A Herd in Maretime Bay

When Misty and her friends looked back on how she joined their little herd, the others said that they handled things poorly and that Misty handled the situation as well as she could have. Misty disagreed. In not talking to her friends and pretending to be ignorant about what was happening she had let her emotions bottle up until that conversation with her father and Queen Haven finally sent her over the edge and caused her to explode at her friends. But her friends refused to let her take the blame, insisting that they should have just told her so she didn’t have to pretend she didn’t know anything.

How did it all start? Several weeks ago at the Brighthouse the day had started out like any other. Misty was sitting on her bed reading a book, Pipp was busy writing a new song, Zipp was tiding up her clues from her most recent case, Izzy was making a homemade card and Sunny was remaking her bed. Then the front doors opened and Hitch’s voice called from downstairs. “Girls, I have something to show you outside.”

The girls all dropped what they were doing to come take a look. Misty was the last one down, her bed being the furthest from the ramp. She followed the others outside as Hitch led them to the community garden, where there was a new addition. Four flowerbeds; one containing mostly orange flowers with some blue and pink ones forming the shape of shooting stars, one mostly purple bed containing blue flowers forming the shape of a heart with pins in it, one mostly white bed containing blue, pink and yellow flowers forming the shape of a lightning bolt with a crown above it and a mostly pink bed with purple, white and yellow flowers forming the shape of a music note with a crown beneath it.

Misty watched in amusement as the other fours mares gushed about the flowerbeds forming the shapes of their Cutie Marks before all of them went to hug Hitch at the same time, resulting in the stallion losing his balance and the five tumbling to the ground. Misty giggled, closely followed by Izzy and Pipp. Then Sunny joined in the giggling, then suddenly all six of them were laughing. Once she managed to stop laughing and wiped a tear from her eye, Misty headed back inside. Hitch had clearly meant the other four when he said “girls”, not her. The flowerbeds were another romantic gesture from the sheriff for his four herdmates.

Misty knew her new friends well. In fact, she knew something about them that no pony else did. What was that? Well, it was a huge source of gossip around town that the most handsome stallion in Maretime Bay spent most of his time in the presence of four beautiful mares. Misty had eavesdropped on several conversations where ponies would argue which of the four Hitch would choose to date; the sometimes Alicorn childhood best friend, the cute Unicorn crafter, the hot tomboy detective or the sexy pop star princess. Misty initially dismissed these conversations as just gossip, but the more she observed her friends the more she realised Hitch had picked a fifth option the town’s ponies hadn’t considered; all four of them.

Herds in Equestria dated back centuries, but these days they were a mostly forgotten piece of history. Misty suspected that was why she was the only one had figured out her friends were a herd, barely anypony knew about them anymore. Of course, she learned later that she wasn’t entirely correct with that assumption. While she and her friends were the only ponies in the present day who knew about herds, Misty wasn’t the only pony who had worked out the truth about her friends.