The Mayor of Cloudsdale

by Elyn

Chapters

1: A not so easy first week
2: The worst party in town
3: Screw You
4: Searching for a dead end
6: Alone ponies at night
7: Between time
8: On a cold, stormy night
9: After
10
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1: A not so easy first week

Flitter sat in the dark. She loved the dark.

It made you invisible.

She didn't understand why Cloudchaser was afraid of the dark.

Fear was something natural, but when you live with it long enough it will become your best friend.

Flitter laid her head on the pillow. It felt so much softer when she was a filly, just like this niche.

"Rumble, keep that door open! This table is big."

Thunderlane and Cloudchaser tilted the table and lifted it into the house.

"Nice home. And nearby ours too, if we need to foalsit you." Cloudchaser said.

"I don't want a foalsitter anymore, I'm old enough to stay home alone myself."

"I know." Thunderlane and Cloudchaser put the table down. "But your brother likes to have us around." Cloudchaser winked.

She leaned to Rumble and whispered loud enough for everypony to hear: "Everyone around here know he has a crush on Flitter."

Flitter and Thunderlane turned red.

"Kidding." Cloudchaser flew outside go grab one of the boxes.

"Flitter, can you move all these boxes to the kitchen?" Thunderlane pointed at the boxes underneath the table.

"Sure. What's in them?" she asked.

"Plates and glasses and stuff. I'm gonna get the heavy boxes from outside."

When passing Cloudchaser he turned red again.

Cloudchaser put the boxes with his name on them down.

Rumble wondered if Cloudchaser was implying Flitter likes his brother. He could imagine Flitter being too shy to ask.

"You like it here?" Cloudchaser asked.

Rumble nodded. "My room is twice as big as the one in our cloudhouse. I'll show you."

He picked up a small box and flew with it upstairs.

"You just want me to take the heavy one!" Cloudchaser said.

Rumble's room had a big window looking over the street.

"My bed is going to be here." Rumble stood on one side of the room.

"And if my brother is okay with it I will put dad's desk here."

"Nice." Cloudchaser said. "I need to help your brother lift some more things. Flitter can help you unpack if you want to.

Rumble took his pillow and bedspread out of the small box and laid them on his bed.

"Rumble! Rumble! Are you here?" Flitter walked up the stairs.

"Yes!" he replied.

"Thunderlane and Cloudchaser are getting the closet, then we're done." Flitter sat down next to Rumble.

"How exactly did we get this house?" he asked.

"Cloudchaser and I got Thunderlane a job on the Ponyville weather team. But it was actually Blossomforth who knew you could hire this house and it's always good to live near your..." Flitter's eyes moved to the ceiling. "I-is that a tarantula?"

Rumble shrieked. "It is... Can you get it outside?"

Flitter stood up. "No, I'm afraid of spiders, ask Cloudchaser." she said while looking at the giant spider.

"What is it actually doing in ponyville? That kind of spider doesn't live here."

Thunderlane and Cloudchaser flew upstairs.

"Thunderlane! There's a giant spider in my room!" Rumble said.

"Is my brother afraid of spiders?" Thunderlane laughed.

They walked into his room while Cloudchser picked up a glass.

"Then you get it outside if you want to."

Thunderlane gulped, not knowing they were talking about a tarantula.

"Ha! Your're afraid too!" Rumble said.

A little hesitating Cloudchaser catched the spider in the glass.

"I really tought you would scream harder Flitter. Or are you getting over your fear of spiders?"

She threw the spider out the window. Flitter shrugged.

"I hope so, then you won't wake me in the middle of the night again."

"Is she really doing that?" Thunderlane asked.

Cloudchaser nodded, making Flitter blush.

"Welcome back my students!" Cheerilee asked for silence.

"This year is your last before you go to high school, but we got a new student. Say hello Rumble."

Rumble stepped inside the classroom and felt all eyes looking at him.

"Oo. Another blank flank!" somepony giggled.

"Please tell something about yourself." Cheerilee said.

Rumble sighed and started talking.

"Hi. I'm Rumble and I moved to Ponyville with my brother Thunderlane."

"Well, I hope you like it here. Sit down where ever you want."

Rumble looked around the classroom.

There was a place next to a yellow filly with a bow in her hair and between the window and a skinny colt.

He chose to sit next to the window.

"Hello, I'm Featherweight." the colt said.

Rumble smiled.

"Because it's your last year on this school I will tell about everything we're going to do this year, especially for Rumble."

Cheerilee picked up a chalk and wrote with big letters HEARTS WARMING EVE DINNER on the blackboard.

"Every year we organize a dinner on the friday before the hearth's warming eve holiday."

"If you want to know, everypony goes dress to impress then, so colts have to wear a black jacket or something." Featherweight whispered.

Rumble wondered if he could borrow one from his brother and then laughed inside by the tought of his brother in a smoking.

"In february you will all take the PONY intelligence test to help choose the best high school. There will also be a day where the directors of different schools will tell about theirs."

"Miss, what does PONY stand for?" A white pony with glasses asked.

"I actually don't know Twist..."

The whole class laughed.

"In may we will have summer camp of course."

"Yay!!!" Everypony screamed.

"Silence please, I'd like to tell the last thing before we start with the first school day program.

At the end of the year the highest class will peform a musical for all your family members and friends. It's the highlight of the year.

And at the last school day you wil lead a group of younger ponies trough this years game."

"Those games are always boring. It's always too hot, those little ones wander off or fight and there are always ponies who think it's funny to move the signs of where to go." Featherweight whispered.

Rumble couldn't help but laugh at his description. That's exactly what a last school day game trough a little town looks like.

When Rumble got home his brother, Cloudchaser and Flitter were paining the walls of the living room.

"How was your first school day?" Thunderlane asked.

"It was ok. I've met some ponies who are nice." Rumble sat down on an empty paint bucket.

"That's nice to hear. Scince you're home so early, you can help us paint." Cloudchaser said.

"Are you serious?" The last thing Rumble wanted to do was painting walls.

"No I'm not. Go explore the town and make sure to stay near the centre."

"I heard there's a sweets store and a library near town hall." Flitter said.

"Cool! I'll be back in an hour!" Rumble said while flying out the door.

The sweets store was easily found.

It was filled with cookies, donuts and cake.

"Hello. can I help you?" A tall yellow earth pony asked.

"Uhm..." Rumble looked around.

A pink mare walked in and put some cupcakes on a shelf.

"I'd like a cupcake." Rumble pointed at the cupcakes the pink mare was holding.

"Very good coice. They are freshly baked." The mare said while handing Rumble the cupcake.

"That's one bit."

Rumble sill had some pocket money and one bit and it was ceap in comparison to Cloudsdale and Cantorlot.

Flitter told him that those cities had the highets prices for actually everything.

After he paid he went to town hall. The center of Ponyville had something from the center of Cloudsdale, except Cloudsdales center was a square and town hall wasn't in the center of the square.

But it was just as crowded and there were just as much market stands.

Rumble flew to the library to avoid getting pushed.

"Hello. Is this the Ponyville library?"

"Yes. This part is public and upstairs is private. Are you here to get some books, I've never seen you around here." A purple mare said.

"I just moved to Ponyville." He explained.

"What kind of books do you like? I just got a new book from A.K. Yearling." The mare lifted a book off the table.

Then he noticed the wings on her back. She was princess Twilight Sparkle. Rumble saw her a few times in the Cloudsdale newspaper.

"I like adventure books and thrillers."

Rumble always liked that kind of stories. The first one he read was also the scariest. Maybe because he was much younger and maybe because it was the first one. But after he got over it he loved those stories about ponies solving crimes.

"Oh. Those are over here." She pointed at one side of the wall.

Rumble searched trough the shelf and choose three books.

When he realised how late it was he quickly said bye to the princess and went home.

"Hello class." Cheerilee said.

"We start this year with a nice little project. You are going to take a photo of two of your family members, like your aunt or grandmother. It's for the bigger project centering about pony's in general.

So, I'm going to hand out papers with a number. You're going to work with the pony with the same number."

"But miss! I don't want to work with somepony else then Silver Spoon!" a pink filly said.

"Then I'm sorry, but you have to." Cheerilee said while starting giving little pieces of paper.

The pink filly pouted.

"Diamond Tiara is always like that. You better give her what she wants, her dad is very rich." Pipsquek said.

Featherweight nodded.

"I have number two!" the white filly named Twist said.

Cheerilee gave Rumble three papers.

"Which one do you want to have?" He showed all three papers.

Featherwight shrugged and then picked the left one.

"I want this one." Pip got the middle paper.

They all folded the papers open.

"Hey Twist!" Pip said "I have two too!"

"Hu! You're lucky. I got six so I'm with Silver Spoon." Featherwight looked at the grey filly who was talking about how much she wanted Diamond Tiara to have six too.

Rumble unfolded his.

"Eight."

He looked around the class, where everypony stood up and screamed their numbers.

"I'll go with you if you don't want to walk around them alone." Pip stood up.

"Ok." Rumble hoped it was amepony he already knew.

"Hey y'all, I'm three!" A yellow filly said.

"Oo! Me too!" a white unicorn hugged the yellow filly.

"They are with the orange pegasus over there a group. They have some sort of club to get their cutie marks. Don't bother them."

Rumble nodded. The classroom was a total chaos.

"I hope you're with snips. Then you will get a lowerer grade." somepony said.

"Snips always gets the lowest grades of the class. That's him." Pip pionted to a yellow-ish colt.

"And they are Scootaloo and Stargaze."

Rumble looked at the two ponies.

"That is Dinky. Her mom is the mailmare. They are Archer and Button Mash. Do you still get it?"

Rumble actually didn't.

The mailmare girl made a duo with Diamond Tiara.

Pip, Featherweight, Twist. Apple girl, Sweetie, Scootaloo. Diamond Tiara, Spoon, Stargaze. he repeated in his head.

Button Mash and who's mom was the mailmare?

"Who has eight? Who has eight?" He asked, doubting if anypony heard him.

He heard "I don't" a few times when Cheerilee told the class to go back to their seats.

"Who hasn't found their duo yet?" Cheerilee asked.

Rumble put up his hoof, just like five others.

"Archer, you're with Zipporwhill. You both have one.

Rumble? You have eight so you're with Scootaloo.

Lisa Doolots, you're with Luckette."

"Who was Scootaloo again?" Rumble asked.

"That one." Pip pointed at the orange pegasus who was talking to Apple girl and the white unicorn whose name he forgot.

Thunderlane walked into the building where a mare was sitting behind a desk.

So this was the building of the Ponyville weather team?

"Hello. I'm Thunderlane." he said.

"You're new here? Well, I will give you a tour around this place. This is the entrance hall. I'm the secretary of the Ponyville weather patrol and I usually sit here. Behind that door is the cantine and over there will be the schedule of the month. You get your task over here and when you're done ýou'll mark it on this list." the mare pointed at a paper taped to the wall.

Thunderlane nodded and looked at the schedule. Clearing clouds above the farm at monday and making it rain in Ponyville on tuesday. He could do that.

Thunderlane searched for Cloudchaser in the cantine.

"Hey Thunderlane. Blossomforth and I are here."

Thunderlane sat down next to Blossomforth.

"I have to make it thunderstorm tonight and that is seriously the worst thing to do. I heard of a pony who sprained a wing because of that." Blossomforth complained.

"You know those stories are not true. They're made up on a spooky night. Possibly at a sleepover by some colts who wanted to make the filly's scream." Cloudchaser gave Thunderlane a smoothie.

"If you're teasing the girls, you always ask for trouble ya know."

Blossomforth rolled her eyes.

"Whatever you say. But have you heard about Hoops?"

"Hoops?" Thunderlane asked.

"Oh. You're living in Ponyville now too. You're missing all the news about pegasi.

I'll explain. Hoops, that guy with his hair before his eyes has been spotted by Big Shot at the Wonderbolts Academy after he failed his test. And guess what? He was holding that clipboard Spitfire usually has." Blossomfoth said.

"So he was trying to change his results?" Thunderlane said.

"Yup." Cloudchaser got them some cookies.

"Then he got a serious problem." Thunderlane said "I wonder what the Wonderbolts are going to think of that."

"Speaking about the Wonderbolts, Blaze and Fire Streak are dating." Cloudchaser mentioned.

"They are?" Thunderlane ate another cookie.

"The last one is for me." Blossomforth pointed at the cookies on the plate before them.

"But I paid them!" Cloudchaser said.

"You already ate half of them." Thunderlane complained.

They all laughed.

"Do you want another drink?" Cloudchaser said.

"Yes please." Blossomforth and Thunderlane said at the same time.

"Sure. I'm right back."

"So we have to do this together." Scootaloo said after school.

"Yes. I'm Rumble." Rumble said. "Whose family should we take pictures of?"

