And the Quest for the Really Important Thing
Fireworks? On Hearts and Hooves Day?
No, my ears do not deceive me. I'm trotting through the busy streets of Cloudsdale, cleverly disguised as a Weather Factory employee, and I nearly spit my bit and blow the whole thing because a firework goes off right above my head. These ponies' lives are apparently more depressing than a Lemony Snigger book, if they think Hearts and Hooves Day calls for celebratory fireworks. Talk about boring.
My life, on the other hand, is the epitome of every young pony's dreams. Adventure! Excitement! Danger! Crying over a typewriter at three in the morning because I can't figure out the right adjective to describe the stench of Ahuizotl's breath!
Unholy. That's what I finally went with. Though rancid and disgustingly reminiscent of strawberries were also strong contenders.
Anyway, the point is that I am quite happy with my life, thank you, and the fact that I am sneaking into a city to get a box of candy does not mean I wish I had a special somepony to shower me with sweets. To the contrary, I would much rather wade through the infestation of mushy-gushy heart decorations, fight through the throngs of brain-addled lovebirds, and endure the grueling task of deflecting the cashier's nosy intrusions into my love life than think of the fact that I'll be stuffing my face with sugar, alone, because all my love interests either get eaten or get away before I get a second date.
Wait, no. I meant that I'd rather spend time buying candy once a year than have to waste my life with boring stuff like movies and flowers and feelings. That's what I meant. Not whatever it is I just thought. Where's an editor when you need one?
Like a veritable temple of dreams, my destination appears on the horizon, painted in the burning golds and scarletts of the setting sun. I trot a bit faster; even in the middle of the dinnertime rush, when all of the couples should be thoroughly lost in each other's eyes over plates of Rosepetal Alfredo at Pierre's Overpriced Pansy Pasta or whatever, the three-story Sugar Cloud Confectionery is buzzing with activity.
I push the door open and slip inside, firmly tugging my safety hat down over my grey mane. The yellow brim cuts off the upper half of my vision, but it's a small price to pay for inconspicuousness. Besides, I've got this route committed to memory, both from careful planning and years of successful operations. Well, mostly successful operations...
I shake my head. No time for that now. Now is the time to cautiously advance across the shiny, polished foyer, humming softly under my breath. Average ponies do that, right? Then, avoiding the pale blue hooves observing the chocolate-dipped daisies, I skirt around the edge of the ground-floor cafe, vaguely reminded of that one cave system underneath the Razdon Sanctum. True, I was avoiding venomous alligators instead of sugar-hyped fillies and colts, but it's the same idea.
Up the staircase that wraps around the inner wall of the rotunda. Past the warm, nutty aroma of the praline department. Dodge the freshly-hooficured yellow legs. Shake head at the salesmare offering a sample. Back staircase, identified. Almost there, now. Ascend. Turn left. Potential bystanders? Survey area, negative.
I push the hat back, opening up my field of view. A few stray hairs escape, but it's not a big deal; I need to be able to see the object I've been pursuing, the goal of my quest. That's important.
It'll be a box, slightly larger than the hardbound copies of my books, wrapped in thin, silvery paper that catches the light and turns it into rainbows, shimmering across the untarnished surface. I'll open the container gently, or maybe frantically, revealing the small candies within. Rainbow truffles.
It's true that most of the treasures I hunt are ancient relics, remnants of the splendor of centuries past. Some empires achieve power, and leave behind crumbling cities and collapsing towers. Other dynasties devote themselves to the high arts, "The Classics," which the academic elite fawn over whilst bemoaning the deterioration of modern artistry.
The academic elite have never had a rainbow truffle. That's all I'm gonna say about that, because I try not to make a habit of waxing poetic while working.
I can almost taste the victory in the air as I round the final corner, the candy-stocked shelves falling away to reveal a relatively undecorated stretch of wall. To my right is empty space— a crystalline, cloud-spun balustrade the only thing separating me from the sugar-brothel two floors below. Directly in front of me, artfully arranged on an ivory tablecloth, is... NOTHING?
Please no, I'll write my dissertation for Dr. Caballeron all over again, just not this.
~The Previous Year~<<<
The cheerful lights of the Sugar Cloud Confectionery glow merrily, casting the store in a warm, inviting light. Outside, the nighttime sky watches over the few pegasi bold enough to venture into the early spring air. I only vaguely notice these things, however, because I'm wondering if my extremely specific set of skills is sufficient to get away with murder.
The victim-to-be is a seafoam-blue mare wearing a track suit: startlingly white mane, about my age, athletic build, with purple sunglasses that hide her eyes from view. She didn't even remove them when she crashed into me on her way to the stairs, sending my red spectacles flying across the cafe.
"Sorry, lady!" she had shouted over her shoulder, not even slowing down as she disappeared into the second level. I'm left to retrieve my glasses from the ice cream sundae they've fallen into, alone. Who even eats sundaes this late at night?
"Holy hay! You're A.K. Yearling!" the owner of the sundae exclaims, brandishing his spoon at me. Pink ice cream splatters all over my disguise. "I love your books! Will you sign my book? Or my wing? I don't have a pen, but you could use chocolate syrup?"
Crap. Ponies are beginning to murmur, more and more faces turning towards the commotion.
"Sorry kid, just an impersonator," I say, grabbing his hoof and shoving his spoon into his mouth. And then I'm gone, running up the stairs as fast as I can without losing my jacket and hat.
The second floor is in utter chaos. Half of the merchandise is on the ground, granulated sugar sinking into the dense cloudstuff, and the other half is scattered across the shelves in complete disarray. A few of the employees are frantically trying to clean up, but I see at least three of them staring in abject horror at the... back staircase, where I spot a flash of seafoam-blue. Track Suit Mare.
