Dinky and the Sisterhooves

Chapters

When Shall We Five Meet Again?
Bookworm vs. Bookworm! Behold the Great Battle of Wits!
A Little Conscience is a Terrible Thing
At the Council of Foals. And Twilight. And Fresh Carrot Cake. And Spike.
In the End, You Are On Your Own (Together)
It Won't All Be Milk and Cookies in the Sisterhooves Army

When Shall We Five Meet Again?

This particular summer’s evening, Dinky crept out and about the streets of Ponyville. Well after her bedtime. She giggled at her subversive deed.

Tonight: a special night. The meeting of the Sisterhooves Sisters was nigh.

As she tiptoed from house to house, pressing up against the walls and fences or peeking around corners, she twitched at the shadows everywhere. For all she knew, on the next step she’d bump into a zombie or vampire or ghost or giant death boa waiting where she couldn’t see it. That’s why she giggled with the thrill of this scary sneaking mission. Her imagination gave her horrors tonight, just for a change of pace.

When she looked up, though, she genuinely shivered. No Mare in the Moon. She swore she’d never get used to looking up and seeing a round blankness where the dark face once watched over her. A piece of childhood fantasy was lost forever.

No other lights guided her that night. Except those of Berry Punch. Her cottage remained awake, long after all others had gone to sleep. Relieved, Dinky dropped her imaginary horror monsters like toys and ran over to the front door happily.

She gave the secret knock. No one had ever agreed to secret knocks, but she made one up and gave it anyway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. A good idea for her story, too.

From inside came excited squeaks, and then hooves blundering up the corridor. The door opened.

The others had taken ages to decide on whose home would serve as their rendezvous point. It came down to who had the most liberal parent or sibling. Few were as accommodating as Berry Punch.

Berry peered out from her world of light. Her broad smile had traces of imp in it.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Dinker the Thinker.” She winked. “Brought a bottle?”

“Dinker the Thinker! Dinker the Thinker!” Berry’s little sister bounced out from behind her and leaned forwards eagerly.

From her saddlebag, Dinky produced some mango milkshake. “I’ll tell Ammy I got up in the night and drank it.”

“Ha! And she’ll believe that?”

“Don’t know. She is very smart. But I like a challenge.”

“Thattagirl,” said Berry Punch. “Don’t let the worrywart worry. Come plant your butt by the fire. You must be freezing your hocks off. Give her some room, Little Sis.”

“Anything you say, Big Sis!”

Thus graciously invited, Dinky hopped into a world she rarely knew at home. Pop music danced in the background. Baking smells wafted from the kitchen, and laughter from the living room. Every firefly jar and magical strip light that could be on would be on, and should be, in her juvenile opinion.

In deference to the neighbours, Berry hadn’t thrown a full party for them. But she’d clearly wanted to. You couldn’t hate an earth mare who loved the sound of foals drinking and arguing and tapping their hooves to the music, especially an earth mare who didn’t believe in bedtime.

Amethyst always said it was wise to keep an open mind about other ponies’ beliefs. For once, Dinky was going to take her big sister’s advice very seriously.

Beside Berry Punch, Berry’s little sister – Piña Colada, back when their parents had tried being classy – sniffed the bottle like a puppy sensing a treat.

Berry Punch laughed and beckoned them to follow. “Bring that mango to the tango, little one! All drinks have to come to the kitchen so they can be properly introduced. Piña, give her some room, for goodness’ sake.”

“As you decree, ma’am.” Dinky scurried after her, settling in already. She didn’t have nights like this every night, after all.

She and Piña walked in single file; Berry Punch had many virtues – at least from a foalish point of view – but owning riches was not among them. The corridor from front door to kitchen was too narrow, as if even space had to be saved up carefully.

In the kitchen, Dinky blinked. So many lights burned that the place was a pure heavenly blaze.

Berry Punch tittered with the voice of fallen angels. “Oh, I’d love to see the Grim Reaper’s face if she knew you’d sneaked out for this.”

The Grim Reaper was Berry’s name for Amethyst. Dinky assumed it was a sort of morbid flattery: Berry and Amethyst were the sort of casual enemies that achieved, in their own way, a kind of mutual antithesis. Stiff sobriety versus wild partying. Kind of like if ice and fire – or rather, liquid nitrogen and the sun’s molten core – could politely hate each other.

Several punch bowls waited for them on the sideboard. Fascinated, Dinky watched Berry take the mango milkshake and a bunch of other bottles, mix them in an empty bowl, and produce… a rainbow.

“Wow,” Dinky said. “You must know magic to do stuff like that, Miss Berry Punch. Or maybe rare chemistry? Alchemy?”

Berry laughed like an indulgent aunt. “Is this the sister of Amethyst speaking? Did she who made the Am make thee?”

“Oh, Ammy’s all right. She’s sweet. She’s just not very imaginative. Like a chocolate after you’ve already eaten some chocolate.”

Someone laughed harshly behind them.

Another filly was sitting at the little kitchen table. Or rather slumped over it: it was apparently one of Odd Job’s duties to stare out at the world in a sort of put-upon bewilderment.

“Better than Golden Harvest, anyway,” she muttered.

“Oh, Goldie’s a fine enough carrot mare,” said Berry Punch, still pouring out drinks. “In her own way.”

“She doesn’t like me coming to parties,” muttered Odd Job.

“She would like you coming to parties. She just… never has the time for them herself.”

Dinky and Piña exchanged worried looks. Generally speaking, sisters tried not to talk ill of their own flesh and blood, and Odd Job usually wasn’t in a talkative mood, either through good upbringing or simply because she was too tired at the end of a hard day’s work on the carrot farm outside Ponyville. Only on secret times like this did a certain dark part of her come oozing out like tar.

Thankfully, for now it was kept at bay by Berry’s finest beverages. Odd Job slid off her chair and made a passable attempt at scurrying over in something akin to excitement.

“Well, you’re making your own time now!” squeaked Piña happily. Even Odd Job smiled, after a couple of twitching goes.

The three fillies watched the alchemy, near-hypnotized. Berry’s drinks were the unspoken perks of meeting up at this house.

“All righty, there we go.” Berry drew back and gestured dramatically to her latest concoction. “I call it the Wine of Life! Don’t worry, there’s no real wine in it.”

A couple of disappointed groans from the other two. Dinky alone had been smart enough not to expect any.

“Any tasters?” said Berry. “No, no, Piña. Guests first, OK?”

Piña let out another disappointed groan, but not for long. No badness could touch her while she was near her biggest bestest sister ever.

There was a very brief but respectful scuffle between Dinky and Odd Job. Even grown-up ponies would wrestle each other to the ground, just to taste Berry’s least cocktail. Two fillies couldn’t have stopped themselves if they’d been mind-controlled into not wanting any.

Odd Job didn’t win: Dinky was too quick. Instead, she slunk to the back of the “queue” behind her, muttering under her breath.

“Big Sis is the bestest sis ever!” Piña boasted while Dinky ladled out a spoonful. “Try it! Try it! Try it!”

Dinky sipped hers first.

“Close your eyes,” whispered Berry Punch. “Get the full effect.”

At once, Dinky did so, concentrating on her mouth.

What danced across her tongue in a sweeping dress was a shimmering whirlwind of colours, thick and fleshy fruits not merely de-juiced like water squeezed out of a towel, but transformed by the dance into flowing, liquid fruit with no loss of flavour or mass. She tasted tangs like the little stiletto taps of expensive heels, felt the chill as though the ballroom of her mouth had been opened to a winter’s night, found herself dreaming of iridescent snow and the hot chocolate warmth of a Hearth’s Warming Eve…

Dinky shuddered with pleasure.

Not bad for a summer drink. To merely swallow such a concoction would be sacrilege, but Dinky had to, in the end. Nearby, Odd Job got hers: she could tell because the filly gasped. They stared at each other in watery-eyed fellow-feeling.

It had to be alchemy. No one could make fruit drinks so adventurous. Even Derpy at her most indulgent hadn’t gone further than buying another flavour from the shop.

Both Dinky and Odd Job nodded as one. It would be unfair to leave no tribute to the glories of punch. They turned away and then turned back, jangling coins.

Berry Punch held up a smile, of sorts. “Oh, girls. You don’t have to pay for these drinks. I earned enough profit from the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“You make the best drinks in Ponyville,” said Odd Job, life’s worries totally forgotten. “You deserve every penny you get, and a lot of pennies you don’t get too.”

“Besides,” said Dinky, “every little bit helps.”

“Every little bit helps what?” said Berry.

“Uh… you? The economy? Um…” How would Ammy put it? “The principles of business… ish?”

Guilt and greed squirmed over Berry’s face. At last, she shrugged and let them plant the coins on her raised hoof.

“If you insist,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Figures the Grim Reaper would teach you to act responsibly, Dinker the Thinker.”

As soon as Berry slipped away and let them ladle their second cups, Piña bounced up and down on the spot through sheer smug joy.

“I told you Big Sis is the bestest best sister ever!” she blurted out.

“Where’s Ruby Pinch?” said Dinky politely; Odd Job slurped behind her, unable to resist a second cup any longer.

“Ah, she’s upstairs. Sleeping,” said Piña in horrified disgust. “What a party pooper.”

“Now now, she’s just tired like the rest of us,” said Berry, passing by. “Not everyone’s got your stamina, Pinny. You just look after the ones who are awake, all right?”

Piña preened herself, as a courtier might upon receiving not just the queen’s blessing, but the right to rule the country for her.

“Yes, Big Sis!” she squeaked excitedly.

Dinky winced. One of the things ponies learned about Piña – very quickly upon meeting her – was that she had the sort of ingratiatingly cute voice which threatened to turn the perfectly serviceable “r” into a precious “w”. Only Berry Punch seemed immune to it; she, alone of the citizens of Ponyville, could smile upon Piña as her sincere “pwecious”.

The three fillies entered the living room, where the other two of their sisterhood sat on the floor and argued between themselves.

“Where have you been, Apple Bloom?” said the pegasus filly haughtily. “Cloudkicker moved out ages ago. She said Cloudsdale’s way too competitive.” She added, with feeling: “Pansy.”

“Well, that don’t seem fair.” The earth filly drew herself up equally haughtily. “You know what Ah think? Ah think you’d miss her. You just don’t wanna admit it.”

“Miss her? She drove me up the wall! Being sensible and organizing everything. And she kept saying sorry a lot. My mom said if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the stratosphere.”

“Yeah? Well, if Applejack left us, Ah wouldn’t act like you act. Family should stick together.”

“Yeah, but I bet Applejack’ll never leave the farm. Nor will Big Mac. If anyone leaves your farm, it’ll probably be you. You don’t act like an apple farmer.”

“You’re such a pegasus, Alula!”

“And you’re… you’re such an earth pony, Apple Bloom!”

“That don’t make no sense.”

“You don’t make no sense,” said Alula, but happily, because she liked nothing more than spirited one-upmareship.

The other two earth fillies sat among them, Odd Job quietly sipping her drink, Piña egging them on indiscriminately. Meanwhile, Dinky watched them all, taking them all in.

And there they were: the Sisterhooves Sisters.

Last year, the five of them had taken part in a special event known as the Sisterhooves Social. All of them had gone – or been dragged onto, or had hero-worshipped and followed their sister to, or had leaped at the curious chance to see – Sweet Apple Acres, the biggest farm in all of Ponyville and the pride of its conspicuously apple-based economy. Apples were the core of the town, the seed from which it had grown, and a persistent litter problem on some streets where the attitude was: “Toss it on the ground; something’ll eat it.”

All five of them had met on the track, leaping mud pits, eating pies, making grape juice, and carrying eggs. Trauma like that binds ponies together in a way no other experience can hope to match.

So every now and again, whenever the opportunity arose, they met up. Clandestinely, in some cases: unfortunately, their elder sisters tended to view each other less as fellow passengers of life and more as rivals fighting over life’s last train ticket.

Dinky hummed to herself. The “Big Five”, perhaps. Or rather, the “Little Five”.

She’d gone along with Amethyst way back, when Amethyst did not automatically turn her nose up at social events and when Derpy had tried to encourage them to go out more. Dinky had emerged from the experience staring into space, gaping at the marvels, transformed into a new mare with a far more exciting future than she’d ever imagined. An experience which happened to her about once a week.

Not bad for what even she’d admit was basically a bit of country fun ‘n’ games.

So Dinky had loved it. Apple Bloom, as one of the Apple clan, had hosted it. Odd Job hadn’t wanted to leave it. Alula had made it her life’s purpose to win it. And Piña Colada had cried because she’d never won it, which at least meant her friendship with the others started with them offering her hankies or teases.

Since then, they’d agreed to meet up… well, it had been once a week, to begin with.

Then Odd Job and Apple Bloom had worked more around their sisters’ farms as and when needed, so it stretched out to once every two weeks.

Then Alula had sulked because living in Cloudsdale meant no one could visit her home, so it stretched out to once a month.

Now it was once every other month.

Dinky noticed all talk had ceased. They had no leaders, as such, but she saw no point in letting anarchy reign supreme. A little bit of Amethyst had rubbed off on her.

“Ahem, ahem,” she said, politely as she could.

“Hey, Dinky!” Alula held up a forelimb for the high hoof-bump. Dinky – keen to blend in with the natives – obliged. “So what do you think of that new unicorn in town, huh?”

“Twilight Sparkle?” said Dinky.

“Is that her name? Cool! Is she a princess?”

“Everything’s a princess to you,” said Piña, smirking, “if it comes from Canterlot.”

“Hey!” snapped Alula, ever ready to fight. “Who doesn’t like awesome princesses?”

“You sure don’t…” Piña giggled. “Princess Erroria!”

Alula’s face turned to sunburnt red. “I said the name right! I said the name right! You just don’t remember it right!”

“I’m with Piña on this one,” said Dinky, hoping she sounded reasonably mature. “You did say ‘Erroria’.”

“I said ‘Princess Aurora’! Anyway, my Nightmare Night costume was better than all of yours put together!”

The others tittered, each behind a hoof. Alula had been annoying some of them lately.

“Yeah. Ah’ve met that new unicorn already,” said Apple Bloom. “She come down to Sweet Apple Acres to check on the Summer Sun caterin’.”

“Oh, and did she like it?” said Alula, lashing out.

“Too right she did!” snapped Apple Bloom.

“Bet you gave her tummy ache.”

“No, we didn’t! Anyway, Ah’ve met her, and she ain’t so bad.”

Awestruck from shiny eyes to tiny gape, Piña leaned forwards as though to genuflect before this fount of information. “Did she… have a dragon?”

“Only a little one…” began Apple Bloom smugly.

“His name’s Spike,” said Dinky.

Suspicion shot from the bow of Apple’s eye. “How d’you know?”

Resisting the urge to boast, Dinky calmed her voice before replying, “I’ve met her before, too. I went to Canterlot long ago with Ammy, and I met her there.”

The others switched from Apple Bloom to Dinky as their new master of the sacred knowledge. Apple Bloom’s fount sputtered and dried up, as did Apple Bloom.

Well, “met” was a bit much, Dinky had to admit. Unless you were a book, Twilight barely noticed you existed. Certainly, Amethyst hadn’t been keen about her. But Dinky had technically been within speaking distance of Twilight once or twice. Besides, when it came to telling the truth, she liked to play around with it a bit, especially when someone was giving her funny looks.

“So what’s she like?” said Piña “Is… Is she a princess really?”

“She’s a Canterlot pony,” said Alula eagerly. “So she’s gotta be a lady, right? Is the dragon her pet?”

“Oh, it’s like a fairy tale! A princess in Ponyville! A princess in Ponyville!”

“Yeah, yeah, does she have superpowers? Does she fight evil nightmare creatures all the time, or was the Summer Sun thing just a one-time deal?”

Dinky let them go on like this for a while before dropping her next bombshell. “No, nothing like that. She used to study at Celestia’s School. Ammy told me she likes books.”

This caused a pause in the excited speculations, but both Alula and Piña recovered magnificently.

