Chapters “This is so dumb! Why can’t we stay here?” I asked my mother.
She sighed, probably annoyed that she was telling me this again . “Violet, your father got a new job. A good job. We need to move so he can work there. Please try to understand.”
“I don’t want to understand…” I mumbled as I slumped into a ball on the floor of my room. My room, in my home, in Cloudsdale. I’m a pegasus, just like my parents. I might have only been eight, but that didn’t mean she should have just ignored my opinion. We were supposed to live in the sky, not on the ground in some far-off village. I had been to the ground before. You know what was there? Dirt. Hard. Filthy. Dirt. It wasn’t like the clouds. You can fall onto a cloud and it’s just fluffy and soft, but the ground is hard and unforgiving. It hurts when you hit the ground.
My mother sighed again. “Look. We are moving. You’re just going to have to accept that. Now pack up the rest of your things, we need to be out of the house by tomorrow.”
She left me alone with my suitcase. My room was almost empty anyway. My bed, dresser and toy chest were taken that morning. My closet was empty and most of the stuff I had on the walls were already taken down. My clothes, hairbrush, toothbrush, and stuffed animals were already in my suitcase. The only things left were a few family pictures, my Wonderbolts poster, and my most prized possession: my stuffed Rainbow Dash doll complete with Wonderbolts uniform. I wasn’t going to pack Rainbow Dash, though. She was staying with me the whole time, there was no way I would let her out of my sight.
I picked up my family picture. There was my dad with his scruffy black mane and tan coat. He was smiling in his goofy dad way with his hoof over my mom. My mom, with her fire-red mane and sky-blue coat, glanced at him with a big grin. And then there was me, the little sky-blue filly hovering in front of them. My long purple mane blocked a small part of my face as I smiled big for the camera.
After putting the picture in my suitcase, I went to take down my poster. It was an awesome poster. I had gotten it and my Rainbow Dash doll a couple of years ago when my parents took me to a Wonderbolts show for my birthday. The poster had a close-up of Rainbow Dash leaving a rainbow trail after doing her signature move, the Sonic Rainboom. She grinned and had one of her forehooves held out like she wanted a hoof bump for being so awesome. The other members of the team flew next to her on the left and right, leaving fire and smoke trails of their own. All of them together made Rainbow Dash look even cooler.
“Someday,” I said as I hoof-bumped the poster. “Someday I’ll get my cutie mark and be as cool as you, Rainbow Dash. And then I won’t have to live in stupid, old Ponyville.”
Chapter 1: Friends and Enemies
It was only my second day in Ponyville and I already had to go to school. We had only just moved though. Why couldn’t I stay home? It should be a law: No filly goes to school until every moving box is unpacked… and then only if she feels like it. Seriously, there were so many boxes that they blocked out the sun!
Mom took me to my new school that morning. It wasn’t very impressive, just one dinky-looking red building. There was only one room too. My old school was a lot better. It was brand new, big and, best of all, made of clouds. This one had a lot of open space, I guess. You know, like the way the whole world is open space. I mean, no matter how far you go on the ground you never reach an edge. Unlike the clouds, where you could actually fall out of the sky if you wandered too far. I think what I missed the most, though, were my friends. I wondered sometimes if I’d ever see them again.
We stopped in front of the building. I sighed heavily so Mom would be very aware of my feelings toward this place. She kneeled down in front of me, smiled warmly, and looked me in the eye.
“I know it’s hard, Violet,” she said, patting my head, “but please just give this place a try. I’m sure you’ll come to love it here, especially if you make some new friends.”
I scowled and refused to meet her eyes. She just ignored it, hugged me, and kissed me on the forehead. I spotted a pair of colts snickering at me as they walked into the schoolhouse. I immediately squirmed out of the hug, there was no way I would let everypony think of me as a baby on my first day. Why does she have to do that to me anyway?
The bell rang and I quickly started walking toward the door. Mom waved to me and told me she’d be there to pick me up as soon as class was done. The inside of the school wasn’t any more impressive than the outside. There were only, like, fifteen student desks and one teacher’s desk at the front with a chalkboard behind it. The room looked like any classroom, I guess; there was an alphabet above the chalkboard, numbers one through twenty on another wall, all kinds of educational posters and one part of the back wall had a bunch of student drawings tacked up above a row of shelves for saddlebags. At least there were windows and plenty of space.
A magenta mare came up to me. Her mane was two shades of bright pink and kind of reminded me of cotton candy. “Hello there. You must be Violet Streak. I’m your new teacher, Miss Cheerilee. Would you wait here for a moment please?” She had a warm smile and sounded happy that I was there.
I nodded and waited next to the chalkboard. At least Miss Cheerilee seemed nice, not like my last teacher. He wasn’t super mean or anything, but he was old and you could tell he just wanted to be done with school. I think he only had one more year left before retirement. It was nice to see a teacher who actually wanted to teach for once.
I noticed her cutie mark was three flowers with smiley faces in them. All the other teachers I’d ever met had chalk, or rulers, or something like that for their mark, showing that their special talent was teaching. What did flowers have to do with teaching? Or was her special talent supposed to be, like, gardening?
“Alright, everypony, settle down,” my new teacher said, getting the whole class to quiet down and pay attention. “I have a special announcement to make. Today, we have a new student joining our class. This is Violet Streak. She’s come to us all the way from Cloudsdale. I know you’ll all get along and make her feel welcome.”
I stood there for a moment and smiled at my new classmates. If I was going to be living in Ponyville, I wanted to make a good impression even if I didn’t want to be there. Miss Cheerilee told me to take a seat, so I sat at the only open desk in the second row and off to the far side of the room. Another filly sat next to me. She was a unicorn with a blue coat maybe a shade or two darker than mine. Her long, straight mane was orange and tied up in the back with a red ribbon, making it look like her tail. The front of her mane was neatly combed to the right side. She had her cutie mark: a red, a blue and a green gem. She smiled at me and I smiled back. We didn’t have time to talk, though, because Miss Cheerilee wanted to start the lesson right away.
I spotted the two colts who were laughing at me before on the other side of the room. One of them was slightly taller than the other. The tall one was an earth pony, brown with a black mane. The shorter one was red with a white mane. He was a pegasus, the only other pegasus in class from what I could see. Neither of them noticed me.
