Chapter 3

Gone and Mistaken For.

Quest opens her eyes, rubbing them while yawning. She gets up and heads to her window, where she opens the curtains to reveal the brightness of the sun. Shielding her eyes from the rays, she wonders about how the sun rises and sets all on it's own...

Smelling breakfast, she smiles and runs downstairs, but stops midway... Her mother was cooking? 'No way,' she thinks to herself. Quest thought her mom was too unfit to stand now, judging by last night. Besides, if it wasn't her mother cooking, it would be her dad, but everyone knows he can't cook for nothing. She runs back upstairs to her parent's room and quickly opens it. "Hey mom. You alright?" Looking again, she instead spots her father, gathering his coat and other things for work later after breakfast. 'So mom is cooking....'

"Good morning Quest. Your mom is downstairs.

She walks downstairs to her mother next to the fireplace making stew. She turns around, with spoon in hand, and greets her daughter. "Hello Quest. The food is almost ready, so you can sit and wait if you want. How was your night?"

"Huh..?" Quest turns her head to the side, confused. 'She's... Fine? But I thought...' Her mother walks over to the table and sets down a wooden bowl full of stew.

"What's wrong? Still tired maybe?" She struggles to smile, and Quest frowns, noticing the struggle. She looks at her bowl of stew after her mother returns to make a bowl for her and her husband, her face reflecting in the liquid.

After some seconds of silence, Quest speaks quietly, "You're doing all of this mom, but are you sure you are ok? You probably still don't feel well. Maybe you should rest, and me and father can take care of you. " She sips her stew, spitting some out after burning her tongue from it, and her mom laughs. Just before she speaks he father finally comes down and greets them as usual. The mother then gives him his plate, then turns to Quest, with bowl in both hooves sipping the stew.

"Oh Quest, thank you for always looking out for me, but trust me, I am fine. Sure I might not be well one day, but on other days, I feel great, like now. Do not worry, besides, I don't want to be bound to my bed or anything. " Quest, judging by the stained face from the stew, was worried. Sure she had hope that her mother will get better, but she wonders when. She turns to her father, who gives her a napkin to wipe her face. He smiles at her, giving her the impression that everything's going to be alright. Quest smiles, then continues to sip her stew.

Later in the afternoon.

Quest runs out of her little cottage with her diary in her saddle bag. She couldn't wait to see what today held for her. She was going to stay home and take care of her mother, but since she was being stingy, she decided to just trust her anyway. As she was walking, she notices a bunch of fillies and colts playing and racing in a nearby field. She frowned bit, wishing that she had actual friends to play tag with, talk to, or just hang around with instead of just walking and enjoying the scenery... Alone. All she would do is take care of her mother, and with that, she had completely forgotten to make any friends, or even care to make some.

Not looking at where she was going, she bumps into a slightly bigger than average pony. "Oh shoot! I'm sorry for bumping you! I wasn't paying attention.." She silences herself as she gasps at the looks of the mysterious pony's features. He was the color of dark Autumn leaves, with brown in his hair and tail, with bright purple eyes that shined like the brightest stars, and was taller then the average colt. What makes it even more strange, is that he has two, maybe four big beige horns curving down behind his head, scales or amour spots on his face and body, and two pair of wings that appear to be dragon wings. What kind of pony was this?

The mysterious figure turns his entire body around to look a few inches down at Quest, and smiles warmly. He begins to speak in a rugged child voice "... Could you tell me where I am?" He bends down to get a little closer to her, and Quest stares in his eyes, unable to answer. When he doesn't get an answer, he chuckles and continues, "I seem to have wondered off from my parents, or maybe, they have wondered away from me. Just kidding, I wasn't paying attention at the time, so it's my fault.. "

"Wait..." She finally speaks after what he said. "Your parents?" She turns her head slightly. "You look so mature, and so different from us. "

He laughs deeply at the remark, moving his long red and brown hair out of his face as the wind blew. "Well, true, I do look a little older then usual, but it's because of where I'm from, we have to look and be tough and stuff. I look nothing like you, who's all sweet looking and innocent."

