//------------------------------// // Peak of Fashion // Story: Winona the Cowardly Dog // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// It was a usual, calm day at the farm. Macintosh was reading his newspaper, Winona was gnawing on an old boot, and Applejack was knitting something vibrantly colorful out of wool. "Here you go, Winona. I made it just for you," AJ said. She pushed the sweater over her dog who stood up to look at it. Its patterns and colors changed on a horizontal line every few centimeters, and Winona laughed at it. It felt warm and fluffy. "Gah!" Big Mac growled and put his newspaper onto his lap. "Why does she get a new sweater when I'm left with this? She already has a sweater!" Macintosh was wearing a grimy, black sweater that had been patched up several times in various areas. He really did need a replacement. "Macintosh, please. Winona only has one sweater. You have lots of things. You shouldn't be complaining, but if it bothers you that much I'll make you a sweater later, but first, I think I'll make some tea." AJ hummed all the way to her destination while Winona was left in the living room with Macintosh who was glaring at her through his glasses. The dog gulped and started to sweat profusely, but Macintosh just chuckled and went back to reading his newspaper, letting Winona sigh in relief and wipe her forehead, but that relief didn't last for long. Macintosh popped out from behind his newspaper wearing giant, googly eyes and yelling 'Booga booga booga!'. Winona screamed at the top of her lungs while her head was pierced by a corkscrew and popped open, spraying juices everywhere. The stallion laughed at the expense of the dog and received a thwack on his head by AJ's rolling pain. "OW! What did I do?" The moment was interrupted by the sound of a loud bang outside. "I wonder what that was?" AJ said. "Macintosh, could you go and see?" "Bah..." Macintosh grabbed Winona by the scruff of her neck and held her outside the door. "Go see what the noise was!" He booted Winona out into the wide nothing around the farm. The dog slid into the sand for a long distance before finally stopping, an Egyptian pyramid having formed at the end of her trip. With a little bit of struggling, Winona managed to pull her head out of the ground and laughed stupidly while an ocean of sand, complete with Egyptian paraphernalia, flowed from her mouth. "Excuse me, darling, but could you help me out?" Winona looked up to see a rather pale mare wearing an extravagant dress of white fluff. She was elderly and her fur wrinkled, and this was made more apparent by her extravagant and rich purple mane curled at the top and behind her neck. Winona was unsure if she was a good person, considering past encounters, but she couldn't deny the person any help, so she took them to her home. Winona knocked on the door, letting Macintosh answer it. "Whadda ya want?" "Excuse me, kind sir, but my vehicle seems to have broken down. Could you help me with it?" Macintosh rubbed his chin for nary a moment before giving his thoughts. "No." He slammed the door right behind him. "Oh. Not a very kind fellow. That won't make for a lovely yarn." "Macintosh, go help fix her car or I won't make you any dinner." The stallion walked out of the house, grumbling and mumbling while he walked towards the tower of smoke in the distance. AJ invited the mare into her house along with Winona, whose head was patted for good behavior. "I must say, your house is quite ravishing, in the country-style way," the mare said while looking around. "Why thank you." "And is that sweater your work?" "Oh? Oh yes! Of course! I made it for Winona so she could feel warm and comfortable. Nothing better than a sweater for that." "Really? Well, I love knitting as well!" The mare pulled out two knitting needles whose heads looked like a demonic skulls with a lengthy, sharp tongue. Winona gasped in horror and watched the two go to the kitchen and take seats for knitting. "I've never had a knitting partner before," Aj chuckled. "Perhaps, then, you would like to learn a few tricks from somepony who has been knitting for, mmm, centuries?" "Ooooh, you aren't that old, my dear." "Why thank you." The two chuckled in unison, stressing Winona out. She pulled a giant camera out of her...pocket and flashed the duo. The sewing mare was so blinded that she stabbed her finger with a needle and wailed in pain. Winona hurried up to the attic, placed the picture into the scanner, and started tapping on the keyboard. "No need to bash your paws on the keyboard like a rabid ferret, you twit." Winona huffed and started typing again. "Oh, you want me to look up the needles?" Winona nodded frantically. "Alright, alright. Don't lose your head nodding so hard. Searching." Winona pulled out a chip bag and started eating away while she waited, then tossed the bag away when she heard a 'ding'. "These are the needles of Aintchugudyeh. They were created during the peak of Aztec culture for the King. He used them to knit clothes that would bring awe to his people, but when he started to near the end of his life, he learned something about them: He could knit other people, preferably people who are extremely kind, into yarn for his clothes which would become astoundingly gorgeous and extend his life if he was successful. Unfortunately, he wasn't. He was beaten by a better knitter and died of old age later on." Winona screeched in horror and ran down stairs. "Ow. That dog really has a grating voice. It could burn out one's