Rarity's Colt: Snickers's Harmony Trials

“Rarity, you’re back!” Sweetie Belle called when the sound of a door closing filled the boutique. Sweetie ran around the corner from the lounge and gave her sister a hug, then gave Snickers one. “And you, too.”

“Why, Sweetie Belle; whatever got you into such a positive mood? We’ve been gone a tad over an hour now,” Rarity asked.

Snickers watched as Rarity slipped horseshoes off her hooves with interest while Sweetie answered. “Well, Fluttershy’s just so much fun, how couldn’t I be?”

Snickers’s attention was suddenly on Sweetie, then on the yellow mare that walked into the room. In every way, it was Fluttershy, but he felt something was… off. “Hey, Fluttershy. Thanks for watching over Sweetie Belle while I went to group.”

Fluttershy giggled quietly. “It wasn’t any trouble, she’s a darling little filly. I only hope I can have a kid as great as her one day, so thoughtful and sweet, just like her name,” Fluttershy said giving Sweetie a one legged hug. “Well, now that you’re back, I have to get back to my animals and little critters and friends.”

Alarm bells were ringing in Snickers’ head.

“Oh, I completely understand, darling. Thank you so much for giving us your time and I hope to see you again soon,” Rarity used her magic to open the door and Fluttershy walked past Snickers when he stopped the pegasus.

“Hold on, can I ask you something, in private?”

Fluttershy looked over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’m in a bit of a rush.”

Snickers pawed the carpet and looked down. “But, it’s really important and I can only talk to you about it… can’t you please spare five minutes, just to listen to me?”

Fluttershy looked between the colt, the filly, the mare, and then glanced back at where her cottage would be in a straight line. Finally, Fluttershy nodded. “Okay, would you like to talk in your room, or just out here,” she tapped the walkway.

“No, can we walk around the block? It’ll be only a minute, can I, mom?” Snickers asked Rarity.

“Oh, I certainly don’t mind at all. Fluttershy is in a bit of a rush, so don’t take too much of her time, but I’m sure a few minutes won’t hurt anypony.”

Snickers gave Rarity a hug and left the house with Rarity closing the door behind him. Looking down the sparsely populated street, Snickers took the lead. “So, how was watching Sweetie Belle?”

“It was fine. So, you wanted to talk to me about something important?”

Snickers nodded and continued around the boutique towards the back and noticed no one else was around. He glanced back at Fluttershy and turned to face her. “Who are you?”

“Wh-what? I-I’m Fluttershy, can’t you tell?” She asked taking a step back.

Taking two challenging steps forward to keep pace with her, Snickers narrowed his eyes. “Three.”

“Why are you counting, Snickers?”

“Two.”

“I… maybe I should just go. I have a lot of work to do back home.”

“One.” Snickers took a little hop and bent his knees, swinging his hind legs around in an arc to take Fluttershy’s forelegs from under her. To his surprise, Fluttershy leapt over him in a somersault with a twist, landing on her forehooves then hind hooves, standing normally.

“Now, why would you do that, Snickers? That’s not at all what I’d expect from a kind colt like you to do,” Fluttershy said sweetly. She leaned back as a forehoof swing missed her and then blocked a side kick from a hindleg that followed almost immediately after. “Snickers, I fight bears, you should really stop.”

Snickers exhaled a breath and ran towards her, slipping his hindlegs under himself so he slid across the grass on his back, bucking up at her underbelly. Again, he missed and used a twist his hind legs to bring him back onto his hooves. “Like I asked,” he smirked and exhaled a little heavier, “who or what are you?”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Part of me wants to ask you the same thing… but, perhaps you should ask me later, Snickerdoodles, I have more important things to do.”

Snickers glared at Fluttershy as she opened her wings and shot up into the air, turned, and flew off fast enough to impress Rainbow Dash, had she been there. “I know a lot of things,” Snickers said, “but one of the biggest ones is that nopony calls me that name, because it’s not mine.” Snickers smirked. “It was a mistype on my intake form to the hospital; busted.”

Snickers walked around to the front door and walked in, closing it behind him. “Mom, I’m back and I feel better, thanks for letting me go out.”

“Not a problem, darling. Go wash all your hooves, now, before you play with Sweetie Belle.” Rarity called from the kitchen.

An hour later, Snickers and Sweetie sat in Sweetie’s room with full bellies and clean hooves. “So, Snickers… or, should I call you Snickerdoodles?” She smirked at Snickers.

