//------------------------------// // Guess Who's Nosy // Story: Ernest Saves Equestria // by Emerald Harp //------------------------------// “Holy $&*!” Rotnart exclaimed as his small eyes feasted on the beautiful tree before him. His jaw dropped and he drooled as he thought about what he could do with such a tree. It was not nearly as big as the oak in Briarville, but the sheer power emanating from the Tree of Harmony was palpable. Discord smirked at the troll’s reaction and said, “Your vocabulary fascinates me. I have never heard words like yours before in all of my days. I take it that ‘holy $&*!’ means that you approve of my tree?” Still salivating onto the ground, the enamored troll replied dazedly, “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, freak.” The chimera sighed, and a bucket of ice-cold water materialized in his hands. He then proceeded to throw the water into the troll’s face. Enraged and soaked, Rotnart drew his sword. He roared, “I’m gonna cut your balls off and feed them to the squirrels. I’ll . . . Why am I wet? Did I just piss myself again?” “Yes, you did. You took one look at the Tree of Harmony and got all excited.” “Then, why are you holding that bucket?” Rotnart asked, suspiciously. Discord snapped his fingers, and the container disappeared. “What bucket?” By this time, the confused troll’s dilated eyes shrank, and he stopped drooling. Shaking his head and sheathing his sword, he recovered as gracefully as a troll could, which wasn’t graceful at all. Rotnart wiped his mouth and eyes while trying to sound uninterested, “The tree’s alright; nothing special, but it should serve my purpose.” “Ri-i-i-ght,” Discord said dryly. Snapping his fingers, the chimera returned to his chair, quill and notepad in hand. “Anyways, back to the game. I believe it’s my turn.” With his tail, Discord signaled to something behind the troll. Rotnart heard the excited padding of the chimera’s dog-like couch coming from behind. The troll let it get closer before he whirled around, picked it up by its legs, and slammed it into the ground. The furniture shattered into a million pieces. Discord pouted and said, “Tell me, Rotnart, are your father and all the other trolls as handsome, charming, and mild-mannered as you?” The troll sat on the ground and began chewing on one of the couch legs. In-between mouthfuls of large splinters he said, “Yeah, my lot is a hearty bunch who will tell you to eat crap and die if you make us mad. I inherited all of my dad’s memories, and I’m totally just like him. Except I’m far more cunning and graceful, and I don’t panic easily.” Rotnart began to munch on the cushions, “Okay, my turn. What--” Before Rotnart could fully form his question, he began to cough, hack, and sputter uncontrollably. The chimera raised an eyebrow at the troll’s actions. “Now really, dear Rotnart, how can I answer your question if I can’t understand you? Use your words and enunciate. I’d help you out, but I really liked that couch. It was a gift I stole for myself from Celestia back in the day.” The panicking troll king ignored Discord after unsuccessfully giving himself the Heimlich maneuver. Frantically, Rotnart rummaged through his pack, tossing his father’s spell book aside and triumphantly dug out a troll pod. Discord casually teleported over to the book on the grass. “Not to be rude,” he said, indifferently, “but I don’t think eating more is going to help.” As the chimera was thumbing through the pages, he heard a rumbling sound. To his surprise another troll had manifested itself. It was taller than Rotnart, but just as ugly. By this point, Rotnart had turned a vivid shade of dark purple as he desperately gestured to his younger brother to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. The new troll just blinked at his brother. He then punched Rotnart hard in the stomach. Rotnart went down like a sack of potatoes, clutching his gut. By this point, Discord was back in his seat thumbing through the troll king’s book. Every now and then he glanced up at the fresh chaos unfolding before him while munching popcorn. The mismatched creature winced in mock sympathy for Rotnart. It looked like that blow hurt a lot. The punch seemed to do the trick as the troll king finally hacked and spat out a huge helping of seat cushion. Taking in a greedy lungful of air, Rotnart got back on his feet and turned to face his brother. It looked like Rotnart was going to give his sibling a hug in gratitude, but at the last second, he brought up a knee and nailed the younger troll in the groin. Mercifully, the three minute old troll fainted in agony after writhing on the ground for twenty seconds, all the while Rotnart was gesturing with his hands. “This means I’m choking. And this means give me the Heimlich. Remember that next time, you moron!” Discord clapped enthusiastically. “My goodness, I have never seen anything like that in quite some time. Not even around Derpy. It was worth bringing you here just to see that.” Rotnart clutched his gut in pain as he replied, “F*$% you. I’d kill you where ya sat if I could.” Leaving his brother where he lay, Rotnart staggered back to where he had been sitting. “Okay. . .” he stared at Discord. “What are you doing with my book?” Discord looked at him with big innocent eyes. “I’m just keeping it clean for you, your majesty,” the chimera said as he wiped his buttery hands on the book’s cover. Discord disappeared as he avoided a sudden tackle from Rotnart. The troll spat out a mouthful of popcorn as he looked around for the current bane of his existence. “I must say, this is an interesting piece of literature.” The voice came from the Tree of Harmony. Sure enough, Discord was sitting on a branch just out of reach of the troll. Smugly, Discord asked, “Do you understand what this book says?” The question brought the king out of his fantasy of strangling the crazed chimera to death. “What?” Discord teleported to stand beside the troll. He cracked open the book and showed the troll a random page. “I asked, do you know the language this book is written in?” “Bend over, and I’ll show you,” Rotnart replied as he made a grab for the book. Discord simply held the book high above his head, out of Rotnart’s reach. “Okay, okay. Time out.” Discord said, as he placed a claw on the troll’s face. The troll king froze in place, unable to move or speak. Discord continued, “As much as