I spring into the air, abandoning my alter identity as I spread my wings and soar over the sugary wreckage, the purple cape fluttering down onto an unsuspecting employee. I twist in midair, plant my hooves against a mostly-empty shelf, and push off towards the staircase. Stretch and dive. Avoid sugar-spun chandelier. Arch back. Allow front hooves to touch down on caramel apple display. Let momentum carry. Backflip and push off. Bid farewell to glasses. Land. Grab candy-cloud novelty hat. Put on in self-satisfied fashion. Pause for dramatic effect...
Remember task at hand and yelp. Postpone awesomeness— resume chase.
Ignoring the employees' protests (you really aren't supposed to fly indoors), I zoom up the stairwell to the third floor: Sanctum of the Holy Rainbow Truffles. Track Suit Mare immediately stands out; she's tearing through the aisles one by one, obviously looking for something. There's only one delicacy tasty enough to warrant such drastic search tactics.
And unlike her, I know where they are.
I dash over to the display table, skidding to a halt just to have Track Suit Mare barrel into me, apparently finished with her destructive dissection of the room. We roll away from the table in a tangled mess of feathers and shiny-soft, blue-track-suit-wearing limbs. I wish I could wear pretty colors. No! Focus!
"Those truffles are mine, civilian," I grunt, trying to get to my hooves. "The fate, ugh, of Equestria depends on it!"
Track Suit Mare slips and falls, her white tail caught in my shirt buttons. "Who're you calling civilian, lady? I'm on —rrrrg— official R.E.A. business."
Oh. Blue track suit, athletic physique, overly fond of sunglasses— it all makes sense. She's one of those fliers, that stunt team... with the posters, and the... flying and... stuff. Whatever. You know the ones I'm talking about. I grapple with her, muttering through gritted teeth, "Big...deal! Those truffles... keep me going... I... need them!"
She snaps her wings out suddenly and flaps, pulling her tail free of my shirt and removing a button or three while she's at it. And then it's a race to see who can get to the table first. She may be a professional flier, but I'm not still alive today without reason; you don't get through booby-trapped ruins with namby-pamby wingpower.
It doesn't matter. I fly as hard as I can, harder than the time I was trapped in a rapidly-filling well with no way out but up, and it doesn't matter. I barely register Track Suit Mare's gasp, so lost am I in the chasm of sorrow that rises up and consumes me, because there are no more truffles.
Here's the thing about rainbow truffles. Cloudsdale's Weather Factory makes them, one week a year, specifically for Hearts and Hooves Day. The Sugar Cloud Confectionery is the only shop licensed to distribute them, and they're normally so expensive that I'd have to sell a Ring of Scorchero on the black market to afford a box. (Which I have, admittedly, done before.)
But on the evening of Hearts and Hooves Day, the Factory sends out the final shipment of truffles to the Confectionery, which puts them on sale because they're not a super-popular item, and most of the holiday rush is already over, anyway. So there's a one, maybe two-hour window in which I can afford to buy three or four boxes- enough to set me up for the whole year.
I've been at this long enough to know that I need to get at least one box. Those candies are the highlight of my year; my book sales figures are guaranteed to take a hit if I don't get to partake of the polychromatic deliciousness. Years where I go without are just worse. I make more mistakes, have more boring near-death experiences, and forget how to properly use conjunctions. I mean, who wants to read a long, run-on sentence describing how I nearly died of liver failure because I switched brands of acetaminophen and accidentally took four times the recommended dose?
Nopony, that's who.
So understand that when I say I'm drowning in despair, I am quite nearly struggling for breath. But then, just like water rolls off of waxed parchment, the panic falls away, unable to seep past my layer of awesome. Don't be a wimp, there's a way to fix this. There's always a way out. You just have to look.
"UGH!" Track Suit Mare kicks the table, hard, and the cloudstuff just eats her hoof. She tries to tug it out, in vain. "I was so close! So close! Stupid candies and stupid Misty Fly and stupid—"
I opt to ignore her, instead peeking over the railing and scanning the cafe floor below. Ponies mill about, a cluster of them heading out into the night air. Nope, nope, nothing, nope, "AHA!"
"What is it?" the mare asks, immediately ceasing her lamentations. I point down into the lobby, and she pulls free of the table without a second glance.
"White stallion with the blue mane, heading towards the door. Brown paper Confectionery bag in his teeth." We both watch as he meanders on past a lamp, unaware of our gazes. Something in the bag captures the light for the briefest of moments, reflecting it back in a shimmering rainbow before he disappears from view.
"Tar-get acquired!" Track Suit Mare half-sings, half-sneers. She promptly vaults over the railing, tucking her wings in and slicing through the air silently, descending upon the stallion like a vengeful angel of truffle retribution...
Now is not the time for vaguely-romantic similes, dammit! I launch myself over the railing after her, quickly reaching the ground floor and snapping my wings out a moment before colliding with the table.
I am not a stunt flier.
But I am blessed with moments of accidental badassery.
Instead of soaring a hair's width over the heads of the amazed cafe-goers, I hit a table— too hard. My momentum brings me to my knees and the (mercifully empty) table to the ground, snapping the legs and sending the useless little tea candle flying. The round tabletop skids for a short distance and stops, but I do not. Oh no.
I wind up cartwheeling through the air, getting three full rotations in before gravity pulls me back down to another table. Unfortunately, this still leaves me upside down, so I have no choice but to attempt a one-legged hoofspring, which actually works, praise be to Celestia! I begin to leap from surface to surface, only stepping in a mocha once, before I hit the final table. It apparently has a wobbly leg, and I land too far off-center. It crashes to the floor.
