Is this the Lie that I've Been Sold?
The three of us were slowly dropped down into the throne room, the rumbling of the motors of the winding gear imperceptible over the roar of the crowd. The lights moved onto us, and I adjusted my eyes to avoid being temporarily blinded by them.
Mom didn't seem too concerned, though. Nor did Pipp. Despite knowing where this might be going, she was positively lapping up all the attention she was getting. The lights and cameras all blared our way and the room sounded to the pounding noise of speakers and generic pop music. If I didn't think fast this would pretty quickly leave me with sensory overload.
Thankfully, mom's voice brought me back to reality. "Remember to smile!" she said, beaming at the crowd below. I have no clue how she manages to do it all so effectively. Partly a reason why the thought of becoming Queen fills me with such dread, apart from the other reasons you can probably think of.
We finally made contact with our thrones, and I took a sitting position as the cables were remotely detached. They retracted into the roof and we looked onwards as Pipp kicked off her routine. I knew the song- anypony who's seen the film would have known this fact- and I tried to blot it out as best I could and maintain a vaguely agreeable face without it looking forced. Mom would have noticed that and been all over me like a ton of bricks for that.
I looked about me for clues of the others, and then heard a promising sound. Two voices were speaking behind mom's throne, and as I watched I saw Sunny's head briefly pop up over the top of the throne. In her hoof was the fake crown Izzy had made. With a cursory glance anypony would be fooled by it. With a quick movement she pulled the real one off mom's head and placed the fake in its place. She smiled at me and nodded, so I did the same in return before turning my head forward.
I heard mom mumbling something about her scalp being a bit itchy, but I tried to act as normally as I could. I watched Pipp weaving and diving around. Then it occurred to me. When she'd spoken to me earlier she'd mentioned that back in the other world she hadn't had the best of lives, but here she was now, a princess in another kingdom (and a thoroughly pampered one at that), living a life most beings can only dream of.
And here I was, in the same sort of position, only the palace was more like a guilded cage. Hopefully this plan would work and I could sneak away before anypony could notice. Or invoke full name ultimatum. That would suck.
The crowd were enthralled, and the room was filled with brilliant camera flashes as the performance continued. I relaxed. This was going well. Almost too easy. I relaxed a bit. Clearly my new friends had this one in the bag.
A few moments later, I suddenly spotted something that was out of place. Cloudpuff wasn't at mom's side.
I soon saw where he was. He was running towards her with the crown in his mouth!
"Oh, crap," I said, under my breath. I charged forward to block mom's view of the dog and grabbed the crown with my hooves. "Give... it... to... me!"
Cloudpuff simply pulled harder. For a tiny dog he has a lot of strength, which surprised me. There was suddenly a bang, and I was suddenly launched backwards and landed on my haunches. I looked at the crown. Only the metalwork was in my hooves. The crystal had detached, and Cloudpuff was running off with it into the crowd.
I looked even closer at the metal, and noticed something. The metalwork was of a lower grade than mom's crown. It then dawned on me. Mom had been wearing a fake crown the entire time!
"Shit," I said to myself, and quickly deposited the metalwork under my wing before charging into the crowd after Cloudpuff. I switched on my radio to speak to the others. "Guys, we got a problem."
"Care to name which one?" Sunny replied.
"There's more than one?" I asked.
"I'm currently being chased by a sheriff and trying to dodge a crazed dog at the same time. What's the other problem?"
Brilliant. It seemed that Hitch has decided to crash the party. Talk about bad timing. "The crown you swapped for your fake? It's also a fake. Mom anticipated the theft and wore a reproduction tonight. We've swapped a fake for a fake!"
"Well, where's the real one?" Sunny asked, sounding a bit out of breath.
I suddenly saw Izzy and dashed over to her. Izzy was currently in front of Cloudpuff, trying to placate him. "Good doggy..."
I saw something shiny in Izzy's bag. "Izzy, what's that in your bag?"
Izzy turned to me as I positioned myself between Cloudpuff and her. "Oh, that's a crown I found in one of the dressing rooms."
Perfect. This might be the real thing. If Cloudpuff returned my fake to mom, we could take that one and get on our way to Bridlewood. "Izzy, I'm going to pass you at speed. Be ready to catch the object under my wing."
"Gotcha!" Izzy replied, and tilted her horn.
I sprinted past at speed, and at the right moment dropped the crown with my right wing and grabbed Izzy's one with my hooves. I glanced back and saw Izzy pass the fake to Cloudpuff, who seemed to be happy. I then hid at one side and stopped next to Sunny.
"Got the crown Izzy found!" I said, and picked it up. My face fell as I looked at it. "Oh no..."
Sunny looked at me, concerned. "What's the problem?"
I held it up to the light. "Sunny, it's another fake. I'm not sure how this happened, but there are two fakes in circulation on top of the fake we made earlier today!"
"Did somepony anticipate our theft?" Sunny asked.
"Sure looks that way." I had a good idea who it was, but I chose not to raise my concerns until later. "I'll go look for the real one."
Sunny glanced around. "Good idea. I'll try and- oh shit, here he comes! RUN!"
