Delivering on Sweetness & Beyond

by abrony-mouse

Rating: everyone
Tags: Derpy Hooves, Slice of Life, Crossover, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy
Length: 16153

When Derpy and Crafty Crate deliver a package to a parallel dimension of sweet and innocent ponies, things go awry, and Ocean Mist, protégé of Kimono, learns a lesson as she overcomes her limitations to help them out

Derpy Hooves and Crafty Crate deliver a package to a world inhabited by a gentle and innocent generation of ponies.

A mundane event, solved in a cute way by a filly which wants to help but is limited to its point of view... G3 fans, give it a read... ~ Azure Drache

There's a lot of interesting stuff treating G3 as a separate dimension from G4 ~ Present Perfect

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Microsoft AI

Blog to discuss + songs of the fic [here]

Published 2024-04-22 18:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-05-21 21:54:49 UTC

Chapter 1

Through a charming windowpane, luminous violet eyes wander dreamily over a sunlit rural scene. They belong to the little pony of our tale, Ocean Mist, whose furry fetlocks rest on an open colouring book. The pale blue of these is edged with green from a still-glistening attempt to bring to life a beanstalk, while the enormous, booted feet of the felled giant of that tale remain uncompleted in black and white. In this unsatisfactory state they will sadly remain for some time because today is not destined to be just another one spent in idle fantasy.

The reason for that is due in part to the owner of the windowpane in whose living room Ocean Mist is daydreaming. With this pony you may be familiar, as she has a prominent place in Ponyville society: her name is Kimono. Known for having mature tastes and her love of foreign culture, this personage has been the most forward of her kind in establishing contact with the Equestrian ponies. It is an event linked to this contact that will shortly disturb Ocean Mist’s favourite activity.

Contact had occurred many moons ago when the Equestrians emerged from a magical portal in Unicornia, upending the small world of the natives. In contrast to the Equestrians’ sprawling civilisation, Kimono’s cosy society is a mere handful, living in innocence in small enclaves. Kimono has ever since been fascinated with all things Equestrian, unlike her more parochial neighbours, and to satisfy that interest, she has placed many orders with the off-world firm Amarezon. One of these deliveries, the cause of today’s kerfluffle, is just about to arrive.

Ocean Mist’s sky-blue ears swivel forward as she sees the unfamiliar sight of a delivery wagon drawn by two strange-looking Equestrians in drab, beige, mail-pony uniforms, complete with baseball caps. Over the grinding rumble of the wagon’s great wheels, she can make out a distinctive ‘clop’ — a sound new to Ponyville whose denizens’ soft, unshod appendages have always been muffled.

The sight is a shock, prompting a small “Oh!” of exclamation.

The sound echoes in Kimono’s drawing room, whose quiet has so far only been punctured by the turn of a page or scribble of a pen. Kimono is sitting at her desk, where she has been involved in “Important research so shh!” all morning.

Ocean Mist looks round and is relieved to see the lilac pony oblivious, head buried in an arcane looking, leather-bound volume.

This book, as with a few new additions to the room, were recent Equestrian acquisitions. To the concern of her Ponyvillian friends, Kimono’s initial interest in the new arrivals had grown into full-blown obsession. Ocean had always known that her mentor was a strange pony and, as she had recently been warned by Pinkie Pie: ‘Her “strangeness” has only got stranger!’. But, though Ocean sometimes struggles herself the other's peculiarities, she could not help but continue visiting, drawn in by exotic tales of fantastic creatures from the distant past or other worlds.

‘If only I had listened to Pinkie!’ she frets, upset that her association has resulted in the unknown appearing in the flesh.

Ocean Mist contemplates telling her friend about the visitors but decides against. Whilst studying, Kimono was very sensitive to interruption and Ocean Mist, though a good little filly, had already been told off twice this morning.

“I am not to be disturbed again! No ifs and no buts. Or no bed-time story,” Kimono had warned.

Ocean Mist wasn’t about to risk disturbing Kimono again — no bed-time story would spoil her whole visit!

Turning back towards the window helplessly, Ocean Mist lowers her head and peers out at the strangers from under her pink mane, muzzle to the sill.

‘Maybe they’ll turn back?’

Behind her anonymous mail-pony uniform, which Ocean Mist had spied from her window in Kimono’s house, Derpy Hooves was in a state of wonder. This was her first inter-dimensional delivery, and she was loving every moment. As they passed through Unicornia, Butterfly Island and now Ponyville, she had wondered at their every delightful feature and had quietly enjoyed the cutesy, endearing ways of the natives. She would be the first to admit that due to these charming distractions, her professionalism might have lapsed, thus making them a ‘teeny bit’ late. But while that wouldn’t please her boss, his disapprobation was a price she was prepared to pay since she'd likely never get this opportunity again.

Unlike Derpy, the pony pulling the wagon beside her, Crafty Crate, was not wonder-struck. As the owner of the delivery business, he felt that he should by now be enjoying a nap after his morning coffee in the spacious Cloudsdale offices of Crate Inc, rather than be on delivery. The unpleasant task was also made well-nigh unbearable by his coworker. He had sworn to never again employ this pony — only a bout of pony pox decimating his staff had overridden his better judgement. His patience with her antics was fraying, so that the only thing keeping his temper even was the knowledge that soon he would be heading back. If they hurried, he quietly hoped, they might be back in Equestria by late afternoon and possibly even make it to Detrot in time for last calls in the Sky Anchor, one of his favourite watering holes.

Ocean Mist’s stomach flutters as the mail-ponies stop, unhitch themselves and remove a large parcel from the wagon. As the two open Kimono’s garden-gate and head towards the house, she notices that while one was a familiar pony shape, the other looks strange. Wondering what seems off about them, she remembers Kimono saying that there are two types of Equestrian pony: one was normal like herself, but the other was bigger, smellier and hairier: ‘They will call ponies like us ‘Miss’ and we call their big ones ‘Mister’. One of these was clearly a ‘Mister’ since he was the largest and hairiest pony Ocean Mist had ever seen.

With a last look to Kimono for support, only to see the mare still rapt, Ocean Mist takes a deep breath and heads towards the door to see what the strangers want.

“’llo?” she squeaks out, eyes darting between the two.

“Delivery, Miss,” the large one says in a deep voice.

“Oh, yes.”

Not knowing what else to do, Ocean Mist holds out her hooves.

The stallion shakes his head, however, and with an effortful grunt, lowers a giant cardboard box, about the size of Ocean herself, to the floor.

“Oh…” she says, forgetting herself in her shyness.

However, Ponyville custom dictated fulsome ‘thank yous’ and hugs when receiving presents.

“Thank you very, very, very much!” she adds, forcing herself to be effusive.

She goes in for a hug, starting with the smaller of the two, the grey pegasus pony.

With a friendly smile and a little ‘aw’, Derpy accepts the gesture. Ocean Mist’s nostrils wrinkle at the unfamiliar musky smell from the Equestrian, who in turn sighs as the slight, warm, body presses against hers.

The stallion, however, remains aloof when she offers him the same greeting, and only nods gruffly at her.

Ocean Mist stops, flustered.

“Oh, OK.”

Despite the awkwardness, Ocean Mist was a little relieved, as this ‘Mister’ was living up to his reputation in terms of ‘smell’ — a result of Crafty’s long day.

The male looks about to move away, when suddenly the other pipes up:

“Lovely place, this.”

This was firmer ground for Ocean, who adored the aquatic aesthetic of Kimono’s residence, so unlike the pastel pinks of Ponyville.

“Oh, yes, it is lovely isn’t it! It was all designed by Kimono herself!”

The mare nods encouragingly.

“Do you want to see the gardens? I play here all the time, so I know them really well.“

“I’d love to!”

Ocean Mist grins, liking the idea of showing off her friend’s gorgeous grounds. Since her friends rarely played there, she had had limited opportunities to tell anypony about the stories she had made up for each of its quirky features.

“Great, they’re over there!”

Ocean points behind the two and over the lane towards Kimono’s extensive water garden, bordering Ponyville lake.

Derpy begins to follow but is halted by a grunt from Crafty.

“Uh, is it ok if we—“ she begins.

But Crafty has already shaken his head.

“Oh well, maybe another time? Places to be, y’know.”

“Right. Please sign here.”

The stallion holds out a funny square device in his huge hoof, one that Ocean Mist had never seen before.

“Uh? I don’t..?”

In a tone that causes Ocean Mist’s cheeks to pinken, he explains:

“Just waggle your hoof on the screen.”

“’K.” she replies.

The Equestrians turn to go.

“G’Day Miss.”

“Bye-bye!” Derpy adds.

Just as Ocean is about to close the door, the latter turns and calls out to her in her peculiar low, lilting and languid voice.

“What was your name?” she asks, causing her companion to wince. “In case we visit again.”

Once they exchange details, with Crafty tapping his hoof impatiently all the while, they leave.

With the door closed, Ocean Mist’s fluttering heart begins to calm, and she returns to Kimono’s drawing room, finding the mare to have finally taken a break from her research.

“Who was that?”

“Two Equestrians with a special present for you!”

“And you answered the door to them?” Kimono asks, dubiously.

“Yes!”

“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Well, thank you very much, Chibi Sakura.”

The filly nods proudly in response, pleased with the friendly use of her pet-name, a sure sign that a bed-time story would be forthcoming.

“Derpy!” Crafty Crate barks.

The mare’s eyes are glazed over, her face serene.

“Sorry, Crafty, it’s just so beautiful here.”

Reluctantly, she heads back to the wagon, where the stallion is already hitched.

Taking the lead, Crafty begins to turn the large vehicle around, unable to proceed forwards due to the cul-de-sac.

The procedure is difficult, requiring them to act in unison, with Crafty pulling the wagon forwards and turning, and Derpy attempting to push it backwards.

The wagon, however, was not moving easily on the soft ground, making Derpy’s pushes less than effective.

“Come on, come on!” Crafty grumbles.

Derpy, reading his mood, stays quiet.

After five, effortful, minutes, the wagon is still diagonal to the lane, with its back facing a moist, mossy bank.

“Right. I’ll push, you pull,” Crafty orders, gruffly.

Throwing off his hitching, Crafty puts his hefty shoulder to the wagon.

Derpy, sighing, approaches her tack and straps herself to the wagon bars, giving one last look to the enticing light-striated turquoises of the numerous ornamental ponds of Kimono’s water gardens.

“Ready?”

“Sure.”

She jolts forwards due to the force of Crafty’s shove. This, combined with the slick cobbles, causes the wagon’s wheels to slither. Straining with all her might she tries to turn the wheels round, but her hooves, compromised like the wheels, start to give.

“Steer! Steer!” Crafty shouts in panic.

But it is no use. The heavy back wheels sink into the bank, tilting the vehicle, and though he throws his weight against it, its momentum is now unstoppable as it slides into the ditch, dragging Derpy after them. She is lifted off her legs when the back of the wagon dives and the front lifts. The wagon settles there and does not continue through Kimono’s gardens to the lake, but that fact hardly assuages Crafty’s anger.

“Damn, damn, damn!” he swears, ripping his cap from his head and stomping it into the mud.

“Uh, boss?” Derpy calls to him.

Crafty Crate looks up at her, angrily.

“Didn’t you hear me!? I said 'steer,' you featherbrained mare.”

She knows better than to respond, despite it not being her fault for once.

Grumbling under his breath, Crafty unhitches her.

