Too La Roo La Roo Lar (That's a Skyrish Lullaby)

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: teen
Tags: Toola Roola, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Coconut Cream, Comedy
Length: 10956

Where did they come from? Where did they get their love for Friendship Journals? Where are they going from here? And more to the point: what in Tartarus are they fighting about THIS time?

Toola Roola is a special pony, just like everypony else. She's learned that fighting with your friends doesn't mean you have to stop being friends. It just means you should let them win sometimes, otherwise it looks suspicious.

She didn't learn that from her parents, who have no time for her except by appointment. She didn't learn that from her best friend, who has too much time for her and spends most of it fighting anyway.

And she especially didn't learn that from her ancestral homeland: the distant, enchanted land of Skyra, whence her oddball uncle cometh, but which - in her entire life - she has never, ever seen for herself.

No, she learned it from a book. Princess Twilight SparkleTM's Journal of FriendshipTM, only $12.99 at your local tree-made, cloud-made, or conventionally built magical bookshop! Buy your way to a meaningfulTM, satisfyingTM relationshipTM now, whileTM stocksTM lastTM!TM

Published 2020-08-23 23:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-08-23 23:40:01 UTC

Foal's Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Toola Roola and Coconut Cream were one of a kind. Each.

They had only recently arrived in Ponyville. This was because news about Princess Twilight had gotten around broader Equestria. Ponyville was now growing at an alarming rate, and therefore the town suffered a housing crisis which the two fillies’ parents, in their enlightened wisdom, had been Tartarus-bent on beating to the punch before those other selfish, house-grabbing morons wrecked the chance.

It is a reliable if paradoxical fact of life that housing crises, like traffic problems and overcrowded concerts, are always caused by everyone else, no matter who you ask.

Unless you ask Toola Roola and Coconut Cream, because most ponies barely noticed them, let alone wanted to ask them any social policy questions. Outside their homes, they barely existed.

They only really had each other.

As soon as they’d moved in, the two girls had been placed in an arrangement by their ever-busy parents. For one thing, they did not go to the Ponyville Schoolhouse.

In fact, not many foals actually did. Not that it was unpopular: Cheerilee was the most popular schoolmarm in town, and foals would put up with any amount of education if it meant enjoying her cheery company. Parents fought to get their kids in, because she drew the fewest complaints (and the fathers tended to find her strangely interesting in ways that the mothers didn’t approve of).

Alas, Cheerilee’s Schoolhouse was a victim of time. One tiny schoolhouse handled by an old-fashioned omnidisciplinary schoolmarm was fine for a young frontier village, but this was modern Ponyville. The inhabitants weren’t just farmers and whoever wanted to buy stuff off them anymore. Its population (having surpassed the hundreds a while back) was now entering the brave new thousands.

Unfortunately, Ponyville also had a tendency to hold on to traditions in case they came in handy, so the solution had combined the maximum of educational upgrades with the minimum of historical disruption: just make more schoolhouses! Make more schoolmarms! And for goodness’ sake, don’t let any of them surpass the classic original, which could hold… maybe nine at a time, twelve max, so there’d better be a lot of schoolhouses! But not, absolutely not better ones!

So instead, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream attended Cherry Fizzy’s Schoolhouse.

It wasn’t as popular as Cheerilee’s – in fact, it was just a spare room in his cottage, since buying your own special house for schooling had gotten harder with all this housing crisis stuff going on – but Cherry Fizzy stood out in Ponyville’s educational landscape, in that he had experience.

Of a sort: he’d formerly worked at a few Canterlot educational establishments (as a janitor, admittedly, but at least he’d been in the presence of actual classrooms and had read some interesting chalkboards). Plus, he could spell with confidence, whereas most Ponyvillians could spell only with eye-squinting and tongue-biting effort.

They called him a schoolmarm because, for some minds, you just had to admit tradition trumped reality.

Lastly, the two girls were discouraged from mingling with other ponies much. Except with each other, and even then, only in special circumstances.

Their parents had very good reasons.

For one thing, Toola Roola had a rare genetic disorder that meant her tail was differently coloured from her mane. Such a gross violation of the natural order could only mean one thing: she was just plain freaky.

Meanwhile, Coconut Cream had developed a bizarre psychosis: she kept having the strange impression that she should be much older, should look like a recoloured Applejack, and should be making pies with secret ingredients. This was unfortunate, as she had the cooking ability of a bathroom tile, she tended to feel ill at the sight of apples (and any healthy food, come to that), and the only secret she knew was that coconuts made hoof-clopping noises. All her parents knew for sure was that she liked to swallow a lot.

But the two fillies were discouraged from much socialization mostly because they tended to break up and get back together again about five times a day. Usually all over ice cream, which then ended up all over the walls.

All of this went some way towards explaining why they were rarely seen by anyone else.

At least, it did for their parents, who spent a lot of time drafting documents, consulting clients, beseeching bank managers, and arguing accounts with ponies miles, miles away. Letters flew in and out of their two houses like bees in a hive. And the thing about performing important jobs for a very important bank that lies a very important distance away is this: the more paperwork gets shifted, the more paperwork builds up. If they lived enough years, the parents might end up achieving bureaucratic lightspeed.

In the meantime, no rows. If there couldn’t be no rows, then no rows where they could be seen or heard.

Clearly, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream were problem kids. Their parents knew how to deal with problems. They dealt with them all the time at work, which was in fact where they spent all their time now, even when their bodies were doing non-work things like dining and asking how school went.

Problems, like paper-pushing ponies, got buried. The bigger the problem, the bigger the burial. Eventually, it’d muffle the screaming completely.

So a typical day for the two inseparable friends went something like this:

They woke up, got ready for school, and met each other on their way to Cherry Fizzy’s. And then they had a row.

They listened to Cherry Fizzy’s lesson on the history of the dragons, which was short on actual history but full of interesting conspiracy theories. Coconut Cream asked if dragons ate coconuts. Toola Roola said that was stupid. And then they had a row.

They munched on their mothers’ store-bought cupcakes for recess. Coconut Cream had the smallest one (by one chocolate chip). Toola Roola had the biggest one. And then they had a row.

They hopped, skipped, and jumped over the hopscotch squares. Coconut Cream won. Toola Roola didn’t. And then they had a row.

They attended cooking class, part of “home economics”, which was an old-fashioned class, but Cherry Fizzy had vaguely remembered it from his grandmother’s knee and liked the name. Coconut Cream gave in to temptation and baked a coconut cream pie. Toola Roola ate it and said it stank. And then they had a row.

They hugged and kissed and said goodbye to each other before returning home, having dinner, and going to bed.

They met in their special bonded shared dream.

