• Published 13th Feb 2021
  • 9,849 Views, 542 Comments

Not Another Anon Story - nameundetermined



Yeah I guess maybe it sorta is. But hey people seem to like the Philosophy at least.

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Chapter Four

All was quiet aboard the Friendship Express. Our two intrepid traveling partners had long since retired for the evening to cash in a good night’s rest.

Anon sat reclined in his chair, a book open in front of him, presumably abandoned in favor of sweet dreams some time ago. He had lasted longer than Twilight had, at least. She had keeled over some time before him, likely tired from the excitement of her own day. After she had gone to bed, he had decided to pull out his phone and put on some music for himself, and a pair of headphones covered his ears, gently pouring relaxing, familiar music into his ears as he enjoyed his own slumber.

All stayed quiet this way for some time until the first rays of light peeked through the window and beat at his eyelids. He gave a small groan and slowly woke up, stretching in his seat and sitting up, looking around a bit groggily. He closed the book in his lap and put away his electronics, silently thanking himself for deciding to buy that Battery Pack on his last camping trip. It had saved him from more than a few cold nights trapped on the stoop of his apartment block with a dead phone, and it, presumably, would save him from plenty of long boring trips in the future.

After he put away his things, he closed his backpack and slung it back over his shoulder, making his way up a few seats to get a better look at Twilight where she seemed to still be fast asleep. “Hey Twi, you uh….awake…?” he asked as he approached, his words trailing off as he got a better look at her.

Or rather, at her horn.

Her horn seemed to have, over the course of the evening, become quite hilariously floppy, and was covered with blue spots. He stifled a chortle behind one hand as he slowly reached back, pulling his phone back out of his backpack slowly and using it to snap a picture before stuffing it back into his bag quietly.

As amused as he was, he was fairly sure that this was not a natural occurrence, and that he should probably wake her up and let her know about her horn’s severe erectile dysfunction. He cleared his throat and proceeded to speak up loudly “EY! Purple Smart, wake up!” He demanded firmly, thumping his hand on the back of one of the seats.

Twilight awoke with a start, managing to fall out of her comfortable perch on one of the seats and onto the floor with a dull thud before she collected herself and managed to stand up, looking quite miffed. “W-what!? What was that for Anon? Is there an emergency? There better be an emergency.” she said as she gave him a small, displeased pout.

“Well, I suppose that is dependant on what you define as an emergency. Does your horn do that normally, or should we see about getting you a doctor once we get to Canterlot?” he asked, barely suppressing an amused smile as he pointed to the wilted, spotted extremity.

“What are you talking about? I feel perfectly fine.” she said as she took a mirror from one of her saddlebags, slowly levitating it towards her face, “What do you mean, what’s wrong with my- OH DEAR MERCIFUL SISTERS THAT IS NOT CORRECT!” She screeched as the mirror dropped from her arcane grip, thankfully not shattering on the carpeted floor of the train. She looked up at her horn with a pitiable, deeply upset expression, waving her head back and forth in a way that made it incredibly difficult for Anon not to start laughing out loud at the way it wetly slapped against her own forehead.

Thankfully for us all, Anon was the hero she needed, if not the one she deserved, bravely steeling his will against the endless sea of low-hanging fruit that dangled from her cranium as he said with a straight face, “I am going to assume that is not normal. Okay. I think we should see a doctor about it.”

Twilight did not seem to be listening to him at the moment though, understandably focused on her problem, maybe a bit more than was healthy. “Oh no! What if the girls were right?! What if they all got cursed by Zecora, and now they are all back in Ponyville without me to help them figure out what’s wrong?!”

Her train of thought was clearly steering into unhealthy territory, so he got down on one knee to meet her eyes from a ways away. “Twilight,” he said in a firm, even tone, getting her attention. As she looked over at him unsurely, he gave her a knowing nod. “You know, we can test to see if this is a magical phenomenon or not. Just come closer to me, and if your horn goes back to normal, then you are having magic used on you actively to cause this. If not, there may be some other, more reasonable explanation than Zecora living up to your honestly sort of offensive racial stereotypes Seriously, it feels like you guys use slurs in private with the way you act over her.”