“She’s a secret pony princess warrior!” Alula almost fluttered to the ceiling. “She goes to school and then she turns into a fighting unicorn to fight against evil!”

“Ooh,” cooed Piña in a dream. “I bet she looks so pretty when she turns into a princess!”

“Is that how she beat Nightmare Moon? Cool!”

“And her Spike is her bestest best friend in all the world and guides her and helps her transform with the power of love!”

“Does she fight crime? I hope we get a crime spree soon. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she went full princess on their flanks?”

Once more, Dinky let them go on. In the background, Odd Job stared, silently buffeted by the rush of words, whereas Apple Bloom tapped a hoof impatiently, one cheek inflated with half a desire to tell her off. To Dinky, these fillies were open books.

“She’s just the librarian now,” she said. “Actually, I was wondering if we could put her into this story I was thinking up.”

Whispered speculation followed this announcement, amid the slurping of fillies giving in to Berry Punch’s finest.

“OK,” said Alula at once, “so what’s the game then? Sparky the Space Scout?”

“Story,” corrected Apple Bloom. “Not game.”

“Story, game: what’s the difference?”

Dinky thought about yesterday’s playing session. Not ambitious enough. The Sparky story definitely needed work. Blasting off into space was a good start, but was it the start?

Perhaps it needed the theft of some gemstone or other? Magical-gem hunting made for a good fall-back option if no other story idea presented itself. Perhaps a power crystal? Or a crown? A ring?

Definitely something magical, anyway: no hero would go through a load of death-traps just to swipe, say, a battered old tin can (she’d found one in the street and imagination had taken over until Derpy found out).

“Simple.” Dinky cleared her throat, and the others fell silent at once. “This time, we tell the tale of how Sparky got the dream of space-travelling!”

“I thought we told that story already? When we did the flyin’?” said Apple Bloom. “With Derpy?”

“And now I’m telling the story before that.”

“That’s out of order, though.”

Dinky grinned. “Yep! Still doing it!”

To no one’s surprise, Piña raised a hoof and waggled it in mid-air. To show willing, Dinky nodded in her direction.

“Um,” said Piña. “Does that make it a prequel, or a flashback?”

Dinky licked her lips, relishing the moment. “Either. I’m thinking… She’s got to be a humble milkmaid, dreaming of adventure.”

“Why a milkmaid?” said Alula gruffly.

Dinky summoned all of her thespian ability, paced around them, stamped at the right points to hammer them home, spoke in her best double-whammy of enunciation and oration, let the words come to life…

“Because Sparky has to start off as a humble hero! You know how it goes, girls! The hero goes into hiding – young, inexperienced, totally unaware of her destiny – then when they grow up as a kindly shepherd or a humble milkmaid –”

“A shepherd would be better,” said Apple Bloom. “You know what Ah think? Ah think you wanna be a hero, you gotta be a shepherd. ‘Cause all heroes are like shepherds watchin’ over their flocks. It’s symbolism.”

“And sheep are nicer than cows,” said Piña.

“Hey! That’s disrespectful! Ah know plenty of nice cows. Daisy Jo’s ever so neighbourly, f’r instance.”

“Well, they are! Sheep are woollier and don’t smell.”

“Anyway,” said Dinky diplomatically, ducking in and out between them like a cane coming down. “The hero grows up as a farmer, and then one day they find out they’re descendants of…” Her acting ability dropped the script. Panicking, she added, “…someone really noble, and then they leave the farm to go on a quest unto the –”

“Farmin’ ain’t humble,” grumbled Apple Bloom.

Dinky stopped. A decent audience: you just can’t get them, you know.

“I’m sorry?” she said: Derpy always said to be polite.

“Farmin’ ain’t humble. It’s a very important responsibility.”

“And hard work,” piped up Odd Job resentfully.

“Applejack’s a farmer, but she ain’t descended from no noble ponies. And she’s still a hero,” added Apple Bloom, glowing with pride-by-association.

“Farmers don’t have to go on quests to be heroes, anyway!” snapped Odd Job. “I don’t see why a hero should disrespect farmers, just because they get to dump their work and go running away on some pathetic quest –”

“Calm down, calm down, I didn’t mean anything by it!” said Dinky, waving her forelimbs frantically; Odd Job might hate farmwork, but she’d fight to the death before anyone else dismissed it. “I-I meant that’s how the story goes. Heroes aren’t better. They’re just different.”

“Well, you did call it ‘humble’,” said Apple Bloom testily.

“Excuse me.” Piña had her hoof up. She looked strained, as though she’d had it up for a while.

Sensing a less heated topic, Dinky turned to her gratefully. “Yes, Piña?”

“Why is Sparky the Space Scout hiding?”

“Aha –” An easy question, yes! “– that’s because of the evil villain, my young apprentice. You have to hide because of villains. Villains always do things that make heroes do things.”

“You need villains if you want heroes,” said Alula. “Stands to reason. If villains didn’t exist…” she frowned slightly “…you wouldn’t have heroes?”

“Yeah,” said Dinky. “It’s like… If there were no bad guys hurting ponies, then ponies wouldn’t be able to show how good and heroic they are…”

A lot of confused looks passed around the circle.

“Can’t they just be good and heroic without the bad guys stomping everyone?” said Piña. She shuddered. “That sounds too mean.”

“Yeah,” said Odd Job. “Why not just throw away the villain and get rid of all the mean stuff?”

“That’s rubbish,” snapped Alula. “Then you’d have nothing but good ol’ awesomeness all day long wait a minute…”

Unusually, she descended into her own thoughtful silence. Dinky watched it for sheer rarity value.

“Nah, you’d get tired eventually,” said Apple Bloom, who Dinky suspected didn’t have a thespian bone in her body. “It’s unnatural being nothin’ but good all the time. Any pony would need a break eventually.”

“You could take pills for it,” said Alula, instant expert on anything she happened to be interested in. “Some ponies take pills to make them happy all day. You can get them at the doctor’s. Cloudkicker does, the pansy.”

“Golden Harvest is against pills,” declared Odd Job.

Shuffling and coughing, the others avoided looking at her scowl. She had a way of dropping declarations into a discussion that ended all but the most tactless of ponies.

“What do you think?” said Dinky, desperately not looking in Odd Job’s direction.

“Ah guess it’s OK,” said Apple Bloom.

“It’s brilliant!” Alula pointed at her own chest. “And I’ll be Cosmo, the cosmonaut who does all the kung fu and jujitsu and judo and karate and… and any kind of fighting, really.”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “Ah got nothin’. Ah guess Ah’m jus’ gettin’ too old for games.”

“Come on, Apple Bloom!” said Alula, chummily. “Don’t be a spoilsport. Anyway, you’re the youngest one in our class. I saw Cheerilee’s register once. It had all our birthdays on it.”

“Aw, fine.” Apple Bloom tapped her chin. “Then Ah’ll be… a cowpony! Just like Applejack! The roughingest, toughingest cowpony in all of Equestria!”

The others concurred in a chorus of “not bad, not bad”. Applejack had been a rodeo champion, town hero, and all-around role model even before becoming a Bearer of the Element of Honesty. For instance, the fillies had paid close attention to how she spat in spittoons and shrugged off dirt like it was nothing. Good honest behaviour, all right.

Alula turned to Dinky. “Can you have cowponies in space?”

“Hm. I suppose so, if they’ve been trained like the other astronauts. Or we could go to a cowpony planet first. It’s very… heroic.”

“I wanna be a ladybug!” said Piña with what could only be described as pwide.

This was met with a few sniggers amongst the rest of the sisterhood.

“What? Whaaaat!?”

“You can’t be a ladybug,” said Dinky reasonably. “It doesn’t fit the story.”

“Whoever heard of a ladybug being a hero?” sneered Alula. The others chuckled appreciatively at this rapier wit, or at least at this plastic sword version of wit.

“Yeah,” said Odd Job. “What would you fight? Spider ponies?”

“It could happen!” Piña said hotly. “Anyway, ladybugs are pretty.”

“And I,” said Odd Job, looming up, “will be a princess.”

They stared at her.

“I can if I want!” she snapped. More dreamily, she soliloquyed to the empty visions above her head: “Oh, I’d love to lounge around all day in a castle. No chores, no duties, giving orders whenever I want, and doing whatever I like…”

The others, even including Apple Bloom, shuffled uncomfortably. Odd Job was the only other available set of hooves at Golden Harvest’s little carrot farm. Unlike the Apple family, she often had to skip school to help out whenever crops, pests, and special cooking occasions got on top of her sister. This was in addition to any domestic chores that her sister rather absentmindedly dumped on her lap; Odd Job had the dutifulness of a yes-mare and the rebellious instincts of a fruitcake.

Eventually, Dinky plucked up the courage to say, “Princess it is, then. Aheh… Now, we’ve got our band of heroes. The astronaut –” she nodded to Alula “– the cowpony –” then to Apple Bloom “– the princess –” hastily to Odd Job “– and… the ladybug.”

“The magical ladybug,” insisted Piña.

“The magical ladybug, yeah.” Dinky wiped her brow and sipped her drink for reinforcement.

“So what are we fighting?” said Alula. “Aliens? Monsters? Evil Galactic Empires?”

“Ooh, ooh!” Piña hopped on her haunches with grinning gusto. “How about dark princesses, like Nightmare Moon!? She was pretty!”

“Don’t say that,” said Apple Bloom, shuddering. “You weren’t there when she first showed up.”

“So? She was still pretty.”

But Dinky shuddered in kind. She hadn’t officially attended – Derpy had insisted on an early night, with Amethyst demanding it behind her – but she’d sneaked out briefly for the big climactic sun-raising, and in a way, it had been an experience never to forget. At least she’d learned sharpish not to stay up late again. Fear was a good if rather intense teacher.

Such dark evil… If Twilight hadn’t been there too, who knows what could have happened…

“Hold on,” said Odd Job. “We haven’t even gotten into space yet.”

“So let’s go!” said Alula, standing up. The others grunted their consent.

All of them looked to Dinky for support. That was what Dinky remembered later. They had no leader, as such, but by dint of usually coming up with the ideas, Dinky ended up saying more than she often wanted.

It baffled her brains, it really did. Surely one of them would come up with ideas too? They seemed to burst out of her brain all the time, especially after one of Berry Punch’s delectable drinks.

She cast her mind to whatever she’d been reading lately. Part of her still wondered, for instance, why Apple Bloom rarely said anything. Sure, maybe Apple Bloom was just as smart – if not possibly smarter – than her. She could’ve made a fine enough leader.

Yet the filly had been acting odd as of late. Paying more attention in class, not talking to anyone much outside of it, hanging out on her off days with that Twist girl, who in turn hung out with no one else. There was something on her mind, surely, but she never said what…

Dinky switched her train of thought back into the present, and, just like that, the idea caught on it and rode into her head along with it. It was as if the brain waited until she was distracted and then lunged and slipped her something genius – from moving train to central station platform – before chugging away again, waving back at her and grinning suspiciously.

So what the heck. Why not?

“Well,” said Dinky, ever the intellectual of the group. “I read about how the world was made up of four elements. There was this ancient pegasus guy called Impedimentes? He came up with the idea…”

“Was he a famous warrior?” said Alula, who was generally suspicious of intellect. “Did he kick butt?”

No. He threw himself into a volcano trying to prove you couldn’t die. He was famous for it. But the nice thing about intellect, Dinky knew, was that the thing that condemned her in Alula’s eyes could also save her. Save her a lot of bother, that is.

“I figured out how to make a rocket from him,” Dinky lied, enough of an expert fishermare to use the right bait. “You throw yourself into a volcano to get a load of explosion and propulsion. That’s how you can get into space. You get shot up like a cannonball.”

Murmurs of vague approval deemed this idea worthy of adventurous undertaking.

“Just like that?” said Apple Bloom suspiciously.

“Obviously, you jump in with a barrel of gunpowder,” said Dinky, inventing wildly. “For the fuel. But liquid fuel will do it, so long as it’s between you and the lava when it goes boom,” she added hastily; Alula literally chewed over the idea. Liquid fuel should fit into her cosmonautical dreamworld quite tastefully.

“Hmm, it makes a kind of sense,” her mouth said grudgingly, whereas the rest of her body said, “Heck yes! Let’s do it!”

“So all we need are three things: a rocket, some fuel, and a volcano.”

“Where do we get the rocket?” said Apple Bloom.

Piña waved a hoof until Dinky said, exasperatedly, “Yes, you there in the front.”

“Please! Big Sis keeps barrels! We could use one, and we’d all fit inside it, and I could roll it down a hill –”

“No,” said Odd Job at once. “Anyway, Sparky’s already in space on a rocket. Why do we need one?”

“Because prequel-flashback, of course!”

“What’s the fuel, then?” said Apple Bloom.

Dinky didn’t quite meet her eye. “Someone said milkmaid earlier? If Sparky’s a humble hero, then she’s gotta get some milk, hasn’t she?” Before Apple Bloom could figure it out, Dinky hurried on to say, “And as for the volcano… We’d need somewhere tall and somewhere you could climb?”

Like clockwork, she waited for the inevitable response of the princess-obsessed to –

“How about the library?” said Alula. “Um. That’s tall. And you can climb it. It’s shaped like a tree, after all. I could climb it easy.”

Yes, to see if you could spot Twilight Sparkle through a window. Hook, line, and sinker. Dinky tittered and then trilled, “What a good idea! You girls! We could totally do this!”

The thing about Dinky was that she was smart enough to know when not to parade her smartness. Besides, as Derpy said, it was nicer to let other ponies join in. She couldn’t do all the work.

Not forgetting, deep down, she was sure they could manage the ideas stuff fine on their own, if only they wanted to. She just… gave them a nudge here and there. Nothing showy. Just an odd prod in the right direction. That was all. They had no leaders, after all.

Looking around, she noticed all other drinks had been emptied. Around this time was when words traditionally translated into actions.

Dinky downed her last drop. Thoughts buzzed away inside her head.

The drinks genuinely weren’t alcoholic. Berry Punch indulged a lot of sins, but she had her limits and in her own way was as scrupulous as a saint. But the nice thing about childish minds is that they are already, as it were, naturally drunk. Every idea seemed like a good idea at the time, and the nice thing about childhood is that it keeps on seeming like a good idea at the time.

She stood up and beamed at them. “So let’s do it, yeah?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Odd Job wretchedly, screwing up her face. “I mean, there’s the carrot census tomorrow, and then there’s the summer cleaning, and then Golden Harvest wants to ‘shift some stock’ so she has to go to market and I have to watch the fields –”

“Not in the daytime.” Dinky struck a pose, rearing up, hoof on hip, other hoof punching at the sky. “I mean tonight!”

Odd Job spluttered. “Tonight!? As in… tonight tonight?”

“I can’t think of a better time!” Alula shot into the air, wings flapping. “Count me in!”

“Sounds like fun!” Piña bounced up and down, giggling in anticipation.

“Look, Odd Job, you can’t be scared of the night forever,” said Dinky reasonably, conveniently not mentioning a few bad nights when she’d woken up screaming: “Nightmare Moon! No! NOOO!”

After all, you couldn’t be scared of the night forever.

And Twilight was in town! Dinky relaxed at the thought, then realized she’d been tense in the first place.

Besides, daytime? Where was the fun in doing things properly?

Only then did Apple Bloom’s lips stop moving. She’d worked it out.

“Milk!?” she said. “You wanna make fuel… out of milk!?”

Dinky grinned the sort of grin that Berry Punch would have heartily approved of. “Fresh milk,” she said, for emphasis.

On their way out, the Sisterhooves Sisters asked Berry Punch for a barrel. She graciously rolled one outside for them and then bid them a good midnight romp.

This, they considered – and by “they”, Dinky meant “they once she’d talked the idea into their heads” – was too disappointingly easy.

They needed a bigger challenge…

Bookworm vs. Bookworm! Behold the Great Battle of Wits!

The next morning, Dinky skipped and sang through Ponyville on her way to the gnarled… or was it gnarly, she’d have to check the dictionary again… to the gnarled oak tree with a door on the trunk and windows on the branches.

