The New Six

Chapters

Time's almost up, old friend.
Pre-Season Episode 1: Flight of the Cricket
Pre-Season Episode 2: THE BEST DAY EVER!!!
Pre-Season Episode 3: Words Can Never Hurt Me
Pre-Season Episode 4: Dungeons and Not-Quite-Dragons
Pre-Season Episode 5: That's How Mafia Works

Time's almost up, old friend.

Deep in a forest in Northern Equestria, there stands a dilapidated stone tower. Clearly centuries--maybe even millennia of time long past has reduced it to its ruined state, the upper half fallen to the pine-littered ground beside the base. The interior of the base though, surprisingly enough, seems relatively recently disturbed. A few rolled-up scrolls clutter an old counter that has been cleaned of the dirt and dust that coat the surroundings. The moon overhead casts a dim glow on the scene, as well as an old overgrown path--barely recognizable as such--extending from an open doorway at the back of the tower that has long since lost its door.

Following the path out a ways leads to an unassuming clearing, but hidden within an illusory dome in the middle is a much less ordinary sight.

A thin veil of magic encapsulates a scene seemingly caught in time. Large amounts of black and yellow magical energy are stuck, suspended in a swirling motion around the center of the frozen bubble of the past. Standing on the far side, facing the remains of the tower, is a unicorn, similarly immobilized in a prison of motionlessness. Her pelt and mane are a blend of scarlet, pink, and white. Her hair is stopped in a wind-whipped state, and her eyes seem crazed, a wicked grin etched on her face.

The last things she saw can still be seen, the light reflected off her eyes still frozen in time with her. The tower, no longer in a state of disrepair, can be seen tall and proud. A rosy red flare of magic is also visible arcing past the head of a figure standing a few paces in front of her, their horn glowing with the same magic trapping her here. Trapping her here for all these years.
But now, her time was approaching. She was sure of it.

Soon, she would be free from this and fix his mistakes.

Pre-Season Episode 1: Flight of the Cricket

Author's Note

Hey, Lunasee here! If you'll indulge me, I'd like to get a few things out of the way before you get to reading.

First and foremost, I'm a fairly new writer, so critiques are welcomed! I do this for fun though, so don't be mean or confused if I take a while to upload. I'll usually try to maintain updates on my blog tho so keep an eye on that if you're curious.

This little series of mine is meant to be a sorta new season of MLP:FiM. Or a new generation. Whatever you wanna say, but I'm structuring it similarly to a season of the show. Every 'chapter' is an episode, and not every episode will be super lore-important, but there will be an overarching plotline with a finale. It'll be more mature, but other than that, I'm keeping it bound to the canon of the show as much as I can (no comics though, just the show) and hopefully won't accidentally retcon anything.

The first 5 "episodes" are actually Pre-Season episodes to introduce the New Six (hehe). I'm intending for them to be optional, but I encourage you to read them anyhow!

Another thing to be noted at this point in time: I'm currently in the process of re-writing the first 3 Pre-Season Episodes, because I believe I've grown quite a lot in the short time I've been writing and wanna redo them. I'll make a blog post about it when they're all ready, and they'll probably all release roughly around the same time unless I post otherwise.

With all that said, have fun reading! Spoilers for like, all of MLP:FiM by the way. I recommend watching all of that first.

Pre-Season Episode 1: Flight of the Cricket

Part 1

Ever since Chimney Cricket had been a little filly, she’d known her place in the world. Growing up in the Ponyville orphanage had taught her that. Despite the fact that the changelings had been largely reformed around 12 years ago, there seemed to be some… lingering prejudice.

As a half-changeling hybrid herself, Cricket had experienced this firsthoof, and she’d grown used to the sting of seeing her other, normal pony peers getting adopted while she remained.

She wasn't particularly bitter towards them, though. No, if she had any two individuals to blame for her misery, it’d be her parents. Whoever they were, anyways. They hadn’t done Cricket-- or anypony for that matter-- the courtesy of identifying themselves. They’d simply dropped her off at the Ponyville orphanage about 16 years ago and never been seen or heard from again.

Cricket bristled with anger every time she thought about them, which was pretty often. Some sick joke it was, conceiving and then abandoning her to the world. Cricket figures her parents must have realized they hated each other mid-way into their relationship. Maybe one of them hadn’t realized the other was a changeling, and they’d messily broken up. It’d explain her current parentless-ness if neither of them wanted anything to do with the other. It’d explain her weird name too. What even is a ‘Chimney Cricket’? Probably just the product of two bickering ponies who couldn’t settle on a single, normal name. Cricket rolls over in her new bed.

“Oh, right.” She thinks to herself, looking down at the bed. Contrary to the previous melodramatic spiel, Chimney Cricket had actually recently been adopted. Today, in fact. She’d honestly been expecting to get kicked out and forced to live on her own at 18 before anypony was crazy enough to take her in. The whole adoption was still a blur in her head, but she at least remembers how it started.

Cricket had been sitting in her room at the orphanage, sulking as per usual, when a knock sounded at the door. Cricket didn’t respond, hoping whoever was knocking would go away and leave her in peace, but they knocked again, more insistently.

“Ugh, come in.” She sighed, exasperated. The door creaked open, and one of the orphanage workers-- Fuzzy Feeling-- peered in.

“Ms. Cricket?” She asked.

“Yeah?” Cricket asked back, not turning to look at the door.

“You have a visitor. Please come down to the lobby as soon as you can.” Fuzzy Feeling said, before politely shutting the door. Cricket sighed again. She hardly saw the point in going down there. Even if it was a pony interested in adopting her, one look at her was usually all it took for them to make up their minds.

This time, however, would prove to be a bit different.

Cricket barely managed to not let her jaw drop to the floor when she saw who was waiting for her in the lobby. While she didn’t exactly get out much, Cricket would have to live under a rock to not recognize the pale yellow and pink pegasus standing on the other side of the room.

Fluttershy had been talking with Fuzzy Feeling and shifting her weight nervously, looking around. When she spotted Cricket, she almost seemed to instinctively shrink back, before evidently steeling herself. Fuzzy Feeling also noticed Cricket. “There you are; thank you for coming down on such short notice.” she says. Cricket was still a little too taken aback to form coherent words, so she settled on not saying anything at all.

“This is the pony you say has been living here her whole life?” Fluttershy asked, addressing Fuzzy Feeling.

“Yes.” They responded simply.

“Oh, you poor thing.” Fluttershy cooed, making a way-too-empathetic face and taking a step towards Cricket. Cricket flinched back a little, causing Fluttershy to step back again too. “Sorry.” she apologized, looking down and giving Cricket some space. “I know this is perhaps a bit sudden for you, but when I learned that there was a foal who’d been living here un-adopted for 16 years, I felt like somepony had to *do* something, and if nopony else, then why not me?” she explained soft-spokenly. Cricket had felt like her head was spinning. Fluttershy continued. “I’ll admit I’m a little inexperienced with foals, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone to help others.” she said warmly. Cricket has still been a little less than fully there at the moment. Fluttershy, seeming to notice Cricket’s lack of enthusiasm, shrunk down a little. “If… if that’s okay with you, I mean…” She added sheepishly. Cricket finally realized Fluttershy was waiting on her for a response.

“Sure.” she managed to get out.

“Oh, great!” Fluttershy exclaimed with all the excitement that could be contained in her quiet voice. Cricket remained spaced out as the paperwork was filled out and Fluttershy took her back to her cottage, giving her the tour. She didn't process much of it, though. She was in a cottage near the woods.

And now she was here, staring at the wall in a new bed. Cricket rolls back over to look at the ceiling. It all felt… weird. Cricket had only heard good things about Fluttershy, but what if she was hiding her true motives? What if this was all a trick? Or a dream? Cricket bites her foreleg. Ow. Nope, not a dream. The other options are still on the table, though.

Downstairs, Cricket can hear Fluttershy softly snoring on the couch. Credit where it’s due, if this was all a ruse, then Fluttershy was committed to making it seem legit. She could’ve made sure she had another bed prepped if this was all planned. Cricket turns to her other side, looking out the window at the moon. She didn’t know how she’d ever get to sleep at this rate.

Despite all her tossing and turning though, Cricket must’ve eventually dozed off, as she finds herself groggily waking up to the sounds of a conversation and the smell of tea wafting up from downstairs. Cricket groans, briefly considering falling back asleep, but one glance outside tells her it’s already probably about noon. She gets out of her ‘not-actually-hers’ bed and slowly trots down the stairs to see what the noise is about.

Cricket sees Fluttershy sitting on a cushy chair. On the other side of a small table, sitting on the sofa, is a large… creature? They appear to be a strange mish-mash of different animal parts. Chimney Cricket nearly startles into falling down the stairs as the creature’s bright yellow eyes apparate on the back of their head, looking directly at her.

“Oh!” The thing exclaims. He leans in close to Fluttershy’s ear and loudly whispers. “Fluttershy, I don’t mean to alarm you, but there appears to be an intruder in your cottage.”

“Oh, that’s no intruder. Discord, I’d like you to meet Chimney Cricket! Chimney Cricket, meet Discord.” Fluttershy explains cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?” She asks as Cricket slowly makes her way down the rest of the stairs, not taking her eyes off Discord.

“Sure.” She says hesitantly. Now that she thought of it, the name ‘Discord’ was familiar. He was the–

“Lord of Chaos!” Discord interjects, almost as if reading Cricket’s mind. “It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you,” he says, grinning. His talon-like arm stretches unnaturally to shake Cricket’s hoof. She hesitantly begins to reach up to it, only for another arm like Discord’s bird one to extend from behind her and shake claws with Discord instead. “But I’m sure it’s even better to meet me!”

His long arm begins to circle Cricket like a jump rope as he shakes claws with his own duplicate, and she has to jump to avoid being tripped before escaping from his long noodle arm’s reach.

“No fun.” he sighs, snapping his talons and vanishing the duplicate. “So,” he turns back to Fluttershy. “Who is this pony to you, anyways?”

“I adopted her yesterday.” Fluttershy explains calmly. Discord freezes, and then quite literally freezes over, before shattering into a fine, icy dust. Cricket is baffled by this, but Fluttershy is unphased. After a moment, he reforms.

“You WHAT?” He exclaims. Fluttershy simply looks at Discord as he seems to start panicking. “Y- why? Why and WHO?”

“Discord.” Fluttershy warns quietly, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“I-i mean just like why on such short notice? And why THEM and I just don’t understand and–”

“Discord!” Fluttershy says sternly. Discord pauses, looking at her, before composing himself. He clears his throat nervously.

“...sorry.” he says with some visible effort. Fluttershy smiles, satisfied.

“Okay, well I’m leaving.” Cricket says flatly, turning for the door.

“Oh, where to?” Fluttershy asks.

“Anywhere if it gets me away from this conversation.” Cricket mumbles under her breath.

“Oh! While you’re out, you should check out the friendship school!” Fluttershy exclaims.

“Why?” Cricket turns, confused.

“Because I enrolled you!” Fluttershy says happily.

Cricket blinks.

She blinks again.

…

“You what?”

Part 2

“Didn't I tell you yesterday? During the tour of the cottage?” Fluttershy asks, her expression a mix of puzzlement and concern. Cricket paused. Maybe Fluttershy had, but Cricket didn't remember approximately 90% of the tour.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Chimney Cricket says absent-mindedly. “I'm gonna… go. Now. Bye.” She leaves before Fluttershy or Discord can say anything, the cottage door swinging shut behind her. “The friendship school, really??” Cricket thinks to herself as she speed walks away from the cottage.

Cricket had never been to the friendship school-- she'd rarely gone out as it was, because you had to get adult supervision to leave the orphanage; not that there was anywhere she really needed or even wanted to go.

Nevertheless, Cricket has heard her fair share about eeevery little detail of the school from her orphanage peers, who'd fantasize about it like the friendship school was the single greatest thing to ever be invented. Barf. She doesn't want to go and ‘learn how to be friends’. She doesn't want to talk to anypony else as is, and she doubts anypony else wants to talk to her either. She'd lived her whole life without having other ponies getting involved in her business, why start now? She was perfectly fine with how her life was going before yesterday. Mostly. Probably.

Cricket pauses. It occurs to her at this moment that she doesn't know exactly where she's going. She was still on a path that almost certainly led to Ponyville, but she didn't have a destination per say. She looks around. The only sound to be heard was the wind whistling lazily through the Autumn trees.

At this moment, for just about the first time in her life, Cricket could do anything she wanted. She wasn't exactly sure how to feel about it, nor about everything else that had happened in the past day. She looks back in the direction of the cottage, now obscured from view. If she wants, she could just… run away. Live in the wild or something. She could probably make it with her changeling powers. At least, theoretically anyways. They didn't seem to quite work fully. At the orphanage, Cricket had been hesitant to try using her changeling powers to shift into anything, because even if they'd worked, she'd worried that swarms of foals would beg her to turn into Twilight-knows-what for their amusement if they found out, which would decidedly not be fun for Cricket. That hadn't stopped her from trying once or twice, though. Cricket had more or less been able to shift into other ponies, though she didn't seem able to change any more than the color of her torso and head for reasons that probably had to do with her only being half-changeling. Similarly, turning into different creatures did not quite work, as Cricket had discovered when trying to shift into a spider only resulted in turning a hoof-full of her hairs into long terrible spider legs. That had pretty effectively dissuaded her from practicing that any more.

Cricket realizes she was getting distracted. For the time being, she decides it isn't a good idea to run away. It was a solid backup plan, but perhaps a bit too early to commit to something that might end up being more dangerous than it's worth.

Her mind wanders back to what Fluttershy had said about ‘checking out the friendship school’ or whatever. Cricket groans internally. On the one hoof, it was possibly one of the last places she wanted to be right now, but on the other hoof, she really didn't have anywhere better to be.

Chimney Cricket groans again, this time verbally. Fine. She'll go to the friendship school. And if she happens to get lost on the way and never get there, then that'd be great.

Cricket continues down the path, now at a more leisurely pace. Eventually, the town of Ponyville comes into view. Plenty of colorful, happy looking ponies can be seen trotting around and doing their daily business. Cricket wishes she didn't stand out so much, with her dull gray pelt, changeling-like features, and permanent sour expression.

…Maybe she didn't have to stand out so much. As Cricket gets closer to the town, she looks around, hoping to spot somepony she recognizes. Bingo! She spies Ms. Cheerilee chatting with a vendor at a stall of some kind. While Cricket doesn't know Cheerilee very well, the teacher pony had come by the orphanage a fair few times to help teach basic school lessons to the foals there in her free hours.

Cricket closes her eyes, focusing on a mental image of Cheerilee, molding her being to resemble her. She feels herself get taller, and her mane puffs out a little in places.

She opens her eyes, looking down at her new hooves. Wow, that is way too pink. One color adjustment later though, and Chimney Cricket figures she looks at least passably like Cheerilee. She waits out of sight until the real Cheerilee is far enough away before stepping out into Ponyville.

The streets weren't exactly busy, even during mid-day, but this was still by far the most amount of ponies Cricket had ever seen in one place. The orphanage was fairly small; At its fullest from Cricket's memory, there'd been around 10 foals there, alongside 3 staff ponies. Here on the roads, there have to be like, maybe 20 ponies visible from where Cricket was standing. It was surprisingly overwhelming. Okay. Focus. Cricket tries to remember where the friendship school might be.

She'd never been able to see it from her window at the orphanage, but she'd been told it was next to the large, crystal friendship tree castle thing, which was VERY obviously visible from pretty much anywhere in town. That would make it a little harder to feasibly get lost. Cricket thinks. If she can't get lost, then she can at least 'explore' around and take the long way. If she's lucky, it'll get dark before she gets to the school. Surely Fluttershy would want her home before it got late, right?

