Fall of the Trossels

Stonebolt and Frostburn collapsed near the border from exhaustion. Infernalo looked down at them as the sun started to set.

"I'm not carrying you two," he said bluntly. "Frostburn, you suggested it."

"It looked...a lot...closer...than it...seemed," she panted. Infernalo sighed and helped them back up to their feet, and lead them into town.

"Let's just find a place to rest," Infernalo said. Neither one of his twin sisters argued with him, which he was glad for. He stopped off at a house and knocked on the door. A young purple unicorn with a dark mane and tail opened the door, and looked into his eyes.

"Hi," she said, losing herself in Infernalo's eyes.

"Yeah, hi," he said, not noticing her reaction to him. "We kinda lost our home, and need a place to stay."

"Yeah sure whatever," she said a bit distracted. The unicorn lead the three into her house as Frostburn and Stonebolt started to steady themselves.

"I think we're starting to get our second wind," Frostburn said excitedly. She glanced around the room. "Where are we?"

"Yeah, what is this place," Stonebolt asked as she slowly began to regain her composure. She turned her attention to the pony staring her at her brother. "Who are you and what is this place?" The purple unicorn turned her attention to her.

"Well," she explained. "Your brother told me about how your home was kinda destroyed, so I'm letting you stay here at my home. My name's Twilight. Twilight Sparkle."

"That's cute," Infernalo said. Twilight blushed, trying to hide it from him. "We wouldn't have to inconvenience you like this if it wasn't for my little sister."

"I told you I was sorry," Frostburn whined. "I told you I lost control of my flight, and everything went wrong from there."

"Wait," Twilight said, a bit confused. "How exactly can you fly? None of you have wings, or horns for that matter."

"We're Trossels," Stonebolt explained, showing Twilight the spikes on the backs of her hooves. "Trossels have the abilities of both unicorns and pegasi, as well as a limited control of two of the 35 magical elements."

"Magical elements," Twilight inquired. "There's nothing about that in my books." Infernalo pulled out a stack of books.

"How about these," he asked. "I brought a few things with me before I left. I suppose that we'll just rest up for tomorrow, and let you do with those what you wish." They disappeared into a dark void that receded as quickly as it came. A baby dragon walked over to Twilight.

"Who was at the door, Twilight," he groaned.

"The most handsome pony I've ever met," Twilight sighed. "Just go back to sleep, Spike." Spike grumbled on his way back to bed, Twilight opening up one of Infernalo's books.

Twilight startled awake suddenly. Her face was pressed into the book as she looked out the window and saw a light shining in.

"I must've fallen asleep," she said to no one in particular. She glanced over at a plate of food next to her with a small mote next to it. "'As thanks for letting us stay here, I made you breakfast from all of us. Love, Frostburn.' That was sweet."

Infernalo and his sisters wandered around town, looking around.

"This place is so much like our last home," Frostburn said.

"Stop saying that," Infernalo snapped. "This isn't our new home, it's a temporary home until somepony can find a way to fix our last home." A bright blue Pegasus crash-landed near them. Infernalo ran over to her and levitated her out of her crater.

"Why is it I lose control of my flight and you hold it against me, and somepony else does it and you go all righteous and heroic," Frostburn asked irritably.

"You destroyed our home," he said as the Pegasus began to regain consciousness. She looked up at him.

"You okay," Infernalo asked.

"Am I dead," she asked weakly. Infernalo shook his head. "I'm Rainbow Dash."

"My name's Infernalo," he said. "These are my sisters Frostburn and Stonebolt. What happened?" Rainbow Dash steadied herself and shook the dirt from her rainbow mane and tail.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was just flying around, trying out a few tricks, and then I crashed. It happens a lot more often than you'd think."

"Yeah," Frostburn said. "I can see that you two are...busy, so can me and Stonebolt go searching around?"

"Sure whatever," Infernalo said paying half-attention. "Go nuts." The two scampered off.

Spike stood outside Rarity's door, hesitating to knock.

"C'mon Spike," he told himself. "You can do this. You can..." He stopped mid-sentence when Frostburn walked by. "She's beautiful." He took a deep breath and went over to her. Frostburn glanced over at him. "Hi, I-I'm Spike."

"My name's Frostburn," she said. "I'm new around here. Let me guess, you're one of Twilight's friends, right?" Spike nodded as he stared into her eyes. "You're staring at me." He glanced away quickly and she giggled. "I never said I didn't like it. You remind me a lot of my boyfriend."

"Y-you have a boyfriend," he said, a bit disappointed.

"Not anymore," Frostburn said, crushed. "I don't like to talk about it." Spike patted her on the head reassuredly and she smiled down at him. "Do you, you know, have a girlfriend?" Spike thought about it before answering.

"Well," Spike said slowly and thoughtfully, choosing his words very carefully. "There is one girl, but she didn't really see me like I saw her. Needless to say, it didn't work out."

"Well, maybe it could work out with someone else," Frostburn said, leaning closer to him. "Someone not too far from here." Spike wasn't stupid, and knew when someone like Frostburn was coming on to him. A white unicorn with a curly purple mane and tail trotted up to the two.

"Spike," she said, calling attention to herself. "Who's your new friend?" Spike turned around and faced her.

"Oh, hi Rarity," he said. Frostburn took one look at her, and realized that this was the girl that he was talking about earlier. "This is Frostburn, she's new in town."

"Nice to meet you," Frostburn said smiling. He extended a hoof, but slowly retracted when Rarity didn't take it. Rarity looked down at the spikes on the back of Frostburn's hooves and raising an eyebrow.

"Exactly what are you," Rarity asked suspiciously.

"I'm a Trossel, silly," Frostburn said. She looked around before turning back to her. "Unless you have some here, I'm afraid one of the last ones." She hung her head in shame, as Spike took immediate concern to it.

"What do you mean 'one of the last,'" he asked. Frostburn sniffed, and looked back up at him slowly.

"I'm afraid that the only Trossels that I know of left are my brother and my twin sister," she said solemnly. Spike would've asked a few more followup questions, but he could see it was too troubling of a subject matter for Frostburn.