First Pony Plural

by AugieDog

Epilogue: Present Active Imperative

Twilight was blinking so much, Fluttershy almost wanted to offer her some eye drops. But then she already wasn't drinking the tea Fluttershy had poured for her, and, well, Fluttershy didn't want to impose.

"So now wait," Twilight said, her gaze moving back and forth between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, sitting at the end of Fluttershy's dining room table and taking a swig of the soda pop Fluttershy always kept in the refrigerator for her visits. "You...you're saying—"

Rainbow rolled her eyes and gave a pretty sizable belch. "I don't see what's so hard to get here, Twilight." She brushed at the medal Fluttershy was pretty sure she'd been wearing around her neck ever since the ceremony at the Commodores' Club two days ago. "Eff and me: we came, we saw, we conquered." She leaned forward and tapped the table, one of her great big grins stretching across her face. "Three friendship problems solved in one afternoon plus we saved the entire city of Cloudsdale from a couple sky kraken." She sat back. "Awestacular's the word I'm using for it."

"But—" Twilight was still blinking. "You did this all while disguised as each other?"

"Oh. Yeah." Rainbow gave half a shrug, and a blush darkened her face. "That."

The silence that followed seemed to beckon to Fluttershy even though that awful little voice was whispering, You'll just embarrass yourself...

"We had to be disguised, Twilight," she said, putting into words what she'd been thinking about ever since they'd gotten back. "If I'd been entirely me or if Rainbow had been entirely her, I don't think things would've worked out nearly as well."

"Huh?" Rainbow asked. "No way, Eff! I mean, c'mon! You still woulda taken care of those kraken pretty much the same way you did!"

Fluttershy raised a hoof. "But I wouldn't've been there to take care of the kraken. I would've been at the Commodores' Club with Misty and Hoops."

"So?" Her lips pursing, Rainbow poked at her can of pop. "I didn't do anything at the Club but sit there! You coulda done that easy!"

"I'm sorry to disagree with you again, Rainbow." Fluttershy reached across the table and touched her friend's hoof. "I spoke with Misty and Hoops at the reception after we got our medals, and they said you gave them exactly what they needed to hear exactly when they needed to hear it: something about patience and practice and working for what they wanted?"

"Oh. Yeah. I—" Rainbow's blush came back. "I guess I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Picking up her cup, Fluttershy took a sip of tea. "And while I very much enjoyed my time pretending to be you, I think you and Twilight should switch the next time."

"What?" Twilight's ears folded back.

But Rainbow's perked up. "Hey, yeah. Yeah! The dye job'd be a lot easier, and all I'd need would be some sorta hat-horn-thing to wear! You could probably magic up something like that, couldn't you, Twi?"

"Okay!" Twilight jumped to her hooves, her wings partially spread. "Well, it looks like you're both fine, and with the, uhh, odd circumstances here, I don't think we'll have to worry about this happening with the map again." Her horn started to glow. "I'll just file it under 'Anomalies,' and we'll call the matter closed. See you at Pinkie's Friday night!" And she vanished in a puff of purple light.

Rainbow laughed and sucked down the rest of her soda. "I kinda doubt that'd work, actually, me and Twilight switching. Can you imagine her remembering not to use magic the whole time?"

"That's true." Fluttershy sipped from her cup once more. "Which is why what I really think we should do next is pretend to be each other pretending to be each other."

Half a heartbeat went by, then Rainbow asked, "What?"

Glancing over, Fluttershy couldn't help giggling. "I'll pretend I'm you disguised as me, and you'll pretend you're me disguised as you. We won't have to bother with any dye, and all we'll have to do is tell the truth." She shook her head to muss up her hair just a little and put the tiniest bit of roughness behind her words. "No way! I'm totally Fluttershy! Why wouldja think I'm not?"

For a moment, the only thing Fluttershy could hear in the silence was the pounding of her heart and the voice in her head saying a lot of nonsense about how Rainbow was going to think that was the stupidest idea she'd ever heard. But Fluttershy was hardly even tempted to hide behind her bangs. She knew Rainbow better than that, and she knew—

"Eff?" Eyes wide, Rainbow had both her front hooves planted on the tablecloth. "Of all the awestacular things that anypony's every said to any other pony, that's the awestacularest!" She leaped into a hover, her chair tipping backwards onto the floor. "We'll do it for Pinkie's party Friday night! They'll all think we're trying to do the prank again, but we'll be doing a completely different prank! Uh, I mean—" She landed, set her chair back upright, and perched in it, her face and voice strangely bright and perky. "Oh, my, yes! As Rainbow Dash, I certainly agree that we should give it our very best try!"

Another second of silence, then Rainbow was pounding the table and laughing. Holding her teacup to keep it from spilling, Fluttershy giggled some more as well.

