Unexpected Changes

"C'mon, Lily! Kick it!"

Lily Blossom slid down, compressing her small filly body to take up as little room as possible to build up a bit more speed, launching the hoofball past the goalie and into the net.

Her friends all jumped and cheered and hugged her. They were back in the lead.

A whistle rang out across the pitch and the stallion watching them called "Reset!"

Lily picked herself up off the ground, twisting her body slightly to see the bright green grass stain that now marred her otherwise spotless coat. She rubbed her hip a bit, wondering if she'd earned her cutie mark, but no such luck. Oh, well.

As she moved back to position, one of her friends; one of her teammates, walked up to her. "Hey, Lily. Look."

Lily turned her head to where her friend had indicated. The opposing left forward had gone to the bench and was filling her bottle with sports drink.

"She's rehydrating, Daisy," snorted Lily. "What of it?"

Daisy Delight leaned in closer. "We've been here half an hour, and her legs are clamping together. She has to pee. There's a weakness on their left side. We just have to make sure that we drive the ball that way."

"My legs are clamping together," argued Lily. "I have to pee. Does that make me a weak central forward?"

"No, but that's because you're really good at this."

Lily sighed. "Look, I can't drive the ball anywhere if I don't have it, and they know I'm the best. They're going to keep the ball away from me as much as they can. So, try to steal it for me, 'kay? Then I'll consider going down the left side."

As they returned to their positions, the stallion tossed the ball in, giving it to the other team. Their center forward bounced it off of her chest to the left forward, who started to run it toward the goal. Everypony's eyes were on her as she ran forward, tripping a few metres in and sending the ball out of bounds.

The whistle sounded, and Daisy ran off to grab the ball before it rolled into the trees.

"You alright?" asked Lily, offering her hoof as she approached.

"Don't touch me!" shouted the fallen filly, smacking her hoof away.

"Hey, now!" called the stallion with the whistle. "That's uncalled for!"

"She tripped me!" shouted the filly. "I saw her and her friend talking about it before the ball came back in!"

"She was nowhere near you," assured the stallion. "Nopony was."

"But she did!" argued the filly. "I felt her kick me!"

Lily took a step back. She didn't want to be involved if she was going to be blamed. Luckily, the stallion wasn't having it. "You can return to your bunk and stay there until dinner."

"But then we won't have enough team members to play!" argued the center forward for the other team. "We don't have enough players, now..."

The stallion sighed and looked around. The only filly left on the bench was the one making sure that both teams were hydrated, and she was wearing a cast on her left wing. She couldn't play.

"I guess the game's over, then," he sighed. "Blue team wins by one point."

"That's not fair!" argued the center forward. "The rest of us were playing by the rules! Don't punish my other teammates because one of us tried to lie to you, ref!"

The stallion shook his head. "I'd like to see the game finished, too, but there simply aren't enough players. Even if I let the game go on, the blue team would have an extra player, and that's an unfair advantage."

"So kick Lily," he argued. "Five on five. That's fair, right?"

The ref sighed. "Blue team, huddle up." As they moved into a huddle, Daisy came back with the ball. "Do any of you volunteer to step out to keep the game going? We only have ten more minutes, so decide now."

"I'll go," answered Morning Glory, the right defender. "I prefer watching, anyway."

"Alright. Daisy, you're moving to take Glory's position. To your posts."

Daisy did not return to her post; rather, she ran off the field to where the ball went out of bounds and held it up, ready to throw it back in to resume the game. On the whistle, she tossed it to Lily, who took it and ran with it, rushing it over towards the opposite goal. There was a weakness on their left side, but the same was true for her own team's right side, as their right forward had just been sent to right defender.

The rest of the game went off without a hitch, with Lily scoring two more goals and the other team not being able to score one. At a final score of eleven to fourteen, the winner was the blue team.

They cleaned up the pitch and brought everything back to the shed, which the stallion padlocked.

"You really should hit the showers," urged Snapdragon, another of Lily's friends that had been playing goalie for the yellow team. "Wash off that grass stain before it sets."

"Yeah," huffed Lily, looking back at her hips. "That's probably a good idea. Can you tell the councillor for me?"

"We'll join you," volunteered Daisy, pulling Glory in as well.

Snapdragon rolled her eyes as the other three trotted off towards the shower and approached the stallion. "Excuse me, sir? Lily, Glory, Daisy and myself are feeling dirty and sweaty after the game, so we're going to go clean ourselves up before dinner, if that's alright."

"That's a good idea," he nodded. "Okay, fillies, listen up! Good game today, you all did a wonderful job. I saw some good hustle, and great exercise. And because of that, we could all use a good cooldown. Everypony, to the showers!"

"Even me?" asked the filly with the injured wing. She hadn't been exercising, but her cast wasn't supposed to be wet.

"Yeah," sighed the stallion. "Even you. But let's wrap up that wing to keep it dry first, hm?"

As he and the filly departed to the kitchen for some cling-wrap, everypony else headed off toward the shower house, a cabin offset from the main bunkhouses and cafeteria. Not a single one of them would argue against cleaning up.