The Sun Shines

Chapters

Episode 1: Frights and Nightmare Nights
Episode 2: The Book of Loneliness (Part I)
Episode 2: The Book of Loneliness (Part II)
Intermission 1
Episode 3: Missing Marsupial Madness!

Episode 1: Frights and Nightmare Nights

Author's Note

As the description mentioned, this story was originally a roleplaying game campaign. This first episode was based on the one of the same name from the Roleplaying is Magic (Season 3 Edition) rule-book.

Episode 1: Frights and Nightmare Nights

Miss Cheerilee hadn't really expected any of the colts and fillies in her afternoon class to listen to a word she said today. It's not that her students were inattentive for their age, but as the earth pony mare's eyes roam over the blank stares of her class, most have their glazed eyes directed at the windows, through which shows the clear autumn day that school was cruelly keeping them away from. But even more than that, it was the date that kept them from paying attention.

Relenting for the special occasion, Cheerilee sighs and stops pacing in front of the chalkboard. "Alright my little ponies. I get it, we only have fifteen minutes left and you're all excited for tonight. If you all agree to work hard to make up the time on Monday, you can leave now and start getting ready for later."

It barely takes a second after the words "leave now" come from her mouth, before foals are standing from their desks and swarming the wooden cubbies where their light jackets and scarves are being kept. Some thank her in passing, and most immediately start chatting with their friends as they stream out the door. Many of the conversations share the same topic, with tonight being one that all of the colts and fillies, and most of the adults if they're being honest, have been looking forward to. Because tonight, Ponyville celebrates Nightmare Night!

Among the foal swarm is a dark chocolate colt with a black muzzle excitedly grabbing his things and stuffing them into his saddlebag before bundling up in his jacket. He had to hurry home so he could finish his costume!

Making their way through the crowd squeezing out the door, two familiar foals catch up with Kopis just outside the door. The bulky, turquoise, earth pony colt plods along, smaller ponies making way, meanwhile a smaller unicorn filly with a goldenrod coat and rose mane nudges him to move faster. When they get close enough, the latter greets him. "Kopis! Did we ever decide whose house we're going to meet up at tonight?"

The colt looks upward as he thinks. “Um… no, I don’t think we did. I’ve got to finish up some stuff on my costume though, so I’ve got to go home for a while anyway. Doesn’t matter too much to me where we meet up.” He smirks. “But you know my mom. She’s going to want to stay right behind us the whole way. Guess that means Kris will be coming with me too.”

"That's fine by me," Peat drawls.

"My parents will be busy, so I hoped she would take us anyway," Sonata adds. Having his sister come along is far better than not getting to go at all. "We'll come to your house around seven then?"

Kopis smiles and nods. “Okay, sure, sounds good to me. I’ll let mom know you’re coming.” He couldn’t wait to get started!

Sonata’s tail whips back and forth and she grins as she answers, “Alright, we’ll see you later, Kopis.” He’s clearly not alone in being excited for what’s pretty arguably the best holiday of the year.

“Eyup, just have chores to do, and then I’ll be there too,” the farm pony adds. With that, the foals part way for their respective homes to get ready. Around town, Kopis can see ponies are doing the same, setting up last-minute decorations, and making sure all the activities in the town’s center are ready.

Seeing the town gearing up for the celebration hypes him up more as he trots along. By the time he’s home, he’s grinning from ear to ear and imagining how cool he’ll look in his costume and what kinds of candy he’ll get. That particular feeling is amplified by the scents of something baking as he opens the door, scoots inside and dumps his saddlebag in the first chair he comes across.

Following his nose toward the kitchen, he finds his mom and sister standing at the table and slaving over what was probably producing the irresistible sweet smells. “Hi mom, hi Kris.”

The two ponies look over to give him a smile. “Hello sweetie, didst thou have a good day at school?”

He nods. “Yep, Miss Cherilee let us out a little early so we could get ready for tonight. What are you making?”

“Some brownies,” Falcata answers, standing aside enough that he can see before she resumes frosting them with Kris’s help.

“Oh, cool. Wait, are we giving them away?”

“Nope, these are for us,” Kris replies, scooping some more frosting onto a knife.

He heads over to get a closer look and takes a good whiff. Awesome! Even if he didn’t get much good stuff tonight he had homemade brownies to come back to. As he watches his sister frost them, something pops into his head. “Hey… how’d you get home before me?”

The older filly pokes her tongue out at him. “We got out early too.”

Falcata steps back and holds a hoof to her chin as she checks the time. “A good thing too, methinks. I believe I have everything I need to finish your costumes, but it will take a little while. Kris, go ahead and finish here while I help thy brother with his.”

Hah, he got to go first! His costume was going to be great! He grins again as he trots after her, only barely catching the light hearted eye roll Kris gives him at his goofy expression. Hey, she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes when she saw how cool he looked!

With autumn in full swing, and the end of the year drawing closer, the sun has already set by seven o’ clock. As soon as the clock strikes the hour, a series of raid, excited knocks sounds on the front door.

“Coming!” a voice calls from inside, followed by hoofsteps and ultimately by the door opening wide to reveal a brown unicorn mare in what appears to be a rhinoceros costume.

On the other side of the door, stands a unicorn filly already dressed up in her costume. Sonata’s head is surrounded by large, toothed, petals, and greenish tendrils hang from them, while part of the tatzelwurm costumes trails behind her. She chirps out a melodious, “Hello, miss Falcata.”

“Hello, sweetie.” Falcata replies, stepping out to get a closer look at her costume. “My, what an excellent costume. Everypony will be impressed tonight.” She pokes a hoof toward the door, ushering Sonata inside.

“Thank you,” she says, walking inside and setting down the pumpkin-shaped basket she’d been carrying in her magic. “I like yours too. You’re a rhinoceros, right?”

Falcata heads back in and closes the door. “Yes, that is correct. Nothing quite so interesting as the creature thou art.” She wasn’t quite positive it was a tatzelwurm, so she doesn’t name it.

“Oh, hey Sonata!” Kopis says as he trots into the room, garbed in black that covers everything but his hooves and eyes. A sword sheath that Sonata probably recognizes as belonging to Falcata is slipped through a belt around his midsection. “What do you think about my costume?”

While Sonata likewise isn't entirely sure what he is, the reaction is nonetheless an eager, "Cool!" She walks up and around him in a circle, looking at his costume.

“Thanks! Mom wouldn’t let me use her sword too, and I couldn’t find anything like ninja stars… but I think it turned out pretty cool anyway.”

Falcata chuckles and adjusts a bit of the cloth along his back. “No, I do not think anypony should be walking about with anything like that tonight.”

He tugs at a sleeve to get it back into line and looks over Sonata’s costume. “Oh, but yours is cool too. What kind of monster are you?”

“I’m a tatzelwurm,” she exclaims, turning in a small circle of her own to show him all of it. “They’re big plant monsters that live far away.”

“Oh, cool. Looks way more intense than any kind of plant I’ve ever seen,” he says with a little giggle.

Falcata takes a step away and turns to head into another room. “I must go help Kris get finished dressing. Sonata, if thou wouldst like one, there are some brownies in the kitchen.”

“Yay, thanks.” Sonata doesn’t need much more than the word brownies to start moving that way.

It takes another ten minutes, and Sonata progressively hiding her impatience more, before a polite knock sounds at the door.

Falcata again comes trotting through, this time with her daughter trailing after her in a flashy Power Pony costume. The mare opens the door to greet their newest guest.

Standing outside is a pony that can be identified easily by shape as Peat, under his costume. A white sheet drapes over him, and though the sleeves for his forelegs, neatly cut eyeholes, and few strips trailing off him put the ghost outfit a few steps above being a normal bedsheet, it's clear that's what it was. That doesn't seem to bother the colt one bit, as he gives a polite, "Evening, ma'am," and waits for Falcata to invite him inside.

Falcata stands aside and waves for him to come in. “Good evening Peat. That is a fine costume thou hast.” Once they’re back inside, she says, “We are about ready to go if thou art. Wouldst thou like a brownie before we go?”

"That's mighty kind, thank you." Peat moves to the kitchen to accept the offer, where Sonata glares and informs him that he's late. She doesn't have the heart to give him too hard a time though, and soon enough, he's done and the colts and fillies and their chaperone can leave to start partaking in the festivities.

And so Falcata takes the children in a circuit around the town, watching as they knock on doors, and receive candy from friendly ponies. The mares and stallions of Ponyville are practically all participating, with lights on at most of the houses Kopis and his friends can see. The candy itself is the good stuff too, no fruit or little pieces of paper about the Princesses this year!

Eventually, they all feel like they’ve gotten enough as their bags grow heavier… or at least as much as they’re liable to get. In any case, they have enough to make the offering to Nightmare Moon later, and still have a nice haul left over. The crowd of ponies walking down the roads have mostly migrated to the town square by now, where the games and contests are arranged.

Kopis pops a little piece of candy in his mouth as he skips after his mom. “Mmm, this is great. I wonder what kinds of games and stuff they’ll have this year?”

His question answers itself as the group reaches the square, where ponies mill about, all in costume, and play the various games. A familiar orange earth pony, currently dressed up as a pumpkin, presides over them, watching ponies as they try their hooves at the Spider Toss, catapulting pumpkins, or bobbing for apples. As usual, Applejack gives out a bit of candy to the winners. The square is full of music, being played by a band up on a stage off to one side, and signs posted around let ponies know that there will be a Dance Contest starting soon.

Kopis’s eyes float over the various activities going on. He’s not so sure about that dance contest, but the spider toss and bobbing for apples looked fun! “Let’s do the spider toss first,” he says to everypony.

“That sounds fun,” Sonata agrees, while Peat nods and walks over that way. They find a table with weighted cloth spiders, set up a few yards away from a spiderweb marked with numbers, higher the closer they get the the center.

Falcata stands off to the side to watch the foals as they try their hooves at the game. Kopis grabs one of the spiders, pokes his tongue out slightly as he analyzes his target, then chucks the spider toward the center of the spider web. The spider flies through the air, inanimate legs flailing wildly, and hits the center directly!

The game is set up for young ponies of course, but that doesn’t detract from his achievement when his two friends both proceed to miss. Peat flings the poor spider straight over the web entirely, and Sonata’s travels in a sad arc from her hoof and drops to the ground a few feet short. Kris waits last before she gives the foal’s game a try, landing a hit on the web not too far from where Kopis hit.

The colt grins at his achievement but tries not to rub it in. “Heh, best two out of three, or do you all want to do something else?”

“Eeyup, best two out of three.” Peat is sure he can get it if he keeps trying.

Sonata doesn’t seem interested in trying the spider game again, but she has another idea to share. “We should enter the dance contest! It even says they’re doing it in teams of three.”

Kopis would much rather throw spiders than try dancing, but… if she wanted to do it maybe he could give it a try. “Um, okay… if you want to. Peat and I can do this real quick, then we can try that.”

The unicorn filly scampers off to sign them up, knowing there’s some time yet before it starts. Meanwhile, Peat picks up another spider and tosses it, missing again, but by a smaller margin. Kopis’ second toss goes as poorly, and the score stays at one-nothing. In the third round of their impromptu contest, Peat does manage to make a bullseye, rearing up in a small celebration. ...But then Kopis manages to score a second time, winning overall. “Look like you win,” Peats says, offering a hoof to show there’re no hard feelings.

“Thanks, but you didn’t do too bad either.” He looks nervously over toward the dance area. “Now, this dance thing is probably going to be pretty bad, huh?”

The other colt gives him a knowing look, that lets Kopis just picture the grimace under his costume. “Eeyup.” That’s what they get, for having their mutual friend be a filly.

Kris gives them a sly grin. “Aww, come on, it’ll be fun.” She heads off to find somewhere to watch the dance from. There was no way she was going to miss this train wreck.

Falcata gives Kopis a little pat on the back. “Kris is right. I bet that ye will have a lot of fun if ye give it a try.”

He chuckles nervously. “Heh, right.” Reluctantly, he follows Kris toward the dance area.

Likely too worried at the prospect of dancing up on stage in front of everypony, Kopis fails to notice a suspiciously low, dark, raincloud move overhead. On top of it, an equine figure’s dark carapace shines in the moonlight as she rears up and slams her hooves down onto the cloud, and a loud thunderclap sounds!

The colt hugs the ground and lets out a little yelp before looking around and finally up. “What the heck!?”

One of Ponyville’s notorious pranksters drops on the cloud and clutches her stomach, laughing hard to enough to have problems breathing. When Rainbow Dash finally gets control over herself, she pokes her head out from over the cloud to look down at him. “Sorry, but that’s the best reaction I’ve got all night!” she still struggles to keep a straight face, saying that.

Kopis catches his breath and eases back to his hooves. He shoots her a displeased look and says, “Hey, you’re not supposed to really scare ponies.”

“What? That’s what Nightmare Night’s all about, kid.” As the cyan pegasus says this, she and Kopis see a few fillies which the latter recognizes as his classmates gallop past, looking terrified. “Huh. Guess somepony already got them.”

Meanwhile, Peat tries to regain his own composure, and Sonata trots back from the registration table, having missed the two colts totally get scared.

Kopis flicks his tail and grumbles something. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’ll get you next time.” As much as he hated to admit it, at least the dance thing would give him an excuse to move along. He glances at Sonata and asks, “Uh, we ready to go do the thing? The dance thing?”

Still grinning, Rainbow Dash floats off on her cloud, looking for more unsuspecting little ponies. Sonata for her part, nods. “Yes, almost. It starts in a few minutes and the three of us are going last. The competition is tough though,” she warns.

He chuckles nervously. “Uh-huh. I don’t think it matters too much how good the rest are…”

“That’s the spirit, we’ll win anyway,” she manages to misunderstand, leading the other two over to the backstage area. As they arrive, the first group is just going on. A few colts from the morning class, Snips and Snails, if Kopis recalls right along with another one. Their motions are kinda clumsy, but they don’t embarrass themselves. Some polite stomping applause sounds as they make their way off-stage. When the second group takes its place on-stage, Kopis knows exactly what she meant about the competition.

Leading that group is Arabesque, a snow-white filly with a green mane and a reputation as a talented ballerina for her age. She’s surely in for a cutie-mark in dancing, and the performance reflects that. It’ll be hard to beat, but there’s hope yet. Sonata turns to Kopis as they finish to the sound of greater applause. “Looks like it’s time…”

He swallows and nods. “Yeah, guess so. Okay…” Might as well give it his best shot, right? He catches sight of his mom flashing him a big grin, but can’t quite make out what words of encouragement she said. Kris meanwhile just has a devilish smile.

The three little ponies take the stage, lights swiveling to put them, quite literally, in the spotlight. Fortunately for the other two, their performer friend is used to this, and takes the lead. Her enthusiasm and understanding of rhythm makes up somewhat for not knowing how to do this specifically, and Kopis and Peat do a good job backing her up, all things considered. When their hastily-planned routine ends, they actually get more applause than the first group managed. In the end, the second receives the medals for winning, but all-in-all, nopony really did poorly.

Eh, could have been worse. Kopis smiles sheepishly at the applause and quickly scoots off the stage to rejoin his family and friends.

Falcata gives all three foals a smile of her own and a pat on the back. “Well done, ye three. Perhaps ye all have a talent for this too.”

Kris nods begrudgingly at Kopis. “Yeah, looks like you don’t have four left hooves after all.” He sticks his tongue out at her in retaliation. Hah, he’d like to see her do better!

While she would have preferred playing her piano, Sonata is proud at the praise. “Thank you, miss Falcata,” she beams.

Meanwhile, Kris spots some of her classmates headed in the direction that a sign indicated was the town’s haunted house. “Oh, hey, I want to go check out the haunted house now.”

“Alright then,” Falcata says as she analyzes the sign. To her dismay, it seems that this particular attraction was intended for older audiences. While she thinks that Kopis is probably old enough, she wasn’t going to take those liberties with his friends. “Oh dear, perhaps that is not something we should all go to see.”

Certainly not, since what sort of mischief is there to get into on Nightmare Night? Around the square ponies are still dancing, chatting, and playing games. Applejack still hoofs out candy to the winners, and Pinkie Pie, dressed as a chicken again, is just coming back to gather up another group of children to take through the spooky Everfree Forest, to make their candy offering to Nightmare Moon. Nearby, Kopis spots the fillies he saw before the dance competition, huddled together and talking nervously.

Wow, something must have really spooked them. He wanders their way, hoping to find out what happened. “Hey, did Rainbow Dash get you too?”

His friends trail along, waiting for the answer. The three shaking fillies look up and answer in turn. “Rainbow Dash? No, it was much worse! A monster!”

“It was a ghost!” the second corrects frightfully.

“The ghost of a monster!”

“Whoa, what? The ghost of a monster?” Kopis gives his friends confused looks before turning back to the fillies. “What kind of monster? Where?”

“You’re both wrong, it was totally a chimera!” the third continues the squabbling.

Now they were getting his attention, but he’s got to be a bit skeptical. “Hey, wait, you saw a chimera, medusa or manticore on the trail and got away?”

“Yes!” the first says indignantly. “We ran away and it didn’t chase us. It probably didn’t want to come into town.”

Uh huh. Kopis cocks his head and looks back toward the way they came. “Probably just one of Rainbow Dash’s friends trying to scare ponies.” He turns to his friends. “Hey, she scared us earlier, maybe we should get her and her friends back. What do you say we check out this ‘manticore’?”

Sonata didn't see this happen, but can't doubt it. It's pretty much Rainbow Dash's MO on Nightmare Night. She smiles mischievously at the chance to be on the other side of somepony getting scared. "I like the sound of that."

"Sure," Peat says in a tone that isn't.

Picking up on Peat’s lack of confidence, Kopis says, “Okay, so, Pinkie’s probably leading another group soon. Why don’t we tag along, and break off after we get out a little ways? Then we can sneak up on whoever’s trying to do the scaring.”

“We can try… I’m not so good at going unnoticed,” Peats admits realistically.

Hmm, he had a bit of a point there. “Okay then, stay behind me then. My black clothes will make it harder to see us,” Kopis says, realizing how much of a stretch that was but not really caring.

“...Alright,” he agrees, knowing even better that wasn’t going to help. But after all, what’s the worst Miss Pinkie Pie will do? And after all, this way they can tell Kopis’ ma that they were technically with an adult. “We should get our candy from miss Applejack before we leave at least.”

“Oh, yeah, good catch. Don’t want to forget that!” He motions for them all to head that way. “C’mon, let’s get it and go meet up with Pinkie.”

Applejack hoofs the candy over easily, not being a stickler about needing to see them win, since there’s plenty of candy for everypony. After that, the three trot over to the edge of the square, where a pink pony parading as poultry waits with a crowd of colts and fillies. This particular pony is Ponyville’s premier party planner, Pinkie Pie, and she knows all her friends by name! Which is pretty impressive, when she considers the whole town her friend. With an enthusiastic wave, she shouts over, “Hi, Kopis, Sonata, and Peat! You’re just in time!” Taking a conductor’s cap from nowhere, she puts it on her head, over the rooster comb, and yells exaggeratedly, “Allllll aboard! Next stop, The Everfree Forest!”

Kopis hurries over, making sure his friends are with him as he assumes a position among the crowd that would give them some distance from Pinkie. “Okay, here we go.” For a few minutes along the trail he keeps his cover and hangs near the back of the crowd with Sonata and Peat. When they’re deep enough into the woods the suspects the others have stopped paying attention to what’s behind them, he signals for his two friends to break off from the group with him. Peat goes first, used to moving slowly, and manages to get over into the bushes. Sonata follows right behind Kopis, after he takes a last look up at where Pinkie Pie is walking, but as soon as he turns around, a pink mane and blue eyes fill his field of vision.

...which almost makes the little colt jump out of his ninja costume! “Gah!” he yelps, scooting back a bit at the very sudden very pink pony.

“I know you’re trying to get into character, Kopis, but you can’t go wandering off like that. There are all sorts of spooky things in the woods tonight,” the earth pony mare giggles, despite the dramatic way she said it.

He grumbles a little and kicks a little pebble at his hoof. “Yeah… I know.” He accepts that he’ll have to follow her for a little while yet, but he starts planning another escape immediately.

Sonata follows after him, contrite about her escape attempt. ...Not that she won’t go along with the next one.

Kopis doesn't get very far in planning his next escape attempt. The group walks along for a couple of minutes, Pinkie Pie talking incessantly to the foals closer to the front, when bushes off the side of the path start to rustle. Quickly, Kopis and Sonata realize it's the wrong side of the road to be their friend. He snaps his attention over to the new disturbance, ready to spot anypony trying to sneak up on and scare him. Not this time!

Suddenly, a terrible monster jumps out of the bushes, surrounded in a strange, green smoke. The beast has the body of a lion, with a scorpion’s tail, much like a manticore. Unlike a manticore, however, the lion’s mane is made up of a writhing mass of snakes. Additionally, two other heads, a goat and a dragon head, spring out from either side of the lion’s head. As it emerges, all three heads give off a fearsome roar!

Pinkie Pie jumps into the air, screaming and making chicken noises, while the foals around her flee in abject terror back towards town, running in a small stampede around Kopis and Sonata!

Kopis absolutely wants to run with them, but his little hooves just refuse to go anywhere. He screams and cowers backward, away from this horrible and very real monster!

Behind him, Peat backs up against a tree, yelling and shaking in fear. Sonata is the only one of the three still standing, even if she looks absolutely horrified as well at the ferocious, spectral, beast. The filly nudges at Kopis with her muzzle. "Come on, get up!"

He doesn’t need to be told twice! Kopis jumps up and immediately turns to his friends, looking Peat in the eyes especially. “Run!” he yells, getting ready to do just that himself.

More than motivated to get the lead out of his hooves for once, Peat makes a break for it, looking back to make sure the others are behind him.

Undeterred, and with two little ponies still in its reach, the monstrous hybrid bounds towards them, opening its many maws and letting forth another terrible roar. Kopis manages to stand firm this time, but he’s not stupid and has no plans to stick around!

The teal earth pony colt got far enough away to put some distance between him and the creature, but he stops when he sees his friends haven’t gotten so far. Sonata especially wasn’t so lucky…

The approaching monster was too much, and Sonata simply begins muttering and crying, falling down where she was instead of running. Even spirited ponies have their limits.