"Yours. My grandparents are dead and I don't have siblings."

Rumble nodded.

"We'd better go right now. Or else it's raining." Scootaloo pointed at the sky.

"Ok. We'll take a shortcut trough the forest. We'll be there in twenty minutes."

There was a path going trough the edge of the Everfree forest that lead directly to Cloudsdale.

When Rumble was younger he and his brother always took that path when they visited Ponyville. It was too close near the village to be dangerous and there were a lot of beautiful flowers.

"I'm going to get my scooter and say bye to my friends." she said.

But if you flew too high up you could get stuck in a tree.

Rumble reminded himself that he had to tell Scootaloo that.

They followed the path Rumble told about.

Should I say something to her? Rumble tought while Scootaloo was looking at the flowers.

If yes, what?

Luckily for him Scootaloo started talking first.

"This is a nice path."

"Yeah. I've been here a lot with my brother." Rumble answered.

It felt silent again. The only thing they heard was the sound of the scooter riding over pebbles.

"And, how long is it actually to your grandmother?"

"Around five minutes from now."

The road turned right real fast and Rumble remembered there was a gap as deep as a house in this path.

Ponies once dug it to make a path from underneath Cloudsdale to Ponyville. They also built a bridge but it was broken.

Rumble didn't noticed it that much because he was always flying.

He saw the edge of the gap.

"Look out!" Rumble screamed, but the scooter felt over the edge of the gap pulling Scootaloo down too.

She shrieked while her helmet got stuck behind a branch and snapped from her head.

Scootaloo tumbled down screaming and bumped into a tree.

Rumble landed next to her and shook her shoulder.

"Are you ok? Give an answer!"

He turned her around and saw a giant wound on the side of her head.

"Please say something!" Rumble panicked.

Oh dear Celestia. What if she hit her head to hard and didn't wake up?

He barely knew this filly, he met her just yesterday.

"Scootaloo? Scootaloo!!!" He looked around, not that there was anypony who was going to search them. He told Thunderlane this morning that he wanted to go to the library after school and Cloudchaser and Flitter were at work.

Screaming for help wouldn't help, he also didn't brong bandages or anything. He could fly back to Ponyville and get help, but leaving her here wasn't a good plan. His grandmother lived outside Cloudsdale, which was only two minutes flying from there, but Rumble didn't knew if he could carry her.

Then she moaned and tried to stand up.

"Argh, my head..." she looked at Rumble who was relieved he didn't had to deal with an unconcious classmate on the second school day.

"We need to go. Your head looks real bad." Rumble said.

Scootaloo nodded and grabbed her scooter, almost tripping over a stone.

"You don't need that. My grandmother lives on the cloud above us. We can fly up there."

Scootaloo stared at him for a second, then suddenly she pushed Rumble so he felt against the tree and scooted away.

What the heck is wrong with this filly? Rumble tought.

He got up and flew after her.

"Hey! Come back!" he shouted "You're going the wrong way! Ponyville it the other way!"

Scootaloo didn't gave a reaction, much to Rumble's annoyance.

Yelling at her wouldn't help. And how much he wanted to just turn around and let her be, Rumble had to help her. She was seriously injured.

"Listen, if you're mad, I'm sorry!" He didn't even know why he was saying sorry.

"But you need to stop and turn around. Your head is bleeding real bad."

Rumble flew next to her and could catch her just in time before she felt unconscious.

"They have nice drinks here." Blossomforth said.

Thunderlane nodded.

"It's also a good job. Most pegasi work and live their whole life in Cloudsdale. Born there and died there. The only stuid thing is that you always have to work at moments when it doesn't fit your own schedule. Like, Thunderlane has to bust clouds soon, so you have to go to his house and wait for Rumble." Blossomforth pointed at Cloudchaser.

"Uhu. And you have to work every thursday evening at the same time you used to go to the sports club, while on friday you have nothing to do."

"Then I'm quite lucky. I usually start when Rumble leaves for school and I'm back before he's back. On day's I'm not I ask Cloudchaser to foalsit him." Thunderlane said.

"After flight school, he might get a job at the Ponyville weather partrol too. Then he doesn't have to move back to Cloudsdale."

"Maybe he's going to marry some unicorn and moves to Canterlot." Cloudchaser suggested.

"Whoa, stop." Blossomforth said "Are you discussing Rumble's love life right now?"

"Yeah... He will figure something out and we're not the ponies to discuss that."

"It was meant as a joke."

"But I think there are more intresting things to talk about then my little brothers love life." Thunderlane added.

"Sure. Let's talk about yours then." Cloudchaser looked at Thunderlane and Blossomforth who were looking at eachother trying to figure out whose love life Cloudchaser meant.

"You both. You always complain that friday evening is lame and you look pretty cute together."

Cloudchaser stood up.

"Now I have to wait for Rumble when he gets back from school."

She flew away leaving her friends blushing awkwardly.

"WHAT THE HECK?!" Cloudchaser shouted at Rumble.

"We were so worried!" Flitter added.

"When we heard you were at the Ponyville hospital you seriously creeped us out!" Cloudchaser continued.

"I'm sorry" Rumble said "but I didn't knew anything else to do and maybe she was dead. Are you very mad at me?"

"We're not mad, of course not. You did the right thing but you really scared us." Flitter said.

"Just imagine your brothers face when one of us is telling him you're at Ponyville's hospital. And I'm not really afraid of anything, but It's not going to be me." Cludchaser got a little smile from the grey colt.

"She will be all right, luckily. Why did you decided to go there anyways?" Flitter asked.

"We needed a photo of my grandmother and she felt. I dragged her all the way to the hospital on the other side of the town. When we got there I tought she was dead!"

Flitter felt the panic in Rumbles voice and imagined what he must have felt when he was in the forest with that unconcious filly and it felt all too familiar.

2: The worst party in town

"Whoa, what happend to you?" Pip asked that tuesday. Featherweight and Twist stared at Rumble.

Rumble had several scratches on his body and unlike Scootaloo, he didn't tried to hide them.

"Long story." he didn't felt like explaining things.

Yesterday he decided that he wouldn't tell his brother, because he might get mad at Flitter and Cloudchaser.

"You're the new guy right?" A grey filly with glasses asked.

"Yes, I'm Rumble."

"I heard you had a fight yesterday with the chicken." Diamond Tiara said.

"Chicken?" Rumble raised an eyebrow.

"They have something against blank flanks and thats Scootaloo's nickname." Featherwight said.

"Pfff. You got beat up by a girl?" Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon laughed.

"I didn't! We didn't have a fight!" Rumble shouted.

"Oh look, you're mad! Just as I tought" then she continued whispering "I would get her back if I was you."

"Wouldn't you Twist? I still don't get why you and Featherweight accepted him in your group." Diamond Tiara pointed at Rumble.

"We decide ourselves who we let in our group." Pip said, but before he could say anything else he was cut off by Silver Spoon.

"Nopony cares about your opinion, Trottingham newbie."

Then Diamond Tiara started talking dramatically and loud, so everypony in the schoolyard heard them.

"I really hope they aren't going to pick on you because you lost a fight with a chicken."

Some heads turned in their direction as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon walked away.

"But we didn't fight, she... Argh! You know what? Never mind." Rumble turned around and walked away.

He got grabbed a book from his saddlebag and sat down in a corner of the schoolyard.

Diamond Tiara made it all up, and the others believe her.

He started reading but he couldn't really follow the story.

"Hey Rumble!" somepony said.

He looked up from his book. It was Stargaze with some other colts.

Stargaze then immediately pullid it from his hooves and threw it aside.

"That book is from the library!" Rumble shouted while he picked it up and tried to rub the sand off the cover.

"Now tell us Rumble, is it what Diamond Tiara says really true?" one of those other colts asked.

"No!"

"You're lying, of course you don't want to admit it. But we saw you and Scootaloo go that way yesterday." Stargaze pointed at the forest.

"And when you're back you got scratches all over your body."

"I told you we didn't fight and whatever I tell you, you won't believe me anyway." Rumble put the book back in his bag and hoped it wasn't too dirty.

Before they could say anything else the bell rang.

"Hello everypony, do you have the photos of your family members?"

Everypony put theirs on their desks.

"You don't have to worry if you don't have them, you have the whole week to hand in your photos."

Phew. Rumble tought. He would probably have to finish the project himself.

"Button Mash and Dinky, would you help me hand out the math books?" Cheerilee asked.

Rumble sighed. At least he was sitting next to Feathereight instead of one of the others.

"Hello brother, how was school today?" Thunderlane said when Rumble got home.

"Horrible." he tought of Diamond Tiara and Stargaze.

"Got trouble with the girls?" his brother joked.

Rumble wasn't in the mood for funny things and before he knew it he started shouting.

"It's not fair! You got all the girls to be your friend! Cloudchaser, Flitter, Blossomforth..."

Rumble flew upstairs and dropped himself on his bed.

Three days in this stupid little village and one accident and two bullies later he wished he stayed in Cloudsdale.

Thunderlane asked himself how Cloudchaser got him and Blossomforth to do out for dinner.

Why did he said yes to this stupid plan?

Not that he disliked Blossomforth, in fact, they were good friends, but he just got that awkward feeling when Cloudchaser was talking about him and Blossomforth.

She was waiting for him in the doorway of the restaurant.

"Hi, I already picked a table." she said.

"Thanks. Nice restaurant. Did you choose it?" Thunderlane looked around the place. The walls were painted white with a golden pattern and there were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

"No, Cloudchaser did."

A waiter handed them the menu.

"Does she come here often then?" Thunderlane couldn't imagine Cloudchaser sitting here.

"I don't know, but if she does, she must be seeing somepony." Blossomforth said while looking at the menu.

The waiter asked if they wanted something to drink.

They both ordered some wine.

"Did you notice anything strage on her lately?" she asked.

Thunderlane shrugged. "Not really. Should we talk about something else?"

"Oh come on! She isn't here she has been talking about yours for I don't know how long,so why not discuss her love life, altough I doubt she has one."

"Hmmm. I guess you're right."

They both ordered a meal and gave the menu's back.

"Why would she be talking about that so much? There can only be one reason..." Blossomforth said with a mysterious voice.

"She has a secret love and he's rich but what she doesn't know is that he is actually somepony else and that's why there all kinds of spooky figures sneaking around her house at night. She also has a secret crush, but to hide that she talks about other ponies so much."

"And..." Thunderlane almost whispered.

"Ahem." The waiter stood next to their table with their meals.

They both sat straight on their chairs again, a little startled, noticing they were just leaning close towards eachother.

Luckily, after a whole week hearing about how weak he was, everypony stopped talking about him and Scootaloo and ignored him.

He got an A on the photo project he did alone and Featherweight, Twist and Pip seemed to be his friends.

"The first school week is over and it is monday again. Soon you can trade partners if you want to, but first I have a survey for pegasi only. Fill it in very honestly because it's important." Cheerilee said.

"Why don't we get to fill it in?" Silver Spoon asked.

"Because this will help determine if you can attend Cloudsdale flight school and only pegasi can walk on clouds."

"My sister once got wings, so we could go to Cloudsdale right?" Sweetie Belle said.

"Yes, but they stated they only want pegasi."

Rumble looked at his paper.

Name, age... It was quite easy and reminded him of the friend books they had in Cloudsdale.

You gave them to everypony in class and they returned them with all that kinds of thing filled in.

'Name, age and work of your parents.'

The question gave Rumble a weird feeling. His parents died when he was very young so he didn't really knew what they looked like.

Wind Swirl and Tornado, dead, weather factory workers.

'Where do you live? Please tell as detailed as possible.'

Should he write down his old or new adress? Rumble decided to do both.

I lived with my brother in Cloudsdale and recently moved to Ponyville. When my brother isn't home I'm with Cloudchaser and Flitter.

That shoud do it.

'Describe your other family members.'

I have one brother Thunderlane. He works at the Ponyville weather patrol. He is dark grey with a light blue mane and tail.

'What do you like to do in your spare time?"

Reading

And then there were some questions about his grades.

After that everypony stood up and changed partners so fast he couldn't follow in anymore.

Twist was now with Dinky and Pip with Featherweight.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stayed together and Diamond Tiara went with Silver Spoon.

Snips was with Snails and Stargaze with Archer.

For Rumble it didn't matter. There was nopony who wanted to be with the new colt or Scootaloo.

"So I'm stuck with you untill new year." Scootaloo sighed.

"I guess." Rumble shrugged, but in reality, Scootaloo just said what he was thinking.

"We got invited at a party this saturday." Cloudchaser said.

"Really?" Rumble said "Whose party is it?"

"The spa ponies, Lotus and Aloe. They invited everypony to celebrate their anniversary."

"And because of Vera, the new spa pony." Flitter added.

