Dinky Doo: The Scion of Wind

It was a day later.

I was in a ward in Pony Town Hospital.

A bright six o' clock was outside.

Birds were chirping happily. Three of them swept past the ward's only window, almost like they wanted to spread their joy to the ponies inside. If that's what they were doing, then it sure wasn't working.

I was still brooding. I was still silent. I was still leaning against the wall.

She was still asleep. At least, that's what the rhythm of the heart monitor kept beeping to me.

Each time I chanced a glance at her, my hope dimmed. This time was no different.

Abandoning my stoic posture, I put my forehooves on the cold hospital floor. I walked over to find her, still unconscious.

Sweaty golden locks thatched her face; I raked a hoof across them. "Oh, Sis…"

A basket of bandages adorned her head. Otherwise, she looked perfectly normal. Was she that way when we fought over that stupid alicorn sultan eight years ago? Looking back on it now, I realized just how stupid I was. I realized how much I had taken her for granted. I realized how much time I had wasted on that feud.

Part of me wanted to make this seem like it wasn't much of a big deal. She had always come home late at night more tired than when she had awoken. She rarely took a second to rest after I moved in. She had been overworking herself, and now, she was having a long, well-deserved nap. She did look almost like she was sleeping.

Except I knew better.

Sharing a room with this mare during college told me better. She used to talk in her sleep, you know, and I hated it. It really sucked on a night before an exam, when your nerves were wrung already; imagine trying to sleep when you're constantly being startled by words that were way too coherent to be sleep-spoken.

She also snored as loud as the wild boars we encountered in Southern Equestria. She was aware of this habit of hers, and how it could jeopardize missions where we were supposed to lay low, incognito, on the down-low, and all the other ways to say 'inconspicuous'. Anyway, that's why she always kept watch over our camps. She did it while hopped up on at least a gallon of coffee; I started to feel bad for her at some point.

Now, I wished I could hear her snores and sleep-mumbles again, just so that I would know that she was okay.

A single breath slipped into the ward just then, as quiet and as unwanted as a ghost. On instinct, the hairs of my coat were pricked up. I backflipped over the bedside nearest the window, and landed on the side nearest the door. My wings were flared, my body lowered. "Who's there!? Oh. It's you, Butter Sky. Butter Sky and friends," I added in correction, folding my wings back.

Three ponies went into the room, none of which was Butter Sky, who was slowly slipping back into the corridor with a barely audible utterance of 'Sorry'. The blue one I knew from my most recent adventure trying to save the Cake twins. Her name was Rainbow Dash; I'll refer to her as 'Dash' for brevity's sake. So Dash flew over the head of Butter Sky, fluttering in like it was just a normal day. The pair of unicorn mares that followed weren't much better; by the look of their trots, you'd have thought they were exploring the Canterlot Maze Garden on their Sunday walk.

The white unicorn liked calling ponies, 'darling'; it was too close to my childhood memories for my liking, honestly. But what can you do? Let's call her 'the fussy one'.

The lavender unicorn had no significance to me, so I'll scant on any details about her. Obviously, I won't be calling her 'the lavender unicorn'.

She leaned in close to my face, doubtless ignoring the dead expression on it. "How is she?" she asked.

I shook my head. And then I started shaking it for different reasons; soft things were tickling my face, littering my seeing space. "It had something to do with Long-Snout, didn't it?"

"Rainbow!" Toilet Sparkler — I think that was her name, an unfortunate one at that — hissed with more reproach than I cared to muster at the moment.

"That positively ghastly outfit from the other day?" the fussy one drawled; she had her forelegs leaned over the bed, unceremoniously beside its comatose occupant. "Doubtless the royal guard shall settle this matter forthwith!"

"Rarity!" said Sparkler, before shooting Fussy a glare to match.

But Fussy looked like she was too busy pointing her snout up and trotting past me to care. You'd think she was royalty by the way she strutted out of the ward.

"Sorry about them, Miss Do," Sparkler said, earning her a huff from Dash — a huff she didn't seem to hear. "Please, can you tell us what happened?"

Why was my heart beating so fast? I didn't want to think about it. It was still too much.