“Come on!” Kopis yelps, darting over to toss her onto his back before taking off again with Peat.

Galloping alongside them, Peat speaks to Sonata in between breaths. “You’re gonna be fine... it can’t catch us.”

As he says, the monster’s loping strides are slow compared to the small ponies it’s after… until it flaps its enormous, leathery wings and takes to the air, extending its clawed arms and serpentine appendages, as it snarls and starts closing the distance.

Kopis squeals and gallops for all he’s worth, trying not to get ahead of Peat but definitely ahead of the monster! His athleticism pays off! The colts legs carry him out of the monsters reach, even with it flapping its wings, the distance grows for a few seconds, until the creature suddenly disintegrates into green smoke!

At first he doesn’t want to look back, even at the abrupt silence, but eventually his curiosity gets the better of him. He slows to a stop along the path and starts looking around, worried it was just sneaking up on them from another direction.

With a little control of herself, Sonata slips off Kopis, bumping his shoulder to say thanks. The goldenrod unicorn filly turns her tatzelwurm-esque head around. “Where did it go? It can’t simply vanish!”

Peat looks behind them and again and shrugs, a worried look on his face. “I reckon it might be some sort of magic?” The poor earth pony doesn’t know about that sort of thing.

“Wh… magic? But…” The extreme fear that had welled up inside him begins to be replaced with equal amounts of frustration and anger. Somepony had scared him again, and tricked him this time on top! “Somepony pranked us…”

“You think so?” Sonata asks. “I dunno, there are lots of weird things in the forest…” She backs away from the nearest trees, too tall to see the tops of, where the canopy becomes an inky black that blocks out the stars and moon. She’s suddenly very aware that the three are alone here in the Everfree.

“We’re gonna find out, one way or another.” Peat sounds determined to do that, but offers no suggestions about how, waiting for the third pony.

Kopis flicks his tail several times. “Yeah, well, if somepony did prank us, you can bet they’ll be here soon. They always like to laugh in your face about it.” Besides, the forest might be weird, but it didn’t just conjure monster illusions conveniently on Nightmare Night. “C’mon, let’s keep going. I’m sure they’ll be waiting near the statue.”

“Okay,” Sonata nods, following close to her friends. Peat plods along with them, looking around as he does for any prankster ponies showing themselves.

After ten minutes give or take, the forest thins and the three come to a familiar clearing. Here, the stars above do shine, vast and bright, far above. The full moon casts down pale light, which lands on an imposing stone statue, towering over the colts and filly even without its stone base. A mare with wings and a horn, face carved in a permanent, fanged snarl, Nightmare Moon could haunt the dreams of ponies even a thousand years after her banishment. From around the statue, a smaller striped figure steps. Zecora is wearing the long dress she keeps for this occasion, with her mane worn down as it has been in previous years, on this one night. “Greetings, my little...ponies… three?” She falters, expecting a much larger crowd. “Where are the others, and where is Pinkie?”

Kopis looks around a little and drags his hoof through the dirt. “Um, we got separated. She and the other foals got scared and ran back to town.”

Zecora gives him a curious look. “What is it that had them all so frightened, that they would not come and of Nightmare Moon’s story, be enlightened?”

He glances at Peat and Sonata, deciding to go with the idea that it was magic. “Uh, well… there was a… uh… chimera back in the woods. Except once we all ran away it poofed away. We think it was magic, but we don’t know who made it.”

“It simply ‘poofed away’?” Zecora puts a hoof to her chin, then reaches it into a pouch at her side. “Wait a moment, and tell me if this is familiar, you would say.” She removes her hoof, holding it upright with a small pile of green powder, which she leans towards and blows into the air. The cloud grows in size, and resolves itself into a likeness of Nightmare Moon surrounded by the same green smoke, which then lunges at the foals and disappears.

Kopis sinks away from the illusion. “Yeah!”

“Then you were right to think it a magic fright. Simply a prank somepony played for Nightmare Night.”

“Ugh, I knew it!” Kopis snorts. “I bet those fillies back in town were in on it,” he says to his friends.

“They looked pretty scared to me, Kopis,” Sonata admits. If they were faking it, they should get their cutie-marks as actors.

The zebra mare cuts in, “If somepony is doing this, they’ve been at it all night. I’ve seen no foals come offer their candy tonight.” She cringes, and shakes her mane slightly at the poor options for vocabulary, but points a hoof at the tiny, sad, “pile” of candy in front of the statute, only a few pieces in all.

Okay, Sonata had a point. “Yeah… maybe so. Well, we’ve got our candy at least, so Nightmare Moon can have some now.” He moves over to the statue to deposit what he deems to be the minimum necessary to put off her wrath. Plus maybe an extra piece of chewing gum, just in case. He didn’t care much for gum anyway.

Like a good little colt and filly, his friends step forward and do the same, Zecora nodding in approval. Peat walks back over to Kopis and asks the question: “What now?”

“Head back to town I guess,” he says, not feeling extremely excited about walking through the forest with just Sonata and Peat. “Wish I knew who was scaring ponies…”

“Now hold on,” Peat holds up a hoof. “We don’t have to just give up.”

“Yeah, we can look for clues,” Sonata nods. “But we’d have to be fast. Your mom has to be almost done.”

His eyes widen a bit. “Yeah, we need to hurry. She’s gonna kill me if she finds out we came out here without her. So, um, what do we do? Go check around where the chimera was?”

Sonata looks like she likes that idea. “Uh-huh, maybe they left hoofprints… or something.”

Peat nods in agreement, set on finding out who’s been scaring ponies so badly. “I’m for it. And, you know… miss Falcata did say to stay with the adults, right? Well, miss Pinkie is an adult I reckon… technically… and we were with her.”

Kopis likes the way Peat thinks. “Yeah, there you go. Okay then, let’s go check it out.” He waves for them to follow him as he starts in that direction.

The three ponies say their goodbye to Zecora, who tells them with a better rhyme that she expects to see them back when she tells the tale of Nightmare Moon later. Of course, that’s provided they can find whoever’s been scaring them away. After a few minutes walk, they find themselves approximately where the monster stopped them.

“Looks like the spot. So, let’s take a look around,” Kopis says before following his own advice and scrutinizing the ground for any sign of hoof prints or other clues.

Kopis and friends quickly realize that the road has too many scuffs and hoofprints to be of any use, especially after the chaos earlier. But eventually they work their way into the surround bushes, after realizing that’s where somepony would have had to stand to not be seen. Kopis finds a few broken branches behind a bush large enough to hide a colt or filly his size, and looking even closer, he sees a wrapped piece of candy dropped on the ground. Another one nearby points to there being a trail of them.

“Hah, this way,” he points out triumphantly. Grown ups ate candy too, but only foals ate this much. It had to be another foal. Maybe those fillies were in on it after all… Time to find out! He starts following the trail of wrappers, hoping whoever it was had a truly titanic appetite for candy.

“Nice work,” Sonata pipes up, following him following the trail. Peat brings up the rear, trying not to run into any low-hanging branches with his costume covering some of his vision.

The trail of sweets goes on through the woods as they thin out again, into the smaller trees where the Everfree begins to bleed into being the Whitetail Woods. They find another sparse clearing, but this one is occupied by a rocky hill, containing the shadowy entrance to a cave. The path ends abruptly in front of Kopis with a drop-off into a small ravine. Small, that is, for a bigger pony. For these three, falling down into it might hurt, and it’d make getting back out kinda hard to do.

With revenge on his mind, Kopis isn’t scared of a little hole. He backs up a step, winds up and leaps over it in a single bound. “Hah!”

Seeing Kopis handle it, Peat doesn’t doubt he can too. The colt backs up a few more paces, then speeds into a gallop, jumping over with some room to spare as well.

Sonata seems unusually hesitant, clearly out of her element. She backs up even further, hoping it’ll help, then gallops and leaps. Her forelegs land on the other side, but the hind ones slip over, and she has to pull herself onto the ledge. The unicorn filly stands with help and dusts off her costume.

“Nice work. Now, let’s see who’s hiding in this cave.” Kopis again takes the lead and steps toward the cave, ready for anything. No more magical illusions were going to scare him tonight.

As Kopis and his friends approach the cave, they're startled by the sudden rush of bats fluttering out of the mouth of the cave. Peering in, the children see only darkness, even with the light of the full moon shining down into the maw of the earth before them.

“Um. Hey, uh, Sonata, can you make light with your magic?” Kopis asks, hesitant to go into pitch darkness.

“Yeah, definitely,” she replies confidently. Sonata takes a breath and closes her eyes, an aqua light beginning to glow on the tip of her horn. It expands, lighting the ground around them… but it stops at the mouth of the cave! The darkness swallows up the light from her horn, becoming no more clear to the three. “Hey, what gives?”

“If you don’t know, I sure don’t,” he says, equally surprised at the stubborn darkness. He sets a hoof inside tentatively, but doesn’t head inside yet.

Sonata nixes the light, not seeing a point in wasting any more energy on the tiring spell. She pokes a hoof into the entrance of the cave. “We know whoever’s been doing this does illusion magic.”

“Yeah… who in Ponyville knows how to do that? Um… Twilight Sparkle probably. I don’t think she’d do this though.” Kopis decides that since his hoof hasn’t been gobbled, he should take a quick look. He pokes his head through the veil.

The advanced darkness lessens… to normal darkness. Kopis still can only see the barest hint of light up ahead, and vague outlines of the cave walls, but he isn’t totally blind once his head moves past the cave’s mouth.

“C’mon, I can see a little in here. Maybe your spell will work inside?” He slips in completely, expecting Peat and Sonata to follow.

Peat walk in alongside him, and so does Sonata a second later sighing and focusing on relighting her horn. The spell comes easily, but her breathing is noticeably heavy, as if she’d just been running. She catches her breath quickly, and the blue light shines out in a small circle around the three, casting long shadows on the walls of the cave.

“Cool, good job. Now, let’s see who’s hiding in here…” He waves for them to follow as he has several times that day, and heads deeper inside. They do follow his lead, Peat more quiet as usual and Sonata trying to concentrate.

Up ahead, a few large rocks sit by the wall of the tunnel, and from near them a sound reaches the ponies ears. A dry, clacking sound, or a series of them every few seconds. Before they can think what it might be, they get their answer when a moving skeleton steps out and walks toward them, gaining speed. The bleached white bones begin to gain speed, moving threateningly towards the foals.

Kopis makes a little squeaking noise and backs up a hair, but he’s not gonna get fooled twice! “Stop with the tricks already!”

His belief that it’s an illusion is just enough for his friends to not run away at the sight, but they don’t want to get any closer either.

The bones are long past understanding speech, or life. The unnatural construct of bones breaks into a trot, opening its mouth in a silent scream, empty eye-sockets focuses directly on the earth pony colt in the lead. The other one stands his ground, but his legs shake obviously.

Kopis stands firm and prepares to even swing at the skeleton when it got close enough. “I said quit it!” Unfortunately, he’s not completely convinced it’s an illusion, so he hesitates and swings wide of the boney foe.

Taking the hint, Peat swings a hoof as well, and misses all the same. It provokes only the smallest reaction from the skeleton, which twists its head the side at the angle that a flesh and blood pony couldn’t manage… an exaggerated taunt, all the worse for relying on not having muscle and skin to do. Sonata backs away on the other side of Kopis, doing her best to keep the light on, no matter what happens.

The skeleton looms tall over the three, and leans over them, distending its jaw further than a living pony ever could.

Okay, it wasn’t disappearing like the chimera. Kopis cowers back and sinks into a huddled ball, looking away.

“Kopis!” Sonata reaches a hoof over from where she’s leaning against the wall, strain evident in her voice and the flickering of the light.

Growling at the monster scaring his friend, Peat takes his chance and rears up to hit it with both front hooves. Athletic as he is, he is just a small pony, and it’s not a very hard hit… but it doesn’t need to be, thankfully. Once touched, the skeleton dissolves into dust, which blows away in a non existent breeze.

It… it was an illusion after all. Kopis eases back up to his hooves and subconsciously hugs Sonata. “W-was that it?”

“Looks like,” Peat nods.

Sonata looks a little steadier on her hooves, the light from her horn no longer flickering dangerously, as she sees Kopis is fine. “The pony has to be close.”

“Why are they doing all of this? I don’t get it,” Kopis says, taking a shaky step away from Sonata. “It’s too much trouble just to scare us.”

Sonata has an idea, but she’d rather see it verified first. The filly nods towards the end of the tunnel, where the light is. “I think we’ll find out soon.”

Extra sure that they won’t be eaten by a real monster at this point, Kopis nods and inches that way. “Okay, stick close.”

He doesn’t have to say that twice! Sonata moves right by his side, letting them both have as much light as possible… which is totally her main motivation, and not being scared of more illusions…

The darkness gives way suddenly to the light of a small lantern perched upon a rock. Scattered around the cave are several bags of candy, much more than a single pony could eat. Two books, “Creatures of the Everfree Forest” and “Old Mares’ Tales: Scary Stories to Tell by the Light of the Moon” sit open by the lantern.

“Huh?” Kopis creeps closer to a bag of candy. “Nopony’s here? Who was making the illusions then? And still, why?” He pokes a hoof into the bag. “Stealing Nightmare Moon’s candy?”

"Why do you think?" an unfamiliar voice asks. From behind more rocks, a dark beige-colored unicorn colt steps forward. He has a jet-black, spiked, mane and no costume like everypony else. His uncovered flank bears the image of a ghost, and he walks up to the other side of the biggest pile, scooping up some of the goods and letting the pieces fall back down. "Have you seen all this candy?" Altogether, it would probably make a pile bigger than any of them.

Kopis squints at him for a second. “It’s a lot of trouble to go through when you can just get it like everypony else. Who are you anyway?”

He backs up a step or two and sits. "I'm Spooky Shivers... I'm in the morning class," he offers the explanation then sighs. "And it's a lot easier than walking all over town. And there's no way I'd get a haul like this that way. But I guess you guys are taking it back..."

Kopis nods. “Yeah, it’s not like you could even eat all of this candy yourself anyway. It’s supposed to be for Nightmare Moon.” He scratches the back of his head. “Or, some of it anyway. Maybe not all of it. And… well, I guess it is Nightmare Night and you did scare ponies to get it, so… maybe you earned a little of it.” He looks to Sonata and Peat to see if they agree.

Sonata fidgets, adjusting a part of her costume. "Uh... maybe a little? Those ponies should get their candy back though."

Appearing somewhat more impassive, Peat scratches his head. "I guess you have a point Kopis... it is what tonight's about. Kinda."

But Sonata had a good point too. Kopis taps his chin. “How about we take the candy back to town and let them decide what to do with it? If they want to share, they can, if not, they get their candy back.”

She smiles and looks happier with this plan. “That sounds fair.”

“Fine.” Spooky grudgingly goes long with it, not that he has much choice.

“Okay then, let’s get it all loaded up so we can head back,” Kopis says, starting to scoop the loose candy roughly back into the scattered bags. There was no way to begin guessing which bag held what candy, but it didn’t really matter too much. They’d all been to the same places to get it anyway, so they could divide it up when they got back.

Being the most used to doing chores involves carrying lots of heavy stuff, Peat takes a fair few bags to balance on his back. Sonata carries a few in her magic, as does Spooky, if reluctantly.

The four little ponies leave the cave and find their way back to the road easily enough. Nothing else accosts them as they make their way back to the town center, where a group of foals is gathered around Pinkie Pie and some of her friends. Other ponies still mill around the square, since the activities for Nightmare Night haven’t ended yet.

It isn’t long before a mare in a rhinoceros costume and a Power Pony come trotting by, at which point Falcata spots her missing foal and hurries over. “Kopis, I was beginning to wonder where thou hadst gotten off to.” She marvels at the gigantic load of candy and spots the new unicorn among them. “Who is this? And from whence did ye get so much candy?”

“Um, it’s kind of a long story, but it belongs to them,” he replies, pointing at the group of foals surrounding Pinkie Pie. “And this is Spooky Shivers,” he says, declining to implicate the colt in grand theft just yet.

The named colt gives a quick wave, still wondering where his plan went wrong.

Falcata smiles and gives a little wave back. “It belongeth to them? Then why do ye have it?”

“It’s a long story, like I said. Let’s go get it back to them and I’ll explain.” Kopis lets his mom and sister grab a bag or two of candy in their magic and leads the group over to the other group, feeling triumphant in that he’d helped rescue the candy. His mom was going to be really happy to learn that, he was sure!

The foals all begin speaking at once, seeing what's surely their candy being brought over. Fragments of questions are all Kopis hears until Pinkie Pie hops over a few of the colts and fillies, landing in front of him and getting low to the ground so she can be at eye-level. "I knew you three were going to find the candy! I felt a twitch in my beak, then my tummy rumbled and my left ear tingled!"

Kopis smiles, ignoring the weirdness since this was Pinkie Pie. “Yep, we found out what happened to all of it.” He looks over to Spooky and says, “Anything you’d like to say to everypony?”

The unicorn colt steps forward and keeps his eyes planted on the ground. After a moment, he speaks up. "I'm the one who made the monsters that were scaring everypony. Last week, I got my cutie-mark for it... and with Nightmare Night coming up, I thought I could use my talent to get a whole bunch of candy..." He trails off and adds a "Sorry," to the end. Some foals gasp, others have angry looks, though none voice the less-than-polite thoughts with the adult ponies standing around.

“We brought all of the candy back,” Kopis adds, patting a bag. “We, um, don’t know whose is whose, so um…”

The town's resident librarian, who'd been standing nearby, begins floating bags off of Kopis and his friends with a field of lavender magic. "Thank you for that. We'll see that all of this is distributed to its rightful owners." Even Twilight Sparkle realizes that letting the foals split the candy amongst themselves would be a bad idea.

“Okay,” he says, beaming. Yay, he saved the foals’ candy and didn’t have to figure out how to get it all separated. Yep, this was definitely a job for the grown ups. He looks over to see that his mom and sister have very confused and questioning looks on their faces.

“So, sweetie, how did this happen?” Falcata asks.

Uh oh. Yeah, this was the part he was afraid of. Well, like they discussed earlier, they were with Pinkie. “Um, well… we wanted to go see Nightmare Moon’s statue and leave our candy there, so… um, we went with Ms. Pinkie Pie and the others. That’s when we ran into Spooky and found out he was scaring every pony to get their candy.” He smiles sheepishly.

Falcata isn’t so sure she’s buying all of that, but she doesn’t have much else to go on. Finally, she relents and smiles back, giving the three foals a pat on the back each. “Ye should have waited for Kris and myself to go with ye, but I am proud of ye for finding their candy all the same. While I suppose ye all have left your candy already, Kris and I must do so too.” She checks the progress of Twilight redistributing the candy to evaluate if they should take their leave.

Twilight is busy using an abacus to calculate the precise amount of candy each foal should have been expected to get. Pinkie Pie's method is... less precise, but somehow not much less accurate. Very quickly, the small crowd all has their candy back, mostly owing to it largely being in separate bags and baskets anyway. "Off to see Nightmare Moon, round two!" the pink earth mare announces.

Falcata waves a hoof for the three foals in her charge to come with her. “Come along, let us go to see Nightmare Moon.” She smiles a little. “Perhaps I can even tell ye all a little about her that ye might not have heard before.”

“Okay.” Kopis grins and waits for his friends to join him before trotting after the mare.

With no spooky monsters to waylay the group, they all reach the moonlit clearing once again. Once again as well, Zecora makes her appearance, this time happy to see that she has a real audience. The zebra mare opens her mouth and speaks in her peculiar rhyming way, telling a story famiiar to all of the older ponies present.

"Gather round, children, and learn of a
tale
Of how even the mightiest sometimes
can fail.
Long ago, the princess of the moon,
Decided to play by her own tune.
Banished was she for one thousand
years
A millennium filled with her rage and
her tears.
When she returned from her banishment once centuries past
She found that the customs had
changed, and changed fast.
She’d become a figure of fear and derision
And so she decided to make a revision.
She took up some fangs, and illusions
and more,
To set about scaring ponies who stepped
out their door.
So beware, for fair Luna yet lurks in the
night
To fill you with fear on this dark Nightmare Night."

Kopis leans in to hear the rhyming zebra tell the same little tale he’d heard the last year, and probably the year before that, but it never stopped setting his imagination alight. And just like the year before, he feels his mother’s hoof wrap around him and pull him close. Looking up, he sees that she’s looking through the statue of Nightmare Moon, silent as she always was during this little ritual. He leans into her alongside Kris, knowing that his mom had experienced something with Nightmare Moon that he could probably never really understand and appreciate.

When Zecora finishes, Falcata and Kris deposit their offerings of candy to the statue. His mom looks on at the statue for a moment or two more before turning away. She lays her hoof on Kopis’s back once again and says to him, “I am very proud of thee, and Princess Luna would be too.”

He grins and smiles at his friends. “I couldn’t have done it without Sonata and Peat.”

His friends smile back, and as well for the praise from Falcata. Both give an enthusiastic "Alright!", as everypony streams away from the statue and back home, to enjoy the rest of their night.

Episode 2: The Book of Loneliness (Part I)

It's been weeks since Nightmare Night passed, and the cool crisp of autumn begins to give way to winter chill. Ponyville's pegasi will soon be setting up the clouds for the first snow of the year, but for now, the morning is sunny with a breeze that just manages to convince the ponies milling about to don scarves and hats. Inside one of the town's thatched-roof houses, Kopis wakes up on this day, a Saturday, with that feeling of contentment that only sleeping in on a weekend can bring.

The colt yawns and rolls over in his bed, untangling himself from the sheets as he goes. Boy he loved sleeping in, but he really hated waking up because he had to pee. Dang it, he could’ve slept for a while more! Sure that he wouldn't get back to sleep just lying there like this, he stretches and gets up to go take care of his morning business.

After that’s taken care of, he wanders toward the kitchen, unsure of what time it was exactly but confident that he’d bump into his mom on the way and find out if he’d missed breakfast. He could vaguely pick up a whiff of eggs and toast, but he was pretty sure it was long gone by now. Darn. Maybe it was close to lunch time.

