Winter was waning; the air held a morsel of a chill but otherwise Spring had sprung. Tamas yawned, stretched his well rested limbs and shook out his multi-hued mane. “Mmm, that was a good nap,” A tiny voice peeped out from behind him.
He craned his neck to peer at his companion still partially nestled within his tresses. He smiled at his familiar, Taco. “It certainly was!”
The small mouse uncurled himself from his cozy nest of hair and stretched out his front paws in a near exact manner as the horse, Tamas, had. His dark eyes blinked up into the bright sun and sneezed. Tamas chuckled at the tiny squeak. Taco scrunched his nose and closed his eyes in response. Then he stuck out his tongue. “Yeah, yeah.” He chided. “Are you ready to get started?”
The flutter pony stood and stretched his wings. The breeze ruffled Taco’s dark fur. “Yeppers! I was born ready.”
He wasn’t lying. Since Tamas was but a wee foal that crawled out of his basket, he had been playing pranks on anyone and everyone. They were always done in fun and never malicious. Though by the time he became a young adult his family had grown tired of his antics. It never stopped him though!
“So who’s the target today?” Taco asked.
Tamas slumped down into the soft grass, sweeping his large fox tail to the side. His familiar grabbed onto a curl to keep from slipping. “I don’t know.”
“Hmm that is a quandary.” He scratched his chin in contemplation. After some pondering, an idea popped into his head, “What about the Blue Sisters?”
Tamas shook his head. Taco seized a hold onto a curl once again. “We already pranked them just a few days ago. Remember how we kept moving the flowers?”
The Blue Sisters were a pair of twins in various shades of blue who specialized in creating flower wreaths. They often visited a nearby meadow from where Tamas and Taco lived. There they would spend endless hours plucking flowers and clovers to drop into large piles. Then once they felt their piles were large enough they’d spend the rest of their time, along with their raccoon familiars, braiding and weaving the plants into wreaths, laurels, bracelets, and whatever else they could think of. They were prime targets for mischief because of how oblivious they were to anything other than their tasks.
Tamas had shrunk himself down to as small as he could, which wasn’t as small as other flutters - he was still a big boy. Then he and Taco would sneak into the flower piles, scurrying under petals and flitting over clovers to grab what flowers they could and regroup them into a totally different pile a few feet away. It was silly and completely unnecessary, but it had the duo stifling giggles as they crept away with armfuls of oversized flowers. Tamas had the advantage of wings. His wings were often mistaken for some exotic butterfly; iridescent, lined in black and very large. It made pranking just a bit easier since most ponies or critters would assume they had seen a butterfly and not a miniature Flutter. They had continued their operations until all of the flower piles had been moved. Taco had moved one pile over to the right, just enough for one to notice but also second guess themself. Tamas, gifted with flight, had moved his sheer across the meadow in the opposite direction. Now that one they did notice. The twins had come back with their raccoon companions with baffled expressions as they assessed where their flowers went. The mischievous boys couldn’t hold in the laughter anymore and rolled about the grasses, Tamas still in his small stature. It didn’t take long for the victims of their high jinks to discover the culprits. They had sighed exasperatedly and told them off but Tamas and Taco had seen an echo of a smile on their faces when they had. Again, their shenanigans were always done in good fun and never intentionally harmed anyone.
Taco sighed, remembering their last joke. “You’re right. That sure was a lot of fun. Well what else could we do?”
The two of them sat in silence for a bit, Taco still perched on Tamas’ grey shoulder amongst his mane. Who hadn’t they played a prank on recently? Tamas racked his brain. They had already played peek-a-boo with the songbirds. Taco reminded him of when they painted the white roses to red, not all just a single bush, and how they confounded the gardening group of crows. Then there was the time when they had rearranged a family’s set of baskets, which normally would draw ire but instead just had the expectant parents chuckling and shaking their head - no mixed up babies there since each basket was far too distinct.
Tamas and Taco sat back and sighed. They were ready to resign to a day of boring until an idea struck him like an acorn falling from the oak tree. “Aha! Let’s go to the river and pretend to be gators!”
“Yes! Onward!” Taco grabbed onto a lock of hair with one paw and used the other to point ahead.
The river was crowded with little ones and families of every shape and size. The two put their hastily made plan into action. Taco had spotted the perfect log to act as their gator, and Tamas shrunk to his smallest size. Then he positioned himself behind the log and used his wings to propel him and the log forward. His mouse companion stayed on top to help navigate. They weaved and bobbed slowly towards a few foals, doing their best to mimic an aquatic reptile. One foal spotted them and shrieked. The two tried to stifle their laughter and failed. “Ah! Get out of the water! Get out!” The young one cried out.
They inched closer and all of the ponies clamored out of the water. But the foal continued, “Get out! Get out!”
Taco and Tamas couldn’t stop laughing now. “It’s just us,” Taco tried to reassure them through fits of giggles.
“Behind you!”
Tamas climbed onto the log, “See, just us!” He had been laughing so much that tears had started to well up, and as he was about to blink them away he noticed a second log behind him and Taco. The log’s maw widened into a wicked grin. The two let out their own shriek, “GATOR!”. Then with a quick flick of its tail it sent a wave crashing over them and the log. “Got you!”
The ponies on the shore burst into laughter. The jokesters had finally gotten pranked!
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