For Today
“...and then I say to her, ‘That’s not a test tube, that’s Princess Celestia!’”
The audience stared at the lone, pink stallion on stage, nothing to be heard from them but an occasional cough. Not even the crickets thought the joke was worth their chirping.
The stallion brushed his pink and black mane out of his face and grimaced. “Get it? Celestia? Because she likes cake and… and…” He darted his head back and forth before letting out a sigh. “Meh, mom was right. I need to go back to college.”
He slumped off the stage and back to a random table, quickly replaced by Spike running out from behind the stage curtain and grabbing the microphone.
“Okay, everypony, give it up for Poptart!” He was greeted with more silence. “Wow… that’s depressing. Anywho…” He took one final look around the audience before clearing his throat. “If there are no more volunteers for the comedy club’s open mic night competition, I’d like to welcome my lovely assistant to the stage to announce our winner… even though I think we all know who it’s going to be. Oh, Starlight!”
The mare in question pranced onto the stage holding a small envelope and wearing a bright grin. “Oh, is it that time already, Spike? Time to announce the winner of the competition and even more importantly, the winner of the twenty-five bit gift card to Curly Fry’s Ice Cream Parlor! Located at the corner of Moberly and 21st street in downtown Canterlot, a proud sponsor of the comedy club for three months running!”
“You got it!”
“Alright, let’s see who it is.” Starlight began slowly tearing at the envelope.
Meanwhile, in the audience, Pinkie and Maud were sitting at a table, patiently awaiting the results. Well, Maud was being patient, as she is with most things in life, but Pinkie was on the verge of an excitement fuelled explosion that would rock the foundation of Equestria. She squirmed in her seat, looking like she desperately needed the toilet. What she needed, however, was that twenty-five bit gift card.
“Can you believe it, Maud? Twenty-five whole bits! That’s one ice cream - each! You and me are going to have the best day out two sisters ever had! WITH ICE CREAM!”
“And Mud Briar,” said Maud.
“Oh… err… yeah. And Mud Briar.” Pinkie shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll have something stick flavored he’d enjoy.”
Maud blinked. “But we don’t know if I won, Pinkie.”
“Oh, psh!” Pinkie shook her head violently. “You made everypony laugh like crazy! The other performers made the rubber chickens run for cover. You rocked! Get it? Get it!”
Maud blinked once more. “Yes.”
Pinkie was in hysterics. “Maybe next time I should enter!”
Back on stage, Starlight was still slowly tearing at the envelope.
“Hehe, could we hurry it up a bit, please?” asked Spike, twiddling his claws whilst watching Starlight fumble with the envelope. He turned his head from the microphone and whispered to Starlight. “Not to rush you or anything, but some of us have a life. There are a blanket and pillow waiting for me back home.”
Starlight rolled her eyes. “Fine. I was trying to build tension by opening it with my hooves the old fashioned way.” Her horn ignited and the envelope tore open, revealing a paltry scrap of notebook paper inside.
“Notebook paper? Really?” Spike sighed. “I thought we were going all out and getting an official-looking card or something for the announcement.”
Starlight glared at him. “You gave me one bit to get the supplies with! I had to bat my eyes just to get the pencil I wrote the name with!”
“Excuses, excuses…”
For Pinkie, time slowed down as Starlight went to read the result. She could practically taste the ice cream already! She watched as Starlight’s lips came slowly together to pronounce the first syllable.
“Mmm-”
Pinkie’s jaw started to slide open as the musical sound rang through the air. “Huuuuh!”
A loud bang rang out through the club, pausing the proceedings as the door crashed open, filling the stuffy room with the cool evening air. “Alright, every creature! I’m here to burn this club to the ground!”
“Don’t worry, ya’ll! She don’t mean it literally,” added the voice of Applejack.
The entire club turned toward the door to see Applejack wearing a nervous grin, standing next to a fired up Autumn Blaze, Equestria’s newest non-pony friend.