And then they had two rows, because the first one had preyed on them for a few minutes before they felt the need to give it a second wind.

This might have been an ironic form of life satisfaction, but not even their parents had gotten close enough to figure it out because they tended to cover their ears and run away at the first sign of shouting. And neither side asked the other side about it at work because, when you were at work, you were all about work.

Eventually, as most such things did, it became normal. “Normal” can be defined as that which a pony puts up with if it doesn’t improve after the first two weeks.

Then the Journal of Friendship came along.

By sheer astonishing coincidence, Ponyville simultaneously fell victim to an extremely rare outbreak of Jerk Rabies. Fortunately, a chance finding by Nurse Redheart in the Encyclopaedia Ad Nausea resulted in a successfully developed antiviral medicine: Perspective.

Subsequent detective work revealed that the outbreak could be traced back to the nearby Rambling Rock Ridge, where a diamond dog had bitten off a prospector’s head. Metaphorically. By insulting him.

Once the excitement died down, though, the Journal of Friendship proved utterly revolutionary, for the two fillies in particular. For one thing, it meant they could get backstage access to the Friendship Castle, where Princess Twilight Sparkle lived.

More importantly, it completely revolutionized their relationship. It taught them so much. For instance:

If you find a magic tree with your cutie mark on it, it will bring you good luck.

Sleeping with a nightlight is not needed, because shadowy evil monsters aren’t real and never have been.

Having lots of friends and fans is proof of how awesome you are, so never, ever, ever do anything to lose them.

Being able to fly isn’t as important as having wings in the first place. (This one they later scrapped for not applying to two earth fillies).

If someone says no and you don’t accept it, they will turn into a vampire monster. So always say yes.

It is everypony for herself in the big city, so stay in a small town. Also, be cautious at all times, just to be sure.

And so on.

They loved it.

Now a typical day for the two inseparable friends went something like this:

They woke up, got ready for school, and met each other on their way to Cherry Fizzy’s.

They listened to Cherry Fizzy’s lesson on the history of the griffons, which was mostly a list of ancient glorious kings followed by a gap and then something about friendship which they suddenly claimed to have had all along. Coconut Cream asked if griffons ate coconuts. Toola Roola said that was stu– yes, yes, they did. Um. Good friend.

They munched on their mothers’ store-bought cupcakes for recess, or tried to. Coconut Cream had one, the smallest one she’d ever eaten (by one chocolate chip). Toola Roola’s mother had forgotten hers. They shared the smallest one, and were happy but still hungry.

They hopped, skipped, and jumped over the hopscotch squares. Coconut Cream won. Toola Roola didn’t. Coconut Cream panicked and demanded a rematch. Toola Roola won, because Coconut Cream let her.

They attended economics, a lesson Cherry Fizzy liked for more than just the name. Coconut Cream was allowed to handle board game money, only she failed the lesson being taught because she shared it with Toola Roola freely and did not, for instance, demand collateral or charge interest.

They hugged and kissed and said goodbye to each other before returning home, having dinner, and going to bed. They met in their special bonded shared dream. And they didn’t row once.

Eventually, they grew bored.

Because, as was the fate of all such things, it had all become normal. “Normal” can be defined as that which a pony gets sick of after the first two weeks.

A change of pace was called for. Their friendship was clearly waning!

That was why, one day, Coconut Cream suggested the two of them should prove they were learning friendship-ing properly. By becoming a family.

She quoted the sacred text of the Journal of Friendship as written by Applejack et al. Honesty: Journal Entries 7:1 to 12:1… “Family is the best.”

Toola Roola said OK, so she booked an appointment with her parents. To discuss the matter. They delayed the meeting by two weeks, then after much debate, they approved the notion. After all, it would be good for public relations testing outside the office.

Negotiations opened between Toola Roola’s parents and Coconut Cream’s. A meeting at Toola Roola’s home? Evening dinner? Dress your best? OK. OK. OK, thank you. Goodbye.

On the day itself, Toola Roola watched her mother’s maidservant lay the table. So much fussing over soup spoons and teaspoons and spoons for cutting the first course of bread! What sad, obsessive pony would go to such lengths over such a tiny, barely noticeable detail in the grand scheme of things? Toola Roola practically shook her head at herself. A poor, poor, dumb, mindless, weird pony, that’s what.

Each side prepared before the big moment. Both Toola Roola and Coconut Cream wore their little Princess Twilight hats. Their parents made them take the things off. They wore their little Princess Twilight shirts. Their parents definitely made them take those off. In the end, they wore their little Princess Twilight necklace with tiny model Twilight hanging under their chin. This was deemed showy, but acceptable.

Then Coconut Cream and her parents went over to Toola Roola’s home.

Twilight came. The time of day, that is, not the actual pony. Sparkle was everywhere. Such as on the sequins of their little dresses. Toola Roola’s parents had done a magnificent job laying the spread, a real Twilight Sparkle. Of a job. Little Twilights bounced off the fillies’ chests as they bounced up and down excitedly on their chairs, as if Spiked.

Thus, dinner began.

Despite not smiling or laughing, Coconut Cream’s parents clearly enjoyed the food. They said it was the best supermarket food money could scarcely buy.

Toola Roola’s glowering parents solicited forgiveness but furthermore commented that utilizing the supremely fashionable argentine (silver) cutlery would have been entirely apposite for esteemed invitees… only the devils never showed up, so you lot are gonna gets what you gets.

Between the two cold fronts, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream shared the warmth across the table. They shared their favourite entries from the Journal of Friendship, all from memory.

They smiled! They laughed! They were as thick as sisters if sisters were thieves, only without the robbing, but only if the thieves happened to be related, possibly by birth or in extremis by mutual adoption.

After all, they said: it was like the Journal of Friendship as written by Spike et al. Loyalty: Journal Entries 29:1 to 29:2… “True friends cared. Even when wrong.”

And they’d long since worked out by themselves – plus with the help of a big friendship instruction manual – that the multiple complications of social and ethical behaviour always boiled down to a few bite-sized lessons that could be summed up in about half a minute, usually at the end of some amusing escapade. They felt ready to take on the world. Why, they might find their very own lesson before dinner was over! The sky was the limit!

They sat and ate their soup for a while.

They sat and ate their soup for another while.

They sat and ate yet more of their soup for a third while.

Coconut Cream asked if they’d learned anything yet. Toola Roola said it’d probably happen after dessert.

That was too much for Coconut Cream! She slammed her hoof on the table, accidentally flipped a spoon up and over and over until it pinged off the standing butler’s bald head, bounced off the back of a chair, barely missed Coconut Cream’s mother as she ducked, and came spinning over and over until it hit the ladle of the soup bowl, which swung round and stopped, ending up closer to Toola Roola.

