//------------------------------// // High Comedy // Story: Ideas Entwined // by FanOfMostEverything //------------------------------// At the top of an ancient mountain, carved into the very stone, stood a shrine to the Element of Laughter. Not the physical object, and certainly not the mare who bore it. No, the shrine revered the concept of the Element of Laughter, evolved from a Hope for a better tomorrow into delight at a better today. Those who made the arduous climb could gather there and meditate on the deeper mysteries of comedy. The abbot, a wizened earth stallion whose once eye-searing lime fur had faded to the hue and texture of an old pool table beneath his saffron robes, and whose beard was as long and full as his mane wasn’t, sat in the front hall of the shrine. Carved memorials to the greatest jokes and funniest props of all time covered the walls around him, but none had inspired anything close to the gleeful anticipation he now felt. The planets were aligning. The time was almost upon them. The funniest stallion in ten generations would soon grace their humble halls, and Abbot Excellent Fancy wouldn’t miss it for the world. A shadow flitted across the entrance… from above. Abbot Fancy held back his disappointment. In his eighty years, he’d never seen one pegasus actually bother to make the climb. Filthy cheaters, the lot of them. Still, he could overlook that for the fulfillment of the prophecy. “Chosen one,” he intoned, offering a rare, gummy smile. “Long have I awaited your arrival. We stand ready to teach you everything we can, to help you realize your potential to its true, fullest extent.” “Uh…” Abbot Fancy blinked and squinted. His eyes weren’t what they used to be and pegasi tended towards the slender, but the funniest stallion in Equestria did seem to have a mare’s build. A mare in uniform, with heavy saddlebags and a clipboard balanced on one hoof. She looked back and forth between it and him, eyes bobbling in a passable if amateurish display. “Sorry, is this not the Temple of Eternal Devotion?” “What!” The abbot reeled back as though struck and sneered. “You dare intrude upon the Sanctum of Infinite Mirth at this, the appointed hour, with such disrespect?” The grey mare shrugged her wings. “In my defense, these mountaintop monasteries all kind of blend together after a while. You could at least write your address somewhere for us, like the folks at the Sacred Circle of Undying Benevolence.” The abbot's fury only grew. “Invoking the sites of our misguided rival faiths. Have you no shame?” She raised an eyebrow. “You know, I’d expect somepony at the ‘Sanctum of Infinite Mirth’ to have a better sense of humor about this sort of thing.” The abbot rapped his cane against the floor. He might have smacked her for her insolence, but his knees weren’t in the best shape of his life either. “Fool! There is nothing more serious than Laughter!” “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.” “Enough of this nonsense." Abbot Fancy waved his cane over the intruder with equal parts malice and whimsy, invoking ancient pacts and long-standing setups waiting for their punchline. "With all the power endowed to me by my sacred Element, I curse you to be the butt of every joke, the victim of every mishap, the Schlimazel Eternal!” He rapped his cane against the floor once more, and the deed was done. “Gesundheit," said the interloper, still blissfully unaware of what forces she had angered. For now. "Also, should you save some of that power for that prophecied hero you were expecting?” The abbot grinned. It was not a happy grin. “Oh, you may scoff, but I assure you, when you leave this place, your fate will be sealed.” She sighed. Sighed! Oh how he longed to see that hubris unravel. “We do have a complaint department, sir.” And so the winged menace turned on a hoof. As if responding to the abbot's wishes, her very next saw her trip on nothing, stumbling about with wings flapping wildly for purchase. Soon, she found herself tumbling rump over teakettle, bouncing off of every wall and the ceiling besides. The collisions eventually sent her right into the path of another weary wanderer—an earth stallion, and thus one who actually bothered to come up the proper way—who had made it into the temple while the abbot had been distracted. Abbot Fancy winced in anticipation of the impact, but the newer newcomer plucked the pegasus out of the air, turning her momentum into a high-speed tango that ended in a dip, each pony now with a thornless rose in their mouth. After the orange stallion spat his out, he gave a smile so wide that there could be no doubt that he was the one spoken of in the prophecy. "Wow, you comedy monks sure know how to make a pony feel welcome!" The mare blinked, ate the blossom off her rose, and offered a lesser grin of her own. "Hey, I know you. You helped Pinkie Pie with Rainbow Dash’s big party a while ago!” “You’re from Ponyville?" the stallion said as he help guide her back onto all four hooves. "Neat! How's Pinkie?” “Chosen one!" barked the abbot. "Pay the faithless mare no mind. We must have words; it is vitally important.” The chosen one barely spared him a glance. “You sure I’m the chosen one? I haven’t seen aerobatics like hers since that one Wonderbolt derby in Locoweed Canyon.” Abbot Fancy rolled his eyes. “For similar reasons, I am sure. She bears the mark of the Schlimazel Eternal.” “Gesundheit.” The abbot felt an eyelid twitch, but he refused to raise his voice to the stallion of prophecy. “Granted, it should have triggered after she left the sanctum.” The mare tilted her head. “Was that what that curse is supposed to do? I’ve been putting up with that kind of thing my whole life.” The chosen one frowned, and the spirits of mirth shuddered along with his voluminous mane. “Curse?” “She profaned this holy site with mention of inferior shrines to inferior concepts," said Abbot Fancy, certain the chosen one would understand given the proper context. He turned to the side and spat. "Loyalty and Kindness, pah!” “Harmony doesn’t work that way,” said the mare, as though she would know. Yet, impossibly, the chosen one glared at the abbot. Dust drifted down from the trembling ceiling. “And some place that curses perfectly nice mailmares doesn’t have anything to teach me about comedy." He turned his tail on the temple. "Good day, sir.” “What?" The abbot struggled to his hooves. "No, wait!” The chosen one whipped his head back, genuine rage in his eyes and tone. “I said good day, sir!” “I… This… It doesn’t…" Abbot Fancy looked eyes with the mare glancing back at him as she too edged out of the building. "You! This is all your doing.” And she reacted with something even worse than the rage of a silly stallion: Pity. “I don’t know if that was funny back when you were young, but you really need to get out more.” She spread her wings, narrowly avoiding the life-sized bust of Shecky the Green before making it out of the temple. And from the moment she crossed the threshold, she flew off with a grace that brought tears of joy to the abbot's weary, already weeping eyes.