A troubled Princess Celestia, wandering her School for Gifted Unicorns late one night, chances upon her young faithful student Twilight Sparkle, who has problems of her own:
She can't catch the Tooth Flutterpony.
What possible advice could Princess Celestia give to her upset young pupil, who is desperately trying to prove that an old ponies' tale is real?
Inspired by Skywriter's How to Remove a Unicorn Tooth (which is a much better story and you should probably go read it, if you already haven't); and, of course, Sir Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (which you should have already read, and even if you have, you should go read it again).
Chapters (1)
Brilliant, well-written, and adorable. Nicely done.
That was awesome.
(I believe you are missing a word around the mention of BBBFF)
Another triumph! You really do spoil us.
By the way, If The Flutterpony is substituted for The Bogeyman, does it collect teeth for a similar reason?
Absolutely amazing. A like and fav for you!
I'm a huge Tia fan, and I love how you wrote her. She felt like an ancient loving and caring Goddess with a pony she cares for deeply. Also, the twist at the end was great. Might have to check more of your stuff out now.
-Sent from IPhone-
OK, now that was just too cute!
And Twilight gets her first look into "old pony's tales" 
. Very nicely done!
Aww. That was adorable, well done.
Loved the twist.
It's always nice to read a nice clean fic about the formative years Twilight spent under Tia's wings.
After seven hours of soul destroying academic work, I needed that. Thank you very much indeed, it was excellent.
You never cease to amaze me.
Absolutely brilliant. Five star quality.
That was fabulous.
-Spirit
Science Twilight FTW!
Oh really Celestia? Resist this, I dare you:
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EDIT: Awesome story!!
This was beautiful.
This was funny.
This was adorable.
And "princessing" is now the best word ever.
That was really nicely written and executed. I actually like this story better than Skywriter's work on Cadance. Your story fits into the canon universe better and more naturally.
Aww...that was so sweet.
This. Was. AMAZING!
The adorableness of Filly Twilight you captured perfectly, and in my opinion, you wrote Celestia PERFECTLY. I also was not expecting the plot twist in the end. All in all, a nice cute little one- shot that well deserves a like and a fave.
Hah!
Nicely done!
So very sweet. I'm so glad I helped provide whatever spark prompted you to write this.
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Be assured it bothers me a little too. I'd like it if my stories were more canonical, but this is what happens when you plan out the vast majority of a ten-story series before we really even had a canon to work with.
4866871 That's understandable. I do think your series is quite well written. It's just that I never quite agreed with that particular characterization of Cadance, though I do really like your attempt to expand her backstory.
I can't help but wonder if some day, somepony will find ‘On The Tooth Flutterpony: Observations From the Field, by Twilight Sparkle (a filly) and research assistant Smarty Pants (a doll)’ in the library archives someday... It would be so very educational.
Its about time someone gave the ponies who manage the weather and food production their own special schools. Have yourself a like and a moustache
.
Please keep writing more of this glorious stuff and fill the feature box! Push out all the stupid Human/Alternate Universe/Crossover fics and put Pony back into FIMFic!
Wonderfully adorable. Everything else that I would have said has already been done by others.
This is beautiful. You capture filly Twilight and Celestua perfectly, and the ending was an unexpected bonus.
Was gonna just add this to my ever-growing "Read Later" list until I saw Pratchett's name mentioned in the description. Guess I'd better read it now...
P.S. Love the user name and bio.
P.P.S. Edit: Have a link to a silly edit I made some time back (because posting it in the comment like I tried to do at first cuts off part of the image): https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/5/11/321701.png
I enjoyed this a lot, so I added it to a lot of groups.
i.imgur.com/nzapftb.png
Great story!
Now, about old St. Nicker...
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(Headcanon accepted, btw) 
4865690 True, but shouldn't she have remembered what Celestia said to her here during the "returned letter incident" in the premiere, then?
Congratulations, good sir or madam author; you've just created what may be the funniest and most adorkable
plotstoryline hole ever in the history of My Little Pony cartoons! (A compliment, I assure you.)Definitely a super cute and fun little story!! I've been having problems settling down for sleep, but I think after reading your story I might be able to do just that ^_^
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To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I did decide that "sympathetic magic" wouldn't work like it does in the Discworld novels - that's too much like curses, which Twilight outright denies existing. I did decide that the main purpose of the Tooth Flutterpony is to help children be children, and that included helping them to "grow-up" by convincing them that she/he/it doesn't exist. Twilight, already so grown-up, is the reverse case: Celestia needs the Tooth Flutterpony's help to convince Twilight to be a bit more child-like.
