A Dark Fic
The room was black and moonless and it reeked of sickly-sweetness, like the innards of an eviscerated gummy-bear.
They were all thinking it, but Rarity was the first to say it.
"Twilight, dear, just where exactly did you teleport us?"
"I... I don't know." Twilight admitted cautiously, eyes darting around the darkness for any clue, hint, sign, landmark, but ultimately finding none. "I must have made a miscalculation."
"Least we ain't bein' chased by that whatchamacallit lion anymore." Applejack sighed in relief. Mostly relief.
"Nemean lion." Fluttershy corrected, "And I'm sure that wherever Twilight took us, it's much safer. That lion looked really hungry."
"I don't 'get' carnivores," Rainbow admitted, "what's so great about meat anyway?"
"Well, I got to try meat with an adequately equipped digestive system in the mirror world, and I have to admit, meat tastes really good. It tastes how spending Sunday in bed with a new Daring Do book feels."
"Woah. Really?"
Twilight nodded, though nopony else saw in the darkness. "I hate to say it, but we're delicious."
"And that lion was so hungry..." Fluttershy whimpered. "I almost feel bad for it."
"If Twilight hadn't teleported us, Fluttershy, you'd be feeling a heck of a lot worse." Rainbow pointed out. "Now how about teleporting us away from here, Twilight?"
"I can't, not until I'm certain as to where we are. Otherwise we might end up someplace a whole lot worse."
"Worse than a dark room that smells like Granny's old perfume?"
"I'm afraid so, Applejack."
"Oh yeah?" This came from Rainbow Dash again, "Like where?"
"Well, the lion might have had a family, for starters."
"O-oh. Right."
"Not to be a bother or anything, but has anypony tried moving yet? Or are all still just huddled around Twilight talking?"
"Nope"
"No."
"I am Twilight."
"M-move? By myself?"
"Right." Rarity mused, "That's what I thought. Perhaps we should all move in synchronicity until we find the source of our dreaded darkness. Perhaps we are underground?"
Applejack grunted. "I don't know, this sure feels like carpet to me."
Twilight snorted, moving her hooves about carefully, listening to them go schlick, schlick, schlick. "You're right, AJ. It feels like... actually, it feels like very sticky carpet."
"Are we sure this isn't Pinkie's bedroom?" Rainbow pointed out.
Twilight sighed loudly. "Pinkie's sick, Rainbow. If anything, she's probably in her room right now, with the lights on, eating soup."
"Oh. Right."
"I sure wish Pinkie Pie was here," Fluttershy stammered, judging by the sound of her voice from somewhere close to the ground and well behind everypony, "maybe her Pinkie sense could tell us where we are."
"But she's not." Rarity declared. "She is at home, in bed, eating hot soup, decidedly not being chased by lions or trapped in dark, mysterious places."
Twilight sighed. "Rarity, don't try to fake being sick next mission, I'd see right through it." Then, louder, to the rest of the group, "Alright, gang, we're going to try moving, then. As a team. Are we ready? One... two..."
The group pressed together and then, on Twilight's count, stepped forward. There was a loud, dull thump.
"Ow!" Rainbow hissed.
"What?! Is it a monster? Did a monster get Rainbow?" Fluttershy hollered back,.
"What? No, I just... bumped my shin against something. It really hurt."
"Okay, let's try to move around whatever Rainbow Dash bumped into. On the count of three... two..."
They took another step. This time Rarity yelped in pain.
Applejack rolled her eyes, again a futile gesture in the inky blackness. "Shin?"
"Gracious, no. I think I stepped on a Snappo brick."
There was a collective intake of sympathetic breath sucked through clenched teeth.
"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Rainbow shouted.
"And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, girls, but whoever heard of a single Snappo brick being left out? There must be a veritable minefield of them ahead of us." Then, Rarity continued in a hushed, dangerous tone, "Any one of us could be next."
There was an angry, desperate murmurring amongst the group. Nopony wanted to step on a Snappo brick. Those things hurt. Particularly if they wheedled into the sensitive frog of the hoof like they somehow, against all odds, always did.
"Forget this!" Rainbow declared, "I'm flying out of here!"
"Rainbow, no!" Twilight whispered (in that way that is actually probably louder than your normal speaking voice, and not really a whisper at all, thus defeating the point of it being a whisper if you really think about it for even a second) back.
But it was too late. There was another dull thud and the sound of a hollow coconut being banged against a rock.
"What was that?" Fluttershy trembled, the others feeling her crouched behind them from the force of the air that was coming off her terror-shivers.
"There's a ceiling here." Rainbow groaned, rubbing her head, "It's pretty low, so I flew right into it."
