"Hey Twilight, can you teach me how to do this spell?" Sweetie Belle asked, pushing the book with said spell towards Twilight. She had been studying the spell for the last ten minutes and decided that she really wanted to learn how to do it.
Twilight barely glanced at it before shaking her head. "An invisibility spell? Sorry, but I am definitely not teaching you that. There are so many ways it could go wrong, and you haven't even mastered the basics yet. This spell is extremely advanced."
Sweetie Belle groaned and slumped down in defeat. "Ugh, come on! I'm never going to get the hang of this stuff."
"You will if you practice. Now, show me your cleaning spell."
Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow in concentration, lighting up her horn and using her magic to slowly raise the mop. The mop rose up a few inches, waved around wildly, and very nearly smacked Twilight in the face before falling back to the ground.
"Ugh, I just don't get it! I've been practicing, like, forever and I still can't get the hang of this," Sweetie Belle complained, stomping her hooves in frustration as the mop flopped back onto the floor. "Why can't the stupid mop just levitate itself?"
"Sweetie Belle, you just have to be patient. Why, it took me a couple tries to get the hang of this spell," Twilight reassured her, feeling slightly guilty about lying. In truth, she had gotten hang of the spell on her first try.
"Well, you were and still are an amazingly talented unicorn-turned-Alicorn," argued Sweetie Belle, "and I'm just plain, boring old me with no talent whatsoever. My blank flank proves it!"
She gazed sadly down upon her bare flank, wishing for some sort of mark to appear. Sweetie Belle loved Twilight Time, and she saw some improvement in her magic because of the lessons. However, these improvements were very small and she was beginning to think that learning magic was a total lost cause.
"Don't ever say that," Twilight exclaimed. "You are a very special unicorn and you know it. Your blank flank just means that the possibilities for your special talent are endless, and that you just have to keep looking. It means that your special talent is something unique and most definitely not boring. You are a very special pony."
Sweetie Belle snorted and turned her head away from Twilight. "Blah blah blah special special special… HA! Yeah, I'm real 'special' all right. I'm 'special' in that special way that means I have to go to extra classes at school and meet with a psychologist. In fact, I bet that's why the other crusaders all said they were too busy today to hang out with me. They think I'm 'special' too. Everypony always says that I'm special and unique, and I used to think of that as a compliment. Now, I see it for what it really is: a kinder way of saying that I'm dumb and weird!" she shouted, the first tears beginning to stream down her face as she whipped around to face Twilight. "Well guess what? I've had enough of this. I'm leaving and not coming back until I get my cutie mark!" she yelled.
Twilight recoiled in shock. She hadn't expected Sweetie Belle to get so... vocal when she called her special. She had meant it as a compliment, but clearly Sweetie Belle interpreted it otherwise. She started to say something, but her words fell upon deaf ears as Sweetie Belle angrily stormed out of the library.
As she trotted out into the streets of Ponyville, Sweetie Belle suddenly felt lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. In fact, she felt positively giddy. She would finally, after all these years, be able to get her cutie mark. She was absolutely positive about it, and she didn't know how she hadn't come to this realization sooner. She had to earn her cutie mark entirely by herself, not with the help of more talented peers and princesses. She could teach herself out of the spellbook that she... left at Twilight's. Darn it.
"Wait a second... I don't have any supplies!" Sighing, the weight came crashing back down on her and she reluctantly trudged back into the library.
"I knew you'd come around. Are you ready to continue your lesson?" Twilight asked, looking up from her book at the filly. She was slightly annoyed, but she carefully kept her annoyance from showing in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm ready to continue my lesson," Sweetie Belle replied.
"Okay, great! I think we'll resume on our studies with fundamental-"
"No no, Twilight. You misunderstand. I really appreciate the help you've given me, but I'm going to continue learning magic by myself. Can I borrow one of your spellbooks?" she asked.
"No you can't. I know this is a library and all, but I can't let you-"
"Okaythanksbyetwilight!" Sweetie Belle grabbed the spellbook she had been reading earlier off of the shelf with her teeth and galloped away as fast as she could, leaving behind an aghast lavender unicorn.
"S'cuse me, shorry shir, watch where yer goin’, shtop shtaring at me. Go away, D'mond Trra!"
Sweetie Belle barreled through Ponyville, shoving aside the ponies going about their daily business who just happened to get in her way. Well, except for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. She knew that they purposefully gotten in her way.
Brushing past her tormentors, Sweetie Belle dashed through the entire town, only stopping when she reached the edge of the Everfree forest. There was no way she was going in the forest, but she would stay near the edge. Nopony ever approached the edge, so she would be safe from discovery there.