Meanwhile, Ocean Mist’s mind had been racing, wondering how she would tell her Ponyville friends about the encounter, one eye on the wagon, which seems to be slowly turning in the lane.

She doesn’t pay much attention to it, until its lack of progress and odd angle next to the bank verging the lane cause her to worry.

Looking a little closer, she sees, with a flush of anger, that the huge wheels are digging into the verge, scarring it.

But as the wagon begins to teeter does she becomes fully alarmed.

“Oh no!”

“Shh!” Kimono arches an eyebrow.

“Sorry.”

Kimono nods and resumes her research.

Ocean quietly continues her observations. The wagon is still on the lane, but only barely, and the two Equestrians have now swapped positions.

‘Why don’t they just push it back down the lane?’ she thinks.

Her hopes are dashed, however, when she sees that they have redoubled their efforts to turn the wagon.

‘It’s going to slide down the ditch and fall in the lake if they keep on!’

Sinking to the sill, she covers her eyes with her hooves, wincing as the wagon churns up more of the verge and threatens at any second to extend that destruction to the delicate gardens.

Heart in her mouth, time seems to slow down for Ocean as she sees the wagon first rocking on the edge of the lane and then sliding away from it into the ditch. Already moving to the door, she does not immediately see that her fears for the gardens, at least, were unfounded.

Galloping to try to help prevent more destruction, Ocean Mist is arrested by the same shyness from before and halts at the edge of the garden, peeking over Kimono’s gate. The grey mail-pony is idling next to the now stranded wagon, being shouted at by the brown 'Mister'. Uncertain, and a little afraid of the shouting male, Ocean is caught between fear and her desire to be useful.

“I think it’s stuck.”

Derpy, hooves back on the ground, eyes the problem with equinamity from under her baseball cap.

Crafty Crate, face like thunder, ignores her.

His knowledge of problems like this was limited, unlike his extensive experience of flown wagons, the typical mode of delivery for his company. However, in his eagerness not to let the generous fee for the delivery go to a rival, he had not fully accounted for the fact that this dimension’s physics would not allow for that. By the time he had realised his mistake in taking the booking without an assigned earth pony courier, those had all been either tied up or were out of commission due to the same pony pox that had left him short-staffed. Therefore, he had had to send two pegasi to do an earth pony job, and not only that, but one of these, himself, was an out of practice desk-pony, while the other was the clumsy freelancer beside him. He could feel his old boss and mentor, Ship Shape, judging him for his carelessness.

Suppressing his self-reproach, he squares up to the problem and turns to Derpy, a determined expression on his face.

“If we put our backs into it, we should be able to push it free.”

“But the bar’s in the air boss,” she slurs, lazily, mind drifting off to her captivating surroundings.

“Derpy!” he snaps.

“Sorry.”

“Put your shoulder against the wagon’s side here.”

Derpy obediently leans her shoulder on the place indicated and braces herself as best she can on the moist, grassy bank. He adopts a similar position on the other side.

“Now, on three, push!” he bellows.

As the ponies strain against the wagon, to Crafty’s relief, the coach moves. Both, however, struggle to maintain their momentum. Their hooves, intended for the well-drained plains of Equestria, begin to slide on the slick verge and soon they are dragged inexorably back down the bank.

Crafty Crate racks his brains for anything that might help and after a short while, he has an idea. Many moons ago, when he was an apprentice, he had overheard his boss talking to a crusty, mud-stained, earth pony about how he drew his wagon through the notoriously challenging terrain of the southern swamps.

“Y’see boah,” the elder had said. “All your hooves gotta grip, so when yeh push off y’whole self is doin’ it. ‘s called ‘Four Hoof Drive’.”

Crafty looks at his hooves, perplexed.

Feeling foalish, he rises and tries to angle the appendages in the mud in an approximation of ‘Four Hoof Drive’. However, the unnatural action only unbalances him.

‘I can do this,’ he thinks to himself.

Trying to force his adult limbs to unlearn the habit of driving from the back, he engages his forelegs and hind legs together, but the simple-sounding action eludes him. Determined, he stubbornly perseveres, his thrashing and leaping leaving him increasingly splattered as he churns up the mud.

Derpy, overhearing this, plods over to see what he is doing.

“Boss?”

Despite herself, she couldn’t completely keep the chuckle out her voice at seeing Crafty prancing.

His face reddens, but he keeps trying the ‘Four Hoof Drive’ and ignores her.

“What’cha up to?”

Irritably, he turns to Derpy.

“Will you put a pie in it and let me try this.”

“Ok…”

She turns away, glad for the opportunity to enjoy the exotic surroundings.

“Four Hoof Drive makes no damn sense!” he eventually exclaims.

“Oh, you’re trying that,” Derpy says, laconically.

Crafty Crate looks incredulously at her a moment before resuming.

“You thought it would help with the ditch?”

Derpy tries again.

Crafty grinds his teeth together.

“Well, I don’t think it will work, boss.”

“Oh?” he reluctantly engages.

“Yeah, because my friend Turnipseed—“ She pauses. “Y’know him?”

“No.”

“Oh! He’s great, I think you’d like him.”

“Derpy,” he growls.

“Well, y’see me and Turnips went to the same summer school. And one day he fell in a puddle. He looked sad, so I jumped in after him to show he wasn’t the only one, and then the whole class did. We got such a scolding—”

“Derpy!”

“Well, after that we became special someponies for a while and he let me in on his big secret about ‘Four Hoof Drive’”

“Yes?”

“And he said, ‘Bubbles’ — that was his name for me y’see — ‘Bubbles, you know ah wish’n ah could flah like yah’.”

Derpy pauses.

“Sorry, I’m not very good at his accent.”

“Get on with it.”

“Uh, anyway, he said that he wasn’t rich like his Da’ with a proper house, so he couldn’t marry me. Which is silly, because I was just a filly and he was the smallest colt in school, but you know how it is in school.”

Crafty snorts.

“He said he’d never be rich like his Da’ because his Da’ had a special secret that made him the best delivering pony around.”

Crafty, anger getting the better of him in his frustration, scoops up oozing mud from the ditch-bottom in his forehoof and gestures to Derpy.

“If the next thing you say isn’t about ‘Four Hoof Drive’…” he says, ominously.

“Sorry boss — almost done, I promise.”

Crafty advances on her and she backs against the wagon.

“Well, y’see he said his Da’ was born with it, but that he wasn’t,” she says, quickly.

“So?”

“He said he’d tried to learn it, but it can’t be taught. He said: ‘Yah have tah be born with it, Bubbles, jus’ lahk rollin’ yer tongue. An ah jus’ don’t have me Da’s gift. So ah cahn’t have a fancy enough house for yah’.”

Crafty Crate sighs wearily.

“So, I don’t get pied?” Derpy asks, eyeing Crafty’s muddy hoof.

With flashing eyes, he grabs her cap and dumps the sweet-smelling mud on the blond head, where it trickles down her furry grey face.

“That’s for wasting my time with that dumb story, just to tell me that ‘Four Hoof Drive’ don’t damn work.”

“Sorry, boss.”

Derpy gazes up at him, unperturbed, until he backs away, whereon she shakes herself, dog-like, to get the mud off.

Crafty returns to thinking through the problem.

Once his back is turned, Derpy sticks her tongue out, and then rolls it, her ‘superpower,’ whose existence she keeps a closely guarded secret, known only by her similarly gifted daughter Dinky.

Crafty Crate rests his haunches on the soft earth, his eyes mournfully drawn to his watch.

’12:30’

There would be no drinks at the Sky Anchor tonight.

Upset and unable to focus, his mind drifts to the sounds of the unfamiliar world: the quacking of ducks and chirping of a moorhen blend with the gentle tinkling of fountains in the nearby water garden. Into this soundscape another, more irritating, sound begins to cut in.

“Quit chompin’ so loud, will you.”

“Oh. Sorry bo’th!” Derpy replies, her mouth full of grass. “It’sh jusht sho tashty.”

He shoos her, and she contently ambles away down the ditch, cropping the grass, which she notices has been allowed to grow long.

‘All the more for me’ she thinks, happily.

Freed from that distraction, Crafty Crate racks his brain for a solution but finds himself confounded at every turn by neither being able to lift the wagon with flight nor call for assistance from local Pegasi — those two recourses had been the solution to virtually all the many delivery hiccups he had had over the years.

Idly, he gazes at Derpy.

‘No quotas for her. No overheads. We both know I’ll fire her when we get back, but what’s that matter to her? At times like this, it almost makes me envious.’

Derpy, noticing him gazing at her, swallows her mouthful.

“This patch is so good — I can’t believe they left it. Do you think they don’t eat grass here?”

With a withering sigh, he turns away and the grinding, munching sound resumes.

As he looks at Derpy’s hooves, fetlocks unkempt and nail ill-shod, Crafty gets an idea.

“I’ve got it!”

She flicks an ear at him but continues grazing.

“Quit playing sheep and get me some stones or wood.”

Derpy swallows.

“Rocks and wood, boss?”

Crafty patiently explains that they need something to grit their hooves, to prevent them slipping when they push the wagon up the bank.

“Got it, boss.”

While both ponies look for these items, they notice a timid blue presence watching them from the garden gate.

“I… couldn’t help overhearing that you need stones and wood to unstick the wagon?” Ocean Mist’s voice quavers.

Crafty nods.

She holds out some timbers from Kimono’s wood store.

“Will these do?”

“Can’t hurt.” Crafty says, gruffly, causing Ocean’s ears to fall.

“Hey, thanks,” Derpy offers.

Crafty unceremoniously puts them in place.

“I think I know where there’s some stones!”

Ocean runs off, her soft, unshod hooves gliding over the ground.

In short order, a track of stones and wood is formed on both sides of the marooned wagon, and Crafty and Derpy once more put their shoulders to it. Ocean Mist, too nervous to offer to push, hops from leg to leg, hoping that their efforts have been enough.

This time, Derpy and Crafty’s hooves engage with the gritted earth and the wagon makes it part-way up the bank before the ground's slipperiness and its weight proves to be too much.

After many tries, during which Ocean’s hopeful smile first falters and then fades, Crafty declares defeat.

Crafty hangs his head in his hooves.

“There, there, boss.”

Derpy comforts him, bearing no grudge for the earlier mud-pie.

Ocean Mist, their recent joint enterprise enabling her to go beyond her shyness for now, goes in for a hug, only for him to shrug it off.

Feeling stung by his apparent unfriendliness, to Ocean’s hot shame, her eyes begin to glisten. Normally, she was a relatively level-headed pony of her sort, but the state of heightened anxiety she had been in for the past hour had made her sensitive.

Derpy, with a mother’s instinct, steps in.

“Crafty Crate!”

Shocked by the forthright tone, the gruff stallion is mollified.

He turns to Ocean.

“Sorry ma’am. No disrespect intended. It’s just we don’t… always hug where I’m from in Equestria.”

It was the most words he had said for two days, but Derpy wanted more.

“Uh huh, and…”

“But we’re not in Equestria, so…”

Reluctantly, the stallion gives Ocean Mist a perfunctory man-hug.

Ocean Mist tries not to let her face show her awkwardness at the strange musky presence and oddly threatening coils of muscle.

“Do you want a lolly?” she offers. This was not merely her inclination, but rather part of the established formula for dealing with misfortune in her homeland.

“Uh, no?”

Ocean Mist withdraws, putting the refusal down to his alien-ness, but was satisfied that she had at least been polite. A pony like her would have taken the proffered lolly and then she would, of course, have gone through the entire 'Make It All Better' ceremony from singing the ‘Get Well Soon’ song to the final ‘Kissing it All Better’ stage.

