• Published 9th Dec 2013
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Half-Hour Horses - HoofAndQuill



A collection of short prompt-based stories, from Thirty Minute Ponies.

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Something Closer to Home [Comedy, Random?]

(The Prompt: The Pony of Shadows.)

The mood in the private study of the ancient castle was still lighthearted, now that all the ponies had settled down from their impromptu night spent accidentally scaring one another. The furnishings in the room were in remarkably good condition for their age, and everypony was seated comfortably on very finely made, if a bit dusty, cushions. The topic of conversation meandered back and fort as it was wont to do between close friends. Eventually, though, the topic of the Pony of Shadows came up again.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "I bet it doesn't even exist! We've been around here a couple times already, and we haven't seen any 'Pony of Shadows' other than Nightmare Moon, and we blasted her!"

"Not seeing her doesn't mean she doesn't exist," Fluttershy started, keeping her voice soft. She was still a little hoarse from shouting for Angel all night. "Besides, everypony thought Nightmare Moon was just an old pony's tale too."

Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs and pouted. "Maaaybe. It was Applejack that thought it was real anyway. I wasn't even scared."

"Now hold on one cotton-pickin' minute! My granny told me about this legend and she ain't no liar, Rainbow. If that pony doesn't exist now, you can bet she was around in Granny's time."

Twilight's ears perked a bit at this mention. "Granny Smith told you the legend? What did she say about it?"

Applejack huffed defiantly at Rainbow before turning to Twilight. "Well, the way I remember it, it was that somethin' about Nightmare Moon got left behind after she was banished. At night, the dark magic turns into the Pony of Shadows."

"Dark magic? There's no such thing as 'dark magic'!" Twilight stood up, ready to lecture, but then she noticed her friends already looking disinterested in her soapboxing before she even started. She sat back down. "Well, there isn't. Magic isn't good or evil by itself. Besides, Luna turned traitor out of jealousy. Any kind of... I don't know, lingering ghost spell or something that came from that would be looking for other ponies, not just hanging around alone in an empty castle."

"Ooh! A spooky ghost pony that wants to make it night time and have everypony pay attention to it?" Pinkie laughed and rolled over onto her back. "That sounds kind of fun!"

Rarity spoke a bit distractedly, still giving the better part of her attention to her restoration efforts. "Well there's certainly something wrong with this place. I don't believe for a moment that we all managed to scare each other all night without any help at all."

"Of COURSE you didn't! I helped! With the organ!" Pinkie mimed playing the organ, while laying on her back. This mostly just looked like waving her hooves randomly about.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes again. "Yeah. Thanks, Pinkie. So... is it possible that there'd be some kind of magic left? From Princess Luna, I mean."

Twilight paused, and then closed the diary she was reading. "It's possible. I mean it shouldn't be possible, but we've all seen a lot of things like that. But it would have to be something related to what Luna was feeling back then. Some kind of jealous spirit or something."

Fluttershy lay down on her pillow and covered her ears with her hooves. Angel Bunny gently stroked her mane.

Princess Twilight shook her head. "But none of us saw any ghosts or mysterious shadowy ponies tonight. Other than the castle being an old, overgrown ruin, I don't think there's anything magical going on."

"Ooh, but what if there was!" Pinkie jumped back to all four hooves, grinning as she spoke. "Some kind of crazy, really jealous and attention-seeking pony spirit!"

Pinkie's friends all knew they may as well stay quiet at this point.

"She'd walk all around the castle looking for ponies to impress, but there's nopony here like ever, so she'd have to wander around the forest! Then, she'd find Ponyville, because really, where else is better to meet a ton of ponies?" Pinkie bounced lightly around the room. "Can you imagine it? The Pony of Shadows in Ponyville!"

Applejack cut in. "Uh, Pinkie, I'm pretty sure we'd a' met them if there was some kinda shadow pony in Ponyville."

"Maybe not though! Maybe it learned to look like a pony! So she just hangs around Ponyville all day and talks to ponies and gets them to like her, and then she doesn't feel jealous of Princess Celestia anymore because she has a ton of friends!"

Twilight glanced over toward Rainbow Dash, only to find Rainbow looking back and forth between Pinkie and Twilight.

"And then she'd know that being friends was nice but to KEEP friends you have to have fun with them! So she'd have to stop being some spooky magic ghost pony and just try to make everypony happy, with her crazy magic powers! She'd be all over the place, and pulling pranks out of nowhere, and making her friends laugh, and waking everypony up in the middle of the night to go and party and have fun together!" Pinkie shook one of the bookshelves, catching the falling book on the end of her muzzle and balancing it just for fun.

"She'd probably still come back to the castle sometimes just to remind herself how she started and how much she really needs friends and how much she likes playing that organ because really, that was a lot of fun! But she'd have to do it in secret so nopony realized that she wasn't just some friend-loving, attention-seeking happy pony but really the spooooky ghost Pony of Shadows! Because if they did, they'd probably stop being her friends, and not invite her to parties, and she'd be just as lonely as Princess Luna was but a million times worse because now she remembered what it was like to have friends! But yeah, I think we'd all have met some party-pony like that, if there was one in Ponyville."

Pinkie stopped talking and took a moment to look around. Seven sets of eyes, five pony, one bunny, and one dragon, were staring at her, with just as many mouths hanging agape. Pinkie blinked in momentary confusion.

"... What? Why are you all staring at me?"

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