• Published 30th Mar 2020
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Marshmallow Dreams - Halira



Rebecca Riddle seems to be your typical human-turned-pegasus in a world of both humans and ponies, but she has a secret double life, and there is nothing typical about her other life.

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Chapter 93: Fetch Quest. Part 2

I began searching around for the Discord lamp and immediately ran into a problem; I didn't know what Discord looked like. Miss Seapony had mentioned him to me many times, but she had never actually shown me an image of the infamous Lord of Chaos. I knew he was supposed to be made up of parts of different creatures, but that didn't tell me much.

There was no shortage of strange and fascinating things available for trade or sale in the area. More than a few of them made me stop and gawk at them. There was a manticore; an honest to goodness manticore was on sale. The thing was huge! Who in their right mind would even want to buy something that could eat a pony in one bite? Where would you even keep it; tied up on a chain behind your house? Ponies kept a reasonably wide distance between themselves and the beast, and I followed their example.

There was a stall that seemed pretty popular selling buckball supplies and memorabilia. It was apparent the sport was far more popular in Equestria than back on Earth—which made sense; the sport originated in Equestria and had only recently migrated to Earth. I'd only played it a little in gym class during high school. I'd always had to play like I was an earth pony because no one wanted the fat pony who couldn't fly well to be their team pegasus. Just another excuse to get made fun of, even if I did my best to joke about it. Sure, they were using me as an earth pony, but only because I was so awesome at it. I wasn't so awesome at it, and everyone knew it was me trying to make light of it. Every once in a while, laughing at yourself didn't stop everyone else from laughing at you too. The experience didn't leave me with many fond feelings for buckball.

I found myself humming Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for some reason as I continued searching and eventually came upon a big tent filled with lamps. That seemed promising.

The inside of the tent was somehow still dim despite being filled with lamps that were on. It wasn't dark, and it probably would have been dark if not for the lamps, but it wasn't bright. A few ponies were browsing, but it wasn't crowded. Most of the lamps would have fit right in with any grandmother's living room. I didn't see any power cords going to any of them, so I was unsure how they were even on. Perhaps the Equestrians used batteries for everything? After close examination of the bulbs, I determined they looked a lot like the early light bulbs from Thomas Edison, rather primitive compared to the ones back home. Maybe that was why they weren't that bright. Bright enough to read by but not bright enough to fully light a room. I supposed that was good enough, and it had to be safer than trying to do everything by candle. Most of the ponies browsing were earth ponies with a few pegasi mixed in. There were no unicorns interested in lamps, but I guessed unicorns could just use a light spell.

I grinned as I spotted what had to be the Discord lamp in a corner. I mean, it was the ugliest thing in the entire place, and it was definitely a figure made up of a mishmash of different creatures holding a lightbulb in one claw without any shade. Finding the lamp wasn't hard at all. Now I just had to buy it. Easy-peasy.

I pointed a hoof at the lamp. "How much for that lamp?"

My hoof wasn't the only one pointing, and I wasn't the only one who just asked for the price.

I turned to see my nemesis in the quest for the Discord lamp. It was another pegasus mare, maybe a few years older than me, who had orange fur and purple mane cut short in the back. She looked at me, and I saw her sizing me up. It took me two seconds to realize that she had full intention of getting that lamp and wasn't going to back down just because there was competition. It was on!

"Oh, my extremely rare and hard-to-find Discord lamp?" the vendor, an earth pony stallion, asked. "Sorry, not for sale, but I would possibly part with it in a trade."

"Sweet Celestia, another trade?! Why does nopony just want to sell something? I just want to get Sweetie a birthday present, and this is like the sixth thing in this chain!" the other pegasus lamented towards the roof of the tent before turning her attention to the seller. "Fine! So, what do you want?"

"I want that manticore that Final Jeopardy has," the stallion informed us.

"The manticore, seriously?!" I asked in shock.

"You do realize that you run a shop for lamps, right?" the other pegasus asked skeptically. "Don't you think owning an enormous wild beast is counterproductive?"

The stallion raised his nose. "It will make a good guard dog for my shop back home. Plus, I'm not going to be one-uped by him having a manticore, and I don't. One manticore, that's my price for the rare lamp."

Right, a manticore, that should be fine… at least I knew where it was and didn't have to search. I only needed to find out how to get it before this other mare did.

She and I looked at one another, and we both understood this was a race. Crud, that wasn't good. My chubby chubs were not good at races.

We both took off at a gallop out of the tent, with me trailing her. This wasn't good at all and would only get worse when she got into the air to bypass the crowd. She'd find out what Final Jeopardy wanted first and already be on her way to get it before I ever arrived. I was going to be so far behind.