Now, where to go that wasn't the obvious and huge friendship castle. The sound of a loud train horn interrupts her thought. Right, the train station! Despite the loud and abrasive nature of the train horn, she’d always found it oddly comforting. Perhaps because the train station was rather close to the orphanage? Regardless, it's a place to go that isn't the school, and that's all the reason Cricket needs.

Cricket steps onto the train platform, watching as various ponies pour out of the recently-arrived train with luggage in tow. One young-looking pony in particular squeezes herself out through the doors between two other ponies. Cricket is taken aback when she realizes the pony is an alicorn. Her pelt is a shade of pink so light it's nearly white, and her mane and tail are very curly-- looking almost unkempt-- with swirls of light blue on purple and pink hair. Cricket has to practically shield her eyes from the sheer amount of excitement radiating off of this pony.

To Cricket's horror, the pony’s eyes lock onto her, and she speeds towards Cricket. Cricket recoils as the new pony stops in front of her, narrowly avoiding a collision.

“Hi!” The alicorn chirps. Judging by her appearance, Cricket would guess this pony is a couple years younger than her. She looks around, but unfortunately spots nopony who would seem to be this kid’s parents.

“Um. Hi.” Cricket responds uncertainly.

“I think I recognize you…” the bright pony says, squinting at Cricket.

“Why would y–” Cricket stops. “Oh no, that's right, I'm Cheerilee.” She thinks to herself with a gulp. “Yyyup, it's me! I know… youuu..? Too? Probably?”

The new pony squints harder, and Cricket begins to sweat. After a moment though, she seems to buy it, as her expression immediately changes back to one of sheer joy. “Cool!” She says. “Just in case you don't know, I'm Princess Flurry Heart!” She raises her hoof expectantly, beaming.

“I'm uh… Cheerilee.” Cricket says as un-suspiciously as she can muster, shaking hooves with Flurry Heart.

“I know!” Flurry cries happily, her cheery expression unwavering. Cricket gives her a puzzled look, but Flurry doesn't seem to notice.

“So what are you, um. Doing here?” Cricket asks, mustering all of her social interaction skills. She needs to find a way out of this conversation as fast as possible.

“I'm here for the friendship school!” Flurry practically shouts. Cricket is worried the child might explode from how giddily she's prancing in place. “It starts in just like, a week! I'll be staying at Twilight’s Castle, although now it's more like Starlight's Castle, until it starts! IN JUST ONE WEEK! eeeEEEEE!!”

By this point, most of the ponies had gotten off the train. From within, Cricket hears a voice calling.

“...Flurry Heart, dear, where have you run off to?”

“Oop, sounds like my parents need me.” Flurry says, turning her head towards the train. “Again…” she adds quietly under her breath. Cricket silently thanks Twilight for mercifully bringing this conversation to a close.

“I'll, ah, be going now..!” Cricket says, eager to get away from Flurry Heart.

“Okay, bye! See you at the school!” Flurry yells, waving as Cricket sprints off.

After a minute or so of running, Cricket stops to catch her breath in a narrow, shady path between two stores. She hopes she doesn't have to interact with that pony any more than necessary when school starts.

...

Wait. Did she say that she'd see Cricket at school? But she was currently disguised as–

“Ah, Cheerilee!” A familiar, jovial voice exclaims. Oh no. “That's right, it's me, your good pal Discord!”

Cricket looks up to see Discord slowly gliding down from the sky towards her, holding an umbrella that's somehow perfectly slowing his descent. He lands, pulling Cricket into a tight hug.

“Ow. Hi, er, Discord.” Cricket manages to gasp out despite being squeezed. Discord sets her down.

“You know, it's the strangest thing! I could've sworn I just saw you walking down the street all the way across town, but here you are instead!” He says just a little too happily. Cricket gulps. “That reminds me! Did you hear that Fluttershy of all ponies adopted a child yesterday?” He says, getting close to her face.

“...No?” She lies.

“I'm so happy for her.” Discord says, teary-eyed as he strikes a dramatic pose, unfazed by Cricket's response. “Her and I are best friends, you know, so I believe in her judgment of character, but it sure would be terrible if that pony she adopted turned out to be... rotten." Discord stares at her for a beat before continuing. "There's no telling what kind of mischief she could get up to with her changeling powers! Did I forget to mention she's part changeling? Oh, silly me!” He snorts. Cricket doesn't say anything.

“Anyways, I've got important chaos business to attend to. Toodles!” Discord salutes, before plugging his nose and cannonballing into the dirt with a surprising splash of water. With that, he's gone. Cricket stands in silence for a moment. “That was ominous.” She mutters to herself. Perhaps disguising as Cheerilee had been a bad idea. Cricket ditches the false appearance, returning to her normal state.

She steps back out into the streets and almost immediately bumps directly into Fluttershy.

“Eep!” the Pegasus lightly exclaims, stumbling back and dropping a bag of produce. “I'm so sorry– I didn't see you!” She apologizes. Cricket just stares blankly at her. Why did she have to keep getting into social interactions???

“On the bright side,” Fluttershy says, standing up and retrieving her bag. “You're just the pony I was hoping to bump into!” She giggles softly at her own joke. Cricket rolls her eyes. “You haven't been to the friendship school yet, have you?” Fluttershy asks.

“I haven't, why?” Cricket responds, trying to hide her hope that Fluttershy will give her an excuse not to go.

“Because I wanted to go with you!” Fluttershy beams. It takes all of Cricket's restraint to not loudly groan in distaste.

“Do you not have a tea party or whatever with Discord?” Cricket ventures.

“No, he left shortly after you did. Said he ‘had something to deal with’.” Fluttershy replies thoughtfully. Cricket deflates a little. She briefly considers making up a lie to get out of going to the school, but with Discord’s words fresh on her mind, she decides against any more misinformation for the moment. The truth was she didn't have anything more important to be doing, as much as she dislikes admitting it to herself.

“Alright fine, let's get this over with.” Cricket sighs.

“Great!” Fluttershy exclaims. “Even though I'm a teacher at the school, I should check in with Headmare Starlight first to make sure it's alright if I let you have a tour of the building, since the school isn't open yet." She explains. "I have to drop off this produce at Sweetfeather Sanctuary, but then I'll meet up with Starlight at the castle. You can get a head start to the school in the meantime!”

With that, Fluttershy takes off, flying roughly in the direction of her cottage. Cricket grimaces at the sky for a moment, before sighing loudly and trudging towards the friendship school. She makes sure to take her precious time. Maybe this ‘Headmare Starlight’ would be against her getting an early tour of the school. That'd be convenient.

Suddenly, Cricket hears voices approaching from behind her. She turns, seeing Flurry Heart and her parents making their way down the path towards the friendship castle. Oh no. Thinking quickly, Cricket dives into a nearby bush. She's jabbed by protruding branches, but it's better than being subjected to Flurry Heart again. Cricket watches as the family passes. Flurry was in front, evidently failing to contain her excitement as her gaze remains fixated on the friendship school. Her parents trail behind her, barely keeping up. Cricket thinks she recognizes the mother based on description. Princess Cadance, was it? She's a bright pink alicorn with an elegant stature and an apparently magical mane of magenta and gold that's literally flowing around her. She's chatting with somepony who Cricket presumes is her husband: a brilliant white stallion with a deep navy mane. She didn't really remember his name quite as well. Shiny Harbor or something?

The doors of the friendship castle open for the trio, as they're greeted by a pinkish purple unicorn with a violet mane sporting teal stripes. The unicorn invites them inside, before the door closes. Phew. Tragedy averted. With the coast clear, Cricket frees herself from the confines of the bush, shaking off a few clingy twigs and leaves, before she continues walking towards the friendship school. Not that she has to walk very far. The friendship school is pretty much literally right beside the castle.

Despite the latter being much taller, the friendship school in specific seems to loom over Cricket. She tries not to acknowledge the fear rising in her gut at the thought of going to the school. She stares at it, apparently losing track of time during which, only being snapped out of her trance as a flash of teal light appears beside her, making her jump slightly. As the magic dissipates, Cricket sees Fluttershy alongside that pinkish unicorn seen opening the door for Flurry Heart and her family earlier. Fluttershy spots Cricket first.

“Sorry for making you wait, Chimney Cricket, but I'd like you to meet the Headmare of the school, Starlight Glimmer!” Fluttershy says. Starlight Glimmer steps forward beside Fluttershy.

“It's nice to m–” Starlight Glimmer begins, before cutting off as she sees Cricket. The two lock eyes, and a flash of what looks like fear, or recognition, or perhaps some mix of both crosses Starlight's face for a split second before she looks away, letting out a small cough. “Apologies, there must have been something in my throat.” She says, looking back at Cricket, who squints slightly. “As I was saying, it's nice to meet you, Chimney Cricket! I'm sorry to hear what you've gone through, but I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends at this school!” she says in a very teacher-ly way. “If you'll excuse me for juuust a moment, I need to check something really fast!” She says quickly, teleporting before Fluttershy or Cricket can get a word in.

“That's odd.” Fluttershy remarks. A few moments pass, before Starlight teleports back as abruptly as she'd left. There's a look of relief on her face, though Cricket still feels like she has an apprehensive air about her.

“Apologies again! Where were we… ah, yes!” Starlight leads the group of two up to the large front doors of the friendship school.

The building, to Cricket, is aggressively colorful. Far too many bright pinks and purples assault her eyes as she gazes upon it. Not only that, but the building is practically showing off with not one, not two, but THREE waterfalls coming out of it. One of which parts in the middle just above the front doors, cascading on either side of it. Excessive much?

Starlight’s horn glows as she pushes the doors open with her magic, revealing a large, spacious room with many stone pillars tipped by sparkly pink crystals. It branches off to the left and right further in, as well as having a collection of archways back down the middle, which seem to connect to a small central outdoor plaza of sorts. “Welcome to the school of friendship!” Starlight announces, leading the small group inside. A banner reading ‘WELCOME, NEW STUDENTS!’ is hanging from the ceiling, displayed… sideways, as it appears to have fallen on one end.

“It’s a… work in progress at the moment.” Starlight says nervously. “Even though this is my fourth time going through this, I’m never fully prepared.” Starlight laments with an exhausted chuckle. “But enough about me! Do you have anywhere you’d like to see first, Chimney Cricket?” Starlight asks, trying to look less tired than she probably is.

Cricket shrugs. Starlight throws a sideways glance at Fluttershy, who looks away awkwardly. “Alright, then!” Starlight declares, feigning excitement. “Why don’t we check out the dorms first? Maybe you could give some input on which room you’d like to be in for when I go to assign the groups?”

“Groups?” Cricket asks.

“Yes! Demand for the friendship school has been rising, but we only have so much space,” Starlight explains. “So I figured I could solve that problem by having two students per room! Now we can have more students, and it’s like you get a friend as soon as you start your time here at school! Roommates are fun!” Starlight exclaims.

With perfect comedic timing, the other half of the banner falls down. Starlight groans, putting her hoof to her face.

“...What if you just, like, didn’t assign students to rooms and let them decide for themselves?” Cricket ventures. Starlight opens her mouth to respond, but stops, pondering.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she says, beginning to pace. “It’d also lessen my workload a bit…” she mumbles to nopony in particular. “I can also always make adjustments if necessary…”

Fluttershy politely clears her throat, snapping Starlight out of her pacing. “Oh– sorry! Right! Uhh.. Why don’t we go see the dorms then, and you can perhaps pick one in advance?” Starlight says, clearly just a little distracted.

“Sure.” Cricket agrees, generally disinterested.

The group of three walk down the halls of the school, and Cricket continues to be unimpressed by the flamboyant palette of the school, which regrettably persists throughout the ENTIRE building apparently.

“Here we are!” Starlight announces as the group stops in front of a branching hallway. “Well, partially. There’s a few different wings of dorms. We have around 50 rooms total. Some have different views from the windows, so–” Cricket walks past Starlight as she talks, heading for a room labeled ‘13’. She’s drawn to it because she’d grown up in a similarly labeled room in the orphanage. She’s happy to find that, when she opens the door, the view outside is about 75% obscured by a tree, making the room significantly darker.

“I like this one.” Cricket says with a tiny grin. Fluttershy and Starlight peer in above her. Starlight looks unsurprised.

“Alright, well you probably weren’t getting much competition for this one anyways, so it’s all yours. Well, besides your roommate, of course…whoever that ends up being.”

A while later, Cricket is walking back to the cottage with Fluttershy. The tour had ended shortly after the dorms, because Starlight said she had something to work on. Not that Cricket was complaining.

“I’m sorry that you didn’t seem to have much fun today.” Fluttershy speaks up suddenly, looking back apologetically at Cricket as they walk. “...I get the impression that this has all been happening very quickly for you– perhaps too quickly…and it’s my fault.” She continues. “...If you want, it’s not too late for me to un-enroll you in the school of friendship.”

Cricket’s gut reaction is to say 'OH YES PLEASE'... but something holds her back. She thinks back to the events of the day. Despite the fact that it was probably mundane for most ponies, it was the most she’d done in... gosh, easily several years. That thought made her feel... sad. Even though she was left exhausted, it was also somewhat refreshing, weirdly.

“...Nah.” She replies to Fluttershy, who looks happy and relieved.

“I’m glad.” She says, looking forward again. Cricket was admittedly maybe a little tiny bit terrified of going to the friendship school, but she remembers back to how Fluttershy had mentioned she went out of her comfort zone to help her. Cricket wasn't about to get all mushy, even in her thoughts, but she has to admit that if she couldn't at least try to do the same, she wouldn't be doing a good job of thanking Fluttershy for saving her from the orphanage.

It’s not like she has anything better to do, anyways.

Pre-Season Episode 2: THE BEST DAY EVER!!!

Part 1

Flurry Heart has always loved her parents, and her parents have always loved her too. And that was great! But perhaps they loved her a little..too much? Not that Flurry Heart didn’t appreciate it; Not at all! But sometimes she thought they could be… a bit much? Overbearing? Too omnipresent? A teensy weensy eensy bit sanity-draining?

Flurry Heart could barely remember a time that she’d left her parents’ sights for any extended period of time. Every day was the same. Wake up, be forced to follow her parents on their daily activities (yawn), go to bed. Repeat. Over and over again for the past 14 years.

It was like they didn’t trust her to do anything, and the sad part was that they had a pretty good reason not to. The most important thing Flurry Heart had ever done was blow up the Crystal Heart– a magical artifact keeping the Crystal Empire from being engulfed in an eternal snowstorm and freezing everypony to death. And that outcome might’ve come about had it not been for the Elements of Harmony, Sunburst, Flurry Heart's parents, Celestia, and Luna. Even from birth, she’s been a massive inconvenience to many of the most powerful ponies in Equestria. And how was she repaid? With unending love and adoration! WHY???? And the cherry on top? She was born an alicorn– a role historically only magically bestowed (somehow) once somepony does something that truly makes them worthy of the power. Flurry Heart was a fraud who had never worked for any of the wonderful benefits she was given and it drove her CRAZY. It’s practically insulting to be so unendingly praised when you’ve done literally nothing to deserve it, and Flurry Heart has lived that feeling for her entire life.

But that was all going to change soon! The moment Flurry Heart was old enough (actually even before she was old enough), she begged her parents to let her go to Twilight’s school of friendship. Did she already have plenty of 'friends'? Sure, but she got the feeling they weren’t really her friends. She hadn’t earned their respect in any way other than being born powerful and rich, and that made her relationships feel fake, which was not fun.

It took a while, but she eventually broke her parents, and they agreed to let her go to the school of friendship. It was the BEST DAY EVER, at least until she got to actually go to Ponyville, and then it was the BEST DAY EVER each time it got a day closer to the opening of the school, which would be the BEST BEST DAY EVER!

