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Where destiny goes to die (Part 1)

“-So the captain gives me the mug and I jump. I probably would’ve drowned too if it weren’t for one thing…” Laughingstock looked down with a sincere look of deep thought. The room was completely silent and waited on his every word.

“…Root beer floats.” He whispered into the microphone in front of him in a comedic manner, now looking up from the floor with a goofy grin on his face. The audience of ponies before the stage in the dimly lit comedy club erupted in laughter at the bright red stallion’s pun. “Yes, thank you everyone, it’s been a pleasure.” Laughingstock bowed to the audience before disappearing behind the stage curtain towards backstage with a couple of the other standup comics that’d be performing in the Las Pegasus Comedy Club for the night, some of them looking quite nervous.

“Hey don’t worry guys and gals, I got em’ warmed up for ya. Don’t sweat it.” he said, patting one of them on the shoulder.

“H-Hehe yeah, I think we’ll be fine. Nice job out there yourself by the way.” A short and pudgy purple Pegasus stallion said to him with a nervous smile.

“Thanks pal, now go out there and make a name for yourself…but don’t do TOO well, or you’ll make me look bad.” Laughingstock smirked a little bit before trotting out from backstage and to the exit of the club. Outside, it was just as he’d expected a place like Las Pegasus to be at nighttime. Dark in the sky, but really flashy everywhere else due to all the neon that looked to be on every single building in the city, and quite a bit of trash littering the streets.

Was definitely Laughingstock’s kind of place.

But he didn’t have much time before he his train left, and he still had to get back to his hotel to pack up for the trip home. The life of an up and coming comedian was a real fun one, but he did have to up and leave his house a few times to try and perform wherever he could. He made pretty good bits off of doing this, but that was just icing on the cake. Hearing ponies laugh at his jokes made him the happiest he could be. Just knowing he could leave an impression on ponies like that made a smile come to his face.

Laughingstock took a big whiff of Las Pegasus’ air, which upon doing so made him cough a little bit, but still smile nonetheless. “Heh…you’ve done good Laughingstock.” He said, lightly and proudly patting his flank, which had the mark of a minimalistic, light blue, laughing pony face next to a microphone cutie mark emblazoned on it.

“Oooh you made ponies laugh for a living?! Best job EVER!” Pinkie cheered happily, smiling big.

Laughingstock took a deep breath and nodded. “Probably one of the most rewarding careers a pony can have. I was able to make ponies nearly pee themselves in laughter, and at the same time was able to do it to support myself. I mean, not anymore for…” he stopped in the middle of his sentence and gave Starlight a sharp glare. “…Obvious reasons.”

Starlight tried to just sit quietly and listen to Laughingstock with a straight face. It was beginning to get hard though due to her slowly building rage. She knew what was coming up next, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Wait wait wait, if you were going home on the train, how did you end up in Starlight’s village?” Rainbow asked with a confused expression.

Laughingstock did his best to not make eye contact with the rest of the ponies in the room as he continued. “That part is…pretty embarrassing actually.”

Laughingstock snorted loudly and his eyes shot open when he heard the blaring of the train whistle going off. He jolted up, noticing two things right off the bat. One, he was the only pony still remaining on the train. Second, a bit of drool that was left on his mouth which he quickly wiped off before looking out the window. Wherever he was right now definitely wasn’t his home. There was nearly nothing but rocks as far as he could see, only in very far distance could he make out what appeared to be a town.

Laughingstock groaned a little at the sight of this. “Craaaap, I fell asleep. Must’ve missed my stop.” He grumbled to himself. And his trip had been going so well too. He thought maybe if he hadn’t filled up so much on all that Las Pegasus food that he might not’ve fallen asleep.

Hindsight wasn’t going to be any use to him now though. This apparently was the very end of the tracks, and the train wouldn’t be operating for another day. He got off the train car and observed his surroundings. Again, still just desert it seemed. He sighed and made his way to the small town he could see in the far distance. Maybe there was somewhere he could stay there until tomorrow. Even the most basic of towns have some form of Inn or hotel right?