Comments

[AugieDog]

And there it is:

Competed two days before the contest deadline!

Mike

[The master of the game]

7610233
Competed? Don't you mean 'completed'?

Anyway, nice story. Awesome all the way until the very end, end hilarious without a fault!

[AugieDog]

7610314

Eeep!

Docontra just sent me a PM full of typos in the text that need fixing, too.

Mike

[Eddy13]

Well, that was an interesting tale. I'm still a bit bummed it didn't lead to romance (that was actually my reason for reading it in the first place), but good job nonetheless! Good luck in the contest. You're going to have a few contenders, especially myself.

[AugieDog]

7610463

I had the idea:

For this story at the end of August and was just starting to think about how I wanted to approach it when I saw Titanium Dragon announce the contest. I thought at first the story wouldn't qualify 'cause there isn't any actual Flutterdash, but then I read the rules and saw that romance wasn't required. Still, I'm glad you liked the story--I'll need to set some time aside to look at the other pieces in the contest folder.

Mike

[Mares-a-Mares]

Cute~

[djthomp]

Great story, Augie. I particularly liked the more introspective look at both Dash and Fluttershy, not to mention the sky squid shipping and how the prank played into things.

[AugieDog]

7611314
7611907

Thanks, folks!

To write cute little adventure stories is pretty much the whole reason I'm here.

Mike

[Shrink Laureate]

That was fun!

At the beginning I initially thought the characterisations were a little extreme, but it quickly became clear why as you started changing them up. Over three chapters it all feel nicely into place, with some very creative ideas.

[forbloodysummer]

Great story, an interesting idea done in a fun and funny way. Giant flying squid romance is best romance.

[AugieDog]

7622937
7624981

Thanks, folks!

The story's not quite a "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" kinda thing, but it leans that way. And I'm really surprised that it's taken me this many years to get sky squids into one of my Pony stories!

pbs.twimg.com/media/CKvc8S2WoAA_d-O.jpg

Mike

[lazyreader19]

hnnnnng. This needs to be an episode so bad! It's so much like something I'd see on a given saturday!

[BleedingRaindrops]

Very cute. Felt almost like a real episode, except paced better.

[AugieDog]

7629808
7634608

Thanks, folks!

That's another thing I like trying to do a lot of the time: try to make a story that sticks as close to the show as I can.

Mike

[BleedingRaindrops]

I especially like your design for the sky kraken, and how misunderstood they are. Gentle giants that simply have too much power to control sometimes. Also with the extreme sexual dimorphism, it kind of reminds me of the angler fish, although with the angler fish the male never really leaves the female's body.

[Secret Septus]

Yay!

[Titanium Dragon]

I reviewed this story as part of Read It Now #94.

My review can be found here.

[Cursed Quill]

I wanna see that party.

It might not work quite as well as a story as an animation.

7680431
Like any Freaky Friday…oh, is that why the party… the how of the switch is just about never given story focus.

The consequences are always the important part. In this case, the friendship part.

I mean, sure, Twilight worrying about how it happened could make an interesting fic, but…that's on a different patterning.

[Black Hoof]

Nice and funny fic!
Are you planning to write more on that theme? Like, Twilight switching with Applejack?

[De Lupe]

Well, I lost that bet. I genuinely thought it was a Discord-style lesson. Like, he found out about the prank and he could sense the problem in Cloudsdale starting up, so he thought he'd prank them during their prank.

You should totally find a way to justify doing the others. I think it'd be hilarious watching Rarity be Pinkie or AJ.

[AugieDog]

7698769

It might not work quite as well as a story as an animation.

As someone:

Who can barely draw a straight line--despite putting together ten pages of webcomics a week--I don't have anything but stories to offer, I'm afraid.

7729319
7730972

I had a hard enough time setting this switcheroo up!

Glad you enjoyed it, though!

Mike

[Cursed Quill]

7731969
It's just that so many of the differences between RD and FS are in where they are, how they move, whether they stay grounded…you did a good job showing them in this, I might add.

[son_of_heaven176]

Excellent work. And even though I had to stop a few times to remember that Fluttershy and RD are disguised as each other, I cannot fault your storytelling for that.

An interesting premise, and good execution. Liked, and off to the Good Reads folder with this one.

[Godiswithus3]

Well, this was a weird but amusing ride. Thumbs up.

[SedaFox]

Really awesome story! However, the tittles of the chapters seems a bit..weird?

[nicklaich]

Nice!
In the middle I was afraid the whole story will sink into the dreadful body-swap, but no, you have pulled it out somehow.

[AugieDog]

8270579

Thanks!

Personally, I think the sky squids really helped. You can't go wrong with sky squids!

Mike

[Solid Punch]

This. Is. The best! Thing! Ever!!!

[Eroraf86]

Fun, sweet, and totally unique. Well done.