Unveiling the Lies

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 8
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7

Chapter 1

It was a beautiful day in Maretime Bay.
The crabs were clapping, the birds tweeting along with the beat the crabs made, and two little ponies were busy lounging under the burning sun.

“Nngh, it’s been some time since we last hung out here at the beach Hitch. What gave you the idea?” Sunny asks and gets up and stretching out her hooves.

Hitch gazes out at the ocean with a spaced-out look. Sunny notices this and flails her hooves in front of his face to try and get his attention but to no avail. She wouldn’t get a response from him. That is before she steps on his tail, making him go flying towards the sky, like a rocket, before crash-landing onto the ground.

“Ouch! What was that for?” He yelps in pain. He gets up and starts to rub under his jaw.

Sunny looks at him with a deadpan stare before switching to a happy grin, “I don’t know Hitch, why don’t you tell me? I’m not the one staying in gagaland”

Hitch scoffs at her before gazing back at the ocean, “Just thinking about recent events. We brought back magic and earned some pretty cool friends on the way” he’d say with a wistful smile, before switching to a glum look, “and lost some as well”

You see, after they restored the magic, Sprout had to be put under house arrest for 3 weeks because he was overdue for punishment after violating 10 laws under the Maretime jurisdiction. They still went easy on him due to him being the son of Phyllis and the Sheriff’s close friend. Still even after his house arrest, due to his destroying the lighthouse, he would need to make up for 180 hours of community service and be responsible for reconstructing Sunny’s home. This thought left a sour taste in his mouth and he decided to distance himself from Hitch and Sunny.

Sunny starts to think of something to turn his frown upside down, “Hey, it’s been a while since I last saw Zipp and Pipp. Why don’t we visit them in Zephyr Heights? We can even invite Izzy!”

“Can’t, I saw Zipp a couple of hours ago and she told me that she’s busy with kingdom management classes so she had to leave early. Pipp’s also busy doing some promotional ‘How-To-Fly’ live streams on her social media accounts so we don’t want to bother her. Izzy on the other hand we can try?” Hitch responds and starts getting up from his spot underneath the blazing sun.

Sunny’s ears popped up from surprise after hearing how much Hitch knew about the royal sisters’ schedules, then she has on a sly smile. “Why Hitch, you never told me that you and the princesses were this close?”

“I mostly hang out with Zipp, she’s the one that told me all that. We're together every day at Canterlogic or the Sheriff’s office mostly to talk about science, technology, and share security protocols to improve both our cities. Though Zipp said this one time how she isn’t interested in being Queen. She’s even the one who suggested for me to invite you out here, saying how it’ll help us catch up on lost time.” Hitch rambles with a giddy smile on his face, Sunny notices this and begins to tease him.

“So? You and Zipp, huh?” Hitch immediately takes notice of her teasing and his ears start to turn a bright red.

Though speaking of that specific mare she would start dashing through the skies before flying down to both the little ponies.

“There you both are! I see you took my advice, Sheriff.” Zipp nods in approvement.

“Hey, Zipp! Hitch was telling me all about how close you guys are.” She exclaims with a teasing grin before being hit on the back of the head by Hitch.

“Excuse her, but what are you doing here? You told me you had those boring kingdom management classes to attend, and usually, they take much longer than 30 minutes?”

Zipp responds nonchalantly, “Oh I skipped it. Utilized the one free pass I had to hang out with you.”

Sunny thinks of an idea and begins to secretly leave before being stopped by Hitch calling out to both Izzy and Pipp,

“Hey, guys! We’re over here!”, the other two ponies see him and start trotting along to their spot. Pipp seemed to be preoccupied with her phone to notice the trash can that was inching for her to fall into, but she flew over it at the last minute. Hmm, that’s some type of awareness… ah right I’m narrating can’t talk you guys didn’t hear anything!!!

“Hey, everypony! Isn’t it so funny how we all decided to meet up today with zero planning, it’s like fate!” Izzy comments once she reaches the spot where Sunny is. Pipp on the other hoof is still preoccupied with her phone, “Mhm… ugh this is getting SUPES out of hand!”

Zipp looks towards her little sister concerned, “Is this about the controversy?” Pipp just looks at her sister with a face that says duh, but Zipp waves it off and goes back to talking with Hitch about how Cloud Puff was begging to see him again.

“What controversy?” Sunny points out a little worried. “It’s nothing, just a bunch of pegasi thinking that I’m unfit for the role of a royal and am abusing my power so I can get successful and famous. So you know the usual. Though now I’m responding to these annoying commenters saying how I’m betraying them by dating an earth pony.” Pipp responds nonchalantly. Zipp, hearing this though, whips her head, her extremely gelled mane slapping poor Hitch on the face, towards Pipp with a glare.

“Who’s dating what?” She shouts expecting a reply immediately, every other pony would look at Pipp with a shocked look.

“I don’t know any earth ponies in Maretime Bay who says they're dating a Pegasus, and trust me I know everything about everypony here.” Hitch casually brags. Sunny nods her head to confirm this.

“Well yeah cause I’m not. I’m not dating any pony at the moment… nevertheless a stallion with yellow fur and turquoise mane-” Pipp then gets cut off by Zipp tackling Hitch to the ground

“Why are you fooling around with my baby sister? Is that the reason you wanted to hang out?!? JUST TO GET INFORMATION OUT OF ME!!!” Hitch in general was a mix of being pale and then turning red in the face then turning pale again, kind of like a flickering flashlight. Pipp on the other hand kept on scrolling through her social media feeds getting very upset, well that is before Izzy magics it away.

“That’s weird, why would they think you’re dating Hitch?” Sunny ponders, making sure to hoof bump Izzy for being able to get the phone away.

“I DON’T KNOW some ponies took what I said on my last live out of context. I just said that Hitch was probably the most good-looking out of all my friends, well aside from me. But that’s beside the point, they just took that out of context, and boom dating scandal, so Zipp you can stop threatening him since we aren’t dating at all.”

Zipp gets off of Hitch before facing Pipp, “That reason alone would not lead to this big of a controversy, so was there something else you noticed?”

Pipp thinks long and hard and notices a minor detail she had forgotten, “Oh right! During the royal celebration when you were stealing the Pegasus crystal, I was performing my song “Glowing Up” when one of my fans’ videos circulated where they saw Hitch looking at me in awe and then with his abrupt interruption of my performance! Everypony on the web started theorizing that the whole thing was staged…. I mean why would I want to expose myself and stage an awful performance? Anywho they then started to think after magic came back that he’s my special somepony. You know fans, they are super ridiculous.”

Zipp would then have a murderous aura around her as she approaches Hitch about to punch him to Saddle Arabia, “Why.Were.You.Making.Googly.Eyes.Towards.My.Sister?!?!”

Each pause led to another step closer, and Hitch would back up fearing for his life. “W-wait! It’s not what you think Zipp! I wasn’t making any type of eyes toward her! I-I was just in awe since it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Pegasus fly! Plus added to that jaw-dropping performance, it was hard not to be in awe!” Hitch throw his hooves in front of his face as a last attempt of saving his life.

“Well then if that’s the case we’ll need to clear this misunderstanding up…” Zipp clears her throat and calms herself down.

“How are we supposed to do that? Not many ponies are tuning into my live streams and even if I cleared it up, they wouldn’t believe me and just listen to their own “proof”. Not to forget we still don’t have our kingdom back.” Pipp says exasperated and Izzy gets in the middle of the conversation at random.

“Now come on! I’m sure there is something we can do! There is always a way-“

“Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a kingdom? I thought you told me that the ponies were confused so they begged for you to rule over them again?” Hitch interrupts Izzy as she tries to defuse the rising tension. Zipp’s eyes widened and her ears falls back as she then knew that she was caught.

