I - The Big Apple
The Big Apple
“Now, my little princess, make sure to behave yourself during the tour!” Filthy Rich said to Diamond Tiara as he simultaneously checked out that his daughter had the ticket for the tour, fretted if she had everything she could need for it still on her custom-made brand saddlebags, and worried about her general state of being, despite the fact he had already done all of those things more than three times back at the hotel after they had their breakfast, and twice more during the cab drive. All the while he kept stealing glances at both his pocket watch and at the clock placed on the wall of the tourism agency to make sure he wasn’t going to be late. “Remember to be polite, follow the tour guide instructions, and above all else do not wander off! Manehattan is a very big place, and I don’t want you risking getting lost!”
“Yes, daddy,” the pink-coated filly answered for what she felt was the tenth time in five minutes as she consciously fought back the urge to roll her eyes. She loved her father, she really did, but sometimes he acted like she was still a foal! She knew how to take care of herself, for Celestia’s sake! “I shall stay close to the tour guide at all times and shall not wander off, promise!”
“Very good, very good,” Filthy Rich said as if he was trying to convince himself of the truth of her words as he nervously looked one way and then another at the throng of ponies bustling all around them while biting his lower lips.
Seeing that, Diamond decided that a small intervention would not be amiss. It had taken her forever to convince her dad that allowing her to take this tour alone was a good idea! And considering how the only other option available to her should he decide to cancel it on the last-minute would be to stay locked inside their hotel room, bored out of her mind for hours as Filthy attended the very important business meeting that had caused them to come to Manehattan in the first place, she had a vested interest in not allowing him time to change his mind!
“Shouldn’t you hurry along, daddy?” she innocently inquired as she batted her eyelashes at the black-maned stallion, before she gasped as her eyes accidentally landed on the nearby clock. “It’s nearly time for your meeting! And you know how chaotic the traffic here can be! You better hurry if you don’t want to be late!”
The stallion looked at the clock himself one more time, before he looked at the very large, and very well reputed, tourism agency he was about to entrust his precious princess to for the day, and finally looked towards the still angelically smiling filly in question with a very conflicted look on his face.
“Are you sure you will be alright by yourself, princess?” he asked while fidgeting in place, his nervousness and worry clear for all to see, before he hopefully added. “I mean, it really wouldn’t be a bother to drop you at the hotel as I make my way to the meeting.”
“Positive!” Diamond loudly proclaimed as she made sure to keep her eyes as wide and sparkling as possible. Sure, thanks to the Cutie Mark Crusaders she had learned that manipulating other ponies was wrong, that it shouldn’t be done and that it never really ended up well to the one doing it. One only had to look at her mother to see where that road ended, after all! But desperate times demanded desperate measures! And like hay was she staying cooped all alone inside a room staring at a wall for over three hours due to her father needless fretting! “Don’t worry; you know that Big Apple’s Tours has a spotless reputation! Everything will be just fine!”
“Well, if you are sure…” Filthy Reach hesitatingly said, before Diamond rushed forward and hugged him as a farewell so that he would get on with the plan already! “Take care, Diamond! Stay with the tour and enjoy your day, I will come get you right here in a few hours!”
“Will do, daddy! Have a nice day!” she enthusiastically said with a beaming smile as he finally started to enter the cab waiting by the sidewalk.
“Be careful, princess! And stay with the tour!” he shouted while putting his head outside the already departing cab.
“Don’t worry, I will!” she immediately replied while waving a hoof in farewell while maintaining a huge smile on her muzzle. A pose she kept for several moments longer until the cab turned at a corner and removed her from her father’s view. At which moment she promptly dropped it and let out a tired sigh.
Seriously, her father worried too much! Were they Ponyville ponies or not? What did the Big Apple have that could hold a candle to Ponyville, the Weirdness Central of Equestria itself? The place where a bucking crystal-tree-palace-thingy springing out of the ground after an attack by a magic stealing centaur didn’t get more than a cursory look by the inhabitants? The place where a monster attack of a huge bear-bee chimera wasn’t deemed important enough to even delay a wedding? She was a grown filly and knew how to take care of herself!
Scoffing in amusement at her father’s needless over worrying, Diamond Tiara walked into the building and towards where the tour group was supposed to gather, head held high and confident in the knowledge that she could easily deal with whatever it was that Manehattan could throw her way. After all, what was the worst that could happen?
As she stood in the very nicely furnished sitting room of the tour agency waiting for her fellow tour goers to slowly trickle in, Diamond had to admit that, as far as first impressions went, Big Apple's Tours seemed to live up to it's hype. The snacks offered as they waited were top-notch, the decoration was both tasteful and richly done, the seats were extremely comfy, and the staff was incredibly professional.
Yes, as she sipped at a glass of cooled, freshly squeezed apple juice and rested at a very comfortable chair while waiting for the tour to start, Diamond Tiara could safely say that convincing her father to let her go on this tour had been a stroke of genius!
“Greetings, young one, may I take a seat by your side?” somepony very cheerfully asked, making the pink filly to stop her woolgathering and focus on the pony who had just asked if the seat by her side was available.
“Yes, sure,” she said after a moment as she realized that the speaker wasn’t exactly a pony, what with his long thin legs and overall height, but was actually a saddle arabian, “The seat is free.”
“Marvelous!” the large sand colored horse happily proclaimed as he adjusted his flowing robe-like garments before squeezing himself on a seat that had clearly been designed to accommodate beings slightly smaller than his form. After fixing the large camera he was carrying around his neck, he turned towards Diamond with a blinding smile as he offered her his hoof in greeting. “I’m Nabid Mubtahij, or Joyous Spring in Equestrian I believe, a pleasure to meet you!”