"We should ask Blossomforth too." Rumble suggested.

"Are you sure?" Thunderlane looked at his brother.

"Of course it isn't a date silly. You can't have a date at a party for everypony." Cloudchaser gave Thunderlane a little stomp.

"I will ask her." Rumble said.

He flew to Cloudsdale and even tough he wasn't sure where Blossomforth lived he found it pretty easily.

Blossomforth's house stood in a suburb of Cloudsdale where most of the houses had only one floor.

Rumble knocked the door.

"Hello Rumble, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"Do you want to go to to a party with us this saturday? It's at the Ponyville spa."

"Come in, I'll check if I'm free then."

Blossomforth's house was in greyscale. It felt like you were walking into an old film. Everything was black, white or something inbetween.

The only thing you could tell from it wasn't, were the little pink details on everything. The pattern on the couch, the vases on the table and the edges of sideboard.

"I can come, should I go to your house or shoudl we meet at the spa?"

"We meet at Cloudchasers house, then we all go together." Rumble said.

"Ok, I will be there." Blossomforth smiled.

Rumble flew back to his house and wondered who would come to the party too.

Maybe he could meet Featherwight or Twist there.

Blossomforth had to ask somepony Cloudchasers adress.

She found it very stupid that she didn't knew where a friend lived.

She had already planned something, but going to a party with her friends was more important.

Luckily she could move it to another day.

All she needed now was a little relaxation.

Blossomforth hadn't visited Ponyville in a long time.

When she looked trough the window of Cloudchasers house she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Welcome to the party!" Lotus said.

"Thank you for inviting us." Thunderlane said while watching the spa.

There were a lot of flags and there was confetti on the ground. It didn't even look like a spa anymore.

"Do you want some punch or a donut? They're from Canterlot." Aloe asked. "And have you met Vera yet?"

"No, we just arrived." Cloudchaser said.

Behind them Lotus was greeting other guests.

"Well, have fun!" Aloe smiled.

The waited at least half an hour for Blossomfoth who appearantly couldn't find Cloudchasers house, so they were a little late.

"Is it always this nice in Ponyville?" Blossomforth asked.

"No, but parties usually look like this." Flitter said "We have one of the best party planners in Equeatria."

"Really? That's awesome. " Blossomforth got everypony some punch.

Rumble's eye felt on Twist, who was talking to Dinky.

They were the only ponies from his class.

He recognized the stallion he saw in the bakery and some others.

Flitter said they held a lot of parties in Ponyville.

Maybe it could make up the mean ponies a school.

"Lucky for you it's saturday. Or else you had to go back to get Rumble to bed." Cloudchaser said to Thunderlane.

"Do you think he likes Ponyville? He said it was horrible at school." Thunderlane said.

"Maybe you should talk to him and ask what's wrong." Flitter suggested "

"I will, but what if he doesn't wan't to talk to me? I'm the one who brought him to this town."

"Then I'll try." Flitter said.

"Flitter is better in thosed things then me. Want some more punch?" Cloudchaser wanted to get some glasses.

"No, I think we should go home now. It's almost ten o clock." Flitter pointed at the clock which was decorated with streamers.

"I guess. It's getting late for Rumble."

They flew back to Cloudchaser and Flitters house while Rumble was almost falling asleep.

"Don't forget to flap your wings, silly." Cloudchaser said.

"What? You drunk too much cider." Rumble flew a little faster.

"If I really did, you would have noticed." Cloudchaser got an angry look from flitter. "But I won't with you around. Don't worry."

"Yeah. I'll make sure." Flitter said while Cloudchaser opened the door to her house.

"If she does th..."

She tared at the open door and the scream that followed could be heard at the spa.

3: Screw You

Busted.

That was the first thing Flitter tought when Cloudchaser opened the door.

She remembered the fear from the other time.

The flying, the screams and the feeling it was gone when that door opened.

It wasn''t gone. It never was. It just waited for the time to strike.

And tonight seemed that time.

The vase that used to stand on the dressoir was broken in a Thousand pieces and the painting was thrown off the wall.

"Don't look at that Rumble." Thunderlane said.

He looked at the place where the painting was supposed to be.

'Screw you' it said with dark red letters.

He pushed his brother away from the door while Flitter cried.

Rumble turned around and flew inside, over the broken vase.

"What the heck is wrong with you? It's just a red marker."

'screw you' in capitals.

Yes, Rumble tought, screw you indeed.

Why did he have to be the mature one?

"You" he pointed at Cloudchaser "drunk too much cider. You are overly dramatic."

Flitter, still crying was held by Cloudchaser.

"And you Always think the worst of things." His brother didn't gave a reaction.

Rumble touched the wall and rubbed the S off.

"You see?"

He hated this day, this town, was tired and just wanted to go to bed.

"But I tought it was..." Flitter cried.

"Éw. Don't be so macabre." Thunderlane said.

"Well, I think you believed that too." Cloudchaser shouted.

"Ugh." Rumble landed "Could you please shut up? Somepony is appearantly angry with you, but could we please figure this out tomorrow?"

Flitter cried even harder.

Thunderlane comforthed Flitter while Cloudchaser, as good and as bad as it went, tried to clean up the shards.

Rumble sat down and tought: everything in this stupid village goes wrong.

The next day they all went to Cloudchasers house to check if there was nothing gone.

Thunderlane said a thief entered the house when they were at the party. The thief broke the window next to the door and then knocked the vase over.

For Rumble it seemed unlogical. There was nothing missing and if it really was a thief, why would he or she take the time to write 'screw you' on the wall? With the red marker they found on the floor it took at least five layers to get the dark red colour they saw.

If this was one of his crime investigation novels, he would probably find it intresting, but this was real, and there was nopony dead.

Luckily.

At eleven o clock the Pegasus police arrived.

They asked if any of them saw something and if there was something valuable, like jewelry, missing.

Everypony shook their head. Not that they had any valuable jewelry, buit the cops didn't need to know that.

They took a couple of photos and promised to search for the thief and get them a new glass.

After lunch they all decided to call Blossomforth to help searching.

According to Flitter, there were almost no thieves in Ponyville.

"Except in those streets they always say there are creepers waiting for you in the shadow." Cloudchaser added.

"Now you're saying it too." Blossomforth said.

They asked everypony they saw and looked in every corner of the street but didn't find anything.

Rumble asked himself who would break Cloudchasers window, destroy some of her stuff and write screw you on her wall, without taking any valuable things?

Today the head of Las Pegasus high school visited miss Cherilee's class.

"I am the head of Las Pegasus high school. Las Pegasus is founded by pegasi specialized in entertainment.

Besides our regular lessons, we give lessons in running hotels, restaurants and other. We also have lessons in anything with film and music, ranging from lights to acting and songwriting.

From there you can get a job in Hollywood, not far from las Pegasus."

The stallion showed some pictures of the school.

"We have students from all over Equestria and because of that we also have a boarding."

"I don't wan't to go to a boarding school. That sounds awful to me." Twist whispered.

Featherwight nodded.

"Living at school. I didn't even knew that existed." Pip whispered "In Trorringham everypony stays at home."

Rumble tought of Coudsdale, where almost all schools were boarding schools.

There was only one high school, Cloudsdale flight school, and it was a boarding school.

He would probably go there too and at first he didn't undersand why they moved to Ponyville one year before he would go to flight school.

"What is also worth mentioning is that it's very hot in Las Pegasus. If you can't stand heat I suggest bringing a fan or get used to at least thirthy celcius before lunch."

He showed a picture of the desert.

"Is it really that hot there?" Archer asked "I used to live in Vanhoover and it is in summer around twenty celcius at maximum."

The stallion nodded.

"A positive thing, we have a pool located directly next to the boarding."

In Cloudsdale that was impossible because the water would, uhm, go trough the floor.

Rumble tought of some of the fillies at his old school trying to make a pool for their dolls.

"If you want to enter Las Pegasus high school there are a few requirements. Of course you have to like a warm climate, you need to be good at teamwork, because you son't run a hotel alone. You have to be friendly. Las Pegasus lives from the tourists visiting the city so your job probably will involve serving guests. You need to be able to do different things and work days start and end late."

"I'm a day person. I don't like morning AND evening. Does that count?" Featherwight said.

The whole class laughed.

After the stallion left Ceerilee told them to write a short essay about Las Pegasus, wether it be the hotel business or Hollywood in their already made duos.

Thunderlane and Blossomforth trotted down the street.

"Why would somepony break a window and not steal anything. I just don't get it."

"Maybe because they realised they don't have any jewlry. Cloudchaser isn't exactly the type for golden brooches." Thunderlane said.

"I guess. Do you think the Cloudsdale police will pay real attention to this?" Blossomforth asked.

"Yes, there aren't that much crimes in Equestria, so they must have plenty of times for these kind of things."

"I don't think so. They just let go of it and then forget about it." Blossomforth looked at the sky.

It was getting dark.

"Why?"

Blossomforth was silent for a while.

"Maybe we should go back. Your brother is still at Cloudchasers house."

Thunderlane nodded.

They were silent the way back and Blossomforth was going back to Cloudsdale.

"If you want to tell why, just say it ok?" Thunderlane said.

Bloosomforth turned around and smiled.

Rumble and Scootaloo went to Rumble's house after he made sure there was nopony seeing them.

"Don't worry about Diamond Tiara. She always acts like that." Scootaloo said.

"But that doesn't mean I can't worry about her."

Rumble did worry about her and Stargaze, who made the first school week bad.

"I'm sorry about last week." Rumble said "I hould have warned you earlier."

He tought of a week ago when he dragged her all across town and knocked on the door of the hospital.

The nurse that opened the door looked a little startled.

"It's ok."

The walked past Cloudchasers house.

"What happend there?" she pointed at the broken window.

"Somepony accidently kicked a ball trough it." Rumble said.

It was a lie, but he, his brother, Cloudchaser, Flitter and Blossomforth decided not to tell other ponies about it.

He didnt really get why, but if Cloudchaser wanted so, why not.

They sat by the kictchen table and each wrote half of the essay while Thunderlane was putting together a closet upstairs.

On friday everypony who knew what really happend to Cloudchasers window went to Thunderlanes house.

"Let's go straight to the point. I found this" Cloudchaser threw an envelope on the table "yesterday morning in my mailbox."

"And what's the point of this? I get mail too." Blossomforth said.

"It's what inside of this letter." Cloudchaser said.

Flitter opened it.

It was a little paper with in dark red SCREW YOU.

"What did I tell you? It wasn't a thief!" Thunderlane said.

"No you didn't! I said that!" Rumble stood up.

"I said Cloudchaser isn't the type for romantic silly things with flowers and hearts."

"Hey!" Blossomforth shouted.

"Yeah, who says I ain't?" Cloudchaser stood up too.

"Because you always talk about others in love even tough they are just friends." Blossomforth said.

"You first say Flitter likes my brother and now you say Blossonmforth does." Rumble pointed at both pegasi.

"Oh, Now you start too?" Cloudchaser said to Blossomforth who was standing on her right side.

"What if she does?" Thunderlane who was standing on the other side of Blossomforth put this hoof on the table.

"STOOOOP!" Flitter yelled then.

"All of you. Rumble, Thunderlane, Blossomforth, Cloudchaser." She pointed at each of them who immediately sat down.

"This isn't even about the letter anymore! Who cares if there was a thief or not? We now know that the 'screw you' on the wall was purposely. Or somepony is really mad at you, or this is just a weird joke."

"It soen't seem like a joke to me." Blossomforth said.

"I can't think of anything funny about this either." Rumble said.

"So that option is out. There's somepony who thinks this is serious business. Suggestions who?" Cloudchaser asked.

Everypony shook their head.

"Fine. Next up, are we keeping this silent or are we telling all of Ponyville? If we tell all of Ponyville the pony who does there screwy things might stop."

Everypony looked at Cloudchaser for a while.

"Right now they know nothing." Rumble said. "Maybe we should get the Cloudsdale police."

"They aren't going to do anything about it. The last crime in Ponyville was I don't know how many years ago. Ponyville doesn't even have police. So 'we have to do this ourselves." Blossomforth said.

"Does any of you know somepony who dislikes Cloudchaser?" Thunderlane asked.

"Nope." Flitter shook her head. "Cloudchaser doen't have any enemies."

"It's settled then. We figure this out with the five of us." Cloudchaser looked around all of them.

They nodded.

Rumble handed in the essay about Las Pegasus.

The last days he was worrying about Cloudchaser.

Even tough he believed it was nothing serious, it still gave him the creeps.

And he could imagine somepony not liking Cloudchasers attitude.

Rumble distracted himself by going to sugarcube corner with Pip, Featherweight and Twist, who slowly became his friends.

They didn't seem to worry about anything. Not about Diamond Tiara and Stargaze and not about more personal things.