"Sweetie Belle, I know you're upset, but-" Sweetie Belle whirled around to see Twilight standing behind her with pleading eyes. Ugh, she must have teleported herself here or something, Sweetie Belle thought bitterly. I remember hearing Rainbow Dash mention to Rarity that she's terrible at flying, so she must have used her fancy magic skills to follow me.
"-but magic is not something to practice on your own. I don't want to see you get hurt."
Sweetie Belle spat the book out of her mouth. "Then go away and don't watch me!" she retorted. Twilight winced at the rough treatment of the book, but didn't say anything about it. That could wait until later.
"No Sweetie Belle, I can't risk that. I really don't want to have to explain to Rarity why you
suddenly have four heads or some other unfashionable alteration. Please, come back to the library with me and we can get that mud cleaned off of you before Rarity sees it and throws a fit." Sweetie Belle looked down at her light gray coat, which was indeed caked with mud in several areas. Rarity would not be happy about that if she saw. Some of what Twilight was saying made sense to her, but she pushed back any such thoughts and refused to cooperate.
"No! I am doing this, and you can't stop me!" Sweetie Belle shouted before covering her mouth. She didn't want to attract any monsters from the Everfree forest. Twilight sighed and looked at Sweetie Belle with a pained expression.
"I hate to do this, and I don't even know if I'm allowed to, but I must. As a Princess of Equestria, I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, command you to return the spellbook to my possession and return to my house at once," she commanded, drawing herself up to her full height.
"Well... Buck you!" Sweetie Belle said, unable to think of anything else to say. Twilight's eyes flashed angrily.
"Language!" she scolded the young filly, but it was too late. She was already dashing away. She was about to teleport after her, but a movement out of the corner of her eye stopped her. She turned her head to look behind her and saw Spike panting as he ran towards her.
"Twi... light!" he panted. "I have... a letter... from Princess Celestia! Judging by the way it's trying... to force itself out, I'd say... it's pretty urgent!" Twilight looked worriedly in the direction Sweetie Belle had scurried off in before turning back to Spike just as he belched up the scroll.
Catching it in her magic, Twilight unrolled it and read the 'important message.’
Dear Twilight,
Changelings and timberwolves have united and are attacking Canterlot. They have captured my sister and are now heading after Cadence. Please hurry over as quickly as you can and help me save Canterlot before it is razed by angry creatures.
~Princess Celestia
Twilight bit her lip, briefly debating whether or not she should disregard the letter and chase after Sweetie Belle. "No, I can't abandon my mentor in her time of need! I am responsible for the fate of Equestria. If I don't protect my nation, I will be a horrible princess! But Sweetie Belle could get hurt... But if I ignore the threat to Canterlot, more than one pony will get hurt... Ugh! I guess I'm going to Canterlot. Rarity is going to kill me later. In fact, this is so stressful I might just end up killing myself. Uh, Spike, you did not just hear that last part. Forget I said that and go back to the library while I go help Princess Celestia. Don’t eat too many snacks."
Spike stood very still, still trying to understand what Twilight had just said. Hesitantly, he responded, "Um... okay Twilight, just don't get hurt or anything. I'll just relax at home and maybe clean-" Twilight gasped, cutting him off.
"Wait a second! Spike, go find Sweetie Belle and make sure she isn't casting any dangerous spells while I go to Canterlot," she said, teleporting away before Spike was able to respond. Shrugging, he turned around and started walking off in the direction of Sweetie Belle, only to almost immediately fall into a deep hole filled with a myriad amount of gems.
"AAA- oh man, those look delicious! Forget about Sweetie Belle, I'm staying in here!"
Sweetie Belle continued to run, panting and checking over her shoulder every so often to check for any pursuers. It was hard work. Her legs were still a bit sore from the crusaders' last talent-finding attempt, and her neck cracked once when she looked over her shoulder too quickly. But she kept on running.
When she felt satisfied that she wasn't being followed, she slowed down and stopped to catch her breath. She observed her surroundings and concluded she was in some sort of deserted field near Fluttershy's cottage. Perfect. If what she heard was true, Fluttershy wouldn’t be assertive enough to intervene with her spellcasting.
She used her telekinesis to open the book to the correct page, feeling a surge of pride as she did so. By no means was paper heavy, but still, she had moved something with her magic without it blowing up in her face or igniting. That was progress.
"Okay, so invisibility... Shouldn't be that hard… looks like there’s even a counterspell if I mess up or decide I don’t like the effects..." she muttered to herself as she read, scanning the page and figuring out the basic mechanics of the spell. “Looks like I just have to reverse the polar… poultry… what the hay is this word supposed to be?” Frustrated, she jabbed the word polaritywith her hoof. “Oh whatever. I’ll just skip that part.”