Before she could explain anything though, Queen Haven, or just Haven now, flies to them, and Sunny seeing this as an opportunity, goes to greet her. Hitch scoots away to leave her room to land,

“Hello my little ponies! Was there a beach meetup today? If there was you should have invited me since I ought to try out this tanning thing I’ve heard so much about from Pipp.” Haven exclaims after landing on the sand,

“Hey mom, why are you visiting Maretime Bay?” Zipp asks.

“Well can’t I be curious about my daughter’s whereabouts for the better half of the day? I mean come on Zipp you can’t deny that you’ve been visiting here at every waking hour. The next step would probably be moving inside leaving your dear old mother and sister alone.” Haven whines dramatically, but Zipp wasn’t having it. “But alas you are right, there is something I’ve come to relay to you. Guess what!”

Pipp excitedly raises her hoof, “Anypony other than Pipp ‘’, Pipp then puts down her hoof sulking.

Now it was Izzy’s turn to excitedly put up her hoof, “Ooh! Ooh! I got it! Alphabittle is your colt friend!” Haven’s face turns beet red, “N-no, we are just good friends. Plus my daughter’s father is still around.” That didn’t stop Izzy though as she started listing many possibilities, “Then what if it’s you learned how to cook! No, maybe it’s that you have a hobby in unicycling! Oh I give up, come on tell us!”

Hitch would then get up and ask, “Does it have something to do with Zipp and Pipp’s dad?” Haven whips her head to him with a gleeful look.

“Yes! He will be leading our army back from a successful battle against the other Pegasus kingdom!”

“Daddy’s coming back?!?” Pipp squeals while doing loop de loops in the sky. “Yay! I haven’t seen him since forever!”

“But that’s not all! With this victory, the Pegasi will forgive us and let us claim back our royal titles! Zipp, you’ll be able to be queen again, isn’t that exciting? Zipp?” Haven looked up, but Zipp was nowhere to be seen.

Author's Note

Hi! Just wanted to give a little context for somethings happening or that will happen in the story:

This story has been in the works ever since a new generation was released so it will be missing many characters
(Sorry Misty and Sparky, maybe I'll add you in an Epilogue)
Chapter release schedule will ideally be biweekly, but I will update on my profile if it'll be delayed or there'll be a long hiatus.
The story is currently 45% done, I was planning to release it when everything was completely finished, but due to the canceling of G5, I decided to release it now.
So, depending on the general engagement of the fanfic will determine if I complete the fic or not, due to me focusing on college and already having 2 other fics on other platforms I'm currently finishing.
If I do decide to continue it, there will be probably a 6 - 8 month-long hiatus before I update the next batch of chapters to complete the story.
(I think that'll be when I get to chapter 20 or 22 when I'll start the hiatus...so I guess it'll be like a season 2???)
The main pairings for the fic will be exclusive to Stormblazer, and mild MoonScout (It'll be there but just not emphasized)
HavenBittle will also be referenced once or twice.

Other than that, I hope you had fun reading!

Chapter 8

Inside the dining area there was a feast of…. Cloud cream?

Cloud Cream pancakes, cloud cream bread, cloud cream yogurt, cloud cream croissants, cloud cream muffins, and even cloud cream juice! Everypony present, excluding the royal family, stares down at the food presented to them with a puzzled look.

King Thunder signals for the guarding attendants to pull out the seats for everypony, afterwards motioning for the standing ponies to sit down. Pipp happily takes the seat to the right of her father, while Zipp positions herself on the far end of the dining table, to the left of her mother. King Thunder mumbles something under his breath when he see's that Zipp chose to sit next to her mother, but he resets his expression back to being stoic.

Izzy sits in the middle right side of the table, while Sunny sits across from her wearing a quesy expression from all of the sugar presented in front of her. Hitch is about to sit next to Zip who is patting the seat next to her before King Thunder clears his throat.

His expression was hard to decipher but seemed very calculating, "Ditch"

"Hitch...."

"Doesn't matter, you shall be seated next to me."

"Out of all the empty seats at this table why should he be sitting next to you." Zipp gestures at the 6 unoccupied seats surrounding the table.

"Why Princesss, why are you so passionate about this? I'm just trying to get to know your friends better. Especially this one... Haven you said he was some type of general correct?"

"He is the sole sheriff and police force for the earth ponies, yes."

"How interesting....I wish I didn't have any responsibilities like you."

Before Zipp can retort Hitch sits down next to King Thunder and says in a calm voice, "I'm glad my life reflects off as being so easy to you. Must mean I've done something right yesterday."

King Thunder chuckles at this response and then waves for the attendants to leave the room, proclaiming in a booming voice, “Let the cloud feast begin!”

Sunny stares at the platter presented in front of her not even having the strength to pick up her spoon. She shakily raises her hoof, "So Queen Haven you don't happen to have any... fruits or veggies on hoof right??? I just really like to keep my usual...balanced... diet"

She says the "balanced" part quietly to where nopony could really hear her.

"Why yes! But they are being kept for the scheduled lunch time. Don't fret Sunny! This is an pegasi staple when it comes to our cuisine. See of this as a way for me to formally introduce you to our culture because we remember how the last time went..."

Reluctantly Sunny adds the cloud cream pancakes and muffins to her plate. With the amount of sugar present in front of them she takes a mental note of how many seconds she can stay in this room before she'd like to puke from the smell alone. She makes a mental note to buy a wagon full of fruits and veggies to avoid this issue from happening again.

Before she can take a nibble out of her muffin, Izzy magics away the cloud cream items and teleports an apple to her.

"Sorry Queen Haven, but Sunny doesn't really do well with a lot of sugar. It makes her insides do flips, if you know what I mean~" She takes a big gulp out of the large array of sweets in front of her,

"OH! Why didn't you say so Sunny? I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable, I just assumed because of your smoothie business that you were fine with sweets. Next time please tell me if something makes you uncomfortable? Then I'll arrange with the proper ponies to fit your preferences. I would hate if I was the reason why my daughters friends didn't have a good time while visiting."

"Why thank you Queen Haven for being considerate. I just didn't want to insult you or the pegasi's wonderful culture by not being open to eating something..." Sunny looks down feeling a little shy.

"Nonsense! If you were insulting us than you probably would have thrown the food away." Queen Haven flicks her fork and some of the cloud cream lands on Zipp's face.

"Mom!" Zipp grumbles

"Oops sorry..." Queen Haven quickly rubs off the cloud cream with her spare handkerchief.

"Its fine...but like my mom said Sunny its not that bad. The only one in our family that could actually eat this is that pile of rocks over there." She points her hoof towards where PIpp is sitting.

"Hey!" Pipp quickly gets up from her seat about to send the biggest punch she could muster to the sister she JUST made up with. Siblings smh...

"Not you, him!" She adjusts her hoof to where it's face to face with Thunder.

Thunder chokes on his food, not really expecting such a forward insult, "Cough... didn't your mother teach you that it's not polite to point at ponies? Cough... all this fuss over one stupid earth pony."

"Shut it." Queen Haven waves over an attendant and looks at Sunny expectantly, Sunny, is Avocado toast good for you?"

"Yes! That would be perfect!"

The attendant then rushes off to the kitchen to relay the order, mumbling under their breath a few choice words that is not suitable for young ponies to hear. He comes back 30 minutes later with a half burnt toast and messily cut avocados sprayed on top, with few to no spices added.

"Wow! Send my thanks to the Chef for guessing my preferences! How did they know I love burnt toast, Queen Haven your castle staff is amazing!" Sunny quickly starts munching on the toast.

Queen Haven shrugs and bites into a muffin, "I guess I'm just very lucky. I remember when I requested for the Chef to change Pipp's plate when she was younger since she was acting very funny, and she makes another plate except this time with no peanuts. That's how we found out about Pipp's allergy, we are so lucky to have her."

Thunder starts to choke again on his food, but this time he's trying to hold in a laugh.

