The Second Dream

Chapters

Movie, part 1
Movie, part 2
Movie, part 3
Movie, part 4
Tell Your Tale: Nightmare Roommate / Welcome To Mane Melody / The Unboxing of Izzy
Tell Your Tale: Clip Trot / Foal Me Once / It's T.U.E.S. Day
Tell Your Tale: Sunny-Day Dinners
Make Your Mark chapter 1
Tell Your Tale: Maretime Bay Day 2.0 / The Game Is Ahoof / Dumpster Diving
Tell Your Tale: Alicorn Issues / Making a Foal of Me / Neighfever
Tell Your Tale: Queens for a Day / On Your Cutie Marks / Lost in Translation
Make Your Mark: Izzy Does It
Make Your Mark: Growing Pains
Make Your Mark: Portrait of a Princess
Make Your Mark: Ali-Conned
Make Your Mark: The Cutie Mark Mix-Up
Make Your Mark: The Traditional Unicorn Sleep-Over
Make Your Mark: Hoof Done It?
Make Your Mark: Have You Seen This Dragon?
Make Your Mark: Winter Wishday, part 1
Make Your Mark: Winter Wishday, part 2
Tell Your Tale: A Home to Share / Zipp Gets Her Wings / Sisters Take Flight

Movie, part 1

In retrospect, it was probably the bump to the head that did it. There are certain environmental hazards when you’re in the deep wilderness to do a photoshoot for a metal album cover.

At least that’s what I eventually figured out later. I woke up with an ice pack on my face, rough ground at my back, and a splitting headache. My groan caused someone to ask, “Are you okay?”

“Uh, maybe. My head hurts.” I swallowed. “Why am I so hoarse?”

“You’re a pony,” he replied with a chuckle.

“I’m a what? I meant my voice. Also, I’m a what?”

Sounding amused, he said, “We’re going to go scout a new location. One with fewer falling rocks. Be back in a bit.”

I heard a few sets of steps walk away. I lay there for another few seconds as I slowly managed to fight through my head injury and realize I didn’t know why I was outdoors, to whom I had spoken, or what was meant by “pony.”

Rolling on my side, the ice pack fell off. I’m not sure what I expected, but discovering that I actually was a pony sure wasn’t it. It took a couple of seconds for the hooves and hair to register though, because I was also green in color. At least most of me, anyway, long black hair - mane? - got in my face as I rolled further and got up.

I stood there awkwardly on four legs, alone, somewhere in the wilderness. I couldn’t decide if I had gotten here because of the knock on the head, or if I should have been hit harder.

I looked around. “Huh, this place looks like it could be the backdrop for a metal album cover,” I said out loud. There was still something wrong with my voice. Hoarse, yes, but even still it didn’t sound like me. Not that I had any idea what horses sounded like.

A horse - well, pony - for real? I took another look at myself. Yep. Still horse. I even glanced back between my legs, though saw no evidence of the eponymous often-cited through rarely-sighted Horse Cock that certain types of media were seemingly all about.

I heard water flowing somewhere nearby and between my head and my throat a drink sounded really good just then. I headed for the sound, walking awkwardly on three legs and holding the icepack with another. I still wasn’t sure if I had actually been turned into a pony and should be freaking out or if somebody had just put me in a fursuit and I should be freaking out. No need to panic until you know why; you might do all that panicking in one direction only to find out you should have gone another.

There was a small stream with miniature rapids over rocks, just enough to cause the babbling brook sound. Just upstream from the turbulence was a remarkably calm pool of water. I stepped to the edge and looked down.

The face that greeted me had blue eyes with vertical slit pupils and eyeliner practically thick enough to be football facepaint along with matching black lipstick. The mane was wild and windswept and just as midnight black as the makeup.

I was totally my type.

Well, being my own waifu was not exactly the ideal situation here, but let’s be honest, it was hardly the worst thing, either.

Although, the pointy fuzzy ears at either side of my head drew attention back to the fact that I was also a horse. Pony. I could already tell this was going to be hard to remember.

I also realized, continuing to stare at my reflection, that I was not a conventional horse, as if the green color and makeup was not indication enough. Something at my sides shuffled and I realized that I had batlike wings, too.

I spun in a circle, but might as well have been chasing my tail - oh yeah, had one of those too - because everytime I moved so did my back where the wings attached. Fortunately, I realized my neck was a lot more flexible than it had been before and was pretty easily able to get a good look at my wings. With just a little effort, I figured out how to move them. Neat.

Turning back to the stream, I touched the water with a hoof, just to let the ripples assure that I was actually looking at my own reflection and not some other goth chick-slash-horsebat. Confirming that this was actually happening - or at least as much as my own eyes could be believed because the whole situation was pretty overwhelming - I tried out a few experimental wing flaps. That seemed to work out okay, but even with increasing speed and force I couldn’t manage to lift off the ground. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise; there was no way these wings looked big and strong enough to lift me.

I turned to go back to where I’d come from, only to realize I didn’t exactly know what it looked like. We - whoever “we” were - didn’t have a camp or anything. I hadn’t taken a good enough look at the hard ground to recognize a specific part of it if I saw it again. But surely, it couldn’t be too far away.

It was a handful of minutes later, as I kept walking, that I realized I was lost.

This might be a problem, if that guy I had talked to earlier was expecting me back. Not that I would recognize him because I hadn’t seen him. Why did he seem to know me, anyway? That thought distracted me a moment longer from realizing I was only getting more lost. Pausing to look around, the mountains and the forest seemed to recede away downhill and, pausing atop a rise, in the distance I could faintly see a glimmer of water. With no better ideas, I headed that way, going with the hill as the terrain sloped downward.

It turned out to be a lot farther away than I had thought, and by the time I arrived at the edge of the trees it felt like hours had passed and I was sweaty and squinty. The sunshine was taking a bigger toll on me than I expected. At least there was a scenic little seaside town outside the trees and bordering the seashore.

Actually, as I got closer, it didn’t seem all that small. There were stone buildings and billboards. Some of the ads I could see in the distance featured ponies in a variety of colors.

However long I had been walking, I seemed to have gotten better at it, even if I was getting exhausted. I hoped my makeup hadn’t run from the sweat. I paused to take a breather near a faded wooden sign that read Maretime Bay. Huh, horse pun.

I realized that in my self-discovery back at the stream I’d completely forgotten to actually get a drink. Combined with realizing I was nearly exhausted, I made the decision to stop first at the nearest building, which happened to be a lighthouse on a point of land overlooking the ocean outside the city.

I walked up to the front door on aching legs after coming all this way with my stupid wings not working. What was even the point of having them? Well, if they did work, then I would have had to figure out how to fly and that might have gone badly.

I wasn’t sure if I should expect to find someone at the lighthouse in the middle of the day, but the lawn looked nice and there seemed to be plenty of room in the building, so maybe someone lived here. I knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” asked a female voice. I heard steps, maybe hooves, coming closer.

“Uh…” I touched my chin with my hoof. “Good question, actually.”

“How do you not knooohmygosh!” she said, before and during opening the door. I glanced behind me but didn’t see any obvious reason for her surprise. I didn’t look anything like her, but my previous inspection of city billboards seemed to indicate that ponies came in all different colors. Though, I realized she didn’t have wings and her pupils were round. Maybe that was part of it.

We looked maybe the same age, if I had to guess, and I did, because it’s not like I knew how to judge pony ages. Her body was a dusky orange color, with the ends of her legs fading to white like socks, and her mane was streaky purple put into a side braid. I was a little taller than her and a little thinner, not that she was heavyset or anything, not that I knew anything about average pony builds.

“I was hoping I could trouble you for a glass of water,” I said.

She still looked startled and cautious, holding the door and visibly leaning back from me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but...what are you?”

Oh, I knew this one! “I’m a pony.”

“I guess,” she replied, sounding dubious but apparently unable to refute me. Her expression changed to thoughtful. “Wait, come to think of it, are you that pegasus metal singer who got controversial plastic surgery to look more edgy? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

That might explain a few things, actually, except I had no memory of anything of the sort. Was I randomly put in this body? Was I actually that pony she thought I was but suffering from memory loss? A pegasus was a winged horse, right? And so presumably there were horses without wings? What am I saying, most horses that I knew didn’t have wings.

So if she was asking for my name, I had a couple of options. I could tell her what I thought my name was, but maybe that would sound weird. The town was a horse pun, so who knew what they named things around here. I could tell her I didn’t know my name, which might lead to admitting that I was either not the rightful owner of this body or I was and just didn’t remember it. Or I could make something up.

As I was apparently an edgy musician now, I could probably get away with something unique and obviously manufactured. Maybe something mononymous. I searched for inspiration.

When I was stationed in Okinawa, a friend of mine had this totally badass Nissan Skyline GT-R that just so happened to be colored bright green and black and that coloring was the first thing to come to mind in relation to my own body. I’d really liked that car, and wanted it for myself. Anyway, Skyline sounded like a great name.

The homeowner waved a hoof in front of my face. “Um, are you okay? You kind of spaced out there after I asked your name.”.

“My name is Sentra!” I blurted, completely getting the wrong car in the heat of the moment. Wait, no!

“Sentra? I like that,” she said. She shook my hoof. “My name is Sunny Starscout.”

I guess I couldn’t take it back now, though I was still kicking myself for saying the wrong thing.

“Come in,” Sunny said, stepping back from the door.

As I followed her into the house, I noticed she had a tattoo on her butt. That suddenly reminded me that both of us were stark naked and I almost stumbled trying to cover myself up. I only then remembered that none of the other ponies I had seen appeared to be clothed. It still felt weird, though.

The house was indeed very homey, with lots of mementos and kid-craft knicknacks. Sunny adjusted a picture beside the door before leading me across the room to the kitchen. She got me a glass of water and invited me to sit at the kitchen bar. As I drank, she leaned across the counter, studying me. Self-conscious at the attention, I tried to drink the water as daintily as I could.

“There is a pegasus - you are a pegasus, right? - in my house,” she said, leaning back and beginning to pace. “This is so cool! But also bad, very very bad! What have I done letting you in!?”

I was still drinking when she turned to look at me as if expecting an answer. Sunny shook her head and calmed down. “Okay, let me start over. So...what are you doing here?”

“I got lost.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense. Did you come all the way from Zephyr Heights?”

“Say again? I don’t know where that is.”

“How can a pegasus not know where the pegasus capital is?”

Well, I didn’t think I had been a pegasus or even a pony until recently. But I wasn’t sure if I should say that. As big a deal as Sunny was making about the wings, wings that didn’t even work, I had no idea how she would react to me revealing my whole situation.

“I’m actually not from there,” I half-answered.

That only led to more questions. She pulled out a whole notebook filled with them, in fact. Unfortunately, or actually perhaps fortunately, Sunny fired them at me so fast I could hardly answer. “Do pegasi really eat ponies? How do you get your mane to do that? What’s the pegasus government like and how would you compare it to our local political system? Do you like smoothies?”

At least the barrage let me choose the questions that probably wouldn’t get me into trouble. I sure wasn’t going to tell her about the time I had eaten horse sushi in Japan. “Sure, I love smoothies.”

Sunny pulled out a blender and in just moments had two tall smoothies whipped up. Chopped up? Pureed up? Frapped up? I love smoothies, but rarely make my own.

Sunny included a straw, which may not have been the most environmentally friendly thing, but sure beat trying to lift the cup with hooves.

It was a good smoothie. I’m not going to say it was life-changingly magical or anything, there’s only so many ways to blend fruit, but it was definitely a good smoothie. I’d sucked down half the cup before I saw Sunny staring at me.

“What’s wrong with your teeth?” she asked.

“Huh?” The straw was still in my mouth. I realized that I had a handy gap in the front in which to hold the straw, because a quick exploration with my tongue told me that I had fangs, apparently. I pulled my lips back and did a few test bites.

Sunning was leaning away from me again, but gradually relaxed. “Probably just more edginess,” she decided. “You sure are committed to it.”

Sure seemed like it. I hoped the cosmetic surgery, if that was what it was, wasn’t the reason I couldn’t fly.

Her expression turned darker and she put her own smoothie down. “Are you sure you’ve never eaten a pony?”

“I swear that I’ve never eaten a pony, while I myself was a pony.”

She may have been a little troubled about my phrasing, but let it go.

We talked a little more as we finished our smoothies and I told her about myself as much as I could without revealing that I wasn’t even the edgy pony she thought I was. Probably. Though, I may have said too much.

“So let me get this straight, you had hopes and dreams for the future, but had to abandon them all to come here? How are said dreams tied to a geographic place? And then why come here if it meant abandoning them?”

“Still working on that,” I answered truthfully. “Kinda not my choice.”

It was only this conversation that truly drove home to me that I’d already gone off the edge of a figurative dark chasm, with no idea where I was going to land. It hadn’t really struck me until that moment that I was actually in serious trouble. I had a life, before. Presumably, so did whomever this body used to belong. If this was actually happening for real and wasn’t just some hallucination or mental illness, then I had to find some way to fix it and return home. I might have to ask for help, which would mean admitting what was really going on.

“So, yeah, left behind all my hopes and dreams,” I said awkwardly after a long pause in the conversation. “I should probably do something about that.”

“Can I help?” Sunny asked.

“Maybe? I’m kind of caught in a position of not knowing what I don’t know and so I’m not sure how to start knowing what I need to know in order to know what I’m going to do about it.”

“So...maybe a career center?” she suggested.

What was I going to do if I had to stay here long enough to need a job and money? Actually, did I already have some? Not that I could claim it, because I had no idea what this pony’s name was before I showed up. That is, if we were still working on the assumption that I was a human from another world and not a brain tumor or something.

“What are you good at?” Sunny asked, standing up a little taller to look over the counter.

“Well…” I trailed off as I saw where Sunny was looking. “Did I sit in something?”

“What’s your cutie mark mean?”

I followed her eyes. Previously unseen because I hadn’t looked that close at my own behind, I now noticed that there was a black star inside a circle on the side of my hip. I looked closer. No, it was actually a pentagram.

Oh boy, oh jeeze.

“That’s so cool, it’s like Twilight Sparkle,” said Sunny.

I laughed as if she had said something funny, while simultaneously throwing in a little anxiety that was all my own. Was this a symbol of Satan or a whatever-they-called-it symbol that looked similar but meant something entirely different? What was a Twilight Sparkle, some occult ritual? Did this have anything to do with my predicament or was it just because this body was super edgy?

“But unlike Twilight Sparkle I don’t know how magic is supposed to work,” said Sunny, now subdued. “I wish I could help, but maybe we can find someone in town who can. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns have lived apart for so long that there isn’t really anything known about each. So, you teach me about pegasus magic and I’ll help you out with whatever your hopes and dreams turn out to be, deal?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I quickly agreed, maybe a little too quickly. Hopefully I could bluff my way through this; Sunny did say she had never met a pegasus before. Also, unicorns?

“But first, we need to do something to stop ponies from freaking out when they see you.” Sunny got up excitedly. “Time for a makeover!”

“But...nobody knows what I look like anyway, so why do I need to look different?”

“Okay, good point, but you’re at least going to need a jacket and sunglasses.”

She lent them to me. The jacket was a little small, probably due to my longer legs, which made it a little tight in covering my wings. It seemed to be some sort of shiny, silky fabric and was pink with Pretty Princess in sequins on the back. It totally, completely, utterly clashed with my color and my makeup. I reluctantly sucked it up. After all, somebody had to be gap moe here, and it surely wasn’t the outgoing Sunny Starscout.

After I was dressed, we went down the shallow hill and winding path that led into the city proper.

“There was one other thing I wanted you to help me with,” Sunny said as we walked. “I have a thing I need to do today, and you can be my star guest. Now that I met an actual pegasus, you’re living proof that I’m not crazy!”

“Uh, happy to help, but frankly, technicolor ponies are making me question my own sanity.”

“But this changes everything,” she went on, apparently still caught up in her own self-hyping.

“Changes what?”

“Ever since I was a filly, my dad told me stories of the old Equestria, when earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns lived in harmony. The other tribes aren’t evil and out to get us, and you’re proof of that! The Canterlogic annual show is today, and they’re going to show off so many new gadgets to keep us safe, but they’re really selling fear.”

I pointed a hoof at my face. “And you want to use me as an example of someone not to be afraid of. Even you were a little hesitant when we first met.”

“Well...I can ease them into it,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to go up on stage and you come up when I call you.” Changing the subject, she then handed me a few stickers. “Here take these and we’ll put them up while we walk.”

The stickers were pink and purple, heart-shaped, and featured likenesses of unicorns and pegasi. Sunny slapped them up everywhere, on lamp poles, mailboxes, and trashcans, as we walked.

While I did usually enjoy sticking up zaps, doing it right out in public seemed just a little disrespectful, particularly in a city that was otherwise so clean and devoid of graffiti. I was beginning to wonder if Sunny was really the responsible person I needed right now, whatever her enthusiasm about helping me.

We stopped by a smoothie stand and Sunny stepped into the traces of a pullcart that was full of drinks, bringing it along with us. She stopped to deface a poster that warned of pegasus attacks. To distract myself, and not make it look to passerby that I was involved, I turned my attention to the city itself.

Maretime Bay looked well-built, with lots of stonework and sturdy buildings. A strange glass cube sat on a hill above the city, with a huge pair of eyeglasses seeming to function as a sign. I heard a rumble and Sunny and I stepped out of the way of a street trolly.

Sunny kept up a commentary of the city where she’d apparently lived all her life. Or lived next to it, anyway, with the whole lighthouse house thing. She kept talking and I kept listening.

I found myself getting enthralled with it all. For all I knew, I was on a totally different planet and there was so much to see that was utterly, totally new and interesting. I could fill a museum simply with written descriptions of things I had already seen had I not been the kind of person who was bad at writing. Speaking of, visiting a local museum might be nice.

“So who’s that following us?” I asked. A pony with a bright red color had occasionally appeared in my peripheral vision over the last few minutes. He seemed to be trying hard not to, though.

“Oh, that’s Sprout,” Sunny said, waving her hoof.

I was just about to ask, but as we rounded the next corner, I saw we were at the foot of a hill that led up to the huge glass cube of a building.

Just then, a sand-colored pony with a short green mane stepped out from behind a sign. “Aha! There you are, Sunny. Just the pony I was expecting.”

The voice sounded male. Now that I knew that, I saw that he was built subtly differently than Sunny or me. That didn’t immediately reveal the exact difference between male and female ponies; I still had no idea. He could have just been extra-chiseled. He had a symbol of a shield and horseshoe on his hip. I’d noticed just about every pony had some kind of symbol, one of the many fascinating things about this world, but was still reluctant to stare, for fear of being labeled a pervert or something. I wasn’t actually sure that would happen, given how most of the population was totally nude, but you never know. Weirdly, I'd also realized that everyone only had them on the right side. Was that some kind of dress code?

“Morning, Sheriff Hitch,” Sunny said, as if she had been expecting him too.

There were two birds and a crab standing beside Hitch. They seemed to be with him, like some part of a little squad, and I was so intent on them that it took me a fraction of a second to realize Hitch was looking at me when he asked, “Who’s your friend?”

“Sentra,” I replied.

He outstreched a hoof to me. “I haven’t seen you around before. Hitch Trailblazer.” Wink, tongue click, grin.

I felt awkward at the obvious hitting-on. It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, I just wasn’t prepared; it had never happened to me before in this world or the other. I shook hooves with him, trying to figure out how to do so without fingers. Better to just go with instinct and not think too much about it.

He glanced at my hip. “Is that a marshal badge? Are you a fellow cop?”

“Sentra’s just a friend visiting from out of town,” Sunny cut in. “It was good seeing you, Hitch, but we need to be somewhere.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Hitch scolded, putting a hoof in front of Sunny as she tried to walk past him. “I just know you’ve come up with some sort of harebrained scheme to sabotage the Canterlogic show today.”

Instead of replying, Sunny held out a hoof, grinning expectantly.

Hitch sighed deeply, rolled his eyes, and then then two of them launched into some sort of best-friends-secret-handshake-slash-dance. “Up high, down low, hitch it to a post, flip it sunny side up and on a piece of toast!”

I was still trying to figure out if they were frienemies or something else. I was slowly getting the sense that Sunny might be the town crazy person. I should have considered this before talking to somebody that lived in a lighthouse.

Just then, the red pony from earlier came up. “Oh hey, Sprout,” Sunny said.

“That’s Deputy Sprout to you,” he retorted. He glanced at me. “Who’s this? Does Sunny have backup this time?”

“Are you?” Hitch asked me. “Every year she tries to sneak in, and every year I stop her.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Sunny said, soothingly. “I’ll just go into the factory, deliver my smoothies-”

“Uh-uh, you can’t even step a hoof in there,” cut in Sprout. “My mom had you banned!”

I turned to look at Sunny alongside Hitch and Sprout. Just who had I gotten tangled up with? I was suddenly wondering if I would be better off trying to explain my situation to the sheriff. Then again, there had been an awful lot of worrying anti-pegasus and unicorn propaganda posters in the streets.

“Well, Sentra why don’t you go in?” Sunny suggested. “Maybe you’ll see what Canterlogic is really doing to other races.”

“Uh, okay,” I said. Sunny smiled as if being stopped at the front door didn’t perturb her, and turned to walk away.

I walked into the Canterlogic factory with Hitch and Sprout, the latter of whom had taken to pulling the cart in order to complete the smoothie delivery.

“How do you know Sunny?” Hitch asked.

“I literally met her today,” I answered.

“And she lent you a jacket and roped you into this plan?” He shook his head.

“How did you recognize the jacket?” I asked.

“Sunny and I go way back.”

That explained the complicated handshake ritual. Hoofshake? I really didn’t know anymore.

“Do you have a special somepony?” Sprout asked. Hitch shot him a look.

“What’s that?”

“Uh…” Sprout seemed to freeze. Hitch looked like he was trying to contain laughter. Okay, with a moment to figure out things from context, I guess he must have been asking if I was single, so it served him right to get hung up like that. I turned my head away, and he didn’t speak again.

Across the factory floor, I saw there was some kind of stage built. The light started to go down and the music began to come up.

I wasn’t sure if I should be hanging out with Hitch and Sprout or not. If Sunny needed me for something, maybe I should be closer to the stage and further from law enforcement. Then again, I was beginning to grow some doubts about Sunny’s intentions.

“Smoothie?” Hitch said, opening the cart. He had one, too, and seemed to be casually jiving to the music.

“Sure.” Two smoothies today, aren’t we fancy, Sentra? As if wearing sunglasses indoors wasn’t a big clue. I was glad for the cool drink. It was getting a little warm in my borrowed jacket.

The lights focused on stage. “It's the moment you've all been waiting for! As the founder of Canterlogic, she's been keeping us safe and stylish for the last twenty moons. Please, go wild for the one and only Phyllis Cloverleaf!”

A pony I took to be a middle-aged lady walked out on stage. Her glasses matched the big ones on the outside of the building.

Yikes. She turned out to be kind of racist. I had only been a pegasus for less than a day, but felt kind of insulted by half the things that came out of her mouth in the introduction speech alone.

“Mom’s so great,” gushed Sprout.

Yikes.

A couple of models walked the runway, showing off anti-mindreading hats and skyward-looking periscope goggles. There was also a backpack filled with balloons that lifted the pony wearing it and wafted him out a nearby window.

“Yikes,” said Hitch, echoing my own thoughts, “that’s going to be a lot of paperwork.”

Better him than me. Still, I glanced at Hitch with concern. He didn’t stop bobbing his head to the music or smoothie-sipping, so I guess somebody floating away into the sky wasn’t that big of a deal. Who knows, maybe it happened a lot here.

Up on stage, Phyllis was introducing a new round of products. A bunch of high-tech testing gadgets were beginning to deploy. And suddenly, in the middle of it all, Sunny made a dramatic entrance from backstage. She wore a glittery but obviously handcrafted set of wings and horn.

“Earth ponies of Maretime Bay, fear is not your friend!” she shouted, waving a sign. “But the unicorns and pegasi can be!”

Before she could carry on her speech, the already-activated anti-unicorn and pegasus devices went into motion. Iron boots, clamps, mechanical target ponies, green slime catapults, and other things for which I had no name all simultaneously went after her.

“Shut it down!” Hitch ordered immediately, starting forward. Before anyone could, though, Sunny went through the ringer and came flying out of the maelstrom, sliding across the stage in a trail of green slime and mannequin parts, ending up in front of the whole crowd, their eyes on her as she had just ruined the whole show.

I couldn’t stop a snort of amusement, despite the predicament. “I wish I could record this.”

I looked down and realized I was holding a cell phone and had recorded it. “Oh, well that’s convenient.”

I had no idea where I’d gotten the phone. I vaguely recalled the muscle memory of pulling it out, but from where I had no idea. It wasn’t a phone I recognized nor any operating system I had ever seen before, but it had taken a clip of the whole incident.

Flipping through a few of the apps, I saw one that looked a lot like a famous social media site I remembered where people posted vapid things and other people put little hearts on them. The profile connected to this phone had close to a million followers. My eyebrows went up.

I glanced back at the scene in front of me. Sunny was just about to get arrested or something. Looking back down at the phone, I considered the video clip I had just taken.

Sunny had told me earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns lived apart, like hostile foreign nations. If I was somebody famous, with wings, here in an earth pony city taking a video of somebody having a public meltdown while exposing what earth ponies really thought about other races...I might just be sitting on something that had enough spectacle to go viral.

Truth be told, I wasn’t holding out much hope that I would find some way back to my own world. If three tribes of ponies couldn’t even live together, I didn’t think they would have anything to do with some human. Maybe it was the pessimist in me, but I could already perceive the door closing on what used to be my life, taking all my goals, hopes, and dreams with it.

But, well...I’d kind of always wanted to be a social media whore.

It’s good to have a second dream. I posted the video.

Movie, part 2

Sunny actually did not get arrested after her stunt at Canterlogic’s show. I’m not sure what it would have taken, but clearly trespassing wasn’t it. With nothing better to do, I followed along as Hitch escorted her out of the building.

“Do you have any idea how many bylaws you broke in there?” Hitch seethed. In fact, he escorted her all the way down to the shore with me trailing along behind.

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Sunny replied.

“Actually, for once, I can’t, because there’s so many!”

“Um, so, what’s the charge for something overwhelming like that?” I asked.

“I don’t think you’ve ever arrested anypony, Hitch,” Sunny said.

“I like to think I’m good enough at my job and community relations that I don’t have to,” he replied. “Which is why it’s getting very difficult to keep associating with you, Sunny. I’m here to uphold the law and keep everypony safe.”

“Aha, you said ‘everypony,’ that includes pegasi and unicorns,” she said, pointing a hoof at him.

I was beginning to realize that my earlier suspicion that Sunny was the local crazy person might be slightly inaccurate. She wasn’t crazy; my presence alone was enough to confirm her previously-panned theories on other pony races, but she was apparently a notorious troublemaker around Maretime Bay. Though she was politically active and casual about breaking laws, that didn’t make her a terrorist, buuut I was growing more and more concerned that maybe I needed somebody else to help me. The trouble was, as I’d just seen at the Canterlogic show, there might not be anyone willing. At least Sunny had lent me a jacket and sunglasses for disguise.

Ping.

Both Sunny and Hitch looked at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. It was nothing.”

My phone had been blowing up ever since I’d posted the video from the show, with local racists and Sunny both making a fool of themselves. I had already gotten hundreds of the little hearts that showed people liked the video, and more were still coming in. There were probably a lot of comments too, but I hadn’t read them. Never read the comments.

Hitch swung back to Sunny. “All that pony unity stuff was just a bedtime story made up by your dad,” he said, tone trying for conciliatory. “You keep saying we have nothing to fear from other ponies, so then prove it.”

Sunny’s eyes cut in my direction.

“Uh…” I started to say.

Somebody screamed. “Unicorn attack!”

That got my attention. I wasn’t sure why everybody within sight was suddenly running. The unicorn ambling down the street was lavender in color with a long, wavy blue mane, and she seemed totally unperturbed.

I hopped up atop the railing beside the ocean, for a better vantage for filming. There was already a stampede of ponies that had run over Sunny, leaving her sprawled on the pavement.

I tried to keep myself from snorting in amusement, to keep it out of the video. Running from a pastel unicorn, really. Sunny managed to get up, only just now turning to see what everyone was so afraid of.

“Hi, new friend! My name’s Izzy!” the unicorn said, and Sunny fell over again, this time in shock, somehow, despite meeting me earlier in the day. Maybe she was just allergic to other extroverts.

The Splat-a-pult and Unicorn Traps I’d seen at the Canterlogic show earlier started to emerge from the factory atop the hill, apparently already ready for deployment. That was fast.

Sunny and the unicorn, Izzy, were directly in the path and blobs of green slime started to rain down all around. It was good TV, but I realized I should probably do something to help. I was kind of fighting for my rights, too, even if nobody knew I had wings. Besides, maybe my apparent army of online followers wanted to see in-person combat footage.

“Get down behind the trolly!” I ordered, pointing to where it had been abandoned in the middle of the street after everyone around had run from Izzy’s arrival.

The globs of green goo began to thwap into the other side of the trolly as the three of us took cover. Good thing they had no real kinetic energy behind them or we might have been in trouble. I chanced a glance out and just barely ducked getting slimed. I’d never really wanted to go on that Nickelodeon show, and even less now.

“This is a great place to hide!” Izzy said. I looked at her. “For hide and seek,” she clarified not at all. “Earth ponies are serious about games.”

“They’re not playing!” Sunny countered. “They’re terrified!”

“Oh, no! Of what?”

“You! You’re a unicorn! Earth ponies hate unicorns!”

“Where are we going?” I asked Sunny, interrupting them.

“Uh...”

“We can’t stay here or they’ll eventually flank us,” I pressed. "Come on, you know the area."

“Home,” she decided.

“Alright, let’s get this thing moving and use it as mobile cover,” I said, pointing down the tracks back towards the lighthouse house. It didn’t go all the way there, but would keep the slime off us to the edge of town. I supposed we would just have to run after that.

The trolly controls didn’t look all that complicated. I leaned inside the cabin and pressed the button marked “go.”

The thing didn’t move all that fast, but we kept up a brisk trot beside it and it blocked all the slime. Worked like a charm, which was good because it was clear Sunny and Izzy didn’t have any idea about basic use of cover or squad tactics.

As we trotted, we had to avoid the unicorn traps set into the street, but they were so obvious that even a blind person would have noticed them with their cane. Izzy skipped. Although, she probably didn’t know what they were.

Coming to the edge of town, we broke away from the trolly line and hustled for the lighthouse. I didn’t think it was going to be a good defensive position, owing to the fact that it was a dead end on the peninsula and there were only three of us.

Wait, why was I with them again? Sunny might have been a terrorist and Izzy was a wanted person. Granted, now that I had a moment to consider it, Izzy was arguably the more innocent of the two, but that was overshadowed by the town’s inherent racism against her.

Huh, weird looking at this from such an angle.

Running back to Sunny’s house left me winded and sweaty, despite my longer legs than the other two. I really needed to get this jacket off. At least my makeup did actually seem to function pretty well as eye black, assuming it wasn’t going to run. Just to check, though, as soon as we were inside I excused myself to the restroom, leaving Sunny and Izzy talking in the kitchen.

I’d seen my reflection in water and in store windows of Maretime Bay, but this was my first time getting a good look up close in an actual mirror.

My first impression was fuzzy. I hadn’t been able to see many individual hairs before that I now could with this level of detail. It wasn’t like I was a puffball or anything, but I could also tell it was going to take a lot of work to stay this trim, sleek, and shiny.

Aside from that, yeah, my makeup was ruined and I was going to have to figure out how to freshen up. Hunting through the drawers and cabinets, I found some makeup in the bathroom. Sunny didn’t seem to use it, so everything was practically untouched. I used up most of the black.

When everything was touched up, I paused to take a selfie. I was practically obligated to. Post.

I was in the process of taking the borrowed jacket off when I came back into the kitchen. Sunny was running through with Izzy a similar list of questions she’d asked me. I caught “Do unicorns actually take your hooves and grind them into midnight snacks?”

“No,” Izzy replied. “We’re not so much into cannibalism. But I heard pegasi eat their own young.”

She turned to look at me, just as my jacket came off revealing my wings. Smiling awkwardly and showing my teeth was in hindsight probably not my best move right then.

“Sentra says she’s never eaten a pony,” Sunny quickly jumped in.

“I can’t fly, either,” I added, hoping to help assuage Izzy.

“Wait, you can’t fly!?” Sunny exclaimed. “How did that not come up in conversation earlier?” She shook her head. “Oh right, we couldn’t reveal to anypony else that you were a pegasus.”

Sunny turned to Izzy. “And if we’re going to keep you safe, can I ask what kind of magic you can do?” She picked up a can of beans from the counter. “Can you make this float?”

“No, but I can do this!” said Izzy. She tossed the can in the air and tossed her head to hit the can repeatedly with her horn, keeping it in the air. Dink dink dink dink. In just a moment, the sharp point on the horn had neatly opened the top of the can and the beans splatted to the floor. “Tadaaa!”

“Wait, you don’t have any magic?” Sunny asked, crestfallen. “A pegasus who can’t fly and a unicorn who can’t do magic…”

“It’s not like earth ponies could do those things, so it’s like we’re even, right?” I offered. “Here, bring it in, Loser Club selfie!”

I threw my hooves around the two of them to pull them in close and held up my phone to take the picture. I’d accidentally gotten the spilled can of beans in the background, but whatever.

I’d done a surprisingly decent job on my makeup touchup, not to mention it was apparently unheard of to see all three races in one place, so this picture was going straight to the internet. They were loving my content so far.

Just then, a voice through a megaphone outside demanded, “Sunny Starscout, Sentra, I know you’re in there with that unicorn! Come out with your hooves up and surrender!”

“This is bad,” Sunny worried. “How sneaky are you?”

“Uh, medium sneaky?” Izzy said.

“They still don’t know I’m a pegasus, so I guess I’d put my sneakiness at high,” I replied.

Sunny nodded. “I can work with that. Okay, I’ll distract them.”

“Oh, pffft, relax, I’ll talk to them,” said Izzy, opening the door despite Sunny’s protest.

Outside, Sheriff Hitch and Deputy Sprout had come to face us down, which seemed like a remarkably small posse to me. Both in the wild west sense and in the party sense. If I was going to be internet-famous, I should probably know these things.

“Hi guys,” said Izzy. “First of all, Sentra’s a pegasus. Isn’t that cool?”

“Maybe I’m medium-high sneakiness now,” I muttered.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Izzy went on.

“Aah! She’s already reading our minds!” Sprout shouted. “Quick, before she fries our brains!” He ran away down the hill back towards town, Hitch turning to look after him in exasperation.

“Now would be a good time to move,” I pointed out. Sunny evidently agreed with me and we dashed out the door, collected Izzy, and vanished into the landscaping and brush around the lighthouse house while Hitch’s back was still turned. It wasn’t much of a ploy, but did give us at least a few extra seconds’ lead. I wasn’t sure if Hitch was going to come after us, now even more outnumbered, or if he would cut his losses.

After a few minutes of running, it seemed like it might be the latter. We’d long passed the Leaving Maretime Bay sign. The three of us slowed down, with no indication of pursuit in our backtrail.

“I can’t believe this,” Sunny said, breathing hard after running. “I am on the run - literally - with a unicorn who has no magic and a pegasus who can’t fly. What are we going to do?”

It seemed like a weird time for a musical montage, but Izzy launched into one anyway. Sunny even picked up a few lines here and there. The two of them seemed to enjoy it, and I admit it did help lift the mood. We also covered quite a bit of ground and were pretty far outside Maretime Bay now.

“You know, you can sing along too,” Izzy said to me when they were finished.

“I seem to have a voice that’s better suited for screaming.”

“Yeah, you are a little hoarse.”

I clicked my tongue, winked, and pointed a hoof at her. “I’m a pony.”

Sunny snorted. Izzy said, “You sure are. We all are. Ponies, united. You know, meeting you two has been really great for me. You’re both a lot nicer than all the stories I had heard about earth ponies and pegasi.”