How kind of her! Toola Roola had just thought about having seconds! Truly, they’d learned something about how friends always understood each other at a much deeper level.

Coconut Cream wasn’t listening because the spoon had lodged in her eye.

Once the screaming died down – and one frantic burst of the unicorn butler’s magic first-aid later – she was as good as new, if still crying a bit and stinging in said eye whenever she blinked.

Briefly, the table was cleared. The parents regarded each other across no-mare’s-or-stallion’s-land. The main course was served: ten-cheese ravioli in a fine twelve-herb sauce, served with fifteen types of bread and one bottle of Jade Fleague Ginger Sauce, which was best eaten only if there was a vacant bathroom nearby you could easily sacrifice. It wasn’t exactly tasteful, but irony can make anything a popular dish.

That was where it started going wrong.

For starters, Toola Roola said to the sniffling Coconut Cream – who was still rubbing her eye – that of course they were good friends now.

This was met with some approval from the parents on either side. Negotiations were going well.

Toola Roola continued: and that they were good friends because they both had something in common. They loved the Journal of Friendship.

And they loved going to school. And they loved eating cupcakes. And playing hopscotch, seeing each other do well at school and games and things, and not talking to their parents when they were busy, and meeting up in their special dream to play, and fantasy stories about heroes, and other weird species, and dragons, and princesses – oh gosh yes, princesses – and that one time they starred together in little bit parts for… a play? A local movie? A Canterlot PSA? They’d never not love that fifteen minutes of fame spent together. And secretly eating pudding before you get the main meal. And toys that want you to tuck them into bed. And cardboard boxes. And wrapping paper. And skipping rope. And friends. And mints.

But, despite all that, they’d always have one thing in common: they loved the Journal of Friendship.

Mild, polite applause from either end of the table. Negotiations were progressing acceptably.

And – added Toola Roola, now surfing like a pro on the rising wave of her speech – she said that they would go on to be even greater friends than they already were!

Coconut Cream sat up straight at that. She asked if friendship was something you could measure.

Toola Roola paused.

Toola Roola said no, no, of course not. It wasn’t something you could measure. It was an ineffable miracle of nature. You know, magic.

Coconut Cream asked why not, when they just said you could get better at it? By what measure could somepony get better?

Toola Roola said: er…

Coconut Cream went on to say that, if they could get better at friendship, then maybe they already were better at it now. Or maybe just one of them was, and the other had to be whoever wasn’t being good enough.

Toola Roola said it obviously wasn’t her, because –

Coconut Cream said whoa, whoa, whoa. If it was going to be anyone obvious, then surprise surprise, it was going to be her.

Toola Roola rejoindered: nuh uh.

Coconut Cream explained: yuh haw.

Toola Roola deconstructed her reasoning thusly: nuh uh.

Coconut Cream revealed by So-so ‘Cratic Methodology the fundamental flaw in Toola Roola’s argument: yuh haw.

They continued in this fashion while the main course disappeared and dessert came as bidden by two pairs of parents who could smell a fizzing fuse a mile away. Negotiations were breaking down unacceptably fast.

The fuse sizzled on: nuh uh, yuh haw, nuh uh, yuh haw, NUH UH, YUH HAW –

By the way, the dessert was ice cream.

Twenty minutes later, the butler did his best with the walls, but some of the ice cream had reached heights far beyond his magic’s range, and in one case had become embedded in the wall like a cannonball. The best he could do was a magic blow-dryer spell until he could prise its compressed frozen core out.

In the adjoining room, Coconut Cream sat quietly between her shouting parents and stared at the floor. Opposite, Toola Roola’s parents murmured and muttered and waved their hooves placatingly and apologetically against a tide of vitriol. A few servants served wine periodically, because throats were getting sore and courage needed topping up.

Toola Roola sat in the corridor outside and rubbed her eye. There was still ice cream in a tiny corner that wasn’t melting fast enough. Eventually, her tears dislodged it.

Their debate had switched from who was the better friend to who was the worst friend with alarming speed. Neither side felt, after the practical demonstration, that they had proved it conclusively, and were wishing they’d talked about something less controversial, like who their favourite main six pony was and which of the six was the most obviously gay.

She could hear the shouting from out here. Coconut Cream, if anything, was getting off easy. At worst, her parents would sue for mental anguish, but they wouldn’t do anything to Coconut Cream herself. They didn’t care enough to get angry at her.

Sooner or later, the Cream family would return home. When they did, Toola Roola would be left alone with her parents.

The tears ran on.

The main hall. Twenty minutes later.

Toola Roola’s father gave gracious compliments to the Cream parents as a parting gift, all politeness and pleasure until the door slammed.

Toola Roola was summoned. No politeness for her. No pleasure from him.

He only delivered words, but to a child, words were worse than blows to the head. At least hitting someone with a mallet could, if a pony squinted and pretended it was a game, look kinda funny even if the one getting hit was a kid. Shouting at a child… Well, cat and mouse duos wouldn’t be so popular if they did nothing but shout at each other for ten minutes. And her father stretched it to a full hour.

He delivered a lesson, all right. He taught her a lot in that one hour.

That she was setting a bad example.

That she was a disruptive nuisance, a backward pest, an out-of-control wild child with no respectability.

That she was wrecking her own chances for a good life. Oh, she might think it was funny to frolic and play about like an escaped animal now, but someday she’d wish she’d buckled down and thought about the fact that she was growing up. And if she wasn’t prepared, the world of banking would eat ponies like her alive.

That she wouldn’t amount to anything worth spit, not until she stopped messing about and started getting her act together.

After all, she’d read enough books! She didn’t have to stay dumb! Learn something, and learn it fast. And for goodness’ sake, grow up already.

In fact, he thought aloud so she could hear his every word, he knew what’d straighten her out. So she was feeling privileged and complacent enough to act out, was she? Then she could go without everything for a couple of weeks. See how she liked it.

Maybe then she’d be scared straight.

Yes, he decided: he was going to send her away.

Toola Roola’s heart shouted no. Her mouth said nothing.

Her mother said yes. They’d send Toola Roola to Uncle Gadda back in the homeland. Realize what kind of a dead-end dump the family had come from. A family could climb up from the gutter all right, but it could also fall back into it. Including her.

Maybe then the lesson would stick!

After all this, her mother sent her to her room.

Toola Roola lay awake all night. Or nearly all night – tiredness beat fear eventually. And when she woke up, her pillow was wet.

Before Ponyville, Toola Roola and her parents and the Cream family had lived in other homes across Equestria. And before even that, long before they had met the Cream family and long before Toola Roola had even been born, there had been Skyra. Skyra, her ancestral homeland. The gutter they had climbed up from and into which she could fall back. Into.