What the other Sisterhooves Sisters didn’t know – and what she hadn’t cared to tell them last night – was this: Golden Oak Library was her second home.

Not literally, of course. The previous librarian – good old Cheerilee, now there was a mare who understood the foalish mind – had lived there, in a bedroom over the main hall, and apparently the new one was moving in to take her place. As much as Dinky spent hours at that library, she’d rather go home to sleep on her own bed, thank you all the same.

She simply strolled through the front door. Last night had been the closest she’d ever gotten to a mare whom, so far, she’d only ever seen as a sort of distant blob. And briefly at the Summer Sun Celebration, of course.

If anything, she couldn’t wait to see a hero in her natural environment.

Dinky slid in, balancing the key guiltily behind her own head.

There she was! Sitting up to the table with the weird wooden horsehead thingy on it, reading a book! Now that was her kind of librarian!

Dinky stopped and watched until the hero Twilight Sparkle looked up.

“Can I help you?” the hero said.

Dinky’s gaze flickered to the unicorn horn and to the sparkly stars of the cutie mark. It was all for show: Dinky tended to know about ponies ahead of time before going in for the direct assault.

“You’re Twilight Sparkle, right?” she said innocently.

“Yes…” said the hero – more like a stranger, indicating that the answer could very well turn into a “no” if this wasn’t to her liking.

Dinky hesitated, but not for long. Thanks to Derpy, a little pegasus determination pushed against the approaching gales of trouble.

“You remember me? I was with Ammy – I mean, with Amethyst a couple of times in Canterlot?”

Twilight’s face creased with the effort. “I don’t remember an Amethyst…”

“Or Lyra? Maybe you’d know Lyra? Lyra Heartstrings? She was up in Canterlot to see her friends. Ammy’s the grumpy-looking one she brought with her?”

Contriving to look sad without really pushing her face much, Twilight said, “Vaguely. I’m sorry. Canterlot feels like a lifetime ago, to be honest.”

“That’s OK!” Dinky wandered among the shelves, inspecting the covers for any odd words or strange phrases. “Do you have any books on how the world was made? I’m on a quest, you see.”

Silence. When she turned around to check, she saw Twilight reading her book. Of course, back in Canterlot she’d had her nose behind hundreds of pages and a well-bound cover pretty much all the time, but there were such things as manners.

“I said do you have any books on how –?”

“Yes, yes, I heard. Sorry.” Although Twilight’s frown didn’t look particularly sorry. “Isn’t that a bit weighty for someone your age? We’ve got children’s books over there –” Twilight pointed without looking “– if you want something more age-appropriate.”

Thus divested of her librarian duties, she buried herself in her book.

Dinky glared at her. The old librarian would never have acted so brusquely, to say nothing of a hero. What was this mare’s problem?

Normally, Dinky wouldn’t swank. Blushes and apologies were more natural to her, especially around Derpy, because Derpy – who didn’t have much of it herself – treasured intelligence in others. And she treasured you being yourself. Dinky would be anyone for Derpy, so in some respects she was lucky.

But Twilight was seriously ruining the script, and Dinky was nothing if not a mare who… well, didn’t direct, but who felt deep down that she really knew more than most of the cast and crew did, including the director.

“I’ve read them all,” she blurted out proudly.

Ah, now this made Twilight look up. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve read them all.”

“We have three hundred and sixty-six children’s books.”

“Yes. And I’ve read them all.”

“You mean you’ve borrowed them. No one your age could read as fast as –” To Dinky’s surprise, Twilight suddenly looked as though she’d been hit with a shovel. After that, her face was much softer. “You’ve really read them all?”

“Well, I don’t have a lot of books at home. Just the geology ones.”

Twilight closed her book. “Geology?”

“Yeah.” During her speech, Dinky craned to see the cover under Twilight’s hoof. “Ammy’s big on geology. Ask me anything.”

“About geology?”

“Yep.”

“Uh…” Twilight tapped her lips. “OK, something easy… What’s the distinction between magma and lava?”

Pfft. Too easy. “Magma is molten rock below the earth’s surface,” Dinky recited. “You can sometimes find it in chambers under volcanoes. When it spills out and comes to the surface, then it becomes lava.”

Twilight nodded encouragingly. “Not bad. Let’s try something else: What is the dominant element contained in the earth’s crust?”

“Oxygen,” said Dinky without hesitation. “Then it’s silicon. That’s why there are so many silicates, like quartz.” A momentary loyalty to her sister Amethyst prompted her to add, “Quartz is my favourite.”

Despite herself, she smirked at the raised eyebrow on Twilight’s face. True, that raised eyebrow was clearly of the “well done you’re not as dumb as I thought” variety, but she’d take what she could get. Especially from someone who didn’t remember her sister’s name.

“Interesting,” said Twilight, turning around on her seat to face her fully. “So if I were to ask you where you’d look to find a stalactite, you’d say –”

“On the floor in a cave.”

She knew from the sudden stillness she’d got it wrong.

“I mean on the ceiling,” she said quickly. “Stalagmites are on the floor.”

“Well done.” Twilight nodded. “Wow, you’ve really done your homework.”

“I read them over and over until Ammy said, ‘Why don’t you try some more books at the library?’ Anyway, you can only read about rocks so many times before it gets…” Out of respect for her sister, she amended the upcoming phrase to: “A little bit dull.”

All the same, she hadn’t quite forgotten the brusque reception she’d received, and so sauntered off to inspect the classics section. Now that the smugness was dying away, she wondered if waking the sleeping dragon of Twilight’s interest had been a little on the dangerous side. Ah well. Quests were supposed to be dangerous, and all that.

“What are you looking for?” Twilight’s hoofsteps came up behind her, making her spine tingle. “The classics? Aren’t they a little advanced?”

Smugness demanded a response to this outrage. “The first one I read was High Hopes by Inkling.”

“But that’s over five hundred pages.”

“Yep.”

Suspicion twanging on each syllable, Twilight said, “Are you sure you’ve actually read it?”

But Dinky had been expecting this. She took a deep breath and countered with: “The story starts when Little Seedling goes to visit her parents’ gravestones and gets ambushed by ‘Willing-and-Able’ Mama Winch. She makes the filly get her some food so she can find the traitor Compost Heap and get her revenge on that vile mare.”

“Yes, but anyone who started the story could easily say –”

“Years later, Little Seedling gets money secretly from an unknown benefactor who turns out to be Mama Winch. Little Seedling’s ‘true’ love is Star-Crossed, an angry stallion who hates all mares as wicked and scheming, but then marries one later anyway just to spite poor Little Seedling.”

“OK, so not everyone knows that, but –”

“Compost Heap turns out to be the mare who betrayed Star-Crossed and Mama Winch for money years ago. Oh, and Star-Crossed becomes a widower at the end and is very sorry, but in my edition he marries Little Seedling, and in the older edition, they just part ways because they’re too angry and sad to make up.”

Finally, she gasped for air.

Twilight said, “Wow. Thorough.”

“I did read it. Some of it was very sad, but it was all so interesting. What were you reading, by the way? I didn’t see.”

“Hm?” Twilight blinked and glanced over her shoulder. “Oh. That.”

Surprisingly, she blushed, a tactical mistake when in the presence of a curious filly.

“Er… just an old classic. I only read it for nostalgic purposes.”

Dinky frowned. Good as the dictionary was, she hadn’t read up to the letter “N” yet. “What do you mean? Is it something I might like?”

Twilight squirmed where she stood. “I was reading… The Hidden Plot.”

The instant her ears met those words, Dinky beamed and almost rose off the ground. “Ooh, I love that one! It was the first book I ever took home. All the mystery about the hidden plot of land, and who was growing those wonderful flowers. I never knew gardening could be so fascinating!”

“But it’s… you know… a children’s book.”

Twilight was saying this to a filly who’d already tackled more classics books – or so Dinky suspected – than most of the ponies of Ponyville had even touched. “So? It makes ponies happy. I liked it. Cheerilee says there’s nothing wrong with being a child, even for a grown-up. She told me she reads children’s classics too.”

“Ah. I think I’ve met her. Cheerilee is the schoolteacher who used to live here in the library, isn’t she?”

“Yep! She’s the best! And she’s really smart. You’d love her too if you spoke to her.”

For the first time, Twilight actually smiled. Dinky thought she had a lovely smile, like a giggle in squiggly form. If only she did it more often.

“I think I will have a talk with her,” said Twilight, more to herself than to Dinky. “I mean, friends are all very well, but it’d be nice to get to know someone interested in knowledge and learning.”

“Cheerilee’s your mare there, Miss Twilight Sparkle.”

The smile widened, now becoming the threshold of laughter. “I suppose you have a point… um… sorry, I didn’t get your name?”

Dinky raised a hoof to shake. “Dinky, Miss Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight blushed, but she accepted it and shook once. “Just call me Twilight. What would you like to read today, Dinky? Or…” She giggled, and it was a tinkling, tickling sound that made Dinky giggle back. “She Who Knows The Classics So Well?”

Already, Dinky’s mind fizzled and burst with fireworks. Until she’d cracked open her first book, alone in her room, she’d had no idea it was possible to see whole worlds without getting out of her chair. She’d seen the vast savannahs of the Zebra Lands, climbed the Yakyak Mountain Range, been hustled and bustled in the big city of Manehattan, and even dived under the sea to be dazzled by the fabled lost palace of Ethis Ethica. All while drinking a cup of cocoa and getting backache from stooping too much on her beanie bag, or on her mattress, or sitting too long on the floor.

She said, through the colours and the bangs of her own imagination, “I’d like to read you, Miss – Twilight.”

Twilight gave her an odd look for a moment.

“I’ll translate that,” she said carefully, “as drink and biscuits. Care to join me? I was just about to take a break.”

Dinky held up an embarrassed grin. Sometimes, trying to be cute was an easy art to fumble.

“Of, of course,” she mumbled. “Wh-Why wouldn’t I?”

A Little Conscience is a Terrible Thing

Twilight was definitely not Cheerilee. For one thing, Cheerilee tended to treat rules as things you could break, but which you’d feel guilty about breaking even if she never spotted you doing it, because she believed in you so much that you would naturally feel guilty on your own. Whereas Twilight treated rule-breaking as a physical impossibility.

Cheerilee, for instance, would kindly remind foals that eating in the library was strictly forbidden, and give meaningful looks at any suspiciously stuffed cheeks and unexplained crumbs. The foals in question – and Dinky had served her time here – tended not to do it again. Upsetting someone as nice as Cheerilee was punishment enough.

Twilight simply made them eat outside. Or, in this case, on the balcony.

Golden Oak Library had a few small balconies here and there. Dinky didn’t mind eating on one. Derpy was a pegasus, after all: though a unicorn herself, Dinky had no fear of heights, and liked looking down on the rooftops and watching little ponies go about their fascinating lives, much as a codebreaker might relish a suitably fiendish code. Or like an artist-in-training might admire a masterpiece. One she hoped to match someday.

Whilst Dinky waited at the little table, Twilight came out. Behind her, Spike balanced plates, cups, and the teapot on a large tray. It was so large he held it over his head and tottered slightly trying not to tilt it.

“Sorry,” said Twilight. “Spike hasn’t been out shopping lately. All I’ve got are some leftover muffins.”

“You’re saying sorry for that?” Dinky had to stop herself bouncing up and down just at the smell…

“Spike baked them himself,” said Twilight as if apologizing for that too.

The taste was not “Sugar Cube Corner scrumptious”, but at least they were recognizable muffiny goodness. Dinky took three, under her favourite Derpy logic that she was a “growing filly”.

As soon as Spike put the tray down and turned away, though, she stopped chewing and swallowed hastily.

“Isn’t Spike joining us?” she said.

For a moment, both Twilight and Spike turned two sets of surprise on her. Then at each other. The possibility simply hadn’t occurred to either of them.

“Well…” said Twilight, awkwardly.

“There’s some chores I need to do?” said Spike, who himself wasn’t winning any prizes for poise or confidence.

But Dinky knew how to play this game. “Will they still be there later?”

“Er…” they both said.

“Then they can wait, can’t they? Anyway,” she continued, winking at Spike repeatedly, “I might want to talk to the brave Sir Spike the Dragon about a key topic.”

To his credit, Spike was quicker on the uptake. Twilight still looked lost: perhaps a huge and powerful intelligence meant she had difficulty changing direction, like a massive ship out at sea?

“I wouldn’t mind trying my own muffins,” he said. Noticing Twilight again, he added, “Just to make sure I got them right. Then if anything went wrong, I can improve them for next time. You know, for when friends might come round?”

The f-word stirred a bit of life into Twilight, but only to make her look back and forth with confused, brow-scrunching worry. She seemed to have difficulty adjusting to all this, as if she’d never thought it possible before and was trying to remember why.

“I don’t know…” she said slowly. “I’ve already drawn up this week’s schedule, and if we delay anything…”

Unexpected: Dinky had seen Spike in Canterlot before, and Twilight too, but now she thought about it, how often had she seen them at the same time? Doing the same thing? Even on those rare occasions when they’d been together, Spike usually seemed to be busy in the background.

Oho, Dinky knew this game too. She folded her forelimbs tightly and fixed Twilight with Guilt-making Glare Number 35: You Adults Are Doing It Wrong edition.

“You know, I thought you’d be better than this,” she said, trying to sound – for want of a less offensive word – peevish.

This caught Twilight so hard she looked like she’d missed a step on the stairs: sudden freezing in an attempt not to fall down any further.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“I have a friend,” continued Dinky, “called Odd Job. She gets given lots of chores too, because she’s so good at them – it’s in her name – and she never says no and she never puts herself out and she gets worried if someone tries to make her have any fun –”

Dinky skewed her lips slightly at this. It had taken all her persuasive skills just to get Odd Job to visit Berry Punch’s last night.

“– and now all that happens is that she’s miserable and she hates her sister.”

“Oh?” Twilight glanced sidelong at Spike, as if worried he might start writing angry letters at her any second. “Er, her sister?”

“Because she’s the one who gives her so many chores.” Dinky placed the words like a carefully collected set of aces.

She waited a while to let Twilight stew in the implications, whilst on the side line Spike’s eager face cheered her on. At least until Twilight gave him another glance: then he quickly disguised it as polite interest and a raised eyebrow.

First, the stick. Then – aha – the carrot.

Dinky smiled sweetly. “I mean, they do love each other and everything. Deep down. But sometimes –” she tried to remember how Amethyst had put it once “– sometimes things that need to be said don’t get said, and things that need to be done don’t get done. It doesn’t have to be much. Just a little break every now and then.”

Now Twilight was scanning her suspiciously. Although Dinky – used to reading others herself – made sure she could avoid being read if necessary. Her face was carefully laid out: Twilight got nothing but calm, sweet-smiled interest.

Like so many adults before her, Twilight squirmed under the vague and guilty suspicion that – in some respects – the tiny, humble-looking little foal in front of them could outsmart them ten times over.

“Well,” said Twilight, this time as if granting a big favour, “I suppose a few minutes couldn’t hurt… and I’d be happy to reschedule to accommodate for lost time –”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Spike hopped up to the table and snatched up a couple of muffins before his one chance slipped away.

“But not for long,” added Twilight sternly. “You’ve still got chores to do.”

Dinky decided to cut her some slack. “Chores are important.”

“Exactly.”

Spike poured the tea for Twilight: he was in such a good mood that he hummed to himself while doing it, and he didn’t spill a drop. He slipped Dinky a cup of hot chocolate, on the basis that tea was a grown-up thing. Dinky drank it, on the basis that she’d tried tea once and hadn’t liked it nearly as much, and what was all the fuss about tea anyway? Adults could be so disappointing at times.

Unexpectedly, Twilight said – after a sip – “I think I’ve heard about you, Dinky.”

A little thrill fluttered in Dinky’s heart. She wondered if it had been good news or bad news.

“Who from?” she asked.

“As it happens, the mail mare who delivered my letters this morning. We… got to talking.”