Flurry Heart had rode on the train to Ponyville yesterday with her parents in tow. When they’d gotten there, she’d met “Cheerilee” (Flurry Heart could tell they were a changeling because they got Cheerilee’s color 3% wrong, and if they were rookie enough to make that mistake then they were probably young, and if they were young then they were probably going to the friendship school, and if they were going to the school then that was SO EXCITING BECAUSE SHE WAS GOING TO THE SCHOOL TOO!!!) and even better was that this changeling DIDN’T KNOW WHO FLURRY HEART WAS OR CARE AT ALL! This changeling– whoever they were– was the perfect chance to befriend somepony for real– not just because of her status!

That was the problem, though. Flurry Heart didn’t know who that changeling was. They’d, well, been disguised. Obviously. Flurry Heart paces in one of the guest rooms at the friendship castle. She was staying here for the last few days before the friendship school opened. Her parents, Cadance and Shining Armor, had to leave for the Crystal Empire as soon as they finished unpacking Flurry Heart’s stuff, because they had diplomatic mumbo jumbo to deal with, and yesterday had been one of the last days they’d be free to drop her off before school started. She was here with Starlight Glimmer, who was somewhere. That wasn’t important right now, though. She was trying to deduce who the Changeling she’d met was.

Flurry Heart has met quite a few Changelings in her time, or at least had a lot of Changelings meet her when she was dragged along to meetings involving them, which occasionally happened at the Changeling hive. That’d mean she’d have to have met most Changelings in some capacity, so who was this strange Changeling she’d met yesterday that didn’t know her? It was weird. And exciting! She ponders. She paces more. Maybe this changeling lived in Ponyville? It’d be a little strange– most Changelings she knew were plenty happy to live in the hive– but it was plausible. If they lived here, then maybe Flurry Heart could ask around for a lead.

The most logical starting point would be Starlight Glimmer. She’s lived in Ponyville for several years and was right here in the castle! Flurry Heart makes her way out of her room. She wasn’t sure exactly where Starlight would be, but she figures the best places to start would be the study or the library. As she’s thinking this, Starlight walks past, her face buried in a book simply titled ‘Genetics: A Study’, and accidentally bumps into Flurry Heart.

“Watch out, I’m busy.” Starlight says absent-mindedly, continuing to walk past while reading. Well okay, a little bit rude, but she was clearly preoccupied. Probably with something important. Time for a plan B.

Flurry Heart knew there was a post office in town. If anypony knew where to find somepony in Ponyville, surely it’d be someone working there! She skips out of the castle, figuring Starlight wouldn’t miss her on her little adventure. She prances down the streets, doing her best to ignore the looks she gets from passersby. It takes a little bit of searching because she’s never actually been to the post office in Ponyville before, but she finds it eventually. She walks in to find it conveniently empty. Flurry Heart strolls up to the counter, behind which is a light gray pegasus with messy blonde mane and a gaze that appears to be looking in two different directions. She’s reading(?) a magazine of some kind and doesn’t appear to notice Flurry Heart.

“...ahem!” Flurry Heart clears her throat to get the pony’s attention.

“Hm?” She looks up from her magazine. “Oh. Hi..!” She says happily.

“Hi! I was wondering if you could check something for me?” Flurry Heart asks politely.

“Sure..!” The Pegasus says slowly.

“I was hoping you'd be able to tell me if any changelings live in Ponyville!” Flurry Heart says.

“Oh. Ummmmm…” the pony looks around a little confused, before finding a parchment of some kind under the counter. She reads(?) over it, squinting as she scrolls down what Flurry Heart presumes is a list of names and addresses.
“I don't see any deliveries to a changeling in Ponyville…so I don't think so..!” The Pegasus declares. Flurry Heart sighs. Seems like she needs a plan C. She hadn't quite thought this far. The pony behind the counter seems to notice her disheartenment. “Muffin..?” She inquires, pulling up a basket of them.

“Ooh, yes please, thank you!” Flurry Heart says, taking a muffin.

Flurry Heart steps out of the post office. It was time for a new course of action. The post office pony had only said that no packages had been delivered to a changeling in Ponyville– not that there necessarily wasn't a changeling in Ponyville. She also seemed to not know of any changelings in Ponyville period, but (not to be rude to the pony) she didn't seem like the most… cognizant… of individuals.

Hmm… if the changeling is as young as Flurry Heart expects, they might go to the normal non-friendship school in town. After all, they'd been disguised as Cheerilee the other day– the teacher at said school! It'd make sense for the changeling to disguise as a pony they see often, which could be Cheerilee!

…Unfortunately, it occurs to Flurry Heart that Cheerilee was probably busy teaching a class right now. It'd be rude to barge in and interrogate her about her students. Maybe she could just…spy on them. Not in a creepy way, though! Just long enough to see if any of the children appear to be changelings!! Totally normal behavior from a princess!!!

…

Oh, who was she kidding; that'd be pretty weird, especially for a princess. The last thing she wants to do is get in trouble as soon as her parents finally trusted her enough to be alone for longer than absolutely necessary. She was NOT going to mess up her chance to be in the friendship school for something as trivial as this. She could just… be patient. Yup. Totally patient. Patience extraordinaire, that was Flurry Heart.

…

Oh, who was she kidding?

Part 2

So spying was off the table, and sitting and waiting patiently for Cheerilee to finish teaching was too, but the only thing Flurry Heart wanted to do right now was try and figure out who that changeling was, and she was fresh out of ideas.

Maybe she could find some way to pass the time by doing other stuff! Flurry Heart was sure she could find somepony in town that she knew and had something she could do with them.

The first pony who came to mind when Flurry Heart thought of ‘fun’ was Pinkie Pie! She trots across town to the well-known Ponyville bakery. Flurry Heart had fond memories of playing games with the excitable pink element of harmony whenever Flurry Heart had been over for Hearthswarming with her parents. When she steps through the door of the bakery, though, she's surprised to see not Pinkie Pie, nor Mrs. Or Mr. Cake, but a sorta yellow colored unicorn with an orange mane. Flurry Heart thinks she recognizes her though… oh right, Pumpkin Cake! She'd seen her a few times while they were both babies.

Pumpkin Cake sees Flurry Heart as she comes in, and a flash of recognition crosses the unicorn’s face. “O-oh! Hello, princess!” She starts, trying to quickly bow but evidently forgetting she's standing behind a counter as she bonks her chin on it. “Ow.” She says, backing up before bowing again.

“You don't have to do that, by the way.” Flurry Heart says, eyebrow raised as she comes up to the counter. Pumpkin Cake rises nervously.

“What can I get you, your highness?” She asks, looking around almost a little frantically. “I hadn't been planning for this oh no we don't have any special desserts at the moment..!” She whispers harshly to herself.

“No, no, no! It's fine! I'm not here for any desserts!” Flurry Heart scrambles to save this unicorn from having a panic attack. Pumpkin Cake stops hyperventilating.

“O-Okay…What did you need?” Pumpkin Cake asks.

“I was just wondering if you could tell me where Pinkie Pie is?” Flurry Heart questions. Pumpkin Cake starts hyperventilating again. “No, NO it's fine if you don't know where she is! Stop panicking!”

Pumpkin Cake does not stop panicking.

Flurry Heart leaves. Flurry Heart sighs. This was the problem with being a princess. It was so hard to have a normal conversation with a normal pony! Nopony acted NORMAL when she was around. If only she were a changeling, then she could look like anypony and not have to worry about them FREAKING OUT. Whatever, Pinkie Pie wasn't the only pony Flurry Heart could try and find.

Unfortunately for Flurry Heart though, Pinkie Pie would not be the only pony apparently busy today. Fluttershy was busy tending to the animals at Sweetfeather Sanctuary. Rainbow Dash was flying with the Wonderbolts. Rarity was showcasing a new clothing line at her Canterlot boutique. Applejack was taking over her brother's chores for the day since he had something he'd be busy with later, and Twilight was, well, currently being a princess and also in Canterlot. Siiiiggghhh. Today was supposed to be the best day ever, but so far, it wasn't very different from a normal day.

Flurry Heart looks up at the sun. It wasn't even close to school being out yet. It'd barely been two hours since she’d had the idea to spy on the school. Her stomach grumbles. Yikes. It'd also been 2 hours since the muffin, which was all she'd eaten today. Flurry Heart briefly considers buying a meal, but she was worried her existence would make somepony faint if they were tasked with serving her food. She'd probably be better off finding something at the castle. Flurry Heart slinks sullenly back to the castle, still ignoring the sidelong glances she gets from other ponies. Once back inside, she makes her way to the kitchen.

Flurry Heart had never really cooked for herself before, but it couldn't be that hard– at least to make something simple. Flurry Heart opens the pantry and has to dive out of the way as a dozen bags fall out towards her. “Eep!” she squeaks, turning back to see what had fallen out. She looks incredulously at the pantry, seeing that it is filled to the brim almost solely with junk food– most notably bags of potato chips. Evidently, Starlight didn’t do a ton of cooking either. Or at least not under the pressure of a new school year starting. If only Starlight weren’t still busy; Maybe she could, like, magically transmute these chips into something a little more nutritious…or maybe Flurry Heart was just being a needy little princess.

She struggles, but eventually succeeds in stuffing the fallen chip bags back in the pantry, keeping one for herself. She opens it, levitating a chip into her mouth. Crunch. Hm. Credit where it was due, they were pretty tasty. Flurry Heart looks idly around the kitchen, bored, and drops the chip bag in shock when she sees… it.

She darts towards it excitedly. She’d only heard rumors of their existence… It was a… Freeze Box!

Flurry Heart had heard about the development of these things. They were surprisingly fascinating! Their purpose was for storing objects (usually food), and the time stasis spell inside would keep whatever it was from decaying/ going bad! They were still quite rare, as the only maker of them was Star Swirl himself with his impressive time manipulation capabilities, and the Freeze Box was still a bit of a prototype. They were quite small so that you couldn’t accidentally stuff yourself inside and freeze yourself in time, but they were certainly still incredibly handy tools! Flurry Heart opens it, and her expression drops as she sees there are just more chips inside. She tries not to roll her eyes at Starlight, wherever in the castle she is.

But wait, there’s something in here that isn’t chips! Flurry Heart leans in to read the label on the small glass bottle filled with some kind of orange substance. It reads ‘Zecora Potion: SAVE FOR LATER!’.

Zecora… where had Flurry Heart heard that name before? She thought on it for a moment, before it came back to her. That was right! Zecora lived out in the Everfree forest in her own hut and made, like, neat potions and things! Flurry Heart had heard a hoof-full of stories about her during her trips here.

Suddenly, an idea comes to Flurry Heart. What if she visits Zecora? If the stories she’d heard were true, it sounded like Zecora could whip up many different kinds of potions. Maybe she could make some kind of disguise potion or something for Flurry Heart! Then she could eavesdrop on the school and/ or get food besides potato chips and it would be significantly less of a hassle for her! All she has to do is get to Zecora. How hard could it be?

…At least that’s what she’d thought before she found herself standing in front of the Everfree forest. Even during midday, it was eerily dark in there. Flurry Heart steels herself. She’d been faced with existential threats like King Sombra before. No forest was going to scare her away from finding her new would-be friend! She runs into the forest, determined.

While she’d been back at the friendship castle, she’d gathered some supplies for the trip. She was aware that the Everfree forest could be dangerous, so she brought all the essentials: A bag of chips (sustenance), The thickest/ heaviest book from the library that Flurry Heart could lift (weapon for dire circumstances), and a saddlebag to carry them in. She’d also left a note for Starlight in her room telling her where she’d gone just in case. Anything else she would need could surely be accomplished by her wings and horn, right?

At the moment, Flurry Heart was following a makeshift path of sorts through the woods. She assumes it leads towards Zecora’s hut, because she doesn't know why else there would be a random path into this dangerous area.

Despite the presence of the path, it was still remarkably overgrown, and Flurry Heart is constantly having to push past undergrowth to progress. There was nothing like this back at home. Maybe that should have made her more scared, but it only made her more excited to continue.

After an indefinite amount of time, she comes to a clearing with a pond in the middle. Flurry Heart stops to look in the water, seeing her reflection. She contemplates making a funny face, but whips around when she hears a branch snap behind her. However, she doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary… except a hut in the distance! She found it!

Flurry Heart sprints towards the hut, screeching to a halt at the front door, before politely knocking thrice. She hears hoofsteps approaching from the other side of the door, before it swings open, and a white and black striped head pokes out.

Zecora’s eyebrows raise as she sees Flurry Heart. “I’m not sure I believe my eyes; This is quite the royal surprise!” Zecora remarks. Flurry Heart beams.

“Can I come in?” She asks.

“You may step inside, my dear. I’m sure you’ve a query I’d like to hear.” Zecora ushers Flurry Heart inside the hut. Flurry Heart gazes around in awe at the interior. The walls are adorned with colorful masks, and there are many shelves stocked to the brim with all manner of strange ingredients. A large cauldron bubbles in the center of the hut, and Zecora goes to stand beside it.

“Um, alright, so I don’t know if this is a weird thing to ask for, but I was wondering if you could make some kind of potion to change my appearance for the day or something?” Flurry Heart stammers out, suddenly realizing the slight absurdity of her request. “I'd like other ponies to just act normally around me.” Flurry Heart looks down a little sheepishly. Zecora smirks knowingly.

“Being treated differently? With that I can sympathize. Perhaps I can brew you a potion of disguise.” Zecora begins to pick out ingredients from the shelves. Flurry Heart couldn't begin to name any of them, but Zecora seems to look them over with a well-trained eye. Over the course of a few minutes, she adds the ingredients to the cauldron in the center of the hut, stirring it expertly. Flurry Heart watches with fascination as it bubbles, colorful smoke rising from the cauldron and tinting the room with different colored hues. Eventually, Zecora dips a sort of ladle inside, scooping out a bit of the potion and pouring it into a small vial, which she then corks.

Flurry Heart reaches for the potion, but Zecora stops her. “You shouldn't drink potions willy-nilly, unless you're feelingly foolishly silly.” Zecora chides. Whoops. Flurry Heart retracts her hooves to her sides. “If you wish to achieve the desired effect, then listen and heed as I direct.” Zecora instructs. Flurry Heart sits down, listening intently. “This potion here has quite the power. When drunk, it lasts for but one hour. Just think of how you want to look, and a new appearance you will have took. But do be careful while it's in the bottle, for this brew you may have to coddle. If shaken and too well mixed, I fear that its effects will… disappear.” Zecora explains through rhyme.

“...So I just need to avoid jostling the potion around too much, and when I drink it, I think of what I want to look like and that's what I'll become for an hour?” Flurry Heart asks. Zecora nods, smiling. She passes the potion to Flurry Heart, who carefully tucks it in her saddle bag. “Thank you, Zecora!” Flurry Heart says gleefully. Zecora begins to speak up again as Flurry Heart excitedly trots for the door.

“When you leave, I advise you to be cautious and limber, for you may just encounter…” Zecora trails off, as Flurry Heart has already left, eager to try out the potion when she gets back to Ponyville.

“...Wolves of timber.” She finishes, mildly annoyed, though Flurry Heart is already too far away to hear her.

Flurry Heart travels back down the path she'd followed to get to the hut, humming happily to herself. In her jolly mood, she fails to notice the glowing green eyes watching her from the foliage as she gets farther from Zecora’s hut. Flurry Heart is startled out of her joyous state as a loud, almost whistling howl sounds from behind her. A chill creeps down her spine as she turns, seeing a large timber wolf behind her.

