Sweet as Sugar

My name is Ryan.

I’m twelve years old.

And I’m currently on the run from a huge dragon who’s trying to eat me and my pony friends.

OK, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing running away from a dragon with a bunch of ponies that I consider my friends. Well, I’ll explain to you everything that happened, starting from that very day when she disappeared…

=THREE MONTHS AGO=

I was in class. As boring as it was, I had to go to class. My parents are paying tuition for this kind of private school, so I had to make the most out of my studies. However, today wasn’t an ordinary day. It was far from ordinary, so to say. It was simply extraordinary… wait, I’m getting off topic.

“Hey Ryan,” Someone called. I turned my gaze to my seatmate, Justin. Want a good description of him? He’s short, with styled brown hair that looks oddly like a certain beaver’s hairstyle, and a goofy smile that just shows that he’s a goofball. Oh, and he’s also my best friend. “What’s blue, and like books?”

I rolled my eyes. Another lame joke at my expense. “Me?”

“No!” Justin looked miffed for a moment before deflating. “Well, actually, yeah, it’s you… Hey, how’d you know?”

I sighed; Justin’s jokes were always about me. “Justin, I swear to God, you’ve got the most see-through jokes in the whole universe.” It was true; the last time he told a joke that wasn’t about me, the one it was about clocked him on the head with a watch. Heh, way to take it literally, right?

“Hey there brony, you’re taking it too far.” Justin joked, punching my shoulder.

I winced; there was still a bruise there from the last time he punched me. “Justin, you’ve gotta stop punching me there!”

“Geez, no need to get your sweater vest into a twist, brony.” Justin grumbled, settling back into his seat.

It was a joke of ours, calling each other bronies. There was this new Internet fad called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and there were a whole lot of people calling themselves bronies and pegasisters. I’m going to assume that the bronies are masculine while the pegasisters are feminine, but Justin says bronies apply to everyone. But I digress.

I sighed just as Miss Cheryl entered the classroom with… a new student? Immediately, all the boys – yes, including me – stopped whatever they were doing to look at who was trailing behind Miss Cheryl. She looked timid and shy, with wide, innocent midnight blue eyes, and curly… pink and blue hair?!

“Whoah.” Justin took one look at the girl and made a low whistle. “She’s got some nerve dyeing her hair that way. Principal Weeks doesn’t allow us to dye, right?”

“E-yup.” I nodded. To be honest, I’ve always wanted to change my hair color to blonde or something. That way people wouldn’t assume I’m some Asian nerd. No offense to Asians and all, but I hate it when people ask me questions about anime and assume that I know them just because I look like someone out of an anime! Urgh.

Miss Cheryl turned to us. “All right class, today we have a new student.” She gestured for the girl to step nearer, which she did, albeit a bit hesitantly. I could tell; her body language was shy and withdrawn. ”Please welcome Miss Miranda.”

Suddenly, I felt like time had stopped as she turned to look at everyone in the classroom, spending exactly five second looking at each face before focusing on mine. After all, I sat in the last row of the classroom, so it was no surprise she looked at me last. However, it was the innocence of the stare that made me melt.

She just looked so… childish… that I felt butterflies in my stomach as Miss Cheryl told her to sit next to Hannah, the bubbly blonde of the classroom, who was pretty naïve for her age. They’d make a perfect match.

“Miranda huh?” Justin whistled again. “A pretty name for a pretty face.”

Just for that statement, I clocked Justin on the head with my book.

I think a few days passed before I had managed to work up the courage to talk to her. By then, Justin had already figured out my little crush on her and had literally pushed me in her direction just to jumpstart things. Back then, I had been sweating my palms and I felt butterflies dancing around in my stomach.

When I first spoke to her, I nearly melted again when her voice replied to mine. Soft and childish, she spoke with a timid air around her, making me a bit more confident than usual, considering I was the school’s nerd slash karate champion.

I had spent time with her, and found out that she loved to draw. I learned that her hair was really pinkish blonde – I found blonde roots when I checked her hair – but she had decided to make it pink because blonde made her seem like a ditz – or so she said. Blue was just her favorite color so she put streaks.

From what I gathered about her parents, they openly agreed about her choice of dyeing her hair pink. But, they also openly disagreed about her choice of putting blue streaks in it. I couldn’t believe it, and I guess it must have shown on my face because she had giggled soon after.

“So, Miranda,” I asked as we headed towards our next class. “You say you’re a pegasister?”

Miranda nodded. I shouldn’t be surprised; all her notebooks were My Little Pony themed, heck, even her bag was My Little Pony themed. “I would very much like to be a unicorn in Equestria. How about you?”

“I’m not a brony.” I said, a bit stiffly.

“But, you and Justin refer to yourselves as bronies.” Oh great. I just realized that she heard us calling each other bronies as a joke. And Miranda did not like jokes like that. I mean, jokes about being a brony or pegasister. She takes those things too seriously, if you ask me. “Just tell me if you want to be a unicorn, a pegasus, or an Earth pony.”

I sighed. “Well, if I had to choose… I’d say pegasus. I would fly above everything and be pretty superior to the land-bound ponies…”

“Nice choice.” Miranda smiled timidly, and I felt the butterflies fluttering around again. Darn it! “We’re here now Ryan, talk to you later?”

I paused. “OK, Miranda. I’ll see you later.”

That happened eight days ago. Miranda went missing two days after our conversation, and everyone was worried. Heck, even Justin was worried, and that meant a bad thing. If the joker was worried enough not to make crack-ups about the situation, then it meant it was bad. Really bad.

In an attempt to cheer ourselves up, we decided to watch the very first episode of My Little Pony. It was our way of showing that we missed Miranda, who loved watching the show even if it bored us boys to death. We would whine and beg her not to ‘torture’ us with an episode, but she’d do so anyway, and we would groan and moan as she watched the whole episode.

“Let’s play ‘Where’s Derpy!’” Justin suggested. Derpy was a cross-eyed pony we’ve seen in various episodes and forums online. There was a game called Where’s Derpy, where you had to find her in the background and pause it just to make sure you saw her.

I sighed. “Whatever, Justin. Just play it.”

He played it, and for a few minutes, we focused on the TV screen, trying to find a gray pegasus pony with crossed eyes. Suddenly, Twilight Sparkle – the purple unicorn pony - stared at the screen, at us, which made a shiver run down my spine, even though I knew she was simply casting a spell at… at… er… something about a moon…

The light flashed, but it didn’t remain contained in the TV screen. Rather, it encompassed the entire room. However, as I turned to Justin, it looked like he didn’t notice as he tried to find Derpy. “Justin! The light!”

“What light?” Justin said in a determined tone. “You can’t distract me, Ryan! I’m looking for Derpy!”

I yelled, “Be serious, Justin! The light’s filling the whole room!” By that point, it was too bright for me to even see Justin. Suddenly, a shadow reached out for me in the whiteness, and I blacked out.

The whiteness faded away, as if nothing had happened to the room. “I FOUND DERPY!” Justin yelled triumphantly, jumping up and down on the sofa and pointing to the screen.”Ryan, guess what? I found Der-“ He turned to where his friend was supposedly sitting, but only found ashes. “-py?”

Ryan was gone.