//------------------------------// // A Hard Day's Surprisingly Harder Night // Story: Woundsalt, Mother Bucker. // by OneUppington //------------------------------// The first thing to learn, as an orphan, is not to judge by sexuality. A vast majority of couples looking for someone to adopt are homosexual, after all. Yet here I am, standing out of the bedroom afraid of going in, while holding a sake bottle, which is now empty because I wanted to forget the horrors of what Saint Diamond Heart said in my dream. Such… horrors… She was saying… Eurgh! And the words were… Euuurgh! And the Trombone Guy… Euuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh! The sake would leave a bad taste in my mouth sure, but what the symbolic equivalent of my birth mother said to me will leave a bad taste in my everywhere. I need to get my mind off this… Maybe I should read something. I’m in a library after all. Maybe that biology book; I feel like I still don’t know what I have. I know the name, which I am totally happy with, but besides from that? Nothing. Does the CMC have any other symptoms? Can the CMC be controlled? Am I to be tortured by the CMC for all of my mortality? What is so funny about the CMC that Twilight can barely contain her laughter when hearing its name? I don’t know! Well, I’m going to find out. Where’s that Biology book? I’ll just go back to where the party was and- Ah! Here it is. Doctor House Call’s Big Book of Biology. Looks like my new guardian had the courtesy to put it back where she found it. Still a librarian at heart. Right, let’s see. Contents… Confused Magic Condition… Page 72. Okay, let’s do some self-discovery. Confused Magic Condition (Other Known Alias: CMC) Discovered by Lab Coat, MD. Wait, I know that name. Where did I… Oh Luna. It’s the Trombone Guy! Euuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh! He’s the mother bucker Diamond Heart had ‘relations’ with the most! Thanks to this pervert, I can never look at any brass instrument the same way ever again! Okay Woundsalt, give this guy the benefit of the doubt. There’s no proof of Diamond Heart having a secret room; yet alone any of… that. Good chance, he is a normal pony, who lives a normal life, with his normal family that has nothing to do with neither Diamond Heart nor trombones. It’s just a dream. There is no chance my dreams are prophetic with a one hundred percent accuracy. Oh hey, they listed the symptoms here. SYMPTOMS Prophetic Dreams with 100% accuracy Fuck! Never mind; I’ll just try to ignore the dream and just continue. Magical possessions when triggered Sounds like what Twilight fucked around with before she left, so that’s check. Random Magical Surges that causes patient to black out Magical surges sound so much better than what I usually call it. Got to start calling them that. Check. Great intelligence in what their cutie mark represents in an omnipresent level Offending ponies with ancient scrolls I’ve never seen. Check. Can cry a liquid relevant to their expertise … Okay? Obviously they got to believe this is a symptom from studying the first pony that was diagnosed with this condition, but I think that could be something else. I cry ink like everypony else. At least I think everypony else cries ink. Don’t they? Every time someone looks like they were going to cry in front of me they sort of hide away before ink comes out. I’ll write to Twilight about it in the morning. Right now, I think I’ll keep on going. Huh. Not much here. The rest of it is pretty much the life story of this Pegasus called Rain Coat, the first pony who had this CMC. Wait. Rain Coat… Lab Coat… they wouldn’t be related, would they? Oh snap, they are! Rain is Lab’s daughter! I remember her from the dream! He moved her and her brother to Diamond Heart’s Orphanage to hide them from his peers because he didn’t want Rain to become a lab rat! He was protecting her from a life of tests and MRI scans! … Sort of easy to forget he’s a stand up guy who will put everything on the line for his children after you know what he did in the bedroom. Maybe I shouldn’t judge him for the trombone thing. Hell, without his sacrifice, I would never know what I have. I should be shaking this guy’s hoof… if he was still alive. Wait… Raincoat would be still living. Where does she live now? According to this book… Darwhinny, Oatstralia. Shit. That’s miles away. Here I was, hoping for a meet-up. Hang on… Maybe my new royal privileges could make that happen. I know I’m asking a lot from my guardian as is, but knowing her, Twilight would have read this and thought of organizing a get-together too. I bet she’s up right now, having a message chat to Prime Minister Beer Broth for his help finding Rain. … Maybe I should write her a letter now. No doubt Twilight should know that I had another dream. No, wait. Terrible idea. I don’t think I can tell her about… all that. … But I could at least tell her I had the dream. Just don’t tell her what it was about, that’s all. No, that wouldn’t work either. She will try to bleed the information out of me. Also, since this is a friend of Celestia’s, the sun goddess will not like the fact I was keeping this a secret from her too. … I might need to tell her what was in the dream. Not Twilight, but her royal highness of the most high herself. I’ll have Twilight to forward the message to Celestia, but say she can’t read it. Got some Paper. Got a Quill. Now all I have to do is think about how I live a very