But it turns as it falls, and the end result involves me hurtling towards the front door on a slowly-rotating tabletop, my mane whipping in the wind while clouds of sugar burn in the background. Hey, little tea candles are good for something!
Somepony had the good sense to leave the front door open as they fled to safety, so I sail unhindered into the chilly air, grim determination plastered on my features. If you look like you know what you're doing, nopony's gonna bother you. Unless they're Rainbow Dash.
I spot Track Suit Mare zipping around a corner, not so far away, and the chase is on.
An hour and a half later, we're back where we started. Without the truffles.
"I don't get it," the other mare pants. I guess stunt fliers aren't trained for endurance. Or maybe they are; she stretches out her forelegs, drops her head, breathes deeply, and then perks back up. "We should've had him!"
"No kidding," I reply, massaging my temple. This should not have been hard. Mere circumstance had kept him from us, rather than any incompetence on our part. Track Suit had been right on his tail, about to pounce, and then a massive bouquet of roses came from literally nowhere and avalanched onto her head. A moment later, a blushing unicorn had stuck her head out the window and shouted apologies, but the damage was done.
Similar incidents followed. We lost him after some punk colts zoomed past in chariots, nearly mowing us over with their illegal street racing. We lost him in the crowd at the movie theater, where some film about the black and white color spectrum had just concluded, spilling dozens of couples onto the cloud streets. That reminds me, I need to contact my agent about possible copyright infringement; the whole many-shades-of-grey mane is my thing.
"I still think that was him by the air station."
"Then he'd be miles away by now! That guy boarded a balloon a good forty minutes ago," I snap.
"So let's go!" Her raspy voice is impatient and demanding, offering no compromise, no alternative. ~~I love it~~ Two can play at that game.
"We should have a plan, at least. You take the air and do a quick perimeter around the city; I'll retrace his path to the station. At the rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a trail of rose petals leading right to him."
"Yes, Spitfire," the mare groans. Then she's in the air and gone, leaving the faint smell of spring in her wake. I rub my hooves together. Time to get down to business.
While there was nothing so conspicuous as a trail of flower petals, I did find an ID card near the ticket booth, along with a crumpled straw wrapper. Examination of the card revealed it to be standard issue for the Canterlot guard, and yep, that's him in the picture. We managed to confirm that he's on his way to Canterlot: the ticket master required a bit of persuading, but after thirty seconds of a professional flier speed-flapping her wings in his face (while I held his eyelids open,) he relented, and gave us access to the customer registry. A wise decision on his part, considering that a chronic case of dry eyes can result in permanent damage.
The stallion with the truffles, Stalwart Steadfast (dear Celestia, people, let me name your kids if that's the best you can do), is estimated to arrive in Canterlot in an hour.
What I'm trying to figure out is why we're sneaking through the darkened halls of the Wonderbolt Academy, instead of undermining Canterlot's infrastructure and rigging it to explode if we aren't handed the truffles.
Track Suit Mare eases a door open, and we slip into what appears to be the Commandant's office. She jabs her hoof at the desk and I nod; whatever it is we're after, it's in a drawer. Stealth extraction of an important item? This is right up my alley.
I leap through the air, smoothly somersaulting over the desk and landing neatly behind it with a soft thud. My companion is crossing the floor with painstakingly-placed hoofsteps: one to the left, another a bit to the right, one that turns her around completely, so that I'm staring at her mane as it glistens in the moonlight, and then the idiot is backed up against the desk. Instead of jumping over it, she folds in half, backwards, and scoots across the surface, shoving paperwork and statuary every which way.
"What are you doing?" I hiss.
"Watch and learn," she smirks, rolling over onto her stomach (there goes a plaque signed by the Princess) and reaching down to fiddle with a drawer. It slides open silently, revealing thirty pairs of sunglasses and a few photographs, as well as a softly glowing key card that gets snatched up by a seafoam-blue hoof. I briefly see a group of pegasi, smiling at the camera, laughing, before the drawer closes.
What is this melancholic emotion thing, and why does it think now is an acceptable time to creep in on my consciousness, reminding me of how awesome it was to be able to share a successful adventure with other ponies, even if only for a single quest? No, think about Tarzipan. And that jerk that stole my share of the treasure and left me for dead. Idiot.
The stunt flier stands in front of the desk now, rummaging in her saddlebags. She pulls out a bottle of perfume and bites down on the round mister, dousing the desk in the strong scent of rosemary and vanilla. O-kay? Maybe this is part of some weird military ritual; I have no clue. I silently trod to the door, noticing too late that she's stashed the perfume bottle away, and is frantically beckoning me back.
I spot the light under the door right as my hoof touches the only creaky board in the entire Academy.
CREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK.
The light rapidly grows brighter, accompanied by increasingly loud hoofsteps. On instinct, I reach out and lock the office door, then spring off of the traitorous board and hover above the desk. Stunt Flier curses under her breath.
"Bucking Whiplash is on duty tonight, of course he is, and the moron can't stay off one floorboard, BUCK ME." The doorknob rattles.
"Hey, Major Asshole, think we might wanna make an escape?" Something jingles in the hallway, followed by the scraping of key in lock. Without waiting for a response, I throw up the window sash, grab the track-suited ninny, and leap into the open air. The door bangs open a second later.
For the briefest of moments, we're falling through near-darkness, pale clouds surrounding our intertwined limbs like ghosts. But then I let go of her and open my wings —pegasus, duh— and we soar away from the Academy, one step closer to Stalwart Steadfast.
