Shipshape's World

by WishyWish

4 - How to Kiss a Platonic Platypus

One by one they came. Ponies of all shapes and sizes, all creeds and trots of life. Most were from Ponyville, but some of the Equestrians who materialized a few feet above the ground and found themselves deposited in the dirt hailed from Canterlot or beyond. All had the same story – primping for bed, checking themselves before an evening get together…whatever the reason, it always had to do with a mirror.

Twilight Sparkle found herself hammering at the strange latticework ‘wall’ with everything from magical finesse to brute force, but nothing she did had any effect. Panting, she slid down on her haunches and soon found a small white teacup thrust before her eyes.

“Oh, Twilight,” a familiar voice offered softly, “That looks really hard. Are you okay? Do you need a drink?”

Twilight’s droopy eyelids suddenly snapped back to full attention. “Fluttershy? You have water?”

“O-oh, well…no,” the yellow pegasus admitted. “I just happened to be holding the cup when I passed by the mirror in the upstairs hallway. But, you know, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Twilight tried to cover the depth of emotion behind her sigh with a soft smile and a simple nod. She glanced down the street and realized just how rapidly this new ‘town’ was filling with ponies. Ponies that were going to starve if she didn’t think of a way out of this place.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight ventured. “Have you ever heard of Shipshape?”

“Oh, of course!” The softspoken mare brightened. With a voice like the tinkling of breezy wings, a she gleefully sang, “‘Shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’. Silly old rhyme.” Looking suddenly quite embarrassed, Fluttershy leaned into Twilight’s ear and whispered, “You know…I tried it once. All by myself when I was a filly. Don’t tell anypony, okay? I didn’t see anything because my brother came into the bathroom right after, and I never got up the courage to try it again.”

“You don’t say?” Twilight murmured sarcastically.

“Twilight, are we…going to be okay?”

Ponyville’s resident princess fluttered her wings and hung the reassuring, royal smile she’d been practicing on her cheeks. “Of course we are. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.”

“Hey Twilight!”

A bluish blur came streaking in from above, quickly solidifying into the form of Rainbow Dash. The cyan mare characteristically wasted no time. “Hey, have you figured this one out or what? Everypony’s getting restless. Mayor Mare’s starting to put together some weird Lord of the Flies command structure or something. They’re prolly gonna go native on us if we stay like this much longer.”

Twilight closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her hooves. “I’m doing the best I can! Until maybe an hour ago I had no idea what ‘shipshape’ even was, and since then I’ve been pulled through a mirror right before bed after a long day, deposited in a ghost town with no food and a magic barrier to deal with, and now everypony’s expecting me to just fix whatever this is for them.”

“W-well,” Fluttershy commented, “you are the local princess, after all.”

“Wait,” Rainbow Dash laughed, clutching her belly, “you don’t know what shipshape is? You’ve got to be kidding! You’re pulling my wing!”

“No,” Twilight repeated for at least the tenth time that night, “I never heard of ‘shipshape’ before, okay? I guess it’s just not as common a thing as you all thi—”

“Ah never mind,” Rainbow Dash cut in, “anyway, you’re being summoned.” Dash was, as always, hovering a few inches off the ground. Twilight often wondered if the cyan mare had a thing about getting her hooves dirty.

Twilight’s ears drooped. “I know the mayor wants answers, but can you tell her—”

“Not the mayor,” Dash grinned, “A higher power. You, me, Fluttershy, Applejack…you know who else. Let’s go!”

Taking wing with her two companions, Twilight could hardly believe the sight before her eyes in the ‘town’ square. The crowd was keeping a respectful distance, but the moment her hooves touched the dirt, Twilight was trotting along with a newfound confidence.

“Princess Celestia! Princess Luna! You’re here too?”

The Princess of the Sun, who had been conferring with her darker sister, turned to greet her star pupil. “Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is good to see you as always.”

Twilight was thrown off by the easy greeting. She glanced uncertainly between the two matriarchs and reminded herself, as she often had to, not to bow. “I…wish it could be under better circumstances.” She began to launch into an explanation of everything that had happened since the incident with her bathroom mirror – embellishing her own attempts to remedy the situation only slightly – until Celestia held up a hoof.

“You needn’t fear, my student. It’s only Shipshape.”

“Nopony shall be harmed,” Luna added, “However, the evening is likely to become…interesting, before the moon retires.”

“Shipshape is an ancient legend,” Celestia began, “but the keywords required to activate it only fell out of the vernacular approximately sixty years ago. What you see all around you is Shipshape’s world, which takes the form of the home village or dwelling of the pony who summoned it. There is no known escape, save one.”

“And that is?” Twilight practically begged.

