The Salmon of Harmony

by Hopkinz

Button-Mashing Engine Repairsponies

Chapter 4

In It's Beyond, the two rulings sisters of Equestria were considered to be firm, lawful, and just about absolutely terrible at their jobs. While they certainly did think that they themselves were fairly good at their jobs, and the perfectly stable economy and unbearably happy ponies of Equestria said likewise, it was still taught everywhere that Equestria’s rulers couldn’t rule a real country if they were being held face down in front of a Kill-O-Zap blaster while bobbing for apples on a sunny afternoon.

This is most likely a piece of anti-Equestrian propaganda made to make conservative politicians feel better about themselves.

In Equestrian History and Other Useful Tidbits About Life, the Universe and Everything (a 3 week course that provides a rudimentary rundown on Equestria and all of its history), a few unflattering metaphors are used to describe the princesses.

Princess Celestia is described as an overly attached, goody-two shoes pony who seems more like your overly attached, goody-two shoes mother than anything else. It has been said that she would be more likely to scold a twice convicted serial murderer for being a bad pony than take proper actions against him.

Princess Luna is described as the kind of pony who’s altogether more likely to run away from her problems rather than face them head on, and one who loses her travel visa on frequent occasions and makes up ghost stories to cover it up. According to Gimbley Braker, a college major in Equestrian history who now lives on the streets because he spent his college years learning useless history,

‘Princess Luna is comparable to your deadbeat dad who left your reasonably attractive mother because of a tiny, insignificant financial crisis. When faced with a thrice convicted serial murderer, she would be too busy cowering nonchalantly behind her guards to address the problem at hand.’

The fact that two ponies comparable to your goody two-shoes mother and your deadbeat dad could run a country better than the ‘highly intelligent’ conservative politicians in It’s Beyond was a sore spot for many of its residents.

***

Bonbon was currently fiddling with the mishmash of buttons on the console, all of which had been labeled in such messy Equestrian that Cherrilee, master of deciphering crappy mouthwriting, would’ve had a hard time deciphering them.

So naturally, as all ponies are wont to do, she pressed all of them at once and hoped for something, anything to happen.

Princess Luna had passed out, drunk, on the floor shortly after her attempt to drink and drive, so that gave Bonbon liberty to press whichever buttons she wanted to and hope for an outcome that resulted in a fixed engine and slightly less drunk princess.

More buttons were pressed, and the clicking sound reverberated through the room.

Lyra groaned, and turned to her friend. ‘Bonbon, would you mind keeping it down? Your button mashing is making it really hard to pass out drunkenly.’

‘Pass out drunkenly? Pass out drunkenly? What kind of solution is that? I’m trying to fix an engine here!’ Bonbon yelled.

The words ‘Don’t Panic’ flitted across her mind, but it was immediately replaced the louder, more fitting thought, ‘Panic.’

So she pressed more buttons in her panic.

It was a bit after that Lyra replied.

‘Well it’s not much of a solution at all, if you ask me,‘but everypony else seems to be doing it.’

Bonbon looked around and noticed that Marvin, too, was passed out on the floor with a towel wrapped around his fetlocks and a can of berry punch dripping through the two holes on his back in which toast was meant to be toasted. The can must have tipped over when the R.V. had stopped, and Marvin must have been unfortunate enough to be standing next to the punch when it had tipped, causing his circuits to temporarily short out.

Princess Luna, as Bonbon had already previously noted, was passed out beside Lyra.

Lyra was closing her eyes and opening them again, trying, and failing, to pass out drunkenly like everypony else. It should’ve worked, as Bonbon had temporarily stopped pressing buttons to watch the scene below her.

‘Huh,’ said Lyra, ‘looks like it ain’t working. Ah well.’

And here Lyra levitated some peanuts off of the circular tray on the circular table next to where they were currently laying down, and began to munch casually on them. This frustrated Bonbon, who, in turn pressed a bunch of buttons on the console to deliberately annoy Lyra.

It did, though Bonbon eventually decided that pushing buttons was neither the answer to her life’s problems nor the proper way to fix the R.V.’s engine.

‘Hey, Lyra. Do you know how to fix an engine?’

‘Well, the guide knows, and I have a copy of the guide with me. That counts, right?’

‘You wanna help me fix this one?’

Fixing engines was a tedious and boring process, and generally not one you should partake in often. For somepony who’s never dismantled an engine before, it involves dismantling the engine in its entirety, forgetting which piece goes where, and giving it a half-flanked diagnosis before reassembling it in an order which was definitely not the proper order, but who cares because it works anyways.

In fact, at one point a certain moon-themed alicorn princess had done just that, and ended up creating Equestria’s very first Chaotic Improbability Drive, a magnificent feat that would’ve advanced Equestria’s science and stuff by a lot, if not for the fact that Luna had just figured out how to use it on a particularly pleasant Sunday. This Sunday, in fact. But that wasn’t the point.

The point is, fixing engines is really hard work, and involves far too many, ‘Are you ****ing kidding me this is a Phillips head I asked for a goddamned screwdriver!’ and ‘What the hell is wrong with you have you never disassembled an engine before?!!’ and ‘Are you stupid or something? Of course I haven’t and you very well know that!’ to ever be an enjoyable process.

But Lyra had nothing better to do.

***

Fun fact: Chaotic improbability drives are powered by chaos.

***

Princess Luna woke up, and found that she was both perfectly undrunk and unhungover, which was always nice.

Immortals didn’t get hangovers.

She looked outside, and found, to her utter dismay, that Ponyville was a distant dot on the horizon. This didn’t reassure her much, however, as Ponyville shouldn’t have been visible if they were going as fast as they were supposed to, which they should have been doing. And even if they weren’t, they’d started in the morning, and the sun was already well on its way down.