Miss Cheerilee was telling us about cutie marks and how ponies get them and what they mean and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it’s good stuff to know, but really, who doesn’t know all about cutie marks? It’s, like, the first thing you learn about. I could see that my parents and other older ponies had them since before I could talk.
Finally, the bell rang and it was time for recess. The rest of the class raced outside, but I just kind of followed after them. It sounds silly, but I had no idea what recess would be like on the ground. Back in Cloudsdale, we mostly flew around and raced through rings and cloud obstacles or had cloudball fights; like snowball fights but better because you get to attack from above and below too. At least, that’s what my friends and I did. I had no idea how to play here, especially when most of the other fillies and colts couldn’t even fly.
I wandered around the playground and watched to see how everypony played. It wasn’t like I was completely helpless or anything. I knew ground toys when I saw them. Like the swing set, or the jump rope, or the big metal wire half-ball thingy… Or the big box of dirt…
“Huh?” I said to myself as I walked over to take a closer look. “Why would somepony build a wooden box just to put dirt in it? There’s dirt everywhere down here.”
I climbed in and picked up some dirt in my hoof. All I could do was tilt my head and watch as I let it slowly fall back to the box in a growing mound. How could anypony think of something like that as a playground toy? I jumped at the sound of giggling coming from behind me.
“It’s called a sandbox.” It was the filly who sat next to me in class.
“Oh, yeah. I knew that,” I lied. “I just meant that… I don’t really like dirt… is all… I’m Violet Streak.”
“Yeah, I know. Miss Cheerilee said that to the whole class, remember?”
“Oh, right. Well, what’s your name?”
The filly smiled just big enough to show her teeth. “I’m Sapphire.”
I grinned. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe Ponyville wouldn’t be too bad. I noticed the other fillies and colts watching us like they were nervous or something. I didn’t get it. Were pegasi and unicorns not supposed to talk or something?
“So you’re from Cloudsdale, huh?” Sapphire asked as she joined me in the box of sand.
“Yep. I—”
“Is it true that it floats on the clouds?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, the whole place is made of clouds. It’s pretty awesome.”
“So I bet you’ve never been to the ground before, have you?”
“I’ve been on the ground before!”
“Really?” she said with a slight chuckle. “You said you knew what a sandbox was, but all you’re doing is picking up the dirt.”
She said that like any foal should have known how to play with dirt. It felt like she was calling me dumb. I wasn’t going to let that get to me though. Rainbow Dash would never let something like that get to her. I looked down and pushed my hoof through the tiny grains of sand again before asking, “So, how do you play in this then?”
“Let me show you.”
I looked back up and saw her horn glowing a ruby-red, the same color as her eyes. Living in the clouds all your life, you don’t really get to see unicorns, let alone unicorn magic. All I could do was stare at the shining aura around her horn as it wobbled. Frankly, it was a beautiful thing to see. At least, it was until all I could see was a big clump of sand hitting me in the face.
I stumbled back and tried to blink the dirt from my eyes. Sapphire threw another ball of sand in my face. “Hey!” I said between coughs as I rubbed my eyes.
“Don’t think that just because you came from Cloudsdale that you’re special. ‘Cause you’re not. You’re just another blank flank.”
The sand floating in front of my face finally cleared and I saw her walking away with her nose in the air. I looked around, all the other students were quiet and still as they watched me, waiting to see what I would do. Even I wasn’t sure what I would do. I could’ve gone to Miss Cheerilee, but then I’d be a tattletale. I could’ve done what I wanted to do and flown over and hit her when she wasn’t looking. Instead, I did the only thing I didn’t want to do, sit still and be upset as I tried not to cry.
Note to self: Sapphire is a big dumb jerk! Stay away!
The other students slowly went back to what they were doing. I let my head fall down on the sand as I desperately tried not to cry. Now I knew why the only open seat in class was next to her; nopony wanted to sit there. I hated my new school. I hated my new town. I hated the ground! I just wanted to go back home, to my real home.
“She got you pretty good, huh?” some new filly said in a way that wasn’t hateful, or mocking, or even understanding. She just seemed sort of neutral.
“Leave me alone!” I spat back without turning to look at her. I didn’t want to be alone.
“Don’t let Sapphire get to you too much.”
The filly came over and sat almost uncomfortably close. I picked up my head and, leaning away a bit, looked at her. She was a unicorn, light pink with a short, mint-green mane and golden eyes. I must have looked like a wreck because she gave me the sweetest, most caring smile I’d ever seen like she was telling me, without really trying, that everything would be fine. I wasn’t about to be fooled a second time by a smile.
I turned my head away and continued to sulk. “I said leave me alone!”
She didn’t move a muscle. “She used to be nice. Then she got her cutie mark and now she thinks she’s better than everypony.”
It was like this filly knew exactly what I needed to feel better. A yellow magical aura shown brightly in my mane. I winced, the memory of my last encounter with magic still very fresh in my mind. But this wasn’t like Sapphire. It was warm and gently pulled most of the dirt out of my hair.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“I’m Whisper, by the way.”
I sat in silence for a moment. Part of me wanted to drive her away, but a bigger part of me wanted to risk trusting her just in case I could make a friend. I had already been humiliated once. What was once more?
“I’m Violet.”
She smiled again. Whatever she was about to say got cut off by the school bell. Recess was short on the ground. Or maybe I had spent more time than I realized sulking. I followed Whisper and sat next to her instead of Sapphire. Miss Cheerilee had moved on from cutie marks and started teaching math. I barely paid any attention because I couldn’t stop thinking about recess. Though it probably didn’t help any that I hated math. I made an enemy, but with any luck, I also made a friend. Maybe I could survive until I could make it back to Cloudsdale. If I made it back to Cloudsdale.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was starving. I couldn’t wait to get some food and eat, but I didn’t remember seeing the cafeteria anywhere. I looked around and noticed all the other students – and I mean all of them – grabbing lunch boxes from the shelves in the back. Then I realized there was no cafeteria, I was supposed to bring a lunch. Now I’d just have to sit there and go hungry.
“Great,” I mumbled.
Note to self: Ask Mom to make me a lunch from now on.