"So if we're going to get to Canterlot on time, we need to get into Wonderbolts Headquarters," Track Suit Mare mutters to me as we trot back through the streets of Cloudsdale.
"Are we stealing some super-powered military transport?" The conspiracy theorists were right! I think for a moment, before she shakes her head.
"We need to get to the inner research facility. I was in there once, to test these new fire-trailing horseshoes, and they've got all sorts of stuff hidden away. We're going after the secret passage."
Okay, hold on a minute. Secret passageways and tunnels are my area of expertise— it's my job to know about them, find them, and dramatically run down them with a suitably grim expression. I know, thanks to my years of field experience, that you can't hide a passage to Canterlot in a floating city.
Unless it goes through the rainbow waterfalls. But those are at the borders of the metropolis, and we're approaching the very center. Apparently the Headquarters we're breaking into is in...
"There!" She points at a massive, pyramidal structure suspended in the middle of the Business District. "The Tetrahedron!"
Cloudsdale's Royal Outpost revolves slowly before us, polished cloud walls gently tapering down to point menacingly at the ground. A well-lit ramp winds around the outside, linking each of the seven levels in a looping, glittering spiral. At the top of the structure, above us, the Tetrahedron's angles are clearly defined: the three walls butting right up against each other, but the corners gradually smooth into a rounded prism the farther down I look. Roamanesque pillars mark every entrance. I notice a few guards patrolling near the middle floors, garbed in Wonderbolt Blue. That must be where Headquarters is.
"The roof of the building is a landing strip. The top floor has the Embassy, so it's locked up tight. Buuuuut—" Stunt Flier reaches into her saddlebags and pulls out the softly-glowing key card. She waves it in my face. "—we have Alpha-level access!" The card gets zippered into a silky blue pocket. She looks over at me, a single eyebrow raised above her purple shades. Those have got to be SuperGlued to her face. "Ready?"
"Damn straight," I smirk, and then we're both twisting through the air, piercing through the shadows in a race to get to the roof. Flap. Stretch hooves forward. Flare and angle. Skim over surface of wall. Brush feathers—so soft—against opponent's wingtips. Twist and flap. Final stretch. Earn it.
It's a tie.
The ~~stolen~~ borrowed key card turns the stormcloud door into mist with a soft shushing noise, granting us entrance to the heavy quiet of the hallways. We find a staircase with relative ease, and for a time the world is nothing but the steady beat of feathers as we circle down the stairwell. A beige-y blur of faintly-lit cloudstuff, flashes of blue-green and white, the smell of vanilla lingering in the air, with hints of lavender and bergamot just barely reaching my nose...
But then we open the door labeled "R.E.A. R&D," and come face-to-face with a stern, peachy-colored guardsmare seated behind a desk. Buck.
"D'you have a hall pass?" she slurs, eyes slightly unfocused. I catch a whiff of Fire Cider on her breath, an excellent (if potent) brew.
"Uh," my companion says. What a brilliant individual. I slap on a winning smile and step forward, resting a hoof on the desk.
"Of course we do—" Scan for name badge. Military ponies always have one. "—Apricot Haze." I jerk my head at Track Suit Mare, who immediately pulls out the key card and hands it to the tipsy guard.
Apricot Haze squints at the card, then looks back up at us, frowning. She points at the tiny picture of the fiery Wonderbolt Captain. "Which one'a you is her?" Buck. Thinkthinkthink.
"Er, I am. This is my assistant... Soarin!" I finish smugly, right as 'Soarin' says, "Me. I'm taking, uh, Berry Trotter here down to R&D."
Berry Trotter? I glare at Stunt Flier, who indignantly mouths Soarin? back at me. Hey, not everyone spends their fillyhood drooling over glorified celebrity dance teams. I'm proud I even knew that name! There aren't exactly an abundance of show posters in the Tenochtitlan Basin.
But mistaking me for an imaginary, adolescent student at Starswirl's Academy of Magic? Does she live under a rock? The guardsmare is frowning now, reaching for her walkie-talkie, because three year old fillies know who Berry Trotter is, and he looks NOTHING LIKE DARING DO.
"Sorry about this," I say, and then I somersault onto the desk, stomp the walkie talkie into smithereens, and toss the half-empty bottle of Fire Cider out the window. Apricot dives after it with a wail. I have to bite Stunt Flier's tail, because she nearly leaps after it, too!
"That thhhtupid mare thtill had the key card! I'M THO FIRED!" she shrieks,—or should I say thrieks, heh—still scrambling for the window. "Thpitfire ith gonna kill me!"
"Hafff hrr envite ee t'the funr'll." I grunt, through a mouthful of hair.
I drag her into the next room, where she calms down enough to realize that we're not exactly in a position to mourn her career/well-being. I spit out her tail, and then we're running, weaving through shadowed offices and dim hallways. She takes point; I have no idea where we're going, only that I can hear shouting in the distance. This is obviously a great opportunity for conversation.
"Berry Trotter? Really?" I yell.
"Kiss my flank! You called me a flying cupcake," she shouts back, turning a corner and flying down another stairwell.
"At least Soarin is real!" We burst into an empty laboratory.
"He totally dyes his mane! And come on," she yells, glancing back at me, "you look like you just got out of a costume party!"
"Because I'm Daring Do! This is how I always dress!" She doesn't even bat an eye. Or maybe she does; she still hasn't taken her shades off and I'm following the back of her head.
"Delighted to meet you," she drawls in her raspy voice, pausing to kick a set of double doors open before taking off again. "Sergeant Fleetfoot, at your service. Reigning champion of the Derby, fastest 'Bolt on the performance squadron, blah blah, probably gonna be demoted if we don't get those truffles." She groans and lands, trotting off her momentum. "Here we go."