“Hey there! Hi, how ya doin’?” Autumn casually strode between the tables, waving and nodding at every pony in sight. “I’m Autumn. Autumn Blaze. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh boy,” Spike said, raising his eyebrows. “Can uh, can we help you?” He said over the mic, addressing the kirin invader. “We’re kinda in the middle of something here, not to be rude or whatever.”
Autumn paused her perusing and turned up to the stage, her grin growing even wider. “Oh. My. Gosh. A dragon! There’s no way! Well, there is a way because you’re right there and I’m over here and I can’t believe I’m meeting a dragon! This is so, so cool.” She dashed to the front and hopped on the stage, grabbing Spike’s claw in the process, shaking it vigorously. “Hi! I’m Autumn Blaze, kirin, female, the whole shebang.”
Spike, not knowing what in the world was going on, replied the only way he could. “Hey there. I”m Spike. And yeah, I’m a dragon… last time I checked at least.”
“Oh my gosh, this day just gets better and better!” Autumn gasped with excitement. “Ponyville, a dragon, a comedy club. It almost sounds like the beginning of a joke that’s destined to end with a poorly-crafted pun!”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Autumn. Fluttershy mentioned you when she got back home last week. But, um… what are you doing here?” asked Starlight, stepping out from behind Spike.
“Oh. My. Gosh,” Autumn yelled again. “A unicorn! There’s no way!”
“Can we not do this again?” asked Spike.
“Oh, sorry. I’m just so excited to be here! I heard there was an open mic night going on and I had to check it out! I. Love. Comedy!” She glanced around until her eyes met up with the microphone. “Ooh! Is this it? The supposed mic that’s open?”
“Well, yes, but… we’re just about done here, so…”
“Oh! Can I enter? Can I enter? I promise you won’t regret it. Pleeeease? I can provide references, personal and professional!” Autumn dropped to her knees and widened her eyes at the dragon.
Spike tried to look away, but as with most of the residents of Equestria and beyond, her cute, sad eyes couldn’t be ignored. “Ugh, okay, fine. I suppose one more entry wouldn’t hurt.”
“WHAT?!” Pinkie jumped up from the audience. “This is a travesty! How can you let her enter? The winner’s already been decided!”
“Well, it hasn’t been properly announced yet,” Spike said. “Besides. You’re the element of laughter, right? Shouldn’t you, I dunno, want to hear more jokes?”
“Look, I like laughter as much as the next pony, but I like ice cream more!”
“I’m sorry, Pinkie, but I just don’t see any reason why she can’t enter.”
But Pinkie was outraged. “Where’s the justice?! I thought this was Equestria!”
“Calm down, Pinkie,” Maud said, placing a hoof on her sister’s. “Everypony deserves a chance to express themselves via comedic tangent on stage.”
“Et tu, Maud?” Pinkie replied. “How can you be so selfish? This is appalling, and quite frankly, the princesses will hear about it.”
Maud nudged her sister. “Don’t worry, Pinkie. We’ll get ice cream either way, okay?”
Pinkie sighed. “Okay… Besides, you’re the best comedian ever, anyway. There’s no way you’ll lose!”
“Well, that’s all there is to it, then.” Spike pointed toward the mic stand. “It’s all yours, Autumn.”
Spike and Starlight walked behind the curtain, leaving the kirin to her own devices on stage.
Autumn curiously wandered toward the microphone and eyed the crowd in front of her. “Oh, hi there. Is this thing on?” She patted the mic a few times. After being greeted with the muffled banging coming through the comedy club speakers, she knew she was in business.
“Alright, so, I hope we’re all doing well out there. My name is Autumn Blaze. I’m a kirin, in case you didn’t know. Actually, very few ponies know about us at all. I guess that what you get from living in a place called the Peaks of Peril, am I right?”
She paused a moment to look at her audience.
