A Number of Challenges Pt.3

Chapter 3: Ridicule and Merriment in Ponyville

Clarkson was the first to awake. Everything felt wrong, somehow. He felt shorter, much shorter. "Have I lost my legs, or something?" He looked down, and nearly jumped out of his skin. His feet had been replaced..with hooves. "Oh," Clarkson said as he uttered his trademark expletive, "am I in a coma and hallucinating?" Everything here was...bright and lively, all done up in pastel colors. Clarkson's revelations were cut short by the trademark guffawing of James May.  At least Captain Slow was still alive, he thought.

Clarkson turned around to face the derisive laughter, but what he saw only drove him to laughter, as well. Standing before Clarkson was something that looked like it escaped from one of those insipid anime shows. A male pony stood before Clarkson, laughing and pointing at him, barely standing for all his cackling. He had brown fur flecked with grey in places, as well as a grey and light brown mane that was done up like James May's hairstyle. It wasn't the hair that made Clarkson laugh so much, nor was it the fact that May—pony May—was wearing that same ridiculous and decidedly effeminate shirt, tailored to fit his equine form. No, pony May had a tattoo of a bearded, bespectacled turtle right on his arse.

Then Richard Hammond and the Stig awoke, and there was even more laughing. Everybody, well, everypony, had clothes tailored to fit them and an arse-tattoo that told something about their personality. In addition, their manes and tails matched their hairstyles, although the Stig oddly had an equine version of a racing helmet, and his racing jumpsuit had a sort of sock sewn into it to hold the Stig's tail. There was an embroidered mark on the flank of the suit. It was a wheel skidding against asphalt and producing smoke.

Hammond's pony form was, as usual, shorter than everyone else. He was, however, a pegasus; the others viewed this with interest rather than the usual friendly derision. His dirty blond mane was styled like his hair when he was a human, and he got a lot of mockery for it. His coat was the color of cream, and just like his human form, he was wearing his usual ensemble of a blazer and a contemporary dress shirt. There were holes for his wings. To top off the ensemble, his flank mark was a silver mustang running across a patch of farmland.

"Hammond," said Clarkson, mocking his hair. "I don't think horses have salons they go to, mate."  

Hammond ignored the comment and the possible retort he could've made about Clarkson's thinning hair. "I think..." said Hammond, with a serious expression, "I think the mustang is my passion for muscle cars, and the farm is my rural, er, upbringing."

Clarkson and May laughed some more.
"I think it means you're an ax-murderer," said Clarkson. It was almost a term of endearment between friends. He always said that American muscle cars are driven primarily by psychopaths and people who wear vests to work. It irritated Hammond so much that he mostly ignored Clarkson whenever he made such a comment.

Hammond continued to speak, despite the derision. "But seriously, though. I just sort of instinctively knew what it meant. Weird, huh?"

May spoke up next. "Well, since we're having the discussion, I suppose mine represents my deliberate nature and my appreciation for quiet contemplation. The turtle's not just slow—he's actually a rather clever chap once you get to know him."

It was now Hammond's turn to laugh. "James, I don't think any turtles ever got lost on a circular track." May put on his disappointed face and rolled his eyes as Clarkson and Hammond laughed. After the laughter died out, Hammond and May looked at Clarkson and his flank mark.

Clarkson was maybe a few inches taller than May, and was wearing a striped blue dress shirt. His mane was curly and thinning, with a horn poking out from the mass. One of the ponies made a bald joke as well as a crude joke about the horn and where it normally was. His mane was once brown, but was now the color of granite. His coat was somewhere between brown and gray. His cutie mark, though he didn't know a term for it other than "arse tattoo," was a V8 engine belching fire onto the burned husk of a G-Whiz.

"Clarkson," said May, smiling. "Tell us about your arse tattoo."

Clarkson was quick with a retort. "Tonight, on Top Gear! We're all horses, and James May comes out of the closet!" The three friends, though they might ceaselessly ridicule and insult each other, had a friendship that could only come from years of shoddily-made contraptions, public misadventures, and a shared passion for cars and motoring.

"Fine, fine, though," said Clarkson. The other two were genuinely interested. "The V8 is my appreciation for power and speed, and the burned up G-Whiz is my preference for simplicity and...non-hipsterism in motoring." The other two nodded in approval, while the Stig simply stood silently. Even as a pony, his mannerisms were off-putting.

"Listen," said Clarkson. "There's a town...I guess, of ponies...down there."

Hammond looked over to where Clarkson gestured with his hoof. He read a sign aloud. Ponyville. "Does the sign -really- say 'Ponyville?'"

"Yes, Richard. Yes it does." There was silence between the three friends and the Stig. Clarkson thought to himself that no place this cartoony and vibrant and cheery should exist, yet it did. And what scared him was that in spite of its girlishness, he rather liked it. He looked at Hammond and May, and guessed that they were thinking the same thing. "Right!" He shouted it with the authority of someone who knew what he was doing. He often used this tone of voice whenever he and his friends started one of their ill-fated challenges. "Let's go introduce ourselves, and see about getting back," he said. He hoped this was real and that he wasn't on a stretcher somewhere with his brain halfway out of his head. Still, he thought, it was a nice place to have hallucinations about. He looked behind him to see the tame racing driver, the Stig, mechanically following them. "I hope that thing about the ducks wasn't true," he said as he and his friends headed into Ponyville.