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Thank you for providing the inspiration!
4866733
Indeed, you may have noticed a couple of references to the IDW comics in there.
Thank you! As Skywriter has already mentioned, I do have the advantage of nearly two year's worth of extra canonical material to work with.
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Comments like these mean a great deal to me. Thank you so much.
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This story was very nearly going to be about Spike finding and reading the journal. Instead, I decided to go in a slightly different direction.
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Actually I've already written a short story about Celestia and Santa Claus.
It... may have destroyed a few childhoods.
Oh, when I look at the clouds across the moon,
Me, I hope and pray that soon,
Youll hurry home to me.
You cant really blame Twilight for still thinking in linear space, not because of her age, but her experiences. hopefully it will be looking back on trying to catch the Toothpony the same way as everyone else that leads her to nonlinear, meta, and holistic analysis and the realisation that something new can come into existance when things current are brought together.
Also, in science, the amount of advancement is usually in proportion to the cost of equipment destroyed.
That was simply adorable. One of the best Celestia and Twilight fics I've read in quite a while, truly.
Filly Twilight is soooo adorable!
Is it just me or is the Tooth Flutterpony kind of an asshole. I mean it just hung around in that room while Twilight was crying, not cool.
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Don't be silly - everypony knows that the Tooth Flutterpony doesn't exist! It's just a story for foals!
And if you ever met the Tooth Flutterpony, it would even tell you that it doesn't exist.
More seriously, part of the meta-story is that (paradoxically) it's part of the Tooth Flutterpony's job to help children to grow-up and stop believing in fairy tales by convincing them that it doesn't exist. From the Tooth Flutterpony's perspective, in some cases (like Twilight's) the growing up process is a little harsher than others. Nopony said that it was an easy job being a mythological figure.
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Sounds irresponsible in a world like that of the Ponies. As demonstrated a lot of their "fairy tales," are very much true. Most importantly the not so nice ones. How many of those "grown up," ponies ended up ignoring key warning signs as "just an old ponies tale," and ended up eaten or worse.
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Good point... Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra...
How utterly adorkable.
Like, fav and added to my recommendation group.
That was really, really good. Excellent take on science filly Twilight, and your Celestia was just wonderful.
Between this and the Gnus story, have a follow.
> But, I do not leave; a part of me knows that I fully deserve that which I am trying not think about.
> crumpled sheets of parchments
Does parchment have a plural? At least in connection with "sheets of"?
> Having one’s name on the sign above the front door does tend to lend one a certain amount of freedom when comes to matters of access
> TS defied all attempts to be lured down, and had to be forcibly removed rescued on a pegasus fire patrol cloud
"removed rescued"?
> I noted with interested that
> no matter adorable she looks when she asks
> the words bubbled out from the among the stream of liquid unhappiness
> So what I can I do for you, Celestia?
> perhaps it is nothing more that the positive feeling one gets from
(If you've seen these and want them deleted for a more readable comment section, please reply to that effect!)
As for some words about the story of actual substance: It's quite lovely! I confess that the closing twist hit me out of left field entirely (or mid side gully, if that is the associated cricket term). It's quite upside-down, the entire thing; you just merrily read along, being ever so slightly disappointed that Celestia doesn't seem to find a way to tell the truth - and suddenly the tooth fairy exists, and her existence is kept a secret because ponies are supposed to become adults and stop believing in the unreal and whimsical... If you think too closely about it, it stays quite a bit nonsensical; in the kind of world where tooth fairies exist, as well as magic, unicorns, windigoes and curses, wouldn't a belief in the possibility of the supernatural be a handy thing to have, as experienced by Twilight in Feeling Pinkie Keen? (Apparently, at some point Twilight lost her touch for the whimsical after all, despite Celestia's favour, which is a bit sad... But then she suffered most hilariously in that episode. Such are the conflicts of a Twilight aficionado!)
Just excuse me for a moment. This old cynic needs to "d'awww."
D'awww...
Very cute little story.
The fact that the Flutterpony is real here is just icing on top of the cake.
You didn't see anything.
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And they say only porn goes into the featurebox. This was wonderful! Just accept my fav!
I DO get the idea of a snoopy-crossover! Linus needs the help of SCIENCE on the matter of the great pumpkin.
This was just too adorable...and way too in character for all involved. I love it!