The Huebirds of Happiness

The Huebirds of Happiness: The Huebird that Got Away

While Pinkie Pie trotted back to Ponyville and spread the word about the huebirds and her tea party to the rest of her bestest friends, Fluttershy was cleaning up her things from her tea party. Many of the critters had also left the house and returned to their homes to perform their own duties for the rest of the day, whether it be storing and preparing food or maintaining their homes. By the time all the critters left, only Fluttershy and the huebirds remained.

“Well that was a wonderful tea party wasn’t it fellow huebirds?” Fluttershy giggled along with the squawking of the huebirds in approval of their new friend Pinkie Pie.

“Oh you liked Pinkie Pie a lot didn’t you?” The huebirds tweeted happily in reply. “Oh yes! Pinkie Pie is certainly a very light-hearted and funny pony!” The huebirds squawked in laughter, particularly at Pinkie Pie’s puffy pink mane and her imitations of their squawks. Fluttershy giggled once again. These huebirds, although strange creatures, were adorable despite their somewhat discordant squawks. She then trotted to each of the huebirds, beginning her head count and ensuring that their wounds continued their healing as they should.

When she finished her count, Fluttershy noticed that there were only twenty-four huebirds in the room, and that one was missing! Worse yet, it was the leader huebird who was missing! Fluttershy performed another count, this time flying around her home in search of the missing huebird. But the leader pink huebird was nowhere to be seen!

“Oh no! Where’s the leader?!” The other huebirds squawked and looked at each other, but all they gave was a shake to their heads. They had no idea where their leader was, but none of them seemed too worried.  That was a stark contrast to Fluttershy’s reaction, who noticed that one of the upper windows of her house was opened just slightly.

“Oh my! I have to go and look for your leader! Everyone, please stay here while I go and find your leader!” The other huebirds nodded and squawked again in reply, understanding her command but laughing because they were sure that their leader would find his own way back with ease. Fluttershy flew out of the front door, now beginning her hectic search for the missing huebird.

The leader pink huebird made its way out of Fluttershy’s abode, enthused at exploring around as much of Ponyville as it could before it was inevitably found. He appreciated Fluttershy’s hospitality, but it already felt fully recovered. It wanted to explore Ponyville and perform what the rest of his group were supposed to do: scout as much of Ponyville as possible, make friends, and spread happiness to as much of the world as possible. The huebird felt it was clever enough when it sneaked upstairs while Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were enjoying their tea party.

The leader continued to march towards what looked like an enormous pink-coloured building that had an outline of apples surrounding the building. The building also had a large red roof as well as many windows that spread throughout the house. The huebird was quite fearful of the large establishment, realizing that perhaps not everyone would be as kind as Fluttershy was. But it was brave enough to continue onward, hoping that there would be another smaller building it could explore first.

The huebird then encountered a small wooden establishment that lay on top of a small tree. The huebird, filled with intrigue by the structure, began trotting closer to the treehouse, despite it being located near the large building behind it. After all, the structure was surrounded by large apple trees that blocked the treehouse from the view of the apple building. With that in mind, the huebird marched synchronously to another “Tweet-twe-twe-tweet-tweet squawk!” towards the treehouse…

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were at their treehouse once again, this time trying to deliberate on what they were going to do for their next school project…

“Now it’s about time we began yet another Crusaders meetin’ at this ‘ere treehouse!” Applebloom declared by banging her wooden gavel excitedly. The other Crusaders, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, groaned when Applebloom continued banging the gavel.

“Look, Applebloom, you can stop banging the gavel now!” Scootaloo interjected, with Sweetie Belle nodding. Applebloom stopped her banging, disappointed that she couldn’t bang them a bit more.

“Awww… I love banging this gavel.” The other Crusaders glared at Applebloom before she was resigned to moving forward to their first order of business.

“Anyway, the biggest thing we need to discuss is the upcoming show and tell! We were allowed to show something together, but we don’t have anything!” Applebloom raised her hooves with a sigh.

“Yeah… what in Equestria are we going to show off to the rest of the class? I mean, I have my personal scooter and the medal I got from Rainbow Dash, but we have to present something together!” Scootaloo remarked, trying to come up with some ideas for the crusaders to try.

“It’s easier to show something separately, but now Cheerilee wants us to find something together! Just earlier, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had already found something for show and tell and already had the whole class filled with excitement over what they were going to show!” Sweetie Belle commented with a groan.