"I-I…"

My eyes darted from Sparkler, to Dash, then to Sis behind me. The truth was: I was scared. I didn't know if she'd be herself when she woke up. I mean, if she woke up. Last time, it took the love of an alicorn to restore her health; well, that and that alicorn's magic, obviously. It was bad enough that this had already happened once, and at my hoof, no less.

A hoof touched mine then, as lightly as the breath she had first startled me with. Her eyes were blue. Slowly I felt my mind drifting elsewhere. I thought of a tranquil sea on a quiet summer's afternoon. Salt and slosh swished and swayed on the tide; they rode off on the glimpse of a breeze.

I blinked. There was something about her, that Butter Sky.

…

I don't want to bore you too much about what happened next.

Long story short: After she was done hugging me, I told them what had happened. Luna's teat, it was embarrassing. The whole time, she was touching hooves with me like my mom used to. I mean, not that I didn't appreciate it; her warmth gave me strength. None of the other three seemed to notice the comforting gesture. Nor did they blame me for what happened with Ditzy, or losing Dinky, for that matter. Wish I could say the same for myself.

I was done talking. I had said my piece, all I had heard and seen, which didn't amount to much, in my opinion.

Fortunately, they disagreed.

They began to confer amongst themselves about the whereabouts of my ward. It occurred to me that I would be her only guardian for a while. It was a thought that scared me more than all the boulders and spikes and snakes — and you know the rest, since it's not exactly an unpublished secret — in the past few decades.

"She ran to the Everfree Forest!" Dash ejaculated. "It's the only place she'd be."

"Rainbow," Sparkler said sharply, "that doesn't make any sense. First of all, Dinky couldn't run anywhere. My magic forcefield prevents any unauthorized ponies from leaving the vicinity."

That killed Dash's buzz, but not for long. "Y-yeah, well… Maybe she teleported out of it! …What? What?" she said at Sparkler, who was already shaking her head.

"Also impossible, Rainbow Dash," she droned with a condescending shake of the head, before locking eyes with her. "My magical forcefield is immune to being compromised by spacetime displacement magic. Before I left yesterday morning, I made sure to reinforce the spatial anti-decompression matrix in my spell. Even though I argued that it was quite unnecessary, Ditzy forced me to do it. Far more importantly, I tempered my existing barrier magic with artificial pseudo-solid gravitational boundaries. I even augmented the anti-compression matrix with thaumatic-resistant nodes! I thought it was a necessary precaution. I had thought it would have helped. But… maybe it was because I had cast it improperly. In my defense, it was on such short notice, and these weren't exactly your run-of-the-mill spells, which is why I had cast an alarm spell on it to let me know if any of these measures failed. I would have thought it would have gone off, but…" she trailed off. Sparkler blinked, noticing the eyes staring at her. All of them, including mine, were completely blank. Groaning, she cast us exasperated looks like a jaded professor would. "Ugh. It means that nopony could teleport in, and nopony could teleport out. Not even I could break into my own treehouse, even if I wanted to."

Dash narrowed her eyes. "What about Long Snout?"

"We've been over this, Rainbow Dash. That Haissanian was a pegasus, not a unicorn, not an alicorn. A peg-a-sus. And I'm pret-ty sure you don't need me to explain what that means in regard to his magical ability. Or lack thereof, in any case," she finished with a leer at nopony in particular.

Crossing her forelegs, Dash looked elsewhere. "He sure disappeared off Carousel Square fast. Speaking of which," she said, "weren't you supposed to figure out how he did it? Pegasi aren't supposed to be able to use magic."

"For the last time, Rainbow, I don't know. And in any case, if somepony had teleported inside, Daring would have heard it. Right?"

"Yeah," I said, "and I'm also telling you I saw Dinky run out the door with my own two eyes."

Sparkler didn't respond right away.

We all watched her purple legs move back and forth, back and forth. Apparently, pacing helped her think, just like somepony else I knew. Experience with these types has taught me that it was better to just stay silent, and not interrupt them. Whenever she got like this, Ditzy seemed to be stuck in her own little world of facts — facts that required all her focus in order to assemble into a coherent conclusion.

Sparkler stopped pacing.