“Hey, Violet,” Whisper called as she walked over. “Where’s your lunch?”
“Nopony told me I was supposed to bring one.”
She looked into the distance for a moment like she was thinking. “Let’s go outside. You can share some of mine and my brother’s lunch.”
We went out to one of the picnic tables and Whisper sat down right up close to a colt, her brother, I assumed. I didn’t sit down. When I saw who he was I just stood to the side and stared, my jaw hanging open. It was one of the colts that was laughing at me that morning, the taller, brown earth pony. I just couldn’t catch a break, could I?
“What’s wrong? Take a seat,” Whisper said.
I shook off my stupor and slowly sat down across from her. Her brother seemed not to care that I was there and just started going through his lunch box. Maybe he didn’t remember seeing me that morning. The other colt walked over and stopped when he saw me, pretty much reacting like I did to the earth pony. He sat down next to me, making sure there was a good space between us.
“This idiot,” Whisper said joyously, putting a hoof up to the earth pony’s face, “is my brother, Gear Tooth.”
Gear furrowed his brow and turned to his sister. “Hey!” he said, sounding only mildly bothered from being called an idiot.
“And the quiet one next to you is Dust Trail. We call him Dusty,” she said matter-of-factly as she waved her hoof. “Guys, this is Violet.”
“Hello,” Gear said.
Dusty turned to me and managed a soft, “Hi.”
I said “Hello” back. I’d hoped that we could all get along.
“So Violet didn’t bring a lunch today ‘cause she didn’t know she was supposed to,” Whisper said while opening her lunch box. “Gear, give her some of yours.”
“Why?” Gear complained. “She’s your friend, why don’t you give her yours?”
“I am. But you should give her some too. You know Mom always packs too much.” Whisper gave me half of a sandwich. It was packed full of daffodils and lettuce.
“Fine,” Gear mumbled as he looked through his lunch and passed something to me. “Here, you can have my apple. I don’t like them anyway.”
Whisper started arguing with her brother. Something about Gear being selfish because he only gave me something he didn’t want anyway. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too focused on the perfect, shining, red apple in front of me. It looked so good. I picked it up and took a big bite. It tasted even better than it looked! So juicy!
“Mmm!” I let out as I took more bites. The other three all got quiet and looked at me as I devoured it core and all, loving every bite.
Gear raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s just an apple.”
I swallowed the last of it before talking. “Are you kidding? That was the juiciest, tastiest apple I’ve ever had!”
“Do they not have apples in Cloudsdale or something?” Whisper asked.
“No, we had apples, but they were never really fresh. It’s not like we can grow apple trees on clouds.”
Whisper looked off into the distance and put a hoof to her chin. “Huh. I never thought about that. We get all our apples from an orchard next to town. They make the best apples in Equestria. We should go there sometime.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure,” I said.
Out of nowhere, Dusty slid a juicebox over to me. “Um, here. You can have my applejuice if you’re thirsty.”
“You didn’t have to give up your lunch, Dusty,” Whisper said in a caring tone. “We have enough extra between Gear and me.”
“How come he doesn’t need to give his lunch away?” Gear whined.
“Cause his dad doesn’t overpack food.”
Dusty waved his hooves dismissively. “It’s okay. Besides, I have my water bottle. I don’t really need juice too.”
“Thanks,” I said to all of them with a smile.
Gear and Whisper started arguing. Gear said that he could eat all of his food just fine. Whisper rolled her eyes and said it didn’t matter if he could make himself eat it all. Dusty chimed in now and then, trying to stop the argument.
I started giggling and laughing. I couldn’t help it. Everypony got quiet and I just kept laughing and laughing. Gear looked at me like I was crazy. Dusty looked around like he wasn’t sure what to do. And Whisper started to giggle a little bit with me. It was too cheesy to say out loud, but I realized that I suddenly had new friends and it made me really happy.
Chapter 2: Welcome To Ponyville
Ponyville was kind of weird. Right after my first day of school, Mom came and picked me up. She told me that we were all going to go out to eat to celebrate the move, but once we got home we saw Dad talking with a pink mare who had way too much energy. As soon as we walked through the door she ran right over and started asking questions like, “What kind of cake do you like?” and “What’s better, pin the tale on the pony or musical chairs?”
I didn’t know what was going on, but she wouldn’t stop talking with Mom and bouncing in place. I took the opportunity to slip past her and join Dad in the living room. He told me that the mare – named Pinkie Pie – was the town greeter and she had plans for us that evening. I didn’t know the town had a greeter. I didn’t even know that town greeters were a thing. So our plan of going to a restaurant for dinner was canceled. Instead, we had a huge party with half the freaking town at our house! At least it felt like half the town.
Our house was pretty small so the party was set up outside. There were balloons and streamers all over the place. And somehow, they were able to make a small stage for a band to play on with a dance floor in front of it. A big ‘Welcome’ banner stood over a buffet table full of food, snacks and one big cake in the middle.
When it got dark, Pinkie planted a bunch of standing torches in the yard so everypony could keep dancing to the music and eating from the buffet. Most of the guests were grown-ups and were all quick to talk to each other and meet my parents. As fun as a party like this could be, I didn’t see any fillies or colts my age, so I just kind of stood off to the side and ate. That is, until Pinkie Pie pranced up to me, a familiar filly riding on her back.
“Whisper!” I called out, waving them closer.
She jumped off Pinkie and tackle-hugged me to the ground. I squirmed a little at the unexpected embrace, but it did make me smile. The hug ended right away and Whisper backed up to stand next to Pinkie.
“Welcome to Ponyville!” they both cheered.
“Uh, thanks.”
Pinkie picked me up for a hug of her own. “I am so super happy for you! Only a couple days in Ponyville and you’re already making friends!” She let me down and hopped away. It took a few seconds for me to balance on the ground; her grip was tight but, luckily, not bone crushing.
Note to self: Get used to random hugs in Ponyville.
I smiled and giggled a little at Whisper. Pinkie was right, I was making friends. None of my new friends even had cutie marks yet, which meant we all had something in common right away. Even with all the pouting I’d done over the last week about moving, my friends and the party actually made me feel alright about being here. For the first time, I started to think that maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe I really could call Ponyville home. At least for now.
