Chapter 1: A New Day
Yawning the pale red and orange Earth pony named Malon woke up to start on her daily chores. Her Starts off with waking up bright and early "check" she mentally thought, feed the animals and make breakfast for herself and her father. While she was eating breakfast after she finished finishing her chores, she looked out the window towards the town up on the hill thinking how much she'd love to go there and meet new ponies instead of being stuck alone working all the time. Smiling to herself an idea popped into her head.
"I don't think father will mind if I leave for a few hours to the town and I'll be back before sunset so there shouldn't be any worry for him." She thought to herself. When she got up and checked if her father was asleep, which he was, she quietly trotted off out of the ranch, her home, towards the town taking her cart. She turned her head over her shoulder feeling slightly regretful for leaving without telling her father.
Some hours later as Malon was happily exploring the city for the first few hours looking at the different stalls and buying some trinkets, she walked into an alley way hoping to find something interesting, which she did. She heard a harsh, loud voice talking just around the bend. Quirking her eyebrow and perking up her ears she decided, out of curiosity of course, to innocently listen, thinking it may not be anything important and just local gossip.
"...And all I have to do is lure the Princess into my trap then BAM! I'll be the new Princess since I'm her personal guard and make these scums called 'commoners' be my personal slaves and clean up this disgusting town." A dark brown and black Unicorn Mare said to herself as she was focused on writing down her plans with a smirk on her muzzle whilst sitting on the steps outside of a large building.
When Malon heard of this she quickly wanted to get out of there, when she turned to leave, she slightly stumbled on a stone and bumped a trash can making it 'clang' in the usually quiet alley way.
"Who goes there?! show yourself this instant!" the woman yelled angrily as she stood up lighting up her horn making it glow a dangerous red and making her way towards where Malon was currently hiding. Frightened, Malon made a run for it but accidentally revealing herself to the Unicorn.
"Ah there you are, running wont help you dirt pony!" she yelled as she started chasing after the frightened Earth Mare.
Quickly turning a corner, she accidentally ran into a young dark blue and black pegasi colt with a crippled wing cleaning the cobbled floor, before the colt could rudely resort, Malon shoved her hoof in his muzzle and hid behind a nearby trash bin watching the royal guard storm pass without noticing the two young ponies. With a sigh, Malon turned to the boy and apologized.
"I'm really sorry for bumping into you just now, hope I didn't hurt you in any way!?" she sheepishly asked as she looked him over for any injury to the crippled pegasi.
The colt smiled kindly after while spitting out the bits of dirt on his muzzle and replied "its alright, I'm used to it...oh and call me Ash". He said as he and Malon hoof bumped.
"Oh that's a relief and please call me Malon" she smiled back at Ash, not noticing is slight blush that brushed his cheeks.
Ash looked down and coughing awkwardly to hid his blush before asking that she seemed to be in a bit of a dilemma with the freaky Unicorn, which Malon later found out she's a high royal guard named Cassandra after Ash told her about.
"You know" he said as he kicked at a stone "I'm not really busy at the moment, I could help you get away from here" smiling cheekily "I know all the secret passage ways around this old town since I've been grounded". He flexed his crippled wing to show the Mare.
Happily accepting his help Malon was about to follow Ash when she suddenly remembered what she heard Cassandra had said "I'm not going to leave just yet, that Cassandra lady is planning an assassination on the Princess!" she frantically said to Ash.
Shocked at what he heard, he asks what she could do about this problem, seeing as he had no idea how to help with this.
"Simple" she smiled at him "we'll just have to keep a close eye on her and find evidence that we can show the Princess before she tries anything" she said proudly to Ash, already making plans on how to foil Cassandras plans in her mind.
Hesitantly, Ash agrees to help, but he cant help but feel something will go wrong with this plan Malon has yet to say.
Chapter 2: Bitter Endings
Making their way around the streets, Making sure they kept well hidden, they looked around for Cassandra. While they were looking, Malon Looked up at the building she saw Cassandra sit outside of earlier, hoping to find just a glimpse of her in the windows as they would be able to quickly find her without wondering the streets all day. Ash could feel Malon was starting to get tired from searching and decided to venture into the building which turned out to be where the guards and knights stayed.
"We'll be sure to find her room somewhere here; all we have to do is pretend we're servants and say we had to clean her room as she asked". Feeling proud of his plan, he gently nudged Malon to follow him as he made his way into the far side of the castle with Malon behind him.
Looking around the rooms for what felt like hours of searching, they heard a familiar voice in one of the rooms across the hall.
"Now that I have everything planned out, all I have to do is ask the Princess for an afternoon tea out in the garden and slip in the poison I've crafted into her tea and right before she dies in my waiting hooves, she'll make me the new princess. When the guards came to find what happened, I'll just say she had a heart attack and she entrusted me with her crown and kingdom...perfect". Smiling smugly, she made her way out of her room, not noticing two pairs of eyes watching on her every move and made her way out towards the gardens to set out her plan.
Malon and Ash looked at each other nervously at what they heard and quickly ran into her room and closing the door.
"OK...we need to look for notes, pictures or anything that has to do with this assassination, got it?" Malon asked Ash quietly, which he nodded his head and went straight to looking.
Within minutes Malon found a scroll in one of the draws in Cassandras desk, reading what was on there she excitedly turned to Ash "I found it! Now we need to quickly find the Princess Before she..."
"Ahem" Cassandra interrupted, standing at the door " ...I don't think so kiddies, no one will be going anywhere!"
Both Malon and Ash gasped in shock as they turned to find an angry Royal guard with her horn blazing. Quickly Malon grabbed the scroll in her mouth and looked over at Ash silently pleading for help, thinking quickly Ash sadly looked at Malon, possibly for the last time and roughly shoved her towards the door, Knocking a surprised Cassandra out of the way.
"Malon I'll keep her distracted, you need to get the scroll to the Queen immediately! I don't know how long I'll be able to hold her off" Yelled Ash as he kept his eyes on Cassandra as she started to angrily walk towards them. Malon looked sadly at Ash, feeling it'll be their last time and swiftly lent up to kiss him on the cheek and made a run for it down the hall without looking back with tears in her eyes.
For only a few seconds Ash stood there in shock, blushing slightly but quickly shook his head and fully faced Cassandra. Looking for a weapon Cassandra tackled him by surprise and raised her head with her horn blazing, forming a sword shaped light. Looking up at her, he knew there wasn't any hope for him. Smiling sadly to himself thinking of his short but wonderful time with the beautiful Earth mare, his eyes widened as he suddenly felt a jolt of pain run through his body gasping for air before everything went black.
"One down, one to go".