"That was your head?" Applejack asked incredulously. There was a beat before she started snickering. Twilight and Rarity joined her.
"What? What's so funny?"
"Nuthin'. Tell you later."
"What? Come on, I wanna know!"
"There are more pressing matters, Rainbow! Like finding out where we are."
"Oh. Well, why don't you try to see the floor in front of you with your magic or something. Be an egghead, egghead."
"If I can't see, then I can't... Oh, dear Celestia, I'm an idiot. Rarity, just focus your magic with me for a moment."
"What? Whatever for, Twilight?"
Twilight's horn lit up, illuminating her face and Fluttershy and Rainbow's beside her.
"Oh. Well, now I feel rather silly too."
Rarity and Applejack were illuminated in a matching, dim light from Rarity's horn.
The five ponies glanced ahead and gulped. In front of them, basked in the glow of two horns, was a tremendous pile of spilled Snappo bricks, almost glinting menacingly in the dim light.
"Well, glad you worked it out now, rather than then." Applejack said, slowly, carefully, eyeing up the path ahead of them. "Where do you think we are?"
There was the sound of hoofsteps approaching. Everypony stared at each other desperately, hoping against hope that one of them had a plan.
"Okay, everypony hide!" Twilight whispered in that same whisper-that-isn't-a-whisper. They scattered.
Rarity's and Twilight's horns went out in a blink, making it much harder for the others to work out what was happening, and which sounds were their friend's and which was the mysterious interloper's.
What they knew for certain in the darkness, however, is that no less than three of Rainbow's four shins were banged, quite loudly, against three different pieces of furniture, and Applejack stepped on no less than four very pointy-sounding Snappo bricks.
The door to the room opened, letting in a thin ray of light. The room's own lightbulb flickered on, pinning everypony underneath the gaze of the irritated owner.
Fluttershy hadn't even bothered to hide, instead desperately having tried to melt unseen into the floor. Rainbow sat beside a bedside table, nursing her other three shins with the only uninjured one. Applejack lay on her back, trying desperately not to cry and almost succeeding. Of the two remaining, Rarity would probably have remained hidden the longest...
"Eeeek! Tacky, tacky, tacky, gross, gross, gross, tacky, gross!"
...had she not barreled out of the closet she had secreted herself away in, flailing at the clothes that had tangled in her fur and mane, leaving behind her a strewn trail of garments and coathangers. She collapsed beside Fluttershy on the floor, rocking herself back and forth.
Twilght sighed and crawled out from her hiding spot under the bed.
"Great work, guys. Really, A for effort."
Twist stared at the four inconsolable ponies on her bedroom floor and the fifth trying desperately to console them, to no avail. They were, after all, inconsolable. It's right there in the name.
Twist stared at them from the doorway, hoof still poised over the lightswitch. "Muuum? Daaad?" She called desperately, eyes never leaving the strange ponies acting strangely in her room.
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I am not sure if the Dark tag is right. maybe a light-dark. Like, it is only just dark enough to pass as dark.
Thumbs up.
Wat.
You know, all this time I thought they'd teleported in the lion's stomach, and I was waiting for acid to come out of the walls.
4982236
What... what the hell is up with that.
Fix'd.
I'm imagining this being the actual case now and laughing my arse off. I think I was correcting another line and my cursor slipped, that's my only explanation.
...why [dark]? I almost didn't read it because of that, ya big dingus[1]!
Otherwise, great fun. I especially liked the twist ending. Very Shyamalan.
[1] "Called.... somebody... dingus..." Well, there's that crossed off the bucket list.
4982269
It's the whole reason for this fic's existence, and probably the reason it's probably already got three downvotes.
It's a very dark fic.
4982273
...
Punning in the tags should be banned on pain of summary defenestration. And you wouldn't want anything to happen to your fenestras[1], would you?
[1] Which reminds me of my favorite obscure ponyfic joke (well... not joke as such...)
"And then I told him that if he didn't clear out right now I'd defenestrate him! You shoulda seen him run! It was awesome!"
"Defenestrate! Wow, Rainbow, all that reading's paying off, isn't it," said Twilight, smiling, "bit of a serious threat, though? Wasn't he an earth pony?"
"Gross, Twi! I wasn't actually going to do it! I just knew he was gonna run off 'cuz he was afraid for his fenestras."
"That's not... what?"
"Oh! Does that word have an egghead plural again? Fenestri? Fenestrae? Fenestrim?"
"No it's just that... I mean nopony would want damage to their fenestrae. I certainly wouldn't. Even if the temporal ones are closed, but... "
"What! You... you don't have those. Right. Because you are a... you know. Mare," Rainbow said, whispering the last word and casting a furtive look around and putting two hooves on Spike's ears. Or where Rainbow thought Spike's ears were which, as it happened, was a few inches off and, by sheerest coincidence, quite close to his fenestrae.