Twilight’s eyes widen, and her face flushes slightly darker as she shakes her head at the accusation “No! The girls and I would never call Zecora the...the z-word

As Anon visibly lost a bit of his faith in equinity, Twilight sheepishly continued. “But you’re right. I was chastising the girls over this yesterday! I won’t let myself fall prey to easy stereotypes as an answer instead of actually trying to figure out what’s happening for myself. Even if finding out might be… uncomfortable…” She said with equal parts gratitude and discomfort as she started edging towards him. “Y-you’ll catch me and put me somewhere soft if I pass out again, right?” she asked, looking up at him with a set of soft, worrying eyes.

He gave a small sigh and got on both knees, sitting on his feet as he looked into her eyes. “Twilight, I promise, I will make sure to put you down somewhere comfy if you have another episode. But maybe just don’t get that close to me again? I mean, three feet or so should be enough to effectively nullify any magic from what I remember of when you passed me that paper in the library, so just don’t get any closer than that.”

She gave a small nod and took a breath before looking back over at him, more determined as she slowly walked towards him.

Each step closer took greater force of will to commit to with the foreknowledge of what the effects might be. Her hooves felt heavy under her as she demanded her body continue to move against the urges of her instincts. “I-is anything happening?” she asked shakily as she continued to slowly make her way closer to him, that looming feeling of dread getting more potent, more overbearing, as she slowly trudged across the train car towards the other.

“Hmmm… no, not even a twitch…” he said as he watched her come closer, seven feet, five feet…. “Hey, maybe you should uh, stop? I think we would see some changes by now if it was something that was active.”

She gives him a thankful little look and nods, quickly dashing away from him and into a seat, looking over at him from behind one of the seatbacks somewhat fearfully. “Oh, thank you. Sorry, I just… sort of lose the ability to think clearly when I get too close, so I just kept going,” she explained as she shuddered a bit. “Uuuuugh...no offense meant Anon, but being around you is quite literally not a good time.”

He gave a small laugh at that, giving her one of the more warm, genuine smiles she’s gotten out of him. Of course, the canines certainly did not help her discomfort initially, but as she saw that he was in fact, actually happy, she relaxed a bit. “Hey, people disliked my company way before I had a fuck off anti-magical no-no-square around me. This just makes my uncomfortable social presence a bit more literal than before, is all,” he said as he got up and sat back down in one of the seats as well. “So uh, think we can maybe find you a doctor before we go running around screaming about being cursed?”

“Yeah, that sounds like the appropriate course of action, Anon,” she said as she reached up to fiddle with her limp little horn a bit more, giving a defeated sigh. “At least it still works…”

Anon chuckled softly at this and nodded. “And hey, if it isn’t reversible, look on the bright side. There is a very high chance that this is totally somebody’s fetish.”

“ANON!”

“Hey, flaunt it if you’ve got it. Or I guess flop it in this case.”

“Ughh…”

-------------------------

As they pulled into the station and started getting off of the train, they had relatively few complications. The way seems to have been cleared for them in advance, since Twilight had alerted the local royalty as to the nature of her precious cargo, presumably to prevent any innocent bystanders from unknowingly wandering into the area of effect for his anomalous properties.

Speaking of the local royalty, unless Anon’s eyes needed to be checked again, which was, to be fair, a distinct possibility with the thiccness on those bad boys he wore on his face, they were here awaiting Twilight’s arrival! Two very tall, very regal-looking ponies with wings and horns and lustrous, flowing manes stood before them, wearing armor of gold and… wait, what was that metal? It was a bluish hue, certainly not silver by the looks of it. Whatever metal it was, the shoes on the latter one were quite nice looking, by Anon’s reckoning.