She suddenly sped off as Hitch chased her down, with Izzy soon running in the same direction. Both seemed to he heading for the cable control room, so I snuck round the back. There was an alternate escape route to the higher levels of the palace in case the cable units broke down. The elevator was in the up position, though, and using it would make too much noise and almost certainly blow my cover.
So the backup passage it was. I popped it open and began to crawl my way up, squeezing my way through the tight space until I reached the top, and emerged in one of the corridors.
The corridor was oddly empty. The complete lack of security was a bit surprising. Normally at least a few guards would be up here if only as a safety precaution. I made my way down the corridor, finding a trail of muddy hoofprints to follow. The trail led all the way to mom's stateroom, which again was unguarded (very odd). The doors were also open, so I pushed my way in and looked inside.
To my shock, I saw the intruder. Misty was sitting next to the safe and working her way through the combinations, clearly trying to break in. The door swung open, and I saw the crown inside. Misty was trying to steal the crown!
"The game's up, Misty!" I said. "Back away from the safe and put your hooves where I can see them."
Misty swung round and flopped on the ground. "Take what you want! Just don't hurt me!"
I trotted past her and took a look inside, before spotting something oddly shaped in Misty's bag. I opened the bag and took the object out.
Surprise, surprise, it was yet another crown. How many crowns were there in the palace this evening?
"So, you were planning on swapping this crown for the real one and then sneaking off before anypony noticed, huh?" I asked.
"Opaline made me do it!" Misty protested.
I blinked. Suddenly so much about Misty's behaviour made so much more sense. Purely out of interest, I took a look at the crown in the safe and spotted another pattern on it. I knew where I'd seen that pattern before. The museum had had a replica of the crown in it, that had been donated to the exhibit by Crystal Wonder, Jewellers Royal. Their trademark is a slight discolouration of the metal. And this crown and all the others had the same pattern.
This was yet another fake.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Fake crowns, plots upon plots on top of each other, farce galore. When did this turn into an 'Allo, 'Allo episode?"
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
775 users online
686,561 hits today, 2,205,040 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.®
11540144
11540174
11540228
11540263
11540478
11541201
11541940
11542975
11579734
Good news, my fine fellows! This story has resumed updating!
Hey there. Thanks for getting the next chapter to this up. Again, the dialogue, characterizations and future chapter set-up are really well done. Definitely liked the frustrations concerning the number of fake crowns as well as the added canon bit of dodging "Hitch". The stuff with "Misty" at the end - yeah, I could definitely see where you would be inspired so much by absurdist British comedies. And, yeah, the question of which one was the real crown is an excellent question.
Anyway, really looking forward to more of this.
And I know it's a few weeks early, but Happy Thanksgiving/Harvest and Hugs Day in advance.
11741886
I was just searching for stories to stop tracking last night!
You're lucky i kept it!
Probably from years of experience.
Uh oh...
https://m.to be heading*
Multiple likely if Haven didn't want to lose her crown.
As much as I enjoy a good mystery, this one is starting to give me a headache.
great chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter i love The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies reference from allo allo
11741902
This chapter is partly intended as a love letter to absurdist comedy-I'd especially recommend watching The Running, Jumping, and Standing Still Movie, a surreal short film which was a key source of inspiration for Monty Python.
11741915
Jimmy will be updating later today as well.
11741940
1. That seems plausible.
2. Cue 'oh crap!' response.
3. So much stuff floating about!
4. Oops. Corrected.
5. That seems plausible.
6. That's the point. In this style of humour there are untold numbers of things floating about.
11741967
Don't forget the salami. 12 real salami, six submarine batteries disguised as salami, six blocks of dynamite disguised as salami, three forgeries of the Fallen Madonna (one for the General, one for Hitler, one for Herr Flick), three forgeries of The Cracked Vase with the Big Daisies (again, one for the General, one for Hitler, one for Herr Flick), the original paintings disguised as salami, and another one for good measure.
Aww. I liked the song a lot? It was probably my favorite.
The real one was a fake too?? Oh no. Wait. Oh. But Izzy found the real one anyway. Oh...
What?? How many fake crowns are we playing with???
Oh gawd. Am I supposed to be reading these chapters from several fics all in a particular order? That's impossible to recreate after the relesae schedlue unless I make serious notes. Because the number of fake crowns was kind of absurd and seemed random. It's a reference to a comedy I haven't seen? Okay. So Haven definitely didn't trust them then? So Misty (who we know is a human?) is still under Opaline's authority. Got it.
Not going to lie, this is kind of falling apart on me just as it's getting fun. Is there more dialogue between the characters in other stories in this shared world? I feel like a little bit more dialogue would go a long way. I wanted to hear the conversation about them trying to figure out what's going on and how they all got there, agreeing to follow the script hoping it'll get them out of the movie, talking to Misty, etc.
11785513
1. A lot.
2. You don't need to have read the other stories to understand what is going on, but it can provide a bit of background nontheless. The gambit pileup is based on the classic comedy series Allo, Allo!, which turned this sort of confusion comedy into an art form.