Quest blushes at the last comment, but then remembers that he asked her a question. "Umm. . .About your question. You are in Clydesdale. I don't know how far you have traveled, but I can say that there isn't another town for miles. We're pretty much in the woods anyway. "

He takes in what she said, looking around, seeing some who are just staring at him in confusion. Turning back at Quest, he walks past her. "Yea, this places looks like it doesn't have any other town friends, but I guess that's all right. I guess I should start heading back out before my parents begin to start a ruckus because of me. My father is very nice, but he's very impatient, and my mother is very beautiful and very scary to be around, especially if you do something you wasn't supposed to do, or get lost like me. "

Quest laughs, "I can agree with you on that one. My name is Quest. I live here with my parents as you can see."

"Cute name you have there Quest. The name is Platinum Oath. I am mostly dragon, but very much pony hybrid. I am from a land where ponies and dragons live in harmony. It doesn't typically have a name, at least to my knowledge. "

Platinum offers a hoof, and Quest takes it, shaking their hooves to greet each other finally after they told their names. After, Quest decides that she should walk him to the main entrance just in case he goes the wrong way (which he did while they were walking).

Reaching the village entrance , Quest turns to him, blushing a bit. "Well, this is goodbye. hope you have a safe trip out there. " He bows at her, thanking her. "Oh, you really don't need to do that, we only walked a mile to the entrance." She says with her head down hiding her flushed face.

"I'm polite, so it's the least I can do, at least until I finally get out. " He says while walking farther out of the village, and still waving at Quest. She continues to wave until he's out of sight, staring into the distance for a but before turning around to go. She jumps back once she turns around to find Peal White, Silver Shade, and Arctic Meadow standing there looking at her, then back at who just left.

"What was that just now? Was you trying to plot something, or was you just trying to spread your ignorance elsewhere?" Pearl White was the first to give an insult, while Sliver face palms at that insult and Arctic just stand there, apparently catching leaving flowing in the wind. Quest gives an annoyed look and goes closer to Pearl.

"First of all, he's not a 'what. ' Second, maybe you should go back where you cam from, and that's in the trash. " Arctic gasps, seeing that Quest can counter an insult like that, laughs at the comeback, and Silver grows wide eyed while turning to a flustered Pearl. Quest smiles at her, seeing that she hit a nerve, but of course she didn't care one bit. Pearl started it anyway.

"Why you little..."

Quest jumps in. "You're little too."

"Stop trying to..."

"Stop trying to get on everyone's nerves."

"What's wrong with you huh?! Why does everybody like you so much? You don't do anything special!" Pearl gets up to Quests, but even that doesn't phase her.

"The question is, why doesn't everybody like you?" Quest widely smiles at that retort, see as though Pearl had broke a nerve and is walking off with little magic puffs coming out of her horn from being very mad. Seeing as she got her good, Quest looks at the entrance again, hoping that Platinum wasn't watching, and continues to waltz around town.

Some minutes later.

"I am so going to get her back for that! She thinks she's better? She has another thing coming. This prank should keep her in her place." Pearl takes out the books on dark spells. "Are you guys ready for this?"

Arctic looks confused, saying, "What plan? Ready for what" Both Pearl and Silver stare at Arctic. "Oh yes! Sorry, it got away from me." Pearl and Silver both roll their eyes as Pearl also takes out a small container of white makeup.

Silver asks about the makeup. "What's that for?"

"You will see. " That was all she said before taking out some other books and makeup. She plans to make this prank as real as possible. She didn't think about what bad stuff would happen, she just wanted to see Quest actually get in trouble, and to her, this would be the only way to do just that...

"Oh Pearl, I actually forgot to tell you, but my parents need me for something very important, and I think I better go. Tell me how the prank works..." She quickly scampers off to where Quest is...

Quest walks into the small marketplace to grab some veggies for dinner. She remember that they were running a bit low on some things, so she decided, before heading home after doing nothing but wonder around figuring out what to do, to pick them up to help her mother and take some weight off of her. Whilst trying to pick certain ones, her own thoughts of Platinum distracts her, and she continuously picks the wrong vegetables. "I wonder if he will come back. I wonder why he and his family were traveling so close to our town, and why too. Where is this land of Dragons and ponies live in harmony anyway? I would love to see that! Oh!" She drops some, and tries to put the wrong ones back on the small tables without letting the pony running the stand know. She pays for the rest of the stuff, then heads towards the direction of her home.

"Quest wait!"

"Somehow I knew that someone was going to come up to me, but I didn't think it would be you of all ponies. What did you want Silver? Quest adjusts the bags on her and looks to Silver, who's in a panicked state. "What? Something wrong?"