Sure enough, on the way to the kitchen his nose finds the scents of fresh paint mixing with the smell of a meal long gone. He peeks around the corner to peer into his mom’s studio, where he finds her painting a garden or something. He didn't care too much about flowers and stuff and Peat wasn't here, so he just ignores the plants in favor of addressing the pony painting them. “Morning mom.”

Falcata sets her paintbrush aside and flashes him a smile. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to come check up on thee. Didst thou sleep well?”

“Mmhmm,” he says, rubbing an eye. “What time is it?”

“A bit past ten, I believe,” she answers, setting her palette aside. “I am afraid that I had to cook breakfast a bit earlier for Kris since she wanted to go visit Lilac this morning, but I cook some for thee swiftly. If thou art hungry?”

“Okay,” he replies simply, certain that he’d be happy with whatever she made.

Back in the kitchen, Kopis rifles through the refrigerator in search of some juice or something to drink while his mother fiddles around doing cooking things that he only barely and vaguely understood. He just knew it smelled and tasted good, good enough that his mom made a living doing it.

He takes a seat at the the table and sips at his juice while the smell and sound of frying eggs tempts him. So Kris was visiting her friends, huh? Maybe he should try looking up Sonata or Peat today. He wasn’t too sure what they would do, but they always found something. Hopefully something less interesting than magical chimera illusions though.

A few minutes later a plate appears before him, adorned with fresh steaming fried eggs and some toast with strawberry jelly on it. “It is not much, since lunch is so soon.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. Thanks mom.” He starts nibbling on the cooler toast, savoring the fruit spread. “Mmm.”

“I am glad thou likest it,” Falcata says as she plops down in a chair next to him, holding an egg sandwich in her magic. “So, I was thinking that perhaps thou couldst join me in painting some today? I know thou saidst something about it last week.”

He finishes stuffing the toast in his mouth, thinking as he chews. Hmm, that did kind of sound fun, but then again this was Saturday so he didn’t want to do much of anything. Oh, except meet up with Sonata and Peat maybe. “Okay, maybe,” he says, spilling crumbs all over his plate.

Falcata cocks her head, pausing before biting her own food. “Thou soundest a bit distracted this morning. Is there something on thy mind?”

“No, um, I was just thinking about hanging out with Peat and Sonata some today,” he says, spearing an egg on a fork.

“Oh, alright, that is perfectly fine. I can walk thee there then. Perhaps this afternoon? Thou wouldst have time to paint some this morning until then if thou desired so.”

“Okay,” he repeats with a small smile, spilling a few more crumbs. “I dunno what to paint though…”

She smiles and takes a bite. After a moment, she says, “Fret not. There are too many choices to think of nothing. I am sure we can come up with something. We can start with something simple, such as landscapes. Trust me when I say that they are simpler than painting ponies.”

He nods, understanding that despite having a strong desire to jump straight in and start painting pictures of himself as a ninja beating the mustard out of other ponies. “Okay, that’s cool.”

She grins and hops up from the table. “Excellent. I shall go prepare things for thee now. Come along whenever thou art finished.”

Huh, mom sure was excited about this. He mentally shrugs and slurps up another yummy egg. Mmm. Man, he’d never be as good at cooking or painting or whatever like his mom…

With breakfast over, Kopis finds himself in his mom’s art studio, looking at a blank canvas as she gleefully scoots a little stool over for him to sit on. She adjusts the easel for him and holds a paintbrush up in her magic for him to take. “Thou art going to enjoy this, I am sure of it. Now, let me walk thee through the basics a bit. There is no substitute for experience, but…”

After a crash course in the basics of dragging a paintbrush over a canvas with paint on it, with magic no less, Kopis isn’t feeling so confident. Unicorns made this look so easy with their fancy intangible grabby telekinesis, but all he had was his mouth. Oh well, lots of earth ponies could draw and paint, his mom said, and he wasn’t so bad at drawing, so he takes the brush in his mouth and starts visualizing the picture.

Fortunately for him, Falcata stops hovering over his shoulder after her introduction, so that she can both not crowd him and so she can get back to her own painting. He takes a deep breath and touches the brush to the canvas, dragging it carefully across to form the horizon…

...huh, you know, that was actually turning out kinda not bad. He smiles a little around his brush as he dots a few yellow flowers near a rock. Yep. He didn’t plan for those flowers, but he had some space and inspiration so now there were some little flowers there. Maybe some blue flowers-

“Oh, sweetie, that is very good!” his mom suddenly says, causing him to nearly drop the brush.

He cautiously sets the brush down in a cup of paint thinner and asks, “You really think so?” It wasn’t bad. It was a far, far cry from what she was painting, but hey, for his first time it wasn’t bad.

“Indeed. I certainly did not paint so well on my first attempt.” She pats him on the back. “I think thou must have a lot of talent for this. We should definitely paint together more often.”

It’s impossible to contain his grin from hearing that. “Okay, yeah. Maybe I can try a pony next time?”

“Whatever thou wishest,” she says, ruffling his mane. “How about we take a break for now? ‘Tis a bit early for lunch yet, but I find that I work better if I take breaks from time to time.”

He kind of didn’t want to stop now, but defers to her experience. “Alright, just let me…” He swirls his brush around in the cup before wiping it dry. “Okay.”

“Very good, take good care of thy tools and they will last thee a long time,” she says before following his example and straightening up her things.

He follows her back into the hallway, ready to get a drink or something while they took a break. “So, when can I go see Peat and Sonata…?”

The answer was that shortly after lunch Falcata would walk him over, since she didn’t want to risk showing up while Sonata’s family was in the middle of a meal. The filly didn’t live very far away from them, being near Carousel Boutique, so after a few minutes the two find themselves approaching her home. They approach the door of the nice home, whereupon Falcata gives the door a few crisp knocks.

A few moments later, they hear small hooves on the other side of the door. It opens, the interior handle wrapped up in an aqua magic haze. Standing there is the familiar filly, wearing a shirt that's way too big, and her mane unkempt. Her bleary eyes go wide at seeing the two, and she quickly says, "Hi, justaminute," shutting the door again and trotting away.

A moment later the sound of hoofbeats comes back and the door opens. "Come in," is all they hear before Sonata rushes off.

Kopis hurries inside, tailed by his mom. Falcata follows him in and asks, “Sonata, are thy parents home?”

Walking up the stairs, she leans her head over the railing and answers, “Mom is,” in passing, on her way to her bedroom.

Oh, good. “Alright then, is she busy? I would like to speak with her briefly.”

“She’s in her office,” the filly shouts down the stairs before reaching the top entirely.

“Alright,” Falcata replies, heading that way as Kopis scoots after Sonata. She locates the office that she expected to find her mother in and knocks at the frame of the door to get her attention. “Pardon me, Fugue?”

The small office is almost cramped, not due to disorganization, but the sheer volume of books, papers, and charts. The unicorn mare addressed looks up from her desk, where a she writes in a ledger and occasionally taps on a calculator that takes up a fair portion of the desktop. “...Falcata? Did my daughter let you in?”

She nods. “Forgive the interruption, but Kopis wanted to visit Sonata for a bit. I wanted to make sure that was okay with you.”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine. Thank you,” the mare says, looking back to her work as she answers.

Sensing that she’s intruding, Falcata steps back. “Thank you, I will return for him by dinner time if he is not home by then.” She steps back further and prepares to make her exit.

Fugue nods now. “Alright. Goodbye, Falcata,” the mare absently gives her farewell.

Back upstairs, Kopis smirks at Sonata. “Just getting up?”

Sonata stops and turns around in a circle at the threshold to her bedroom, gently smacking Kopis with her tail when she does. “Yes, I’m just getting up. I might as well sleep in on my day off,” the little pony defends herself.

He brushes at his nose as if to dislodge any tail hairs that might have gotten stuck. “Hey, I didn’t say it was a bad thing. I slept late too.”

She smiles at that. “Well, you wait here and I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She opens the door just enough to squeeze inside and then shuts it behind her, leaving Kopis to wait.

“Okay,” he says, sitting. What did she have to do to get ready exactly?

It takes a few minutes… and then a few minutes more before the door opens and Sonata reappears. Her shirt put away and the only clothing she wears now are her glasses. Her rose mane brushed out meticulously, then tied up in a bun that would look fitting on an older mare, and even her hooves seem to have been polished quickly.

Well, now she was all spruced up for… what exactly? He suddenly realizes he’s not entirely sure what to do. “So… what do you wanna do?”

Sonata walks past, starting down the stairs. “Something fun. I haven’t done anything today,” the filly says, even if her own sleeping-in was to blame. “We should go outside.”

“Fun sounds good,” Kopis agrees, trotting after her. “Any ideas?”

“I haven’t practiced my music yet today. You could listen while I do... if you’d like.” Just in case it seems blatant, she gives another suggestion. “Or, you know, we could go see what Peat’s up to.”

“That sounds good, yeah.” He clears his throat. “But, um, if you want to practice first that’s okay too.”

If she’s disappointed, it doesn’t show. “No, let’s not make him wonder where we’ve been all day. I’ll just tell mom we’re leaving first.”

He nods, happier about heading off if Mrs. Fugue knew about . “Okay, I’ll be waiting on you.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” She trots over to the entrance to the office and knocks on the door-frame. “Hey, mom.”

The unicorn mare doesn’t look up, still working hard, but gives a “Hmm” in acknowledgement.

“We’re going outside, okay?”

“Have fun, be back before dinner,” Fugue rotely instructs, writing something with a quill held in her horn. As Sonata turns to leave, she looks up from the book. “Wait.”

The filly stops in her tracks. “What?”

“Is Kopis going with you?”

“Yeah…” Sonata answers, hoping her mom isn’t paying attention now at the very worst time.

“Okay. Be back before dinner,” Fugue repeats, settling back into her rhythm. Getting ‘in the zone’ as it were. Even in her namesake state, the mare has no desire to explain to a worried Falcata later on that she has a fairly good idea where her son might be.

Turning to leave, Sonata trots back over to Kopis, telling him, “Yup, it’s fine.”

He grins. “Okay then, let’s go.” He starts heading that way, expecting her to fall in with him. As expected, she does, shutting the door behind them and happily walking along with Kopis as they start towards the home of their little group’s third pony.

The colt and filly walk along the dirt and cobblestone roads of Ponyville, passing houses and shops, and occasionally being greeted in passing by friendly ponies going about their business. All along the way, Sonata chit-chats about whatever crosses her mind, Eventually, the cobblestone and well-worn dirt gives way to rougher trails, and fewer buildings surround them as they leave the center of town and approach the marsh. Not far into it, they come to a very old, but roughly-made and rather small, stone and wood cottage.

A familiar little pony is coming towards the house from another direction, pulling a cart that's easily two or three times his size.

Kopis throws a hoof up for a little wave. “Hey Peat. Are you busy? Need any help?”

"Hey there, Kopis. Sonata," he greets them between breaths, but can't spare a hoof to wave back. "An' nope, I got it." True to his word, it takes a few more moment for him to pull it against the house and unstrap himself. "That was the last one today."

Kopis peers at the cart. “Cool. What were you hauling?”

“Heh, only my namesake.” Peat rears up on his hind hooves, the front ones up on the side of the cart, and he hops up to take a hooful of its contents, showing them to his friends. In his hoof is… what looks pretty much like regular dirt.

Kopis isn’t going to pretend to understand the intricacies of special dirt that was worth bits. “Ah, okay. Helping your parents out some?”

Putting it back in the cart, he chuckles. “Much as I can, but not especially. Just my chores for the day.”

“Okay, cool.” Boy, this was one of those moments that he was glad his mom didn’t give him much in the way of chores. Especially on Saturdays. ...not that he couldn’t pull carts like that too, it’s just that he didn’t have to and all… “So, um, you two have any ideas what we can do today?”

“Not a clue,” Sonata says, grinning.

“Well,” Peats drawls, “I did find something the other day… Come on, I’ll show you.” The colt plods in a reasonable pace further into the bog.

This could be interesting if Peat thinks it’s worth keeping quiet until they get there. Kopis makes sure Sonata is with them and follows, resisting the urge to hurry things up.

Eventually, they reach the place where Peat stops, and not because it’s far away. In front of the three little ponies is a large pond, with huge lily pads floating on top of it. “See, I tested it the other day, and some of these are pretty strong. I figure we can make a game of it.”

Kopis scrutinizes the lily pads. “You sure? We weigh a lot more than a frog…”

“Sure do, but I promise some of these can hold us at least. Now, not all of them… but where’s the fun otherwise?” He jokes.

Hmm. Kopis figures some of them were pretty big, and Peat was right about that giving the game a little thrill. “Heh, you’ve got a point. Okay, so how does this game of yours work?”

“Well, the three of us stand on the same side of the pond, and all at once jump onto our own lily pads. Then we race to the other side,” he gives the rules simply.

“Sounds simple enough.” Kopis looks over to Sonata. “You in?”

Sonata really should let them stop wrangling her into things like this… but it sounds way too fun to pass up. “Yeah! Just let me put my glasses somewhere…” She floats them off her face and onto a log nearby. “Ready.”

“Okay then, everypony get ready.” Kopis approaches the nearest sizable lilly pad on this side of the pond and gives his friends a little grin. Peat was heavier than him and Sonata was slower. He had this.

To his right, Peat lowers himself and gets ready for the first jump. On the other side, Sonata does the same, with both seemingly waiting for Kopis to give the word.

“Go!” Kopis makes sure to say it before jumping so he doesn’t have an unfair advantage. He leaps from the bank onto the nearest pad, landing squarely in the middle.

Sonata intends to keep up with the more athletic ponies. The goldenrod filly shakes her tail, measuring the distance and trying to figure out how far she’ll need to jump. She thinks she has it, takes a step back, and jumps right over the lily pad and into the chilly water. “Eep!”

At the same time, Peat leaps onto his lily pad, making it there, just not as squarely as Kopis did. A moment later, the plant bobs and gives way, depositing the heavy earth pony in the water, where yells as well at the sudden cold.

Um… Kopis realizes he’s now alone in the world of dry foals. He turns around and hops back to the shore. He watches to make sure both of them were okay, suppressing the urge to giggle at his anticlimactic victory.

Sonata climbs back onto solid ground and immediately shakes her coat dry right next to Kopis, shivering. Pulling himself out of the water likewise, Peat drags himself to the shore and drops on the ground. “...Rematch?” he asks, teeth chattering.

“Hehe, if you want to,” Kopis says, figuring the two would want a moment to warm up and catch their breath.

“No way!” Sonata insists immediately, going to sit on the side of the pond. “I’m going to dry off.” The filly starts channeling some sort of magic, trying to figure out if she knows a coat-drying spell.

Peat simply stands and turns back to the pond. “Eeyup, you’re on,” he gives Kopis a determined look.

“Okay then.” Kopis retorts with another grin and forms up at the lilly pad again. “Ready when you are.”

Peat gets ready again, and after a few seconds shouts “Go!” being a good sport about it too. After he says he, he jumps and lands again on the same lily pad, with more solid footing this time.

Unfortunately for poor Kopis, his footing isn’t so good. He lands firmly on his pad, but his hooves immediately slide out from under him and deposit him in the very unpleasantly cold water. He gasps and resurfaces before immediately clamboring back for the bank. “Yikes!”

Peat can’t help but laugh as he hops back on the dirt. “It’s not easy, I guess.”

Sonata shoots him a dirty look from where she’s trying to use magic to dry off, to little result.

“Ugh, you said it.” Kopis shakes some of the water out of his coat, lamenting that he was quite a lot colder now. “Um… best two out of three?”

“Sure,” he answers. “But, uh, let’s start from different ones this time.” Maybe they’ll have better luck with the other ones.

“Good idea.” Kopis shakes some more water off and picks a different pad, selecting the one Sonata started at this time. “On you.”

Peats moves to the one to the right of his original, and again, prepares to jump. “Go!” He leaps after giving Kopis a chance.

Kopis doesn’t hesitate before hopping neatly onto the pad in front of him. To his relief, this one doesn’t give under his weight.

Seeing him jump, Peat crouches and kicks off with all his strength, landing on the plant perfectly. Thankfully, this one is more stable than the last. They might get a real competition going this time!

Nope. Kopis chooses his next target and launches himself that way, only to find himself back in the chilly water yet again. He didn’t even see what went wrong that time! It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting out of the cold and back to the less cold air. He scrabbles back for the bank and climbs out, dripping and shivering. “D-dang it…”

Just afterwards, Peat jumps onto a lily pad and finds that it doesn’t feel like supporting him, dumping the colt into the water again. He paddles to the shore and gets out, prancing in place. “Ah, that’s cold!” It’s somehow worse the third time.

“Y-yeah!” Kopis tries to stop shivering and look like it wasn’t bothering him too much. “I think we need to find something easier…”

“M-maybe we should try this again come summer-time,” he suggests, walking over.

Kopis takes a deep breath. “Uh huh.” He shakes his head to get some water out of his mane and asks, “So, what now? Something, um, warmer?”

“We can wait until we dry off first,” Sonata says. With the sun out, it shouldn’t take too long. Sadly, it’s not cold enough yet in Ponyville for there to be hot chocolate. ...At least, it isn’t cold enough to ponies who aren’t silly enough to jump in ponds.

Kopis kind of wishes he was home since he had no doubt his mom would whip something like that up for the three of them. ...after a bit of verbal discipline for trotting off without a grown up and jumping in a cold pond in the woods. He nods. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

The three little ponies agreed, they walk around until they find a dry patch of ground, where the sun shines through the bog tree canopy. A slight breeze blows, but the three ponies hardly feel it through their fur, and they all stretch out like lizards sunning and dry out eventually.

Yep, that was much better. Kopis stretches out and rolls onto his back, kicking his hooves into the air. There was a little temptation to roll around like a little colt, but he was with his friends and he didn’t want to look entirely silly.

The rest of the afternoon passes without much incident, especially of the cold and wet sort, as the foals figure out a few random things to do to pass the time. Eventually Sonata and Kopis leave Peat back at his family’s house before heading back to hers so that they’re there before Falcata shows up. Fortunately, he’s also good and dry by then, so he doesn’t even have to explain himself.

After giving his goodbyes, Kopis and his mom start back toward their home for dinner. “So, what didst thou do with Sonata today?”

Got really cold and wet, ran around and did foalish stuff. The usual. “Oh, um, she practiced her music some and we played some games.” Kind of true. Close enough.

“That is nice. Perhaps next weekend Peat and Sonata can come over instead. Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps we could get the families all together. It hath been a very long time since we have done that.”

That sounded pretty fun actually. “Yeah, cool. Oh, and you could make some of that really yummy cheesecake.”

Falcata chuckles. “Yes, I believe so.”

After a minute or so of walking, Kopis realizes that he’s getting pretty hungry. “So, is Kris home? What’s for dinner tonight?”

“She is, and I had planned for twice-baked potatoes with a salad. I know how much ye both love those.” Falcata grins. “As do I.”

In a few more minutes, the two are about halfway between the two families' houses. The sun is low in the sky, casting an orange glow over the Ponyville street, and most everypony is inside after working for the day. Ahead of them, Kopis sees a small shape on the ground, in the middle of the road.

Hmm, what was that? He breaks away from Falcata to get a bit closer so he could investigate. She stops in her tracks and watches. “What is it?”

Before him, lying on the ground is a clearly old book. The cover is scratched in places, and generally worn, but it looks like it's been well taken care of. Besides lying in the dirt in the middle of the street, of course. On the cover is a large picture of a silver-ish crown, with two gems set on either side of a large, central, sapphire.

“Huh, it’s a book,” he says, scooping it up in his hooves. He cracks the cover to check its contents.

Falcata joins him at his side. “What dost thou see?”

Huh? He closes the book and shows it to her. “A book. Looks like somepony’s diary or something.” She gives no response, so he waves it in her face. “Book.” Still nothing. Huh? “Mom?”

She blinks. “Yes sweetie?”

“It’s a book, see? A diary. I don’t see anypony’s name on it though.” She again seems to stare right through it. What the hay was going on? “Mom, are you okay?”

She blinks again. “Yes, but… art thou? What didst thou see?”

Okay, this was getting really weird. He waves the book in front of her again, to no avail. Okay… time to try something else. “Um, nothing?”

She smiles. “Oh, okay then. Let us hurry home and meet up with Kris.”

No, not really weird. Super duper freaky. “Yeah… okay.” He puts the book on his back, taking care to balance it well, and follows her home. Once he got there he was definitely asking Kris about it. Maybe something was wrong with their mom… A little chill runs down his spine. What would he do if something was wrong with her? She… was the one who took them to the doctor when they were sick. But… she seemed okay otherwise. Happy as usual. This was getting really unnerving…

Back home, Kopis peels away from his mom almost as soon as they’re inside. He sets the book on the living room’s coffee table and starts to head toward Kris’s room. Fortunately, he finds her there, busy slipping out of a jacket. “Hey, Kris?”

His sister jumps and spins around, holding the jacket up to cover herself for a second. “Kopis! Don’t you know to knock?”

“Um, sorry, but this is kind of important… can you come here?”

She eyes him suspiciously before tossing her jacket onto the bed. “What is it?”

“Well, you see, I found this book on the street, but there’s something weird about it and I’m kind of worried.”

She follows him back out to the living room. “Huh? Worried about a book? Why? Does it belong to the princesses or something?”

This was an improvement already. “Huh? No, I don’t think so. I mean, um, just come look.” He leads her back to the table and waves a hoof at it. “See?”

“Uh-huh… it’s a book,” she states flatly.

His ears and tail pick up. “You can see it? Great.” He peers around the corner toward the kitchen where their mom was. “I tried to show it to mom, but she just… zoned out or something. I think something’s wrong with her.”

Well, that got Kris’s attention. “Um, are you sure? Maybe she just didn’t think it was interesting?”

“No, no, I was waving it in her face and told her about it like ten times and she just stared through it. After that she was fine though.” He bites his lip. “I’m worried about her.”

“Hmm…” Kris lifts the book in her magic. “Well, we’ll get to the bottom of that. Watch.” She parades the book into the kitchen and steps up behind Falcata. “Hey mom?”