‘Anyway, if he isn’t ‘all better’ he at least looks like he is rallying’ she thinks to herself, noting the stallion’s stiff upper lip.

Crafty turns to his employee.

“Sorry, Derpy,” he says, his tone defeated.

“’s all right boss; I’m okay for a hug.”

“No, damnit. I mean I’m sorry you won’t get home to your kid because of my stupid driving.”

Struck by the poignancy of this admission, Derpy stays quiet.

“I should have just backed the wretched thing down the road and not tried the turn — it’s too tight.”

‘That’s just what I thought!’ Ocean Mist looks up, avoiding his eyes. To her surprise, she catches Derpy doing the same, and the two females share a moment of recognition, before the stallion continues.

“Ah, well. Nothing for it but to see if there’s anything the natives can do.”

“Boss…”

“Oh, right. Uh. Ma’am. Do you know any earth ponies who can shift a thing like this?”

“Earth… ponies? Like… ponies made of earth?”

Ocean Mist’s imagination summons stone ponies, mud ponies, sand ponies and more.

“He means ponies like you.”

“Oh, yes! We’d love to help!”

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!

Any feedback you can give is much appreciated.Before pony I hadn't written creatively since school, so I make loads of clumsy mistakes and need fairly thorough help, although I can still sorta write. Either an in depth criticism or just a general overview from a skim, whatever people feel like they can spare for it.

I have four chapters planned out for this, before it becomes complete. They will take a while to write, though. Not expecting chap 2 for a few months :(

Chapter 2

Ocean Mist paces up and down beside the wagon for a short while, with Crafty every so often throwing her a questioning glance.

She approaches the strange, coarse, device and gives it a few experimental knocks with her soft hooves.

"Interesting, interesting... hmm."

She resumed pacing.

Every so often she stops to prod a divot back into place where the wagon had scarred the bank.

After five minutes or so, of this, she stops.

“I have an idea!”

Crafty looks up.

“When my saddlebag is too full, I just take stuff out! So…”

Ocean gestures to the wagon hopefully.

“What do you think, boss?”

“It is empty. That was our only delivery,” Crafty says, his neutral tone belied by a taut moue.

“Aw.” Ocean looks crestfallen. “Wait a second. I'll be right back.”

Ocean Mist scampers off, heading to the house.

“Are there any others—?“ Crafty says to a rapidly departing pink tail, only for it to disappear as it whisks into the house behinds its owner.

“She’s sweet,” Derpy observes.

Crafty nods, glumly.

Ocean Mist gallops back into Kimono’s house, slowing down only to enter the living room. Her hopes of finding her mentor unoccupied, however, are dashed when she sees Kimono at her desk with quill in hoof.

Taking a deep breath, Ocean decides that, as it is an emergency, she must disturb her.

“Miss Kimono?”

The mare keeps scribbling, not looking up.

“Mmm?”

“The aliens are stuck.”

“Mmm.”

“Could you help them?”

The lilac head pauses a moment, giving Ocean hope, but Kimono only scribbles in her notebook and resumes.

“Not now, Chibi. I’m busy. We’ll tell tales later, OK?”

“But—”

Kimono finally raises her head, green eyes suddenly blazing.

“Not now!” she says, sharply.

“But—”

“Only good little ponies get bed-time tales,” she threatens.

“But they’re stuck!” Ocean pouts.

Kimono pauses and looks thoughtful.

“Good.”

Ocean just looks at her, astonished.

“That means you can help them.”

“Me? What can I do?”

“Do what you do best.”

“Tell them fairy tales?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“But—“

Kimono holds up her hoof for quiet — a gesture brooking no further discussion.

Ocean backs away, looking flummoxed.

‘But what am I going to tell that big, scary Mister?’ she finishes, inside her head.

Crafty Crate frowns when he sees Ocean return alone.

“I have another idea!” Ocean Mist says, forcing enthusiasm to mask her uncertainty.

Crafty Crate’s ears perk up hopefully, while Derpy looks at the filly encouragingly.

“Um.”

Ocean Mist thinks hard about fairy tales, a subject upon which she was something of an expert.

‘But there aren’t any fairy tales about wagons getting stuck?’

Crafty Crate’s expression tightens as the filly furrows her brow.

Derpy, in no hurry to return, stifles a giggle.

“Err…”

‘Something similar? Like a tale about a big flying thing?’

“Can you fly it up?”

Crafty Crate grinds his teeth.

“No, Miss. Back home, maybe. Not here.”

Derpy gives him a discrete nudge with her flank.

With a sigh, he masters himself.

“Thanks for the suggestion, though.”

Derpy nods.

Ocean’s mind flits through the many tales she had read over the moons.

“I’ve got it!”

Crafty gives her a weary glance.

“Jack and the Beanstalk!”

Derpy giggles — stifling herself with her wing feathers.

The stallion clenches his hoof.

“Miss, thank you for the suggestion, but is there anypony older—?”

The clang of the garden gate has already heralded the filly’s departure.

“Sol’s teeth!” Crafty stomps in frustration.

‘Magic beans. Magic Beans! Where does Kimono keep her magic beans?’

Fully committed to her new plan, Ocean Mist rummages through the pantry.

She considers, and rejects, various cans: ‘Marez Beans,’ due to the sauce; Garden Peas, for not being beans, despite looking like them; Kidney Beans, because she doesn't like casseroles.

That is when she sees it, labelled in Kimono’s immaculate cursive.

‘RARE BEANS’

But it is on a high shelf.

Casting about, she soon solves the problem. She places a chair and then an occasional table in the pantry and then hops up.

Wobbling at the top of the improvised ladder, she claims her prize: the box of beans.

Taking it through to the kitchen to inspect, she gazes on what she is sure must be a magical bean store.

But, to her consternation, the ‘rare’ beans peer back at her with every appearance of being ordinary. Only the labels are exotic: ‘Borlotti’, ‘Soldier’, ‘Stallard’.

A dubious sniff only confirms her suspicions. Nothing so plain could possibly be magical.

She paces despondently about the kitchen, every so often peeking out of the window to see if the stranded strangers are all right.

'If I was lost in a strange land, I would definitely need my colouring book! Or I'd be in pieces.'

But she didn’t want to be complacent about their apparent stoicism. Until she located the magic beans, they were her guests.

‘What if they are secretly sad. I really should make them tea.’

‘Or, maybe they’re like Kimono. And she likes… coffee.’

Thinking of the nice-smelling but foul-tasting imported beverage triggers a niggling thought.

“It’s made with beans!” she shouts out loud.

A snorted chuckle comes from the living room.

‘And just like in the tale, they come from far away. And—’

Ocean clicks her hoof off the kitchen tiles to emphasise the clinching argument.

‘Kimono always says that coffee performs wonders!'

Not knowing how much to take, Ocean Mist grabs the entire pot of coffee from the counter and races back to the wagon.

Meanwhile, Derpy and Crafty have been discussing the situation.

“Their Ponyville is just down the road, boss. Somepony there—”

“Can’t leave the wagon.”

“Why not?”

“Insurance.”

“Naw, boss. How could they find out?”

“Tech.”

“What tech?”

“From the new place. Geodimension Five. The one with all the ruddy square ‘phones’ that look like foals’ toys.”

“They can tell where we are?”

“Yup. Amarezon deliveries insist. For tracking.”

“But can’t we just explain?”

“Hah!”

“But—”

“You ever dealt with ‘em, Derps?”

“No—”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we can’t just stay here.”

“No.”

“So…?”

Crafty sighs and looks back towards the house, hoping for the filly’s return. After a while, a little self-consciously, he takes a munch of the grass.

“Not bad, is it?”

They both graze in quiet.

Crafty Crate’s ears perk up as Ocean Mist returns. Spitting out a mouthful of sod, he hails the filly, determined to get her to listen.

“Miss!”

“I found them!”

“What?”

“The beans!”

“She means from Jack and the Beanstalk,” says Derpy, her mouth full.

“Oh?”

“Yes. So, now I just plant them—”

“Wait—”

“—and then they will grow—”

“Miss.”

“—into a beanstalk—”

“Miss!”

“—and move your wagon!”

“MISS!”

“Oh, sorry. Did you want some tea?”

“NO!”

Ocean Mist, shocked at the outburst, falls into wordlessness.

“Boss…”

“No, thank you. I’m sorry.”

Ocean Mist’s lip trembles.

“Boss…”

With a sigh, Crafty Crate goes in for a hug.

“All better?” he asks, deadpan.

Ocean Mist nods.

“Now—"

“Oh, just let her do her thing.”

Crafty Crate sucks his teeth and looks about to argue before giving in, with a sigh.

“What’s this about a beanstalk?”

Ocean Mist explains that Kimono’s magic beans would need to be placed under the wagon. Like a normal bean-plant, they would then grow from the soil but, as these were magic, the resulting stalk would be large enough to move the wagon.

Crafty Crate and Derpy play along.

With the inert beans in the soil, Ocean Mist informs the Equestrians that now they have to go to sleep and, in the morning, there will be a magical beanstalk.

“But do not climb up it. There are giants at the top,” she says, finishing.

“Miss.”

“Yes, Mister?”

“We really need to get back to our home. Is there anypony in town, or in there—” He points to the house. “Who could help us?”

Ocean Mist's ears droop, disheartened, and her face reddens with embarrassment as she realises that she hasn’t been as helpful as she thought.

But she wouldn’t give up!

‘Do what you do best,’ Kimono had said.

“Of course somepony can help!"

Crafty looks relieved.

"It’s the spring promenade and the breezies are here! If anypony can help this grow, it’ll be them.”

“Grow? Wait—!”

But, once again, the filly has already left.

They see the pink swirls of the pony’s mark flash in the afternoon sun as she gallops away towards the soft, salmon-tiled roofs of Ponyville, just visible in the distance.

Ocean Mist races towards the Ponyville gardens, hoping to spot one of the small bug-ponies that annually visit. It is the time of Spring Promenade and the gardens are especially lush. Ocean’s nose is greeted by spicy-sweet notes of lilies, fresh and sharp scents of rocket and mint, and the tangy smell of orange blossoms.

Colourful shapes flit around the gardens. The air hums with pollen and laughter.

She soon alights upon one of the forest-folk — their leader, in fact.

When she rushes up to the breezie Queen another, stunningly beautiful, breezie, whom she doesn’t recognise, flutters over.

“Careful!”

Ocean Mist stops.

With a gesture of her azure antennae, the beauty motions to the ground where, not far from Ocean’s hooves, a bee buzzes pathetically.

The bright white body of the breezie Queen then alights on Ocean Mist’s nose, waving her green antennae, wildly.

“Shoo! Shoo! Oh!” she says, before falling off.

The Queen flutters about, repeating the exclamation, zipping to-and-fro with every little shout.

“Your majesty, please. The bee is poorly and needs our help,” the unknown beauty says, serenely.

“How can you be so calm? calm!? calm!? Day Lilly!?”

The Queen flutters back to the bee.

“Look at her! Those ruffians! Why don’t they pick on a pony their own size!?”

“Um—”

“No, not you! You aren’t even half the size of that brute. So big, it was. And hairy.”

Ocean Mist furrows her brow. Could they be talking about the Equestrians?

“Please calm down, your Majesty.”

Day Lilly flies silkily towards the Queen and, capturing a tiny white hoof, draws her back to the suffering bee.