Rumble wondered how they did that.

Flitter bought some tomatoes at the market.

Cloudchaser wanted to invite all her friends for dinner and asked her to bring some vegatables for the salad.

"Hello Shoeshine." She waved to to light blue pony.

"Have a nice day Carrot Top."

She bought some cherries.

"Hello. Everything is fine. Have a nice day. Good morning. Everything all right?"

Those scentence you say without meaning anything. You say them every day, even if it's a lie.

"Hello." she said to a blue pony.

"Hello." he said.

There were someponies not as friendly as usual, but you shouldn't be bothered by them.

The next pony said hello back too and another answered with: Have a nice day!

Flitter trotted down the road to town hall.

She looked over her shoulder, just because she learned to do so.

It was important, even tough it didn't matter usually.

Behind her she saw Carrot Tup, Berry Punch buying a drink, the DJ, the blue pony, a green stallion and the mayor.

Nothing special.

When she arrived at Cloudchasers house Rumble was already there. Blossomforth and Thunderlane were still at work.

"Rumble, can you cut the cucumber?" Cloudchaser asked.

Rumble nodded. "What are we eating anyway?"

"Pasta. My speciality." Cloudchaser grinned.

"Sure..." Flitter said. "Don't forget about the time it was too spicy because you dropped two chili peppers in the pan."

They all laughed.

"Flitter, can you get me the mixer? It's in the basement."

Flitter nodded.

Cloudchasers basement was deep, with next to the sairs a big bookcase and a wine rack.

On the left side were a lot of boxes she never unpacked.

There was a small window where you could see hooves trotting around the street.

She got the mixer and flew back upsatairs.

"Weird guy." Rumble said.

"Who?" Flitter looked around. Thunderlane wasn't there so it couldn't be him.

"That blue pony who stopped to look trough the window." Cloudchaser threw the tomatoes in a pan.

"Blue you said?"

"Yes." Rumble got the mixer and gave it to Cloudchaser.

"Wait a minute." Flitter flew back into the basement.

That pony. She saw him before. Twice. She saw him going to the library, which is opposite direction of town hall.

Then she saw him going to town hall too and now he was looking trough Cloudchasers window.

She knew it was absolutely ridiculous, but you can never be careful enough.

According to what Rumble said he looked trough the window on top of the window from the basement.

She heard Thunderlane and Blossomnforth entering the house.

Her eye felt on the little note on the place where first the mixer laid.

4: Searching for a dead end

The dinner could wait.

They searched blue pony threw a little note trough the small basement window.

No screw you this time, surprisingly. 'NOT YOU' it said instead.

"The only thing I saw from him was his blue coat. He was a Pegasus and his cutie mark was something with a star."

That was the description given by Flitter.

And now he had to go to town hall to ask for anypony who fitted that decription.

Rumble flew to the center of Ponyville.

It was nearly two weeks ago scince that stupid note and they never saw a pony like that again.

I'd like to have information about all the ponies fitting this description. I need it for a school project about genetics. Rumble repeated in his head. That's what he had to say from Cloudchaser and his brother.

Blossomforth wasn't sure if they believed him or not, but trying was always better then doing nothing.

"Hello. I'd like to have information about all blue pegasus stallions with a star-like cutie mark. It's for a school project about genetics."

That came out pretty easily actually, scince Rumble believed he couldn't lie.

"Are you from the school here in Ponyville?" the stallion behind the desk asked.

Rumble nodded and hoped he wasn't going to ask Cheerilee.

"Wait here please. I'll see what I can find." He stood up and searched the shelves behind him.

After a few minutes he came back and put three pictures on the table.

On the first was a pony matching Flitters description, except it was a female.

The second had a stallion with stars as cutie mark, but it wasn't a Pegasus.

The third was exactly what Flitter said, but he was too tall.

That night, Cloudchaser got everypony except Flitter to line up so Flitter could tell how tall he was.

The stallion she saw was a little bit taller then Blossomforth, but not as tall as his brother.

"These are all I could find." he said.

Rumble didn't knew what to say.

Or Flitter made a mistake, or this Ponyville didn't knew this stallion.

He thanked the pony in town hall and flew back to Cloudchasers house.

When Rumble walked to school he couldn't stop thinking about Cloudchaser's mail.

"Rumble?" Cheerilee said.

He got out of his daydream. How did he got in the classroom anyway's?

"Question 5C Rumble."

He read the question out loud and picked the answer appealing most without really reading it.

"No, thats not correct. Does anypony has something else?"

He heard some foals giggling.

"Where were you with your toughts Rumble?" Pip asked during break.

"Oh... Ehm, I don't know."

"I don't believe you, is that wrong?" Featherweight asked.

Yes! Yes it's wrong. One of my brothers friends is in trouble and I'm not allowed to talk about it.

The bell rang, luckily. Rumble didn't felt like answering more questions.

When they came in there was a mare standing next to Cheerilee.

Rumble couldn't keep his eyes off her.

A sand coloured body with wings, curled brown hair and a green crown-like thing on her head.

But what drew the most attention were her eyes, lime green and almost glowing, reflecting power and strength.

"Today we have another guest to tell about their high school. Instead of the director, the mayor of Cloudsdale flight school wanted to visit us personally. It's such an honor you have you here mayor. Please start."

The sand coloured mare smiled.

"Thank you miss. As your teacher just said I am the mayor of Cloudsdale and I came to tell you about flight school. It's Cloudsdale's best and only high school."

"It's always the best if It's the only one." somepony said.

"Yes, but flight school offers even more then just lessons. It's a boarding school, and if you graduate, you'll be guaranteed for a job in Cloudsdale. The only thing we request is being a Pegasus."

"Without wings, you can't even attend her school." Diamond Tiara said a little loud.

All earth ponies and unicorns nodded.

"That's why I'd love to promote flight school personally. There are so many schools and pegasi, as only tribe, can attend all. Flight school needs to stand out. Don't you think?"

Even her voice was amazing. Rumble flew back home while thinking of the mayor and what she said about flight school.

And he would swear the mayor asked him that last question.

"Now what? We have an invisible stallion leaving weird messages at your home." Thunderlane said.

Flitter shrugged. "But I didn't made a mistake. I really saw him."

Blossomforth gave everypony some cake. It was late in the evening and they were discussing the notes once again.

"Then what could it be? I went to Cloudsdales town hall and they don't know him either." Cloudchaser said while eating some cake.

"You can dye your coat. There are special boutiques for that." Blossomforth said "You go in and come out with different hair, coat and eyes."

"Can you really change your eye color?" Rumble said. It seemed really creepy to him.

"Yup. Coloured contact lenses." Blossomforth pointed at Rumble with the little fork they used to eat the cake.

"So he could be anone now?" Thunderlane said.

"We should really go to Cloudsdale police now. They could help us. We have proof enough this is serious and they got record of the first screw you." Rumble said.

Far away in his mind he tought it was like he got in one of his detective novels with him as main character.

And that tought was quite cool.

"Fine." Blossomforth said "Now Cloudchaser, tell us what to do next."

"Uhm... Blossomforth, you check every mane salon in Cloudsdale. Rumble, you go with me to the Cloudsdale police. Flitter and Thunderlane, you stay in Ponyville and check for suspicious things."

They all nodded.

"Let's put an end to this."

"What do you think of her?" Scootaloo asked.

"I think she's cool. She isn't the mayor for nothing." Rumble said.

"I think she's just an impstor." Apple Bloom said.

"Then what should we write about her?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Miss Cheerilee allowerd them to do this part in groups of four and Scootaloo then decided that the other two would be Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

"We should go to Ponyville's town hall and ask our mayor about her." Apple Bloom said.

"Shouldn't we go to Cloudsdale? Maybe we can interview herself? She did seem very intrested in us." Rumble said.

"But we aren't pegasi." Sweetie Belle pointed at Apple Bloom.

"We can each carry one of you." Rumble said.

They looked at eachother for a while, talking without words.

"No. We go to our Mayor. She's intrested too." Apple Bloom then decided.

Scootaloo lead the way on her scooter and the only thing Rumble could do was follow them.

After dinner, he would go to the Cloudsdale police with Cloudchaser.

"Hello. We have to do an intwerview with somepony who knows the Mayor of Cloudsdale. It's for school." Scootaloo said.

Rumble hoped the stallion behind the desk didn't recognize him.

"Do you want to interview somepony in particular?"

They shook their heads.

"I think you can interview the mayor. I'll ask if she has time for an interview."

Flitter and Thunderlane sat in Cloudchasers livng room.

"I just want this to stop." Flitter sighed.

"Me too. I wonder what they will come back with." Thunderlane got them some tea.

"This is just not funny anymore. What if they send them to her work too?" he asked.

Flitter shrugged. "How is your job going anyway's?"

"Good. I'ts quite fun with Blossomforth and Cloudchaser. Blossomforth might want to switch jobs."

"What are you talking about then when I'm not with you?" she asked.

Thunderlane was silent for a while.

"Now I'm even more curious." she said a little sarcastic.

"About work,"

Flitter had the look on her face saying 'aaand...'

"About Rumble."

Still that look.

"And... Cloudchasert tries to pair me with every mare she sees." Thunderlane blushed.

"Who?"

Thunderlane didn't want to tell that, but he knew it wasn't fair not to tell it.

"Blossomforth, the girl I caught at the Wonderbols academy, Derpy, Rainbow Dash. You..." He blushed even harder.

It was just too awkward.

Flitter gave him a little smile.

If he only knew why...

Why...

Everypony wanted to know why. Why somepony was sending those notes. Why smepony put 'NOT YOU' on the last one.

Why...

Then she gasped.

"Thunderlane, I think I got it. There's no time to lose."

She pushed him out of the chair.

"You got to go to the Cloudsdale police station and do something for me."

"But..." Thunderlane put the tea down.

"Listen." Flitter started talking.

Cloudchaser stood in the hallway of the Cloudsdale police.

Why the heck was she so nervous? There was nothing what went wrong.

Well, there was a weird guy leaving notes for her but besides that.

She couldn't think of anything.

Rumble stood next to her. She couldn't show him she was nervous.

Stupid legs. Stop shaking.

"Can I help you?' the mare behind the desk asked.

"Yes. We want to declare somepony broke my window and destoryed things in my house. And he's leaving notes."

"Did you ever report this to us before?"

"A friend of ours got the police to take some photos at my house. We didn't declare anything then, but I'd like to do it now anyways." Cloudchaser put the papers with SCREW YOU and NOT YOU on the desk.

"Where do you live?"

Cloudchaser told her adress.

The mare disappeared into a room full of boxes with reports.

When she came back she shook his head.

"There has never been a report from Ponyville. The last one was from about ten years ago."

Thunderlane flew trough Cloudsdale. He loved the city more then he should.

Flitters theory seemed plausible, but also impossible.

Why did she wanted to know of Cloudchaser? It was so awkward, he even kept it a secret from his brother.

Because she just wanted to know? Or because she was jealous? But that meant Cloudchaser was serious about her.

And if Cloudchaser was, she would never force him to go out with Blossomforth. Because that's just mean.

Or maybe not.

He arrived at the police station where an angry Cloudchaser flew out, followed by Rumble.

"What happend to you two?" he asked.

"Well, those police ponies didn't repotred the first screw you of the wall. Now we can't declare anything."

"Shh! We can't let everypony know about screw you. Not now." Thunderlane said.

"It's getting dark. Maybe we should go home?" Rumble suggested.

"Yes we should. Now Cloudchaser, come with us." Thunderlane pushed her forward.

When they arrived at Thunderlanes house is was completely dark and Cloudchaser was still angry.

Rumble decided he'd better go to bed. This kind of situation could turn into a fight between Cloudchaser and his brother.

Rumble and Scootaloo were walking trough the forest.

"Where was that gap?" she asked.

"Around that corner."

"You know, I can't really remember why I actually felt down?"

"You held your scooter and it was too heavy to carry. Actually, I don't really know it either." he shook his head.

"I just can't belive I was dumb enough to look sideways the whole time." she kicked a rock.

"It wasn't your fault. I should have warned you." he said.

"At one point. I really tought you were dead."

"Really?" Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.

Rumble stared at his hooves. That was so stupid to say.

But here was no ground under his hooves. It was just air, and looking back, they were walking on it the whole time.

And he didn't felt his wings moving and Scootaloo's wings didn't move either.

Actually, Scootaloo wasn't even standing next to him anymore.

Rumble panicked and looked around.

"Scootaloo? Scootaloo!"

She laid on the ground with her head to that tree, just like the first day.

Rumble flew down and shook her shoulder.

"Say something please!"

He turned her around.

But her face was gone and on the place her eyes were supposed to be, were red letters.

"SCREW YOU"

Rumble screamed and woke up.

'It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.'