Dinky grinned a banana grin. Good news, definitely. She could imagine Twilight looking flustered under the flapping onslaught of good news.

“She said her name was Derpy?” Twilight continued. “Do you know her, by any chance?”

“Oh, we’re close,” said Dinky casually whilst a part of her rolled on the floor laughing its head off.

“So I gathered.”

“She’s my guardian angel,” said Dinky. Partly to wind up Twilight further as she tried to grasp this, and partly… mostly… entirely because it was true.

“A winged angel delivering messages, huh?”

To Dinky’s surprise, Twilight giggled at this. A joke of some kind? But where? Dinky resolved to look a couple of things up when she got home.

“Well, she seemed very nice.” Twilight took another sip. “Overwhelmingly nice, in fact. Yes, definitely a pegasus with astonishingly high levels of niceness.”

Dinky whipped out the question: “What did she say about me?”

“Er… I’m sorry, but I don’t remember very much, to be honest. But it was all nice.”

And Twilight blushed a lot, Dinky noticed. She liked seeing blushes in adults. There was something sweet and reassuring about them, as if their delicate hearts were trying to peek out through their cheeks.

Dinky trusted blushes, and not only because she was so good at eliciting them.

Beside her, Spike hissed. Hidden from view by Twilight drinking her cup, he made a beckoning gesture.

Oh, right! The key! Slip it past and be none the wiser. Dinky took it out from behind her and levitated it over to his outstretched claw. Definitely not one of the nicer things she’d done, but no one said that… she wouldn’t… be…

After a while, Spike made the beckoning gesture again.

Dinky got the image of Derpy and Amethyst watching her again. Not meanly, just watching. Seeing what she was doing, right now.

Spike frowned at her and beckoned harder.

Sometimes, it was no fun having a conscience.

At first, Dinky hesitated. She’d never seen Twilight angry before. She somehow imagined a magical explosion blasting her all the way to the moon, and Dinky only liked heights when they involved gentle wings or tranquil balconies.

She shook her head to Spike, gave his panicky teeth a sorry shrug, and coughed in a very fake manner.

“Erm, Twilight?” she said as if rehearsing the line ahead of time. “There’s… something I ought to show you.”

“Yes?” said Twilight, nicely if a bit confusedly.

Dinky held up the key without looking. She heard Twilight’s intake of breath. Felt the key taken sharply out of her grip. Winced at the words.

“What? What are you doing with the library key? Spike –”

No, that wasn’t right. Dinky spoke up, “It wasn’t his fault! It was all mine! No one else’s!”

Spike froze in mid-flinch, Twilight in mid-remonstrate. Then the unicorn who had banished Nightmare Moon, who had rescued Princess Luna from a thousand-year-slumber, and who had invited Dinky herself to tea: she sat up smart and straight.

“I’m listening,” said Judgement Herself.

So this was it, Dinky thought. Sparky the Space Scout travels all over the world, finally confronts the Witch of Canterlot Caldera, and in the end she has nothing to fight with but the truth.

Oh boy… this is going to hurt…

Dinky tried to think brave adult thoughts whilst her small child body curled up. “I was playing pretend last night, and I wanted to go on an adventure, which meant I had to do something heroic.”

A hum from Twilight. It could have been doubt. It could have been a “go on” gesture.

“So… I pretended I was a hero – like one of those heroes who, um, steals fire from the alicorn elders, or something – so I thought, well, the library’s like a big fortress, and, um, you’re –” Dinky’s awkwardness burned on Twilight’s behalf “– kinda like a big, powerful alicorn, or a sorceress, or a witch, or a princess, or… anything like that, so I thought…”

“You thought you’d break in and steal the key to the front door?”

Dinky nodded. Without words, she was helpless.

“And that’s all there is to it,” Dinky added on a sudden inspiration. “I thought I heard someone coming downstairs, so I slipped out with the key. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I was going to slip it back.”

“And it never occurred to you that breaking into someone else’s home was illegal?”

Dinky’s heart skipped a beat. Doing naughty things was one thing – they generally weren’t as bad as grown-ups made them out to be – but doing something illegal?

Ponyville ponies treated each other’s homes almost as if they were their own. If Dinky had broken into – say – Golden Harvest’s farm… well, Golden Harvest would’ve been mad, yes, but she’d also want to know why, and they’d be allies, in a sense. There’d be a fuss, but Dinky could deal with fusses.

A Canterlot pony like Twilight, though? Amethyst hadn’t talked about Canterlot much, but she’d made it clear they didn’t have the same flexible understanding that town ponies had out in the country. Break into a Canterlot pony’s home, and you’d get more than a fuss. You’d get the Royal Guard, and a cell, and possibly difficulty getting a job when you grew up.

Dinky really wished her conscience hadn’t made her open her big mouth now.

She risked getting pinned down by Twilight’s stern glare. Judgement didn’t even chew its lip while it decided her fate.

“A witch?” said Twilight suddenly.

Dinky could tell nothing from those pitiless eyes. “Huh?”

“You said you pretended I was a witch. An alicorn or one of those other things, I could understand, but why a witch?”

Part of Dinky thought: She’s fussing over details now? Another part thought: Oh gosh, why did I just call her a witch? And a third part thought: How much more trouble can I really get into? Compared with, say, how much trouble I’m already in?

“Not a witch, exactly,” she said. “More like a Cunning Mare, really.”

Twilight blinked in surprise.

“You mean not like a stereotypical old crone with evil curses that’s all really the product of simple superstition,” said Twilight as though reciting from a book, “but like the well-versed herbalists and midwives and general caretakers of a small community – generally rural – that looks after them and protects them from evil forces?”

Now it was Dinky’s turn to blink in surprise.

“Yes!” she yelped in relief. “Exactly like that!”

Between them, Spike shook his head. “I didn’t get a word of that. Exactly like what now?”

“You know about that distinction?” said Twilight, still giving nothing away.

Thinking ahead, Dinky threw in her defence: “We only meant ‘witch’ because we were pretending you were bad. It was just pretence to make it more exciting. You’re more a Cunning Mare any day of the week –”

“You said ‘we’ that time.”

Not thinking far enough ahead, Dinky and her tongue stumbled. “Eh?”

“‘We’ only meant witch. ‘We’ were pretending. I do have ears, you know.”

“Er… er… slip of the tongue. ‘I’. I meant ‘I’, of course.”

“Dinky…?”

That tone. Amethyst used that tone when she knew Dinky was getting creative with the truth. Twilight had only known her a few minutes, and already she’d figured out what it had taken Amethyst a lifetime to master.

Dinky gulped.

“Maybe…” she mumbled, “there was… more than one… of us. But it was mostly my idea! And I stole the key! And they didn’t want to do any of it anyway!”

Being something of an imp and a liar, Dinky did have a moral code of sorts. She’d cause trouble and get into trouble, fair enough, but only on her own terms. Throwing others into the pit, though, was taking their choices away from them. If they wanted to get involved or own up, that was their business. Taking away what was never hers in the first place: that was definitely what even Dinky would call Dead Wrong.

Dinky threw herself on Twilight’s mercy, knocking her cup over. “Please don’t blame them! They didn’t know any better! I’m the one you want! I thought up the whole thing!”

Twilight’s face softened, but only slightly. “So you assure me this was all your responsibility?”

“Would this face lie?” Dinky rethought that statement. “Right now, I mean?”

“You mean you have a golden opportunity to blame someone else, and instead you want to take all the blame for yourself?”

“Er…” When you put it that way, Dinky thought… “Yes?”

Twilight glanced at Spike, whose clawed fingers were trying to knot themselves, and then raised an eyebrow at Dinky. Dinky’s face pleaded as hard as she could.

Then Twilight did the best thing possible: she smiled her delightful little smile.

True, it was a smile tinged with smugness, possibly intellectual – the worst kind of smug – but Judgement had passed over it a while back and left the rest of the case up to that smile.

“Well, well,” said Twilight, voice exactly as happy and tinged with smugness as her smile, “looks like the intel I got from Derpy was exactly right.”

Dinky settled back down and righted her cup. She didn’t know whether to smile or not.

“I really didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. “You’re just so new in town. It caught our attention.”

Twilight peered into her tea thoughtfully, either at this or at something else on her mind.

“New in town,” she murmured, just on the edge of Dinky’s keen hearing. “Yes…”

Dinky couldn’t stand the wait any longer. “Am I gonna be punished for this?”

This seemed to wake up Twilight; she jolted as if from sleep and folded her forelimbs sternly. “For the time being, I think you owe me an explanation as a first step.”

“I’ll get another cup, Dinky!” Spike snatched up the spilled cup, and Dinky noticed the spillage all over the table. Spike himself couldn’t disappear fast enough.

More softly, Twilight added, “You mentioned playing pretend? With your friends?”

Odd: was there a hint of desperation in the voice? Dinky decided to play along, on the grounds that anything was better than being punished.

“Oh, we do it all the time,” said Dinky breezily. “Applejack once chased me all the way around Sweet Apple Acres because I kept diving into her apple buckets. I was pretending they were portals to other universes where everything’s different, like there was one universe where everyone was a pegasus, and another where everyone swapped ages with their brothers and sisters –”

“Alternative universes, you mean?”

“Yeah! And this other time, Cloudkicker let me have some books about witchcraft, so we pretended I was a Cunning Mare wrongly accused of being a witch, just like Granny Smith was fifty years ago when those out-of-towners showed up –”

“Historical recreation?”

Dinky wondered why she kept being interrupted, but enthusiasm ploughed on regardless. “That’s right. And then there was the time I pretended I was an atom. My sister Ammy was trying to get me to understand geology – well, more physics if it’s about atoms I guess, but it was all about rocks eventually – so I pretended I was an oxygen atom stuck in a bit of quartz and waiting for the Acid Fairy to set me free so I could fly around the sky like a pegasus –”

Twilight sighed sadly. “Scientific thought experiments.”

Odder still: if anything, Twilight looked more and more miserable – and slumped more and more over the table like an oozing puddle – the more Dinky seemed delighted. It was enough to bring the speeches crashing to a halt.

“Did I say the wrong thing?” said Dinky, growing concerned. “I’m sorry if I did.”

Twilight shocked herself upright again. “No, not at all! It sounds great.” More warmly, she added, “You must have so much fun with your friends.”

“All the time.”

Something seemed to be nagging at Twilight, though. She kept shuffling her hooves around her cup and looking around for some evasive fly.

“So, you’ve… been friends long? You and your friends, I mean.”

“Ages,” said Dinky without thinking. Her thoughts came a little late, but were pretty emphatic and finally got themselves said: “I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends here in Ponyville too, Miss Twilight Sparkle. You’d like Cloudkicker. She reads lots of books too, but mostly about witches. She’s obsessed with them.” Under the common Ponyville ethos that a secret shared with one was a secret shared by all, she added, “I think she wanted to be born a unicorn, to tell you the truth, only she’s stuck as a pegasus, so she has to make do with all the books.”

“That’s very unusual,” said Twilight, more to make polite talk than because she seemed all that engaged. “But not uncommon, now I think about it. Ponies sometimes feel like they should have been born into another tribe rather than into the one they were.”

“And she likes reading,” emphasized Dinky.

“About magic?”

“Mostly about witches, but magic too. She’d like a spell to stop her face going funny sometimes.”

Twilight gave her a funny look herself, though not the kind Cloudkicker suffered from. It then occurred to Dinky that Twilight had not once made a comment about Derpy’s funny face too. Or more specifically her funny eyes.

Actually quite shocking when she thought about it: so many ponies met Derpy and then described her later as “the one with the funny eyes” or “the strabismus pony, I think” or “the mail mare with the look problem”. Twilight hadn’t. In Dinky’s heart, Twilight won a very generous medal.

Where before she’d been jittery, Twilight seemed to solidify. “I’m sure I will make new friends here, but I was thinking more about… old friends.”

“Uh huh?” Dinky leaned forwards. Who in the whole wide world had been lucky enough to make friends with someone like Twilight? Maybe there were more powerful unicorns in Canterlot. Maybe Dinky herself might already know them without realizing it!

Then Twilight did such a typical grown-up thing: she changed the subject. “So, you like playing pretend? Was it – I mean, is it all that fun?”

Which jogged Dinky’s hitherto guilt-free memory until the guilt flooded back in. “Aren’t you still going to punish me for that?”

A few emotions consulted hastily on Twilight’s face before jumping to the correct PR statement. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t break into my home again, but so long as you’ve learned your lesson –”

“Oh, I have, I have! Sisterhooves honour!”

“Then I suppose I can let you off with a warning this time.” Twilight frowned. “Sisterhooves? Honour?”

At which point, Spike hurried back and tugged at Twilight’s elbow. “We got another one.”

“Another what, Spike?”

“There’s a foal who wants to see you. She was knocking on the door. She’s got treats!” Spike’s eyes lit up at the prospect of more food for his brave new breaktime.

Puzzled, Dinky got up and walked to the edge of the balcony, the better to catch a peek at the tiny little cart and the tiny little pony yoked to it. Just like she was yoked to chores all her life.

“You know her?” said Twilight from the table.

Dinky nodded. “It’s Odd Job.”

“Tell her thanks for the treats, Spike, but I’m kind of in the middle of –”

Was Twilight so forgetful already, or just stupidly careless? Dinky rounded on her. “Oh, let her come in, Miss Twilight Sparkle. She’s just trying to welcome you.”

Twilight frowned harder than diamond. “Please, I said call me Twilight. And how do you know?”

“That’s how she and Golden Harvest always work. They wait until the rest of Ponyville has made a big fuss over the new pony, then they go out and quietly say hello. I have been here longer than you,” she added fiercely.

Such was Dinky’s ferocity that even Twilight backed down, literally.

“All right,” she said, much more gently than before. “Spike, ask her to come to the balcony, please.”

“My treat!” Spike drooled a little as he hurried off.

“You know,” said Dinky while the fierceness sloshed around her common sense, “you’re not going to make many friends like that.”

It had been a childish and cruel thing to say, and Dinky didn’t enjoy much dark satisfaction seeing Twilight wilt a little. But unlike the Apples of Sweet Apple Acres – who were big ponies in the community, and who always greeted guests first and most loudly – Golden Harvest and Odd Job had a scrape of land just fit enough for a field of carrots. They didn’t draw much attention to themselves, since they didn’t have much to pay attention to. Besides, Odd Job deserved better.

Odd Job herself didn’t seem to think so. She came up behind Spike, balancing a tray of carrot cakes on her back, and she looked so out of place that Dinky tensed, ready to catch the tray should Odd Job suddenly flee.

Awkwardly, Odd Job ducked down in a four-legged curtsey. The tray wobbled ominously.

Something of the Canterlot graciousness tamed Twilight: she nodded out of traditional courtesy and said, “Hello, there. You must be the carrot farmer Dinky’s told me so much about. How can I help you?”

Odd Job stared at the ground the whole time. She manipulated the tray so that she could offer it as a sacrifice, or hold it like a shield.

“C-compliments,” she recited as if by cue card, “of G-Golden Harvest Hills. W-welcome to P-P-Ponyville. Ma’am. I – We, us, we, um, we wish you… uh… happy… I mean, good… we wish you good… um… we…”

She gave up and raised the tray higher for emphasis. It shook so much the platters rattled.

“Here,” she threw out the word.

Spike’s drool pooled around his feet. Twilight hummed appreciatively. Even Dinky had to suppress a tingle as the smell of Golden Harvest’s finest carrot cake slipped through her nose and tempted her tongue to commit gluttony.

“Ooh, that does look delicious,” said Twilight, who alone of the three had enough self-control to play the honourable host in the presence of fine cooking. “Thank you very much. If you could just place it on the table here –”

Odd Job slammed the tray down in her haste, bowed hastily, stammered, “H-happy eating, M-M-Miss. Thank you. Goodbye,” and turned to rush towards the door.

One thing Twilight could never be accused of, though, was of being a slow learner. She glanced from Odd Job to Spike and back – Dinky swore for a moment Twilight bit her lip in thought – and then she raised her voice to say, “Won’t you join us for tea? I’d love to get to know you better… Odd Job, was it?”