“Diamond Tiara, it’s a pleasure,” she replied after a moment of hesitation as she shook the odd stallion’s hoof, taken a little aback by the sudden appearance of the foreign equine. Oh, sure, she knew that Manehattan was the very definition of cosmopolitan, easily being the city with the greatest diversity of beings in the whole of Equestria. But even then that didn’t mean she had expected to meet a saddle arabian out of the blue.
“Excellent! Oh, I’m so excited for this tour! How about you? I must say that I can’t wait to see the sights and wonders of the Big Apple! I’m touring through most of Equestria and I must say-” Joyous Spring started to cheerfully speak at an ever increasing pace, not leaving Diamond much of a chance to reply. Not that he seemed to mind overly much, despite the fact that every third phrase seemed to be a question of some sort.
As the deluge of happy babble kept pouring out of the stallion’s mouth as if it was a spring of words, making Diamond ponder that his parent’s name choice had been oddly appropriate, it took the pink earth pony a few moments to realize that the constant murmur of conversation normally found in an enclosed space filled with chattering ponies had ground to a halt. That an eerie silence had befallen the crowd as only Joyous Spring kept talking.
Tuning out the odd stallion, Diamond attempted to see what had caused this sudden change, as each and every instinct she had developed as a Ponyville pony told her in no uncertain terms that seeking cover as soon as possible might be a good idea.
“Completely crowded, fantastic!” a deep gravelly voice growled from the entryway, sarcasm dripping out of each word. “Why, by the great abyss, did I let Stheno convince me to join you in this idiocy?”
A tiny movement from the ponies in front of her allowed Diamond to see the owner of the gravelly voice as an opening appeared in the crowd, only for her to gasp in surprise as she felt her blood run cold. For there, standing at the doorway to the room stood a figure that any pony that had ever bothered to open a storybook would recognize. He was a large ram, his coat a deep-blue with a mane white as bone, two curling black horns on the top of his head and vivid crimson eyes.
“C’mon, dad, it isn’t that bad!” a tall brown colored biped creature with bat-like wings and a lion’s mane cheerfully interject to the very angry looking ram. Only for said ram to grab him by the front of his mane and forcefully drag him towards his eye level.
“Let’s make something perfectly clear, your sorry excuse for a sculpture!” Grogar, the Tyrant of Tambelom, the Dark Warlock, the Father of Monsters, a villain straight from a foal’s storybook, growled at the still cheerfully smiling gargoyle held tight on his grasp. “My darling daughter may have, for reasons that elude me, decided to marry you! But that does not mean you may refer to me in such a familiar way!”
“Oh, don’t be like that, dad!” the gargoyle happily continued, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that Grogar’s horns were slowly being enveloped by a black miasma with each cheerful word that left his mouth, or how the ram’s eyes were now shining with a deep crimson light. “Can’t we just get along? We’re family after all! And besides, Stheno asked us to spend some quality time together as she dealt with her little business venture!”
“I will gut you!” Grogar hissed through clenched teeth as darkness seemed to slowly seep out of his very form as he glared at the still happily smiling gargoyle.
As if his words had been some kind of signal, the silent and completely still crowd of ponies that had been watching the whole scene unfold exploded into action in typical pony fashion, as they all proceeded to scream and run away every which way in a blind panic.
And as she watched the growing chaos from her very comfortable seat, Diamond Tiara decided that maybe coming to this tour hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.
Stats
Page generated in 0.014 seconds
Total duration
917 users online
455,259 hits today, 2,156,967 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
You have lived in Ponyville far to long to taunt fate like that
Grogar has a daughter, that's so sweet
... I get the distinct impression that said "business venture" is the same thing that Filthy is in Manehattan for
10107954
Indeed.
Glad you enjoyed the intro.
Well now, that's a start and a half, I wonder how they got clear to the center of the city without anyone noticing?
Stheno eh? Good name.
10107963
Beautiful as always.
10108353
I plan to tackle that at the start of the next chapter. It will be fun.
Glad you liked the chapter.
10108521
10108782
Your many sarees are beautiful just like the Legend of Zelda story.
Ok. This is very promising
10109390
Thanks.
This is by far the most hilarious collection of typos I have ever seen.
Yes, at Pony-vile (the most vile of places), we celebrate the pulling of weeds.
Ponyville has two L's and a wedding has two D's but only one E.
And now I have this image stuck in my head:
"You may now pull the weed." Said Mayor Mare as she watched Diamond Tiara struggle to get the aforementioned plant out of the ground. At last, she pulled it out. "I now pronounce you farmer and weed."
Your use of "as" was a bit too much for the sentence structure's integrity to pass my safety inspection. It is with heavy heart that I proclaim this grammatical housing unsafe for use. As a bonus for choosing TC Inspections, here is a new house for you free of charge.
"As she stood in the very nicely furnished sitting room of the tour agency waiting for her fellow tour goers to slowly trickle in, Diamond had to admit that, as far as first impressions went, Big Apple's Tours seemed to live up to it's hype."
Change "Ponyvile" to "Ponyville".
Also "during years" and "Ponyville pony" both say the same thing, so you can cut one out to make the sentence less repetitive. If you cut out "during years" the rest of the sentence won't be affected negatively, so that is what I would do. I would also replace "pony" with "resident" because it avoids the repetition of "pony" in "Ponyville pony". Generally, it is a good idea to use a wider variety of words because it keeps the sentence fresh and interesting to read.
Fun fact: The word "as" appears in this chapter 39 times.
Hahahaha! What a great way to end a chapter. I loved reading this and look forward to seeing where it will go next.
Oh You probably should not say that Because that's tempted fate kid
Well this should be interesting tour lol I mean with grogar the most dangerous villain going on the tour and everything yeah thia should be fun