“Yeah! So we gotta beat ‘em ponies at their own game! We gotta find ourselves something even cooler, especially after they started makin’ fun of us for not having anything to show cause of our blank flanks!” Applebloom angrily grunted, growing more enthusiastic about beating the two fillies at their own game as the meeting proceeded.

The Cutie Mark Crusader meeting was suddenly put on hold when the three fillies heard the sound of an unfamiliar squawk growing louder.

“Wait, did you hear that guys?” Sweetie Belle quickly waved the other crusaders towards the treehouse’s opening. The other crusaders quickly trotted to Sweetie Belle and looked out to the outside from their treehouse. The crusaders couldn’t see anything of significance… until Applebloom pointed out towards a pink figure in the ground.

“Wait… what’s that down there… it looks like… a bird! And… it’s marchin’ towards our treehouse!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle oohed and ahhed quickly, looking down towards the pink bird marching towards their treehouse.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh! I’ll come down there and have a look! Let me, let me, let me!” The other crusaders chuckled at Sweetie Belle’s enthusiasm as she quickly left the treehouse, climbed down the wooden boards to the ground and trotted towards the huebird. The huebird quickly stopped its marching upon noticing the white-bodied, purple-maned pony and squawked out. It then began to fly away from Sweetie Belle, only for Sweetie Belle to implore the bird to stop flying.

Hey! Come back! I just wanted to talk to you! Wait!” The leader of the huebirds then stopped, opting to fly back towards the white filly. It promptly landed in front of Sweetie Belle and squawked.

“Tweet-tweet-tweet?” The pink huebird asked Sweetie Belle who she was and what she wanted.

“Ummm… Hi… I’m Sweetie Belle…?” Sweetie Belle asked with confusion, wondering what exactly the huebird was trying to say… The huebird tweeted again, leaving Sweetie Belle to scratch her head in complete confusion. The other Crusaders quickly trotted down from their treehouse and towards the leader huebird, who quickly squawked again at the sight of more fillies in fright.

“Wait, wait, no Mr. bird! These are my friends! They’re Applebloom and Scootaloo! We just want to know you more, that’s all!” The other Crusaders wanted to object to Sweetie Belle’s interaction with a bird they had never seen before, but they couldn’t pass up this opportunity to have a foreign bird for their show and tell! The other two crusaders nodded with Sweetie Belle. The huebird responded with more tweets of his own, which left the Crusaders even more confused.

“Ummm… guys… I have no idea what this bird’s saying… Do you reckon we should take it back to Fluttershy before we do anything else with it?” Applebloom questioned the other Crusaders, hoping that the bird wasn’t going to be too harmful. Sweetie Belle objected quickly.

“But what if Fluttershy doesn’t give it back to us for the show and tell? We won’t have anything to show for Monday!” Scootaloo objected as well, but this time towards Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie Belle! Do you even know how to take care of this bird?! It’s completely foreign! Plus, will Rarity and the others even agree to having her on the farm with us?!” All of a sudden, Applebloom had an epiphany. She recalled what Applejack said when Pinkie Pie mentioned of a creature called huebirds… the ones who Applejack objected as being a parasprite.

“Guys… Ah know the others won’t agree with us caring for the Huebirds. And perhaps Fluttershy too may object after what happened with the parasprites! And Ah don’t want this bird to be treated like a parasprite!” Applebloom declared with determination. The huebird began tilting its head around, intrigued by what the Crusaders were talking about. A part of the huebird wanted to leave and head towards the rest of Ponyville, but it also had the intuition to stay along… perhaps this was a perfect chance to start spreading the word about the huebirds to Ponyville and spread some happiness along. So stay it did as the Crusaders continued to deliberate amongst themselves on what to do with the huebird. After a period of deliberation, Applebloom came up with the solution:

“Ah guess our only choice is to care for the huebird. It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Sides, it looks like a really cute creature, nothing dangerous at all! And I’m sure we won’t have a parasprite problem again! This bird just… feels different.” The other crusaders nodded in agreement, happy to have reached a resolution.

“That’s great! We’ll have the huebird stay at our treehouse, and take it around Ponyville!” Scootaloo jumped up and down happily.

“But we have to make sure the bird doesn’t get too noticed by Rarity or the rest of the ponies! Who knows what they’ll do to it?!” Sweetie Belle cautioned the rest of the Crusaders. The ponies nodded once again.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do in making our huebird comfortable, but it seems willing to stay along with us for the time being! Let’s get this huebird settled in our house then!” Applebloom declared happily, with the other Crusaders happily cheering about their new-found pet, even if it was inevitably a temporary enterprise…