“In the meantime, we still don’t have a plan,” Sunny said.

“Well, we’d have to figure out how to smuggle you two in, but they seem to like me in pegasus territory,” I offered.

“We are kind of going that direction already,” Sunny allowed.

I hoped her sense of direction was better than mine, because if I’d gotten lost wandering away from where I’d woken up in the forest, I sure was lost now. We'd ended up in some kind of foggy canyon.

“We should be careful going there,” said Izzy continuing the conversation. “You do know pegasi can steal your luminescence, right?”

“Say again? What’s luminescence?” I asked.

“You know, like, your sparkle?” said Izzy. To Sunny, she said, “Yours is lavender and the happier you are, the brighter it shines.” She turned to me. “Yours is...wow, I’ve never seen that before.”

I was just about to ask what she meant when there was movement in the fog behind us. Whatever it was looked about our size and was fast enough to whoosh as it went by. A couple of rocks tumbled down the canyon walls.

“Hurry!” Sunny shouted, breaking into a run. Still trusting that she probably knew where we were going, Izzy and I followed her, only for her to lead us into a dead end. It was a box canyon. I should have anticipated this, from all my years of playing conveniently hemmed-in video game levels.

Sunny headbutted me in the hindquarters and I stumbled to the wall. It was sloped a little, not totally vertical like I had originally thought, and between an unthinking scramble and unconscious wing flaps for help, I actually managed to make it to the top. Up here, I was suddenly above the fog and found myself on a sunny, rocky mountainside. I sat there for a moment, quietly thankful it hadn't been Izzy headbutting me in the hindquarters.

Speaking of, Izzy made it up next, followed closely by Sunny. At the last moment, Sunny slipped, though, only to catch hold of Izzy’s horn. From the beans incident, I already knew unicorn horns were pretty tough, but was still surprised to see Izzy lift Sunny’s entire body weight with it, dragging her up to the level ground atop the canyon.

The three of us stood there breathing hard for a second before I pointed out, “If we were able to climb up here, whatever that was probably can, too.”

The other two immediately got up to continue running, but just then a pegasus soared up out of the fog and landed atop a nearby rock. They were pure white with fuchsia and teal feathers and a similarly-colored forward mohawk.

“Whoa! A unicorn and an Earth pony? Together?!” she gasped. At least I was pretty sure it was a mare despite the relatively deep voice. You might say I was an expert on that.

“They’re with me,” I said, subtly lifting my wings.

“Well, it looks like your day’s been pretty interesting,” she replied.

“You have no idea.”

There was the sound of someone approaching and the other pegasus suddenly dove off the edge of the cliff into the fog. “Don’t tell them you saw me!”

“There’s no way we cooooould!” Izzy said, voice trailing off as if making it sound like she herself was falling off a cliff would help the departing pony hear it. “We don’t even know your naaaaame!”

Wondering from whom the pegasus could have been running, I turned towards the approaching steps to see two more pegasi, though these were wearing metal armor. One of them yelped in shock at the sight of us.

“Get it together!” his partner demanded.

“They’re with me,” I said again.

“Are you some kind of traitor!?”

“No.” I very carefully did not say but. “I just happened to meet them today.”

“Sentra’s too weird to be anything but a casual acquaintance,” said Izzy. She gave me a deliberate wink.

That earned her a tennisballing from the armored ponies. At least it was just the “stick a tennis ball on her horn” kind and not “beat her with a tube sock filled with tennis balls” kind.

“You’re coming with us,” said one of them, although he kind of indicated the group of us.

“Hang on a sec,” I said. “Are you cops or soldiers or what?”

“Uh…” The two armored pegasi traded glances. “Soldiers, I think. Zephyr Heights Royal Guards.”

“Okay, so this is a capturing, not an arrest.” I nodded. Good to know where I stand.

“Not you,” he said. “You’re a pegasus. I think.”

“‘A pegasus. I think,’“ I said, typing it into my phone. “Ha.” I pressed post.

Despite the capturing, the soldiers did little more than tennisball Izzy. Sunny wasn’t restrained at all. Maybe they should have done something with her mouth, because she kept up the stream of questions she’d asked me earlier. I felt slightly offended, as if I wasn’t a good enough pegasus for her.

I couldn’t stay mad, though. Getting captured - or maybe not really in my case - sure made it a lot easier to not only find Zephyr Heights but to get an escort right into the city.

I have to admit, I was impressed with the place. It was an actual city. Not that Maretime Bay wasn’t holding its own with its small-town feel, but this place was glittering in every way. There might have been some actual gold in the spires. There were modern jumbotrons broadcasting video everywhere. People didn’t look at me weird for pulling out out a phone.

I took all this in from a glass elevator as the guards escorted the three of us into the castle. I was too busy looking at the city and my phone to realize where we were going - or that there even was a castle - until we were already there.

“Does anybody know what a Pippsqueak is?” I asked, looking up from my phone for the first time in a few minutes. “That’s not how you spell it.”

I realized we were in some kind of throne room and a pink pony with fluffy wings was glaring daggers at me from across the room. And oh hey, there was the other pegasus we encountered in the mountains earlier. The two of them flanked an older mare, who had a big bejeweled crown.

“Your Highness, we found these intruders in our territory,” said one of the guards.

The crowned pony known as Your Highness - a queen perhaps? - gasped. “Is this an attack?! On the night of our royal celebration?!” She demanded, “Why are you here?! Who sent you?!” And to the guards, “Nopony must know they’re here!”

“It’s too late,” the pink fluffy pony said, sourly. “She already told everypony.” She gestured at me, phone in hoof.

“Now Pipp, don’t drag your rivalry into this,” the queen said.

Rivalry?

“Um, excuse me, Majesty?” Sunny broke in. “We only want to ask you a few questions about magic.”

“Guards! Please escort these ponies to the dungeon,” the queen ordered without even pretending to listen to Sunny.

The guards took away Sunny and Izzy, leaving me standing there. Apparently they’d decided I wasn’t a threat, or maybe it was just oversight, which I was beginning to realize might be the norm. Frankly, taking an earth pony and a unicorn, possibly with unknown powers, directly to see the head of state seemed remarkably poorly reasoned.

The queen departed, off to do whatever it was that royalty did.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here,” said the pink fluffy pony, Pipp, if my context clues were correct. She hopped off her elevated throne and approached, to get in my face. “You think you’re so popular,” she said, waving her own phone for emphasis.

“I don’t even know who you are,” I replied. The way her face contorted in rage, apparently that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Or maybe the right thing.

I glanced over at the other pegasus in the room, who I wondered might also be some kind of royalty, based on her position opposite Pipp from the queen. It was the white mare with the mohawk we’d met earlier. “Hey. ‘Sup.” I gave her an upwards nod. She returned it.

If anything, that only seemed to make Pipp angrier. Choosing that moment to depart and thus deny her the opportunity to get the last word in, I turned around to walk out of the throne room.

I had no idea where I was going, but the opportunity to explore a castle was too good to pass up, and it would provide decent material to post. Not of the attention-grabbing quality I had put up before, but content is content.

While I was thinking about it, I should also probably see about Sunny and Izzy. The pegasi, like everyone else I’d met so far, seemed remarkably racist but with little actual force. In fact, Zephyr Heights seemed more lax than Maretime Bay, so the two of them would probably be okay. Hmm, now where did they keep the dungeon around here?

There was a sign. Dungeon/Spa -> Well that was convenient. I followed the arrow.

I knew I was getting close when I saw a few extremely well-groomed guards. So far, me being a pegasus, nobody had given me any trouble around the castle, but I got the feeling that they wouldn’t just let me into the dungeon to rescue prisoners.

So when I went up to the guards, I had a bluff ready. “I’m here to question the earth pony and the unicorn that were just brought in. I’ll get them to spill the beans and reveal their secrets.”

“Who are you?” one of them asked.

I turned slightly to show off the star on my hip. “I’m a marshal.”

“Marshal who?”

“...Law.”

He nodded and stepped back. “Go right ahead, ma’am.”

I couldn’t believe it worked. As I headed for the dungeon, part of me was incredibly torn. I wished I had covertly livestreamed that, because it would have been amazing, but I also knew that it would have blown my cover and I wouldn’t have been able to get away with it again.

Glancing at my phone as I walked, I saw a curious tag #spillthebeans and wondered what it could be about.

Movie, part 3

Skipping past the guards on my way down the hall, I found the Dungeon/Spa was surprisingly well balanced. Sure it had bars, but they were gilded and the whole place looked more like a resort than a jail. It even had a crystal chandelier and a fountain. Sunny and Izzy were relaxing in massage chairs when I arrived. There was even catering, although it looked like they had gone for variety. Bizarrely, there were even beans. Everything had been placed near the bars, presumably so the guards wouldn’t have to go too far into the cell.

As I approached, just then from the other direction came the white pegasus we’d seen earlier. She paused, looking at me warily, but decided that I was probably here to see the prisoners too.

“Princess? Sentra?” Sunny said, noticing us.

“Just call me Zipp,” the princess replied.

The rest of us introduced ourselves. Zipp revealed why she had visited. “I really need to ask you something important.” She lowered her voice. “About magic.”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Sunny. “Maybe you can tell us how yours works? Izzy has no idea how the unicorns lost theirs, so we thought maybe-”

“Wait, lost theirs?” said Zipp. “As in no magic? Well, that changes things. Listen, I might have some information that could help, but first, you need to tell me about this.” She revealed Sunny’s journal, which had been confiscated by the guards earlier.

“Thank you!” Sunny gasped. “I never thought I’d see it again.”

“Yeah, I can be pretty sneaky when I want to be,” Zipp replied.

“Nice, I'm only medium sneaky,” said Izzy.

I lifted a hoof. “Medium-rare. Wait, I mean-”

Just then, we were interrupted by an electronic fanfare of trumpets. I looked up to see two guards holding up cell phones. Vanity ringtones? What was this, 2005?

They rolled out a literal red carpet for Pipp, who despite no resemblance at all, I figured must be Zipp’s sister and fellow princess.

“What are you doing here?” she said to Zipp. “Mom said to stay away.”

“Right, then why are you here?” Zipp retorted.

Pipp scoffed. “For the content.”

“Way ahead of you,” I said.

Pipp’s lip curled at the sight of me, but she shook her head. “No matter. It’s not a trend unless I set it.”

She scooped some beans from between the bars and dropped the spoonful in a plop on the floor, then stepping forward to take a selfie.

“Uh...what are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t you know? I’m spilling the beans. It’s only the latest thing.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh my God, I can’t believe-” I broke out laughing, and pulled out my phone, swiping to the gallery. “Oh, don’t you know? I invented it.”

I showed her the picture of Sunny, Izzy, and I back at Sunny’s house, beans on the floor in the background.

Pipp scoffed. “You can’t own anything on social media, didn’t you know that? You invented it? I invented it. Now if you’ll excuse me, dress rehearsals are starting and some of us are actually important ponies.” She walked away, already beginning to do vocal warmups.

“So, about that journal,” said Zipp, pointing to the book she had given back to Sunny. “I have to show you something.” She scanned her hoof on a nearby touchpad and the cell bars released.

“Are you coming, Sentra?” Sunny asked as she and the other two began to sneak away.

I hesitated. I kind of wanted to go cause a scene with Pipp, just because, but...well, that would have been cringey and weird and maybe I had been getting a little too close to the metaphorical line that shouldn’t be crossed and it would be good to take some time and cool off. It’s hard to be this congenial all the time. Plus, whatever Zipp had to show us might be pretty cool.

She led us through the castle, mostly downwards. After a few twists and turns and entries through doors that didn’t look anything more than utility closets, Zipp bent down to open a grate and we dropped down through the hole to an elevator suspended with ropes over a huge open room.

I looked around as Zipp lowered us down. There was a huge board on the wall with arrival and departure information, like an airport or something. Looking around and seeing various large swaths of fabric hanging around the walls, it took me a couple of seconds to put it together. “An airship station?”

“Something like that,” Zipp said. “I’m pretty sure it was for when Earth ponies and unicorns used to visit Zephyr Heights. It’s like everypony just... forgot.”

“This is proof!” Sunny burst out excitedly. “All pony kinds did used to be friends!”

Grammar aside, that really put things into perspective. Not that I hadn’t seen other evidence that Sunny was on the right track, but this was something tangible. There was even a listing for departures to Maretime Bay on the big board.

So maybe Sunny wasn’t crazy. But it did kind of put literally everyone else in a bad light for simply refusing to believe what was apparently documented history. I could sort of understand why Sunny was starting to turn more guerilla.

In examining the room, Sunny uncovered an old poster, of some kind of uniformed pegasi flying. A flying show of some kind? It reminded me of the Blue Angels, and I made a mental note to add something in the notes on the video when I posted it.

Of course I was filming all this. Urban exploration is awesome.

“It must be really weird being the only pegasi that can fly,” Sunny said to Zipp.

“The truth is we can’t fly either,” Zipp admitted. “We’ve been faking it.”

The rest of us gasped. Me, happily, because it meant that I wasn’t a cripple. You should never aspire to be normal, but sometimes having body parts that work right is pretty cool.

Well, okay, not that I was any better off than I had been before, but finding out that I wasn’t abnormal for being flightless was a small consolation.

So, Zipp had just admitted that the royals flying had been all a sham. She sighed. “I’m just so tired of living that ridiculous lie. That’s why I come down here – to get away from all of that. And, well...to do this.”

Zipp activated an electrical panel and a large fan set into the floor began to turn. Maybe it had once been used to launch the airships that used to operate here, but now, Zipp jumped into the airstream, spreading her wings, and the stream of moving air carried her up towards the ceiling.

Sunny and Izzy both let out noises of delighted surprise. I jumped up, waving a hoof. “Oh, oh! Me next!”

I had never experienced one of those parachute simulator things back on Earth, but it wasn’t difficult to just tumble in midair. With a couple of minutes to figure things out, I even managed to figure out controllability with wings.

“You’ve got a larger surface area, but I’m not really sure what to calculate about the skin wings,” Zipp said making a few notes on a nearby chalkboard that was already covered in figures. “But I’m going to have to shut the fan off, now, okay? There was something else we needed to discuss.”

Reluctantly, I glided down and joined the others. Zipp led us over to a towering stained glass window. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

“Oh my stars,” Sunny whispered, holding up her journal to compare the six-pointed star on the cover with a similar design in the glass.

I could feel her slipping into her manic-obsessive mode again. That didn’t seem healthy, but it wasn’t like I was a psychiatrist or something.

“That's the Pegasus Crystal,” Zipp said, pointing to a wing-shaped part of the stained glass. “It’s part of my mom’s crown.”

Sunny quickly determined that there was also a Unicorn Crystal. “Look! They fit together!”

The Unicorn Crystal kind of looked like a coffin to me. I thought that the fit, with the UC nestled with the PC, was tenuous at best. On the other hand, I supposed if anyone would know, it would be Sunny.

“So... what are you saying?” Zipp asked. I would also like to know.

“Maybe the pegasi and the unicorns lost their magic because the crystals were separated.”

“What about the earth ponies?” I said.

“What about us?” Sunny asked.

“I mean, three pony races, why only two crystals? Or...do earth ponies not have magic?”

“I...I never really thought about it,” Sunny admitted. “I mean, we wouldn’t be able to fly or cast spells anyway, so I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we just focus on the two crystals we know about,” suggested Izzy, showing remarkable proactivity for once. “If you're looking for crystals, we’ve got, like, a gazillion of them back in Bridlewood.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go next,” Sunny resolved. She turned to Zipp. “After we get the Pegasus Crystal from your mom, of course.”

At least nobody suggested just asking Queen Haven for it. I mean, maybe we should have - never know when you’ll get lucky - but I was willing to bet it would have been in vain.

“So are these guards actually worth anything, or…?” I asked. “Not that I’m suggesting the four of us would do very well making a frontal assault, but if this goes pear-shaped, what are we up against?”

“Well, their only defense against unicorns is tennis balls,” Izzy pointed out. “I mean, okay, it worked on me, but that’s something.”

“Let’s not start a fight,” Zipp said.

“I agree. It would be easier for you to just snatch it.”

She grimaced. “But my mom doesn’t ever take off her crown. Like, ever.” She paused. “I got it! Pipp’s performing at tonight’s royal celebration. All eyes will be on her, especially my mom’s. She’ll be distracted. So we just need to swap the real crown with a fake.”

“Oooh, I can craft a decoy!” Izzy said. “But I will need a box of macaroni, a tube of glue, fourteen gooey bunnies, and three jelly beans. Oh, and glitter. Lots of glitter.”

“I’ll leave you to that,” I said, taking a step back. “Don’t get that herpes anywhere near me.”

“Oh, would it ruin the edgy image you have, if you sparkled a little?” Sunny said, rolling her eyes.

“Yes.”

“I actually have something you can do for me,” said Zipp, pulling me aside. “I heard you’re a musician, right? Can you do something to make Pipp’s performance extra distracting so all eyes will be elsewhere?”

“Uh...I don’t even know anything about what she’s going to perform and already all I can say is that yes, I can be distracting, but I sense that it might not be exactly what you meant.”

Zipp nodded. “Okay, you sound intelligent enough to know that you might not know everything; that’s a good sign. I’m going to trust you, okay?”

“Ooookay, thanks, I guess, I don’t really trust myself, but I’ll do my best.”

I headed for the throne room, where apparently the concert would be taking place. Seemed like a poor place for it; the stone surfaces probably had horrible acoustics, but what do I know. If Pipp and the royal family were fakers at flying, maybe they also lip-synced.

The ponies that seemed to be arriving for Pipp’s concert did not seem to be the type who would like whatever kind of music it was that I supposedly sang. Most of them didn’t seem to recognize me as a celebrity, but with the looks I was getting, apparently they thought I was somebody. I wasn’t stopped by security.

Not when I wandered backstage, either. I had a look over the shoulder of the ponies running the technical side. I thought I recognized obvious audio equipment, and also something that might have been related to the artificial flying system.

Thinking quickly, I turned to the sound guy and said, “Hey, where do I get a microphone?”

The sound guy looked up. “Who are you?”

“I’m here to duet with the princess.” I showed off the pink Pretty Princess jacket that Sunny had lent me.

“Uh...nobody told me Princess Pipp changed the plans.”

“Well, you know Princess Pipp. She wouldn’t.”

“Don’t I know it.” He rolled his eyes and handed me a microphone.

I turned and took a selfie with the equipment in the background and posted it. Backstage getting ready to perform at the castle! #gonnabelitfam

I heard the music start and hurried back through the curtain. Pipp made her grand entrance, hanging on invisible wires from the ceiling, and launched into a bouncy pop song.

Glowin' up, kind of love
Dip and slide, through the cut
Glowin' up, kind of love
We say "hi", you say "what?"

I had no idea when I would be able to come in, and was kind of hoping I actually wouldn’t, but when the spotlight suddenly switched to me I was totally unprepared.

“Uh…”

I wonder if you know
How they live in Tokyo
If you’ve seen it then you mean it
and you know you have to go

It was the best I could do off the top of my head, it only vaguely fit the music, and I was still hoarse as a horse.

The look on Pipp’s face was amusing, though, and based on the way she didn’t skip a beat on the lyrics, maybe they were lipsynced after all.

The crowd didn’t seem to know what to make of it, but the song went on and so they kept dancing, albeit wearing confused looks.

That wasn’t half as bad as a sudden crash backstage and an abrupt stop to the music. The spotlight spun wildly and came to rest on none other than Hitch Trailblazer, who wore cardboard wings and a fake mustache.

He probably adapted better than I did, though, and immediately threw in his own dance moves.

Throwin' up, find a glove
Fly around, up above
Doin' stuff that I love
You're like, "Why?", I'm like, "What?"

Across the room, I saw Zipp snatch her mom’s crown, accompanied by Sunny and Izzy. A little white puffball of a dog was after them. I vaguely recalled it as belonging to the queen. Also - did that dog have wings? What was with this place?

Hitch apparently spotted them, too. “Freeze!”

“It’s the prisoners!” someone shouted.

Apparently literally everyone saw them, too.

In trying to get clear of the spreading commotion, Pipp got tangled up in the apparent stage wires that had helped her appear to fly

Despite everything else going on, the audience also noticed that one. “She’s a fake!”

I clicked the picture and hammered the post button, and then quickly ran after Zipp, Sunny, and Izzy.

I quickly realized that I was running alongside Hitch headed in the same direction.

“You’re a pegasus!?” he gasped.

“Yes, and as a pegasus I’m offended by your disguise,” I said.

That kept him tongue-tied until we caught up with the others in a dark alley, apparently losing any pursuit in the process.

“Hitch, what are you even doing here?” Sunny asked as we circled up and started to catch our breath.

Hitch approached her, noticeably distancing himself from the rest of us. “Arresting you. And saving you. A little of both, actually. You’re welcome!”

“Wait, hold up,” I said. Everyone looked at me. I pointed to a small creature on the ground near Hitch’s hoof. “Does that mouse have wings!? What’s the deal with that? What’s the deal with this whole city?”

“But anyway, back on topic,” I said, still controlling the conversation. “Arrest, Hitch? I’m pretty sure you’re out of your jurisdiction.” For the second time that day, I subtly turned to show my hip and said, “I would know, I’m a marshal.”

“You’re...wait, what? But I’m not a pegasus, so you wouldn’t have any jurisdiction over me.”

“You were trying to exercise your jurisdiction over Izzy when she came to Maretime Bay,” I pointed out.

“Can we talk about something besides the size of your jurisdictions?” said Sunny.

“Something something my ‘diction is bigger?” I tried.

“If anything, Zipp’s the one with the most authority,” said Izzy. “Her mom’s the queen.”

Just then, a nearby public jumbotron cut to breaking news. This just in - Zephyr Heights is in turmoil tonight after the shocking revelation that the royals cannot fly. Queen Haven has been arrested for being a phony pony full of baloney.

“Wow, Sunny, I bet you didn’t expect to tumble a monarchy this week. Pretty good adventure, if I do say so myself.”

“What are you talking about? This is terrible!” Sunny protested. “How are we supposed to get the three tribes to work together if there’s this much turmoil?”

“Uh...anypony care to explain?” Hitch asked, gesturing vaguely at, well, everything.

“We had to get the crystal, and-” Sunny pulled up short and then began to frantically search the pockets of her bag. “Oh, no, no, no, no! It’s not here!”

“On the bright side, we had so much fun losing it,” said Izzy. “Sentra’s at least right about that: it’s been a pretty good adventure.”

“We have to go back for the crystal!” Sunny fretted.

“It could be anywhere,” Zipp reminded her.

Just then, Pipp stumbled into our midst. She menaced us with the pegasus crystal as much as one could with a rock and demanded, “Somepony seriously needs to explain why this thing was so important that you had to ruin my whole show over it!”

The news report was still going on in the background. A warrant is out for the arrest of the princesses.

“What are they actually charging you with?” I asked. I asked Zipp, specifically.

“Being a phony pony full of baloney,” she sighed.

“Wait, this country actually punishes politicians for lying? That’s awesome!”

Zipp, and especially Pipp, did not look like they thought it was awesome.

“C-come on,” said Sunny. “If we’re going to get started fixing any of this, we need to go find the unicorn crystal, On to Bridlewood.”

Sure, I was down to keep going. There had been no consequences whatsoever to me.

Movie, part 4

I held my phone up as we walked, livestreaming. “That was crazy! I haven’t seen a dramatic exit like that since-well, not to kiss and tell but what happens in Cali stays in Cali, amiright? I can’t believe the government actually arrests heads of state for lying. Do I have any lawyers following me? Drop a comment down below.”

Never read the comments, not even if you ask people to leave them.

“I’m gonna keep you guys updated, though. You haven’t seen the last of this drama, not when I’m traveling with two earth ponies, a unicorn, and a pair of fugitive princesses. If you’ve got a better word for fugitive that begins with P so I can keep the alliterative triple P action going, leave a comment.

“Triple P kind of reminds me of that one time in Twentynine Palms, but, well, what happens in Cali stays in Cali. Good night! I love you!”

I signed off. My profile had been going nuts as the sole source of news related to Zipp and Pipp while they were on the run. It took some effort on my part to keep up the high energy.

The group of us made good time leaving Zephyr Heights. Sunny was navigating, and I took the leap of trusting she knew where she was going. It’s not like I knew any better.

I was hanging at the back of the group. Hitch and Pipp were nearby, probably just due to coincidence. After I put the phone away, Hitch gave me an irritable look. “I don’t know half of what you just said. Actually, probably more than that.”

“LOL, yeah, Cali knows how to party.” I thought pronouncing LOL as a word sounded Cali enough.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I was going so hard on that angle. Fake it ‘till you make it. Still, I could have hinted I was from a lot of places. I’d certainly been a lot of places.

Hitch shook his head. “What am I even doing here? Hoofing it across daisy fields, looking for a magical crystal that doesn’t even exist!”

“It was supposed to be my best show ever,” Pipp moaned. “And now it’s all over. I’m a criminal! And it's all because of…”

They both looked in my direction. “You!”

“Come on, Hitch,” I said. “Man to man, you have to admit that nobody forced you to walk to an entirely different country after somebody who didn’t even commit a crime.”

I turned to Pipp. “And Princess, just between us girls, we both know that you’d have stabbed me in the back for exactly the same reasons.”

They both glared daggers at me but didn’t retort, which was how I knew I was right.

I turned my head back forwards to catch Izzy looking back at me. “I think this whole position of authority thing you have going on is leading to an unhealthy power dynamic.”

“Explain how.”

“Well, Hitch dropped his badge on the ground a few hours ago, and he’s been much less oppressive since then.”

“Hours?” Hitch yelped, checking himself to discover that his badge was indeed missing.

“Guess this town really was only big enough for one of us,” I chuckled.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Izzy said.

Maybe she had a point. I’d invented the whole marshal thing as a temporary disguise, but maybe I was taking it a little too far. Somebody might call me on it eventually, so maybe I should back off a little.

Speaking of backing off, we came to a ravine blocking our path. There was nothing but two sheer cliffs with a river down below.

“What are we gonna do?” Sunny wondered aloud.

“Any ideas, Zipp?” Pipp asked. Deferring to Zipp might have been the smartest thing I’d ever seen Pipp say. Maybe she’d taken a hard look at her life and decided that if she didn’t want to end up making toilet wine in a cell somewhere, she should start doing a little thinking of her own, which for Pipp meant deferring to Zipp.

However, Zipp shot her sister a look. “Getting over a ravine? You know what would be great right now? Let me think. Maybe something like...the ability to fly!”

“You know what would be even better? Not being stuck in the middle of nowhere as outcasts from our own kingdom!”

It made me wonder. If Zephyr Heights was a kingdom, then there was surely a king. Or had been. That might explain why I hadn’t seen anyone but the queen around. I glanced at Pipp while she argued with her sister. Daddy issues?

Hitch briefly glanced down over the edge of the cliff and turned around over-dramatically. “Oh, well. That’s the end of that. Time to go home. I wish I could say it was nice meeting all of you, but it wasn’t. Come on, Sunny.”

Ignoring him as per usual, Sunny spoke up. “Everypony, stop! We’re gonna get to the other side, find the crystal, and bring back magic! And once we do-” she pointed at Zipp “-you'll get to fly-” she pointed to Pipp “-you'll get your fans back-” she pointed to Hitch “-you’ll have me in custody-” she pointed to me “- and Sentra, frankly I don’t know what your central driving goal is, but I’m sure you’ll get that, too.”

“Right now I could go for a Whataburger Patty Melt combo.”

I don’t know why I said that. I had been trying so hard to portray my own self-image as worldly and decidedly the kind of person who ate avocado toast, but really it was trying to cover up Texas roots and I would go to my grave before I would verbally admit it. Which was good that ponies didn’t know anything about that.

Some reminders of your past can be very hard to repress, particularly when you’re trying not to remember the Alamo. It’s like The Game except you learned about it in fourth grade state history class.

Anyway, while everyone was arguing and I was having a quiet internal but involuntary yeehaw, Izzy woodpeckered down a tree and built a bridge across the ravine.

I still hadn’t figured out exactly what she brought to the table for the success of our little group, but that alone made her more useful than Pipp.

Okay, if we’re being honest, maybe more than me too. Whatever, at least I didn’t have a criminal record.

We camped out that night on a windswept vista underneath a rock overhang, like a shallow cave. It wasn’t my first time sleeping outside, but let me tell you, I didn’t miss it. However, I was a little disappointed that nobody would snuggle with me. Nobody seemed to want to touch Hitch, either, so I guess I didn’t feel too left out.

Hitch seemed to be well-liked, and I was beginning to realize that he also had a lot of animals following him around. I wasn’t sure if that meant he had some sort of command of respect, or if he was going to die an ironic death and be missed, but either way it seemed like a good idea not to mess with him. Plus, he also managed to start a fire by rubbing sticks together, so he could burn things with no equipment, if required.

When I woke up in the morning, I was a little sore from sleeping on the ground, but more importantly, hungry. Nobody else looked like they had a plan beyond “eat grass,” so I decided to just wait until we got to Bridlewood. Fortunately, it was only a short walk into the forest.

We passed a bunch of keep-out signs. Since we were with a unicorn, and since we’d ignored everything of the kind up until this point, I figured we were fine.

Pretty soon, Izzy brought us to her house. I have to admit, I hadn’t taken Izzy for a homeowner, nor did I expect her place to be so big and well-decorated. At least Sunny seemed to have both an inheritance and source of income. Izzy’s house seemed to be built in and around a few huge trees, with stained glass filling in the gaps.

Izzy nearly had to duck going through her own front door. So did I. I wondered if unicorns hit their horns on a lot of stuff. Good thing it seemed to be so hard.

“Well, here we are, guys: La Villa Izzy!” She made a Vanna White gesture.

The place seemed very organic, what with the tree foundation, but with splashes of color and bric-a-brac from seemingly everywhere.

“Watch this!” she said, rolling out a flower blossom-shaped cart. “Aah! I’ve never gotten to use this with actual friends!”

The blossom popped open to reveal a teapot and six cups - just the perfect amount, not to mention the snazzy presentation.

“I so wish I had live-streamed that!” Pipp gasped.

“I don’t have to wish,” I said, pressing post on my phone. “But I guess I do have to recognize that you being a fugitive and all are doing the intelligent thing and not broadcasting your location.”

“Uh, right,” Pipp said. I couldn’t tell if that had occurred to her or not, but either way, it did ensure I wouldn’t have her competition while on this trip.

Izzy served us breakfast tea, and we discussed our next move.

Learning from Zephyr Heights, Sunny said, “If we’re gonna get the information we need on the Unicorn Crystal, we can’t stick out like sore hooves. We need to look like unicorns.”

“Yay, makeovers!” Pipp said, apparently redirecting her normal online enthusiasm IRL. “I love makeovers!”

Zipp, on the other hand, laughed nervously. “No, this is not...this is not what I signed up for.”

I jumped to her defense, calling back to the argument I’d presented Sunny in Maretime Bay. “But...aside from Izzy nobody here knows what we look like anyway, so why do we need to look different?”

“So, Izzy, can you do it?” Sunny said, ignoring me, not for the first time.

“A glow-up?” Izzy gulped the last of her tea and grinned. “Honey, you came to the right cottage.”

Despite their enthusiasm, to my mild surprise they did just only do a refresh on my existing makeup. I have to admit, it came out looking better than it ever had before.

Izzy also made the rest of us disguise horns with rolled-up cones of glittery paper. Despite my earlier insistence, they had in fact eventually gotten that herpes anywhere near me.

Now that all of us were sporting horns, and those of us with wings had them covered, we set out into Bridlewood to look for the Unicorn Crystal. I quickly remembered that we didn’t have much to go on beyond Izzy’s vague notion that “If you’re looking for crystals, we’ve got, like, a gazillion of them in Bridlewood.”

“She does know we’re just looking for the one, right?” Zipp said, echoing my thoughts as Izzy happily frolicked among the trees and crystals growing from the ground everywhere.

Izzy’s cheerfulness only served to contrast every other unicorn we saw, who were uniformly gloomy and low-energy.

“These other unicorns seem so different from you,” Sunny pointed out.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Izzy admitted. “My sparkle is a bit too sparkly for Bridlewood.”

“How can we tell which crystals are magic?” Hitch asked, trying to steer the conversation back on topic.

“You said a bad word!” a little kid unicorn who overheard him exclaimed. “Hurry! Before we get jinxed!”

A group of young unicorns started hopping around chanting “Bing bong! Bing bong!”

I tried to keep from laughing, but only so it wouldn’t show up in the video I took.

“I’m gonna need some context,” Zipp requested.

“Unicorns are very superstitious,” Izzy explained. “If a pony ever says a forbidden word, we have to do a ritual to ward off the jinxies. The forbidden words are ‘magic,’ ‘wing,’ ‘feather,’ and ‘mayonnaise.’”

“What's wrong with may-” Hitch started to say before Izzy shushed him.

“Are there no earth pony-related swears?” I said. “Is that why you got along so well with Sunny?”

“I never really thought of it that way,” said Izzy.

We headed downtown, such as it was considering that Bridlewood was, well, mostly on the wood part being in a forest. Izzy led us to a shop, also built into a tree as many things around here seemed to be.

“The Crystal Tea Room?” Sunny said, reading the sign.

“There’s a pony inside who collects crystals,” Izzy said. “Maybe he could help us.”

Walking in, the place was less a tea shop and more a tavern, if aesthetics were to judge by. Or maybe just a hipster coffee shop. In the case of the latter, great, I was finally in a place where no one would double-take at my eyeliner. Well, not that it mattered because sunglasses were still part of my disguise.

Izzy spotted the crystal expert and pointed him out. Sunny immediately strode forward, but tried for casual as she sidled up to his table. “So word in the forest is you collect crystals.”

“Yes, I do,” he replied, though with seemingly even less enthusiasm than most unicorns we had seen so far. “Well, I mean, I did. I lost ‘em all in a limbo contest with Alphabittle.”

“Oh no,” Izzy said. She pointed at the big guy behind the bar, who was currently taking somebody else’s collection in a contest of very simple Rubik’s Cubes.

Seemed weird for the crystal guy to keep going to a place where he lost it all, but hey, I don’t claim to understand everyone. At any rate, I was distracted by the sight of the Unicorn Crystal on the shelf behind the bar.

“Does he do this a lot?” I asked, about the large pony named Alphabittle.

Izzy nodded. “He’s the best. They say, ‘Alphabittle wins every game played by a pony, from A to Z.’”

She put enough inflection on it to rhyme, but really, I think the so-called “they” could have said something different.

“I bet I know some games he hasn’t heard of.” I pulled out my phone. Not because I had some games on it that I thought he wouldn’t have heard of, but because I was going to Google Dark Souls playthroughs on a toaster until I remembered that the internet here wasn’t connected to the internet I knew.

The crystal guy stared at my phone. “Wait, is that a pegasus device?”

“Say again?”

“Uh, I mean, I have no idea what that thing is, so there’s no way I would know who made it.” He quickly looked away.

“Hey, spill the beans,” I said, confronting him.

“Uh, I, okay I admit I once knew somepony who smuggled those phone things in from-”

"What are you doing confessing?” I said. “I mean, spill the beans." I brushed his lunch off the table onto the floor and then held the phone up to take a selfie together. He was still surprised and didn’t take a great portrait, but that was fine.

“It’s the latest trend,” I told him, though something indicated to me that he still wasn’t following.

Meanwhile, Sunny had gone over to the bar, approaching Alphabittle. Now that she was next to him, it only served to illustrate just how big he was. Taller than me.

“Tea,” Sunny said, sitting down on a barstool.

She was served by a couple of miniature armadillos who seemed to be in Alphabittle’s employ. I resisted another internal yeehaw.

Sunny indicated the various objects Alphabittle had won sitting on the shelf behind the bar. “Quite the game player, I see.”

“It passes the time,” Alphabittle replied, at least as cool as Sunny was playing it. “Why? Do you play?”

Sunny leaned forward, putting on a confident smile. “I don’t play. I win.”

“Big talk for a little pony,” Alphabittle replied, also leaning forward.