"Oh yes! Something terrible is about to happen! I don't know how affective it's going to be, but it's not sitting right with me one bit!"

"Is it Pearl?"

"Yes."

She thinks. Clearly she has bags to carry home, then again they are not that heavy to begin with. Plus she thinks she can come back just a little later than usual if something comes up after all. "Take me to her."

She stops in her tracks, forgetting a crucial thing that she always carries with her. "I know I took my diary with me... " She gasps. Her bag carrying her diary isn't on her back. She frantically looks around for it. She doesn't remember dropping it, nor did she ever take it out today. She's pretty sure that no one took it. She knows that Platinum didn't do it, and other than him, the only ponies whom she met today were...

She runs in the direction where she came from, while carrying a saddlebag full of veggies, with some falling along the way, and Silver tripping over them. Stopping a few distances away from a crowd of ponies, she listens to the crowd for a moment before dashing off. Before she could go, her name was being called in the crowd. She slowly closer, and the crowd of ponies turn to her with confused eyes. "There she is every pony!" Quest walks closer and sees Pearl White in the middle of them, holding other books unknowing to Quest but one: her diary. She gets angry, running to Pearl and snatching it away from her.

"Are you out of your blasted mind? What were doing with this?! Did you read it?!" Quest says while standing in the middle of the crowd as well. She notices that the ponies faces were a mixture of confusion, sadness, and anger. The ponies gathered around started whispering and talking amongst themselves.

"You made it on time Quest. Maybe you should confess and tell everybody about your little secret."

"What secret, I have none, other than this here diary, which is for me to see only. What's happening?"

"Dark magic. In her diary, there are spells, dark magic that you have, and I told everybody about it."

Quest cocks her head to the side. "That means you didn't read it. Now, what are you going on about? Dark magic? how am I supposed to do that if I'm not a unicorn or anything? In fact, how would I know to do something like that?

"That is what she wants you to think everyone. She's just using you, gaining your trust to only betray you in the end. She could take anything from any one of you."

Quest couldn't believe what she was hearing. Pearl must have gone mad this time. Quest looks sees in the crowd Silver whispering a sorry to her, and Arctic looking with worry. She starts to chuckle goes silent. "This is a rather interesting story Pearl White. I'm just a filly whatever I said to you earlier I'm sorry. I didn't think you could get so worked up over it to where you would make up such a ridiculous story such as that. " Everyone else starts to laugh at the story.

Pearl smiles, then opens a bag up, dumping a bunch of spell books. "Then what about all these?! I found these with her diary in her saddlebag. Admit it Quest! I caught you red handed! Who else would have all this attention from everyone but the ones closer to them?!"

"Those are not mine! Where did you get these? You could get in serious trouble!" She yells. The crowd goes wild. The village teacher stands quiet, not believing the story at all, but knows that her view will not go through the majority of the crowd. Silver and Arctic look at each other, shocked.

"Guys she's telling the truth, those aren't hers!" Silver jumps in.

"The who is it for then?!" A pony in the crowd yells out.

"I... It's... I don't know." Silver backs up into the crowd.

"I also saw this weird pony with dragon like features or something. It was super creepy to see with my own eyes. They must be plotting something dangerous to this town. We must do something!"

"That was a traveler, all three of you seemed to be there, or spying or something. Are you guys actually believing her out of all things? And look at those books! Those can't be mine. I have never seen those in my entire life, just ask my parents!"

Everyone, other than the teacher, and Silver, all gather closer to Quest, angrily trying to get her to confess. Her mother and father run up to see what the commotion was about.

"What is this madness? Quest what happened?"

"Your daughter has been using dark magic all along to use us!" Another pony in the crowd yells out.

Quest's parents see the books on the ground, and they both give an awkward stare. He father is the first to talk, picking one up and skimming through it. "I've never seen these before, and if I hadn't, so didn't Quest. She's a filly, how could she require all of these?"

Everyone grows silent. The mother comes in. "That's right. Everyone should be ashamed for listening to a child's story about dangerous stuff like this, and blaming it on a filly such as Quest. Who would have those books anyway? Besides, Quest would never imagine doing anything to hurt anybody." She rubs the back of Quests head, but is caught off guard when Quest stepped away.

"This is why I don't want any friends, because they will always make stuff up to get you in trouble. But it's not just that, the entire town was going against me over something that I don't do and haven't heard of, yet Pearl knows... If I had those, how could you have gotten all of them in the first place? Well it doesn't matter, everyone was buying it anyway!" She runs off pasts her parents, into her house, locks her room door and slides down, not really balling her eyes out but covering her eyes.

