My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd

by Lord Seth


Dragon Shy

“So anyway, my house finally got fixed after the Ursa Major attack, so I don’t need to use your barn as a residence anymore,” explained the pony to Flim. “Thanks for it in the meantime, though!”

After the pony left, Flam turned to Flim. “Well, that was certainly a profitable enterprise.”

“I’ll say! We weren’t using those barns for anything anyway! Easy money to charge people to stay there.”

“I say, though, what is that?”

“Well, it looks like a big cloud of smoke heading right for Ponyville. You know what that means!”

“An opportunity to finally sell those gas masks we accidentally ordered?”

“Exactly!”


“Mail delivery!” Sunset Shimmer heard an all-too-familiar voice call out. Remembering that the last time she was late to open the door for the mail, the mailmare simply kept knocking on the door and shouting “Hey! Listen!” until she did, she decided to save herself the aggravation and simply open the door.

“Please tell me that for once I’m getting something other than credit card advertisements,” Sunset said.

“I have no idea! Anyway, one letter did look particularly important,” said the mailmare as she dumped a series of letters onto Sunset.

“Would you mind telling me which one?” Sunset asked.

“It’s a surprise!” declared the pegasus before flying off.

Life is pain, thought Sunset to herself. Still, it wasn’t hard to figure out that it was the letter with the word “URGENT” stamped onto it. She opened it up and read through it quickly. “Oh, come on!” she said when she was done. “This is so not in my job description! Seriously, I’m going to just write back and say I won’t do it because it’s absolutely not in it. Now, where did I put that?”

Fortunately for Sunset Shimmer, her job description happened to be nearby. She quickly read through it again. “Yeah, it’s totally not here! It’s…” She paused as she took note of some small print she hadn’t noticed before. Pulling out a magnifying glass, she read it. “Wait, it’s in here? Come on!”

Sunset sighed. “Well, at least maybe I can get some points for this… if I don’t die in the process.”

A bit later…

“Okay, so here’s the deal,” said Sunset. “That big cloud of smoke that just reached Ponyville? That’s from a dragon snoring. So it is our mission to find that dragon and convince it to go somewhere else or else Equestria will be covered by smog for the next hundred years.”

Trixie raised a hoof. “I have a question!”

“What?”

“I’m confused by the specifics,” said Trixie. “Is the dragon actually going to sleep for a hundred years? Or is the nap just going to to produce that much smoke? I mean, this seems like a critical distinction, because it would be a great way to establish how long dragons actually live. Are they more long lived than ponies?”

“Who cares?” said Sunset. “The point is we have to make it go somewhere else.”

Trixie ignored the answer. “And here’s another question,” Trixie continued, “are there places completely covered with smoke? I assume dragons have to take naps somewhere, so are there sections of the planet completely covered by smoke?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” demanded Sunset.

“I just want to have this statement explained to me, because I don’t understand it.”

Sunset threw up her hooves in frustration. “I don’t know! That’s just what the letter said!” Meanwhile, the aforementioned act of throwing up her hooves in frustration caused her to tumble forward onto her face.

I have a far more relevant question,” said Gilda, giving a quick glare at Trixie. “Why are we the ones that got stuck with this?”

Sunset shrugged. “Apparently that whole ‘almost defeating Nightmare Moon’ thing gave us some credibility.”

“The Royal Guard was able to defeat her with one cannon! Why can’t they take care of a dragon? Why send us?”

“That’s a little uncertain,” Sunset said. “According to the letter, the reasoning given by Sombra was either ‘because I find it amusing’ or ‘mobilizing them would take a while, and hopefully you can resolve it more quickly.’ They weren’t really sure which one; those charades can be hard to interpret.”

“Great,” said Suri. “So we’re all stuck on this quest to get a dragon to leave. I hope I at least get some money out of this.”

“Dragons do tend to have large hordes,” said Gilda.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?!” asked Suri. “Let’s go!” She dashed off.

“I’m surprised you were so eager for Suri to join us,” said Trixie to Gilda.

“Enh, I figure she’s probably the most likely of us to get eaten by a dragon. Having a distraction is never bad.”

Suri returned. “Okay, I ran off too early. Is anypony else coming?”

“Treasure sure isn’t a bad thing to have!” declared Flim.

“I bet I could defeat a dragon by myself!” announced Lightning Dust.

“Let’s just get this over with,” said Sunset. “Even if we all get killed in the process, I at least want my suffering to be brief.”

“Doesn’t it take several years for a dragon to completely digest what it eats?” asked Gilda.

Life is pain, thought Sunset to herself. Out loud she said, “Oh right, apparently we’re supposed to take some pegasus named Fluttershy along the way. Do any of you know who she is?”

“Oh, her?” asked Gilda dismissively. “She’s a complete scaredy-cat who gets intimidated by bunnies. Why in the world would we want to get her?”

“Well, the note said something about her being an expert with animals. Hey, worst-case scenario she can totally be dragon chow while the rest of us escape, right?” Everyone stared at her. “Hey, you all know you were thinking it!”

“Whatever,” said Gilda. “I’ll go grab her and meet you at the mountain’s base.”

After some preparations, everyone except for Gilda had gathered at the base of the mountain.

“Okay, so where is Gilda?” asked Sunset. “She’s late.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie suggests we play a game to pass the time!”

“Great,” said Sunset flatly. “What is this game?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie spies with her eyes… something starting with B!”

“Chocolate?” Lightning Dust guessed.

Trixie frowned. “How did you know?”

“Uh,” said Sunset, “you guys do know that not only does chocolate not start with a B, there’s also none to be seen?”