“I think you’ll find I’m average height.” The two were nearly nose to nose now. Sunny pointed at the Unicorn Crystal on the shelf. “I challenge you for that!”

Alphabittle seemed mildly surprised. “Whatever you’re betting, it better be special.”

In reply, Sunny pulled the Pegasus Crystal out of her bag and laid it on the bar.

Everyone gasped. Izzy pulled Sunny away from the bar, laughing nervously. We huddled up and Zipp said, “Um, what are you doing risking that?”

“It’s actually pretty genius,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “If Sunny wins, we would have both crystals and could unite them. If Alphabittle wins, all we have to do is point out how the two crystals fit together nicely and would look great on his shelf. Either way, the crystals are together and magic will return and the day will be saved.”

“Uh, yeah, that was totally my plan,” Sunny said. She turned back to Alphabittle. “But even still, I could solve that cube puzzle in my sleep.”

Alphabittle shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. A special prize calls for a special competition. Bring forth the ultimate challenge!”

A rough wooden console with attached step pads rolled out. My eyes opened wide. Bless my heart and soul, it was Dance Dance Revolution: Magical Unicorn Forest Mix.

“The ultimate what now?” said Sunny. “A dancing game?”

I shoved her out of the way. “I’ve got this.”

“Confident, huh?” Alphabittle chuckled.

“You might say it was a way of life where I used to live,” I replied, limbering up with a few stretches.

He glanced at me. “I haven’t seen you around before. I think I’d know somepony who thinks she has what it takes to even think about beating me. Where are you from?””

I’d spent probably months of my life down at the Dragon Palace arcade. “Trust me, you haven’t heard of it.”

Alphabittle seemed to let that go, but I could tell I had his attention. Good, you have to get into your opponent’s head.

A couple of armadillos jumped onto wheels in the back of the machine to make it work. Alphabittle and I got ready and stepped onto the dance pads. He stared at me incredulously. “What are you doing?”

I balanced unsteadily on my hind legs, forelegs out for balance. “I’ve never done this on four hooves before. Why? How do you play it?”

He blinked, mouth open, and then shook his head. “Nevermind, let’s do this.” Music started to play, the armadillos started to run on their wheels, and the game began.

I destroyed him.

Not to brag, but-okay, to brag, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s DDR. It’s a shame that it took me this long to find a system in this world, but after just one game I was totally ready to set up shop and do nothing but dance. I knew training under the old masters would pay off some day.

I had even forgotten what was at stake and was just about to ask Alphabittle to go again when I heard Sunny exclaim, “We won!”

She grabbed the Unicorn Crystal and Pegaus Crystal and jumped up, cheering. For me? “Sentra, you did it!”

If she was upset about me stealing her spot in the game, she had forgotten it now. However, as she came in for a hug, she knocked off her fake horn and there was a gasp from the unicorns all around the room.

“An earth pony!” Alphabittle exclaimed.

Our cover was blown. Zipp pulled off her own fake horn. “And pegasi!”

“And a unicorn!” Izzy added. “Which... you knew already.”

“Give me the crystal,” Alphabittle demanded, hoof out.

“But we won,” Sunny pointed out. I thought that was very reasonable. That had been the terms of the deal, after all.

“You tricked me,” Alphabittle said without elaborating. “The crystal. Now!”

I was still standing upright, and even if Alphabittle was tall, he wasn’t taller than me now. I pulled off my jacket and sunglasses, grabbed his cheeks between my hooves, and pressed my nose to his. “You dare!?”

In the fraction of a second it took him to notice I wasn’t a unicorn nor even an average pegasus, I ad-libbed the rest. I spread my wings to look even bigger and made sure my eyes and mouth were as wide as possible, to make sure he got a good look at the rest of my features.

“Until today, you were secure and complacent in your own puny world, but you made the mistake of breaking a sacred oath and now I have come to bring upon you the punishment that stretches across the eons and the vast distances of the universe. Until today, you knew not in what forces you meddled. Until today, mortal, you had not faced the punishment that would befall you for breaking the sanctity of the ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!”

He squeaked by way of reply. That seemed good enough. I let go of him, tossed my head at the others, and we left.

After motivating everyone to hurry away from Bridlewood downtown, we circled up in a secluded part of the woods and brought out the crystals.

“Ready?” said Sunny. She held up one of them. Izzy took the other. Slowly, they brought the pair together.

Nothing happened.

“It...it…” Sunny whispered. “Why doesn’t it work?”

I pointed to how the crystals fit together, leaving a hole in the center. “Does something else go there? Or is it supposed to be a donut shape?”

“We can try putting them together again,” said Sunny, getting flustered. “Maybe... Maybe we did it wrong somehow. Or, what if there’s actually a third-”

“-crystal because there are three pony races. The hole in the donut. Are we going to go look for the Earth Crystal now?” I said.

“I guess,” Sunny said. “I wish I’d thought of this before we left Maretime Bay. Even still, I have no idea what the crystal could be.”

“What’s with the donut analogy?” Zipp asked.

“If anything, I would think Hitch the cop would be the one making it,” I said.

With no better ideas except to go searching for a third crystal, we set off on a long walk.

I suppose it was sort of poetic that everything would lead back to Maretime Bay, but yeah, I had to agree with Sunny that it would have been nice if we had started out with all pieces of the puzzle.

We were just arriving back to Sunny’s lighthouse house on the cliff by the sea when, quite unexpectedly, Queen Haven stumbled out of a bush with her winged puffball dog.

“Mom?!” Zipp and Pipp both gasped.

“Oh, my darlings! Thank hoofness!” She grabbed both of them in a hug. “I’m so glad I found my little fillies. Now, I know that if you just come back with me, we can explain everything. Spin the story, and they’ll love us again. R-Right?”

“How did you find us?” Hitch asked.

By way of explanation, the dog ran up to him, Hitch’s lost badge glinting in its mouth. I guess animals really did love Hitch, albeit not enough not to return a treasured possession covered in slobber.

Though, not far behind the queen were a crowd of pegasus guards. “There she is! Your Criminal Highness, you’re coming with us!”

Near simultaneously, the unicorns finally caught up with us. Apparently, I hadn’t been quite as intimidating as I thought. Still, I’d bought us quite a bit of time and maybe with the coincidence of the two tribes meeting we could slip away.

“Give me back my crystals!” Alphabittle shouted.

“Your crystals? One of them is mine!” Queen Haven retorted.

“We’re gonna zap you with our horns!” somebody in the crowd threatened.

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Nopony has magic!” Sunny shouted into the growing conflagration, attempting to stem the argument. Surprisingly, it worked.

It worked too well. “Well isn’t that good news,” said Deputy Sprout, driving up in a huge pony-shaped vehicle. “We were going to attack unicorns and pegasi anyway, and this just makes it easier! Say hello to Sprouticus Maximus!”

In a matter of thirty seconds, we’d gone from our little group of six being alone to being in the middle of a three-way battle for...something. I think each faction wanted different things, and I was a little unclear on exactly what.

“We’re not here to fight, Mr. Big Robot Pony,” Queen Haven said, apparently sizing up the situation as well as anyone.

“I do not accept your surrender!” Sprout said, and shoved the machine into gear.

“Sprout! What are you doing?” Hitch demanded.

“Awwww. Little Sheriff Hitchy came trotting back. Waaaah. Just in time to see me do what you couldn’t - attack our enemies!”

“We have to stop that thing!” Zipp pointed out. I mean, it should have been obvious, but it was nice to get everyone on the same page. I was still reeling from the sudden changeup in situation.

Izzy said, “But how?”

I held up my phone. “I could probably summon an army of simps here to help. Er, as much as simps could help.”

“With magic!” Sunny talked over me. “There’s a third crystal! Follow me!” She and Izzy ran into the lighthouse.

“I’ve gotta rein that thing in!” Hitch said, starting forward towards the robot.

“I’ve got your back,” Zipp said, going with him.

It seemed like the crowds of pegasi and unicorns were going to be convenient decoys for us, though we hadn’t coordinated that and they would probably be displeased to learn that might be their intended role.

That left me and Pipp without orders or impetuous. I might have been able to help in stopping the mecha, but I wasn’t smart and athletic like Zipp, I didn’t know Sprout like Hitch did, and I didn’t know anything about giant robots. I might be a Japanophile, but I’m not a weeb.

So I did the only thing I could and livestreamed it. And it was a heck of a show.

Sprout chased some of the other ponies while Hitch and Zipp hung onto the back of the mech. Up in the lighthouse cupola, I could see Sunny and Izzy working on something. Had Sunny been in possession of the earth pony crystal this whole time without realizing it? Through it all, I kept the video rolling. Already, ponies from everywhere were reacting as they watched. I mean, what’s not to like? All three tribes, royalty running for their lives, the rumor of magic, and giant robots.

“The lighting could be a little better,” Pipp said, standing beside me. Like me, she was similarly uninvolved but didn’t have a phone to be rolling.

“The phone only has a tiny light for short range purposes. It’s not enough to light up this whole scene.”

We watched the chaos continue for a few seconds. I glanced at her. “Like your face, I guess.”

Her eyebrows lifted. She didn’t waste more than one more moment of hesitation before stepping in front of the phone.

“What is up, everypony? We’re coming to you live from the scene of the first pony tribe battle in centuries! Who will decide the fate of us all? Will magic and friendship prevail or will the status quo of separation remain?”

I had to admit, it was pretty good off-the-cuff live commentary. Pipp narrated along as the giant robot smashed into Sunny’s house. The lighthouse tower began to crumble, Izzy dramatically sliding to the edge of the balcony. She grabbed the falling Unicorn Crystal and Sunny hauled her back up.

At about this time, Hitch and Zipp had managed to disable a few parts of the robot. One of the big slime-throwing whirligigs on the side went flying off and the resulting torque unbalance spun the robot around and knocked it on its side. However, the spinning wheel slammed into the lighthouse and finished knocking the top half of the tower down.

Sunny and Izzy rode it to the ground, somehow being untouched by the rubble. They emerged from the dustcloud with the two crystals, and a third that I hadn’t seen before. It looked like it would fit perfectly: the hole in the donut.

Sprout was out of the disabled robot, looking dazed. Some older pony was giving him a lecture.

Pipp had been talking continuously through all this. “What’s this? Is that his mom?”

Deputy Mommy-Issues, I mouthed at her.

“Looks like Deputy Mommy-Issues had finally been felled,” Pipp narrated. “But now that the danger has passed, what is-”

A bright wave of rainbow rolled over us, instantly solving the prior lighting issues. I swung the camera around.

The three crystals were glowing, and hovering in the air around Sunny.

“I don’t believe this! Magic, real magic!” Pipp gasped.

It got even more dramatic as Sunny was lifted into the air. The crystals combined of their own accord, and suddenly solid light coalesced around Sunny’s body, forming ethereal wings and horn.

I suddenly felt a little lighter on my hooves as some sort of subtle tickle ran through me. Pipp apparently felt it too. She tried out an experimental flap of her wings and seemed surprised as she actually lifted into the air. “We did it! We saved magic!”

It took only moments for a flood of new reactions to come in from the video. Apparently, ponies everywhere, even all the way back in Zephyr Heights, were experiencing it too. Even the queen’s dog could fly. The unicorns I could see nearby were already excitedly popping off spells.

“You did it, Sunny,” Hitch called, trotting into frame. Pipp, showing remarkable intuition for once, let him have it.

Sunny smiled as she descended back to earth. “No. We did it. Together.”

“Now kiss,” I whispered under my breath. It was the perfect moment. It was obvious, they had to.

They didn’t! Pipp glanced at me, seeing my building outrage at not getting the shot, then popped into the air, going over the top of the scene just out of frame, and reached down to shove their heads together.

That was the end of a perfect broadcast and I signed off.

I let out a deep breath and clutched the phone to my chest. “That was awesome!” After everything that had happened, I finally felt like I was a part of it, and doing good. Okay, I was still just shooting video and being a bystander, but I might be getting close to the “making it" part after the “faking it" part.

Just then, the pony who had been carried away by balloons several days ago came in for a landing. “Hey guys, what did I miss?”

He looked around at three different tribes, the aftermath of a battle, a broken mech, a wrecked lighthouse, and me. I smiled.

He turned around and stepped off the cliff, floating away again.

I turned back to see Sprout being dragged over by Alphabittle and Queen Haven.

“She says you’re some kind of marshal,” Alphabittle said uncertainly. Apparently I’d left a strong impression on him.

I opened my mouth to reply, but the queen interjected, “We would greatly appreciate it if you could handle this ruffian.” She indicated Sprout, who was deep into pouting.

“And then maybe we can talk about a few other legal issues that have come up,” Alphabittle said. “I have a lot of questions, especially now that it seems like the tribes are going to be united again.”

“I also wanted to discuss the details of my alleged charges in Zephyr Heights,” said Haven. “You can do something about that, can’t you?”

Hello consequences of my own actions. On the other hand, if I was going to be in this world for a while, I did need a job.

Fake it ‘till you make it.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. Whenever the G5 series gets started, I'll write more chapters.

Tell Your Tale: Nightmare Roommate / Welcome To Mane Melody / The Unboxing of Izzy

Author's Note

If you aren't watching the web series, that's fine, can't blame you. Here's blueprints I drew of the new lighthouse. Sentra's bed in this story would be where the sitting area is on the second floor.

Tell Your Tale: Nightmare Roommate / Welcome To Mane Melody / The Unboxing of Izzy

“Ghooost!”

I’d had a sense that something was going on, but had been blissfully ignoring it until I couldn’t anymore. Pipp screaming in the middle of the night could do that to you.

I sat up in bed. There were at least three simultaneous freakouts occurring around me.

This was hardly the first time I had ever slept through roommate shenanigans only to be woken up when they reached a certain level. I took a fraction of a second to observe, relying on what I could see, and long experience to determine if I was going to be forced to get involved or if I could go back to sleep.

On the one hand, I had no idea if ghosts were real in Equestria, they very well could be. On the other, I could see that the so-called ghost flitting around the room was just a purple bedsheet. And, let’s be honest, sheet-type ghosts are way less scary than those that have forms of their own. I mean, and purple.

Though, as I watched Sunny, Pipp, and Zipp run around like chickens with their heads cut off, I began to wonder. Either they knew something about ghosts that I didn’t, hadn’t followed the same train of reasoning, or maybe they just couldn’t see the purple fabric with golden horseshoes printed on it in the darkness like I could.

Sunny finally stumbled into the light switch and in the sudden glare all was revealed. We even learned the source: Izzy, still in bed, was magicking in her sleep.

Zipp heaved a sudden breath of relief. “Easy ponies, it’s a bedsheet.”

“Yeah, my bedsheet!” Pipp scoffed. She grabbed it out of the air and got back in bed in a huff. “I am like, so super traumatized right now. I’ll be lucky to get any sleep.”

Sunny appeared to have taken it slightly better. She yawned and also got back into bed. “Just shut your eyes, count pegasheep, and-”

“Wait, what are those?” I asked. “Is that like how even dogs in Equestria have wings?”

“Sentra, this is not the time,” Zipp groaned. Just because it was her, I shut up.

In the morning, I was awake with the sun. I was mildly surprised that Izzy was up even earlier. I hadn’t figured her for an early riser.

She’d pretty well destroyed the house, too. I mean, who just leaves peanut-buttered bread with one bite out of it on the kitchen floor? Who just uses someone else’s cell phone with peanut butter-covered hooves? At least she hadn’t touched any of my stuff, probably because I didn’t really have any stuff.

I met her coming out of the bathroom. She was using someone’s electric toothbrush to scratch her ears. Yikes.

I was quick with my time in the bathroom. For some reason, there was only one in a house this big for four people.

Coming out, I found everyone else in the sitting area under the stairs. I had apparently managed to sleep through Izzy’s other issues last night, but the rest of them didn’t look so good.

As Izzy went cavorting away again, Pipp spoke up. “She’s becoming a total nightmare roommate!”

“I mean, you were the ones who decided to move in together after just meeting,” I observed.

“We did kind of save the world along the way, with friendship-based magic,” Sunny retorted.

“Yeah, but we’ve still only known each other for a week or two. And even with experience, I have a lot of friends I definitely wouldn’t live with.”

Pipp changed the subject back. “Sunny, you have to do something.”

“Why does Sunny have to?” I asked.

“Well, it is her house,” Zipp replied reasonably.

“And the whole leadership through the magic of the crystals,” Pipp added.

“Not that it wasn’t good leadership, but are you, as a princess-possibly-future-queen really so keen to defer leadership?” I asked her.

“We’ll work on this together,” Sunny broke in. She glanced at me. “Unless you want to handle it.”

I did not.

Still, the solution didn’t come easily. We eventually agreed to make it yet someone else’s problem and headed into town to talk to Hitch, who didn’t live there and was impartial.

“If you’re just inviting everyone to live with you, Sunny, why not also Hitch?” I asked as we walked.

“He’s a boy.”

That gave me pause. “Uh, I was also meaning to ask, how old are all of you?”

They gave various answers that didn’t really explain it to me. What did “moons” mean? Maybe I should find out what the local age of consent was, just in case. If I could figure out whatever the method of keeping time was.

Down at the police station, I saw a wanted poster for former-deputy Sprout. Huh, had we lost custody of him? I wasn’t the one that ran the jail.

I also saw that Hitch had put up the ligma poster. I thought, not for the first time, that maybe I should come clean about this.

Though, to who? Especially when Hitch was right in the middle of explaining to the others-

“It sounds to me like you just have to be honest with Izzy,” he advised. “I can tell you honesty is always the best policy.”

He also advised them that maybe a small gift would help the news go down.

Well, I figured Sunny, Pipp, and Zipp were a lot better qualified than me to find something like that. I told them that I was going to hang out at the station and get some work done and they left me behind.

I sat down at my desk and put my hooves up. There was a dogeared copy of the Maretime Bay book of laws on the top. Hitch had left it there to help me get familiar. I opened it to the section about sex crimes.

It took some mental math, but I determined that everyone was legal. Okay, good. I wasn’t planning anything untoward, but it was good to know I wasn’t shacking up with a bunch of minors.

I put the book down again and sat back. I thought about what else I had on my mind. I paused, wrestling again with my thoughts, and began, “So Hitch, about the ligma-”

“Oh yeah, it’s getting really bad,” he said. “I heard the government was going to issue a statement. In fact, they were trying to track down the source of the disease. Didn’t you say someone close to you had it?”

“That’s the thing…” With anyone else, I probably would have already completed the punchline. Zipp would have laughed. Izzy, if she got it, would have laughed. Pipp would have thrown a hissy fit. Sunny probably would have been annoyed.

But Hitch had repeatedly demonstrated that he was a nice, innocent, upstanding guy and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it to him. Plus, it might make our work arrangement awkward. Plus, the more I thought about it, maybe I should ask if it would be okay to move out of Sunny’s place and move in with him instead.

But before I could speak, I was interrupted by a phone call. Hitch picked up. Though I reflexively answered the phone on my desk, too, I let him speak.

The caller seemed frantic about a cat in a tree. This didn’t seem unusual for Maretime Bay. Hitch stayed professional and promised help.

“You want me to handle it on my way back?” I asked, standing up from my desk as he put the phone down.

“Well…” Hitch looked like he really wanted to do it because it was his town, but nodded. “I guess you’d have an easier time reaching. Thanks for the help, Sentra.”

I put on my sunglasses and headed out. The caller was just a few blocks away and as I arrived at the scene, it became pretty apparent which tree it was.

“My poor baby!” an elderly mare wailed, pleading with the cat but getting nowhere. He didn’t seem to even notice her, sitting on a branch just out of reach.

“Ma’am, I’m here about the cat,” I said. I didn’t have a badge but turned slightly, showing my cutie mark, which was close enough.

“Who’re you? I called Sheriff Hitch.”

“Er, Marshal Law. I’m the federal agent assigned to the area.” Maybe I did have a problem with lying a little too smoothly. Well, no, this was a way different situation than the joke-out-of-hand ligma situation. I felt bad about that one. This one I could write off as the cost of having a secret identity. Well, not very secret because I didn’t even have a disguise or anything.

I added some actual truth to balance it. “Sheriff Hitch authorized me to act in his stead with his permission in his jurisdiction.”

“Well, okay.” She still seemed a little put-off, but eyed my wings. “I suppose you can help.”

It was a relatively simple matter to fly up to the cat’s level. The hard part was actually getting the cat down. He seemed perfectly placid with his crying owner down below. In fact, when I reached for him, he merely started to move away down the branch.

“Hey, that’s not how this is going to work.” I grabbed him up.

He didn’t scratch me, mostly because I had anticipated it and got him restrained, but he did hiss.

“What’s going on?” the old lady asked.

“Nothing, almost done!” I turned back to the cat and a toss of my head lowered my sunglasses so I could lock eyes with him. I pulled back my lips to show off my own teeth, which were bigger than his. “Okay you little furball, just for that, I’m going to tell her you’ll calm down and stop wandering away from home after a neutering.”

I think he got the message. At any rate, I didn’t actually tell her.

After handing the cat over, I headed out. Back at the lighthouse house, the girls seemed to have figured things out with Izzy and made up, but I was still on the fence about staying in the house. I mean, aside from the limited bathroom facilities, no private rooms, and the fact that my bed was located furthest from the stairs in case of a fire, I didn’t want to have to keep dealing with drama. You know who didn’t have drama? Hitch.

After apparently getting their friendship deal sorted out, the girls wanted to go down to the salon. I went along mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t think anything was wrong with my style, but acknowledged that I was still learning to maintain it myself. Oh right, I also needed to get some more eyeliner. Never too much eyeliner.

To my surprise, the place, Mane Melody, was owned by Pipp. Her having a small business, much less employment of any kind, was unexpected. Not only that, but it turned out to be not just a salon but a karaoke stage.

Well, I was supposed to be a metal singer or something. I had to keep my voice husky somehow, and headed for the sound system. I’d even turn down the volume and just scream with my own lungpower, if they were concerned about the effect through the amps, but Pipp steered me away before I could touch the microphone.

“Sentra, how about you try a new look?” she said, sitting me down in front of a mirror and hairdressing setup.

“Such as?”

She touched my mane and made a face. “How much gel is in this?”

“Are you asking in terms of bottles, or…?”

The opened and Hitch came in. “Hey Sentra, I’m glad I found you. Could you help me with something?”

I wavered, but got up. “Sure.”

As we left the building, Hitch said, “Okay, full disclosure, you looked out of place there and it was about to get awkward because-”

Phyllis Cloverleaf walked by us on the sidewalk. Hitch gave her a friendly smile, but she shot me a side eye before going into the salon.

“I see,” I said. “Thanks.”

Though maybe I should have stayed, just to see what Pipp would do with Phyllis. Maybe I could get a good video clip to post online, too. But I didn’t say that to Hitch. Not to mention, I had appreciated that Pipp actually let people look in the mirror. What’s up with barbershops and salons always keeping customers turned away so they can’t watch the progress?

“But I did actually need your help,” Hitch said. “I just got an extradition request from Zephyr Heights and I’ve never had to deal with something like this before.”

We headed over to the office. Hitch showed me the letter and I sat down at my desk to read over it. “So who is this guy? Bonesaw?”

“They say he’s wanted for serious crimes, but they weren’t specified,” Hitch said. “If we see him in town, Zephyr Heights wants him, and wants us to arrest him and take him back.”

I leaned back. “If he’s a fugitive, we should probably arrest him, but I’m kind of the opinion that if they want him, they can come get him.”

“See? That’s why I wanted to ask you.”

I hoped that was the right answer. I was kind of making things up over here. Then again, as far as I knew, I was the first and only pony to hold such a position, so maybe I was supposed to be making it up. At the least, it was reassuring that Hitch agreed with me.

“Hey, later,” Hitch said, “do you want to hang out? I’ve been putting together some ideas. You’re new in town, so I wanted to do a tour.”

It was the first time he had reached out with something like this. “I’d l-love to.”

He pulled out a notebook and went through it chatting happily. “I’ve got the local museum, the ropes course, the beach, and all the little shops.”

Not all of that sounded like it was quite my speed, but I was happy he was happy. “When are we going?”

“Just as soon as the others get done.”

“...others?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to hang out with all my friends, right?” He looked up.

“I…I guess.”

Hitch headed for the door. “Come on, Sentra. Everypony else is almost done at Mane Melody. Let’s go hang out. As a group.”

The group of us met up in the town square. Hitch was about as excited as I’d ever seen him, and believe me, the guy had tons of hobbies.

“Get ready for the ultimate Maretime Bay tour!” he announced. I felt like clapping for some reason.

Wait, hooves can’t clap. Uh…

Everyone else seemed enthusiastic, though maybe showing it more than me. Izzy said, “I’m gonna see this, and I’m gonna see that, and I’m gonna see-”

She stepped into a unicorn trap leftover from before the three races were friendly and was promptly boxed up like a present.

Pipp, Zipp, and Sunny gasped. Hitch said, “I thought all the unicorn traps were disabled!”

“Were they?” I said. “Did someone reactivate them without you knowing? Maybe Sprout, considering he’s a fugitive?”

“Well, maybe-”

“A little help?” Sunny interrupted.

Hitch went over and pressed the release button on the trap but nothing happened. “It’s not working!”

“This is sounding more and more like sabotage,” I observed.

“You think so?” he asked.

“How are we going to get her out?” Sunny said, still focused on the here-and-now.

“I’m fine,” Izzy said, voice distorted from inside the box. “This’ll be fun! I’ve never been a box before.”

Her magic started shimmering and the box lifted into the air. “Is it levitating? Did I do it? Am I a levitating box?”

“This is ridiculous. You can't even see!” Hitch protested.

“But I can use my imagination!”

Fair enough. The others tied a rope onto the floating box and the tour continued.

Hitch took us around the town square, by the movie theater, and past a curious building with green crosses on it.

“Do you guys smoke weed?” I asked, surprised.

“Do what?” Hitch said. I didn’t push it.

We went by an art museum called the Houvre. Nothing against Maretime Bay, but with all the parallels I had seen from this world to my own, I was a little surprised that a hoity-toity place like that was located in a relative backwater like this. Well, okay, it wasn’t like Maretime Bay was some landlocked hick pony-ville, but it felt like a reasonably small seaside town, not some center of culture. That made it all the more puzzling that Pipp seemed to be into the museum.

Zipp, on the other hand, seemed to be interested in a ropes adventure course in the woods outside town.

Finally, though most of the town was already built seaside, Hitch took us to the beach. “Here it is!”

“I love it, Hitch!” Izzy gushed. “My favorite place in all of Maretime Bay! ...We’re looking at a parking meter, right?”

Hitch let out a noise of frustration and threw up his hooves. “That is it! We have to get Izzy out of there now!”

He went and wrestled with the box for a moment, but nothing seemed to happen despite the effort. The opening mechanism was still broken, apparently. Panting, he paused for breath and we circled up to make a plan.

“Surely someone around here has power tools, right?” I said. “I mean, how else did Sunny’s new house get built so quickly?”

Hitch nodded. “We need-”

Just then, we noticed Izzy was levitating herself again, and starting to slip over the sidewalk railing towards the ocean below. All of us made a simultaneous lunge for the box, but were too late.

“Weeeee!”

The box crashed down atop a rock jutting out of the water, and then it tipped over and sank with a splash.

I don’t actually remember making a conscious decision to move, but about halfway over the railing I realized that I was going to have to tuck my wings to make a dive, and then wondered why I was thinking about that instead of coming up with an actual plan.

All I knew was that drowning in a metal box was a terrible way to die and I didn’t want it to happen to someone else I knew.

This close to shore, the water wasn’t too deep, but it was still plenty deep enough. The box had already come to rest on the bottom and big bubbles were streaming out. I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, but in desperation, tried to pick it up. Its buoyancy from the remaining air inside might help, but it would only get continuously heavier as water got in.

Just as I got my hooves around it, Izzy’s magic glowed and either lifted the box herself or gave me a big assist. I lifted the box above my head, load feeling light, and kicked hard.

Yeah, it was probably the magic that shot us entirely out of the water, but I looked like a superhero in the meantime. In so doing, my hooves hit some kind of secondary button on the underside of the trap and it popped open. I wasn’t sure why Hitch hadn’t tried this one.

As the trap released Izzy, she started to tumble. I got my wings out, caught her, and dropped back down to the sidewalk in what was probably a pretty cool landing.

Izzy laughed. “Wow, that was amazing.”

Everyone else seemed to think so too, though for different reasons. I got crushed in a group hug.

“That was so cool!” Zipp cheered.

“Just doing my job,” I managed, though wasn’t sure if that was true.

“Well, when something doesn't go to plan, you just have to...wait for it...think outside the box!” Sunny said. She put her foreleg around Izzy’s shoulders. “We’re going to take her to the hospital to get checked out now.”

“Aside from what just happened, I heard ligma is getting bad,” Pipp said.

“Wait, are you for real?” I said. I glanced around. “Is this actually a thing? You aren’t having me on? Is everyone really…”

“What are you talking about?” Zipp asked, straightfaced.

“Nothing.” I shook my head. The girls started to turn away for the hospital.

“Wait,” I said. Realization was slowly dawning on me. I pointed at Pipp. “Tell me you recorded what just happened.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned, but fessed up. “Of course I did.”

I grinned and waved as she turned away in a huff to leave with the others.

I heaved a breath and tipped my head back. Who knew that acting on impulse could occasionally work out really well?

“Sentra, that was amazing,” Hitch said, voice quieter now that we were alone. He raised a hoof to brush back some of the loose, soaking mane in my face. “You, uh, got something here.”

I could only imagine how bedraggled I must look right now. I mean, my mane looked like a birdsnest, albeit a carefully arranged one, on the best of days, to say nothing of my makeup. Maybe that was why he looked just a little startled as I turned to him.

“Hey, Hitch, I fully realize this is a bad time to be asking,” I said. Or maybe not, while he was still appreciating me.

“Uh, asking what?” he said, as I took a step closer.

“It’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you, and I’m kind of riding the adrenaline right now and feeling a little reckless.”

“Uh…what’s this about?” he asked, taking a step back. Now that we were nose to nose, I had maybe an inch of height on him.

“Long ago, I decided that if I couldn’t get with senpai, I was going to have to become senpai and take the lead.”

I leaned forward into his personal space as he backed up against the edge of the sidewalk and put one hoof on the railing beside his shoulder. “Would you go out with me?”

Tell Your Tale: Clip Trot / Foal Me Once / It's T.U.E.S. Day

I admit, maybe my attempt at romance would have been a little more romantic for Hitch if I hadn't kabedon'd him, but relationships are two-way.

Hitch sputtered after I asked him out. I don’t know if anyone had ever asked him on a date before. Actually, I didn’t know if he’d even ever been on a date before. Though maybe his awkwardness was because of my literal stiff-arm approach than the question itself.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. To my original proposition about dating, I added, “Oh, and separate question, can we be roommates?”

“Why me?” he managed to ask.

“I am not going to live with four girls, only one bathroom, and no walls.”

“No, I mean…going out.”

“Because you’re the best choice.”

“I…I am?”

“Yes. Like, who else would I date? Izzy? Ha, no. Pipp? Absolutely not. Sunny? With the whole savior of magic thing, succeeding despite literally everyone telling her she was wrong, she has a lot of complex things going on, not to mention, I’m trying to get away from living in her house. As for Zipp, I have incredible respect for her, but she’s way smarter and more athletic than me and is the future Queen of Zephyr Heights, so while I put her on a pedestal, I recognize she needs someone more on her level than I am. So that leaves you.”

His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure if that was a compliment.”

Maybe he was kind of right, but I tried to gloss over it. “But you’re a great guy. You have a good job, everyone likes you, you’re practical, helpful, and as good with animals as you are you’d probably be a great dad.”

“Wait, why are you already talking about kids?”

“Kids? I…oh no!” I pulled back, putting my hooves on my head. “I totally forgot! You and Sunny have known each other since you were kids! I’m getting in the middle of the childhood friendship! I’m so sorry, honor dictates that she has first right of refusal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The unwritten law of childhood friend friendship. I would be a terrible person if I got in the way of you and Sunny.”

“I’m not romantically interested in Sunny,” Hitch said.

“Are you sure?” I asked pointedly.

“I’m sure. She’s just a friend.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay. I need to do my due diligence and get her perspective on this too, so let’s put a pin in this for now and we’ll circle back around later. I’ll see you at work, okay?”

He nodded, although perhaps because he didn’t know what to say. I hurried away.

I’d jumped the gun. Hitch now knew how I felt, but my own priorities weren’t yet in order. Gah, this was a disaster.

Maybe not as big of a disaster as I found back at the lighthouse, though. Pipp had everyone cornered and was trying to get them to perform in some kind of viral video trend.

“What kind of normie stuff is this?” I asked, walking in. It drew an eye-roll from Pipp, as was intended.

“It’s the Hip Hop Bunny Bop,” she said. “The new dance craze. It’s only got like, a million hoof taps.”

The girls seemed to be a lot more enthusiastic than I was right then, but as they danced for Pipp’s cell phone camera, she variously blew them off. “No no no no no. Cut! Stop. Stop it. That was nothing like the bunnies!”

Amid the general discomfort, Zipp glanced at her own bare fetlock and said, “Oh, is that the time? Gotta do that thing I was telling you about.” She hurried away.

“Hey Sunny, got a second?” I broke in.

“Yes, absolutely!” She departed just about as quickly as Zipp had.

I don’t know if she actually cared what I had to say or if she thought she did in fact owe me a moment, but she turned to face me when we stepped out of the building.

I led off strong, just to make sure I had her attention. “Do you want to date Hitch?”

“Um, what?” She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“I just got finished asking him, so now I’m asking you. I know you’re childhood friends, so you have right of first refusal.”

“Date Hitch? Did he put you up to asking me?”

“No, I’m asking you for me. I want to date Hitch. But do you want to?”

“Hitch is a good friend, but I’ve never really thought about him like that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Thank you, Sunny. I appreciate you giving me the go ahead for this.”

“I didn’t-”

“But you said you didn’t want to date him?”

“I…that’s right.”

I pointed at her. “No take-backsies.”

I started to leave, but then paused. “Oh, and I realize this is totally awkward to ask just after the previous conversation, but what’s Hitch’s favorite smoothie, and can you make one?”

“Super Citrus.” She sighed. “And you’re right, super awkward, but I’m also honor bound to my craft and have never not made a smoothie when somepony asked me.” She gestured resignedly. “Come into the kitchen.”

Down at the sheriff station a few minutes later, I checked my mane in the window reflection and took a breath. I had consent from Sunny, Hitch already knew I was interested, and so with the gift of a smoothie I hoped I could get a final yes or no from him. I propped my phone in the window and set it to record.

I opened the door. Hitch was just getting up from his desk, maybe on his way somewhere.

“So about our conversation earlier,” I began. “I talked with Sunny and I want to let you know that she says you’re a good friend.”

“Um, okay,” he replied.

“So, if we’re going to live together, would you also do me the honor of trying out a relationship?”

“Wait, we’re living together?”

“You didn’t say no when we talked about it earlier.”

Hitch paused for several seconds, blinking, remembering. “Um…”

“Hey, I get that this is a big step and you might still need time to think about it. I brought you a Super Citrus smoothie.” I handed it to him.

“Oh, thanks, it’s my favorite.” He took a sip. He then paused, shook his head, and said, “Wait, I was in the middle of something. I was on my way to a call.”

I could have kept blocking the door until he gave me an answer, but sensed maybe I could keep using this to my advantage. I followed Hitch out of the station, pausing to grab my phone from the windowsill, erased the audio from the clip, and posted it. Without context, it just looked like me giving a drink to the local police as thanks for their hard work, and the likes immediately started flooding in.

Hitch galloped down the waterfront. I could have easily flown to keep up with him, but in the interest of camaraderie and also getting a cardio workout, kept pace with him on the ground. It was easier because he was hobbled, still drinking the smoothie.

We jumped over a few people in the way. I noticed Hitch had slipped on some sunglasses at some point, so now we matched. Cool police, coming through.

Pulling up short at a flower stand, Hitch asked the proprietor. “What seems to be the problem, neighbor?”

She wordlessly pointed at an upset trashcan.

