Romance and the Fate of Equestria

As promised, a regular-sized rant.

For a long time, I had considered going back to all the chapters in which DJ P0n-3 appears and editing them so that her Cockney accent is spelled out phonetically. I've now decided against it; as of now, I'm not going to tweak Part One anymore, or else how will it be recognizable as my "early work"?

So instead I'm retconning the phonetic accent in, star'ing righ' now, mates. Check it.

Chapter Forty-Two

Fluttershy trotted down the street, singing under her breath as she used her wings to page through her thick bundle of paper, the second draft of Iron Will's new seminar, entitled The Magic of Friends.

A gust of icy autumn wind rushed by. Fluttershy attempted to grip the papers tighter, but they were caught, and were soon scattered to the winds all over the streets of Ponyville.

"Oh, no!" Fluttershy squeaked. "NOOOOOOO!"

Fluttershy's anguished cry was suddenly silenced when every paper stopped abruptly, each one encircled by a red magic aura. To Fluttershy's bewilderment, they all gathered themselves up to the outdoor café, attracted toward the glowing horn of a distinctive mare with a wild electric-blue mane.

"Tha' coulda ended badly," DJ P0n-3 said brightly. "You ought t' be more careful wiv your documents, mate."

"Oh, thank you so much!" Fluttershy said, rushing over. "I don't know what I would have done if I had lost a single page of that."

DJ P0n-3 looked over the document. "I sure 'ope you 'ad these numbered… ah, they are. Good."

With amazing speed, she shuffled the pages into their correct order and offered them to Fluttershy. Amazed, she took them, gripping them as tightly as she could in her feathers. "How… how did you do that?"

"Years of alphabe'izing records," the DJ said, raising her shades to wink. "Did you fink I was always a superstar?"

"Hello, Fluttershy," said Octavia, sitting at the same table as DJ P0n-3.

"Oh, Miss Octavia, I didn't see you there," Fluttershy said, pleased. "So nice to see you again."

Octavia smiled. "There's no 'Miss Octavia' here, Fluttershy. On the streets of Ponyville, I'm just Inkie Pie."

Fluttershy giggled. "Okay."

DJ P0n-3 raised an eyebrow. "She can call you Inkie Pie?"

"Of course she can," Octavia said.

"I fort ponies couldn' call you tha'," P0n-3 challenged.

"You can't call me Inkie Pie," Octavia corrected.

"You barely even know 'er."

"And I know you quite well. Maybe that's why I like her better."

"Ouch," DJ P0n-3 grumbled.

"Wow," Fluttershy commented. She laughed. "You two really do banter like that, huh? It's not just on the radio. I always wondered whether that was scripted."

"Well, they give us a script," Octavia said. "It's… quite short. They know we'll go off on our own pretty quickly."

"Yeah, we shoulda got a show togever earlier," P0n-3 said fondly. She leaned back and lifted a pencil, tapping it against a notebook on the table. Fluttershy realized that Octavia also had a notebook open, and was glancing at it periodically.

"What are you two working on?" Fluttershy asked.

"We're writing a song," Octavia muttered.

"Well, tryin' to," DJ P0n-3 clarified.

"Both of you together?" Fluttershy said eagerly. "Oh, that is so cute!"

Octavia frowned. "Well… hmph. That's exactly what we hoped you wouldn't say."

Fluttershy cringed. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's not your fault," Octavia said, patting her shoulder comfortingly. "It's just… Vinyl and I thought this would be the greatest adventure we'd ever had, but we're stuck."

"Yeah," the DJ agreed. "All we know izzat it's got t' be a' leas' nine minutes long."

"Nine minutes?" Fluttershy demanded.

"O'course," DJ P0n-3 said. "'Cause if it's jus' two or free minutes, like a normal song, ponies'll say, well, they'll say wha' you said. 'Oh, Octavia and DJ P0n-'free doin' a song togever… tha's cute.' If it's six minutes or so, we'll ge' accused o' tryin' t' be epic and failin'. But if it's nine minutes or more… yeah. Then they'll know tha' it truly is epic. Tha' it's the mos' import'nt fing eiver of us 'as ever done."

Octavia nodded. "Unfortunately, we can't think of anything. Not a lyric… not a note. That's not like either of us. We know the very special… thing… is deep within us somewhere, we just… we don't know where."

Fluttershy pouted. "I'm sorry. I hope you figure something out. Whatever you come up with, I'll buy it. I love you guys' music, both of you."

"Thanks, Shy," DJ P0n-3 said grimly.

"I, um… I need to go mail this out," Fluttershy said, glancing back at her document. "It was nice talking to you two!"

They smiled and nodded to her, and she trotted off.

"The magic o' friends," DJ P0n-3 muttered.

"What was that?" Octavia said sharply.

"Friends, diametrically opposed, so many flaws," the DJ continued, writing it down as she said it. "F'rall our imperfections, put us togever, and we're perfec'." She looked down at the words as if seeing them for the first time.

Octavia's mouth hung open. "Vinyl, that's it! That's our song! We need a melody and… you know, rhymes, and another nine minutes of lyrics, but that's it! That's our central message! Where did you get that?"

DJ P0n-3 stared blankly. "I… I fink it was on those papers I caugh'. The ones Shy's walkin' away wiv righ' now…"

They stared at each other for a few seconds, then jumped up in perfect unison and bolted after Fluttershy.

"Fluttershy!" Octavia yelled.

They caught up to her, panting and heaving, as she looked them over in confusion. "Is something wrong?" she whispered.

"Tha' documen'," DJ P0n-3 said frantically. "Wha' is it?"

"This? It's the new Iron Will seminar. The Magic of Friends. I've finished writing it, so I'm sending it out to him now."

"You wrote an Iron Will seminar?" Octavia said with a raised eyebrow. "The Iron Will?"

Fluttershy shrugged. "He's changing his approach. It started as a kindness seminar, that's what he called it when he pitched it to me, but I added an 'Elements of Harmony' theme to it. Why do you ask?"

"You fink we could look 'er over?" DJ P0n-3 asked, tapping it with her hoof.

"I feel like our song is in there somewhere," Octavia said reverently.

Fluttershy frowned. "Gosh, girls, I'm sorry. We have a deadline… Iron Will and I, that is. But, um… the seminar is in two weeks. I can get you tickets, if you like. Can… can you wait that long?"

Octavia considered the thick document. "All things considered… yes. Our art can wait. Don't worry, we won't just steal your seminar and turn it into a song. But… the themes and morals… I think that's what's going to inspire us."

"We look forward to 'earing your material, mate," DJ P0n-3 said, holding up a hoof.

Fluttershy pressed her own hoof gently against P0n-3's. "Thank you… and I just can't wait to hear yours."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

…Where the heck did all these new reviewers come from? This is awesome! A shout-out to the multitudes, then! That's SeptemberMistAngel, Harbinger-of-script, DavidMonostat, Apocalyptos, and (get this) Loli Pop! Thank you all!

And I'd like to give another, bonus one to Pizzachic, whose big shout-out definitely attracted at least one of the new guys.