“Yes honey?” Falcata asks, looking back at her.

Kris floats the book up into her face. “Kopis found this book today. Any idea what we should do with it?” Falcata seems to notice nothing and waits patiently for a response. “Mom?”

“Yes? What is it?”

Kris waves the book around some more. “See the book? Right here?” Nothing. Kris gives a worried look to Kopis, who is now wide-eyed with concern. “Um…”

Falcata stops what she was working at and turns around entirely. “You two have been in a strange mood today,” she says lightly. “Dinner is nearly done if ye want to get washed up.”

Kris nods slowly. “Oh, um, okay. Will do.” She smiles nervously and heads back into the living room with her little brother.

“See? What’s wrong with her? I’m… scared.”

“I don’t know.” Kris stares at the book floating in her magic. “That was really weird. I mean, she looks and sounds okay, but… yeah, she couldn’t see the book at all. Maybe it’s magical?”

“But why? Who’d make a book like this? Why’s it only affect her?”

Kris pops the cover open and starts scanning the first page. “I dunno. This isn’t the kind of magic I normally deal with. Hmm… looks like somepony’s diary.” She turns it over a time or two in her magic, studying it. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s magical alright. But…”

“But what?” Kopis questions, scooting closer.

“...but I can’t say anything else. Sorry, this isn’t the kind of magic I work with. Um, where’d you say you found it?”

He shrugs. “It… I don’t know, it was in the street not far from Sonata’s house. I don’t know how it got there.”

Kris peeks around back toward the kitchen. “Well, we definitely can’t go looking back there right now. Dinner’s almost done and mom won’t want any excuses. Maybe after we eat, if we can sneak out somehow.”

Kopis doesn’t like the sounds of that. His mom was psychic or something when it came to knowing where he was. “Maybe…”

“Actually, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s take a look inside first. Might be some clues.” Kris sets the book on the table where they can both read it and flips to the first page.

Frustratingly, the diary appears to be just that: a weird diary that their mom couldn’t see but was otherwise completely normal. There was no name that they’d run into yet, but it seemed to be an average foal writing it. Kopis is eager to skim through it faster than Kris is flipping pages, but before they can get very far at all their mom summons them for dinner. Kris has to all but tear her little brother away from the book to carry him toward the kitchen, assuring him with, “Don’t worry, we’ll read the rest tonight.”

Dinner was excellent as usual, but given the matters on their minds, Kopis and Kris haven’t eaten with their usual gusto. Falcata sets her fork down for a moment and cocks her head at them. “Ye two have not eaten much. Is everything alright? Is something wrong with the food?”

No, just a crazy book you can’t see. Kopis shakes his head. “No, it’s great. I’m, just… um, not hungry tonight.”

Kris nods in agreement. “Yeah, it’s all perfectly fine. I’m just feeling kind of off for some reason.”

Falcata’s eyes widen a bit and she hops out of her chair to step over and lay a hoof on their foreheads. “Ye are not ill are ye?”

“No, mom, I’m fine, I promise,” Kris says, smiling weakly and gently nudging her hoof away.

Kopis isn’t so enthusiastic. He really, really didn’t like this. It shouldn’t bother him this much, but it was so weird…

“Sweetie, what about thee? Art thou feeling unwell?”

He shuffles his hooves and nods sheepishly. It was true, after all, and might deflect the truth a bit. “A little.”

“Oh dear, what is wrong?” Falcata looks over at Kris, hoping that her healing-magic gifted daughter would have some clue.

Kris nibbles her lip. “Um, tell you what, let’s get him in bed and I’ll check him over.”

Kopis can see where this is going and hops out of the chair before his mom can scoop him up and carry him herself. He wasn’t that sick. Or sick at all, really. Just… frazzled.

The three make it back to his bedroom and deposit him in bed, whereupon Kris excuses herself to fetch the book while their mom gives him the first over. Sure enough, Falcata pays the tome no attention as Kris returns and plops it on the bed, and not only because she was busy checking Kopis’s tongue, eyes, ears and everything else for anything amiss.

“It’s okay mom, I don’t think he’s that sick. Let me check him over.”

Reluctantly, the older mare backs off the bed and sighs. “Alright. I will go clean up in the kitchen, and will return shortly.”

“Okay,” Kopis says, putting his foal talents of faking a sick voice to good use.

Kris waits for Falcata to vanish before sliding the book over. “Not a bad distraction there. Now, let’s get back to looking through this…”

“Heh, yeah.” Totally intentional.

“Man… I wonder who this is. I feel bad for her, living like this. I can’t imagine if mom wasn’t here for days at a time like this,” Kris mumbles as she pages through it.

“Yeah…”

After a few minutes, Falcata returns. “Sweetie, is everything okay?”

Kris almost slams the book shut, but remembers at the last moment that it didn’t matter. She rolls over to face their mom and says, “I think he’ll be okay. Just a little sleep and he’ll be fine.”

Kopis nods.

“Good, that is good to hear,” Falcata says, relaxing visibly. She steps close enough to brush his mane out of his face. “In that case, we should let thee get some sleep. If thou needest anything, just call for me.”

He nods again. “Okay mom.”

Kris slides off the bed, pretending to get ready to leave too. “I’ll be right here too.” She waits for Falcata to leave before she heads out into the hallway, shuts her own bedroom door, then scurries back into Kopis’s bedroom to close them in. She cuts out the lights and ignites her horn to give them some reading light. “There, that ought to give us some privacy,” she whispers.

Reading further in the diary turns up a few things. The owner was apparently a filly named Jewel, who had a unicorn magical tutor. Past that, there’s little to go on. Kopis grumbles as he fidgets more and more, trying to stay in comfortable positions to read while in the bed. Eventually, he finds himself yawning more and more and finding it impossible to stay focused.

“Maybe we should pick this up tomorrow…” Kris says, feeling tired herself.

“What if something happens before then?”

She shuts the book and flicks her tail. “I don’t know. I… just don’t think we’re going to get very far like this. You know, I was thinking about it and maybe the librarian would have some idea. You know, Twilight Sparkle? If anypony would know of a possible magical tutor or anything else related to this, it would be her.”

Reluctantly, he accepts that she’s probably right. “Okay. Um, is the library open tomorrow?”

“I think so. At least in the morning.” Kris rolls her eyes at the thought, but says, “Guess we’ll have to get up early. No idea how I’m going to get past mom since she’s usually up at the crack of dawn, but I’ll think of something.”

He nods somberly. “Okay, whatever it takes.”

The next morning, Kopis finds himself awake very early since he was having a hard time sleeping at all. Especially after his mom came by to check on him before she left for work. After he waits for her to leave and gives her plenty of time to get some distance from the house, he slips out of bed and bangs on Kris’s door. “Hey, you awake?”

Receiving no answer, he enters and finds her sleeping quite soundly. He pokes her on the nose. “Hey, c’mon, wake up. We’ve got to get going!”

“Uh?” Kris blinks a few times before shooting up in bed. “Crap! How late is it?”

“Mom just left, so it can’t be too late. We need to get going so we get to the library before Twilight closes it!”

Kris rolls out of bed. “I know, I know. Hang on a sec.” She shakes her head, messing up her mane. Unfortunately, it was far too trivial to worry about right then, so she only gives it a quick hoof through as she hurries through her morning routine.

Predictably, Kopis was done well before she was and was all but trotting in place at the door. “Come on.”

“I’m coming, hold your ponies.” Kris snags the book in her magic and joins him at the door. “Okay, let’s go.”

The two head outside, make sure to lock the door behind them (only after being sure to get their key first!) and trot off toward the library. The library itself looks about like Kopis remembered: a giant tree with windows in it that he never really saw himself entering voluntarily unless the school brought him there. After heading up to the door, Kris checks for any posting of hours before she goes banging on it. By luck, they picked a good time, so she gives the door a few crisp knocks.

There’s no answer after a moment, but the two can hear movement from inside. The Golden Oaks library is a strange combination of public building and somepony’s house though, so walking in while it’s open is normal enough.

“Is she not home?” Kopis asks.

“I don’t know. It is a public library though, so I guess we can go on in,” his sister replies before opening the door and stepping gingerly inside. “Hello?”

Inside, books lay in piles everywhere, on tables, carts, and even on the floor in places. Across the room, the purple unicorn the two know as the librarian is sitting at a desk, muttering to herself and writing frantically. Her mane is frazzled, and when she looks over, her eye twitches slightly. She gets up to walk over to the visitors. "Hello, Kris. ...Kopis? Yes, right." Twilight prides herself on her memory and organizational skills... ironically, today.

Kris smiles back sheepishly. “Um, hello Ms. Twilight. We, uh, hate to bother you today, but um, we’ve kind of got a little problem we thought you could help us with…” She floats the book up for Twilight to see.

Kopis nods. “Please?”

"I'm sorry you two, but the library is not fit for public use!" Twilight turns around suddenly, floating various books off piles. "How many times have I tried to teach ponies about the Dewey Decimal system? And they still just put the books back wherever they please. And yesterday we received a whole new shipment to catalog..." Anypony who's spent even a little time around Twilight has seen her like this before, and it isn't pretty. The mare nervously looks around at the mess, then suddenly faces them again. "If you two will run an errand, I promise that I'll help you find whatever you're looking for, as soon as this is all in order."

Kopis frowns. “But… we’re kind of in a hurry…”

They had hours until their mom would be home, so Kris just raises a hoof to hush him. “If it’s something quick then I think we can help. What is it?”

"Great! Normally I'd ask Spike to handle this sort of thing, but he isn't around.... I'm running out of quills and ink, rapidly. If I leave to get more, I'll lose valuable time, and the clock is ticking!" Twilight can only hope they understand the urgency of the situation. "If I don't get this under control by tomorrow, ponies won't be able to check out books!"

Sounded easy enough. Kris nods. “Okay. Where do you normally get it from?”

The mare calms a little now that she has temporary replacement assistants on the job. “The quills I get from the Quills and Sofas store. The one near the farrier? The ink comes from the art supply shop nearby,” Twilight explains.

Well darn. If she’d have known that she could have brought some ink and quills from home. Oh well. Just before turning away, she asks, “Okay. How much do you need?”

Sweeping her eyes across the messy room, Twilight chuckles nervously. “Just, uh… tell them it’s for me.”

Understanding that, Kris nods again. “Okay. Um, last thing… we don’t have many bits for that…”

Twilight waves a hoof, walking back to her writing desk. “Just tell them to put it on my tab, and I’m sure you won’t have any problems.”

“Okay, we will,” Kris repeats. She turns and heads out to leave the mare to her mild neurosis.

Once outside, Kopis groans and says, “This isn’t why we came… did she even see the book?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we were going to get very far with her like this,” Kris explains, leading him toward the quill shop. “It’s going to be annoying if she can’t see it after all of this, yeah…”

The colt grumbles a little, but goes quiet as he follows his sister off on their errand. “I can go get the ink while you get the quills,” he suggests to save time.

There was this little voice in the back of Kris’s head that told her not to do it, for fear of their mother’s wrath upon learning that Kopis got hurt or lost because she took him to town and let him go wandering off. These were extraordinary circumstances though… “Yeah. Yeah, okay, that should help. Go do that and I’ll take care of this.”

He smiles a little more, now that he was taking fate into his own hooves a bit, and scurries off toward the art supply shop.

Meanwhile, Kris locates the curious Quills and Sofas shop and heads inside to find anypony willing to help a desperate filly with no bits and only the word of Twilight Sparkle.

The only other ponies inside are a cream-colored earth pony and a mint unicorn looking at a sofa, and the stallion who runs the store. None of them comment on Kris’ book, but the store-owner quickly helps her when she approaches him, setting the filly up with a bulk-order of quills. He’s pretty used to this situation by now, and takes her word for it.

Well, that was easy enough. Kris smiles and thanks the stallion for helping before she heads back out to look for her little brother.

With a bit of a pep in his step, Kopis gallops up to the art supply shop and zips inside, sure that he can find some ink in short order.

Inside, he finds a cramped shop with shelves on every side, lined with supplies for all kinds of artistic endeavors. Paintbrushes and paint, canvases, rolls of fabric, calligraphy brushes, and yes, a section entirely for pots of different sorts of ink. At the far end, a bored-looking pegasus mare sits with her muzzle resting on a hoof.

He trots up to her and waves a hoof. “Um, excuse me, miss?” The mare doesn't react to Kopis at all, so he tries harder. Waving his hoof closer, he repeats, “Miss? Hello?”

“Huh?” She looks down at the colt. “Oh, hey, you’re Falcata’s son! What did you need?”

Whew, for a second there he was worried ponies were going to start ignoring him altogether! Relaxing a bit, he smiles and says, “Um, I was just talking to Ms. Twilight Sparkle, and she said she needed some ink from you.”

“Why didn’t she send Spike?” the pony looks a little skeptical.

“She said he was away somewhere… I needed to ask her some stuff but she was too busy reorganizing things and asked if I could help.”

The pegasus smiles. “Yeah, that sounds like her. Just give me a minute.” She gets up off her stool and walks into the back room. A minute later, she comes back with a box balanced between her wings, and sets it down on the floor for Kopis. “There you are. She’s practically the only pony in Ponyville who needs to buy ink in bulk.”

He returns the smile and accepts the ink. “Thank you. I’ll get it right over to her.” He gives a little wave and turns to head out.

Outside, he quickly bumps into his older sister, who he’s pleased to see is carrying quills like she was supposed to be. “Okay, we got everything. Let’s get back to the library, quick.”

Kris agrees and they trot back to the library together, hoping that this little errand wasn’t all for nothing. She leads Kopis back to the door and heads in without knocking this time, since she doubted Twilight was much more coherent. “Ms. Twilight? We got the things for you.”

The purple mare looks up, holding a quill with a broken tip in her magic. “Kris! You’re just in time. I was nearly completely out of quills.” Without moving, her magic reaches out and takes both containers, already opening them. “Ahh yes. Thank you very much. Now, was there a certain book you wanted reserved, or…?”

“Um, no actually. I realize this kind of isn’t really a library’s purpose or anything, but, um, we found this book,” she says, floating the diary up to Twilight’s eye level. “It’s magical and causing some weird stuff to happen. We hoped you might have some idea of what to do.”

Twilight looks directly at Kris instead. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that... you found something?"

Kopis gives a very worried look to Kris, who can’t help but reflect it. Kris waves the book in Twilight’s face one more time. “This?”

For a moment, the mare stares, then goes back to writing as if the conversation had ended.

Oh crap. “Kris…” Kopis whines.

“Um, Ms. Twilight, can I ask you a hypothetical question?” Kris hazards, desperate for any shreds of information. She shoves the book into Kopis’s mouth and points to the door. “Go outside, maybe it won’t affect her there.” He nods and backs out the door.

“Kris?” She looks back over. “I do love hypothetical questions, but I’m rather busy… I guess you did do me a favor though, so as long as it won’t take long.”

“It won’t, I promise. If, I, uh, found a magical book somewhere that I can’t identify and it does strange stuff to ponies, what should I do?”

"Oh, that one is easy. It's section twenty-six B of the Ponyville Library Card Holder's Hoofbook. 'Any magically-anomalous library materials are to be presented to the head librarian immediately.' But you don't need to worry about that, sweetie. I keep every book that could possibly fall under that description under lock and key." Not once in her tenure as librarian has there been an incident because of a book getting loose… other magical incidents yes, but Twilight is very careful about the books.

Great. Kris nods along. “Okay, now… what if for some reason the head librarian can’t see or perceive the book?”

Twilight stops her writing and puts a hoof to her chin. "That is an interesting question. Is this for a school report or something? I approve of teaching fillies about magical safety precautions, but you would need to wait until tomorrow if you wanted books on the subject." There's simply too much clutter right now, to look for anything so specific. "To answer your question, I think I would try to find the original owner of the object, but that's as a trained magic-user myself."

Whew, at least Twilight was literal minded enough to actually answer such a weird question at face value. Kris smiles and nods. “Okay, thank you, I think I’ll try that. If not I might come back tomorrow.” She bids Twilight farewell and heads outside to find Kopis squirming in place.

“Did it work?”

She isn’t sure. “Um, well, she did answer some questions at least. She suggested that we try to find the owner, which isn’t going to be easy. Where’d you find the book at?”

That much he could help with. He waves for her to follow him as he heads down the street. “It was this way, not far from Sonata’s house. Just lying in the road.”

They reach the spot after a few minutes of trotting, only to find that it was a pretty uninteresting and empty spot in the road. Kopis walks in a little circle around the space where he found the book and scans the street both ways. “This was where I found it,” he says, prodding the road with a hoof.

“Nothing else weird here,” Kris says as she copies the motion of checking around. “How are we supposed to find who owned or wrote it?” She looks at the houses around them and says, “We can’t really just go door to door and ask…”

“Maybe we can wait around and see if anypony matching her description comes out?”

Kris shakes her head. “We don’t know if or when that’ll happen, and mom will come home eventually and I do not want to be anywhere but home when she gets there. Besides, we don’t have much to go on other than she’s a unicorn filly.”

Kopis swishes his tail and hangs his head. “What do we do then? Just go home and finish reading it?”

“Honestly? I don’t think we have much choice.” Kris gives him a little pat and tugs him in the direction of home. “Let’s do that first before we waste forever looking for somepony we don’t know anything about.”

Once they’re back home, the foals set to doing just that. The book is hard to read, since it was a little sad to read at times, and because reading somepony’s day-to-day life was boring at the best of times. Despite the difficulties, the two soldier through most of the diary before their mom gets home a little after lunch time.

She pokes her head into Kopis’s bedroom and asks, “Sweetie, how art thou feeling?”

He initially moves to interpose himself between her and the dairy, only to realize it was pointless. “Feeling a lot better now,” he lies.

She smiles widely. “Oh, that is wonderful to hear. Dost thou think thou couldst eat something?”

“Uh huh, I think so.”

“Very good. I will go get something prepared for us then,” she says before vanishing off toward the room she seemed to spend most of her time in when she wasn’t sleeping.

“So what now?” Kopis asks Kris.

The young mare yawns and stares down at the book. “I don’t know. This doesn’t seem to be getting us much of anywhere…”

Kopis takes the book and flips to the last page. Everypony always said not to skip to the end of a book because it would ruin the story, but dang it, wasn’t that what they wanted now? “Maybe the end will tell us something…”

It doesn’t say much. Kopis groans and sets the book down. “She just says how she feels invisible…”

“So that just leaves that one day she mentioned. Where she saw Princess Celestia at the celebration.” Kris sighs. “I guess we should go back to see Twilight Sparkle and ask about that. If anypony would know anything about a specific day over a hundred years ago, it would be her. Or the princess herself, but… uh… I don’t think we’re going to run into her on the street.”

Kopis grumbles something and slides the book away so he can lay down. He kind of didn’t want to eat anything after all.

For a minute he wonders if he should even care this much, since as far as he knew he could just dump the book somewhere and forget all about it. What harm could it do if it was invisible to some ponies?

...but there was always that unknown…

Episode 2: The Book of Loneliness (Part II)

Kopis didn’t sleep too well that night, and despite being a foal who enjoyed his sleep, he finds himself awake long before he had to be at school. His mom was already off to work and Kris was on her way to school, which left him alone in the house. Alone. With the book about loneliness. He didn’t like that very much.

With that in mind, he really wasn’t interested in staying home all day wondering what to do while he waited for Kris to get home. He had a couple of ideas of things he could do in the meantime, such as go looking for Peat or Sonata and see what they thought about it all, but he had to admit that Kris’s idea seemed a bit more productive. Maybe Twilight Sparkle would know something useful.

He grabs the book, gives it a frustrated snort, and heads off to the library, taking care to shut and lock the door behind him. On his way, adult ponies mill around, going about their business as usual, but none pay him any mind. It’s well-known after all, that not all the foals are in the morning class. On his way to the library, Kopis sees two very familiar little ponies walking in a different direction. Hey, looked like his plans were about to change. He throws a hoof up and calls, “Hey guys, over here!”

They hear him and stop in the road, looking over. Peat plods his way, and Sonata practically bounces, being the one to speak when they get close enough. “Hey, Kopis!”

He tries to put on a brave face and asks, “Where were you two headed off to?”

“We were gonna eat breakfast at Sugarcube Corner,” Sonata answers, while Peat nods in agreement.

Darn, if only his mom hadn’t already made something for him. Even though he had some pressing matters at hoof, that did sound pretty inviting right then. “Oh, okay. Um, say, you two mind if I ask you something? It might sound kind of strange…”

“Strange how?” Peat asks, tilting his head.

Sonata seems to catch onto his tone a little more easily. “Uh, yeah, go ahead.”

He pulls the book out of his bag and flashes it in front of them. “Can you two see this?”

"Uh... I wear glasses, Kopis, but I'm not that blind." Sonata bops him lightly on the muzzle.

Peat is more confused now. "Why wouldn't we?"

Kopis breathes out visibly, ignoring Sonata’s tap. “Okay, good. Um, listen, this book is magical. Cursed or something. Some ponies can’t see it, and if you try to tell them about it they just zone out and ignore you. Mom can’t see it, and when I took it to Ms. Twilight she couldn’t see it either. Kris and you two can see it though…”

“Weird. Where’d you get it?” Peat asks, not seeing the distressing part.

Right after, Sonata speaks up. “It’s magical?” She doesn’t know anything at all about curses, unicorn or not!

He nods emphatically. “Uh huh, Kris said so. And, um, I found it over that way,” he says, point off down the street toward where he found the book. “Not long after I left Sonata’s house. It was just lying in the road.”

“And ponies just can’t see it sometimes? Does it do anything else?” Sonata guesses that’s not really terrible as far as curses go. “Maybe I could take a look at it, with my horn I mean.”

“Sure,” he says, sliding it over to her. “It… doesn’t seem to do anything else. It looks like somepony’s diary, and it’s kind of sad to read. She was really lonely. She also lived over a hundred years ago apparently.”

Surrounding the diary in a haze of aqua magic, Sonata closes her eyes and concentrates, feeling out for magical energy. It doesn't feel like it wants her to see it, but when she presses, the sensation of magical energy hits her immediately, and she gasps and takes a few steps back from the book, looking between it and Kopis.