She would go back there, if only to get out of her parents’ manes for a while. It was all scheduled.

Two days passed. The weekend. Her parents could work fast when sufficiently motivated.

On the morning – early in the morning, before the sun was even up – her parents forced her awake and hastily packed for her, because she proved too slow and morose to do it properly herself. Then they whisked her out of the house for a taxi-chariot to the train station for a ride to Manehattan. They’d have to leave early for the cheapest off-peak tickets they could book.

Toola Roola sat and stared at the floor. She hadn’t even had a chance to wave Coconut Cream goodbye. Coconut Cream had avoided her every day. So she was quiet the whole trip.

She, her mother, and her father who tended to rant a lot if ponies didn’t move out of his way fast enough: they first had to stop off at Manehattan via the train. Then Toola Roola would be picked up and dragged off to Skyra for two weeks or until she begged for mercy in her letters (which would amount to two weeks in any case because of the size of her parents’ in-tray).

The three of them reached the docks as quickly as the crowded avenues of Manehattan would let them. They waited for a boat, in her father’s case with a lot of swearing under his breath.

A white prow slid over the horizon, followed by a boat not much bigger than a living room and with a bridge the size of a kitchen sideboard. Toola Roola briefly noticed a hatch to the deck below on the floor.

The boat and its driver drifted to a gentle stop, and then it hit the side of the dock and coughed up the driver.

He smelled of salt. He wore a peaked cap and his sunburned, slightly swollen face was sandwiched between a bushy beard and two erupting eyebrows. When he wasn’t laughing, he was grinning as if waiting for the punchline to a joke only he was hearing.

At first, Toola Roola mistook him for the captain and asked where her uncle was. Was he below deck?

A little while later, she took another look at her uncle. She took a futile step back. Too late now.

And then she was on the boat. Her uncle began singing a sea shanty that he was clearly making up on the spot. The boat itself shook with the waves as if both of them wanted to dislodge him.

Before Toola Roola even had time to turn around and wave them goodbye, her parents had vanished into the crowds.

The boat took her across the heaving sea, which after a while was what she felt like doing below deck. Her uncle only bothered her at the end of the journey, just before they docked. He said he didn’t want her to miss this.

Across to the shiny shore, across to the grey skies and the constant rain and the quaint stone walls of a harbour she could vault over, merely a welcome to the huddled town and the broader fields and verdant valleys and lush pine forests of…

Skyra!

Thus shouted her uncle.

Ah, Skyra! Land of the green, home of the legends, enchanted by Elven Ponies, a land where it was said leprechauns left pots of gold at the end of the rainbow…

Actually, that last one was a misunderstanding caused by freak history. The original pegasus Leaper Con did hide gold at the end of a rainbow, but was subsequently arrested. By the time the Guard had persuaded him to admit where the loot was buried, the rainbow had since been dismantled by a local weather team.

Alas, before the Guard had the chance to ask him for more specific landmarks, Leaper Con had – unwisely, as it turned out – tried to escape prison by flushing himself down the toilet. Like the late Leaper Con, the trail thereafter went cold. Unlike him, it did not make distressing bubbling noises as it did so.

Her uncle told her this story while the boat docked. He said his mate had told him in the pub and they’d rolled on the floor and laughed their kidneys out.

She giggled a little, more because she liked his laugh than because she knew what on earth he was talking about.

When she made to hop out, he stopped her. Then he hopped out first and promised to catch her on her attempt. Her clumsy, overworried attempt nearly floored him, but instead of growling and snapping – what her parents would have done – he laughed it off and ruffled her mane. Then onward to his humble home!

Her uncle’s cosy shack lay outside town, like a DIY version of Princess Twilight’s Friendship Castle, only smaller – by her reckoning – by nine-tenths of a castle’s height. It smelled of pine needles and had what her uncle said was a selkie coat hanging off the back of the door. Uncle Gadda said he was still waiting for Toola Roola’s auntie to come back to him; he’d listened out for her singing every night, out the window and down by the docks. A mere three decades had passed, after all: his vigil was just getting started.

Toola Roola’s smile humoured him, but her mother had long ago whispered in her ear that Auntie had really run off with a groundskeeper, and the coat was just a mink she’d forgotten to pack. As a precaution, her mother had insisted on telling her: Uncle Gadda was a fibber. Don’t take him seriously.

Which was a shame, because her uncle told such wonderful stories…

Her bedroom turned out smaller than she’d expected: less of the four-poster bed chamber she was used to, and more a side room that had a bedframe and basic blank blanket on top. A tiny bookshelf and a tinier wardrobe were as extravagant as it got.

But the view let her forgive a lot of poor, humble sins, because it took in the full harbour and the rolling sea beyond and the forested hills beside them. All sparkled in the sunlight with raw magic. It was as if a giant had gotten into a big green bed, and the fairies had come to celebrate while he was too deep in sleep to care.

At first, she had trouble settling in because her father had said there were snakes in Skyra that hid under the bed, but her uncle patted her gently and reassured her there were no snakes whatsoever. “After all, being legless in Skyra isn’t fun if you’re legless all the time!”

He laughed again. She had no idea what he meant.

Dinner was a local delicacy: “horsemeal”. Made from finest oats and finest barley and finest ground-up fish flesh (for that good old-fashioned protein boost the way mamma used to mash).

That night, she didn’t sleep well, because her special shared dream was empty. And also because she kept tasting fish.

The next day, her uncle took her on a tour of the town.

There were seagulls freewheeling above, looking for nautical adventurers and mighty fleets to follow for the maritime atmosphere, or possibly just for a sandwich to steal. There was the salty smell of the sea and the cries of neighbours greeting each other, many in peaked caps and with faces sandwiched between bushy beards and erupting eyebrows. They might have come from the same factory as her uncle.

There were smoking pipes and fishing rods, there were barrels and crates, there were long coats and flowing scarves like the trails of ghosts. There were humble little houses and humble little market stalls where ponies could go and hear the most arrogant fisher’s tales and the most arrogant rumours about late-night battles with sea griffons and unicorn fish that mysteriously never showed up when anyone else went looking.

There were certainly a lot of sheep in town. More sheep than ponies, it seemed.

They tended to protest a lot, along the lines of “You wolves, take off your sheep’s clothing!” (union strikes), “Don’t pull the wool over my eyes!” (anti-union strikes), and “Celestia shall be my shepherd!” (Pro-Equestrian Party). Also, for some reason, “Save the Kangaroos!” (Woolly Jumper Party).

She and her uncle simply moved around them. Occasionally, he’d say “Morning!” to one and get a cheerful “Morning!” in return. Protests were just another thing, apparently.

