• Published 8th Jan 2012
  • 13,193 Views, 209 Comments

Dying Embers - MrSpartan



What came before the country of Equestria? A tale of revenge and bonds of loyalty.

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Ignorance is Bliss (Edit overhaul)

Authors Note: Major credit to Booksmart on this site for the editing! I'm serious!

The day’s atmosphere felt tense and foreboding for the ponies of Ponyville. Well, for most of the ponies anyway. A certain bright pink pony with cyan colored eyes hopped happily to Fluttershy’s cottage, humming a tune that she found strangely familiar, as if it were a friendly theme song of some sort. She was on her way to help the shy pegasus with the animals she took care of – there were a bunch of brand new bouncing baby bunnies to feed and Fluttershy needed somepony to help before they got rowdy. Fluttershy had asked Pinkie Pie after explaining she couldn’t ask any of their other friends. She hadn’t felt comfortable asking Applejack after the bunny stampede incident. Rarity, being the cleanliness obsessed pony she was, had politely declined so she wouldn’t get dirty. Twilight was busy with her studies, as usual; and Fluttershy knew Rainbow Dash wasn’t the best with animals. Pinkie had readily agreed, eager to help her friend. After a few more minutes of hopping through Ponyville she arrived at the edge of town to find Fluttershy outside in a bit of a panic.

“Oh dear. Oh my. Please don’t be scared. It’s alright.” Fluttershy was saying to various spots in her garden.

At first Pinkie thought Fluttershy was trying to talk to logs and bushes, which was silly since logs and bushes can’t talk…unless Fluttershy had found some magic talking plants that lived in her backyard. If that was the case, then how had they gotten there? They weren’t there before. Pinkie Pie was sure she would have noticed those. Unless some garden gnomes had moved in - which kind of made sense. They were magic and probably brought the talking plants with them for company. Not to mention they really liked gardens. So why didn’t she tell Pinkie Pie? Unless she wanted to keep all the funny little bearded gnomes to herself.

Pinkie let out a HUGE gasp. “Fluttershy, how could you?!”

Fluttershy squeaked in surprise while half hiding behind her mane. She turned to see who it was. “Oh Pinkie, I didn’t know you were here already. How could I what?”

“How could you keep all the funny little gnomie womies to yourself and not share them?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Pinkie’s eyes were big and watery. Her lower lip quivered like Rarity’s would.

“Um I was just trying to get the baby bunnies out to feed them but they just won’t come out of their hiding places.” Fluttershy sighed. “Even worse, almost all the animals I’ve been taking care of ran off late last night and I couldn’t find them this morning.” Fluttershy looked defeated as she shuffled her hooves a bit while looking at the ground.

Pinkie Pie’s expression grew sober. “Hmmm…my pinkie sense says something strange is going on here.” She placed an old style Sherclop Hooves hat on her head, a bubble pipe in her mouth, and a magnifying glass in her hoof. She started out to town, following a trail only she and her mighty magnifying class could see. “Pinkie Pie private eye is on the case!” Fluttershy decided that coaxing the bunnies wasn’t going to happen and left Angel in charge. He saluted, munching on a carrot like a cigar. Fluttershy quickly followed after Pinkie Pie in order to keep an eye on her and to see if something bad really was going on.

________________________________________________________________________________

After Fluttershy and the pink menace were gone Angel gave the all clear whistle. Three of the bunnies that were hiding came out of the bushes with one garden gnome behind them. One of the rabbits had a baseball cap on. Another had a mohawk between his ears. The last one simply had a very smug look about him.

“Alright team, you know our mission. Get this garden gnome back to his house inside the Everfree Forest no matter what. You remember our deal right old timer?” Angel squeaked.

“Of course, you get me back home and I give you and your team all the carrots you can eat,” the gnome wordlessly replied.

“Good,” Angel spoke through a mouthful of carrot, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

________________________________________________________________________________

Pinkie followed the invisible trail, her snout close to the dirt path. Sweet Apple Acres towered nearby.

In the shade of the barn rested an earth pony with her signature Stetson over her face. Her ears twitched as they picked up the sound of hoofsteps approching. Applejack got up from her resting spot against to greet her friends.

“Howdy partners!” she said enthusiastically.

“Hi Applejack,” both Fluttershy and Pinkie replied in unison.

“So what are ya’ll doin’?” asked Applejack. She raised an eyebrow at Pinkie Pie’s costume. “And what’s with the weird getup?”

“We’re solving the case of the ninja gnomes!” Pinkie exclaimed, waving her front hooves in the air to emphasize the point.

Fluttershy quietly spoke up, ”But um Pinkie, I thought that um, you know, that we were looking for the reason the animals were acting so scared.”

“Oh yeah that too!” Pinkie said loudly as she jumped around Applejack like a happy pink shark circling it’s pray.

Applejack took a momentary pause. She put her hoof up to her chin in thought. “Ya know partners, some right strange stuff has been goin’ on around the farm today too.”

“Like what?” Pinkie asked, impossibly stopping mid-jump. She was in detective mode again.

“Well fer starters all the pigs, chickens, and sheep have been causin’ a major ruckus since last night. Also that little statue of Celestia Granny Smith keeps in her room done snapped in half.” Applejack explained.

“Ooooh the plot thickens!” Pinkie paused for a moment, deep in thought, “Wait I think I know who’s behind this! Follow me!” Pinkie said enthusiastically. She beckoned her friends to follow her before shooting off in yet another direction.

Applejack and Fluttershy just gave each other a look that said “Not like we could stop her if we wanted to anyway” then proceeded to follow her.

________________________________________________________________________________

Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Fluttershy all stood underneath Rainbow Dash’s cloud house.