Hitch swung into action, pulling out a full-on CSI kit, snapping pictures and taking swabs.

As he worked, three rabbits with horns hopped over, holding a pony-sized sandwich between them. I mean, a sandwich appropriate in size for a pony to eat, not a sandwich the size of a pony.

“You guys have jackalopes here?” I said. I was only mildly surprised. I'd already seen even stranger things in my short time in Equestria.

Hitch glanced at them. “You mean bunnycorns?”

I guess these rabbits only had a single horn each, not antlers. Whatever.

He shoo’d them and their sandwich away. “Not now. The only thing I'm hungry for... is justice.”

The trio of bunnycorns looked visibly crestfallen, but started to eat the sandwich themselves.

“Animals just bring you sandwiches?” I said in wonder. I knew critters liked Hitch, but this was something else.

“Yeah. I keep meaning to do more of my own cooking, but…” He shrugged.

“So I have a theory,” I said, taking another look at the bunnycorns. “I remember we once saw a bunch of raccoons with horns. We’re dealing with spilled trash. What do you think?”

“Huh,” Hitch said. “Maybe. Good idea. But I can’t just go scold them without evidence.”

We headed back to the sheriff station. Walking in, all five phone lines were ringing. Hitch immediately swung into action and I followed his lead.

Between the two of us, we answered calls from Sunny claiming someone had stolen fruit from her smoothie stand, Posey Bloom at the art museum about a stolen painting, the guy at the sunglasses stand about his entire stock being taken, and a few others. The phones kept ringing and both of us were taking notes furiously.

Zipp wandered in near the end of the barrage. “Hey, I came to - oh, you look busy. You really should find a new deputy, Hitch.”

“I've got this under control,” Hitch said. “Anyway, I work alone. There's only one perfectly groomed sheriff capable of handling it all.”

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the edgy loner,” I said. “But we can work alone together.”

That seemed to amuse Zipp and she left us alone to get on with it.

Hitch and I left the station again to get started investigating this wave of thefts. Waiting for us outside were a group of bunnycorns, the horned racoons I had mentioned, as well as flying snails that were an order of magnitude weirder to me than the other two species.

They all seemed happy to see Hitch, but he ignored them as we hurried away.

“They really do like you,” I observed.

We hit up all the places in town that had reported things missing. In all cases, nobody had seen a thing. Hitch took plenty of notes, but at the moment, neither of us seemed to have any ideas.

“We have a lot of evidence, but nothing I would call clues,” Hitch lamented back at the station, as we stood in front of a string-connection board we had made.

“Any usual suspects?” I asked. “Normal troublemakers around town?”

“No, none that I can think of that would fit this pattern.”

“Hmm. What about that Bonesaw guy we got a bolo about from Zephyr Heights?”

Hitch shrugged. “Haven’t seen him.” He licked his lips and coughed. “Ugh, my throat’s so dry. I’d arrest somepony for a super citrus smoothie right now.”

There was one sitting on the desk.

“Woah, that’s convenient!” Hitch exclaimed, grabbing it and starting to slurp. “I don’t remember picking this up.” He frowned between sips. “Strange. Delicious, but strange…”

“Definitely strange,” I agreed. “Sunny’s the only source for smoothies in town, and she got all her fruit stolen. So who could have even made it, not to mention delivered it here?”

We puzzled on it together for the rest of the afternoon, but didn’t come to any conclusions.

As evening came on, Hitch eventually changed the subject. “Wow, I’m starving. It’s been a busy day.”

“You said you’d meant to cook more,” I said. “Can you show me?”

“Do you not know how to cook?”

“First of all, sexist. Second of all, yes, I can. I happen to specialize in mea-uh, grilling things. I’m asking you. But I’m also happy to help.”

“Well sure, okay, I think I’ve got some hay patties in the fridge.”

We moved from the station into Hitch’s living area, which was in the back of the same building, and got working on dinner. I couldn’t tell if Hitch hadn’t noticed the day was over, was too polite to ask me to leave, if my ploys to stay with him were working, or if he had finally accepted the idea. Either way, I made sure to do a good job with dinner. Plus, I was going to have to eat it, too.

Through the meal, we kept talking about the case but as the evening got later, conversation started to shift more towards personal matters.

We discussed a lot of things, but I made a point to ask about his family. I also assured him there was no chance he would ever have to meet mine. He seemed slightly relieved by that, perhaps wondering who could have raised me.

When Hitch was distracted, I snapped a stealthy picture of the table, his hooves and my hooves visible over the food. I captioned it Homemade <3 and posted it.

Most of the near-instant comments on the picture seemed to be cheering about my apparent special somepony. I hoped so.

After dinner, I quickly offered to wash the dishes. Hitch seemed to want to go back to the corkboard with the evidence.

“Is it okay if I shower and head to bed?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he murmured from the other room.

Well, he still wasn’t saying no.

I did exactly as I said I would, showering and then going to bed.

I had…sort of planned on “accidentally” using Hitch’s bed, and had purposely not looked for another bedroom, if there even was one in his place. He was a little bit of a neat freak, which meant the sheets were nicely laundered and carefully tucked in. He’d used them at least once since washing, though, and the pillows smelled like him.

Several hours later, I was partially awoken by Hitch climbing in. He didn’t say anything, or even seem to notice me, so I wasn’t sure if he was super tired or just not able to see me in the dark. I wasn’t about to disturb him.

I was…sorely tempted to, though. Even if it was just a little spooning. Even if I had to be the big spoon. I let it go, though, and drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, I was abruptly jerked awake at the sound of a screech. It took me a moment to realize it was a bird call. Hitch seemed used to it, though, and sat up in bed, yawning and smiling. “Look out, crime! Hitch is coming for ya!”

He hopped out of bed and opened his wardrobe. A ton of stuff fell out, burying him.

It took him a moment to raise his head from the pile. “What the - smoothie cups? Sunglasses? The missing painting?!” He gasped. “Am I the criminal mastermind behind it all?”

“Hitch, that’s ridiculous. I was with you when that stuff was being stolen…and I was with you last night.”

His eyes focused on me, sitting in bed, and it looked like he had forgotten for just a moment about all the junk. “You, um…”

I got out of bed and helped him stand up out of the junk. I could maybe see how someone who instantly jumped to the conclusion that he had stolen things might get the wrong impression about sharing a bed with someone.

“You were good last night,” I said, trying to reassure him that he had behaved appropriately. Though, it was only after I said it that the double meaning started to sink in.

“I, um…” he stammered.

I, too, sensed the awkwardness coming on and quickly changed the subject. “Hey, you want some coffee?”

I left the bedroom and got the office coffee maker running, and then went to do my makeup. When I was finished, I checked the pile of mail that had come in. There was a public service announcement for Ligma Awareness Month.

By the time Hitch had emerged from the bedroom, I had a cup of coffee waiting for him. I wasn’t sure if he’d spent so long in there cleaning up the mess and sorting the evidence, or trying to get himself under control. He did accept the cup from me, but seemed on edge. Again, I wasn’t sure if it was the case, or me.

“So…” he began, after a sip. He paused. “Hmm, this is good coffee.”

“Thank you.”

Hitch took a breath. “So I think I have some leads on the case. I realized that all those things that were stolen were things I liked. But you’re my alibi; I wasn’t the one that stole them. And then I got to thinking, you showed up in town and I know next to nothing about you, plus you really like me.”

My eyebrows went up.

“But I’m your alibi,” he went on. “Plus, after spending all last night talking, I think I know you a lot better now. Plus the sleeping-” he blushed and stopped speaking there.

“So what are you thinking?” I asked.

Hitch glanced out the window, where various animals had their faces pressed to the glass. They all smiled and waved when he looked their way.

“Is your fan club always this intense?” I asked.

“Yeah, um…” He sighed and facehoofed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this about animals, but if they really did the crime, then they’ve got to do the time.”

So we arrested a bunch of magic bunnies, raccoons, and snails.

The next morning, I was awakened by the screeching bird again. I hoped this critter wasn’t a criminal, though would have relished an excuse to do something about it. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to rising early and suddenly, I just would have preferred a less shrill noise.

This time, Hitch seemed to be expecting to see me beside him in bed, though today was noticeably more tense about it. I wondered if he had slept. He looked like he could use a back rub…

My phone made a noise and I reflexively picked it up. It was a private message.

By the time I read through it, Hitch had left the room. I sent my reply and then got up from bed.

Hitch was in the kitchen, making coffee. I accepted a cup from him, and after a sip, said, “I’m going to go to Zephyr Heights. They want me to speak on some talk show for Ligma Awareness Month.”

“I’m glad you’re so involved in such an important cause,” he said.

“Um, yeah.”

I again felt guilty, but another line of thought had started to creep into my mind. Speak on a talk show? Watched by thousands, where I could say whatever I wanted? Hmm.

“So how does this work?” Hitch asked. “You’re some kind of celebrity, right? But you’re also a marshal?”

“Yes. Somehow.”

“How has nopony made a big deal about it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they just haven’t put two and two together yet.”

I stepped out of the station, getting ready to go. Izzy wandered by, carrying along a mannequin-like pony-shaped thing with her magic. “Hi Sentra! This is Señor Butterscotch. Do you wanna celebrate T.U.E.S. Day with us?

“I’m all for holidays, but it’s Thursday.”

“No, T.U.E.S. Day! The Unicorn Expression of Sparkle Day!”

“I had not considered that each race would have its own holidays." I put my hoof to my chin. "Three times as many holidays? Okay in my book.”

I snapped a quick picture and wrote an explanation for my followers. Surely they also wanted any excuse for additional holidays.

After that, I flew off for Zephyr Heights. It was a little bit of a long trip for my own muscle power, but despite all the ponies now being friendly, public transportation was still under construction. I had already made sure the TV studio would have makeup ready to go before it was time to begin shooting.

Skye Silver and Dazzle Feather were names I knew. They were some of the biggest faces of Zephyr Heights TV news, had the biggest show, and the biggest audience. Perfect.

I chatted with them a little bit as the three of us sat in the makeup room. Of course, I needed a lot more than they did, but the ponies working on me were professionals and I came out looking great.

“We don’t usually have celebrities as big as you on the show, but it’ll be fine,” Skye assured me as we headed for the studio. “We’ve interviewed the queen before, you know.”

“Can I stream this on my channel?” I asked. One of the broadcasting techs helped me get my phone set up to push the signal directly.

Skye, Dazzle, and I sat down on the couches in front of the cameras. They’d already run over the basic format of the show with me, but told me to just be natural. I planned to.

The director called for places. The cameras were pointed. Someone gave us the green light.

“Good morning everpony!” Sky said. “Thanks for tuning in. As always, I’m Skye Silver.”

“I’m Dazzle Feather.”

“And in honor of Ligma Awareness month, we’ve invited a very special guest to join us today.”

They introduced me. I smiled naturally, or as naturally as I could. I think I pulled it off.

“We’ve invited her on today to discuss this very scary disease going around. I understand that you’ve been personally affected, and we’d like to hear your story.”

Everything had come down to this moment. There were literally thousands of people watching me on their TVs. There were probably thousands more following along on my stream. This was being recorded and would be rebroadcast everywhere. Everyone was watching me. It was time, my moment was at hand. I may have started this accidentally, but there was no way I could pass up this opportunity.

Skye said, “So tell us, what is ligma?”

I put on the biggest, toothiest grin I could manage and leaned closer to the microphone.

Tell Your Tale: Sunny-Day Dinners

If the news sensation sweeping the nation that I’d inadvertently created with ligma was bad, getting the opportunity to ligma balls the whole country on live TV was nothing short of spectacular.

My face was everywhere now, even on paper media. They all seemed to be using the same photo, of me grinning like a lunatic in front of the microphone, every tooth on full display.

I mean, it was almost entirely negative coverage turning me into a pariah for doing it, but my follower count increased, so…

I couldn’t wait to see what kind of hamfisted attempt Pipp was going to try to top that.

At least my job as marshal seemed to be insulated from the fallout of the ligma incident. I still wasn’t sure how I was managing to keep my new career separate from my celebrity life. Maybe because I was a largely digital-based personality, nobody would have recognized me IRL. I was still not exactly sure what I was famous for.

One person that did clearly know both sides of me, though, I saw every day. Hitch’s attitude had noticeably changed when I returned from the TV studio. However, he only acknowledged it with an exasperated, “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Well…” I maybe saw an opportunity here and quickly improvised. “Not to say I was playing 4D chess or anything, but what if I told you I set all that up as a precursor to making you an offer?”

“An offer?”

“To ligma balls. Um, I mean, your - look, sorry, this didn’t come out right, let me start over, okay?”

“What are you talking about?”

I had to pause to get my thoughts in order because I’d gone into this without a plan. “We already spend so much time together. We’re even sleeping in the same bed. I was asking if you wanted to take this relationship to the next level.”

He stared at me. “You mean…physical intimacy?”

I nodded.

“Sentra, you set up a practical joke on the whole nation disguised as a public health crisis and now you tell me it was because you wanted…s-sex?”

I was mildly surprised he was even able to say the word. Good for you, Hitch. Well, since we’d breached that barrier, I went on. “Look, it was all a big joke that got way out of hand, and I'm sorry for that, but I actually will put your genitals in my mouth if you want.”

“Not with those teeth.”

“...point,” I conceded.

Hitch sighed. “Sentra, look, it’s not just about that. Frankly, you scare the haystacks out of me, and it’s not just because of how you look. When I‘m with you, I don’t feel in charge, which is unusual for me, and that makes me uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a character flaw on my part, but as open-book as you’ve been I guess I owe you the same. You can sometimes be so…masculine, I guess, that I’m not sure if there’s room enough for me.”

“If you think I act too much like a guy, you can just say ‘no homo,’” I offered. “Or just ‘no.’ I literally ended up sharing a bed with you because you didn’t say I couldn’t.”

Maybe that was a little too open, but it was the truth.

“I’m going to have to think about it,” Hitch said.

I had nothing else to do but give him time. Well, it was something. Hitch departed to patrol the town. I stayed at my desk and put my hooves up.

My phone dinged. It was a message from Sunny to our group chat. Hey ponies! I know everypony’s got a lot going on, but we can’t forget to make time for each other. Who’s up for a hike to Prancing Point? Don’t forget!

A hike, excellent. I started to get ready.

That afternoon, I was waiting at the edge of the forest wearing a backpack. I limbered up, prancing in place for a moment. A yomp, a ruck march, I couldn’t wait! Aside from being an edgelord, this was my jam.

Sunny arrived, greeting me. She checked her phone.

Then, half an hour passed.

“So are we getting started?” I asked. “I mean, I totally understand hurry-up-and-wait, especially when it comes to this kind of thing.”

“Ugh, they forgot,” Sunny grumbled.

“Forgot what?” Izzy asked, trotting up just then with a wagon full of rocks. She gasped. “Oh! Yes, totally! The thing! Nothing slips out of this brain.”

She laughed awkwardly, but Sunny and I both gave it to her.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said. “Sunny, have you been here before?”

“To Prancing Point? No, it’s the first time,” she allowed.

We headed down the trail. I had begun to wonder why it was called Prancing Point if it was nothing but woods. That was only reinforced when we came to a broken direction sign on the trail. Izzy spun it like a roulette. It landed on taking the righthand path. Nobody seemed to mind, except to be mildly surprised.

Okay, we were already taking the path less traveled, so to speak. But I was always down for an adventure hike.

I tried not to get too far ahead. I suppose it didn’t matter because I couldn’t follow someone who didn’t know where they were going. Also, I really needed to build up my cardio. This body felt like it got winded pretty easily, but that was why I did things like this, to build up again.

In lagging behind, Sunny and Izzy seemed to be getting more and more concerned.

“Did you hear that?” Izzy said in a loud whisper. “Something is out there. I can smell it.”

I had no idea if she was speaking rhetorically or not.

“It’s just your imagination,” Sunny began, though not sounding convinced. “There’s nothing out there-”

There was a thump in the trees. Clearly something was out there.

“Come on, let’s go…um…” Sunny began.

“You’re lost, aren’t you?” I said.

“Sentra, now is not the time!”

“Does your phone not have GPS?” I said. I was suddenly unsure. It didn’t make sense that ponies had advanced microelectronics but not satellite navigation. But there were a lot of things about this world that didn’t make sense.

Sunny and Izzy looked like they were about to rush off in all directions, and before they got really lost, I had to step in. “Okay, look, I actually do know where we are. I mean, I don’t know where, I don’t have a map, but I know how to get back to where we started, okay? We didn’t take that many detours, so it should be pretty simple to find our way back.”

I wasn’t sure if it was my confidence that swayed them, but they did look marginally less likely to start running down the first available path.

Anyway, I led them back out of the woods. Almost like I’d done this before. Have I mentioned I love rucking?

“Wow, Sentra, how do you know so much about navigating land?” Sunny asked.

I was just about to tell her exactly how when we heard distant screams.

“That sounds like Hitch,” I observed, suddenly alert.

“And Pipp and Zipp,” Sunny added.

I sighed and we headed back in. A few minutes later, we came upon the three of them in a clearing. they hadn’t noticed us yet and seemed to be lost.

“Hitch, I’m telling you, this is the fastest way home!” Zipp was arguing.

“Agree to disagree,” Hitch replied.

Pipp was uninvolved in the conversation, and taking selfies. Still, she seemed nervous. “It’s kinda spooky out here, right?”

Her camera fell on my face, framed in leaves as I peeped into the clearing, and she let out a scream.

Fortunately, everyone else was happy to see us. The three of them joined the three of us.

“It’s getting late and we would have thought you’d be back ages ago,” Zipp said.

“We were back,” I replied. “Then we came looking for you.” I tossed my head back uptrail. “Come on, let’s go.”

And I found my way back out of the forest for a second time.

“Wow, you really know your way around,” said Hitch. “Did you grow up around here?” he joked.

I debated telling him that I was trying my hardest to impress him with sheer competence. No, sometimes the less said the better.

When he wasn’t looking, though, I slapped myself for having the thought. Yeah, right.

Make Your Mark chapter 1

“So, why are we breaking into the castle again?” I asked.

“I thought you would enjoy it,” Zipp replied.

“Thanks! There’s a reason we’re friends.”

The two of us were currently hugging the outside wall of the Zephyr Heights palace, wings beating to hold us against the stone.

“Well, that, and if someone catches us, you have plausible deniability,” she said. “I’m still impressed how the first time you were in this castle you were able to come up with a lie on the spot so good that you leveraged it into a job that you still do today, Miss Martial Law.”

She had a point, and I appreciated the compliment.

“But can’t you just walk through the front door?” I asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy this, I just would have thought that would be easier. It is your house, after all.”

“But if I did this officially, then I might have to talk to my mom,” Zipp replied.

“Oh. Yeah, I feel that.”

We opened a window and stealthed our way down the hallway, avoiding a few patrolling guards, and entered Pipp’s bedroom. I couldn’t tell if it was plainer than I expected, or if Pipp had just moved all her junk to her new bedroom at the Crystal Brighthouse in Maretime Bay.

It was apparently Pipp that had asked Zipp to do this whole thing in the first place, though probably not how. Pipp wanted us to pick up her lucky microphone.

We easily located the thing - bejeweled as expected - and grabbed it. After that, it was a simple matter to go back out the way we came. I did stop and take a selfie inside Pipp’s bedroom, though. The canternet would love this.

They called it the canternet here. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. While horse puns dominated a pony-led society, to make the pun, there had to first be a basis on which to pun it. I was probably overthinking it.

We made the flight back. Back in Maretime Bay, on the street by the waterfront, Zipp handed Pipp back her microphone. Pipp promptly handed it to Sunny. “Okay, Sunny, just remember: pretend you’re talking to us and not, like, all of Equestria, and you’ll do great.” She lifted her phone to record.

Hitch and Izzy were there too. I lowered my voice to stay out of the clip and asked, “What’s going on?”

“It’s a promotion for Maretime Bay Day,” Hitch said. “Now that all the pony races are friends, we’re inviting everyone.”

Three times the holidays. Count me in.

Despite already being a friend of Sunny’s, I actually learned a lot by listening to her spiel. I also made sure to re-share the video.

“Okay Sunny, do the thing!” Pipp prompted, making sure the video caught her voice. “Turn into an alicorn! That’s an earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn all in one!”

Is that what we were calling Sunny’s mysterious power? I suppose it made sense, considering she gained ethereal wings and horn when it activated. It happened so rarely though that I had only seen it a time or two.

Just then, one of the birds constantly hanging around Hitch snatched the phone and flew away with it.

We all gave chase. Unsurprisingly, Zipp and I were in the lead. Pipp could fly too, but she wasn’t really an exertion type of person.

“You’re going low, I’ll pin it down from above!” I called to Zipp as we ducked and weaved through the streets. Of course, I couldn’t keep up with Zipp’s speed and started to fall behind. Though, I really wanted to be the one to get the phone back; Hitch was watching.

He still hadn’t given me an answer on the whole thing about upgrading our sleeping together to sleeping together. I wasn’t sure how long I should wait before prompting him again.

I was so distracted by that line of thought that I almost missed the phone flying directly at my face. Zipp had apparently gotten it away from the thieving bird, but fumbled it in my direction. I got my hooves up, also fumbled the phone, and in trying to recover it, crashed into a tree.

I stumbled up, but triumphant. The rest of the crew arrived at a gallop. I handed the phone back to Pipp.

Izzy brushed a few leaves off me with her magic and giggled. “A little ground glitter never hurt anypony.”

“Are you actually hurt?” Hitch asked me.

I was going to be bruised, absolutely, but a coat of hair meant never having to admit that. “I’m totally fine, no problem.”

“Thank hoofness for magic,” Sunny said.

I noticed that I’d landed in somebody’s yard. I didn’t think the tree was any worse for wear, but Izzy had distractedly walked through the flower bed.

And the homeowner was not amused. She was a yellow earth pony that I might have seen before, and she introduced herself by emerging from the house and refuting Sunny’s earlier statement. “I, for one, do not agree.”

“Is this about your flowers, Posey?” Sunny said. “It was an accident, but we’ll fix them right away.”

Posey apparently had a bone to pick. “No. What I meant was that I wish magic had never come back. And I'm not the only pony around here who thinks so. You pegasi are always flying too fast! Or too low! Or too high up! I just don't like it, okay? And every time I’m at the market, there’s some smug unicorn using their magic to shop! I almost got hit in the head by a bag of floating apples yesterday! Magic is not very safe. At least not for the rest of us ponies who don't have it. Right, Sheriff Hitch?”

Put on the spot, Hitch stuttered. “Uh... I don't know-”

“Hold on a moment,” I said. “We’re outside Maretime Bay.”

We were outside the city, sure, it had been a long chase with the bird. I didn’t actually know where Hitch’s authority ended, but was willing to bet this Karen didn’t either. “So if it’s an inter-city issue, that would be my jurisdiction.”

Posey suddenly looked much less likely to complain to me. Hitch, though thankful I had gotten him out of the spotlight, looked uncertain whether he was comfortable with the challenge to authority and I was suddenly unsure if I had done the right thing in saving him or if he would go off on another “Sentra is too dominant for me” thing.

Sunny interceded. “Everypony’s just still learning how to use it, that’s all. Magic takes practice.”

Posey hmph’d. “Then they should do it somewhere else other than my garden!” She tromped back into her house and slammed the door.

Izzy and Sunny got the flowers straightened out and then we headed back into town. It was pizza night at the Crystal Brighthouse.

Regardless of any romantic intentions, moving in with Hitch had been a great idea. I didn’t miss the communal bedrooms and everything else at the Brighthouse. The kitchen was great, though. The six of us got to work. Though, Zipp seemed distracted.

“Extra cheese, Zipp?” Pipp asked her.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Just thinking about something weird that happened earlier.”

“The thing with Posey? Pipp assumed.

“How could she not love magic?” Sunny said.

“Earth ponies have never had magic before. Maybe Posey’s jealous,” Hitch said.

His comment wasn't directed at me, but I subtly tucked my wings closer.

Zipp changed the subject, asking Sunny, “So have you figured out the whole ‘magical wings and horn appearing at random times’ thing yet?”

Sunny shook her head. “No, and it’s been getting worse. Just the other day it happened randomly at the smoothie stand and I ruined half a dozen drinks.”

“Maybe Posey has a point,” Zipp said. “Magic is unpredictable.”

“It may be unpredictable, but it's not dangerous,” Sunny argued.

“Depends on how you look at it,” I said. “And I definitely see some prickly issues here. We’ve already got people saying that nobody should have magic. Let me know if someone starts saying that the only way to stop bad guy with magic is with a good guy with magic. That’ll be my cue that this issue has gotten serious.”

Sunny went on. “We just need to show the Earth ponies that magic is nothing to be afraid of. It makes Equestria a better place. And it's fun! We’re going to use Maretime Bay Day as our chance to show off all the amazing things magic can do! Then everypony will remember just how special it is that we have friendship and magic in our lives again!”

That sounded like a problem for her.

Anyway, the pizza was pretty good.

Later that evening, I lingered at the Brighthouse. I was working on a new strategy for Hitch, and had pulled back slightly. Ordinarily I would have followed him around like a puppy, but needed some time to think.

Heading for the sitting area upstairs, I just caught the end of a phone call Zipp was making with her mom. Or rather, shirking and avoiding her mom. She hung up the phone and let out an extended groan.

“I feel that,” I commented, coming out onto the balcony with her. “Moms, amirite?”

“I’m not ready to go back to Zephyr Heights and become a full-time, heir-to-the-throne princess yet,” she confided.

“What happens if you just…don’t?”

“My mom would be disappointed with me. Also, Pipp would instead become queen.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “That sure is a problem. I wish I could do something to help. I completely understand that sometimes moms are demanding of your time for limited benefit to you. I regularly go half an hour on the phone with mine and only have to say just two or three well placed ‘uh-huh’s.”

Well, I guess I wouldn’t have to any more, since I was now in Equestria.

“It’s not just my mom, though,” Zipp sighed. “It’s all of Zephyr Heights. I have a leadership responsibility, but I really prefer my life here in Maretime Bay.”

“I’m sure the whole Big Tomboy Energy thing you have going on would make you a great q-uh, leader.” I almost said queen there, and didn’t think it would help Zipp’s mood. “But I also want for you to be happy.”

“Me too,” she said, mood just as gloomy as before.

Just then, two pegasi flying by screamed and dropped twenty feet through the air. They successfully recovered, though, and resumed flying.

“That’s not good,” Zipp observed in surprise.

“Weird,” I said. “What could have caused that?”

“I have no idea. It’s…” she trailed off. “I wonder if something is going on with magic?” She glanced towards the rainbow emanating from the top of the Brighthouse.

I had even less reply to that than her maternal troubles. I said goodnight to her and left.

On the way back downstairs, I passed Izzy, who appeared to be lugging an entire briefcase of glitter towards where she was crafting with Sunny and Pipp. I made an I’m watching you gesture and she gave me a wide berth. By now, she understood my feelings on glitter.

Back at the station that evening, I got into bed with Hitch. He seemed in a good mood, perhaps looking forward to the coming holiday.

Maybe if he was in a bad mood he would want to snuggle.

“Don’t take selfies in bed,” he said.

I glanced at him. No, still residual happy. Well, it was worth a shot.

In the morning, amid dealing with all the animals that hung around Hitch, we got a call to the station for some kind of disturbance at the beach. I still wasn’t sure if I should be close to Hitch or giving him space, but didn’t fancy cleaning sand from everywhere, so I let him handle it alone.

He was back later, talking about some kind of disagreement.

“A unicorn said her magic got interrupted, and it caused an accidental sand castle crunch,” he said, shrugging. “The owner of the castle wasn’t happy, let me tell you.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the pink egg he was carrying.

“This? Um, it-” Hitch shook his head. “I have no idea. I found it at the beach.”

“If you of all people don’t know what it is, it must be rare,” I noted.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hitch said. He set up a basket of sand, packed the egg into it, and set it under a lamp in the cabinet behind his desk. His voice shifted to baby mode. “That’s better. All roasty and toasty. I’ll just keep you safe here until we can find who you belong to, okay?”

He was just enlisting one of his birds to keep watch when the door opened and Posey came in. “Who were you just talking to?” she asked.

Hitch quickly closed the cabinet. “Nopony, nopony at all! How can I help you, Posey?”

“I was just trotting down Mane Street when I noticed that my hooves were stuck to the sidewalk. I tried and tried to move, but I couldn’t for, like, a really long time. I think somepony’s pranking me. Probably one of those unicorns. I’d like to file a complaint.”

Here we go with the Karen again. Hitch pointed. “Okay, the complaint box is over there on the wall.”

It was overflowing as of late. Maybe there had been that many weird things going on. Maybe I could try sorting some of those complaints out, to give Hitch a hand.

“I’d prefer if you took it down yourself,” Posey said flatly.

“I would, but I’m late for an important meeting. Duty calls!” Hitch hurried out.

Nice, he just backhandedly called Posey unimportant. I shifted slightly at my desk, and Posey’s eyes fell on me. “How do you know it was a unicorn?” I asked.

“Sparkly stuff stuck my hooves to the ground,” she replied, impatiently.

I couldn’t fault her logic, though I wondered who could have done it. I rubbed my chin, remembering Hitch’s comment about unicorn magic being on the frizz and the pegasi I had seen falling the other day. “Strange. There have been reports of unusual magic activity lately. I wonder if this is another mishap.”

“The only mishap is that ponies like you came to this town!”

“Wow, racist much?”

“I don’t need that from you…whatever you are!”

I glanced at my foreleg. “Oh, look at the time. I’m late for an important meeting.”

Posey sputtered as I got up and left. Yeah, I probably should have helped her, me being the law and everything, but there was no evidence that a crime had actually been committed, and something more worrying might actually be going on. Posey didn’t know it, and probably wouldn’t have liked it, but her report might actually be helping us.

Plus, let’s be honest here, she was kind of annoying.

The meeting turned out to be down at Pipp's Mane Melody combination salon/karaoke bar. I had inadvertently stumbled into a makeover session, but was fairly confident that at this point not even Pipp could get the gel out of my mane.

Still, she found things to critique. “I see your fetlocks are trimmed. A little out of fashion, but you’ve never been one to notice.”

“You wish you could set your own style trends.”

I still wasn’t exactly sure whether the two of us had fallen into habitual trading of insults or if we were actually friends. Funny how that could sometimes be hard to tell.

The big purpose of the meeting, though, was about Zipp. Apparently, everyone thought she was paranoid for thinking magic was glitching. Pipp even sang a special song especially about that.

“You don’t get it, do you?!” Zipp burst out. “We can’t just sing a song and ignore everything! If we lose magic this time, we may never get it back again! And it’ll be our fault.”

“Why wouldn’t you all believe Zipp?” I said, backing her up. “She’s probably smarter than all of us, but more importantly, you could at least investigate her claim before branding her paranoid. Fortunately, I have some more evidence for the pile. There were a few more apparent incidents.” Zipp and I had seen the falling pegasi together. Since then, apparently the ruined sandcastle and the sticky hooves might also be related.

And just then, a pegasus crashed into the street outside.

Posey was once more in the middle of it. “It isn’t fair! We earth ponies don’t get any magic, and then the ponies that do have it don’t even know how to use it!”

All six of us did another “oh look at the time, we have somewhere else to be” and retreated to the Brighthouse.

“Thanks for believing me,” Zipp said to me quietly as we traveled.

“Hey, no problem, what are friends for?”

We circled up again on the upper floor of the Brighthouse. The crystals we had collected and united to kick off magic were here, floating gently in a beam of rainbow light that soared straight up from the building like a beacon. Zipp went over the information she had collected. “I think I finally know what’s happening to magic. Why it’s glitching.” She pointed to the crystals. “The magic is in the crystals. They might be powered by ponies.”

“Soylent Green?” I said, though everyone else’s audible surprise overrode my voice.

As a demonstration, Zipp said, “Okay, check this out. Pipp, when we were fillies, I used to steal Mom’s chocolate-dipped cherries and blame it on you.”

Pipp gasped. “I knew it! You got me grounded, like, twelve times!”

“Yeah. And guess what? I don't like karaoke! It’s the worst!”

This time everyone gasped. Izzy demanded, “Hey, you take that back! Karaoke is a fun activity for every age and skill level!”

“Zipp’s allowed to like what she likes,” Sunny said, trying to be moderate. “Just because we enjoy something doesn’t mean she has to.”

Hitch said, “Sunny, there's no need to get all huffy about it. Izzy was just trying to stand up for Pipp.”

“Don’t call me huffy!”

“I didn’t call you huffy! I said you were being huffy!”

Everyone started shouting at once. Since we were confessing sins, I said, to no one in particular, “I once ate sakura niku while knowing full well what it was.”

I don’t think anyone heard me, though, and at any rate, the crystals started vibrating, interrupting the constant stream of rainbow light. The instant the arguments stopped, so did the interference.

“You...you were right,” Sunny admitted.

“So, when ponies aren’t treating each other with kindness…” Izzy began.

“...the Crystals get weaker, and the more unstable magic becomes in Equestria.” Zipp finished.

“So…friendship is magic?” I said. “Like literally? Because there are some ponies out there that I really don’t-”

A wave of static went across the crystals. “-okay, okay!”

“I wonder if this had anything to do with why the Crystals were separated all those years ago. Ugh. Or why I still can't seem to figure out my Alicorn magic,” Sunny said.

“I don’t know,” said Zipp. “I want to find out. But if we want to keep magic in Equestria, first we need to get everypony back on the same page.”

“Zipp’s right, we can’t give up,” Sunny said, rallying everyone. “We can still make Bay Day the celebration it’s supposed to be, for everypony!”

With that agreed, the holiday was tomorrow. We just had to make it a success.

That evening, back at Hitch’s place, I could tell he had a lot on his mind. Problems with magic, the egg he found, and maybe the overflowing complaint box. His shoulders looked tense as he sat at the edge of the bed. Maybe he was still thinking about the day, or maybe mentally preparing himself for another night beside me.

“Do you want a back rub?” I asked.

“That’s…” he sighed, and then resignedly admitted, “I would appreciate that very much.”

It was a good thing I had reluctantly let Pipp do a hooficure on me at the salon. When it came to personal image, I had a very definite one, but there was a big difference between dark and actually dirty. Dirt is nobody’s fetish.

But-

Nobody’s fetish!

The massage did not include a happy ending, though it wasn’t as if I had planned for that, my personal longing aside. At least Hitch seemed contented, and fell asleep quicker than usual.

In the morning, it was time for the festival. The town had been decorated and prepared for a street fair. I had to say, I was excited. Everybody loves a fair, and this was my first one in another world.

Hitch and I met up with the others. Despite the racist rumblings around town, there had been a pretty good turnout and the crowd was thronging.

“Ponies showed up after all,” Izzy said. “And look, there’s the Queen! Hello, your Majesticness!”

Zipp had told me her mom was going to come for the festival. On top of backing her up with the magic glitching, I had offered to do her the favor of keeping Queen Haven occupied. Somehow, dealing with someone else’s mom made it a little easier.

“It’s good to see you, Miss Martial Law,” the Queen said, greeting me. She smiled and winked. “And thank you for seeing to our business.”

I could only assume she meant getting the charges against her dropped. As much as I would really have liked to see someone punished for being a phony pony full of baloney, I hadn’t actually done anything. Maybe now that every pegasus could fly, Zephyr Heights had decided that she was actually innocent. Or maybe, like Zipp, nobody else wanted to step up and take her job.

“No problem,” I said, though remained wary. There was no telling what a national leader might request if she thought she was already receiving preferential treatment.

I had begun to realize that I, personally and all by myself, was the closest thing to national law enforcement that existed in Equestria. It had happened by accident, and was only sustained because people like Queen Haven went along with it.

Speaking of going along with things, despite ponies coming for the festival, I could tell the crowd was getting restless. The earth ponies didn’t like unicorn ice cream. Unicorns were eating out of trash cans. Pegasi were falling out of the sky-

Okay, probably should do something about that.

However, as I started forward to help, the growing storm of emotion seemed to rise with actual storm clouds appearing in the sky like magic. Well, maybe literally magic.