"What's so funny...dear?" Queen Haven glares at him from across the table, stabbing her food in the process.

"Nothing...nothing...haha, just I found something interesting" King Thunder wipes his mouth with a napkin and reaches out for another cloud cream muffin.

After this interaction the dining room grows very quiet, the only sounds being heard were that of the silverware clinking against each other.

It continues like this for thirty more minutes until Izzy decides to have enough and asks King Thunder in a happy tone, “So, you just came back from a war with the northern pegasi right? Can you tell us some war stories of what the north is like?”

“Oh yes! Seeing as I’ve been in Maretime Bay for the longest time, until you know we brought back magic. Plus, I’m very interested in the history of the pegasi kingdom and why they are split between the north and south.” Sunny pipes up interested in the topic.

King Thunder finishes his last dish and looks up at the two ponies with a grin, “And I suppose you would also like to know about our military strategies?”

“YES! Ahem, I mean if you could, Maretime Bay is lacking greatly in law enforcement so more safety tips would be amazing.” Hitch exclaims.

King Thunder looks at the table of curious ponies and smiles to himself. He liked discussing history, but he really loves talking about his war pursuits and battle victories! So seeing this many curious ponies lead to him being in a very happy mood.

Zipp rolls her eyes and gets up, "While you guys listen to his boring tales I'll be going to meet up with an old friend."

"What friends? Last I checked you were always holed up in your room doing who knows what." Pipp points out

"Pinion."

"I stand corrected, who names their kid that." Pipp snorts,

Zipp rolls her eyes and exits the room. Queen Haven ushers for one of the guards to follow close behind her.

"Now dad please tell us everything about the north!" Pipp leans close to him interested. Since they didn't have much time to hang out the past day, this can be a good bonding moment. Later on she can fly back to her room and check off share stories with dad, in her list "500 Things To Do With Dad!"

“Well then, if it’s what the ponies want, then I shall give the ponies what they want! Now listen carefully, back when I and Haven were your age, there was a north and south pegasi empire, yes, but we were still the same kingdom! The north was actually situated where the ancient Cloudsdale remains were but the architecture they made from the remnants let me tell you was absolutely stunning! You would think that they were just renovating the whole entirety of Cloudsdale!"

He notices how he's done nothing but praise the northern pegasi city, while bringing down Zephyr Heights... he bites his tongue at this realization,

"*cough* I mean, Zephyr Heights has much more amazing structures, I mean look at our castle and our technological boom.

That was one of our major differences…they were stuck in the past and didn’t like our inventions, but that didn’t bring problems to us! In general, the north was where we did most of our farming, and apparently…they were able to make rainbows. But if that was possible we would have lost that war many moons ago.

Now, where was I…”

Flashback sequence. . .

There a very young-looking Thunder was standing in front of a mirror admiring his now outgrown buzz cut and overflowing luscious mane. After 8 moons of being in the military academy, he was starting to miss his grown-out tail and mane.

A knock could be heard from outside the hotel room he was currently residing in, “Come in!”

When the door was opened there stood Queen Haven..you know what let’s just call her Haven. Thunder continued to look at the mirror, not bothering to look back at whoever entered the room until she spoke, “So that’s it, no hello, I miss you? A glance in my direction would even suffice at this point.”

Haven now states annoyed, leading to Thunder whipping his head back and engulfing Haven in a tight hug. Haven looks down and blushes before using her wings to push him away.

“Well I guess that will work, but did you really have to grow out your mane that fast? I was looking forward to seeing you almost bald” Haven jokes now free from his tight grip.

Thunder stares down at her with a sheepish grin, “ Well then am I glad that you hadn’t visited me in the academy.”

Haven gives him a slide glance and goes to carry the luggage out of the room,

“Why was it only you who arrived to welcome me back?” Thunder moves to where Haven struggles to pick up the baggage carrying all his hair gel and products.

She looks up at him with a blank stare before moving to the other bags available and picking up the one that weighed the less. She motions for him to follow her and he does without question until he sees the surroundings of the motel room.

Paparazzi were surrounding the whole street, probably lining up for a whole mile. Once they saw that Thunder left the room the cameras started stuttering with their bright lights every 2 seconds.

Haven pulls out some sunglasses from underneath her wings and hands them to Thunder, pulling down the ones that were resting on the top of her head, and she “flies” up towards the royal’s airship, baggage in her clutch. Thunder pretends to do some dramatic poses for the cameras while making sure to check the security details on how to get to the aircraft.

A flash is then made, blinding all the citizens and paparazzi cameras, and some wires are hooked onto Thunder by the guards quickly with this distraction. Thunder waves goodbye at the citizens and starts flapping his wings as he’s lifted up towards the aircraft.

When he is inside the entrance is closed. Thunder unhooks himself from the wire and trots towards the flight deck where Haven sat studying a magazine and his best friend, Boeing Wings, is piloting the plane.

“Eventually we need to find a more convenient system, that whole hooking thing is such a pain to do, plus time-consuming.” Thunder complains.

Haven looks up at him with a smirk, “Well it’s the only way to fly outside unless you will finally let us dump these things?”

“Never, these aircraft are way too beautiful to be abandoned.”

“Then it’s your problem”, Haven comments and starts flipping through her magazine again.

Thunder rolls his eyes and trots to where Boeing is piloting and sits next to him, “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”

Boeing quickly glances at him with his icy blue eyes then back to the skies, “Nope don’t think so.”

Thunder starts poking him as a way to get his attention,

“Oh come on! You aren’t happy that I’m back?” Boeing keeps on trying to ignore his pokes before finally having enough and setting the plane on autopilot, and facing him with an annoyed face.

“Thunder, I literally saw you three months ago. I think it’s safe to say it hasn’t been that long.”

Thunder then makes a pretend shocked face, “So you are saying you don’t care about your best friend?”

Boeing looks at him with a serious face but breaks into a laugh after seeing Thunder start to fake cry, “Please never do that again, you suck at being cute. Welcome back to pony society bud.”

Thunder gives a satisfied smile, “What do you mean? I have a naturally adorable face. My daughters can even prove that.”

“Hah, yeah no, cuteness is my strength, yours is your scary expression. Plus Zipp gets her looks from her mother, same goes for Pipp, who sadly inherited your chin.”

He blows at his red bangs, and Haven puts down the magazine approving of what Boeing said. “The only thing Zipp got from you, thankfully, is your snout.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side”, Thunder replies a little annoyed,

Haven winks at him, “The only side that I am on is the truth which currently is with Boeing.”

Boeing gives a small smile to Haven and looks up at Thunder smugly, “Don’t be mad dude you should be lucky that the both of us are telling you this instead of somepony else.”

Thunder lunges at Boeing and traps him in a choke hold, Boeing tapping Thunder’s hooves with his wing struggling to get out of it, “Mind repeating that?”

Boeing continues tapping Thunder’s hooves and eventually, Thunder lets go of him and helps him up before slamming his hooves on the back of Boeing leaving him to fall again.

“Haha, maybe you shouldn’t be provoking me this soon after I got out of the camp hmm, bestie?” Thunder moves to Haven and she looks up at him unamused,

“Oh right before I forget to tell you there is a meeting with the North today, it should be starting at 5.”

“Well that doesn’t give much time, that is 5 minutes from now” Thunder comments checking the clock. Boeing goes back to his pilot seat and lands the plane. “Then it’s a good thing we arrived!”

Hearing this announcement, both Haven and Thunder rush to the exit. Boeing trails behind them as the royal guards situate themselves in a protective formation around the royal couple. They reach into the ballroom where they find a foal Zipp and Pipp playing around, sorry, torturing their nanny.