Luna managed a blush – a feat for a pony of her coloring. “Shipshape shapes…ships. Relationships. Shipshape knows only one thing, but that is the thing Shipshape knows absolutely. The identity of your…perfect match. Everypony who needs a date gets one, as it were.”

Celestia continued the explanation, her mane sparkling in the moonlight. “‘Shipshaping’ was once very popular with the youth of Equestria. The practice fell from grace under the hooves of concerned parents who couldn’t keep tabs on what went on in Shipshape’s world, and a modified form of the incantation with no effect was created, thus reducing Shipshape to the status of little more than a legend. Young Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo invoked the correct incantation without realizing what would occur, and thus could not control the power of the ship. Left unchecked, it will eventually spread to every mirror in Equestria, and continue to pull ponies to this world.” Celestia glanced upwards thoughtfully, “As I recall all it takes to remove Shipshape’s influence from a mirror is to soap it down and let it sit for approximately one hour, but modern ponies would not know to do this.

Twilight sighed with relief. “So what do we do? How do we get everypony home? A counterspell? A monster hiding somewhere that needs to be defeated?”

The sisters glanced at one another and traded amused smiles. Celestia spoke up. “I believe that is what my sister was trying to convey before. There is only one way to escape Shipshape’s world, and it is a fairly simple one – go with the flow. Allow yourself to be ‘shipped’ to another pony, and much like Granny Smith, you will be sent home in the blink of an eye.”

“Oh!!” Pinkie Pie, who had been patiently listening in with the other element bearers for as long as she could stand, could no longer contain her enthusiasm. “So you mean all I have to do is kiss somepony and I can go home?” Without further ado, she grabbed Rainbow Dash, dipped her, and planted a sensual kiss on her lips that was enough to make even Rarity blush.

“Mmnf! H-hey!” The cyan pegasus flailed, “Cut that out! It’s totally not cool!”

Pinkie, Dash still firmly in her grasp, glanced down at herself. “What? Why am I still here? I was having frosting dreams! FROSTING DREAMS!! Do you not understand how important frosting dreams are!?” With every complaint, she went back and forth between shaking Rainbow Dash violently and launching another kiss sortie all over her cheeks.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” Celestia noted. “The gesture is meaningless if it’s not with your match, even if you don’t necessarily realize your bond with them yet.”

“But I love everypony!” Pinkie insisted.

“It’s not that kind of love, dear,” Rarity, who was still in her fluffy white, monogrammed nightrobe commented. “They’re referring to love that’s somewhat less…platonic.”

“What!?” Pinkie dropped a yelping Rainbow Dash in a heap, “That’s silly! I’ve never kissed a platypus before!”

“N-no dear, I said platoni—aack!”

Pinkie was atop her new quarry in the turning of a second, pressing Rarity’s back and her spotless nightrobe into the dirt. She touched muzzles with the fashionista and bore a stare into her. “Have YOU ever kissed a platypus? Don’t lie to me! I know.”

Rarity couldn’t get a word in edgewise before the partypony atop her was peppering her cheeks, muzzle, lips, and eyelids with butterfly kisses. Every half a dozen or so smooches Pinkie looked at the assembled trio of royalty, who merely shook their heads in unison. With that, she leapt away from her prey and bounced into the crowd like a cannonball – pouncing, pinning, and otherwise assaulting random ponies with the taste of her cotton-candy lips. Squeals and cries of terror caused stallions and mares alike to scatter in all directions.

“Pinkie stop!” Twilight cried in vain against the din, “You’re causing a panic!!”

Every few seconds Pinkie’s mussed mane and manic eyes popped up from somewhere in the crowd. Celestia and Luna, unmoving, simply shook their heads at her every time. When the terrified crowd disbursed, Pinkie could be seen pinning a terrified lavender pegasus colt under her hooves and staring down at him like a shrew in an eagle’s talons.

“P-please don’t hurt me…” The colt whimpered.

“Oh come ON!” Pinkie complained, “I kissed everypony in town like a hundred million thousand bajillion-zillion times! You can’t possibly tell me my very special somepony isn’t here! Well, I guess maybe they might not be here yet, so maybe if I just wait around…but I don’t wanna wait around because I was having dreams about frosting, even though I was standing in front of the mirror at the time…wait what was I doing in front of the mirror anyway? Oh right, I was doing that. Maybe we’d better not talk about that. I mean I was thinking about frosting after all so it’s completely understandable, but, hey wait, where’s my somepony!? I’m telling you I love everypony, so really this should be easy!”

“They have to feel the same way! Even if they don’t realize it yet…” Twilight glanced at the other princesses for confirmation, “…right?” The bringers of night and day merely nodded their assent.

