“So where do we start?” Sandbar muttered. “All I see is just rows of plants on a large hill and trees here and there.”

“Well, let’s split up and see what we can find,” Smolder suggested. “We can all meet in the field in front of the school, which is not too far away.”

Sandbar glanced over his shoulder. Not far.

After a quick discussion, the six friends came to a definite decision. Silverstream and Yona would explore the hilly areas on the lower slopes of the mountains behind the school, while Ocellus and Sandbar would explore the woodlands beyond. Smolder and Gallus would explore the grassy meadows to find anything small.

Silverstream spread her glorious wings and flew up the mountainside, looking for anything interesting or sticking out unusually. The mountainside was enormous, and even spotting something as small as a squirrel was damn near impossible. To her right, the spires of the school towered into the sky, their windows a silvering reminder of the classes that still awaited them after this short adventure.

“Where would I hide if I was a little foreign object?” she wondered, diving in for a closer look at the trees and the grass-covered rocky areas around them.

After ten minutes of scanning, Silverstream had enough, and settled down on a large rock that jutted out from the mountainside. Pondering, she thought back to one of Twilight Sparkle’s seminars on how magic was used to warp sections of time, matter, and space to open portals between dimensions. They usually opened on ground level, but also could open from an angle through the sky, much like when Nightmare Moon returned.

“So… it would go without saying that if such a portal would open from the sky, the items that travelled through it would tumble down the mountain and end up in a broken pile at the bottom,” she quickly theorized. “Oh well, guess I’m finding a broken object today. But hey, it might be good for a show and tell session.”

Peering over the edge of the rock she was stationed on, Silverstream shuddered at the sudden drop to the rocks below. Yeah, climbing down was not a wise option. Instead she took to the air, flying down to the forested area at the mountain’s base.

In a tree, Silverstream scanned the ground below for any movement or damage to the underbrush. Nothing.

“Ugh!” she groaned in frustration. “I’m going to have to get down on the ground and scan the whole forest for anything. What was the point of this? Silly yak!”

Navigating the forest wasn’t too difficult, as the Harmonizing Heights back home on Mount Aris was not much different, only without the same levels of relaxing natural sounds. There were quite a few birds, squirrels, and other creatures, but the environment didn’t feel the same. While she was no tracker, Silverstream was good at detecting differences and changes in a setting.

A rustle and a hard thump came from the bottom of a gully, alerting her. She didn’t know exactly where the gulley was located, but knew it had to be nearby. Quickly, she glanced around, trying to notice any signal or movement that could help her detect where it had come from. Eventually, it came to her. A bird had just flown out from the eastern part of the mountain, just above from where she’d left Yona. Immediately Silverstream rushed towards the location in haste, running through the undergrowth down paths and through trees. Skidding around a bend, a tree branch whacked her wing.

“Ow!” Silverstream squealed, sliding to a stop to rub her sore wing, before continuing up a slight gradient. At the top were a few rocks surrounded by a few bushes, and in the distance more trees just about hid the school’s tallest spire. Looking down, Silverstream realized she was at the top of the gully, which was rather deep. Hidden among the tossed-about dead branches and leaf litter was a rather interesting frame of sorts. Parts of it shone in the bright sunlight of the noon.

Intrigued, Silverstream flew down into the gulley and observed the object close-up. It had no eyes or other “creature features”, so she assumed it to be inanimate. But what was it exactly? Carefully reaching out, she tapped it, thus confirming her thoughts. Eager to discover more, she brushed away all the leaf litter and dead branches, revealing the whole object.

It had two large wheels - they looked almost as large as the ones on the wagons she’d seen on the carts that the ponies of Ponyville pulled. Was it a strange cart of sorts?

One end had a large Y-shaped piece that spread outwards, while the other end had a low-lying piece that was somewhat triangular in shape. Upon touching it, she noticed it was soft in texture, almost like a couch.

“Hmmm, I wonder what these do,” she thought, holding a short, rough-textured piece that connected to an L-shaped metal bracket. With a little push, she noticed the back wheel turned.

“Ah, these are gears and a chain!” she exclaimed, remembering Applejack’s class on physical mechanics. “I don’t have a name for this, so I’ll call it…”

Silverstream thought for a moment.

“Spinner. I’ll call you Spinner,” she told the object, which she had no idea was a BMX bicycle.

After some fiddling, she soon figured out that the “soft triangle” was a seat, and the Y-shape held bars for her hands (er, front feet) to grasp onto.

“Now if I put one leg over the other side… yes! Feels right.”

Grasping the handlebars with her talons, she pushed with the pedals, and fell over almost instantly.

“I need balance. But wow is thing cool!”

Yona trudged through the lowest slopes, hopping over rocks and knocking over small trees as she looked around for anything interesting or unique. The ground was just rocky. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks.

“Why did yak think this was good idea? Now yak feel stupid!” she muttered, kicking a pebble down the slope. Her answer came moments after, when something hard bounced off her head.

“Ay! What was that?” she snapped, spinning around and looking up, ready to face the assailant who’d hurt her. But nothing came. Instead, she caught sight of a brown, oval-shaped figure bounding down the hillside. Instinctively she chased after it, bounding over the rocks and into a row of bushes, before tripping and rolling down a hill.

Dazed, Yona caught back her vision and took in the sight of what had hit her in the first place. It wasn’t a creature or some pony. It was a ball - an oval-shaped one with a line of thick white stitching. She’d played quidditch before, and knew how to hit and track a ball.

Excitedly, she ran towards the football and pushed it into the air with her hoof, then tossed it by hitting it hard with her horn. The ball soared and Yona ran after it, catching it just in time, throwing it high once again with an excited giggle as she ran down into a field near the school.

Author's Note

That's it for now. Hope to try and find time to write more - still got other stuff to write!

Hope you enjoy this short snippet <3