Odd Job froze at the door, then spun round so fast she might have been whipped into doing it. Terror fought not to break free of her dull mask.

“Erm,” she said, then curtseyed again for good measure, “I’ve got chores and things… erm…”

“Oh, I dare say they’ll still be there later.” Twilight – rather unnecessarily – gave Dinky a wink. “Please, have some muffins. Spike can get you some hot chocolate, if… if that’s OK with him?”

Spike saluted. “Sssiiirrr Spike! At your service, ma’am!”

“Um, yes. Interestingly put, Spike.”

Odd Job writhed in a humble little ball of agony. “I-I should… I don’t want to cause a fuss…”

Well, Twilight had done well so far, but Dinky thought it best to step in. “Princess Twilight wishes for you to join in and have cake with her.”

Right on cue, Odd Job’s ear twitched. “Princess?”

“Princess?” repeated Twilight.

Dinky held up a hoof to shush her, then continued, “And it’s not much of a welcome to a princess if you just rush off like that, now is it?”

Shuffling forwards, Odd Job spared a guilty glance at the cake. “Well… if you put it that way…”

“Here, have my chair.” Spike drew it up for her. Curtseying out of sheer nerves, Odd Job stood in place and let him push her gently up to the table.

“But what about –?” Twilight began.

“I’ll get another one. I needed to fetch the hot chocolate too. Want some?” Spike added to Odd Job, who blushed.

“Um… yes, please.”

“Be back in two shakes of an Orthros tail!” Out of the corner of his mouth, Spike whispered, “One for each tail.”

Then he was off at a waddle.

“Muffin?” Twilight offered one.

Odd Job had the stunned look of a lifelong peasant upon finding themselves in Their Highness’s castle, in the great feasting hall, surrounded by eager-to-serve courtiers and suddenly being asked by the King and Queen if she’d like another slice of white truffle and gold pizza.

When she eventually accepted the muffin, she trembled so much it rained crumbs on the table. She remembered herself in time to mumble, “’Ank you.”

“Dinky’s told me so much about you. You must work really hard down on the farm.”

A little farmhoof pride spoke up: “Not s’ bad.”

“I’d like to come visit someday. In fact, I’d like to get to know all the ponies in Ponyville a little better. Maybe you could help me with that?”

Odd Job dropped the muffin, snatched it up seconds before it hit the balcony floor, and shuddered harder.

OK, this had been fun enough. “You know she’s not really a princess, right?” said Dinky, sighing theatrically.

Pride was a quick-acting tonic; Odd Job’s shaking stopped immediately. A suspicious eyebrow raised its hoof for the teacher.

“She’s not?” said Odd Job.

“I just studied under Celestia for a while,” said Twilight as if describing some part-time work at the mall. “In fact, I’m continuing my studies for her here in Ponyville. Not that it’s hard work, of course,” added Twilight as though horrified she’d said something offensive, “but I would like to join in with Ponyville more. With the hard work, I mean. Look, just think of me as another pony, if it makes you feel better. Would you like another muffin? You seem to be losing a lot of your current one.”

“Yes!” yelped Odd Job through the splash of relief. “I will do that! Please!”

The two unicorns watched her bury her face in the new muffin for safety.

“Odd Job loves princesses,” said Dinky. Another blush behind the muffin; Dinky could be so cruel to her friends at times.

“Oh?” Twilight gave a sidelong look to the blush. “That’s something we both have in common, then.”

There was a groan and a thud down below. Frowning, Twilight got up and looked over the edge. Dinky didn’t need to: she recognized those groans, even from ground level.

At the same time, Spike came rushing onto the balcony. “There’s a bunch of foals outside! I caught them whispering to each other when I went past the door!”

“Eavesdropping on a princess, by any chance?” said Twilight drily.

Dinky coughed behind her hoof. “They might be friends of mine.”

Down below, Alula, Piña, and Apple Bloom giggled nervously.

At the Council of Foals. And Twilight. And Fresh Carrot Cake. And Spike.

“Erm, Miss Twilight Sparkle Princess?” This was Piña.

“Yes…?” Twilight glanced at Dinky for help. “Pia Colada, was it?”

“Piña,” whispered Dinky back for her sake. “She’s got the n with the funny squiggly thing on it.”

“You mean the diacritic tilde, or virgulilla?”

“Er… if you say so.”

“Gotcha. Yes, Piña Colada?” said Twilight casually, pretending there’d been no correction.

“Yeah!” Piña gawped up at her. “Can… Can you be my fairy godmother?”

The pause ran around the table as every brain fought against their own ears and slowly and gracelessly lost.

Twilight recovered first. “That’s an unusual request.”

“It’s a wish,” said Piña proudly.

“I see. And why would you like me to be your fairy godmother, Piña?”

“Because I always wanted a fairy godmother.”

“Sounds logical enough,” was all Twilight dared say. Next to her, Dinky’s shoulders shook trying not to laugh.

“And then you could grant me wishes with your special magic powers,” continued Piña in a fantasy wonderland of her own.

“Oh? What kind of wishes?”

“I wish, I wish I had a wishing star.”

Another pause whilst six brains asked of their ears, Did she really just say that? Is there something you’re not telling me?

“So,” said Twilight in a summing-up tone, “you wish I was a… fairy godmother so that I could grant you the wish of a wishing star so you could, as it were, wish upon a star?”

“I like wishes.” Piña nodded happily.

Dinky burst out laughing so hard she had to be picked up and patted on the back until she merely tittered.

Meanwhile, Twilight looked very much like she was regretting the current seating arrangements: Piña sat right next to her, because she’d wailed and thrown a tantrum when she hadn’t, and now she kept looking up at Twilight as if she were the biggest, bestest, most hardest-to-find toy in the entire toy store.

Dinky sat on Twilight’s other side as a sort of interpreter between the noble unicorn and the less-than-noble company, who she was starting to believe were gabbling in their own lingo. Absolutely no one could gabble like Piña, though. Sometimes, Dinky wondered if Piña had been born in the wrong universe, and if it would be a kindness to nuke that universe from orbit.

Opposite, Alula stared at Twilight keenly, evidently waiting for her to heroically transform and kick butt there and then. Judging by the way she winced whenever Piña opened her mouth, she had a very specific butt in mind.

“So is it true you beat Nightmare Moon single-hoofedly?” she said in breathless awe.

Twilight blushed again; Dinky felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness towards her.

“No, no, no,” said Twilight, giggling a little. “I wasn’t alone. I had all my new friends there to help me.”

“Like a crimefighting team?” piped up Alula excitedly. “Or like a police squad? An army regiment?”

“No,” said Twilight in weary tones. “Like a group of friends.”

This clearly did not meet with Alula’s approval, but she bounced back anyway. “I wish I could have seen it, though. Was there all the ‘KAPOW!’ and ‘KER-SPLAT!’ and ‘KA-WHAM!’ I’ve heard so much about?”

“You’re suggesting I used ju-jitsu against Nightmare Moon?” said Twilight flatly.

Alula unfroze quickly. “Course not! But how about a magical bomb? Or, or a hyper sonic manna jackhammer spell? Did you hit her with a Pan-Equestrian Giggle-Twister?”

“That’s a card game spell,” Dinky reminded her. “It’s not a real one.”

“And I didn’t use that kind of magic,” said Twilight. “When I stood against Nightmare Moon, I wasn’t fighting in the traditional sense. The struggle was more than the struggle between good and evil. It was as if I was fighting my old self too. The love and fellowship I felt with my friends made me realize how much I’d held myself back over the years, how much I had yet to learn. It wasn’t the magic of a powerful unicorn that saved me. It was the magic of friendship.”

This went in one ear and out the other. Alula rebooted.

“So no Giggle-Twister, then?” she said.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “There was a big magic rainbow that blew her up. Happy?”

“Interesting…” mused Alula, local pegasus. “Tell me more about this ‘magic rainbow’ and where a pony might find it.”

Next to her – and clearly not happy with the seating arrangements either – Apple Bloom growled with frustration. “Didn’t you listen to a word she said? It’s way more important than that.”

“Puh-lease,” muttered Alula. “What’s way more important than magic rainbows that a pegasus can just so happen to use?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Apple Bloom glared at Twilight, fierce with determination. “The whole thing was like a test, wasn’t it?”

“A test?” said Twilight uncertainly.

“Yeah! You all had to show you were worthy of it! Like Applejack showed how honest she was by the way you could trust her so much that you’d jump off a cliff if she told you to, because she’s so honest.”

“That’s not exactly how it went down –”

“And how Applejack came to Twilight’s rescue when Twilight had lost all hope, on account of the Elements being destroyed.”

“There was that, yes, but –”

“And how Applejack helped bring Princess Luna back even though Nightmare Moon’s curse seemed so strong.”

“You don’t think you’re being a little biased about all this, by any chance?” said Twilight in the bored tones of one who knows she’s not being listened to.

“It was all a test,” declared Apple Bloom. “The whole thing was a test. Granny Smith always said everything’s a test in life, ‘cause that’s how you find out what kind of pony you are.”

“More hot chocolate?” Spike appeared beside her, offering a cup. Apple Bloom had emptied three already; the Apple clan would never be accused of having delicate stomachs.

Apple Bloom accepted it. “Thanks, Spike! I was just gettin’ thirsty.”

“Yeah,” muttered Alula coldly. “Showing off your sister must take a lot out of you.”

Beside her, Odd Job shot to her feet. “You want to sit down, Spike?”

Surprised, Spike put the tray down. “Er… supposing someone else wants a drink?”

“I can do it! I’d love to do it!” said Odd Job desperately. “It’s my turn anyway!”

Both she and Spike glanced at Twilight, who shrugged and stood up. “Tell you what: why don’t you both take a break and I’ll get the next round?”

“Marshmallows, please!” cried out Piña.

“Me too!”

“Me three!”

“Double for me, if you’re getting,” said Spike, pinching Twilight’s chair.

“Ooh, triple for me too, please!” squeaked Odd Job, who could hardly believe her luck.

Dinky said nothing.

She just watched as Twilight bustled off, looking strangely pleased with herself. Around her, Apple Bloom and Alula settled in for a nice long argument, Piña beamed vacantly at some fantasy flittering through her ears, and Odd Job and Spike sat uncomfortably, two taskmasters suddenly bereft of anything to do. In the end, they both tried to take the same slice of carrot cake, and then got stuck in a loop making “after you, no after you” gestures at each other.

It should have been the perfect scene. Alula, Apple Bloom, and Piña had been caught standing on each other’s shoulders – Alula making excuses such as how her pegasus wings would flap too loud and give her away – to eavesdrop on Twilight talking. The idea of just going up to say hello to her would never have occurred to them… Well, maybe to Apple Bloom, but she claimed she’d just wandered up to tell them how silly the other two were being, because ‘course she wouldn’t eavesdrop on a neighbour, that wasn’t how Applejack would do it…

Still, Twilight had been surprisingly gracious about it all. And here they were: five friends and their two gracious hosts having a nice talk?

So why didn’t she feel right anymore?

Dinky took a muffin to chew over. Derpy always said sugar was brain food, and Dinky had an ulterior motive in not correcting her on that front. Besides, the tingle between her teeth did keep her sharp and focused.

She decided: it was because the test thing didn’t sound right.

True, it sounded like the right thing for a quest. All those obstacles to make sure the hero was heroic enough for what they’d have to do in the end. And Twilight didn’t seem like the sort to lie, especially not about something that should have earned her lots of praise. If anything, she seemed embarrassed by all the attention.

But it sounded too neat. Too storybook. Too convenient.

Like… Nightmare Moon had been an alicorn. Powerful enough to summon storms and move the sun and the moon around. Yet by the sound of it, her best trick against six hardly subtle heroes had been to make a cliff fall down? Stick a thorn in a manticore? Try cute mind games with the local pegasus?

And they just happened to match the elements needed to make the Elements of Harmony shine?

OK, that could have been destiny. Destiny was supposed to do anything and everything, though Dinky sometimes wondered why, if destiny could do anything and everything, it always ended up doing it in such an oddly specific way. Besides, how was destiny supposed to work? Like a gamemaster, or something? Who was running the game, then?

Her best guesses were Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They were alicorns too. Perhaps, despite Nightmare Moon’s power, they’d somehow secretly found a way to rig the game for Twilight?

Why, though? All Twilight had done was get some old magic working, by the sound of it.

Old, powerful friendship magic. Magic that had worked. Worked well enough to put Nightmare Moon down, presumably for good.

Dinky felt uneasy. She’d studied a little history, because it was sometimes fun to correct some of the misconceptions her so-called superiors liked to trot out. Apple Bloom alone tended to have a rosy view of early Ponyville, when the Apple clan had clashed with other farmers for territory. But stuff like heroic quests and the villains they had to defeat all tended to be really old-school stuff, so old that they might have been legends or even myths. Nothing like that happened anymore.

Up till now, nothing like that happened anymore.

It occurred to her that, if someone wanted friendship magic back in the game, then that was probably because it would be sorely needed, and soon.

She still felt uneasy when Twilight returned levitating a tray and passing round drinks. Somehow, despite not having asked for one, Dinky got a cup anyway.

“I took the liberty of adding a little magic to these ones,” said Twilight. “It’s a flavour-enhancer. Everything you like about the drink should be boosted.” More nervously, she added, “Please tell me what you think.”

She needn’t have bothered. Sips, slurps, gulps, and the following groans and gasps of pleasure told her she’d struck bullseye on every target.

Only Dinky didn’t drink. Her cup sparkled enticingly, but she wasn’t caring about it much. Instead, she watched Twilight summon another chair to sit down next to her, this time shielded from Piña by the reassuring presence of Spike enjoying being catered to.

Alula raised a cup. “Three cheers for the princess witch lady from Canterlot! Hip hip!”

“That was the best hot chocolate Ah ever tasted,” said Apple Bloom.

“Hip hip!” insisted Alula.

“Almost as good as Applejack’s cider.” Honesty and loyalty wrestled each other on Apple Bloom’s mouth before they settled for: “But still really good!”

“Hooray!” shouted Alula, one to never let anything go.

“Hooray, hooray, hooray!” shouted Piña through sheer excitement. Beside her, Odd Job held up an empty cup hopefully; her mouth curled up warmly in the middle of a brown blob.

Dinky couldn’t resist any longer. Besides, she was getting confused looks from Spike, who must have noticed her expression. He leaned across and whispered, “Something up, Dinky? It’s not too hot, is it?”

“Please, Spike,” said Twilight coldly, “I know how to apply a heat sheet spell. There’s no way her drink can be too hot. The theory is sound.”

“It’s not that,” said Dinky, sliding her cup to one side. “I was just thinking.”

“Boo!” shouted Alula. “Boo! No thinking in front of the princess!”

“I told you,” said Twilight in exasperation, “I’m not a princess!”

“That’s right,” said Apple Bloom, who’d reasoned that a friend of Applejack’s was a friend of hers too. “Twilight’s just like anypony else. There’s no call to go around tellin’ tall stories about her all the time.”

“Oh, so totally not like you do when you talk about Applejack, you mean?” snapped Alula.

“You are the most selfish, immature, baby-like –”

For sanity’s sake, Twilight and Dinky blocked the argument out; everyone else watched it for the entertainment value, distracted for the moment.

“Thinking about what?” said Twilight. “Is something bothering you? Maybe I can help?”

“Well, that’s just it,” said Dinky, trying to see the words ahead and not liking the ones she was hearing. “Are you here to help?”

“Of course I am. If you want me to.”

“No, I mean help help. Like, serious help.”

“Huh?”

Nothing for it. Dinky ploughed on: “Like ‘Nightmare Moon’ level of help?”

Despite the raging argument ruining the mood somewhat, Twilight tried for an ominous silence. Even then, it didn’t last long.

“But Nightmare Moon is gone,” said Twilight, though Dinky recognized the tone. It was a Derpy kind of tone, the one so few adults used: it was the tone of someone who could yet be persuaded by a filly.