“Sorry we’re late,” Whisper said as she floated a cupcake down from the buffet table. “Gear just had to finish something he was working on and Mom said we couldn’t leave without him.”
“What was he working on?” I asked as we started walking.
“I don’t know, some drawing. He does that a lot.”
Note to self: Gear likes to draw.
“So, anyway,” she said with a mouth full of frosting, “how’re you liking Ponyville so far? It’s pretty great, right?”
I thought for a second and decided to be completely honest. “It’s no Cloudsdale, but I think it’s growing on me.” I wasn’t going to say that she, Gear, and Dusty were the reasons why.
“How much of the town have you seen so far?”
“Uh, not very much. Just my house and School. We’ve only been here a couple of days.”
“We should go exploring this weekend. There’s lots to do around here and I can show you all the best places to hang out.”
I smiled. “Yeah, sounds like fun.”
I spotted Gear in the distance and pointed him out. He was all by himself and looking around like he was looking for somepony. Whisper called out and waved him over.
“Where’d you go?” he asked Whisper. “I turned around and you were just gone.”
“I went to go find Violet.”
“You could’ve told me. I looked like an idiot, walking in circles all alone.”
“You always look like an idiot.”
Gear gave her a grumpy face as Whisper swallowed the last bite of her cupcake. They stared at each other for a minute, Gear still grumpy and Whisper looking innocent. This was the second time Whisper called him an idiot. I wondered why. He didn’t seem dumb to me and Whisper didn’t seem to mean any real harm when she said it. Maybe it was just some brother/sister thing that I wouldn’t understand. I never had a brother or a sister so I didn’t really know if it was normal or not.
“So, hey,” I said, trying to change the subject and avoid a fight or something. “Where’s Dusty? Isn’t he coming too?”
Luckily, my question caught their attention. They both slowly turned toward me and Gear started to look less grumpy.
“He couldn’t make it,” Gear said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. If he were here, then the boys would be off doing whatever it is boys do and we could actually have some fun,” Whisper added, clearly trying to annoy her brother again.
That made me wonder how often the fillies in Ponyville hung out with the colts. I didn’t see hanging out with the boys as being a big deal. I had a few colt friends in Cloudsdale. They were cool. None of them were actual coltfriends. I wasn’t interested in boys that way yet. They were just friends who happened to be colts.
Gear held his head up and smirked. “Oh please, I’m loads of fun.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought somepony was listening in on their conversation because right then the background music stopped and Pinkie called out with a microphone. She yelled out and told everypony that it was time to dance and then a beat started up. It was the perfect opportunity for Gear to ‘prove’ he was fun.
“Come on,” I said with a smile. “Let’s go dance!”
The three of us ran over to the dance floor. A white unicorn with sunglasses and headphones had replaced the other band up on stage. I had no idea why she needed sunglasses at night. I don’t know what her instrument would be called – if you could even call it an instrument – but sounds came out of these two giant speakers as she moved her hooves around a big table. Ponyville really was full of weird ponies. But they were good-weird.
The dancefloor was so crammed with ponies that some had to dance on the grass next to it. Luckily, since my friends and I were smaller than everypony else, we could squeeze in easily. Although, it might have been easy to get separated if we didn’t keep an eye on each other. We worked our way to the center of the floor just as the beat really started to pick up.
I didn’t really know how to dance, but I didn’t need to. I just tried to copy what everypony else did and bobbed my head to the music and kicked my hooves one at a time. Before long, I was skipping in circles and then ducking and weaving around other ponies. I wasn’t really following the music very well, but at least I was able to keep my head bobbing in time.
Gear was even worse than me. His eyes were closed and he had big smile on his face. He kept rearing up on his hind legs and kicking his front legs. Each time he landed, he would shake his head and tail back and forth. Now and then he’d open his eyes, look serious and start stomping around in small circles. It was enough to make me giggle, but at least his stomping was mostly in time with the rhythm.
Whisper actually looked like she knew what she was doing. She would lift her left foreleg and right back leg for a couple of beats, then hop and switch to her right foreleg and left hind leg, all while slightly bobbing her head to the rhythm. When the music changed, her dancing changed with it and she started swaying from side to side and stomping one hoof at a time with every other beat. Her timing was perfect.
Even though each song sounded pretty much the same to me, I knew we had been through a few. I got really into it and started using my wings to lift me up just off the floor and I kicked my hooves from side to side. Before I knew it, I was floating up above the crowd and I closed my eyes to feel the beat better. I quickly flew from side to side, swaying with the music. When the sound changed, I kicked my hooves one at a time, trying to imitate Whisper, and slowly spiraled around. Then I flew in tight circles as if I were galloping in the air. Finally, I opened my eyes, flew up and did a backflip into a big loop. That’s when I saw the crowd watching me and cheering.
“Woo hoo! Yeah! Give it up for the filly with the moves!” the mare playing the music shouted.
I gulped before smiling awkwardly at everypony. That was kind of embarrassing. I spotted my friends still in the middle of the dancefloor and flew down to them. I hadn’t even noticed until I landed that my wings felt just a little sore. I may have pushed myself a little too hard.
“That was awesome! You were like…” Whisper said, trying to imitate my movement in the air.
“Uh, heh, thanks. I think I’ve had enough dancing for one night,” I said with heavy breath.
I started walking away from the dance floor. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t scared of the attention or anything, I just knew that I really couldn’t dance, especially in the air. If a crowd was going to cheer for me, I wanted it to be for something awesome, not my over-excited kicking and head bobbing. I giggled a bit when I saw Whisper following me and literally dragging her brother along with magic. She had a big smile on her face too. Gear didn’t even bother resisting. My friends were ridiculous. I loved it.
“So what do you want to do now?” she asked.
I thought for a minute before I came up with something. “Hey, you guys wanna see my new room?”
“Okay,” Whisper said, keeping her smile.
“Sure,” Gear said, finally able to stand and walk on his own again.
The music was quieter inside but not gone. We were the only ponies in the house and there was still some unboxing to do. But even though there were a couple of boxes, there was still enough space in my room for the three of us. I was still moving things around, but my bed, toybox and dresser were each set where I wanted them. Other than that, I had already taken all the important things out and put them in my room. My Wonderbolts poster, my Wonderbolts bedsheets and pillowcase, my Rainbow Dash doll – which sat on my pillow – and my family picture were all where they belonged. The rest could wait.