Furrowing her brow in concentration, Sweetie Belle screwed her eyes shut and grit her teeth until her horn sparked to life. Grinning a little, her eyes flew open and a green beam of energy shot out of her horn, surrounding her in a green aura. She stared at her hooves in awe as she witnessed her hooves slowly disappear right in front of her eyes. They seemed to gradually fade away. First the fur, then the skin, until she could see right through her hooves. But they were still there.
It was so weird; her eyes made her think her hooves were gone, but she knew they weren’t because she could still feel them. If she were to be completely honest, it was kind of creepy. Her bones hadn’t disappeared yet, so she could still see them clearly. In some ways, it was a bit fascinating. If she did this often enough, she could probably learn more about the bones and be ahead of her class in the subject.
“This is so weird,” Sweetie muttered to herself, her eyes glued on her legs. The spell worked in a really strange way. It tingled as it spread over her small body, and it seemed to be saving the bones for last because all of the bones in her legs were exposed. When the spell finally reached the very tips of her ears, the tingling feeling stopped and the aura dissipated. The spell had finished, but there was just one problem: all of her bones were still visible.
“What?!” Sweetie Belle’s skeleton exclaimed, its jaw rattling around as it spoke. “What?! Oh no, I turned myself into a skeleton pony!”
Sweetie Belle spun around in circles, chasing her invisible tail, trying to glimpse at her invisible flank. “Ugh, and I can’t even see if I got a skeleton cutie mark! I know I didn’t get my invisibility cutie mark, but a skeleton cutie mark sounds so cool! An invisible cutie mark, on the other hoof… that’s like being a blank flank again!” Excited and hopeful to see if she at least earned her skeleton cutie mark, Sweetie Belle quickly looked up the counterspell to reverse the invisibility.
“Okay, so… I just have to…” Sweetie Belle took another look at the counterspell just to make sure she had it right. Right before she cast the spell, however, a sentence caught her eye so she stopped preparing to cast the spell. Examining the words, she realized she needed carrots to perform her spell for some reason. The book had an explanation as to why, but it had big words in it so she didn’t understand it. Her eyes slowly slid away from the book until they rested on Fluttershy’s cottage about a hundred yards away across the field.
“Oh great… Fluttershy…” Sweetie Belle defeatedly looked upon her bony self, wondering how Fluttershy was going to react. She imagined plenty of scenarios, none of them ending well, and with each one she became less hopeful of obtaining a carrot from Fluttershy to enable her to cast the much needed counterspell. However, it wasn’t like she had any other choice. She could walk into the center of Ponyville and buy a carrot, but she had no money, and, well, the whole skeleton thing would probably make friendly interactions with store clerks difficult. So really, the most logical option was going to Fluttershy’s house. She almost definitely owned carrots. What else would she feed all her bunnies and chickens and whatever else she had? Cake? It didn’t seem likely.
Resigned, Sweetie Belle The Skeleton trudged through the grass to Fluttershy’s cottage. It was kind of fascinating to watch how her bones moved when she walked, so she kept jumping about randomly to see how her bones would react to the sudden movement and how they would shudder on impact with the ground. Anypony who might have been watching would probably laugh at the sight of a skeleton dancing about in the middle of nowhere. Then, the word skeleton would really register in their brain and they would scream and run away to grab a mob and some torches to rid the town of the evil entity.
Luckily, though, nopony saw Sweetie Belle and she safely reached Fluttershy’s house without being killed by an angry mob of ponies. Now, she faced an even larger problem: talking to Fluttershy.
Hesitantly, Sweetie Belle raised her leg -- er, leg bone -- to the door and gave it two solid knocks. There was no answer at first, and the silence drove Sweetie crazy with anxiety. What if she never answered? She’d be stuck outside forever as a skeleton. Then Rarity would find her and tell her that she didn’t want a skeleton for a sister, and she’d use the Elements of Harmony to turn her into stone! Then Nightmare Moon would-
Just then, the door started to slowly creak open.
“Um… Hello? Who’s there?” a quiet voice asked from behind the door. Even though the owner of the voice wasn’t visible through the tiny opening, it was obvious to Sweetie Belle who the owner of the voice was. After all, it couldn’t be anyone else. Fluttershy lived alone.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sweetie Belle. I’m Rarity’s sister, remember?” Hearing this, Fluttershy started to push the door open more.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle? Come on in-” Fluttershy froze when she opened the door wide enough for her to see a skeleton standing outside of her house. “Oh… oh my…” she stuttered, standing rooted in place and shaking with fright.
“Yeah, I’m kind of a skeleton now… I messed up on my spell and- wait, no, don’t do that! No!” Sweetie Belle protested as the door was slammed in her face. Her voice seemed to have snapped Fluttershy out of her shocked state, and she had screamed loudly before slamming the door shut. Judging by the crashing and banging noises that followed, she had probably also bolted to some place in her house as far away from the door as she could and boarded up her windows.
