Just some harmless fun, right?
My mother always told me not to play with matches. She never said, however, to experiment with incendiary magic. Take that, Mom.
Alright, so she might have told me not to play with fire in the first place. It’s not my fault I have a bad memory, she gave it to me! Or was it Dad… anyways, it doesn’t matter much anymore. What’s done is done, and there is little I can do to change it. Except for rebuild the house. And the neighbors’ house. And the next house down, and the one after that, and so on, and so forth…
Really, though, can you blame me? I mean, I’m an adventurous kid, I love to learn about new stuff, especially magic, but only because it is the thing that makes me unique, you know? All the other kids around here are mostly earth ponies, with a couple of pegasi, and two really strange unicorns. Dinky Hooves is pretty nice to me, but she and I haven't really talked since I became a Crusader. And then there’s Spike. Sweet, charming, handsome Spike. Only, don’t you dare tell anyone that I said that. Everypony knows he has a thing of my sister, but I couldn’t help myself from falling for him. Even though I’ll never be as graceful as my sister, or as beautiful, or as talented, I couldn’t stop myself from loving him…
-sigh-
Oh wait, what were we talking about in the first place? Oh yeah, the thing about the fire. Right.
Anyways, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and I were just hanging out at our clubhouse, trying to find ways to get our Cutie Marks. As usual, we were trying to think of things that all three of us could try. But then we got to thinking, how can we all get a unique Cutie Mark if we all try the same things? Then they wouldn’t be unique! At first, we were really scared. It would mean the end of the Cutie Mark Crusaders! But then we thought, we don’t have to stop trying things together, we just need to try different, separate things, together! So we all ran out, and grabbed things that might interest us! So is it so odd, that I grabbed a book about magic?
I ran to the library as fast as I could. As soon as I burst through the door, I began racing around, desperately looking for something that would interest me. I passed over books about geology, geography, geometry, and a ton of other subjects. I found a really big book in the Magic section, and Rarity always says that "Bigger is Better"! Although, she always seems to be saying that around other stallions. Stallions are gross, and besides, I only have eyes for the best dressed dragon in town.
Ok, so the title was a bit weird “Giant Forking Book of Magic and Sheets”. It looked like someone had tried to scratch out some of the words, but I could still read it just fine! The binding on the back was super thick, and it was a little wet. I guess Twilight spilled some juice on it while she was shelving it. It didn’t SMELL like juice, though. I was going to ask Twilight about it, but she was out with her friends, so I just decided to take it.
So when I got to the clubhouse, I found Scootaloo juggling, and Apple Bloom baking! They were both really good, but when they saw what I had brought, they immediately dropped what they were doing (Apple Bloom figuratively, Scootaloo… not so much).
After we broke open the book, we began to read a bunch of tricks that sounded cool. Telekinesis was pretty cool, but we wanted to start with something hard, and cool! Teleportation was certainly cool, but it was too hard. We looked at mustaches, but we didn’t think we would look too great with them on. Not like Spike, though. Not like him at all…
Huh?! What? Oh yeah, the story.
After looking at how to look for Gems (I really wanted to try that so I could help Rarity, I love her so much!), we found one that was the epitome of cool: Fireworks. We remembered how somepony had come into town, and she was able to conjure fireworks, so we thought it would be worthwhile! The girls called me a dictionary after I said that. I am NOT a dictionary, I’m not even remotely book-like!
So the first thing we had to go find was something natural, but the opposite color of what we wanted the fireworks to be. Well, since I love the color Blue, I thought something yellow would work! It couldn’t be painted yellow, or colored yellow, but it had to be naturally yellow. At first I thought of bananas, but for whatever reason, when I tried to go buy some, the stores just kicked me out! That was pretty mean, but I wouldn’t be stopped by some grouchy pony! I was resolved to get my cutie mark!
Since Bananas didn’t work, I though a lemon would work just as well. I had to go buy it alone, since Scootaloo is allergic to citrus, and Apple Bloom said that Applejack would yell at her for buying non-apple fruit.
Two bits and a trip back to the club house later, we had gotten everything all set up. The lemon was in place, I had read, and re-read, the instructions to the letter, and I was ready to get my Cutie Mark! I focused on the Fire mana naturally stored in my horn, just like it said in the book, charged it and then…
I kind of burnt down Ponyville. A lot of ponies are really mad at me, including Rarity and her friends, and I have to go to this trial-thingy in Canterlot next week…
And I still didn’t get my Cutie Mark!