They went to the zoo. Most of the animals were red, and had pint glasses, and wore peaked caps. And smoked pipes. For five bits, they told arrogant tall tales about how they’d been captured by squadrons of dragons, who they’d invariably wrestled to the ground before themselves being subdued by a zookeeper and a magical blowdart.

Toola Roola got excited again about news of the Skyrish Tiger – she remembered her dad mentioning it once before she left – at least until her uncle explained it was just a metaphor for the recent economic boom. This was because Skyra had become, as her uncle put it, “good friends” with Equestria whilst remaining defiantly and firmly not part of it. Besides, as he mysteriously put it, “There’s a little bit of Skyra in everyone, and you’d be surprised where and how it can turn up.”

She assumed by this that all ponydom had literally come from Skyra and just kept forgetting it.

Ah, Skyra. Now that was a country to come from!

So full of mystery and magic that it leaked out in unexpected ways. Why, she could easily believe everything had been created here. Even within the town’s limits, there were over a hundred sacred pools, stones, fairy forts, and king burial grounds filled with gold which – leprechaun-hunters notwithstanding – were largely left untouched, partly out of respect for the mighty ancestors, largely because no one wanted a curse on their heads that was stronger than “YOU BLEEDING EEJIT!” A curse she heard surprisingly often around town.

Each sacred object had strange carvings on it. The old language.

She saw maybe ten sacred things before they broke off for lunch at a nearby pub. It was, of course, “horsemeal”.

Skyra… so full of mystery and magic, even in humble speech. Well, except for the “YOU BLEEDING EEJIT!” kind.

Skyra had once been pure Skyrish, right down to the tongue.

For Skyra had once owned an official national language, long ago – the ancient and proud tongue of Skyrish, created from nature’s gifts by the wise mages of yore, each word intimately wrapped in mystical significance, and tied to the very bedrock and bones of the land – but this status had been dropped recently, on the grounds that modern Skyrish ponies didn’t have the faintest idea what the hell it was, much less how to speak it.

After the pub meal – with fries, or as her uncle called them, “chips” – they went to see the Gibberstone in the town square.

Ponies knew about the Gibberstone, of course, but they left it well alone. Anyone who touched the magic stone could instantly speak fluent Skyrish, but they ended up talking so fast that, even if anyone else understood the language, no one would’ve understood a word of it anyway. Some victims had been eagerly recruited by the advertising industry, but that was all.

It looked like a smooth black pebble, and was kept behind a thatched cage. Her uncle said it was because of an incident involving a double-dare and too much drunken shoving.

As the rain kept falling and the hazy halo of the sun sank further into the afternoon, Toola Roola felt the aches in her legs. Town was one of those places where, despite being small enough to gallop across in half an hour, you somehow ended up walking a lot. Best bring this to a close.

She asked if there were any magic books in the town library. Her uncle said no.

OK…

She asked if there were any books in the town library. Her uncle said maybe.

She asked why “maybe”. He said they didn’t have a town library.

When pressed again, he admitted that there were a few books in Old Leaftongue’s “library” – a bookcase near the back door of his pub, so the customers wouldn’t be disturbed by close contact with learning – but it didn’t matter whose bookcase she went to anyway. As far as local literature was concerned, they only ever had the books written by dead writers.

It had not hitherto occurred to her that zombies could write, and she determined to find and read a book written by one as soon as possible.

Her uncle said it was a shame. All the good writers – poets, lyricists, idyllists, and crude political satirists – kept leaving. These days, anyone wanting to make it big would just go to Equestria before penning anything. Especially the crude political satirists, because Princess Celestia often sponsored them handsomely, and even gave them tips.

Now her uncle wanted to change all that. He was working on his own book, in fact. He was keeping it safe in his private study, and sadly hadn’t finished it yet.

It was going to be, in his own words, an existentialist fantasy of a runaway unicorn princess, searching for more unicorn princesses of her kind, then forcibly turned into an earth pony in order to escape the pegasus-led rebellion, the Ginger Ox faction, whereupon she would dwell on the horrors of not being able to cast magic anymore, and eventually would forget she ever could. The story was going to be a metaphor for the lost folklore of the Elven Ponies who, it was said, had once ruled his native land and who might even have been the mages responsible for creating the Skyrish language.

Well, they weren’t “in his own words” exactly: what Toola Roola actually heard had been much less refined and had involved a lot of local slang on the level of “YOU BLEEDING EEJIT!”

Anyway, that fantasy story would one day be his completed masterpiece and his heartfelt tribute to the lost art of Skyrish literature.

He called it: “The Final Magical Horned Pony Of The Kind Who Traditionally Could Only Be Tamed By A Virgin.”

He admitted the title needed some work.

Toola Roola asked what a virgin was. His laughing answer, eventually, was: “Around here? Rare as hen’s teeth!”

In the end, she assumed it was something to do with Elven Ponies.

Also, she finally noticed there were guards all over town.

She and her uncle simply moved around them. Occasionally, he’d say “Afternoon!” to one and get a cheerful “Afternoon!” in return. Guards were just another thing, apparently.

They tended to watch the sheep protests. It said something about their lack of job satisfaction that a bunch of sheep standing around looking nervously defiant was as much excitement as they were ever going to get.

Skyra had its own Republic Guard: her uncle had once been in it too, back when he’d lived in the capital, before he’d retired and moved here.

He said it was nothing more than boring guard duty. Guarding the Skyrish Museum, guarding the Skyrish Bridge, guarding the local pub from within and testing the drinks for poison (sometimes pints of it at a time, just to be on the safe side).

Most of his mates wanted to ditch Skyra for the Equestrian Royal Guard, where it was said excitement was constant, daring rooftop chases were a daily drama in the life of a mere recruit, and evil-yet-well-intentioned masterminds were foiled so often by the high command that they had their own Special Anti-villain Service.

This was news to Toola Roola.

The two of them went to one more pub before sundown, for “horsemeal” and “chips”. This time they added “mushy peas” for a bit of variety.

Her uncle found a couple of his guard mates off-duty in there – or “on-duty and carefully testing the drinks for poison, because you never know” – and they all sat down and laughed and caught up on good times, which surprisingly for guards usually involved pinching things and then running away. Toola Roola was confused until they explained they’d been colts at the time, and that this was considered good training for stallionhood.

She asked if she could do it. They said “Sure!” and gave her useful tips about pockets and loose change.

Then they sang a song. Her uncle didn’t. He said he was saving his voice for a very special song for later.

They returned home.

Every night would be like this night.