“Oh come on!” Sweetie Belle groaned, slumping down against the door. This looked quite strange, because although her body was invisible, it was still there so the bones weren’t completely flush with the wood or the ground. Her skeleton almost appeared to be floating.
Sweetie Belle twisted herself around to pound loudly on the door. “Fluttershy, lemme in! I need a carrot so I can do magical things and make things all normal again!”
“No, go away!” the cottage squeaked. “Monsters are not welcome here!”
“Oh for Celestia’s sake…” Sweetie Belle grumbled. Angrily, she wiggled the doorknob. Evidently the door was unlocked, because the door opened inwards and Sweetie Belle fell inside. “Oof!” disgruntled, Sweetie Belle picked herself up and brushed herself off. “Hey Fluttershy, where do you keep the carrots?”
“Why would I tell you?” a bag of bird feed squeaked from another room. “I don’t want a big, scary skeleton taking all the food for itself. Then my poor little Angel Bunny won’t have anything to eat!”
Sweetie Belle snorted. She’d seen that bunny before, and she knew he wouldn’t eat anything less than a five-star meal. There was no way he’d eat something as plain and boring as a carrot. “Fluttershy, where do you keep them?”
“I’m not telling you! But I will tell you that I don’t keep them on the top-right shelf of my pantry in the kitchen behind the oats. Definitely not there. In fact, I don’t own any carrots. I was lying, so can you please leave? I’d really appreciate it if you left,” Fluttershy pleaded.
Sweetie Belle walked over to the kitchen and opened the pantry. On the top-right shelf behind the oatmeal, there lay a large bag of carrots. Taking the bag between her teeth, Sweetie Belle started to walk out of the cottage. When she reached the door, she set the bag of carrots down so she could speak. “Thanks, Fluttershy!” she called out before grabbing the carrots and walking outside.
“Um… you’re welcome? What did I even do? Wait, are you leaving?” she asked.
“Mmm hmm!” Sweetie Belle replied as loudly as she could with a bag in her mouth.
“Oh, thank Celestia,” Fluttershy sighed to herself as the scary skeleton pony trotted away.
Sweetie Belle set the carrots down next to the spellbook and flipped to the correct page. The wind had turned the pages of the book and even caused some of them to come loose. Sweetie Belle glanced at the loose pages floating away in the slight breeze, feeling a pang of guilt for damaging one of Twilight’s books. She knew how much the mare adored her books, and she was going to get in trouble for that later.
Returning to the book, Sweetie Belle began looking over the counterspell. “So, looks like for the counterspell it’s basically the same as the regular spell, except for the fact that you do everything the opposite way. And the carrot seems to be for… I dunno, but I need a carrot. Why am I talking to myself again?” she wondered.
Shrugging, Sweetie Belle went back to the matter at hand and tried to cast the spell, but something happened. Her horn sparked to life then flickered out almost immediately, leaving her dizzy and confused. Frowning, she cast the spell with more vigor this time, and it didn’t flicker out. Instead, it exploded in her face.
“Gah!” she shouted, snuffing out the fire on her invisible-ish muzzle. She spent a couple seconds being upset at her failure, but there was something obscuring her vision that seemed slightly more important than emotions at the present time. A trail of smoke floated in front of her eyes, and annoyed, Sweetie Belle tried to bat it away with her hoof. But it didn’t go away. Even weirder, the smoke seemed red. “What the hay?” Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes, just in case the red she was seeing was an imprint left over from staring cross-eyed at the fire for too long. When she opened her eyes, the red smoke was still there. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the image of fire burned into her eyes. Then if not that, what was it?
As hard as she tried, Sweetie Belle couldn’t see her own eyes, and she was getting hungry. The spell seemed to have drained a fairly large portion of her energy, and obviously she hadn't brought any food with her. It’s not like she had planned to throw a temper tantrum and run away from a Princess of Equestria to disobey her and use a stolen textbook to attempt forbidden magic.
Frustrated with herself, life, and her growling stomach, Sweetie Belle stomped over to Fluttershy’s cottage and stormed in without knocking. Fluttershy, who had finally left her hiding place and was now looking for her carrots, squealed and dove into the nearest hiding space she could find, which happened to be underneath a large cushion. “You said you were leaving, not leaving, getting scarier, and coming back!” she wailed.
“Getting scarier? What?” Sweetie Belle asked, confused. How was she any scarier than when she first arrived at Fluttershy’s house? “What do you mean?”