His eyes widen a bit. “What? Did you feel something?”

Sonata frowns, uncharacteristically worried. She takes a breath and steps forward again one hoof at a time. “D-did she tell you about the connection?”

“Huh? Connection?” This really didn’t sound good…

“It’s a little hard to explain…” To an earth pony, she gracefully leaves out, even if Sonata feels anything but as she scratches a hoof in the dirt. “It’s like… there are threads between you and the book. A few between it and me too, like it's reaching out for ponies. Or like the magic is rubbing off on them."

No, not good at all! “Wh-what? What are you saying? Am I going to become invisible or something?”

"I don't know!" Her voice cracks slightly. "It hasn't fully happened yet, but it's definitely still happening."

"Now just hold on," Peat steps forward. "Can we just get rid of the thing?" Seems like the easiest solution to him.

Sonata shakes her head. "We don't know how far it'll go. What if we leave it somewhere and it still affects him?" She looks at Kopis. "You said Ms. Twilight couldn't help?"

“No!” He frowns. “Well, not directly since she couldn’t see it, but she did say that we should look for whoever it belonged to. That’s after Kris asked her something else… anyway, I don’t know how to do that since she’d definitely be dead by now and I have no idea where she’d be anyway.”

“I don’ think the book just up and wandered into the road by itself,” Peat points out. “Somepony around town must’ve left it.”

“It’ll take too long to ask around,” Sonata argues. “We should go to the library and try to research.”

He nods to Peat. “Yeah, but I can’t imagine who or why. I think the library is our only chance at this point. Crown Jewel, the filly who wrote it, said that she was going to see Princess Celestia at the Solar Celebration thing about a hundred and fifty years ago, or something. I’ve got the page marked. Anyway, I was hoping that even if Ms. Twilight can’t see the book, maybe that’ll tip her off on something to tell us.” He taps his hooves together. “You know, so far it’s only been grownups who can’t see it…”

“Huh, really? Well, that narrows it down. Couldn’t have belonged to one of them if they can’t even see it,” Peat reasons. There can’t be that many ponies their age in Ponyville.

“Unless you want to ask everypony in class and wait for the morning class to get out, we should go to the library first,” Sonata insists.

Peat shrugs. “I just reckon we can get a headstart now, if we’re gonna ask ponies.”

“Maybe we’ll see some to ask on the way to the library?” Kopis suggests. “I’m not sure where else to start really… unless we want to split up. Or if you two still want to go eat first maybe there’ll be someponies there to ask?”

Peat shakes his head. “I couldn’t just go out for breakfast with you in this jam. “ Mmm, pancakes with strawberry jam… No, not the time. “We’ll help until whatever that book is up to is stopped.”

“If we’re going to split up,” Sonata starts. “Where is everypony going?”

Kopis thinks. “Good question… um, I’d prefer the library at least, since I’ve already seen Ms. Twilight about this recently.” He looks over at Peat and asks, “Do you want to try asking around about the book?”

...Okay, he’s not against the idea of going out to eat while he helps Kopis.”Sure. I’ll ask everypony there if they know what this is all about.”

Kopis smiles a little in return. “Thanks, that’ll help I’m sure. Okay then, we all set? Let’s go get this mystery solved.”

The trip to the library is mostly uneventful, until the two only see a few other ponies their own age walking around. Arabesque could see the journal, but the pegasus filly claimed she never had before. A little later, they flag down Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie, who are roller-skating down the street in the opposite direction. They come over, and can also see the book, giving Kopis' theory more weight. When asked, one says she thinks Royal Blue, another of their classmates, might have said something about a weird book the other day, but isn't sure. They skate on their way soon after, wondering why somepony would be going towards the library, before school even starts.

Kopis has to stop and think about that himself a time or two, considering just how crazy all of this was. How often was it that somepony got wrapped up in stuff like this? Why him?

Pushing that aside, he cracks the door to the library and pokes his head in. “Ms. Twilight? Are you here?”

Sonata walks in after him, and both see Twilight clearly in the lobby of the library, putting some books from a cart back onto a self. “Hello,” she greets them cheerily. “Do you need help finding anything?” she asks, looking mostly at the unicorn filly.

He tries to ignore that, figuring it’s just a figment of his imagination. “Um, well, not really looking for a book specifically, but I was hoping maybe you could help us find out about an event that happened a while ago. One of the Solar Celebrations.”

“Oh, hello Kopis. Yes, the Summer Sun Celebrations are fascinating events. But, I don’t think we have any books about specific ones. There might be ones that reference them, or talk about them though.”

Yep, this was getting a bit unnerving. He pulls the book out and checks the date quickly before she loses interest in him entirely. “Okay, um, well the one in particular I was interested in was the 860th one. Happened about 150 years ago I think. Do you know anything about it? Or have any books on it?”

Twilight does give it a moment of legitimate thought, but can't recall anything of note. "I'm sorry, no. If anything special happened then, I'm not aware. Why do you ask?" Is he doing a school report as well? Twilight really needs to ask Cheerilee again about including her in lesson plans more often.

He wonders how specific he can get before the book’s stupid magic got in the way. “I was trying to find out some stuff about somepony, and almost all I know is that she attended the celebration. Just that and her name: Crown Jewel.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t say I’ve heard the name.” It’s even already hard to remember. Clearly nopony she’d ever read about. “Well, if she was somepony important, there might be a biography about her here. Or, we do have a book on the genealogy and lineage of most of Ponyville’s influential families.”

“I’m not sure if she actually lived in Ponyville, but that might help. Can you show us?” he asks.

“Certainly!” Twilight tells the two happily. Few ponies ever want to see that book, and never ones their age! The lavender unicorn leads them over to where a small podium holds a very large tome. It has to be at least fifteen pounds of ink and paper. She lifts it effortlessly in her magic and deposits it on a short, filly-sized reading table by one of the windows. “I’ll be close if you need help finding anything,” she tells the two ponies, before going back to shelving books.

“Okay, thank you!” he says, trying to sound enthusiastic and cheerful. He turns to Sonata and whispers, “This is gonna take forever... if she’s even in here.”

Sonata’s horn lights up, and an aqua haze surrounds the book in front of them, adjusting it with obvious effort. Dang thing is even heavier than it looks! The goldenrod filly sighs, and whispers back. “Yeah, and we don’t have much time before school starts…”

To not waste what little of that is left, the two ponies get to it. Sonata, being a little more academically-minded, the friends wordlessly agree, takes the lead in paging through the book. Kopis watches, scanning pages alongside her to give a second set of eyes on the dreary pages. Like Twilight said, it contains the family history of almost all of the larger families in Ponyville, who’ve been important to its history. It starts off with ‘A’ for Apple. The two see pages and pages of the Apple family’s pedigree, followed by even more pages with small descriptions of what each pony looked like, whether they were an earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn, and a few facts about them if they were noteworthy enough. Somepony has apparently been keeping the book updated, since Kopis and Sonata see Applejack and a filly from the other class, Applebloom, in there. Unfortunately, Crown Jewel wasn’t part of the Apple family.

Most of the rest of the entries are smaller, with families that have made less of a contribution than the Apples. Even then though, the little ponies page through dozens of separate families, finding nothing until the words run together, and they find themselves rubbing at their eyes and looking away just for a break. The dual stress of mind-numbing boredom and simultaneously knowing they’re on a deadline starts to become palpable. ...But then, midway through the book, they catch a lucky break under the section for ‘R’. There, clear as day, is Crown Jewel’s name, in a section almost equally as large and detailed as the one the Apple family has. The two scan down the family tree, and their eyes meet at a single entry at the very bottom. The name there is one every colt and filly in Ponyville has crossed or tried to avoid at some point.

Diamond Tiara, unicorn, F. A silver tiara. Blue eyes, light magenta coat, periwinkle mane with white stripe.

Huh. Well, it sure wasn’t what he was hoping for, but to see somepony that he knew that might be related was enough to give Kopis a little kick to his spirits and energy. “...well, that’s something. What do we do know? Ask her if she knows the name?” Why couldn’t it have been somepony else? Like that Applebloom? She was pretty nice.

“I guess we don’t have much choice…” Sonata for once doesn’t sound excited about the idea. She has to deal with Diamond Tiara more often than she’d like as it is. Any more isn’t something she looks forward to. Looking away, she happens to see a clock on the way, and jumps up to her four feet. “We have to be to school in ten minutes!”

“Oh crap! C’mon, let’s go!” He hops down without bothering to close the book or attempt to return it to wherever it came from. “Thanks Ms. Twilight but we’ve got to go,” he calls to her before waiting for Sonata to join him.

Sonata flips the book closed quickly with her magic and gallops after him, shouting to Twilight, “Bye, sorry but we have to leave!”

The librarian waves goodbye, and gets up to put the book back in its rightful place with a tiny sigh. She can’t be mad after they clearly showed so much interest in Ponyville’s history.

Apparently really motivated to get to school, the two little ponies gallop for all they’re worth! Both pace themselves perfectly, and by the time the two huffing ponies reach the school, they have a minute or two to spare before the bell even rings.

Kopis skids to a stop near his desk and plops his bag down. “Whew, that was close. Nice gallop back there.” He quickly scans to see if Peat has arrived yet.

“You… too…” Sonata huffs, slumping onto her own desk. Peat arrived some time ago, and watches from a few rows away, sitting in a desk he’s almost too big for. He waves sedately at the nearly-late newcomers.

Kopis settles into his desk and tries to clear his mind so he won’t attract too much attention from Ms. Cheerliee during class. He didn’t want to get called out for daydreaming afterall. Too bad they didn’t get here earlier or they could have asked around some before class.

Kopis doesn't end up being called out as class drags on, for daydreaming or for anything else. As Cheerilee lectures on long division and calls ponies up to the board to do example problems, Kopis is not among those called on. Even if he raises his hoof, somepony else ends up getting called on.

Class continues dragging on, despite Kopis, Sonata, and Peats' increasingly urgent appointment. It does eventually tick down to the final few minutes though, and finally the bell rings, signaling that every little pony is free for another day. Outside the door, Kopis' friends approach him, and Sonata speaks. "I told Peat what we found earlier."

Kopis nods grimly and asks him, “I don’t guess you found out anything yourself?”

Peats shakes his head. “Eenope. Looks like we know who we need to ask. Just wish it was anypony else...”

Sonata moves to put both of the colts in her view and lays a hoof on Kopis. “Don’t worry. If she doesn’t wanna help, we’ll find a way to make her!” They can bug her until she gives in, or maybe cast a spell to turn her mane green. No offense, Peat. But no matter what, they aren’t letting their friend vanish!

Kopis sighs and nods. “Right, so how do we want to do this? I don’t guess either of you have any idea where she would be right now? Hopefully not at home.”

"Well..." Sonata begins, having some idea. "She hangs out at Sugarcube Corner a lot. If she's not at home, that would be the best place to look."

“Yeah… okay. I’d rather not go banging at her door at home if we can help it, so let’s go check Sugarcube Corner. You two in?” he asks.

"Yeah, I am!" Sonata exclaims. Her parents won't expect her home yet anyway.

"I might have to put my chores off," Peat holds a thick hoof to his muzzle. "But I can do that. Yeah, I'm in."

Kopis smiles. “Okay, great. We’ll have to be quick or my mom will start missing me.” He really hoped anyway. “Let’s get going. Maybe Diamond Tiara is in a good mood today…” He also really hoped that was true too.

The little pony party makes their way through the now-busier streets to Sugarcube Corner. It only takes a few minutes, as it's located unintentionally, but strategically, closely to the school. A small crowd of ponies their age, most of them familiar are inside for the daily afterschool rush. In the corner, at the table nopony else sits at and many ponies give a wider berth if they can, sit two little earth ponies fillies; silver and magenta. They laugh at a private joke as Kopis and his friends enter, drinking milkshakes and no doubt gossiping about something or other.

Oh boy, here went nothing. “Okay guys, let’s just get this over with.” Kopis takes a deep breath and spearheads the attack on Diamond Tiara, which he accomplishes by approaching their table and stopping across from them. Might as well try to be diplomatic to start with, right? “Hey, Diamond Tiara, do you have a second? I need to ask you something.”

She looks his way, clearly annoyed for a second before taking on an almost-saccharine tone. "We were having a conversation." Silver Spoon nods in agreement. "What is it?"

Which was kind of fair. “Sorry to interrupt, but, uh… I found this book the other day, and I was wondering if maybe you knew anything about it?” He pulls it out of his bag and sets it on the table.

Diamond Tiara leans back, takes a quick look, and alsmot immediately her mouth drops open. "What are you doing with that?! And who are you?" She points a hoof at Sonata. "I know you, just not your blank-flank friends."

"Hey!" Sonata flinches, then hops a bit as she raises her voice. "They're better friends than you have!"

Silver Spoon stops drinking her milkshake to give an indignant glare. "As if..." she mutters, then goes back to her dessert.

Kopis grumbles something and taps a hoof on the table. “Hey, focus, okay? I found this book on the street near her house, and ever since weird stuff has been happening. Half of the grownups can’t see it and they’re acting weird around me. What do you know about it?”

"It's just a dumb old book," the snobby filly says, partly to herself. After a pause, a mischievous grin starts spreading across her face. If this colt has been carrying it around with him, she has him... what is it older ponies say? Oh, yes, "over a barrel". "I know all about it, and of course I'll tell you... if you do me a favor."

He groans inside. Of course she’d be like that, but what choice did he have? “What do you want?”

“Hmm,” the magenta filly makes the sound, taunting him by exageratedly tapping a perfectly-pedicured hoof to her chin. “Well… you could play a hilarious prank on the Cutie-Mark Crusaders. Those three fillies in our class, with their dumb club?”

Silver Spoon stops sipping on the straw and looks kinda worried. “Uh, Di…” Normally she’d be all for some good fun at their expense, but playing around with the magic book…

“Hush, I know what I’m doing,” Diamond interrupts her, than looks back and down on the earth pony colt. “So, do we have a deal?”

Okay, this is not something he signed up for. Maybe if it was innocent enough… “... I don’t know. What did you have in mind?” He gives nervous looks to Sonata and Peat.

They glance back, and between each other, looking about as uncomfortable as he does. "I don't know," Diamond Tiara continues regardless. "But it has to be hilarious." And Kopis has a pretty good idea of what her sense of humor involves; namely fun at somepony else's expense.

Great… Kopis chews on his lip a bit as he thinks. A prank wouldn’t really hurt them, right? And what was he supposed to do otherwise? Actually… maybe they could find some way to get the three fillies in on it and trick Diamond Tiara into thinking they pranked them? Yeah… that was a stretch. “I… I’ll think about it,” he grumbles.

"You better think fast," the filly tells him in a pleased tone, then goes back to her drink. The one across the table from her looks subdued now, only forcing a smile when her friend looks her way.

Kopis frowns and nods before signalling for Peat and Sonata to follow him to a more secluded spot to talk. “I don’t like this. The three of them have never been mean to me and I don’t want to be mean to them.”

Peat shakes his head, but in agreement. “No, it just ain’t right.” They can find another way, if it means being bullies, even out of necessity.

Sonata frowns, clearly conflicted. “...Somepony has to say it. What other choices do we have?”

“I don’t know. Not much… the book obviously means something to Diamond Tiara or she’d just tell us to beat it. I don’t know what to do. Maybe we could go to… no, her parents probably can’t see the stupid thing. Ugh… do you think maybe we could talk to the Crusaders and try to negotiate something with them to satisfy Diamond Tiara?”

“I don’t know them, but I’m sure if they knew how much trouble we were in, they’d help,” Sonata says.

Peat hesitates, but then speaks up, “...Or maybe she’ll let us do something else.”

“Knowing her, I doubt it, but it won’t hurt to ask. So… how about we try that, if she declines we can agree to do something and later figure out what to do. If we don’t pull a prank on them we’re no worse off than if we flat out disagree, right?”

“I guess not…” The unicorn filly admits. “Let’s try that at least.”

“Okay then, let’s get this over with.” He heads back over to Diamond Tiara’s table and asks, “Is there anything else you’d consider in exchange?”

"Anything?" Peat repeats for emphasis.

Sonata puts on her most winning smile. "I'm sure we can find something else just as good." Hopefully that's the truth...

Diamond Tiara is about to speak when Silver Spoon opens her mouth. "Come on, Di. Wouldn't it be totally great if instead of pulling a prank on the Crusaders, they had to do something really embarrassing, in front of everypony."

She thinks about it visibly, then decides she likes the idea and gives the three little ponies a predatory grin. “I do like that idea.”

Ugh… well… he still liked that better than hurting somepony else. He sighs and gives a little frown to his friends. “Okay. What is it?”

“Ehm, hmm…” The magenta filly makes thinking noises, some legitimate and some surely to put the colts and filly on edge. “I’ve got it! You three should put on a musical show for everypony here…”

Sonata looks cautiously optimistic, but knows enough to sense the catch coming a mile away.

“But no music. Only singing, a capella.” Diamond looks pleased as punch with herself, and with Sonata and Peats’ reactions. The former especially looks more worried now than before. Music is her special talent, and it’s going to be used to humiliate her! She’s not a singer, but knows how much practice it takes for ponies to harmonize singing like that. This is going to be rough, to put it lightly… even if she’ll do it for Kopis’ sake.

Wow, that was so much worse than anything he could have predicted. The colt turns a grimace toward his friends. “You guys don’t have to do this…”

“Oh yes, they do~” Diamond Tiara takes a break from her milkshake to butt in with a singsong voice.

Peat shoots her a glare, but looks Kopis in the eyes. “She’s right though. We told you we wouldn’t stop until this was fixed. We can’t let you do this alone.”

Taking some solace in that, Sonata interjects, “Yeah, that’s right!”

Kopis wants to point out to Diamond Tiara that he meant they could figure this out some other way, not that he was trying to change the deal, but… whatever. He assumes a stoic stance and expression. “Okay then, we’ll do it. And in exchange, you’ll tell me everything you know about this book and how to stop it from messing with me?”

"I'm a mare of my word," she responds, lifting her chin up as she does. Daddy is a business pony after all, and if he taught her one thing, it's that that's important. "If this is entertaining, I'll tell you everything I know."

He nods and raises an eyebrow. “And you do actually know something about it, right? Not just making us do this for giggles?”

“I know it belongs to my family, and how to make it stop what it’s doing. That has to be good enough.”

“Yeah, that’s all I care about,” Kopis agrees. He sighs. “When and where do you want us to do this?”

"Well... normally I would say to do it right now, in front of half your class..." Diamond Tiara says in the tone that just lets everypony know the biting part is coming next. "But do you really think more time is going to help? And how much time can you afford to waste?"

He grumbles something and shakes his head. Really, he was getting off easy. She could have arranged for a bigger crowd or something… “No, I guess not. What should we sing?”

The filly shrugs. "I didn't have anything in mind. Just pick something amusing." Really, Diamond Tiara doesn't expect anything to turn out well. If they thought they could do it, they would look less nervous, and she would be having a lot less fun.

Which was definitely Sonata’s department. Kopis turns to her with a questioning look, hoping she’d have something to suggest.

“Uhhh…” Something easy, that the other two might know… “Think it’s too early for a Hearth’s Warming Carol?”

Oh, probably, but the inappropriateness would probably make Diamond Tiara happy, and he actually knew a few of those. “They’ve got the stuff up in the shops already, so I guess not. Which one?”

Does it even matter? “Uh… you both know Let it Snow?” the goldenrod filly asks?

He nods weakly. “Yeah. Peat?”

“Y-yep,” the huge colt croaks.

Well, it’s not going to get any easier. Sighing, Sonata looks back at Diamond Tiara. “We’re ready to start.”

“Excellent,” the filly says, rubbing her forehooves together in anticipation. She grabs a spoon in her mouth and taps it loudly against the glass holding her dessert. The dozen or so ponies spread across the large room look over from their tables, as much because of who’s making the sound as because the noise itself. They quiet down and wait for the announcement. “Everypony, you know these three, don’t you?”

Some nods and quiet agreements sound, from the colts and fillies in the threes’ class. “In the spirit of the holidays,” Diamond Tiara continues, “they’re going to sing for everypony!”

Kopis grins sheepishly at everypony gathered, hoping to downplay it as just something silly, which it kind of was.

The collected ponies stare and whisper to each other, wondering what’s going on. Sonata steps forward and tries to give them a winning smile before starting to sing unsurely, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful…”

Kopis forces himself to join in. “But the fire is so delightful…”

"A-and since we've got no place to go," Peat picks up more nervously than the other two. They don't sound terrible so far, but definitely not good enough for ponies to not wonder what's happening. The other foals just stare wide-eyed at the awkward display. Some whisper to each other loudly. "What are they doing?" "It hasn't even snowed yet?" "Is this a joke or something?"

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow~" The group sings together, still not sound awful... until the next verse begins. "It doesn't s-show..." Sonata tries to remember the words, but they just won't come to her! She hasn't felt stage fright in a long time, but that's because she knows what she's doing when she has an instrument. This is just cruel, making her embarrass herself in a way so close to her special talent. As the crowd gets even less receptive, she begins to wonder if she even deserves her cutie-mark, and she starts choking up.

Only Kopis is singing now. "And I brought some corn for popping~" He sees Peat get a look on his face that he often does right before he takes action. The farmer colt can't just let his friend, who's always there for everypony else, feel like she's alone in the spotlight now. He walks up, singing louder now, "The lights are turned way down low~" and lays a supportive hoof on her withers. Looking up at the taller colt, Sonata smiles and joins them for the final line. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow~"

Even the nicer ponies are trying not to look at them, especially with Sonata clearly embarrassed to be doing it. Behind them, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are snickering, and one of the fillies in the audience actually boo’s, though to the credit of Ponyville’s foals, she’s the only one.

Kopis isn’t going to let them get him down, and this would be over in a minute. And once it was over, Diamond Tiara was going to cough up the information or else. He looks between Sonata and Peat and steps forward to put himself foremost against the crowd. “When we finally say goodnight…”

"How I'll hate going out in the storm..." Peat sings the next line, even trying to put a little feeling into it.

