Of Mischief and Ponies

by Astral

The Bells and Whistles

“Are we there yet?” whined the two fillies.

“No.” replied Mr. Scotch

“How about now?” inquired Butterscotch.

“No.”

“Now?” asked Fleetfoot.

“No.”

“Are we close?” asked Butterscotch.

“Closer than a couple seconds ago, and if you ask again, there will be hooves flung and crying fillies! Am I clear?” expressed Mr. Scotch, glaring intensely at the innocent troublemakers.

“Crystal!” the two fillies chimed in.

Silence grasped the group once more as they flew towards their destination. Neither Butterscotch nor Fleetfoot really needed to be taught how to fly. Fleetfoot had been taught by her father, while Butterscotch had learned to fly through a series of unfortunate events. Falling off a bell tower can do that to a young pony, as she quickly learned.

***

The bell was a magnificent brass construct, ordered straight from the metal smiths of Canterlot. Foundries had labored hours on end to amass the nine tons of brass needed to mold the bell, one ton reserved for the chain. The metal smiths had been forced to work around the inherent flaws of casting such a large bell all at once, prompting repeats until it was crafted properly. Even after the beast of a bell was cast, the effort needed to haul and secure it to the roof was an escapade in and of itself.

A score of Celestia’s Pegasus Guard had carried the bell and the chain in hoof to Cloudsdale, frequently taking breaks and swapping duties. The local pegasi that had been charged with erecting the tower had to remove the roof temporarily in order to affix the chain properly. As the guards took turns holding the bell in place, the pegasi hurriedly reattached the roof to the tower. In the end, it was worth the effort for both parties as the Princes decided to throw a feast in their honor.

The tower dominated the skyline of the Cloudsdale countryside, ringing every morning to hurry the sleeping citizens to their respective jobs. Conveniently, the town kept time through a simple system of tones by adjusting the bell’s tone with two clappers, one to indicate morning or evening, another dampened to indicate the hourly interval. Today, however the tower had been replaced by a modern rendition, a mechanical clock with hands to precisely indicate the time. The legal and community restraint to do so was an entirely different behemoth in itself, but a trivial matter for Butterscotch.

Butterscotch had attempted to rig the bell to drop hay and rain on top of the poor worker whose job was to ring the bell every morning. A detail not taken into account was the immense height of the tower as she clambered up the structure in the allure of dawn.

Stopping on the platform below the bell, Butterscotch dropped a small clump of hay beneath her hooves. Exhausted from her long climb, she wiped the sweat from her brow and examined the structure of the clappers.

“Hmm, I should put the hay in between the clappers, and then when the bell pony rings the bell, it’ll fall on his head..,” she thought. In her naiveté was she failed to notice the large gap between her and the clappers as she reached out above the black void below. As she somehow managed to latch onto the clapper with the tip of her hoof she felt her standing leg leaving the platform. In a snap decision, she jumped.

Nothing really scared her through her childhood, not the angry parents that yelled at her to get off their lawn, or her father when she was raiding the cookie cabinet, but this was different. Real danger was upon her, not some trivial matter involving other ponies, but her life, her life itself was under the knife this time.

“This isn’t so bad, I’m here holding onto a very secure clapper. Not only that, but the hay is in place and I can have a good laugh after this is over.” she asserted. Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as she looked down, vision obscuring to a spin of color as she realized her predicament.

“Oh, this was stupid idea, why did I jump? I’m such an idiot. Buttterscotch, you mulligan, why in the fluttering right of mind would you actually consider this kind of a foalish prank?! Stupid, stupid, stupid…” She said while face-hoofing herself repeatedly.

“Celestia, are you there? It’s me, Butterscotch. I promise, on my very heart and pony soul that I will not prank any more ponies if you just help me out of this screwball of a situation. Is that okay with you?” she begged.