Every night, Toola Roola was allowed to stay up for as long as she wanted, which was usually for as long as she could write one of her own fantasies about unicorns losing their magic metaphorically. Then she’d yawn, and say she was tired, and her uncle would get out of his stuffed chair and shut the window overlooking the sea. Then he’d fuss her gently to bed and promise her a story when she asked, and a song when she didn’t.

Every night, Toola Roola would be tucked in and read to by her loving uncle. Her own books she’d brought along. Lately, her reading had been suggested by her father and had erred towards very important “How To” guides.

The Journal of Friendship, for instance, had prepared her for a life of understanding friendship disagreements properly and why throwing ice cream at her friends was bad (because it was cruel).

This had been closely followed by Miss Bowl de Lis’ Mild-Mannered Table Manners, which had prepared her for a life in which she would use the correct spoon to ferry ice cream into her mouth, and why throwing ice cream at her friends was bad (because it wasted good food).

Then The Canterlot Etiquette Guide had prepared her for a life of saying “please” and “thank you”. Eye Contact 101 had taught her the basics of when not to stare at ponies’ nostrils, How To Self-Control and Please Parents had taught her when best to go to the lavatory and why, and Aspiration for Kids had taught her when was the best time to not breathe loudly in case it upset ponies.

She tended towards these sorts of books.

Her uncle read them dutifully, but had asked if there’d been a mistake on the first night and had given her odd looks every other night since.

Finally, the book of the evening went back on the little shelf by her bed. The lamp dimmed. The sleep, like her blanket, slid gently up to her chin.

And, crooning gently, her uncle sang the song of the great Skyrish hills.

“Too La Roo La Roo Lar… Too La Roo La Ri…”

Her name… she realized her name had come from here… from Skyra’s hills…

“Hush now, don’t you cry…”

Funny. She never felt like crying until she heard that part of the song.

“Too La Roo La Roo Lar… Too La Roo La Ri…”

Her bones, her blood, her soul for once felt as though they belonged.

“That’s a Skyrish lullaby…”

Slowly, gently, of their own free will, her eyes gave today closure, and her mind prepared to wait quietly for tomorrow.

“Too La Roo La Roo Lar… Too La Roo La Ri…”

Every night, she slept well, because her special shared dream was full of Skyra. Not just the Skyra she’d walked on all day, but the Skyra of her uncle’s stories and memories, the Skyra as it should have been. And by now she’d gotten used to the taste of fish.

Meanwhile, a typical day for Coconut Cream went something like this:

She got out of bed, got ready for school, and went there.

She listened to Cherry Fizzy’s lesson on the history of the crystal ponies, specifically those bits of it the crystal ponies were still catching up on themselves. Coconut Cream asked if crystal ponies ate coconuts. No one replied. The lesson continued unabated.

She looked at – and occasionally nibbled – her mother’s store-bought cupcakes for recess.

She hopped, skipped, and jumped over the hopscotch squares, all by herself. Ultimately, she lost the game in a tie-breaker.

She attended home studies class.

She returned home, had dinner, and went to bed.

Now that she wasn’t rowing anymore, she waited for her parents to tuck her in, but they were still too busy. Eventually, she tucked herself in.

It became normal. Normal kept her awake at night.

One of the late nights, though, Toola Roola’s day took an unexpected turn.

Her uncle stopped reading the current book mid-sentence and gave her a look. It was a pitying pair of eyebrows, pitching their sorry tent on his forehead and sticking to its central prop, however much either side drooped around it.

“You know,” he said, “you can’t go through life on dusty old books like these ones.”

Toola Roola glowered at him. She dusted her books all the time.

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Well, this ‘dusty old book’ made my life better, so don’t you say anything bad about it!”

“Really?” said her uncle, but he was smiling as if playing a joke on her. “And your life was so good, you came to see your dear old uncle just to get away from it, did you?”

Toola Roola stopped and thought about this one.

“Come now, what pony needs a book telling them how to be friends? Folks are naturally friendly anyway. That’s like telling someone how to breathe.”

Toola Roola still said nothing. Her mind was too busy trying to find a shield.

“Books is all well and good,” her uncle went on, “but words is words. Anyway, you can’t just have someone feed you words once and suddenly you’re not hungry anymore. That’s where hooves and mouths come in. You got to feed yourself!”

Toola Roola didn’t see what he was getting at, or was too hot and scared to do so. This must have showed on her face, because he waved his hoof in the air as if spinning down a thread of memory.

“What am I saying?” he muttered to himself. “Can’t tell a girl that telling’s no use. Got to show it to her. All right,” he said more confidently to her, “tell you what, just so you can rest tonight: how about tomorrow, I pick where we go and you see what the hay I’m blabbering about? Fair’s fair? For now?”

“And that’ll be better than some ‘dusty old book’?”

“Is Celestia a princess? Does an Ursa Major take a dump in the dark?”

Toola Roola didn’t answer, because she sensed she wasn’t supposed to. There’d been something about rhetorical questions in one of her “How To” books, but then she barely needed a book when her uncle’s smile was written in big, bold print.

“OK?” she said warily.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be good for you, and I swear that on my mother’s grave.”

Toola Roola had picked up enough to spot the traditional Skyrish pledge. It was not one easily broken. He was that serious.

So that was it. He’d show her what he meant, tomorrow morning, and it’d be good for her. In the meantime, she should get cosy and sleep.

That night, she slept poorly, because her special shared dream was full of Skyra and suddenly always empty of any friends.

The next morning, they went to the local museum. Her uncle took her straight to the Book.

Or a Book: the real Book, it turned out, was kept safe in an archive in Skyra’s capital. Other museums wanted it, so they had to make do with replicas.

Despite that, the Book gleamed.

From a distance, the cover seemed encrusted with finest jewels, enriched with ribbons of bronze and silver. Then they drew closer to the glass, and they saw at once that the artist hadn’t needed such crude tools. He had been a pure illustrating genius.

Toola Roola asked if she could touch it. Her uncle said no, it was a sacred item. The attendant nearby said yes, it was an interactive exhibit.

Her uncle gave him a look. The attendant said it was only a replica.

Nervously, her uncle reached out, daring himself to open the pages and see what could not be seen by mortal eyes. Toola Roola got impatient and opened it herself.

The pages shone like gold. So much so that their faces were gilded in turn, by sheer brilliance.

The Book of Books.

Skyrish ponies usually just called it… the Book. The capital letter always came across.

Once, the storytellers said, there had been a King of Kings. The greatest king of all Skyra, who had foreseen the dark times ahead and wished to guide ponies on the right path to find the light.

His Majesty was so great that he had brought to the Kingdom of Skyra a whole new way of living and loving. In his time, he had commissioned a book to chronicle everything of importance, and the task was so urgent that it had drawn together the finest unicorn scholars of his generation.