A scary one, but still.

He turned on the light. Two AM, his brother was asleep, so he wouldn't mind if Rumble read some pages.

Cloudchaser said you get sleepy from reading and hot chocolate. Now where was his book?

Ugh. He left it downstairs.

Rumble jumped out of his bed and flew down very silent.

In the living room the light was still on and he heard ponies talking.

"We're not going to tell Blossomforth."

"It's just us three."

"You can trust her."

"I don't doubt that. But we settled that long ago."

"Yes, but what if..."

"I told you so."

"But they believe you're..."

He opened the door and they stopped talking.

His brother, Cloudchaser and Flitter looked at him.

"Rumble? You're still awake?" Cloudchaser said.

He nodded.

"I had a bad dream."

Flitter stood up. "I'll get you something to drink."

Rumble got his book and went back upstairs.

When Flitter was in the living room again he sat down on the stairs and listened.

Whatever they were talking about, It wasn't supposed to be heard by him.

6: Alone ponies at night

Rumble went back to school.

He was really pissed by the fact he couldn't hear what this brother and friends were talking about.

He only heard Flitter sobbing and Cloudchaser and his brother discussing things.

Miss Cheerilee said they wouldn't do the interview with a pony who works with the mayor, because there were just not that may ponies who did.

Instead, they had to make a presentation about a famous Pegasus.

Scootaloo's eyes were still purple as ever. Luckily.

Stargaze teased him that he was staring at her, but Rumble didn't care.

Maybe it was true. That you could just ignore them, as Scootaloo said.

Cheerilee spoke about Ponyvile's high school, but in comparison to the schools of the other towns it seemed quite simple.

No specific classes or lessons to prepare you for the future job.

She also said they would visit the school one day, but nopony seemed intrested.

"So, who should we do our presentation about?" Scootaloo said.

"I don't know a lot of famous pegasi actually."

It was quite strange, considering he grew up in Cloudsdsale.

"We should do it about Rainbow Dash! She's amazing and I know her personally." Scootaloo said.

"Really? That's awesome!" Rumbe got a little jealous. He didn't knew any special pony. His family and friends were just plain ponies.

"Can we talk to her? That would be amazing."

Scootaloo shook her head.

"She's at the Wonderbolts academy and probably isn't going to come back before march."

"That sucks."

Scootaloo nodded.

"We should go to the library. They probably have a lot of books about pegasi there." Rumble suggested.

"Duh! Why else would they call it a library?" Scootaloo rolled her eyes.

Rumble was working on the presentation when the door bell rang.

His brother was upstairs fixing a lamp so he opened the door.

It was Blossomforth.

"Oh, hi! What are you soing here?" he asked.

"Hello Rumble, is your brother home?" she smiled.

"Yes, why?"

"Maybe we could do something together..."

"I'll get him." Rumble flew upstairs.

"Thunderlane! Blossomforth is here and she wants to go out with you." he said.

His brother almost dropped the lamp.

"Now?"

"Yes now." Rumble put the lamp back on the nightstand and pushed his brother to the stairs.

"What about you?"

"I could, of course, go to Cloudchasers house and stay there." Rumble said sarcastic.

Thunderlane nodded and trotted down the stairs.

Rumble went trough the back door thinking about his brother.

It wasn't far to Cloudchasers house.

"You here? It's dark outside." she said when Rumble knocked on her door.

"My brother went out with Blossomforth, so he wanted me to stay with you."

"Sure. Come in. Want some tea?"

Rumble nodded.

They played a game until it was quite late.

Rumble went to the quest room, which was nicely decorated in a dark blue color.

"Good night. I'm gonna read some more pages." Cloudchaser said.

Thunderlane and Blossomforth went to the fly-in cinema where they were going to play a comedy.

"Why did you come to my house?" Thunderlane asked.

"Because I tought it would be fun, right?"

Thunderlane nodded.

"How is Rumble doing at his new school?"

"He's doing good. He earned some A's and he made some friends."

"That's nice." Blossomforth said. "Where is he now?"

"At Cloudchasers house. Probably sleeping." Thunderlane said.

"Yeah, sure. But has she got any other messages lately? Or did the police did their job for once."

"Nothing happend luckily. But what is wrong with the Cloudsdale police?" Thunderlane asked.

Blossomforth sighed.

"My parents couldn't pay the taxes anymore so they were thrown out of Cloudsdale. By the police. I was so young they sent me to primary boarding school."

"Oh..." Thunderlane felt guilty for asking.

"They sent me letters explaining why. I didn't pass flight school so I didn't had a job either. They died before I could even met them."

They were silent for a while.

"And... how did you get a job at the weather patrol?"

Blossomforth shrugged. "Weird story. Somepony offered me a job and then I got another and another. I ended here and I'm fine with it."

"It must be really awful not to know your parents."

"It's ok. You never knew them so you never miss them. I think your case is worse. You knew them untill you were a little older then Rumble. You know what they were like." Blossomforth said.

"I guess." Thunderlane stared at the sky. It was getting colder.

"Maybe Cloudchaser stays with her family for a while. It must be scary to know somepony who doesn't like you knows where you live." Blossomforth found that idea kinda scary.

"She doesn't have any family. Her parents died too." Thunderlane said.

"I'm sorry." She looked at the ground.

"It doesn't matter. We're all pegasi without parents. Flitter, Derpy, Fluttershy, Cloudchaser..." Thunderlane said.

"And us." Blossomforth added.

The word us sounded weird. Both Thunderlane and Blossomforth tought that.

"Wait a minute." Blossomforth said and disappeared in the group of ponies.

Thunderlane waited and got them something to drink.

Rumble woke up from a sound downstairs.

It was almost three AM. Cloudchaser could be impossibly awake.

He got up and peeked into her bedroom.

The light was still while Cloudchaser was sleeping with her head on the book she was reading.

"Cloudhcaser. Cloudchaser! Wake up."

She turned around.

"Huh? Oh, Rumble, what are you doing here?" She looked around.

"Did I really felt asleep reding?"

"Shh! I heard something downstairs." Rumble whispered.

As silent as possible they flew downstairs. After checking the living room and kitchen they opened the door to the basement.

"Somepony was here." Rumble said in awe.

The little window was open, just small enough for one pony, and the big bookcase was moved, revealing a painting of a beautiful mare.

"Yup. Any notes?" Cloudchaser looked around.

Rumble shook his head.

"Lend me a hoof. We got to push this bookcase back in place." Cloudchaser started pushing.

"Sure. That's a beautiful painting by the way."

"It's from my mom." Cloudchaser said when she pushed the bookcase back in front of the painting.

"Your mom?" Rumble looked at Cloudchaser.

He cloudn't remember he ever saw her.

"Yes. The potrait of my dat got stolen. That's why I hide this one behind the bookcase.

Rumble nodded.

He wished he had a photo of his parents, but he was too young when they died to remember them.

Thunderlane said their dad was a very kind pony and their mother was mentally very strong.

"But somepony was really here!" Rumble said.

The whole screw-you-notes-thingy was getting creepy.

"It was probably just a thief. No note right?" Cloudchaser closed the window.

"We should get back to sleep."

The next morning Cloudchaser was already up when Rumble got into the kitchen.

"Hey sleepyhead. Breakfeast is already served." Cloudchaser said.

Rumble sat down next to the round table they held their weekly talks at.

"I have something for you." Cloudchaserf stood up and came back with a book with a red cover.

"This book is amazing. It's one of the best written mystery novels I've read in years. You should try it."

"Really?" Rumble got the book and opened it. It was quite heavy and had a lot of pages.

"Yeah. Take it with you. I'll get you back home."

They flew back to Thunderlane and Rumble's house.

I really wonder what his date was like, Rumble wondered.

Oh right. That was the reason behind all this.

Rumble almost forgot.

Thunderlane opened the door.

"And, was your date fun?" Cloudchaser asked.

"No." Thunderlane said a little grumpy. "She just disappeared after a few hours."

They all stared a him for a second when Cloudchaser started laughing really hard.

"Ahahahahahaha! She j-just LEFT you? Ahahha! That's a good one. You must've been really boring!"

Cloudchaser drew tha attention of some other ponies in the street.

Thunderlane didn't saw the fun of it and got Rumble inside and closed the door.

Rumble was smart enough not to ask anymore.

The next days he concentrated on the presentation he needed to do with Scootaloo. They chose commander Hurricane as subject.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had their presentations first. They told about general Firefly and the Wonderbolts, while Diamond Tiara was complaining that it woyuld make her presentation about Spitfire lesas intesting.

The director of Manehattan high school visited with something about art and economics, two subjects Rumble absolutely DIDN'T wanted to get a job in.

Rumble and Scootaloo had to go on Friday so they gatheres some pictures from the library and wrote the tekst they wanted to tell.

Dinky and Twist used magic to holt the pictures while talking. Some arth ponies complained bit Cheerilee said it wouldn't give extra points.

"Shoudl we go to your house this time?" Rumble said to Scootaloo.

"Why?"

"Because we're always going to my house and I've never been there before." Rumble answered.

"No. It's fine now right?" She said.

"Sure, but why not?" Rumble shrugged.

"Because I say so." Scootaloo then shouted.

Rumble dropped his bag on the kictchen table and got his lunchbox and the homework out.

Today Cheerilee talked about math's.

He envied Featherwight for being so good at it that he always got the work done before the end of the day.

Featherweight said he might wanted to go to Manhattan for economics.

Rumble gulped. The unknown blue pony left him a note now too!

Keep your little head out of this or you'll regret it.

You know who.

No he didn't knew who. He'd loved to know tough.

P.S. If you tell anypony, I know where to find you.

Cloudchaser and Thunderlane sat around the round table in Cloudchasers kitchen.

"NOT YOU. What does that mean?" Thunderlane asked.

She shrugged.

"At least they don't want to kill me." Cloudchaser got a little smile but they both didn't find it funny.

"But why didn't the police got a record of the first screw you?"

"Probably because of a mistake made there." Cloudchaser said.

They don't want to get Cloudchaser, but they delivered the notes at her adress.

The bell rang and the last invited pony came in.

They looked up.

"Flitter!"

Blossonmforth could hit herself. Leaving Thunderlane there was so stupid.

Stupidstupidstupid.

Now he never wanted to go out with her again.

Blossomforth sighed.

Rumble slept bad that night. He kept thinking about the little note.

This was not funny anymore. The police didn't record anything, he changed his coat to avoid getting recognized.

Rumble cried.

He tought of what was on the backside of the note.

P.S. It's not about that Cloudchaser. I want Flitter.

And he couldn't say anything to his brother either. There was no way he could warn them.

They kept searching for somepony who would want to scare Cloudchaser, but it wasn't about her.

He heard something outside.

"Who's there?" he whispered.

Rumble got out of bed and slowly walked to the window.

A pebble hit the glass. And another one.

Rumble took a deep breath and opened the window.

The next pebble hit his head.

He looked down. It was Scootaloo.

"Ouch! What did you do that for?" he said.

It was no scary pony luckily. But what would she be doing at his house at night?

He flew down.

"What the heck are you doing here? It's the middle of the night!" she said angry, but not too loud.

"Can you help me?" she asked.

Rumble frowned. Why would she ask him?

"It's important."

"And why are you asking me?" he looked at his classmate, who didn't seem top notice how cold it was outside.

"Can you put this letter in the mailbox to Cloudsdale?" she gave him an envelope.

There was one mailbox in the center of Ponyville where all mail adressed to somewhere in Couldsdale went. It was on a cloud a few metres abowe the ground.

"Now?!" he said in awe.

"Yes. It's important." she said.

"Can't you do that yourself, or ask one of your friends?"

"No. They're not pegasi." Scootaloo said angry.

"Ask your parents." Rumble began to lose his patience.

"They can't either."

"Then do it yourself if it's so important. But don't wake me up in the middle of the night for this kind of thing." Rumble shouted.

He had just about enough of this. First that stupid note telling him what the real problem was but forbade to tell, then the fact he tought Scootaloo was a creepy guy and he slept bad.

Just because he was forced to do the school projects with her, didn't mean they were friends. In fact, they had agruments like that all the time and they, at least Rumble, couldn't wait to get somepony else as school project partner.

"I can't!" she shouted.

"You can't what?!" Rumble said.

"I can't fly!" Scootaloo answered.

The argument felt silent.

They both looked around if they didn't wake anypony up with their shouting.

"That's why I'm asking you." she said calmer.

Scootaloo couldn't fly.

That was why she always has her scooter around. Why she felt that first day. Why they called her a chicken.

"Oh..." Rumble didn't knew what to say.

He felt really bad if he ignored her, knowing she couldn't fly. Wasn't that the worst thing to happen to a pegasus?

"Can you help me? Please?" Scootaloo spoke more quiet now.