“Of course, that’s not to be confused with the PreenHub knockoff, Peaks of Pleasure.” A few snorts were heard in the back, followed quickly by small bits of laughter throughout. “Oh, so I see a few of you know that second one, huh? Don’t worry, what happens in the club, stays in the club.” She followed it up with a wink toward a random laughing stallion, earning more laughs than before.
“Anyway, I love comedy. I always have! Of course, my fellow kirin haven’t always been the most laughable bunch, no sir. I mean, you wouldn’t believe how upset my mother got when I told her I wanted to get into comedy. She had always actually wanted me to be a nurse. She said, from birth, I had always been extremely sweet and kirin compared to others. Maybe she was onto something, huh?”
The crowd erupted into a small fit of laughter, with the exception of Pinkie, whose jaw had fallen to the table.
“She’s using puns?” Pinkie turned to her sister. “This is unacceptable!”
“Totally,” Maud replied. “She really needs to be pun-ished.”
Pinkie gasped before grumbling to herself once more.
“So, I’d just like to take a moment to say how thankful I am that everycreature around here likes to talk and laugh. My fellow kirin got upset and took giving the cold shoulder to the next level. They actually decided to use a magical lake and not talk for years! The only things I could talk to were my fruits and vegetables I drew faces on.” She shook her head. “Of course, the one good thing about everykirin else taking their vow of silence is that I got much more intelligent conversation than before.”
At this point, the entire crowd was in an uproar.
“Hmm,” Pinkie stroked her chin. “She sure is playing the species card a lot, here. I don’t trust her.”
“She does have some good jokes, though,” Maud observed. “Kirin life is all she knows. She’s using her material the best she can, as do we all.”
“I can’t even believe you’d say such a thing!” Pinkie said, offended. “Literally every punchline is ‘I’m a kirin’! She could stand to learn a bit about what comedy really is.” She bent over and started pushing Maud out of her seat. “Come on, you could do way better than her. Don’t let her come in and steal my ice cream like this!”
Reluctantly, Maud stepped up to the stage. “What exactly is it you want me to do, Pinkie?”
“Roast her! Show her up for the comedic equivalent of a melted banana split that she is!” Pinkie pulled a second microphone out of nowhere and pressed it into Maud’s hooves. “Go on, get up there!”
Autumn was finishing up a joke as Maud climbed onto the stage. “...so I said, ‘That’s not a test tube, that’s Rain Shine!’” The entire crowd burst into laughter. At this point, Autumn noticed the stoic pony that had joined her. “Oh, hi! What’s your name? Are you one of those hecklers I’ve heard about?”
“No,” Maud replied. “My name is Maud and my sister said I needed to defend my comedy title by roasting you.”
“A roast? How exciting! I’ve heard all about these.” Autumn clapped her front two hooves together. “I always wanted to do one of these! Everykirin back home was too sensitive to roast anything more than vegetables and didn’t want to turn into niriks by mistake so I never got to, before.” She giddily stomped her hooves into the floor. “Okay, you go first. I’m ready.”
Maud cleared her throat and spoke into the microphone. “Hey, Autumn. Your punchlines are all the same, like the strata in a layer of siltstone. Get wrecked.”
Autumn blinked a few times. “Wait… was that the burn?”
“Yes. Burned hotter than the magmatic rock laid down by a volcanic current.”
“Is… is that hot?”
“Very,” said Maud. “No known organism can survive in an environment like that, much like your inability to survive on this stage once I’ve completed my throw down.”
Oooohhh!
The crowd looked back and forth between the two, several preparing cups of ice to bestow upon the nasty scorch Autumn had just received.
“Well, I uh… that was great! Let me try.” Autumn scratched the back of her mane for a moment. “Ooh, I got one. So, uh, Maud was it?”
The mare nodded.