“I’m sorry about your bee,” Ocean Mist says, politely. “But can you help me. I have a bean—"

“Another casualty of our foes! The aliens are no lovers of my subjects—”

“She said ‘bean’, your Majesty.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know if they like beans. What sort of question is that!?”

Pulling away from Day Lilly, the Queen flutters up to Ocean Mist’s face.

“That’s a very, very silly question, you know! Beatrice isn’t a bean! She’s a bee. My bee. And she’s poorly.”

Day Lilly sighs.

“Please don’t distract the Queen. She is very upset about Bea. We can’t help you with your bean just now. But Zipzee, Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink might be able to help?”

“Oh, Bea! Oh, my precious! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

After being pointed in their direction, Ocean Mist tracks down Breezie Blossom’s foremost gardening trio.

“Achoo!” exclaims a tulip. “Achoo!”

“Bless… you?”

Ocean examines it, curiously.

“I think she sneezed herself into one of the cumfreys over there!” calls out a voice from above. “Near the pony.”

The voice pauses.

“Oh, Hello Misty! Have you seen Zipzee?”

“Hey there, Tiddly Wink. I think…” She points to the tulip.

Another, light pink, breezie alights on the tulip and, with effort, opens its petals.

Inside it, lies a prone pony, similar to Tiddly Wink except yellow with pink antennae, who is rubbing her nose. Ocean knew that Zipzee's condition was due to her hay fever, which always played up at this time of year.

“That was a big one, Tra-la-la,” she says to her friend, her voice snuffly.

On seeing Ocean Mist, her antennae rise happily.

“Hey! Have you come to talk to the flowers again? They were a little scared of ‘the Beauty and the Beast’ but ‘the Jungle Book’ had them putting out new leaves!” she says, between sneezes.

“Actually, I came to find you.”

“Me? I’m always up for a story. As long as it’s about plants—”

“—and they don’t lose their petals, like in ‘Beauty and the Beast’,” adds Tra-la-la.

“Yup,” Tiddly Wink affirms.

“Achoo!” Unable to speak, Zipzee just nods.

“Actually, I need a special favour.”

The trio's antennae circumduct curiously as Ocean explains about Jack and the Beanstalk, pausing every so often as Zipzee sneezes.

“So, I have a very special bean that I need to grow.”

“What type?”

“Coffee.”

“What?” asks Tra-la-la, confused.

Zipzee turns to her.

“It’s the one Wysteria asked me about last moon.”

“That Kimono asked for?” Tiddly Wink asks.

“Yep.”

“But it’s an alien plant. We can’t grow it here, can we?”

Tra-la-la and Tiddly wink shake their heads.

Zipzee purses her little lips.

“It won’t be easy…”

The other breezies sigh.

“Sorry, Ocean—"

“But!”

Seeing their cue, Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink join hands with Zipzee, and they spin together, fluttering towards Ocean.

“Maybe together?” they say, as one.

Ocean gives a little skip of delight.

“I knew you could do it!”

They land on her back and cling on.

“I promise I’ll tell you the whole story of ‘Black Beauty’! And I’ll give you a pony ride too!”

“It’s enough to know we're helping a friend in need,” says Tra-la-la, gently.

Zipzee and Tiddly Wink both ‘aw’ at the sentiment.

Back at the wagon, Derpy has just returned from a dip in the lake and is rolling in the dry dust of the path to complete her ‘bath’.

Crafty is a little way away, peering through the garden gate towards the house.

“Hey!” he barks.

Derpy continues to wiggle herself, hooves to the sky.

“HEY!”

Derpy rolls onto her side, but instead of getting up, she plays dead.

“C’mere, will ya!”

With a sigh, the grey mare rises to her hooves and shakes, before coming over.

“What is it, boss?”

“I think there’s somepony in that house.”

“But the kid left?”

Crafty facehoofs.

“Somepony else, genius.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. The kid’s name is Ocean Mist. Our delivery was—”

“Wait. You knew the whole time it wasn't her place?”

“Well. Yeah. We swapped details, remember.”

Crafty turns away and bucks with annoyance.

“You could have told me!”

“Why?”

“Because, featherbrain, the other pony might be able to help us.”

“Oh. Right, yeah.”

Derpy scratches away a stray piece of dirt behind her ear with a hind-hoof.

“So?”

“Look, boss. Can I finish?”

“I’ll finish you if you don’t start helping.”

“You’ll bathe me?”

Crafty buries his face in his hooves.

“Sol, help me. Go and ask for help. But be right back!”

Derpy trots languidly up to the marble arched doorway to Kimono’s house.

She smiles at the brass, woodpecker door knocker.

“That’s nice,” she idly observes, as she taps.

But nopony appears.

Fancying that nopony is in, she decides to imitate a woodpecker — rapidly tapping.

After a shriek of annoyance from within the house, the door is flung open.

“NO PLAY TODAY. GO. AWAY—”

Kimono’s eyes widen as she realises that it is not one of the Ponyvillians, but an Equestrian.

Her manner shifts.

“Oh, my. I am so sorry!”

Derpy smiles, apologetically.

“No problem, Miss.”

“Please, call me Kimono.”

“Derpy.”

“Fascinating! You’d never hear one of us called that! What is its etymology? If you don’t mind. I’m something of an onomast-er. Hah.”

“Um?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s just I seldom get to talk to anypony of your kind!”

Derpy pouts, thinking that she must be referring to her lazy eye.

“One who isn’t a researcher, I mean.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like to—” Kimono hesitates. “Oh, no, what am I thinking? Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I what?”

Derpy was becoming increasingly confused. This pony was nothing like any of the others.

“Participate in a small experiment?”

“Um?”

“Don’t worry. I have the forms. It’s all above board. Your participation is worth— hmm, what did the funding coordinator say? Ah! Yes — 5 bits.”

Derpy slowly nods her head.

“Excellent!”

Derpy is ushered into the living room, and it is explained that the research will be a short series of questions on politics, religion & reproduction.

The elegant grandfather clock tells Derpy that ten minutes have already passed.

“So! Politics first. I have been reading a fascinating book by Equestrian author, and economic genius, Karl Marex, with whom I am sure you will be far more familiar than I. And I would like to know whether, as a member of the pony proletariat, you feel oppressed?”

“Um… you mean by Crafty?”

“Is that the pony who exploits your labour?”

Derpy thinks about her interrupted dust bath.

“Yes, and yes.”

Kimono nods solicitously.

“Capitalism can be most unfair.”

“He’s going to fire me, I think.”

“Are you part of a union?”

“Oh, um, no.”

“Interesting. No doubt that is false consciousness."

Kimono takes a few notes, before continuing.

"Now, do you believe in a higher power?”

Derpy thinks.

“Well, Princess Celestia moved the sun.”

“Atavistic sun worship, of course.” Kimono nods.

“And Princess Luna moved the moon.”

“Yes, related to the harvest, I am sure."

She scribbles a note in the margin, before flipping the page of the notebook.

Looking up with quill poised, she leans forward, a glint in her eye.

"So, besides the sun and moon, is there anything more… abstract, that you believe in?”

“Well, um, Princess Twilight Sparkle makes sure everypony is friends.”

“A bacchanalian divinity, I wonder?” she muses to herself, poking her tongue out as she scribbles.

Derpy looks anxiously to the clock.

Kimono replaces the quill in the ink bottle.

"What I am about to ask you is top-secret. You must not disclose this conversation to anypony. Especially anyone connected with the Unicornia-Canterlot Research society, nor to Moondancer. Do you consent?"

Derpy nods, utterly bewildered.

Kimono grins, her eyes hooded, looking slightly maniacal. She pulls her leather chair round next to Derpy.

“Right! Now, what's all this about ‘the birds and the bees’?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

“Oh, I love birds!”

Kimono shakes her head.

“I am talking about—” She leans in even closer. “Making foals.”

“Oh!” Derpy blushes. “What do you want to know about that?”

“Well. How does it happen? The books are all redacted.”

“Um. Well. When you love a pony very much.”

“Any pony?”

“Well. If you’re a mare, then you need a stallion.”

“Ah. Yes, of course. The big, hairy ones.”

“Well, yes. And when you love a stallion very much, and he loves you very much, then you make a foal.”

“And does it appear instantly?”

“No. It’s like a seed.”

“Is it planted?”

“N-no. It goes inside your belly.”

“You eat it?”

“No.”

“Fascinating! And, when it grows, what happens?”

“Your belly grows very large, until one day it comes out.”

Kimono's quill is a blur.

“Comes out? Where?”

Derpy blushes, furiously.

“Well, you know where you wee-wee from?”

“Oh, yes. You don’t mean—”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like the sound of that at all.”

“But then, how do you…?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified.”

Derpy glances at the clock. What had she been sent here for, again?

Kimono finishes scribbling, at length, and ushers Derpy out, reminding her of the need for confidentiality and thanking her profusely, before closing the door.

On seeing the stuck wagon in front of her, she facehoofs.

Derpy returns to Crafty, head low and ears flat, to explain what happened, expecting a tirade.

But Crafty doesn’t chew her out.

“As soon as we get back, you are fired,” he says simply, instead.

Remembering Kimono's earlier questions, Derpy fires back.

“I’ll join a union.”

“You need a job for that. And you’re free-lance anyway.”

Derpy sighs and trots back to the spot to finish her dust-bath, but not before a parting shot.

“I’m a member of the ‘rolletariat and that’s oppression!”

Crafty Crate chuckles.

“Viva la revolution.”

As Ocean Mist gallops towards Kimono’s house, she and her passengers sight the wagon and the two Equestrians.

The three breezies look at each other, nervously.

Tra-la-la is the first to dismount, with the others immediately following.

Ocean Mist continues a while, before skidding to a halt and returning to see what the matter is.

“Aliens!” they say, pointing.

Ocean explains that those are the ponies who need the bean to grow.

“What an… honour! To be the first breezies to help them.” Tra-la-la says, looking to the others for support.

“Oh, yes,” they reply.

“Achoo.”

Zipzee’s sneeze sounds different.

“I would love to help, but… it’s my allergies. I don’t deserve the honour of meeting them at all.” She takes a deep breath. “Achoo. So, I think that Tra-la-la, as the prettiest…”

“Oh!” The aforementioned gives Zipzee a tight smile. “Thank you! I would love to meet them!”

The others sigh with relief.

“But I am just so small.” The little pale bug-pony flutters next to Tiddly Wink. “Their first meeting should be with you, Tiddles, as you’re the sweetest.” She flicks her tail at her friend.

Tiddlywink rubs her pink antennae through her tiny purple hooves — her thinking pose.

“Oh, yes! Thank you, Tra-la-la but, you see, I fluster so easily. Not like Zipzee. And she knows the most about flowers!”

“Achoo. You’re pretty!”

“I’m small. You’re sweet!”

“I’m flustery. You know plants!”

The three breezies flutter about, alternately complimenting and deprecating.

Suddenly, they all stop and, alighting on a sunflower, they hold hooves and link antennae.

“Then it’s settled! You decide!”

They all point to Ocean Mist.

Each breezie sits on a different plant as they put their cases to Ocean Mist: Zipzee on an azalea; Tiddly Wink on a magnolia; Tra-la-la on a saxifrage.

After each has been heard, she decides that, while each breezie has an excellent case, Zipzee is the best with flowers.

“Aww. I really wanted to meet the aliens.” The losing parties pout.

“Oh, well if you really want to...” Zipzee says, looking at them hopefully.