We're in a small chamber with extremely dense walls. Turquoise and magenta light dances across the surface, flowing from a large, flat crystal embedded in the center of the floor. I can practically see the magic radiating from it.
"That's the secret passageway?"
Fleetfoot (it's so weird that she has a name) struts over to the crystalline gem and raps it with a hoof. Her horseshoe clinks softly against the surface, oddly muffled. "Yeah. I mean, it's more like a stored teleportation spell, but it deposits you wherever the other crystal is, so it's a fixed path. What's important is that it'll take us to Canterlot Castle."
I shrug nonchalantly, meandering over to stand beside her. The gemstone really isn't that different from one I stumbled across while searching for the Sapphire Stone, and the fact that it's inside a closet, in the middle of Cloudsdale, speaks volumes about its safety rating. "That's really all that matter-RACEYA!" I pounce on the crystal, and her sputtering face disappears into dozens and dozens of stars...
Everything tingles, and then I'm rolling to my hooves in a vaguely scholastic-looking tower room. Bookshelves line the round walls, and a quick scan reveals a notable lack of an attractive, tan-and-greyscale mare's adventures.
Stuck-up scholars.
With a magical hum, Fleetfoot flashes into existence, and promptly acquaints her face with the carpeted floor. I snigger.
"Nine-point-three out of ten," I call. "That little whimper at the end really sold me." She makes a rude gesture with her hoof, which I graciously ignore. "So it looks like we're in the School for Gifted Unicorns," I observe, moving to the window.
Fleetfoot's head snaps up, and she points an accusing hoof at me. "See! I knew you were Berry Trotter! How else would you know what the School looks like?"
I flare my wings to either side and give them a shake. "Do I look like a unicorn to you? Have you even read those books?"
"No," she murmurs, eyes fixed on... well... something behind me? I turn around, but there's nothing there but a few encyclopedias. She's getting to her feet when I turn back around, the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks. Could she have been looking at my— no. Definitely not.
All the same, my wings burn faintly from the imagined gaze. Um, how about no. I'm not interested in a special somepony. Especially not one as petulant and illiterate and attractive as Fleetfoot. Wait a minute.
She coughs, gesturing at the single, arched window. "Uh, shall we?"
"Yes!" I leap at the chance to disperse the awkwardness— straight out the window. In hindsight, taking the stairs would probably have worked just as well.
Ehh. Plus ten awesome points to me.
We slide down the domed roof of the School, narrowly avoiding a thousand-foot drop, and touch down on the outer battlements. Then it's just a matter of creeping past the occasional guard, zigzagging across the perimeter, until we're over the front gate. Canterlot's normally a restricted airspace: if you so much as flap your wings above the rooftops without an identification gem, you'll have thirty guardstallions on you in an instant.
Or so the fanfillies have tried to convince me, while not-so-subtly hinting at writing their characters into my next book.
"Psst!" Fleetfoot smacks me with her nicely-preened wing. Holding up Stalwart Steadfast's identification card, she taps the picture and then points into the mostly-empty street below, where a blue-maned stallion disappears around the corner. A rainbow shimmer flashes in the moonlight. I turn to Fleet, but she's already moving
She wraps her forelegs around me and dives off the wall, doing some fancy stunt flier thing where she rockets towards the ground and then pulls a barrel roll right before letting go. I'm sent flying sideways down the street, sailing after Stalwart like a bowling ball. Unfortunately, I still have inertia carrying me forward, and she winds up having to peel me off of the front of Pony Joe's Donuts a few moments later.
"Thanks," I grunt. She grimaces, turning her head to look back at her wing. It's crooked. I could probably coerce it back into place, but that would take time, and Fleetfoot's biting her bottom lip; we need to go. I've suffered worse, but she's a born flier— she needs her wings to live as much as I do. The Wonderbolts probably have doctors for this type of stuff. Just go.
I look around, then grab a nearby wagon and flip it, spilling flowers and shrubbery all over the street. I toss Fleetfoot into the bed—Thank you, Canterlot Decorating Committee—and stuff a few decent-sized hydrangeas in around her.
"Hand me those seats," she barks, pointing at the outdoor dining area. I oblige, and throw a small cafe table in for good measure.
Thirty seconds later, we're barreling down Azalea Street, Fleetfoot chucking velvet cushions at any guards unlucky enough to encounter us. The wooden wagon is proving to be deadly effective; with myself as the motor, and Fleetfoot managing navigation, ("Turn right NOW!") we've managed to plow through the better half of the city.
I'm still not sure how she sees through those sunglasses, but I frankly don't care anymore. It's upped our badass factor by at least seven.
We crash around a corner, nearly taking out a lamppost. Getting closer now. My wings flap eagerly, but it's my legs that benefit most from the surge of adrenaline. We've got to be almost upon him.
"There he is!" Fleetfoot screams. "CHARGE!"
Now, I'm not sure if it's the fact that we've been after this guy for nearly three hours, or that it's well past midnight and I'm drunk with exhaustion, or maybe just that I would like a damn truffle, please, but when Fleetfoot gives the order to charge, I obey like it's my Celestia-ordained duty. A battle cry rips itself from my lungs, thundering through the air like a glory-seeking hurricane, mighty in its terrifying power.
Time slows down, until I could fit an eternity in the spaces between each heartbeat.
Teamwork.
I got a taste of it with that Rainbow Dash filly. Two ponies, working at the same time to complete the same task— the most basic definition of the word. I even threw the concept into Ring of Destiny, it was so neat. But that was just brushing the surface of the word's meaning.