"This… this isn't making any sense!" she said to us, her voice an octave higher than usual. "I'm the pony tutoring Dinky. I should know: She doesn't have the ability to generate magical force-fields yet, let alone disintegrate them! And neither she nor Sweetie Belle are anywhere near the level of teleportation yet. This isn't making any sense, not unless she's been conducting a profound amount of independent research without my knowing!"

She was looking me for affirmation; I shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"Then what? What!?" she shouted to the ceiling, as though to beseech it for answers.

She pressed her face against the floor, and hid beneath her forearms; she let out a sad moan.

It was hard to watch.

I exchanged glances of pity with Butter Sky, then Dash, then with an orange-colored mare with a trio of apples for a Cutie Mark. I recognized her from the day the Haissanian attacked. She hadn't been wearing any bandages on her head when I had delivered her SSC invitation the day before, and she wasn't wearing any now. According to her, the blow that had knocked her unconscious was nothing.

She had appeared in the ward after Butter Sky.

The apple one, or Apples, as I decided to nickname her, stepped forward. "Erm, sugarcube," she said, a gentle hoof on Sparkler's shoulder. "Maybe we oughtta search for that Haissanian pony again? Just to be sure he don' have 'er?"

I was grateful that somepony decided to focus on the part of the mystery that involved a foal going missing.

A flash and bang came, this time purple.

Suddenly behind Apples, Sparkler turned her around to face her. "We searched all day yesterday," Sparkler said, shaking her, "and we found nothing, AJ! Nothing! NOTHING! And even if we did search, what would we prove if we came up empty-hoofed again? Huh? Huh? NO-THING! The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, Applejack! Nopony in town has seen her; we confirmed this just a few minutes ago, and we have compiled enough evidence in general to conclude that Dinky is gone, i.e. absent! Yet, does that not also qualify as the absence of evidence of her being here? What, then, can we conclude, girls? Girls?"

Beside me whimpered Butter Sky. I held a protective hoof across her, and so did Apples. "Whoa, calm down, Twi," Dash said, waving her hooves down.

Sparkler was looking at each of us in turn with frightening desperation.

Striding towards her, I did what I did whenever Ditzy got like this: I slapped Sparkler with my wing. In hindsight, I really shouldn't have used the cool mechanical one, because afterwards, she was wincing, massaging the redder-than-blush blemish on her cheek.

"It's for your own good," I said firmly, walking back to comfort Butter Sky.

And as I did, Dash landed between us to chip her part in. "Twi. Listen. You told us yesterday the Haissanian was after Dinky. Just Dinky."

Sparkler sighed through her nostrils. "That's what Ditzy told me, anyway. I mean, that might have been mother's intuition speaking on her behalf, but — "

"Twi," Dash said, cutting her off, "let's start with the facts."

"Facts? Facts? What facts? We have no facts here! We know absolutely — "

"Breathe, Twi-light," Apples reminded her.

"Twi. Twi." Dash paused to choose her words carefully. When she spoke, she did so slowly. "We just came back from searching the town — again. None of the townsponies know where Dinky is. But listen, Twi. We may not know where she is. But we do have a pretty good idea of where she isn't."

"Oh?" I said, leaning closer.

My interest seemed to bolster her confidence.

We were all listening. Apples was listening, a foreleg around Butter. Butter was sitting on the floor, looking up at Dash like the latter was a teacher about to give an interesting lecture for once. Most importantly, Sparkler had also leaned close in to listen, her ears alert, her eyes, though bloodshot, were fixated on a suddenly uncomfortable Rainbow Dash, who cleared her throat.

"So anyways, we don't know where she might have gone. But we do have a pretty good idea of where she might not have gone. Fluttershy, what did the hot-balloon mare say when Pinkie made you talk to her?"

Butter Sky was tracing circles in the floor, at which she mumbled a series of barely intelligible sounds. Dash and I gave her identical withering stares. "Fluttershy says, 'She said the hot-air balloon hasn't been back from its trip to Canterlot in days'," Apples said, loudly and clearly for her.

Dash was nodding. "Exactly, exactly," she said, like something was going according to plan. "And Applejack. What did the train station pony say when you asked him?"

