"Sooo, do ya like it?"

Huge, magenta irises stared expectantly into ambivalent green ones. Sprout's gaze shifted down to the object that had just been placed in his hoof--an assortment of colorful beads threaded on a single string. A "friendship bracelet", he had been told. He turned his hoof slightly, watching the small, translucent shapes glimmer in the sunlight. Izzy had invited him to a little copse of trees beyond the outskirts of Maretime Bay for a relaxing picnic, and after they'd finished sharing tea and cookies and peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, she had given him... this.

"Wellllll?" Izzy leaned in close and blinked rapidly as she waited for his answer.

Sprout shrank back, avoiding her ardent stare. "It's... neat, I guess. But what's it for?"

The wavy-maned mare playfully rolled her eyes and gave a grin that accentuated her chubby cheeks. "It means we're best friends forever, silly! I made it specially for you. Well, I actually made it like a dozen moons ago back when I didn't have any friends, but I kept it so I could one day give it to a very good friend. And now that day is here!"

She finished with a short chuckle, but her smile faltered when Sprout did not put the bracelet on and say, "Gee, thanks Izzy! You're my bestest buddy in the whole wide world and we'll def be friends forever and ever!"
Instead, his ears drooped and his shoulders hunched. He glared at her gift as if it had just spat on each of his ancestors' graves and bulldozed his favorite ice cream parlor.

"How can you say that? How do you know we will be friends forever? You can't! You're just making it up, and this bracelet proves nothing!" His nostrils flaring as he let out a sulky huff, he tossed the bracelet onto the ground at Izzy's hooves.

Izzy's mind spiraled in confusion as Sprout abruptly got to his hooves and began striding back to the bay. "Wait!" she cried out. "What's wrong? I really do wanna be your friend forever and ever and ever and ever--"

"You're lying!" Sprout shouted back, without slowing down or even looking over his shoulder. "Nopony's my friend."

"But we had peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches togetherrrrrrr!" Izzy hollered. But it was no use. Watching Sprout disappear over the hills, she plonked onto her haunches and let out a sad, whimpering sigh. What did she do wrong? She glanced at her precious friendship bracelet lying in the grass. Seeing it discarded like that caused an unpleasant twinge in her tummy, but what hurt most of all was that she had made Sprout angry... no, it was more like he was sad.

"Poor Sprout," Izzy murmured to herself. Sprout's Luminescence--which was green--had always been dim, but during that moment, it had barely been visible at all. Ever since harmony had returned to Equestria, everypony was happy to move on from the past and accept one another in friendship and peace. Nearly everypony's Sparkles were shining brighter than ever before! So why was Sprout still so miserable?

Whatever the reason, Izzy knew one thing for certain. She would do anything to prove her words were genuine. She would make Sprout her forever friend!

One week later, Izzy was trotting down the streets of Maretime Bay, bobbing her head from side to side as she hummed a happy little tune to herself. Her luxurious tail, washed with blueberry-scented shampoo that morning, flounced behind her. She was in a gloriously good mood, and it wasn't just because she had added 18 more jars of glitter to her collection--Her vow to make Sprout her forever friend was about to come true, if she had anything to say about it!

Reaching her destination, Izzy pushed open the doors of the sheriff station to find Sprout snoring away at his desk.

"Good day, uh..." Izzy squinted at the desk's homemade name plate, which was a scribbled-on, folded up scrap of paper. "Huh. I guess Sprout is just a nickname. Good day, Depooty!"

"Mmh...?" Sprout sleepily lifted his head, caught flashes of purple and blue through his hazy vision, and scrambled to sit upright. "Oh! Good morning, Izzy. I was just, uh... looking into this one police report. About murder. Serious stuff."

Sprout grabbed a random piece of paper from his desk and held it up to his snout, studying it intently. Izzy trotted around to the other side of the desk and peered over his shoulder.

"Looks blank to me. I guess that means somepony reported that there's been no murder. Yay!" Izzy bounced on the spot once, before placing her front hooves on Sprout's office chair and spinning it around to face her. "And you're 3 minutes late. It's 12:02PM, so it's not a good morning anymore!"

"Hey!" The blank paper fell from Sprout's grasp, and his ears pinned back with discomfort as he found himself face to face with the pony he hadn't seen since the day he had stormed off after their (admittedly delicious) picnic. He pressed himself against the back of the chair as far as he could, Izzy's hooves now gripping the seat on either side of his thighs. "What do you want? Y-you're not mad at me, are you?"

"What? Of course not! Do I LOOK mad?"

She smiled a smile bright enough to melt the sun, and the tension in Sprout's shoulders eased just a little. Thankfully, she let go and took a few steps back before saying, "Remember how you said I was lying about being your best friend forever? Well, I searched for a way to prove I'm serious, and I found it!"

"Not this again," Sprout muttered. He jumped out of his chair and looked ready to make a dash for the station doors.

"Wait, please don't run away again! I really mean it," Izzy pleaded. Sprout took one look at her face, her innocent eyes wavering with emotion, and hesitated.

Snatching her chance, Izzy immediately dove into her explanation. "I made a trip to my ol' hometown earlier this week, and I found a really old, really dusty book in Alphabittle's collection. It was about magical spells for all kinds of things! And... I found a spell that'll make you a part of me forever! It means you'll never have to worry about me forgetting you or abandoning you. We will be together forever!"