Now, propelling a rickety flower wagon through the (probably no longer) sleeping town, I understand what teamwork is, why everypony makes such a big deal out of that friendship thing.
Teamwork wasn't between us when we were racing through Cloudsdale, half-wondering if the other would grab the box and scram before we could protest.
It wasn't there in the captain pony's office, where we were too focused on the task at hoof to properly meld our tactics together. It was only with the impending approach of certain court-marshaling that a faint glimmer of teamwork appeared, that moment when I acted for us, and she trusted my decision.
Teamwork was there when the roles were reversed: she decided that I needed to be thrown, and I went along without a second thought, because I knew she held fulfilling our goal as the highest priority.
Teamwork is absolutely here as our wagon crests a small hill and begins to pick up speed. I'm flying now, about to jump into the wagon, and then Fleetfoot's tail is in my face.
Teamwork.
I bite her tail; she pulls me forward. I tumble into the wagon and sit up, analyzing the path before us. Analysis: Can't see worth a buck. Then the hydrangea's pulled off my head and tossed into the air. I pivot and buck.
Critical hit. Guard down.
We pass a bistro, and Fleetfoot surges out of the wagon. I finish sending a cushion flying at the next guard (reevaluation: seven guards remaining), and then snag her hoof and pull her back. She offers me the sunbrella clamped in her jaw, I take it. We push it open and wedge it over the front of the wagon. Plow through four more guards.
The remaining three are running now, calling for reinforcements and their mothers. They receive only hydrangeas; Fleetfoot turns to the side and tenses her good wing, allowing me to pull it back and launch houseplants of death from it like a slingshot. The guards fall, leaving a clear path to the elusive Stalwart Steadfast.
Good timing, too; we've officially run out of street.
Stalwart looks up as we approach, eyes widening in horror at the coming of his own personal apocalypse. The collision plasters him to the front of our sunbrella-plow, and Fleetfoot reaches out to help me lug his unresisting form into the wagon as we crash through the North Gate, hurtling towards the edge of the world.
I'm prepared to grab my truffles and my track-suited invalid and bail, when I realize that the stallion doesn't have the bag.
"AAAAUUUUUGGGGGHH!" I wrench the sunbrella pole with the strength of a thousand suns or some crap, who cares, and the pointy, fleur-de-lis finial digs into the ground, stopping the wagon with a concussive jerk.
I turn around with an angry snort. Fleetfoot has the stallion on his stomach, pinned— her hooves digging into the pressure points beneath his wings. He whimpers.
"Stalwart Steadfast," I growl, kicking a loose shrub to the side. "If you tell me that those rainbow truffles are lying, back there, ground into the mud," I lean down to his eye level and hiss, "I will personally grind your face into the dirt at the bottom of this cliff!"
He laughs nervously. "Oh, is— is that all? The, heh, the truffles? Of course -eep!- they're not!" Fleetfoot lets up on the pressure; I can see him wince. Encouraged, he continues eagerly, "I took those up to the palace! Y'know, where I work? It's a special job. Only the -heh- best guards get, uh, picked for truffle duty, but I, uh—"
"So you don't have the candy," Fleetfoot interrupts.
"No!" Steadfast squeaks.
Fleetfoot helps me drop our remaining small cafe table on him.
Teamwork!
"Nice job back there," Fleetfoot comments as we trot through the castle hallways. The guards are notably absent from their posts, likely attending to their injured comrades in the street. They fell in honorable combat.
"You were pretty sweet, yourself," I reply, glancing over at her. Her sunglasses, pristine as ever, still hide her eyes.
"That bit where you threatened him would have made Spitfire cry with joy. She'd probably promote you on the spot." She pokes her head into a room, scans it, and then pops back out.
"Is that what you want the truffles for?" Holy buck. I have no idea if this is some elaborate bribery attempt, or if Fleetfoot and I just share an intense love of spiced, fluffy, heavenly, delicio—
"Sort of." We reach a sweeping spiral staircase and begin the ascent. Fleetfoot sighs. "It's kind of lame. I'm only a Senior Airmare, okay? I'm a Wonderbolt, flying in the most famous squadron in the entire E.U.P., and I'm not even a Sergeant."
We pass by a window. It's still dark. "I mean, I don't mind being the lowest rank on the team; the press really only cares about Captain and Lieutenant, and I've always been more focused on flying anyway. Train hard, fly fast— all that. But Misty Fly was teasing me about it the other day, which wasn't a big deal, I just called her a flying gumdrop and the argument went from there like it usually does...
"But, like, it really got to me, right? And I knew we had our annual evaluations coming up, and there's a new squadron of Reserves that needs an overseeing officer. That's a job that a full-time Wonderbolt usually fills." Fleetfoot hangs her head. "When I went to ask Spitfire about it yesterday, she was in a bad mood because of bureaucracy or something, so she just flat out told me I'm a crappy team player and more self-centered than a new recruit."
I hazard a guess. "So... you're going to get the truffles for your captain and poison them?"
"That's the wortht part!" Fleetfoot wails, lisp returning with a vengeanth. "Thpitfire'th right!"
I can't resist. "Oh she ith?"
"YE-EH-EAAAAATHHH," she bawls, collapsing onto the stairs. Buck. My inner badass is waving red flags with the word "PANSY ALERT" on them, but the author part of me absently notices the graceful lines of her body, wracked with sobs but still strong, still athletic. It draws my attention to the scrunched-up wing quivering against her side. I spot the tell-tale mottling of bruises underneath her feathers, but she hasn't complained, not even once.
