Thirty Minute Pony Stories

There once was a toothless baby alligator, so docile he was often mistaken for luggage.  After one particularly rambunctious Pony Pet Play Date, he spied a tortoise lumbering resolutely past and proceeded to bite it on the tail. Tortoise tails not being particularly sensitive, and Gummy having not the first tooth, the tortoise failed to notice his passenger and promptly - for Tank, that is - donned his magical flying harness. As his rainbow-maned owner snoozed in a treetop, off Tank flew toward his cloud home, where he was supposed to put his hard-shelled self to bed.

But he did not. Around the cumulus-walled floating house he trudged, collecting candy wrappers, pizza boxes, muffin tins, and energy drink bottles, sweeping as he went and tidying up as much as any tortoise could with an alligator tail extension. This he did because his cyan companion could not be bothered to clean, and he hated seeing her living in the squalor that only a rarely-home athletic bachelorette could generate. This Gummy noted and released his grip, falling noiselessly through the fluffy floor. But the tortoise realized that someone had seen him cleaning and knew that Rainbow Dash would not enjoy knowing that she couldn’t do everything herself.

A white bunny ran through a field picking daisies and humming lovesongs to butterflies when he heard an alligator-sized plop behind him and froze. He lay in the toe-high grass, willing his carrot-laden breath to cease its smell, and tried to remain as stealthy as a psychotic show-white rabbit with a facial tic and anger issues could.

Noticing the foot-tapping rabbit opposite him, the alligator gazed over the nostril-tickling grass and gurgled, “blarg”. And the rabbit knew the reptile had seen him being a total softy and took off sprinting.

Gummy followed - well, turned around and saw, really - a little brown and white dog who ran far off among the lush green hills, yapping animatedly at nothing in particular, as yippy little rat-dogs are wont to do. The frisky pup soon ceased its barking and tiptoed up behind a white-furred unicorn who napped daintily under a parasol.  Winona quietly and gracefully removed a few loose, exquisitely perfumed violet hairs from the pony’s mane and bounded back across the hills, stopping behind an orange earth pony snoring gently under a wide-brimmed hat. The little dog deposited the hairs under the earth mare’s nose, causing her to mumble in her sleep, “Mmm…  That’s a right purty scent, right there… Could nuzzle that there all day…”

“Glurg” coughed the alligator. And the little dog knew that someone had seen it playing matchmaker. All this Gummy noted and went on his way.

But that night there was a ruckus, perhaps even a fracas, among the animals.  Tank dumped buckets of garbage in Dash’s cloud-house to make her feel more at home. Angel Bunny mugged a confused little chipmunk of its prized nut to ensure his reputation stayed intact. And Winona retrieved the ‘You’re The Apple Of My Eye’ card she’d pinned to the door of Carousel Boutique, lest she hurry things along too quickly.

But Gummy just yawned. He sighed a quiet “yarg”, curled up in his favorite punch bowl, and fell asleep without closing his eyes. For of course, most ponies were sure he could never remember the next day what he’d seen the day before.

Pinkie was not most ponies - but a Pinkie Promise is something you keep forever.

[Author’s Note: Tonight for my daughter’s bedtime I read her “Fox Eyes” by Margaret Wise Brown, which directly inspired this story.]

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Piggy Comments:

This is very sweet and funny. I really like all the little things the pets are caught doing being, to them, incredibly serious offenses for one reason of another - Tank made me smile in particular, taking care of poor, stubborn Rainbow Dash as best he can. To then see them all desperately try to cover their tracks is adorable, and the ending is very sweet. Well done, overall, and I hope your daughter enjoyed the story.