“My hooves are stuck!” Hitch called, and I immediately diverted in his direction to help. There was some kind of magic holding him down, but it didn’t look like any kind of unicorn magic I had seen before.

“The glitches are getting worse!” Zipp said as the wind picked up and the clouds grew even darker. We managed to get Hitch free.

“Nothing has gone to plan today,” Sunny lamented. “We have to try to save this.” She glanced at the festival schedule, trying to make the best of it, and shoved Pipp towards the event stage.

“We still need all the positivity we can get,” Pipp agreed, apparently with the program.

As Pipp took the stage, Sunny hurriedly announced, “Everypony, please welcome pop star Princess Pipp Petals to sing the brand-new Maretime Bay Day song!”

“New song? We want to hear the real Maretime Bay song! Sung by an Earth pony!” shouted someone in the crowd.

That was when the lightning started.

This, at least, got the crowd’s minds on something besides fighting, for once. A bolt struck the signboard over the sheriff station’s front door.

“Eggy!” Hitch exclaimed, rushing inside. It took me a moment to remember the pink egg.

He was just in time to miss the magical void that suddenly opened in the street in front of the stage, growing wider and sucking up everything in its path down into a pit of utter blackness.

Of course I was streaming all of this, even as I had to hobble away from the expanding void on three legs because I was holding the phone.

“Everypony, get back!” Sunny wisely shouted.

The crowd collectively began to shout and run. Earth ponies were still getting stuck, though, and unable to move as the void got closer, swallowing up the street and everything in its path. And then, it took Posey and a pegasus mare I vaguely recalled was named Windy. The pair fell into the hole, screaming.

“No!” Sunny shouted. She concentrated, stepping towards the edge. “Come on, Alicorn magic, work!”

Hitch had reemerged from the station, carrying the egg protectively. I glanced at him, and then at the hole. Should I do something stupid/heroic…?

Sunny jumped first.

Realizing the situation, that Sunny was going to need all the help she could get for her magic to work, Zipp tried one last time to rally the crowd. “The magic will come back to us if we can work together! Come on, unicorns! Come on, pegasi! Come on, earth ponies!”

By some miracle, it actually seemed to work. Everyone moved forward to help free those that were stuck. Now that the chips were down, it seemed like the town was finally going to put aside differences and come together.

In the midst of all this, Zipp glanced at me. She glanced at Hitch. She smirked, gave me a wink, and then shoved Hitch from behind.

Unprepared, he stumbled forward. Desperately, he tried to protect the egg, tripped into me, and knocked me over on my back, landing atop me.

There were a lot of our body parts touching, but the ones that surprised both of us were our lips. Coincidentally, magic returned just then and we both felt the little zing that went through us.

Hitch jerked his head back, gasping. I asked, “Is that the egg or something else hard pressing into me?”

“It’s the egg.” It took a second, but Hitch suddenly went beet red and scrambled to get up. He sputtered. “Is that the mouth that’s had genitals in it?”

“I’ve never done that before, I was just offering to let you do it for the first time,” I clarified.

“First time? That…that was my first kiss.” He looked like he didn't know how to feel.

The usual crowd of animals raced over, all chittering happily, apparently congratulating Hitch.

“Did you just... talk!?” Hitch gasped. “Did I just... understand you!? Whaaaaat?!”

“I thought you were always able to understand animals,” I said.

“I mean, yeah, sort of, but not like directly speaking.” He shook his head and glanced around at several other earth ponies who seemed to be glowing.

“Earth pony magic!?” Sunny exclaimed.

“When we work together, maybe we can invent new magic,” Zipp said.

I don’t know if she had intended that to be a double entendre, but if her giving Hitch a literal push was her way of helping me out, I would make her the maid of honor at our wedding.

Was it too early to start making “get Hitched” jokes?

In the midst of all this, and the sudden turnaround in the town's attitude, the void had disappeared and Sunny dropped off the two ponies she had rescued from it. The magical wings and horn she had sprouted disappeared now that she didn’t need them.

The skies had already cleared up and it seemed like the magic storm was over. Day saved, I guess. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, the egg Hitch was holding cracked open. He gasped and held it up. Whatever was inside apparently wanted out.

The shell split, the top half of the egg falling away to reveal a green, scaly lizard.

Hitch’s mouth dropped open. “A dragon!?”

Apparently that was at least as exciting as the narrowly-avoided magic apocalypses that had just happened. Everyone started to gather around the baby dragon.

“He’s so cute!” said Izzy.

“Adorbs!” added Pipp.

I didn’t move, though, suddenly worried and too preoccupied to join in greeting the new baby. It had been a busy day, and my relationship with Hitch had taken a big jump, but this might be moving just a bit too fast.

Did we just adopt a kid?

Tell Your Tale: Maretime Bay Day 2.0 / The Game Is Ahoof / Dumpster Diving

Me, Hitch, and the baby dragon were back at the station. Nobody else wanted to deal with a kid, and between Hitch and I being law enforcement and Hitch being nicer than anyone, it sort of fell to us to handle this.

I mean, as thirsty as I was for Hitch, the thought of children had crossed my mind, but not now, not without any kind of warning.

“What are we even going to name this kid?” Hitch worried. He’d been doing a lot of worrying lately. So had I, and I wasn’t even the kind of person who usually did.

“I think we have bigger problems, like what dragons eat, and if it might be us when he gets bigger.”

“Dragons don’t eat ponies. I don’t think.”

That was going to have to be good enough, because Hitch was the town’s foremost expert on animals and even he until recently had thought dragons were extinct. Not that dragons were considered animals, but they definitely weren’t ponies.

Hitch glanced at the wall clock. “We were supposed to be over to the Brighthouse soon to help with Pipp’s blogging.”

Little as I wanted to do that, I wanted to deal with what was right in front of me even less. By the tone of Hitch’s voice, he might have been thinking the same.

But just then, the dragon yawned and a few motes of flame came out of his mouth.

“So…maybe we shouldn’t leave Sparky here by himself,” I said.

Hitch sighed. “Yeah.” He glanced at me. “Sparky, huh?”

“Well…?” I kind of gestured vaguely at the dragon.

He shrugged. “It works.”

We figured out a way to carry the dragon kid around and headed out for the Brighthouse.

Pipp was working on a desktop computer for once, sifting through photos taken during the Maretime Bay Day event where everybody had gotten their magic, or at least gotten it back.

“I even got a pic of the moment it happened!” she said.

Hitch and I joined the others already gathered around the computer. Pipp showed us some clips. Even I had to admit, she was doing a good job of it.

Izzy leaned closer to the computer, hooves on the keyboard. “It’s so cool!”

Everyone seemed to get nervous all of a sudden. Pipp said, “R-right! Buuut, it kinda took me all day to put together, so just be-”

Izzy grabbed the mouse and started clicking it rapidly.

Pipp tried again. “Seriously, Izz, you're gonna press-”

Files erased, said the computer.

“-the delete button,” Pipp finished weakly.

“Um... Don't worry!” Izzy gasped. “I know how to fix this!” She went back to clicking.

Files gone forever.

“It’s…okay,” Pipp said, sounding hollow. “We’ll just do it again, next year.”

I lifted my phone to show her. “Or you could just use my pictures.”

Pipp suddenly looked extremely torn, but gave in. “Sentra, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Oh, okay, I was all set to have to launch a max-effort Pipp cheerup operation,” said Zipp, giving me a pat on the back.

“We still could,” Hitch said. “I was going to do a cheerleading dance and everything. I got us all outfits, just in case, for something like this.”

“My contribution is usually just ‘smoothies for everyone,’” Sunny said. At least she was honest and in touch with herself.

Speaking of being honest, I made a mental note to never let Izzy touch anything expensive or dangerous. You might say she was developing a record.

Though circling back to the cheerleader outfits…hmm. Might have to remember that one for later.

While we were still at the Brighthouse, Sunny invited us to watch a movie. “It’s pretty scary, if you’re all up for it.”

This should be amusing, seeing what ponies thought was scary. “I’m in.”

The movie turned out to be a knockoff of Frankenstein, except colored horses. Well, this wasn’t very stimulating, and even my internal mirth petered out after a while. Sensing that if Sparky was going to be around the station later that night, I might not be able to get any sleep then, just as I hadn’t on previous nights, I took the opportunity to fall asleep on the couch, even crowded in alongside the others.

I’m not sure how long I slept before everyone startled me awake by screaming. We’ve already established that this isn’t good for my nerves, but unfortunately I’m usually ready to rock as soon as it happens. Though, that had never been an issue in Equestria, it was usually people just screaming.

As I leaped up, I noticed I hadn’t heard Hitch’s voice in the catacophony. Maybe, getting used to me, he had decided that horror movies weren’t so scary anymore. That hadn’t been my intention; I wasn’t trying to scare him, I was just like this. Still, if it helped him raise his standards.

“I’m only gonna say this once. Who. Took. My. Sunglasses?” Zipp demanded, apparently the source that had startled everyone into startling me.

Everyone else was apparently as surprised by this as I was and nobody replied.

“Let’s start with our first pony of interest,” Zipp said, rolling in a board with red string connecting a bunch of data and pictures. “Whaddya say, Hitch? Remember this morning at the beach, sheriff? You said, ‘Another bright sunshiny day in Maretime Bay! Too bad I left my sunglasses back at the station... I'll just steal yours, Zipp! Mwahahaha!’”

“Objection! That is not what I said!” Hitch rightly protested.

“Seconded,” I added. “I was there with him, and that is definitely not what he said. What’s going on with you, Zipp? This is totally out of character for you.”

And it was. Zipp was smarter than any of us, and definitely not one to jump to conclusions or distort facts.

Zipp wavered, and suddenly ducked her head. “I don’t know, I just have never lost anything before.”

“Never?”

“Like, never,” Pipp said. She rolled her eyes. “Zipp’s so organized, and has so little stuff of her own to even lose, that she probably hasn’t ever misplaced anything before.”

“Sorry I overreacted,” Zipp said. “I do wish I knew what happened to my sunglasses, though.”

“Well, I can’t help you with that,” said Izzy, “but here ya go, Zipp! I made these for you.” She pulled out an electronic visor matched to Zipp’s coloring.

“Whoa!” Zipp put them on. She clicked a button on the side a few times. “Night vision!? Heat vision!? X-ray!?”

“Wait, what?” I said. “Izzy, you made that?”

“Yep!”

I couldn’t believe it. Not to talk bad about someone who literally grew up in a treehouse recycling trash, but I’d seen very few things I could praise about Izzy, and for someone who’d accidentally deleted all Pipp’s computer files, it seemed astonishing that she could build some kind of cutting-edge multifunction goggles.

Zipp was still having fun with the visor. She kept clicking back and forth. “Night vision, heat vision, x-ray!”

She looked at me and suddenly made a face. “What the hay is with your body, Sentra?”

It was the next afternoon. Down at the station, Hitch and I had made it through another semi-sleepless night taking care of Sparky, and were each a few cups of coffee deep in trying to make it through the day after. Living with a dragon was like balancing on a razor’s edge - things could go badly very quickly, and you never knew when. This was wearing a little thin on both of us and I could tell Hitch was probably lacking even more sleep than me.

Aside from that, I had a lot of other things on my mind.

I still had no idea what Zipp meant when she said there was something abnormal about my body. Sure, I knew that, but I was concerned when it might be something else that was only visible through thermal or x-ray. I’d meant to ask Zipp directly, but Sparky had set something on fire just then and Hitch and I had rushed him out of the Brighthouse.

I was also thinking about the unsolved cases on my plate. Bonesaw, the guy we’d gotten a bolo about, plus a few others that had come in now that Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood were starting to share notes.

A raccoon ran in. In any other setting, this would have gotten a reaction from me, but Hitch was Hitch and this wasn’t unusual. The raccoon said something to him, chittering.

“Dumpster diving?” Hitch said. “Izzy!?”

Well, here we go.

“I mean, no, it’s not illegal,” he said. “Weird, but not illegal. I also don’t think she’s going to be eating anything out of there. I hope she’s not going to be eating anything out of there.”

Apparently reassured, the racoon left.

I glanced at Hitch, raising my eyebrows. His newfound ability to directly talk to animals was coming in handy lately.

He sighed and gestured after the raccoon. “Izzy’s digging in the trash. I decided not to ask why.” He sighed, tiredly.

I nodded in agreement. And just like that, my opinion of her was back to somewhere south of mediocre.

Sparky spit some sparks, though I don’t think he was actually following the conversation or anything.

Hitch regarded the dragon glumly. “We should get some sort of community babysitting going. Not that I don’t like this little guy, but there are times that both of us need to be someplace.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I’d start with the girls.”

“Sure, but what if we all, as a group, have to do something magic-related?” he said. “Or even just hanging out?”

“You got parents, Hitch?”

A brief look of panic went over his face, which didn’t directly answer my question, but was answer enough. Maybe if we asked them to babysit our adopted dragon kid, he might have to explain his deal with me. “Er, I was thinking on the order of Auntie Phyllis.”

“‘Auntie?’”

“I mean, since her son Sprout went on the run from the trouble he caused, I think she’s been lonely. And I’ve known her a long time, back when I was a colt and friends with Sprout.”

“Maybe worth considering,” I agreed.

We went up the hill to Canterlogic. It was no secret that we had a dragon in town now, but some people still stared. Or maybe they were looking at me, I never could tell.

Phyllis agreed. Almost too easily, I thought. “Why, certainly! I’d love to take care of him for a while.”

Hitch and I traded glances. We were both probably thinking Phyllis was going to use Sparky for some sort of experiments, but doubted any harm would come to him.

“One night of rest,” Hitch mumbled as we walked back to the station, the evening shadows coming on. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“You want dinner and a show?” I asked.

He glanced at me, still tired but apparently not so tired as to be totally uninterested. “What did you have in mind?”

“You may have forgotten, Hitch, but I’m supposedly a performance artist.”

“‘Supposedly-’?”

“And I know you’ve tasted my cooking. Sit back and relax, I’ve got this.”

Back at the station, I shooed him out of the kitchen and got to work. I made spaghetti. It’s pretty hard to screw up boiling water and opening a jar of sauce. I didn’t even have to make meatballs on account of there not being any carnivores around. Not to say I couldn’t have done more for dinner, but I’d lived with Hitch long enough to know what he liked, and this was no time to try an experiment.

Though, what really got his attention was how I served him. His jaw literally dropped when I walked into the dining room with the two plates. “Where did you get that outfit!?”

“The cheerleading outfit is yours, you know. I borrowed it out of your closet,” I said. Smile, wink. “You said you know Phyllis, and boy does she know you. She told me all kinds of stories about what you got up to in high school.”

Sure, Hitch was a dude, but he was also the centerpiece of the pony pyramid. Huh, now that I thought about it, it was strange that Hitch was secure enough in his masculinity to be a cheerleader, but still felt threatened by me. Maybe this little stunt would change that. The borrowed Maretime Bay Junior High outfit hadn’t originally come with a skirt, but it was easy enough to get Pipp to match the fabric. She just made me promise a video.

I did a spin where I stood. I was on two legs, so I had two more to hold the spaghetti. I did set the plates down on the table right after, though, in order to free myself up for the rest.

Hitch’s eyes were wide. I wasn’t sure if it was because the uniform clashed horribly with my coloring, that he couldn’t believe I would do this, or if in pony society not even cheerleaders usually cavorted on two legs. In my case, I didn’t actually know how to dance otherwise. And I liked to think I was a good dancer, between DDR and nobody in this world knowing what a bad bipedal dance looked like.

“Hey Hitch!
That’s you!
I’m gonna show ya what I’m gonna do!”

Pom-poms, twirls, the whole bit.

“You’ve got-
The stuff!
And everybody thinks you’re super tough!”

“You’re cute,
You’re hot,
I really, really like you lots!”

Final pirouette into splits.

“Please look,
Please see,
I want you to be the one for me!”

A slight blush had come to Hitch’s face and he subtly leaned forward over the table. I suppressed a smirk. Got him. I’d finally figured out what he was into, and it turned out to be something normal like cheerleaders. Well, maybe I could do something about that.

I stood up gracefully and sauntered over to the table. “So can I get you anything else?” I reached across and touched his hoof and his face went a shade redder. “You look tense. Maybe a massage?”

“I, um-” he stuttered.

The phone rang just then. A couple of seconds passed as Hitch and I looked at each other. I knew I didn’t want to be interrupted, but thought that by the look on his face maybe he felt the same. Was my approach actually working on Hitch this time, only to be interrupted?

I sighed and reached for the phone because it was closer to me and it gave Hitch the benefit of the doubt that maybe he didn’t want to stand up just now.

“Maretime Bay Sheriff Station.”

“Hello, my name is Bonesaw. I want to turn myself in.”

Tell Your Tale: Alicorn Issues / Making a Foal of Me / Neighfever

The fugitive named Bonesaw was…not exactly what I pictured. He was a skinny, medium blue pegasus and wore glasses.

To be fair, the way his eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the sight of me, I probably wasn’t what he was picturing for a cop.

And yes, that was even with me taking off the cheerleader outfit before Hitch and I went down to lock him up.

Bonesaw had come right to the sheriff station. He apparently had seen the wanted posters with his name on them and decided not to drag things out. The bolo we’d gotten on him from Zephyr Heights had said he was wanted for serious crimes, but hadn’t specified what they were.

He made no effort to resist as we put him in the cell. I knew Hitch was also curious about the guy. He was our first out-of-town case after all. “So what did you do to get on the wanted posters?” I asked.

“I stole something,” he said.

I figured it was probably something like that. Equestria didn’t really have violent crimes. Come to think of it, I didn’t think I’d even seen a lethal weapon since arriving here, not even with the Zephyr Heights royal guard.

“What, specifically?” I asked him.

“I steal a lot of things.”

“Have you stolen anything since you’ve been in Maretime Bay?” Hitch asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, badge boy?”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why turn yourself in and then start being obstinate?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, badge…uh…” He gestured at me.

I left him hanging and turned to Hitch. “I’ll handle this if you want to go contact Zephyr Heights and arrange the transfer?”

He glanced at Bonesaw with disdain and agreed, turning away.

When he was out of the room, I dialed the phone. I was about to do the worst thing I could think of.

“Hellooo?”

“Pipp, where are you right now?” I asked. “I need your help to meangirl someone.”

“I got you, fam,” she replied, no questions asked.

She got down to the station lickey-split and we started in on the interrogation.

Bonesaw seemed to know Pipp, which would make sense because she was pegasus royalty. The way he got uncomfortable, though, made me think there was something else going on.

“Ew, is this him?” Pipp said as she walked into the station.

“Hey, be nice, he’s here because he turned himself in.” I turned to look at Bonesaw. “I think he just wants the attention.”

“Attention?” Pipp walked up to the bars and gave him a look up and down. “Did your parents not give you any?”

“Maybe that’s why he’s crying out to law enforcement for help,” I said. “As if he actually did anything illegal.”

“Are you really a bad boy?” Pipp scoffed.

“Yes I am!” Bonesaw burst out. “I stole Queen Haven’s ceremonial undergarments!”

Pipp’s disgust was suddenly real. I jumped in. “Some old lady? Would nobody else touch you?”

“But I…” He recovered and said, “I’m so bad I stole the donation box from an orphanage.”

“Like anypony would let you get close to a place with children,” Pipp shot back.

“Thank God nobody will ever have any with you,” I said.

“I can get a girlfriend!” he protested. “I…I would even get one by force, if you know what I mean.”

I glanced at Pipp, and then towards the office door where Hitch was on the phone. I unlocked the cell door and swung it wide open. “Okay. Do it.”

“What?”

I stood in the doorway of the cell. “Take me by force.”

I had a couple inches of height on him, and I’d noticed he’d kept his distance from me ever since he’d met me, plus backup was near at hand, so I wasn’t worried. Still, yeah, this was probably a stupid idea.

“You’re…sure?” he said.

“Well, if you’re asking for consent then you’re definitely not taking me by force, mister hardened criminal.”

He tentatively took a step forward and puckered up, closing his eyes and leaning towards me.

“Ugh, gag me with a spoon,” Pipp cut in. Bonesaw shrank back. I slammed the cell door.

“I didn’t expect the successful apprehension of an internationally-wanted jailbird would be so disappointing,” I said. “Now I know how your mom feels.”

“Please stop,” he pleaded, “My penis has been involuntarily retracted so much that I think I’m getting rhabdo from overexertion.”

Pipp opened her mouth for a finishing move, but I interceded. We didn’t want to kill him.

We’d still broken him, though. Bonesaw told us everything in a monotone. The thing about the underwear had turned out to be true, but small petty thefts since then had been about it. Case closed.

I thanked Pipp for her help. In the meantime, Hitch had gotten Zephyr Heights to send someone. They would arrive tomorrow.

The jail rarely held anyone overnight. This was Maretime Bay, after all. The place was probably secure enough, but both Hitch and I were a little too cautious to do anything more than sleep lightly that night.

Screw you, Bonesaw. Hitch and I had been just about to have a moment until he showed up. That was why I’d vindictively called in the big guns for the interrogation.

In the morning, we rid ourselves of Bonesaw when a transport showed up to extradite him back to Zephyr Heights. He looked almost happy to see them.

However, before I could get back to getting back to Hitch, the girls called us from the Brighthouse.

We arrived to find that Sunny had been having episodes with her new alicorn magic. Apparently, she’d blasted the shared bedroom with glitter in her sleep. I was so glad to have moved out.

Sunny’s magical addition of wings and horn were going haywire. I wished I could help, but didn’t have any helpful observations to make about magic. I still wasn’t sure what kind of special magic I might have, if everyone was supposed to have some.

“We should give you a makeover,” Pipp suggested to Sunny as if it would somehow help her magic control issues.

“That’s your solution to maybe ninety percent of all problems you face,” I said.

“And it solves at least sixty percent of them,” she retorted.

Wait, really? I didn’t say that, though.

Hitch and I declined the makeovers and went for a patrol of town. I again wanted to restart the previous night’s activities, but couldn’t think of a logical segue to the topic. Still, it was nice walking with him.

After making a walk through town, we swung down by the beach. Sunny was there, looking dejected. Her magic was still on the fritz. She had a horn, and wings, but they were asymmetric and different sizes. Also, something had happened to her mane and it looked like an off-season Christmas tree. Some makeover.

“It’s been a complete disaster,” she sighed as she saw us walking over.

“You okay?” Hitch asked.

“Everypony else seems to be growing so fast. I just feel... stuck.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that. Maybe in controlling her magic.

Hitch said, “You helped everypony believe in magic. Now it's time to believe in your own magic, Sunny.”

“That was pretty poetic,” I said.

“You think so?” he replied.

“It was. Thanks, Hitch.” said Sunny.

Just then, as we sat there on the sand together, a wave offshore started to build. I had no idea where it had come from, but it looked like it was going to break at least twenty feet high. A tsunami!?

“Oh no, the foals!” Sunny shouted, pointing to a few kids who were building a sandcastle just down the way and completely oblivious to the wave bearing down on them.

I might have been first to move. At any rate, I didn’t see anyone in front of me, and that was even temporarily forgetting I had wings in the heat of the moment. Measuring the distance as I accelerated, I thought I might beat the wave, but it was going to be close. There was no more time to think as I reached the kids, grabbed them and gave a push out ahead of me. I wasn’t sure what that much water bearing down was going to do, but wanted to make sure they had the best chance of escaping as they could.

Fwoomp.

What? That was definitely not a splash. G-glitter?

“My magic finally worked to save somepony!” Sunny said. “I mean, not quite the way I intended…”

She’d transmogrified the whole wave into shiny red glitter, thereby polluting the ocean with microplastics but I had to admit it was slightly better than getting crushed by a rogue wave. Though, if she herself had not also gotten totally covered in pounds of glitter, I might have been angry at her. As it was, I didn’t dare open my mouth for fear of inhaling some. It had gotten everywhere! This was basically everything I'd ever told Izzy not to do, but a thousand times worse.

Well, at least the kids were safe.

Hitch was in a similar predicament as me. The two of us trudged back to the station to clean up.

“I can help you in the shower,” I offered. “If you’ll help me. It’s also probably better than having one of us dirty and standing around waiting for the other to finish.”

To my surprise, Hitch actually bought that. Maybe the pony lack of nudity taboo helped. We went into the bathroom together.

We’d tried to brush off as much glitter as possible before getting into the shower, but this was still going to be a lot going down the drain. I hoped the sewers could handle it.

It was a little tight. Pony bodies being horizontal, the shower was crowded. Still, I was going to make this work despite any discomfort.

True to my word, I helped scrub Hitch. Glitter was the herpes of crafting supplies, but we managed to get it off. He started in on me.

“What do I have to do with these?” he said, tentatively holding one of my wings.

“It’s just skin. Probably easier to clean than hair.”

Hitch gave good scrubs. Gentle, but effective. Technically it could be counted a massage, I guess. I relaxed and let the water pour over me. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t still paying attention. I couldn't afford to be totally tuned out, not if I wanted to accomplish something here.

“You were really cool today,” he said. “That was a real hero move, saving those kids. I mean, even though Sunny took away the water. I think that’s at least twice now I’ve seen you throw yourself into danger to save a life.”

“You would have done the same.”

He started to say something, but I cut in. “I know you would, Hitch. I’m sorry if I sometimes…I don’t know, steal your thunder or something, but-”

It was his turn to interrupt me. “I don’t take any offense. I couldn’t ask you to stop and wait for me to handle things instead.”

There was silence for a moment. I said, “Hitch, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“While we’re being emotionally vulnerable…I really like you. I know I’ve been hanging on you like a fangirl for a while now, but I just wanted to make that clear. I know we’re going about this a weird way: we’re sleeping together, we had our first kiss during the magic mayhem a few days ago, and now we’re showering together…”

Deep breath. Time to take a leap of faith. I briefly turned my face into the shower spray - this was an extreme thirst.

I turned my head to look back at him, and lifted my tail. “Do you want to take another step with me?”

Hitch gulped. “Are…are you sure?”

“Hitch, I’m literally begging you for it.” I tried my best to sound needy instead of commanding.

He wavered for a long moment, but then took a deep breath, met my eyes, and put his hooves on my hips.

“As long as you guarantee you’re totally clean!” I said. “I am not getting glitter in there.”

In the morning, Hitch and I lay in bed. He was the big spoon.

His stupid bird alarm clock woke us up. I didn’t move. Neither did Hitch.

“Hey,” I said. Long pony necks meant that I could turn my head most of the way to at least see him behind me.

The look on his face was expected: second-guessing on the morning after. I wondered which way it would go.

“I’m sorry if I-” he began.

“Don’t apologize.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if-”

“Hitch, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Was I…okay?”

“You were amazing.” Not that I had a lot of experience, but I had definitely enjoyed myself.

I kissed him. His big brown eyes widened in surprise, but then drifted closed. We both came up for air a few seconds later.

“Coffee?” I said, getting up from bed and stretching.

“Sure.”

Things were a little different between us now. I could feel it as we had breakfast. But not a big difference. I mean, we’d already been sleeping in the same bed.

Things were much different in my own mind, though. This was it. Nobody could deny we were in a relationship now, least of all me. How far was this going to go?

Married? Kids?

Much as I was thirsty, was I ready for commitment?

Well, for starters, I had no idea if contraceptives existed in Equestria, so…

It was just once, right? I had no idea what my cycle even was. This would probably be fine.

Oh, and speaking of kids, I’d forgotten until now that we’d left Sparky with Phyllis. I cast a subtle glance at Hitch, but it apparently hadn’t crossed his mind.

As we were eating, Hitch glanced at the clock. “Oh, we’re going to be late. Pipp had something going on today.”

I doubted I wanted to know what it was, but an invitation was an invitation. We headed down to Mane Melody.

When we arrived, Pipp was frantic. Sunny and Izzy had somehow been transformed into foals. Zipp showed up just then and was just as dumbfounded. “What happened here!?”

“I don’t know!” Pipp moaned. “It just happened after the spa treatments!”

If Izzy had been a handful and Sunny was having trouble managing her magic before, the two of them as kids were an order of magnitude worse. I suddenly decided that maybe I wasn’t ready for my own just yet.

Using her multispectral goggles, Zipp searched around the store for a while while the rest of us tried to keep the kids contained. Zipp eventually figured out that Pipp’s new facemask treatment had mixed de-agifying ingredients with Sunny’s mysterious magic glitter. The glitter apparently retained magic, and that combined with the rest of the stuff designed to make someone look younger had created a compound that could literally make it happen.

“Well, I’ve never made an aging treatment before, but I guess it’s theoretically possible to reverse this, then,” said Pipp. She got to work.

I had meant to ask Zipp what exactly she saw when she looked at me through her goggles. She’d once commented that something strange was going on.

But speaking of something strange, if the magic glitter was to blame for this, what might it have done to me and Hitch? I cast a worried glance at him and could tell he was thinking about it, too.

He didn’t look like he was about to bring it up, though, because that would have meant admitting to the others that we were now a sex-having couple.

That was another thing to look up, if sex out of wedlock was seriously frowned upon in Equestria.

Hoo boy, I’d gotten what I’d wanted, but sure opened a can of worms along the way.

The next morning, Hitch and I awakened in each other’s embrace again. I had to say, I liked it.

Getting up and getting ready for breakfast, I happened to glance out the window. “Uh, Hitch?”

“Yeah?”

“Do giant flowers grow around here?”

“What are you talking-wow!” He came over to stand beside me and looked out the window. “No, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” We stared at several that towered as tall as trees around town. They seemed to have grown overnight.

“Where do you think they came from?” I asked.

“No idea. Maybe somepony’s special magic?”

Plausible. However, as we watched, a slight coastal breeze blew across the town. A light yellow dust seemed to shake off the flowers. Could that be pollen? Did giant flowers have giant pollen? Oh no…

In Japan, after World War Two, a lot of the country needed to be reforested to make up for all the wood used to rebuild after the firebombings. A lot of the trees that were planted were cedar. A few decades later, when the trees reached maturity, it was discovered that a lot of Japanese people are allergic to cedar. I suddenly had a really bad feeling about these giant flowers.

Out on patrol that morning, we saw Sunny. She was excited. “Hey Hitch, hey Sentra! You’ll never believe it! I helped Dhalia find her special magic, and it turns out she’s really good at making flowers grow!”

I had seen a frontal system moving into the area, and sure enough the wind chose that moment to pick up. A gust carried across town, and suddenly every giant flower within view snapped off and came tumbling down.

A huge wave of yellow pollen rolled across the city.

“Gas!” I shouted. “Back to the station, shut down the ventilation, seal the cracks!”

Sunny flew off somewhere, probably back to the Brighthouse or maybe trying to prevent the spread of the pollen. I wasn’t sure turning it into glitter was a better solution, though.

At any rate, even though we managed to get back to the station before the pollen cloud hit, Hitch began to sneeze almost immediately. He started coughing and hacking so hard that he had to back away from stuffing towels into the cracks under the doors.

I realized I was fine. Huh, what a pleasant surprise.

Hitch continued to sneeze and drip fluids from his nose and eyes. “Let’s get you in the shower,” I said, taking him by the shoulder to lead him because I wasn’t sure he could see. “Do you have any antihistamines?”

“Bathroom cabinet,” he wheezed.

I had him take a steamy shower, gave him the pills, and had him drink some water. All that seemed to help, plus it looked like Sunny and some immune ponies like me were outside already starting to clean up.

Hitch was still suffering, but I thought the worst might be past. He seemed to lean on me as I cared for him. I almost felt like his mother or something, which brought to mind the issue of kids again, but I powered through it for his sake. I brushed his mane back with my hoof. “Let’s get you feeling better.”

I did the cooking that day and kept Hitch cared for. Later that evening, by bedtime, he was mostly back to normal, though his nose was still running. We got into bed. I’d already placed a box of tissues on the nightstand.

“Sorry,” he said, still a little stuffed up. “I wouldn’t want to drip all over you when we were…together.”

He was still a little uncomfortable saying the word sex, but this would have been the third day in a row we’d done it.

Maybe there was still a way. “Just lie back,” I said, guiding him to the pillow. “I’ll take the top and-”

“The top?” he said.

“Hitch, how many positions do you think there are?”

“Uh, I’ve never heard of a pony…”

I didn’t kiss him because his nose was running, but set to work.

Despite some inconveniences, it worked out. We both came away satisfied.

Well, in the back of my mind, I knew I should find some condoms or something if we were going to keep doing this.

Hitch snored that night, because he couldn’t breathe through his nose. That was nothing compared to what happened in the morning, when he woke up and promptly rolled over to vomit into the bedside trashcan.

Tell Your Tale: Queens for a Day / On Your Cutie Marks / Lost in Translation

I smoothed back Hitch’s mane as he took a breath and sat up from puking the trash can. “That doesn’t seem like allergies.”

“No…” he moaned. “Even still, I’m not feeling too bad, I guess. Maybe all the bad stuff just went out. Huh, weird.”

“You good?” I asked.

He considered it. “Well, I’m going to go have to gargle now, so I’m getting out of bed anyway.”

Maybe it had been dinner the night before. I hoped not, because I’d made it. Maybe the giant flower pollen just had weird effects. Either way, it didn’t seem like Hitch was going to stay sick. We both shrugged it off.

I got a video call from Pipp and Zipp. “Hey Sentra, Mare’s Day is coming up and we want to do something special for our mom.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“We wanted to do fireworks.”

“...I’m listening.”

I agreed to help out a little with their plan. It would involve a trip to Zephyr Heights. As it happened, Hitch and I had just been summoned to appear in court related to Bonesaw’s apprehension.

The girls got ready to go, and Hitch and I made arrangements to leave town. Sparky the baby dragon was still with Phyllis. Cool, that was all we needed to check.

Upon arriving to Zephyr Heights, though, we discovered Queen Haven was too busy with normal queen stuff to even watch a fireworks show.

“New plan, let’s give her a day off!” Pipp said. “We’ll take over being queen for a day. Surely between all of us, we can handle everything.”

I knew this kind of thing was exactly what Zipp had been trying to avoid, and even despite that, there was a reason they wanted her to be the heir, not Pipp. Fortunately, Sunny was also there to help out, but who knew if her alicorn magic was going to act up again. Hitch and I already had an out, which was almost a shame because I sort of wanted to see how Izzy was going to mess this up. From a safe distance, of course.

The court appearance ended up taking all day, though, and given the lack of explosions or anything from the castle, whatever ended up happening must not have been too crazy.

In the courtroom, both Hitch and I were called as witnesses. Apparently we were just there to confirm what had happened with Bonesaw and testify for the record what he had admitted to us while in our custody.

Hitch had gone first, and because his dealing with Bonesaw had been shorter, he was on and off the stand quickly. Then it was my turn.

The prosecutor made his case and was done. The defense attorney, a mare wearing a suit jacket and a monocle whose name I didn’t catch, stepped up.

“Ms. Marshall Law, please tell the court what you were doing the night that Mr. Bonesaw turned himself in?”

“I was off-duty, in fact, and was just about to go to bed when he called the sheriff station phone saying he wanted to turn himself in.”

“Please tell us exactly what you were doing.”

I glanced at the prosecutor, who didn’t seem to think this was objectionable. Well, okay. “I was dressed as a cheerleader and was in the act of seducing Sheriff Hitch.”

“And when Mr. Bonesaw interrupted this, did you take it out on him as a fit of revenge?”

Yes. I said, “Could you tell me what you mean by that?”

“You placed a call to Princess Pipp and told her, I quote, ‘I need your help to meangirl someone.’”

A murmur ran through the crowd. I decided to leverage Pipp’s reputation. “I think we all know that Princess Pipp would have been happy to meangirl anyone, anywhere, at any time, so my invitation in this instance does not imply special treatment.”

“Then what about the rest of your behavior? You invited Mr. Bonesaw to, and I quote again, ‘Take me by force.’”

“I’ll remind you this was right after he said he would.”

“And after you baited him to do it. You were asking for it, with your slutty makeup and beckoning lipstick.” She took a few steps forward. “That lithe body and exotic features. Those eyes, practically begging for it.” Her monocle popped out and she put her hooves on the rail of the witness box and leaned forward, licking her lips just inches in front of my face. “I bet everypony wants to rut you, dressing like that.”

