Fission's Textual Tidbits

by Fission

"The Scholar's Dilemma" - TMP Prompt #214 - Comedy

The Scholar’s Dilemma
By Fissionprime

“So then you have—”
“Yes!”
“And you have—”
“Got that too!”
“And you even have…oh I can’t even say it…”
“Yes, we do. And we’re discreet!”
“Is there anything you don’t have?”
“My dear, at this shop…”

The Prompt: We sell absolutely EVERYTHING!

Hmm, they say that this place sells everything. Hopefully they have what I need. Sure, it might be considered a bit of a scandal for a scholar like myself to be making such a purchase, but we all have our guilty pleasures, I suppose.

Twilight Sparkle trotted down Horseshoe road through the bright Ponyville sun. The weather team had certainly been on task lately. She would have to mention that to Rainbow Dash next time she saw her.

She scanned the addresses, looking for number 1403. Ah, that must be the place! She thought as she trotted through the door.

Upon entering, she was greeted by the yellow stallion who sat behind the counter, “Welcome to the Flim Flam Brothers’ Wonder Emporium—”

“—Where we have absolutely everything that you might ever want, no matter how ridiculous,” finished a nearly identical stallion sporting a bushy moustache as he trotted out from behind the store’s shelves.

“Now, what could such a pretty young filly such as yourself be looking for in a place like this?” inquired the first brother, Flim.

Twilight pawed the ground in front of her. This was the part that she wasn’t prepared for. She wouldn’t want to be caught dead making this sort of a purchase, so this sort of a back alley shop was the natural choice—plus the fact that they claim to have everything should make it convenient enough. “Well, it’s actually a little bit embarrassing for me a come in and ask for this. I’m not sure what my friends would think if they knew I was doing this…”

In fact, the majority of her friends did not know about this particular habit of Twilight’s. As far as she could remember, the only one of her friends that she had revealed it to was Rainbow Dash; and, come to think of it, it wasn’t a surprise that Rainbow had been doing the very same thing in secret herself. Honestly she was exactly the sort of mare that Twilight would expect it from.
“So,” continued Twilight, “I decided that I could just write it down, and hopefully the two of you can help me find what I’m looking for.” She telekinetically opened her saddlebags and slid a piece of parchment over to the businessman.

“My dear filly,” began Flim as he scanned the sheet in front of him. “I am certain that we have what you are looking for. After all, this is an establishment nonpareil. But we are going to be simply unable to help if all you can give us to look is this.” He held the paper, which was covered in what appeared to be absolute gibberish, out for Flam to see.

“I have to agree with my brother here, miss. We may have everything. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to properly tell us what you need.” The other salespony said.

Twilight’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “Oh dear, I’m sorry about that. You see, I wrote my request down in a very common cipher because I didn’t want to explain why I would be after that sort of a thing to my overly-curious assistant. I would just translate it for you, but I forgot to bring a quill with me.”

“Well then,” replied Flim. “We appear to be at an impasse here. We can’t properly direct you towards something that you haven’t told us the identity of. And as much as we value your comfort, I believe I speak for both my brother and myself when I say that we would rather not lose a sale over your embarrassment in your choice of merchandise.”

Twilight thought furiously, attempting to come up with a palatable option. “Okay. I think I can do this. Would it be ok if I just whispered it to you?”

“Certainly, my dear, whatever does the job is fine with us.”

Twilight leaned across the counter and softly spoke into Flim’s ear. The storekeeper grinned to himself and stifled a small chuckle. “Why, that’s no problem at all, miss. Of course we have a fiction section.”

Author's Note:

Actually, I'm quite proud of how this one turned out. Hopefully the joke works properly despite the slight bend in canon that I made. Specifically, the only time that it's ever mentioned that Twilight reads fiction was when she was giving Dash the Daring Do book. All I did was decide that this was only in front of Rainbow, rather than their entire group of friends. Total writing time was 37 minutes, for those curious. Hope you enjoyed it.