She didn't know what to think about all of this. Why would Pearl do that? What did Quest do to get her to that point. Lifting her head up fast, she notices that she left her diary there. She quickly opens the door, only to almost bump into her parents, her mother giving her the diary. "I'm sure everything is all clear now. Are you all right?"

Quest hugs her mother and father, then backs up with her diary, checking to see if no pages were ripped out. It is of course stained from the countless times it has been dropped on the dirt, usually because of her. "Why would she do that? I didn't do anything. She's the one who was trying to pick on me and all..."

Her mother cuts her off to speak. "Quest, it's all filly's play. When you're young, fillies and colts get each other in trouble. Me and your father were once like you and every foal here, it's nothing new. Like that one time your father and his father were chopping wood, and when it mistakenly fell at the village entrance, all the kids thought your father was trying to trap and enslave everybody."

Quest looks at her father and wipes her eyes, trying to fully get a clear sight of him while trying to fathom why, but her father comes in before she could even think about it further. "Now you know that wasn't true to begin with Quest, but you see how far 'fetched it can get, and the thing was, all the ponies had believed them. It is a rather funny story though because they took it so seriously."

"But why? Are we so gullible that we will believe anything?"

"Not quite." The mother continues. "We live in a time where we all live in fear. Most ponies here haven't been out of the village, and from that, they grow fearful of what's on the outside if that makes sense. They would believe anything true, but they would at least listen to reason."

"Yes they do. When you ran, we and Pearl's parents explained that you would do no such thing. Another problem too was that those books that she had. Those spell books she called them? They were just old school books from when me and your mother were foals. I remember them like it was yesterday..." the dad cuts in to explain further. Quest's mom laughs, leaning against her husband as he looks at her with a confused face, but pretty much knew what she was laughing at.

"Yes, me and you do remember. I remember when you first received your textbook, and then a day later you come along saying that someone stole it. You didn't get it back until the end of the semester, so you kept borrowing from me and from others until finally your book turned up." She continues to laugh, and soon Quest joins in, while her father sulks at how he easily loses stuff, and it's true, he does lose stuff a lot...

After feeling better from that unnecessary conflict, Quest returns to the town square, where Silver, Arctic, Pearl, and everybody who was still gathered there, apologizes for quickly jumping to conclusions. Pearl's parents are seen scolding her for her actions and misbehavior, and from that, gets her to apologize to Quest as well. Quest can tell from the look that Pearl is giving that her plan didn't go so well, and that she feels guilty for even doing it in the first place, but her face changes when Quest happily forgives her. Pearl nods, quietly going back to her parents side as they walk home to continue scolding her, at least that's what Quest thinks since their faces were still red and all.

Silver waves goodbye to Arctic as Arctic leaves. Silver walks over to Quests, head limp from what had happened. "I knew something was wrong, from the very beginning when she started to feel envy towards you. I should have told you right from the start. More importantly, I should have been a friend to you, but I was afraid that I might lose Pearl and Arctic since they were my actual friends. I don't really know how to speak up like you, or anything, so I wasn't able to do anything."

"It's all right." Quest nudges Silver. "I knew you weren't like her. I don't really know about Arctic, but I know that she wouldn't do this herself. You at least tried to say something, and that alone makes everything a bit easier."

"You can say that again... Her emotions were so strong and wild, I didn't think she would ever be able to think straight, but my own emotions were somewhat getting to me too. Overall, I'm glad all of this is over now, everyone seems to be calming down now. I was hoping they would, I wanted to show everyone my surprise for a while now today, but since they are all going away rather quickly, I might as well show you. I already showed Pearl and Arctic."

"Showed them what? What are you getting at?" Quest asks, and Silver turns around to the side with a big grin on her face. Quest gasps, there, on Silvers flank, was a shiny cutie mark, the symbol of a ponies destiny. The mark consisted of two masks, one with a happy face, and the other with a sad face, along with two ribbons behind them. "Wow! This is amazing! When did you get that? What does it mean? This is so exciting!" Quest jumps in the air, carful not to fall.