"Of course I do! One, anyway. So do you."
"What?! No I don't! Who told you that?"
"Everypony does!"
"I have two! Temporal. Open ones, too," said Spike smugly, batting away Rainbow's forehooves.
"Oh, well done Spike! You did read that Cladistics for the Curious book I got you," said Twilight with a bit of a hop, clapping her forehooves together.
There was a lengthy silence during which Rainbow looked up, left, right, sideways, back, and in several new directions she invented on the spot. She brushed the back of her neck with a hoof. Finally, gaze firmly fixed on the ground and blushing furiously she spoke.
"Um... guys," she said, voice cracking, "I'm gonna level with you. I don't think I know what 'fenestra' means. 'cuz I don't think it means what I, uh, thought it meant."
4982269
The fic is very dark in much the same way as it's got a twist ending.
4982273
I feel like I should be forming an eyerolling mob to glue a few feathers to you and run you halfway down the block on a rail.
4982368
I feel it's cheating if your comment is funnier than the fic it's attached to, Ghost.
4982382
I didn't give the kid a margarita, but the temptation was overwhelming. You see this fic, like a good cocktail, needed a Twist of Lime.
but....but that fic didn't have a surprise ending at all—
...dohohoho youuuu.
4982457
Oh, please. It's hardly funny at all. The comment, I mean. It's just a bit of foolishness.
RIP my sides...
This might possibly be one of the darkest fics I've ever read... The only way it could have been any darker is if I were wearing sunglasses while reading.
It's almost never a good idea to say such a thing in the description, but for this story, I'd have to say I rather enjoyed it.
Litterally, the ending was a surprise Twist. This is definitely a dark fic.
....Faved!
Ah, I see you wrote a sequel to White Box. Good job turning the concept dark.
... What am I supposed to do with this? I can't even save it because all the humor is in the tags.
4982246 When I read the tag and description my immediate though was this strip: Dork Tower.
Also nice
at the end.
What an excellent twist!
EDIT:
Foreshadowing!
I'll admit, you got me. I was almost certain I knew what the twist was early on. I was completely and totally wrong.
WHAT A TWIST!
That was great. Got a chuckle out of me. And... Very nice use of the dark tag.
The worst place they could've possibly ended up... It would've been better to have stuck with the lion.
THIS WAS AMAZING OH GOD TAKE ALL OFMY EVERYTHING
MOTHERFU—
Thumbs up!
Is it bad this is my favorite line?
4982457
And HOW many times have YOU left little bits of utter hilarity on someone ELSE'S fics, HMMMMMM?
Also, stop updating when I am at work.
Mr Numbers!
Love, Love, LOVE finding unexpected shorts from you!
Didn't see that 'twist' coming, had a completely different one building up in my head!
As always, made me smile even though I'd been crying ten minutes before reading it!
Thank you for brightening up my day!
Literal neat.
So... then they're most likely in a child's bedroom. And thus, not in immediate danger.
...can't these unicorns just make their horn glow?
Yeah, snicker all you want about Rainbow's head, but she was the one who figured it out
Heehee. Child's bedroom. Called it.
This was nice! Maybe a little dark at times, though
A couple of remarks (in case you didn't see me dump 'em on the irc):
> Anyone of us could be next.
Should be "Any one of us", since this is really just "one of us" with "any" in front of it.
> The room's own lightbulb flickered on, pinning everypony underneath the gaze of the irritated owner.
Missing paragraph break after this. Add an empty line.
> ...Had she not barelled out of the closet
Continuation of previous sentence; this shouldn't have a capital letter. Also, "barrelled" has two r's
[edit]
Was wondering if you fixed that last one, but I guess "barrelled" with two L's is British spelling
Hey Mr. Numbers, got another small fix for you in bold: "Not to be a bother or anything, but has anypony tried moving yet? Or are WE all still just huddled around Twilight talking?"
Another brilliant bit of comedy with humor on multiple levels. An excellent subversion of GrimDark tropes done with great aplomb. A tip of my hat to your sit!
4982368
Wait, what fic is this because it sounds like a great read right before bed and I've never heard of it before. Is it one of yours?
5207536
Alas, no. It's just a fragment I wrote out.
5208557
I've seen fics with FAR shakier premises and "Comedies" with way less entertainment value that stretch on for pages than this one snippet. Please, for the love of all ponykind, I beg of you to finish the fic!