There's one, but then another emerges from the undergrowth, and then another one. Panic time. Flurry Heart runs in the opposite direction, and the timberwolves give chase. Suddenly, Flurry Heart remembers the potion and tries to slow down so as not to mix it around, but then she also re-remembers THE GIANT WOODEN WOLVES CURRENTLY CHASING HER and teleports forward a few pony lengths, narrowly avoiding getting her rear bitten off as the timber wolf directly behind her snaps its jaws around where she'd only just been.

Flurry Heart runs into a clearing, able to see the open sky. That's it! She teleports up out of reach of the timberwolves, hovering above the clearing with her wings. Below her, the timberwolves growl, looking up at her. She turns away, trying to survey the forest from above to see if she can figure out where she is. However, while she's distracted, the timberwolves begin to combine their mass, shifting and combining into each other to become much larger. Flurry Heart doesn't immediately notice, instead now preoccupied with checking on the potion to make sure it wasn't too mixed. It still looked the same, right?

Flurry Heart turns back around just in time to see the dire timber wolf lunging at her from the ground. Her eyes widen in surprise and fear, and she barely has time to make a magical shield before it's impacted by the heavy wooden claws of the beast. Flurry Heart is sent flying, though mostly unharmed because of the shield, landing on the ground and sliding through the mud at the edge of a bog.

Beside her, the potion lands, smashing on the ground. Okay, now this so-called dire timber wolf had made her mad. It begins to charge at Flurry Heart again, but she stands her ground, firing a powerful beam of pink and yellow energy at the beast from her horn. It hits, but the creature doesn't seem fazed by the blast at all as it penetrates through its midsection, before simply beginning to regrow back.

Okay, so now this dire timber wolf had made her VERY scared. It was closing it fast, but now Flurry Heart needs a plan B and OH CRAP THERE'S NO TIME–

Flurry Heart scrambles backwards, turning to run as the dire timber wolf descends on her. Miraculously, as the monster attempts to bite down on her, it instead gets its fangs lodged in the big dumb heavy book she'd been carrying in her saddlebag. Flurry Heart wriggles away, once again teleporting up and trying to fly away, but the dire timber wolf bounds towards her, catching her by the tail with its claws and sending her crashing to the muddy ground.
Flurry Heart twists onto her back, blasting the thing with her magic several more times as it pins her down, but it's no use. She's trapped and too exhausted to muster the energy to teleport again. The dire timber wolf, seemingly sensing its victory, slowly opens its jaws, relishing in Flurry Heart's weakening struggles as it inches its gaping mouth towards her. Was this the end?

Suddenly, a purple blur steaks by overhead. The giant timber wolf’s ears twitch, and it looks up warily. From Flurry Heart's angle, she sees a figure diving directly towards them both. It rears back, before exhaling a large plume of swirling green fire at the timber wolf.

It howls in pain, its body combusting. It breaks apart into several smaller timberwolves again, which all run away, whimpering and smoldering.

“FLURRY!” The newcomer yells with concern as he lands, and Flurry Heart finds herself staring up at Spike the dragon. “Are you hur- OOF–!” he grunts as Flurry Heart abruptly pulls him into a tight hug.

“That…was… AWESOME!!!” Flurry Heart exclaims with none of the fear that should be normal for having just experienced a life-threatening scenario, pulling back from the hug and flying up to shake Spike by the shoulders excitedly.

“IiIi’LlL tAaAke thAaAaAt aAs a nOoOo–” Spike says as he's being shaken violently by Flurry Heart.

“How did you do all that??” Flurry Heart asks with wonder in her eyes.

“Well, being the assistant of the princess has its perks,” Spike says, scratching the back of his head as he looks away, grinning. “I've been getting combat lessons from Princess Ember!” he beams, crossing his arms proudly.

“Woooaah.” Flurry Heart gawks. “So what are you doing all the way out here?” She asks.

“I could actually ask you the same thing, but uhh,” Spike says, looking around at his surroundings. “Why don't you hold that thought until we're out of the Everfree forest? C’mon, I'll lead you back to Ponyville.”

Flurry Heart breathes a sigh of relief as she finally steps back into civilization. “Okay, now that we’re back in Ponyville, why were you in the Everfree Forest?” Flurry Heart asks Spike.

“Oh, I was heading to Ponyville for my weekly game of Ogres and Oubliettes with my friends!” He explains, pulling a pack off his back and opening it to reveal the scattered pieces of some kind of.. board game(?) inside. He returns it to his back. "I had something to deliver to the Treehouse of Harmony first though, which is why I was above the Everfree Forest. I probably wouldn’t have known you were in danger if I hadn’t seen the giant yellow-pink energy beams rocketing into the sky.” He says. “Speaking of which… you’d better have a good explanation for wandering into the Everfree forest on your own.” He says, his tone becoming a little harsher as he plants his claws on his hips.

Uh oh. Despite her best efforts, Flurry Heart was about to get in trouble, wasn’t she? "PLEASE DON’T TELL MY PARENTS!!” She pleads. “They barely trusted me enough to come here as is! If I got in trouble, they might un-enroll me from the friendship school!”

“Still waiting for your explanation first.” Spike says, looking slightly unimpressed. Flurry Heart proceeds to exposit everything that happened today, and how she needed this freedom from her parents to make a new friend or she’d go CRAZY. When she finishes, Spike seems deep in thought.

“...Well?” Flurry Heart asks worriedly.

“...I can relate to how it feels being dragged around by a princess,” Spike admits. “I love Twilight a lot, but it certainly gets boring sometimes being her assistant. That’s why I’m here, honestly– I need a break every once in a while.” He looks over at Flurry Heart. “It sounds like you don’t get breaks much though. I mean, you don’t seem even a little traumatized by almost being eaten and that says a LOT.” He sighs. He contemplates. He sighs again. “Alright, I won’t tell anypony, but you gotta promise to be more careful, alright? Definitely no more doing obviously dangerous stuff– ESPECIALLY without anypony watching your back!” He points a claw at her.

“Oh, thank you!!” Flurry Heart hugs Spike again.

“Urk–!” He gasps at the sudden force. He peels Flurry Heart off of him with some effort.

“Alright, well I have to get to Starlight's castle to meet the other players, and I think it’s about time you got back to the castle too.” Spike begins to walk. “Oh wait, that reminds me. Couldn’t you have asked–” He’s cut off as a flash of teal light appears, leaving a frantic Starlight Glimmer in its wake.

“FLURRY HEART!??” She calls out, panic written on her face. She turns, seeing Flurry Heart and Spike standing just about a stones’ toss away. “Oh, thank Celestia.” She sighs, looking faint. She trots up to Flurry Heart, looking her over for injuries and dusting some of the dried mud off her. “I'm so sorry I brushed you off this morning. I got unnecessarily distracted with a project and kind of forgot I was supposed to be taking care of you.” Starlight laments, looking down shamefully.

“It's alright!” Flurry Heart says cheerfully.

“It's really not!” Starlight quickly retorts, a bit manically. “Mostly because I care about you, but also if your parents knew I let you wander into the Everfree Forest unsupervised and probably almost get eaten by something, I'd likely be locked in a dungeon for eternity or something.” She says ruefully.

“...I wasn’t unsupervised… I uh, was… being watched by Spike!” Flurry Heart lies. Starlight blinks at her, and then squints, before looking at Spike for confirmation of the story.

“Uhh.. Yeah! I was watching her!” He lies too.

“I can tell you’re both lying.” Starlight says, unimpressed. “But if you two weren’t planning on telling Cadance and Shining Armor either, then that’s fine by me, too!” She says, a little manic again. Flurry Heart giggles. Wait a minute. She looks at the sky. It's already sundown.

“Oh no!” She exclaims suddenly.

“What is it?” Spike and Starlight ask simultaneously.

“...I forgot to spy on the school for the young changeling that I think lives here in Ponyville because I met them yesterday and want to be friends but they were disguised so I don't know who they are.” Flurry Heart says in a small voice.

“Oh, are you talking about Chimney Cricket? She's a half-changeling living in Ponyville right now, and she's going to the friendship school.” Starlight explains. Flurry Heart's ears perk. Chimney Cricket, huh? “You know, I'm the Headmare of the school,” Starlight says. “You could've just ask–” She stops as Flurry Heart makes a pouty face at her. “Right, yeah, sorry. Again.” Starlight looks away sheepishly.

With that, the trio begins to walk back to the Friendship Castle. Even though today had been hectic and dangerous and a bit scary, it had also been awesome and a wonderful break from the monotony of life in the Crystal Empire for Flurry Heart. As it stood though, she was very tired from running around all day. Grumble. And also hungry. The bag of chips had unsurprisingly failed to satiate her. She couldn’t wait to, like, eat something. And then curl up in bed with her Whammy. But most importantly, she couldn’t wait until the friendship school opened in a few days! It was going to be awesome, and she was going to befriend whoever Chimney Cricket was.

And when she did, it was going to be the best day ever.

Pre-Season Episode 3: Words Can Never Hurt Me

Part 1

Honey Glaze is on a train. This is a new experience, but like most things, it stirs no emotions inside her. There is as little excitement as there is discontentment in her demeanor.

In stark contrast, the griffon sitting next to her is having a wonderful time despite having supposedly rode a train before. Gabby squeals as the sights pass by outside the window, her talons and face pressing against the glass. Honey Glaze is able to mostly ignore the sensation of the griffon’s tail occasionally batting her in the snout as it whips around happily.

Honey Glaze was on this train because she was being sent to the school of friendship in Ponyville. She was going to the school of friendship because, according to her parents, she was ‘antisocial’ and ‘in dire need of friends’. Honey Glaze didn't personally see any problem with sitting silently in her room in her house in the Kirin Grove all day, but she supposed she could agree on the ‘antisocial’ point. Honey Glaze had almost never talked. Ever.

Honey Glaze had been born shortly after the vow of silence had been taken in the Kirin Grove, where the kirin passed through the Stream of Silence, magically muting them and quelling all emotions. The reason the Kirin had done this was because, if overtaken by anger, they enter their fiery ‘Nirik’ form. At one point before her time, the Kirin village had burned down in the havoc of several Kirin getting angered and becoming Nirik, spreading anger and flames.

The destruction had been bad enough to warrant none of them talking again, supposedly. It'd only end up lasting a few years or so though, when Applejack and Fluttershy– two of the elements of harmony– were sent to help better the Kirins’ ways, and convince them to revoke the vow of silence.

Now everypony could talk again, including Honey Glaze. She didn't… want to talk, though. The weird thing about being born during the vow of silence was that she grew up without a voice, and without emotions. Once the vow of silence had been lifted, Honey Glaze actually had to be taught how to speak a few years after she probably should have been able to on her own under normal conditions. Her voice felt… alien to her, though. It was strange to talk. It sounded wrong. So she didn't do it. She settled on nods or head shakes.

Seeing as she'd refused to speak under ordinary circumstances, Honey Glaze had learned to be largely self-sufficient in her early years. Most notably, she felt she had become sufficiently adequate at cooking– which was probably the activity during which she experienced the closest thing to ‘joy’.

In addition to not liking her voice, it was safe to say that Honey Glaze didn't have a very pronounced personality. For all the other Kirin, when the vow of silence lifted, they regained their emotions and personality. For Honey Glaze, though, she didn't really have a personality to go back to. She was like a magical construct without the ability to process emotion.

Honey Glaze's parents would often lament their ‘mistake’ of ‘ruining Honey Glaze by silencing her at such a young age’. This was part of the reason she was being sent to the friendship school, which was the main reason she was on this train.

The reason Gabby was on this train with her was because the journey between the Kirin Grove and Ponyville, even by train, is a several day-long process. Gabby occasionally delivers letters to and from the Kirin Grove almost exclusively for Autumn Blaze, a Kirin who'd broken the vow of silence early and helped convince the rest of the village to break it too.

When word of the friendship school had reached the grove, Honey Glaze’s parents had jumped at the opportunity to get in contact with the hope of sending Honey Glaze to the school. It had taken a while, but Honey Glaze had eventually been enrolled over the long distance with the help of Gabby. Gabby was now helping to supervise Honey Glaze on her way to Ponyville, mostly because she'd wanted to, ‘just for fun!’.

And some fun she's clearly having as her tail whaps Honey Glaze on the snout for the 37th time in the past 45 minutes. It was alright, though. If all went well, the train should arrive in Ponyville in around 3 days, pretty much getting her there just in time for the opening day of the school.

Honey Glaze isn't sure how to feel about going to the school of friendship. It would certainly be a change of pace from her life in the grove. She couldn't say she had any strong feelings regardless. Gabby's tail hits Honey Glaze in the face again. “Glaze, look! The mountains are moving!” She says excitedly, pointing towards some spot up and to the right ahead of the train. Honey Glaze looks up from her hooves for the first time since she'd sat down on the train today. She peers out through the window. The mountains did seem to be moving in some capacity.

In fact, there was actually a massive landslide falling towards the tracks.

Moments after Honey Glaze makes this connection, she hears somepony scream “LANDSLIDE!!” and the entire train car bursts into a panic. Well, besides Honey Glaze, anyways.

The screeching of metal can be heard as the brakes are pulled on the train, sending sparks up into the view of the windows as the wheels grind against the tracks. Honey Glaze remains seated as the train rather slowly comes to a stop. As it finally halts, the landslide rumbles past, only a mere couple of train cars’ distance from the front of the train. The rails in front of the train are utterly covered by rocky debris, and probably destroyed underneath too. Gabby exhales with fear and relief after a moment. Honey Glaze blinks.

A few minutes later, a train attendant steps into the passenger car. “Attention, passengers! Due to the landslide, the train will be reversing a short way and redirecting to Griffonstone. The train will not be able to continue down this way until the tracks are repaired. We apologize for the inconvenience!” He announces, before heading to the next passenger car to give the same spiel.

Well, then. It was safe to say this might prevent Honey Glaze from getting to the school on time.

Part 2

Despite the recent close encounter with disaster, Gabby was right back to being excited as the train chugged along. “I can’t wait for you to see Griffonstone!” She says, vibrating with joy. “It’s so cool there! But also I know you’re probably worried you won’t make it to the school on time.” She adds.

‘Worried’ wasn’t quite the word that Honey Glaze would use. ‘Inconvenienced’ fit better, and mostly just because it meant she had to make a new plan of action. “I’ve got a solution, though! I know a griffon that should be able to help. I’m sure you’ll like him!” Gabby beams. Honey Glaze blinks. She looks out the window, seeing the Celestial Sea all the way out to the horizon as the train travels over a long bridge on the way to Griffonstone, the sunset painting the ocean in hues of orange and purple as it sinks past the waves.

When the train finally comes to a stop in Griffonstone, most of the passengers get off rather shakily. Train attendants urge those who don’t have anywhere to stay to remain by the train until they can work out temporary lodging in Griffonstone, free of charge as compensation for the sudden disaster. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to Honey Glaze, who doesn’t really have any money or a place to stay currently. Gabby seems to have other plans, though.

“C’mon!” Gabby urges, grabbing Honey Glaze’s hoof and dragging her somewhere with a purpose. Honey Glaze doesn’t say anything, but Gabby seems to sense her hesitance. “After tonight, you’re only going to have 3 days to get to the friendship school before it opens, and after that, you’ll be missing classes!” She explains while running with Honey Glaze in tow.

“There’s no way that landslide will be cleared in time, so we’re gonna need a more direct mode of transport, and now. Thankfully, I happen to know just the griffon for the job!” She chirps giddily. Honey Glaze admits to herself that Gabby has a point. She breaks free from her grasp, now following willingly. Gabby leads Honey Glaze through disorganized streets, narrowly avoiding passersby.