Fluttershy didn’t answer after that, so Sweetie Belle just rolled her eyes and searched the house for some sort of mirror. Eventually, after digging through some piles of old junk, she managed to find some sort of shiny, metal animal food bowl. Polishing the bowl with a bit of spit, Sweetie Belle wiped it with her hoof until she was satisfied with the shininess of it. Then, she saw her reflection. And nearly screamed.
Apparently, not only had her counterspell failed, it had made things even worse. Sweetie Belle gulped and slowly set the bowl back down. Now she understood what Fluttershy meant. She also understood that now, she really needed Twilight’s help, whether she liked it or not. She had no choice. She had no magical energy remaining to cast the counterspell, and even if she did, she would probably grow five horns or something to top off what she already looked like. Being a skeleton with evil-looking red smoke streaming out of its eye sockets was more than enough for her. Although, it would make a great story to tell to the class one day. That is, if she ever managed to get out of this situation.
With no other options, Sweetie Belle trudged out of the cottage, rolling her eyes again as she heard Fluttershy let out a small sigh of relief. She really needed to stop rolling her eyes; it was becoming a bad habit. Besides, rolling your eyes when you’re a skeleton does absolutely nothing. Skeletons don’t have eyes. She made the trek towards the center of Ponyville in silence, determined to keep what little sanity she might have left by not talking to herself anymore.
Sweetie Belle stopped when she reached the bridge that connected the area she was in to the main center of Ponyville. There were three ponies on the bridge; two mares that were standing there and talking to each other and a yellow mare who was grunting as she slowly dragged a large, really heavy-looking bag of apples behind her. Between the three of them, there wasn’t enough room left for Sweetie Belle to squeeze by them and she was too impatient to wait until the ponies were gone.
“Um, excuse me?” Sweetie Belle asked tentatively, “Can I get across?”
The green unicorn and the pale yellow earth pony who had been chatting with one another took one look at the skeleton, screamed, and ran away so quickly Sweetie Belle could’ve sworn they teleported, but the hoofprints in the dirt said otherwise. The other mare, however, was too busy with her apples to look up.
Sweetie Belle watched as the two mares ran away before repeating her question.
“Can I get across?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” the mare said around the mouthful of hessian sack.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Can I get across or not?” Sweetie Belle asked impatiently.
The mare spat out her bag and turned to face Sweetie Belle. Astonishingly, she didn’t even seem the slightest bit surprised to find herself facing a skeleton. “It means, it depends.” Now that the mare’s mouth wasn’t occupied, Sweetie Belle noticed she had a funny accent; it was sort of like Apple Bloom’s but less pronounced.
“On what?” Sweetie Belle pressed.
“Stuff.”
Sweetie Belle groaned and stomped her skeletal hoof on the ground in frustration. “Let me pass. Seriously, what is your issue? You’re weird. Really weird. You’re so weird, you think I, a skeleton pony, am normal.”
The mare shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger things in my lifetime,” she said, picking up a stray apple rolling on the ground and placing it back in the bag.
“I’m a talking skeleton. A. Talking. Skeleton.”
“Yep, with evil looking eyes too. Like I said, I’ve seen stranger,” the mare said nonchalantly, pausing to blow a strand of her green mane away from her face.
“So you’re not gonna scream or anything?” Sweetie Belle asked nervously.
“Nope.”
“Not even a little?”
“Nope,” the green-maned pony confirmed.
“Then can you let me across the bridge?”
“Nope.”
“What?!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t feel like it, and also because I don’t want a skeleton runnin’ around town and freaking ponies out. I don’t care if you’re friendly, other ponies won’t react well to it. No, don’t protest, it won’t do you any good,” the mare said, cutting off whatever Sweetie Belle was going to say, “and you’re not getting across.”
“Let me across!” Sweetie Belle demanded.
“Nah, you’ll have to wait until I leave.” And with that, the mare picked up her bag of apples and started dragging it again as Sweetie Belle groaned in exasperation and paced angrily back and forth. Sweetie Belle could’ve sworn the mare was going even slower than before, possibly even the slowest she could go. However, Sweetie Belle really needed to see Twilight, so she sat down and resolved to wait patiently. She waited very patiently, perhaps more patiently than she had ever waited for anything before, for about five seconds.
Fed up, Sweetie Belle stood up and strode over to the mare. Glaring at her, she snatched the bag of apples from her and used a combination of her magic and muscles to quickly pull the bag of apples towards herself, lift it up, and chuck it over the side of the bridge where it landed with a splash. A few apples spilled out of the bag and bobbed to the surface.
“Hey!”
Instantly, Sweetie Belle felt guilty for what she’d done, but she didn’t regret it.
“Um, sorry about that, but… I mean come on, you should have just moved! This is an emergency, and it’s more important than your dumb sack of fruit!” she asserted. The mare glared at her before leaping gracefully over the rail and landing not-so-gracefully on top of the floating apples, causing them to spread out more as she retrieved them and stuffed them back into the bag.