But they shake their little heads.

“You won. Fair and square.”

Tiddly Wink flits over and places a dandelion crown on her friend’s head and they wave Zipzee off.

“Ooh!”

Derpy’s eyes light up as she spies the tiny yellow bug-pony atop Ocean.

Crafty, however, grimaces. He had been hoping for burly earth ponies.

Once Ocean comes to a halt, Zipzee nervously hides in Ocean’s pink mane.

Unfortunately, the ticklish hairs prove to be too much for her.

“Achoo!”

The force of the sneeze causes her to shoot into the air.

“Oh!” Derpy gallops forward, eager to pet the little, fairy-like pony.

The disturbance caused by the pegasus’ rampant approach, however, creates difficulties.

“Aah! Ooh! Eee!” Zipzee cries, as she is buffeted, almost careering into the wagon.

Seeing this, Derpy stops and holds out a hoof.

“It’s OK, little one,” she coos.

In the calm, Zipzee cautiously alights on Derpy's hoof, noting its coarseness in comparison with her previous perch.

“Hello, aliens,” Zipzee announces.

“It can talk! Aw.”

“Of course I can talk!” Zipzee puts her hooves on her hips.

Derpy giggles.

“Whoa, you’re big.” Zipzee gestures towards Crafty.

“Maybe stand back, boss. I think it’s scared.”

“I am not scared.”

“No, you are very brave,” Ocean says, encouragingly.

“You are so cute!”

“Am not! I’m Zipzee.”

“Yes, you are!”

Derpy delicately boops the tiny pony’s nose.

“Hey!”

“Who’s a cute little bug-pony? You are! Yes, you are!”

Zipzee stomps her little hoof and glares up at Derpy.

“Please can you put her down. I need her help,” Ocean says, prodding the Equestrian’s side to get her attention.

Reluctantly, Derpy complies.

Zipzee looks uncertainly at the beans under the wagon.

From high up in a nearby willow bordering Kimono’s water garden, Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink whistle their encouragement.

With a deep breath, and a smile to her supporters, Zipzee inspects the area.

“Good hole.”

She pats the ground.

“Nice and moist.”

Crafty tuts. That had caused the problem in the first place.

She leans down and puts her head to one of the beans, its size comparable to her little crown, and gives it a lick.

“It is, in my opinion, quite an icky bean.”

Ocean nods, vigorously. While coffee smelled nice, the beans tasted awful.

Zipzee sits next to the beans and crosses her legs, meditating. Closing her eyes, she feels the beans with her pink antennae.

Derpy crouches low, extending her muzzle under the wagon to see, while being careful not to get too close.

The group wait awhile, in silence.

“I think it will grow in this climate,” Zipzee says, finally.

“And can you make it grow now?” Ocean asks.

“Yes, I think so. But I will need your help.”

Derpy and Ocean nod. Crafty broods.

“Do you know the song ‘Ring Around the Rosie'?"

Zipzee explains that, just like for baby foals, singing can wake plants up.

They practice for a while, with Zipzee leading, flapping her wings and swooping to the beat.

Derpy, while full of enthusiasm, struggles with the words.

“Bring a ring of mosey! A locket full and cosey! A tissue! A tissue! We all fall down!”

Giggles sound from the nearby trees.

Zipzee, feeling less threatened by the aliens thanks to these silly antics, senses that now her friends may similarly be ready to join in and help.

“Tra-la-la! Tiddly Wink!”

She waves over the other breezies, who flit across. On seeing them, Derpy coos delightedly and, more gently this time, extends a greeting. The pink and purple pair soon overcome their shyness.

In short order the entire company is singing, and a rhythmic chorus is established. Even Crafty is persuaded to join, adding his deep bass to the breezies' soprano and Ocean's fillyish alto.

With the first part of the ritual set up, Zipzee returns to the beans for the second. Cradling them like larvae, she sings another, secret, song.

The magic of the land manifests in sparkles which then fall, pollen-like, about the inert coffee beans. Placing them gently back in the ground, she smiles maternally as they begin to shift, bulge, and finally sprout.

The singing stops as everypony marvels.

“Welcome to the world, little beans!” she greets them.

Ocean Mist's joy is short lived, however, as the plant fails to shift the wagon, its leaves barely brushing the undercarriage.

“Zipzee? When will it grow up into the sky?”

Zipzee turns round, confused.

“The sky?”

“Yes. It's a bit... poky.”

Zipzee gasps and clutches her little yellow hooves around the central stem of the coffee plant, protectively.

“Cofsi is a very healthy height! When are you going to grow up into the sky?” she challenges, defensive of the new life that she has helped to bring forth.

Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink look dismayed.

“Sorry, she gets this way about plants,” she explains to the Equestrians.

“But that was the whole idea!” Ocean says, standing her ground.

“I thought you wanted to grow a coffee plant under a wagon!”

“Why would I want to do that?”

The two other breezies nod — it was a good question.

“Well, OK. Maybe I should have asked why you wanted to do that, or maybe you could have told me.”

“I did! I said, ‘just like in Jack and the Beanstalk’.”

“Um?”

“I read it to you only a couple of moons ago!”

“Yes, but I was very sneezy that day.”

“She’s a sneezy breezie,” her friends explain.

“Um, is something wrong?” Derpy asks, charmed by the episode, but also confused.

Ocean shamefacedly explains that she thought the coffee beans were magical, like in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Derpy, already risible, begins to chuckle in earnest.

“Right,” Crafty says and reaches for the plant, wanting to clear it away from the wheels.

“Hey!”

He pauses.

“What do you think you are doing? Cofsi is tired. She needs rest!”

“If it stays there, it’ll get crushed anyway. Might as well get rid.”

The three breezies flutter together in shock. To them, the plant was as much a living thing as they were — talk of plant-destruction was taboo in Breezie Blossom.

Ocean Mist springs into action to prevent a full crying fit. She recites a breezie rhyme.

“Bees, butterflies, tulips and bulbs!”

“The lovely little things in the world!”

Tiddly Wink and Tra-la-la, forgetting their upset, join in.

“Dragon-flies, frogs, oysters, and pearls!

Zipzee sniffles and casts an occasional angry glance towards the ‘Mister’.

“Go on, Zipzee.”

“Robins, tits, fireflies and whorls.”

“I love all of the world's smalls!”

Ocean Mist claps. Derpy joins in with a stomp.

“Well done! You didn’t cry!” Ocean says, smiling kindly down at the little yellow breezie.

Her friends hug her.

“All better?”

She nods.

Ocean turns to the big ‘Mister’. Summoning her courage, she looks him square in the eyes.

“We don’t use words like that about living things here.”

“Sorry,” he says, sullenly.

“Do you accept his apology?”

Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink turn to Zipzee, who eventually agrees. Then, as one, they flutter up to give him a delicate hug. Even holding hooves, they can't quite get round his broad shoulders.

“Since Cofsi is not going to become a beanstalk, but a coffee plant, please could you three take her to where she will have a healthy home,” Ocean Mist says to them.

After saying their goodbyes, and delicately uprooting ‘Cofsi’ with plenty of soil, the breezies fly the plant to a more suitable locale.

Chapter 3

As Ocean Mist waves off the breezies, she muses on her failure. If she were alone, she would curl up with a cuddly toy and cry, but that would only let down the strangers, and Kimono.

Her low ears and downturned muzzle paint a picture of shame.

‘If only they’d really been magical,’ she thinks, of the beans.

Crafty Crate steps up to her.

With a look to Derpy, he begins.

“Look. Miss. Thank you, but we really need a pony to help.”

Ocean Mist nods.

“Are there ponies, like you, over there—”

He points to the cluster of roofs signifying Ponyville.

“—who can help?”

“Umm…”

Ocean Mist muses a while, wondering how her friends could play their part.

It was a pity that they weren’t magical, unlike the beings in her tales.

‘The only magical ponies are unicorns, and they live in Unicornia…’ she thinks, and scuffs her hoof.

Crafty, getting impatient, pipes up.

“We just need a few grown-ups, to—"

But he is cut off as an idea strikes her like a lightning bolt, restoring the filly's self-belief.

“Of course! Sky Wishes and Starcatcher! They have magic!”

They were known to grant wishes.

Though Crafty had been thinking of a much simpler solution, the assistance of, what he assumed to be, unicorns would do just as well.

“Oh! Well, thank you, Miss. Yes, that would do it.”

“Thanks, Ocean,” Derpy says, and goes in for a hug, extending her wing.

Ocean nuzzles into the warm under-feathers.

Breaking apart, she once more heads into Ponyville.

‘But what fairy tale wish should I ask for?’ she wonders, as she gallops into town.

“Wysteria!”

Spotting the honorary princess was a stroke of luck, as the Spring Promenade was a busy time of year and Sky Wishes and Starcatcher could be anywhere among the throngs of happy ponies — Wysteria would know where they were.

Her tri-tone purple-pink-white maned head rears up from a pumpkin patch.

“Oh, hello Ocean! I thought you were staying with Kimono today. How is she? Does she want some more supplies?”

“She’s…”

Ocean tails off, not wanting to mention Kimono’s research. Her mentor’s behaviour after the arrival of the Equestrians had been a frequent topic of concern among her Ponyvillian friends.

Wysteria’s kindly face clinches with worry.

“Don’t tell me she’s still beavering away on her book!? Even during the Spring Promenade?”

“She’s promised to read me a bed-time story,” Ocean deflects, wanting to defend her mentor.

“Well, at least there’s that. You always were insatiable for tales! So, then, what is it you were wanting?”

Ocean explains and is informed that they are playing in her garden. While she is talking, Ocean notices the pumpkin patch.

“Could I borrow one of those, please?”

Wysteria furrows her brow.

“Of course! But whatever for?”

Ocean scoops a small green form up in her hoof. It being Spring, they are far from ripe.

“Thanks! Just an idea.”

“For the promenade, perhaps? You know you can still enter a float.”

“Actually, it’s to help some ponies in need.”

Wysteria puts a purple hoof to her chest. Like all natives, it sports a little pink heart — Ocean’s are black.

“What a nice gesture!”

“Bye then.”

Wysteria waves the little filly off. As she turns back to her pumpkin patch, though, the confused look returns.

‘Why would anypony need an unripe pumpkin?”

As Ocean Mist approaches Wysteria’s gardens, she spies the ethereally beautiful Starcatcher, whose pink markings, bestowed upon her by the Rainbow Princesses, set her apart from all her kind.

She is undulating silkily through the air after a strange object which is making a loud droning noise.

Ocean hears another pony, Sky Wishes, call out.

“It’s out of control!”

But does not catch the reply.

As the latter comes into view, Ocean sees that Sky Wishes is clutching a strange black square with little knobs which she is wiggling furiously.

“Oh no!”

Ocean, following the latter’s green eyes, sees the object turn and nose-dive.

Instinctively, she gallops to catch it.

“Stay back!” Starcatcher calls out.

“Ow!”

The object collides with Ocean’s tail. Its propeller winds into the pink strands, pulling painfully.

“Sorry Misty!”

Sky Wishes bounds forward and seizes the entangled object. She inspects it intently, before flicking a switch, which causes it to stop. She and Starcatcher then help unwind it.

“You poor thing,” Starcatcher says, in her soft, yet powerful, voice. “Are you hurt?”

Ocean sniffles and nods, triggering the elaborate ‘making it all better’ ritual.

Now ‘all better’ and sucking on a lolly, Sky Wishes explains that the toy is a model plane, which she had ordered from Equestria.