sound card. What a twit." When Winona arrived at the kitchen, he saw that AJ was being knitted into a ball of very bright and beautiful yarn. "You're too late, dog." Winona's eyes went out and was accompanied by the sound of a machine deactivating, allowing her to simply fall onto the ground and roll a bit like a metal statue. "With this yarn, I'll make the most beautiful dress in the world." The yarn pony hugged her ball of yarn tight to her chest and spun around, stoppeding briefly to hunch over after her back cracked like a tectonic plate during an earthquake. Winona started bouncing and babbling in front of the mare, much to the pony's annoyance. "What, you want this? You can't have her back, dog. I have her now. It's too late." Winona took out a pair of needles from behind her back and glared at the pony, challenging her. "Oh, you want to challenge me to a yarn contest? Fine. Let's go outside." Once outside, the pony threw her arms in the air and started to chant. At first, nothing happened, but the ground started to shake violently, terrorizing Winona. Macintosh, however, was mildly inconvenienced while fixing the car. "What's huh?" he wondered. He and the car were ejected high into the air and far into the horizon where an explosion indicated his landing point. An enormous stadium had risen out of the ground. Three giant-sized judges were watching over what would obviously be a series of challenges. One was a giant of red yarn, another was entirely of sewing needles, and the last was a duck. "Wah wah," the duck quacked. Winona scratched her head in confusion. "You will both follow a series of challenges which will determine the victor of this knitting event!" the red yarn giant shouted. "And the one to make the most impressive piece out of yarn will win each event." "Wah wah!" A gong was struck and a mountain of yarn fell onto the head of the dog and the mare. "Commence!" Winona quickly knitted a small sweater with circle and wavy patterns in yellow and pink while the knitting mare made a randomly colored bear that roared at the dog, blowing her away into dust. In the next part, the yarn lady knitted an orange and purple sports car and drove it around the stadium. She passed Winona about three times before this one pulled a hammer about ten times her size and smashed the car. Winona tossed the hammer away and cackled. In another event, Winona knitted herself a castle, to which the judges oo'd and aww'd at, then the mare pulled a string of her trebuchet and knocked the whole castle down with the dog in it. The yarn giant threw his arms out at the display. "Enough!" he shouted. "While this display has been most amusing, it's time for the true, final event." "You must make something out of pure love with yarn." The yarn mare chuckled and created an ornate, oriental dress with red trimmings on the shoulders and at its bottom. It looked she mixed two cultures with it. Winona gasped when she saw it was the yarn made from AJ, so the dog did her best to create a better dress and presented it to the judges with a sheepish smile. They leaned over and started laughing wildly, while the duck just quacked. "Silly dog. You really thought you could beat me with something so...rural?" Winona's ears flopped down and the dog herself slouched in sadness, then a realization hit her. She pulled her sweater off her body and showed to the judges again. Their laughter instantly ceased and the pin giant pulled it out of Winona's paws. "Amazing. What is this? It's full of pure love, care, and affection, yet it was knitted so casually!" "Tell us, dog, who did this?" the yarn giant asked. Winona started babbling and pointing at the yarn mare. She turned into a monster-version of the pony turning AJ into a ball of yarn. The giants looked to each other and nodded. "We cannot let such a unique talent go to waste because of this one's need for eternal beauty! You win, dog!" the pin giant announced. The stadium started breaking up into a swirling tornado of yarn that engulfed the mare and started turning her into yarn. "You didn't say I would be turned to yarn!" the yarn lady cried. "Yes we did. The duck said it," the needle...man casually pointed out. "Wah wah." All that Winona heard was a 'nooooo' from the mare before she fell into the hand of the yarn giant. The sweater fell into the hands of Winona who started to cry, but she didn't have time to wallow as the needle giant pushed her up to its button eyes. "Why do you cry, dog? Give me the sweater, I shall return the artist we seek." The needle giant started fumbling with the dress the yarn mare had created and its fingers moved too fast for Winona to see, then she saw Applejack pop up in the air and fall gently to the ground. "Oh my. Winona, what are we doing here?" "Hello, artist." AJ turned around and put a hoof to her mouth. "Oh my." "We are sorry to be of a bother, but we wish to learn about your knitting techniques. We've never seen such a beautiful sweater." "Really? Well, do come in. I'll have a cup of tea ready for you in a minute." After a while, the giants were sitting in the living room next to AJ and attempting to follow her lead, while the duck just sat there with its yarn and needles on the floor in front of it. Because it's a duck. "Wah wah," quacks the duck. "When is Macintosh going to come back inside? His tea is getting cold," Applejack wondered. Far away, in a smoking crater, a car sat...s...smoking. Curse these verb limitations. A voice grumbled under the rubble. "Nyorrrr. Stupid car."