Sweetie Belle sheepishly shuffled across the bridge and galloped away in the general direction of the library. She'd apologize later. Maybe. Possibly. Only if Rarity guilted her into doing so. After all, she'd rather not waste what could potentially be valuable crusading time with her friends.
When she started to reach the more popular areas, she slowed her pace and made it a point to walk behind bushes to avoid being seen. She really, really did not want to be discovered. She’s be screamed at, attacked, captured, and experimented on. Or maybe even… No, nopony would kill her. That was just silly talk… right?
...Right.
Sweetie Belle shuddered and furiously shook her head to rid it of such thoughts.
“Stop that, Sweetie,” she muttered to herself, “you’re being silly again! Ponies aren’t like that, even if they do tend to overreact a bit.”
Just then, a shriek split the air. “AAAAH! Skeleton pony! Everypony, run for your lives!”
Sweetie Belle froze, realizing that she had accidently stepped out of the shadows. She had been spotted! She stared, terrified, at the ponies running around in a frenzy, screaming at the top of their lungs. Mothers grabbed their foals and shoved them inside trash cans to hide them. Stallions panicked and ran inside the nearest building, either to take shelter or possibly grab weapons to defend the town.
Realizing this last part, Sweetie Belle forced herself out of her shocked state and bolted away towards Twilight’s house. She could’ve sworn she saw Discord materialize in the center of the chaotic mess, but she didn’t dare slow down and look behind her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she fled in sheer terror, images of her death floating through her mind compelling her to go faster than a sonic rainboom.
Before she knew it, she was knocking at the library’s door. “Twilight, Twilight! Please let me in! Twilight!” she yelled. There was no answer and Sweetie Belle began to panic even more, if that was possible. She was about to give up and turn herself over to the crowd when suddenly she realized something. She breathed a sigh of relief and allowed herself to let out a small giggle. Princess Twilight lives in a public library; anypony can enter a public library without having to knock.
Slightly calmer than she was a few seconds ago, Sweetie Belle pushed open the door and darted inside, closing the door and bolting the lock. “Um, Princess Twilight?” Sweetie Belle called out into the building, “It’s Sweetie Belle. I need your help with something. See, don’t be freaked out or anything, but I sort of turned myself into a skeleton pony…” Sweetie Belle waited for a response, but all she received was silence. “Princess Twilight?” she asked again. No answer.
***********
Twilight Sparkle burst into the Royal Castle, running past all the staff and ignoring the shouted protests of the guards who attempted to escort her. She hadn’t seen any invaders on the way to the castle; perhaps they had already infiltrated the throne room and the Princesses were in grave danger!
Twilight leapt into the throne room with a battle cry, preparing to fight whatever enemies lay in wait for her. Changelings, timberwolves, evil sorcerers - she could take them down. She was prepared to find any type of terrifying monster.
Instead, she found lots of smiling ponies and balloons.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!” they cheered. Somepony shot confetti into the air with a cannon most likely borrowed from Pinkie Pie.
“W-what?!” Twilight managed to say. Her eyes stopped trying to take in all the commotion and focused on Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who were walking towards her with large smiles plastered on their faces. Princess Celestia embraced Twilight in a tight hug, which Twilight was too shocked to return.
“Happy birthday, Twilight,” Celestia said sincerely.
“But- the attack-”
“There never was an attack. We knew you would be too busy to remember it was your birthday, much less accept an invitation to your own party.”
“Princess Celestia…” Twilight said slowly, “in order to come here, I abandoned a young filly who needed my help. She was attempting magic far too advanced for her skill level, and you and I both know how dangerous that can be. She could be greatly injured, all because I came to my birthday party instead of staying with her!”
“Oh Twilight, do try to relax for once,” Luna suggested. “Enjoy your party. After all, it’s only your birthday once a year.”
“Yes, I agree,” Celestia said. “You should try the cake; it’s really good.” To prove her point, she levitated a slice into her mouth and closed her eyes, savoring the taste for a moment before levitating another slice over and offering it to Twilight, who in turn grabbed it and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and slid down, leaving a chocolate smudge streaking down behind the cake.
Twilight, overwhelmed with stress, screamed in frustration and took flight, zooming over the heads of all the ponies. In her haste to return to Ponyville, she crashed through the stained glass window depicting her ascension into an Alicorn.
Luna shook her head sadly and watched the younger Alicorn fly away. “She really has to loosen up a bit,” she remarked, taking a small bite of her cake. Celestia didn’t reply. Her mouth was too full of cake for her to talk.
