Twilight walks out of her guest room in the castle of the Crystal Empire. Shining Armor is sitting in a chair, reading a book spread out on a table in front of him. She makes a conscious effort to ignore the fact that he's reading a book. Yep, the book doesn't matter to her. Not at all. And she can prove it.
"Book morning," she says. "Good. I mean good morning." See? She has herself under control.
"Morning, Twilight," he says. "Wow, this book sure is interesting."
Horseapples.
"Great," she says. "I believe you. In fact, you don't even have to tell me the title and I'll still believe you! Please don't tell me the title."
"Duck Bills?" he says with a head tilt. "What's wrong with that?"
"No! Agh. It's happening again!" she says, rubbing her head with a hoof.
"Twi, you're scaring me. What's wrong?" he asks, worried.
"What's wrong is that I know that book has nothing to do with ducks or their beaks," she growls.
"Well, of course not." Shining Armor's confusion builds.
"And I know it's just going to be something completely different. Like walking out on the check at a restaurant. Wait! That's it, isn't it? Duck bills. Like, avoid paying. Ha! In your face!" she says with a proud smirk.
"What? No. Twilight, you're really worrying me. It's just a training manual."
This erases her smirk and her expression sours. "I don't know if I even want to know," she says.
Her brother doesn't seem to notice and explains. "It's about fighting against polearms and getting underneath them to get in close. It's got some stuff about halberds and spears, but its main focus is on how to-"
Twilight sighs, turning it into a growl, cutting her brother off, and finishes his sentence without bothering to even ask to see the title.
"Duck Bills."
This one did go over my head, but I just looked it up. Clever.
I actually was on Twilight's thought train.
She cannot escape.
9410158
Same here I was like Twi you finally got it! ,but sadly no she didn't nor did I
Ah, the good old duck bill, kinda prefer the axe or war hammer heads with the spear points myself. Pointy end goes into the other man as they say but infantrymen with pole arms tended to get the shaft. Up the creek when the archers start letting loose.
This chapter, and the questions it raised about medieval weapons, led me to this website. Anyone interested in swords, armor, and their depiction in media is highly encouraged to give it a read.
9410457
Nice link, learning about medieval weapons is fun, and there are so many misconceptions. One of the biggest is that medieval weapons were crude or low quality, but they really weren't. Really cool stuff to study, in my opinion.
The ability to come up with multiple answers that would make the joke is amazing. It's especially good because every book that you've done actually fits the personality of the person reading it from what I remember. Good job.
9410831
Thank you! I have made an effort for it to make sense for the pony to be reading the book, as well as not using the same character twice. They are fun chapters to make, and I keep looking forward to doing the next one, hehe. I am super happy that my efforts have paid off!
Duck Bills! Woo hoo!
9412907
Hahaha, nice. Love it.
Just watch for anvils:
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2010/11/21
WOW. Classic weaponry pun.
“Duck!”
“Where!?” Is hit in the face with a duck
Give Twilight a break.
When Twilight began to guess about the book, I knew she had made a glaive mis-take.
9417893
Hahaha <3
9410614
Indeed. The misconception about the quality of such weapons can be a sword point.
9419831
*facehoof*
(Good one)
9420504 I'm a biologist and have studied local plants for decades.