The taller of the two stepped forward to speak as they got off of the train. She was a creamy white in color, with a hint of soft pink to her coat, and bright, warm, magenta eyes. Her mane flowed beneath her golden crown in an array of dazzling colors that, to Anon, resembled a majestic aurora. “Welcome home, Twilight,” she said as the little purple pony dashed towards her, stopping to give a proper and respectful bow to both of them before nuzzling against the Princess’s neck softly as the larger pony put a foreleg around her and hugged her gently.

After greeting her student, she turned her attention to Anon, regarding him in a less familiar, but no less respectful and warm manner. “And are you the unusual one my student informed me of?” she asked as she looked him slowly up and down. “I was honestly expecting you to be a bit more… imposing, judging by the notes she sent me.”

Anon gave a somewhat nervous smile to the Diarch, shrugging and giving her a polite nod of recognition, not making any move to bow as he spoke to her. “With all due respect, ma’am, I think it is for the best that your perception of me remain as nonthreatening as possible. I would come closer to greet you more properly, but I think we both already understand why that is a bad idea,” he said with a hint of humor in his voice.

The Princess gave a small nod at this, looking down at her student and slowly rubbing her back. Man, Twilight really seemed to be all over her. Anon supposed that after getting close to him like that again, being so near her teacher, who she was very familiar with and who was like a font of magic, was like a reptile basking under a cozy sunlamp, soaking in all of the good horse magic vibes. Or something. He certainly wasn’t any sort of expert on the subject, considering until yesterday he was unaware the subject existed.

The moment passed as a small cough issued from the slightly smaller, midnight blue alicorn with the mane that seemed to hold the night sky itself. She walked forwards and raised a hoof to her chest, speaking in a clear, firm cadence. “We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Hyoo-man. Our name is Luna, and we command the moon and stars, as our sister, Celestia, commands the sun.”

She seemed to think her intro was impressive, giving him an expectant look, to which he simply replied, “It is nice to meet you, too, Luna. This is a very nice place you have here, by the way, love the architecture, very whimsical,” he said as he looked around, rubbing his chin slightly “ a bit too many swirls and patterns for my taste but hey, what are ya gonna do?” he said softly before turning back towards Celestia. “Oh uh, by the way, can we get Twilight to a doctor? She seems to have developed a rather glaring issue with her horn.”

Celestia blinked as she looked down at Twilight, actually paying proper attention to her now it seemed, rather than placating her in the more automatic sense she had been a few minutes before. “What do you mean by- LADY TAPDANCING FAUST, WHAT IN TARTARUS IS THAT?!” Celestia asked as her eyes widened.

“Yeah, I guess it’s one of those things where if you aren’t thinking about it you might not notice. I mean, it strikes me as odd to go around staring at someone’s horn if you don’t need to be, right?” Anon rambled as he watched this all play out with mild amusement.

Celestia and Luna are, of course, substantially less amused. The former mentioned of the two gestured with a wing for a guard, who saluted her silently as she started to speak. “Please escort my student to the castle’s medical wing and have our horn specialist look her over.”

The guard gave a nod and another salute before gesturing for Twilight to follow, who gave Anon a slightly apologetic look before allowing herself to be led off.

“Bye, Twiggles!” he said with a small smile as he waved at her as she walked away from the train station. “I’ll see you after you get your horn all straightened out,” he said, finally no longer able to suppress a chortle which broke out into full laughter as she left audible range, looking visibly embarrassed by his parting comment.

His laughter was cut short by the two princesses looking down at him with mild disapproval. “And what exactly is so humorous about our sister’s student’s predicament, Hyoo-man?” Luna asked with a small scowl.

He managed to get his titters under control, wiping away a tear. “Hah… heh… okay, first off, I’m going to need you to stop calling me ‘Human.’ Yes, that is how that’s pronounced. Human. Not ‘Hyoo-man’.” he said as he waved a hand while he spoke. “Second off, I have a name, and unless you want me to start calling you both Sunbutt and Moonbutt respectively, you should start using it. Again, my name is Anon.”