He actually never heard her say please.

"Ok. I'll do it. But why at night? It's frickin cold." he took the envelope.

"Because nopony should know of this letter."

That went above Rumbles imagination. Now Scootaloo had a weird secret too.

"Fine. I'll be back soon."

He flew to town hall. Luckily Ponyville wasn't a scary town and he lived there long enough to find his way trough.

Just not think of creepypony. Just not think of creepypony.

Darn it. Now he did.

Rumble flew back to his house where Scootaloo was waiting.

"I posted it." he said.

"Thank you so much." she said and Rumble could hear how important it was to her.

When he was back in bed he wondered to who she sent it to. He told himself to ask her when he saw het at school again.

7: Between time

Flitter sat by the table and let her friends explain. The weird pony was after her.

Somehow she wasn't afraid of him, as if she knew all along it was about her.

Thunderlane said she'd better stay at Cloudchasers house, so he wouldn't come to her house.

Cloudchaser then said sarcastic that if she stayed at her house he knew exactly where to find her.

Flitter sighed and as she expected they started to shout and curse about what to do.

She let them. It was indeed them to decide her choices.

Rumble didn't knew he wasn't going to school for a while.

He caught a real bad fever causing him to stay in bed.

It was also causing him to think endlessly about the notes he wasn't allowed to tell his brother about.

Thunderlane now had two ponies to worry about. His brother and Flitter.

He argued all night long with Cloudchaser, but the only conclusion they could find was that the weird guy wasn't after her, but after Flitter. He only didn't knew where she lived, so he sent the notes to Cloudchasers house, which was the meeting point of the group.

They still didn't knew why, but maybe they didn't even wanted to know that.

He doubted if he should tell Rumble about it, but he then told himself it was better for his brother not to know.

He would only worry about Flitter, and he was already sick.

Cloudchaser visited Thunderlane and asked about Rumble.

He still had the fever and laid in bed whole days.

"Shouldn't we go to the doctor with him?" Thunderlane asked.

"Is that really a question Thunderlane? Of course we'll go to the doctor if he keeps that fever." Cloudchaser sat down on a chair.

"No, I mean now. Before it get's worse."

Cloudchaser tought about that for a while.

"You're right. Maybe I can get the doctor to visit us. Then we don't have to carry Rumble all the way trough town." she imagined what Flitter would say about that.

"Besides all this negativeness, got anything nice to tell me?" Cloudchaser asked.

"Actually, not really." Thunderlane sat on the chair opposite Cloudchaser.

"What about Blossomforth?"

He didn't knew what to answer to that. He hadn't seen her scince their failed date.

"I... I didn't speak to her after, well..."

"Oh, alright. I didn't either. I wonder why she left so immediately." Cloudchaser got them something to drink.

Thunderlane shrugged. " I don't know either.

"It must have been important. She isn't the type of pony to leave others alone." Cloudchaser said.

Thunderlane said nothing.

"I'm sorry." she then said. "I shouldn't have lauged at you. It was just stupid." she looked at the floor.

"It's ok. It probably sounded very funny. Being left by your date." Thunderlane laughed a little.

He only hoped that date wasn't the last.

The doctor visited that afternoon. Both Cloudchaser and Flitter were at Thunderlanes house.

He listened to Rumble's breath and heartbeat and advised Thunderlane to keep Rumble in bed and give him antibiotics because he might had a wing infection.

Thunderlane thanked the docter and let him out. Cloudchaser then immediately went to the pharmacy to get antibiotics.

"Flitter?" Rumble asked.

"Yes, I got something to drink for you." she gave him some orange juice.

"What did the doctor say?"

"You might have a wing infection and Cloudchaser is now getting medicine for you." Flitter said.

"He also said you should stay in bed for a while."

"Can you tell my friends then , that I won't be at school very soon?" Rumble asked.

Flitter nodded.

"What do they look like?"

"Uhm... Featherwight is white and very skinny. He usually carries a camera around because he does something for the school paper. Pip and Twist are with him. They're white too." Rumble tought of his friends, who would probably wonder where he was.

"Sure. I will tell them." Flitter said before she left.

Rumble didn't knew if it was day or night, if he was asleep or not.

Everything was just a mass of unrealistic things and toughts.

He once tought Thunderlane told him his grandmother was there to visit, but that was a dream and when he asked the real Thunderlane he told him his grandmother didn't visit beacuase his granfather was in hospital.

But maybe that wasn't a dream. Maybe the dream Thunderlane was the real one and the Thunderlane who said she didn't visit was a dream one. Rumble didn;t knew.

He tought about Flitter too. There had to be a way to tell her that she had too look out.

Once in a while she visited him and Rumble tried to make sure she wasn't a dream by asking questions the dream-her couldn't answer.

That way, he made sure she wasn't gone.

Sometimes he heard his brother and Cloudchaser shouting at eachother about things he couldn't hear very good.

He only knew it was about him and the fact one of them wondered if an infection could make a pony this sick and why the medicine weren't working.

For Rumble it didn't matter. He still had the fever, real bad headaches and felt like the world was spinning around.

"This is ridiculous." Thunderlane said while pacing through the room.

"Nopony is sick this long." Flitter said. "Are you sure it's just an infection?"

"I don't know. But soon it's nightmare night and has has been sick for I-don't-know-how-long." Cloudchaser answered.

"Yes and you don't want to go to the hospital." Thunderlane said.

"No! We aren't going to the hospital." she agreed.

"But he's sick, and what if it's really somthing real bad." Thunderlane shouted.

"It is not, and it going to the hispital only makes it worse." Cloudchaser said.

"Aren't hospitals supposed to heal ponies?" Flitter asked.

"Yes they are, but it's corrupted. They won't help us."

"But it's about Rumble, not about us." Flitter said.

"You too?! You started telling about corruption. Remember that doctor?" Cloudchaser said, still pacing.

"Yeah, sure." Thunderlane said huff.

"And what did he look like?" Cloudchaser stood still.

"Uhm... Tall, dark purple, stallion, Pegasus, stethoscope cutie mark, light blue mane and tail... I forgor his eye colour." Flitter said.

"How the heck did you remember that?" Thunderlane frowned.

"Pecisely. Pegasus. He is corrupted." Cloudchaser said.

"Please, We could always go to the Ponyville hospital and we can't let Rumble stay in bed like this." Flitter said.

Thunderlane nodded immediately.

"And why would she corrupt everypony for us, send Flitter notes. We're just three of the so many pegasi and we don't even live in Cloudsdale."

Flitter looked nervously at her two friends and waited for Cloudchasers answer.

"Because we don't understand the choises of the mayor."

A few weeks later Thunderlane woke his brother up.

"Rumble, your friends are here."

Going to the hospital didn't help. Cloudchaser was right, which was very painful to admit to her. He could never wipe her grin from his mind.

He still had to thank Flitter for helping make up between him and Blossomforth. Blossomforth apologised for leaving. It really relieved him.

Rumble was sitting in bed when Featherweight, Pip, Twist and Scootaloo walked up the stairs.

"Hey Rumble! We brought you a basket of fruit." Pip said.

"Yeah. And I have to carry it." Scootaloo said sarcastic.

"Thanks." Rumble said.

"You totally missed nightmare night." Featherweight said. "Miss Cheerilee was dressed up as a ghost, with chains and all. It looked really cool."

"Nightmare night? Is it already Nightmare night?" Rumble asked.

"Yeah, You've been out for real long." Scootaloo said.

Rumble smiled. He was really happy his friends visited.

"I forgot my camera, otherwise I would show you."

"What were you wearing?" Rumble asked.

"I was a cowboy, Featherweight was a royal guard, Twist was Daring Do and Scootaloo was a Shadowbolt." Pip said.

"Dinky was mare do well, Sweetie Belle was princess Platinum, Diamond Tiara was some sort of queen too. You should have seen her face when Sweetie Belle appeared in the princess Platinum cape her sister wore in Canterlot." Twist said.

"She must have been jealous." Rumble said.

He really hoped Diamond Tiara wasn't picking on Sweetie belle for that.

They told about the visit of a school director from Trottingham and Vanhoover and that they weren't impressed.

They had a math test and almost the whole class got an E, except Featherweight and Archer.

Scootaloo did the presentation about Commander Hurricane herself and got a B.

Then they told a story about the visit of Discord, the former choas king. He was with a yellow mare and he showed them some magic.

Miss Cheerilee once sent Diamond Tiara home for misbehaving and everypony then was talking about her dad's reaction.

When they left, Rumble felt asleep with a smile.

Thunderlane and Blossomforth sat in the cantine of the Weather patrol.

"So are you really searching for another job?" he asked.

"I'd like to do something more administrational. I don't know why, but I'm getting really tired of kicking clouds."

"Alright." Thunderlane answered.

"How is Rumble doing?" Blossomforth said.

"Not very good. He's still at home with the fever."

"Oh..." Blossomforth looked down. "And the notes?"

"Flitter's still getting them, and we can't go to the police, because they aren't really a threat."

"Stupid pony. Do you know why? It's just ridiculous." Blossomforth said.

"No. It's all unknown."

"Maybe I can help. I know somepony working at Cloudsdale's town hall. He's one if the imortant guys there " Blossomforth suggested.

"What would he do then? It's clear he changed his coat colour and all." Thunderlane said.

"No, but how weird it might sound, If you paint over a cutie mark, the mayor can see it and thus tell who could be that guy."

Thunderlane frowned. "And you think sompony as important as the mayor of Cloudsdale would have time for us?"

"I know how stipid it sounds, but I can always try, and we can't let Flitter live like this." she said and looked Thunderlane in his eyes.

"Alright." Thunderlane said "By the way, would you like to do something this saturday?"

"I'm sorry." Rumble heard a voice say.

"I't's my fault you're sick now. You caught a cold and that turned into this."

He tried his best to recognize the voice. Flitter? No, Flitter had a real soft voice.

Rumble tried to wake up.

The voice was too high to be his brother.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

The pony didn't hear him.

"I should have asked somepony else, we don't even know eachother that well."

"Who are you?" Rumble tried again.

"You're waking up, good."

"Scootaloo?" Rumble opened his eyes and saw he face of the orange filly.

"What are you still doing here?"

"Still? It's been two weeks scince we brought you that fruit." she frowned.

"Two weeks?" Rumble lost the sense of time.

"Yeah, do you remember that?" she asked.

Rumble nodded.

"Are Featherweight and Pip here too?"

"No, I'm alone. I wanted to say sorry for that letter. It was way too cold and now you're in bed all the time." Scootaloo said.

"Why aren't you going to the hospital anyway?"

"I don't know. My brother and Cloudchser decided that." Rumble shrugged.

"That's just mean. So they rather have you have the fever?" Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.

"I guess." Rumble said.

When Scootaloo left that was the only thing he tought about. He should have gone to the hospital, instead, they just let him be sick.

He reminded himself to ask them whenever they visited him.

"Wake up! You need to hear this." Scootaloo almost pushed Rumble out of his bed.

"What? Wake up..." he said.

"And be quiet. Your brother is asleep."

Rumble shook his head and looked at Scootaloo who was standing next to his bed.

"Thunderlane?"

"Yes. He's asleep and we don't want to wake him up."

Rumble stared at hear, not really knowing what she meant.

"It's night." Scootaloo pointed at the clock. 2AM.

"What the heck are you doing here then? I's cold."

"That's why I'm here. Now listen." Scootaloo told about the hospital and that she searched up something about the fever.

"And I know why your brother and those mares aren't taking you to the hospital. I heard them say s..."

Rumble interrupted her. "You spied on my brother?!"

"Shhh! Okay, maybe I did, but it wasn't spying, I just wanted to know why you weren't going to the hospital, and I could imagine you wanting to know that too." Scootaloo explained.

"That's still spying actually." Rumble said "Wait, how do you even got in my room?"

"I can't fly, but I can climb in the tree just under your window. Do you want to know what they said or not?"

"Yes." he answered. He wanted to know really, really badly.

"They were talking about a pony they just referred to as 'her' and she corrupted the doctors or something. They said something about notes and that mare who looks girly."

Rumble raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I don't know what their names are, but you have your brother, that mare with the spiked hair and the girly one. They said there was something about notes adressed to the girly one."

"Really?!" Rumble got up. So they figured it out themselves? Now he didn't have to tell them.

"Be quiet." she said. "What's with them anyway? Your borther is always with those two."

"They're friends." Rumble didn't knew actually when his brother met them , but he grew up with Cloudchaser and Flitter as his foalsitters.

"I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. They were going on about it forever."

Other subject. Rumble didn't wanted to talk with Scootaloo about the notes.

"Did they really said they were afraid of corrupted doctors?" he asked.

Scootaloo nodded.

"Oh, before I leave, I found this taped under your desk at school." she gave him and envelope before she jumped out the window.