"I know! It is remarkable. I got it when that big crowd of people was still there, you know, trying to figure out what was happening and all. I felt a ton of emotions back there, and I was trying to get them to calm down and to think about the situation before going to the conclusion. Once some of the grown ups were calm and collected, I realized that I loved reassuring ponies, calming their spirits and having them rekindle their thoughts. That's when this beauty appeared."

"That's amazing! What do you think you plan to do from here on out then? There has be something in town that's fit for your talent." Quest asks.

"I don't think so, this town mostly has merchants, farmers, and just regular old grown ups who's destinies are here at home. I believe that such a destiny like this would take me out of my home and into the unknown world, helping other towns, and then some."

Quest was about to speak, but closes her mouth when her mother calls out to her to come back home. Turing around to face Silver again, she waves to her, promising that she would speak to her again tomorrow. Silver happily nods and skips away towards the direction of her home. Quest continues to look at Silver, who was struggling to get the key into the lock. She ponders why she hasn't seen her parents at all. 'They might be busy,' she thought. Snapping out of her thoughts, Quest walks to her home, and hugging her mother while her father leaves the town to gather up more wood to put into the fireplace or shed. 'Good thing the trees are already chopped for father.'

Then, Quest thinks of an idea. "Hey mother, can I go with dad to get wood too? I like to help him out sometimes. Please?" She begs.

"I don't see why not. It's a hop and a skip to get from there to here. It's nice of you to help though, your father doesn't want to admit how much he struggles with them." Quest's mom says, chuckling at that last remark.

Quest laughs. Not seeing her father in sight anymore, she runs to the entrance, and stops midway. "My father is such a baby. Be back in a moment mom!" She then runs in the direction where her father went. She can hear talking and such coming from deep within the forest. If she can fly then she would know exactly where they were.

Noticing that she has been walking for some time now, Quest stops to look around. Everything looks the same, and she couldn't hear any of the grown ups anymore, all was still but the voices of the animals in the trees and bushes. She made sure she had went the right way, the same way that she went before either once of twice. Not trying to panic, she calls out to her father, but nothing but silent was present, and what's worse, it's almost sunset. Time to panic.

Rustling in the tree from behind can be heard, which startles her. "Dad?" She calls out again. Her father loves hanging around on the top of the trees, so she suspects that he's taking a little break from getting more wood. She takes a step to the tree, only to realize that there was no chopped wood next to the tree or anywhere in sight. The rustling in the trees grow louder as Quest backs up to try and get a better look. "Are you taking a break again?"

"If I wasn't lost again then I would taking a serious break right now." Platinum jumps down from the trees next to Quest, crouching to her eye level. "What are you doing out here? Looking for your father? That means you're lost too." He chuckles.

"Platinum." She mutters out, almost happy to see him again, but because of the situation she is in she can't fully talk now. "And I'm not lost, I'm just... My father has been walking farther into the forest, and I was just following pursuit."

"Then you got lost?" He adds.

"No! I'm not lost." She yells out, not wanting to admit it.

"Come one, clearly you are, and it's alright. Luckily for you, you are not far from your home. All you got to do is fly back." He smiles at her while continuing. "I don't live around here, so I am truly lost, my parents will be mad at me again for wondering off. It's almost sunset, so you should fly off now..."

Quest scratches her head and laughs nervously, "That's the thing... I can't fly."

Platinum stares at her for a second. Quest's wings were pretty big, so he thought she was an excellent flyer, 'well, she's still a filly,' he thought, and busts out laughing, leaving Quest to chase him around and pleading for help...

Quest's father comes home to a cart full of wood that would last for an entire month or two judging by how cold it'll get. putting most of the wood into the shed, he grabs some into the house. He greets his wife as he steps inside and places the wood next to the fireplace, where he's just about to start it.

"Wow, you and Quest sure did a good job in getting a bunch of wood. I'm sure you two must be exhausted from gathering them, so when Quest comes in I will make something warm for all of us." Quest's mother says, walking to him with a rather tired expression.

"What?" He stops to look around the house and out the window. "She came with me? When was that?"

"What do mean when? Right when you left to get wood, she wanted to help, then she ran off to catch up to you." She adds.

"But, if I didn't see her, where is she now?" He responds. Not wanting to make his wife panic knowing that Quest is out there alone, he takes his saddle bag and opens the front door. "Don't worry now. She probably didn't tell you, but she did this before. She ended up taking a wrong turn and got lost, so I heard her calling for me. She wouldn't go that far if she knew she was lost, but I will find her." He says before flying out the door. Quest's mother looks at him flying away, back to where he was to look for her. She saw on his face that he was worried too, and she knew that he was trying to reassure her so that she wouldn't get stressed. She tries to relax, putting her faith that he would find her... Again?