*****************
After searching the entire library at least four times, Sweetie Belle finally came to the conclusion that Twilight Sparkle was not home. Even worse, the angry mob hell-bent on protecting the town from the ‘evil demon’ had also reached a conclusion: the monster was hiding in the library.
“Burn it down!” Sweetie Belle heard somebody suggest. “It’s made of wood and extremely flammable! The thing won’t be able to escape!”
“No way, are you crazy?! The Princess will have our heads for that!”
“Ha, in her dreams. The Princess is just a librarian with OCD who happens to have wings. Who cares if we piss her off? It’s not like she can do anything.”
“You take that back!”
“You mad bro?”
“I said take that back!”
“Never!”
“Stop this blasphemy!”
“Everypony just shut up already! You’re giving me a headache.”
Sweetie Belle covered her ears and shrank into a ball, trying her best to ignore the shouts. She really needed Twilight to help her, but she knew Twilight was probably still searching for her at the edge of town and wouldn’t return until she either found her or it became too dark to see clearly, which wouldn’t be for hours. The angry townsponies would find a way inside sooner rather than later, which meant Sweetie Belle had to leave now. If she waited until dark for Twilight to give up her search and return home, the mob would find a way inside before then and... bad things would happen. Sweetie Belle really did not want to find out exactly what “bad stuff” would entail, so she stood up and took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself to do what needed to be done.
She then proceeded with putting what was totally the best, smartest, and most well thought-through plan ever: running out the front door and barreling through the angry mob while screaming her head off.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-” Sweetie Belle screamed, crashing through the front door of the library and charging through the surprised crowd of ponies standing outside, who appeared to be in the process of building a ram to smash the door down and force their way inside.
The surprise factor worked for about three seconds, maybe four for ponies with slower reaction times. Then, all the ponies sprang into action. The pegasi flew after her, the unicorns tried to trip her with their telekinesis, and the earth ponies thundered after her. Sweetie Belle managed to evade all of the attacks and put a bit of distance between her and her pursuers by the time she rounded a corner, momentarily removing her from their line of sight. And in that moment, a hoof reached out, grabbed Sweetie Belle around the middle, and yanked her into a building.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA-” The pony shoved a hoof into Sweetie Belle’s mouth, cutting her off.
“Shh,” the pony warned her, shutting the door. Sweetie Belle didn’t intend to stop screaming, but she was seriously out of breath and couldn’t scream anymore. Gasping for air, she looked up and saw a familiar pair of green eyes looking at her. The pair of eyes belonged to a yellow earth pony mare with green hair.
“Hey,” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, “you’re-” *pant* “-that pony from-” *pant* “-the bridge!” The earth pony nodded, confirming the statement.
“Yeah, I am, and you’re Skeleton Pony.”
“Actually, my name’s Sweetie Belle,” Sweetie Belle corrected her.
“Nah, Skeleton Pony sounds cooler. Now, you’re goin’ to get yourself caught if you keep runnin’ and hollerin’ like that. Why would ya do somethin’ so foolish?” Sweetie Belle snorted at that.
“Because I’m ‘special’,” she declared dryly. And with that, she made another terrible decision and ran back outside.
Totally not a dumb choice. Nope, not at all.
“Hey look! There it is!” Yep, time to run again. And scream. Screaming is fun. “Get it!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-UMPH!” A unicorn finally succeeded in tripping Sweetie Belle, and the filly fell flat on her face, giving the mob time to catch up to her. She was quickly surrounded and her heart sank as she saw how incredibly doomed she was.
“We gotcha now… there’s no escaping,” one of the more malicious ponies sneered at her, firing up his horn. Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and lowered her head onto the ground, waiting for the blow that was sure to come.
I’m so sorry, Princess Twilight. I should have listened. You were only looking out for me, and you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. I overreacted and disobeyed your orders. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday.
“Stop!” a voice bellowed from the sky, the owner of the voice rapidly descending and landing behind Sweetie Belle. “What do you think you are doing?” Sweetie Belle heard the ponies surrounding her mumble various apologies, and the sound of their hoofsteps backing away from her. She dared herself to open one of her eyes slightly to peek, and she saw that they were all standing farther away than previously, but still within a ten-foot radius of her.
“This is not how you should be acting,” the voice continued. Sweetie Belle still couldn’t see the owner of the voice, but it sounded strangely familiar to her…
“But Your Highness, this…thing was attacking us!” a mare protested.
Very familiar to her… she knew she’d definitely heard the voice before....
“It doesn’t matter! Pitchforks and torches won’t solve anything! You have to find another way, and if you can’t, then you find somepony who can. Didn’t it even once occur to anypony here to contact me?”
Sweetie Belle smiled. Yep, she definitely knew this voice.
“Yes, Princess Twilight,” another pony stuttered, “but we were unaware of your whereabouts.”