Sonata perks up, and smiles at Kopis, continuing, "But if you really hold me tight~" Before the three sing together again for the final line, "All the way home I'll be warm."

Their sense of rhythm is still off, singing without any musical accompaniment. And only Sonata really has the knowledge of pitch to try not to sound flat, even if that doesn’t make her any better at actually doing it with her voice. Still, it’s not as bad now, and just manages to be somewhat less than good. Two colts leaves the store with their food, not wanting to be subjected to this anymore. The rest stay pinned in their seats, pinned in place by the intense uncomfortableness of the scene. Quite a few try hard to look distracted.

“The fire is slowly dying,” Kopis goes on, focusing and looking directly ahead rather than at any of his very critical audience. The song was slowly dying at least… almost done.

"And, my dear, we're still good-bye-ing," Sonata sings next in her clear voice, keeping with the new order. It definitely could have gone worse!

Doing his part, Peat continues, glad it's over. "But as long as you love me so..."

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" they all sing in perfect harmony. Despite most of that being rough, by the end they sound good enough to go caroling on Hearth's Warming Eve. Diamond Tiara has stop her giggling by this point, a slightly displeased they pulled it together in the end. The audience gives some short applause in recognition of that. That definitely wasn't the worst singing they'd ever heard. Half of them still recall the Cutie-Mark Crusaders singing at last year's talent show...

After collecting himself, Kopis whispers a small “thanks” to his friends before turning back to Diamond Tiara. “Okay… that’s our part of the bargain.”

She gives an affected sigh. "I suppose that is." If Daddy taught her anything, it's that a businesspony has to honor their deals. "Okay... the book belonged to my great-grandmother or something. It's been in our family for generations and is a precious heirloom, blah blah blah... I'm sure you’ve noticed it's not just a normal old diary."

He nods. “Yeah… you could say that. None of the adults can see it and ignore it if I try to tell them about it.”

"Mmhmm," Diamond Tiara makes the sound, almost bored. "You could probably hold it out in front of somepony and they'd walk right into it." Silver Spoon giggles at the mental image.

Suddenly, he’s curious why he never tried poking his mom with the book to see what happened, but he was getting sidetracked now… “Right, so what do we do about it?”

“In the study in my family’s mansion, there’s a way to stop the journal from doing what it does.”

Kopis is sensing a catch here. “Okay, so… can we go there now?”

“If by we you mean you and your friends, then be my guest. I didn’t agree to go anywhere,” she answers and gives a haughty smile.

Pfft, of course. He rolls his eyes. “Will your family let us in? What do we do when we get there?”

“I wouldn’t let ponies in off the streets. But you might be able to get in.” Honestly, that’s his problem.

Seriously? Seriously. He rolls his eyes again. “Okay, if you won’t help, then fine, we’ll figure it out. Thanks anyway,” he grumbles. He turns away and waits for his friends to join him in walking away.

That they do, grumbling as well. “Anytime. Toodle-loo,” Diamond Tiara says and waves .

Kopis heads outside and orients himself in the direction that he thought Diamond Tiara lived. “Thanks for the help back there guys…”

"Any time," Sonata pipes up, with just a little less pep than the others would normally hear.

"Yup..." Peat rumbles. Everypony feels the same drain, after that, even with the relief of it being over.

He takes a deep breath and asks, “So, do either of you know for sure where she lives? Or have any ideas on how we’re going to get in if they won’t just let us in?”

“I know where she lives. It’s not easy to miss. But, if they don’t let us in…” Sonata trails off.

Peat makes a groaning sound. “...What about sneaking in? It ain’t right, but neither is letting you disappear.”

Kopis shakes his head. “I know. Maybe the book’s magic would make me easy enough to miss that I can if I have to though. Guess we’ll figure this one out somehow,” he adds, trudging off.

It doesn't take long to get to where the veritable mansion can be seen, and like Sonata said, it'd be hard to miss. It's easily one of the largest buildings in Ponyville, and speaks to the family's prestigious history as partially responsible for the town even existing. The goes along the hedge wall that separates the estate from the rest of the town, and it towers over the little ponies. A few minutes later, they come to a bronze gate, partially open, and a path that leads up the the mansion itself.

“No gatekeeper?” Kopis asks himself as they get closer. “Um, well, I guess we can head closer then.” He pushes the gate open a bit more and signals for his friends to follow. The three walk up the path cautiously, but see no signs that anypony plans to stop them. Up the steps, on an impressive veranda, are a set of large double doors, each with a door-knocker attached partway up.

Kopis looks at the knockers for a few long moments. “Guess we should try the easy, direct way first.” He cautiously reaches up and gives a solid knock at the door. Kopis has to rear up to reach the knocker that’s clearly meant for bigger visitors to use. By standing up on the tips of his hooves though, he reaches it and the sound is suitably loud to carry inside the house, surely.

A minute or two later, hoofsteps sound and the doors open with golden magic hazes. Inside the vestibule, a prim, grey, unicorn dressed in black-and-white butler’s attire answers and looks directly from Sonata to Peat and back. “Friends of young Miss Tiara?” The butler asks in a precise, upper-class, but very disinterested voice. “I’m afraid she’s out. Good day.”

Here went nothing. Kopis leaves the book in his bag, but tries to see if he was invisible or anything yet. “She told us to bring a book back to the library here for her. Can we come in?”

The unicorn stallion looks between the other two young ponies, confused. His eyes settle on Kopis and he asks, “Have you been here the whole time?”

Hmm… almost. He nods and considers if he could use the book as a shield or something so he could sneak inside. “Yes sir. We found this book that belongs to you,” he says, pulling it and holding it up.

He looks back at Sonata when Kopis puts the book in his field of view. "Did you need something? I believe I mentioned Miss Tiara is not home at the moment," he says insistently. Somepony needs to ensure lunch is made on time, and little ponies wasting that time is not helping.

Bingo. Kopis looks at Peat and Sonata, then shrugs. “I’ll try sneaking in,” he whispers, hopefully unnecessarily. “Just stay near the house in case I need you, okay?” With that, he raises the book up again and tries to slip inside while the butler had his attention on the other two. Growing tired of waiting, the butler stallion tells them, “I’ll need to ask you to leave, as I’m very busy,” as he begins to shut the doors.

Seeing what Kopis is doing, Sonata helps. “Oh, okay. We’ll go look for her somewhere else. Goodbye!” The stallion pays Kopis no mind, and his vision of his friends diappears as the heavy doors shut between them.

Heh, he should have kept his ninja costume on from Nightmare Night. Kopis grins a little as he sneaks inside, but quickly returns to the mission at hoof. Now, where would a library be? Could be anywhere, and his only real option is to just start systematically searching. He waits for the butler to go back to what he was doing before he inches off and heads down the nearest hallway.

Kopis finds himself in a larger room, with hallways going off to the left and right, and a staircase leading upstairs. Statues are around the room, and a few paintings decorate the walls. Large windows let in a very clear amount of light, but as he is now, the colt isn’t sure he needs to worry about being seen.

With no clear way to go, Kopis picks the left since he was left hoofed. Man, who needed a house so big you needed a map for it?

While wondering this, Kopis sees a pegasus maid floating up ahead, dusting the top shelves of a bookshelf. She apparently finishes, and flutters down the hallway in his direction.

Oh, bookshelf! Those had books! Kopis finds a little spot between cabinets to hide and wait for to fly by before he slinks out and goes to investigate what was in the direction she came from.

Unfortunately for Kopis, the bookshelf doesn’t seem to be anything special, and nor does it seem to be missing any books. But, he hears the voice on an older, possibly familiar, stallion from further down the hallway.

Hmm, whether or not this would lead to the library, it might be something he needed to hear. He slips that way, trying to keep quiet so he can overhear whatever is being said.

Whatever was said was too far to hear, and the conversation ends before Kopis can get any closer. However, he does hear hoofsteps on hardwood flooring coming towards him. Soon enough, the image of a smiling Filthy Rich comes into view. Being a local business magnate, and Diamond Tiara's father, somepony would be hard pressed to find a pony in town who didn't recognize him immediately.

Uh oh. Kopis ducks into the nearest hiding spot, still not trusting the book to keep him completely hidden. Filthy Rich probably wouldn’t be happy seeing him in his house uninvited!

Kopis doesn’t need to find out. The stallion walks by without looking between furniture to see the colt hiding in his hallways. Soon enough, he passes by, onto another part of the house.

Whew… this was getting tiring. He waits for the stallion to be well out of sight before he sneaks off to finish exploring in this direction. At the end of the hallway, he comes a heavy wooden door. It’s been left partially-open, and inside, Kopis cans ee the walls are lined with bookshelves. Bingo! The colt scurries inside and begins looking for anything unusual which might point him to the next step on this ridiculous little quest. An empty book stand maybe…

That’s precisely what Kopis sees after a quick scan of the small library. Off to his left, in a prominent alcove between two bookshelves, is a metal bookcase with a closed, glass, cover. The case is taller than he is and he can’t see what’s inside, but nearby there’s a small stool he could grab. Without missing a beat, he hurries over and slides the stool up to the stand so he can prop up and get a look inside. Diamond Tiara said there was something he’d have to do here, but of course she didn’t say what…

The inside of the case is soft, deep purple, fabric. Maybe some sort of felt. It has an empty indentation which Kopis can immediately reason would fit the size of the book perfectly. The outside of the case, around the sides, has a bunch of funny-looking circles, along with other shapes and strange letters, carved into it. Even if he has no idea what it says, it looks kinda magical. Unfortunately, he also sees that just above the crease where the case opens is a small keyhole.

“How’d this stupid book get out in the streets in the first place?” he whispers to himself as he starts scanning the room for any sign of where the key might be hidden. Diamond Tiara probably had it, knowing her sense of humor. He doesn’t see the key hanging anywhere nearby, and nor does the colt spy any place where it might be obviously kept. Great.

He sighs and examines the stand some more. Maybe there was a clue here on what he had to do. Maybe he didn’t have to actually put the book back in the case. It was a long shot, but…

Yeah, nothing. Darn it. What was he supposed to do now? He wasn’t a real ninja who could pick locks. Nor was he a unicorn, so any magic around was lost on him. What to do? Ugh, Filthy Rich probably had the key on himself or something. Well, before he wasted time and risked checking for it there, he takes the book out and gives it a good look over and through for any clues.

Naturally, there were none, so he accepts the unfortunate truth that he was going to have to go skulking through the house some more and possibly on Filthy Rich’s person. He grumbles something quietly and hurries back out of the library in search of his quarry. He may not really be a ninja, but he certainly moves like one. Nopony even gives him so much as a second glance as he moves throughout the house. Eventually, he sees the stallion he’s tracking go into a room, not wearing anything but a small necklace with a key on it.

Okay… one step at a time. Kopis follows at a distance, trying to size up the situation. Maybe he’d leave the key somewhere. And maybe earth ponies will fly.

When he peers inside, he sees that Filthy Rich is being most uncooperative. Dang it. What was he supposed to do now? There was no way he could just swipe the key, was there? Was he supposed to just ask him for it? Well… maybe? What was he going to do? Surely he’d listen!

Summoning all of his courage, Kopis starts to head inside, hesitates and stops, then tries again. On the third attempt, he manages to quell his fears and steps into the room. “Um. Um, Mr. Rich?”

The brown-coated stallion looks up suddenly, thinking he heard something, and freezes when he sees Kopis. "Who let you in here?"

“Um… um, nobody did, sir. I… I can explain though. I need your help.” He neglects to mention the book, since he had a pretty good idea of what that would do.

Filthy Rich stands up from his desk to walk around in front of it. "What's wrong, son?" This colt seems upset, and however he got here can wait. Even if he seems vaguely familiar. "Are you a friend of Diamond's?"

“Um, um… not exactly. You see… I, uh, I found this book… I think it belongs to you…” he begins, hoping this wouldn’t already derail into uselessness.

Instead, Kopis sees a hopeful glimmer of recognition, followed by the stallion making a face like he's trying very hard to remember something. "A book..." It just won't come to him, even if the thought feels like it's on the tip of his tongue. Filthy Rich has an instinct though; a thought that compels him to do something even if he couldn't say why. "...I think... just follow me." He marches out of the room, and back towards the library. Kopis eagerly agrees and follows suit, hoping this would be over soon.

Politely brushing off anypony who asks if he needs anything along the way, he leads Kopis back to the room and opens up the doors. Immediately, he walks to the case and unlocks it, then stands aside, looking at Kopis.

Taking his cue, Kopis pulls the book out and immediately mounts the stool so he can place it back where it belonged. Please let this dispel the magic!

The book fits snugly into the space for it, and as soon as the cover is closed, the stallion blinks and looks down through the glass. He sighs in apparent relief. "It's all coming back now."

Kopis backs away from the stand. “Did… did that stop it?”

Mr. Rich sets a hoof on the case and looks at Kopis directly. "It did. That's why we had this made years ago." He shakes his head and asks, "But how in Equestria did you get your hooves on it?"

“I found it on the streets. I… don’t know how it got there. I picked it up and that’s when everything started getting weird. My mom couldn’t see it and none of the other adults could either. Um, Diamond Tiara told me that if I brought it back here I could stop it.”

His mouth drops open a little. "... on the streets? Oh, when she gets home..." He'd go out and drag her back this instant if he didn't need the time to come up with a suitable punishment for mistreating a treasured heirloom like that

A small part of Kopis feels a tiny bit of sympathy for her, but it immediately vanishes when he remembers what she put him through. Instead, he tries to change the subject a little by saying, “Um… I’m sorry about sneaking in here, but… thank you for helping me.”

That his house was broken into doesn't seem to register right now. "Thank me? No, thank you. If you hadn't picked it up, who knows what would have happened to it?" It probably would have been left sitting out on the road until there was nothing left.

Glad to have things reflected in such a way, Kopis smiles a little. “You’re welcome.” Um, what now? He should probably go. “Um… my friends were waiting on me outside, so I should probably get going…”

"Now wait just a minute," he interrupts. "It just wouldn't be right to let you slink off without some reward." Now what was this colt's name? The stallion knows he's heard it before.

That got his attention. “Huh? Oh, um, thank you, but…” Wow, he had no idea what to even expect. Filthy Rich was… well, filthy rich, so he could have just about anything...

"Khopesh... No. Kopis! That's it? Well, I'm not sure what sort of compensation would be fair. Some bits, at the very least." It's just too hard to quantify the value of a service like that.

Kopis’s face lights up a bit. Oh, bits? He could get a ton of candy or something. But wait… it was just Nightmare Night. He could get something cool though, that was for sure. “Thank you, that’s um, very generous of you,” he says sheepishly. Wow, even when his mom wasn’t around he couldn’t help but hear her tell him to be polite.

Filthy Rich pats Kopis on the withers. "I always believed ponies should get rewarded for doing the right thing. Losing this book would have been devastating."

“Glad I could help then,” Kopis says, smiling more. Hey, maybe it was a good thing that he found it. Anypony else might have destroyed it or something to try to dispel the enchantment. Speaking of which, why didn’t he think of that?

Filthy Rich motions for Kopis to come along as he walks back to that office. "It's been in our family for generations, you know."

Kopis follows and says, “I did look inside some. It was written by somepony named Crown Jewel? She mentioned going to one of the solar celebration things a long time ago.”

"That's right. She was my great-grandmother." And that Summer Sun Celebration was probably one of the few highlights of her childhood, the stallion considers as he walks.

“Oh, okay. I can see how you might not want to lose the book then,” the colt replies.

"Heh, yes, but the reasons aren't just sentimental." He chuckles at the reasoning and explains, "From her son onwards, practically everypony in our family has read the diary when they were a colt or filly. The hope is that they remember the lessons when they grow up." The two come back to the room he was in before.

Kopis nods again and says in a more quiet voice, “Yeah, I… think I understand that too.”

"Don't ever forget, not everypony has a mother like yours,” the stallion tells him softly. Opening a drawer, he takes out a coin purse and sets it on the desk.

Yet again the colt nods. “Yeah, I know.” He tries not to sound prideful on that last bit, but even before today he knew he was pretty lucky there. Recent events really did put it into perspective though. He… really couldn’t wait to get back home now.

If only the stallion's daughter would learn that same lesson so easily...

Filthy Rich upends the bag and splits the bits into a few piles, adding them up. He sweeps one of the piles into a temporary paper bag with a string to carry it by. Earth ponies have to find ways around even simple tasks, but they always manage somehow.

Holding it out by the string, he offers it to Kopis. "There's a little something for your trouble."

Kopis smiles widely and accepts the bag. “Thank you very much.”

"Don't mention it. And don't go spending it all in one place, ” he smiles back and says good-naturedly.

Kopis nods. “I won’t.” Awesome! Wow, Diamond Tiara’s dad was way nicer than she was.

Shortly thereafter, Kopis finds himself back at the front door after being escorted out. Down the path near the gate, he sees his two friends waiting, just as he asked. Grinning ear-to-ear, he gallops down the path toward them. “Guys!”

Sonata has a grin to match his. "Kopis!"

Peat stops his pacing to look up. "What happened?"

“We fixed it! Um, Mr. Rich and I did, I mean. There was a book case we had to put the book back in, but once we did the magic should stop.”

"So everypony can see you now?" Sonata asks to be sure.

“Uh huh.” Kopis realizes he hasn’t actually really tested that yet, but… “Oh, and Mr. Rich was so thankful for me returning the book that he gave me this!” He shows them the bag of bits. “I figured since you two helped we should split it.”

"Cool! Thanks,” Sonata will accept her part if he wanted to share.

"I'm not sure I should," Peat begins. "We couldn't not help... But if you're sure, thank you kindly."

Kopis nods. “Yep. I mean, it’s not like I really did much more than you two and I wasn’t expecting it anyway, so yep.” He puts a hoof to his chin. “I was going to suggest going to get milkshakes with it or something, but after earlier I dunno… you two have any ideas?”

They both have a few, after the three spend a few minutes talking about it. However, it's been a while since school ended, and everypony needs to get home, not the least Kopis. So after plans are quickly made, the relieved ponies part ways.

Kopis feels a little apprehension as he gets close to home. While he was all but certain the magic had been dispelled and everything should be back to normal, he wouldn’t know for sure until he talked with Kris and his mom. He pauses at the door for a moment, preparing himself for the worst should it somehow come to pass.

Opening the door, he pokes his head inside and looks around. No sign of anypony, so he heads in and calls, “Hello? Anypony here?”

Almost immediately he hears hooves clacking on the wood floor, followed by Kris popping from around the corner. “Kopis!” She slips up to him and says, “Where have you been? I was about to go looking for you… the library might be closed by now.”

“Oh, it’s okay, you don’t-”

His mom appears next, dressed as if she was planning to spend an extended period outside. Her scarf trails behind her with her mane and tail as she darts forward. “Kopis! Where hast thou been? It is very strange for thee to be so late getting home from school. I was growing concerned and thy sister and I were about to look for thee.”

Oh boy, how could he explain that he was slinking around in the Richs’ home? Yay that she could see him, of course. Super yay at that. But how could he explain that? “Um, sorry, I hooked up with Sonata and Peat after school and we went by Sugarcube Corner for a little while.” He grins nervously. “Sorry.”

Any irritation or worry Falcata shows vanishes in a moment. She ruffles his mane and smiles. “That is alright, but… try not to worry me so. Let me know if thou art going to be late coming home, or come by here first, okay?”

He nods, not caring that it didn’t make a whole lot of sense that he’d need to tell her he’d be late if he was late and unable to tell her. He hugs her leg. “Okay mom, I will, I promise.” Yeah, not everypony had a mom like he did, did they?

She returns the hug after a second. “Fret not over it.” After a moment, she asks, “Is everything alright?”

More than she could ever know. Maybe literally. “Uh huh, just glad to be home, is all.”

Falcata unravels her scarf and slings it over her back. “Alright then. Come on in and get warmed up. Dinner will be ready after a while. I am afraid that I have not had time to start it yet.”

He smiles and nods. “Don’t worry, I can wait a little while.” Boy, he never really thought about how good it felt to know that he had a mom who cooked for him every day…

As Falcata departs to go tend to dinner, Kris pulls Kopis closer and asks, “...what did you do?”

“Sonata and I went by the library before school and found out who the diary belonged to. Turns out it belonged to Diamond Tiara’s family… it was an old heirloom.” He rolls his eyes. “Anyway, Mr. Filthy Rich helped me to remove the curse by putting it in a special case that nullified the magic.”

Kris raises an eyebrow and looks around toward where their mom disappeared off to. “Huh… really? That’s… well, that’s nice of him. Wow, here I was worried we’d never figure it out and you went and solved it without me.” She smiles and ruffles his mane. “Good job.”

He grins and giggles. “Thanks, but I had a little help.”

“Oh, right.” She waves for him to follow her. “Why don’t you explain it all while we wait for dinner?” She grins mischievously. “Maybe you should, I dunno, even write it in a diary…?”

“No! No, anything but that!” He giggles again and follows his big sister.

He really loved his family...

Intermission 1

Raindrops patter on the windows facing out of Kopis' house, which let in hazy daylight from overcast skies outside. The rain isn't a surprise to anypony who pays attention to the Weather Patrol's forecast, but that usually doesn't include the town's youngest ponies. Still, despite being more than a drizzle or sprinkle, the rain is nothing an umbrella and maybe some galoshes can't handle, and isn't going to stop the colt from spending some of that money that's been just begging to be used on something.

He’d spent the night before trying to figure out what to spend his bits on, but there were too many possibilities to narrow it down to a useful set of things to consider. Instead, about the only thing that came to mind was something sweet. Even though Nightmare Night wasn’t too long ago, he could go for some candy, but even better would be some of those great cupcakes he’d seen in the displays at the Cakes’ bakery. Not that his mom couldn’t make good cupcakes too, but they were there and he had the bits, and his mom hadn’t made any cupcakes, so he was going to get one. And nopony could tell him no! Especially since his mom and Kris were both off on their daily rounds, so as long as he got home before mom did he’d be fine. He had hours and hours to kill.