“She is gone, yeah,” admitted Dinky. “But what if she’s not the only bad guy? What if there are more of them?”

Half of the conversation stopped. Odd Job and Spike looked up from their drinks. Even Piña looked around to see what the interest was. Only Apple Bloom broke off long enough to cock an ear; Alula just kept arguing to herself, never one to let go.

“That’s a big ‘if’,” said Spike, but uncertainly. Odd Job’s worries crept over her face.

“There’s another bad guy?” whispered Piña.

“You tell whoppers so big, even fishing ponies are calling you –” Alula finally shut up when Apple Bloom elbowed her in the ribs. “What? What’s going on?”

“Dinky says there’s another bad guy coming,” piped up Piña.

Alula shut her own mouth. She seemed paler all of a sudden. Awesome fights sounded fine at a distance, but up close was another matter.

Silence swept over the table.

Dinky saw the calmness in Twilight’s face. Considering the shock and worry elsewhere, she was an oasis of clear sense.

“I have thought about it,” said Twilight. “It’s possible. And it’d make sense of some things I’ve been pondering lately.”

The relieved sigh didn’t escape Dinky’s lips, but it did relax her shoulders.

“But you’re here now,” Dinky said, more for the others’ sakes than for her own; she’d seen the spark in Twilight’s eye. “And you got friendship magic.”

“That’s right!” said Spike, seizing on the fact and breaking the spell. “Even if there was some other bad guy heading our way – and there probably isn’t – so what? Twilight beat Nightmare Moon, and she wasn’t alone. She could beat anything even before she got friendship magic.”

The blush came back to Twilight. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly –”

“Yeah, Spike’s right!” Alula shot to the air, wings buzzing on exhilaration. “Ha! We got a hero on our side now! Let ‘em try anything here! POW! SPLAT!”

Odd Job squirmed in her seat. Apple Bloom watched her for a moment, then glowered all the harder and thumped the table for attention.

“Applejack and Granny Smith and Big Mac all told me they’ve faced all kinds of problems here in Ponyville,” she said, and for once it was easy to see the generations of confidence passing through her strong earth pony form. “They never backed down from anythin’. If there was anythin’ like that comin’ for us, they’d face it together. And with their friends too.” She beamed up at Twilight, a hero-worshipper in the making.

If anything, Twilight’s blush deepened, as though her heart was trying to escape by brute force. “That’s true, and fine as it goes, but –”

She looked down; Piña had tugged on her elbow urgently.

“Yes?” said Twilight flatly.

“Miss Princess Twilight Hero? You won’t let them hurt Sis, will you? You’ll keep us safe, right?”

Stunned by the direction their little teatime had gone, Dinky watched Twilight watch them all in turn. There was worry, and young courage, and uncertainty all around. It was so embarrassing that Dinky wished she hadn’t said anything.

“I’d do my best,” said Twilight weakly under all the stares. “If it happened. If.”

This satisfied the others for now; they all broke out into excited babbling. Spoiling everything. And it was all Dinky’s fault. She knew it. She’d spoiled it.

Dinky sipped at her drink and waited for it all to be over. She didn’t look at Twilight once.

In the End, You Are On Your Own (Together)

The others left in good spirits, one by one. Alula was the first; any time Twilight talked less about heroic deeds and more about all the fun she’d had shelving books lately, Alula’s face didn’t so much glaze over as ice over.

“Great,” she muttered, “another bookworm.”

Yet Twilight had at least persuaded her to take a book home, since this was a library after all. To everyone’s surprise – and Apple Bloom’s triumphant grin – Alula shyly slipped a book about princess dresses off the shelf and tried very hard to ignore the giggles around her.

“It’s warrior uniforms!” she shouted when they giggled a little too loudly.

Second was Odd Job, who tried slipping out without anyone seeing her and then nearly blushed herself to death when Twilight and Spike insisted on saying goodbye.

Next was Piña, who wanted a lock of Twilight’s hair. When nervously asked why by Twilight herself, Piña said she wanted to eat it.

“To get all the yummy magical goodness,” she said, nodding helpfully.

Twilight stamped out her book as hastily as politeness allowed. It was about ladybugs. She didn’t ask.

To Dinky’s slight annoyance, Apple Bloom hung back at the entrance. Her book had been an odd one: The Big Questions for Little Foals (Who Are You and What Do You Want?).

“What?” snapped Apple Bloom defensively. “Ah can take an interest too!”

“I didn’t say anything.” Dinky kept her gaze away from Apple Bloom. Any fiercer, and the red-and-yellow earth filly might catch fire.

Both of them hung back from the entrance, despite the beckoning blue of afternoon’s approach. Twilight and Spike stood to one side, the traditional place for Canterlot ponies to see their guests off correctly.

“Well, that was fun,” said Spike. He waved the key in a clawed hand. “And if you ever want to break in again, you know where this is kept.”

“Spike!” said Twilight.

“I’m just kidding, Twilight.”

“Uh huh. Just like you were kidding when you helped them sneak past me last night?”

Spike, Apple Bloom, and Dinky paused a little too long.

Unfortunately, whilst Spike and Dinky could keep themselves in check, Apple Bloom blurted out, “He didn’t help us! We snuck out on our own while he distracted you away from us! Spike didn’t know nothin’.”

By the time Spike slapped his own face, Apple Bloom realized what she’d just said.

“Oh, pony feathers…” she groaned. “Ah didn’t mean to lie! Spike meant well, honest! He coulda told ya, only he didn’t, and Ah’m happy he didn’t, but we didn’t mean anythin’ by it, Twi, honest we –”

Too late, Dinky elbowed her in the ribs to shut up.

Twilight had Judgement in her eyes again.

“You know,” she said, drawing out each word as though measuring it, “I would have expected better from Applejack’s sister when it comes to honesty.”

Apple Bloom slumped in defeat. “Ah’m sorry, Twilight.”

“I’ll let it go this one time,” continued Twilight – Apple Bloom’s hopeful eyes sparkled in turn – “but I won’t be able to ignore repeated offences in future. Ponies should practise what they preach, is that understood?”

“You got it, Twilight! Ah really am sorry.”

Dinky then struggled to remember if she herself had actually apologized at any point. Evidently, the same point crossed Twilight’s mind, because suspicion gave her an expectant look. Dinky shrank a little under the attention.

“I think Apple Bloom’s just a little confused,” said the imp in Dinky.

To her surprise, she saw Apple Bloom nod sadly. “A little. Ever since Applejack…”

Even more to her surprise, Dinky saw Twilight’s face soften considerably, almost becoming sisterly herself. “I understand.”

Apple Bloom looked up sharply. “You do?”

“Yes.” Twilight’s gaze nudged the book on Apple Bloom’s back. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask. I’ve studied lots of books and theories. Maybe there’s something I can give back to the community, for giving me so much?”

Sappiness detected, Dinky kept quiet and shuffled out of range. Part of being an imp was being slightly allergic to goodness, especially when it dribbled thick as syrup.

Apple Bloom smartened up and nodded – an almost perfect imitation of her big sister – and then hopped out into the day.

Which just left Dinky, who by now was fervently hoping the break-in wouldn’t be brought up again.

Oh, to heck with it. Amethyst would have attacked it head-on.

“Look, about last night –” Dinky began.

“Didn’t you want to take a book home with you?” Twilight said, surprisingly quickly.

It had occurred to Dinky, yes. It was just that there were times to obsess over books, and times to obsess over ponies, and today’s pony had been far more interesting than any amount of books. Taking one seemed kind of beside the point.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Dinky. She could tell Twilight had something on her mind, but she was in no rush. “Tomorrow? I can come back tomorrow and have a look.”

On her part, Dinky worried about the teatime with Twilight. She’d just had muffins with a hero, a saviour, a vanquisher of evil just like the ones from her stories… and it had seemed so ordinary. So familiar. So… so not-heroic. If she didn’t know who Twilight was, she might have thought the slightly awkward mare was just another Canterlot unicorn like Lemon Hearts. Or like Minuette, or Twinkleshine. Or…

“Hey, are you OK?” It was Spike. He’d been so quiet and off-to-the-side that Dinky almost forgot he was there.

And that he was a dragon. A big, dangerous, supposedly impossible creature: waddling around, serving tea, and smiling at ponies nicely. He was somehow mere background to someone like Twilight.

“Is it about what we talked about at tea?” said Twilight. Despite the stupidly vague words, Dinky picked up on the meaning at once.

“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s nice to have a hero around.”

Twilight had enough self-control to stop the blush, but not completely.

“But?” said Spike encouragingly. “There’s a ‘but’, isn’t there?”

“If it’s about last night,” said Twilight, stumbling over herself, “then don’t worry. I mean, no harm done, right? And I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson. Everyone learns in their own way, so who am I to judge?”

Dinky wished she could say what was on her mind. The thought seemed too big to just say. She had to keep turning it around until she found a way to push it out of her mouth and get rid of it, otherwise it’d get stuck in her head all day.

Something tumbled out, if only because the silence was getting unpleasant.

“Do you have a sister?” she said.

Twilight and Spike gave each other puzzled looks.

“I have an older brother?” offered Twilight in case this helped. “And Spike, in a way. Although he’s more like someone I took in and raised – Well, not me, of course, I was only a foal, and he was a dragon, and only Celestia knew the spells needed to take care of his fire outbursts, and really I was given him, but as a technicality, I mean, as part of the family –”

“No sisters, is the point she’s trying to make,” said Spike. Twilight sagged with relief.

“Yes, we have no sisters! Although Spike might, since I never found out much about his blood family ties, and no one at the school seemed to know where his egg exactly –”

“Why a sister, anyway?” said Spike, sparing Twilight again.

Dinky shrugged. “Oh, just asking. We have a Sisterhooves Social every fall. I just wondered if you wanted to try it.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s ears drooped at this. “I see.”

She’s new here, Dinky thought to herself. And I know what Canterlot can be like. Ponyville is a whole alien world compared to that. No, Canterlot is the alien world. Like a cold and lifeless moon.

“There’s the Running of the Leaves, though,” she piped up.

Twilight’s ears rose. “Oh?”

“That’s tons of fun. And there’s the Winter Wrap-Up we do here, but I’d read about that first. It’s different in Ponyville.”

“Oh, right.”

“Plus, you can’t miss the Summer Harvest Parade. Or the Nightmare Night coming up; they don’t celebrate that in Canterlot. Or one of Pinkie Pie’s birthday parties, ‘cause she has loads of them. Come to think of it, Ponyville celebrates a lot of stuff…”

“Then I’m sure I’ve got a lot of research to do,” said Twilight, brightening up. Learning to fit in and getting an excuse for more reading: Dinky might as well have handed her the keys to heaven.

She wasn’t the only one. Heroes inviting her to tea was confusing and exciting in ways Dinky didn’t understand, but Ponyville was Ponyville. Dinky could walk to the other side of the planet, and she’d still carry Ponyville with her. She laughed with Pinkie’s laughter, and worked hard like the farmers Golden Harvest and Applejack, and she thought flighty thoughts with Derpy in the sky, and she walked on solid ground alongside Amethyst, who could crush diamonds with her iron grip on reality.

The cottages might be small and old-fashioned, but that was just to fool and test the unwary, because inside, the hearts were bigger than one life could hold, big enough to share and still feel big, and always very much present, no matter where you’d take yourself.

Dinky didn’t know how to explain all this to Twilight. Too much to say. She just had to hope Twilight picked it up as she went along, though she seemed to have a pretty good starting point already.

So she settled for something a bit easier to understand.

“Maybe your next Summer Sun Celebration will be a lot better than this one,” said Dinky, as sweetly as she could manage.

Twilight’s giggle came welcome as ever. “I think that’s a pretty safe bet.”

“Did you ever read Sparky the Space Scout?” Dinky found herself blurting out; she’d seemed comfortable enough for a moment to do so, as if she’d known Twilight for years.

It was Spike who grimaced. “That corny old space comic?”

“That’s the one!” said Dinky happily.

“Bah, Crush Cauldron was way better than that lame spin-off. That one was all ‘PEW-PEW-PEW’ and epic space battles and destiny ghosts and laser force fields and cool stuff like that.”

“There’s that stuff in Sparky too.”

“Yeah, between all the dull stuff. Like, who cares if Sparky wants to find the ultimate question to everything? Get to the good stuff! And super-preachy, hello? I mean, why does every adventure have to end with a super-obvious moral, like ‘Be nice to those who are different’? Um, hello? Dragon in pony society? Why does this apply to me?”

“Hm…” Twilight rubbed her chin, and Dinky waited patiently despite Spike’s shaking, disbelieving head. “Sparky the Space Scout… that’d be the one with the scientific interest?”

“Uh huh.” Dinky beamed.

“And the ethical dilemmas in an easy-to-understand didactic style?”

“Uh huh!” Dinky beamed wider.

“Blending the traditional action-oriented approach of pulp fiction with more modern intellectual and emotional sensibilities?”

“It’s like we’re long-lost sisters ourselves!” Dinky’s beaming smile nearly became a crescent moon.

“Yeah, and wasn’t that a lame plot twist in Issue Number 53 –” began Spike.

“Spike!” said Twilight warningly. To Dinky, she added kindly, “He has different tastes in graphic novels than I do.”

“They’re ‘comics’, Twilight,” said Spike with wearying patience. “Not ‘graphic novels’.”

Stiffly, Twilight said, “You have your term, I have mine.”

Dinky willed the words to come. She could see now, looming into the sky, the reason why she’d brought the comics – or graphic novels – up at all.

“Well,” said Dinky hesitantly, “you ever read Issue Number 6?”

Twilight barely needed to think. “The one with the Moon Queen, yes.”

Both of them saw the spark of realization in each eye, as if a comet had surged past, heralding worse behind it, bracing them for impact.

If only it hadn’t been close to the middle of the day. Dinky wanted to look out and see stars twinkling in the sky, or better yet a full shot of the empty moon. Dramatic timing wasn’t the world’s strong point.

“Do you think Sparky ever gets scared,” she said, trying to walk around the real question, “whenever she faces stuff like that? Like, really scared, deep down?”

“Maybe,” Twilight answered a little too quickly. “But what choice does she have? It’s her moral duty to protect others. Even if she is a little scared. And that’s exactly what she will do.”

Dinky hadn’t realized she’d still strayed too close to the real question, and her mind backed off at once. It wasn’t lack of curiosity; any other day, Dinky would have asked as naturally as she probed into other ponies’ cupboards. It wasn’t even fear of offending anyone, certainly not Twilight. She sensed, at a later date, that it might be fun to poke and prod at Twilight a little bit. She was too much like Amethyst, in some respects. Stiff, dull, a little unimaginative and serious-minded. A little chaos might do her some good.

What could Dinky say? That she couldn’t read enough, go far enough, stare at the stars long enough to feel really satisfied? That she wanted to fly up there too, and look down and see everything, know everything? That the world was like a massive, delicious cake, so delicious and massive that no matter how fast Dinky ate, she’d never get to enjoy it all?

It felt worse because Dinky sensed, in her sister’s disapproving looks and her mother’s more puzzled ones, that she wasn’t supposed to think thoughts like this. Odd Job didn’t; there was too much going on at the farm. Alula didn’t; if she couldn’t kick or worship it, it meant nothing to her. Piña certainly didn’t; she seemed content in a baby book version of her own world, where everything was written in big, colourful letters and fairy tales kept going.

She’d never had anyone else to talk to about this.

And then out of the stars, out of the moon, a nightmare had come, and suddenly she was in the middle of a story with a hero. On top of that, a hero with brains. It was like running into Sparky at her local library.

Even now, she had no idea what to say.

Dinky realized Twilight and Spike were staring at her.

“I’m OK,” said Dinky, and to her horror heard a weak crack in her voice. She wiped her eyes quickly; they weren’t blurry, but they felt more moist than usual.

Twilight stepped forwards. “Is there anything I can do?” she said at once.

Deep down where no one would ever see, Dinky burst into tears. The rest of her snapped at it to be sensible.

