HOO-OOO!!! OH CELESTIA BLESS YOUR SOUL HOMER, I SHAN’T FORGET THIS FOR AS LONG AS I LI-HI-IVE!!!” Rarity bawled, tears ruining her makeup. Now it was Homer’s turn to be speechless, albeit for a very different reason. The little unicorn was hugging him so tightly she was currently crushing his windpipe. Collapsing to the floor Homer started making loud choking sounds, slapping the ground next to him like a wrestler signaling to tag out with a partner. “Oh dear, Rarity? I’m sure Homer’s glad you like the loofah, but I don’t think his face is supposed to be turning that color!” Fluttershy said as she, Applejack and Pinkie Pie managed to pry Rarity off of him before she could jeopardize any more of his brain cells (and those already went on and off the endangered species list on a regular basis). “Yeah Rarity, without oxygen you can’t do all sorts of fun stuff like singing, telling jokes, playing musical instruments, playing Twenty Questions and...and…” Pinkie trailed off as now her face was starting to turn a shade of blue, inhaling deeply with a sound like a squeak toy. “Well you get the idea.” “I’m so sorry Homer, I-I let my emotions get the better of me,” Rarity said, her cheeks red with embarrassment. “Nonetheless I am almost indescribably grateful for such a wonderful gift. I have to think of a way to repay you.” “Oh that’s okay Rarity, you don’t have to-” Homer started to say, but Rarity was already talking once more, pacing as she did. “No, no, I won’t accept that. Such generosity must be rewarded! But how…” The little white unicorn’s face scrunched up rather cutely in thought before her eyes lit up. “Ah-hah! I have it, Homer, for your generosity…” She struck a dramatic pose. “I SHALL NAME MY FIRST BORN AFTER YOU!” “WHAT?!” Blurted out everyone in the room. Well, almost everyone, a certain tiny Alicorn was oddly silent… “Holy crap really?!” Homer asked his eyes wide, until now the biggest thing that had been named after him had been a type of cheese. A sliver of reality seemed to creep back into Rarity’s thoughts as she paused. “Well, given how ponies traditionally name themselves ‘Homer’ might be a difficult first name to pair with anything so how about this? The first name of my first born shall be something beginning with an ‘H’.” “Deal!” Homer said, then without a moment’s hesitation he spat on his hand and held it out for Rarity to shake. Obviously her initial reaction was to recoil, but to everyone’s surprise Rarity, taking a moment to brace herself, grit her teeth and bumped her hoof against Homer’s hand. As soon as the sensation of lukewarm spit registered her whole body shuddered and her left eye began to twitch something fierce yet she stood firm. “I don’t believe it, it’s a Celestia damned miracle.” Applejack said her voice heavy with awe, knowing full well just how reluctant Rarity was to get her hoofs dirty for any reason that wasn’t literally life and death. “What’cha make of this Twilight? Uh, Twilight?” The reason why Twilight had been so uncharacteristically quiet through all of this was suddenly clear. At some point the little alicorn had somehow managed to fall asleep while standing upright, her head tilted back and a trickle of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Wow, a full upright pass out, haven’t seen anyone do that in a while.” Homer said, turning away from Rarity who took the opportunity to frantically shake her hoof clean of spit. “Any idea how much sleep she got last night Spike?” Spike had been sitting in a corner scribbling something down on a piece of paper. He jerked and quickly put it away when he heard his name, but not before Rainbow Dash’s keen eyes spotted at least three words scribbled out. ‘Howl’ ‘Horn’ and ‘Horde’. She smirked a little but kindly kept quiet. “Well she just got her hands on a previously unknown book full of magic written by her lifelong idol Starswirl the Bearded, so probably about as much as you’d think. Honestly we’re lucky she was awake to greet you guys when you first showed up.” Spike explained. “Poor Twilight, should we brew her up some coffee?” Applejack offered. Spike just shook his head. “Wouldn’t work, Twilight’s drank so much of the stuff over years of pulling all night sessions for her studies she’s built up a tolerance to caffeine.” “Guys please, you’re overthinking things,” Homer said as he walked over to where Twilight was. “When it comes to waking people up there’s a few surefire methods that are bound to work.” Homer said before he cleared his throat and shouted out loud. “FIRE!” No response, Twilight just kept snoring. “EARTHQUAKE!” “HURRICANE!” “UPCOMING ELECTION!” “Upcoming Election?” Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow as she hovered in the air. “Trust me that’s pretty terrifying where I come from.” Homer said. “Pssst, Homer, try this.” Spike motioned for Homer to kneel down and stood on his tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Nice thinking kid,” Homer said, giving Spike a thumb’s up before turning to Twilight once again. “BOOK SALE!” Twilight’s eyes snapped open in an instant. “BOOKSALE?! Quick Spike, get my book bags and when you come back tell me where it’s being held, I need an address so I can chart out the quickest...possible...route?” Twilight blinked, noticing everyone else grinning at her. Her cheeks burned red and her ears flattened against her head. “...I fell asleep didn’t I?” “Ugh, sorry everyone, I got sucked into my work on deciphering Starswirl’s notes on dimensional travel last night. The good news is I’m off to a solid start. Here let me show you!” For someone who had just fallen asleep standing upright Twilight seemed to rally quickly, leading everyone to one of the many, MANY unused rooms in the castle she had apparently converted into a makeshift workstation. Everywhere they looked there were diagrams and sketches. Some were identical to the writing that had been in Star Swirl’s notes, others seemed to be step by step illustrations to the construction of some kind of machine. “As you can see, I’ve really only figured out the designs and some basic schematics. It’s going to take some time to actually begin building a device that can open a portal, to say nothing of fine tuning and picking out the right dimension. I’m sorry we can’t get you home sooner Homer, but there are so many variables if we don’t approach this carefully all sorts of things could go wrong.” Twilight said looking up at Homer with a guilty expression. “Oh Twilight please don’t be hard on yourself,” Fluttershy said walking up alongside the little Alicorn and nuzzling her. “We’re sure Homer understands that you want to be safe about all of this, right Homer?” She looked up at him. “Yeah Twilight, I want to get home but not if it means blowing up one or both of our realities ya know?” Homer said before he watched Twilight turn pale at the thought. “Uh, not that I’m saying it’s likely to happen!” “R-right, anyway. The reason why I asked you all to come over here was if I’m going to make any headway in this, I’m going to need time to focus on getting a portal up and running,” Twilight explained. “Which means we should probably find a way to divvy up who spends time with Homer on any given day.” “Which is why I made this!” Twilight dragged over what looked for all the world like a prize wheel on a game show, the kind you spin to see where the arrow would land on. Only instead of prizes like a new car or a washing machine Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight and even Spike all had their names written down. Throughout the night Twilight had wracked her brain trying to come up with a more structured schedule for Homer to spend time with the others while she worked on the portal, but she eventually had come to the conclusion that Homer was simply too big of a variable to plan around...figuratively speaking. “Every day we spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on gets to look after Homer for that day. Of course, I did come up with this while in a sleep deprived state of mind so if anyone here has any objections please let me know.” Twilight said rubbing the back of her head. “Well it’s certainly...creative,” Rarity managed after exchanging looks with the rest of the Element Bearers. “Not the first thing that would come to my mind, granted, but I can see how Homer could be a bit difficult to predict.” She said recalling how much had happened at the Boutique the short amount of time Homer had been there yesterday. “I might have a few chores to do on the side any given day, but I suppose I wouldn’t mind showing Homer around the farm. At the very least I can probably keep him still for a spell with some pie.” Applejack added. “Mmmm…pie,” Homer said. “And I would love to have Homer over for tea, he can meet all of my little animal friends and tell me more about the wildlife where he comes from!” Fluttershy said giving an excited little prance on her hooves. “Heck, I don’t mind introducing someone new to just how awesome I am!” Rainbow Dash said flying over everyone’s heads and performing a loop-de-loop. “Honestly I hadn’t really considered it before now, but it could be fun to spend an afternoon with Homer just us guys.” Spike said looking up at Homer with a smile. There was a pause as they all turned to look at Pinkie Pie who just looked back. “What? Homer’s already sleeping over at Sugarcube Corner, so it’s not like I won’t already be seeing him a bunch. Oh but I still need to get started on finding all my old recipes to share with him!” She chirped. “Thank you everyone, you have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear that. I was worried I was dumping this on you at the last second.” Twilight said beaming. “Well, I suppose we better give this a spin and see who gets the first shift, ready?” Everyone nodded as Twilight gripped the arrow with a hoof and gave it a good hard spin. It whirled around in a blur, slowly slowing down little by little before landing...right on the line between Applejack and Pinkie Pie? “What in tarnation?” Applejack reached under her hat to scratch her head as Twilight gave the arrow another spin. This time it jerked to a stop between Spike and Rainbow Dash. “Uh, maybe you should try your magic?” Rainbow Dash offered. “Well it’s worth a shot.” Twilight said as her horn lit up, the arrow glowing as she gave it one more spin. The arrow began to spin once more, but this time instead of slowing down, it began to speed up until all of their names were obscured by the spinning arrow. Then with a loud quacking sound the arrow slammed to a stop pointing on a name finally, only Twilight was positive she hadn’t added this one to the list. Confusion gave way to alarm on Twilight’s face. “Oh no.” “Oh no.” Everyone save Homer and Fluttershy chorused. “OH YEAH!” The wall next to them suddenly exploded as a bizarre creature burst in, looking