"He said, 'Ain't no foals came by for no ticket or no ride. Ain't no grown ponies, neither. Ain't no trains runnin' for almos' a week now'. Dunno how that's supposed ter help us, but," Apples said with a shrug.

"Wait. I think I understand now," Sparkler said, her pupils lighting up. "I get it. Rainbow Dash! You're a genius! How did I not see it before?"

"What can I say, Twi?" Dash said, raising in her arms in a would-be careless shrug. "I learn from the best."

She gave me a knowing wink, which was my cue; smiling, I began to recite the quote.

"'Once you have eliminated the impossible'…"

"…'whatever remains'…" Dash supplied.

"…'however improbable'…" Sparkler said.

"…'must be the truth!'" we three exclaimed.

And then we laughed our exultation. But victory was far from ours.

Sparkler was hugging Dash, their cheeks smushed together. "Rainbow, you're a genius!"

"No, not me," Dash said, pointing. "She's the genius."

I rubbed the back of my mane. "Actually…"

I stepped aside, and turned around to let Sparkler's and Dash's eyes find the true originator of the quote. Relatively speaking, anyway; Sparkler knew this as well. "She actually took it from —

"Sir Arthur Colton O'Bale," Sparkler and I said.

"Via his world-famous detective character, Sir Sherclop Pones," she added as a footnote, with her hoof raised and her eyes closed knowingly.

Sharing this inside joke was overwhelming, empowering. I felt infused with new life. I was drunk on a euphoria that fanponies probably felt whenever they were gushing over my stuff. Isn't it just the best when you and a pony you've known for a while realize that you've both been in the same fandom the whole time, with neither having thought to ask? My chest was swelling warmly, moreso than it had done in a very long time.

Sadly, Dash killed it; it wasn't her fault, though. "Who?" she said to Sparkler.

"Not important, not important," Sparkler said, and it was her turn to wave Dash down. "What is important is the matter at hoof."

Apples raised her hoof like she was in class. "Uh, can somepony fill us in on what's goin' on?"

"Gladly, my dear Applejack," said Sparkler, still in excited-fanfilly mode. "Since we know neither the hot-air balloon nor train has taken any passengers for a few days now, we know Dinky couldn't have gone far. But we also know she isn't in town anymore — more than a couple of ponies can attest to that."

"So what? Y'all sayin' the foal's gone up and pitched up a tent in that there Everfree?"

Butter Sky shuddered, at the name apparently. Crouching, I rubbed her shoulder to better calm her down. "Sorry," I said, "what's the Everfree?" Again, the shudders came.

"Ah, ya know," Apples drawled absently, "big scary place, lots of weird scary critters. Ain't nothin' there that grow natural. Weather's slippier, too. Ain't no way nopony would go there unless they were really itching for adventure and a wee bit more."

"Or if their name is Zecora," Dash chimed in; I shook my head. "What?"

"Rainbow. I have a feeling Dinky doesn't want to be found. If she went into hiding, then she wouldn't go to somepony we know." This somepony wasn't somepony I was personally acquainted with, to say the least, but the name had come up too many times for me to not bother asking about it. Apparently, Zecora was a zebra who used to wear a cloak whenever she went to town. The Haissanian had also had a cloak on him. I still found it weird that everypony thought he was Zecora even though that scare had long passed.

"So… where would she be hiding?" Dash asked, in regard to Dinky.

'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

"However improbable," I repeated to myself, the conclusion slowly rising to my reluctant lips. I think we all had been trying to deny the painfully obvious (painful for me personally) out of wishful thinking. It was then that I realized that until the amount of justification for it was too much to ignore, we had just been avoiding the worst possible conclusion: "Dinky is being taken by him to Haissan."

"It's settled, then," Sparkler said, stamping the waxed floor. "We depart for Haissan immediately. Girls. Move out!"

Sparkler galloped out of the room, with Apples and Dash not far behind.

Dash poked her head back into the room. "Yo. Fluttershy. Daring. Comin' or what?"

Still sitting on the floor, Fluttershy nodded; standing beside her, I shrugged, 'What can you do?'

After a playful roll of her eyes, Dash zoomed out of sight.