Snickers shook his head. “Hey, about that… I need to have a meeting with the Dink. Can you set one up tomorrow at lunch, maybe?”

Sweetie Belle scrunched her eyebrows in bafflement. “What? Where’d that come from?”

“Look, there’s a real thing going on that’s way bigger than anything that’s happened yet, at least in the real world.” Snickers looked at the hallway through the slightly open door and leaned closer to Sweetie Belle, who knew a secret when it was coming. “There’s a real mystery, involving Fluttershy and a body switcher.”

Sweetie gasped and leaned back. “No way, are you serious?”

Snickers nodded, a serious expression on his face. “Totally. This could really be an alien takeover, not by me or my kind, either. Sweetie, something that wasn’t Fluttershy was with you all night and took your bad feelings away. I know because I could feel some of you in… it. Whatever it is, it isn’t good.”

Sweetie covered her mouth with her hoof. “Oh, no. Changelings, they’re back,” she whimpered and looked at the window. “They could be anywhere, coming after Rarity next.”

“Wait, what are changelings?” Snickers asked and listened to Sweetie’s explanation of the royal wedding and various reports about their species from magazines, books, and a short lecture by Twilight. “Wow… we’re so fucked if they take over, aren’t we?”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “What’re we gonna do? We can’t find them all, or even stop them!”

“What if we tell your sister and they use the rainbow beam on the town?” Snickers offered.

“That only works if all six of them are together, if Fluttershy is compromised, then the most powerful weapon is powerless,” Sweetie gasped and snapped her attention to the door. “I have to save my sister!”

Snickers leapt after Sweetie Belle and bit her tail, stopping her. She fell to the floor with a thud and whine. “We can’t do that,” Snickers said helping her to her hooves. “Not yet, because what if these changelings are just waiting to get the five of them together and magicking their minds into controlling the Emeralds of Harmony and turning them on us instead?!”

Sweetie and Snickers looked at one another, then screamed and ran around in a large circle.

The floor under them thudded. “Stop screaming, you two!” Rarity’s voice shouted from downstairs. “I need to work and can’t concentrate with you being so rambunctious.”

Snickers and Sweetie looked between one another and rushed to hold one another. “Wh-what if she’s already one of them, Snickers?”

“No, she was with me all night. There’s no way… except,” he held Sweetie tighter.

“‘Except’, what?”

“That I didn’t see her when I was in the group and she could have been body snatched! She could be hanging upside down in the clocktower right now, with those bugs crawling over her pod as they change her into one of them!”

They screamed again and the floor thudded, the sensation rumbling their little bodies. “Sorry,” they both shouted at the doorway.

Sweetie sighed. “Okay, I think that’s still the real Rarity. I can tell from how she hits the ceiling, so we don’t have to worry about her.”

“Yet,” Snickers said moving back from Sweetie and starting to pace back and forth, “but where there’s one, there’s gonna be more. How can we check four hundred ponies in Ponyville?”

Sweetie looked from side to side in thought. “I’ll think of something, there’s gotta be a way to expose them without getting snatched and replaced. Oh, I have an idea! Rarity talks with some ponies sometimes about safe-words. She always says hers is chiffon, but when I say it she gives me a bit and sends me to ask at Sugarcube corner and I get a… anyway,” Sweetie got back on track when she noticed Snickers’s grin. “We can have one of those to tell who we are and aren’t snatched.”

Snickers snickered. “Yeah, but we have to make sure to call them safe words, we all have to have our own, and we have to get the other Crusaders in on this,” he turned serious. “What’s yours gonna be?”

Sweetie hummed. “Well, can it be anything?”

“I’m pretty sure anything counts as long as it isn’t a word normally used in a sentence,” Snickers supplied.

“Then I’ll be alabaster! It’s like my color, but also my safeword.”

Snickers nodded. “Good one, I’ll be… um, hm. I’ve never had one before, to be honest. Oh, how about socket? Every electrician knows about sockets, as do mechanics,” he said sagely.

Sweetie nodded. “Alabaster and Socket, super spies.”

“No, Sweetie, they’re secret words we use to test one another,” Snickers said, “so if I act weird, you can ask me something like, ‘Did you ever fix that problem?’ and if I answer, ‘Yeah, it was the socket.’ then you know it’s me. But, if I answer something else, then you know it’s not me. It’s way better than something like saying ‘red’ and someone replying ‘apple’. Get it?”

Sweetie nodded. “Yeah, so… what can our spy names be?”