Honey Glaze had never been to Griffonstone before, but she’d heard it’d undergone some rather rapid changes in the past decade or so. There was a large, central mesa of sorts in the center of the city, upon which there was some kind of massive petrified tree with houses built into and around it. Along the sides of the mesa, many criss-crossing paths and tunnels had been dug out, almost like an ant farm. Lastly, at the base of the mesa, there were basic houses and roads, though they seemed a bit more impoverished than the buildings farther up the mesa.

Currently, Gabby and Honey Glaze were in the bottom section, since the train didn’t travel up the mesa, and they were currently headed towards the outskirts of the city to the west. Honey Glaze wasn’t sure what Gabby was planning, but she was beginning to have her doubts as the quality of the buildings around them continues to get shanty-er as they get farther from the center of Griffonstone.

They seem to be following the only street that goes this far out actually, and Honey Glaze realizes why that is as she sees a large seaside port come into view over a hill. Sailboats are anchored all along the docks, though there doesn’t seem to be much activity at the moment, with only a few individuals walking along the piers. Honey Glaze tails Gabby as she runs along the docks, her sights seemingly set on a small wooden house of sorts suspended by wooden beams above the water at the edge of one end of the port.

Gabby barely stops when she reaches the front door, slamming it open excitedly without even knocking. Honey Glaze hears a loud squawk of surprise from inside, followed by a thump and some clattering before she catches up to Gabby.

“Hiiii, Uncle Glidder!” Gabby squeals. Honey Glaze peeks over Gabby’s shoulder and through the doorway, seeing an older griffon scrambling to his feet from the ground.

“By th' gales, what do ye’ think yer doin’, jus’ burstin’ in here like that!?” Glidder barks, clearly disgruntled. Gabby steps back as Glidder steps into the doorway to look down on her. “An’ it be CAPTAIN Glidder to ya', ye’ little scoundrel.” He grumbles.

“Aye aye, captain!” Gabby says happily, unfazed. She salutes. Captain Glidder puts a claw to his temple. With the captain now in the light, Honey Glaze can make him out more clearly. The griffon is clearly quite aged, seemingly almost balding in spots. His feathers are primarily a dirty white color, though his wings were probably quite majestic in his hey-day, with a blend of blues, reds, and greens down them. Or at least one of them. He appears to be missing his left wing, with all that remains being a stump tipped by a wooden peg– like, one that would go on your leg if you lost it. The wing-peg seemed unnecessary to Honey Glaze. Captain Glidder also wears an eyepatch over his right eye, and a ragged brown tricorn on his head.

Captain Glidder glares down at Gabby with his good eye. “Well?” He asks, his tone accusatory.

“‘Well’ what?” Gabby asks.

“What are ye’ doin’ randomly bargin’ into me house and wakin’ me up??” He cries.

“Oh, right! We need your help to sail through the Celestial Sea!” Gabby explains.

“We?” Captain Glidder asks, confused. Gabby turns his head slightly to the right so that his good eye finally sees Honey Glaze. Honey Glaze blinks. “Oh! Din’t see ye’ there, lass!” His expression lightens, before returning to annoyance as he looks back at Gabby. “And what makes ye’ think I’ll go an’ do that for ye’? You know as well as I that the Celestial Sea is rather dangerous this time a’ year.” He scowls.

“But Honey Glaze needs to get to the friendship school in the next 3 days, and the train is blocked by a landslide!” Gabby pleads.

“Tough luck then, young’n.” Captain Glidder says, turning back towards the door.

“Wait!” Gabby cries. Captain Glidder turns for a moment. Gabby’s pupils seem to grow big and innocent. Honey Glaze believes the term is ‘puppy-dog eyes’.

“No, yer’ not gettin’ me with that this time..!” Captain Glidder huffs, but he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from Gabby’s. Gabby’s eyes sparkle. “You know this is cheatin’!” Captain Glidder says with a hint of fear, straining to break eye contact. Gabby wordlessly clasps her talons together, holding them below her head in silent plea. “ARGH, alright, fine! Ye’ win!” Captain Glidder cries out in defeat.

“Yay!” Gabby cheers, doing a celebratory aerial flip. Honey Glaze blinks.

“Go ahead n’ get on ol’ Ms. Fortune.” Captain Glidder sighs, gesturing to a sailboat tied to the dock. Gabby flies onto the boat, before dropping down a little plank bridge for Honey Glaze to climb aboard. Captain Glidder follows suit.

“Alright, you two!” Captain Glidder announces, standing up by the wheel of the ship. “So long as yer’ both ridin’ on Ms. Fortune, yer’ part of my crew, an’ will act as such!” He declares. “That means helpin’ me keep er’ floatin’ in one way or another. If I give ye’ a command, you follow it! Got that?” He barks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes sir, captain sir!” Gabby agrees cheerily. Captain Glidder looks at Honey Glaze. She simply nods.

“Good.” He says, satisfied. With that, he raises the sails, and Ms. Fortune pulls away from the port, heading West. The sun is nearly all the way past the horizon now, and the moon is beginning to rise from behind the ship.

“With all that bein’ said, it's probably time you two little ladies got your sleep. I'll need your help tomorrow. We sail by night and stop by day, lest we incur the wrath of…The bellowhales.” Captain Glidder says in overly dramatic fashion. Gabby gulps slightly. Honey Glaze blinks.

“As such, I'll most likely be sleepin’ durin’ the day. I'll leave a list o’ chores for you two ta’ do in the mornin’. Beds are below deck when yer’ ready ta’ hit the hay, so to speak.” Captain Glidder says, pointing to an open doorway with his good wing. Honey Glaze briefly considers asking what a ‘bellowhale’ is or why they apparently wouldn't be sailing during the day, but she didn't quite care enough to warrant… speaking. Also Gabby was already ushering her below deck with excited promises of ‘a sleepover, eeee!’.

Now, Honey Glaze was on a boat, staring at the ceiling below deck in a rickety bed. This was a new experience, but like most things, it stirred no emotions inside her. “Psst..!” Gabby whispers from the bed next to Honey Glaze’s. “Are you asleep yet?” She asks in a hushed tone. Honey Glaze didn't know how she could have been asleep yet since it’d been all of 30 seconds since they'd gotten into bed.

“That might have been a dumb question.” Gabby adds. Honey Glaze blinks. “I, uhm…” Gabby pauses. A few moments pass. “Nevermind. Goodnight.”

Several hours later, Honey Glaze wakes up to the loud snoring of Captain Glidder. She sits up, seeing that he’s passed out in a hammock across the room. Honey Glaze looks to her right and is mildly surprised to see that Gabby isn’t in bed. Honey Glaze had been expecting to get woken up by her.

Honey Glaze gets up and out of bed. She recalls Captain Glidder mentioning a “list o’ chores” to do in the morning. She steps above deck, seeing Gabby standing at the bow of the ship. Gabby turns around as Honey Glaze approaches, and seems to hesitate when she sees her, before steeling herself. “Good morning, Honey Glaze!” She says happily. Despite her tone, Honey Glaze feels like there's something off about Gabby's demeanor. Before she can really investigate though, Gabby walks over to a paper nailed to the main mast. She takes it in her talons to read it, and Honey Glaze looks over her shoulder.

“Seems like we've got 3 main chores while the ship is anchored for the day; Patch the sails, swab the deck, and scrub the hull of barnacles…” Gabby makes a bit of a face at the last one. “I’m going to get started on patching up the sails, since I’ve done it before, and I can fly up to them.” Gabby explains. “If you could get started on one of the other two, that’d be great kthanksseeya!” She says quickly, darting below deck, presumably for sail-patching supplies. Honey Glaze narrows her eyes slightly. Then blinks.

Honey Glaze walks to the edge of the boat, peering over the side. The hull is rather infested with barnacles. Evidently it has been a while since Captain Glidder cleaned it. She begins to remove the barnacles with her magic, though it’s a rather slow process. It easily takes a few hours to clear all the ones visible above the water. Meanwhile, Gabby finishes patching the sails and gets done cleaning the deck too. With the chores done, Honey Glaze gets ready to stare into space for the next several hours, but before she can, Gabby’s stomach rather loudly rumbles.

“Oof, I’m hungry after all that work!” Gabby exclaims. “I’m gonna go see if there’s anything to eat below deck.” She says, walking off. Honey Glaze herself isn't particularly hungry yet, and prepares to resume space-staring, before she hears a scream of dismay. Honey Glaze travels downstairs to see what the matter is, and finds Gabby sitting in front of an open pantry, looking deflated.

“I forgot to get food before we left on this trip, and there's, like, nothing to eat!” She wails. “I was supposed to be responsible..” she mumbles quietly to herself as Honey Glaze looks over Gabby at the contents of the pantry.

There's a bag of oats, a couple old oranges, and some dried seaweed. Not to mention quite a few cobwebs and a spider or two. Honey Glaze looks back down at Gabby. Honey Glaze isn't intricately savvy in reading others, but it doesn't take a genius to see that she's sad. Honey Glaze looks back at the lackluster ingredients in the pantry. It wouldn't be her finest work, but she figured breakfast might help cheer up the griffon. She levitates the ingredients over to a makeshift stove top and gets to cooking.

Gabby looks up from her defeated state on the floor as she suddenly smells something. She turns around, seeing Honey Glaze across the room whipping something up in a pot, a small fire lit in the stove below it. Gabby stands up, slowly walking over to get a closer look– and a closer sniff.

The aroma wafting from the pot is alluringly good, and Gabby looks over Honey Glaze's shoulder to see that she's stirring oatmeal. Gabby also notices little bits of orange mixed in, and she watches as Honey Glaze procures a small jar of honey from her personal bag and drizzles some into the oatmeal, only adding to the wonderful smell. Honey Glaze hardly seems to notice Gabby behind her as she's absorbed in the cooking process.

The scent apparently also wakes up Captain Glidder, as he gets up from his hammock and walks up on the other side of Honey Glaze. He exchanges a silent glance with Gabby as they both wordlessly watch the show, not wanting to interrupt Honey Glaze.

When Honey Glaze finishes, she portions out the oatmeal between two bowls and turns around. She's a bit surprised to find both Captain Glidder and Gabby standing behind her, though it barely shows on her face. She looks down at the oatmeal bowls, before offering them to the two griffons. Captain Glidder happily snatches it, digging in. Meanwhile, Gabby takes it a bit hesitantly, looking grateful, though also guilty.

“This be some of the–” *munch* “--best food I've ever–” *snarf* “--eaten on the high seas!” Captain Glidder says between mouthfuls of oatmeal. “Just where did ye' learn ta' cook?” He asks. Honey Glaze shrugs. Captain Glidder gulps down the rest of his food, sighing contentedly. “Not much of a talker, aye?” He muses. Honey Glaze blinks. “Well, maybe yer' more of a listener! Perhaps I can repay ya' with a' couple of me world-famous stories?” He winks with his one good eye.

The three sit down on the floor below deck as Captain Glidder recounts epic tales of his grand adventures (that are probably quite embellished). Honey Glaze snacks on little thin, crispy seaweed chip things she made from the seaweed in the pantry, listening to the stories with vague interest. She can't help but notice that Gabby seems oddly silent though, picking at the oatmeal and avoiding eye contact.

A few hours pass, and the sun begins setting past the horizon. “Well, I reckon it's about time I got the sails raised again.” Captain Glidder declares. “We should be reachin’ Hoof City by the next night if we..” Captain Glidder yawns “..keep this pace.”

Honey Glaze still wasn't clear on why they had to stop at day and sail at night, but as long as they got there on time, it didn't matter too much to her. Captain Glidder begins to head upstairs. “I suggest you two be gettin’ ta’ bed soon.” He advises, before disappearing above deck.

Before long, Honey Glaze and Gabby are in bed once again. “...Uhm, Honey Glaze, are you awake?” Gabby asks after a couple minutes. “...You probably are.” She adds nervously.

“I'm, um… sorry. About how messy this trip has been so far. I'm not sure I've been doing a good job of being responsible for you. If anything, it's been the reverse...” She pauses.

“I get the impression you don't talk much, but I still can't help but feel like you might be mad at me.” She pauses again. “...are you mad? At me?” She asks. “It's fine if you are..!” She adds quickly. Honey Glaze wasn't mad at Gabby at all. The griffon had been nothing but helpful for the most part. Honey Glaze wanted to tell her. She wanted to reassure her. Honey Glaze opens her mouth.

“...”

Nothing.

Honey Glaze closes her mouth.

A few moments pass. When nothing comes, Gabby sighs. “Goodnight, Honey Glaze.” She says sullenly. Honey Glaze feels a twinge of… sadness? Regret? Inadequacy? Her mouth curls down slightly against her will. She closes her eyes.

She wakes up some amount of time later. Judging by the light filtering in through the stairway, it's morning. Honey Glaze looks around. Gabby appears to still be asleep, but oddly enough, Honey Glaze doesn't see Captain Glidder anywhere below deck.

She slowly steps up the stairs, and finds that the ship is still sailing. Wasn't Captain Glidder supposed to stop it during the day? She turns around to see Captain Glidder asleep at the wheel of the ship. Honey Glaze walks over to him. She gently pokes him. He continues sleeping.

With her options exhausted, Honey Glaze wanders to the side of the ship, looking out at the sea. The sun must have only risen a couple hours ago at most. Honey Glaze looks down at the water just below the ship, seeing the fish swimming past. She also sees… something else? A dark shape below the ship. She leans over the edge a little. The shape was getting bigger. Maybe she should try to wake Captain Glidder again.

Honey Glaze turns to head back towards Captain Glidder, but loses her balance as something collides with the ship, rocking it heavily. Captain Glidder awakens with a squawk at the sudden shaking as Honey Glaze falls forward, landing on her stomach. A loud, almost piercing wail-like cry emanates from under the ship, the vibrations reverberating through the wood of the boat and through Honey Glaze's bones.

“BELLOWHALE!!” Captain Glidder screeches.

Gabby comes flying up the stairs as Honey Glaze scrambles to her hooves. Captain Glidder spins the wheel of the boat, trying to steer away from the bellowhale below them. “YE' BEST BE HOLDIN’ ONTO SOMETH– AAAAH!!” Captain Glidder yells as the boat begins to tip to the side, sending him sliding towards and over the edge, hanging onto the railing with his claws. Honey Glaze slides too, but grabs hold of the main mast, meanwhile Gabby flies up.

“UNCLE GLIDDER!” She cries, speeding over to help him up. Honey Glaze catches movement out of the corner of her eye, and looks up to see a group of flying creatures far overhead and in the distance. She thinks they look like… dragons? She doesn’t get to finish her thought when suddenly, the boat is let go, violently rocking back the other way. Captain Glidder and Gabby are sent sprawling back onto the deck in a heap, and Honey Glaze is sent over the edge of the boat.

She lands in the water with a splash, disoriented. She looks around, and her eyes widen at the sight of the massive, black, whale-like creature below the ship. It doesn’t seem to see her, or even have eyes for that matter. It lets out another loud wailing noise that practically vibrates Honey Glaze from the intensity as it seems to be trying to pull the ship underwater. Honey Glaze attempts to paddle to the surface, but she’s never really swam much, and the powerful waves from the altercation between the ship and the bellowhale leave Honey Glaze unable to breach the waves.

Her movements begin to grow weaker. Suddenly, there’s another splash from overhead. Honey Glaze looks up hazily, expecting to see Gabby or Captain Glidder, but instead, it’s a dark indigo-colored pegasus she doesn’t recognize. She seems to be diving down towards Honey Glaze, who doesn’t resist as the pegasus grabs her, pulling her up with impressive strength. The pegasus breaks the surface of the water, somehow managing to fly up with Honey Glaze in tow, and landing on the ship. She lets Honey Glaze down, who coughs up water.