“Oh, it was just a trick question,” explained Trixie.

“One that I saw through!” Lightning Dust announced proudly.

“A trick…” Sunset face-hoofed. “If Gilda doesn’t get here, I seriously am probably going to kill somepony.”

Gilda chose that moment to arrive, with an extremely fearful-looking pegasus with her. “Okay, so I brought her. And by the way, it took a lot of work to make her more afraid of me than the dragon so I could intimidate her into coming.”

“Wait, you intimidated her into coming?” asked Flim. “That was how you got her to come?”

“Yep! Took a whole lot of threatening to do it, also. Actually, I might have severely traumatized her in the process. Enh, builds character.”

Fluttershy made a small squeaking noise.

And so the group made their way up the mountain. Surprisingly, absolutely nothing noteworthy happened on the way up except for encountering a jive-talking purple penguin from Baltimare who turned out to be a figment of everyone’s imagination. At any rate, they made it to the cave at the top.

“Okay, Fluttershy, go in and ask the dragon to leave,” said Gilda.

Fluttershy made a squeaking noise again and shook her head.

“Darn it, is proximity to the dragon making you too scared of it? Ugh,” said Gilda. “Oh well. It’s not like you were going to be of much use anyway.”

“Fine, I’ll try,” said Sunset. She went into the cave. “Uh, hi, Mr. Dragon?” she asked. No response came. “Uh, hello?” she asked more loudly. Still no response. “HEY! DRAGON!” she shouted. The dragon opened his eye. “Would you mind maybe going someplace else to sleep? Like, maybe where dragons usually sleep?”

The dragon seemed to consider this. Then it moved a claw and casually flicked Sunset out of the cave before falling back to sleep.

“Okay,” said Sunset, getting up. “That clearly didn’t work. Anypony else want to try?”

“No problem,” said Gilda. “I’ve got this.” She pulled out a large contraption.

“Wait, is that that surface-to-air missile launcher you used on the Ursa Major?”

“Well, actually, it’s a different one.”

“Where in the world were you even storing that?” Trixie asked.

“You don’t want to know. Anyway, I bet this will take care of that dragon!”

“You know,” said Sunset, “maybe we shouldn’t immediately resort to violence. I mean, there’s no going back after that, so that should really be our last–”

Sunset was cut off due to Gilda already taking aim with the launcher and pulling the trigger. Moments later, an explosion rocked the cave.

“Well, that should take care of–” started Gilda before being cut off by a large roar. “Huh, guess it didn’t.” She quickly threw the weapon at Sunset’s feet.

“What are you–” Sunset started asking, but she was interrupted by the dragon storming out of the cave.

Gilda pointed at Sunset. “She did it! See? She’s got the weapon!”

“What the–” Sunset said, unsurprised this time to be cut off. What she was surprised about was that she was cut off by the dragon grabbing her and tossing her into his mouth. “With my last breath, I curse Gilda!” she shouted before the dragon closed his mouth.

“Well, Sunset’s down. Anyone else have any plans?” Gilda turned around to see that only Lightning Dust was left. “Where did everyone go?”

“Oh, I think they ran into the cave to try to get some treasure while the dragon is distracted,” Lightning Dust said with a shrug. “Oh, and here they come now.”

Flim, Flam, and Suri were running out of the cave while carrying a reasonable quantity of treasure and gold. Unfortunately for them, the dragon spotted them trying to carry off his treasure. The dragon was about to lunge at them before a voice rang out.

“How dare you… how dare you!”

Everyone looked around, confused as to who the voice belonged to. The question was soon answered when the previously timid pegasus flew up to the dragon and landed on his snout. “Listen here, mister,” she said with a level of aggressiveness no one would have expected from her before now. “Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you get to be a bully. You may have huge teeth, and sharp scales, and snore smoke, and breathe fire. But you do not—I repeat—do not hurt my… uh… um…” Fluttershy found herself fumbling for the right term. “My… er… acquaintances? That sounds good. You do not hurt my acquaintances!”

She stared straight into the dragon’s eyes and added, “You got that?”

At this, the dragon broke down crying. “Huh,” said Gilda. “Now I almost feel bad for terrorizing her so much. Enh, builds character.”

“Well?” asked Fluttershy to the dragon.

“But that orange one shot something at me!”

“Actually,” said Fluttershy, “it was the bird who did it. But that’s not the point. You’re bigger than she is, and you should know better. Speaking of which, maybe you should let her out?”

The dragon suddenly underwent a coughing fit, ending with Sunset being expelled from his mouth onto the ground. She got up. “Oh, good. I was wondering if I was going to have to try that explosion spell to blast my way out.”

“Anyway,” continued Fluttershy, “you’re not a bad dragon, you just made a few bad decisions. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That’s all.”

The dragon glared at Suri, Flim, and Flam. “Oh,” said Fluttershy, “you should probably give him back his gold.”

“Never!” declared Suri. She got blasted with a small amount of fire. “Okay, I’ll redefine what ‘never’ means to ‘sure, no problem.’”

The dragon grabbed its loot from the three and went back into the cave. After several minutes, it emerged holding an enormous bag of its loot. It flew off holding it, accidentally smashing it into Gilda on the way out.

“Oh,” said Lightning Dust, looking at Gilda, “looks like that really hurt. Probably got a ton of bones broken. I’m no doctor, but that’ll probably require some serious medical attention. Probably will involve a lot of highly invasive and painful surgeries to sort out.” She shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“So… much… pain,” said Gilda.

“Enh,” said Sunset. “Builds character.”


Dear King Sombra,

Today I learned that reading job descriptions carefully is really important.

Sincerely,
Sunset Shimmer