“So this is my room. Make yourself at home.”
“Huh,” Gear said as he looked around. “It’s not as girly as I thought it would be.”
“What, did you think everything would be pink? That’s not really my style.” I immediately realized and regretted that I might have just accidentally insulted my new pink friend by saying I didn’t like the color. “I mean, pink is fine and all, but green is actually my favorite color.”
Luckily, Whisper didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with what I said. She was too busy looking at the Rainbow Dash doll on my pillow. She stood on her back legs, her front hooves hanging over the side of my bed.
“Whoa,” she said quietly. “She looks so cool! Can I play with her?”
“Uh…” It wasn’t that I didn’t want her playing with it, I just didn’t want something to happen to my most treasured possession. But Whisper’s smile practically begged me to let her have a closer look. “I guess so. Just be careful, she’s really important to me.”
Whisper climbed onto my bed. “Don’t worry, I will be.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gear said. “She has, like, a bajillion stuffed animals at home.”
“I don’t have that many.”
Gear smirked. “Yeah, you kinda do.”
“Do not!” Whisper started to get a little angry. I guess it was Gear’s turn to tease her.
“Dad had to build new shelves on the walls just to hold them all.”
“Yeah, well… so what? It’s a better hobby than your drawings.”
Their argument didn’t really seem like it would turn into an actual fight, especially since Whisper was laying on her back up on my bed holding up Rainbow Dash. But I still wanted to avoid a fight anyway. I started going through one of my boxes until I found a ball we could play with. I flew up into the air and interrupted them. “Who wants to play ball?” Both of them stopped talking and looked at me.
Gear smiled. “Yeah, sure.”
I tossed him the ball and we just started passing it back and forth. After a minute, Whisper set Rainbow Dash aside and started playing pass with us. There’s something really fun about throwing a ball around, I don’t know what.
“So… Who is she?” Whisper asked as she passed me the ball.
“Who’s who?” I asked back, tossing the ball to Gear.
“Your doll. You’ve got all this stuff with her picture on it. Who is she?”
I caught the ball again and held it. Slowly, I floated down to the floor, sat across from Gear and stared up at Whisper. Was she kidding? I couldn’t believe she didn’t know who Rainbow Dash was. The Wonderbolts are super famous. Everypony knows them.
“That’s Rainbow Dash. She’s only the best Wonderbolt ever!”
“Huh,” Whisper said. “Who are the Wonderbolts?”
“How do you not know the Wonderbolts?” Gear asked. “They are literally the best flyers in all of Equestria.”
“I don’t know… I just never heard of them before.”
“You like the Wonderbolts too?” I asked Gear excitedly. It would be so awesome to meet other fans. Maybe there would even be a fanclub. Or we could make a fanclub.
“Well I’m not exactly a fan or anything, but Dusty likes to talk about them sometimes.”
“Oh.” That was a little disappointing. But if Dusty was a fan then maybe we’d have something to talk about the next time I saw him.
“So you must really like them then, huh?” Whisper asked as we started tossing the ball around again.
“They’re the best! I wanna be just like Rainbow Dash when I grow up. You know… when I get my cutie mark.”
“You wanna be a Wonderbolt? Are you really good at flying?” Gear asked.
“Yeah. Well… kinda,” I said a little quietly, staring down at my bed. “I mean, I’ve been able to fly since I was little. Doing tricks and stuff is pretty hard though…” That was the truth. As much as I admired the Wonderbolts and their flying, I really wasn’t Wonderbolts material. The last time I tried doing a trick it didn’t work out so well. I didn’t want to sound down or anything so I perked back up and continued. “But it’s okay if my special talent isn’t amazing flying. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be awesome. What do you guys think your cutie marks will be?”
“If I knew that I’d already have mine,” Gear said.
“Good point,” I said, passing the ball to Whisper. She held the ball for a moment before passing it over to Gear. There was something on Whisper’s face in that moment that I hadn’t seen before. It was quick; if I had blinked I would have missed it. A frown. That was the first time I’d seen anything other than a smile on my normally ball-of-happy friend. I really didn’t know what to say. Something was obviously wrong, but I wasn’t really sure how to help other ponies when they felt bad. Luckily, I didn’t have to because she spoke up almost right away.
“I’m not sure I even want a cutie mark.”
“What?” I asked. “Why not? Everypony wants their cutie mark. It’s, like, the thing we’re supposed to do right now.”
“I know. It’s just… Remember Sapphire?”
I felt my mane, a few bits of sand were still stuck in there. “How could I forget…”
“Well, she used to be my best friend. We even started learning magic together just six months ago.”
“Seriously?”
Whisper nodded in response.
“What happened?”
“She got her cutie mark and started being a big jerk.” Whisper looked kind of angry. But there was also a bit of sadness there. “I wasn’t there when it happened. I think it was three or four months ago. Her parents took her to Manehatten for a week-long vacation and when she got back she had her cutie mark. She wouldn’t even tell me what her mark meant or how she got it; she just kept acting all stuck-up and snooty. And then she started picking on all the others who didn’t have their cutie marks and even telling some who did that her’s was better. It was like she’d become a completely different pony! If that’s what getting your cutie mark does, then I don’t want any of it.”
She threw the ball at me pretty hard. I managed to catch it without being knocked over. I knew what it was like to lose friends – I had just moved away from my Cloudsdale friends, after all – but I never lost a friend because they started being too mean before. I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like to have somepony go from best friend to worst enemy. I had to try to cheer her up.
“Well that’s not going to happen to any of us. Right, Gear?”
“Yeah. That was just Sapphire. A cutie mark wouldn’t change any of us.”
Whisper smiled. She hopped off my bed, walked in front of me, pulled Gear over with her magic, and hugged us both. I hugged both of them back. Gear was just waiting for it to be over.
It wasn’t long after that that the party ended and my friends had to go home. It had been a long day and I was pretty tired, but something kept me awake longer than I should have been up. I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened between Whisper and Sapphire. If getting her cutie mark really turned Sapphire into a jerk, I wondered what would happen when I got mine. I know I said I wouldn’t change, and I never thought that I would before, but now I wasn’t so sure. What would getting my cutie mark really mean?