“This is really high, really REALLY high! Help, somepony help me! Oh who am I kidding, no pony will help me, all I have done is *sniff* been a pain in their flanks. Wahhhhhhh uaahhh, mommyyyyy…” she sobbed.

“You know what? I bet when if I die, there will be plenty of flat ground, no pits of doom, and nothing else for me to harm. Come at me death, I’m ready to give you a great big hug!” She said with a grin as she accepted her fate.

To any bystander, she was slowly descending the five stages of grief solely described in the psychology scripts contained in the Canterlot library, extensively catalogued by the pony, Rapture. Her grip loosened as she felt the hay leave her mouth. It came to a wet plop as it rested upon the frigid cloud below, accelerating her fear of impending doom. Mind made up, she decided on her craziest idea yet.

She let go.

There was no screaming, there was no fear, all emotion escaped her as she plummeted towards the floor. A slice of air caught her right wing, opening it like a parachute as the other followed suit. She opened her eyes, not to the floor, but the wall, she was moving forward! Primal initiative grasped her conscience as she franticly flapped her wings, expending the very little lift they had to offer. She steadily slowed down, and by the time that death was to welcome another visitor, a small hole was punched into the tower wall; it all there was left as reminder of the small filly’s revelation in the tower.

Rather than show her new founded skill to her father immediately, she dedicated her afternoons to honing her flight skills by jumping off her cottage rooftop. When her father had found out, screaming like a maniac as he rushed to catch the falling filly, he was surprised by her dedication to the craft as she explained how for the past week, she had been hurling herself off the rooftop. Although he had to prompt a harsh lesson on the effects of gravity, Butterscotch now had another weapon at her disposal in pranking other ponies.

***

With a glazed expression, Butterscotch peered at the clouds around her as they quickly left the suburbs. Cottages faded into the horizon as puffy clouds came to replace them, the last of which obscured the clock tower. She lazily peered forwards to be met by a huge assortment of clouds.

Large and small, wide and thin, slopped and flat, so many different formations dominated her view. Little colts and fillies squealed with delight as they slid down a slide into a small pit. Others were revving their wings in preparation for drag races across the lengthy runway that bisected the construct. Some flew through wispy cloud rings, others were lying in the glory of the sun overhead.

Counselors directed the show, herding the ponies to different stations to keep the fun flowing. Some colts had to be peeled off the slides and fillies wrenched from the ice clouds. A system of organization applied chaos, to consider such an idea in such a scenario is almost suicide. The difficulty of getting each of the ponies into their cabins for the night was almost unthinkable. Lights out wasn’t even a question when it came to the uproar of chatter that could result from the dreaded bunk beds.

The show was abrupt although, as Mr. Scotch disregarded the existence of the camp. He snorted indifferently as he flew further and further from the main cloud mass of Cloudsdale and camp.

“Isn’t this where we were going, camp?” Fleetfoot inquired.

“Why yes it is Fleetfoot, but I mentioned academy, not flight camp” Mr. Scotch responded.

“So that means we aren’t there yet?” asked Butterscotch.

Mr. Scotch snapped a look at Butterscotch, head cocked and eyes ablaze he flew towards the empty sky. His wings twitched involuntarily and the pair realized that his patience was already stretched to breaking point. A couple of minutes passed until Butterscotch silenced the silence once more.

“Hey, I see something there!” yelled Butterscotch.

“Something where?” Fleetfoot yelling back.

“Over there!”

“Here?”

“No there, that way!”

“Oh, here! No, that isn’t it.”

Mr. Scotch sighed as he glided near Fleetfoot. “Over there silly filly.” He told her as he directed the giddy pony’s head at the intended scene with his hooves.

It was a miniature city. It was constructed mostly out of cloudsstone, a shining reflective meta-metal straight out of the labs of Canterlot that was valued for its ductility and lightness. It was simpler to construct the city like a puzzle than a mishmash of clouds in a relatively short time. Illustrious towers dominated the five corners of the platform, ascending towards the sun. Yet they barely touched the cirrus clouds that wisped overhead. Small apartments littered the outskirts of the city, the fronts lawns of which dominated by a vast, blank slate. The center carried the greatest trove of all, a massive citadel with four branches extending outwards, a different colored flag sported above to distinguish the wings. A long alabaster bridge linked the floating island to the mainland of Canterlot, arching over the peaks of nearby mountains.

The trio approached the intimidating complex, the sunlight’s glow intensified as they flew closer. Applying the knowledge gained earlier at the bakery, the two applied their new grasp of the pony text.

“Ho-“

“-ly”

“Buck.” exclaimed the two fillies simultaneously, eyes bulging and jaws agape.

“Girls! Language and attitude, what have I told you about language and attitude out in public. Why, when I get my hooves on you, I’m gonna… I’m gonna… I don’t even know what I will do, Gah!” voice shaking as he shook his mane furiously.

“But the baker said…” Fleetfoot catching herself.

“What was that? I heard baker, was that the source of the uproar this morning?” accused Mr. Scotch.

“Of course not, it’s not like he ate anything spicy at all.” Butterscotch said precariously filling in the story.

“Yeah, we were just home like silly fillies, just like you said.” Fleetfoot said as she dressed the story for the finishing touches.

“Besides, you knew we were home, you even locked the windows so we couldn’t sneak out!” blurted out Butterscotch.

An intrinsic stare caught the two fillies as Mr. Scotch diligently formed a hypothesis to their strange behavior. By the time they landed, his mind was a hailstorm of overcast theories and outlandish renditions of the tale they had told. He opened his mouth to speak when he had a revelation, a key fact that they had mistaken. He had not locked the windows, nor had he the entirety of that summer.

“So, if I were to say, that you two snuck out using the windows would be a lie, correct?” asked Mr. Scotch.

“Yes!” the two fillies happily bobbing their heads.

“Not because I left you two the baking set from my yesteryear upstairs with my trademarked blend of burns spice cabinet, that couldn’t play a part in Angelcake’s very specific genre of swears?” he elaborated.

“Of course, we just were playing with the dollhouse, fun you see?” Fleetfoot gladly attested with a life-size Fleetfoot doll.

“Uh huh, and because I haven’t locked your windows for the entire summer doesn’t sound a bit, daft, to you, does it?” established Mr. Scotch, hammering the final nail in the coffin for the two pranksters.

The two fillies locked eyes with each other, snapped a quick look at Mr. Scotch, and then quickly initiated a huddle dominated by guttural muttering and excessive hoof gestures. A rogue wing caught Mr. Scotch as the two paced by, knocking him flat onto the floor. He felt a bruise developing on his snout as he picked up his legs and stormed over to the debating duo.

Halting the intense argument, he put his hoof down and looked them in their eyes. “Was that entirely necessary? I had assumed this kind of thing might have happened after long enough. So, this is why we are here.”

“To torture us?!” exclaimed Fleetfoot.

“No, no, not at all Fleetfoot, why would you assume that?”

“Well you seemed pretty mad at us this morning, considering the circumstances. Why would you treat us to something fun after what we was done?” Butterscotch questioned.

Mr. Scotch’s lips twisted into a whimsical smile as he put his hoof to chin. He scratched the edges of his lips briefly as he gazed upon the academy. His eyes, deep pools of gold, were devoid of expression as he contemplated the way the sun refracted off the rooftops of the complex, miniature rainbows cascading across the walls. The color melted off the walls and pooled on the ground, collecting in the small divots that littered the street. Briefly, he himself considered a stay at this artistic pinnacle, the brainchild of Vanner van Gogh with much consultation from Celestia herself.

“Perhaps I should get a job…” he mused to himself before he addressed the two perplexed fillies. “Depending on how you take it you two, this could be a new adventure or house of damnation, for all I care. I now have enough free time without you two around to pursue a career in something useless!” Mr. Scotch expressed as he jumped and clicked his hooves together.

“But before that entire grand escape, I must escort you two to the registration office to arrange the dorm situation.” He sighed as his head drooped to the floor.

“Wait, we aren’t staying home and making a commute here every morning?” asked Butterscotch, shocked to her core.

“I thought I implied that before, but I’ll address it directly. You are staying here, as in this wondrous monument of chiseled stone, for the next year or so until Celestia decides whether or not this ‘experiment’ is worth continuing or not.” Mr. Scotch explained.

Wasting no time in lollygagging, he took the two stunned ponies under his wings and he herded them towards the administrative building in the center of the platform.

***

A rush of chilled air escaped the building as the double doors opened. The room dimmed to a modest hue as the glass panels, tinted a slight gold, diffused the sunshine evenly. Warmth from the outside escaped them as they cantered towards a blue, velvet flag hung from the ceiling. The words “Registration” were printed out in large silvery lettering as differences in light exposure curled the edges of the lettering and furled the interior like linoleum.

They arrived to a purple unicorn sitting behind a desk, reading a book, paying no attention to the new arrivals. Mr. Scotch cleared his throats as he whipped out the appropriate paperwork, laying it on the desk. The mare snuck a peak above the fresh print to see two curious fillies and one apparently gleeful father.

“May I help you today?” she asked.

“Yes, actually, these two delightful young children are here to collect their accommodations for the dormitories… and you are?” inquired Mr. Scotch.

“Rosaline. Now, what do we have here… west dorm requested, occasionally feed…” as Rosaline muttered the words on the paper as they flew past her face.

The fillies stared at the unicorn bewildered. How was she standing on a cloud? Better yet, why is she employed at the Flight Academy, for pegasi? Doing a double take of the unicorn and each other, Fleetfoot spoke up.

“Ms. Rosaline? How are you standing on the cloud? How come you are working at the Flight Academy when you are a unicorn? Why is your name Rosaline? Do you like the color purple…” Fleetfoot rambled incessantly. Her friend face hoofed promptly as she shut Fleetfoot’s mouth before she leveled the building with her daily dose of twenty questions.

The mare turned towards the two fillies, taking a quick look over the “specimens” now a part of the system of the Academy.

“Light brown, unusual cutie mark, unkempt mane, you must be Butterscotch, correct?” she asked.

“Yup, that’s me. Do you have any answers for what my friend Fleetfoot here asked? She won’t be quiet until she knows, so I hope you do” Butterscotch demanded.

“Well Mrs. Sourpuss, I do have the answers you need, but they aren’t the ones you are looking for. This entire situation will be explained at the meeting later tonight, but until then, here are your room keys.” She explained as she handed two small key chains to the fillies.

A small pony trinket was attached to the end of the lanyard, along with a small card and various keys. The bright lime green lanyard burned Butterscotch’s eyes of as she reached out to seize the new treasure. Fleetfoot spun in glee as the tested the durability of the chain that looped around the assorted trinkets while Butterscotch read the map on the wall.

“I’ll take it that you’ll guide these two to their rooms? Here’s a map to help you out.” She said as he handed a pamphlet to Mr. Scotch.

“Thank you Rosaline. Now, Fleet and Butters, to the dormitory!” Mr. Scotch yelled as he shot his hoof into the air, brandishing the pamphlet like a sword as the trio charged out of the office.

Rosaline sighed as her office was vacant again, not to be visited for the rest of the school year unless some late arrivers come tumbling in. “Let’s just hope to Celestia that they don’t level the place.” She muttered as she resumed reading her book.

***

As you might have noticed, or indicated in the comments, I need an editor. If anyone is willing to do so or knows someone who can, please contact me with a PM or just in the comments. Anyways, thanks again to Ed2481 for prereading and making minor edits!

Comments

[ed2481]

Nice title shift, feels much better considering the subject matter