“It’s nothing,” said Dinky, a little too panicky that time.

Twilight gave her a long, thoughtful look, then without looking away, said, “Spike, I think it’s safe to say your break’s over. Could you take care of the dishes, please?”

“Hm? What? Oh. Right.”

As if remembering something there and then, Twilight added, “I’ll join you in a little while.”

“Oh. Oh.” Spike glanced from Twilight to Dinky and back. “Uh, sure thing. Those dishes won’t wash themselves!”

Only when he left did Twilight sit down. It was such a defeated move that Dinky almost gaped.

“It’s weird,” admitted Twilight, smiling strangely, “but in a lot of ways, you remind me of… me.”

Dinky’s mouth hung open. It was as if Twilight had summoned the words right out of them, only turned back-to-front and shown up to Dinky’s broad eyes.

“When I was younger, I mean,” continued Twilight. She nodded at the door. “Those friends of yours?”

“Mm hm.” Dinky didn’t feel capable of saying much. No words left.

“I’ve been watching how you act around them. You seem to be… how can I put this…? Every inch the leader that they officially don’t have.”

Of course, that was a risk, thought Dinky. While I’m watching someone, maybe they’re watching me.

“Mm,” was her reliable answer to this.

“It’s like they’re all individuals with their own minds, and you know that they could lead if they wanted. Yet, they keep looking at you when something big comes along. It’s like you end up doing the big things for them. Not that that’s wrong, of course! I mean, you would anyway, of course you would. It’d be the right thing to do. But you wonder: does it always have to be you? Will it always have to be you? Every time? And what if you’re not ready? What if it fails just once? You understand what I’m trying to say? Don’t you?”

Again, “Mm” was about as much as Dinky could admit.

Twilight’s face fought not to collapse for a moment. “You’re very lucky to have made so many friends so young.”

Dinky didn’t respond except to nod. She got the impression Twilight was trying and not trying to say something else.

Just like me, thought Dinky.

Eventually, some words came to her aid: “I try my best.”

This seemed to break the trance. Twilight stood up again. Something far stronger came back to reinforce her muscles and bones, her whole stance, even the space around her.

“Well, as reasonably as we can, of course,” she said, sounding like a professor summing up. “Who can do more than their best, logically?”

“Oh, well, logically,” said Dinky. “Like when ponies say you should give 110% of yourself to something. You can’t give more than 100%. Because if you could give 110% of that, then that’d just be the true 100% of what you could really give. That’s just logic.”

They both relaxed, as if after some obstacle surmounted.

“It was really nice meeting you,” said Dinky. “Can I break in again tonight?”

Twilight’s face made some interesting contortions.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Dinky flapped her hoof placatingly. “How about I just come for another tea thing, and we pretend I stole something?”

Now Twilight’s face showed off a true contortionist’s trick: the half-twist of someone with a busy schedule, almost curled up on itself with the pressing weight of horrified guilt.

“Next week?” Dinky offered.

“Next month?” Dinky offered again, when the contortion didn’t stop.

Twilight shrugged helplessly. “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“Well, it better be soon, or I might make an unarranged visit in the middle of the night.” Hastily, she added, “Kidding, kidding!”

Lurking at the back of her mind, though, the imp said: Oh, the fun we could have, tormenting Twilight so…

“I take it back,” Twilight said grimly. “Maybe we’re not so similar after all.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll surprise you?”

“Maybe I won’t be that easy to surprise, given my knowledge of pony psychology.”

Yes! She knows about psychology! And she knows the word “psychology”! Yes, yes, yes! “Maybe I’ll hold you to that, Professor. I’m a very surprising pony.”

That did it: she got a half-smile out of Twilight despite Twilight forcing it down. What was a little adventure without a little risk?

They parted, Dinky waving back, Twilight shaking her head but smiling at the same time before easing the door shut.

This particular summer’s afternoon, Dinky skipped out and about the streets of Ponyville. All during a school day too. She giggled at her latest subversive deed.

As she skipped home, feeling lighter than a pegasus in the air, she wondered if she could arrange a Sisterhooves meeting at Twilight’s library. They’d never held the meeting at a non-member’s home before, but that was the point of frontiers. So you could go where you hadn’t gone before, and possibly annoy someone whilst doing so.

For now, Dinky pretended she was Sparky pretending she was a filly with the most interesting life in Equestria and the best future yet to come. For once, it didn’t require much acting.

It Won't All Be Milk and Cookies in the Sisterhooves Army

The five of them crept along the hedgerow of Sweet Apple Acres.

Occasionally, Piña would raise her voice to ask what they were doing, only for the others to frantically shush her. Apple Bloom had to lead the way, since she was the only one who knew the territory, though she complained a lot under her breath. The rest came in single file, except for Alula, who insisted on flying overhead to prove she didn’t need to fumble on the ground like the rest of them, the pansies.

Up ahead, the hulking shadow of the barn occluded most of the mighty stars. Dinky’s heart beat faster and hit harder against the bars of her ribcage. She crumpled under the pity when she heard Piña swallow.

None of the other Apples would be awake. Her heart steadied. But then if Winona smelled them… Her heart burst with fresh panic. The rest of her desperately tried not to make a smell at all.

Apple Bloom guided the door open with a creak. Barely visible as a moving silhouette in the gloom, she waved them into the barn.

She whispered, “Get the milk from Daisy. Third one on the left. Don’t wake Mooriella whatever you do. She spooks easy.”

“Gotcha,” whispered Dinky.

In her mind, she rebelled. It’s not milk! It’s the nectar of the princesses! No, it’s a rationed drink for our troops! No, it’s rocket fuel for Sparky’s ship!

“Ow!”

Metal clanked. They all jumped. Someone cut off their own scream.

Odd Job sucked in a breath of fresh pain. “Stupid bucket! I can’t see where I’m going!” she moaned.

“I thought Carrots could see in the dark?” said Piña.

“Carrot vegetables, yes. Carrot ponies, no.”

“There are ponies made out of carrots?”

Everyone paused until the embarrassment passed like wind. If Piña had a brain, it was directly wired to her mouth, which in any case ran on automatic.

“Eh, that ‘carrots help you see better’ stuff’s just a myth,” whispered Alula. “Grown-ups say stuff like that to get you to eat your greens. Doesn’t work on me,” she added smugly.

“Vegetables don’t have eyes!” said Piña accusingly.

“Will you shush up?” hissed Apple Bloom. “Ah don’t wanna wake up my family. They’d think we were thievin’.”

Dinky stretched her magic towards the source of the metal clank. It sure felt like a bucket to her. A pail for the milk?

“What am Ah sayin’!? We are thievin’! None of us is payin’ for the milk! Ah can’t thieve from my own family!”

“You shush!” hissed Alula back. They quickly devolved into a heated but quiet argument.

Gently as she could, Dinky levitated the pail over to her spot. Under the thin glow of her magical aura, the udders faded into sight.

Now for the technical bit…

Oh no. Now what do I do?

“The brave Sparky,” she whispered, hoping a little self-commentary would keep her steady. “Heeding the call of destiny, she goes forth to prepare for her noble quest…”

She shut her eyes, reached across, and squeezed.

What happened next made every foal shriek. All five of them pressed into each other, vainly trying to be the one shielded by the other four.

Cows, Dinky knew, were supposed to go “moo”. It was common sense. What she’d just heard was far worse. It was the high rumble of an almighty god, woken from slumber, yet reaching a pitch which suggested someone had grabbed it in a very sensitive spot. Another monstrous mooing shook even the solid ground underfoot, leaving no doubt that the blasphemous groper would be met like-for-like, to be viciously struck down with great vengeance and furious anger.

The head of a horned devil emerged from the shadow. In the dim glow of Dinky’s horn, the cow’s blotchy brown face became the pox-ridden mask of a swollen demon.

Voice quavering, body quivering, Dinky pleaded, “I’m s-s-s-sorry, Miss! P-Please don’t hurt us!”

Finally, the voice commanded them: “And hwhat bloomin’ time d’ye call this!?”

“Um,” said Apple Bloom in a moment of recklessness.

From nearby, another shadow stirred. “Mooriella? Are you all right, dearie? I thought you had one of your turns.”

The ghastly visage of Mooriella grunted. “Spies. Thieves. Trespassers, Daisy. Going around sabotagin’ my sleep! We’ll all be milked in our beds!”

“Hm?” Another face entered the light as the next cow leaned closer to inspect them.

Five thumping hearts quelled themselves. Demonic lows and fearsome faces of judgement were one thing, but no one could be frightened of a sleeping mask with butterflies on it.

“Er…” squeaked Apple Bloom. “Mornin’? Daisy Jo? Mooriella? Ma’am?”

Daisy Jo slipped the mask off with a cloven hoof. “Oh, Mooriella, you silly old girl. It’s only the little Apple darling. And you brought your friends. Oh, isn’t that lovely?”

Fear simply evaporated under the onslaught of Daisy Jo’s accent; the mind spent too long wondering what it was supposed to be. Gingerly, the five fillies disentangled themselves and shuffled their feet, as fillies are wont to do when they’ve looked silly in front of witnesses.

“Awful weird to see you up so late, moonlight-milkin’ and all,” continued Daisy Jo’s fluty tones like a fussy mother hen. “You’ll catch your death of cold workin’ out at night, don’t-cha-know.”

“Please don’t tell Applejack Ah came out here!” Apple Bloom wailed in fresh misery.

“Wotcher doin’ out here in the first place, dearie?”

“I told you,” rumbled Mooriella. “They’s thievin’ about. Takin’ milk out of the Apple coffers. You ought to be ashamed of yerselves.”

There was a chorus of “sorry’s” from among those assembled. Only Dinky remained quiet. Her improvisational mind had now hurtled over the first barrier erected before it, and was sizing up the next one.

She bowed low. “Please excuse us, Miss Daisy and Miss Mooriella. We are on a noble quest to get the first pony into space.”

“At one ‘o’ clock in the morning?” Mooriella huffed impatiently.

“Best time for it,” said Dinky fast. “You can’t see space in the day.”

“Space is space, my good filly!”

“Really? Have you ever seen stars in the middle of the day, Miss Mooriella?”

She’d struck gold; Daisy Jo burst into a booming laugh that briefly shocked Dinky into freezing on the spot.

“Hmph,” said Mooriella around her neighbour’s belly laughs. “I don’t see what my milk has to do with it.”

“It’s fuel for the spaceship.” Dinky bowed low again. “We want to follow the Milky Way, you see.”

“Your tongue is too quick by far, young lady!” Mooriella grunted and backed out of the light. They heard her shuffle round and away to rest again.

Beside her, Daisy Jo tutted. “Oh, don’t mind her, Little Miss Quicktongue. She’s a cow of her own constitution, that one.”

Dinky left herself a mental memo: Look up “constitution” the first chance I get.

“Myself, I don’t see why giving a little milk to such little ponies would hurt anyone. It is my milk, after all, to do with as I please. Tell you what, dearies. I’ll look the other way this time, and you promise not to come sneaking up and scaring poor old Mooriella again. Is that a fair offer?”

The wink sealed the deal. Every one of the Sisterhooves Sisters breathed a sigh of relief. No one who winked like that would go back on their word.

“Thanks, Daisy Jo!” said Odd Job, so relieved that she wasn’t even bothering to lower her voice. “You’re a star!”

“Milk, yay! Milk, yay!” Piña hopped on the spot, thumping the earthy floor and crackling straw underfoot.

“On the house!” said Alula. “Ha! On the barnhouse!”

While Daisy Jo chuckled indulgently and turned around, the others slapped the earth until they found the upturned pail.

“Milk, yay! Milk, yay!” Piña stopped bouncing. “Will… Will there be cookies?”

“What?” said Odd Job.

“If you have milk, you always have cookies too. Hmm…” She trotted past Dinky and squinted at the udder. “Which one gives the cookies, Miss Daisy Jo?”

“You don’t bake at home, do you?” said Odd Job dispiritedly.

Only then did Apple Bloom hum with uncertainty. “Er… Are you sure this is a good idea, Miss Daisy Jo? Applejack’s bound to –”

“Don’t you worry about it, dearie. Help yourselves. You have my blessing, you sweet little things.”

“Right…”

Dinky reached towards the udder before a thought struck her.

“Um,” she said. “I don’t know how to milk a cow. Is there a special way you have to do it?”

“You mean you don’t know?” said Apple Bloom, panicking again. “You dragged us all the way to break into my own farm, and you don’t know!?”

“Don’t you know, then?”

“No! Applejack never showed me!”

“Er… Cosmo? How about you?”

“What do you think?” snapped Alula.

“Piña – I mean, Magical Ladybug?”

“Ew! I’m not touching cow parts!”

“But,” said Dinky, sinking under the weight of the philosophical conundrum. “Who will milk the cow?”

They sank further into deep cogitation. Eventually, all faces turned to Odd Job.

She slumped in defeat.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” she muttered.

“You know how?” said Dinky.

“Golden Harvest used to have a cow once. She tried making carrot milk.” Odd Job pulled a face which said quite plainly that it wasn’t Golden Harvest who had anything to do with the mucky jobs there. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Ah’d do it,” said Apple Bloom apologetically. “Only Ah’m more into the rodeo side of country livin’.”

“Wow, really rodeoing?” said Alula, impressed.

The others pestered Apple Bloom for rodeo stories and what her sister Applejack did to earn her medals, while in the background, milk squelched and the milker sighed on her own. Dinky flitted back and forth between the two, torn between her pity for Odd Job and her desire to hear how Applejack had nearly crushed the judges in the haybale-throwing contest.

Eventually, the squelching stopped, and a pail sloshed in a healthy way.

“There you go, my little darlings!” called Daisy Jo. “You enjoy that milk now, you hear?”

“We will!” chorused the four; Odd Job fell onto the ground with a groan.

“And don’t forget your promise!”

“We won’t!”

In the end, Alula dangled the pail and Apple Bloom balanced it on her back, the two being the strongest fillies. Dinky hefted Odd Job onto her back to carry her out. Neither team beat Piña out the gate, nor could they match her bouncing enthusiasm.

“Milky Way, here we come!” she cried.

“Shh!” hissed Apple Bloom. “You’ll wake up the whole farm!”

“Now what, Sparky?” Alula grunted under the weight of milk.

Patient as a sheepdog before herding, Dinky’s rushing mind settled back on course. That’s the fuel taken care of. What else does Sparky the Space Scout need?

Dinky tittered to herself. “We’ve got the fuel for my rocket. Now we need magic from the witch.”

“Why?” hissed Apple Bloom.

“Otherwise the rocket won’t work.”

“Rockets don’t need magic.”

“Not normal rockets. But special rockets need special stuff, and I won’t settle for less than special.” Dinky drew herself up proudly and then stopped when Odd Job threatened to slide off. Now for the moment she’d been waiting for. “Now we’re off to see the witch for a spell!”

Piña burst out laughing until she realized it wasn’t a pun. The others shushed her angrily.

“All right!” said Alula. “And it’s the witching hour too. Perfect!”

Of course: Cloudkicker took an interest in witches. Being her younger sister, Alula had only taken an interest when she’d learned about evil curses, and everything else she’d learned about witchcraft had hung on like toadies around a cool friend.

Proudly, Dinky marched ahead. “Follow me, girls! On, on to the witch’s volcano. Sparky’s destiny awaits!”

Dinky tried another window.

“You’re jokin’, right?” said Apple Bloom.

“I think this one’s open.”

“You’re gonna break into the Golden Oak Library? You? Right now? In the middle of the night?”

“It’s just part of the game.” Dinky pushed the window further to widen the gap. “When a brave hero ventures forth to take magic from the witch of… of… the Witch of Canterlot Caldera, she doesn’t wait until opening time, does she? No hero waits for opening time. They just go out and do it.”

“It’s OK,” said Odd Job bitterly. “Golden Harvest said fillyhood is the time to do crazy stuff, so you can look back on it later in life and laugh. Ha!”

“Then why are you laughing right now?” said Piña.

“Saving time!” snarled Odd Job.