I held my ground, but couldn't help but be weirded out. “Was there a question in there, or…?”

She backed off, smoothing her suit jacket and turned away. “The defense rests.”

Bonesaw was convicted unanimously.

Maretime Bay was set to host the first ever Equestria Games. Well, apparently not the first ever, if I’d heard correctly, but the first since the three tribes had recently been reunited.

“It’s so exciting!” Sunny gushed. This was despite her mostly being the organizer. She was also going to be representing the entire earth pony tribe at the games, while Queen Haven and Alphabittle would be coming for their tribes.

The opening ceremony was quite a show, with paper lanterns and magical ribbon twirling. Well, then they got tangled up and made a big mess.

That sort of set the theme for the event. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every tribe used its unique abilities to try and gain an advantage. Pegasi were flying, unicorns were doing magic, and earth ponies were doing everything else.

I was just sitting back and watching, because it was more fun that way and I wanted to cheer on Hitch, and also we still weren’t totally sure if I was a pegasus or not.

Hitch did pretty well in the individual events. He was athletic enough, and was on home turf. I could tell I was getting looks from people. I mean, I always did, but my cheering might have been distracting.

But it was worth it. Down on the field, Hitch glanced up and smiled.

“That’s my boyfriend!” I shouted, making sure everyone knew. I wouldn’t be doing this for just anyone.

Eventually, the tribe-wide cheating got to be too much and Sunny used her authority as master of ceremonies to disallow teams. The event finished with mixed groups of every race.

I guess that was a solution, though one that sort of got a meh from everyone. I guess better than doing something that would have been condemned by everyone.

I had petitioned Sunny to let me perform either the opening or closing ceremony. She’d said a flat no to the closing, apparently wanting something a little more sentimental and soothing. It was like she was accusing that I couldn’t do that. I was plenty sentimental and soothing, just ask Hitch.

As for the opening, I got outbid by Pipp. Apparently me offering to do it for free wasn’t good enough.

On the other hand, I felt marginally better knowing that Pipp had been suckered into paying just to be the one performing.

I met up with Hitch after the event and we went to have a celebratory dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Maretime Bay. While he’d done well, nobody in the Games was given more than a participation medal.

“Leave it on tonight,” I told him, grinning and giving his hoof a squeeze.

“We have a dress code,” interrupted the snooty guy at the restaurant desk.

“Oh. Well…” Hitch glanced at me.

I was about to tell him I wouldn't be disappointed if he didn't, and we had reservations to make, so he might as well take it off. Just for dinner, anyway. However, the restaurant guy interrupted again. “No, not you. Her.”

“What dress code?” I said. Hard to be wearing the wrong thing when everyone in the world was naked.

“This is a very fancy establishment, miss. Surely you must know that? To enter, ladies must be wearing a minimum of two square feet of lace.”

I should have done my research before making the reservation. But his attitude made it impossible for me to be apologetic. “As high as your nose is right now, I might be able to weave some out of the hairs I see.”

“Ahhahaha,” Hitch said, fake-laughing as he took me aside. “She’s so excited, she just forgot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to him more quietly. “I should have planned this better.”

“Not to worry,” he said. “I have a plan.” He glanced up to the ceiling and said quietly, “Hey guys, can you help us out?”

“Who are you talking to?” I asked, but got my answer immediately as a crowd of spiders descended. With Hitch’s coaching, they quickly crafted the most awesomely metal little lace number I could have imagined. It was fragile, but looked amazing.

The restaurant guy was apparently more creeped out by spiders than I was, and now was also forced to accept me.

“You’re the best,” I whispered in Hitch’s ear as we were led into the restaurant.

He asked, “Tonight, are…are you going to wear the-”

“You know it.”

One day, Sunny invited us over to the Brighthouse to pick berries for pie.

Despite living there for a while, I was surprised just how extensive the grounds of the Brighthouse were. It had to have been several acres, and included a well-manicured garden.

Perhaps that was why Hitch had overpacked for the trip, bringing along camping equipment including a tent, portable fire, and a backpack with a robot arm map-holder.

“I never knew you had all this,” I sad. “We should put it to use sometime, going out in the wilderness, just the two of us.”

Sunny was a little miffed by the amount of gear that he’d brought, but encouraged us to pitch in. “Let’s get picking. That schmoogleberry pie isn’t going to schmooglebake itself.”

“Wait, hold up,” I said. “What’s a schmoogleberry?”

“How have you never heard of a schmoogleberry?” Sunny said.

“I keep telling you, I’m not from around here.”

She showed me the bush, and its red berries that were clustered sort of like grapes. Though grapes, I knew, grew on vines.

As we approached, though, the bush started to rustle and Hitch stepped in front of us protectively, brandishing a camping spork. “Watch out! This bush could be dangerous. Never trust anything that starts with schmoogle.”

That seemed like sound advice.

As Hitch parted the bushes, though, he found a raccoon and a snail fighting over the schmoogleberries. Well, no, a raccoonicorn and pegasnail because nothing in Equestria made sense.

“They’re fighting,” Sunny gasped.

“Watch this,” Hitch said. “You’re about to see a master class in critter talkery.”

He began to communicate with each of them, which was more boring than it sounded because to Sunny and me, it was just animal noises.

“Anything you need from us?” Sunny asked.

“Nope, I’ve got it handled,” Hitch replied.

“Okay, well, we’re going to get some apples for the pie. Come on, Sentra, I could use somepony who can fly.”

The Brighthouse gardens really were extensive. There was a whole apple orchard, albeit a small one. I started to pick a few, but Sunny asked me to wait. “I want to try this technique I’ve been reading about, how earth ponies used to harvest apples.”

She kicked the tree. Nothing happened.

“Um, was there more?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Sunny said with a frown. “I can’t think of what else ‘applebucking’ could mean.”

“Maybe it got lost in translation,” I said. “Anyway, here’s the basket.” I’d already filled it mostly full.

We returned to Hitch only to find a full-on critter war going on. Apparently the Hitch-brokered peace agreement hadn’t helped in the slightest.

“It didn’t work!” he wailed. “I only made things worse!”

Considering the creatures were all in violation of the deconfliction documents he had created, and knowing a thing or two about opposed humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, I did what anyone would have done and hugged Hitch. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault that agreements between sovereign nations are fraught with the irrationality of their citizens.”

“I tried my best.”

“Yes you did.” I gently rubbed the back of his head.

“Um, maybe we could instead try to bring the raccoonicorns and pegasnails together and see what they have in common,” Sunny broke in.

That actually seemed to work out. Everyone liked pie. Unfortunately, the new combined pielliance of the two critter species suddenly turned on the brokers. Suddenly, we had raccoonicorns and pegasnails all over us, keeping us from the berries.

I was about to begin punting them, as they were much smaller to the point of it being comical, but Sunny and Hitch had already decided to run and me staying only to be surrounded and outnumbered was already a bad idea, not to mention the two of them might know something about these creatures that I didn’t, so I also turned tail for a tactical withdraw.

Political Science is stupid.

Make Your Mark: Izzy Does It

Author's Note

a/n: Now that the main show has begun, I probably won’t continue the Tell Your Tale episodes unless I run out of material or something.

Make Your Mark: Izzy Does It

Hitch and I, and Sparky the dragon, were on our way to the Crystal Brighthouse one morning. It was Sunny’s birthday, and there were a few other things we’d planned on, as well.

We came upon Izzy singing to herself and building some sort of monstrous contraption in the front yard. Zipp landed beside us just then and we stared up at whatever it was Izzy was doing.

Kenneth, one of Hitch’s bird friends, cheeped.

“Good question,” Hitch replied. “Zipp, do you know what Izzy’s doing up there?”

Kenneth apparently spoke for us all. I was wondering the same thing.

Zipp, however, shrugged. “Not a clue.”

She then glanced at Sparky, who’d been riding on Hitch’s back, but a moment ago had hopped down to approach the pile of junk. “Uh, what’s your dragon doing?”

Izzy meanwhile had answered the question, though only raised more. “This is gonna be the best birthday present for a friend I've ever made because I finally have a friend and it's her birthday!”

I didn’t think Sunny wanted a pile of junk for her birthday, but instead of saying that, I stepped forward to go after Sparky. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough and he yanked something out of the bottom of the pile that caused the whole thing to start coming down.

Hitch was involuntarily pulled forward by a weird green magic around his hooves, and Izzy, having fallen from the top of the pile, landed on him.

“Huh, more glowing cutie marks,” Zipp noted, indicating Hitch’s hip, “and random Earth pony plant magic. Also, somepony's gonna have to clean this up.”

Sparky dropped the object he was holding. Smart kid.

Hitch picked himself up. “I wish I could figure out Earth pony magic. I don't like how crazy it is.”

As if she’d been summoned at the mention of magic, Sunny burst from within the Brighthouse. “Did anypony hear that crash? It shook the whole building!”

Izzy jumped up. “Happy birthday, friend! And happy first-time-saying-happy-birthday-friend to me! I made you a present!” Out of the pile, she pulled a decorated strip of fabric, a keychain or lanyard or something.

“Aww, Izzy! This is the most amazing birthday present ever! I need to show it off!”

Sunny apparently didn’t know what the thing was, either, and hung it in her mane as a decoration.

“Want to go to the Maretime Bay Craft Fair?” Sunny asked the group.

With my friend on her birthday? Of course I wanna go to that!” Izzy replied. The two of them set off.

“All right, you two have fun,” said Hitch. “We’ll clean up all...this.”

We roped Zipp into helping, too. She didn’t look pleased, but was always dependable.

Fortunately, with the four of us pitching in, it was quick work and we were done in just a few minutes. Sunny and Izzy weren’t that far gone, so we headed off after them towards town.

Along the way, we encountered a blue unicorn mare who was whispering furtively into a makeup compact. She hurriedly put it away as we approached, giving us a cautious glance, and walked off in the opposite direction.

“I wonder who that was,” Hitch said. “I haven’t seen her around before.”

I got a notification on my phone and saw that Pipp was streaming. She’d apparently met up with Izzy and Sunny in town and they seemed to be having a good time at the craft fair. Also, apparently the thing Sunny had hung in her hair was a bracelet.

As the group of us walked, Hitch said, “So, you know how my hooves glowed when the ground moved and then I heroically saved Izzy?”

“‘Heroically,’” Zipp snorted.

I was ready to defend Hitch, but he brushed it off. “Good. That's how I remember it, too.” He went on, tone changing. “You think that all this Earth pony magic stuff is safe, right?”

“Of course,” Zipp replied. “You Earth ponies can grow plants with your hooves. How could that be bad? But I’m still investigating what else our power can do. I do know one thing’s for sure: whenever anypony’s ‘sparkle’ really starts to shine, their cutie mark glows.”

“Has it ever happened to me?” I asked.

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

I hadn’t thought so, which might imply that I’d never really gotten my sparkle going.

I did wonder, given my unique circumstances, if something like that was even a thing I could do. Hitch and the others seemed to be using magic unconsciously, so maybe it was just happen on its own. If it ever would.

Arriving in town, I saw Izzy freaking out about something. Apparently not just Sunny but everypony had liked what Izzy made so much that they also wanted one, and she was having a creative meltdown.

Pipp - well, I’m not going to say Pipp had it handled, but she was at least already giving Izzy advice, and there was no getting a word in edgewise to that, so I stayed out of it.

That left me more time to hang out with Hitch and Sparky. Now that he’d come to terms with us being in a romantic relationship - was it still dating if we were already living together and raising an adopted child? - we’d begun talking more about long term future.

We still had no idea what the deal with Sparky was, but he definitely needed someone to keep him out of trouble. It would have been one thing if he only breathed fire. As it was, he had some weird magic breath that sometimes transfigured objects into other things. I’d once seen him turn a cell phone into a slice of pizza. Not having control of a power like that, or at least letting a baby use it, might be a recipe for disaster.

So, responsibility. I had it now. I mean, in addition to my law enforcement job. The whole social media thing and commanding the thoughts of so many people following me was also something to think about.

Sunny was working at her smoothie stand, even though it was her birthday. Still, I guess getting money was a gift in itself, so I couldn’t blame her. Hitch and I ordered smoothies, and let Sparky take alternating sips.

“What’s this?” Sunny said, noticing a small golden object on the counter at the stand, wrapped in a purple ribbon. “Pipp must've left me a surprise birthday gift.”

“A walkie talkie?” I said.

“I think it’s actually a makeup mirror,” Sunny said, turning it over in her hooves. “Wow, it’s got a great-looking alicorn design on it!”

“You know, now that you say it, Sentra, it does look a lot like the makeup mirror we saw that unicorn talking into outside town,” Hitch agreed.

“Well…” Sunny untied the ribbon and opened the mirror up. “No, it looks like a normal mirror to me.”

“But if it is anything like the one we saw that other pony using, then how or why would they have had one with an alicorn design on it?” Hitch said.

“Not to mention, is it some kind of magic mirror communication device, was that unicorn using some kind of specially modified mirror-into-radio, or was she just crazy?” I asked.

“Hmm,” said Sunny. The three of us lapsed into silence, considering it.

“Well, we’ll ask her the next time we see her,” Hitch said.

It was just about time for Sunny to close up shop for the day, so she walked with us back to her house, to have her birthday party.

Back at the Brighthouse, we found that Izzy wasn’t there. She had left a note that said B.R.B.F.B.B.B.

None of us knew what that meant, but it was pretty typical of Izzy, so we didn’t question it.

“Maybe we should check on her to see if she needs any help?” Sunny suggested.

“I’m on it!” Hitch volunteered. He turned to the crowd of animals that were following him at any given time. “Deputies, keep an eye out for Izzy! Uh, maybe you stay here and be our eyes on the ground, Kurtle.”

Good idea. Kurtle, being a turtle, was pretty slow.

Zipp said, “You named him ’Kurtle Turtle?’”

“Turtle is his family name,” Hitch explained.

Zipp looked like she was a little conflicted on how underwhelming and logical that was. I’d gone through the same thing when I’d asked the same question some time ago.

Just then, Izzy rolled up in a tuk-tuk. “So, turns out bird hats are not a thing, but guess what I made!”

None of us knew what that meant, but it was pretty typical of Izzy, so we didn’t question it.

With a Vanna White flourish, she said, “Presenting... ‘Izzy Does It!’”

It was a trike moped with a storage box on the rear. She opened up the doors to show us what was inside. “It’s my new uni-cycling cart! My trailer of treasures! My wagon of whimsy! My crafty sash! It’s got all the things I need for crafting on the go, any time, any where. Glasses? Check! Tape? Check!”

She went on listing the contents. I had an involuntary twitch when she mentioned glitter, because of course there was glitter.

Hitch noticed and quietly excused us.

“Thanks,” I murmured to him as we walked back to the station. Sparky had fallen asleep on Hitch’s back, and I lifted him with my wings, taking a turn carrying.

Hitch smiled at me, satisfied that he was doing something for me that I appreciated. I did appreciate it. It was good that we were getting to this level of nonverbal communication.

The other reason we didn’t talk, because it might wake up Sparky, and we wanted him to stay asleep for when we got home.

Sparky was just one factor. It had taken Hitch some work to ensure that all his animal deputies wouldn’t be too voyeuristic of our time in the bedroom.

In the development of our relationship, we’d even made the transition from having sex to making love.

Hitch threw up in the morning again. I was starting to get a little concerned.

Make Your Mark: Growing Pains

The doctor seemed stumped by whatever was going on with Hitch.

“Yes, I agree that morning sickness is a common pregnancy symptom but-” he gestured vaguely at Hitch.

“I’m a stallion?” Hitch provided.

“Didn’t want to assume.”

“Don’t you have his medical records?” I said. “You shouldn’t have to.”

I, of all people, should probably not talk too much about identity.

After visiting the doctor, and him saying Hitch was apparently healthy, life went on. Unfortunately, that meant going back to the mundane reality of dealing with the shenanigans of a people discovering magic.

Like how when we arrived back at the sheriff station, the door was covered in vines that a sheepish Dahlia was trying to remove.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was actually trying to open the door for you. I know you don’t like magic, Hitch.”

“What, me not like magic?” Hitch scoffed, trying a little too hard. “I’m totally cool with it now.”

We didn't actually end up going inside, though. Hitch realized it was time to set off on his morning rounds, and I went with him. It was partly professional - apparently I’d been leaning into this cop thing harder than expected - and partly just to spend more time together.

The two of us were a couple, and we’d slowly been introducing it to the public. Whenever some grandma would swoon, “You two would make a great couple,” we’d politely smile and nod. We were working up to public displays of affection, but maybe that would interfere with the professionalism aspect. At any rate, our friends mostly knew, though we hadn't been so formal about an announcement.

On patrol, we encountered three kids caught up in what was clearly a magic-grown tree. It was blue, and sprouted right out of the pavement where there hadn’t been a tree the day before.

“Here, let me help you,” Hitch said. I helped him pull the three little ponies out of where they were stuck.

“Magic is pretty wild, huh?” one of them said.

“Too wild if you ask me,” Hitch replied.

“Oh, no! Are you upset?”

“Me? Upset? About magic? Never!”

I thought, again, that Hitch might be laying it on a little thick. And sure enough, it came back to bite him immediately.

“So we can use all the magic we want then? No rules? No holding back?” one of the kids giggled.

“You were holding back?!” Hitch gasped, with a moment of panic. “Um... of course!”

Immediately the three kids started shouting, “Hitch said use all the magic you want! Don't hold back, everypony!”

I gave Hitch a look. He already knew he’d made a huge mistake, so I didn’t need to say anything.

Also immediately, magic started popping off all around town. I could see it in the distance, sometimes rising over buildings.

Up the hill at the Canterlogic factory, I saw what appeared to be a giant blueberry rolling down. The thing had to be two ponies high and gathering speed as it decended into town.

“Berry attack! This is not a drill!” Hitch shouted.

I wondered in the moment if he’d ever run berry attack drills before. It wasn’t a good time to be distracted, though, and as everyone in the street began to scatter, Hitch and I were left alone directly in the berry’s path. If I’d maybe left myself more time to think, I probably would have found a way to keep both of us safe. Instead, I shoved Hitch out of the way and then myself got flattened by the fruit.

Fortunately, the berry had been overripe and already fragile from the whole square-cube law thing. Unfortunately, I still got juiced.

“Oh, wish I’d been around earlier,” Sunny laughed. “Sounds like you made a real impact!”

I didn’t appreciate her laughing at me, though I guess as the resident smoothie expert, she probably knew I hadn’t been in any real danger from the fruit.

Hitch defended me. “Laugh all you want, Sunny, but fruit juice funk can stay in your mane for weeks.”

He had already privately thanked me for saving him from the same fate. We'd had the conversation before about roles in the relationship, and while I knew he didn't like feeling like the damsel in distress, he also didn't like getting covered in fruit pulp.

Sunny had joined us as we arrived back at the station. I really needed a shower. I took out my feelings on the vines still growing over the door, tearing them away.

Sunny changed the subject. “This plant-powered magic is something special. Growing stuff at the stomp of a hoof? Incredible!”

“More like incredibly unpredictable,” Hitch countered. “I mean, we don’t even know all that it can do yet.”

“Well, we know enough. Like, you seem to be the only pony who can talk to animals. But have you tried to grow anything yet?”

“To be honest, I’m afraid to after this morning.”

I couldn’t blame him there.

“Come on, you can’t judge all earth pony magic on one little mishap.”

“Hardly the first mishap,” I pointed out, finally getting the door open.

“She’s right,” Hitch said. “Come on, Sunny, maybe you need to see the scene of the slime yourself.”

I didn’t appreciate the joke at my expense, but tolerated it a lot more coming from him than from Sunny.

The two of them left to investigate while I went into the station to have a shower.

By the time I was done, Hitch was back and trying to sort his thoughts on the bulletin board with flashcards. Sparky, perhaps feeling somewhat neglected, was starting to make a mess of the office.

Both of us intervened when Sparky began to eat Hitch’s desk. I know we had kind of adopted him, but I was beginning to wonder if this had been a good idea. And how big dragons eventually got.

“Thanks Sentra.” Hitch sighed. “This whole magic problem has been just terrible. I don’t know what to do, and I’m afraid whatever action I take, someone will end up angry. I just want to keep ponies safe and I don’t know why it’s so hard.”

Just then, Izzy walked in. She surveyed the office. I shudder to think what it would have looked like if we hadn’t intervened in Sparky’s wrecking. “Wow, you guys look like you need some help.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Hitch replied, sarcastically. He came clean. “Sparky’s been excitable lately.”

“Awww, he’s just adding his flair to the furniture. Aren’t you, Sparky?” Izzy looked up. “You know, if you ever needed a dragon-sitter, I’d be happy to look after him.”

“Wow, really, Izzy? That’d be great!” Hitch said.

The bird with the tin can hat - Kenneth if I remembered correctly - showed up at the door and chirped.

“Uh yeah, I’m with him,” I said. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.” Leaving children with Izzy, really?

“He was actually reminding me of my meeting,” Hitch said. He still had his animal communication skills. And maybe he also caught what I’d left unsaid. “But…”

We put Kenneth in charge of Sparky. Sorry bird, you’re too good at your job and got punished with more work.

Down in the town square, Hitch had come to address a gathering crowd. He seemed to have come to a decision on the earth pony magic that had been getting out of control.

He tapped the microphone and stepped up to the podium. “I know we started the day with a pretty disastrous - I mean, magical morning. After surveying the recent magical changes in Maretime Bay and the messy ways they’ve disrupted our daily lives, I have decided there will be...no use of Earth pony magic!”

The crowd gasped.

“Whatsoever,” Hitch added.

Another gasp.

“Until I’ve collected enough data from all of you to form proper regulations and guidelines!”

Somebody in the crowd started hyperventilating and passed out.

Seeing that, Hitch kept the rest short. “I assure you, this is all for your own safety. We don’t know what’s possible with Earth pony magic yet. Until I’ve taken proper inventory of every flight, float, flora, and fauna power, magic is off limits! That is all.”

He stepped back from the podium. Sunny was immediately upon him. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna do anything drastic!”

“No, I said I would think it over! And my thoughts are telling me it’s bad and it’s only gonna get worse if I don’t step up!”

“I’m kind of with Sunny here,” I said, almost surprising myself. “This is a little too drastic and sudden.”

“Earth pony magic is powerful!” Sunny added.

Hitch had wavered at my words, but protested, “It’s powerful, exactly! What’s gonna happen if we have more mishaps? It’s my job to make sure everypony is safe!”

With some cajoling from me, Sunny, and Zipp, Hitch did agree to run tests on some of the townsponies, observing their use of magic and trying to figure out where things kept going wrong. However, none of it went well. In fact, things kept getting worse.

“It’s gotta be the built-up Earth pony magic!” Zipp suggested as we dodged a sudden growth of vines somepony had inadvertently created. “I don’t think you're supposed to keep it all in with this ban!”

Hitch had been getting more and more flustered, and now he snapped. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have put a pause on Earth pony magic. I should've gone straight to the Unity Crystals and stopped it completely! When ponies united and the Unity Crystals were created, everypony got their magic! Maybe if we remove the Earth pony one…”

Hitch turned towards the Crystal Brighthouse, where the Unity Crystals were kept. Everyone started to protest, but I was the one who put a hoof to Hitch’s chest. He stopped in his tracks.

“Hey, what’s going on with you lately?” I asked, my voice calm, concerned. “You’re acting strangely, frantic, not like the Hitch I know. It’s like you’re hormonal or something.”

Panic went across his face. “I…what if I really am pregnant?”

“Wait, what?” said Sunny.

Make Your Mark: Portrait of a Princess

It was a little weird to go to a doctor and demand an ultrasound be performed on a guy. Also, we made sure to ask for a different doctor this time.

I held Hitch’s hoof while the medical technician examined his stomach and used the little sensor dealie to find out what might be inside.

“Oh yeah, look there. Four little hooves and a pair of ears,” he said, gesturing to the black and white sonogram image the computer was making.

I stared at the screen. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as sure.”

I wasn’t a trained ultrasound imagery interpreter, but did think that what I was seeing. I was just asking, because I refused to believe it.

Hitch was pregnant.

“What…what kind is it?” he practically whispered.

“Well, it’s hard to tell at this stage, plus the ultrasound isn’t high enough quality to give definite results. Being that Maretime Bay only just started contact with pegasi and unicorns, I don’t know much about mixed-race parents.”

The technician sat back and turned to smile at us. “Are you already thinking about names?”

It was about that time he realized which one of us was on the table and the look on his face would have been pretty funny if I was in a position to be laughing. Hitch didn’t think it was very amusing, either.

The two of us left the hospital in a daze. “How could this have happened?” Hitch mumbled.

“Like…is it mine?” I mumbled back.

“Sentra, you’re my only sexual partner. Ever.”

“Oh.”

“Which is why I am again asking how could this have happened?”

“I have no idea. Maybe it was reckless not using protection, but I thought it would be my problem.”

“Sentra.” Hitch stopped walking abruptly. Our eyes met. “It’s not yours or mine, it’s ours.”

While I was mostly still just stunned, the weight of responsibility finally fell on me then. I swallowed hard. “What are you going to do? I mean, your body, your choice-” I shook my head. “No, we. What are we going to do?”

“I need some time to think about it. Alone,” he said after a moment.

“Okay. Um. I’ll see you at the station later?”

He nodded and left me standing there.

Well, you really did it this time, Sentra. It wasn’t even the matter of the accidental pregnancy, how did I get a stallion pregnant!? Was there something strange about my body after all? And what, oh what, were we going to do?

I found myself drifting towards the Crystal Brighthouse, and figured it would probably be a good idea to stop by. I doubted anyone there could offer me a solution, but at least I might find something to distract myself. Maybe I should ask Zipp to scan me again with her special goggles.

When I got there, though, Zipp, Sunny, Izzy, and Pipp were all discussing something about Twilight Sparkle. It was a term I had heard before, but didn’t know what it meant.

I didn’t know what a Twilight Sparkle was, but it sounded like a magic spell or something. Was magic responsible for what had happened to Hitch? I tried to think back to anything recently that might have been the catalyst.

“Is Hitch okay?” Sunny asked when she saw me. She had been there when I’d observed he was acting hormonal, but didn’t know the aftermath.

“He’s fine,” I replied quickly, and did not elaborate.

Changing the subject, I asked, “What’s going on here?” Sunny seemed to have taken a few notes. Zipp had taken a lot, and was studying a stringboard to find some kind of connection.

“We heard that there are evil forces out there who want to exploit magic, now that it’s returned. Once, a pony tried to steal all the magic in Equestria for herself,” Sunny said.

“That sounds serious,” I replied. “What kind of intel do we have?”

“Unfortunately, that’s about it,” Sunny lamented. “We don’t even know when this happened, how, or who was responsible.”

“Then how do we know it’s true?”

“I trust Twilight Sparkle.”

“Okay,” I said, still not knowing what that was. Sunny may have had a reputation as the local crazy person, but she had proven right about magic at least once in the past. Plus, glancing across the room, I could see that Zipp also seemed to believe it, which really lent the idea more credibility.

Pipp wasn’t paying attention, though, and was bugging Zipp about going to some kind of picture-taking event. Zipp apparently decided to humor her, and the two of them got ready to leave. Wanting to get Zipp’s perspective on the magic issue, I decided to go with them. Sunny also came along.

Unfortunately, Zipp didn’t have much else to offer. “The magic crystals made a hologram. It was corrupted data, though, or whatever the magical equivalent is. It could be hundreds or thousands of years old. That’s why we don’t have the whole story.”

“Well, if it was hundreds or thousands of years ago, maybe the secret to stealing magic is also lost.”

Zipp and Pipp were on the way to Mane Melody, Pipp’s beauty/karaoke shop. Apparently, it was tradition for them to take a family portrait with their mother, who would be arriving shortly. Zipp, tomboy to the end, really didn’t want to do it.

“What’s so bad about it?” I asked. I figured she might want to blow off some steam.

“It’s not even the family aspect, it’s the royal part of it,” she griped. “We even put the portrait on our money.” She showed me a pegasus bill. It was different than the ones issued by Maretime Bay.

Queen Haven arrived not long after us. She greeted everyone warmly. “And you too, Sentra, good to see you again.”

She may have been a queen, but seeing her as a mother doting on her daughters - even if Zipp was a little cold - reminded me that I might be facing parenthood. Worse, I had no idea if I was going to be the mother or the father.

I overheard Zipp talking to Pipp about some rare flower. “The Ocean Lily only blooms once a decade. It would be perfect for this photoshoot. And your ‘gram.”

I met Zipp’s eyes and saw that she was actually up to something else. I threw her a bone and said, “Really? Maybe I should go looking for it.”

“No, that’s fine, we’ll do it,” Pipp quickly jumped in, trying to be the one to set the trend this time. The two of them hustled out of the shop, leaving me alone with their mom.

The Queen didn’t notice, though, because she was laying back and had cucumber slices on her eyes. I’d never tried that kind of beauty treatment before, mostly because it didn’t really matter if my eyes looked dark and sunken.

“Sentra, are you still there?” she said. “I wanted to speak with you about interstate law accords that the three municipalities will have to sign eventually. If Sheriff Hitch is around, he should participate, too.”

I might have been down, if not for that last sentence. I didn’t want any possibility that anyone else could find out what Hitch and I were going through, and while Queen Haven was vapid enough herself to have given birth to Pipp, she was probably perceptive enough to see that something was going on between Hitch and I.

Rather than responding, I quietly pretended to not be there and slipped out of the building. Sunny gave me an incredulous look as I left her there. She was another one I didn’t want to deal with right now.

Without anything else to do, I wandered on the street. I thought about the Queen calling me Sentra. I had thought she knew me by the name Martial Law. Maybe she just thought it was a title? Maybe her daughters had corrected her? Either way, she still thought I was some kind of cop, regardless of name.

Speaking of being a cop, I saw a mare looking suspicious. I’m not sure what struck me about her. She was a blue unicorn with a frizzy mane. I vaguely recalled seeing her before.

Looking further down the street, I saw that she seemed to be following Zipp and Pipp, and taking cover to stay out of sight. Okay, now that definitely was suspicious. I started following her. I also made sure to spare a glance and make sure I myself was not being followed. It pays to pay attention.

The princesses were apparently still searching for the flower they mentioned. They eventually made it down to the beach, and their stalker was still in step. In fact, the way they kept checking their phone, followed by Zipp checking her phone, made me think that perhaps she’d intentionally lured the sisters here. What was going on? How did she manage to get Zipp’s contact information? Or did she know them?

That notion was entirely dispelled by what happened next. The sisters found a beachside cave and began to enter. The mysterious mare positioned herself above the entrance, a big pile of loose boulders stacked there.

I was too slow and too far away to stop her from rolling them over the edge, and it was only Zipp’s quick reflexes, tackling Pipp away as the rocks began to fall, that kept the both of them from being crushed. However, they were probably now sealed inside the cave with a huge slide of boulders blocking the entrance.

The mare paused, wiping her brow after the exertion, and checking her work. My shadow fell over her.

She had just enough time to turn her head before I dropped from the sky with my entire weight behind the hoof I drove into her face. Something cracked, and it sure wasn’t my bones.

I’d just caught her in the act of what might be as severe as attempted murder, she’d done it to acquaintances of mine, and yes, maybe I was a little emotional after the day I’d had. I’d been so focused on stopping the threat that I hadn’t stopped to consider appropriate use of force.

I again checked my own tail, to make sure nobody was about to do the same thing to me. Never let it be said I don’t learn from others’ mistakes.

The pony I’d just dropped was still breathing, though it would have been a little easier if she wasn’t. I didn’t think she was going to get up any time soon, though, so I dropped down to the cave and began pulling rocks off the entrance.

In just a few seconds, I opened up a hole and met Zipp coming from the other direction. “Sentra! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Me too. Are you both okay?”

We dug a little more and managed to get the two of them out. I was slightly surprised that Pipp actually had managed to find the flower inside the cave, though not surprised that she’d prioritized picking it over saving herself.

The three of us went back to check on the mysterious assailant. She was still here, rapidly bruising, and breathing with difficulty. I'd broken her face. Not just the nose, the whole face.

“You know her?” I asked, hoping she was still recognizable.

Neither of them did. “What happened?” Zipp asked.

“She’s the one who pushed over the rocks,” I said.

“Did she get caught, too?”

“No. I did that.”

“You-” Both of them glanced between the injured mare and me.

“She tried to kill you, and I’m a cop,” I said.

“Sentra, that’s brutality!”

Police brutality, in fact. “But…okay, maybe…um…” I glanced at the mare again, who was looking worse and worse. She was already blue, so I had no idea how much her breathing might be labored. Her entire snout was caved in. “We should probably call an ambulance.”

I told Zipp and Pipp that they needed to come by the station later so I could get a statement. The ambulance showed up and put the unconscious mare on a backboard. I rode back with the ambulance to the hospital.

The doctors took a few minutes to assess the damage before treatment. Aside from the severely broken nose, broken orbitals, and a few teeth, the mare also had a spinal fracture. I’d hit her really hard.

They wheeled her into the ER and I sat down in the waiting room. It was difficult to believe I’d hurt someone so much without even a conscious thought about it. I’d seen what she was doing and just acted. There was no doubt in my mind that she needed to be stopped, but I really should have done more evaluation first. Maybe then I wouldn’t be doing it now, after the fact.

Hitch showed up, out of breath. “Sentra, I saw Zipp. She told me what happened.”

“All of it?”

He apparently caught my tone. I invited him to sit.

I walked him through what had happened. He reacted with shock at what the perp had done, and with horror at what I’d done.

“I can’t believe you would do this,” he said. “I’ve been the sheriff for years and never even had to fight someone.”

“Have you ever seen an attempted murder happen right in front of you?”

“Well, no, but-”

I ducked my head, and didn't follow up. I almost rhetoric’d my way back to feeling good about it.

We sat there in silence for a moment.

“Is police brutality illegal in Maretime Bay, Hitch?”

“No.” He looked at me. “It will be, though.”

One of the nurses waved at me. Apparent the patient was stable. I got up. “Well, let’s go find out who I almost beat to death.”

In the patient room, the mare was heavily bandaged, with IV tubes and a neck brace, and was still unconcious.

“You know, I think I’ve seen her before,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed.

We started assessing her personal effects. She had a Bridlewood ID that said her name was Misty Brightdawn. Hitch and I found her phone and went through it. There wasn’t much, and no names, but we discovered that she’d been acting on behalf of someone else. Someone had directly told her how to plant the Ocean Lily, and to use the cave and rocks.

Hitch and I looked at each other. What was going on?

He gestured at her phone. “How long has this been happening? Are we in danger? Who could be pulling the strings behind this?”

I didn’t have answers. I remembered I’d seen Misty apparently speaking into a makeup compact once, which given what we’d found on her phone, might have actually been a communication device, but she didn’t have anything like that on her at the moment.

The two of us were still puzzling on it when a nurse came in. We got up to go to give her some space, but Hitch stopped, noticing something. “Look, she’s a blank flank!”

I gathered that to mean she didn’t have a cutie mark. “Huh?” I looked for myself. “Wait, but I thought I remember seeing her with one.”

“That’s right,” the nurse confirmed. “When we were scrubbing her for surgery, it washed off. It was fake.”

“What’s a pony her age doing without one?” Hitch said.

The mystery only deepened. The two of us headed for the door, but I paused to cuff Misty to the bed before I left.

Back at the station, Zipp and Pipp gave their statement. I saw Hitch shooting me a glance. The two of them hadn’t seen me doing what I did to Misty, and that was probably a good thing.

We drew up the charge sheets for Misty. I filed a records request with Bridlewood for anything they might have on her. The rest of the evening was spent on other paperwork and research related to the case.

If nothing else, I’d nearly forgotten about mine and Hitch’s problem. It was only that evening as we headed for the bedroom that it came back to the forefront.

Hitch seemed withdrawn, and kept space between us. Like he didn’t want to be near me. Like he didn’t want me to touch him.

We ended up sitting on opposite sides of the bed, backs to each other.

I needed to say something. I didn’t know what, but I couldn’t let this continue.