“I think I might send it back.”

Starcatcher nods, emphatically.

“I am only glad that no other ponies have been hurt or scared by it.”

“Anyway — Misty, how come you stopped by?”

“Oh! Right—"

She hesitates, looking around the lawn's lush grass.

"Have you seen my pumpkin?”

When the plane collided with Ocean, she had dropped the small, still-green squash.

“Pumpkin?” Starcatcher queries, the pink markings on her face wrinkling.

“Oh, you mean the funny green ball you were carrying. It’s over there,”

Sky Wishes points to a nearby raised bed, where the little pumpkin lies among some juvenile pea plants.

Ocean collects it.

“So, I was hoping that you could grant me a wish?”

Starcatcher shakes her head. She had been approached by many ponies wishing for success at the Spring Promenade.

“But it’s not for me — it’s for the Equestrians!”

The pegasus opens her eyes wide in surprise.

“They need a carriage, like in Cinderella.”

Sky Wishes thinks a moment, before grinning.

“Aaah! A pumpkin carriage! What do you think?”

“Well, it is a selfless wish…”

Starcatcher floats down next to Ocean, who tingles as the wishing pony’s aura washes over her. The weave could be felt in Starcatcher’s presence — in her way, she was as magical as the Rainbow Princesses.

Ocean, who had been in a state of anxiety since the new arrivals, takes a first deep breath of calm.

“Give me your hearts,” Starcatcher says, her warm voice seeming to come from all around Ocean, like the voice of the sky.

The little black hearts on her fetlocks glow as the white hoof of the pegasus touches hers.

“Now you, Sky Wishes.”

As the magic intensifies between the three, sparks of light dance above their heads.

The three link hooves, and hug.

“Now, everypony together. One. Two. Three!”

“I wish. I wish. I wish!”

On the last ‘I wish’, Starcatcher’s markings glow brightly. This light spreads along the vine-like ornaments to the cresting heart on her forehead and then leaps to the similar symbols on her friends.

There is a blinding flash.

From the distance of Kimono’s residence, the Equestrians’ eyes are drawn by the powerful discharge of harmony-magic to see a radiant heart. Their cutie marks glow, briefly.

Derpy and Crafty startle, ears up and nostrils flaring. Discharges of powerful magic was typically associated with monster attack where they were from.

“I don’t hear anything. You?” Crafty asks.

“No.”

They peer round, anxiously, but no threat emerges.

“I feel kinda strange,” Crafty admits, eventually.

He felt numb in places and yet warm and fuzzy.

“Me too. Want a hug?”

“No... It’s the radiation, I bet. I saw the way your mark lit up — it’s influenced us.”

He sighs, it had been difficult to resist Derpy's offer.

“It’s damned unlucky to be near a blast like that. We’ll get called in for questioning.”

Crafty’s mind whirs. Licenses to operate in the Geodimensions were governed by Royal Charter and held principally by Moondancer, an academic friend of the Monarch. If she got involved, then he would have to explain the break-down. His lack of proper staffing would be discovered, and Crate Inc’s license would be revoked.

“Damn!”

“There, there, boss.”

Derpy hugs him. He considers pushing her away, but he finds he can't bear to — the warmth of the innocent gesture melts his resistance. His eyes moisten and his lip trembles.

‘I need to give my bestie more hugs when I get back’ he thinks to himself. Something troubles him about the thought, though. Precious Jewel wasn’t just his best friend, but… something more — exactly what, though, he can’t seem to remember.

“I just want to go home!” he says, his voice quavering.

Derpy deepens the hug, wrapping her wings around him, her own eyes moist with sympathy.

“Do you want a lolly?”

He pushes her away and tries to close his mind against the feelings.

“Ugh! Buck up! It’s just this place playing tricks on our minds.”

Ocean Mist feels serenity spread all through her little body as her wish is granted. All of a sudden, the feeling intensifies, and sparkles seem to pour from Starcatcher. Ocean's vision goes white.

The glitter coalesces into shapes. She sees Kimono as a filly, frolicking with everypony else, acting normally. Then her mentor, looking older, reading from a strange-looking book with a doubtful expression. Next, the face as it was earlier today, gazing at a map of Equestria. Finally, there is a colourful bracelet collecting dust in a dark room. She feels an itch in her fetlocks — an itch which speaks.

‘FIND.’

“It worked!”

Ocean Mist is pulled from the vision by the sound of Sky Wishes’ voice.

In the gardens in front of her stands an ornate, organic-looking pumpkin carriage.

“Just like in Cinderella!” she squeals, and prances around it happily.

“They’ll love it.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

The three of them maneuver the magical conveyance out of the gardens.

“Oh, my! That is a gorgeous parade float, Misty!” Wysteria exclaims, as they roll it past her.

Turning to the others, she adds.

“But I thought you weren’t granting any wishes for floats, Starcatcher?”

The pegasus gives a musical chuckle.

“It is not for the Promenade.”

Sky Wishes and Starcatcher hitch Ocean to the carriage. As they do so, the former whispers in Ocean’s ear.

“If you saw things, they are for you alone. Never tell anypony, except her.”

Ocean is the talk of Ponyville as she prances along with her pumpkin carriage. Due to the Spring Promenade, there is already a carnival atmosphere on Ponyville high street.

She passes a delicious-smelling parade float, taking in the tangy smells of strawberries and spicy notes of vanilla. From around the sumptuous construction, the vividly pink forms of Sweetberry and Cotton Candy emerge.

A candyfloss is pushed into her face, which she takes gladly.

“Can I ride?” Cotton Candy asks, in return.

“Mmm!”

The two get on the driver’s seat. Sweetberry weaves a vine of grapes onto the vine-like guard rails.

Next, she passes a tropical looking float with coconut palms reaching high up into the sky. Inside the palm-fronds the vivid purple and lime-green tail of Coconut Grove dangles from a rope swing.

A loud whistle sounds, drawing Ocean’s eyes even higher, to where anther pegasi, almost invisible against the blue, but for her flame-coloured mane, is looking down.

“Wow! A pumpkin! Look, Grovenut.” the Pegasus says, punctuated by fluting whistles.

“I see it, Thistles!”

Soon the soft pink and blue forms of the two pegasi glide down.

“Fancy a pina colada?” Coconut Grove offers, gesturing with a coconut shell.

The two also request to ride. Assent given, they alight on the roof. Coconut places a husk on the tip of the carriage’s majestic pumpkin stem.

Following on, Ocean shields her eyes from a dazzling float covered in sequins. Through the glare, she can just about make out the orange form of Sparkleworks.

“Yo!” an invisible presence calls out, sounding like Sunny Daze.

“You might need these!” the voice says, with a giggle, and places sunglasses on Ocean’s blinking face.

Thus shielded, the white form of Sunny comes into view.

Like the others, these two are also welcomed onto the carriage. They take their places on the passenger’s seat.

Next, Ocean sights a strange float sporting a half-green rainbow at both ends. The ponies onboard are deep in discussion and do not immediately notice her carriage.

“But rainbows aren’t just green, darling.”

Ranbow Dash’s green discussant holds up a socked hoof.

“I know, Rainbow Dash. Hah! It’ll be OK.”

“No, darling. I want rainbowy rainbows, not mint-green rainbows.”

“Mint-green rainbows! That’s a great idea. I’ll just get the paint… wait! What’s that?”

Minty turns and points at Ocean. Rainbow Dash’s eyes light up.

“Why that’s positively darling! Ocean, dear, well done!”

The two dash up and, after Rainbow Dash places a rainbow tiara on Ocean’s head, they jump onto the carriage steps and hang on. Minty places a green sock over the handle.

As Ocean, laden with gifts and ponies, approaches the end of the street, a pink pony blocks her path, forcing Ocean to stop.

Next to her is a bright pink float. Some writing, unfinished, is being painted on its side by a purple pony with a present mark.

“Misty. Misty, Misty! That’s the best float I’ve seen today! Look at this, Razz,”

The painting pony turns round. “Oh, wow! Ocean! That’s amazing.”

She trots up to it. “Can I paint a message on?”

“Sure! Make it say, ‘From Ponyville to Equestria, with love.’”

Razz makes short work of the message.

“Now, everypony. Time to get back to your floats!” Pinkie commands.

Derpy and Crafty see Ocean Mist pulling one of the fanciest-looking carriages they have ever seen. Its wheels are ribs of green squash, and its passenger seat is padded with pulp. Its surface is ornamented with seeds and vines. It is crowned by a stem. It looks a little… green, but otherwise it is a carriage from a fairy tale.

“Is that from Cinderella?”

Derpy cocks her head to one side.

Crafty Crate doesn’t respond. After an initial look of shock, his expression becomes calculating. Spying the message on the side, he senses an opportunity.

“Hello!” Ocean hails them.

“I found another wagon!”

“Very impressive, Miss,” Crafty says, admiringly. “Is that for us?”

Ocean nods and Crafty grins.

'An art piece from a Geodimension, hoof-decorated by the natives! I know Canterlotian art dealers who would kill for something like this'

He gambled that as an, in effect, signed gift, he might be able to keep it.

“Now you can go home,” Ocean says, unaware of the shrewd Equestrian’s plans.

“Oh, yes.”

This would more than compensate for the increased premiums from leaving the wagon.

Ocean Mist, her task complete, relaxes.

But Derpy is unsure.

“Ocean?”

“Is it from Cinderella?”

“Yep!”

“What happens to it?”

“What do you mean?”

“It will be very late in Equestria when we get back.”

Realisation dawns on Ocean.

“Well, um. It will turn back.”

“Back into?”

“A pumpkin.”

Crafty’s ears flop.

“You mean it’s perishable!?”

“What?”

He shakes his head.

“Never mind. Sorry, kid. But it won’t do.”

“But, but, but.” Her lip trembles. She had been so sure!

Derpy goes to comfort her.

“It was a very nice idea. Even if it doesn’t work for us, I’m sure your friends would like it?”

Ocean nods, glumly.

She removes the rainbow tiara and sunglasses, sniffling as she does so.

“Sorry.”

Even the hardhearted Crafty is stung into giving her a little pat.

“Don’t worry, kiddo.”

Ocean sighs and trudges back to Ponyville with the carriage.

‘Maybe I should just give up,’ she thinks to herself, sadly. ‘All I know about are fairy tales. I don’t know anything about aliens or unsticking wagons.’

“Don’t tell me Kimono didn’t want it!?”

Ocean, whose eyes had been downcast, hadn’t seen Wysteria approach.

She shakes her head, sadly.

Seeing Ocean so upset moves the kindly pony.

“I’ll speak to her. I know that she can be particular, but I’m sure she would want such a fabulous float.”

Ocean shakes her head.

“It wasn’t for her. It was for them.”

She points to the Equestrians.

Ocean explains the issue, including Kimono’s advice, and Wysteria listens intently, stopping Ocean every so often to clarify.

She muses a while, trotting alongside Ocean.

“Well, I think I understand. And—”

She looks significantly at the sad, blue face.

“—if there’s anything you want from me, or anypony in Ponyville, just ask. OK?”

Ocean gives a small smile.

“You better return to them. I’ll store this for you. Do you want to keep it as a parade float?”

Ocean begins to unhitch to transfer the carriage.

“I don’t want it for me. I prefer to watch.”

“Of course. Well, would you consider donating it?”

Ocean nods.

“Scootaloo was very upset earlier when her orange float rolled away. With a lick of orange paint, this pumpkin would be a perfect replacement,” she hints.

