//------------------------------// // Racing Through Tines and Plates With Ferd and Feg Hoot // Story: EqD Writer Training Grounds short stories by Georg // by Georg //------------------------------// Week 12 - Maud Pie -or- Racing Through Tines and Plates With Ferd and Feg Hoot Feghoot: (a) A story pun (also known as a poetic story joke or Feghoot) is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious pun (typically a play on a well-known phrase) where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor. (b) One of two brothers who compete against Maude Pie and her pet in the West Minister Pet Show Kitchen Obstacle Race. EqD prompt: While it was nice to meet Pinkie and her friends, Maud Pie must now return to her regular life. She never did let Pinkie know about her other side... [Flicka][vs.][Mai-Tai] 12 - Maud Pie -or- Racing Through Tines and Plates With Ferd and Feg Hoot I was enjoying a perfectly marvelous day at the Canterlot Coliseum, watching the Wonderbolts as they finished up their morning show when I became aware of a perfectly white hoof waving to me out of the crowd. When I approached, I was positively delighted to see Princess Celestia and her protege, the young alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle, and they both gestured me closer. “Doctor, how good to see you here today.” Princess Celestia said with one of her characteristic smiles, gesturing to the bench by their side. “Please, come sit with us during the intermission. Twilight Sparkle, I would like to introduce you to a dear friend of mine. This is the Doctor.” “Who?” said Twilight. “Hooves, actually,” I said with my most polite bow for the two princesses. “It prevents confusion.” “The Doctor is a temporal mechanic, Twilight. He’s been all over Equestria and always has the most amusing stories.” “Really?” Twilight fairly lit up with curiosity and turned to face me with a happy smile of her own. “I just love temporal mechanics. It was one of my favorite topics in school. But don’t you mean he’s a specialist in temporal mechanics? Saying he is a temporal mechanic implies that he fixes broken parts of the time-space continuum.” “What a silly idea, Twilight.” Both Celestia and I enjoyed a laugh while Twilight blushed. I took the opportunity to brush off my jacket and smile along with the princesses. My most recent experience was certainly worth repeating, as Celestia always seemed to enjoy my anecdotes, and even knew how they ended before I could complete them. “What Her Highness actually means is that I fix clocks and other timepieces, and also act as timekeeper for various events in some of the most interesting parts of the country and beyond. Why, just last week I was present at a most fascinating race.” “Do tell us, Doctor,” said Celestia with a nod and a twinkle in her eye. “I’m certain both of us will find it well worth our time.” “As you wish, Your Highness,” I responded, settling down on the bench and accepting a glass of chilled lemonade. Taking a deep drink, I raised my eyebrow in appreciation of the additional flavoring that had been added, which was most certainly not lemon-based. An additional drink finished wetting my dry throat sufficiently for conversation, and I began my story. “As you know, every year in the town of West Minister, pet owners from across Equestria gather for their traditional Pet Show. It is a truly huge affair with animals of all types, some of which have only been heard of in legend. Even the pet owners are diverse, representing every race in Equestria, which can cause some minor friction when some of the pet owners are confused for some of the pets, but I digress. “Every year, there are more classes for display, obedience and such, but the most fascinating class this year was the racing pets.” “Racing pets?” asked Twilight. “Oh yes,” I replied. “There are even subcategories for crawling, hopping, running, flying, and a new event called the kitchen obstacle course. What caught my attention this year were a number of pets owned by the sister to your friend, Pinkie Pie. It seems there is a native species of fly in Maud’s home of Flintrock Valley that is entirely siliconious. It has glittering mica wings and a beautiful body of multicolored dense metamorphic rock and pure onyx eyes. She displayed several of them in the other classes and won hooves-down, but she was relatively reluctant to enter her prize fly Flicker into the obstacle race until I encouraged her. I have to admit, that fly was really quite striking, and a large number of wagers were quickly struck once she finally acceded to my pleas. It really only faced one competitor of any challenge at all, another favorite at the show, a skunk-owl named Mai-Tai owned by the Hoot brothers, Fern and Feg.” “They sound familiar,” said Twilight. “Did they have apples for cutie marks?” “Oh no, dear princess. You’re thinking of the Flim Flam brothers. These brothers run a clothing company in Haywaii where they produce colorful shirts for visiting tourists. Anyway, I was present at the final race, where your friend Maud and the Hoot brothers were competing, and the betting was absolutely furious. Maud’s fly had performed so brilliantly in the preliminary time trials that the rest of the pet owners withdrew, leaving only the Hoot brother’s skunk-owl as competition. I suspected they were cooking up some underhoofed plot, so I kept my eye on them right up until race time. “Well, when the time of the race finally arrived, Maud had her rock-fly polished to gleaming perfection, while the Hoot brothers had apparently rolled their owl in something horrid and disgusting. All of the ponies at the starting line could hardly breathe from the stench, but we consulted the rules, and there was nothing that said a competitor had to smell attractive to fly the obstacle course. “Once they signaled the race to begin, the Hoot brothers’ strategy became obvious. The rock-fly could hardly breathe, and quickly fell behind the skunk-owl as they came up to the first obstacle: the Fork Maze. Still, it kept right in there as Maud and the rest of the audience cheered for it, buzzing its mica wings just as fast as it could go, even though it was falling further behind every minute. As they approached the Swinging Plates, the fly misjudged the speed of one of the plates and was knocked sideways into a nearby mud puddle. “Well, the Hoot brothers and their owl thought that was just hilarious, and the owl slowed its pace to a leisurely flapping as it flew through the Place Setting section of the course, but it really should have looked behind its tail. That fly came up out of the mud puddle all dripping with muck, and just tore out after the owl faster than I’ve ever seen anything fly in my life. Even though the owl had such an enormous lead, by the time they passed through the Toaster Tangle and reached the finish line, the winner was a true photo-finish. I, of course, knew what the outcome would be even before they consulted the camera. It was obvious.” Twilight perked up. “So does this mean Maud Pie’s muddy fly tied with the tie-dyed guys’ foul owl Mai-Tai?” “Dont’ be ridiculous, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia. “Everypony knows that Gneiss Flies finish last.”