“Might wanna grab something, cuz’ the Cinder Express is preparing for takeoff!” The pegasus calls, before flying up. With a powerful flap of her wings, she blows a massive gust of wind into the sails of the boat, sending it rocketing forward at high speed. The boat audibly creaks from the strain of moving so quickly, but it seems like a better alternative to the bellowhale, who’s cries fade into the distance as the boat sails off. After a couple minutes, it begins to slow down and coast at a more regular speed.

The pegasus lands back on the boat, shaking water from her fiery orange and yellow mane. “Well, that was fun.” She says coolly. “I’d love to stick around for your applause, but I gotta catch up to my mom unless I want her to throw me in a pool of lava before I ever make it to that dumb friendship school.” She prepares to take off.

“Wait,” Honey Glaze thinks desperately. She’s still reeling from everything that’s happened in the past couple minutes, but one thing she knows is that she wants, no– needs to express her gratitude. She surely wouldn’t be alive right now if that pegasus hadn’t saved her. Honey Glaze opens her mouth, but only manages to splutter as she hacks up more seawater. Before she’s able to compose herself, the pegasus jets up, the force of her takeoff rocking the boat slightly. Honey Glaze looks up helplessly as the pegasus bolts away into the sky.

“Honey Glaze, are you okay!?” Gabby cries out, rushing over to Honey Glaze. She helps her to a standing position. Honey Glaze is still looking up, and Gabby follows her gaze. “It sure is lucky they were here to save our feathers… and YOU– are you OKAY??” She asks again, a little more frantically. Honey Glaze nods. “Phew.” Gabby sighs. She pulls Honey Glaze into a sudden, tight hug. Honey Glaze freezes a moment, before tentatively returning it.

Gabby breaks the hug. “Wow, you are VERY wet.” she says, now sharing some of the seawater Honey Glaze had unwillingly brought back aboard.

“Good news, gals!” Captain Glidder calls from the front of the ship, looking out. Gabby and Honey Glaze come up beside him, and see land in the distance. “I reckon we’re in th’ clear.” he declares. “An’ not a moment too soon! My poor ol’ Ms. Fortune has seen better days.” He leans down, patting his ship lovingly and shushing it reassuringly.

Honey Glaze looks back up at the sky again. She can’t see that pegasus anymore. Honey Glaze wishes she’d had enough time to say… something. ‘Thanks’, maybe, though Honey Glaze felt like that wouldn’t cut it. She looks down at her soaked hooves. Maybe… maybe she still could. Honey Glaze recalls the pegasus mentioning going to the friendship school. She looks back up at the sky once more.

Honey Glaze wavers. Was she even sure she’d be able to say anything to her? Honey Glaze feels like she has to. But…

But what? Honey Glaze feels a tiny, indignant spark of anger at herself– at her inability to speak. This was important. Surely she could speak once.

She sighs, the spark fading.

Honey Glaze blinks.

Well, then. It was safe to say that this might finally stir some emotions inside her.

Author's Note

I don't anticipate it really coming up later in the series, so I figure I ought to explain what a 'Bellowhale' is, since it doesn't really fully get brought up in this prologue, either.

The Celestial sea connects the two poles of whatever the world in MLP:FiM is called (Earth??), and bellowhales live in the deep, icy water around those poles. They're usually quite deep down, because they need cold environments to live. However, as the seasons start to get colder, the Celestial Sea becomes just cold enough for bellowhales to pass through.

They're blind, and instead of sight, primarily use their wails to echolocate. They're also not the smartest creatures ever. Because they're a similar size to many sailboats, if they sense one, they'll assume it's another bellowhale. During the night, it's cold enough that bellowhales can get close to the surface, but during the day, it's warmer. If a bellowhale senses that another bellowhale is at the surface during the day, they'll try to pull them down to colder waters-- which is why they try to pull down boats that sail during the day.

It's probably a little weird, and maybe doesn't entirely make sense, but I wanted a sea monster of some kind and felt like I had to make one to fulfill what I wanted for the story, so this is what I came up with.

Pre-Season Episode 4: Dungeons and Not-Quite-Dragons

Part 1

Cinder was not happy. She’d be happy if she was in the Dragonlands, training to become the best dragon ever.

Of course, she wasn’t technically a dragon… okay, she wasn’t a dragon at all, but she thought of herself as one. For as long as Cinder could remember, she’d been fighting to prove herself and striving to be as much of a dragon as she could.

Biologically, she was a pegasus, so jumping in lava probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Fire breath was also unfortunately not in her skillset, However, she did have wings, and with enough practice, she could keep up with other dragons. And so she did practice. Every day of her life. She had to in order to stay on par, and there wasn’t anything she wanted more.

It wasn’t easy trying to be a dragon as a pegasus; Cinder had learned that the hard way. Her hooves and wings had been burned more than once by the harsh environment of the Dragonlands– to the point that they had acquired permanent char marks. Not that it had deterred her. In fact, she wore them with pride, because they were proof of her resolve. She refused to be seen as a weak little pony.

There was a little problem with that sentiment, though, and that was why she was not happy. At the moment, she was flying to Ponyville with her mom and dragon lord Ember because she was being forced to go to the school of friendship. It was probably just about the worst thing that could happen to her! And it was by Dragon Lord Ember’s command, of all dragons!!

Cinder had always looked up to Ember when she was little, but she’d lost a lot of coolness points the day she’d come to Cinder and her mom’s cave and ordered that Cinder go to the friendship school. Cinder’s mom, Pyre, had also lost a few coolness points when she didn’t even try to not have Cinder sent to the friendship school. Like, hello? What happened to dragons being tough?

So now, here Cinder was, flying across the ocean. Flying and mad. And also bored. She idly scanned the waves below, hoping vainly for a giant sea monster to pop out so she could fight it or something and be saved from the horrible monotony of flying all the way from the Dragonlands to Ponyville.

Ahead of her, Pyre and Ember were flying close to each other, talking in hushed tones.

They both seemed a little nervous about something, which was also not cool because dragons were supposed to not be scared of anything. Pyre had been nervous since Ember came by, and Ember had been nervous since they’d left.

Pyre flashes an unreadable glance back at Cinder as the group flies, her magenta scales shimmering in the morning sunrise. Cinder pretends not to notice. She looks away, scowling a bit. When she does, though, she catches movement close to the horizon. She squints. It looks like… a boat? It seems to be rocking pretty heavily though, which is odd because the ocean looks rather calm around the area at the moment. Well, excluding the area specifically around the boat.

Cinder steals a glance at Pyre and Ember. They’re busy talking to each other. They wouldn’t miss her for a couple minutes to investigate, right?
…

Ah well, even if they did, she didn’t particularly care. She was bored.

Cinder speeds towards the boat, seeing as it is rocked from one side to the other. She doesn’t see any visible reason for it to be shaking so hard, though. There must be something grabbing at it from underneath.

As she gets closer, she can faintly hear some bellowing cries– perhaps from whatever is currently trying to sink the ship. Cinder can see what seems like a crew of 2 griffons and a weird yellow-ish pony that simultaneously looks more and less fluffy than normal. They seem to have a horn like a unicorn, but it’s weirdly shaped– like a stick.

As Cinder is flying towards the group, the boat gets rocked especially hard, and the stick pony gets sent overboard. “Oh no you don’t,” Cinder thinks to herself. With a large splash, she dives into the ocean after the stick pony. The first thing Cinder notices is the massive, black, whale-like creature below the ship, currently grabbing onto it with its, like, flippers or something? She wasn’t sure what that was about, but it wasn’t really in a good position to be fought since it was entirely underwater.

Cinder returns her attention to the currently-seemingly-drowning pony. Said pony looks up as Cinder dives down, and Cinder is surprised to see that she seems rather calm about the whole situation.

Cinder wraps her front hooves around the yellow pony’s stomach, kicking with her hind legs to propel them both up. The stick pony apparently doesn’t know how to swim, because she just kind of sits there limply like a wet ball of cotton. Really heavy cotton. “You’re lucky I’M here.” Cinder thinks to herself as she swims up with the yellow pony in tow.

It’s no cakewalk, as the thrashing of the weird sea monster is creating a bunch of waves around the area that make it difficult to break the surface. The challenge only excites Cinder though, and with a burst of energy, she makes it up to air, flapping hard to get up far enough to drop the cotton ball pony on the deck of the ship. They land with a splat, coughing up water. Cinder can feel her muscles burning a bit from the effort, but she’s only just getting started!

“Might wanna grab something, cuz’ the Cinder Express is preparing for takeoff!” Cinder yells, doing an aerial flip and coming up from behind the ship. She spreads her wings, and with a mighty flap, she sends a huge gust of wind blowing into the sails of the ship. The wood of the boat creaks under the pressure, but it seems to get wrenched free from the grip of the sea monster as it begins to speed off. Cinder flies to keep up with the boat, blowing a little more wind into the sails at a time as the sailboat coasts until the bellows of the creature are out of earshot.

The crew onboard still seems to be recovering from the ordeal as Cinder lands on the deck of the ship. “Well, that was fun.” Cinder says nonchalantly, flipping her hair. “I’d love to stick around for your applause, but I gotta catch up to my mom unless I want her to throw me in a pool of lava before I ever make it to that dumb friendship school.” Cinder says, rolling her eyes.

She crouches down, spreading her wings for takeoff, before blasting into the sky. Cinder flaps hard to catch up, but it doesn’t take as long as she’d been expecting, since it seems like Pyre and Ember have stopped, and are hovering in the air, looking in her direction.

Ah crap, she was about to get chewed out, wasn’t she? Cinder groans, slowing her pace.

“Just WHAT do you think you were doing over there, Cinder?” Pyre growls as Cinder gets close enough. “That was very–”

“Brave and thoughtful!” Ember interjects, elbow-ing Pyre, who practically seems to shrink a bit at the dragon lord’s interruption despite being over twice the size of the blue dragon.

“Before you tell me what a good idea it was to send me to the friendship school because of this, I didn’t do that to be ‘brave’ and ‘thoughtful’. I did it because I was bored.” Cinder retorts, rolling her eyes. Pyre gives her an incredulous look.

“Alright, well, I’m pretty BORED with your attitude.” Ember snaps back. “I get that you have this conception that dragons can go around being jerks and get away with it, but the world has changed, and that is NOT acceptable anymore!” Ember presses. Pyre seems to flinch back at that last part, but Cinder barely notices, her eyes locked with Ember’s in a fierce staring contest. Cinder wasn’t scared of Ember. She hadn’t been much older than Cinder was now when she’d become the new dragon lord.
Cinder narrows her eyes. Ember narrows her eyes too. A few moments pass, but they feel like they drag on for minutes at a time.

Eventually, Cinder looks away with a huff. “Dragons used to be cool.” she pouts.

“Being cool and being rude aren’t the same, kid.” Ember says pragmatically. “Like it or not, you’re going to have to learn that.” Ember turns back in the direction the group had been flying. “Now come on, we don’t want to be late. School’s starting in 2 days and we still haven't reached Ponyville.” Ember begins to fly off. Pyre and Cinder follow suit, now flying side-by-side with Ember ahead of them.

“...I know you’re not particularly happy about this, but I promise that going to the school will be good for you.” Pyre says after a while of flying. Cinder scoffs.

“Fat chance.” She remarks. “What will the other dragons think when I get back? I don’t wanna be soft and cuddly and make little pony friends. Dragons are supposed to live it out on their own without rules.” Cinder says with an angsty scowl.

Pyre lets out a wry laugh. “I used to be like that, you know.”

“I find that hard to believe, what, with how protective you’ve always been of me– not to mention the past few days.” Cinder replies sourly. “I can only imagine what must’ve made you this way.” She adds sarcastically.

“You have no idea.” Pyre responds ruefully, before flying ahead again.

…

Well, that was weirdly ominous.

Part 2

Cinder was still not happy, not that Ember or Pyre seemed to particularly care. Once in Ponyville, Pyre said her goodbyes, before flying back towards the Dragonlands. There really wasn’t a good place for her to stay in Ponyville, and she had to get back to the cave before any dragons at home got ideas and stole something.

Ember explains that she also had somewhere to be in Canterlot for a meeting with Twilight or something (Cinder hadn’t really been listening), but that she’d arranged for Cinder to spend the last night before school at the Friendship Castle. That sounded like just about the literal lamest place ever conceived. Not even the ‘castle’ part could save it. Or the fact that it was made of gemstones. Cinder wished she was a dragon so she could take a bite out of the big dumb castle.

Ember and Cinder landed in front of the doors to the castle. Ember knocks (way too politely for a dragon in Cinder’s opinion), and a few moments pass. When the door opens, Cinder is perhaps a little more surprised than she should be to see an alicorn in the doorway, though after a moment, she recognizes them as Flurry Heart. They look more cheerful than Cinder had ever seen them when they arrived in the Dragonlands for diplomatic meetings with Ember.

Flurry Heart was probably the poster filly for ‘soft and cuddly ponies’, which meant that Cinder didn’t respect her. Ember apparently did though, as she does a small bow to the princess. “Hey, Flurry Heart!” Ember says, looking mildly surprised to see them.

“Oh, hi Ember!” Flurry Heart says back, looking equally surprised.

“Would you happen to know where Spike is?” Ember asks, peering into the castle over Flurry Heart.

“Oh, yeah! Wait just one sec!” Flurry Heart says excitedly before speeding off.

Cinder feels like the name ‘Spike’ sounds familiar, but she doesn’t get time to ponder it for long before Flurry Heart comes skidding back to the door, with a young adult dragon in tow. He has a pretty similar scale color to Pyre, though the green spines down his back are definitely different.

“Ember!” He greets her, hugging Ember. Cinder recoils in disgust. Spike looks down at Cinder. “Oh, I’m guessing this is the pony you mentioned in your letter?” He asks, addressing Ember.

“Yes. I think she’s going to like it here.” Ember says, giving Cinder the side-eye. “And she’s not going to cause any trouble while she’s here, either!” She adds, looking back at Spike. Cinder gives Ember a death glare, but no creature seems to notice.

“Well, that’s good, because we’ve had our fair share of trouble-making recently.” Spike says suspiciously. Flurry Heart looks away.

“Huh. Anyways, I’m going to leave Cinder here with you. See ya’!” Ember says, before taking off for Canterlot. Cinder watches her leave, sighing internally.

“You gonna come in, or what?” Spike asks. Cinder turns and begrudgingly steps inside. The castle isn’t any less terrible on the interior, not made any better by the princess jumping up and down beside Cinder.

“It’s nice to meet you! Your name is Cinder, right?” Flurry Heart asks.

“Yeah.” Cinder says simply.

“OooOH! Do you know my name?” Flurry Heart asks more excitedly.

“Yes. Blurry Fart.” Cinder retorts, obviously getting her name wrong on purpose.

“Close, but not quite!” Flurry Heart says, unfazed. “It’s Flurry Heart; Nice to meet you!” She extends her hoof. Cinder assumes she wants a hoof bump, but decides that the princess isn’t nearly cool enough for her to receive one, so she just starts to walk off. Unfortunately, Flurry Heart follows her. “Ooh, your wings are really big!” Flurry Heart gasps, changing the subject. Cinder looks back at her, one eyebrow raised. She hadn’t really met any other pegasi before, so she didn’t have a frame of reference, but Cinder’s wings looked like they were roughly the same size as Flurry Heart’s.

“...Are they?” Cinder asks, a little curious. Flurry Heart seems to follow her gaze, and evidently realizes something.

“Oh, yes! I’m an alicorn, so my wings are naturally quite a bit bigger than a normal pegasus. Your wings are about as big as mine though, which is impressive! I bet you’re a really good flier!”