Well, I amend, recounting the neverending stream of griping about my lack of floorboard awareness, she hasn't moaned about the pain.
Even now, she's crying over her lack of team spirit, completely ignoring her damaged appendage. She's still tough, she just has to... uh... siphon off the excess emotion. Yeah.
In that case, screw the stairs; I have just as much to cry about as she does.
I sit down with a thump. Fleetfoot sniffs, looking up at me blearily. "Y'know what I mean?"
The floodgates open.
I tell her everything. About pouring my heart and soul into my research, nearly dying in that first cursed ruin, and then carefully typing out the experience, weaving a brilliant analysis of the defense mechanisms into one single, gloriously-composed essay. About my literature professor, Dr. Caballeron, raiding the temple I wrote about, and then garnering praise from a ripped-off version of my paper. And then giving me a C-minus on the assignment.
About Tarzipan, who followed me faithfully with a notepad and pen, until an infected scratch left him blind.
About Diamond Dust, who was all soft smiles and hard edges, with a raging desire for treasure burning underneath her coat.
I sputter to her about the long, painful process of learning to keep, to hold secrets and truths and everything real close to your heart, to hoard it away from the world and shun others because they'll be consumed by the secrets, eaten by the lies. And so all you have is loneliness, and you drown it out with the glittering dangers of a simpler, harsher world, where you have to go and go and you can't afford to focus on anything more than surviving long enough to get the item, and isn't it funny how I found time to notice all this? That's my special talent. Finding.
Dear Celestia, I must be tired if I'm talking about destiny.
"My my, what have we here?" The melodic voice of the Sol Aeterna interrupts my lamentation. I look up with puffy eyes, and realize that we're less than three feet from the top of the stairwell, where Princess Celestia currently stands. She peers down at us curiously.
Fleetfoot recovers first. "Hey, Your Highness! Sorry, uh, for the commotion. We were just after a box of rainbow truffles."
"Oh, is that what this is about?" She smiles. "There's been quite a ruckus all over the country, this evening. An unusual amount, even for a holiday like this."
"How strange," I reply, settling into false nonchalance.
"Indeed," she agrees, then nods her regal head towards the double doors behind her. "If you'd like to come with me, I imagine we can find a rainbow truffle or two. I do purchase a box every year."
Her Highness has good taste.
I barely notice the high-ceilinged chambers she leads us through, nor the luxurious personal study, and I sure as hay don't care about whatever room we're in now. I'm done with observing the setting, because the Princess of the Sun herself has given us her personal, royal guarantee of at least one rainbow truffle. It might be an old-fashioned, notion, but nothing stands in the way of the Princess's word.
Except... another Princess?
A dusky-blue alicorn lounges on a large cushion, an empty box lying in the remnants of silver wrapping paper at her side. Tell me that's not... She looks up at our entrance and rises to her hooves, eyes flashing.
"Sister!" It's not exactly a voice loud enough to shatter your eardrums, but it's still pretty intense. "You were indeed correct. These delicacies do warrant the existence of this pitiful holiday."
Princess Celestia inclines her head. "Don't they though? Absolutely exquisite. Forgive me, Luna, but could you awaken my physician? Fleetfoot here is in need of his attention."
Princess Luna (how long has she been in Equestria?) nods and then steps out onto the balcony, disappearing from view. Huh. We're in a sitting room, apparently. The Sun Princess levitates the empty box into the wastebasket with a sigh. I hear Fleetfoot collapse to the floor, groaning.
"What a shame! I'm so sorry, girls, but my sister has been determined to despise Hearts and Hooves Day for quite some time. I can't say I begrudge her a few candies."
noooooooooooo.
"However," she continues, magicking open a cabinet and levitating two inky-black boxes over to us. "There's no reason you can't enjoy something from my private stash."
I open up the container, revealing small, opalescent slabs of fudge nestled into the tin, pale-white and glimmering with a faint luster. "Is this— Star Taffy?" I ask, amazed. "I though it was just a legend! Nopony's ever had any!"
The Princess chuckles. "Nopony's ever had any in centuries. You spend too much time in your jungles, Daring Do." She gestures towards the fudge. "Please, be my guest. I'd love to chat about your latest adventure—" she glances at the balcony. "—but it is a bit late, and I distinctly recall seeing an advertisement for a Wonderbolts show in Manehattan tomorrow. Or would it be later today? Luna and I can never agree as to when the date rolls over."
"Roger that, Highness," Fleetfoot says, popping up a salute. I hesitantly take a bite of the taffy— fudge— stuff.
And then everything's a rush, because an entire universe of flavors dances and whirls in the star taffy. Sweet but strong, unscented but fragrant, delicate supernovas undulate through my mouth, nay, throughout my very soul!
The Princess is smiling and the heavens are shining and I'm pining in the moonlight, turning my gaze upon the mare beside me, radiant in her track-suited glory. She looks at me and snorts—praise be to Celestia, what a sound! I summon up my courage; the stars are murmuring inspiration into my thoughts, words brimming with exaltations and revelations. Odes, sonnets, epics, ready to be released into being, just as soon as I profess my unending adoration...
But the physician appears, taking my stunt flier away and leaving me with nothing but the faint aroma of antiseptic, a sharp odor that clears away some of the glittering haze, enough for me to realize I didn't say goodbye.
Find the mare.
Move. Shout thanks at alicorn. Vault down stairs. Land on wall, skid. Hit ground floor and roll. Run. Down the hallway. Past the throne room. Guardstallion? Dodge.
More guards. Move. Jump. Flow with the battle-tide. Trip? NO, move! Thrash around, buck guards off! Quickly! MOVE!