“Then you should have thought to contact another one of the Elements before taking the matter into your own hooves,” Twilight snapped at them. “That’s really all there is to it.
“What about the monster?” someone inquired nervously, eying the skeleton-demon-thing with trepidation. Twilight smiled.
“I think that’s something best explained by somepony else. Sweetie Belle, if you don’t mind too much…?” Sweetie Belle’s eyes flew wide open at hearing her name, and she slowly picked herself up off of the ground and stood on unsteady legs to face Twilight, causing some of the onlookers to cringe back.
“Wait, you know I’m me? How? I don’t exactly look like myself right now,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Because you ran away from me with a spellbook containing an invisibility spell right after asking me how to perform it,” Twilight explained simply. “What happened to you is a known complication of the spell when casted improperly. There is a reason why I told you to stay away from that spell, you know,” Twilight finished with a chuckle.
“Oh… right,” Sweetie Belle said sheepishly.
“I am so confused right now,” Sweetie Belle heard somepony mutter to a friend. Oh yeah, she was supposed to be explaining what was going on.
“Earlier today, I was studying magic with Princess Twilight when I came across a spell for invisibility that I really wanted to try. She wouldn’t let me, and that made me angry. She also said some other things that I mis..misinterp… um, thought were insults when they weren’t. I ran away and tried the spell anyway, which I shouldn’t have done; not just because I messed up and made myself look like this, but because it was wrong of me to disobey her like that.
“Today, I learned not to make dumb decisions, especially not right after being told something that makes you upset. It’s better to take a few deep breaths, calm down, and think about the situation before you act rather than letting your angry emotions drive your actions.” Sweetie Belle looked up at all of the ponies who had chased her, and she grinned. “That’s a lesson I think all of you should learn.” Giggling a little as many heads bowed down in shame, she looked up at Twilight, who smiled and nodded her approval.
“So, Princess Twilight, could you…” Sweetie Belle trailed off.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Twilight replied, furrowing her brow in concentration as she cast the counterspell on Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle felt a light tingling sensation pass pleasantly through her body. She looked down at her hooves and sighed in relief when she realized she could no longer see her bones.
“Thank you!” Sweetie Belle jumped up and hugged Twilight, but then a thought occurred to her and she pulled away. “Um… you’re not gonna tell my sister about this, are you?” she asked. “She’d probably ground me for life.”
“I’m afraid I have to,” Twilight told Sweetie Belle, who suddenly looked a lot less happier than a moment ago.
“I figured you would say something like that…” Sweetie Belle groaned, “but first, can you put off telling her for a little while longer? There’s somepony I want to visit."
********
Hearing a knock at her door, the mare hurriedly shoved the apple pie on the oven and opened her front door to reveal a young filly with curly hair. “Can I help ya?” she asked politely.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Sweetie Belle said. The mare’s face broke into a wide grin.
“Hello again, Skeleton Pony! Would ya like to come in?” she asked, opening the door wider and stepping aside in invitation. Sweetie Belle accepted the invitation and stepping insider, but then she blinked in surprise.
“Wait a second, I’m back to normal now. How’d you know it was me?”
“Your voice is the same.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Sweetie Belle admitted. The two ponies moved into the living room and settled down into the plush couches. “So I came here to thank you for earlier,” she said.
“Thank me? For what?”
“Well, for not panicking and stuff and for trying to help me even though I dumped your apples in the river earlier. Er, sorry about that,” Sweetie Belle apologized, “it wasn’t very nice of me to do that.”
“It’s okay.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“Nope, not even a little bit. I shouldn’t have tested your patience like that, something I realized later after you’d left. I helped ya because, well, ya looked like ya needed it, and I wasn’t about to let ya suffer just ‘cause of somethin’ we were both at fault for.”
“...You sure you’re not mad?” The mare laughed at this question, and Sweetie Belle joined in soon after.
“Well, I should really get going,” Sweetie Belle said sadly, not wanting to leave her new friend and face the wrath of her older sister when she got home.
“I’ll see ya around then,” the mare said as she waved goodbye. Sweetie Belle started to make her way to the door, but she turned around and poked her head back in the living room.
“I never learned your name.”
“My name’s Apple Fritter.”
*********
“Hey Rarity…” Sweetie Belle greeted her older sister, fidgeting nervously. She had promised Twilight that she would tell Rarity what happened herself, but she already regretted doing so.
“Where have you been all day?” Rarity demanded, putting down her sewing and rushing over to glare at Sweetie Belle.
“Do you promise not to get mad at me when I tell you?” Rarity’s gaze softened.
“Of course, Sweetie.”
…..
“Sweetie Belle, you are grounded for the rest of the year! And no more desserts, ever!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