Celestia’s jaw was more or less on the floor as Luna steadily became visibly more and more irritated by the way he was speaking. “And what, prithee, do you feel gives you the right to address us in such a disrespectful way as to bestow unto us a title referring to our hindquarters?”
“A better question is, what gives you the right to act like you are exempt from getting roasted over your bad manners,” he said with a small shrug, smirking at her now. Despite them being taller than the other ponies, he still had a good head or two on them and looked down at them with a smug expression, crossing his arms.

“W-what do you mean?! We are the Princess of the Night! We are one of the Eternal Rulers of this Realm! How dare you mock us so flippantly?!” she demanded, stomping the ground firmly as she stared back up at him firmly, unwaveringly in challenge.

“Eternal ruler, pah, I didn’t vote for you. I’m only here because Twilight promised I would get paid for letting you get scientists to study me,” he said, tilting his head and giving a small, noncommittal shrug.

Celestia decided to cut in and speak as well. “One does not vote for a Princess, Anon. That is not how that works,” she said, with the tone of a mother whose patience is still hanging in there but is expected to be run quite thin by the end of the day.

“Alright then, how exactly did you become Princesses?” he asked almost rhetorically as he tapped his foot, feeling a bit frisky now. Yeah, he had been on the fence about it, but seeing them act this way had sealed it, he was going in.

Celestia smiled almost fondly as she recalled the memory, looking up more at the sky than the strange creature she found herself inexplicably defending her right to rule to. “It was a very long time ago. After we had managed to defeat the spirit of Chaos, Discord, with the Elements of Harmony, we took the burden of lifting the sun and the moon from the poor, overworked council of unicorns who had been performing the task for years. After our act of supreme benevolence, all three kingdoms surrendered their right to independent rule over the next few years and we became the rulers of a united Equestrian Kingdom.”

“What? That’s… Listen. Attractive female equines slaying monsters and moving celestial bodies is no basis for a system of government,” he said flatly, much to the apparent horror of the two Diarchs. “Authority is derived from the continuously affirmed consent of the governed, not from some farcical Arcane Ritual.”

“Okay, I think that is quite enough…” Celestia said in a much more irritated but still patient tone as she looked up at him, narrowing her eyes slightly.

“I mean, you can’t expect to indefinitely wield supreme executive power just because you defeated some villain of the week ass motherfucker with a magic MacGuffin a thousand years ago and decided to ease the burden of the general populace in doing a necessary celestial function.

“Be Silent, Whelp!” Luna demanded more assertively, raising her voice slightly and stomping the ground, cracking the floor under her.

“I mean if I suddenly decided to declare myself God-Emperor just because I kicked some evil dark god in his bits and started moving Mars around with my mind, they’d fucking put me away!”

At this point, Celestia could take it no longer, she roared and leaped forward, rearing up on her hind legs, as she hugged Anon around his waist and started aggressively shaking him. “SHUT UP SHUT UP I ORDER YOU TO SHUT UP!” she screamed into his ear in a voice far louder than should have been able to come from her little pony mouth.

“Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system!” Anon said as he was shaken back and forth like a box of particularly cynical Tic Tacs. “Everyone, come and see the violence inherent in the system!’

Sadly, before anyone had a chance to come and see the violence inherent in the system, Celestia’s vehement shaking slowed and stopped. A soft, dry groan could be heard from her as her mane faded in color, then receded into her head as her youthful visage gave way to the wrinkles and roughness of age in a matter of seconds. Her very eyes seemed to dry and shrivel slightly as the sun began to dim and swell and redden until with wide-eyed horror, she realized what was happening and pulled herself away from him while pushing him away, her face absolutely alight with what could only be described as higher-level existential terror.

Anon suddenly found himself surrounded by at least two dozen very displeased-looking guards, all poised and ready to strike if provoked or ordered. Celestia neighed mindlessly in sheer terror repeatedly as her withered body stumbled away from him and slowly began to recuperate. As her physical body recovered, the sun returned to its former brightness and size and hue, her mane returning to its former splendor as the terror more slowly left her face, replaced by wide-eyed shock. “Y-you were right… I-I mean to say that T-Twilight was not exaggerating…” She said softly, her voice hoarse (tee hee horse) from all of the screaming.

