Day 1

On a tropical island in the Marelantic Ocean, a seafoam-green earth pony colt frowned at a very tall palm tree. If Palm Pebble were a pegasus, he would be able to fly up and reach the coconuts; if he were a unicorn, he would be able to pick them with his magic. But he was neither, so he only had one option: ramming into the tree to cause the coconuts to fall down. It hurt a little, but it got the job done.

Palm Pebble ran into the tree, but no coconuts fell down. Instead, the tree... moved? Shaking his wavy mane out of his face, he noticed that the tree had legs and a tail, and its coconuts had faces. Further down the beach, he saw a pink, bipedal... thing yelling at some kind of insect.

Palm Pebble spent most of the morning watching the pink thing and the insect have what looked like a conversation, even though he couldn't understand a word of it, until he remembered that he was supposed to get coconuts from legless, faceless trees. So he did.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder what the creatures had been talking about. A unicorn could cast a translation spell, but there were no unicorns on Hibiscus Island, and only one pegasus.

On the southwestern coast of Hibiscus Island, there was a village. It consisted of huts made from the wood of palm trees, surrounding a bonfire that was lit every night. It was a peaceful place where everypony knew everypony, and the creatures that appeared that morning had done little to disturb that peace...

For the most part.

That afternoon, Palm Pebble was looking at the fruit stalls in the north of the village. Every morning, ponies would leave their produce in crates there. His mouth watered. There were pineapples and papayas and starfruits and mangoes and mangosteens that moved... Wait, what?

Upon closer inspection, he noticed that one of the mangosteens was bright pink instead of dark purple, and had a smiling face. Odd. It must have been another one of those creatures. As soon as it noticed Palm Pebble, it bounced towards the jungle in the east.

Suddenly, Palm Pebble heard a rocking sound coming from a crate to his left. He turned to see a pale yellow creature with huge, triangular ears emerge from the starfruit crate, the stains of various juices surrounding its mouth. It was holding up the ripest starfruit with joy, but its joy soon turned to shock as it noticed him.

The thief shoved the starfruit into its mouth and leaped out of the crate, knocking it over and spilling starfruits all over the ground in the process. While several ponies rushed to clean up the mess, Palm Pebble chased after the thief as it ran into the jungle on all fours.

At the edge of the jungle, there was a log, that had become covered in moss over the years. The thief effortlessly jumped over it, and Palm Pebble followed suit... but slipped and fell flat on his face on the other side. The thief stopped to laugh at him, it seemed, before running off again. Palm Pebble decided to call it "Rascal".

Picking himself up, he saw Rascal look around, swivelling its ears. It then ran towards a broad tree, picking up a blue ukulele that was propped up against its base, and began to play it... badly. It strummed back and forth, not even trying to play a melody.

Curiously, Palm Pebble slowly stepped forwards to get a closer look. He noticed that Rascal wasn't strumming at all, but instead the guitar was glowing slightly. Was this creature capable of unicorn magic?

Palm Pebble looked around, and noticed that, despite Rascal's lack of talent, it attracted quite an audience. All sorts of creatures came to watch it, from the pink mangosteen from earlier, to several parrots with music notes for heads who were perched in the branches above.

Suddenly, Rascal stopped playing and put the ukulele down. It ran towards Palm Pebble on all fours, its cheeks sparking. He tried to back away, but Rascal leaped twice its height into the air, screaming as it surrounded its body with electricity before launching a bolt at Palm Pebble.

The last thing Palm Pebble saw before passing out was Rascal falling back to the ground, landing on its back.

When Palm Pebble came to, the first thing he heard was the sound of furious wingbeats. He opened his eyes to see the same yellow insect he saw on the beach earlier, its shiny, black eyes staring at his face. It said something in a high-pitched, soft voice that sounded like a question. Palm Pebble didn't know how to respond, and after a few seconds, it fluttered away towards the pink thing he'd also seen earlier, who had been watching over a now-standing Rascal.

The pink thing (Pinky, he'd call it) approached Palm Pebble, with the insect fluttering above her shoulder. He realised that Pinky was over twice his height, and it bent down to check one of his forelegs. He yelped in pain as she touched it, and he noticed that most of his fur was singed. Pinky tried to ask him something, too, in a high-pitched voice that wasn't as soft, but still sounded gentle. Palm Pebble just stared blankly at Pinky, causing it to look frustrated, before it let go of his foreleg turned to talk to the insect.

After about a minute of conversation, Pinky turned back to Palm Pebble. She touched his singed fur and closed her eyes in concentration, before a wobbly, pink wave spread out from her hands, un-singeing his fur and removing the pain. Palm Pebble had figured out that Rascal used electricity to "play" the ukulele, but this had to be magic. What else could he call it?

After it had finished, Pinky stood up and smiled, accentuated by its blue eyes. Palm Pebble just stared, not knowing how to respond. He could thank it, but did it even understand his language? He didn't know. Instead, he smiled and waved, before heading back to the village.

As he left, he heard something that made him briefly turn around. Rascal was... crying? He wanted to go back and comfort it, but he didn't know how he could help.

That night, after Palm Pebble had told everypony around the bonfire the story of how Pinky had saved his life, he decided to take a walk on the beach. Normally, there were no ponies around, just the sounds of lapping waves and the chirping of (ordinary) insects. Even tonight, the only thing that had changed was that there were a few walking palm trees, but they all kept still.

On the far side of the beach, he saw Pinky and the insect again. Keeping his distance, he saw Pinky staring at its reflection in the ocean despondently, while the insect tried to cheer it up. Eventually, the insect landed on the sand, its single pair of wings dropping. What were they upset about?

Palm Pebble wandered back to the village, hoping he'd learn the answers soon.

Author's Note

This was originally going to be at the beginning of chapter 3 and take place on day 2, but then I realised it would be better as a continuation of the scene at the beginning of chapter 2 on the same day, and that chapter 3 might have ended up being even longer than chapter 2, before I decided to split day 2 into two chapters.

Major revisions
Moved the first paragraph of chapter 2 to here.