Scraping the floor awkwardly, I muttered, "Hey… thanks."

Butter Sky gave a little head-tilt. "What are friends for?" she said with a smile to match.

The words she left me with that day stuck.

"Friends…" I echoed. "Friends."

We never did have the chance to make many of those back in the day. No, we were too busy making enemies. Foraging through temples, earning the ire of the local guardian and keeper and what-have-you was one way to make an enemy. Our go-to was crashing through foreign marketplaces, and being too busy to acknowledge let alone pay for the collateral damage we left behind in those chase scenes that were always fun to write. Occasionally, antics like these earned Ditzy and I self-proclaimed archnemeses. One 'archnemesis' would always shout dramatically into the sky, 'Sisters Doo!' as we got away.

Ditzy always found that cute. That was partly why I had included that in some form with villains like the fictional Ahuizotl. I wondered if any of our actual enemies would take pity on her as she was now.

Dash was calling for us again.

Fluttershy fluttered onto her hooves and pranced away; she wouldn't have been too out of place in a field of sunflowers.

"I'll give you two some privacy," she said over her shoulder as she rounded the corner and out of sight.

That it was almost time to go, that there was no more time to dawdle idly by was palpable in my veins.

I peered into my Sis's face one last time.

Still asleep.

Her hooves were crossed in a wide-X over her chest; her mouth was hanging open. Still, no annoyingly loud snores issued from it.

She had not risen, not even to engage in our little literature discussion and amateur P.I. work. I promised, once she woke up, to tell her all about it.

A pair of goldenrod lips pecked her unknowing cheek. "See ya soon, Sis."

Turning away, I unfolded my wings.

It had gotten even brighter out. The summer air blew against me with all the gentleness of sandpaper.

But enough about the weather.

"There you are, slowpoke!" teased a mare.

That mare sounded like she was playing on a pogo stick, somehow fast enough to keep up with my wing-strides. When my eyes adjusted, I thought they were playing tricks on me, because that was precisely what she was doing. She was following me, and so were her round blue eyes. I didn't have time for that.

I thought I heard Dash in the distance calling me over.

I increased my speed; the pogo stick kept up.

"So what fun nickname are ya gonna give me? Huh? Huh? The bouncy one?"

I ignored her, only for my eyes to sting with bitter wetness. "The bubbly one?" she said.

A barrage of soft rocks pelleted my face. "The kooky one?" she said, laughing. "Get it? Koo-oky?"

Also, she was carrying a jar of… well, I'll let you figure that one out.

The distinct blow of a noisemaker came. "The noisy one?"

A shower of balloons scattered into the sky. "The ballooney one?"

Colorful streamers corkscrewed across my vision in perfectly straight paths, making her giggle. "Yeah, they do that. Sometimes. Maybe. Always. So anyways, the messy one?

"Ahh? Ahh?" she aired hopefully.

I flapped faster to let her get acquainted with a gust I had been dying for her to meet.

But they met, exchanged hello's, and went on their separate ways, so to speak.

"The cymbal-lic one?"

A clap of you-know-what's followed.

"The symbolic cymbal-lic one?"

When this was over, I'd have to ask how she fit all this stuff in her mane.

"The one from the really stern family?" she said, suddenly solemn, complete with a bubbling pipe in her mouth.

"Or the rubber-chicken-y one?"

Squeak-squeak.

"Or the normal-chicken-y one? Pa-KAH!"

"The pastry-y one?" Slurp. "Mmm."

"The rocky-y one?" Thud.

"The cake-y one? Mmm. (Again. Tee-hee!)."

"The comby-haired one…?" she said with an eye-twitch that made me do a seriously concerned double-take to find her in a costume of black wool.

"The black sheep? Ba-a-a-a!"

"The black sheep, but with a painted pink coat? Ba-a-a-a!"

"The black sheep in a family of grey ponies, except with a painted pink coat? Ba-a-a-a!"

"The pink sheep in a family of grey sheep, with cotton candy wool? Ba-a-a-a!"

I think I'm gonna need therapy after this.