“Oh! Do you think she would like it?”

“Absolutely!”

“She can have it! But it will turn back into a pumpkin tonight,” she warns.

“Oh, I think not, dear.”

Ocean looks up, surprised.

“That only applies to ripe ones. This one has a couple of days, at least.”

With that, Wysteria trots away with the carriage-turned-float.

Author's Note

Wysteria
"Honorary Princess and Nature Lover"

Starcatcher and Sky Wishes
"Wish Giver and her Best Friend"

Artist

Sweetberry and Cotton Candy
"The Delicious Parade Float"

Thistle Whistle and Coconut Grove
"The Tropical Pegasi Float"

Sparkleworks and Sunny Daze
"The Bright Parade Float"

Minty and Rainbow Dash
"The Arguing Parade Float"

Pinkie Pie and Razzaroo
"The Pink Friendship Parade Float"

Chapter 4

The late afternoon sun warms Ocean’s back as she returns.

Thoughts whirl in her little blue head: Wysteria offering help; Kimono’s advice; the Equestrians asking for a grown-up.

‘I know I can play my part, but how…’

The Equestrians glance at her questioningly as she trots towards them.

Crafty grunts as she approaches and makes his way over, but Derpy forestalls him.

“Hey, want a muffin?” Derpy offers, as Ocean returns.

She holds out her hooves, but instead of a pastry, she is directed to a picture.

“It’s the best I could do,” says Derpy, brandishing a branch. “But I hope it made you smile.”

Ocean nods and her expression relaxes a little.

“Thanks.”

“Any ideas?”

Crafty tries again to get her attention.

“Shh! She’s thinking!”

Ocean has cocked her head and is looking fixedly down at the muffin picture. After a moment she looks up at Derpy, then back to the muffin, then back up. She stops and her eyes fix on the branch.

Crafty opens his mouth to speak, but just then Ocean pipes up.

“A bundle of sticks!”

“What!?”

“I’ll be right back!”

"You did that on purpose," Crafty growls at Derpy under his breath.

It was one of the first fables that Kimono had taught Ocean. The ancient tale of the 'Bundle of Sticks' was about an unruly family: the mother gave each sibling a stick to break but while it was easy to break them individually, when combined, even the strongest were unable.

‘I have to get everypony to help!’ she thinks.

Ocean considers taking up Wysteria on her offer, but decides against.

‘Everypony together includes Kimono! She’s the stick in the middle.’

She opens the door and trots into the living room with purpose.

Her hopes are dashed when she sees that Kimono is still intently writing. The purple muzzle is bent over a tome, eyes wild. Ocean had never seen her quite so ‘in the zone’.

With a gulp, she steps forward once more.

“Miss Kimono?”

No response. She rears up, placing her forehooves on the desk.

“Kimono?”

Still none. She reaches forward to put her hoof over the book Kimono is reading.

"Kim—"

“What!?”

Ocean flinches, discombobulated, and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“You are the middle stick.”

“What?”

“I mean — we all need to help move the strangers’ wagon, together!”

“I’m in the middle of something right now. Ask Starcatcher — she could move it in a blink.”

Ocean shakes her head — she was determined.

“But it should be you and everypony, together.”

“Oh, should it? Honestly, what has gotten into you!? Give me one good reason.”

Ocean wracks her brain and purses her mouth.

“Um…”

Kimono arches an eyebrow.

“Now, stop being silly. I mean it! No bed-time story if you keep this up.”

Ocean’s face is hot with embarrassment as she is shooed from the room.

Once outside, she shoots a look to the departing violet tail.

‘You will be the middle stick!’ she promises.

Ocean pouts at the closed door to the living room, sticking her lip out at the teak panelling.

‘But how?’ she muses.

Ocean paces in the corridor outside, brushing her pink tail against the dado on each turn.

Unlike her friends, she could hardly persuade Kimono with a story. Kimono knew more pony tales than even she did!

Could she get the nice Equestrian, 'Derpy', to offer something? Kimono loved exotic things, especially from Equestria…

But no — the aliens just wanted to go home, so she couldn’t pester them for knick-knacks.

With a start, she remembers the vision that came to her when her wish was granted by Starcatcher earlier.

‘Of course! Maybe she’ll become the middle stick for her friends!’

She heads upstairs, prancing happily, her tread muffled by the plush stair-carpet.

Sunlight spills between thick curtains and into the landing of Kimono’s house. Dust motes twirl idly until Ocean’s passage scatters them.

Squeezing past occasional tables sporting ornate oil lamps, she heads into Kimono’s room, looking for the charm bracelet from her vision.

The room has the musty smell of a sun-warmed interior, which asks of an entrant 'why are you not outside?' An old sprig of heather on the wall has long since ceased to lighten the mustiness.

Ocean surveys Kimono’s bedside tables but sees only pictures of unfamiliar-looking Equestrians. A pale-yellow unicorn with a tri-tone red-purple-lilac mane smiles out from a framed photograph. The picture is signed.

‘Moondancer’

On the dresser are various alien items: a strange block, which occasionally vibrates; a large, blank screen with wires coming out of it; a pile of dog-eared books whose peculiar titles proclaim ‘Quantum for Ponies’ or ‘The Origin of the Species’.

Taking up an entire section of wall, is a huge, framed map.

‘EQUESTRIA’

Ocean gazes over the foreign landscape. Sea serpents peer out from the crannies of vast coastlines. Griffons, dragons, hippogriffs and more dot the mountain chains. Whole sprawling areas declare: ‘dragon-lands,’ ‘changelings,’ ‘frozen north’, ‘crystal empire’. In the centre, the word Equestria traverses grasslands, swamps, deserts, jungle. Within the circle of the ‘q’ is a city, and in the flourish at the end of the cursive ‘a’ is a castle. In the middle of the map stands a giant mountain, alone. No dragons top this, but rather a sprawling city: Canterlot.

“That’ll be where their unicorns live,” Ocean says out loud, thinking of the majestic mountain castle of the Rainbow Princesses in Unicornia.

Ocean gazes a while, fascinated, her imagination bubbling.

“So many tales…” she murmurs, tracing the lines of the map with her hoof.

She shakes her head.

‘Get back on task, Ocean Mist!’

Thrusting away the expanse, she forces her mind back into the quiet, small room, and her little ‘quest’.

Leaving Kimono's room, Ocean heads past her own bedroom and alternately eldritch or beautiful tapestries, to the spare room.

She twinkles at dusty pictures of Ponyvillians clustered on a dresser: Pinkie and Minty smile in front of a purple Christmas tree; Sunny Daze and Sparkleworks wink from under wide-brimmed floppy hats; Razzaroo and Kimono hug next to a towering cake.

Ocean noses around the bric-a-brac on the bedside tables and peers inside a glass cabinet. Smiling faces with colourful manes and tails and cutie marks peer back at her. Each one is meticulously brushed and labelled. Ocean’s eyes go wide as she sees a likeness to herself.

She inspects the label.

‘Blue Mist.’

Ocean scrunches her muzzle.

‘I prefer my name.’

Turning to the other wall, she passes her eye quickly over a bookcase which holds large, brightly decorated folders. Scraps of paper poke out between the covers.

‘Sparkleworks <3 Sunny Daze!’ proclaims one of these.

After a while of searching around the crowded room, Ocean finds no bracelet.

‘But if not here?’ she wonders. She knew it wasn’t in her room, and it wouldn’t be in the bathroom…

Ocean Mist trots back onto the quiet landing.

She idly looks at a wall-cupboard. Despite knowing it couldn’t be in there, she opens the door anyway and wrinkles her nose at the musty smell from a stack of used dusters.

Under these is a stepladder which Ocean looks at curiously.

“Ah!” she exclaims, out loud, the sound echoing.

Directly above her is the square wooden trapdoor entrance to the loft.

Ocean paces nervously — the attic is out of bounds, and she was risking everything by going up there.

But it was worth it.

She sets the stepladder and hops up, pushing out the trapdoor to peer inside.

Fortunately, Kimono’s loft-space is lit by a skylight and is not inhabited by ghosts.

Dangling her legs, she squeezes up into the gloom.

Large black plastic bags labelled ‘Old Bed Sheets’ give off a musty smell. She gingerly steps over piles of framed pictures and books.

Spying a likely-looking pile, she lifts the heavy fabric of curtains to reveal only more miscellanea. Among these is a little music box that catches her eye.

Wanting to hear something in the oppressive quiet, she winds it up and hears the familiar melody.

‘My little pony…’

She turns abruptly and disturbs a hatstand, knocking the floppy items about.

“Fiddlesticks!”

After removing a green feather boa from her tail and returning the hats to the stand, she moves into the centre of the clutter.

There, she sees the table from her vision. Resting in the middle of it is the bracelet.

The little charms splay out over the unswept surface: a yellow balloon against a pink background signifying Pinkie Pie, a rainbow for Rainbow Dash, a strawberry for Sweetberry, a smiling sun-face for Sunny Daze, a dazzling star for Sparkleworks, a flower in a vase for Wysteria, a rattle for Razzaroo, and an ice-cream cone for Cotton Candy.

Ocean sweeps it up in her hoof, scattering the dust, and makes her way out of the attic and downstairs to confront her mentor.

As she enters, Kimono looks up angrily.

“Ocean Mist, you are being so naughty!”

Suppressing the instinct to defer to her mentor, Ocean continues.

“I just think that you could take a little break—”

“Oh! ‘Just a little break!’ is it? I am on the verge of a new discovery! The Equestrians—”

Ocean places the bracelet on the table. The site of it stuns Kimono, breaking her flow.

“W-where did you…?”

Ocean hesitates, not wanting to admit that she had strayed into the attic.

“Um, just lying around.”

Kimono narrows her eyes.

“The ponies who gave you this are just as important as your book!” Ocean deflects, going on the attack.

“I… am not saying that they aren’t.”

“They miss their middle stick!”

Kimono smirks and Ocean blushes.

“But, Ocean Mist, that was given to me on my birthday. Now, you are a mare of words. What is ‘birth’?”

Ocean is wrong-hoofed by the unexpected line of questioning.

“Um…?”

“That’s what my research is all about! Do you know what that Equestrian told me, earlier.”

“No?”

She lowers her voice, conspiratorially.

“I know all about the birds and the bees!”

“Oh?”

Ocean crumples, feeling lost.

“Do they make you happy?” she asks, feeling foolish. She was sure that Kimono wasn't writing a book about birds and bees.

Kimono’s eyes widen. It was her turn to be surprised — believing Ocean to be referring to her discovery.

“Well…”

“Happy like your friends make you?”

Ocean reaches forward with her little blue hoof, to touch the ink-stained purple. As the hooves connect, her black hoof-heart lights up, and an answering glow sounds from Kimono’s yellow. The contact, both physical and magical, penetrates the academic mare’s defences.

Kimono reels, scooping up the bracelet.

“Oh, oh, oh. My friends!”

“It’s okay.”

Ocean pats Kimono to comfort her, seeing a telling redness creep into the purple cheeks.

She picks over each of the charms.

“Razz, Pinkie, Dash, Minty, Berry, Candy, Sunny, and Sparks,” she recites, mournfully. “I have been so distracted with my book.”

“I think they want you to go to the Spring Promenade. I do, too…”

Kimono looks from her books to the charm bracelet — Ocean’s words moments earlier ring in her ears. Tears spring into her eyes.