As soon as I was out of the tent, I took to the air. Equestrian air felt easier to navigate, but if I could fly better in it, then so could she. My fears were confirmed when I looked around the sky and saw no sign of her. She was flying so fast she was already out of sight and must already be at the manticore. Well, the only thing to do was catch up, find out what the price was, and hope I could come up with it before her. I had learned one big lesson already—Equestrians were insane when it came to trades. Who knew a flea market could be so demanding?

I already knew where to find the manticore and started coming in for a landing...and realized I was going too fast. I tried to slow myself down, but physics wasn't that different between Earth and Equestria, and there was only so much you could do to slow down as much weight as I had. I was going into yet another uncontrolled crash.

No, it was worse. I was going into an uncontrolled crash directly at the manticore!

I did everything I could to alter my course, but there was only so much I could do. I managed to curve it so I at least wouldn't collide with the giant scary monster and make it mad.

CRASH!

Urrh… I felt that one. Sitting back up after that was an effort.

I lifted my head and found myself face to face with the manticore, which was sniffing me.

I gave it a huge nervous grin. "Nice manticore. I'll be right out of your—ACK!"

The manticore grabbed me with his forepaws and pulled me to him. I was so scared I couldn't even struggle as he brought me in closer and closer towards him. This was the end. I was going to die as a manticore snack!

SLURP

It licked me!

The tongue continued to slurp me, one gigantic lick at a time, coating me with saliva. It took no time at all for me to be soaking wet with it, and there was no sign that the beast was going to let go. What a way to die. He wasn't going to make it quick. He was going to break me down slowly like a lollipop.

"Hey! Manticore! Want a cupcake?"

I could just barely make out the orange pegasus mare, holding a cupcake up in her hooves placatingly towards the manticore.

"A cupcake would taste much better than a pegasus, wouldn't it?" the mare asked, still holding up the fudge cupcake with pink frosting and sprinkles towards the manticore. I might be about to die, but that cupcake looked so good, and my tummy was extra rumbly right now since this was kind of a stressful situation—just a little bit.

The manticore considered me and the cupcake for a moment before dropping me and going and taking the prof offered sweet. The orange mare took a few steps back after he did, just to stay out of his grabbing range.

"You might want to move before he decides he can have both," the mare instructed me. I didn't need much cajoling. I started moving out of range right away and did a wide track around the manticore to join the mare.

She looked sideways at me. "A little-known secret that Fluttershy taught me; manticores love ponies, but not for eating. The only time they are ever dangerous is if they are in pain. That manticore wouldn't have hurt you, but he might have held onto you and treated you as his little plush toy for the next several hours. Why'd you fly so recklessly that you crashed like that?"

I rubbed the back of my head with a wing. "I was trying to keep up with you. I'm not a great flyer or an average flyer. I'm actually kind of bad at it. I have a hard time correcting course, slowing down, staying steady in a hover, you name it. I knew you would be able to fly here and get here way before I could, and I was trying to make up as much time as possible."

She blinked. "Um, you might have wanted to look down when you took off. I didn't fly here. I had to make my way through the crowd. You might not fly well, but I would trade one of my legs to fly as well as you."

She held up her wings, which I just now noticed were much smaller than average. They'd have been small on a foal.

"No flying for me," the mare said as she lowered her underdeveloped wings. "It doesn't get me depressed that much anymore, and they make a good motor for when I'm on my scooter."

"Oh," I replied, not knowing what to say. I felt kind of stupid for not noticing the size of her wings before.

"But hey, thanks for not noticing," the mare said with a laugh.

I let myself smile. "Thanks for saving me from being a manticore's plaything for the next few hours. I wouldn't want to miss my airship leaving." I held out a hoof to her. "I'm Rebecca, Rebecca Riddle."

She touched hooves with me. "I'm Scootaloo. Are you from Earth? That sounds like an Earth name."

I nodded. "Yes, on a weeklong tour of Equestria. Um...you need that lamp for trade?"

Scootalooo nodded and sighed. "Yeah, or at least, it is the latest thing I need to trade. I need the lamp to trade to this one mare for some baking recipe, which I need to trade to a stallion to get a set of special pie tins, which I need to trade to another stallion for a rare Snails buckball card, which I need to trade to another mare to get some weird hat, which is to trade for what I originally wanted to get—the original copy of the sheet music to a Bridleway musical that I know one of my best friends would love for her birthday. She's hard to shop for on a budget, but she's really into showtunes. What they wanted in bits for that music was way outside my budget, so here I am, trying to trade my way up to them."

"And now you're trying to trade for a manticore. Equestrian value of goods is really weird," I said, chuckling. "And I need a manticore for a lamp for a book, so I can't judge."

"So, ready to see what the next part of this fetch quest is going to be? Without taking any unneeded crashes?" Scootaloo asked. "Let's see how much he values it at."

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