"The pink pony in a family of grey but figuratively black sheep who are standing on top of a really stern stern of the S.S. Rock the Rocky Ba-a-a-oat, except they're all eating cotton-candy wool as symbolism of the fact that they all love each other very very much, and they would do anything for each other, even play the combs and cymbals for each other until that boat flies away on a skyway that leads to the mystical chicken-y land of fun and Mrs. Cake's super-duper-secret collection of cake-trees and delicious mouth-watering ice cream banana-fluff berries sprouting from those trees, which were also made of bubbles that kept making noise that their next-door neigh-eigh-eigh…"

…

To be honest, I sort of tuned out the rest of that.

Not gonna lie: It took three whole minutes for her to catch her breath after that maze of relative pronouns, adjective clauses, and a bunch of other linguistic jargon I won't bore you with. She was reinflating her breath like a self-inflating balloon. No kidding. Hm. Maybe 'the ballooney one' did have some merit, after all.

"The one-mare band?" she offered next, re-emerging with…

That's when I gave up. "How about the pink one?" I offered, eyeing the shiny thistles of her coat. "Pinky, for short?"

Pinky gasped into a smile. "Ooh, ooh! You mean like for the short Pinkie finger?"

I wrinkled my muzzle. "Finger?"

"Never mind," she said happily, eyeing the flat of her hoof for some reason.

Then she took a deep exaggerated breath.

You don't want to know what she did next.

Anyway…

Sweet Luna's teat, it took forever to get to Rainbow Dash and co.

Turns out, Pinky was part of her troupe. Who woulda thunk, right?

I caught up with Dash on wing. We couldn't go too fast. We couldn't leave behind the unicorn, the earth pony, and the pegasus, who apparently didn't like flying. And I wasn't going to call her out on it. But that sure does sound like an opening line to some joke, I'm not gonna lie. It also sounded like Hearthswarming, or maybe a motto that Princess Celestia might have hanging in her castle somewhere.

"What were you and Pinkie Pie even doing back there?" Dash asked me, awakening me from my boring literary musings. The wind was flapping through our manes. Sweet Celestia, she looked so beautiful for a sportsmare. "Well?"

"Oh," I stuttered, trying to remember.

Then there she was, below us, bouncing, this time without a pogo stick. Giving me a wink, she bounced on. "I don't want to talk about it," I grumbled.

And I still don't.

"Where are we going?" I asked Sparkler below.

"The train station," she answered, looking up at me, "Rarity's withdrawing her bits. We can take a train from Canterlot, and hitch a ride on an airship from there."

"Roger that," I said, saluting her.

Waiting for us at the train station was an entire herd. I hadn't seen a crowd that packed since the Animareacon seven moons ago. I had had to booth it by a couple of experienced authors and some fresh blood, published and otherwise. Security guards had been posted at the exits, trained to calm any riots and some of the more — ahem — passionate con-goers.

Something like that was happening at the train station. Except these guards were probably far better-trained, and they were definitely way better-equipped. My hindlegs were already throbbing at the clank of their mail. What can I say? They had learnt to expect pain after too much experience kicking body armor.

The guards were trying to corral the civilians. It had become so packed that the latter had to stand on the ground around the station, instead of on the wooden platform. We had to, too.

"I gotta get back to Dodge Junction! My cherries — they'll be a-dying if Momma don't git back to 'em, post-haste-like, hear!"

"But what about my reservation at Blueblood's royal hotel? It's simply to die for!"

"Forget tha', mate! Us Appleloosans'll be facin' a horde of angry hungry buffalo 'f we don' get these pies down over there on the pronto."

"…offering an indoor casino, five-star chefs, and special seating for this year's Summ…"

"We gotta get back to Trottingham, now. Our vacation ended days ago. I'll never hear the end of it from my boss if…"

"…wantin' their share…"

"…poor baby girl…"

"…else am I supposed to flaunt my bits…"

"Please."

"Please!"

"Stop advertising fer that prissy blueblood fer us, will ya, mate?"

"Excuuu-use me?"

"Oh, my boutique in Manehattan. How she pines for me!"

"Oh, I know your pain, darling."

My ears perked up at the sound of that nickname.