Losing her balance, Quest's mother falls on the ground with a thud. Some ponies that were out came to her aid, and noticing that she was having complications breathing, and was growing pale by the minute. The school teacher rushes over to help as well. "Bring her to the hospital! Quick!"

In the forest, Quest's father was hovering over the trees, trying to find a hint of blue in every nook and cranny. Still coming up with nothing, he flies down on the soft grass to continue on foot, calling out to her as loud as he could. He then hears hoofsteps from the distance, and smiles. He runs in the same direction, saying how clumsy Quest is from getting lost...

Quest lands on the ground hard, huffing an puffing. Throughout the entire time she was lost, Platinum has been teaching her how to fly, or at least the basics. Platinum flies over to her with a serious face, one that she hasn't seen from him before.

"All right, it's almost dark. If you want to make it back home, you're going to have to fly now. You have been doing pretty good, and you can at least lift yourself from off the ground, the only problem is that you still have that habit of falling down. Overall, you got the hang of things, you just needed practice. So, right now, I need for you to fly again, but for a longer time, and at a higher distance." He explains to her.

Quest, with shaky legs, takes a deep breath while giving a huffed 'ok' to him. Her wings open up, and carefully pinpointing the wind's direction, starts to flap them. After some seconds she slowly lifts herself about two feet off the ground. Platinum gestures for her to go higher, and she does, to the point where she's higher than the trees. She stumbles in the air, but manages to regain her focus as he again tells her to fly higher. At this point he's now on top of a cloud, looking below at her. "Come up to this cloud." He shouts out.

Not wanting to fly faster, she slowly floats up towards, as much to Platinum's growing impatience. He want her to head home and not stay out for too long, plus doesn't know what his parents might think once they finally find him... Speaking of which, where are his parents anyway? it's been hours.

"Platinum? I'm up now." Quest says smiling in his face, taking Platinum out of his thoughts. He's now quite shocked that she made it up much quicker then she was some seconds ago, unless he was really in deep thought.

"Oh, well congrats, you now know how to fly, but you still need some more practice so you can get more fluent with it. So now, look where you are standing on, and look at the horizon before you." He says grinning.

She knows that she's able to stand on clouds because she's a Pegasus, but what she didn't know what the view, the vast landscape that was around her as the wind picked up from being so high up. From the cloud she can see her home with their brightly lit candles and torches, and other things unknown to her, like large mountain ranges from afar, a giant ocean, a wide grassland on another side, and simply trees on another. She wanted to know what secrets that were in those places, She wanted to go to these areas, explore vast lands and get treasure. She always imagined exploring, meeting new people, and learning new cultures. Yes, that was her dream, to explore outside her home.

Platinum's eyes grow wide as Quest's flank starts to glow. Her eyes glow a bright white as she is lifted off the cloud by an unseen force. A familiar voice can heard, and surprisingly enough, Platinum heard it too. The voice was calm, and it echoed around them, saying, "Your destiny begins now. Go and face it with the spirit such as yours.." And just like that, the voice fades away, and everything goes back to normal. Quest lands back on the cloud, confused, but suddenly turns around to Platinum, who heard it with his own ears.

"Ok, I bet that was for me." He playfully jokes, and Quests laughs, but it is cut short when he gasps. "Quest, look at your flank!" She looks, and is baffled by what she sees. She knows it's a cutie mark, but the design was stunning. A gold Phoenix on what appears to be a map. A Phoenix... Rebirth, and a map... Journey.

"Platinum, do you know what this means?" She asks him.

"No more getting lost?"

Quest face palms at the joke, but so far it was true. "Yes, but I meant about what I have to do, my destiny to say the least. Now that I know what I must do, I need to inform my family and newfound friends back at home about it, and that also means I have to slowly try and journey around the area outside my home so I can better my hopes of ever taking a real journey. Thanks to you, I have found what I love to do." She hugs him while talking, and he hugs back, muttering a 'your welcome' while at it. His dragon shield mark and her new cutie mark shines in the moonlight, which had carefully risen not too long ago. They both look at each other with an intense feeling that maybe Silver might sense if she was here. Quest couldn't tell what this feeling was, but she knew that he was the cause of her call to destiny. Platinum blushes a little, letting her go after realizing that he was still holding her. Quest only smiles.