I like the shenanigans that are going on, the game is suffering in quality. If I give you back your book, I get to ask another question, and we will pick up where we left off until the game ends. Agreed?” Rotnart just stood there as still as a statue, his arms stretched skywards with a look of utter loathing on his ugly face. “Oh, right,” Discord snapped his fingers and unfroze the troll king. Rotnart snatched the book from Discord’s clutches, as the chimera asked again, “So, do you know or understand the language of your book?” Trying not to display too much of his outrage, the troll replied, “No, I don’t know. And apparently my dad didn’t either. Just guessing, I think it’s a tongue used by demons. ” Discord took a long look at Rotnart. He then started to giggle. After trying unsuccessfully to stifle his mirth, he began to laugh uncontrollably, rolling around on the ground. “What’s so funny?” the troll growled. The chimera stopped laughing and said, “I can’t believe you and your dad don’t understand it. It’s so painfully simple, even Applejack could read it.” Discord then started to laugh even harder than before. The troll would have tried to kick the mutant while it was down, but something began to appear above him, catching his eye. Small pink clouds began to materialize overhead. They hung just below the uppermost branches of the Tree of Harmony. The longer and harder Discord laughed, the more clouds appeared. Rotnart couldn’t explain it, but he had a bad feeling about the overhead clouds. Sobering, Discord looked up and said, “I’d better get rid of those. Wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves.” Waving a hand around, he dismissed most of the clouds save for two. Returning to his feet, the distorted monster materialized a small tea cup and saucer. The cloud above him began to rain. Catching the liquid in his cup, Discord took one gulp and smacked his lips in delight. Rotnart saw that the liquid was creamy, brown, and frothy, almost like . . . . Rotnart shivered suddenly, although he was not cold at all. And his left eye began to twitch. Nervously the troll asked, “What’cha drinking freak? I hope it makes you die horribly, whatever it is.” After a particularly loud and obnoxious slurp, the chimera replied, “Now, now, your majesty. It’s my turn to ask a question.” Looking over to where Rotnart’s snoring brother lay, Discord said, “I think I’ll ask him a question instead and put our game on hold for a bit. Is that all right with you?” Rotnart chuckled uncertainly, “Be my guest. But I think you’ll have better luck talking to a broken clock. At least they’re right twice a day. ” “We’ll see,” Discord said as he pointed to the other cloud hovering nearby and directed it to a position above the sleeping troll. The cloud then began to rain the same substance upon the head of the slumbering being. The sleeping troll immediately began to dissolve into a puddle of ooze until nothing was left. Rotnart’s heart stopped beating, and his eyes became very white and wide with fear. He felt a powerful urge to empty his bladder again. He realized then just how screwed he really was. That thing could make it rain milk and kill him whenever it wanted to. Discord looked to Rotnart, and back to the puddle that used to be a troll, trying to conjure an answer to what just happened. Finally, the chimera asked in a confused voice, “Uh, Rotnart, what just happened? All I did was make it rain chocolate milk on him, and he melted. Was he a troll snowpony or something?” The troll king was nearly foaming at the mouth in fright. If something wasn’t done soon, he’d be killed by Discord by accident or for the fun of it. In the span of a few seconds, a desperate plan formed in his panicking mind. Shaking his head and steeling himself, he held out an outstretched hand to the chimera. “Guess who’s nosy?! You win, Discord.” This got Discord’s attention as he wrenched his gaze from the troll-puddle. “Interesting. You’ve never called me by my name before, and on top of that, you’re quitting the game. Why?” Sweating profusely, the troll king replied, “I--I don’t have to answer any more questions! We’ve hit on a thing I don’t want to talk about, and now I have to do something for you.” The words came out faster than a woodpecker hammering a tree branch. “Let’s shake on it like the good . . . uh, people we are.” Discord’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he looked at Rotnart’s outstretched hand. He grinned, “Alright, I accept your defeat. I got just the thing I want you to do for me.” The misshapen being then grasped the troll king’s hand and shook it. To Discord’s surprise, the troll had a very strong grip, so strong, in fact, that he was beginning to lose feeling in his paw. The chimera was about to comment on this, when to his horror, he found that he couldn’t move, speak, or use his magic. He was frozen, just like what he had done to Rotnart moments before. Slowly but surely, Discord’s body began to shrink and turn to wood. As this happened, the milk-clouds shrank and disappeared all together. Discord became a one foot tall wooden doll. He lay, tiny and wooden, in Rotnart’s fist, still holding his tea cup full of chocolate milk. The troll king let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Trantor this worked. I didn’t want to die by a freaking cloud.” Rotnart howled with delight. Drunk with victory, he looked at the wooden statue in his hand and said, “I otta burn you and do the world a favor. But maybe I can use you, freak. Maybe there’s still power inside your splintery hide. We’ll have to see about that.” With that, the victorious troll king put the Discord doll in his bag and gathered the rest of his supplies. Taking a load off his feet, he sat down in the chimera’s overstuffed chair and picked up the notepad. Rotnart leafed through the pages, and to his surprise, Discord hadn’t been taking notes at all. Instead, he found drawing after drawing of a winged unicorn with a sun on its flank in suggestive and lewd positions. The troll king raised an eyebrow at this and grunted, “Okay, not what I expected.” He pocketed the notebook and reclined in the comfortable chair. For a long time Rotnart looked at the Tree of Harmony, admiring it in all its powerful glory. A gust of wind made it look like the tree was trembling in fright. He smiled and said sleepily, “Don’t worry baby, I’ll be gentle.”