Both Haven and Thunder have their eyes locked on the foals, it was an unspoken challenge, but they both knew they were going to compete to get to the foals first. Their eyes meet for a couple of glances before they run full speed to get to the foals. One second it’s Thunder in the lead the next time it’s Haven. It’s a relatively close call but eventually, Haven lucked out and swooped the foals into her arms, giving herself a good distance away from Thunder.

“Seems like all those moons in that military camp were spent for nothing, now then go get ready for those officials,” Haven comments smugly.

Thunder looks at her with an annoyed expression but decides to let it go and move toward his room to get ready for the northern officials.

5 minutes later

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE PLANNING ON SEPARATING FROM ZEPHYR HEIGHTS!”

Thunder’s voice booms across the table to the officials from the northern empire, everyone flinches other than the emperor whose eyes look down at Thunder with disdain. This angers Thunder, how dare he look down on him, the king of the strongest and most advanced kingdom?

The emperor, Flint Tint, slides the documents across the table to a fuming Thunder, “It is exactly as you heard it, it has come to my attention that Zephyr Heights is a thriving city of the future, yes, but a city of arrogant and superficial ponies.”

“And why does that lead to a drastic decision such as this?” Thunder asks emperor Flint angered by his words, but it would do no good to pick a fight currently.

“Well you tell me, with your whole city being arrogant and superficial, what do you think happens when they are left alone to do whatever they want? Your officials are a joke, your rules are close to nonexistent, your military is weak, and not to begin with the lies? Oh, I will laugh with glee the day your whole flying scam is exposed.” Thunder clenches one of his hoofs underneath the table and leaves the other lying on the table to seem cool-headed.

“Anyways we have been able to let it slide for this long, but the final nail in the coffin is when a whole group of your citizens travel to our kingdom and have the ill-manners of dirtying the streets and vandalizing our properties and stealing one of our national treasures, which we still want back.”

Thunder then erupts in laughter making everyone’s eyes turn to him scared,

“So the reason you want to separate your kingdom from ours is because of trash being found on your streets and your properties being damaged or painted on, coincidentally the same day as our kingdom visiting yours. How do you know it’s us? Maybe it could be one of your citizens wanting to initiate a war.”

“Oh? Because we have video proof.” Flint then clicks a button and a video plays where from the bus of Zephyr Heights trash is being dumped all over the streets and properties. By the time the Zephyr Heights bus left the whole city was covered in trash. “And this isn’t even the first time! One of the times that this occurred was when you, yourself were inside the vehicle!” Flint then flicks through the images and video one by one showing the damage that had been inflicted on one of his kingdom territories.

Thunder just looks at the gallery of images mixed in with videos with a bored expression on his face,

“Now as you can see, this is definitely the work of your kingdom. We were able to ignore this for some time but enough is enough. Now please hoof print these documents.”

“Now please Emperor, I think you are mistaking something, that land you are talking about is under our clutches. But due to the bad conditions there, we turned it into a trash dumping site. The only reason a Zephyr Heights bus can be seen through all these pictures is due to inspectors and the cleaners personally coming to dump off the waste.” Thunder throws papers at Flint’s face smug after seeing the face of pure rage that the emperor was emitting. “I honestly don’t understand why you would leave your citizens to inhabit a labeled wasteland.”

Flint quickly browses through the documents provided to him and scrolls at Thunder, “Do you hear the utter nonsense that you are currently spouting from your snout?”

“I am just stating the facts, so I would appreciate it if you evacuated all the citizens that you were mentioning about from before. After all, they are illegally residing on private property, and with that logic, I think that you are scamming them out of their money if you apply taxes for living costs?” Thunder stated fact after fact, his voice getting more and more arrogant with each thing he listed down and when he snuck a glance towards Flint the former emperor that looked down on him now was flaming red. Hah, victorious indeed.

Flint gets up from his seat and slams his hoof on the table, “This isn't over, due to you greatly insulting my nation you will see me again on the battlefield.”

“Then go on then, keep fighting for land that was never yours, to begin with.” Thunder ushers him out of the meeting room and calls the meeting adjourned. All of the officials then exit with worried looks on their faces.

Flashback Sequence Ends…
“And that’s it, that is why we got into a war.”

Thunder goes back to enjoying his cloud cream pancakes, and all the other ponies look at him in disbelief. Hitch turns his attention toward Queen Haven to check if Thunder’s summary is correct, and she shrugs looking down ashamed.

"So...you guys got into a war because you both didn't know who the land belonged to?" Sunny tries to rationalize what she just heard.

"The land belonged to Zephyr Heights, look it even has our crest." Thunder orders a guard to bring him his old camera. The guard rushes out of the room and comes back carrying a rustic looking camera on a tray. Thunder picks up the camera and flips through the camera roll, then slides the camera down to Sunny.

Sunny looks at the picture of proof, the so called crest of proof is a rock formation in the middle. "I see, but didn't you guys have the same crest before you split...?"

"By a technicality, yes! The only difference is that their crest at the time was in the colors. Their main color was silver, we chose gold." Queen Havens explains,

"Ah..." Sunny slides the picture down to Hitch, that closely examines the picture,

"I think I can see what caused the misunderstanding..."

"I can't believe them Dad! How dare they look down on us!" Pipp fumes and then remembers something, "What happened to this Boeing guy? I don't seem to remember him..."

Queen Haven shrinks at the mention of his name, "Boeing was banished from Zephyr Heights when you were just a young filly... it was around the time that your dad was about to be drafted to the war. They had a mild disagreement..."

"What disagreement! He had the audacity to go against ME? His KING! Ugh just thinking about the moment has me growing a headache. All you need to know about him Princess is that he's a bad pony." Thunder pats Pipp's mane.

"The only reason he went against your ruling was because you were being stupid. He knew those ponies that were being carried to the war had no training and that the war could've been entirely avoided if you just admitted you were wrong and said sorry! We did NOT have ownership of that land-"

King Thunder cuts off Queen Haven by slamming the table, "Careful, what you are saying love. I think you might be feeling faint, should I call for a guard to escort you to our resting room."

"No need, I know when I'm no longer wanted." She wipes her mouth and slams the door behind her.

Pipp eyes trail after her mom and she looks down conflicted, "Dad, can you stop being so mean to mom...I know she makes mistakes but she's doing her best...she singlehandedly governed Zephyr Heights the whole time you were gone."

"Sorry sweetie, I don't know what came over me... you know that being back from the war has me still stressed and paranoid. I don't mean to be rude, it's just..."

"I know, you don't have to explain to me." Pipp rests her hoof on her dad's as a sign of reassurance.

King Thunder smiles at this, "Thank you Pipp, you are the only one that has been truly understanding since I've arrived back. Yesterday you said that you had some things you wanted to do with me? Well I'm coincidentally free this whole day, so what's the first thing on your list?"

"Oh my really! Wait! Let me get my list!" Pipp jumps out of her seat and speeds to her room, leaving a trail of pink smoke behind her.

Thunder wipes his mouth and clap his hooves together for the attendants to come and clean the table. He then walks out of the dining room leaving only 3 ponies in there, not bothering to address their existence.

The attendants start cleaning up the table and snatch the dishes from Izzy, Sunny, and Hitch.

Sunny blinks unsure of what she just witnessed, "So...that just happened."

"Yeah, Izzy are you ok? Your horn..."

Izzy's horn has been sparking for a good minute, her face dark, and strands of her hair was sticking out in every which way. When Hitch calls out to her she looks up and starts floating, her eyes glowing a deep red, and every piece of cutlery around her being carried alongside her. This causes the attendants to run away in fear for their lives,

"Ahhh! She's going to eat us! EVERY PEGASI FOR THEMSELVES" Some of the attendants scream while running around.

The Guards run up to her about the put the tennis ball on her head, but once they lock eyes on her they flee outside to conduct a lockdown on the castle.

Hitch clutches onto Izzy as a way to drag her down to the floor but he ends up being carried up alongside her, "Izzy stop please! This isn't helping!"