Cinder grins. “Heh, well, you could say that.” she says, puffing out her chest a little. Maybe if Flurry Heart kept this up, she could get some coolness points.

Cinder turns around to look at Flurry Heart. “So is there, like, anything interesting to do here?” She asks, looking around with distaste at the sparkly castle walls.

“Uhhh, I think Spike mentioned a game of some sort earlier?” Flurry Heart says. Cinder’s ears perk. Dragon games were the BEST. Stuff like lava surfing was SUPER COOL. Pyre never let her try it though because ‘she could die’ or something. Ugh.

“Do I hear you two talking about Ogres and Oubliettes?” Spike asks, approaching them.

“What’s that?” Cinder asks quizzically. She’d never heard of it, but it sounded interesting if it had anything to do with fighting ogres or something.

“It’s a game where you can do… anything..!” Spike says dramatically.

“You have my attention.” Cinder says, trying to hide her excitement.

“Follow me, you could probably join us!” Spike says, turning to go. “You wanna come too, Flurry?” He asks.

“Sure! I have nothing better to do!” Flurry Heart says happily.

Spike leads the group of three through the halls of the friendship castle. If it weren’t for all the lame colors and lame name, Cinder thought, then this place would be pretty rad. There were also way too many books. Cinder felt like she saw at least 3 different libraries on the way, which was 4 more than necessary.

Cinder also spots an odd room that appears to be largely overgrown by a leafy vine-like plant. Inside, she sees a light purplish-pink unicorn with deep purple hair semi-frantically pacing around and seemingly trying to simultaneously read 3 different books. Papers hang on the wall, with red strings strung between some. Cinder pauses walking to indulge her morbid curiosity, watching the unicorn as she’s too caught up in her… studying(?) to notice Cinder.

Flurry Heart comes back to see what Cinder is looking at, and follows her gaze. “Oh, yeah, that’s Starlight Glimmer!” She whispers. “She’s been at this since not long after I got here. I wonder what she’s trying to figure out…”

“Hey, what’s the holdup?” Spike calls from down the hallway. Cinder and Flurry Heart run to catch up with Spike as he’s standing in front of a door. He opens it and steps inside (though he has to duck slightly under the doorway). Cinder and Flurry Heart enter next, seeing it’s a relatively small room with even more books (ugh) and a circular table in the middle.

Sitting at the table is a reddish earth pony stallion with an orange mane, looking over the table, which houses a bunch of scattered papers, pencils, mini figures, and dice.

Oh no. Was this… A BOARD GAME?!?

“Hey, Big Mac!” Spike greets the red stallion.

“Howdy.” He responds simply. Big Mac notices Flurry Heart and Cinder walk in behind Spike, who seems to realize what he’s looking at.

“Oh! Would it be fine with you if these two joined us for a session?” Spike asks. Big Mac mulls it over for a moment, before letting out a slow “Yyyyuup.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Cinder addresses Spike, grimacing. “You didn’t tell me this was a board game! More like ‘bored’ game! As in it’s boring!” She huffs. She turns to leave, but is surprised as a door suddenly swings open FROM THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF HER. She looks down incredulously to see some weird horrible blend of animal parts assembled into a crude ‘creature’ staring down (up?) at her from within the floor doorway.

“Sorry I’m late!” He calls, before seeing Cinder. “Oh, and who’s this?” he asks, stepping forward and proceeding to not be affected by the laws of gravity as he appears to be standing on a different axis from the rest of the creatures in the room. He bends down to look at Cinder, who instinctively crouches down defensively and growls at him menacingly. She didn’t know what this thing was, but if it was dangerous, she was gonna BEAT IT UP. The thing merely raises his eyebrows at her.

“Hey there, Discord!” Spike calls nonchalantly from across the room, now setting up his stuff on the table from a bag he’d been carrying.

“And hello to you, Spike!” Discord says jovially. “Ah, hm. Something seems wrong here.” Discord walks up the air and puts his talons/ paws on the ceiling, seeming to twist the room in reference to him until it’s upright. The sensation is incredibly disorienting for Cinder, who feels like she just did a quadruple barrel roll against her will. Flurry Heart looks similarly dizzy, while Spike and Big Mac are proceeding like this is just business as usual.

With Discord now actually walking on the floor, he seems to realize Flurry Heart is here. “Oh, Flurry Heart, look at how you’ve grown!” He says, shrinking to be half her size and walking up to her, reaching up to pinch her cheeks.

“Hi, Discord!” She says awkwardly as a byproduct of Discord’s grandma-y cheek pinching. Does everybody here just know who this thing is??

“Are you here to join the session of Ogres and Oubliettes? I’ve got some positively wonderful things planned!” Discord gushes, returning to normal size and going to stand by the table. Flurry Heart follows him, looking excitedly across the table. Cinder remembers what she was doing and resumes leaving the room.

“Yeah! I haven’t played many board games, though; What are the rules like?” Flurry Heart asks. Cinder steps over the door hole Discord left in the floor, reaching for the handle of the actual exit.

“Hah! More like ‘what rules?’ Discord says, before snapping his talons. Cinder opens the door, but finds that instead of the rest of the castle interior, it leads to a wide open desert with sand as far out to the horizon as the eye could see.

“Wha..?” She gasps out, perplexed. Before she gets time to ponder it though, the room begins to tilt downwards. Cinder looks back in shock to see that Flurry Heart, Spike, and Big Mac are now all falling towards the open doorway– and her. “Wait, WAI–” she cries before being impacted by the three bodies. The group is sent tumbling through the doorway, landing in the sand in an ungraceful heap. Cinder ends up in the bottom of the heap. She is unhappy about this.

“Alright, have fun, you four!” Discord calls, before the doorway zips shut and is suddenly gone. Cinder untangles herself from the pile and runs to where the door had been, trying to feel for it, but it seemed like it was really gone.

“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Cinder yells at where the door had been. “OR ELSE!” She adds to be a little more threatening. Behind her, Spike, Big Mac, and Flurry Heart stand up.

“And why should I do that?” A voice seems to emanate from around the group, sounding like Discord’s. It also doesn’t sound particularly threatened.

“BECAUSE I’LL POUND YOU FLAT WHEN I GET OUT!” Cinder screams outwardly at the desert, flapping her wings to be intimidating. She wasn’t sure it was really working, though.

“On the contrary, little pegasus, I believe I’d flatten you, but that’s besides the point!” Discord’s voice swirls teasingly around Cinder. “If I recall correctly, you mentioned a distaste for board games. But look around! Does this seem like a ‘bored game’ to you now?” Cinder looks around at the desert.

…

She supposed he had a point. She also wanted to ask how he knew she’d mentioned not liking board games before he’d even come into the room, but it felt like a stupid question after all the reality-warping nonsense she’d seen him pull.

“Well okay, then.” She huffs. “But then where are we?” She asks.

“I should be able to answer that!” Spike chimes in from behind her. Cinder turns around and notices for the first time that Spike– and also Big Mac– appear to be dressed in.. costumes? Spike is wearing a turquoise robe and a matching pointy hat thing. He has a silvery beard coming down from his chin, which is not normal for a dragon, and he’s holding a curly wooden staff that’s tipped with a little spherical aquamarine-colored gem. Meanwhile, Big Mac is now wearing spiky black and gray armor that looks cooler than Cinder wants to admit, and he seems to have a unicorn horn now. Also a SWORD?

Cinder kind of just gawks at them as Spike steps forward to explain stuff. Cinder doesn’t really hear all of it. She makes out ‘dangerous temple’, ‘evil overlord’, ‘ancient artifact’, and that’s about it.

“Did you catch all that?” Spike asks, snapping Cinder out of her trance.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure. Temple overlord stuff.” Cinder mumbles. Spike raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t seem to feel like questioning it. Cinder notices Flurry Heart is similarly enamored by the costumes, especially with Big Mac’s horn.

“Could I be a new character too?” She squeaks excitedly.

“Of course!” Discord’s voice whirls around the group again like the wind. “What did you have in mind?”

“MAKE ME A CHANGELING!” Flurry Heart blurts.

“Ask, and you shall receive.” Discord’s voice says with a hint of a smirk in his voice. Cinder watches with a mix of horror and intrigue as Flurry Heart’s body begins to mold and morph into that of a changeling. Holes form in her legs. With a blink, her eyes are now a solid, blue color, and her coat of light pink fur darkens, becoming a deep gray color. She looks down at her new body in pure joy, but pauses for a second when she sees it.

“Oh, did you mean one of the reformed changelings? How silly of me!” Discord’s voice chuckles to itself.

“Actually, no!” Flurry Heart interjects. “...But can you give me my colors back?” She asks.

“Oh. Huh.” Discord’s voice sounds almost disappointed. “Alright, then.” it sighs. In a much less dramatic transition, Flurry Heart suddenly sports her old color scheme, accompanied with a white flash, an audible ‘pop!’ and a sprinkling of confetti that blows away in the wind.

“YAY!” Flurry Heart bounces with glee. She looks around, and her gaze lingers on Cinder. “What about you, Cinder? Do you have something you want to be?” She asks.

Cinder almost instinctively yells ‘DRAGON’, but stops herself. She was still feeling generally a bit defiant at this whole situation for being forced into it. Playing along would be like submitting, and that was WEAK. Admitting she wanted to be a dragon would also imply that she wasn’t happy with herself, which would be another sign of weakness.

“No.” Cinder says finally, trying to seem confident. “I don’t need a silly costume to kick serious flank.” Flurry Heart looks slightly disappointed, but Cinder doesn’t let herself feel bad for the princess. It was their own fault for not being tough enough. “Speaking of which, when are we gonna get some action? You mentioned an evil overlord or something, right?” Cinder asks, turning to Spike.

“Well,” Spike stars, “That ‘evil overlord’ is a bit far off in the story. He’s the–”

“Yawn. Skip to why we’re in the desert.” Cinder interjects.

Spike sighs. “We’re in the desert because we came looking for an ancient artifact that's hidden in a temple around here.” He says dryly.

Cinder looks around. She only sees sand in every direction. “I don’t see any temples.” she says skeptically, sitting back on her haunches and crossing her front legs in front of her chest.

“That’s because it’s hidden.” Spike smirks.

Cinder frowns. Flurry Heart steps forward. “So where is the temple, then?” She asks.

Spike scratches his chin. “I'm not sure… my magic led us here at the end of last
session.” He muses, tapping the ground with the base of his staff. Flurry looks down at it.

“Maybe it's under the sand?” She ventures.

“Ah, smart thinking!” Spike praises. Flurry Heart squeals happily. “But now we just have to figure out how we're going to get below all this sand…”

“Yyyup.” Big Mac adds.

Cinder looks up from a little bug she'd been squashing. “You said you need the sand cleared?” She asks.

“Yeah, something li–” he cuts off as Cinder bolts past him, having heard enough. She spreads her wings, taking a running leap into the sky.

“Better take cover!” She calls, beginning to circle the group overhead. “A storm is brewing.” She adds to herself, grinning in anticipation. She begins to beat her wings harder, flying faster in a circle overhead. Winds begin to pick up around her, swirling around, getting louder and louder until a miniature tornado is roaring around her. Sand is lifted off the floor in droves, creating a small sandstorm. Once it's big enough, Cinder tilts, changing her course and directing the sandy whirlwind away, bringing tons of sand along with it. As the tornado tears away into the distance, Cinder lands proudly, a smug look on her face. Looks like Flurry Heart had been right, as a stone entrance of sorts had been revealed. “Feel free to thank me whenever.” Cinder gloats.

“Yeah, thanks for almost getting us swept away in a tornado.” Spike jabs sarcastically. Cinder opens one eye from her proud expression, finally noticing the group post-storm. Spike crawls out from the protective wrapping of Flurry Heart, now transformed into a large, snake-like creature. “I was gonna suggest that Flurry could turn into something that could dig and more safely find the entrance…” Spike pauses, sighing. “...but I guess you went ahead and solved that problem already.” He says, sounding defeated.

“You BET I did!” Cinder grins. Flurry Heart shifts back from being a big snake, skipping forward.

“At least nopony got hurt!” She chirps happily.

“Yyyyup…” Big Mac adds, though sounding a little uncertain.

Cinder approaches the entrance, followed by the rest of the party. It’s a little tunnel of sorts, made from pale stone bricks. Little smatterings of sand linger in the entranceway, which ends at a door with a strange symbol on it that seems to have a spherical recess in the center. Spike wordlessly pushes forward, producing a dimly glowing teal orb from a bag on his back and pressing it into the circular hole of the door. As he takes his claws away, it remains fixed in the door, and seems to glow brighter, beginning to spin rapidly. The ground rumbles slightly, causing a bit of dust from overhead to be shaken loose, before the door begins to move. It grinds slowly to the side, and stops with a booming thud that echoes inside the dark temple. It isn’t dark for long though, as torches along both sides of the darkened temple begin to light up on their own, the flames progressing all the way down to the far end of the large room that has now been revealed. It’s made primarily of the same sandy beige brick as the entrance, with some earthy browns and oranges accenting them now too.

“Woooah!” Flurry Heart gasps, her eyes full of wonder. Cinder realizes her mouth is hanging open in awe, and promptly closes it before anybody notices. Unfortunately, it seems like Spike caught her, as he flashes her a cheeky grin. Agh! She looks away, pouting slightly. She wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to be unimpressed. She speed walks forward, intent on not letting anybody else see her frustration.

“Wait!” Spike cries. Cinder turns around, confused, and feels one of her hind legs sink a little as a pressure plate clicks under it. Cinder instinctively recoils as several arrows fly out of small crevices in the walls, flying towards her. One hits her hind leg as she’s maneuvering out of the way, and she prepares to feel the immediate sharp pain… but none comes. She watches as the arrow that hit her leg blinks in and out of existence rhythmically for a second before disappearing entirely. A strange bar of some kind becomes visible in Cinder’s vision– perfectly clear despite residing in her periphery, and moving with her head. Most of it is green, with a bit at the end being red. Displayed in the middle of the bar are the letters ‘HP’.

“What’s happening??” Cinder scrambles backwards, attempting to rub her eyes and clear it away, but it remains even when her eyes close. “Why is there a rectangle on my eyes!?” she barks, a bit of panic creeping into her voice.

“Oh, that’s your HP!” Spike says way too calmly.

“My what now?” Cinder asks, looking at him, puzzled. The rectangle seems to slowly be fading, and before long, it’s gone. She blinks, but it doesn’t return. Phew.

“HP. It stands for hit points! Or health points.” He adds. “It basically indicates how many times you can get hit before you faint. If it becomes fully red, you’ll be down and out!” Spike explains. Cinder pauses. She looks back down at her leg. Spike follows her gaze. “Ah, right! You can’t really feel pain here in Discord’s world. I wouldn’t advise getting hit much more, though.”

Spike steps forward, leaning down to inspect the floor. Now that Cinder looks more closely too, she can see the pressure plates on the ground. They’re only slightly raised above the rest of the floor, and are made of the same color of brick. They’re also absolutely littered around the place. “Traps,” Spike concludes. “We’ll need to be careful.” He advises, giving Cinder a sideways glance.

“Gee, thanks, genius.” Cinder responds unenthusiastically.

“You say that sarcastically, but those were words you might’ve wanted to hear before rushing off.” Spike retorts. Cinder scrunches her snout up in general distaste at this, but says nothing.

“If there are pressure plates on the ground, then why don’t we just fly over them?” Flurry Heart ponders, stepping up beside them alongside Big Mac.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Spike rummages around in his bag for a moment, before finding a crowbar. He looks at it a moment, before shrugging. “Ah well, I’ve never used this thing anyway.” He says, before standing up and hurling it across the room. As soon as it reaches a certain height, not far above the party’s heads, it gets engulfed in massive jets of fire that erupt from holes in the wall. The crowbar clatters to the ground on the other side of the room, charred and glowing slightly from the heat. “That would be why we can’t fly.”