5209726
Awww. Thank you kindly. It's not a... I mean, it's not a story idea as such. It's... well. It's a joke. I was thinking about Rainbow's new voracious reading habits and how new readers tend to have strangely asymmetrical vocabularies and amusing misconceptions about what words mean. I also worked out a similar routine[1] for Rainbow misusing 'squamous and rugose[2].'
[1] And one that doesn't require you to have a working understanding of taxonomy to get, too.
[2] With Spike going "What's wrong with being squamous? I'm squamous." "No, you are not! You are nice! And cool!" "Well, gosh, thanks, but I'm still squamous." "And Granny Smith's quite rugose. What do you have against her?" "She is?" &c &c.
5210418
Delightful! I hope that you'll have some time to work on them this Holiday season! With so many people regurgitating the same tired tropes it's very exciting to see some real word play. Don't be a tease and just leave us hanging!
Thanks again for writing this Mr. Numbers, I forgot to favorite it earlier but I'll correct that now.
I have so much to say about this story, just I am unable to put it all out in logical sentences.
5210418 I'd read a collection of these.
This fic, and then...
4982368
Really, Ghost? Really?
Really?
Incidentally, the joke works without it, but now I'm intensely curious what 'fenestra' means in this context, and the limited search-fu I've thrown at it is not helping. Eg naval cavity and temples? But that's not taxonic... I don't think...
5485791
No, you are right. Fenestra is Latin for window, and it is used in taxonomy and comparative anatomy to describe openings. Without qualification 'fenestra' refers to the temporal fenestrae: openings on the side of your head which are exceptionally important to cladistic taxonomy because a big split in species lineages is diagnosed by seeing how many temporal fenestrae open during development. Twilight and all other ponies are, of course, synapsids by way of being therapsids (obviously, they are mammals, after all!). The cladistics of dragons (this should be a title of something) is less clear (ha!) but I decided to make 'em diapsids just like, say, dinosaurs. And given where the closed fenestrae (temporal arches, essentially) are on a generalized diapsid skull, if you tried to put your hands over spike's 'ears' you would have a high chance of actually clapping them over his fenestrae.
So that's the biology. And, wow, Firefox thinks I've misspelled half the words in that last paragraph.
Anyway. The joke is that Rainbow somehow got it into her head that 'fenestra' are naughty bits of some sort or another and that threatening to defenestrate[1] someone is threatening to, ah, remove said naughty bits.
[1] Term meaning 'to cast a person or a thing out of a window' and has been coined to name the, ahem, First Defenestration of Prague and the Second Defenestration of Prague the second of which was an important factor in starting the Thirty Years' War. Which... yeah. The Polish do not muck about.
5485831
I got the joke, just not the biology. (Which I'm now going to go research more intensely, thanks so very much /sarcasm /sacrasm-maybe)
I have no reference frame for how seriously to take you regarding the Second Defenestration of Prague. Either way, however, that is really awesome.
You think stepping on Snappo bricks is painful? You ain't seen nothin' yet:
4985809
4982457
5485984
Hey... I do this kind of thing, too. Occasionally. On Bad Horse's crap, mostly. There was one time on HoofBitingActionOverload's tentacle smut story, though.
It's, like, you start writing a joke. But then you think up funnier stuff to add and soon there is a writhing ball of awkward and bad humour and it can pass as a story because it's, like, 1k or 4k long, yet it's merely a comment. An act of vandalism, in short story form. Although, I don't think the vandalism is emphasized enough for it to be actual vandalism...
It can also be interpreted as one-upmanship to the author whose story the comment is posted on. Maybe. Though, that really isn't the intention. Speaking for myself, I do it cuz it's fun.
4982368
I think this the closest Ghost will get to writing raunchy comedy. I shall savour it as such, for my perviness demands it.
It's like one of Bad Horse's fave lines, "Squeezing out a foal", except not as graphic. Hey... that's actually a good selling point for Regidar to get on the Bad Horse bandwagon, seeing as he's into that kind of stuff.
Anyways, according to Rainbow Dash, the mother prolly "defenestrated a foal". Multiple foals, actually.
5426057
Check your PM ^_^
5487817 I did. Thanks Obama.
5487817
I don't do that very often, mostly because two days later I have to nearly tie my hands together to stop me from deleting the comment from sheer embarrassment.
I just got four comments on this story in an hour?
Did it stop being stupid all of a sudden?
5487817
Ah. No. Someone just tagged all the other comments that he could.
I see.
5489939
Mmmfughuhwha? What's going on? Aaaaaag, light!
Ahem. Yes, well. Anyway.
I don't know why Pinkie isn't involved either. It seems like there should be a really good[1] pun of a reason why not.
[1] For that value of 'good' by which puns are measured, anyway.