Applejack was confused, “Er, Pinkie, what exactly we doin’ here?”

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough,” the pink pony replied. She took a deep breath.

“Raaaiiiinbooooow!!”

This promptly woke Rainbow Dash from her mid-day nap. She had told Pinkie Pie before not to wake her up from her naps. This must have been fairly important then. She flew down to see what her friend wanted

“Ugh, what is it Pinkie?”

“I know what you did!”

“What do you mean?” asked Rainbow looking nervous and sweating.

“Don’t play dumb Dashie. I know what you did. Now fess up.” Pinkie demanded, her neck stretching out. Her face was just inches from Rainbow’s.

“Honestly I don’t know what you me-“

“Confess!”

“What?” stammered Rainbow.

The others were now all staring at Rainbow Dash, curious to find out if she had really scared all the animals and broke the Apple family’s Princess Celestia statuette.

“I said confess!” Pinkie repeated.

Rainbow’s eye began to twitch as her pupils were now shrinking to rosy dots.

“Ok I admit it! I’m the pony who dropped your toothbrush in the toilet and put it back without washing it last week!”

Pinkie Pie’s entire body seemed to drain of color as she shrieked in horror. All thoughts of the investigation were forgotten as she licked the ground to get the horrible unclean toothbrush remnants out of her mouth. All the while Rainbow was covering her face in shame.

Applejack, meanwhile, was laughing uncontrollably and Fluttershy was struck silent.

________________________________________________________________________________

Later, after Applejack could finally feel her sides, Pinkie had stopped freaking out (mostly), Rainbow had apologized a good 10 times, and Fluttershy had suggested they never speak of that instance again, the topic of what was causing the strange happenings at Applejack’s farm and Fluttershy’s cottage came back up.

They all agreed that they should go see Twilight Sparkle. After all, she was regarded as the most intelligent pony in all of Ponyville, and if anypony would know what to do, it would be here. The small group made their way to the main thoroughfare where Twilight’s library residence stood just a few streets away. Rainbow Dash began telling her friends that Cloudsdale was acting even weirder then Sweet Apple Acres and Fluttershy’s animals.

“How so RD?” asked Applejack.

“You guys wouldn’t believe it! It was crazy!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. She flew in front of the others waving her hooves around the emphasize her point. “First the clouds around Cloudsdale started getting really cold, like winter cold, and all at once the rainbows turned gray and started dissolving faster then we could make them!” Pinkie Pie, who had been listening as closely as both Applejack and Fluttershy, could only express shock.

“No more rainbows?! No way! They fixed it though, right Dashie?”

“I don’t know.” Dash said with a shrug. “Probably. Those rainbow brewing ponies are pretty good at that sorta thing since it’s their job and all.”

Applejack spoke up “If’n nothin’ else I’m sure Twilight will know what’s goin’ on.”

“And hopefully how to fix it” said Fluttershy. “Oh I hope the animals aren’t too scared. Maybe I should go back and check on-“ Her train of thought was interrupted by a eardrum shattering scream. Without realizing it the four equines had entered the busier part of town and were currently only a yard away from the Carousel Boutique, the lavish go-to place for everypony’s fashion needs and apparently the residence of a banshee.

“That sounded like Rarity,” said Rainbow Dash.

“No. Really?” Applejack deadpanned, sticking a hoof in her ear to try and dispel the ringing. The four of them hastily galloped into Rarity’s house/shop to something they never in all their craziest imaginings thought they would see. The fashonista’s normally clean and classy boutique was being completely overrun by a plague of rats and a somewhat smaller host of cockroaches and other bugs. And, plague was truly the perfect word for the rodents. These were NOT the normally cute white and gray mice that ponies were likely to see. These were huge, mangy, black, red eyed RATS, and the insects were just as repulsive. This was terrible for poor Rarity whose ladylike mannerisms could hardly stand the sight of such horrors, let alone enough of them to build a miniature community in her living room. To make matters even worse the rats and bugs were starting to eat the various fabrics scattered around the room.

“Somepony save my beautiful boutique!” Rarity screamed from her perch atop a large shelf, Opalescence hissing at the monstrosities below them.

With that said, the other four mares sprang into action to rid Rarity of these rotten rodents and roaches. Rainbow was the first to react by flying quickly in a circle, using her innate pegasus magic to control the air current. She formed a small tornado that swept a fair portion of the pests out of the building. Applejack was using the lasso she always kept in her Stetson to capture several of the vermin with extreme accuracy. She proceeded to toss the group she caught out the door where the frightened pests scattered in all directions of escape. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were scaring the remainder out the doorway. Pinkie used several whistles and noisemakers (all of which seemed to impossibly fit in her mouth with still enough space to use them), while Fluttershy used her Stare. Both ponies started at opposite corners of the room and herded the things gradually closer to the door. Fluttershy was staring so intensely with a look of such angry dissapointment that the animals chose to leave the store rather than suffer under her gaze. After the last of the vermin were out, Applejack bucked the front door shut with a resounding slam. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Oh my Rarity, are you alright?” Fluttershy asked.

Rarity seemed markedly calmer now. She jumped down from her safe spot on top of the shelf.

“Oh I’m doing much better now thanks to you girls.” She grimaced when she looked at her textiles. “I just wish my fabrics didn’t look like they just came out of a giant cookie cutter,” she sighed. All of her materials had holes and chew marks, some of which were undeniably and unexplainably shaped just like rats.

Her horn glowed with a magical aura as she used it as an arcane focus on the tattered remains of her projects, assessing them before floating them to the nearby waste bin.

She would just have to start from scratch later.