lonely existence and… Ink. Right, let’s write this. Dear Twilight, Good start. Sorry if this wakes you up. It’s just that I had a nightmare. However, I don’t think I can tell you what’s in it. I think it’s up to Celestia to know what to do with this one. So, the following scroll is for her eyes only. Sorry. That’ll do it. Maybe ask her about the ink. I read the book. Well, not really read; more of a skim. I have read the symptoms, though. That unnatural tears thing is slightly confusing. Doesn’t everypony cry ink? If not, I’m using my ink right now to write this; just take this to your lab; see what they make of it. That’s… slightly disgusting upon reflection. Ah well. I’m certain that she’ll find it fascinating. Provided of course, it is just me who cries ink. Okay, now to hint in my interest in Rain Coat. About this Rain Coat… are you planning for us to meet? I know she lives in Oatstralia, but someone with that kind of knowledge could help me out. Maybe she’s got a detachable horn or something. A DETACHABLE HORN? WHERE THE HELL DID I GET THAT FROM? THAT’S… actually a nice idea. Unicorns use their magic through their horn, right? So if I could get one for me, I could use my magic. Genius. I bet she never thought of that. I’ll just sign it off. Your faithful student, I guess… Woundsalt Right. Now then, to Princess Celestia… To Princess Celestia, Before I tell you what I saw, I want to say I am sorry. I know for a fact what I’m going to tell you will definitely not improve your opinion of me, but I have to tell someone, and it can’t be Twilight. As Twilight should have told you by now, I had a dream that depicted the Chariotoran document being read by Featherlight. I had a new dream. This new dream was roughly the same, only two differences. It was Diamond Heart instead of Featherweight and She wasn’t talking about Chariotora either… She was confessing to being a nymphomaniac. Confessing it in great detail, too. Forgive me if I don’t share you some of her amazing misadventures with her sexuality. Let’s just say there are some things that are NOT to be repeated. According to the letter itself, she had a hidden room located under a trap door in her bedchambers. The letter is inside that room, if you want to see it for yourself. Boy, I hope this one isn’t true. Your… I don’t know what to put down here… Concerned Citizen? Woundsalt. … You know what? I’m tired. Sure, it’s for her who rules us all, but it’ll have to do. Now where the hell is that owl Twilight was talking abou – GAH! That night-dwelling bastard just flew past inches from my face! That mother bucker! Where did he get to now? Ah okay, he’s on his perch… not looking at me. Okay, clearly this feeble attempt of a first impression is a sign of a beautiful friendship. “Hey buddy! A little eye to eye conversation here?” It’s doing that head turn thing owls do, which is always creepy. Its face doesn’t look like he appreciates me being here, either. Maybe it’s Brainstorm rubbing off on me, but I think I know what’s happening here. Clearly this owl has taken care of itself since Twilight’s ascension from unicorn to alicorn. For a whole fortnight, he was by himself, waiting, wanting to see his mistress again. But instead, he got me. A male creature who he never seen before, and is most definitely not who he wanted to see. So naturally, this is the owl equivalent of ‘fuck you, I don’t know you. Where’s my pony?’ Yep. He’s biting his wing now. Like he’s in a Star Crosser play, but for winged animals. “Do you bite your wing at me, sir?” “Who?” “Do you bite your wing at me, sir?” “…Who?” “Do you quarrel, sir?” “Who?” “If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a… oh buck this. Just send these letters to Twilight up in Canterlot, okay?” “Who?” “Okay, dude, I know it’s been a long time bu-” “Who?” “Do you mind if I finish that sent-” “Who?” “If you dare interrupt me with this ‘who’ shit one more t-” “Who?” “OH OKAY THEN… …AND IF YOU DARE DO THAT TO ME AGAIN I WILL FIND A BOOK ON NOCTURNAL WILDLIFE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR CELESTIA-DAMN BEAK! CAPICHE?” … The owl nods frantically, or at least the owl equivalent of nodding. “Go.” He grabs the papers and flies into the night. Kind of feel bad for yelling at the guy. I’ll apologise to it when it comes back. … Shoot, you’d think verbal animal abuse would make me more tired; but now I feel even more awake. Maybe I should unpack a bit. There isn’t much there, but it’ll pass the time. Where’s my bag? Oh that’s right, I left them at the door when Pinkie Pie almost gave me a cardiac… Uh… … I don’t particularly remember that window being open. Don’t particularly remember the covered DJ things having a pony shaped figure accompanying them, neither. I-Is the library being fucking robbed? Is someone robbing Princess Twilight’s library? Clearly, whoever this pony is, they got either a very strong nerve, or a deathwish. Either way, I don’t think I should try and get involved here… … Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? That DJ’s going to come and discover their shit’s been stolen; they’re going to be on my dick about it and it’s going to be one more fucking problem to deal with. If I learned anything from The Canterlot Horn writers that I had to work with, is that an angry disc jockey is one thing you want to avoid. The last thing I want to do tomorrow morning is to try and calm down some dubstepping douche nozzle with a lopsided mane fringe! I have