“Just our normal names, Sweetie. If we change our names, then how will anypony know it’s us and not the changelings pretending to be us?”

“Duh,” Sweetie rolled her eyes. “Safewords. That’s what they’re there for.”

***

Sweetie Belle walked with Dinky toward Snickers during lunch the next day after tense negotiations.

“Hey, alien,” Dinky said as she walked up to Snickers, who was lying in the shade of a tree, “your puppet, Sweetie Belle told me you have something to tell me that affect the fate of our world,” she nodded behind her to some bushes some ways away and they rustled. “I’ll have you know I’ve got the area surrounded and if you try to take over my brain or implant your eggs into me, we’ll have no choice but to take you out, and not to happy night at Mac’N’Mares.”

Snickers shook his head and stomped his forehoof on the ground, calling out Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom.

Dinky lowered her horn to the crowd. “An ambush? In public? You’ll never--”

“Everypony, stop!” Snickers shouted to the group, some other foals stopping to look at the meeting until they were waved off by a grinning Sweetie Belle. Snickers stood up. “I’ve found out that changelings may be infesting your town, that’s why I’m here and why I’m talking to you. All these fillies already know, and now we need your help and intel gathering capabilities to find those affected and truly neutralize them, for the safety of not only Equestria, but to save the whole world from being turning into a giant ant farm, only the ants are smart and eat your feelings,” he said looking down at her with an intensity mothers would give to scornful children until their fragile wills broke.

Dinky looked away and blinked. “What if I believe you, what can we do?”

Snickers felt the fillies around him brighten their moods. “I can give you the name of one infiltrator and the reason I suspect them. From there, it’s easy enough for you to have your contacts and connections trace the others back to the local hive.”

Dinky tapped her forehoof to her chin in thought. “We’d have to have an exchange of intel, then. I’d be obligated to tell you what I know about you, in exchange you’d tell me everything there is to know about you. That’s the first requirement for cooperation on my, our, part.”

Snickers smiled. “Deal, nothing will be held back, except for some personal experiences and cultural or societal beliefs or habits that would change future interactions.” Dinky nodded and smirked.

“I can tell working with you is going to benefit both our planets.” Dink and Snickers bumped hooves and there was a quiet round of stomps as the fillies moved to create a semicircle with Snickers at the point. “Wait… Agent BP, you’re needed flank right!” Dinky shouted and the bushes from earlier rustled revealing the purple filly.

“Alright, Dinky; anypony else coming to the meeting?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Dinky shook her head. “No, Agent T is having lunch with her friend and Agents S and S are dumb boys that only wanna talk about sports and comics right now.”

Scootaloo’s wings flapped. “Oh, it’s Thursday! I forgot the new Power Ponies came out this morning! Ugh,” she sighed, “I’ll ask them about it later.”

Apple Bloom elbowed Scootaloo. “Gonna ask ‘em for another eraser, lover girl?”

Scootaloo blushed and shook her head. “No! I’m totally over colts for a while,” she said looking at Snickers with a smile, “thanks to one, I know I don’t need one as long as I have my friends.”

Snickers looked at the grass between his forehooves. “I know this isn’t the best time, Scootaloo, but I’m really sorry for my first couple days here. I was really mean to you and… oh,” he looked up to Dinky. “I’m really sorry to you, too. I yelled at both of you and was mean when I didn’t need to be. I hope you can forgive me, it’s just that when I came here it was so different from what I knew, and everything about how I got here… I was just projecting my fears in negative ways against the strongest willed ponies I met.”

“I don’t know about how the rest of our planet will take meeting you,” Dinky said resting a forehoof on Snickers’s chest, “but I think you’re actually really nice, and I’d like you to know I’ve trained myself against mind attacks, so you won’t be able to take over my brain without a hundred ponies knowing, just so you know.”

Snickers nodded once. “Thank you for the information, but I don’t deal with mind manipulation. I’m a doer, right, girls?” he asked the fillies who nodded completely agreeing. “I started what happened to Diamond’s muzzle, there’s proof enough that I act more than talk… or did.”

“It’s no prob,” Silver Spoon raised her snout and looked away. “Like, we totally deserved it for being so rude, anyway.”

Diamond scoffed. “Silver, don’t make us look weak in front of the Dink.”

Silver gave Diamond a gentle shove. “Don’t be bossy.”

Snickers moved quickly between the two friends before Diamond could retaliate and begin another wrestling fight. Both fillies stepped back with surprised looks on their faces. “Both of you, we have a real crisis here and need to start working together, okay?” He asked them.