Blooming pain, shadows grow, move...
I wake up in a jail cell, a fully armored Stalwart Steadfast glaring through the bars. Ugh, I hate gloating villains. I allow his tirade to wash over me, garnering from the bits and pieces that catch my attention that though the Princess has pardoned my crimes against the nation, I'm not being released until high noon.
I sleep. I can't remember the content of my dreams, just the colors. A forest of greens and yellows and browns, the occasional flash of white...
When I finally shuffle into the noonday sunlight, nursing my aching head, Fleetfoot is gone, vanished along with the final scraps of Hearts and Hooves Day. I let it go. It was the taffy. I don't need romance. Just awesome.
Right?
she didn't even say goodbye
~The Present Day~<<<
Out of truffles, AGAIN? I prepare to lay waste to the entirety of this sad excuse of a civilization. Daring Do and the Destroyer of Worlds: coming soon to everywhere.
"Hey," a voice says from behind me, rough and raspy from years of high-altitude stunt flying...
I whirl around, and the first thing that hits me is it's her and she's taking her sunglasses off, sliding them into her startlingly white mane and wow.
I'm staring into my own eyes, only these have flecks of purple mixed in with the magenta, compared to my undertones of reddish-pink. But this face is so open without the shades, so young and at ease and, and, lovely.
A familiar seafoam-blue mare stands before me, track suit nowhere in sight, wearing only her navy-and-gold saddlebags. Her body's a bit leaner, has she been pushing herself harder? For the first time, I watch as her eyes sweep over me, and I barely restrain myself from flinching; I know I'm sporting a few more cuts and scrapes than the last time we saw each other.
Fleetfoot looks up at my face and frowns, then walks over and removes my hard hat.
"Wow, you got old. Your mane's completely grey." The idiot's never seen me without those shades.
"You still haven't read a Daring Do book, have you?" I swat her hoof away from where it's hovering over my mane, as though longing to touch it. We're in public; I may feel like a pansy, but that doesn't mean I have to look like one.
"Nope, can't say that I have," she replies. "I, uh, did get the one you sent me, though. It's been sitting on my nightstand."
"Oh. Cool." Silence.
"I've been wondering, did your captain like the star taffy?" I venture. "The tabloids never mentioned a promotion, you were right about them only reporting on the higher ranks."
Fleetfoot shakes her head. "I wasn't really trying to bribe Spitz, she wouldn't have taken that well. I guess I was just trying to do something nice for her. Like, show her that I did care about somepony other than myself. It kind of worked."
"I'm sure she loved having to replace her military ID," I snigger.
Fleetfoot frowns. "Oh yeah. But why was she..." Her face lights up, and she claps her hooves together. "HA! I forgot about that!"
What? "Did she not care?"
"Oh no," Fleetfoot smirks. "She cared, all right. But remember how I sprayed that perfume over her desk?" I nod and she laughs. "That was my failsafe!"
"That was somepony else's cologne, wasn't it?"
She nods, grinning widely. "I spent a whole month trying to figure out why Spitfire had Misty Fly scrubbing every inch of the Academy, and I was the one who sprayed her perfume on the crime scene to begin with!"
She forgot about her contingency plan? This mare is too much.
Silence. The sky outside burns in the twilight.
"I looked for you at every show," she blurts out, scuffing the floor with a hoof.
I think of the all-access, VIP season pass propped up behind my typewriter. I think of Fleetfoot, eagerly sealing it up in its official Wonderbolt envelope and depositing it in the mailbox, then searching the crowd week after week, looking for one tan-and-greyscale mare amongst thousands of pastel faces.
I think of how it must have felt, to come up empty every time.
I grin and gesture to my white lab coat. "How do you know I wasn't there? I am a master of disguise, after all."
She rolls her eyes. "Because you never used the pass I sent you, moron. If you flashed that thing at the gates, the entire team would know— it's basically on par with a royal visit. The staff would've had you in the lounge instantly."
"Oh." The grin falls from my face. "I kept meaning to go, but, y'know, there was always a deadline, or a priceless historical artifact that needed saving, and I just kept putting it off."
"Hey, it's totally cool!" she quips, waving a hoof. "I can't even keep track of how many ponies have dumped me because of my schedule. Uh," she backtracks, a faintly horrified look flashing across her face. "I mean, not that we were, ah, dating or anything or special someponies uhm, I did kind of get you truffles but ah, as friends, right, you're too hardcore for... other... romance... uh, and, did I tell you that Playmare named me Stallionizer of the Year?"
She reaches into her saddlebags and practically throws a box of rainbow truffles at me, sputtering about feelings and other lame stuff.
~~I kiss her.~~
~~I close my eyes and wrap my forelegs around her, trusting my special talent to find her lips for me and bring her home. Her warm body against mine is sweeter than any truffle, more enchanting than any taffy. She's an entire continent of unexplored wonders, melting into my embrace and kissing me back like the fate of the world depends on it.~~
A.K. Yearling doesn't write love stories.
So as far as you're concerned, Ahuizotl suddenly and inexplicably crashes into the confectionery, and Fleetfoot duct tapes magical swords to her wings while I pelt him with exploding bonbons. And then we charge dramatically through ancient temples, chased by pie-wielding fire demons. And stuff.
And maybe, just maybe, we wind up nestled in a fluffy cloud, watching the sun rise over the Wonderbolt Academy and delighting in the spiced sweetness of Rainbow Truffles. The coming daybreak might paint the horizon in hues of pink and gold, but all the pretty skies in the world are just pale imitations of the aurora in her eyes.
It's gonna be an awesome year.