“Hitch, I’m…I’m sorry, once again. I can’t say it enough. This isn’t how I wanted things to be between us.”

“...I know.”

Well, he wasn’t telling me to sleep on the couch. I kept going. “I don’t want to be someone who makes you worry. I want to be a good partner in this relationship.”

I chanced a glance over my shoulder. Our eyes met.

“What we said before. It’s not just you or me, but us. And…not just the two of us,” he said.

My eyebrows raised.

“I’m going to keep the baby.”

He turned to face me. “So we should probably get married.”

Make Your Mark: Ali-Conned

The decision to get married was quick and easy. How was another matter entirely. There were so many details I didn’t even know where to start. Hitch didn’t want me to get out of bed and start drawing up campaign plans, though. Fair enough, I would do it in the morning.

There was one thing he insisted on talking to me about right then and there, though.

“Sentra, I think you need to deal with your anger management problem.”

“I actually don’t,” I said. He started to protest, but I held up a hoof. “I wasn’t angry at all when I broke Misty’s face. My actual problem is that I’ve been train-er, I tend to answer to violence with violence even if it’s not directed at me. So when I saw Misty pushing those rocks down on top of Zipp and Pipp, I just reacted. This is just the first time we found that out because Equestria tends to be fairly peaceful.”

“That’s going to be a thing you need to change if you’re going to continue with law enforcement.” His tone was firm.

I sighed. “Yeah.”

That was all either of us was willing to discuss tonight, and we saved the rest for the morning.

“You’re getting married!?” Sunny shouted. “That’s so fast!”

I had set up the planning session over at the Brighthouse. The residents there would be heavily involved in the marriage ceremony, whether they actually wanted to be part of the planning or not. Of course, that meant breaking the news of what the event was actually for.

I glanced at Hitch. We had decided to keep the pregnancy secret for a while longer, so all we could really do was agree that, yes, this had come together quickly.

The girls congratulated us. Fortunately, we made good progress on the planning, arranging the event, catering, and all the other aspects of the ceremony.

I’d underestimated their enthusiasm for a wedding, and so we ended up done early. Sunny invited us to an event she was hosting in town that afternoon.

I liked Sunny as a person, but boy she came by her reputation as the local crazy person honestly. She’d organized an entire public event and speech…just to tell everyone in the crowd to stop eating unhealthy junk food and grow vegetables instead.

“You’re just saying that because you run a smoothie stand!” someone pointed out, reasonably. I believed Sunny’s intentions were honest, but definitely understood how it looked.

“I just think everypony deserves wholesome, fresh-grown vegetables. We could build a community garden, where we all could help grow them together.”

“Um, cool, but don’t we have plenty of vegetables already? Not even just from a store, what’s the difference between a community garden and locally-grown organic produce sold at farmers markets?” I only spoke loud enough for Hitch to hear. While I disagreed with Sunny, as her friend I wasn’t going to call her out in public.

She’d gotten so passionate about the proposal, though, that her alicorn magic had begun to manifest, the ethereal wings and horn appearing as she spoke. We still didn’t fully understand how it worked, but it did seem tied to Sunny feeling strong emotions.

It was like flipping a switch. The crowd visibly began to agree with Sunny, just from a costume change.

Pipp was in the crowd and filming Sunny. Couldn’t blame her, so was I. Alicorn anything was always good for likes. Both Pipp and I were walking with our phones out, looking for better angles, and just happened to meet in the middle at a good spot.

“Sunny looks nervous,” Pipp said out of the corner of her mouth, trying not to get her voice on the video.

I agreed. “She's definitely not used to this much attention.”

Pipp laughed nervously, as if that had inadvertently touched a nerve. I glanced at her.

“What? There’s nothing wrong with with being used to attention, or lack thereof.” Her bluster wasn’t covering anything, though, and we both knew it. As maybe the only other person who would truly understand, Pipp confided to me, “I’ve been having a lot of trouble going viral lately. I’m not sure what’s wrong. Well, actually, it’s probably this new group that’s stealing my thunder.”

Pipp showed me her phone. Her other phone, not the one that was recording. I had no idea how many phones she had.

The video she showed me was a fairly standard music and dance video. “They’re called the Filly Four,” she said. “They’re the hotness right now.”

There were only three mares in the video, but before I could comment, Hitch came over to join us. Sparky was sitting on his back, happily entertaining himself by popping off little magic fireworks. Pipp’s eyes fell on him. “Hey Hitch, is that normal?”

“Hmm? Yeah. My little buddy really enjoys himself,” Hitch replied. “I call it Sparky’s spark.”

“Could I…borrow him?” Pipp asked, beginning to raise her phone.

Hitch and I traded glances. Even if he hadn’t been party to the earlier conversation, I’m sure he knew what she was up to. At the same time, free sitter.

We offloaded Sparky to Pipp. Hitch and I started to turn away, to get started on preparing for the wedding, when I noticed the three mares Pipp had shown me making a beeline for Sunny.

“Like, oh my gosh, it’s so nice to finally meet you,” the one in the lead said, putting her foreleg around Sunny’s shoulder and taking a selfie.

“We went to school togeth-” Sunny began.

“I’m Sugar. This is Lily and Rosedust.”

Not only was Sugar apparently a classmate of Sunny, but I recognized her as one of the Canterlogic models. She’d been there when Sunny had ruined the Canterlogic expo shortly after I’d come to town.

“We saw you were having a problem with fame,” Sugar went on. “If you hang out with us, we’ll make sure you have all the platform you want for your vegetables or whatever. We actually have a spot open in our group right now.”

Oh, so that was why there were only three. I could see in Sunny’s eyes that she was strongly considering it. However, almost surprising me, she turned and said, “Sentra, can I talk to you for a second?”

She excused herself from the group. Hitch and I traded glances and he said, “I’ll meet up with you.” He left to continue the wedding prep.

Sunny and I walked across the street. She said, “Sentra, you’re an expert on social media. Is hanging out with the Filly Four going to help me get my message across? Or are they just using me for my alicorn abilities?”

“A little of both, I think.”

Just then there was a buzz from Sunny’s saddlebag. She pulled out a familiar-looking makeup compact. It looked just like the one I had observed Misty using the first time I had seen her.

Curious at whatever the mirror was doing, Sunny opened it and then gasped. “Is that me?”

“I’m your inner voice,” replied the mirror. I sidled sideways so I could see. It sure looked like Sunny’s reflection, but it was moving independent of her - not to mention talking back.

“You do want to be recognized for your unique power, and you want to be able to use that power to achieve your goals, right?” prompted the mirror.

“Well, yes,” Sunny said.

“Uh, Sunny, where did you get that?” I asked.

“It was a birthday gift,” she said, though not paying much attention to me because even I had to admit the mirror talking to her was a lot more interesting.

“Sunny, don’t be distracted,” the mirror version of her said, voice rising a little and apparently trying to head off my skepticism. Maybe it hadn’t planned on there being someone else with Sunny.

“So this magic mirror talks, and claims to be you,” I said.

“You’re at a critical point. You can achieve your dreams,” the mirror tried to break in again.

“I mean, I didn’t know the mirror was magic,” Sunny said. “But is it really me?”

“Of course! I’m your inner voice!”

“Come on, Sunny, not listening to talking magic artifacts is basic magic 101. I know magic is a new topic for everyone and we’re still learning about it, but if I can give you a piece of advice, we have a saying back where I’m from: never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

I held out my hoof. “Moreover, I’m going to have to ask you to turn that over to me. Based on the description of the item, I believe it’s relevant to an ongoing case.”

Sunny wavered. The mirror said, “Don’t listen to that freak! Use your power to take what you want!”

“...yeah, okay,” said Sunny. She snapped the compact closed and handed it over.

I was cautious about the mirror, and didn’t really want to carry it with me because there was no telling what it might do. As I said, magic was new and there was just no telling what might happen. It was probably better than letting it continue to cajole Sunny, though.

The mirror didn’t seem to want to talk to me, and only showed my reflection. I didn’t spend too much time examining it, though, and went to catch up with Hitch.

He was at the catering place. A guy named Dee ran the business. I didn’t know if his name was short for something. At any rate, he came highly recommended.

I texted Hitch the situation with the mirror. It seemed reasonable to assume the mirror could eavesdrop, so I didn’t say it out loud. Hitch read the message, and then replied Is this going to stop the wedding?

I don’t think so. Misty will keep for a little longer.

She was still handcuffed to her hospital bed, though we’d been told that she was awake now.

I got a notification on my phone. Pipp had just posted a new video. Sparky was throwing apples at her face.

It was going viral, so I guess she got her wish.

The town hall wasn’t exactly crowded. We hadn’t really wanted to open the wedding to the public. Hitch had more friends in Maretime Bay than I did, so the crowd that did show up skewed more towards his side.

We’d planned thoroughly, but in terms of actual time elapsed, this had all come together fast. So fast my head was still spinning as the music began to play and Zipp escorted me down the aisle. There was no one to give me away, so to speak, so I’d asked her to pull double duty as both escort and maid of honor.

Up at the front was Hitch, along with Sunny who was his best ma-best maid. Hitch looked great in his suit, though as acquainted with his body as I was, I could tell the extra curve of his stomach. Another reason for the quick wedding, before it got to be too much.

White wasn’t really my color, but some things you don’t mess with. Hitch smiled when he saw me in my dress.

I came to the front and stood across from Hitch. It was time.

Izzy was, frankly, not the first choice for either of us to officiate the ceremony. However, she unexpectedly knew the Cha Cha Slide, which pretty much made her a shoe-in for the reception DJing, so it was easier to just have her do the rest. We'd gotten Pipp to do the videography, and Sparky was the ring bearer.

I don't know why there were rings. We didn't have fingers.

The music stopped. Izzy took a deep breath and spread her forelegs wide. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today for the joining in holy matrimony between Hitch and Sentra. Hitch, do you take Sentra as your wife?”

“I do.”

“Sentra, do you take Hitch as your husband?”

“I do.”

“Great! I now pronounce you hitched - ha ha - you may kiss.”

I didn’t think anyone really expected the ceremony to take all of twenty seconds. Have I mentioned that speed was of the essence? The crowd had gotten over their surprise, though, and cameras were beginning to flash as Hitch pulled back my veil and our lips met.

“I love you,” he whispered.

I realized at that moment that despite everything the two of us had been through together, we’d never actually said that before. Boy, what a backwards, speedy relationship this was.

“I love you, too.”

The two of us resurfaced, so to speak, to the cheering and clapping crowd. After the lightning-fast ceremony, we could take our time at the reception.

We worked the crowd, talking and thanking everyone for coming. Some of them had brought gifts from the registry. A few of those items I was really looking forward to.

Over at the food, Dee had brought a big selection. I paused to consider my options. Hopefully something that wouldn’t be a risk of staining this dress. Eventually I just went with a quick grab from the mixed nuts bowl.

Hitch came over. “What are you doing?”

“Sucking on Dee’s nuts.”

He sighed deeply, as he usually did when I said something like that. I hadn’t even planned this one.

“Though if, on the honeymoon, you wanted me to try yours instead…”

“Sentra, you know very well why I don’t think oral sex is a good idea.”

The teeth, right.

Over at the DJ booth, the music came up. Izzy shouted, “We're going to get funky!”

That night, Hitch and I fell into bed together. All things considered, it had been a good event. We hadn’t actually planned a formal honeymoon, and we’d been having sex for quite a while at this point, so it wasn’t as if tonight was going to be anything too out of the ordinary. But still, it would be the first time as a married couple.

That didn’t mean we needed to rush, though. I’d noticed Hitch had been getting a little slower, what with his belly. We were going to have to go public with that eventually, but I think both of us were dreading it.

It had been a little awkward when we’d arrived at the front door. With him pregnant, it wouldn’t do for him to carry me across the threshold. I might have been tall and willing to get physical, but wasn’t sure if this body was quite strong enough to carry him.

“It was a good party,” I said aloud.

“Yeah,” Hitch agreed contentedly. “Some of the registry gifts were weird, though.”

I pulled out a rubber mouth guard that was custom-fitted for me. Hitch eyed it, perhaps wondering why I’d also brought it into the bedroom. “I know we’d talked about you fighting. Are you planning to train on a regular basis, with sparring and such?”

“Maybe. Maybe it would help me work out my, er, situation with violence.”

I put the mouthguard in. “Bu tonigh Ah wa hopin Ah cou finally giv uu a bowjob.”

Make Your Mark: The Cutie Mark Mix-Up

Down at the hospital, Misty was awake and Hitch and I sat at the foot of her bed. We hadn’t exactly coordinated good cop/bad cop, but considering I was the one who’d broken Misty’s face, I figured I knew my place.

Yeah, I’d kind of ruined the whole friendly law enforcement thing Hitch had going on. He’d been sheriff for years and had never even been in a fight. Meanwhile, I’d shown up and punched someone straight into the hospital. Plus, now that we were married, Hitch and I definitely had conflict of interest going on, being the only two cops around.

Boy, I’d definitely gone eyebrow-deep in this one.

I tried to distract myself by focusing back on Misty.

“Are you two, like, together?” she asked, immediately ruining my chance at building up a momentum of questioning her instead.

Hitch and I had unconsciously been holding hooves.

“Sheriff Hitch and I are working this investigation jointly,” I deflected.

Misty raised her free hoof. “Okay, ‘cause it looks like-”

Yes, it did look exactly like my pregnant husband and I were together. In hindsight, we should have done more to keep Misty restrained than simply cuffing her to the bed. I had no idea how a unicorn might extricate themselves. I also didn’t know if Canterlogic had ever produced any actually effective counter-unicorn items.

I interrupted Misty, yanking the conversation back to business. “So we’ve got you for two counts of attempted murder.” Yeah, that wiped any other thoughts she might have had. “But I get the feeling that there’s more layers to this onion. So, are you going to talk, or are you going to fry?”

“That’s a tough metaphor,” Hitch commented. “I guess ‘saute’ is a little more difficult of an analogy.”

“To really push the ’fry’ angle, I’m also going to have to bone up on capital punishment in Equestria, and under whose jurisdiction we’d have to be to get it to stick.”

Hitch looked like he wanted to remind me that there was no such thing, but watched Misty’s eyes get big, and decided to let me have it.

“N-none of this was my idea,” Misty said. Her voice was a little nasally, what with the bandages on her face.

“Yeah, we gathered that.” I pulled out my phone. Considering it a security risk, I hadn’t brought the mirror I’d gotten from Sunny, but instead took a picture of it. I showed the screen to Misty. “Who does this connect to?”

“Uh, I…” Misty gulped, and looked away.

“I saw you using one, too.”

She refused to say any more. Looked scared, to, in fact. But the dead end on that line of questions only seemed to confirm someone else was pulling the strings. I sat back. “So I’m curious. You’re obviously the patsy here. What were you told you were gaining out of it?”

I didn’t think she was going to answer that one, either, but she dropped her head and said quietly, “Magic.”

I spread my hooves. “Look around you. Everybody’s got magic.”

“Not that kind. Like…” She trailed off again.

Hitch and I traded glances. Exactly what more magic could be out there?

“Is a perceived lack of magic why you’re an adult without a cutie mark?” Hitch asked, voice gentle.

“I don’t know why I don’t have one.”

I pulled out a folder. It was hardly a formal thing. It was what passed for recordkeeping in Bridlewood. They’d sent it to us after we’d collared Misty. “According to this, you ran away from home when you were a kid. Maybe that’s why you never got one.”

I still didn’t fully understand cutie marks. It was a totally alien concept to a human like me. I still didn’t fully understand what the one I had meant.

“Who were you with all that time?” I asked. “Did they not teach you how to get one?”

Misty just shook her head.

“Well, you could have killed two people - foreign princesses, in fact. If you don’t start naming names, you’re going down for it all by yourself.”

I stared at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. After a few seconds, Hitch and I got up and left the room without another word.

“Poor kid,” Hitch murmured when we were in the hallway. I thought for a moment that he might be taking the good cop thing a little too far, but then realized he’d been a lot more tender lately. Hormones, maybe.

I did feel a little bad for Misty. Only a little. Not that I hadn’t done dumb things in my own life, but I’d never tried to kill anyone in cold blood because someone told me to.

“Isn’t it kind of weird that the name ‘Misty Brightdawn’ and ‘Sunny Starscout’ are kind of opposites?” I said.

“Huh, now that you mention it.”

Neither of us could draw any threads to that, though, and let it drop.

We decided to let Misty stew for a while. At any rate, it was time for another event.

Most people around town thought Sunny’s community garden idea was fairly silly, and so she’d rebranded. Successfully, at that. The place was now a designated area for earth ponies to practice magic. We’d been invited to the grand opening.

Hitch put on his fancy sheriff Smokey Bear hat. I didn’t really have any formal wear, so didn’t bother to dress up.

For all I knew, Smokey Bear was a real person in this world.

Maybe one reason Hitch had worn the hat was to distract from his belly, which was really getting too big to hide. We were going to have to start telling people soon.

The garden had been built at the front of the Brighthouse lawn, closest to the road. All our friends had come. Sunny made a speech for the opening ceremony. Izzy kept interrupting, which, while not surprising, was a little more annoying than her baseline.

As I listened, Sunny called it “flora magic” which I guess was the official name for earth pony magic now. I wondered who was the authority on that. Honestly, probably Sunny herself. Until recently, nobody else even believed magic existed.

Sunny let Hitch say a few words, too, and gave him a huge pair of ceremonial scissors to cut the opening ribbon.

The rebranding of the garden as a magic-practice spot had proven so popular that there was actually a stampede to get in, and I had to pull Hitch out of the way to avoid getting trampled.

As I glanced through the gates after the crowd, I saw dozens of animals also scrambling to get out of the way.

“I think they’re headed for the Brighthouse!” Zipp said.

“Oh no, this is a disaster!” Sunny exclaimed.

“Did we not know that a bunch of animals lived here?” I said.

“Sentra’s right, Sunny,” Hitch said. “Proper environmental surveys could have determined that before building the garden. Or you could have just asked me.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunny shook her head. “Can we talk about this after you help round up the animals?”

“Sure, I’m on it,” he replied with resignation.

“That was kind of a deep sigh,” Sunny observed.

I glanced between the two of them. Hello? The current problem of rounding up the animal stampede that was running from the pony stampede?

“It’s just that being sheriff is sometimes a hard job,” Hitch said. Complaining was unlike him; maybe it was the hormones again.

“I can relate. Do you know how hard it is to be the alicorn of Maritime Bay? I need to be somepony that others can count on. Plus, running the smoothie stand is no picnic.”

I snorted.

“What’s so funny?” Sunny asked.

I could have pointed out her pun about making food being no picnic. I could have mocked her for comparing the difficulty of making smoothies to keeping the peace of an entire town, particularly moments after she’d just asked Hitch to clean up a problem of her own making. Neither of those were exactly productive, though, and with me trying to be a little more responsible, I let it go.

Maybe Sunny’s perceptions on the difficulty of Hitch’s job were skewed, because she generally was the difficulty in his job.

I consoled Hitch on the way. He bemoaned, “I had hoped the ceremony opening the garden would go better. It was supposed to be my moment! I was in charge, I had big scissors…”

Hobbled as he was, I was able to keep up with him and comfortingly pat him on the back at the same time.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know Sunny doesn’t mean anything by it, but sometimes I wish she could walk a mile in someone else’s horseshoes.”

“If this whole magic thing is supposed to be based on friendship, maybe there’s a few more lessons left to learn?” I suggested. “I mean, not that I know anything about it, but I definitely see opportunities for some compassion in our fellow citizens, not just Sunny.”

My phone beeped and I pulled it out. Pipp had gotten famous last week for a video of getting hit in the face by an apple. Today it was an entire rabbit, and I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

“You too, Sentra,” Hitch said.

I ducked my head. “Y-yeah.”

I wasn’t sure if Hitch had gotten more assertive lately since he’d gotten pregnant and gotten married or if I’d just been a little more submissive to him for the same reasons.

Though ironically he’d been the one who was submissive and breedable…

The two of us worked to round up the animals. Hitch, of course, was a pro at this. I did most of the actual herding at his direction, though, given my ability to fly and his limited movement.

And for the final loose critter, Sparky. We’d brought him with us to the ceremony, and admittedly had taken our eyes off him for just a moment. Fortunately, in the few seconds it had been, he didn’t go far. He was still in the Brighthouse.

Hitch and I reached him at the same time, but just as we did, he sneezed and a green cloud of something enveloped us. I felt a tingle in my entire body, even as I coughed.

“Sparky, buddy, what did you do?” Hitch asked, also coughing. I hoped that the substance wasn’t something toxic. As rapidly as it dissipated, though, and as sparkly as it was, I had a feeling it was something magical.

I had a very different feeling suddenly develop in my gut, like I’d swallowed a bowling ball. As we emerged from the cloud, I looked down.

“Sentra, what-” Hitch began.

His side was turned to me, and it was clear he’d had a weight lifted from him. And he had my cutie mark. I had his - and the baby.

We stared at each other for several seconds.

“Okay,” said Hitch. “I have no idea what just happened but-”

“-I’m kind of okay with it?” I finished. “I mean, I guess I’m still surprised and a little worried that I’m the pregnant one now, but at least I’ve got the right parts and we don’t have to wonder how the birth would happen, right?”

Yes, being pregnant and giving birth sounded like a hassle, painful, and somewhat terrifying, but it would be kind of hypocritical to demand Hitch take it back after I’d already, er, given it to him once.

“I'm glad you're okay,” he said, “though my primary concern was the baby.”

I felt a kick and involuntarily gasped at the new-to-me sensation. “Well, still lively, but yes, I think a trip to the hospital would be a good idea.”

I couldn't imagine the look on the ultrasound tech's face this time.

“You're sure you're fine?” Hitch said. He stepped up to me and put a hoof on my belly.

“Yeah. Honestly, it's actually less weird now.”

We kissed.

Zipp walked in at that moment. She frowned. “Sentra did you, uh…”

“Something weird and magical happened with Sparky and swapped our cutie marks,” I interrupted as a diversion, gesturing between me and Hitch.

It worked. Now noticing, Zipp rushed over. “What in the world?”

“Slightly ironic that I was just talking about walking a mile in someone else’s horseshoes,” Hitch said. “I didn’t think it would actually happen. I didn’t think it could happen. At least it didn’t happen with someone besides Sentra.”

Small blessings.

“Have you noticed anything else strange?” Zipp asked. “Like, I see that you…” She trailed off, too polite to say it, but gestured at my belly.

“Probably just a trick of the light,” I hurried to say, throwing out whatever came to mind. “Black has a slimming effect, you know, and that combined with Hitch’s ten-gallon hat over here probably threw off perception of proportions.” I faked a laugh. “Well, we were going to announce that we were expecting, but clarifying that I was the pregnant one was not how I expected to do it.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy for you!” Zipp gushed. “Okay, I’ll let you be the ones to tell everypony else. In the meantime, I’m going to figure out how to get the two of you switched back.”

“Wait!” Hitch and I both blurted.

Make Your Mark: The Traditional Unicorn Sleep-Over

It had been a heck of a day.

We’d interrogated Misty at the hospital, and become certain she was working for someone.

Sunny had opened an earth pony magic practice area on the grounds of the Brighthouse, with Hitch there to officiate the ribbon-cutting with giant scissors and all, but someone (cough Sunny cough) didn’t do an environmental survey beforehand, which led to a critter stampede. It had been all the rest of us could do to round them all up.

In the midst of all that, an errant magic spark from Sparky the adopted dragon resulted in Hitch and I swapping cutie marks, and also which one of us was carrying our lovechild.

So here I was, sweaty, covered in fur and dirt, and also now pregnant, being wheeled into the hospital because this kind of thing really probably should have some professional consultation.

Hitch was at my side, hurrying along beside the gurney, hobbling on two legs because one hoof was holding mine, and the other was still carrying the huge ceremonial scissors he’d apparently forgotten to put down in the shuffle.

“Hey, um,” I began. “What does a contraction feel like?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve never had one.”

A moment passed.

“Oh,” I said. I tilted my head back to look at the nurse pushing the gurney, upside down because of my position. “Hey, maybe add labor to the list of ailments.”

Hitch stumbled as if he was going to faint, but kept it together.

The nurse wheeled me into a room and set the brakes on the gurney. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

I got another probable contraction. Wow, I guess we were doing this.

Hitch leaned over the bed, gently touching my belly. “Are you okay?”

“I mean, I’m as okay as I’ve been in the last hour. Maybe not as okay as I’ve been overall today, but we’re trending back up. As for the future…” I glanced down at myself. “I guess we’ll see.”

There was another kick in my underparts which made me wince more than the contractions.

“I love you,” Hitch said suddenly.

I appreciated that, though did slightly wonder what prompted it. “I love you too.”

There was a polite cough from behind the curtain that separated the room. “Um,” said Misty’s voice, “That’s great, nice to hear that, I guess we’re roomies.”

Hitch pulled the curtain back, but that didn’t make it any less awkward.

“So you two are actually together after all,” she said. “You even have a baby.” Though, even as she said it, her face suddenly frowned in confusion as if she wasn’t sure who had been carrying it that morning.

“This could be anybody’s baby,” I said. “You don’t even know what kind of love we’re talking about. Ever heard of platonic coworker love?”

“No.”

“Do you have a job, Misty?” Hitch asked, I thought cleverly segueing back into interrogation to distract from the previous topic.

“Er-”

From down the hall, we all heard Izzy’s voice. I couldn’t make out the words, but nobody else talked that annoying, even if it was just tone.

Hitch slid the curtain back across Misty’s bed just as Izzy, along with Sunny, Pipp, and Zipp, burst into the room.

“SENTRA YOU’RE PREGGERS!?” Izzy shouted.

“We brought gifts,” Sunny said.

“We’re going to film it,” said Pipp, raising her phone.

“We’re not going to film it,” corrected Zipp, pushing the phone down again. Undeterred, Pipp raised another phone with her other hoof and the two of them had a brief wrestling match.

“You sure have a lot of phones,” I observed after I’d seen the third or fourth one go by in the tussle.

“Oh, I’ve got phones for days,” Pipp said, even though Zipp was so far doing a pretty good job pinning her.

I mean, I had two phones myself, but her amount seemed a little excessive. Not that it really surprised me about Pipp.

“We had been planning a traditional unicorn sleepover at the Brighthouse, but when your thing happened, we decided to hold it here,” Izzy said, voiced toned down but still excited. “Are you surprised?”

“Though it’s down on the list compared to the rest of my day, yes,” I replied. I also cautioned, “You’re going to have to ask the hospital staff about this, though. I’m not sure they’re keen on hosting sleepovers in patient rooms, particularly in the middle of maternity.”

“But I’ll finally get to find out where babies come from!”

Yeah, the doctor shut that one down when she came in. I was relieved; I had been worried she was actually going to allow shenanigans to continue.

But-

“You can stay until before the delivery. It might take up to twenty four hours,” she said.

“All nighter!” Izzy cheered.

I prayed for the contractions to come faster.

On the surface of it, the party was not terrible. I didn’t figure I should be eating much, though, and I definitely shouldn’t be moving around much, not to mention the cramps every few minutes. At least, despite being the physical centerpiece of the room, I managed to not be the center of the event, and managed to divide my time and conversation.

Zipp was still curious why Hitch and I had declined to get magically swapped back, and were still wearing each other’s cutie marks. I made up something about not knowing how it was going to affect the baby, which was at least partially true.

It was a little harder to brush off her questions about “Why didn’t I look pregnant until today,” “That sure was a fast pregnancy,” and “Wow Hitch, you sure lost a lot of weight recently.”

In an effort to avoid some of her questions, I instead swung my conversation to Pipp, trying to low-key figure out how many phones she actually had.

“Funny story, I don’t actually know,” she said. “I just keep buying them.”

I had one phone for official Martial Law business and one phone for Sentra everything else business. Though I was considering getting a third to be a dedicated platform for shitposting and pirating like it’s 1699.

Oh no, I was nearly getting as bad as Pipp. At any rate, I probably didn’t even need two phones. It wasn’t like anyone was going to figure out my secret identity, because I was doing literally nothing else to hide it.

Though, good question which was the secret one.

At least as part of the sleepover, I did manage some sleep, even wincing through the increasing contractions. Though, things seemed to be reaching a crescendo late that night and I awoke dripping in sweat and clenching my jaw.

“Oh yeah, you’re just about ready,” said the doctor’s voice.

The room was dark, but there was a light from between my legs, glowing from under the blanket that covered me.

“Um,” I said, slightly weirded out. “Should I ask everyone to leave?”

She lifted her head. “Yep, just about time.”

Hitch was allowed to stay, being a spouse. Everyone else said words of encouragement, but were pushed out of the room. A few nurses came in.

The doctor put on gloves, snapping them tight. She seemed really cheerful. Maybe that was just in contrast to me, who was still building up on the pain scale.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life that resulted in getting hurt, but those were usually temporary incidents. Lying here for the last few hours with a bowling ball trying to come out of my nethers had not been fun in the slightest.

Hitch had not stopped holding my hoof, though, and I was reminded that this was still probably a lot better than if it happened to him. There is satisfaction in knowingly taking one for the team.

“Okay, so push with the contractions,” said the doctor, squatting before me again.

“You play baseball?” I asked.

“I’m on the office softball team,” she replied.

“Catcher?”

“Of course.”

That was the last coherent conversation in the room for several minutes. Though I wish I could have had something to distract me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to participate in the whole speaking and listening thing.

But eventually, with one last gasping push, I did give birth and limply collapsed back onto the bed.

“Time?” the doctor asked.

The clock was in my field of view, which was good because I wasn’t really interested in moving right then. The nearest nurse looked up. “Uh…stroke of midnight. Which day do I write down?”

Everyone else seemed extremely interested in the baby, down where I couldn't move my head enough to see. Understandable, but I didn’t know why they were all frowning.

“Well, that’s…definitely a baby,” said the doctor. She shook her head. “We’ll deal with this later.” She turned to Hitch. “Papa, do you want to cut the cord?”

“Oh, um, sure,” he said.

Hitch looked a little worse for wear, even though he hadn’t been the one giving birth. Distracted. Frazzled. Understandable, I thought, though I would have expected some overjoyed happiness in there somewhere.

He was so distracted, in fact, that he didn’t notice a pair of offered forceps and instead picked up the huge ceremonial scissors he had carried all the way to the hospital room.

Snip.

“Speech,” I was able to whisper.

Put on the spot, Hitch stumbled over his words. “I, uh…now pronounce this vagina open!”

Make Your Mark: Hoof Done It?

For the second time in my life, I took horse tranquilizers.

Like the first time, I didn’t remember much after that.

Unlike the first time, it wasn’t voluntary. I figured Hitch had authorized them. I trusted him. Well, maybe he was slightly power tripping by seeing me vulnerable like this, and I couldn’t blame him - it was probably good to rebalance our relationship anyway. At any rate, I had other things to think about, such as the whole childbirth thing.

So when I finally returned to lucidity sometime later, I had a lot of questions.

But that was nothing compared to when the girls finally overran the nurses and burst into my hospital room.

“Where is the baby!?” Pipp shouted, cell phone at the ready.

“And how are you, Sentra?” Zipp asked.

“We brought some snacks,” said Sunny.

“And glit-” Izzy was abruptly tackled by a nurse and dragged back out of the room.

The rest gathered around the foot of the bed with Hitch. Looks of confusion propagated across the crowd. I could barely tell. Still coming out of anesthesia, my vision was blurry.

“So, uh…what are we looking at?” Sunny asked. Strange, she couldn’t tell either and she wasn’t the one on drugs.

“Oh thank hoofness, I’m glad I’m not the only one who was thinking it,” Pipp said. “It would have been a really ugly for a foal, but I guess it’s not a pony.”

“It what?” I interjected.

Everyone looked at me. “Sentra’s starting to wake up,” Hitch noted. The expression on his face was strange, an odd mixture between confused, worried, and yet loving.

He turned to show me the tiny bundle of blankets that he cradled.

“Can’t see,” I said.

Hitch swallowed. “It’s…a goat.”

I burst out laughing.

I’m going to blame…maybe sixty percent of that on the drugs.

“What day was he born?” Izzy said.

He, huh.

“I don’t know,” Hitch admitted. “It was pretty close to midnight.”

“On the dot,” one of the nurses confirmed. “So decide which day you want.”

“Both! Two birthdays!” Izzy shouted.

I focused on the more important thing, though. “So, a kid. A goat kid. A kid kid.” I snorted.

Downgrade that drug influence to just half and half.

Hitch brought him over, not that it helped with my eyes still fuzzy.

“A boy?” I confirmed.

“Yes.”

“Billy goat.”

“That’s his name?”

“You know what? Sure.”

I saw Zipp put a hoof to her chin in thought and then blush, which with my vision still coming back I could really only tell because her face briefly went as pink as her sister. She turned to a nurse and I barely overheard, “Is mare milk safe for other species?”

Oh right, that was going to be a thing.

“Honey, at this point, I don’t think this postpartum could get any weirder,” the nurse replied.

She turned out to be wrong about that.

With the birth at midnight, we’d all been awake too long and not even the snacks Sunny had brought could stave off exhaustion. Izzy had the bright idea to just sleep in the other bed in the room, but upon pulling back the curtain, discovered that we’d all forgotten that Misty was lying there.

“What in the world have you all been up to?” she asked, voice still nasally through her broken nose, glancing between the unpregnant Hitch, the loopy me, and the clearly adopted natural birth that had just entered the world.

That was when I noticed the magic mirror that Hitch and I had interrogated her about had been here the whole time.

I started to get up and fell before I even got out of bed, which was probably better than after. Hitch steadied me, and while he was close, I whispered, “Mirror,” to him. He caught on instantly.

Whoever was on the other end of the mirror, the mysterious figure that Misty still wouldn’t turn over, might have just heard everything. There was no telling what they might do with a record of the weird birth - hopefully it would freak them out just as much as it had Misty - but we couldn’t know. If nothing else, they would know that the only two law enforcement personnel in all of Maretime Bay would be distracted from work.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Sunny broke in just then, looking at her phone. “The web-enabled security system I put in the Brighthouse is going off.”

“Did you get the cameras?” I asked.

“No, just the one motion detector.”

“You let a tech company have access to your phone and your house and didn’t even take full advantage of their offer in return?”

“It’s just the pain medication talking,” Hitch quickly interjected over me.

Sunny gasped, holding her phone closer. “My magic lantern has just been stolen!”

“It’ll tell you that, but not who did it?”

“Not on the freemium service!” Sunny quickly pulled out her credit card and started hammering in the numbers, but I had a feeling that it was already too late.

“We should do something,” Hitch said. “A burglary isn’t good, but this timing is pretty suspicious.” He glanced down at me and the new baby. “But-”

Sunny looked despondent, realizing that both cops in town were down.

“You should deputize somepony!” said Izzy.

“Zipp,” Hitch and I chorused.

Make Your Mark: Have You Seen This Dragon?

With someone breaking into the Brighthouse, while Hitch and I were kind of busy with the new kid, we hereby deputized Zipp to take care of the whodunits while we were indisposed.

Zipp rushed out, on her way to the Brighthouse. The others went with her, either as some kind of improvised posse or just because they wanted to watch. At the same time, a few nurses rolled Misty in her bed out of the room.

That left the hospital room quiet, finally. Which meant there was now nothing to prevent my undivided attention from the fact that I had just given birth. To a goat.

Weird day.

I glanced around, just to be sure we were truly alone in the room, and said, “So all that really happened, huh?”

“Yeah,” Hitch said. “I can hardly believe it, but I’m pretty sure it did.”

“How is this going to work with maternity leave? Can we split it, since you carried the baby too?”

“There’s no provision under Maretime Bay law for split maternity,” Hitch recited. “But fortunately, there’s paternity leave.”

“Can we split that one?”

“Uh-” Hitch paused abruptly in thought. “Speaking of, I always felt like the kind of guy who would make dad jokes, but knowing you, Sentra, I think we’re definitely going to have to split that duty, so as to avoid being overwhelming.”

He was totally right. “Good idea. We can add it to the chore calendar?”

Hitch winked. “Chore thing.”