“Yeah, she really wasn’t. Are you okay? That looked incredibly brutal,” he said as he brushed himself off and straightened out his clothes. “And you might want to call them off? I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job some more, but I don’t think any of us wants to find out what happens if one of you ponies gets my blood on you. We figured out on the train that the reason that happens is because my species’ blood is iron-based instead of copper-based.”

“Iron….Blood?” Celestia’s eye twitches slightly at this, her guards all taking a notable few steps back, looking at each other unsurely. It was safe to say they were not getting paid enough to deal with this bullshit. “...Okay, guards, back to your posts,” she said flatly, giving a small, defeated sigh as her guards all quite happily scattered and went back to their previous posts around the building.

Celestia gave him a long-suffering, deeply unamused look. “I apologize for my outburst. Though your behavior was most atrocious, I am a Princess, a ruler of this realm, and as the only member of your species in our land, you are, technically, the sole representative of your species and therefore a valued guest of the crown. I should have conducted myself more properly and been less… forthright in my objections to your assertions.”

He shook his head and raised his hands. “Hey, it’s no skin off my back. A big portion of my species has an ingrained problem with authority, to be honest. Long story, we can get into it later if you want.” This was of course, not a good time to bring up the guillotines. “I can only speak for myself, and if you treat me with the respect that you would treat one of your equals, I will treat you the same, otherwise, I’ll treat you with however much respect you treat me with. I just want to be super clear about the fact that I do not see monarchy as a legitimate means of governance.

The two of them shared a mildly surprised, confused look, Luna deciding to chime in this time. “It is most… forthcoming of you to admit that so freely in front of us, Hyoo—Anon. Do you not worry for your safety, so brazenly declaring yourself an enemy of the state?”

He gave a small shrug. “Eh, honesty is generally the best policy in situations where your power over your situation is limited, I have found. I am here for a specific purpose. After I have fulfilled that purpose, I have no intention of doing anything but living my life in whatever way satisfies me the most at any given time. I have no plans to violently overthrow your government,” he said truthfully as he looked down at the two of them softly. “If I am upfront about my feelings on the matter now, it will avoid any potential comical series of misunderstandings later on. You ponies seem really susceptible to that sort of thing from what little I have observed of your student with her friends.”

Celestia gave a small sigh, planting a hoof on her face. “That observation is… unfortunately correct. If you wish, we can have a serious discussion about the legitimacy, or lack thereof of our right to rule later, Anon. It could be a fun exercise in philosophy, and I would enjoy trouncing you in measured debate. But for now, while you are a guest in our castle, could you please, as a favor to Twilight, who has an immense amount of respect for us if not to us directly, refrain from questioning the legitimacy of our crowns openly? It is, as the ponies in the media are wont to say these days, ‘bad optics’.”

He resisted the urge to shit talk to her on the subject of her beating him in a debate. She might very well, to be fair. She is apparently over a thousand years old. He rubbed at his chin for a few moments, seeming to think about it. “I suppose as long as things remain cordial between us during my visit, that could be an acceptable compromise, though could I add one more request to it?”

Celestia’s eyebrow raised slightly, Luna also seeming to lean in a bit with mild interest. “And what, prithee, might that be?” the Princess of the Night asked with a still notable, though more reserved disapproving tone.

“Could you guys take me somewhere to get something to eat? All they had on the cart on the train were little bags of nuts and apple cider.”

Celestia gave a small sigh and shook her head, looking back at him and giving a tired, relieved smile. “That sounds acceptable, Anon. I think we can do that. Please follow us. The Guards will escort us all to the dining hall back in the castle.”

“Bitchin,” he said, smiling a bit wider as he followed behind the two princesses who were already turning to walk away, himself followed by some of the guards from earlier, all a respectable distance away from each other.

“So, when do I get paid?”

Author's Note:

And another one gone and another one gone and another one gone