Band of Five Attributes (Re-Written)

Raki returned to Ponyville, and the first thing she noticed was a great big snowball fight unfolding before her eyes. There were three fillies, one a pegasus, one a unicorn, and the last lacking horn and wing, and they were throwing snowballs willy-nilly. On the other side was Nagare, who was hurling snowballs like his forelegs were made of elastic rubber or something, and he was doing this whilst flying.

Not too far behind was Yuuki, who was trying to pelt the green pegasus with her own assault of snowballs. Rekka and Koto were trying to fling snowballs at her, and she shielded herself with her wings before retaliating. Tenmei was slinging snowballs as well.

All stopped when they noticed the elder unicorn, but only for a moment, before they began flinging snowballs in her direction. The unicorn grinned warmly, quickly calling forth her snowblower once more and galloping towards them whilst flinging her own legion of snowballs every which-way she could.

Before long, all nine participants were laughing heartily as they pelted one another with snowballs, some shouts of “Cheater!” and “That’s not fair!” going around, though only for a moment, before laughter replaced the accusations. It was all in good fun anyway, so why not?

Applebloom looked at her flank, and she sighed in disappointment. “Drat! I didn’t get my cutie mark in snowball fighting!”

The pegasus filly, orange pelt with magenta mane and light lavender eyes, also groaned as she looked at her flank. “Same here!”

The unicorn filly, light grey pelt with two-toned pink and purple mane and green eyes, bemoaned the same exact thing.

Raki let her snowblower vanish into thin air again as the young ponies stopped flinging snow at each other. The orange filly trotted to Koto, and pointed at her cutie mark. “How’d you get a boomerang as your cutie mark?”

Koto giggled, a smile on her face. “It’s a long story.” She answered.

“It’s just a boomerang--all it does is return to you after ya throw it.” Applebloom remarked. “I don’t see nothing special about it, other than it kinda looks like no other boomerang I’ve seen.”

The filly did have a valid point on her part. Nonetheless, Koto’s eyes widened as she turned to stare at the filly. “Do you want me to explain how I got this cutie mark?” She asked, an ear twitching.

“One of these days, that could be your cutie mark.” Rekka dryly remarked, poking the yellow-pelted filly with his hoof.

“Nuh-uh,” The filly jabbed back.

“He’s got a point, Applebloom. Maybe we should get boomerang throwing cutie marks?” The unicorn filly proposed, a small smile on her face.

“But there hardly are any boomerangs in Ponyville!” Applebloom snapped, only for a blue hoof to pat her on the head. She turned to look at Koto, who was smiling again.

“You just haven’t seen any boomerangs here. Perhaps the majority of boomerangs are collector’s items?” Koto proposed, a faint smile on her face.

The orange filly trotted to Nagare, and rose a hoof to point at his cutie mark. “Why’s your cutie mark a sword?” She asked.

“Same reason Koto’s is a boomerang: long story.” Nagare replied with a smile. “I’m good at using one for both offense and defense.”

“So...you’re a warrior pony or something?” The unicorn filly inquired, brow arched.

“Something of the sort, minus the armor.” Nagare replied, still smiling.

“Wouldn’t that make me an archer of some sort?” Tenmei inquired, a great big grin on his face. Another hearty, unified laugh ran amongst the group at the mere prospect of the earth pony being an archer (even though he did technically raise a point.)

“Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo,” Applebloom started, glancing between her fellow fillies, “I think we should get sword-wielding cutie marks!”

That very statement made Nagare’s eyes damn near bulge out of their sockets. He glanced at the trio of fillies before clearing his throat and saying, “Swords are very dangerous weapons! I honestly don’t see any of you three effectively using one and not suffering a single cut within the first minute! What makes you think you can harness a weapon that can cause serious injury if mishandled?!”

“How do you know?” Sweetie Belle, the unicorn filly, inquired.

Nagare sighed and rubbed his foreleg. Beyond the green pelt, the fillies could barely make out some kind of scar on that leg where he had rubbed it. “Simple: I had to train. I honestly thought the same thing would happen to me--that is, not mishandling the weapon without getting an injury in the process. I very nearly lost this leg.” He answered, recalling the lectures that had happened after his hand slipped and he accidentally cut himself where the scar was today. The wound was deep enough to render that arm useless for a good two weeks after the incident.

“Yeah, he’s really lucky.” Yuuki confirmed with a nod. “I was there, and whoo boy did he get the chewing out of his life then!”

“You serious?!” Scootaloo, the orange pegasus, asked. Her jaw was agape, and her eyes wide.

“Yep.” Yuuki answered with another quick nod. “The ponies who trained us took it deathly serious. You screwed up even just a little bit, and you’d find a hoof down on your head faster than you could blink.”

“I don’t blame them--we were given deadly weapons, for crying out loud.” Tenmei remarked, sitting on his rump and cleaning his glasses again. “You practically held life and death with what we were bestowed.”

Sweetie Belle pointed a hoof at Yuuki’s cutie mark. “It looks like a toy.” She said.

“It does indeed--but it isn’t, in most cases. Not how I use it.” Yuuki swiftly replied.

“So...it can be used like a toy?” Scootaloo asked, brow arched.

“You can say it would be, I’ll admit.” Yuuki answered, a faint smile on her face. “Though it’s usually used like that in cases of boredom.”

“Why would they give you weapons? It doesn’t make sense!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle said in unison.

“It’s...hard to explain.” Rekka sighed at last, shaking his head sadly.