After a little consideration of his options, he almost decides to head out without anything but a jacket on since a little rain didn’t bother him, but it was pretty chilly so he figures he should be a sensible pony and grab an umbrella. Annoyingly, his mom and Kris were both unicorns and could use those fancy umbrellas with just a handle and they didn’t have any umbrella hats, but he could kind of manage to carry it in his mouth. Donning his jacket and grabbing the water protection device, he trots outside, locks the door and starts heading for the bakery.

Kopis finds the town mostly unperturbed by the light rain, with ponies still going about their business. Some of the literally, as Applejack has an umbrella-covered cart where she calls out to nearby ponies, advertising her apples. Nearby, Applebloom splashes in some puddles with her rainboots.

And she's not the only pony Kopis' age out and about. A pegasus filly who he recognizes as his classmate Arabesque is practicing her graceful dancing under the rainclouds, apparently enjoying the rain on her fur. She rears up on her hooves to the sound of music nopony hears, taking poses even Kopis isn't sure he could hold for very long. Occasionally the little pegasus will jump and use her wings to float softly back to the ground.

Ah, what it must feel like to fly around like that. Kopis watches her for a moment or two as he walks along, before being distracted by the apple cart and the possibility of a yummy apple in his mouth. As tempting as that was, he didn’t want to ruin his cupcake appetite with an apple, so he just trots along past the cart, reflecting on how he avoided doing something mean to Applebloom there. And she had no idea. Hmm, did anything happen to Diamond Tiara after she got home that night? He could dream, right?

He arrives at the bakery a few minutes later without incident an pauses at the door. There was some old and silly superstition about open umbrellas indoors, so he closes his umbrella, shakes it off and awkwardly slings it over his back where he hopes it’ll stay put. He pushes the door to Sugarcube Corner open and steps inside where it’s nice and dry.

Apparently the rain discouraged some ponies, Kopis can see as he walks inside and finds the store mostly-empty. Mrs. Cake sits behind the counter and perks up as he walks in and the bell above the door rings. "Hello, dearie."

He smiles at her and approaches the counter, practically salivating at the array of baked goodies visible in the display. “Hello. Um, how much is one cupcake?”

“Mostly only a bit or two,” the older mare assures him. It’s a business model that works well, when that’s all the money many of their regulars can be expected to have for cupcakes. Kopis sees a rainbow array of cupcakes, some simple and some more intricate. He can surmise the latter are the more costly ones, but it’s not like he needs to worry about that right now.

He nods and taps a hoof to his chin, examining the flavors available. Hmm, chocolate, some kind of strawberry, something he couldn’t pronounce… oh, key lime! He points his hoof to the green cupcake and asks, “Can I get a key lime one?”

“Why of course you can,” the motherly mare tells him, using a thin wooden spatula to bring it out of the glass counter and set it on top. “Is that for here, or did you want a bag?”

Hmm, he hadn’t considered that, but it was messy outside and clean, dry and warm inside. “Um, for here.”

“Alright, that’ll be one bit, and take a seat wherever you like,” she says with a smile. While waiting for Kopis to get his money out, the fellow earth pony shifts the cupcake onto a flat, wooden plate of sorts, with a mouth-hold sticking up off of it.

“Okay.” He pulls a bit out of his bag and passes it to her. “Here you go.”

Mrs. Cake taps one of the large keys on the cash register, which makes a pinging sound and opens. Taking the bit, she drops it in the drawer and takes the cupcake holder around the counter to give to Kopis. “Thank you. Enjoy!”

He accepts the holder and grins. “Fank you!” he says around the grip in his mouth before turning to find a seat. He finds a seat near the window and carefully sizes up his cupcake and how to tackle it. At home he’d probably just jump straight into gobbling it, but this was somepony else’s place so he didn’t want to make a big mess. And it was such a nice looking cupcake too! But, cupcakes were meant to be eaten, so he carefully peels the liner off and nibbles at the little cake. There was so much frosting on it that he has to lick a lot of it off to avoid making a mess, but slowly he makes progress on eating his treat without getting crumbs everywhere. Wow, this was really good! If he wasn’t afraid Mrs. Cake would give him a weird look or a lecture he might even be tempted to get another one.

Unbeknownst to Kopis for the moment, a pair of piercing blue eyes are watching him from under a curly pink mane, peeking up from the other side of the same table he's sitting at.

Nope, if he got another he’d probably regret it. He gathers up the wrapper and starts looking for a trash can when he notices the very pink pony staring at him. He starts visibly and backs up a hair. “Uh, hello.”

“Hi, Kopis!” Pinkie Pie grins at getting him, and rears up to put her forehooves on the table. “Did you like the cupcake?”

Oh, it was just Pinkie. He collects himself and nods with a smile. “Uh huh, it was really good.”

“Good...good…” she answers in a mock-ominous tone, rubbing her forehooves together and sinking back to eye-level with the tabletop. “I’ll take care of that liner for you. You have puddles to jump in before they dry up!”

That was nice of her, if perhaps a little creepy. He smiles and hops down from his seat. “Okay, thank you.” He backs away and gives a little wave to both Pinkie and Mrs. Cake before heading to the door. Jumping in puddles did sound a little fun, but it was more fun with friends and he was alone. He’d think about it.

Earlier that day, Peat wakes up to the smell of his ma cooking breakfast for the family, which isn’t unusual on any given day. The sun’s barely up over the horizon when he rolls over in bed and sits up, stretching his legs. Even getting up a hair after the crack of dawn, she’d end up already being in the kitchen. But, the colt reckons he has some time yet before breakfast is ready, and lays back down for a few more minutes. It is a Saturday after all.

...Which isn’t to say he gets the whole day off. Work in the bog doesn’t stop for weekends or rainy days. Like his pa jokes every time the Weather Team schedules a sprinkle, ‘You’re gonna get wet anyway, what’s it matter if it’s from the swamp or the sky?’ It hardly feels like any time at all before he hears her calling that the food’s ready, and other ponies in the modest house moving into the kitchen. Peat twists to untangle himself from his blanket and falls partly out of bed, in his haste to get some before it’s gone.

The colt takes a seat at the crowded table, between his little sister Turquoise, who’s busy tearing away at a pancake, and one of his brothers. “Mornin’ lazy bones,” his ma says, scooping some eggs onto his plate with a wooden spoon.

“Morning,” Peat answers. “Thanks,” he remembers to say, before digging in immediately. Around him his family talks about what they’re doing today. This time of year, the cold means they need to get as much as they can for the winter out of the swamp, before it freezes. ...And if he’s going to be expected to go out and help, it’s gonna make what he wants to do a lot harder. Peat slows down his pace, eating even more slowly than he normally does.

His plan works, and everypony else finishes before he does, asking to be excused one-by-one, until they’re all mostly gone outside. The stallion musses Peat’s mane as he passes by. “Don’t go taking all day, alright slowpoke?” The colt looks up and nods, mouth full of pancake.

By the time he finishes, everypony is outside and getting a headstart on the day’s work, save his ma, who’s cleaning up breakfast. Peat gets up to go wash up… or he gives that impression. The colt on a mission sneaks back into his bedroom and gets the pouch of bits from under his pillow. Holding it in his mouth, he trots loudly over to the bathroom and shuts the door from the outside, and then moves as quietly as he can over to his parent’s bedroom.

Thankfully, the door to their room is open. Peat listens to make sure his ma is still moving around dishes in the main room. If she heard him poking around here, or started to wonder what was taking so long, he could risk her finding him in here. He doesn’t feel like getting beaten like an old rug, and keeps moving before his opportunity disappears.

Ironically, it actually helps that his family couldn’t afford some fancy safe,
and doesn’t have enough money to be worth it anyway. Peat thinks that’s ironic anyway. Looking around, he quickly spies the bad where his parents keep their money before it goes to the bank.

Quietly… so quietly, the heavy colt sneaks over to where it is, and opens the bag. Then, opening his own pouch of bits, he adds to the wallet, saving one or two for himself. This whole past week, he couldn’t decide what he wanted, until he realized that someponies else could use it more. Just as sneakily as he arrived, Peat leaves and makes his way outside.

After getting that cupcake, Kopis had some extra energy to burn off and nopony to burn it off with. Jumping in the mud puddles wasn’t going to be too fun by himself, so he decides it’s best to go looking for Sonata or Peat. Sonata wins the distance lottery, so he scurries in the direction of her house, unicorn umbrella awkwardly held in his mouth as he canters along.

By the sort of luck that seems coincidental when somepony sees it first, but makes more sense when they think about it, Kopis sees a familiar goldenrod filly bouncing from puddle to puddle in his general direction. It’s not long before Sonata happily realizes who’s coming from the other way and gives up on playing in the rain to approach.

Hey, looked like somepony was already enjoying the weather. He grins and waves her way. “Hey Sonata.”

“Hi, Kopis.” Her galoshes make squelching sounds as she trots up. “Where are you going?”

“Wooking for you actually. I got borefd at home and waf coming to cfheck if you wanted to do anyfing.” Wow, it was hard to talk with an umbrella in your mouth.

“I was just coming to look for you!” Sonata answers, grinning. “Hehe, let me,” she says, lighting her horn and floating the umbrella between them with an incorporeal aqua-blue light.

Kopis works his jaw a couple of times and licks his lips. “Thanks. I’ve really gotta get one of those umbrella hats for earth ponies and pegasi.” Hey, he even had some bits for that sort of thing! “So, got any ideas on what to do?”

She walks up to his side, close enough to make sure they can both fit under the umbrella. “I already spent some of the money, so I was going to go by Sugarcube Corner.”

Well, now he feels a bit embarrassed. “Oh, really? Believe it or not, I, uh, just went by there.” Dang, why didn’t he think to look her or Peat up first? “I don’t mind heading back by if you want to go though.”

“Cool, thanks,” she says, already starting to move in that direction and taking the umbrella along with her. “What’d you get?”

“A key lime cupcake.” He reminisces in the thoughts of the tangy, fruity flavor. “If you don’t know what to get, I’d really suggest that. It’s super good.”

“Oooh, I just might do that.” Sonata bumps against him . But then again… she still has a few bits left over and there sooo many flavors to choose from. The filly debates whether she should even settle for just one.

Kopis turns around so they can head back to the bakery. “There’s a huge variety, so it was hard to choose. I only got one, but wow, I thought about getting another.” He snickers. “Mom would probably flip if she knew I was spoiling my dinner like that.”

“Yeah, heh. That must be the only downside to having a chef for a mom.”

He nods, still smiling widely. “Yep, but she hasn’t made any cupcakes in a while, so I think it’s only fair.”

“Fair enough, I think,” Sonata says and laughs. “Hey, did you see Peat yet today?”

“Nope, not yet. I was going to go check for him if I couldn’t find you though. It’s a bit out of the way, but did you want to go find him first?”

“Nah, that’s alright. He’s probably busy anyway, and we’ll see him on Monday,” she answers. She’ll make it up to Peat another day.

“Yeah, I wish he lived a little closer. It’s a bit far to venture out there on a whim,” Kopis muses.

“Just a bit.” As they talk, the two ponies arrive at the distinctive cupcake-and-gingerbread house facade that separates Sugarcube Corner from the surrounding houses. Sonata uses her free hooves to push the door open, and the bell above it chimes as they enter. Closing the umbrella and shaking it off, she gives it back to Kopis.

Mrs. Cake, coming back from the kitchen with a fresh batch of muffins to go inside the display cases, looks at Kopis especially with amusement. “Hello there. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

He chuckles and adjusts his mane. “Heh, yeah, me neither. Guess I should have waited on my friend.”

“Yes, you should have,” Sonata tells him with a good-humored smile. She trots over to the case of cupcakes and assorted desserts, eyes widening as she skids to a stop. “Wow... “
“Take your time, dearie,” Mrs. Cake tells her while straightening things around the room.

Sonata looks at Kopis, tearing herself away from the array of sugary treats. “You said the key lime one was good?”

He makes a big nod. “Yep, it was really good.”

“Hmm…” There are just too many choices! Cherry, raspberry, both definitely with real berries. Lots of cupcakes using apples, pears, even carrot cupcakes. Vanilla, chocolate… Sonata is overloaded by options, and decides to take her friend’s advice, just to make it easy. “I’ll have one of the key-lime ones!” The filly starts digging out what’s left of her bits.

The mare is charge for the moment walks back over, and smiles at Kopis. “Well, you must have liked it if you brought somepony else just to try one. That will be one bit, dear.”

“Uh huh, it was,” he emphasizes. If there’s anything he’s learned in life, it was that you should appreciate good food and to let the cook know it was good. Speaking of which, it was becoming increasingly hard to resist getting another, but he really shouldn’t…

Sonata exchanges one of her remaining bits for a very tasty-looking green cupcake, with whipped cream on top. She gives an enthusiastic “Thank you!” before taking it over to a table nearby with her magic. Her horn glows again, and as she stares down her food in anticipation, a sedate classical melody plays, the sounds of pianos and harpsichords coming from nowhere in particular. Sonata does little without musical accompaniment when she can help it!

Kopis joins her at the table and waits for her to finish before asking, “See? I told you it was great, didn’t I?”

“You did, and it is!” Sonata licks a little bit of the frosting off her lip, and immediately feels sad that it’s gone already. “They don’t last long enough, hehe.”

“Nope, that’s for sure.” Hmm… he was getting an idea. An idea that he probably shouldn’t. “Makes you almost want another, doesn’t it? We could, y’know, split one maybe…”

“Sure! I mean, it won’t ruin your appetite to have half a cupcake, will it?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, definitely. Now… which one this time?” Something other than a fruity one, probably. Chocolate maybe, but that was kind of boring…

“Hmm… what about a pumpkin spice one? It’s festive,” Sonata says, grinning. The pumpkin spice everything that comes to town this time of year, every year, won’t be around anymore in a few months. And cupcakes are the best place for it, besides pumpkin pie! Not like that gross coffee that grown-up ponies always drink.

“Ohh, I like that. Sure, let’s do that. I love pumpkin.” Hmm, now how were they going to split the bill?

The bill ends up being easy to split, with the seasonal treats at a premium price of two bits instead. After paying, the two little ponies receive a their cupcake, along with a small, blunt, knife to cut it.

Hey, that was doubly convenient. Kopis lets Sonata handle the cutting since she had the precision of a unicorn, then eagerly accepts his half. Mmm, it didn’t have quite the kick of the lime cupcake, but the rich pumpkin flavor was in a class of its own anyway. “Oh, that was good,” he says after he’s done licking his lips. Wait, wasn’t this about the point that Pinkie was likely to show up?

If there is a pink pony hiding somewhere, Kopis doesn’t see her. Quite possibly because he was expecting it, and that particular pink pony is anything but predictable. Across the table, Sonata hums. “Yum… we probably shouldn’t get another, hehe.” As tempting as that thought is.

“Yeah, I think my mom would say something about it making us sick, even if I bet I could eat another.” He giggles. “We really would spoil our appetites if we did though.”

“Yeah…” Sonata knows she shouldn’t. “...but I don’t think my parents are making anything special for dinner.”

His probably wasn’t making anything really special either, but… “Yeah… well, we probably shouldn’t spend it all in one place, right?” he says, echoing what Filthy Rich told him earlier. “Not that I’m really sure what else to spend my bits on.”

“I guess not. I’m almost out though,” Sonata admits.

Kopis blinks a few times. “Wow, what did you spend it on?”

“I got a new book of sheet music,” she answers happily. More than worth the bits, even if it had taken all of them.

“Oh, cool. I didn’t know those costed very much. I’ve never really looked though.”

“It depends.” Sonata shrugs. “But this one was worth it. I’m gonna look at it more as soon as I get home.”

He nods. “Hmm, that does give me an idea though. Maybe I should buy a book on painting for beginners or something. I tried doing that some the other day, but it’s hard.”

“Hehe, art is like that,” the filly speaks from experience. “But it’s like other stuff. If you practice a lot, you definitely get better. What’d you paint?”

“Um, some landscape stuff,” he answers vaguely. While his mom claimed it was all really good, she’d do that anyway, right? To him it just kind of came out all blobby.

“Ooh, did you keep it? Can I see?”

Please no? “Um… yeah, it’s at home if you want to see it the next time you’re over.” Maybe he could conspire to get rid of the evidence by then. Eh…. okay, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as good as her music though, but then she’d been doing that how long now?

Hmmm, and when will that be…? Sonata wonders, but isn’t just going to invite herself. “Alright, can’t wait. Maybe you’ll be as good as your mom is if you keep practicing,” she says encouragingly.

He smiles nervously and chuckles. “Thanks. Yeah, she’s got quite a few years of practice ahead of me, but practice makes perfect right? Kind of like… uh, how long have you been playing music now?”

“Like… years,” Sonata stresses. A whole year feels like forever, and she’s been playing for more than one! “Since before I could even use magic to do it.”

Wow, yeah, he could believe that. “Yep, and that’s why you’re good at it. Guess I’ve got years to go, heh.”

Sonata would be smiling at the compliment now, if it had ever left her face in the first place. “Probably, but that’s okay. It’s fun to see how much better you get, if you just keep at it. That’s what my music teachers always said,” she imitates a much older mare’s voice, “Practice, practice, practice. practice makes perfect.”

Kopis giggles and nods. “Yep. So… um, did you want to go find Peat or do something else? If not we could head to my house if you want.”

“We could go look for him, but if he hasn’t found us yet, I don’t know if he can do anything today…” Sonata feels just a little guilty, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with just one of your friends sometimes! She’ll make it up to Peat another day… again.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kopis agrees. He grabs a cupcake wrapper to dispose of it and hops down from his seat. “Okay, let’s head back to my house then.”

“Okay!” Sonata hops down off her seat and waves goodbye to Mrs. Cake, then follows alongside Kopis.

Kopis gives her a goodbye wave too and leads Sonata back outside and toward his home. It was probably for the best they went home anyway, since if his mom got home and he wasn’t there she’d be pretty upset.

Episode 3: Missing Marsupial Madness!

There are more restaurants in Ponyville than just Sugarcube Corner. It has the best desserts bar none, and nopony can beat one of Pinkie's parties there, but most of the time, grown ponies go other places to eat. Not everypony can share the pink mare's sweet tooth after all.

Fluttershy, local animal caretaker-turned-national-hero, is one such pony. The demure, butter-colored, pegasus sits at a table with her pet bunny-rabbit, enjoying a salad made with local flowers. As she politely nibbles on a piece of lettuce, she sees a certain chocolate-coated unicorn leave the kitchen.

Falcata walks past her to clean a recently vacated table, smiling and nodding as she goes. On the way back, she catches Fluttershy between bites and asks, “How is everything?”

Fluttershy brushes the curtain of pink mane out of her face before answering in her normal soft tones. “Oh, it’s very good, Falcata. Thank you.”

“Excellent, I am glad to hear it,” she replies before smiling and leaving the pegasus to her meal.

Fluttershy goes back to eating, with her pet occasionally grabbing a piece of lettuce or carrot to munch on. Not long after, the pegasus sits back and waits for her bill to arrive.

After finishing a few more janitorial duties behind the counter, Falcata emerges to check on her customer and finds that she’s done. Approaching the table, she floats the slip of paper to Fluttershy and says, “I hope everything was to your liking.”

“Yes, definitely,” Fluttershy agrees with a small smile, fetching the coinpurse from her saddlebag. “Your salads are the best in town.”

“Oh, thank you!” Falcata says, not quite beaming at the compliment.

“How early do you open by the way?” She asks, putting the bits on the table. “Something for breakfast might be nice tomorrow, before I leave. Um, if you serve breakfast here…”

Falcata floats the bits up to eye level and quickly checks the amount. “Certainly,” she says, smiling and tucking the bits into the pocket on her apron. “I open at nine in the morning and serve breakfast until midday.”

“Oh, I see…” Fluttershy frowns in thought. “I may need to leave before then…” She’ll find out again how much time she’ll have before the train leaves then think about it more. “Well, thank you anyway.”

“You are welcome,” Falcata replies, pondering the situation. “You have to leave so early? I could possibly open a bit sooner if you would like. Where are you headed?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you… You don’t have to do that,” the polite pegasus immediately insists. “I’m going to Canterlot for the day to meet with a pony researching Manticores. Or, um, I am if I can find somepony to help watch one of the animals.”

Falcata nods a little. “I do miss Canterlot and would like to visit myself again sometime soon, and that doth sound like an interesting pony to meet with.” She tilts her head. “What sort of animal do you need watched? I am sure there must be somepony who could do that for you.”

“Oh, it’s just one little opossum…” Fluttershy tells her. “But the problem is that he’s sick, and I’ve been keeping him away from all the other critters. I have somepony to watch the other animals, but having them watch both would be very hard. I was going to ask Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, but they’ll be in school.”

“Oh, is that all? Seemeth he would not be too much to mind. How long will you be gone?”

“O-only the day, but you don’t need to do that. You have to work after all,” Fluttershy points out before she goes and inconveniences somepony by talking about her animal problems.

Falcata smiles and says, “While that may be true, I do have two foals who like animals and could watch him for you. Doth he need any special care since he is ill?”

“Thank you, Falcata,” the pegasus mare happily says and smiles. “If it really won’t be any trouble, it’d be so kind of you and your children. And no, no medicine yet or anything like that. Just um, keeping him in a warm place with plenty of water to drink.”

“I believe we can manage that,” the unicorn replies lightly. She didn’t mind helping somepony like Fluttershy. “If you wish to bring him by at any time you can, or you can bring him in the morning if you wish?”

“I do still have getting ready to do… Yes, I’ll bring him tomorrow morning. Oh, thank you again for helping me.”

“You are welcome. A way for me to thank you in turn for being a good customer,” Falcata says with a smile. “Tomorrow morning will be fine. I hope you enjoy your trip to Canterlot. Say hello to the princesses for me, if you happen to see either.”

Fluttershy’s smile doesn’t lessen, but she does blink at the oddly casual mention of the princesses. “Um, okay, I will…” She thanks Falcata again, then apologizes for thanking her so much before leaving to finish getting ready for tomorrow.

[Theme song plays]

That night, Falcata returns home with some interesting news for her two favorite foals. Over dinner, she informs them that she’d volunteered to watch over the sick little critter for sweet, kind Fluttershy and that it meant that they’d have to help out.

Kopis finishing nibbling his glazed carrots and asks, “So, um, how do we do that? What does it eat?”