“Fine.” “Like, whatever.”

Snickers backed up and took point again. “Look, Fluttershy foalsat Sweetie Belle last night. But, she was also at the group meeting with me and a few others. I won’t say anything about anything personal, I said, but when I got back home, I could feel some of Sweetie’s feelings in the changeling.”

Dinky lowered her horn slightly. “That sounds like a very changeling way to know something.”

Snickers shook his head. “No, it’s actually going away, but since we were all in a Harmonic Vision together, we’re all kind of connected. And I didn’t feel anything from the Fluttershy I met except for Sweetie Belle.

“That, and when I tried to take her down and question her, she countered each of my strikes like a master.”

There were disbelieving expressions at him. “So, ya mean ta tell us that ya tried ta fight Fluttershy, of all ponies?” Apple Bloom asked.

Snickers shrugged. “Yup, and if she fought back, I don’t doubt she’d have broken every bone in my body and left me in the Everfree Forest.”

Sweetie stomped her front hooves in the grass. “Why wouldn’t you tell me you fought her last night? What if she did hurt you?”

“Hey, there’s a reason I made a big show about me going with her in front of both of you. If I went missing, then there’s only one pony to ask that knows the answer, right?” Snickers asked.

A round of agreements followed and then Snickers told Dinky some more mundane parts of his experience with the changeling and what possible options could be to stop it. Eventually the school bell rang and class was called back. Dinky and Snickers let the others go ahead of them. “Snickers, I couldn’t say it with everypony else around, but I believe you.

“A lot of weird things have been happening in town over the past couple years. Some things that you need to learn about to better fit in to our world and look less like a weirdo alien and more like a normal pony who happens to be an alien… you don’t have tentacle eye suckers, or lay eggs in brains, do you?”

Snickers laughed, loudly. “No, I’m just like… a minotaur, I guess. Have you ever heard of humans?”

Dinky squealed with glee and danced in a small circle. “I can’t believe you’re one of them! You have to tell me all about your planet and your technomagical constructs!” Dinky ran around Snickers once and then toward the schoolhouse. “This is the best day, ever!”

All Snickers could do was watch the filly go and try to catch up before something else weird happened, even though he couldn’t deny the great feeling he had watching her go into the school, he had the faint sense he was being watched. Just outside the door, he looked back, but couldn’t see anything and shrugged it off as it being a prey animal’s instincts more than logic.

…

“Alright, everypony,” Scootaloo announced, “we’re here at the CmC Clubhouse for a very different reason than normal. We have it, on great and attractive authority, that there is a changeling threat in town and we have to stop it before it takes over the world. Since the Princesses are all far away and busy, Twilight won’t listen to any of us, and the mail is too slow, we have to handle this ourselves.”

Snickers raised a foreleg. “Maybe we can ask Twilight again without all shouting at her at once?”

“We’ve tried that in the past. She only gives us a book about handling situations calmly and then tells us to not panic and think it through.”

Diamond stood up. “Well, I think we should just let it come for us. We can tie it up and get a hammer and…” she smacked her hooves together.

Sweetie shook her head. “No, that’s gross and it’s wrong. Changelings might be smarter than we think. They have to copy a pony, that’s not like pretending, it’s a total change of everything about them. I’m not okay smashing a bug in the first place, but a bugpony is just worse.”

Silver Spoon hummed loudly enough to get the attention of the several in the room. “What if they are just bug ponies? Like, they could be ponies that were mutated or cursed somehow.”

Dinky got up and stomped her forehoof. “That’s the answer, we need to find a cure to the curse! It could be that these ponies were bug explorers that loved their jobs and they built their research site in a field of poison joke. Boom! Bug ponies that only eat love. Curse found, now for a cure.”

Diamond shook her head. “I really don’t think that’s how it happened.”

Pinch pressed a forehoof on Dinky’s hind end. “Take a seat, Dink, we all have ideas… yours is just the best one so far,” Pinch consoled.

Scootaloo, stepping back to the floor to sit with her friends, groaned. “We’re foals, why do we have to save the world?”

“Technically, we don’t have to,” Snickers said, “we just are since no one else will, unless you know anyone?”

“Okay, that’s it,” Dinky started to stand, but a hoof on her tail kept her down, “you’re gonna tell me what’s going on, now. Who says ‘anyone’ instead of ‘anypony’?”

Snickers rolled his eyes. “Maybe creatures that aren’t xenophobic narcasists that control the heavens at their whims?”