For Rumble. Don't open. was written on it.

Its the handwriting of the weird pony! Rumble realised.

With his heart beating twice as fast he opened it.

Keep out of this if you're smart.

I warn you. This is not a game.

Don't tell your brother, Cloudchaser, Flitter or Blossomforth. I'm watching you all.

I know where to find you.

8: On a cold, stormy night

NonononoNO!

This couldn't be! The weird pony found him again.

Before Rumble knew it he felt out of his bed.

"Scootaloo..." he whispered.

He wanted her to come back.

To ask if she saw anything, to tell somepony about the weird notes, after all, she wasn't Cloudchaser, Flitter, Thunderlane or Blossomforth.

But above all, he didn't wanted to be alone.

With his beadspread still wrapped around his wings he reached the window.

"Scootaloo!" he opened it and an cold wind blew in his face.

"Scootaloo!" he shouted. "Are you still there?"

Rumble leaned forward.

"Are you still here?"

He saw the shadow of a small pony walking.

"Please come back!" he shouted again.

Before he knew it he leaned forward too much and felt out of the window.

"Aaaah!" he screamed when he felt trough the tree next his window.

Rumble looked around.

Luckily nothing hurt. He couldn't believe he was so stupid to just fall out of his window.

That was just so stupid.

"Scootaloo?" he said quietly.

There could be any kind of pony out at night.

Maybe a stranger with candy they warned for at school.

Maybe a killer like in a book.

Maybe the strange guy from the notes.

The guy from the notes! Rumble gasped.

He could be here. He could be a killer.

His killer. A voice said in his head.

Rumble screamed and tried to fly up, but he was still wrapped in his bedspread.

Oh please Celestia. Don't let him see me here! Nopony would hear me scream.

Rumble knew his brother was in the living room on the other side of the house with Cloudchaser.

They could take that guy. Cloudchaser was strong too.

Stupid bedspread!

When Rumble was finally done he heard hoofsteps around the corner of the house.

It's him! flashed trough his mind. The weird pony is going to get you!

Go trough the window! he said to himself.

No, you won't make it. You have a wing infection.

He hid under his bedspread when he realised everypony would question a light blue and black bedspread under a tree at night.

Somepony lifted the edge.

Please Celestia, pleaase! Rumble said to himself.

The weird guy pulled the bedspread.

Blossomforth sat in her living room.

A party for myself, she tought.

She was asked for an application for the job of administration pony.

She always wanted that kind of job. Blossomforth was always good at maths and planning things.

It was always better then cloudkicking. She didn't knew why, but somehow she couldn't do it. Maybe she wasn't strong enough.

She even went to the gym to workout, but it didn't help. She never got the strength Cloudchaser had.

A party alone is not as much fun as a party with friends.

Blossomforth sighed.

But it would be really stupid to go to your friends house at 10 o clock in the evening and ask if they were having a party.

Plus, Rumble was sick and then it's kind of mean to have a party without him.

Blossomforth hoped he would be better soon.

"Whoa! What's gotten into you?" Scootaloo said when she found Rumble shivering under the tree.

He looked up and sighed.

"It looks like you've just seen a ghost." she pointed at his face.

"No no, I'm just happy I haven't seen one." he said.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.

"I tought you were a ghost." Rumble said. "But luckily you aren't."

"No, I hope I'm not a ghost too." she said. "But what are you doing outside here anyways?"

"With this." she picked up the beadspread.

"I ehm... I felt out my window." Rumble said a little awkward.

"You did what?! How can you even fall out of a window?" she asked a little loud.

"I was stuck in that." he pointed at the blue fabric "An my vestibular isn't working that well I guess."

"I guess." she answered.

"I wanted to ask you something about that envelope. Did you see anypony tape it under there?"

Scootaloo shook her head. "Nope. I dropped a pen and I found it there."

"Alright. Did you have any idea what it meant?"

She shook her head again. "But that don't open made me curious as hell."

"Do you want to know?" Rumble said a little hesitating.

Scootaloo nodded. Of course she did.

"It was a threat. He said he was going to get me if I told one of the big ponies and that I'd better stay out of this." Rumble whispered the last words so sof she almost couldn't hear.

"But I'm already in it."

"A threat? To you? Who would want to threaten you?" she whispered back. Rumble was like one of the most harmless pegasi out there.

"I don't know. But a weird guy also threatens the mare with the tittle bow in her hair. And my brother and the other mare try to find him but they don;t want to go to the police and they don;t want me to go to the hospital and..." he almost cried.

"Somepony is threatening all of you and they aren't asking for any help from the mayor or anything? Why the heck would they do that?" Scootaloo frowned.

"You said yourself they were corrupt." Rumble answered.

She nodded. She indeed said that.

"Why would they think that?" Rumble continued.

Scootaloo shrugged. "I don't know."

"Why did you came back?" he asked.

"Well, I heard you scream." Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "If you hear somepony scream you're gonna help them right?"

Rumble nodded. "I should get back up and you should go home."

He grabbed his bedspread and flew up. It was quite hard, but he was safe in his room again.

Scootaloo ran away and hoped he wouldn't follow her.

"Are you sure Flitter is ok?" Thunderlane asked.

Cloudchaser nodded. "He won't come to my house and by the way, she's asleep now. Unlike us, she never liked staying up late."

"Yeah you're right. But I still have the feeling we shouldn't let her." he said.

"Come on, Flitter can take care of herself for a while. Do you have some more wine?" Cloudchaser replied. "What could go wrong?"

A lot. But they both didn't wanted to think about that.

"Did you hear that too?" Cloudchaser asked then.

"What?"

"Upstairs. I heard something upstairs." she pointed at the ceiling.

"I'll take a look." When she flew upstairs she saw Rumble laying on the floor of his bedroom.

"Did you fall out of your bed?" she asked.

Rumble didn't answer.

Cloudchaser got Rumble back in bed and got another bedspread.

"What happend to your wings?" They were ruffled and a darker blue.

"I.. I don't know." Rumble whispered, hoping she wouldn't ask more.

"Don't worry, We'll get some more antibiotics." While Thunderlane stayed with Rumble she flew down and got the medicine.

"Here you go. Do they hurt?" she handed Rumble a glass of water.

"No, not really." he said.

"How many are left?" Thunderlane asked, pointing at the package with medicine Cloudchaser was holding.

"Seven."

"But we had 11 yesterday." he said.

"And?" Cloudchaser raised an eyebrow. "Let's go back downstairs. Rumble needs to sleep."

"If you say so." Thunderlane answered.

Flitter couldn't sleep. She just sat on the bed, watching the sky.

The other pegasi made it storm like crazy.

She wondered what thunderclouds feel like.

She asked her friends and they said they felt not as soft as white ones, more like they had a coat of little pieces of steel.

Flitter couldn't imagine it, altough the description was very clear. The only way to know was to get up there and actually touch a thundercloud. Only she couldn't imagine what a white one was like either.

Maybe she could...

Nono. That would be the most stupid thing to do.

It was really cold. Did Cloudchaser leave a window open or something?

Flitter felt she froze. She sighed and closed the only open window upstairs.

It was still cold. Then that cold was coming from the kitchen or living room.

She went downstairs and realised too late there was another pony in the house.

Rumble walked on the street. Thunderlane sent him to the library to return a book.

"Hey Rumble!" A pony shouted. It was pip.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Returning this book." Rumble answered.

"Oh, and now you're here. The next lessons will be about genetics, so you and Scootaloo have to write down in a few scentences what genetics are."

"That isn't so difficult." He already had genetics when he lived in Cloudcsdale.

"Where does Scootaloo live?"

Pip tought about that for a while.

"She never told me, but I heard her say to one of her friends she lives in the area behind the spa."

"Thank you. I gotta go." Rumble said. Before the library closed.

Rumble flew to the library where the princess was sorting books.

"You want to return this one?" she asked.

"Yes princess." Rumble smiled.

"Oh, you don't have to call me that. The whole town calls me just Twilight."

"That's alright ehm.. Twilight."

She wrote something down on a paper. "Do you want to take another one with you?"

"No, thank you." Rumble said. He still had to read the book Cloudchaser gave him.

"Bye then"

"Bye!" Rumble said.

He went to Cloudchasers house. He then noticed how late it was.

Whe he met Pip it was still light and now it was really dark outside.

Did he really spent that much time in the library? He only handed a book to the princess.

To Twilight.

Where did all the ponies went? It was awkwardly silent out.

Too late then to visit Scootaloo to tell hger she didn't have to write that thing about genetics.

Suddenly he stopped. Cloudchasers door was broken.

There was a crack going trough it from the top left and a hole on the bottom. The doorhandle laid in the flowerpot under the window.

Why would Cloudchaser break her door? Rumble tought while walking back to his house. He didn't even knew why he was doing that.

Why would Flitter break Cloudchasers door? Or Blossomforth. Or his brother.

Rumble paced through his bedroom.

Far away he heard flitter scream.

Rumble sat in his bed. It was just a dream. It was just a dream, he kept saying.

Nopony broke Cloudchasers door and Flitter didn't scream.

The next school project isn't about genetics and I didn't hand in that b..

His eye felt on the nightstand. When Cloudchaser gave him the antibiotics, it laid on the nightstand!

Rumble searched the foor, but the book wasn't there.

He looked outside. Still dark, still stormy.

Then he remembered what Pip and Featherwight said.

"Cheerilee told us our skin resembles that of our parents." Pip said.

"I have the same skin and hair type as my mom." Featherweight told him.

Then Rumble interrupted them and asked to talk about something else.

He wondered what colours his mom and dad were.

Pip and Featherweight were talking about genetics! It wasn't a dream!

Or... were Pip and Featherweight a dream too?

No, they were real. And the book was real, and the door and...

Flitter!

The flew down as fast as he could, which was not that fast, his wings still hurt.

The last poart of the stairs he even felt down.

"Rumble? What the heck are you doing here?" Cloudchaser said as she opened the door to the living room.

"Flitter.." he wanted to say, but they didn't hear him.

"Outside. Flitter. Pony."

"We'll take you upstairs and stay with you." she said.

"No! Outside! OUTSIDE!" Rumble screamed.

"Flitter!"

"Flitter is safe at my house." Cloudchaser hushed.

"No! Your door. I was there. Pony."

Thunderlane dropped his glass of wine and helped Cloudchaser dragging a screaming Rumble upstairs.

"Oustide! The book. The book. It's gone!" Rumble kept saying when they put him back in bed.

"Rumble, you're delirious. There's nothing." Thunderlane said.

"Where is the book? The book." Rumble pointed at the nightstand.

"It's fine. We have taken it downstairs." Cloudchaser said.

Not that they did, but just to calm Rumble down.

They could Always search up that book later. And there was nothing wrong right?

9: After

Flitter's head hurt and she couldn't open her eyes.

She tried to move and tried to flap her wings.

Literally everything hurt. She felt the wooden floor of Cloudchasers house when she moved a little.

Come on, get out of here. You have to! she repeated to herself.

She suddenly remembered a glass falling on the ground and jus dórange splatting all over the floor.

Cloudchasers floor had to be a huge mess now. She was not going to like that, not at all.

But would probably be too drunk to even notice. Flitter always hated that Thunderlane and Cloudchaser were so fond of wine.

It always ended up with her cleaning up the mess. What a bad rolemodels for Rumble.

Rumble!

Of couse it couldn't be true, but she tought she remembered she saw him.

Before her head shattered in a thousand pieces.

"You idiot!" Cloudchaser almost hit Thunderlane in his face. "You couldn't think about Rumble..."

"I did, you kept saying Flitter would be all right." he shouted.

"Keep Flitter out of this. We should have known it from the beginning."

"You wanted that doctor." Thunderlane said.

"But you wanted the hospital, that is even worse."

"That wouldn't matter, whatever we did we enden up this way. Who could even know that first doctor would already be corrupted?" Cloudchaser defended herself.

"And now we have to get Rumble off the antibiotics." she added.

"Hey, now don't tell all of us what to do like you always do. You screwed this up right?" Thundrlane frowned.

"Nice choice of words. Screwed up. Don't you think?" Cloudchaser pushed Thunderlane back.

"What are you insulting? You didn't think of this! It was Blossomforth who tought of all of this!" Thunderlane pointed at Blossomforth, who was sitting at the couchwit a sleepy Rumble, watching Thunderlane and Cloudchaser fight. As usual with a lot of pushing and cursing, and at night, after they had wine, it was even worse.

"And yes indeed, you screwed it up. So now let me fix this!" He pushed Cloudchaser who gritted her teeth.

"But I am the one who came up with the corrupted thingie. If it were for you, we'd be at the hospital and everything would be even more screwed up. I should decide what to do know."