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Chapter 3: The Weirdest Library in Equestria
I thought my first weekend in Ponyville would be nice, relaxing and fun. Maybe I would spend some time with my friends and play some games. Maybe we would go explore the town. Maybe we would even try to get our cutie marks together. Nope. Instead, I ended up desperately clinging to my new best friend as we tried to hide from a monster after narrowly escaping being eaten by another monster. Ponyville! Great! I was definitely reconsidering liking this place. And the day started so normally, too.
*****
I woke up pretty early for a saturday – about seven o’ clock – and went downstairs. Back in Cloudsdale, I would always get up around ten at the earliest, but here, I just felt like I didn’t need as much sleep for some reason. Maybe it was school... class did start an hour earlier in Ponyville, maybe I was just used to being up that early.
I went and got myself a bowl of oats for breakfast. One of the great things about being a pegasus: I could always reach the top shelf, even when I was really small. It took me a couple of minutes to find a bowl and the box of oats in the new kitchen, though. Mom would usually make something on the weekends anyway, but I was too hungry to wait. Besides, Whisper was going to come over at some point and we were going exploring. It was the first chance I’d had to really see the town and I wanted to be ready to go as soon as she got here.
Mom walked into the kitchen and lightly kissed the top of my head. “Good morning, honey.” She went to get a frying pan and started cooking.
“Morning, Mom,” I said with a mouth half full of food.
Dad walked in about ten minutes later, yawning, and sat at the table. “Good morning. How are my girls today?”
“Good,” I said as I took another bite of oats.
Mom set a plate of french toast topped with blueberries on the table in front of him and gave him a kiss. “Doing very well.”
Normal morning. I guess my parents were already pretty used to living in a new house. They never really seemed bothered by it. Mom was already used to the kitchen, but maybe that’s because she used to be a chef. Her cutie mark is a frying pan because her special talent is cooking. She doesn’t work anymore though. She quit so she could be a full-time mom, though she does do catering sometimes.
Dad took a bite of his breakfast and let out an “Mmm!” as he chewed. He likes letting everypony know how good the food is whenever Mom cooks.
There was a knock on the door just as I was finishing my bowl of oats. I swallowed and quickly called out “I’ll get it!” as I flew for the door. Mom was right behind me. I'm not supposed to answer the door by myself. It's a stupid rule though, I'm plenty old enough to do things on my own. Besides, it's not like I wasn't allowed to go pretty much anywhere I wanted if I was with friends, so why shouldn't I be able to answer a freaking door?
Whisper stood in doorway, waving at me. “Hi!”
“Why, hello there,” my mom said. “Whisper, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Mm-hmm. Can Violet come out and play? I wanted to show her around Ponyville today.” She looked at both of us excitedly like she just couldn’t wait to show me around.
I quickly started out the door. “Yeah. I already finished breakfast, so we can go—”
“Hold on a minute. I’m alright with you two seeing the town, but don’t you still have homework to do?”
I stopped and frowned. I couldn’t lie to her; she already knew the answer. “Can’t I just finish it later?”
Mom gave me a stern look, the kind of look that says ‘you’re going to do this whether you like it or not.’ “The sooner you finish it, the sooner you won’t need to worry about it.”
I groaned and started walking back inside. It was bad enough being told I had to do homework on the weekend, but being told I had to do homework instead of playing with my friend when my friend was standing right there was even worse. “Sorry, Whisper…” I looked at Whisper and stopped when I saw a big grin on her face.
“Ooh ooh ooh!” Whisper started jumping up and down with excitement. “I still have homework to do, too! We can go get mine and do it together. And I can show you the library, too!”
I looked at my mom and smiled my best please smile.
Mom chuckled. “Alright. Go grab your bags and you can work on it at the library.”
“Yes!” I quickly ran upstairs. I still wasn’t happy about doing homework, but at least I could still hang out with my friend. It only took a second to grab my bag that already had everything in it and run back downstairs. Whisper and I headed right out.
“I’ll be checking your homework when you get back so make sure it’s done,” Mom called to me as we walked away. “And I want you home by four thirty, understand?”
I waved my hoof and rolled my eyes slightly. “Yes, Mom.”
Whisper turned to me and smiled. “Your mom’s nice.”
I never thought my mom was mean or anything, but I didn’t really get why Whisper said that out of nowhere. “Uh, thanks?”
“No, really. I mean, she just changed her mind so we could hang out instead of making you stay home.”
“We still have to do homework.”
“Yeah, but at least we don’t have to do it alone, silly.”
It only took us a few minutes to get to Whisper’s house. I was kind of surprised how close it was. I guess that’s what I get for living in a small town now. The inside of her house looked similar to mine except for the decoration. The front door led into the living room which had a fireplace in the far wall. The kitchen was to the left and a staircase leading to the second floor was to the right.
A yellow earth stallion with a dark red mane walked in from the kitchen. He was really muscular, like he could lift a boulder like it was a pillow. I took a step back without thinking. The stern look on his face worried me a little, but his expression softened when he looked at Whisper and me and smiled. His cutie mark was a crossed hammer and wrench.
“Thought you were going out today,” he said, more to himself than to Whisper. “Who’s your friend?”
Whisper turned and gestured to me. “This is Violet Streak. Violet, this is my dad, Silent Steel.”
Silent walked up to me and shook my hoof. “Good to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too” was all I could think to say.
“I’ll be doing some work around the house if you girls need anything,” he said as he walked to the front door.
“Actually, we’re gonna go do our homework at the library,” Whisper called back.
“Oh, alright. Well, have fun then.”
Silent went out the door and Whisper led me upstairs. She stopped for a moment when we reached the second floor. “Shh,” she said, turning to me. “Don’t make too much noise, my mom is still sleeping. Gear, too.” We walked down the hallway quietly and came to a bedroom at the end.
The first thing I did when I walked into Whisper’s room was stop and stare. Most of the room was normal, a bed with light blue covers in the far right corner, a dresser and a small closet to the left and walls tinted soft-pink. There was a single window on the left side of the wall across from me, but what made me stop was the rest of the wall. Dozens of dolls and stuffed animals were neatly placed among five homemade shelves attached to the wall, each one a different size. Most of them were ponies, but there were also two bunnies, a teddy bear, a griffon and on her bed was a red dragon as big as I was. She even had all four of Equestria’s princesses sitting next to each other in the middle of the top shelf.