like something that would be caught in a taxidermist’s sink trap. None of his limbs or features were entirely symmetrical, an eagle’s claw here, mismatched horns and a cloven hoof there, yet the wildly varying features formed the outline of some sort of dragon. “How many times do I have to tell him to use the door like everyone else?” Twilight grumbled, only to nearly get bowled over by a pink and yellow blur. “DISCORD!” Fluttershy squealed. With a hop, skip and a jump she leapt up her wings flapping to give her a bit of a boost before the patchwork creature grabbed her and twirled around hugging her with a delighted laugh. “Oh it’s wonderful to see you too Fluttershy.” Discord said, tapping her nose with a finger from his lion’s paw and watching her giggle as her nose made a sound like the honking of a horn. “I hope you all don’t mind me dropping in, but whenever probability becomes a factor I just can’t resist. Dice rolls, coin tosses, wheel spins, to this day Celestia still won’t let me within a hundred and fifty feet of a casino for fear I’ll crash the Equestrian economy again.” “Again?” The girls and Spike all chorused, meanwhile Homer was still trying to figure out exactly what he was looking at. “Oh it was just a brief period in Equestria’s history where I enchanted every rock to spit out bits when you hit them with a shovel. The value of the bit dropped like a, well, rock and ponies had to use turnips as a replacement form of currency for a decade.” Discord paused as Homer had his hand up. “Yes you in the back?” “Uh hi, name’s Homer, I was just wondering are you from a Doctor Seuss book I haven’t read? I keep waiting to see if they’ll make a sequel to The Butter Battle Book, that cliffhanger ending still bugs the crap out of me.” Homer said drawing more than a few confused looks from the others. “Sorry Homer, I’m neither a cat nor am I in a hat. The name’s Discord, Spirit of Chaos, Master of Mayhem...you know what here it’s all on my card.” Discord flicked a white business card between his claws and handed it to Homer. As Homer looked at it, the card began to unfold like a wallet full of photographs. “Boy you weren’t kidding there’s a lot of these. Master of Mayhem, Baron of Bedlam, Prince of Pandemonium…” He read on while Discord rubbed his chest with a claw. “Hey what’s this?” Homer peered at something that looked like it had been written in a different font then the rest of the card at the very bottom of the list. “‘If found unsupervised please return to Fluttershy Breeze at this address’.” The card was snatched out of his hands by Discord who was blushing furiously as he crumpled up the card. “I swear I have no idea how Celestia keeps adding that on there.” He grumbled. Everyone else was too busy looking at Fluttershy who looked away with a blush of her own. “Discord, not that I mind having you visit once in a while, but you know I prefer at least a little warning ahead of time. Just what are you doing here?” Twilight asked, looking rather nervous. “Why wasn’t that obvious? I’m here to help!” Discord proclaimed. Now everyone looked nervous, even Fluttershy. It was true Discord was a far cry from the menace he had been when he had first been sealed in stone by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in ancient times. Fluttershy had been invaluable in his reformation, being the first person to ever befriend the spirit of chaos, and the others had also played a part, showing him forgiveness even after Discord’s act of betrayal in briefly siding with Tirek. But no matter how much friendship had softened the edges of his tomfoolery, Discord was still a trickster and a prankster at heart, and he could rarely resist the opportunity to amuse himself by throwing even the most carefully laid plans right out the window. “You’re...here...to help?” Rainbow Dash said slowly, disbelief in every word. “Is that really so hard to believe? Friends help one another all the time! Besides I can smell the distinct aroma of dimensional magic coming from this castle and I wanted to make sure you weren’t about to go poking holes in reality all willy nilly.” Discord said as he picked up Starswirl’s notebook. “Wait, so you don’t want something to happen that could cause chaos and mayhem?” Twilight tilted her head looking rather confused. “I would think you would be here to do something to sabotage my research just for a laugh.” “To be fair normally you wouldn’t be far off thinking that,” Discord turning the book upside down as he seemed to read a page out of it. “But I happen to be rather fond of Equestria and the thought of some other eldritch embodiment of cosmic madness muscling in on my turf has never sat well with me.” “Hey it wasn’t like I was just going to just pick a random dimension out of a hat and poke around in it to see if Homer’s planet was on the other side!” Twilight huffed. “Nor did I expect you to, though that does sound like a riot,” Discord said with a chuckle, unscrewing one of his eagle talons like the tip of a fountain pen and starting to scribble something down in a blank page. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help steer you away from a few potential problems.” “Problems like what?” Fluttershy asked looking up at Discord. “Oh nothing too terrible I assure you, after all it’s not like there’s a ‘Dark’ or ‘Horror’ tag on this story.” Discord said patting her gently on the head. “But suffice to say not every dimension is as sweet and cuddly as this one. Luckily I’ve been travelling around the multiverse long enough to have compiled a pretty good list of places to avoid, here take a look.” Discord handed the notebook over to Twilight who opened to where Discord had been writing. She immediately noticed that several pages were now chock full of what looked like coordinates, each one accompanied by a brief description of what was in that universe. “Let’s see, universe of pure itchiness, universe made out of pure...ew okay yeah I’m actually really glad you warned me about that one, and what’s with this universe? It just says ‘Room with a Moose’.” “Trust me on this Twilight, you do not want to know.” Discord gave a shudder of revulsion seemingly at some deeply unpleasant memory. “I can handle your average quintillion year old walking seafood special but there are some things even a spirit of chaos doesn’t dare trifle with more than once.” “The good news is you can really cut down on the number of possible dimensions to investigate once you start to pick up on the kind of signs that indicate the presence of creatures like Homer. Not that you’ll have to look very hard, his kind tend to pop up in most developed realities” “You mean you’ve been to places that have Kwyjbo before?” Twilight asked, tilting her head. As much as Discord loved to talk, he rarely if ever mentioned what he had been up to before coming to Equestria centuries ago. “Kwyjbo?” Discord blinked before glancing over at Homer who suddenly looked hopeful at the possibility this little slip of the tongue could be cleared up. But as Homer watched the spirit of chaos’ face stretched into a grin that would have been better placed beneath a fin cruising through the water at high speed. “Why yes, yes I have! Of course no two types of Kwyjbo are exactly alike. The color palette tends to be all over the place and most of the time they have five fingers and toes. But yes they are most definitely known as Kwyjbo, in fact the sooner you lock that down for the royal records the better.” Homer had been briefly toying with the idea of strangling Discord, but now he was looking down at his (presently) empty hands with an odd look. “Wait, five fingers and toes? What the hell’s the fifth one for?” “No idea, you’d have to ask someone higher up on the cosmic food chain then me, and if you think it’s hard to get a straight answer from me you should see what the people upstairs are like. It’s all burning bushes and disembodied voices that could just as easily be from eating an expired burrito.” Discord said with a shrug. “Well Discord, I can’t say I have reason to say this very often but...thank you. I honestly appreciate your help with this.” Twilight said looking up at Discord a little touched. The smile Twilight got back from the spirit wasn’t his usual mischievous grin, it was a soft earnest one that reminded her of why she hadn’t hesitated to free him alongside her friends when Tirek had held them captive in exchange for her magic. “That’s what friends are for Twilight, you showed me that not too long ago and this seems as good a way to begin to repay you for that as any.” He said picking her up in a hug. “Well with all of this I should be able to make a lot of progress today just as soon as we…” Twilight suddenly trailed off into a loud yawn causing the others to exchange concerned looks. “Just as soon as we get you to bed so you can sleep you mean,” Spike said, putting his claws on his hips. “You barely slept at all Twilight, you need to get some rest, it’s not like your research won’t be there tomorrow.” “But-but, research, magic, Starswirl!” Twilight whined trying to reach for her notes while still in Discord's arms. Her horn lit up as she tried to levitate the book over to her. “Oh dear, someone's fussy it seems." Pulling off his bat wing, Discord held up Twilight in his magic, stretched out his wing and swaddled the protesting purple pony princess like a newborn until only her face and horn was visible. “Nnnngh...must get free...must...do...research!” Twilight grunted as she wriggled like a butterfly trying to get out of a cocoon. “Now now, none of that,” Discord cooed, rocking Twilight in his arms. “Fluttershy would you mind doing the honors?” Homer looked around confused as suddenly everyone in the room except for him, Twilight and Fluttershy were now wearing earplugs. The little yellow pegasus closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she started to sing. Hush now, quiet now It’s time to lay your sleepy head Hush now quiet now It’s time to go to bed Hush now, quiet now, close your sleepy eyes Hush now, quiet now, my how time sure flies Fluttershy may have been the Element of Kindness but she could have just as easily been the Element of Song. An angelic choir would likely sound like a washed up boy band relying on Auto Tune in comparison. Twilight lasted all of two lyrics before she drifted off to sleep, snoring softly and murmuring complex equations under her breath. “A sterling performance as always my dear,” Discord said as he and the others quietly applauded Fluttershy, who blushed and gave a little bow. “I’ll tuck our little princess in her room before I leave. Oh, and next time? Make sure to give Homer a pair of earplugs too.” Right on cue, the sound of an unconscious body hitting the floor alerted the others to the fact that Twilight hadn’t been the only one affected by Fluttershy’s singing.