“Well, I hate to insult another comedian’s work, but it seems like your jokes get met with a Stream of Silence of their own. And this one isn’t magical, just sad.” A few inhales were heard from the crowd, lending a confident smile to Autumn. “But don’t worry. I’m sure you at least have a boyfriend that laughs at your jokes and isn’t a total stick in the mud.”
AAAhhhhhhhhh!!!
“Woah, woah, woah!” Spike and Starlight dashed onto the stage. “What’s going on here?”
“A roast!” Autumn squeaked. “And it’s a lot of fun!”
“Your jokes are as see-through as crystal quartz,” said Maud. “Every punchline seems to be that you’re a kirin.” Maud chuckled. “But I suppose that is pretty funny.”
The crowd gasped. That was straight savage.
“Excuse me?” Autumn stomped a hoof into the ground. “We kirin don’t even need words to properly roast somecreature else. All we have to do is this!”
She twisted in a circle and a wall a flame built around her in glorious fashion, leading to many oohs and ahhs from the crowd. Autumn stepped out of it in full nirik form.
“So,” she bellowed aloud. “What do you have to say to that?”
Maud blinked and turned her head. “I’d say you accidentally caught the curtains on fire.”
All of the club’s residents turned toward the curtain that was now engulfed in flames. Panic erupted across the audience, as ponies leaped to their hooves and ran to the doors. Five ponies at a time tried to cram through the club’s single entrance, as more ponies piled into them from behind.
“We need to help everypony get out of here!” cried Spike.
“There’s no time; they’re doomed,” Starlight yelled. “We’ll just have to look out for ourselves. Come on, we’ll use the back exit!”
“Uh, your lack of reformation is show—” Spike was cut off as Starlight grabbed him in her magic and threw him onto her back. Turning around, she galloped off to the back of the stage and out of sight.
Autumn was mortified. “Oh no, I didn’t mean for that to happen! What are we going to do?”
“Let’s see if we can break a window or something,” Maud suggested, apparently unaffected by the growing inferno. “We just need Pinkie- Pinkie!”
Pinkie was making no effort to escape. Instead, she was running towards the stage and, crucially, the fire. “Hang on, Maud!” she yelled. “I just need to check!”
“Pinkie, what are you doing?” This was the first time Autumn had detected any emotion in Maud’s tone. Pinkie, however, ignored her. She was busy searching the stage for something, even as chunks of burning wood and stone fell down around her.
“Found it!” came her voice through the smoke. There was the barely audible sound of paper rubbing against paper, and then Pinkie’s gleeful voice again. “We did it, Maud! We won! We won the twenty-five bit gift card!”
“That’s excellent, Pinkie. Can we go now?”
“Oh, err, yeah, of course!” Pinkie leaped back through the gloom to rejoin Autumn and Maud. “We should probably break a window or something.”
“Or, wait for it, here’s an idea. A thought even. Let’s follow where Starlight and Spike went!” Autumn Blaze reared up and dashed out the back, followed quickly behind by Maud and Pinkie.
After the three made it out, there was only one thing left to do.
Autumn smiled at Maud. “By the way, Maud, I really liked your jokes. We should put on a show back in my homeland, sometime!”
“I’d love to,” she replied with a small grin. “And you were funny, too.”
“Thanks,” said Autumn. “I like to think I roasted adequately.”
As the three of them pranced off into the distance, the blaze behind them continued to grow, sending columns of thick black smoke into the night sky. The sound of the flames growing ever higher barely drowned out the screaming of the club patrons still trapped in the crush at the door. However, this scene of chaos was not lost upon a dragon and unicorn, watching from afar with wide eyes.
“Wow,” Starlight said. “Thank goodness we made it out. Too bad about all the rest of the crowd, what with the burning and the crushing and the smoke inhalation.”
“It’s a real shame,” Spike said. “But luckily this is Equestria and like… nopony ever actually dies.”
“Truth.”
“So, that show escalated quickly, huh?”
“Real quickly,” Starlight responded.
“They really brought the house down. That performance was straight fire.”
“Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”