“My book doesn’t make me happy the way they make me happy,” she admits.

“Then why not take a break—"

“You’re right!”

Kimono takes Ocean’s hooves and presses them to her chest.

“I’m so sorry, Chibi Sakura! I’ve been so caught up in—”

She gestures to her cluttered desk.

“—all this, that I haven’t been thinking about my friends, or you!”

Kimono buries herself in Ocean’s little shoulder as she sobs, partly for herself but mainly for the pain she knows that her neglect will have caused.

After the hug, Ocean — like all her kind — is ready with a lolly, which Kimono gladly takes and sucks on through the rest of the 'making it all better' ritual.

The second stage of the ritual calls for a song.

Hush little pony,

Don’t you cry.

Misty will sing you,

A lullaby.

As you listen,

To my tune,

I hope that,

You get well soon!

Ocean proceeds through the ‘making funny noises,’ and ‘peek-a-boo’ stages, which draws wan smiles, to the final ‘making it all better’ stage.

At this stage, it was usual to kiss the part of the pony that had been hurt.

‘But she hasn’t scraped her knee or stubbed her hoof?’

Seeing the little pony’s confusion, Kimono gestures to her head.

‘Of course, her mind made her poorly.’

Ocean motions for Kimono to lean down, so that she can kiss her on the forehead.

“There. All better?”

Kimono nods, still sucking.

“Are you sure that you're ready to be ‘the middle stick’?”

Crafty moodily looks towards the house, despairing of getting meaningful help from the filly.

“Increased premiums or not, I think I’ll just have to leave the wagon and knock on doors in town,” he says to Derpy, pointing to Ponyville.

Derpy gives a skyward glance but says nothing.

“Stay by the wagon, OK?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

But he has only trotted a short way before he sees a throng of ponies heading from the town towards them.

At their head, is Wysteria.

“Oh! She must have told that purple mare that we needed help!”

“Yeah, boss. She’s a good filly.”

“Guess so.”

Wysteria trots forward to greet the Equestrians.

“Strangers from Equestria! We are sorry that your wagon is stuck!”

“Thanks, so if—”

“As visitors to our little town, we would love you to see our Spring parade!” Wysteria says, and produces a floral baton, which she twirls.

Derpy grins, while Crafty holds his hooves up.

“Thanks. But there’s really no—”

Wysteria, however, is too focused on her role to hear him.

“Announcing: the breezie Queen and her subjects!” Wysteria proclaims, to cheers.

The white Queen, on her bee-mount, leads the aerial procession, followed by the beautiful form of Day Lily, then Zipzee, Tiddly Wink, Tra-la-la and many others, followed by a swarm of tiny breezie-foals making trumpeting noises. The Queen raises her nose and looks away from Crafty.

Day Lily glides over to explain.

“Apologies for my Queen. She is upset about her other bee, Bea, which you made very poorly.”

Crafty just shakes his head in incomprehension.

Derpy squees as, after their parade, the flock of breezies rush over to her. Soon the grey mare is multicoloured as the bug-ponies clamber over her fur and bounce on her feathers.

“Announcing the leader of the Spring Promenade: Pinkie Pie. And her assistant: Razzaroo!”

The pink and purple ponies trot past, waving to Crafty. Razzaroo trots up to him.

“Me and Toola Roola painted you a card!”

From Ponyivlle to Equestria, with love!

On the card is a picture of Ponyville and an approximation of Crafty and Derpy’s faces, both happy and smiling.

“Thank you, but—”

“Announcing Ponyville’s premier chefs!”

Sweetberry and Cotton Candy prance up and deliver a strawberry tart.

“Announcing Ponyville’s—”

Wysteria pauses as Minty whispers in her ear.

“—Premier tailor of socks!”

Minty giggles and skips forward, offering Crafty an example of her specialty.

Crafty holds up a hoof and trots up to Wysteria. The throng of ponies pause.

“Miss! I need to get back home. I’m tired. I’m losing money. I have a bestie—wife! I have a wife to get back to.”

Wysteria nods.

“I understand. But I’m sure your bestie-wife won’t mind just a little longer…”

‘Awws’ ring out from the throng. More than one eager waiting pony’s eyes glisten at the thought that they wouldn’t get to parade for the Equestrians.

“Uh. No. No, it’s OK,” Crafty says, reluctantly.

From inside the throng of breezies, Derpy chuckles.

“Introducing the pegasi from Butterfly Island!”

Coconut Grove holds Thistle Whistle’s hoof as the two fly nervously behind Starcatcher.

The former shyly hoofs a postcard to Wysteria, who transfers it to the stallion.

Aloha! Please come visit!

“Ponyville’s premiere… celebrities!”

Sunny Daze and Sparkleworks trot past, waving to the crowd, dazzling everypony with their sequins.

Sunny trots confidently up to Crafty and gives him a signed picture of herself.

In quick succession, Wysteria introduces janitors, teachers, buck-ballers, vets, doctors, nurses and a host of ‘special ponies’.

Crafty’s expression becomes increasingly thundery, and Wysteria’s increasingly nervous. She glances every so often to Kimono’s front door. To her intense relief, it finally opens.

Kimono is shocked to see the gathering and gives Ocean a questioning glance. Momentarily also bemused, once she spies Wysteria, Ocean understands and explains that Wysteria offered to help.

At the latter's instigation, everypony falls silent.

With a snort at the silliness of it all, Kimono addresses the crowd.

“Hi everypony. Can we please just unstick their wagon from my garden?”

Starcatcher detaches herself from the other pegasi and, with a gesture of her hoof, an endless swarm of butterflies lifts the wagon effortlessly back onto the lane.

The assembled ponies and breezies whoop with delight.

“I told you!” Kimono says to Ocean, with a chuckle.

“Thanks,” Crafty says, tersely. “It’s just a shame that we’re so behind schedule that we’ll miss portal-close tonight.”

Starcatcher floats down next to Crafty, whose cutie mark tingles from the alien magic.

“Not at all, Equestrian,” she says.

Crafty can only look mutely at the eternal beauty.

“I will escort you. It will take no time at all!”

Derpy, having waved goodbye to the breezie swarm, trots over and bows low, accidentally bumping her snout off the ground.

“Thanks, your majest—ow!”

Starcatcher lifts the muzzle up and, with another wave, dispels the pain.

“Just Starcatcher, please.”

“Thanks,” she says, nasally, rubbing her muzzle.

Derpy gives the still mute Crafty a nudge.

“’nks,” he squeaks, feeling small and coltish in the other's awesome presence.

With a last farewell and thanks to Ocean, the two Equestrians finally go on their way, Starcatcher in tow.

“What was all that about with the parade?” Crafty asks, as he and Derpy fly behind the butterfly-levitated wagon.

“They were just being friendly, boss.”

“The one that led everypony was up to something — I saw her looking at the house the whole time.”

Derpy doesn't engage and just flaps, contentedly. Below her, a seemingly endless wilderness unfurls. Tiny clusters of buildings herald the existence of the minuscule pony enclaves of this world. In the distance, a castle, small by Equestrian standards, marks the borders of Unicornia, and the portal home.

“Strange world, huh.”

“Undeveloped.”

“We gonna stop off at Detrot once we're back in Equestria? It’s a long drive back.”

Crafty grimaces.

“We ain’t stepping one hoof beyond the portal, Derps.”

“What!?”

“Quarantine.”

“But…!?”

“All your foal antics and our bad luck mean we’ve been exposed to their magic.”

“What? No—"

“It’s in the stuff I sent you before you agreed to this job,” Crafty adds, hoping that the full documentation had been sent to her. He had been very distracted when they set off.

“Oh… How long?”

“I’ve heard of them keeping ponies back for weeks.”

Derpy looks down, sadly. She missed Dinky whenever she was away for longer than a day.

“Yeah. The wife will not be happy. And I’ll lose my license to work in the Geodimensions.”

He turns to her, angrily.

“You know, this always happens with you! Remember the last time when you lost me a whole wagon’s worth of goods and then the poor mare you dropped them on sued us— hah!" he exclaims, bitterly. "Not us. I mean me, of course, because you barely have any bits. You're so... you. And, even better, now I'll be stuck with you for weeks. Argh!”

Derpy’s smile falters for the first time.

“I’m sorry, boss!”

“'Sorry' doesn’t pay the bills,” he says, and turns away, cruelly.

“Why did you do that?”

Starcatcher was looking at them with sad curiosity.

“Mind your…” Crafty trails off, his temper draining away in the calming presence. “I’m just sad, because my bestie will be upset when I can't go back to her.”

“Do you want a hug?”

His resistance failing, he has to admit that he very much does.

With an ‘aw,’ Derpy joins in, and the Equestrians and Starcatcher float along beside the wagon together, hoof in hoof.

As the large alien sun dips behind the grand mountain-top castle of Unicornia, so their role in our tale also ends.

While they flew to Unicornia, back in Ponyville, Kimono is chatting with her friends and arranging dates for the promenade. Ocean, hanging on her arm, glows with happiness at her mentor's ‘normal’ behaviour.

Zipzee, Tra-la-la and Tiddly Wink invite guests to see Cofsi, explaining that the coffee plant, while not a magical beanstalk, was magical in every other respect.

Other than the breezies, who have an early bedtime, everypony stays at Kimono’s late into the evening. They have tea in the drawing room on long-disused tea-sets, restored by Ocean, who acts as maid.

As the evening draws to a close and ponies begin to leave, Wysteria approaches the filly.

“Thank you, Misty.”

“Oh, I did nothing! None of my tales helped, really.”

Wysteria stifles a chuckle, patting the little tale-teller’s pink mane.

“Thank you for being Kimono’s best friend. She’s a lucky pony.”

Ocean glows with pride.

“Oh! Well…”

Ocean’s voice is strangled by emotion.

Wysteria hugs her, before departing.

As she waves the latter off, Ocean feels a pat on her fetlock and her little hoof-heart tingles.

“Well done, Ocean! What a lovely first wish.” Sky Wishes beams.

“Well, while I’m glad that Scootaloo gets a pumpkin carriage, that’s not really what I meant to happen.”

“Wishes are fun like that. Night, night!

Kimono tucks Ocean into bed, it was past the filly’s bedtime.

She hoofs over a favourite cuddly toy, a Little Mermaid plush, and Ocean hugs it, drawing it under the covers.

“It's better under the ocean, Ariel,” she says, sleepily.

“Before the bedtime story, I want to thank you for today.”

Ocean shakes her head on her pillow.

“’s just what best friends do.”

Kimono mists up a little.

“Thank you for answering the door to those strangers, and for looking after them. You were very brave.”

Ocean smiles, proudly.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Ocean nods, putting a hoof to her lips, her eyes closed.

“I was thinking of going… there. To Equestria.”

Ocean’s eyes shoot open, shocked.

“But today has convinced me to stay.”

“I would have missed you so, so much!” Ocean says, through sniffles.

“It would only have been for a short research trip. But… no. I can’t leave you or my friends. Reading about the new world will have to be enough.”

“Thanks, Miss Kimono. They are funny ponies to make stories about, but they are too…” Ocean trails off.

Kimono’s expression hardens.

“Much. They’re just much too much,” she finishes.

Ocean nods — she had loved meeting Derpy, but Derpy came with Crafty and aeroplanes and bits and…

Her mind’s voice drifts off as her eyelids lower.

“I had better make it quick, or you will be fast asleep before we get to the good bit!”

Ocean jerks awake and gives a sleepy nod.

“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land…”

The End