“...ouch,” Sweetie Belle said. “That hurt me and I don’t even understand everything he said,” she said touching her chest. Snickers looked and noticed the others were doing the same and looking somewhat down.

“You’re, like, a total jerk,” Silver Spoon huffed and played with her braid.

“Wow, Harmony really doesn’t like that, does it?” Snickers said softly while Diamond, Dinky, and Pinch shrugged. “Anyway, Dinky, let me give you the rundown on what humans really are. I haven’t read the comics you all seem to know about, but think of a minotaur, but with an ape’s legs, that’s smarter than Twilight Sparkle, stronger than Applejack’s toughest apple buck, and should hold a degree in science?

“That was me,” Snickers said and held his hooves out, “these roundish hooves used to be like a minotaur’s hands. I had better manipulation with my fingers than Rarity does with a needle and I had more dexterity than Twilight for moving things. I think that’s what I miss most, to be honest,” he said looking at the underside of his hooves, “being able to grab things and feel them way more than with these.

“We conquered nature, then land, then the planet, then space. We landed on the moon, colonized Mars, then some moons, then more planets, then we left our system to explore the mysteries and worlds of the galaxy. I was born on a garbage planet,” he looked at the fillies that were giving him complete attention.

“What’s a garbage planet? Is it, like, where garbage goes when the garbage-pony takes the trash can away?”

Snickers shook his head. “It’s a planet that’s been used for all its worth by independant or private corporations and left as-is. After the planet’s been abandoned by its previous owners, people like my grandparents arrive to gather scraps for sale, art, or to build small towns and survive.

“Others show up to take from those that mean well. Each planet builds its own governments and there are Presidents, Queens, Masters, and even Councils, all working on a single planet to take control of the whole thing. This planet I was on was a garbage planet, junk and scraps everywhere. Easy pickings to make whatever I wanted, and I wanted to get off world.”

“So, did you?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Meh, kinda. Something happened between President Lord and Queen Masterful and a lot of people…” he thought for a safe way to say ‘blew up the planet’. “Became one with the universe.”

Dinky leaned close to Pinch and whispered loudly. “That means the planet exploded.”

Shrugging, Snickers agreed. “Yup, I was trying to keep it clean for all of you, but if you know the concept…”

Sweetie Belle giggled. “Snickers, Equus has been destroyed before, it’s no big deal.” Snickers gaped at her. “Yeah, a few thousand years ago, by Discord. This is the fifth age and ponies are dominant… right?” she asked the room.

“Yup.” “Yeah.” “Fifth.”

“W-wait, hold on a few fucking seconds,” Snickers shook his head in disbelief. “You mean to say- ouch!”

“Ah told ya Ah’d whack yer snout if ya cussed! Stop doin’ that,” Apple Bloom scolded Snickers.

Snickers’s eyes watered and he held his muzzle, whimpering quietly. Scootaloo gave him a hug and held him while he shuddered through heavy breaths. “Apple Bloom, you gotta stop doin’ that. Can’t you see he’s getting hurt more and more by it?”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Nope, if he’s gonna cuss then he’s gonna get in trouble. That’s how the Apples have always done it.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s an Apple,” Silver Spoon said. “You can’t let your barbaric nature lash out at everypony who doesn’t follow your limited world views.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Apple Bloom replied taking an angry stance.

Diamond Tiara stepped between the two and looked at Silver Spoon. “Save your energy, Silvie, she’s not worth the trouble you’ll get into if you start something.”

Both fillies huffed and looked away from one another and sat down facing opposite walls.

Scootaloo held Snickers a little looser as he stopped whimpering and helped the colt sit up. She leaned down to look at his nose and then shot a glare at Apple Bloom. “He’s got a little blood showing,” she said touching the back of her fetlock to his nose and then stepping to Apple Bloom to show her. “Are you still going to keep whacking him, or do we have to tell your Granny about hitting colts?”

Apple Bloom paled when she saw the droplet of red. “Oh, Ah’m so sorry, Snickers,” she said softly, “Ah guess I’m a bit too rough, Ah’ll stop doin’ that, even if ya cuss, okay?”

Snickers sniffled and nodded. “Y-yeah… c-can I, maybe, finish my story?” he asked much meeker than before.

“Of course,” Apple Bloom said with a warm smile, “just go on, Ah’m not gonna get on ya again. Promise,” she crossed her heart.