Falcata shakes her head slightly. “I am not terribly sure myself, but Fluttershy assured me that it was simple enough. I assume she hath something to feed him with, or it is something simple and cheap. We only have to watch him for tomorrow while she is gone to Canterlot, so I doubt it will be overly difficult.”

Kris puts her fork down and asks, “So, how’d this happen exactly? What does she normally do with her animals if she has to travel?”

“She hath other friends to watch them, but she said there was nopony to watch the opossum for her this time. When she told me that she would have been unable to travel over it, I could not in good conscience let such a trivial thing stop her…” Falcata smiles sheepishly and taps her forehooves together, realizing how silly it was that she was having to justify to her own foals why she was doing something that seemed perhaps a little too generous for somepony she didn’t know personally. “Can I count on ye two to help? All ye will have to do is keep an eye on him from time to time and ensure that he hath food and water.”

Kopis and Kris exchange glances and shrugs. “Sure,” they say in unison.

Falcata grins. “Excellent, thank ye. Fluttershy is a very kind mare who deserveth a bit of help on occasion.” She stands and prepares to collect everypony’s plates, and says, “She should be bringing him by in the morning. Kopis, since thou dost not have school until the afternoon, thou wilt need to keep an eye on him while thou art here, alright? And Kris, thou wilt return home before me tomorrow, so help thy brother when thou returnest home, alright?”

Both foals nod and stand too. “Okay,” Kopis says, picturing what a sick opossum must look like and figures it couldn’t be hard. He’d probably just lay around all day anyway.

The next morning, Kopis finds himself roused by his mother at an unholy hour in the morning, with claims about some kind of creature that he was going to have to help watch, and that he agreed to all of this the night before. Guh. Did his mom have to get up this early every morning?

He stumbles into the front room after refreshing himself a little and grabbing some kind of iced pastry that his mom had waiting on him and his sister. He plops down on the couch and starts munching on it as he waits. Kris comes and goes with her pastry in her magic and her book bag on her back, and finally his mom settles down on the couch to wait with him. “I am not certain when she will be by. Before I had to open up this morning at least.”

Kopis nods and keeps chewing on what he thinks is strawberry flavored goo inside of the pastry. “Mmkay.” Bed was calling his name…

Only a few minutes later, two very quiet knocks sound at the door.

“That must be her,” Falcata says, hopping up from the couch. She opens the door and steps out to meet their guest. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. I hope it’s not too early…” Fluttershy tells her apologetically. Unusually, she’s wearing a hat and dress, which makes more sense with Falcata knowing she’s going into the city today. On the steps in front of her, there’s a wooden carrier of the kind that somepony would use to keep a small dog. However, it’s empty.

“Oh no, I have been up for some time already.” Falcata points at the carrier. “Is the opossum with you?”

“Oh, yes he is.” She turns to the side to show the animal resting between her wings. Its coat is silver-grey, turning to white at its face and black around the ears. Its pink nose, feet, and thick, leathery, tail lack fur. The opossum is sleeping soundly in its feathery cradle.

Falcata smiles and resists the urge to pet him. “He is a cute little thing. Is there anything else I need to know about caring for him? What doth he eat?”

“They aren’t very picky eaters at all. Vegetables, fruit, nuts…” Fluttershy lists the things a pony would probably have in their kitchen, knowing most ponies don’t keep meat or fish around. “I’m sure you can find something here he’ll eat.”

“Ah, alright. Yes, that should be no problem then. Shall we take him inside and get him situated?” she asks, stepping aside and holding the door open.

“Yes, thank you,” Fluttershy says, walking in past her with the carrier in her mouth. “I can’t stay for very long, because my train will be leaving soon,” she says after setting the carrier down in the living room and gently letting the opossum slide off onto the couch.

Kopis blinks sleepily at the sleepy little thing. “Oh, this is him?” He leans a little closer. “What’s his name?”

“Mhmm. I call him Patter or just Pat. For the sounds his little feet make when he scampers around,” Fluttershy says in a cute tone, petting the resting critter.

“Oh, that is a cute name,” Falcata says.

Kopis nods. “Uh huh.” He looks between the mares and asks, “So, um, I just need to keep an eye on him?”

His mom nods too. “Yes. I will go get something for him to eat, one moment.” She backs away and disappears into the kitchen.

“He isn’t feeling well, so he should sleep like an angel,” the pegasus tells Kopis. “Just makes sure you give him water in a bowl if he wants it, and has somewhere warm to sleep.”

“Hmm, okay.” He grabs a blanket from the back of a chair and makes a little nest for him to settle into if he wants. “How’s that?”

Fluttershy gives him a warm smile. “That’s very good. I’m sure he’ll be comfortable.”

Kopis grins, happy that he’s apparently qualified to make beds for small mammals. Around that time, his mom returns with a small bowl of diced veggies of various sorts, including some carrots, chunks of potato and some stuff that Kopis can’t quite identify. She sets it on the floor next to the couch along with another bowl of water. “There, I hope that is all to his liking.”

“It looks delicious,” she assures Falcata softly. Standing up, Fluttershy looks towards a clock. “I’m sure he’s in good hooves. Thank you both so much for doing this.”

She smiles back. “You are most welcome. When will you be returning to pick him up? Tonight or tomorrow?”

“Later tonight for sure. I’ll only be in Canterlot for the day.” Expecting them to watch him overnight would be a little much.

“Alright then. I am sure I will be home by then.” Falcata turns toward the door. “Well, no need to keep you waiting so that you miss your train.”

Fluttershy nods. “I’d like to tell you more about him, but I need to leave… Thank you again,” she says to both of the ponies after giving Patter a final pat.

“You are welcome,” Falcata repeats, walking her to the door. “We will see you again tonight.”

And so Fluttershy says her goodbyes to everypony and possum, and moves on to the train station before she’s late.

After waving her off, Falcata heads back inside to grab her things so she could head off to work. She stops at the couch and gives the opossum a little stroke. “You will be fine here without me this morning, right?” she asks Kopis.

He chuckles weakly. “I always am.”

His mom gives him a little brush with a hoof at the smart comment. “Alright then. I am off to the restaurant. Take care and have a good day at school.” She leans down to give him a little peck on the cheek.

“Okay mom, I will.” He gives her a little hug and waves to her as she heads off. Once she’s gone, he hops back up onto the couch and curls up into a little knot. Ugh, he hated getting up this early. He points a hoof at Patter and says, “Don’t go anywhere, okay?” He nods. “Okay.” While he wasn’t going to try to go to sleep, he wasn’t going to try too hard not to either. It didn’t look like Patter was in much of a mood to wander away anyway.

Kopis jerks awake with a start, having drifted off to sleep almost unintentionally and had a weird dream about trying to sneak past some ponies while in his ninja outfit and using the book, but being spotted anyway. By an opossum.

He stretches and licks his lips, trying to remember why he was on the couch instead of bed and wondering what there might be to drink in the fridge. He looks over and sees an empty blanket folded up into a nest, and an unfortunate realization strikes him.

“Uh oh…”

He jumps off the couch and looks around. “Patter? Hey, you around?” He starts searching the room for any sign of the little fuzzball. Oh crap...

From the kitchen, Kopis hears soft scratching, scrabbling sounds. His ears perk up and he scurries that way. Dang it, of all the rooms in the house for it to go messing around in, the kitchen! If it ate anything important his mom was going to be mad… He hurries into the room and sees a box of pasta clatter to the floor, which thankfully wasn’t something rare or super valuable. “Patter!”

The opossum in question is hanging by its arms off the top of an open cabinet. It looks over at Kopis and sneezes, but shows no sign of guilt for its climbing. That’s just what opossums do.

Kopis trots over to the cabinet and props himself up on it, but frustratingly the little furball was well out of reach. Argh, why couldn’t he have a horn like his mom and sister? They always built stuff without thinking about him! Well… the house and cabinet kind of existed before he did, but still! He sits and glowers at Patter. “Don’t go anywhere… I’ll be right back.” There had to be a stepstool or something else he could use to climb up and reach him.

Patter stays still, hanging from the door of the cabinet with his tail swinging back and forth.

To his luck, there’s a step stoop in the pantry itself, which he snags and positions strategically to allow him to recover Patter.

By the time he has the stool in the right spot, the critter has moved further up, now hanging off the top of the cabinet itself. His tail is braced against the inside to steady himself, and when Patter sees Kopis under him, it moves and snags a bag of flour. The bag tumbles down through the air and towards the floor!

At the last moment, Kopis snags the bag with his hooves before it becomes a flour bomb. “Hey, sit still!” He sets the bag somewhere safe and tries to reposition himself to grab Patter. Seemed he’d have to do something his mom really wouldn’t approve of. He jumps up onto the counter and hurries toward the cabinet.

Patter peeks over the top of the cabinets, looking down. The possum sneezes again, but doesn’t feel the need to hurry. Though he does see something interesting in the kitchen…

Before the animal can go investigate, Kopis scrambles up the cabinet shelves at an incredible pace! Before Patter knows what happened he finds himself grabbed and squirming to get out of the pony’s hooves. He’d never seen one climb like that before!

“Gotcha!” Kopis secures the opossum and sits back on the counter for a moment. “You shouldn’t be climbing around in here. You could get me in a lot of trouble if mom was home. ‘Kopis, get thine hooves off of the counter!’” He snorts and slips off back down to the ground, realizing it was going to be hard to carry an unwilling critter and walk. He really wished he had magic sometimes…

Thankfully for Kopis, despite being as big as a cat and having some nasty teeth, Patter is docile enough to not try too much to get away. Kopis can hobble along on three legs, with the fourth holding the occasionally twisting animal.

Once back in the front room, Kopis deposits Patter back on the couch and holds the food bowl up for him. “Here, you hungry?”

He responds by impaling a potato chunk on one of his canines, eating it, then moving on to the rest of the veggie bowl. His tail wags back and forth slowly, like he’s seen some of the other animals that live with the yellow pony do.

Kopis smirks and sits back, holding the bowl steady. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The critter chows down until there’s nothing left in the bowl, then promptly lays back down in the bundle of blankets.

Kopis gives Patter a little pat and lays back on the couch himself. “There you go.” Hey, he could do this caring for pets thing. It was easy. They fed themselves for the most part.

After a minute of sitting there, Kopis remembers that the kitchen was still messy after their little escapade, so he slips off the couch. “Don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll be right back.” He trots off to go put the flour and step stool up before he forgets completely.

The potential mess is cleaned up easily enough, thanks to Kopis’ reflexes earlier. It only takes a minute or two to put the flour back where it belongs, though it does involve more standing on the counters. When he gets back to the living room, Patter is in much the same place he was left.

Good, maybe he’d learned his lesson. ...whatever that was. Kopis decides that he’s going to need something to do if he was going to avoid having Patter vanish on him again, and he ducks into his room to grab a sketch pad and pencil. Returning to the couch, he gets into a comfortable position and starts thinking up stuff to doodle while he waited for time to go to school.

He manages to keep himself alert and occupied for a while, doodling Power Ponies, ninjas, wonky looking opossums and other random shapes. He has to subdue Patter a time or two, but fortunately the critter can’t get too far before he does. “Y’know, I’m going to have to put you in that cage when I head to school. If you keep going all over the place I might have to do it sooner.” He flops back on the couch. “Not sure what else to do right now. Ugh, so bored.”

Showing little obvious signs of understanding Kopis, the opossum looks away from him when he stops talking and moves over to his water bowl. His drinks the last of it down, then nudges it a few times.

“Thirsty?” Kopis stretches and hops down to retrieve the bowl. “Okay, a little water coming up.” He disappears into the kitchen to refill the bowl like a good little caretaker, then returns to the front room to present the refreshing liquid to Patter.

Or so he thinks! The opossum is again gone when he trots back there. The blanket laying partway off the couch from his clever escape plan.

“Oh you… thing...” Kopis grumbles. He’d been had alright. “Yep, you’re going in the cage when I find you.” He sets the bowl on the floor and starts searching for his runaway.

Kopis figuratively turns the living room upside-down in short order, looking in every possible place, and finding no trace of Patter… until from behind the couch he sneezes and darts out into the kitchen again.

“Hey! Don’t go back in there and make a mess! Mom’ll be really irritated if you do!” He gives chase to the little booger, hoping to catch him before he can burrow his way into a stack of boxes, bags or pots and pans.

Before Kopis even stops, the coughing marsupial is scrambling up the cabinet in front of the sink. He scrabbles after him, again cursing his lack of magic that would let him snag Patter from where he was. “Come on, don’t go up there, please?”

Patter looks at Kopis and tilts his head… then looks back behind him at the open window that Kopis failed to notice before, very slowly stepping towards it.

“Nononononono,” Kopis pleads as he dives for the opossum. If he got outside he was in so much trouble! He could go under the house or into the woods or something!

Patter looks back at Kopis, and then back at the inviting outside world. This place does have some more parts to explore, and some seemed warm and comfortably dark… The colt lunging at him makes up his mind, and the opossum hops out the window.

“Fffffffffuuuuuuu-” Kopis crashes into the cabinet and stares at the window Patter vanished through. “-udge.” He jumps up and darts for the door. “Darndarndarndarn!”

Outside, the morning in Ponyville is sunny and a little chilly, but nothing a coated pony would feel. Kopis can’t see Patter, but from somewhere further down the street he hears a mare shriek.

“Oh crap. Oh crap.” Kopis swallows his fear and bolts in that direction, hoping it wasn’t somepony just being dramatic for the sake of it!

A few houses down, Daisy, a mare he knows vaguely as one of the flowers vendors, is talking to Rose and stomping her hooves quickly. “Ew, ew, ew! It was like a giant rat! And it ran right under me!”

Kopis skids to a halt next to them and demands, “Which way did it go?” How fast could an opossum go anyway?

“That way,” the mare says and points without thinking. Apparently he’s still moving down the street, for now… As the colt moves on, he can hear the upset mare mumble, “I think it sneezed on me… I need to see a doctor.” Her friend rolls her eyes and goes back to tending her own flower cart.

“Thanks!” he blurts out as he dashes that way. Come on, it didn’t seem this fast at home, he had to be catching up!

Unfortunately for Kopis, a critter with the sniffles is just as fast as one without, if a little unhappier. While running, he does spot a familiar tail go around a corner up ahead. Bingo! He pours on as much speed as he can and gallops around the corner after it.

As he approaches the corner, he hears a familiar filly’s voice, but can’t slow down in time to avoid almost colliding with its owner when he turns the corner. “..They’re supposed to live in the forest, I’m not sure why-” Sonata and Peat dodge out of the way to either side. “Hey, Kopis!”

Kopis prances in place and flashes them a nervous smile. “Hey guys. Um, did you see an opossum running through here just now? It’s kinda important.”

“Yeah, it went that way,” Sonata says, pointing towards the nearby stream that runs through town. “What’s going on?”

Kopis starts backing that way while still prancing. “Oh, you know. Mom volunteered to watch it for Fluttershy and it got outside. Um, gotta go!” He turns and bolts toward the stream.

“How’d it get out?” she asks trying to keep pace alongside him. Peat follows too, and the three foals can spot a small silver-white shape running towards the a log that lays across the stream.

“Um, the window was open.” How that happened he still didn’t know…

Ahead of them still, Patter hops up onto the log and scurries across to the other side, using his large tail to keep his balance above the water. If he keeps running how he is, he’ll reach the edge of the Whitetail Woods soon!

Crap! Kopis scurries after him, caring not if he gets wet or worse. “Sonata, can you get him with your magic?”

“No, not from here, it’s too far!” She shouts back from behind him. By the time they reach the log-bridge, the critter is on the other side.

“Patter! Stop, come back!” Kopis shouts, leaping after him. He manages to keep his balance as he crosses the stream and gains on the creature, with his two friends running behind him. All of them approach the treeline, with the opossum getting there first. But, to everypony’s relief, he climbs up the nearest tree, instead of running further into them.

Kopis isn’t so sure he’s going to stay in that tree though, and worries he’ll try to jump to another. “Patter… come down, please! I’m sorry, I won’t put you in the cage, okay?”

With all four legs and a tail wrapped around a thick branch, Patter looks down and with an opossum’s limited range of facial expressions, somehow manages to give the colt a skeptical look. Then he sneezes again and has to right himself on his perch.

The colt walks under him and stares up. “Man… mom’s going to kill me…”

Peat sits on his haunches, and still manages to almost be eye-level with the other two. “What’re we doing about this?” He points a hoof up.

“I don’t know…” Kopis whines.

“One of us could climb up after him,” he suggests, clearly meaning himself or Kopis.

Naturally. Kopis looks down at his hooves, which very obviously weren’t intended to be used in scaling trees, and tries to figure out how this was going to work. It was his fault that Patter was out here though, and he wasn’t going to back down from a suggestion like that. “Mind giving me a boost?”

“Eeyup.” Peat kneels beside the tree, and standing on him, Kopis can definitely reach high enough to grab the first branch.

“Thanks.” Kopis steels himself and reaches up, grasping the branch securely with a hoof. Or as securely as he could anyway. Hesitantly, he hauls himself up, kicking little flecks of bark free from the trunk as he goes. “Okay Patter, don’t go anywhere…”

Despite it being a hard thing for little ponies to do, Kopis makes his way up the tree slowly but surely. Patter backs up on his branch, but find himself out of room on the branch and with no higher ones to move to. The colt hangs on to the trunk for dear life… and has to wonder how he’s going to grab a squirming critter and climb back down.

Yep, being anything but an earth pony would be so awesome right now. Kopis sighs and sees that this isn’t going to be easy. “Okay Patter, c’mon. Don’t you want to see Fluttershy again?”

Patter stares at the small, brown, pony, not understanding, except that he made the sound he others call the yellow pony. Except she isn’t around, and he has no idea where she went. He’ll stay right where he is until she comes to get him.

“Ugh, so much for that.” Kopis stretches a hoof out tentatively before snapping back to the trunk. “Um… um… you two have any ideas?”

“Nope,” Peat answers. He’d thought Kopis would try to grab it, but it is a big fall…

“Maybe I could fake Fluttershy’s voice? He might listen to that. I usually don’t do anything besides music though…”

“Okay,” Kopis replies anxiously.

The unicorn filly concentrates, and after a moment her horn begins to glow. From nowhere, but centered around her, a mare’s voice sounds. “Oh, uh… Patter? Could you please come down out of that tree?” To the colts, it doesn’t sound very much like Fluttershy specifically, besides being quiet and demure, and has a little too much of Cheerilee in there.

But, it’s apparently enough for the opossum. His dark ears perk up, and he looks over the side of his branch on both sides, then drops down to a lower one and again until he’s on the ground. He sits down and looks all around, holding up his tiny pink feet. She’s still here after all! Now, where is she…?

Kopis waves his hooves frantically, trying to instruct his friends to nab the little critter while he was confused. If he tried to climb down from this tree Patter was going to make another break for it long before he got down there!

Sonata obliges, snatching up the critter in a hazy, aqua, field. He tries to move around frantically, for a second before shutting his eyes and going totally limp.

“Whew, thanks.” Kopis very cautiously lowers himself out of the tree. “Man, I thought he and I were goners for sure.”

“Uh…” Peats nervously gestures at the possum with a hoof. Maybe Kopis spoke too soon!

Now what’s he doing? Kopis leans in to scrutinize Patter’s apparently comatose body. “Hey, wait.. isn’t this what they call playing possum?” He pokes Patter once. The animal doesn’t even flinch, true to the title. “Mmhmm. That’s it. I’m on to you…””

“He’s okay then?” Peat asks, unsure.

Sonata answers, still holding him in her magic. “This is what possums do when they’re scared. He’s just acting.”

“Yep.” Kopis looks back toward his house. “So, um… guess I should get him home again. And lock the windows this time.”

“Yeah, I hope!” Sonata jokes. “Want me to help carry him back?”

He chuckles nervously. “If you don’t mind. Kinda hard to carry him and walk at the same time if you just have hooves.” He wasn’t going to carry Patter in his mouth. Even if he wasn’t sick. Eww.

“Yeah, no problem.” Sonata can follow him back home and carry the critter, but Peat has to get back home to start getting ready for school.

“See you soon,” Kopis tells his fellow earthpony before trotting back home with Sonata. “Well, that was more excitement than I wanted this morning. Never thought I’d be looking forward to school.”

“I’m still not,” Sonata admits, setting Patter down on the couch. He lays down, apparently having tired himself out.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to babysit and chase this thing around all morning. At least now I can stick him in the cage. Well, have to I guess.” Kopis starts to do that, but hesitates. “I guess I can wait until I get ready to leave though.”

“Can I stay until then?” Sonata asks, sitting down on the couch and scooping up Patter to cuddle with the cute critter.

He nods and joins her on the couch. “Sure. How long do we have anyway?”

Petting the possum, she glances around. “Where’s the clock? ...Oh, we have a while.”

“Hmm, okay. Now… what to do…” Kopis starts trying to think of some kind of group activity to keep them occupied until school started, but he’s not coming up with much. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if they just sat around and talked?

Moments later, the door pops open and Kris trots in. “Hey you two. Still got the opossum inside and safe?”

Kopis blinks at her, then remembers something about her having a half day that day. “Oh, uh, yep. No trouble. I’d keep the windows closed though.” He chuckles nervously.

Kris drops her bags next to the door and nods slowly. “Uh… huh…” She steps closer to get a good look at Patter. “So, uh, I guess it’s my turn to watch him now?”

“At least when we head off to school, yeah,” Kopis replies.

Sonata is still holding the peacefully snoozing animal in her forelegs and petting him. “You have to watch him closely, he’s a tricky one.”

“I’m guessing that’s got something to do with that window comment from before?” Kris asks her little brother.

“Uh… yeah. Mom doesn’t need to know about that though…”

Kris smirks and shrugs. “Just as long as he behaves himself now.”

He seems to, for the rest of the time the younger ponies have. The sweet creature sleeps peacefully, occasionally sneezing or coughing. Patter only moves to finish his food from before. Eventually, Kopis and Sonata leave for school, leaving Kris alone with the opossum. Deciding to enjoy her time with the house all to herself, she sits back on the couch and opens a magazine… just as one of Patter’s eyes opens.