“This is so cool!” said Alula, somersaulting in mid-air through sheer excitement. “Breaking and entering should be legal!”

“It wouldn’t be fun if it was legal,” said Odd Job, social commentator when she was in a bad mood.

After a while, Piña gasped for attention. “We really are breaking in?”

“Yes,” said Dinky, still working on the window.

“Are we going to get into trouble?”

“What?” Dinky widened the window’s gap a few more inches.

“I mean, we’re not doing anything wrong, are we? Big Sis wouldn’t let us do anything wrong.”

All of them fell into foot-shuffling silence while they tried to think on Piña’s kind of wavelength. The long pause was only to be expected, given the difficulty of reaching a wavelength that skewed.

Dinky beamed down at her. “Nah. Heroes only do good things. It’s all right if heroes do it.”

“Breakin’ and enterin’ don’t sound heroic to me,” muttered Apple Bloom.

Alula sniggered. “Yeah? What adventure stories have you been reading?”

“Huh?”

“Stealing the Idol of Boreas, the Griffon’s Goblet, the Jewelled Eye of Anubis, the Princess of the Phoenix Lands, the secret plans of the Warmonger Society… Stealing stuff from bad guys is what good guys do.”

The window clicked. Dinky heaved herself through the gap and eased the others one-by-one after herself, except for Alula, who sailed in so smugly that she cruised on her back, humming quietly to herself.

“It’s dark,” whispered Piña.

“I knew there was a reason we brought you along,” muttered Odd Job.

“This is the evil witch’s lair,” said Dinky in her best spooky narrator voice. “We’re in the world of grim fairy tales now, my pretty. Damsels and dragons and knights in shining armour… and evil witches.”

A snore came from upstairs. Dinky tried to stay still in mid-tiptoe. The others stopped making noises sharpish.

The snoring resumed. Until it became background.

Then they relaxed.

“My sister is all about witches,” whispered Alula, still contriving to sound smug. “They’re her hobby. I learned some of them have familiars, who spy on ponies and look for victims.”

“Well, she does have a dragon,” whispered Dinky.

Odd Job squeaked. “What? I thought you were joking!”

“She ain’t,” sighed Apple Bloom.

“Oh no, it’s no joke, little one,” said Dinky, warming to her role as terror-inducer. “A terrible dragon, born from his mistress’s dark magic. Eater of the Power Crystals, messenger of Tartarus! Eternally loyal servant to his mistress’s evil will!”

“Dinky?”

“Yes, Apple Bloom?”

“You know he’s just a harmless baby dragon, right?”

“Yes? So do you want to wake him up, then?”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“Miss Dinky Sparky Scout?”

“Yes, Piña – I mean yes, Magical Ladybug?”

“Um… What are we looking for?”

Dinky’s voice barely wavered under the weight of patience. “Something magical that’ll help make the spell necessary to power the first flight of Sparky the Space Scout’s space shuttle!” As an afterthought, she added, “You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Oh, good. Right.”

Inspiration struck. Why not, after all? It was a reliable fallback.

“Something like a power crystal,” said Dinky. “Or a magical gemstone. Enchanted jewellery, or something. It usually is shiny like that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t want to steal it.”

Following a creak of a cupboard and a sparkle in the gloom, Alula’s voice drifted by. “I think I’ve found some regular gemstones.”

“Good!” Dinky cocked an ear for the slightest sound, but amidst the shuffling and the tapping of her fellows, surveillance proved difficult. “All right, grab one and we’ll call this a successful –”

Someone switched the light on.

They froze.

A small figure stood before them, claw raised to the light switch, eyes wide with shock.

They took in the scaly hide, the claws dominating the hands and feet, the horrible, horrible fangs when the spiky creature opened its mouth to let out a breath like a blast furnace.

He said, “AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!”

And gave a jump.

With unerring pitifulness, Piña screamed and tripped over her own legs. Alula rose too fast; she hit the ceiling, yelped, and fell to the floor. Even Odd Job ducked behind Dinky, pressing against her back legs so hard that she made her quiver too.

Dinky was too fake-frightened to move of her own free will. She breathed, “It’s a dragon…”

Whereupon Apple Bloom blew a raspberry. “Oh, come on.”

This reaction was so unexpected that the others, crouched down or standing up, snapped their gazes to her scowl at once.

“Unlike you gals, Ah stayed up on Summer Sun Celebration.” Apple Bloom waddled over to the wide-eyed little monster and stood by his side. “He’s no trouble.”

Dinky cocked her head. So much for setting the mood, she thought. The others stood up, tensed as though ready to bolt. To these, Apple Bloom shook a dismissive hoof.

“He’s a dragon!” said Piña. She chewed the inside of her mouth. “Er,” she added.

“Isn’t he?” said Odd Job.

Only then did Dinky notice the flashlight clutched in the dragon’s hand.

“Huh,” said the little dragon. “I wondered what the noise was.”

“Gals,” said Apple Bloom proudly. “This is Spike. He’s with Twilight Sparkle.”

One by one, the gals unwound and stepped closer.

“You mean,” said Dinky, acting as sheepishly as seemed right for the role, “he’s not – Sorry.” She turned to Spike. “You’re not going to… to breathe fire on us?”

“Or eat us up?” said Alula, genuinely sheepish.

“Or capture us, lock us in a tall tower, and tell any knights who want us to come and fight you to the death?” said Piña hopefully.

“Who, me?” Spike shrugged. “Why would I do that? That wouldn’t be very friendly.”

“‘Cause you’re a dragon,” said Odd Job with the air of one playing checkmate.

“So?” Apple Bloom drew herself up in a sterling imitation of her older siblings about to deliver a dressing-down. “Spike may be a dragon on the outside, but on the inside he’s just like you an’ me. He’s only a kid. An’ he ain’t never set no ponies on fire, neither.”

“Uh, that’s right,” said Spike. “Not on purpose, anyway. Sorry, what’s going on, exactly?”

Finally, Dinky’s trusty mind leaped forwards to meet Apple Bloom’s. She stepped forwards and gripped Spike’s free hand between her hooves.

“Oh, a pleasure to meet you, Lord Spike!” she said, winking. “But if you’re not the evil dragon, then you must be the knight in shining armour.”

“I must?” Spike looked himself down.

“Well, of course. With those armoured scales. And that tail like a sword.”

“A knight, huh?” Something heroic gleamed in Spike’s eye; Dinky knew how to build on that. “Yeah, I guess I kind of am.”

“And so, so heroic,” she said proudly, “that he won’t tattle to his dark mistress on a bunch of poor, frightened, helpless maidens, wink wink.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to fight you,” said Alula. “Not that I couldn’t win, I mean.”

“Oaoahw! That means I can be the pretty princess!” said Piña excitedly. “Oh, I’ve always wanted someone to fight to the death over me! This is the greatest quest ever!”

“Ahem!” said Odd Job sharply. “I thought I was the princess! I wanted to be the princess before you did!”

Up till now, Spike’s puzzled gaze went back and forth like a genial tennis ball, but this time he raised his voice like a rising net full of massive gaps and tangled mix-ups. “I’m sorry, it’s too early, don’t get me wrong, I’m OK and all, but… but who are you again? What’s with all this knights and princesses and maidens and stuff? What are you doing in the library at one ‘o’ clock in the morn–?”

There was a shuffling from upstairs, and then the thump of four feet.

Spike stiffened at once. “Oh boy. Now you’ve done it. Twilight’s woken up!”

“Well, that ain’t so bad, ain’t it?” said Apple Bloom, looking up the stairs. “She knows me.”

“Ooh, ooh, can we meet her?” said Alula.

“Yes, we were supposed to find the volcano witch, after all,” said Dinky. “To get the volcano rocket spell.”

“Forget the witch! I wanna meet the new Canterlot pony!” said Piña. “Can we meet her? Can we meet her?”

Alone of the group, Odd Job gave a strangled cry. The others looked round at her, to meet a face bulging with alarm.

“No, no, no, no, no…” she kept murmuring.

Dinky raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t be caught out after dark!” hissed Odd Job. “If Golden Harvest found out I was ruining my sleep, she’d bring the hammer down! I’d have to do extra chores! Extra chores! For a month! And she’d sigh at me! And she’d pity me! And she’d start getting all guilty and unhappy! You know what that’s like!?”

Clopping hooves upstairs began to descend. Someone mumbled in the gloom.

Suddenly, meeting one of the most powerful unicorns in the world no longer held the same allure for the fillies. They were thinking: She can do magic. She’s a Canterlot pony. She’s not going to like little girls breaking in. She might not settle for just telling our sisters.

Piña, for one, was still locked in fairy tale thoughts. “She’ll turn us into frogs!”

“Or make us her prisoners!” Alula looked around, panicking. “I can’t go to jail yet! I need a cool tattoo first! We’ve gotta hide!”

“If Golden Harvest finds out… I can’t face her like this…”

They all fell silent when Spike cleared his throat. If nothing else, none of them had heard a baby dragon clear his throat before.

“Sir Spike, at your service,” he whispered, but grandly.

Hastily, he gestured towards a doorway on their left. The fillies nodded. They dived inside, drawing it shut, but – unable to resist – Dinky left a slight crack so they could peer through it.

Just in time to see a dark figure enter the room.

“This is stupid,” whispered Apple Bloom moodily. “Twilight’s all right.”

“Shh,” hissed Dinky. “You want to tell her you broke into her library? See how long she stays ‘all right’?”

“Well, now you mention it…”

Outside, they stared at the unicorn looking around. Dinky thought, That is our witch.

She’d met Twilight before, on one of those trips to Canterlot which, as a collective, had blurred in her mind into one vague experience. It was hard to remember if she – Dinky – had come from Canterlot to visit Ponyville, or if she had come from Ponyville to visit Canterlot. She’d just remembered the boundless joy of being with her family wherever.

In any case… To her, Twilight had been a distant royal colour with a mane so square it was practically geometry. Yet that was merely how she appeared on the very surface. Deep behind that unicorn face and deep within that unicorn chest flowed the blood of the genuine Canterlot pony, proud and hungry and wearing the world like an expensive coat. She oozed with intelligence, the sort to remind Dinky that, however many dozens of books she herself had read, she was but a filly, standing at the reception of a vast library of shelves stretching off to the horizon.

What she’d never seen was Twilight with a bedhead.

It was quite a sight.

“She’s so beautiful,” breathed Alula.

Necks shifted turning to look at her.

“What?” hissed Alula. “I can like beautiful things!”

“Oh, nothing,” whispered Apple Bloom. “Princess Erroria, wasn’t it?”

“I told you –”

The others shushed Alula hastily.

Dinky sniffed. She knew Alula had only said that because she, Alula, already knew Twilight was a Canterlot type. Otherwise, as far as beauty went, Twilight really wasn’t much of a knockout.

Still, Dinky herself couldn’t take her eyes off that unicorn’s horn. How much power lurked in there? How much of a very different kind of knockout?

Twilight yawned. They heard her mumble, “Spike? I thought I heard voices?”

They held their breaths. The moment of truth. Spike: evil dragon or knight in shining armour?

That night, Spike earned his knighthood. “Sorry I woke you up, Twilight. I must’ve sleepwalked, and when I came to, I tripped over my own feet.”

“Huh. And the open cupboard door over there?”

“Me sleep-eating. It happens. Sorry.”

“And the voices?”

“Me… sleep-acting?”

“What, again?”

They couldn’t see Twilight’s face, but they didn’t need to. They could practically hear the skeptical eyebrow rise.

After the room held its breath, they heard Twilight tut at him. “Spike, I’ve told you about drinking coffee before bed. The caffeine makes you restless.”

And now the brave Sparky, hiding from the terrible witch, plots to steal her magic in the name of the quest!

Guided by the thin trickle of light from beyond, Dinky glanced around the space she found herself in. Nothing but books, books, and more books presented themselves.

She reached out, grinning… and then remembered herself. She was not Sparky, not this time. She was Dinky.

For once, the image of Derpy and Amethyst hovered before her.

She hated it when they did that.

She lowered her hoof with a sigh.

No. I can’t steal a library book. Anything but a library book. Not from a fellow bookworm.

“Although,” said Spike, speaking in the slow tones of one making it up as he goes along, “I think I did hear a noise just now.”

The fillies stopped breathing. Funny, Dinky thought, how you don’t hear some sounds until they stop.

“Where?” said Twilight.

Spike pointed… at a spot opposite the hiding place. “Over there. Maybe a book fell out.”

Twilight followed his pointing claw. Once she disappeared from the fillies’ line of sight, Spike – without looking round – beckoned to the hiding fillies and then pointed emphatically towards the front door far behind.

“It’s just around there somewhere,” he continued, slipping a key off the hook with his tail. The pointed tip curled, sliding the key over to the five fillies.

Thank goodness for Alula’s bravery. The pegasus slipped out first, followed by Apple Bloom’s careful creep. Dinky poked her head out to check on Twilight, who headed towards an alcove off to the side.

“Where?” Twilight said, peering into said alcove.

Please don’t look round. Please don’t look round. Slowly as possible, Dinky levitated the key. Beside her, Odd Job guided a shaking Piña by the hoof. Only once the two of them were clear did Dinky slink after them. Last place. Riskiest place.

“There! No, up there! I thought I saw something!” Sidelong, Spike whispered through his teeth, “Bring the key back in the morning.”

Dinky nodded. She slipped the key into the lock. Hoping it wouldn’t creak, she twisted.

It creaked.

Spike hastily yawned and hurried over to Twilight, grabbing her head before it could turn around, forcing it up to stare at a random spot.

“No,” he said with well-acted impatience. “I said it’s there!” His tail flicked frantically at the fillies in a clear “go away” gesture.

“I’m sorry, Spike. I still don’t see anything…”

All five of them pulled the door back. Then, without waiting for a breath, they rushed out. Dinky eased the door shut after them.

Cool night air greeted them. The empty moon smiled down upon them. Cottages slumbered, waiting for the library’s lights to switch off too. Muffled voices, a click of the light switch: they got their wish.

The Sisterhooves Sisters sighed with collective relief.

Now that the shock had worn off, Dinky giggled to herself. “We got the key! The magical key to unlocking the secrets of space travel!”

The others took it with considerably less grace.

“Ah think that’s enough adventurin’ for one night,” said Apple Bloom.

“Pretty fun, though, Sparky,” said Alula. “I thought I’d faint when Twilight came down the stairs.”

“Sis is gonna kill me,” moaned Odd Job. “I shouldn’t have come out like this. Sis is gonna kill me.”

Piña licked her lips. “So now we have cookies?”

“Ah’m headin’ home. This was… Ah dunno. Ah hope Applejack don’t ask too many questions about milk or nothin’.”

The others shrugged. All in all, or so seemed to be the consensus, tonight had been interesting but dangerou– too overlong. A lot of fake yawns punctuated their verdicts.

They found the pail of milk in its hiding place and drank some of it, at least until they complained of bellyaches. Some still sloshed in the bottom. Since it’d go off unless drunk, Piña demanded the pail so her sister could freeze it for another day, interrupted by Apple Bloom demanding the pail back before daybreak, else Applejack would skin her alive. Alula and Odd Job left groaning and clutching their stomachs.

All this passed on automatic through Dinky’s consciousness, vanishing as soon as it was done. Dinky’s adventure faded into her memories as a completed task, the cover of the book closing with a final slam.

She’d seen Twilight. The new Twilight, here in Ponyville. A noble soul taking on the humble life. After all, Ponyville was definitely a rural place. Well, one with a bowling alley. And an arcade. And a general hospital. And a hydro-magical dam which provided power for all those magically charged metal technologies across town –

Yes, but apart from that, it was rural in spirit.

Which meant it was an ideal place for a hero to hide and be humble before the epic quests came calling.

A hero who’d already vanquished the Mare in the Moon: Nightmare Moon. And rescued a princess: the Princess Luna herself! Dinky had seen it! Bits of it. Enough of it, anyway, and her mind had made up the rest.

Hmm…

Dinky thought a lot about stories. She thought about them all the way home.