Once his time had passed, over the centuries, copies of copies of the book were made to preserve the original text by scholars and monks loyal to the King of Kings. Yet, though many were beautiful, none were perfect. None, that is, until the dark days of the Striking Empire.

From the north came evil. Beings of shadow and fear. Hunters of gold and destroyers of all else.

The Morseless and the Remorseless, they were known as. Always advancing like a tide of war, the night of terror rolling and grinding slowly south, suffocating and drowning and laying to rest all in its way.

In those days of smoke and fire, the book of the King of Kings became all the more important. A light in dark times. Yet for many, a mere book was not enough. Words were no comfort against swords. The Morseless and the Remorseless never stopped, and never slowed, and never spared any soul.

Then, there arose a monk. A humble earth pony monk – not a gifted unicorn scholar – who saw plainly what needed to be done.

The words were good and true, but to many they were just words. Sometimes, the books contained beautiful art, but never as the focus, never to eclipse the words. He did something greater.

He created the Book of Books.

The golden edition. The one that understood that art was never meant to eclipse the words, but to pay tribute to them. To show their meaning for all to see.

It is said that, when he finished his great work and saw the armies gathering at the gates before the wall of his home village, he strode forth, held up the Book, and opened it. The Morseless and the Remorseless were the first to see what he had wrought. And the light of truth and beauty eclipsed the sun and the moon, blinded the maddened eyes of evil, burned away every twisted thought, and left no corner unmarked, no hiding place untouched, no shadow spared.

Thereafter, the Book of Books was Skyra, and Skyra was the Book.

Toola Roola asked if that was true. Her uncle shrugged and said probably. It was as good a story as any.

“They say,” he continued, seizing his thread with tender care, “they say the Book of Books is so beautiful that only the purest of souls can even open it, much less read it.”

“What’s in it?”

“Everything. Everything that ever happened, and everything that will happen, and everything that is.”

She looked at the copy on the pedestal.

“It’s a small book,” she said accusingly.

“Only on the outside.”

“And the monk pony was just an earth pony?”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about an earth pony! But that’s what history says happened.”

“Uncle, did it really happen like that?”

Her uncle screwed up his face. “Who knows? Here and now, it’s a story, and stories are just words. But look at the art. That’s here and now too.”

She had to be persuaded not to look. The gold shone in her eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Exactly. What other reason does it need?” said her uncle.

At the gift shop, she bought a Book keychain, even though she didn’t have any keys and wouldn’t have been entrusted with any regardless of age. The little Book dangling off it was nowhere near as pretty, but she’d asked, and they wouldn’t let her take the original replica Book home.

That evening, when they got back from the pub (horsemeal with chips and mushy peas and desalinated sea salt), Toola Roola borrowed as much paper and crayon and ink as she could pester her uncle for, and she lay down on the floor before the fireplace, and she began to write.

After a while, she began to draw.

After a much longer while, she began to shuffle the pages into some sort of order.

Her uncle sat and stared out the window to watch the sea. At first, he stopped and asked her what she was doing.

“Making my own book of books,” she said.

He nodded and went back to staring. Occasionally, he’d stop and ask her what she was doing now, especially when she went to get the giant, hoof-friendly scissors.

At one point, she went to get the Journal of Friendship. Her uncle didn’t ask, but he did check on her more frequently and started coming over just to peer over her shoulder. Until she caught him doing it the third time and covered up her work.

“It’s not finished yet!” she cried out.

“And it’s already a fine piece of work,” he said.

“So I get to read your fantasy story now?”

He took the point and stopped peeking at it.

Later that night, he looked round and noticed she’d fallen to sleep on the carpet. The fire burned low by then. Shaking under the suppressed chuckles, he picked her up and carried her to bed and tucked her in and wished her good night.

Then he snuck a look at her work, because some ponies just can’t resist.

“Hm,” he said doubtfully, and he picked up the Journal of Friendship. “Not the book I’d have chosen, but to each their own.”

They were really good pictures, though. He could almost see what she saw in it.

Meanwhile, Coconut Cream’s day went like this:

She got out of bed.

Stuff happened. Her parents were busy.

She went back to bed.

It was getting harder to sleep now. Her pillow was always wet.

Eventually, Toola Roola had to return home.

Her parents waited on the dock to pick her up. Her father kept checking his watch. Meanwhile, her uncle guided the boat to a gentle stop beside the dock… and then a wave rammed it side-on and knocked them both over.

Her uncle helped her back up. He passed up the suitcase, because her parents were making urgent chop-chop motions and had a meeting to keep. Then he turned to her.

“Too La Roo La Roo Lar,” he whispered with a wink.

“Too La Roo La Ri,” she replied as per rehearsal.

After a while, she remembered to wink.

“Now,” said Uncle Gadda, “just utter that folksy gibberish whenever you feel the ache of Old Skyra in your bones. And if you need reminding of the good old country, just spit in a spittoon.”

“But what if I don’t have a spittoon?”

“A good Skyrish pony can always improvise.”

Her parents yelled at her from the taxi-chariot to the train station. So Toola Roola’s hug to Uncle Gadda was swift but tight to make up for it.

Her uncle gritted his teeth and whispered, more urgently, “Look, friendship doesn’t have to be all serious lessons and grim reading, OK? It can be fun and free too! You can sing friendship! Oh, and if you remember nothing else from your time with me –”

At which point her father grabbed her and hauled her off.

The last Toola Roola saw of her uncle was him standing and waving in his boat, fading gradually into the mysterious maritime mist. The last she heard of him was his swearing because a seagull had landed on his hat, looking for sandwiches.

Coconut Cream didn’t see her friend until school started the next day.

The first day for the two inseparable friends went something like this:

They woke up, rushed out the house so fast they each forgot to be ready for school, and tackled each other on their way to Cherry Fizzy’s. They hit each other with the exact same kinetic energy, so they had no choice but to fall on their sides and, once untangled, rubbed their chipped teeth and bruised legs.

Coconut Cream couldn’t wait! Toola Roola had to tell her all about the stuff Coconut Cream had read and researched about it now. All about the magical land of Skyra and the Gibberstone and the Elven Ponies and the exciting escapades of the Republic Guard against the famous dastardly criminals with the exploding candy and soda bombs, and the way the fishing ponies fished fish, and –

Toola Roola told her that the Skyrish ponies didn’t eat coconuts, but she’d told her uncle what they were, and he’d seemed interested enough.

Oh, and she’d also brought home something called horsemeal. She asked if Coconut Cream wanted to try it?

Coconut Cream said it was delicious but strangely slimy. What was in it?

Toola Roola said protein.

Coconut Cream wondered if they could get it at the Barnyard Bargains round the corner.