The closer he got to the place though, the stranger it looked. And by strange, he meant strange in the sense that everything about the place looked so…ordinary. All the buildings looked exactly the same, no diversity at all. The designs of the buildings themselves weren’t even that interesting to begin with. Why? Who would want their town to look this mundane; it didn’t add up.

Those thoughts were only pushed to the back of his mind though when he noticed somepony approach him from his left. It was an Earth Pony stallion of white color and a very neatly cut mane, and an enormous smile on his face that spread nearly ear-to-ear. Whether the smile was just disturbing or welcoming, Laughingstock couldn’t tell. Either way it was a little off-putting.

“Welcome! I’m Double Diamond, very nice to meet you!” the pony greeted him, keeping that wide and unnerving smile.

“U-Um, heyyyy there. You know when the next train leaves? I uh…kind of fell asleep and ended up here.” Laughingstock nervously replied with a sheepish smile.

Double Diamond’s smile didn’t waver. “Oooh sorry buddy, next train doesn’t come till Sunday. Heh, maybe next time you’ll try to stay awake” he giggled a little.

Slightly annoyed, Laughingstock cursed himself under his breath. “Rgh, damn my exhaustion. Well I guess since this is the only place for miles it looks like, I’m staying here until then. You know anywhere I can stay for a few days?”

“Ooh I’m sure Starlight can set you up somewhere just fine. We don’t have too many ponies living here right now, there’s only four of us here besides her. We’ve got plenty of space!” Double Diamond replied cheerily.

“Starlight? What does she run the place or something?” Laughingstock asked with a raised eyebrow.

Double Diamond rolled his eyes a little. “Oh we ALL run the town, she just founded it and invited us in. See, nopony here is superior. We’re all equal.” Double Diamond said, turning around and starting to walk towards the house at the end of the town and giving Laughingstock full view of his cutie mark, that being a black equal sign.

Laughingstock tilted his head a little and thought to himself. ‘That’s a really…bland mark.’ He then looked at some of the other ponies scouring the town, all three of them. One being a light blue unicorn stallion, one being a dark blue Pegasus mare, and the last one being a dark pink unicorn mare. All of them had the same enormous smile Double Diamond had, and even had the same cutie mark.

‘…Well I have a lot of questions.’ Laughingstock thought to himself again. When he and Double Diamond finally reached the house, Double Diamond gave it a good knock.

“Starlight, are you here? We have a visitor!” he called out. After waiting a few seconds, the door very slowly opened. For a moment that seemed to go on forever, nothing came out of the door. It just stayed open with nothing happening for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

Up until a light purple mare that Laughingstock could only assume was Starlight zoomed in the doorway to greet the two of them.

“Ooh thank you for showing our guest to me Double Diamond! Welcome, I’m Starlight Glimmer!” she said happily, extending a hoof to Laughingstock.

“Heh, cheerful huh? I like that. Laughingstock’s my name. Nice to meet you.” He responded with a smile and shaking her hoof.

“So, what’d you two think of each other when you first met?” Twilight asked both Laughingstock and Starlight at the same time.

“He seemed pretty nice. I hadn’t gotten many ponies coming around to my village just yet so I was always happy to see a new face around. I didn’t ever really account for how much trouble he would cause later down the road.” Starlight replied with an inkling of a scowl forming.

“Considering she was my only chance at shelter, and the fact she seemed pretty friendly at the time, I liked her fine. But it’s like looking Discord in the eyes, it’s a very deceitful type of friendliness.” Laughingstock said with a straight face.

“U-Um could you please not use my friend’s name in vain?” Fluttershy asked.

“Wait, what now?” he asked with a very confused look at her.

“…Never mind, that’s a story for another time. Keep going please.” Fluttershy said with a sheepish and nervous smile.

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