A Crystalline Conundrum
Ruined! Everything was completely ruined!
Pipp Petals stomped her hooves in frustration. Zephyr Heights’s royalty had always flown on wired wings to keep the spirits of their subjects soaring, but Zipp just had to go and break the illusion. And in the middle of a performance too! Pipp didn’t know how or why, but those two prisoners must’ve gotten into Zipp’s head.
The performance-crashing pandemonium let Pipp slip away. She shimmied out of hanging by a literal thread and vanished under the crowd. It was the one time she was glad to be so small, though dodging everypony’s stampeding legs had been harrowing to say the least. The pygmy pegasus preferred the safety of her mother’s back or perching on top of her sister’s head.
Pipp made a break for a lonely pillar in the ballroom and quickly sidled underneath its shadow to hide. With everypony looking for the “lying royals,” she needed to get out of the castle fast. More importantly, she had a thousand burning questions, and one older sister to grill for answers.
“Arf!”
“Wah!” Pipp lost her balance from the shock, but was caught by a loyal ball of fur.
“Cloudpuff! Oh, thank hoofness it’s you!” Pipp whispered. She turned to give the dog a hug, but bumped against something hard. The Zephyr Crown was in Cloudy’s mouth, or at least the gemstone part of it.
“But I thought…” Pipp pulled out her ponyfone™ smartwatch to quickly check the news on Flitter. Queen Haven’s arrest was trending with ZBS news’ video of guards seizing her and the off-colored crown. It was a very convincing and fabulous fake, but still a fake.
Pipp eyed the loose gemstone. “Did they try to swipe this?”
Cloudpuff barked, dropping the jewel with a thunk.
“They’re not only mud trudgers and horn heads, but thieves too?” Pipp tilted her head back and groaned. “Those two are the absolute worst!”
The dog barked again in agreement; at least, that’s how Pipp took it.
“Quick, Cloudy! Where did Zipp go?”
Cloudpuff brandished a police badge he was holding in his wing.
“She went with them? Fine!” Pipp took the badge and held it in front of her trusty companion’s nose. “Quick, go find Zipp!”
Cloudpuff sniffed, yipped, and then bit down on the badge excitedly, tearing it from Pipp’s grasp. He ran off, deftly dodging several guards before leaping through an open door to hunt Zipp down.
“That’s a good boy!” Pipp started to run after him, but tripped over the loose royal treasure.
The Pegasus Stone was a priceless heirloom of Zephyr Heights’ royalty. She couldn’t just leave it behind. Pipp grabbed a wingtip and tried making a break for the door, only for her legs to sweep out from under her, flopping her to the tile floor.
“What the?” She picked herself up and tried to jostle the crystal, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. “You have got to be kidding me!”
The princess tried a foreleg, then both. Finally, she knelt down on all fours and pushed up against it with all of her might.
“How… the hay… did Cloudy… move this… stupid thing?”
Beads of sweat rolled down Pipp’s fur as she set the stone upright. After her mareculean effort, she collapsed to the floor to catch her breath with the crystal towering over her. Her mom’s neck must’ve been made out of steel. It wasn’t even the whole crown!
Pipp wheezed and looked towards the ballroom doors. The gargantuan, imposing, closed doors standing between herself and freedom. Even if she managed to crack it open while dragging the crystal, she’d never catch up to Cloudy, let alone Zipp. Still, she couldn’t just leave their heirloom behind.
As the weary princess pondered her hopeless plight, a panicking mare sprinted by the pillar. While her hooves missed the crystal, her tail extensions whipped by just hard enough to knock it off balance. Pipp yelped and tried to shuffle away, but the crystal toppled onto her, burying the little pony under a mountain of turquoise.
“Great,” she huffed. This was worse than Zipp trapping her inside a textbook fort. She squirmed around trying to find some leverage, only to accidentally wrap the wings around her neck like an oversized harness.
“That’s it! I’ve had it with you! Get stolen for all I care!” She rose to her hooves and tried to wiggle the crystal off, but stopped struggling as soon as she noticed she was dragging it around with her.
“Wait. This could work…”
“Sunny!” Hitch hissed as he followed the ragtag group of mares. “We’re supposed to be running away, remember?”
“We can’t leave without the crystal,” Sunny snapped back.
“And we need to find my little sister,” Zipp added with palpable worry. “You saw my mom on the news. Pipp’s all alone in here!”
“Fine,” Hitch relented. “But do we have to follow your dog? He could be leading us right into a—”
Hearing an odd scraping sound coming from ahead, Zipp shushed the others. Peering around the corner, she spotted their crystal target slowly moving down the hallway. It appeared to be a trap at first, but then Zipp spotted the familiar tuft of pink and purple underneath.