Toola Roola considered inviting her to do some fishing after school, but then remembered fishing had been made illegal in Ponyville waters by one of Fluttershy’s local campaigns. Also, that the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures had legally backed her ever since they’d discovered Steven Magnet the Sorrowful Sea Serpent.

They made to hop, skip, and jump, but Toola Roola instead taught her how to dance on the river. It was a neat trick; even her uncle couldn’t have done it sober.

Then, Toola Roola said she had a super-duper secret she wanted to tell, which would do a lot for their home and for their economics and for their studies…

Only then, they realized they were late for school and legged it.

School happened. Cherry Fizzy wasn’t surprised to see Toola Roola back, though he complained later about the fishy smell.

After school, they hopped, skipped, jumped, and river-danced wherever they wanted, safe in the knowledge that their parents wouldn’t notice if they were late. They hugged and kissed and said goodbye to each other, and they promised to meet in their special bonded shared dream, which Toola Roola said would be a lot more interesting now she had the whole of Skyra for both of them to play in. Her Skyra was Coconut Cream’s too.

But before that, at the end of the day, they’d have to say goodbye.

Then, at the end of the day, before saying goodbye, Toola Roola finally opened up to Coconut Cream.

While she had been kept away from her best friend – so she explained – she had learned an important lesson: she’d never missed her because she’d never really thought she’d be gone.

Toola Roola showed her the book she had made. The book of books. No one else could read this one. It was meant only for the friend of friends.

Coconut Cream asked who that was.

Toola Roola rolled her eyes.

She opened the book and showed her a picture. She pointed at it emphatically so that there was no doubt as to the answer.

It was a picture of Coconut Cream. Done by an illustrating genius.

The page shone with pure white light, but only because Coconut Cream was not gold and there was only so much an illustrating genius could do.

Toola Roola went on to explain that she had realized the truth. She’d never needed the Journal of Friendship in the first place. Books, lessons, money spent on both: the truth was that the magic of friendship was inside her all along. She didn’t need to buy books to prove that. They would always be friends because they had been friends since the day they met. No fight could ever take that away from them.

But for now, she’d keep this wonderful little secret a secret.

Because if no one else cottoned on, she could sell her own Friendship Journal and make a ton of money!

“So what do you say?” she asked. “You in? Fifty-fifty?”

Coconut Cream liked it.

A few weeks passed, but they were very busy ones.

Toola Roola’s father was very impressed by the new line of friendship books. Love and Friendship for Fillies, Manly Buddyhood for Manly Colts, The Six Rules of Friendship, Friendmaking for the Frustrated Working Mare, and Aim and Amiability for Fashionable Ponies of Canterlot, which charged extra but came in a wonderfully hoof-crafted cover by somepony called “A Skyrish Artist”.

This last book fumbled at first but mysteriously took off when Princess Celestia was asked to write a forward to it (rumour had it she’d also sent the author some tips on font and presentation).

Friendship for Griffons was the next book planned, if only Toola Roola could get her father’s help contacting the international market and especially the growing Griffonstone “Tiger” economy (or “Half-Tiger”, technically: they’d got the fundamentals down, but there was some confusion going forward).

He’d, to his own complete surprise, promised to pull a few strings. At the rate his daughter and her friend were selling the stuff from their homemade stall (“Friendship HQ”), the family would soon have enough money to buy actual silver spoons instead of imitation ones.

The fact was they were all basically the same book, but with enough cunning tweaks and customizations that it’d be very hard for anyone other than Twilight Sparkle to notice and harder still for them to find a legal leg to stand on.

Toola Roola’s father was very impressed. And somewhat worried. And somewhat growing very, very worried. The books looked like they were making more money than the bank was. His boss had noticed. His colleagues were not letting him forget it, either.

Nervously, he tried sneaking into her bedroom to find clues as to how she did it. But she didn’t have nearly as much paperwork as he did, so he had trouble just finding her in-tray, which turned out to be locked inside a brand new safe.

Toola Roola’s mother said nothing. She didn’t think the books really were making more money than the bank was. She knew they were.

That was why she’d stopped boasting about her daughter’s success after the first meeting with the other rich parents in Ponyville. Sure, folk wisdom said the next generation would be their superiors, but it couldn’t be right that the next generation were doing it before going to college.

Coconut Cream’s parents also said nothing. Due to poor public relations, their department was doing so badly that it was considering layoffs.

Meanwhile, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream enjoyed something much greater than financial success: mucking about in dreamland.

Skyra turned out to be an excellent shared dream, but sooner or later, it had to end. They had to wake up. And sooner or later, the days would turn normal, and the novelty would wear off, and then they knew they’d go back to having a row at some point. It just seemed to happen, like bedwetting (Toola Roola) or sneaking coconuts into her room when her parents weren’t looking (Toola Roola).

So Toola Roola wondered, What would Uncle Gadda do?

Tonight, the dream was beginning to fade away. Lights in the sky would go out soon.

And she knew. And she smiled.

And she began to sing.

Coconut Cream stopped her and asked her what in Tartarus she was doing?

Toola Roola stopped to explain.

Coconut Cream said oh, OK. Carry on.

And, squeaking gently, her best friend sang the song of the great Skyrish hills, and now of their better friendship.

“Too La Roo La Roo Lar… Too La Roo La Ri…”

Toola Roola later renamed it the Coconut Song, because the title was the only part Coconut Cream didn’t already love.

Far away in the magical land of Skyra, in a humble shack overlooking the harbour, Uncle Gadda sat back one night and listened out for the song of the sea.

His wife – Toola Roola’s auntie – had been missing for three decades, and his mates at the pub had tactfully and miserably wondered aloud if he should, you know, let go and move on with his life. He’d replied, “Over my dead body I will!”

He’d expected a song. He hadn’t expected a knock at the door. It was a mail pony.

At this hour?

He shrugged, gave her a tip – poor thing must had flown a long way to look so haggard and tatty – and opened the letter.

A lot of money spilled out, along with a note from his niece. She wanted to know if she could come over for the summer vacation. And if there was room for another friend.

Uncle Gadda wrote his “YES!” down as soon as he could. His wife had the rest of his life to call upon him, but his niece deserved a full day right now. As many as she wanted. They could talk about all the this-and-that over letters. He’d start the bidding at four weeks.

He just wondered what in Tartarus he should do with all the money. Rich ponies were supposed to act different, weren’t they? They didn’t just buy horsemeal and call it a day.

After a while, he’d stared at the selkie coat and realized something very important.

He could buy a better coat.

In the end, as was the fate of all such things, this all became normal. “Normal” can be defined as that which a friend desperately wants to keep doing after the first two weeks.