"How dare they trash that land! It had a beautiful garden and there were soo many cute animals! And that poor filly....I'll never forgive them!" Izzy says, her voice now altering to being something deep and demonic. She then starts mumbling something repeatedly under her breath, as if she's chanting a curse...?

"SUNNY DO SOMETHING!!!" Hitch calls out for Sunny.

Zipp bursts into a room, a stallion with a prosthetic left hind leg, follows close behind her. His dark grey eyes widen at the scene in front of him.

"What is this about a unicorn attacking the attendants???" Zipp then looks up at the scene in front of her in disbelief. Without thinking she tosses the discarded tennis ball up to Hitch, who barely catches it and tops it onto Izzy's horn. It doesn't do anything other than make her magic more unsteady, "Dang it! Sunny!"

"I know! I'm thinking!" Sunny says pacing around the room, her alicorn powers flickering to where it's slightly visible before vanishing again. The random stallion stares at this phenomenon growing even more shocked.

"Zipp you didn't tell me your new friends were magical monsters!"

"Shut up and help me with pushing her down." Zipp is behind Izzy and trying to drag her down to the floor. The stallion joins her in trying to push Izzy down.

Sunny finally thinks of something, "Izzy look! A ladybug!"

Izzy looks down to where Sunny is pointing and a small orange ladybug is resting on her hoof. She then snaps out of her fit of anger and drops everything to the floor, and starts silently screaming her hoof extended in panic,

"Quick! Somepony take it off! I don't like it, i don't like it, I don't like it!" Izzy squeals,

Hitch now on the floor comes up to her and picks up the ladybug with the tip of a fork. He carefully carries it out of the room, then locks the doors.

"What happened why did Izzy do all that..." Zipp cracks her neck exhausted,

"Your dad told us the story of how the north and south went to war...and you know how connected unicorns are currently to nature."

"You can't even unicycle all of that trash! Zipp your dad is evil! Pure evil!" Izzy rants, and Sunny takes off the tennis ball on the top of her head.

"Who's this?" Sunny throws back the tennis ball to Zipp.

"This is the pony I was meeting, Pinion Rust, he's like my only friend here." Zipp catches the tennis ball with her wings and points at the stallion behind her dismissively.

Pinion waves at the other ponies. His wings has silver tip feathers on the ends to contrast against his natural copper coat, "Hello! Future mediator and mad scientist, and no...I do not know why I was named Pinion, you can just call me Pin."

"By mediator he means advisor."

"By mediator I mean mediator, you have a talent at angering the Zephyr Heights citizens, like what you posted yesterday. I had to hold a livestream late at night making some far fetched lie explaining why, you really messed up my validity the minute you decided to expose the flight scam and team up with a unicorn. Do you know HOW hated your family is currently???" Pin brings his phone to her face and quickly scrolls through every single article based on her alone, all negative. "Congrats you got your wish, now it's almost impossible for you to be queen. No pegasi would let you."

"Phew! That's a relief." Zipp jokes and pulls Hitch next to her, "Do you think me revealing my coltfriend will be enough to make my chances basically impossible?"

Pinion drops his phone diving to go strangle her, and Zipp dodges laughing.

"Congratulations...?" Sunny approaches Hitch confused and he just stares at the two pegasus who are flying around the already messy room.

"What did I get myself into..."

"Love~" Izzy answers Hitch's question,

"Yeah I know that but...what are you doing?" Hitch stares at the fork sculpture Izzy is making with all the forks on the floor.

"Unicylcing."

Pinion stops chasing Zipp and lands in front of Hitch, "While I admit he's cute, Zipp. Why are you so adamant on killing me!"

"Why thank you, but I'm not planning on sharing him." Zipp shoves Pin away from Hitch.

"...You're so mean..."

Emergency Alarms sounds around the castle and loud stomps can be heard outside the dining room. Pinion and Zipp flare their wings alert. Pinion tilts an painting and a hidden pathway is opened

"So...you guys want to hear about Zephyr Heights history, right? Follow me and I'll show you the truth, or you know you could stay in here and wait to be arrested by Zephyr Heights authorities and be exiled from entering the palace...maybe burned at a stake...you know! Typical safety measure!" Zipp jokes,

The three ponies rush into the pathway the second she mentions being burned, Pinion and Zipp trialing close behind them. The palace guards bust into the dining room, and look up in wonder at Izzy's fork sculpture. The palace attendants show up behind the guards excited to see the unicorn and earth ponies about to be arrested, but no all they were left was a large mess in the dining room that they would have clean. Curse you outsiders!

Said outsiders, follow Zipp and Pinion, and go down the hallway meeting up at the place where Izzy and Sunny really got to know Zipp, the Palace basement.

Author's Note

Outsiders is a nice movie and song... but for real, who names their kid Pinion???

(please let there be no mistakes I missed 😔 🙏 )

Chapter 2

“Where could Zipp have gone?” Sunny asks confused

Izzy pops up with the answer, “She started flying away when the Queen said her dad was coming back”

Haven paces around nervously, “Oh no she can’t be gone, we need to leave now if we want to be there in time for the welcoming banquet”

Sunny ponders the situation for a second, and then an idea pops up in her head. She hooks her hoof around Hitch’s neck, “I’m sure Hitch can find her in no time! After all, he was able to find me and Izzy in under a day!”

“That is true, but the problem is she flew away so there aren’t any tracks for me to follow her with…” he states.

Izzy floats a weird-looking item towards him, “This item is based on that Pegasibusters book you showed me. I used my magic to give it power and then did some decorating and voila! Your very own pegasi tracker! All you need to do to make it work is add a clip of her hair, which we luckily have some on the sand..." She picks up the lone strand and inserts it in the device, then tosses it towards him. "and then boom magic!”

Hitch catches the strange device, “Thank you, Izzy! Strangely you think of everything, now let’s go everypony we can’t give her much time to escape!” He started running with the pegasi tracker leading the way but stopped in his tracks when he saw nopony following him. “Why isn't anypony coming along?”

Sunny having caught everyone to her plan answers with an innocent smile, “You see just in case you and Zipp don’t come back in time, I’ll be there as a diversion. Since I don't know how to trigger my new alicorn form...or even fly... I'll put on some fake wings and Izzy will use her magic to make it look like I’m flying around just in case some pony gets suspicious.”

"But you're shorter than Zipp.."

"Shush her dad probably hasn't seen her in a while, I'm sure he can't predict how tall she'll be now" Everypony near her nods along, “So hurry along and find her Hitch!”

Hitch sighs not being able to argue against that and salutes to the others, uttering a quick goodbye. He now starts to follow the direction the contraption was pointing to, taking only a day until he finally catches up to her. There he finds Zipp in a cave sleeping soundly next to a poorly assembled campfire, probably to combat the cold breeze.

He carefully steps towards her and gently puts a stray hair strand behind her ear. Zipp after feeling the small motion starts to open her eyes and looks up. There their heads would be mere inches away from each other. They would stay staring at each other for a couple of minutes, not one budging, but at the last second Hitch is the first to pull away. Zipp wears a face of disappointment and then gets up from where she was lying and leans towards him.

“Sheriff, I didn’t think you'd be able to track me down. Let alone this quick, your skills are rather impressive I see. We should hire you to train the Zephyr Heights guards.”

Hitch composed again turns away from her feeling slightly conflicted.

“Hitch? Are you alright?” Zipp turns towards him again and lays her hoof on his forehead but he pulls away again now staring straight at her with a hurt face,

“Zipp…stop”

This response takes her back, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you're distancing yourself from me.” Zipp jokes to clear the air though she would get tenser when Hitch wouldn’t respond. “Come on Hitch, you’re starting to scare me…”

“Zipp, why have you been lying to me? And why are you acting up like this?” Hitch asks her in a serious tone.

Hearing this she starts to feel offended and states defensively, “I would never lie to you.”