"Please stop." Rumble whispered. 'It's my health, shouldn't it be fair if I decided what to do now?"

They both stopped arguing, ashamed of totally ignoring the pony the were actually arguing about.

"Blossomforth? Are you crazy? It's the middle of the night, 3 AM. Why aren't you home?" Cloudchaser said when she opened Thunderlane's door.

"I should ask you that." Blossomforth responded, while trying not to mind the fact Cloudchaser clearly drunk too much wine.

"But its important, and maybe it's good you're here too. I have to talk to Thunderlane. It's about Rumble."

Then she explained nopony ever has a fever that long, and that there had to be something wrong with the antibiotics. And yes, that it was weird to visit at night, but that she felt she had to help Rumble.

And they belived her. It was only too bad they started fighting as soon as she told Thunderlane the story too.

And now she sat on the couch with Rumble, hoping they would stop being so stupid and wondering about Flitter.

"What would you want us to do then Rumble?" asked Thunderlane.

"Go to Cloudchasers house." he said.

"That has nothing to do with you. Something else?" Cloudchaser frowned.

"No please. Go to your house. Please."

Thunderlane sighed.

"Maybe we should go, just to make him calm down." he whispered in Cloudchasers ear.

"Fine. We'll go tomorrow. Now you need to go to bed and don't take any medicine." she said.

"No, go now. I know it's stupid, but I think theres something wrong." he begged.

Cloudchaser tried not to roll her eyes.

"Fine. Thunderlane will go and I get you to bed."

Without even noticing herself, it was again her who made the decisions of what to do next.

Thunderlane flew to Cloudchasers house. It would be better if she went herself, but he didn't felt like fighting more.

They could always do that another time.

It was also nice that Blossomforth wanted to go with him because she had to go home anyway.

He tried to suggest they could get Flitter and all sleep over at his house but she refused.

Blossomforth sighed.

"How did Rumble even came up with the idea of sending us in the middle of the night to Cloudchasers house?"

Thunderlane didn't answer.

"Like, this is a really lame idea."

He nodded, well it seemed like he did.

Thunderlane knocked the door. Somewhere he felt guilty for waking up Flitter at 3 AM.

"Flitter! Flitter?" he asked.

"Seriously? She's asleep, not like she's sitting in front of this door at night." Blossomforth said.

"We should go to the bedroom window and see if she's there. We don't even have to wake her up."

"Fine." Thunderlane answered and flew to the window on the other side of the house.

"She's not there!" Thunderlane gasped.

Maybe that silly brother was right.

No of course not. That she wasn't here at this moment didn't had to mean anything.

Maybe she just went to the bathroom or wanted something to drink, everypony did that once in a while, well he didn't but she could right?

"Right?"

"No not right." Blossomforth said a little angry. "Flitter is clearly not sleeping and that's weird."

She tried to open the window.

"Lend me a hoof please, we need to get this thing open scince you didn't bring a key." She said clearly annoyed.

Together they broke the little lock and flew trough the house.

"I'll check upstairs. You go down." Blossomforth said.

Thunderlane flew downstairs. Where could Flitter be at this hour?

He heard something in the kitchen.

"Blossomforth... Can you come downstairs?" He said softly. What if that creepy guy was here?

"What's the matter? Are you scared?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No of course not." Actually he was, but Blossomforth didn't need to know that. "But maybe it's that creep and we can catch him with the two of us."

Blossomforth nodded. Maybe she was a bit scared now, but she wasn't going to let him know that.

"Flitter!" Thunderlane gasped when they walked around the corner.

Flitter laid on the floor with her eyes closed. Behind her laid what was once a vase but now shatterd in a lot of pieces.

"She hit her head. We need to get her back to my house."

As in a dream Blossomforth helped carrying Flitter. Back at his house, Cloudchaser immediately looked at the back of her head.

She went back to her own house and kept repeating to herself that this had to be a dream.

She heard voices, very familiar ones tough, but they scared her.

It was like they got into her head and kept flying around there.

Just like the voices at...

Don't think of them. Not those voices.

She put them back somewhere in her mind.

"Flitter... Flitter..." They kept saying.

No, leave me alone, she wanted to say, but it didn;t work. They asked again and again.

"Flitter, can you hear me? Please say something." a little voice said.

Flitter opened one eye, which lead to a lot of reactions from the others.

"Yes..." she whispered, but nopony seemed to her.

She looked around a little and saw she was laying on the bed in Thunderlanes guest room.

He, his brother and Cloudchaser were staring down at her.

"Ate you alright?"

"Does your head hurt?"

"What happend?"

She sighed.

"I went down and then Somepony was there. I couldn't see.

And the nex second, I laid on the floor."

Something like that.

Anyways, close enough.

"Can you believe what happend?" Pip asked.

"No, It's just... Unbelievable? No, That isn't the right word either." Twist answered.

"What do you think Rumble?" Featherweight pushed Rumble a little.

"Rumble? Rumble!" he waved his hoof in front of Rumbles face.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." Rumble said.

"Come on Rumble, do you have one of those ghost moments again?" Pip said.

Rumble didn't answer.

It was weeks ago, and his mind kept telling him it wasn't good to keep thinking of it. He should just move on. But the sight of Flitter, with pieces of glass in her hair on the floor downstairs followed him everywhere. And he always imagined what happend if his brother and Blossomforth didn't find her.

And then is mind made the most horrible scenes of what would happen then. And then he would just stare, like he had to think of that a million times again.

His friends called it ghost moments, because Dinky once said he looked like he was searching ghosts when he was like that.

Dinky.

"I think it's so sad for Dinky things went this way." Twist said.

"But maybe it's alright, he didn't seem that bad. I heard he's from canterlot." Pip replied.

The bell rang and they went inside the school where Cheerilee started to write Dinky's name in big red on the blackboard.

"I know you heard a lot about Dinky and I'm going to clearify it now, so please just listen," she said and asked for silence, but it took 10 minutes to get everypony quiet.

"Right, as you might have seen, Dinky is not in class today, and I sadly announce she will never be in this class again. As you might know, her mom, Ditzy Doo..."

"DERPY!" Somepony shouted. Half the class laughed.

"Stargaze! It's not nice to call her that. Let me continue." Cheerilee walked to his desk.

"But it's true miss, her eyes are all.." One of the guys tried to roll his eyes.

"Yes they are, but that doesn't make her Derpy. Now be quiet, I really want so say this." Cheerilee wrote Ditzy Doo under Dinky on the blackboard.

"Dinky and her mom are moving away."

"Because Derp.. uh, Ditzy is with another guy right?" Silver Spoon asked.

Cheerilee didn't answer.

"Hehe, she's speechless." Pip whispered.

Twist grinned.

The rest of the day Cheerilee had a hard time to keep the shouting down. Everyone seemed to have complot-like theories of why Dinky was gone.

Some of them even included aliens and the weird creatures Lyra, a crazy pony was so mad about.

Rumble sighed and stared outside, like he was having a ghost moment.

Stupid Scootaloo.

Now Rumble had to wait for her to get out school because Cleerilee wanted her to stay in class 'for a while'

It was almost an hour now and it rained like a waterfall.

Stupid Scootaloo.

Like, it was really unnecessary to fight Stargaze during break. She could knew she wasn't going to win, and even if she did, she was always the one to get blamed.

Somewhere it was quite sad that she was always the one to stay with Cheerilee after class and write an extra essay, but she was the one to start fighting everythime.

It was a wonder those friends from her, the Cutiemark club-thing didn't got scared like he did.

Of course Rumble would never admit he was scared (scared of a filly, Stargaze and friends would kill him) but when she walked up on him he always checked everything he did to make sure there was nothing she could be angry at.

But after new years day he woud get another foal to be his partner-in-projects. He hoped it was going to be Pip or Featherweight.

Or Twist. Or Dinky, well, before she left.

Finally. Scootaloo walked out of the school building.

"Ha Rumble! You know you look pretty funny with your hair wet?" she grinned.

Rumble decided to totally ignore that.

"I've waited almost an hour in this rain? Could'nt you hurry up or something? It's the fifth time in two weeks."

"It's not my fault Cheerilee always picks the side of the other."

"Maybe that's because you always start." He said.

"I don't start!"she shouted, and for one moment Rumble tought she was going to fight him.

"How would you feel if they always called you names and told you you're a chicken? That they rip off wheels from your scooter and then laugh if you fall?"

Rumble didn;t knew what to say. He knew Diamond Tiara was mean, but like this?

"What would you do if they told you it didn't matter if your wings felt off because they were useless anyway?" She pushed Rumble's wing.

"I... don't know?" Rumble stepped back.

"Yeah, nopony knows! They all say it isn't that bad." she pushed Rumbles other wing.

"And you don't know either. Because you're a Cloudsdale pegasus and you have always flown. And if they ever said that to you, you would just run away right?"

"No! And right now you're not much nicer!"

Rumble stepped back again and almost felt back into the bushes.

"I would.."

Yeah, what would he do? He never tought of that. How would it feel to be flightless?

"You don't know. I said so." Scootaloo said with a 'Haha-I-Won face'

"Now could we please get going? We have both wet hair now."

Rumble nodded and not to upset her more, he decided to walk back to his house instead of flying.

10

Present Time

She laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. Just like she did when she was young.

She remembered all the questions, still, after the years. But mostly she remembered the last night.

Her dad told the story of the heroes of ancient times, Private Pansy and Commander Hurricane. They were always her favourites for some reason.

She asked her dad to tell the sory of the death of the Commander, the last chapter of the stories of ancient times because after that, Pansy just disappeared. Ironically, it was his last ever. Like he disappeared with Pansy and ended with the story.

She remembered how he told the sky had no limits. And how she imagined flying for forever with The Other. How he told her that she had strong wings. And that she promised him to be strong. Because of The Other. And Her, the mare with the laurel.

By then, she had no idea of what the mare with the laurel could do. Now she knew.

She remembered how she wondered that that night. And how she had to find out that night.

Her dad went downstairs and the doorbell rang. Not long after that mom stood in her room with The Other and opened the window.

She told them to fly and don't wait. Of course mom wanted to say more. Fly, don;t wait, stay together, live and of course be strong. Always be strong.

And then she remembered they flew, surrounded by stars in the sky that has been told to have no limits for what felt like forever. Until their wings hurt and couldn't see trough the dark because the fire behind them was too far away.

Until the sun came up and they realised it was just them. Them against everypony else. Them against the world.

But they kept flying. Because they were together.

She had no idea where to fly to, neither did The Other. They just flew to the only place she knew was also against Her.

There, they got told more about Her and what happend.

Luckily she knew all the questions and the learned them to The Other.

She never told The Other because it was about her.

She got the bed where she was right now, where she started wondering and never stopped wondering:

Is there a world where I can love you?

.

Around 20 years ago

It wasn't fair.

She turned around and threw her pillow away.

Everypony in class had friends to visit their house and they all said it was fun.

Her mom and dad always got mad when she asked that.

It was her first year she went to school and she wanted to have fun too.

On your own it can be fun too, but after a while it will get boring.

Her favourite game was hide and seek.

Quite difficult to play alone, but she made up some extra rules.

Search for the best place to hide and then wait for mommy or daddy to come.

As little filly, she could reach every place in the house except what was behind the wooden door in the kitchen.

Mommy said there was nothing behind it but she once saw daddy open it anyway.

She stared at the ceiling when mommy got upstairs,

"Are you still awake dear?" she asked.

"Yes." she whispered.

"Shhh. There's nothing to worry about." mommy hushed.

Yes there was. There was so much to worry about.

It wan't fair.

Around 10 years ago

She laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling.

Dad just left.

Every evening he would read her a story and after that she asked him questions.

The same every day and the same answers every day. It was like a game.

She started out with asking the old questions. Starting by the first one. After hearing all the answers she added another question and he answered. She never forgot the order of the questions. That would be a mistake. And you couldn't make a mistake, one was enough to blow everything.

That was question 126 by the way.

She loved the game. It made her believe she was strong. That was another thing he repeated. Be strong.

She had to be the strong one. Swallow your fears. Don't show anything. Put on the show. Number 15.

Years ago she questioned what was behind the big door in the kitchen.

Not a year after that she knew.

With the opening of the door the insecurities and fears started.

But it was worth it. It was worth it.

Oo, she was so naïve and excited when the door opened.

What she saw went beyond her imagination. It wasn't a portal to another world or a monster.

It was her house, mirrored. The same kitchen, the same table. Even the same flowers in a vase.

But the most attention drew her counterpart. A little replica of herself.

She was astonished and just gasped.

That's where the rules began. Don't talk. Avoid others. Just act. Don't be. Never talk at the same time.

At first she didn't understood, but later she learned why, thanks to the game.

It was because of Her. The mare with the laurel.

She turned around and listened to her dad downstairs opening the front door.