“Anypony can be my somepony!” Pinkie complained. “Everypony loves me! YOU love me—” She mooshed her muzzle into the muzzle of the shocked colt beneath her. “Kiss me! If I have to put the sugar before the frosting then that’s just what has to happen! Frosting…frosting…nnnngggahhhh…”

Drool spattering on his cheeks, the unknown colt was about to scream for his life, until a blue hoof shot out from nowhere and cupped Pinkie’s chin, pulling her away from her victim. The moment he could move even just an inch, the lavender colt shimmied to his hooves and galloped crying straight through a bunch of illusory homes and businesses. Pinkie, her attention now on the owner of the hoof, could only stare blankly, saliva running down her chin.

“F-f…frostiiinnngg…” Pinkie muttered, stupefied.

The hoof caressed Pinkie’s cheek lovingly. “Shhhh,” its owner cooed, “there’s plenty of time for frosting. Let’s go home now.”

Pinkie Pie, moaning about candy and balloons, slipped into Mrs. Cake’s sturdy embrace. The latter bent over her charge and pressed her lips slowly home.

POOF

Applejack, trying her best to let whatever happens in Sugarcube Corner, stay in Sugarcube Corner, trotted up beside the blank statue that was Mr. Cake and gave him a manly, sympathetic pat on the withers. “Guess you an’ th’missus got some talkin’ to do, huh.”

“Wha—?” Mr. Cake’s face was red from maneline to halfway down his neck. “O-oh! Right! I uh…sure do need to have a talk with the missus, don’t I? I’m just so…” he waved his hooves about dramatically, “upset! And confused! A-and…betrayed! Yes, betrayed! That’s it! I’ll have a talk with both of those feisty mares—I mean, my wife and our roomma—live in—uh…friend who lives with us just as soon as all of this is cleared up!”

“Ah…bet ya will,” Applejack raised an eyebrow. Before the nervous Cake patriarch could take his leave, the apple mare pointed at a particular scene nearby. Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake, the toddler foals of the cake family, were cooing incomprehensibly at one another. The two grinned, pecked each other, and summarily popped away into nothingness.

This time, Mr. Cake’s expression was truly one of shock. Applejack snerked. “That there’s gonna be a hoof-full in about thirteen years. Cain’t say I envy ya.”

Twilight was helping Rarity back to her hooves. “Are you alright?”

Rarity sharply threw up a hoof. “My robe is a mess, and I don’t think I have the will to hear about my mane right now, so I’d rather you not even tell me. And I do think, dear, that we must see about informing the masses who weren’t close enough to overhear exactly what is going on, before they assume that Pinkie Pie has finally gone off the deep end and is hiding in every bush waiting to love them all to death.”

“Right! Let’s go!” Twilight, a spring in her hoof, was on the job. After a few steps however, she noticed nopony was by her side. She turned. “Rarity?”

Rarity hadn’t moved. She was staring despondently at the dirt beneath her hooves. Her snow white coat did nothing to hide the deep blush playing about her cheeks. Twilight obliviously headed back in her direction.

“Are you sick? Do you need to lie down?”

“Seriously Twilight?” Rainbow Dash, who was suddenly hovering beside them, looked exasperated. “You’ve never seen that look in a mare’s eye before? Heck even I know what that look means, and I hate mushy stuff!”

Twilight’s expression betrayed her ignorance. Rarity glanced away. Rainbow Dash guffawed.

“Duh! That was her first kiss!”

“N-no it wasn’t!” A mortified Rarity snapped back into the conversation. “Wh-why…why I’ll have you know I was knocking them dead in high school! I was the cream of the crop! The upper of the crust! I was marvelous!!”

“That was your first kiss,” Rainbow Dash insisted dryly, folding her forelegs. “And it was with a sugar-crazed, ballistic Pinkie Pie. She bleeds cotton-candy, and I really do not want to know what she was doing with frosting and a mirror before she showed up here.”

“No, no!” Rarity had her foreleg on her forehead and took several steps away from the group, her eyes rolling up. “I refuse to accept it! My prince will come for me one day, and he will be the one to have my first kiss! I am pure as the driven snow! Untainted! Above reproach! Smelling of—”

“Taffy and boysenberry blast cupcakes,” Dash interrupted.

“…lilac and midsummer’s rain! That simply did not happen! None of you saw it! Erase it from your memories!”

The remaining element bearers traded glances and rubbed at the back of their heads. Rarity swooned, but Applejack caught her before she hit the dirt again.

“Woahhh there, nelly.” Applejack carefully laid the unconscious, dramatic unicorn down. “Gonna break yerself if y’keep that up, and we ain’t got no couches ‘round these parts.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight whirled accusingly on the pegasus. “That wasn’t very nice. You were clearly embarrassing her.”

“Ehhhh…” Rainbow Dash hesitated, but finally nodded and managed to force her grin down. “I guess you’re right. I’ll apologize to her later. Meanwhile we gotta get outta here, right?”