“So you have been inside kingdom management classes with your mom? Without a kingdom? I mean you could have at least told me that-“

“What? That I’m currently homeless and have been camping out under the stars with my family ever since magic came back? Hitch I didn’t want your pity, and I especially never lied to you. Just never told you everything.”, Zipp slumps down on the floor near the campfire.

“Zipp that’s still lying” Hitch states deadpanned before restructuring his approach, “I thought you were living inside your castle Zipp... Plus I don’t care about that stuff. The only thing I really need to know is if you're okay and if you need help. Now let’s start small, why did you fly away when your mom mentioned your dad?”

Zipp meekly pats the spot next to her, signaling for Hitch to sit next to her.

He takes a seat where she patted and looks at her expectantly. She takes a couple of deep breaths before looking straight at him, “Hitch… my dad... He’s horrible… aggressive…scary even! The only time he’s been around was when I was just a young filly and Pipp a foal so of course, she would run to him with open arms.” She ends bitterly. Hitch takes her hoof into his as a kind of reassurance. She smiles at this before continuing.

“But if she could remember half the things he did to Mom, if she knew just a 1/5 of the things he did while being King, well she would do everything in her power to distance herself from him…she might even try to release her fans to bully him off the throne…” She looks up in thought.

"Why didn't you remind her?"

“I guess I didn't want to ruin her happy memories with him. Mom still to this day thinks I don’t know anything, that’s why when I heard he was going to war… I-I started dancing around happily! That of course resulted in me getting in trouble, but I didn’t care. I hoped he would rot in that place, we never needed him and I hate that we now do just because we lost our political stance in Zephyr Heights.”, Zipp tries to blink back tears as her voice starts to break.

Hitch hugs her, “I’m sorry for being insensitive and thinking that you were lying to me. I shouldn’t have forced you to open up, this is a very sensitive topic for you…” Hitch keeps on apologizing while comforting her in a hug. This annoys Zipp since she stated earlier that she didn’t want to feel his pity.

“Sheriff…” he kept apologizing, not hearing her. She then does the first thing she thinks of and gives him a quick peck on the lips.

This takes Hitch by surprise but technically it does stop him from apologizing

“Stop apologizing. I already told you that I don’t like when ponies pity me, especially you…” Zipp tilts her head back, blushing a little.

She looks at him and snickers at how red he turned. Every time Hitch tried to say something the only thing that came out was gibberish, but eventually he's able to recompose himself...well barely.

“Zipp, I d-don't think you're thinking straight right now? You're very vulnerable… and you might be confusing your feelings.”

Zipp gets up defensive, “What? So you think I’ll go around kissing any pony that’s there to comfort me?”

“Of course not! It's just...Well, you know what? We can talk about this later. Our friends and your mom could be in Zephyr Heights right now! Before I left they were going to do a diversion where Sunny pretends to be you! We need to protect them, Zipp.” Hitch tries to defuse the situation and Zipp starts stretching her wings, still mad at him but deciding to do nothing about it. After all, there are more important things at stake,

“What are you waiting for Sheriff? Hurry up and get on my back.”

Hitch would be hesitant about it though, “You know I weigh a lot...W-we can walk since thankfully we are close to Zephyr Heights!” Zipp wasn’t having it with the excuses and scooped him up, throwing him onto her back. She does heavy lifting in her free time, Hitch should be nothing...right?

They arrived in front of the castle to Zephyr Heights after like 5 minutes of flying. There she spots Sunny and Izzy running out of the palace in a panic. When they spot her flying they wave them over.

Zipp lands and throws Hitch off her back, “Dang Sherrif, what have you been eating? You're heavier than a wagon of apples.”

Hitch would blush in embarrassment at the comparison, “I eat mostly veggies for your information. I thought I would be a little too heavy for you, but somepony never listens.”

"Hmm, it's probably because I'm not used to you. What do you say we go for a quick lap around the castle?"

"Please don't."

Sunny and Izzy catch up to them, very giddy.

Sunny hugs them both “Amazing guys! You were able to come back just in time! Woah, Zipp, you look a little… tired?”

Which was an understatement seeing as she had dark eye bags under her eye sockets, swollen eyes, and her posture was very uneasy. Hitch was able to catch her when she tripped.

"...why do you always do this to yourself?"

"Do what?"

"Overexert yourself?"

"It's nothing, a quick nap will bring the energy right up!" She flexes her left hoof. The muscle deflates,

"Wow, even your muscles have left you" Izzy comments.

"Here's a candy bar I got from inside." Sunny offers Zipp the bar and she's about to grab it before it gets shot down by a....dagger?

A very tall and muscular pegasus appears from above, with a satchel of daggers on his sides, standing before them menacingly. His coat was a greyed-out maroon color. He had his fawn-colored hair tied up in a messy high ponytail that reached his shoulders and sported a stubble on his jaw. He was covered from head to hoof with battle scars, some recent, some old, all of them in general did not seem to help ease his scary aura.

Queen Haven and Pipp, who were chasing behind him, breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Zipp finally arrived.

“…What is this stinking earth pony doing here holding my Zephyrina? Haven care to explain?” The muscular pony orders with a gruff voice,

"Hitch...meet my dad. Commander Thunder Light or King Thunder for short" Zipp motions her hoof towards him.

Author's Note

I like to headcanon that Zipp has a low blood sugar :moustache:

Chapter 3

“This is Hitch, one of Zipp’s close friends who also helped with bringing back magic. Sheriff Hitch? Why is my daughter like this? What happened…?” Queen Haven questions him after seeing the state Zipp was in.

Thunder Light wasn’t having any of it and grabs Zipp, “Stop asking stupid questions. I thank you for your help with giving back magic and getting my daughter here safe and sound, but that’s as far as my gratitude will take me. Now hand her over and I’ll go and bring her to her chambers where she can properly rest.”

Hitch tightened his grip on Zipp not trusting him

“Everyone I’m fine, just overexerted the wings a little…I'll be up and running after a few minutes of rest.” Nopony seemed to believe her.

Before Hitch could react Zipp’s father took her from his hooves. Zipp could be seen growing very uncomfortable with his grip and attempts to worm her way out of his grip

“D-dad..." The minute she says this she can feel a sour taste building up in her mouth, "I’m really fine! Just let me go!”

“I, commander Thunder Light, command you to be quiet and complacent! Princess, do know I’m doing this for you. Since seeing that you have gotten my stubborn attributes it seems.”

She tries to argue with him once more, but she resigns after feeling his grip on her tighten more. Not wanting to be near him any longer, Zipp nodded and flew inside the castle.

Pipp flies towards Thunder very excited, “Oh my gosh dad! I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever to be able to be with you again. I’ve got billions of things to do with you and talk about, but first I have a surprise!” Pipp leads him back inside to the banquet hall as everypony else follows right behind her.

"So...why was everypony panicked?" Hitch asks Sunny in a low voice,

"Hmm? Oh...well let's say our plan backfired in a really bad way."

"It blew up in our faces!" Izzy chimes in,

"Indeed, but alas I'll leave these two to catch you up. I have to make sure nothing else goes wrong in the throne room...we don't want a repeat of the last Gala." Queen Haven mumbles out, recollecting the very thing that made them fugitives.

She flies ahead of the group and takes a sharp turn at a nearby corner. Pipp leads her dad to his seat in the throne room and flies upwards to the royal dressing room to do some last-minute prep.

The throne room was getting filled to the brim with Zephyr Heights citizens. Some could be seen attempting to fly but crashing down on the decorations or the seats lining the room leaving the castle staff to hold in their screams now having to organize everything again.

Sunny guides Hitch to stairs that bring them up to the side boxes surrounding the throne room, Izzy bounces happily behind them both. The guards at the top block them from entering but Sunny shows them a golden crest and they let her through.

Hitch sits next to Sunny, and Izzy seats herself on Sunny's other side leaning on her shoulder, and looks down excitedly at how full the throne room was getting very quickly.

"Ok, so now where do I start..."

"Start when we actually started the plan!" Izzy answers Sunny, who shakes her head smiling at Izzy's antics.

"Sure, that's where we obviously should start, haha! Ok, so we arrived at the palace, and Queen Haven quickly guides us to their dressing room"

A few hours ago

Pipp used all the mane dye she had at her disposal and Queen Haven was working on my makeup.

"Phew! With only 5 minutes to spare! What do you think Pipp? Does she pass enough to be confused for your sister?" Queen Haven leans back after applying the last bit of Sunny's makeup,

"Honestly I think we made her look too good...Zipp has a kind of messiness to her you know...?"

"True, but you are close to her, at quick glance from anypony else she could pass. Right Izzy?"

Izzy approaches Sunny and smudges a lot of the makeup, "There you go!"

Pipp and Queen Haven look at the change with a conflicted expression on their face.

"It's....passable?"

"Well it's a lot closer than what you did mom" Pipp quickly says and plops down a pair of wings on Sunny's back. "Now Sunny, as long as you don't talk, don't trigger your alicorn powers, don't drop this cloak, oh, and under no circumstances hug him! We'll be in the clear!"

"But what if your dad wants me to greet him or something?"

"Well that's easy, Zipp never liked talking to Thunder so you not talking will be in character!" Queen Haven claps her hooves together

"She didn't? I wonder why..." Pipp ponders.

I know why

Ok, not ominous at all. Anywho after that short exchange King Thunder burst into the throne room.

His inner sparkle was very dark! And at that moment it was bubbling like a boiling teapot

Pipp flies to her dad to give him a bear hug. He pats her back stifly, his attention entirely towards Queen Haven or more accurately the unicorn she had so close to her and his Zephyrina's side.

"Dad! Welcome back!-"

"Haven! Are you crazy! Why do you have that fiend next to you and our daughter" He hisses the "fiend" part and reaches out to get his dagger.

"So nice to have you again Thunder." Queen Haven rolls her eyes and waves Izzy closer to her, "This is Izzy, her and Sunny, a bright and optimistic earth pony, helped bring back magic to our kingdom. They gifted us our flight, the least we can do is welcome them with open arms."

"Mhm! They are me and Zipp's close friends! We also have another earth pony in our friend group, he's very kind. I'm sure you'll love him."

"Hmph, sure I would...." He puts his dagger back and looks around, "And where is that Sun earth pony you were talking about?"

"Collecting flowers!"

"Collecting...flowers?" Thunder repeats what Izzy said, trying to make sure he heard her right.

Queen Haven, Pipp, and Sunny also look at Izzy confused themselves

"Yup! Collecting flowers!"

"What my friend Izzy means is that...she heard of your return and wanted to give you a gift as a sign of friendship, so I told her your favorite flower and right now she is arranging a special bouquet just for you!" Sunny stares daggers to the back of Pipp's head. Pipp turns back to her with an apologetic face holding her hooves together,

I didn't know you could do flower arrangements.

Yeah! It's like a skill I've never learned at all and never practiced.

Oh...

"Doesn't matter, it's probably better that she isn't here... I wouldn't want her to stink up this whole throne room."

"Thunder!"

"That's Commander Thunder to you, don't think I didn't catch your slip-up earlier."

"As Queen, I can address you however I'd like. Especially, as your wife."

"You haven't been my wife in moons. Sending that letter to me while I'm giving my life for our kingdom! Wow, awesome move Haven! Acting like a real coward. Oh, and what is this I hear of you and our daughters being fugitives? You had one job and you still managed to mess it up miraculously! I mean really? You didn't think to check up on the equipment before leading Pipp to humiliate herself the way she did!!!" The last thing he screamed made Pipp shrink a little, and Queen Haven trots to him her wings flared up.

"That situation was entirely unavoidable, and recent, and has nothing to do with how I was as a ruler! Unlike you, I don't blow up at every sign of a minor inconvenience and actually think things through before leading a region full of underprepared, undertrained, and uneducated young colts and mares to war with a neighboring kingdom that we've had amicable relationships with until YOU went and insulted their monarch and kingdom as a whole!" She hammers her wings into his chest at every point she brings up. Thunder just stands looking down at her unphased,

"A war that we still won."

"How many lives were unnecessarily lost?"

"Giving your life to the kingdom is the ultimate honor any citizen would want to have."

"How many lives..."

"Not anywhere near your tally." That one sentence was enough to shut down Queen Haven, and she brings her head down in shame and brings herself back to where she was before.

Sunny wants to check on Queen Haven but then remembers her role as Zipp instead of Sunny, so she reluctantly stays still.

"Now Zephyrina, why haven't you greeted me at least once this whole exchange." Thunder glares at Sunny who just looks up at him nervously. Pipp comes to her defense,

"Zipp lost her voice earlier this week!"

"Nonsense, the least she could do is give me a hug or something. Now come quick Zephyrina, you know I have my limits."

"Enough Thun- Commander, stop pushing her she obviously still hasn't warmed up to you. You can't force someone to like you." Queen Haven clutches her forehead tired

Thunder frowns at this and approaches Sunny with purposeful and powerful strides, "That's another thing different about me and you, Haven. You're too soft. She's my daughter, it's her sworn duty since she was born to like me. If it wasn't for me she wouldn't exist."

Sunny takes a few steps back her eyes widening, but Thunder is already close to her and then he forces her into a hug. Sunny pushes herself off him and then examines the makeup on his fur in horror.

"Now, Princess, what was so hard about that?" Thunder looks down and then sees half of Sunny's face is exposed...definitely not Zipp, and then he examines his coat. Without taking one second to process this he slams her to the floor holding his dagger straight to her neck, "Who are you and what have you done with my Zephyrina."

"Hehe...surprise?" Thunder is blinded by sparkles, and now Sunny was nowhere near him. Same as Izzy. He glares back at Queen Haven who was watching the scene with a hoof to her mouth and brows furrowed together,

"This is what you get when you trust unicorns, Haven! Guards put the castle on lockdown! Until I see that Unicorn, that orange pony pretending to be my Zephyrina, and Zephyrina no one is allowed out of this castle alive!" Thunder then dashes upwards towards the ceiling dome. Only one thing on his mind,

Pipp looks back at her mom worried.

Izzy performed her first teleportation spell!

At the time I wasn't really thinking and was focusing on saving Sunny. The only thing I could remember was seeing her sparkle and then the next we were in the hallway outside of the throne room. After I heard Zipp's dad scream about no one being able to leave alive...well, I grabbed Sunny's hoof and we dashed towards the exit.

My hero, but yes that's when we saw you both coming back and well you know what happened after that...

Hitch thinks back at the stuff that Zipp told him in the cave, and the description of her dad lined up exactly with how Sunny and Izzy described their encounter with him, "I see...thanks Izzy, for saving her. I don't know what I'd do if I lost Sunny."

"You don't need to thank me. I'll always protect Sunny. I love her very much..." Izzy confesses glancing back at Sunny who could be seen wearing a small smile, a faint blush creeping on her cheeks.

"Stop being so sentimental you two! It's going to take a lot to bring me down!"

Hitch chuckles at this and pats Sunny's forehead, "So what are we waiting for?"

"Pipp is going to perform a special song for her dad!" Izzy exclaims

"...Perform?" Hitch repeats and glances at Sunny who looks back at him, her eyes emulating the same concern he had.

Izzy starts to talk about some unicycling tips Sunny could use but then stops when she saw that the pony she was talking to wasn’t listening, “Sunny? Hello? Is anypony in there? Hitch, can you snap her out of this” she asked the equally distracted, aquamarine mane, earth pony.