Cinder tries to stop herself from thinking about how she could go through there no problem if she’d asked to be a dragon. She was NOT about to change her opinion now. “Alright then, smarty-pants.” Cinder grumbles. “So how do we get across?” Cinder asks, looking at Spike.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Cinder!” Spike says, ignoring her prior remark. “Care to demonstrate, McBiggun?” Spike asks, gesturing towards Big Mac, who nods, and steps forward. He proceeds to shimmy across the room, watching his step carefully as he hopscotches around pressure plates. He moves with surprising dexterity despite his large size, and makes it to the other side of the room without activating any traps. He does a bow.

“ooOOH! That looks fun!” Flurry Heart bounces up and down eagerly. “Can I go???” She pleads to Spike.

“Sure, just be careful!” Spike smiles. Flurry Heart begins to follow in Big Mac’s hoofsteps. Cinder goes to follow suit. “Hey, hey, wait up, Cinder. You probably shouldn’t go at the same time as Flurry Heart!” Spike calls.

Cinder turns back to him, unamused. “I’d like to be out of here as quickly as I can,” she shoots back, which was mostly true. “If you don’t want me going right behind Flurry Heart, then why don’t you stop me?” she sneers.

Spike sighs again, and starts following behind Cinder as well, despite his own warnings. Flurry Heart giggles, and Cinder looks ahead at her to see she’s looking behind her at Cinder and Spike. Suddenly, Cinder hears another click. In Flurry Heart’s distraction, she’d stepped on a pressure plate. Her face drops. Expecting another barrage of arrows, Cinder darts forward without thinking, shoving Flurry Heart forward and sending her tumbling the rest of the way across the room. To Cinder’s dismay though, there are no arrows, as instead the floor opens up below her. She begins to plummet into a dark hole.

“AAAGH!” Spike yelps, falling in beside Cinder. It only takes a moment for Cinder to regain her senses and remember that she has wings. But by the time she rights herself and tries to fly back up, the floor is already closing.

“CINDER!” Cinder hears Flurry Heart cry out, before the opening is sealed. Cinder pounds on it, but to no avail. Despite the darkness they’ve been plunged into, she can sense Spike flying beside her now. “The pressure plate doesn’t seem to be working anymore!” Flurry Heart’s muffled voice sounds from above Cinder and Spike.

“Keep going, we’ll meet up with you two further on!” Spike shouts up.

There’s a pause, before Flurry Heart responds “Alright!”

Spike waits a moment, before sighing for like the 20th time or something so far. Cinder can’t see him, but she feels like he’s contemplating his life decisions.

“Alright. There’s gotta be a way out of here.” Spike eventually speaks up. A teal light emerges near his face, originating from the tip of his staff, and illuminating a bit of the relatively small passageway they’re in. Darkness stretches out below them. “Well, nowhere to go but down.”

Cinder was electing to remain primarily silent for fear– no, NOT fear. Simply for just not wanting to risk the topic of this predicament being potentially mostly her fault getting brought up. As the bottom of the pit comes into view, they see a collection of grisly spikes protruding from the base of the pit. “Good thing we can fly.” Cinder mutters to herself.

“See any passages?” Spike asks with what sounds like waning hope. Cinder looks around. She spies a crack in the wall a little ways above the spikes. It’s not a passage though, per se.

…At least, not yet.

Cinder charges forward, bucking it hard with her hind legs. It crumbles a bit, but doesn’t fully give way. She winds up, before delivering another blow. More bits of brick fall away. Spike flies up beside her as she delivers the third and final attack, breaking through the wall and clumsily landing on solid ground. Spike comes in after her, standing beside Cinder and looking ahead. They appear to be in a long corridor. It’s still quite dark, but Cinder can make out a faint light at the end a decent way off as she stands up.

She and Spike begin to start walking down the corridor, moving fairly slowly so as to try and avoid triggering any traps. Cinder contemplates just running, but going fast doesn’t seem to actually be helping her get through this temple any quicker, so she resolves to wait. Just this once.

“Y’know,” Spike suddenly speaks up. “I’ve been thinking about how we got down here.” Cinder lets out a small groan of annoyance.

“Look, I know it’s my fault we got stuck down here, but just deal with it.” She says sharply.

“No, it isn’t that.” Spike says. “Well, kinda. Believe it or not, I’ve noticed that you’re a little, erm… headstrong?” He ventures.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘cool’. And also ‘tough’.” Cinder responds matter-of-factly.

“No, I think I chose a good word, but regardless, the point I wanted to get at was that I saw you save Flurry Heart up there. That caught me off guard, because it seems more noble than I would have expected from you.” He explains.

Cinder sputters. “I did no such thing!” She says. “Well, maybe I saved her, but it wasn’t for any noble reasons!” Cinder corrects.

“Oh?” Spike raises an eyebrow. “And why not?”

“Because dragons aren’t meant to be noble!” Cinder responds with confidence. “Nobility doesn’t get you the most gold or the biggest cave.”

“Ah right, Ember mentioned you were raised in the Dragonlands.” Spike says ruefully.

“I was!” Cinder huffs, puffing out her chest. “And if I had MY way, I’d be back there right now, training to be the best dragon ever!”

Spike lets out a small chuckle. “Is that why you’re so reckless?” he asks.

“The word you’re looking for is FEARSOME!” Cinder reiterates grumpily. “And yes, why? Didn’t you grow up there too?” Cinder raises an eyebrow of her own.

Spike shakes his head. “No, I grew up here in Ponyville.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re so soft for a dragon” Cinder mutters under her breath.

“Hey, I heard that!” Spike gives her an unimpressed look.

“How’d that happen anyways?” Cinder asks, veering to a different topic. “Y’know, with you being raised here.”

Spike looks up at the ceiling, seemingly deep in thought. “My egg was taken at some point, and I was hatched by Twilight Sparkle in Canterlot,” he explains. “I’ve been her faithful friend ever since!” He says contentedly.

“Barf.” Cinder snorts. “Probably sucked here.” She says.

“Nah, I loved it.” Spike looks back at Cinder. “Wasn’t it hard growing up in the Dragonlands? Do you not wish you could’ve grown up here instead with ponies who’d understand you better?” He asks.

Cinder bristles at this. “Are you implying that I’m not GOOD ENOUGH to live among dragons!?” Cinder snaps, her tone angering.

“No, I–” Spike starts, but gets cut off.

“I’m LUCKY to have been raised there! No matter WHAT anybody else says! Least of all YOU!” She yells. Spike’s brow furrows as some of Cinder’s anger seems to be rubbing him the wrong way. “I’M PERFECTLY HAPPY IN THE DRAGONLANDS, YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE WHO’S SAD– YOU DIDN’T GET TO GROW UP IN THE DRAGONLANDS WITH YOUR REAL FAMILY!” Cinder shouts angrily.

“Doesn’t sound like you got to grow up with your real family either.” Spike snaps back. He seems to immediately regret his words though, as Cinder stops in her tracks. Spike turns, looking apologetic. “Shoot, I’m sorry. That might be a sore topic for you.” He says, his tone softening. Cinder sits down, looking at the floor. She’s silent for a moment. She didn’t think about her real parents very often.

“...It’s fine.” She says quietly after a moment. “I don’t remember them anyways. Pyre is my mom now.” Cinder feels a touch on her shoulder, but doesn’t look up. “You don’t have to do that, you know.” she says, frowning slightly, but Spike doesn’t respond. She looks up, seeing that he’s still standing where he had been… notably a bit too far to have put his claw on her shoulder. He’s giving her a rather frightened look, or more specifically giving her shoulder a frightened look. She turns her head and startles when she finds that a scorpion is sitting there. Cinder bats it away quickly, turning and stumbling backwards towards Spike. The tunnel appears to be rather quickly filling with little black scorpions, filing in from more holes in the tops of the wall along the corridor, and amassing an army that’s currently marching towards the two. “It might be a good time to–”

“RUN!!” Spike shouts, bolting in the other direction. Cinder doesn’t need any more encouragement to follow hastily behind him. The light that had previously been distant was now starting to close in, and it was now evident that it was a beam of light filtering in from somewhere above. It wasn’t a very large hole, though– definitely not large enough for either of them to fit. “You hold off the scorpions, I’ll get us through this brick!” Spike directs. Cinder obliges, turning to the sea of scorpions now pouring towards them. They were piling over each other, chittering and snapping their pincers threateningly. Cinder stomps a few of the front runners, but there quickly became too many for that. Behind her, Spike seems to be charging up a spell with his staff, which is glowing brightly.

The scorpions continue to descend on Cinder. “Can you hurry it up back there!?” She hollers back, now focusing her efforts on beating her wings to blow back the scorpions with moderate success, but they are slowly and surely gaining ground.

“I’m gonna need another 30 seconds or so!” Spike shouts back.

Cinder steels herself and flaps even harder, putting everything she has into it. Her muscles scream with effort, but she’s determined to keep the creepy crawlies at bay. They slowly inch forward, and Cinder slowly inches backward. Her wings are beginning to tire, but she forces herself to keep going. “CAN YOU GO ANY SLOWER??” She screams at Spike.

“I’m almost done!” he yells back.

Just as Cinder feels like she literally can’t continue, the teal light behind her flares violently, and a loud BOOM can be heard as a beam of energy blasts through the stone ceiling from Spike’s staff. “Come on!” he cries. Cinder turns tail and runs, using the last of her wings’ energy to fly up towards the opening. Spike grabs her by the hoof as she falters, pulling her up and out of reach of the scorpions. They both exhale a sigh of relief, just laying on the ground to catch their breaths for a minute. After a while, Cinder sits up.

“Alright, I’ll admit. That was pretty cool.” Cinder says between gasps.

Spike grins. “Heh, glad you’re warming up to OnO.” He begins to stand, looking around, before letting out an excited “Aha!”

Cinder turns to see what he’s looking at, and spies a pedestal on the far side of the room. Floating atop it is a small bedazzled scepter of some kind with an impressive crystal mounted at the top. “That the weird thing you’re after?” Cinder asks.

“Yes!” Spike says excitedly, not tearing his gaze away from the artifact. “That’s the Scepter of Teirr’an! With it, we could–”

A loud scraping suddenly emanates from the side of the room opposite the scepter. Cinder and Spike’s heads swivel at the noise, seeing that it’s coming from a closed stone door. Cinder gets up, going to stand near Spike, her eyes not leaving the door. The scraping is accompanied by what sounds like the ambient cries of whatever is currently clawing open the door. “Get ready,” Spike urges, holding his staff out in preparation. “Whatever’s coming through that door sounds dangerous.”

Cinder assumes a defensive position, staring down the door. It grinds against the ground as it is slightly pried open, and a pair of three, large claws curl around it, pushing it farther aside. “I think it’s a maulwurf..!” Spike gasps. He pauses for a moment. “That’s weird, I didn’t think they lived in the desert.” As he finishes saying this, the door finally gets pushed aside, and a large mole-like creature with a frilly pink nose, white fur, and massive gnashing teeth squeezes through the doorway. It spots Spike and Cinder, and begins to charge, arms outstretched to attack! Spike and Cinder charge forward as well, battlecries escaping their mouths. As they make contact with the maulwurf though, it embraces them in a giant hug.

“What..?” Cinder says, muffled by the fur in her face.

In a large green flash of light, The Maulwurf is replaced by Flurry Heart, still gripping Cinder and Spike in a tight embrace. “Hiya!” She chirps.

“Please don’t do that again.” Spike says tiredly.

“Oh, right. Sorry!” Flurry Heart lets them go. Her gaze wanders past them, settling on the scepter. “oooOO, what’s that??” She points at it.

“That’s the artifact we’ve been looking for.” Spike responds. He looks around. “Speaking of ‘we’, where’s Big Mac?” Spike asks.

“Oop! That’s right!” Flurry Heart turns around. “You can come in, Big Mac! It’s safe!” She calls. A rather bedraggled and semi-traumatized-looking Big Mac steps into the room. He appears quite battered, his armor dented, and evidently his spirits too.

“I take it you guys didn’t have a very easy time getting here.” Spike observes.

“nnnnNNNOPE!” Big Mac says a little insanely. As he steps up to join the other three, a voice suddenly rings out throughout the room.

“CONGRATULATIONS!” Discord pops into existence in front of them. “It would seem you’ve all made it through the desert temple of Teirr’an and acquired his scepter..!” The scepter lifts up and floats towards the party. Spike steps forwards, taking it into his claws. “And that… is where we will end the session!” Discord smirks, snapping his claws. A hole suddenly opens beneath the party, and they all fall with various yelps of surprise, landing awkwardly in the room of the crystal castle where they’d met up. Cinder stands a little shakily as Discord descends after them through the hole, closing it behind him. “I’ll see you all later!” He calls joyously, walking to the door, grabbing it by the handle, and pulling it off its hinges. He then proceeds to ride it out of the room like a surfboard on imaginary water. Cinder is a little too drained to comment on that.

“That was really fun!” Flurry Heart cheers, apparently the only creature in the room not currently suffering from some form of exhaustion. “Can we go again??” She pleads to Spike, who has also stood up by this point. His costume has disappeared, apparently tied to the Discord World or whatever.

“Maybe, but definitely not right now. I have a sneaking suspicion that…” He goes to the hole where the door to the room had been, peaking out. “Yep, it’s already super late.” Cinder goes out to see for herself, and sure enough, the moon has risen. They didn’t actually spend that long playing, did they? “I think you two should probably be getting to bed. The first day of the friendship school is the day after tomorrow!” Uuuuugghh. That’s right. Cinder was still not looking forward to that. “You’re staying here, right, Cinder?” Spike asks. Cinder just shrugs, rolling her eyes. “I’ll take that as a begrudging yes.” Spike decides. “HEY, STARLIGHT!” He calls out, his voice booming through the castle. A moment later, that purple-pink unicorn sticks her head out of her room, mane looking frazzled.

“...Yeah?” She asks uncertainly.

“You got a place for Cinder to sleep here?” Spike questions.

“Who?” Starlight squints at him. Spike simply gestures down at Cinder. “Oh, OH, right! Yes! I do!” Starlight steps out of the room, coming over to the small group.

“Geez, have you been in there all day? Just what are you working on in there?” Spike asks, raising an eyebrow at her somewhat disheveled appearance.

“Hopefully nothing.” Starlight says ruefully.

Spike’s eyebrow raises higher, but he lets it go. “Well, I’ll be heading out now. I need to get back to Canterlot before sunrise.” He begins leaving. “It was fun playing with you all!” He calls, before rounding a corner.

Big Mac begins to head off the same way as Spike. He gives a nod to Starlight, Flurry Heart, and Cinder as they head off in a different direction. Flurry Heart bounds off ahead of Starlight and Cinder, evidently knowing where she’s going already. Starlight leads Cinder to her room, opening the door and allowing her inside. “If there’s anything you need, I’ll be in the room you saw me come from!” Starlight says, seemingly mustering a lot of energy to sound welcoming. With that, she closes the door. Cinder looks around the room. It’s nothing like anything from her cave in the Dragonlands, but she finds a place to sleep, crawling under the soft square thing on one end of the room.

As she’s drifting off, the memories of the day swirl around in her head. Ugh, she’d totally let her guard down too much around Spike in the tunnel. She shouldn’t have let his words get to her like that. At least the adventure had been kinda cool.

Maybe Cinder wouldn’t be too unhappy here. Maybe.

Pre-Season Episode 5: That's How Mafia Works

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