“Woah.” I put my bag down and flew over to get a better look. “Gear said you had a lot of dolls, but… Wow.”
“I like collecting them,” Whisper said defensively as she grabbed her saddlebags from the closet. “Besides, I don’t just let them sit there, I play with them, too.”
I hovered and looked at princess Twilight for a while. “Where’d you get them all?”
“A lot of them were gifts. I bought some of them with my allowance, too.” She levitated Twilight off the shelf and I followed it down to her. “You like her? My real dad gave her to me for my birthday last year.”
It took me a second to fully realize what she just said. “Wait, what do you mean ‘real dad?’ Didn’t I just meet your dad?”
“Actually, that was Gear’s dad, my stepdad. My mom married him when we were foals.”
“Wait, so you’re not really related to Gear?”
“He’s still my brother. I barely remember when he wasn’t.”
“So, what happened to your real dad?” I almost immediately regretted asking that.
Whisper looked down at Twilight and petted her mane. It took a few seconds before she responded. “He lives really far away. I hardly ever get to see him.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice as if she were trying hard not to let it bother her.
I looked to the side to avoid eye contact. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We still write to each other now and then.”
Note to self: Think a little before bringing something like that up!
We both sat there in silence for a moment before Whisper spoke up. “So is Twilight your favorite princess?”
I was happy to change the subject but took a second to think before answering. “Yeah, I guess so. Princess Twilight is awesome. Almost as cool as Rainbow Dash.”
Whisper put Twilight back on the shelf and started walking to the door. “Have you ever met her?”
I grabbed my bag and let Whisper lead the way to the library. “No. But, I mean, she’s the princess of friendship! She travels all over Equestria, helping ponies wherever she goes. That makes her pretty cool if you ask me.”
Whisper smirked at me like she knew something I didn’t. “Hmm, princess Luna helps ponies, too, ya know. She visited me once in a dream.”
My eyes opened wide. “Really? When?” My parents once told me that Luna could enter the dreams of fillies and colts who were having problems, but I never knew anypony who’d actually seen her.
“It was a long time ago. Actually, I don’t remember the dream very well, I just remember talking with Luna for a while and then she let me ride on her back as she flew around.”
“Wow. That must have been great. I wish I could meet a princess. Even just seeing a castle would be awesome.”
Whisper smirked again. I raised an eyebrow to her but said nothing. Apparently, the town was a lot bigger than I first thought because we kept walking in the exact opposite direction of school – which was a long walk from my house – and there seemed to be no end to the houses and buildings. Before long, I could see a huge forest in the distance to my right. There were clouds floating over it even though the rest of the town had nothing but blue sky and the whole thing looked oddly dark compared to what I’d seen of Ponyville so far.
“Race ya!”
“Huh?” I said as I turned and saw Whisper running off to the left. “Hey!” I chased after her and tried to get in front, but she was just as fast as I was on the ground. Using my wings, I pushed my saddlebag out of the way and took to the air. It was hard to fly fast with my school books weighing me down, but I managed to get ahead.
“Hey, no fair!”
I turned, flying backwards to face Whisper, stuck my tongue out and taunted her with a “Blualaulu” noise. I saw her horn glow for a split second before the front of my mane was pulled over my eyes. I had to stop and hover for a second so I could push my mane out of the way. Whisper had changed directions and I could hear her giggling. I flew after her again and into a big open area. By the time I caught up to her, it was too late.
“I win!” Whisper started doing a little victory dance, bobbing her head and shifting from side to side.
I was going to say something about her cheating, but I got distracted by what was behind her. It was something that looked like a purple and blue tree I’d seen from a distance when I was moving to Ponyville. I never thought to ask what it was. Only now I could see that it was actually a huge crystal tower shaped like a tree and looked like it was holding a building in its branches. My jaw hung open as I stared straight up at it. It must have been four or five stories tall and nearly twice as big around as any random house in Ponyville. All I could say was “Woah.”
Whisper giggled again. “Welcome to the Ponyville Royal Library.”
“This is your library? The one in Cloudsdale didn’t even look different from anything else. Wait, did you say Royal Library?”
“Yeah! This used to be princess Twilight’s castle years and years and years ago before she started traveling the world. Before she left, she had the lower levels turned into a public library and they moved the whole thing to this part of town for touristy reasons. It’s all here on this sign.” Whisper stepped to the side and, sure enough, there was a large sign that said almost exactly what she told me.
It took a couple moments for my brain to understand. “You mean princess Twilight actually used to live here? In Ponyville?”
Whisper stopped smiling and furrowed her eyebrows like she was trying to understand my question. “Yeah. This is the town where she became a princess. Didn’t you know that?”
“No…” I hadn’t even known that she ever wasn’t a princess.
“Well, you do now.” Whisper’s smile returned and she hurried to the large, golden double doors at the front of the castle-brary. “Come on, let’s finish our homework so we can actually play.”
We stepped into a large circular room that was maybe half as wide as the outside of the library and made of the same blueish-purple crystal. A wooden desk in the middle had a little sign sitting on it that said tours would be offered in the afternoon. The walls were practically lined with windows and large pictures between them of princess Twilight, a few pictures of the other princesses and some other important-looking ponies I didn’t recognize. Whisper didn’t pay attention to any of it and just started walking towards a door in the back. Strangely, nopony else seemed to be around.
“Wait!” I called. “Don’t we need to, like, sign in with the librarian or something?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I come here all the time for homework. He’s probably just busy or something.”
I hurried after her. “Is it always this quiet?”
“I don’t think ponies usually come here on the weekend unless they’re touring the top floors.” Whisper pushed the door open and trotted inside.
“What’s on the to…” I froze in place when I entered the room. I could feel my chest tighten as I tried not to breathe or make even a tiny sound. There, curled up and sleeping in the middle of the library, was a huge purple dragon! I could hear its snarling breath as it gently snored. It must have been almost twice the size of any stallion I’d ever seen. It’s mouth was probably big enough to bite my head off whole!