Considering turnabout to be fair play, Twilight raised a brow. “That we do. So tell me, how are you planning to get out of here? Did you forget when you were tormenting Rarity that Pinkie kissed you more than she kissed her?”

“Guh, don’t remind me,” Dash rubbed her mouth sloppily with the back of her hoof.

“So?” Twilight repeated. “Why don’t you tell us all how you’re going to do it? You can’t just fly away, and we’ve already established that no amount of brute force or style and finesse are going to get us through the barrier, assuming the ‘world’ outside this town isn’t just an illusion to begin with.”

“Me?” Dash shot back haughtily, tousling her colorful mane with a whip of her head. “Everypony loves me. I’m awesome! I’ll let some lucky fanpony nuzzle with my hoof or something, and I’ll be back in the sky in no time! Only trouble is picking somepony out from the swooning masses that’ll be trying to swarm me when the time comes.”

Dash felt a tug on her tail. She glanced behind her and looked down, only to find Fluttershy patiently waiting. The Element of Kindness held a hoof to her lips and coughed, clearing her throat.

“I haven’t fed angel or the chickens yet tonight,” Fluttershy mentioned, almost inaudibly. Dash gave her a confused look.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Fluttershy’s expression hardened, so subtly that it was difficult to notice. “The animals need food. They’re probably hungry, lonely, scared, and wondering where I went. I need to go home, right now.”

Dash only shrugged. “You heard about the way out just as much as I did. Pucker up and start looking around.” She chuckled, “Actually I really have to wonder how that’s going to work out for you.”

“Down.” Fluttershy said flatly, her polite smile evaporating.

“Huh?”

“Down,” Fluttershy repeated, pointing at the soft dirt. “Bad pony. Down this instant.”

Rainbow Dash paled. Her head dipped down to the level of her shoulders. Behind her, she could feel the eyes of her friends, carving her back up like a roast. Her voice was just above a whisper. “Fluttershy, that…that’s private. Now’s not the time. I can’t even pull any shade clouds in like this.”

“Are you a bad pony?” Fluttershy persisted. Her stare was volcanic and glacial all at the same time – it flowed through every synapse in Rainbow Dash’s brain, softening her mind with warmth as it cooled the fire in her veins with ice.

“N-no but—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Fluttershy cut in, pointing again. “Down.”

Rainbow Dash, her heart pounding, threw a murderous glance at Twilight and Applejack. “T-turn around.”

“Whut?” Applejack looked on. “Why?”

“Just turn around!” Dash snarled. Shrugging at one another, the alicorn and the earth pony did an about face. Dash glanced at the sky, thinking she’d try to force the barrier after all, but the moment Fluttershy caught her in those eyes again, she faltered. Softly, the uppity cyan pegasus lowered herself into the dirt, folded her wings in tightly, and lay on her stomach and chin. Fluttershy took flight just long enough to land on Dash’s back, straddling her and effectively binding her wings down with her hind legs. She reached down and nuzzled Dash’s mane with her cheek.

“There now, I knew you were my good little pony.” Fluttershy cooed. “Good little ponies should never fly away, no no no~”

“N-no…” Dash whimpered, her eyes shut tightly.

Fluttershy was running her hooves through Dash’s shock of colorful mane. “Dear me, you’re in need of grooming. Mommy will fix you all up, but we need to go back home first, okay? You’ll help mommy and come home with her too, won’t you?”

“Y…yeah…”

“Hmm? What’s that my little pony?”

“Y—” Dash’s voice was lighter than a cloud. “…yes mommy.”

“Oh!” Fluttershy, smiling like a spring day, laid upon her pony-pillow and kissed the top of its head. “How lovely! It’s time to go now. Say bye-bye, okay?”

“…bye,” Dash muttered to nopony in particular.

Twilight and Applejack were staring at the side of a building, their ears both swiveled as far behind them as they would go. They each tried to glance over their shoulders, but each stopped when they saw the other one trying to do the same thing.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight gasped softly, “I mean i-it’s totally none of my business, but…right out in the open? A-and…Rainbow Dash?”

“Ponies what act all high-falutin’ are just big softies when they let their guards down,” Applejack explained. “It’s exhaustin’ bein’ in control of yerself allatime. As for Fluttershy, ah ain’t never seen nuthin’ scarier than gettin’ in her way when it’s feeding time fer the animals.”

As they listened to more of the exchange, the two befuddled ponies caught one another’s wandering eyes two more times before Twilight spoke up.

“N-no, this…this is private. We should respect their privacy.”

“Ah got Rarity’s compact.”

“Oo, lemme see.”

Fluttershy slid around the side of Dash’s head, raised her chin with a hoof, and coyly made the two entwined pegasi disappear.

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

First incest, then an affair, then more incest, then Babycakes. Why did you have to go and ruin a perfectly good story with this garbage? D: