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Chapter I: Of a Colt and Filly2,335 words
Chapter II: The Prank1,696 words
Chapter III: The Inspection and the Events Thereof1,775 words
Chapter IV: Tea Time Part I2,115 words
Chapter V: Tea Time Part II and Travel1,661 words
Chapter VI: Regal Processions and Her Majesty's School1,103 words
Chapter VII: Do Foals Dream of Cotton Candy Sheep?886 words

Chapter I: Of a Colt and Filly

Flamma: The Tale of a Pyromancer

Chapter I: Of a Colt and Filly

Life is rather monotonous for an ant. You’re born, you grow, you get kicked out into the harsh world and are expected to bring back anything smelling of foodstuffs, and you generally have less appreciation for the arts than a rock (rocks are notorious for their ingratitude at being carved into various statues and such). Life is indeed a bore for the poor dears. However, never knowing any better, nor having the intellectual resources to criticise their archaic order, it is generally unheard of for the Formicidae complaint line to experience much use. Other than some aphid prank callers, jerks.

*Ahem*

Anywho, a prime example of the unenlightened hexapedal species is Carl. Now Carl, being an ant, does not actually have a name. He has a scent, but in the interest of creating some degree of empathy/humor his name is Carl. Now Carl is going to have a pretty rough day. He’s out on the usual run, looking for rotten fruit or some carcass or another, when, all of a sudden, a soldier ant from a rival colony bursts through the thick foliage. Being satisfied with its desecration of the blade of grass the soldier, Steve, sets his metaphorical sights on our unfortunate protagonist.

Carl steeled his nerves, he would not fail his colony this day. Steve swung his mandibles in an arching downward swing, Carl dodged right. Attempting to gain the initiative Carl quickly swings his own, smaller and more agile, mandible at Steve’s general facial area, Steve parries the attempt. The scene is set, the characters are assembled, and the Final Battle of Ultimate Destiny can begin.

And it would have began if not for the fact that Carl and Steve were suddenly vaporized and proceeded to spread themselves about the yard. Said yard belonged to wife and husband Mahogany Glee and Swift Drift respectively. They were a unicorn and pegasus, also respectively. The two met at a mutual friend’s cutesinera at a young age and hit it off well with their similar interests in crafts and the practical applications of said crafts. They hit it off so well, in fact, that they were married directly after they both reached the proper legal age.

As is bound to occur from loving marriages between a stallion and a mare: a foal was soon born to the agog couple. And, with the magical powers of Equestrian Harmony and the incredible serendipity of all loveable denizens therein, they christened him Fair Flame.

Now, Fair Flame was an exceptional young colt. He was mentored in the ways and peculiarities of the porcelain monolith in but eight months, uttered his first word, “hot”, by age one year and three months, had his first taste of literary sustenance only but two months later, and, in the sake of overachievement, had devoured his first true ink laden meal, “Earth Pony, Unicorn Pony, Pegasus Pony. Red Fishy, Green Fishy, Blue Fishy.” (admittedly a little verbose), with not unimpressive gusto. Thus began a lifelong love of the scholastic pursuits.

Fair Flame was not considering his lifelong achievements, instead he was focusing on the small patch of grass which he recently incinerated. “Off by about point-oh-five hooves. Ponyfeathers.”

He was displeased. Not only had his magic been consistently misaligned with his target (by an entirely unacceptable margin of nearly five percent of an average adult hoof’s diameter), but it had also been nearly constant in generating just enough power to slightly peel some of the paint off his father’s workshop. This did not bother Fair in the slightest, however his father was less than amused to come into his “foundry”, as he so fondly refers to it, only to find that his son had, out of the goodness of his heart, decided to “prepare” his forge.

The preparations had started well enough. Fair had entered the workshop whilst his father was out to buy the necessary materials for the crafting of quality luxury clouds.
From lessons he had given him, Fair knew that for the water vapor to disperse among the air in a craftable pattern the forge had to be raised to a temperature of one-hundred-eighty degrees by increments of twenty. That seemed easy enough to accomplish, especially considering his special talent being fire, and heat in general.
Unfortunately for young Flame, fire has the tendency to move about in the most unhelpful of ways.

A prime example, say, of fire moving about in unhelpful patterns would be if, say, after establishing a point of spell impact in the forge, a young, and completely innocent and undeserving of punishment, colt sent a slightly, say, overpowered spell born of his excitement that, say, proceeded to rush out of the forge that said young, and completely innocent and undeserving of punishment, colt had aimed at, and sought refuge in the molecules of paint covering the walls of the smithy. A, say, complete hypothetical of course.

In the past, however, was that. And, in the present moment, Fair was more focused on focusing his magic so precisely that his teachers, and unicorn mother, thought he might as well be preparing himself to take the entrance exam for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Fair, though, was not preparing to take the entrance exam for the prestigious school, at least not knowingly. He simply desired for his magic to be precise and controlled, he wasn’t a perfectionist however. In fact, in some areas he was quite the laze.

Art, for example, was a class that he despised with the burning fury of a thousand suns, or at least what his eight year old mind speculated the burning fury of said Celestial bodies would be like. He wasn’t a hater of the arts, he simply hated creating the arts. Drawing was worthy of particular disdain. No matter how many lopsided stick figures he painstakingly forced into existence Mister Canvas Scratch, the despicable old Tartarus escapee (and Director of Arts for Clear Skies Primary School of Canterlot School District Twelve), was never satisfied: “Come now, I know Mister Flame can do better than that.”, or “Really now Mister Flame, even my niece can devise a more attractive piece.” That was Mister Canvas Scratch’s one redeeming factor in Fair’s eye, his niece. Vinyl Scratch: a white unicorn filly with an outrageous, to put it mildly, mane and tail of two shades of electric blue, a passion for the audible arts, and the best friend a colt could ask for.

Vinyl was actually the only pony Fair considered a friend, most took one look at his grades and considerable personal library and branded him a most unnatural aberration of what is morally acceptable to the tacit rules that all young ponies live by: If an adult finds pleasure in it then it’s to be avoided as if it was a bubbling cauldron of physical hygiene liquids, water, and ugh...soap. Fair refused this archaic concept in favor of increasing his knowledge and magical abilities, and smell.

This, however, was not on his mind. What was on his mind was how anyone could possibly look at the results of his magic and call it “Satisfactory.” To him, it was seemingly a disgrace to all unicorns that he could not get his horn to direct magic to the bullseye that is figuratively painted on a quark in an atom of a blade of grass in his yard. It was, in fact, not. But he is an odd one.

Having enough of the stressful practice, and realizing he may have set his mother’s vegetable garden on fire, again, Fair decides to put a fair amount of distance between himself and the impromptu sauteed vegetables. To Vinyl’s it was.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ground shook as if Celestia had decided that today she would swing the sun around so close to the planet that the gravitational forces, that for some convoluted and absurd magicaly-thaumatical-scienctificish reason allowed for a geocentric star system, would tear it apart. She had not.

Vinyl Scratch was not the immortal royal demi-goddess that reigned over all Equestria, and the sun. However, she was a filly with a passion for music, particularly the beats in said music, and a unicorn, and owned several bass drums and bass guitars, and, as of yet, had no formal musical training, and, well, you can see where I’m going with this.

Fair could most definitely hear where I was going with this. Perhaps it would be more apt to say that he could feel where I was going with that. Mister Canvas, old cantankerous stallion that he was (he refused to accept lighting a box of crayons on fire and throwing them onto a canvas, which promptly burst into flames, as a proper wax painting.), had grown tired of hearing his niece wail on a bass drum, and had decided that he would get an extension built onto his suburban Canterlot house which was lined with soundproofing spells. Unfortunately, the spells only worked when the door was closed and properly locked.

Fair, being well versed in this facet of soundproofing spells, picked up his pace from a sedate trot to a near full gallop to save his friend from a lecture. “VINYL!” Too late.

Fair pulled up on his reins, so to speak, and quietly, and with great skill, snaked his way around the outer walls of the house, through the terrace, and up to the corner of the previously mentioned soundproofed exterior. The door was still open. “Vinyl, for Celestia’s sake filly, remember to keep door closed.”

“I did. Kinda. I think...”

“You didn’t, I could feel my bones trying to jump their way out of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole neighborhood could feel that. This is the last straw, no hayshake for you tonight.”

“I’m sowwy Uncle, I’ll twy and do bedder...” Vinyl was a master of the art of the manipulation of adults.

“Filly, oh please don’t make that face, oh alright.” Cue adorable happy face and foreleg hug.

“Oh thank you Uncle. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you thank you thank you thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyoutankyoutankyatank-”

“But don’t let it happen again.” Pause. “You’re sounding better.”

“You think so!? I found this old book in Fair Flame’s attic. It’s got all these lines with circles on ‘em and stuff-” Fair knew the book she was talking about. Vinyl and him had found it collecting dust in his attic. Collecting was putting it mildly, it would be more accurate to say that the book ,“Basic Music Theory and Application for Beginners”, was hoarding any airborne particles it could with an insatiable avarice. The book was nearly half its original size by the time the two youths had finished coughing and hacking the dust off it.

“They’re called notes honey.”

“Yeah that’s right, notes. Anyway, me and Fair were going through it and it said that the little plain circles were called ‘whole notes’ and that they get ‘four beats in a four four time siganature’ and we-

“Signature.”

“Huh?”

“You meant to say signature.”

“I did? When?”

“When you said siganature instead.”

“No, I meant to say siganature.”

“But that’s not a- No forget about it Canvas, you know you can’t reason with that filly. Meadows, I swear, when I die I’m going to knock you silly. Leaving an old stallion like me to raise a little filly...” Fair wasn’t quite sure what Canvas had said after “a” but he assumed it was unimportant.

“Can Fair come in Uncle?”

“What?”

“Can Fair come in, he’s standing outside the door.” Fair made himself known with a sheepish grin.

“Celestia have mercy on an old stallion. Would a quiet afternoon be too much to ask?
Come on in Mister Flame, by all means make yourself at home. You’ve already eavesdropped on us, might as well show you some hospitality. I’m going back to my study Vinyl, just, please, try not to leave this door open.” Canvas promptly makes his way out. Ironically, he leaves the door ajar.

“Hey Vinyl.”

“Hey Fair.”

“Whatta ya’ wanna do today?”

“I don’t know. We already got most the neighbors this week. Hmmmm...ooh what if we go hit the guards today?” Vinyl and Fair had become notorious around their particular Canterlot suburb as merciless pranksters. They hit neighbors, family, the occasional noble passing through, either toward or away from Upper Canterlot, where Celestia made her home, but most of all they hit the Royal Guards.

The Royal Guards were Equestria’s standing army. Really they were like one big unit of engineers, police, and mobile statues, but they performed their duties with pride and unblinking rock-like stoicism. They were so well disciplined when on duty that some speculated Celestia actually gave life to rocks so that they could guard her. What I’m trying to say is that they’re really really still. The most relaxed state they are capable of assuming seems to be a perfect parade rest, and only then when they’re sleeping.

To the dynamic du- I mean the colt and filly before us, this aspect of the Guard only presented a challenge. A challenge that they met with relentless ingenuity and sadistic pleasure. Their antics were so infamous that nearly every guard in Canterlot was a victim of one of, witnessed one of, or otherwise knew of one of their pranks. Rumor even had it that Celestia herself was aware of the sinister criminal scum and their violent rampage.

Unbeknownst to the two, they were about to formulate one of the most important events in their lives. “It’s been awhile since we hit ‘em. I’m in.” Fair agreed with a conspiratorial nod of doom, the guards’ doom to be precise.

Author's Note:

Questions, comments, concerns? Ask away. Feel free to unleash your full arsenal of critical review, I eagerly anticipate your scathing criticisms and ego-boosting praise.

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TMH

TMH #1 · Jan 3rd, 2013 · · ·

If you're going to dislike it then please leave a comment telling what turned you off of it. Pwetty pwease?

Carry On

Crimson Doom

Crimson Doom #2 · Jan 3rd, 2013 · · ·

Okay, I am officially amused. I LOVE this writing style, it's so quirky you can't help but love it. I'd say Pratchet-esque if I actually read enough Pratchet to know, so I guess it'd be sounds-like-Pratchet-esque? Oh, whatever, it's funny!