Fussy had a sympathetic hoof on the shoulder of a tall teal unicorn mare. An overly large sunhat sat on the mare's streaked orange mane, and when the teal mare turned, her ears jangled with what my well-practiced ears discerned as four-, no, five-carat sapphires.

Letting out a dramatic gasp, Fussy froze and pointed. For the duration she pointed, it might have been that she had gone deaf to the tumult around her. "Your earrings," she began softly.

"And your Cutie Mark," the teal mare continued, also pointing.

Clamping their hooves together, they jumped up and down.

"A match made in heaven!" they gushed.

Loud and high squealed the fashionistas, uncaring for and / or oblivious to the dirty looks being cast their way. Parting away from them, the mob parted away from them, covering their ears as the guardsponies paused their unfortunate duty of crowd-control to do the same.

Minutes passed until the mares finally fainted onto a regal-looking couch, which was pushed into place, right on cue, by a small, slouching dragon.

"Whew," he went, wiping his brow as the tumult resumed.

Sparkler spotted him. "Spike. Spike! What's going on? Here, too?"

"Yep," he said, panting.

The knocking was getting steadily louder until the crowd turned their attention to the platform where they would usually be waiting. There, a line of groundbound soldiers were pounding the blunt of their lances on the wood.

Pegasus guards flew up to our level to surround Dash, me, and more than a handful of angry pegasi. These guards also had lances, which for the first time weren't being pointed at me. The heads of the lances were made to stare idly up, while the pegasi pointed their muzzles at the platform.

A more decorated guardpony emerged, the headstallion by the looks of it.

All eyes were on him.

He told everypony to settle down. According to him, the train had been cancelled on orders of Princess Celestia. He continued on, saying that no more trains would be running until after the SSC. We were ordered to disperse, the pegasi above and the earth ponies and unicorns below. He said that he didn't want to use force; I meanwhile, really needed the exercise.

I soared into the air and was about to perform one of my trademarked piledriver kicks!

"Daring!" Dash said.

I descended to her level again. "Fine," I huffed, forelegs crossed.

The other civilian pegasi were flying away. I meanwhile was trying to catch the eye of a pegasus guard.

It took, like, five years for him to turn and stare boredly my way.

"Ya like?" I said, flexing my mechanical wing; I wiggled my eyebrows at him for extra effect.

But he merely shook his head and motioned for us to descend.

I obeyed, but scoffed as I touched the ground; his loss.

Sparkler was more tenacious than the ponies scattering this way and that. She was arguing with the headstallion. I saw Sparkler's ears droop when she was told that there would be no exceptions. Dash, Pinky, Apples, and even Butter Sky flanked her. The headstallion's soldiers did the same for him. Even after the mention of a foalnapping, his answer did not change. He did tell us, to our surprise, that an airship had already been sent to retrieve the filly in question. We were told, yet again, to vacate the premises. As lances were being pointed at us this time, we had no choice but to obey.

"Let's go, girls," Sparkler droned, slumping past us.

Once we were back in town, Dash and I took to the air again, per our usual.

But sadly, the troupe had to go their separate ways. Apples mentioned something about having an orchard to get back to. Butter Sky was apparently a pet owner — a pet owner whose angel-bunny got cranky if he wasn't fed on-time. After those two left, Sparkler said she had an idea; Pinky bounced after her. "Aww, but Twilight…! I didn't even see your lightbulb go off!"

Now, it was just a dragon between me, a pegasus, and two sleeping mares. …Well, that sure sounds like the premise of a cheesy foaltale. I mean, if you forget to mention that the dragon in question isn't exactly big or menacing. He sure was sweating, though, lugging that huge couch through town for presumably the second time.

Atop the couch still lay Fussy and her soulmate, looking as content as though they were sleeping atop clouds.

Trading looks with Dash, I hoisted one end of the couch up. "Whoa, hey!" yelped the dragon, at whom I flashed one of my signature winks.

"We'll take it from here, dude," Dash said to him, holding up the other end of the couch.

"Aw…" the dragon said, slumping his shoulders.

He might have been raised by ponies, but boy, could he whip up a dish like a native from the Eastern Dragonlands.