“Sis!” Zipp cried as she dove for her tiny sister. She whisked the gemstone away with ease and swept her sweaty sister into a tight winghug. “I was so worried about you!”
Pipp tried to push away her big sister’s smothering embrace, but after sneaking around for an hour, the exhausted princess could barely lift a feather. “Somepony seriously… explain… stupid, heavy thing…”
“I’ll tell you everything later.”
After securing the crystal, Zipp placed her sister on her head and made a break for the nearest exit with her new friends.
“Aww! She’s even itsier-bitsier than I remember!” Izzy cooed.
Pipp glared daggers at the others while curling up in her sister's mane. She still wanted answers, but for now, the tiny princess was going to take a well-deserved nap.
This story is dedicated to the ever important "Audience of One". The one whose life may be made better with a momentary escape from reality. Whoever that one happens to be, I hope you enjoy this story. I will do my best to tell it. - Lord Regulus
An entry for Bicyclette's A Thousand Words Contest II hosted by the A Thousand Words group.
The lyrics have nothing to do with the fic, but the heroic smol-ness felt fitting. Enjoy!
If you find a simple mistake in the GSP (Grammar, Spelling, or Punctuation), please let me know through a private message rather than leaving it in the comment section. Leave the discussions to discussions. Thank you for reading.
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Okay. Pipp is not that small last I remember. Stupid crystal magic.
11599085
I was inspired by the uncropped image I used for the cover.
If ya scrolled down here before reading, I consider the following image a spoiler, but the <spoiler> tag doesn't play nicely with the <img> tag, so considering yourself warned before opening.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2022/8/16/2928984.jpg
11599122
. Just makes the story even better now.
11599125
Great! I consider it a spoiler to know before folks read, so I was very careful with the cover and description.
Whilst amusing, there's something in the story I find a tad confusing. I know Pipp is shorter than her sister canonically (which makes sense given she's younger), but in the film she was able to carry the crystal with little difficulty. Was some sort of magic wreaking havoc with her height?
11599188
I'll refer you to this reply here 11599122 and encourage you to look up the definition of pygmy animals
I also added the AU tag to hopefully dispel the confusion.
11599191
Thanks for the links. That certainly cleans up the confusion.
Loved the story! Just so you know Cloudpuff is a boy :)
11599241
Wait, what?
One Google later...
Oh for <<bark>>'s sake. Thanks for letting me know! Fixed the error. Glad you enjoyed it! Literally edited for three days and never thought to check.
11599244
Lol, you're welcome! Hope you write more about tiny Pipp!
11599244
“That’s a good boy!” Pipp started to run after her, but tripped over the loose royal treasure.
Also noticed that
11599261
Thanks, if you find anything else, please send them in a PM as per the request in the author's notes.
11599267
I'm so sorry I didn't notice that I will from now on
11599273
No worries, thanks for your help! Just don't want the comment section filled with mistakes to break the flow of potential conversation. All is well.
So are you implying that Pipp Petals is a pygmy pink princess pony ?
...
...
...
...I'll see myself out.
11599310
With perfectly puffy pillowy wings and a pristinely proper purple mane?
... Guess I'll join you.
11599310
11599327
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Greetings. Your reading has been completed and can be found below. I hope you enjoy.
Heheh, tiny Pipp
aww, that is quite a small pegasus she is!
oh no the future ponies invented pony racism again
love the phrase “mareculean effort”, will have to start using it myself
now that is a little pony!
aww! very adorable and silly, and i swear it feels like Pipp actually was getting smaller with every passing paragraph. thanks for writing!
11697769
Thanks for reading, Bike! Smol Pipp was fun to write. Glad you enjoyed it.
Huh. Just how short is this Pipp?
He’d actually been working undercover in the palace for years and was arresting Pipp.
This was fun, but a more concrete sense of Pipp’s size would’ve helped the jokes land better. This wasn’t bad, but it took me a bit to appreciate the magnitude of the absurdity on display, plus there wasn’t much beyond “lol Pipp smol” to the comedy. Still, thank you for the entry.
11699153
Thanks for the feedback. Just goes to show I need to step up my description game if I'm going to do anymore of these 1K contests. This took about 5× longer than writing it and specifically saying she's X inches tall seemed lazy.
And also agreed on the lack of humor. It was pretty much just a smol Pipp fic that turned out to be more cute than funny. Misread the homework on that one.
I glanced down as I scrolled, and when you started describing Pipp, I had to glance down some more...then more...and more...
Adorable, as all Izzy things should be
Nice neat little story!
“Aww! She’s even itsier-bitsier than I remember!” Izzy cooed