“What?” Zecora said. “I didn’t agree to this! My speech will seem weird with no time to prepare, or to be more fancy, amiss. And what’ll happen to make me talk? Will somepony come in, nearly dead? Even then, imagine if doctors rhymed every single sentence they said. It would be a huge burden to getting anything done, and for most of them, it wouldn’t even be fun.”

Knock-knock!

“Who’s there?”

No answer.

“Must be Fluttershy.” Zecora opened the door, and it was Derpy Hooves, who was wearing an anklet which had a rectangular pendant on it reading “MR F”. On the same leg as this anklet was a currently bleeding cut spanning nearly the entire length of her leg. Zecora got a towel, poured some water on it, and dabbed the blood, then got a long hospital bandage from the same secret compartment and applied it to her.

“I’m not wasting any vaguely magical plants on you.”

Derpy Hooves’ expression changed from curvy but vaguely a smile to curvy but vaguely a frown.

“You can leave.”

Derpy left, not thinking to make Zecora go through the ‘I know’ ‘You may leave’ ‘I know’ ‘You should leave’ motions.

“You weren’t rhyming there,” camerapony #2 said.

“Sack me.”

“We will.”

“Fine. Then I’m not doing anything.”

“Good.”

But then there was nothing to do.

“The episode problem with which has been dealt,” Zecora said. “Now there’s nothing to do except watch that snow melt. Here.” She went outside and pointed out a lump of snow which had somehow got there despite snow not having happened yet. “That could be a good saying, I suddenly felt: ‘You know what it’s like? It’s like watching snow melt.’. It’d be a nice change from the one with the grass; mostly for winter, when there’s as not much... grass....”

She blinked.

“Okay, up which I fucked that one. But I made it quite clear that I don’t care. This thing they hold me to just isn’t fair. I know I’m rhyming now, it’s almost a habit. But I—” Zecora got distracted for a second by a bunny. “Aw, look at that cute little rabbit!”

Silence as the bunny hopped away in a vaguely cute fashion.

“I just need to stop. Not stop altogether. But if I did it less frequently, my life would be better. Anyway, I can’t think of any more rhymes, so I’ll go back inside for fun cl... I mean, potion-mixing times. Yes, that’s what I’m doing.”

And so she went back inside.

“Why did you follow me in? I’m just going to mix a potion,” she said, deliberately stressing “potion” correctly so that it wouldn’t rhyme.

“That’s not what you’re gonna do,” camerapony #2 said.

“Go away.”

“I’d like to, but my contract won’t let me.”

“I see.”

Silence.

“So,” camerapony #2 said, “You were going to make a potion?”

“Of course I was. I’ll do it right now.”

Zecora took a couple random bottles of liquid, neither of which anyone knows how to spell, a betaberry, an eszettberry, a releasecanditateberry, a Holy Leaf, and a Seed of the Sun’s Blossom, and put them all in a blender. She took the blender and poured the contents into another blender, then blended them.

“And what will this smoothie do?”

“It’s a potion, and I don’t know. I just threw a bunch of random ingredients together so that I could deliver on my lie.”

“Is there anything that’ll probably happen?”

“Well, I’d probably gain incredible Twilight-level powers for five minutes then explode, but anything could happen.”

“I guess you shouldn’t try it, then.”

Knock-knock!

Zecora decided she was tired of all this joke nonsense and opened the door.

“Captain Obvious?” Zecora said.

“You shouldn’t try it!” said Captain Obvious in a generic superhero voice, his cape waving despite the lack of wind. Zecora slammed the door.

“Is the chapter long enough yet?”

“It’s not long enough for you to not be sacked.”

“Fine. I don’t like this job anyway.”

And then, somewhere in the world, someone coughed.

“Your official letter of release will arrive momentarily,” camerapony #2 said.

The door was knocked and Zecora opened it. It was Derpy, who for some strange reason you’d have to take multiple years in calculus to understand had a letter in her mouth. Zecora took the letter, closed the door, and opened the envelope of the letter.

“Dear Zecora, according to Donald Trump, you’re fired. I mean, according to Donald Trump, I’m fired, Minecraft is fired, and my blankets are fired, but you are indeed actually fired. Eating pineapple pizza with salt and vinegar crisps, rainbowdash1.”

“How do you write and send those so quickly?” Zecora said, thinking she would get an adequate answer.

“Magic.”

“What about Derpy Hooves?”

“Magic.”

“But how—”

“Magic.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 134: Lyra the Caretaker Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 12 Minutes