“The Revelation”
The bearers of the Elements of Harmony stormed out of the ballroom. The Sun Princess left shortly after, her graceful movements contrasting with the restrained fury on her face.
As she passed, I brought my ceremonial spear up to my shoulder in salute, mirrored by Peytral on the other side of the enormous double doors. He and I turned to follow her through the doors, then we pulled them shut behind us and took up station on either side.
We waited and watched as the five ponies and one princess shrank into the distance of the long hallway. In my mind, I turned over the events that had just taken place, the wild accusations of the princess’s protege, Twilight Sparkle, the immediate and well-deserved backlash against her obvious lies, and her shock when her deception had been seen through so easily.
I shook my head a fraction. I’d heard, through the castle’s grapevine, that Twilight Sparkle was some kind of genius, a real dyed-in-the-wool prodigy. Even accounting for the usual inflationary effect of rumor, she must be plenty smart.
I spoke out of the side of my mouth. “Hey, Peytral, whadda ya think about that Twilight Sparkle, huh?”
He stared straight ahead and muttered through barely-parted lips. “No kidding, right? I thought she was some kind of smarty-pants, a real genius-type.”
“Yeah, same here. How could Twilight Sparkle be so stupid?”
I heard Peytral shrug, a characteristic shifting of the armor. “At least it’s not our problem.”
* * *
The next day, I struggled against the green goop which imprisoned me from hooves to neck, and ignored the foul breath of the horrible bug-like mockery of ponykind to stare at the dais at the end of the ballroom and the horrible bug-like mockery of princesskind standing atop it, who continued to gloat over having deceived everypony with her clever ruse.
I stopped struggling for a moment as I considered the events of yesterday. “Oh,” I said.
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A/N: This was my entry for prompt #7, “Dare to be Stupid”, at Thirty Minute Ponies. The prompt was: The circumstances leading to, following, or surrounding somepony uttering the question, “How could Twilight Sparkle be so stupid?”