Whisper didn’t even stop walking. She went right up to its face and set her bag to the side. My whole body tensed up and I cringed watching her. Then she started poking it right in its nose. Who does that!? Its eyes shot open and it slowly started opening its mouth. I flung my bag to the floor, spread my wings and ran after Whisper. I flew straight up, holding onto my friend for dear life. The ceiling wasn’t very high, but at least we were out of its reach.
“What are you doing?” Whisper asked in a panic.
“What am I doing? What were you doing?”
The dragon rubbed one eye as it stood up straight. It took a second to look around before it spotted us. I knew I couldn’t hold us both in the air forever. The open door was our only chance and I had to take it. I wasn’t very quick with the extra weight, but I bolted through the door and continued flying. I looked back when I got to the main entrance and saw it chasing after us. I screamed and flew outside.
“Violet, wait!”
“Gotta hide, gotta hide!” There was no time for waiting. There was nopony around and the closest place to hide was the dark forest I’d seen in the distance. Losing the dragon there should have been easy, at least, easier than anything else. If I were alone, I’d fly up into the sky, but Whisper can’t walk on clouds.
I went as fast as I could and kept flying once we entered the woods. I had to slow down to weave back and forth through all the branches, but that wasn’t the only reason I was slowing down. My breathing got heavy and I could feel my wing muscles tiring. Whisper started wriggling around which didn’t help. Both of us yelped when I flew into a branch and we tumbled to the ground.
I picked myself up. I was a little sore and had a few scrapes, but nothing was broken or bleeding. “Whisper, are you okay?”
“What did you do that for?” she yelled at me as she jumped to her hooves.
“Wha–What do you mean?” I yelled back. “There was a dragon! It was about to eat you!”
“No, he wasn’t! He… Oh…” Whisper stopped and looked at me like she just realized something important.
Before she had a chance to say anything else, something let out a loud growl. The noise seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. I looked around, but all I could see were trees and darkness.
“What was that?” I asked, my voice starting to shake.
“We shouldn’t be here. This is the Everfree Forest, there’s monsters everywhere!”
“There’s what?”
“Run!”
We ran screaming as fast as we could even though neither of us knew which way Ponyville was anymore. The growling kept up with us and I could hear its gallop. I was already tired from flying and couldn’t keep jumping over loose vines and swerving around trees for long. We quickly came to a small clearing but were trapped by a huge rock face. We stopped and tried to catch our breath. That’s when the monster came into view. It was about the same size as the dragon, walked on all fours and looked like it was made of wood.
It walked towards us slowly and backed us against the rock. It jumped at us and we each dodged in opposite directions making it hit the rock head first. After shaking that off, it turned to me and barked. I ran around it, trying to get to Whisper when I saw her throw a small rock at it. All that did was annoy it and make it pay attention to her instead of me. I strained my wings to fly over and grab her before it could attack, but I could only manage to lift us up into a tree. The monster didn’t give up and started barking at us from the ground. Luckily, it couldn’t climb, but we didn’t have any escape. All we could do was cling to each other and scream for help.
Suddenly, I heard a roar above us. The dragon was on top of the rock face. It quickly crawled straight down the rock and it and the wooden monster stared each other down. The wood one barked and lifted its back to look bigger. The dragon took one deep breath, stood upright and let out a huge plume of green fire towards the sky. That was all it took for the wood monster to run away. The dragon walked over and looked directly up at us.
Whisper suddenly let go of me and jumped down. “Spike!”
I gasped, thinking she’d lost her mind. But to my surprise, the dragon gently caught her and lowered her to the ground.
“You really shouldn’t be out here, you know,” the dragon said to Whisper. “It’s dangerous.”
“Sorry.”
“You can talk?” I asked, nearly yelling.
“Of course I can.”
“Oh. Spike, this is Violet. Violet, this is Spike. He’s the librarian.”
“Your librarian is a dragon?” I asked as I flew down, keeping some distance between me and Spike.
“He’s a nice dragon!”
“I think we can save this for later,” Spike interrupted. “Right now, we need to get out of here. That timber wolf was young, it won’t be long before the whole pack comes by.”
I gulped. If that thing was young, I didn’t want to see what an adult looked like. I looked around but couldn’t see any sign of Ponyville. “Which way is out?”
“There’s a path on top of that cliff that should take us back.”
“I can’t climb that,” Whisper protested.
Spike knelt on all fours close to the ground. “Both of you hop on. I’ll have us out of here faster than you can say gemstone.”
Whisper was pretty quick to hop up on one of his shoulders. I hesitated to climb on his other shoulder. I would have just flown, but my wings were already sore. Walking closer, I saw my and Whisper’s saddlebags on the end of his tail. “Is that my bag?”
“Hm?” Spike said, looking back at his tail. “Oh yeah. You left them behind and I was coming to give them back when I saw you go into the forest.”
Note to self: Spike is a nice dragon.
“Come on, already,” Whisper called, waving me to get on. “Let’s go.”
I grabbed onto Spike’s other shoulder and he started climbing the cliff really quickly. It was a weird kind of amazing to see his claws dig into the rock as easily as I would push through a cloud. I could see Ponyville and the path back from the top. It would only take us a couple of minutes to get back.
“You know, you coulda told me that Spike was a dragon sooner,” I told Whisper.
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“You forgot he was a dragon?”
“He’s always been a dragon. It just didn’t seem weird to me.”
I giggled at her. I should have been angry, but laughing was all I could do at that moment. “You’re crazy.”
Whisper puffed up her cheeks in annoyance and narrowed her eyes at me.
*****
“Ugh, finally done,” I said as I put my books back in my bag. It felt like we’d been doing homework for ten hours even though it was more like one and a half.
“We’ve still got the afternoon to play. What do ya wanna do?”
I thought about it for a moment. There was something I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. “Hey, Spike!”
Spike stopped putting books on the shelves and turned to us. “Yeah?”
“Do you know anything about getting cutie marks?”
“Hmm. Sorry, dragons don’t have cutie marks.”
“Aw.”
“But…” he continued, “I do remember three fillies about your age a long time ago who were trying to get their cutie marks. They made a club and called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They went all around town trying everything they could think of that might be their special talent.”
I smiled and turned back to my friend. “Whisper, let’s make a list.”