Sprout lowered his stance and regarded her with suspicion. "Sunny told me all unicorn magic could do was make things float..." His eyes widened as realization struck him. "Wait, if you can do other spells, does that mean unicorns really can fry pony brains?!"

"No!" Izzy quickly shouted. "I mean, I didn't see any spells like that but technically they could exist..." She watched Sprout's pupils shrink in horror and she frantically amended, "But I'm sure they don't! And if they did, nopony even knows how to use them!"

"Doesn't matter, I'm not letting you use magic on me!"

"Sprout, please..." Izzy's tone was shockingly gentle, and the sincerity behind it practically forced Sprout to lift his ears and heed what she had to say. Seeing his defensive stance fade as he straightened his legs, Izzy continued in a volume that was just one hoofstep above a whisper, "I don't know what happened to make you think you can't have friends. But I promise I really, truly want you as my friend. More importantly, I want you to have a friend, Sprout. And this spell will make sure we stay friends no matter what."

Sprout blinked slowly and asked, "Will it hurt?"

"It won't, I promise."

Izzy actually wasn't certain whether it would hurt or not, but it couldn't, right? In fact, she wasn't exactly sure what the spell would even do, but it seemed clear enough that it would establish some sort of permanent bond between them. The following minute was filled with silence save for the quiet breathing of both ponies, until at last, Sprout responded.

"Fine... but you better be careful." His voice low and barely audible, Sprout stared at the floor. Seconds later, his ears pricked at the sound of Izzy's approaching hoofsteps.

"It's gonna be fiiiine," she assured. She held out a purple hoof, Sprout's vision meeting with the comforting heart shape that was naturally engraved in all pony hooves. "So, are you ready?"

Sprout's lungs emptied out as a nervous, shaky breath. "I guess so."

Izzy grinned as he placed his hoof onto hers. Her tail swishing in delight, she shut her eyes and prepared to conduct the spell. She tensed her temples and magic began to build up within her horn. Sprout flinched as the magenta glow illuminated the crevices of her horn, but thankfully he dedicated all his willpower to staying put. Izzy felt her heart swell as the amount of magic inside her surged, and right when the light shining from her horn was nearly blinding and she thought she was ready to burst, she breathlessly chanted the spell.

"Until the end and from the start
Now and forever, you'll be in my heart!"

FWOOSH.

The light became so intense, Izzy was suddenly lost in a world of white that still burned into her vision no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyelids together. Her head felt like a teddy bear in the process of being stuffed with way too much filling, and the pressure behind her horn was unbearable. The overwhelming sensations seemed to go on for moons, but in reality, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds before the light dimmed and Izzy could finally catch her breath.

"Whew..." she wheezed, staggering a bit before landing on her butt. "That really took a lot out of me. Hmm..." She blinked several times to make sure her vision had recovered, and glanced around the station.

Sprout was nowhere to be seen.

Instantly, one of Izzy's front hooves flew to her mouth. "Oh no!" she gasped. "I exploded him!"

Or maybe he had run away after all? If he had, her muscles were too weak from the spell to give chase. She hadn't heard any hoofsteps or the door opening, but it could've been easy to miss while her other senses were being assaulted.

SMACK.

Izzy suddenly and involuntarily socked herself in the face.

"OW! Ow!"

She rubbed her sore cheek and frowned. She was sure she hadn't meant to say "ow" twice, but a more pressing matter was why she had hit herself in the first place. Then, to her bewilderment, her mouth opened and began to talk on its own!

"Izzy, I'm HERE! You dweeb, what did you do?!"

The perplexed purple pony covered her mouth with both hooves, her pupils darting from side to side. What in Equestria was going on? "You're right, me," she mumbled into her hooves. "What did I do?"

Her heart raced as her body moved without any input from her; it stood up on all four hooves and began pacing around in frantic circles, and once again, "she" began to speak without even meaning to. "It's me, Sprout! I'm... trapped inside you or something. Whatever it is, you better fix it NOW!"

Izzy drew in a lengthy breath as the truth of the situation dawned on her. "Oh dear, looks like that spell was a lot more literal than I thought. And I don't think there's a way to undo it. But hey, at least we'll always be together now, right? Just like I promised!"

Her worry dissolving like a snowflake in summer, she held her head high and cantered to the building's entrance before pushing the doors open and stepping out into the warm sunlight. She had things to do (like hanging out with her friends) and places to be (like wherever her friends were), and nothing was going to stop her from enjoying the rest of her day!

She suddenly lurched as her hooves halted in their tracks. "You're not seriously gonna leave me in here, are you?!"

A few passing ponies shot Izzy confused looks while she, in their perspective, shouted nonsense at herself in the middle of the street. She grinned sheepishly and turned away from them before whispering, "I told you, I can't. But I'm going to see my friends, and Sunny might be able to use her alicorn powers on us."

"Great, more unpredictable magic," Sprout mumbled, and Izzy felt her lungs deflate as he sighed. "But fine. And if it doesn't work, I am so gonna stuff you in a trash can."

Izzy giggled. "You might wanna rethink that one, buddy."

Author's Note

Long time no see! I hope the first chapter of my new story was enjoyable enough. I probably won't be taking ideas as I already have most of this story planned out. Most chapters will indeed fall under Comedy, but there will be more emotion later down the line. Have a great day!