“Great, I’ll take tomorrow.”

We laughed together a little, and kissed. It came so naturally that I didn’t even have conscious thought about it, and maybe Hitch didn’t either. To be fair, both of us were thinking about other things.

Such as the elephant in the room.

Boy, I was sure glad I hadn’t had to push out an elephant, but a goat was bad enough.

I looked down at the kid I was holding, and Hitch’s gaze followed mine.

“So yeah,” I said by way of no other method of steering the conversation back on topic. “Did you happen to have any goat in your family?”

“No, and I’m pretty sure the genetics aren’t even compatible with numbers of chromosomes and whatnot.”

I had no idea what my own body’s genetic history might have been, but doubted there was any goat there. The shape of the pupils was even off by ninety degrees.

“No chromo,” I muttered. Maybe that one was funnier in my head. I had to practice if my dad joke day was tomorrow.

So, with that ahead of me, I’d better get to know this kid.

Billy, the goat, met my eyes and baa’d. Wait, that was a sheep noise. Bleat? I’m not good with animal sounds, but considering I was raising a kid now I had better get on that. It was part of the basic curriculum, right? Dog says bark, cow says moo, pony says ligma, and so on.

Billy seemed bright-eyed enough. I vaguely recalled something about quadrupeds being generally more ready to go than human babies. Now that he’d been bundled and swaddled by the nurses, his coat had dried off. He was blotched black, white, and brown, which was confusing to me. I mean, that didn’t match the colors of Hitch or me at all. Frankly, Billy being black and red or something would have made more sense. He looked like…a goat.

“I have so many questions,” Hitch said, echoing my thoughts after we’d both had a long moment to take it in. “And I’m worried. I don’t know how to, like, teach him stuff. I don’t have cloven hooves. I don’t have horns. I don’t even know where to start.”

A circumcised father not knowing how to deal with a son’s uncutness. Weird example to pop into my head just then, but illustrative.

Hitch’s phone rang just then. He glanced at it, but seeing it was Zipp, decided to pick up. He put it on speaker.

“The magic lantern is gone,” Zipp said, summarizing what the Brighthouse security system had told us. “We also found evidence that Sparky had been here.”

Hitch and I traded a sudden panicked glance. Where was Sparky?

I didn’t even know where we had last seen him. Maybe when an errant spark of magic from him had swapped Hitch and my cutie marks, and who was pregnant.

Speaking of, looking at Hitch’s hip, I noticed we were back now. Maybe it happened after the birth.

“Hello?” Zipp prompted. “I’m still here.”

“HistillhereI’mdad,” Hitch blurted. He shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just-”

He looked at me, and I understood the choice we faced.

“Go,” I said. “We’re a team, so we can do two things at once.”

He kissed me and was out the door like a shot.

“Um…” said Zipp.

“Hitch, you forgot your phone!”

He dashed back in, grabbed it, and dashed back out.

I looked down at Billy, who was still staring at me, unconcerned with anything else.

His blankets were getting damp.

I had never changed a diaper in my life, and wasn’t about to do it while still a little bit on drugs, so I pressed the nurse call button.

Or on second thought, maybe I actually needed more drugs. Either way, calling the nurse would help.

Hitch returned hours later. They’d found Sparky.

He still looked worried, though, and when he had a moment he told me that with the lantern being stolen, there was evidence that someone might have also tried to kidnap Sparky. Whether he’d proven too much of a handful, or they’d simply wanted something else from him, there was no way to tell. Worrying, but at least he was safe now.

It felt weird to be taking it easy in time of crisis. I mean, it was past now, but still. Somebody had to be the mother, and I guess today it was my turn.

I was bursting with dad jokes. Literally vibrating. Could not wait.

They let us go from the hospital since everything seemed to be in order. Zipp was with Hitch and filled me in on everything she’d found as we walked. While I didn’t think she was interested in a permanent deputyship, I was glad she seemed to be good at it.

“It’s so strange,” she said. “I have no idea who would break into the Brighthouse. The lantern was the only thing taken. Have you checked out Sparky? We have no idea what might have happened to him.”

Sparky seemed fine. The hospital, as little dragon medicine as they knew, had agreed.

Zipp shook her head, and glanced around, eyes settling on Billy. “Weird day,” she said, echoing my constant thoughts. “I feel like nothing can surprise me anymore.

Just then, Izzy rolled up in an old tram. “Surprise!”

Sunny and Pipp were with her. Izzy honked the horn. “Check out my brand-new, old, broken-down, good-for-nothing, retired tram car! Great find, huh?! I got something super-cool up my mane. It’s gonna be tram-a-licious! Tram-a-blammo! Tram-tastic!”

Zipp pointed out, “Hey, and next time we’re searching for something, you guys can get around in that.”

That’s just what I was thinking!” Izzy agreed. “Friends that stick together can never be separated!”

Sparky picked just then to pull a vanishing act. I practically heard Hitch’s heartbeat go into overdrive, only for Sparky to appear at the controls of the tram, miming driving and making motor sounds with his mouth.

Everyone shared a relieved, but uneasy, laugh.

“Anyway,” Izzy went on, “Now that we’re all together, let’s have a baby shower for the new baby! I mean, traditionally it’s done before birth, but I guess it was a good thing we waited because we had no idea what you were having, Sentra.”

Me neither.

“I’ve already organized it,” Izzy said, pulling out her notes as we all boarded the tram. On the document, I saw that our old friend Dee had been contacted to provide catering. Izzy had scratched in “mixed nuts.”

My eyes lit up.

Hitch saw the maniac smile start to slide across my face and sighed, but didn’t say anything.

The tram rolled off into the sunset, party bound.

Make Your Mark: Winter Wishday, part 1

Hitch came into the kitchen, where I was standing near the stove.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “I keep hearing this noise, it’s like ‘bam, bam.’”

“Sorry, I sometimes get carried away when I’m cooking.” I turned to the bubbling pot on the stove and sprinkled in some pepper. “Bam!”

Hitch had given me the recipe, so he was a little surprised I was deviating a little. I was cooking in preparation for Winter Wishday. It was some kind of non-denominational winter holiday. At least it was festive, as I saw through the window that it had recently begun to snow.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Hitch said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow this early in the year before.”

I shrugged. Climate change.

I frowned. Well, maybe. It seemed easy to write stuff off to magic, especially now that everybody had gotten it.

We heard the mail arrive and Hitch went to get it. He came back into the kitchen sifting through the envelopes. “We’ve been invited to a wedding in the summer.”

“Who is it?”

“My buddy Tom; I don’t think you know him.” Hitch opened the envelope. “Huh, Greg? I thought the last one was Greg..” Hitch muttered to himself as he dredged up a few old memories. “Yeah, I’m sure that was it. This Greg is a different Greg.”

“Seems awkward to start dating somebody named exactly the same thing as the ex.”

“Well, he seems happy and I wish them the best. Though, I think you’re right. I hope I don’t get Greg and Greg confused.”

“To make a Tomlette, you have to break a few Greggs.”

I’m glad he thought that was as funny as I did.

I finished up the stew and put the lid on the pot, turning off the heat. We were going on a trip to see family for the holidays.

“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,” I said.

“How’d you know?” Hitch replied.

“Directions to your grandmother’s house are literally a poem?”

He shrugged, though good-naturedly. “Victim of circumstance.”

Taking Sparky, Billy, and the stew with us, we juggled the three of them and went to meet the girls.

Hitch also grabbed a holiday card that had arrived in the mail. “This is who we’re going to see, Grandma Figgy.”

I glanced at the card as he opened it. She’d included a picture. Holidays at grandma’s, just like I how remembered when growing up. Boy, sometimes I like being normal. Sometimes.

“I love her,” Hitch suddenly gushed. “We’re going to have so much fun at her house. She’s the best grandma in the whole world!”

A passing bird chirped at him.

“What, you think yours is better?” Hitch retorted.

We made it to the Brighthouse to meet the girls. Sunny had decorated cookies to look like each of us. Seemed like a lot of effort for just eight of them: Sunny, Izzy, Zipp, Pipp, Hitch, Sparky, Billy, and me.

Billy was eating solid food now. Goats.

Raising two kids who could already run around nearly from the time they were born was a hassle, and it was a good thing Hitch and I made a good team.

Sunny sang as we ate. “We wish you a yummy Wishday and a happy New Moon!”

She seemed especially vibrative today, buzzing with energy. “I’ve got the perfect holiday planned for us all!”

Though as we talked among ourselves, it soon became apparent that we all had conflicting holiday plans. Hitch and I and the kids (both the actual kid and the dragon) were going to his grandma’s place. Zipp and Pipp were going home, as was Izzy.

“Let’s do it all together!” Sunny suggested.

“Love to, but Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood are both quite the journey,” Pipp pointed out, the reasonable one for once, though I guess with her phone constantly at hoof, she should know navigation.

“And it’s snowing,” Izzy pointed out.

“Huh?” Sunny said, apparently not noticing until then. “That’s strange, it never snows here in Maretime Bay.”

“We could go to the coast for the novelty of seeing snow on the beach,” I suggested.

Hitch seemed to like the idea, but Zipp and Izzy came to the rescue with a solution. “We’ve been working on something, a surprise,” said Zipp. “It was going to wait until Wishday, but it could be a solution to our problem.”

“Huh?” said Izzy, “sorry, I zoned out there.” Somehow, in the space of five seconds. “Anyway, let’s go!”

We followed them outside to a very conspicuous tarped object. Zipp whisked the cover off to reveal the old tram Izzy had found.

I wasn’t sure how it had gotten to the patio. The wheels had been removed, and well, trains were supposed to be heavy. Not to mention the extras that had been added, including wings and a collection of pots and pans.

“It’s still a little rough, but we’re getting close. We’ve been working on it for weeks,” Zipp said. I figured she must have been the engineer, likely borrowing ideas from the airships that had once docked in Zephyr Heights.

“Love it,” said Pipp. “One question, what is it?”

“It’s the old broken tram I found,” Izzy said. “Then I turned it into art, and then moving art.”

“More like flying art,” Zipp said. “I just wanted to show you ponies how awesome it is to fly too.”

I had reservations about turning a train into a plane - the weight issue already stated among others. Though, I shrugged and figured magic would probably be good enough. It already seemed to solve all our other problems.

“Are you sure this thing can fly?” Hitch asked, examining it.

“And what do you call it?” Sunny asked.

“THE MARESTREAM!” Izzy bellowed. She shrugged, and then more modestly went on. “It’s an idea.”

We were all a little taken aback, but Pipp was first to recover. “It’s perfect.”

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road,” Zipp said. “I think I’ve figured out how to make it fly. I need everypony’s butts, please.”

Oh, cutie marks. Everyone was in a good mood, and crowded closer, and sure enough there was some rainbow light as the cutie marks began to shine together. The Marestream seemed to power up.

“Okay, let’s go!” Izzy jumped to the controls.

“Do you have a driver’s license for this vehicle?” Hitch asked.

“And have you completed the test flying regimen prior to accepting passengers?” I added.

Izzy pulled out a pair of scissors and some construction paper and made them, on the spot.

Hitch and I glanced at each other. We had both been joking, but appreciated the effort.

I mean, a piece of paper with crayon on it saying the thing was certified airworthy still wouldn’t keep us from dying of structural failure midair, but until that happened it made me feel slightly better.

“Let’s get packed and then get going,” Sunny said, amending Izzy’s earlier assertion to get going right now. “Dress warm, everypony!” There was very little glass in the tram, and the wind would probably blow straight through.

We all went home to pack and returned. For those that lived in the Brighthouse, that was quick. Pipp had packed too much and we collectively vetoed it. We also collectively decided we’d rather have Zipp be the pilot. I figured she also had some cool pilot sunglasses and wasn’t disappointed.

After everyone was seated and belted, Zipp gingerly took the controls and the Marestream lurched into the air about like you’d expect a magic-powered rusty tram to do. She seemed to get the hang of it, though, and relaxed slightly. “This is your captain speaking, welcome to the flight. We are currently traveling at an altitude of…I don’t actually know, at the speed of…magic, and this thing doesn’t have a clock but last I checked it was afternoon.”

“Hi, I’m your in-flight entertainment coordinator, and it’s time for a good old fashioned sing-along!” Izzy piped up. She was wearing some sort of weird festive headdress with antlers, like a reindeer, I guess, though now she had three horns and the look wasn’t really working.

She started some music and everyone promptly sang the wrong thing.

“Wait, stop, what was that?” Izzy protested. “That wasn’t the right song.”

“What are you talking about, we sing that all the time,” Hitch said, gesturing between himself and Sunny.

“We sing something different,” Pipp said, gesturing between herself and Zipp.

“Does each pony kind have different lyrics for the same melody?” Sunny wondered. “Fascinating.”

“We could just alternate verses,” Pipp said.

“No, do a round,” I said. “It’ll still be cacophony, but intentional this time.”

I was outvoted. I wasn’t going to sing anyway, not knowing the words, but that probably would have been more entertaining for the ‘gram.

Zipp almost hit two pegasi flying in the clouds. Fortunately, the Marestream was pretty slow, so even if she hadn’t avoided them, it probably wouldn’t have been a bad collision.

“Eyes on the skies, not on your screens!” she shouted at them as we went by. They’d wandered into our path while on their phones.

“Victim of circumstance,” one of them called back, sheepish.

Zipp kept us flying, as the winter sky kept snowing. The windchill wasn’t too bad, because we weren’t going that fast.

It was late evening when we arrived at our first destination, Grandma Figgy’s.

“Wait, what are all those new trees?” Hitch said. “It doesn't even look like her house anymore.”

As the Marestream came to a stop we all piled off and headed up to the front door, most of us shivering a little from the unseasonable cold and having just flown open-air through it.

“Wait, just a minute before we go in,” Hitch said. “I need to warn everyone that Grandma Figgy can be a little particular about Winter Wishday.”

“We’ll be sure to honor her earth pony traditions,” Sunny said.

“We’ll be great guests. Guests that go with the flow in the snow,” Izzy added.

Hitch knocked on the door and Grandma Figgy answered immediately, as if she had been standing there waiting, possibly even listening to us talk about her.

“Hitch, it’s so good to see you,” she said, hugging him. “And what a treat to have Hitch’s friends here too.”

“I’m his partner,” I said, raising my hoof. “And these are our kids.”

“And these little adorable sweethearts,” Figgy said, nuzzling Sparky and Billy.

She went on for a little bit baby-talking them before turning back to everyone else.

“Nice to meet you,” Sunny said, through chattering teeth because we had been standing outside the front door for several minutes now.

“Oh, certainly, do come in,” Figgy said. “My, I haven’t seen weather like this in, well, never. Come in, and we’ll warm those hoovsies right up.”

Only then did she move aside to let the party in.

Hot chocolate and a crackling fireplace awaited us. The house was small but comfy and well decorated for the holiday. I put the pot of stew in the kitchen.

Speaking of well-decorated, my makeup was especially on point today. I mean, there wasn’t really room to get festive with it - I’m a bit of a one trick pony in that regard - but even Pipp had said I was totes rizz earlier, so I figured she meant it.

I was still trying to figure out what Figgy thought of me. Surely Hitch had told her we were raising a family together.

I settled down beside the fire and tried to figure out how to drink hot chocolate without smudging my lipstick.

Just then, Izzy made a scene. I didn't exactly see what had happened but just then there was a pop of confetti and a pair of very flamboyant trousers hit me in the face. They were made of rainbow fabric and had sequins.

“Oops,” said Izzy. “I hadn’t meant for the Prize Ka-Pow I was building to go off just yet. Sorry if everypony got the wrong thing.”

She came over to me, helping to remove the trousers from my face. “Sorry Sentra.”

“I’m a victim of circus pants.”

Make Your Mark: Winter Wishday, part 2

We were all at Hich's Grandma Figgy's house.

Izzy setting off confetti and handing out gifts early was definitely a breach of tradition, if I was reading the situation correctly. Hitch had already warned us that Grandma Figgy was very particular about holiday protocol.

“I’ll get some napkins to clean this up,” he said delicately, excusing himself. I could tell he was more heated than he let on.

Meanwhile, Izzy was further instigating. “This hot chocolate with three giant marshmallows per cup is great, but what do you say we do four?”

Kind of a lackluster followup to the excitement earlier. Figgy seemed fine with it, though, and added an extra one to her cup.

“Would you like to see Hitch’s colthood pictures?” Figgy asked me.

“Absolutely.”

Sensing something cute, as well as possibly a chance to mildly embarrass Hitch, the girls gathered around too, leaning over for a look as Figgy opened the album.

“Lookit his tiny sheriff costume!” Zipp laughed.

Hitch returned just then, less perturbed than I would have expected. “Normally this would be embarrassing, but it’s a Wishday tradition,” he said to me.

We continued going through pictures. Sunny was in a few of them, the two being childhood friends.

“As focused on tradition as you are, Hitch, I’m surprised you and Sunny didn’t end up an item,” Figgy said, chortling.

“Well, it is hard to resist the goth gf,” I said.

“You’re my wife,” Hitch pointed out.

He checked his watch, “Okay, it’s time for the next event. Everypony to the Cookie Cottage Crafting Creation Corner!”

“The what?” asked Figgy.

“The kitchen.”

Hitch kept being uptight about things. We were making gingerbread houses, I’m not sure how hard he needed to go on the details. I thought he was still bristling about Izzy’s earlier breach of tradition.

When I had a moment, I caught Figgy’s attention for a private chat. “Is Hitch like this every Chri-er, Wishday?”

“Every one,” she confirmed. “Let him have it, dear, he’s so selfless the rest of the year.”

“Fair enough.”

“And he’s already breaking out of his normal and routine,” she said, giving me a wink and pinching my cheeks.

We finished up making the gingerbread houses. By now, the sky was fully dark and the snow hadn’t stopped.

“Goodness, perhaps you all had better stay the night,” Figgy suggested, peering out the window.

It was Sunny’s turn to hold the neurotic stick-to-the-plan ball. “But we’ll never make it to everywhere else we need to be today!”

“Do y’wanna go out into a blizzardy night in that old tram or stay here by the fire until the morning?” Pipp pointed out, making a lot of sense for once.

The question ended up being rhetorical, as regardless of what Sunny thought, the rest of us elected to stay.

We had dinner, eating the stew I had made earlier in the day. As everyone began to settle in for the night, there weren’t nearly enough beds, but fortunately Figgy had lots of blankets. Hitch and I laid down on the living room floor beside the fireplace.

No holiday was ever perfect, but it was sure better than being alone.

A good place to post Nismo Rose's art

In the morning, we got ready to go in the Marestream. Figgy saw us off. “Stay warm, fly safe!”

The snow hadn’t stopped all night. It was a little lighter now, but we still had to dump a lot of it off the roof of the tram.

“I know we spent a little longer there than we had planned,” Sunny began as Zipp took her place at the controls and the Marestream lifted shakily into the air, “but maybe if we try really hard we could get back to some form of schedule.”

“Got you. Full speed ahead!” Zipp said.

The Marestream coughed and banged, but nothing else seemed to change.

“Ugh, okay, same speed ahead.”

We were on our way to Bridlewood next. Izzy asked for a course correction to go by her house first. I could see Sunny visibly grimace at yet more detours.

We got there…well, eventually. Zipp set the Marestream down in Izzy’s front yard. We all disembarked to stretch our legs. The wind whistling through the rickety tram for the whole ride was bone-numbing, but Figgy had sent cocoa with us, and we’d all dressed warmly.

“That’s a lot more than a few flakes,” Pipp noted as she glanced around the snow buildup.

Just then, a pine bough emptied its load of snow directly over her, burying Pipp.

I made sure she was okay, and then when she wasn’t looking, posted the video.

Izzy came out of her house. “Surprise! Hoof-knitted scarves for all of you!”

She must have worked hard on them. Mine was red. I suddenly wondered if she was angling to decorate me like a Christmas Tree since I already had the green down.

Billy started chewing on his. I wondered what the material was, if it was wool or whatever, and decided I’d rather not know if sheep were people.

We started to head into town from Izzy’s house. Since she hadn’t been home much, spending a lot of time in Maretime Bay, the thicket of trees had started to encroach on the path.

Not paying attention, looking at my phone, I didn’t notice my scarf get caught on a branch until I was stopped short by a little bit of light strangulation around the neck.

“Here, I’ll get it,” Hitch said. He picked the scarf out of the trees and started to wind it back up for me. It was wrapped around my neck several times and given I was taller than him he eventually just gave up and made a gesture for me to turn in place.

I complied. “Oh yeah, Hitch, rotate me like one of your gas station hot dogs.”

He made the usual face, the one where he wasn’t quite sure what I had said, but wasn’t sure if it was fit for public.

We made it through the woods without further incident and arrived in the Bridlewood town square. The huge central tree was decorated with lights and there was some kind of little market going on, every stall selling festive trinkets and treats. Some kids were building a snowpony.

“This looks so pretty, Iz!” said Pipp. “They really went all out.”

“Yeah, it's a unicorn thing!” Izzy said. “Wishiehoof is a day of fun, friendship, and frolicking! We are very serious about our frolicking.”

She escorted us over to the tree, which the whole community was decorating with personal ornaments. Izzy opened a box, taking out her own intended to hang.

“Is that what I think it is?” Hitch asked.

“If you're asking if my ornament for the tree is the tree, then... yep! I'm gonna put the tree on the tree, how funny is that?” Izzy laughed. Sure enough, the ornament she had decorated had a picture of the tree she was going to hang it on.

“Now, to hang it up - oh wait, is that Alphabittle?” Izzy said, getting distracted.

Sure enough, that was him over at one of the vendors, sipping tea.

“Alphabittle Blossomforth!” Izzy called, starting over.

“His last name is Blossomforth?” I murmured to myself.

I watched from a distance as Izzy apparently challenged Alphabittle to a game, knowing he would bet on anything. Perhaps it was charades, the way she gesticulated wildly. Anyway, she lost in seconds, and handed over her ornament.

“Well that was fun,” she said, rejoining our group. Alphabittle came with her.

“Your special ornament,” Sunny lamented.

“Oh, it’s okay! You know what they say, anything worth doing is worth doing, twice.” Izzy pulled out another, identical one.

“You made two?” Alphabittle said, incredulously.

“Don’t you always prepare for losing spontaneous games of charades?” said Izzy.

“Here I thought you were giving him the gift of winning a game and the gift of an ornament because he might not have made his own,” I said. “But then you just reveal the gig right in front of him. Even if holiday gifts are a constructed social grace, they work because we all play by the rules, pretend to have made the effort, and pretend to be surprised and grateful. Paste on a fake smile and don’t reveal too much. The bar is so low it’s practically a tripping hazard in Hell, yet here you are limboing with the Devil.”

Izzy laughed. Alphabittle looked at me as if just then remembering some of the negative encounters he’d had with me in the past and decided to move along.

DDR sore loser punk.

As he departed, several rabbits with horns hopped over. Bunnycorns, if I remembered correctly. Hitch helped Izzy translate for their squeaking. On the spot, she knitted tiny little scarves for their horns.

I frowned to myself, getting lost briefly in the whole idea of scarves for horns. Related, I mentally added condoms to the shopping list for when we got back.

Tell Your Tale: A Home to Share / Zipp Gets Her Wings / Sisters Take Flight

Author's Note

I was getting bored waiting on the main G5 show, so I started writing chapters based on the short YouTube clips. We'll see how this goes, if I even finish.

Who thought bean mouths were a good idea?

Tell Your Tale: A Home to Share / Zipp Gets Her Wings / Sisters Take Flight

The model looked like a lava lamp sitting on top of a purple lunchbox. To be fair, it wasn't a bad representation of the real building in the distance.

“Welcome to the home of our dreams!” Sunny Starscout gushed, presenting it to everyone.

Izzy Moonbow, Pipp Petals, Zipp Storm, and Hitch Trailblazer all ooh’d and ah’d, even as Hitch’s pet crab, McSnipps Alot, started beating the model into dust.

“Forget the model. We’re going to make the real Crystal Brighthouse perfect!” Sunny said.

Happily ignoring the model, Izzy gushed, “We can spend every minute of every day together for the rest of our lives!”

Zipp and I both chuckled with confusion but also sudden nervousness. “What?”

I would have called jinx if Pipp hadn’t interrupted us just then with an impromptu one-line song. “It’s going to be i-con-ic!”

“There’s a lot to get done, but we can do anything if we work together,” Sunny said, gesturing to a box of supplies. Apparently the actual building of the Crystal Brighthouse, which had apparently occurred when I wasn’t looking, was comparatively easy compared to the decorating.

While I had been in the pony land for a little while now, I was still getting used to how things scaled. A culture that had cell phones, but perhaps not heavy machinery, and had recently rediscovered magic, was difficult to predict. Apparently the new lighthouse had been built literally when I wasn’t looking.

Sunny started to grab the supplies, but everyone else made a mad dash and rushed to plunge into the decorating.

“Enthusiasm! I like it,” Sunny laughed. “Wait up, roomies!”

They did not. Sunny hurried after them.

“Wait, roomies?” I said to myself.

A cacophony began from inside the lighthouse. I heard splats of paint, wallpaper being pulled from the roll and pasted up, sawing, hammering of nails, and an automated pancake machine running.

I wasn’t sure if I was able to tell all that because my pony ears were that sensitive, or if I just no longer had the occupational hearing damage that I did when I was human.

With some trepidation, I walked over to the front door and opened it.

The place was immediately just as big of a mess as I had imagined and it had only been a few seconds. I guess if I was impressed the lighthouse had been built so fast, this was only more so. Paint was everywhere. Wallpaper was crooked. Furniture had been broken. Somebody had glued a bird to the wall.

Hitch was doing what he did best, which didn’t necessarily mean he was the best at what he did. I admired him for being the only one doing something practical, building shelves, though his pet crab seemed to keep getting in the way.

Izzy danced by, throwing liberal hopefuls of glitter into the air. I quickly stepped aside, leveling a hoof at her. “Izzy, I’ve told you before, don’t get that herpes anywhere near me.”

“I don’t understand,” Sunny mumbled, eye twitching at the sight of the ruin that had been created near-instantaneously. “I thought working together would be easy, but it turns out, it's super messy.”

“You didn’t have a plan,” I observed.

“I guess not.”

I nodded. “Okay, get everybody together. We’re going to work this out.”

Sunny nodded and managed to get the others corralled and together. They sat on a couch that had somehow survived with only a little stuffing beaten out of it. I pulled over a whiteboard and picked up a marker. “Okay gang, we need a plan.”

Pipp started to say something, but I immediately began writing, drowning her out with the squeaking of the marker.

SMEAC
Situation
Mission
Execution
Administration
Command & Control

“Okay, we’re going to create a detailed order that lays out exactly what is expected, of whom, and how to get there. This is important not only for division of effort, but to ensure everyone is aware of the overall goal, so in the absence of something not covered in this plan, you know what you need to continue working towards.

“Now, Situation covers the current state. It has a number of subsections.” I swept the marker at my audience, and then wrote everyone’s name on the board under a heading titled Friendly Forces. “Okay, and now what’s our enemy?”

A moment of silence. Zipp spoke up. “Um, disorder and an undecorated house?”

“Good.” I wrote it down. “Okay, our operating environment is this lighthouse. I’m going to have to lean on you all for the exact details because frankly I don’t know anything about this place. Anybody got blueprints?”

Nobody did. How did this place even get built?

“Okay, moving on to Mission. Who, What, When, Where, Why. We, the gang, on order will perform our assigned tasks to accomplish beautification of the residence. We can polish that later.

“Next up is Execution.” I pointed the marker at Sunny, and as nervous as she looked, maybe she had confused the meaning. “What is the intent? What is the desired end state?”

“Uh…to make this place beautiful.”

“Good enough for now.” I wrote it down. “Okay now comes the time-consuming part. We need a list of tasks to be accomplished. All the individual things that you can think of that need to be done.”

“Build shelves,” said Hitch.

“I like it.”

“Paint the walls,” added Zipp.

“I guess that’s important, though they look plenty painted enough already.”

“Take lots of pictures so everypony knows how glamorous this place is,” said Pipp.

“Well, we can circle back to that one.” I kept writing as they kept talking.

As the board began to get filled up, Sunny remarked, “Wow, this is actually really helpful. I didn’t understand the first part, but having a clear list of tasks to get done makes it easier to cross off, like a checklist.”

She started to get up, but I said, “Where are you going?”

“Huh?”

“We aren’t done planning yet. We still need to analyze enemy centers of gravity, develop our concept of operations, write the fire support plan, somebody needs to publish the Intelligence Preparation of the Operating Environment, we need to consider the Administration and logistics along with it including what to do with prisoners, and we haven’t developed who has the overall command and who the contingency leader is if the commander is killed in action.” I tapped the marker on the board for emphasis.

“Sentra, one of these days we need to have a talk about what you used to do before you met us,” Sunny said. She quickly hurried to add, “Let’s get started, everypony!”

I surreptitiously smiled as I watched them work. Nobody ever wanted to go through the pain of planning, so my plan to get them to cooperate with each other just to get away from the planning process had been a perfect success.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, introducing magic to the world all of a sudden led to some problems.

Most of the time, it wasn’t dangerous or anything, but when two thirds of the population suddenly had superpowers, shenanigans were bound to happen.

“Hey, Sentra.” Pipp shoved her cell phone in my face. “Do you want to join the Zippsters?”

“Stop trying to make "Zippsters" happen, Pipp! I don't want followers!” Zipp called distantly while she practiced flying tricks.

Pipp had been rather salty about the whole #spillthebeans social media sensation thing I had started and hadn’t yet developed something of her own that had gone so viral. I think she was trying for anything that would stick.

I was in the middle of trying to buy sunglasses at an open air stall on the Maretime Bay seaside walk and didn’t appreciate being interrupted. Nor did I appreciate involuntarily appearing in someone else’s stream. I had my own followers, thank you very much.

“Sorry, I’m not in the mood,” I replied.

“Oh, why not?”

Sudden inspiration struck me. “I’m actually really broken up right now. Somebody close to me passed away from a terrible disease.”

“Oh no!” she gasped, though still recording. “What was it?”

“Ligma.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, though apparently not enough to actually ask what it was.

Oh well. At least it got her to go away. I carried on with my purchase. Sunny had lent me some sunglasses, but it was time to get my own. Ones that weren’t pink, I decided.

It was turning out that I actually might be part bat. It wasn’t like I was blinded by bright sunlight, but I definitely wasn’t squinting as much if I had some shades.

The question of where my money was supposed to come from to buy things like sunglasses was a good one. I still wasn’t exactly sure if this body I was in had been somebody else before and if they had a bank account, but fortunately I was getting an income as some kind of law enforcement officer. Who knew you could stumble your way into being a cop? Apparently whoever was paying me had a better idea of what I was supposed to be doing than I did, and had not yet realized that.

I was just finishing with the sunglasses and turning away when somebody crashed out of the sky into the sunglasses stall. A pegasus mare stumbled out of the wreckage. “Fifi’s Flying Fruit Smoothie Smooth Fruit Delivery Service. Where every delivery is...smooth.” She fell over.

Her ungracious arrival had drawn a crowd. Particularly Zipp, who had come in for a hover nearby. “Woah. Somepony really needs to teach these pegasi how to fly.”

Literally everyone looked at her, flying.

Quicker than even Zipp knew what was happening, she was leading a self-help seminar in a grassy meadow outside town. I think Pipp had done the arranging because she was featuring heavily in the marketing and promotion.

I was there because I could use the help. Flying, that is.

With a total lack of enthusiasm, Zipp read a prompt card. “Welcome to WINGS, the Wonderful Institute of No Gravity Sky-walking?”

“It means flight school,” Pipp clarified.

“It’s really more of a one-off training day,” Zipp said, trying to set expectations.

“I was told it's an academy,” said a fellow student next to me, who appeared to be one of the royal pegasus guards.

“Uhh, is this the university of flying?” asked Fifi, showing up just then.

Anyway, back to my comment about introducing magic to the world all of a sudden led to some problems. The lesson began as a disaster. Everyone was so bad at this.

I was actually pretty proud of myself for not getting hurt very much. I at least understood the concept of aviation and had a little practice gliding in the fan machine Zipp had built back in Zephyr Heights, and that made me the star student.

Zipp did eventually coach everyone into reasonable flying. While I think I could have figured it out on my own, I was glad for her relative expertise. If nothing else it was about getting into the mindset. I just never considered flying because up until recently I hadn’t been able.

After an exhausting but rewarding day, I headed back into town. While I still wasn’t sure about this job of mine, Hitch had offered to clear out a desk for me in his office. I’m not sure if that made me a guest circuit marshal in his jurisdiction or what, but treated it as a place to occasionally hang out.

When I arrived and put my hooves up on the desk, leaning back in the chair, Hitch nodded to me. “How’d it go?”

“Pretty good, though I could use an icepack.”

He got one out of the minifridge and tossed it to me, sitting back down to continue what he had been doing, sifting through the mail. He opened one large envelope that I saw was from some sort of public health organization. He pulled out a poster and unfolded it.

Protect yourself from ligma!

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Official public service notifications,” he said. “We get them all the time. I’ll probably put this on the bulletin board.”

“Uh, sure.” I studied his face, but saw no trace of being in on the joke. “Hey Hitch, about ligma…”

“Yes, Sentra?” He turned to face me, waiting expectantly.

He was just so pure and innocent that I couldn’t do it, and looked away. “Uh, nevermind.”

So apparently all of us we were going to live together.

The deal had been done behind my back, and they just assumed I was going along with it.

I mean, to be fair, I didn’t have any place else to stay, and Sunny’s new house was already going to host the rest of the friend group. At least it was pretty big and there were only a handful of us.

That necessitated everyone gathering up their stuff to move in. I had basically nothing to my name in this world, so that was easy. The two royal sisters, Zipp and Pipp, were off in Zephyr Heights and were apparently going to get an appropriate sendoff.

“It’s crazy,” Zipp told me over video chat as she walked through the castle hallways. She only had one duffel bag and was ready to go. “Pipp is already trying to figure out how many servants she can justify bringing.”

I think the reason everyone likes tomboys is that they’re low maintenance and generally have their stuff together. Zipp was good in my book.

She pushed open the door of Pipp’s bedroom in time to catch an overstuffed suitcase popping open and showering the room with clothes and accessories. The royal dog - Cloudpuff, if I recalled correctly - was also inside. I still hadn’t figured out why the dog had wings.

“You seem busy,” I observed to Zipp. “I’ll let you go.”

I ended the call and sat down on the couch at the Crystal Brighthouse with Izzy, Sunny, and Hitch. With the four of us, it was a little tight. The girls had banished Hitch and I to one side. Apparently something about big people taking up more room. I was tall, but I wasn’t exactly wide. Whatever.

Maybe my hips were a little bony. It took me a moment to realize Hitch seemed uncomfortable, so I gave him a little more room, moving so that our bottoms weren’t quite touching. He seemed a little better after that, but still seemed to be being careful.

As we sat on the couch, the TV was on, showing preparations for the royal send-off for the two princesses. It was going to be a big event.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t be there in person,” Sunny lamented, “but they’re really taking ligma protocols seriously.”

The TV hosts were just discussing it between themselves, actually. I again thought that maybe I should come clean about it. Maybe disease concerns were why Hitch seemed flustered about being so close to me?

The royals appeared on TV and the event got rolling. Even on the other end of the TV, I could see Zipp looked uncomfortable, being on a parade float in front of everyone. There were also parade balloon lookalikes of each of them.

Pegasi with learner permits for flying - which face it, was basically all of them right now - kept getting close to things. Even the TV presenters commented on it. “Ooh! Another close call. There’s been a lot of those lately.”

The TV camera switched to showing the crowd, some of whom were literally crying tears of joy.

“I know exactly how they feel right now,” Izzy said. “Leaving home is always such a poignant moment. I remember when I left Bridlewood it was just like that.”

I doubted the unicorn forest had the resources to throw a parade for her. “Just like that?”

“Where did you come from, again?” Hitch asked me.

“Oh, um…” One of these days, these ponies were going to figure out I was basically ad-libbing my entire backstory. I should probably figure that out sooner rather than later.