Still on the cloud, Quest turns back to Clydesdale, already seeing that some lights were going out, but still many were lit. "I need to go home. My parents will be worried, but also ecstatic once they see me with this new mark, everyone will. I will also tell them about you, if you want me to that is."

"Sure you can. I don't really mind other then the fact that they might not believe the whole dragon pony thing." He responds back, but quieter than usual.

"Then I will not tell them that, I'll just say you are an average Pegasus that I met while looking for my father." She hovers off the cloud, realizing that it moved some distance away from where it once was before. She flies just a bit away before turning back. "This is goodbye. Stop getting lost, and maybe someday, we'll met again. I'll have a lot of stuff to tell you about to when that say comes."

Platinum hovers as well, going the opposite direction before stopping. "Same to you, don't get lost, and when that day comes, I will tell you about my... About my stories as well." He grins, showing his large fangs at her. She chuckles at his silly-looking grin, but also wonders what he was really trying to say, but decides that it's not important anymore. She flies away, waving at him as he waves back, with a little frown on his face...

Quest quickly flies back home, stumbling in midair just a little bit, but makes it back in no time. Looking back in the distance she could see Platinum flying off in the opposite direction, faster than any pony that she has come across in her lifetime. She then saw two other figures next to him flying off, but couldn't make out who they were. 'Maybe his parents,' she thought.

She lands on the dirt beneath her, and as soon as the ponies spot her, they rush to her with joy in their faces. Her school teacher, Silver Shade, and Everyone else soon exits their homes, and drop their things to come and greet Quest as well, asking if she was all right and what happened to her as the hours passed by. She explained how she got lost and met a traveling Pegasus, who in turn, taught her how to fly. She then showed them her cutie mark, which she told them that the wondering Pegasi caused her to get it, and it was all thanks to him. Everyone glows with excitement as they congratulate her, and SIlver runs up to hug her new friend.

"I can't wait to see my parents reaction to this! I hope I also don't get yelled at for getting lost too." She laughs as everyone's grins turn to utter horror. She stops laughing, and stares at the ponies that are staring back at her. Suddenly out of the crowd, the school teacher comes to her side, and crouches down, and Silver backs up a little to give her some space.

"Quest, your father came looking for you when he found out that you was lost. You went out of the town in the afternoon, and it is now night. Your father has not come back from his search."

"... What?" Quest simply asks. She backs up to look at the staring ponies, who were now silent. "I-I didn't hear his calls or anything, and I didn't see him while flying back."

The teacher nods, "There was a search party not too long ago. There is no trace of him anywhere, not even any hoofsteps. All was quiet outside the town. We will continue looking for him after..."

Quest suddenly interrupts, "Does mom know? Where is she now? I hope she is resting, I want to search too. Just like me, my father gets lost too. He can fly easily so that's why..."

The teacher gives Quest her father saddlebag, making her stop talking. "We found this, it's ripped to shreds. We will keep looking, but I don't think your father is...."

Quest grabs the bag from the teacher and flies to her home where she suspects her mom is there. She opens the door, calling for her mother, but gets no answer. She goes to her parents bedroom, where her mom is suppose to be, resting. Instead she see's three lit candles and an opened window. She stops at the doorway, looking around. She hears the teacher and Silver come in and walking upstairs to where she was. "Where's mother? I told her I'll be right back, me and father."

"Quest, I don't know how easy it will be to tell you when you're this young..." the teacher walks into the bedroom next to the window, and tries to close it, but not with a bit of struggle, she then stops when she see's the bag on the floor, and Quest's eyes, glassy. "But your mother can't be with you anymore..." She closes the window, but not before a faint gust of wind comes in, blowing two of the candles out, and leaving one in the middle to stay...

Silver comforts Quest, who was now lying on the floor, tears covering her hoofs and staining the floor. She starts whispering to herself, making Silver lay closer to hear what Quest was saying. "I couldn't save you." She whispers. "Is this what my destiny is about? To leave me here alone? I could change fate after all..." She continue to cry, but then after some moments, lifts her head to look at the single candle that was lit.

"Mom, dad... I got my cutie mark..."

Author's Note

Chapter 3 is finally up. This one is longer than the other two, and quite sad too.

I added a romance tag because of this story will have slight romance to it.

Any mistakes I made please tell me. Enjoy.