to stop this thief! Okay, game plan: I close the window, grab a letter opener, wait till the thief tries to open the window, jump out, tell them to drop the stuff or they’ll get more holes than a Daring Do plot line, then show them the door. The best-case scenario, the thief doesn’t believe I’m bluffing and complies my orders. The worst-case… the fucker beats me up so I get some bruises, proving I actually tried to stop them. At least then the DJ would give me some respect. … Oh, how much I don’t want to do this… Let me count the ways… … Fuck it. Let’s get this terrible plan over with. “Hey… Woundsalt, right?” Shit! They caught me! What the hell am I going to do? I didn’t plan for h… Her. The thief is a mare. A mare from Manehattan, if I’m not mistaken from all the Neightalian-Equestrian gangster films I’ve seen. According to their voice at least. Let me just turn around to check… Yep. Mare. No doubt about it. Hm…White fur, clearly dyed blue mane cut in a ridiculous manner, Pair of sunglasses though it’s clearly too dark for them… If she just came up to the door at a reasonable hour saying she was the DJ, I would’ve probably believed her. Her appearance is stupid enough. Also she seemed to know my name. Is it too soon to put two and two togeth- “Look, I’m sorry for coming in here like this, but there’s a griffon wanting to break my legs out there. Can you please check if she’s gone?” Huh… She seems to be stressed. Like, genuinely stressed; not fake stressed to make me turn around so she can snap my neck. Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick here… “Uh… I see her. Looks like she’s going too. She doesn’t seem happy.” “Yeah, I kinda guess she wouldn’t be.” Says the mare. “Fucking bitch.” Okay. Clearly I just got involuntarily roped into something that I don’t know about. “Mind if I ask a question?” “Sure. What is it?” “WHAT IN THE NAME OF PRINCESS H. TAP-DANCING CADENCE IS GOING ON HERE?!!!” “Oh. Right, right, right!” The mare says as she raised her hooves up in defence of my rage. “I’ll tell ya. Just keep ya voice down, okay?” “Seriously?” “Yeah.” “Does this shit happen all the time around here?” “It’s a first. But knowing some egos in this tournament so far, I don’t know how it didn’t happened sooner.” The Manehatten mare, which after a brief introduction is called Vinyl Scratch, actually was a DJ. The DJ Pinkie cancelled on, in fact. She wasn’t here to get her stuff back, though. She’s here because she needed a place to hide; and knowing that the being you’re hiding from isn’t a fan of the Elements, the library belonging to the head honcho of the Elements seems like a very good idea. Both Vinyl and the griffon she knows as M.C. Hater-D are against each other in the final of some tournament. By the sound of things, some kind of rap battle where the rappers bring their own DJ to accompany their beat to their lyrics. Vinyl Scratch’s rapper, Slimshake, apparently fell off a skateboard recently and will have to pull out the tournament due to the injuries sustained from the accident. Vinyl called bullshit on his story and got the truth; rival rapper Hater-D came at him with a bat. However they don’t have any proof, so… Our DJ here couldn’t do anything but to look around for a new rapper. Vinyl was, what she thought, about to meet a possible replacement, only to find Hater-D at the rendezvous wearing a baseball bat, and armed with a dangerous smile. What I helped avert from happening tonight was the griffin eliminating the competition entirely. “Buck me…” “Right?” “Is it worth the prize money to put up with a bitch like her?” “Screw the prize money!” The uninvited guest yells, probably too loud for library standards. “I got my pride on my line here! Hater-D attacked Slimshake! I ain’t gonna fucking forfeit to her!” Her shades almost slip off her face, revealing two magenta eyes for a couple of milliseconds and then she slid them back on. And on this action, silence fell upon the library. … She breaks the silence after a few seconds with a question. “Ya don’t mind if I crash here? I have a feeling she’ll try to follow me home, and I don’t want to get my roommate involved in this.” Well, it’s not a motel, but… why not? Could be fun. “Knock yourself out. There’s a couch here somewhere.” “Thanks.” Says the DJ with a smile. “Welcome to Ponyville, by the way.” Hm? Oh yeah that’s right, she knows who I am. “Thanks. I’m guessing Pinkie told you everything about me.” “Well, not everything. I know your name’s Woundsalt, you moved here to learn friendship from the elements, adopted by Her Royal Highness; why did she do that by the way?” Not sure if I can tell the truth right now… Eh, buck it. All the gossip magazines would have got the story already. “Not her decision. Receptionist fucked up.” “Wait, so you’re accidently a prince?” “Maybe. Whether or not she fucked up on purpose is still to be seen.” “And there’s a No Backsies Policy on that shit?” “Apparently.” She laughs hysterically. I have a feeling this is going to be the usual reaction to hearing this story. “Oh… That’s fucking rich. Reminds me of the time when Octavia and I went to this noodle restaurant and-” “Hold the fuck up. Who?” “Oh. Uh… My roommate. Anyway, she and-” “Grey coat?” “Uh… yeah?” “Black mane?” “Yeah.” “Cellist?” The DJ takes her shades off, and examines me closely. After a few seconds, her magenta eyes widen with great surprise. “Oh holy buck. Are… Are you the guy she gave that magazine contract to?”