The corners of Snickers’s lips twitched and all the filly’s felt the urge to comfort him again, their innate desire to care for him was barely held back by Snickers holding up a hoof when he noticed the concern on their faces and their postures change. Snickers waved to Sweetie Belle.

“Huh? Oh... yeah, um, this is the fifth age on the planet. The first three are a secret that only the oldest dragons or other creatures know. The last one had the minotaurs and gryphons as the dominant species, and this time it’s ponies. Some day, probably in a few hundred thousand years, everything will be destroyed and start over again,” Sweetie Shrugged, “it’s a fact of life.”

Snickers looked at her in disbelief. “So, you know your civilization is going to end some day and you’re okay with it?”

Sweetie nodded with a smile. “Yup, I only hope the next to take over is even better than us! We’re gonna do everything we can to make this world the best it can be, and when it goes away the new world will carry our kindness over.”

Snickers shook his head, trying to get what he was hearing to make sense. “I… have no words on how to even understand any of that and I have more questions now than I did five minutes ago…look, can we just get back to planning the changeling thing? Dinky, Pinch, Silver, how about you three work on scouting around Fluttershy’s.

“Scootaloo, Sweetie, Apple Bloom, you three can gather intel around town; see if there’s anypony that’s acting extra weird. Diamond and me will meet with Twilight… I have a meeting soon with her and I can test the waters with her about a changeling infiltration. Sound good?”

The group nodded and their hooves met together. “So, what’re we gonna cheer?” Sweetie asked.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, bug hunters?” Scootaloo offered.

“Ugh, like, not gonna say that,” Silver said with a scoff, “besides, they’re probably bug-ponies, like we said earlier.”

“Fine, what would you say?” Apple Bloom challenged.

“Go team!” Pinch interjected.

A second passed as they all looked between one another, then they shouted the phrase and split into their groups before rushing from the clubhouse. Diamond and Snickers left last, closing the door after themselves. “So, why’d you choose to go with me?” Diamond Tiara asked.

Snickers started walking down the stairs and she caught up. “Because, we have the most to make up for with each other. I almost broke your muzzle two minutes after meeting you, and that’s not what being a pony is about.”

Diamond walked faster and sided with him. “Well, I teased you and made fun of you without knowing a thing about you. I kinda asked for it,” she crossed her eyes to look at her stitched and slightly swollen muzzle, “maybe not so much of it, though.

“Hey, the second one was all you. You kissed the ground all on your own and I made sure I wasn’t going to fight you again after a bunch of stuff happened.”

“True, and I spent half the day at the hospital, then the rest of the day in my room for fighting. Not even because you’re a colt, but because ‘proper ladies don’t fight blank flank losers’,” Diamond said in a mocking nasally voice. “Oh, but I don’t think that about you anymore. Anypony that can kick my tail has got some serious skills, like, how’d you even do that? You moved like,” she made some swishing noises and Snickers stopped to watch her try to balance standing to wave her forelegs.

Snickers chuckled when she almost fell back, barely catching herself and landing on her hooves. “I know a little martial arts… I studied for a couple years and it’s actually not too hard to do in this body. It’s not too easy, but it’s far from hard.” He reared up and took a stumbling step back, balanced, then brought his forelegs to either side of himself.

“Wow,” Diamond breathed, “can you teach me to do that?”

Snickers made the mistake of shrugging and lost balance, stumbling forward he barely caught himself before he planted his muzzle in the firm soil that made up the orchards. A little pressure under his barrel helped him all the way up and he noticed that Diamond had helped catch him.

She smiled at him and then nodded towards town. “Are we going, or are you gonna copy me and mess up your cute little muzzle?” she asked booping him. “Boop.”

Snickers scrunched his muzzle. “Don’t call my muzzle cute; it’s very strong and shows my power,” he lifted his muzzle and walked past her, stumbling over an exposed root. Diamond giggled and he ignored her. “Don’t worry, muzzle, she’s just jealous because there’s no other muzzle as great as you,” he said and pretended to pet his muzzle getting Diamond to laugh louder.

“You’re a dork! C’mon, race you back to town! Loser has to eat grass,” she said lowering her front and pawing at the grass. “You’re gonna have to take three bites and swallow.”

Snickers nipped one blade and chewed. “Blech, no way. I’m gonna laugh when you beg for water after losing.”

“Onetwothreego!” Diamond shouted and galloped ahead.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready!” Snickers grinned as he raced her and passed the other teams. “Hey, see you tonight at my house,” he said as he passed.

Regardless of how the days had been, he knew that going ahead, his days were going to be better than he ever knew.