Dash and I carried the couch in the direction of the local apple orchard. I could have sworn that the whiter of the sleeping mares had shot me a peek during the trip. But there were other things on my mind, things I had kept silent on the way to the train station, things that I no longer felt like keeping to myself.

"Is it just me," I whispered, leaning over the sofa, "or are there more guards stationed around the town than usual?"

"Maybe they're here to investigate… like us."

I was glad former partner's tone had some skepticism in it. "I sure hope you're right."

We passed two guards that continued to watch us as we left town.

The heat was making the outer reaches of the orchard look wavy. We followed a dirt path into the vast open fields. Neither Apples nor her big red brother was tending the fields once we reached the place. 'Probably having lunch or something', I silently assured myself. The soil in the fields looked damp from my altitude. The pig sty, on the other hoof, was perfectly moist, kept wet and icky by the occasional pig rolling happily around in it.

Neither Dash nor I said a word.

We merely lowered our altitudes as we flew on.

We were getting ready to land when Dash glanced at Fussy's soft, contented snores.

Something was lighting up inside Dash's eyes when they locked with mine.

"Wait, wait, too high, too high," she mouthed to me.

I lowered my altitude in tandem with hers; then I took her cue to stop.

"Better?" I mouthed back.

And then it was like I was looking in a cyan-tinted mirror, baby.

My hooves slipped. Whoops.

"Wah!"

The peace and quiet of the country was disrupted. Nopony got hurt in the production of our joke — except maybe the couch. The end I had been holding was higher up in the air than the other; the couch was half-sunken in dense, gooey mud and other stuff that farm-pigs liked rolling around in. Shrill whines disturbed the peace of the farm, rattling the fresh scent of country air. Screaming and running frantically around the couch were ol' Fussy and the teal mare. They kept yelping and yelping like spooked dogs.

Our hooves were now free to point, and point they did.

Our laughter was not missed by Fussy and her gal-pal, who overcame their shock to glare up at us. We didn't even try to act ashamed. We were treated to a throaty retch for our lack of effort. "Rainbow Dash! Do you have any idea how much it will cost to have that fainting couch replaced!" ol' Fussy scolded, gesturing to it.

Her fury seemed to melt the filth right off her coat.

Dash's face was as red as a beet. It was hard to tell if the breath she was struggling for was even for an answer. "Whatever! You got like a billion in your closet!"

The teal mare, drenched in filth, snarled. "My!" she said, whipping her disheveled hair about herself. "What uncouth behavior!"

"Hmph!" ol' Fussy squeaked, pointing her muzzle up; she made to strut out the pig sty. "Come, Miss Saddles. I can have a bed for you tonight in Carousel Boutique, my usual premises. If we are lucky, we can have Mayor Mare lift the condemnation that's been placed upon it. No, no. Do not look. We mustn't stoop to their level."

"It's not like you can soar to our level, either!" I shouted between my cupped hooves.

I pounded hooves with Dash.

Miss Saddles shot me a disgusted look before turning away.

"C'mon, c'mon," Dash said, elbowing me, "we gotta tell Scootaloo what we just did. C'mon."

She led the way back to town, over the guards, and to Scootaloo's house. Now that our load was lighter, the trip barely took twenty seconds.

The line of cottages we arrived at were much nicer than Ditzy's apartment complex. No complaints here, though.

"Yo, Scootaloo," said Dash, rapping the door. "Scootaloo! You gotta hear what me and Daring Do just did. Scootaloo!"

"Scootaloo!" I shouted, finally bothered to get her name right. "Scootaloo! Scootaloo!"

Dash flew up and peeked through a window. "Scootaloo!"

The door creaked open below her.

Landing, Dash was all too ready to launch into a full recount; I, on the other hoof, was not.

The inside of the house was pitch-dark.

The doorknob was being held by a pony. The lines dragging down her eyes made her look older than I was.

Dash's giddiness evaporated; it struck me how foalishly we had behaved.

When the aged mare spoke, she spoke in a low croak.

"Scootaloo isn't home."

She fell against the doorframe for support and hugged herself. As she sucked in a breath despite her shudders, I remembered a voice like hers at the train station, calling for her 'baby girl'.

"She hasn't been home since yesterday evening."