She searched around for the hitchhikers she’d picked up, to see if they could possibly tell her what had happened.

They were nowhere to be found.

This worried her, as her sister had warned her of Hoopers, thieves who went around with styrofoam thumbs and cans of beer, drinking the drivers under the table and running away with their stuff, but Luna had never listened.

So it was with a note of relief that she performed her stuff-checking spell and found that everything in her R.V. was as it was before she’d passed out, save for a few peanuts, a Phillips head, and the metal plate covering her engine.

Her console, with its mish-mash of various levers and buttons and switches, looked a mess, as if somepony had been mashing them in a desperate attempt to get them to do something. The engine was also off, but that was no matter. With a casual flick of her horn, the engine starting switch was flicked. It was a powerful yet casual flick, done in such a way that it would send a spark of magic into the engine and turn it on.

Nothing happened.

With a slightly less casual flick of her horn, she flicked the switch again. Once again, nothing happened.

With an entirely angry flick or her horn, that angrily betrayed the true angry depths of her angry anger, she flicked the switch again and nothing happened, which served to make her angrier than she was before, but not by much, because anger isn’t at all classy and princesses are classy.

‘Stupid foreign engine,’ she grumbled classily.

‘I take it that this means we’re not going anywhere?’ muttered a voice behind her.

It was Marvin, with perfectly dry and functioning circuits, good as new save for the distinct punch flavor that would come with the toast he toasted.

Luna shook her head.

‘Oh fooey.’ moaned Marvin.

Luna opened her mouth to say something, but it was blocked by an entirely unexpected scream of , ‘The horror! The horror!’ coming from her engine room.

It was then followed by a dull thud on the floor.

A thought flashed by her mind; one involving a certain draconequus, a chaotic improbability drive, and a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick.

‘It... looks like we have some explaining to do,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Oh, joy. Why I just love having stuff explained to me in archaic Equestrian,’ replied Marvin.

‘Oh hush. Thine sarcasm is not needed at this moment.’

‘See what I’m talking about?’

***

‘See, Bonbon? That’s exactly what I’m talking about,’ pointed Lyra as she pointed at an entry on the Map, ‘It says to dismantle everything and put it back together again, somehow.’

‘But- but how’s that going to help our current situation?’ spluttered Bonbon, who was significantly less inebriated, and once again prone to stuttering.

‘Well, the engine’s broken now, right? Nothing can be worse than a broken engine,’ replied Lyra.

‘But- but- but-’

‘Don’t try to fight my logic, man. It’s soundproof.’

‘Well alright then.’

Bonbon watched as Lyra tucked her copy of the Map into her saddlebags and pulled out her toolbox.

They were in a hot, dusty room down the stairs from the sleeping quarters. It wasn’t the largest room, and had a fair amount of stuff inside, so Bonbon was stuck in between a furnace and a water cooler. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

Lyra was in front of a metal plate that read, ‘Remove for Engine’.

The minty unicorn tried a Phillips head on a screw, kicked the metal plate, and searched around in her toolbox.

‘Hey, Bonbon?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Can you pass me the Frearson right beside you?’

Bonbon looked to her side, and found nopony named Frearson in the immediate vicinity. There was nopony there, save for Lyra, and so Bonbon wondered if the unicorn was having alcohol based delusions. Besides, how does one even pick up a pony named Frearson in the first place?

‘How many fingers am I holding up, Lyra?’ asked Bonbon in a patronizing tone of voice.

When testing patients for sanity, one must always talk to ponies in a patronizing tone of voice. It’s only polite.

Lyra stared at her blankly. ‘None. You have hooves. Just pass me the Frearson.’

Bonbon looked to her side again, and again found nopony named Frearson.

‘Who’s Frearson and how do I pass him to you?’ asked Bonbon, who was getting quite a bit concerned for her friend’s health.

‘It’s a screwdriver head,’ replied Lyra whilst slapping her forehead.

‘Oh.’ Bonbon picked up the screwdriver beside her and handed it to Lyra, who examined it carefully and frowned.

‘That’s a Phillips head, you tool.’

Lyra rummaged through her toolbox once more and with an exclamation of ‘ahah!’, triumphantly pulled out what Bonbon imagined to be a Frearson and began unscrewing some screws.

The metal hatch fell open with a resounding clang, and it’s contents were so absolutely horrible and terrifying that Bonbon let out a bloodcurdling scream of ‘The horror! The horror!’ and fell over with a dull thud.

Lyra just stood there with her mouth hanging open.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the door opened, two sets of hooves clanged down the stairs behind them, and Princess Luna stood silently, staring at the scene before her.

Marvin also stood, though he was doing so many things inside his planet-sized brain that to write them down would require slightly more paper than it would take to print out a whole copy of the Prodigal Explorer’s Map.

‘Tis... better than we thought,’ the princess said at last, ‘Our slice of lemon remains wrapped around the gold brick, the Chaotic Improbability Drive seems in order-

‘And that statue of Discord sitting on top of it doesn’t emit a foreboding atmosphere at all,’ interjected Marvin.

‘Ah. Yes. There is that.’

And there was.

Comments

[epicn00b]

The Prodigal Explorer's Map defines The Prodigy's Exploration Map as the humour-infused autobiography of Spike Sparkle, telling the tale of his journey through childhood and his struggles as a dragon adapting to the life of a young adult equine. It's not yet known whether this is true or not, as, being only ten years of age, Spike has not yet written a book, and in fact he has yet to adopt a surname.

The Douglas Adams is strong in this one, which is always a good thing.