So she uses her magic to pull on both of their ear lobes. They both winced from that and looked at her, “Great now that I have both of your attention! What’s wrong?”

Sunny looks around before whispering under her breath to where only Hitch and Izzy can hear, “It’s about Pipp’s performance. I’m really worried about it since she said before that no pony seemed to have forgiven them yet, I have a feeling something bad is going to happen.”

“That’s true, but maybe they forgot about the mess of a performance we helped make last time…” Izzy comments with a hopeful grin.

Hitch still rubbing his ear lobes would look at Izzy, “Have you not noticed how nopony looks excited? But instead, looks like they're scheming something? The only reason they are even letting them go back to being royals is probably that Zipp’s father got them out of a war.”

Izzy now starts to grow nervous, “Oh come on…they are super excited! I mean they wouldn’t try to ruin the performance right…?”

Before Hitch could answer the lights turned off and Pipp could be seen flying down with two background dancers by her side,

“Hello, all my pipsqueaks! We are here today to celebrate my father’s return from that horrible war. This song l am about to sing will be from the bottom of my heart and directed to my hero. Love you daddy!” It was after that speech that the music started, there the background dancers went to their spots and the performance began with Pipp turning around and reaching out a hoof to her father.

[Cue “Come Back Home” by Sofia Carson]

When the performance was done, everypony in the room started stomping their hooves on the ground, Izzy was probably the loudest with her hollering, cheers, and claps. Sunny would join her for second loudest, and Hitch third place.

“Now who is ready for Glowing Up!” The minute Pipp said that though Izzy noticed that the whole room's aura got different.

She looks at Sunny now very worried and Pipp starts singing her song. The background dancers weren’t dancing along to the normal choreography but instead mimicking Hitch’s dance during the old performance. Thunder took notice of this and sent a glare toward Queen Haven who was now sinking down her seat feeling immense dread.

“Oh no… I mean the good thing is that Pipp is enjoying herself and not noticing anything….right?” Izzy whispers to Sunny who was now busy biting her hoofs, so she looks towards Hitch but he's busy sliding a hoof down his face. “So it isn’t a good thing…”,

“Come on, everypony sing along with me! Glowin Up, Kind of Love, Dip, and Slide, through the stuff! Glowin Up, Kind of Love-“ That was when Pipp opened her eyes and was faced with reality and there she was frozen, whispering to herself, “T-they’re making fun of me… they never made fun of me…”

The trauma of said incident was coming back and she tried to get away from the stage until all-around photos of her and her family being exposed started circulating through everyone’s phones.

“Come on Pipp, give us more! Give us more! Oh looks like she got stage fright, let’s help her everypony!” A random bystander would say and soon the whole room was singing along to the wrong verses of the song,

“Throwing Up! Kind of fun! Doing stuff that I love! You’re like why, and I’m like what!”

This was enough for Thunder to get up from his seat and shout for everyone to be quiet, and there Zipp came flying to get Pipp out of the room, “I left you hanging before, I’m never going to leave you like that again.”

Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch immediately get up to go follow Zipp but are blocked by the guards. “Only authorized personnel are allowed beyond this point, be gone.”

Sunny pulls out the gold crest again, “We are authorized personnel, we are the close friends of Princess Pipp Petals and Princess Zipp Storm. This crest was gifted to me from Queen Haven! Now let us go through!”

The guards moved to open the doors until Zipp’s dad showed up in front of them wearing a scowl, “…leave, you’ve all caused my daughter enough anguish. As your king, I forbid them from entering!”

Queen Haven flies in and blocks Thunder, “As your Queen, I demand you to let them in.”

“What are you doing? Can’t you see they are the reason why Pipp is humiliated like this? Nothing good comes from these types of ponies. As your king, I demand that you prohibit them from entering Zephyr Heights any longer! They are officially banned!”

“As your queen, I revoke this ban. They are both our daughters' friends and therefore another part of our family! Right now what they need the most is their friends by their side. Guards, what are you doing? Let them in!”

The guard ponies were so confused from all the back-and-forth arguing that they just kept on letting them in and leaving them out. Izzy wasn’t having this though so she stomped down her hoof,

“The longer you guys are arguing the more Pipp is going to be crying! Right now she doesn’t need her family arguing on her behalf and instead needs the important ponies in her life by her side to comfort her. Think about who is the real victim of this all. It’s Pipp, she was trying to show her appreciation that her father is back in her life, and instead, the ponies went and mocked her for it!”

This made Queen Haven and King Thunder stop their arguing. “You’ll have your way this time Haven, but trust we are going to be talking about this after.” Thunder Light flies away from them all, and the guards let them inside,

“Follow me, Princess Pipp’s room is just a couple of rooms from here.” One of the guard ponies leads them while the other stays at her station.

Sunny looks back after a couple of minutes of walking and sees Queen Haven and King Thunder back to arguing with one another, that is before Thunder whispers something into her ear that makes her go quiet and get pale.

Sunny was going to stop and run back to help Queen Haven, but she was about to lose the guard pony, so she ran to catch up to them, “Hey guys when we are with Zipp and Pipp…I need to tell you all something that you probably won’t believe.”

Author's Note

Thunder Light, Thunder, Commander Thunder, King Thunder, how many names can one character go by? :pinkiesick:

Chapter 4

“Hey guys when we are with Zipp and Pipp…I need to tell you all something that you probably won’t believe.”

“Ok, Sunny?” Izzy would stop her skipping and instead trot closely next to Sunny.

When they finally arrive at the room the guard ponies knock on the door announcing who was there to see them. Zipp opens the door slightly and tells the guard ponies to leave, motioning for the rest of her friends to hurry inside.

When they entered there they found Pipp on her bed crying with the most ear-splitting wails,

“Thank Celestia she had these walls soundproofed 10 moons earlier. Or else the minute she found out that everyone else in the castle could hear her…I don’t think my ears would have recovered.” Zipp screams towards her friends while covering her ears, even though Pipp was crying inside a pillow it sadly never canceled out the noise.

Sunny trots to Pipp’s side and gently comforts her, “Hey Pipp, your performance was amazing! And the new song? I can't get it out of my head! You did a wonderful job with voicing how happy you are that your dad is back. I'm sure he feels very happy that you sang him that song as a gift….”

Though, sadly, it seems Pipp didn't hear what she said and kept on crying into a pillow.

Zipp hands Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch some earplugs when it looks like Pipp is lifting her head, about to talk, “You are going to need this…”

“Why?” Hitch asks confused that is until Pipp starts wailing and ranting about the whole experience. Hitch’s eardrums start to shatter because of the high frequency it's emitting. He stands there completely immobile, his brain not being able to hear itself giving orders,

Zipp flies to him and quickly plops the earplugs into his ears, “That’s why….”

“I-I just don’t underSTAND! Tonight was supposed to be MY night and then all these other ponies come and make fun of me! And to top it off dad had to see that clown show… all of them are FIRED! Utterly and indefinitely FIRED!!!!” Pipp finishes ranting it all out, everything she said beforehand was pretty incomprehensible.

Izzy plops on the bed beside Sunny and floats Pipp’s phone toward her, “If you ask me it wasn’t that bad, like Sunny said, your new song is buzzing all around my head and the ending was funny- I mean very rude how could they do that!” Izzy says, but gets corrected by Sunny before she can say anything more upsetting, “One thing I am positive about is your fans standing up for you! Watch your social media feed is probably flooded with supportive messages as well!”

Pipp looks up from her mascara-stained pillow and takes her phone from Izzy who was floating it near her. She opens her socials for one second and then throws her phone to the floor, startling everypony, but unfortunately, after this action, she starts crying into her pillow again.

So everypony covers their ears again, Zipp being the closest to the phone covers her ears with her wings, picks up the phone, and starts reading her screen,

“THEY ARE ALL CANCELING ME AND I'VE GONE DOWN THE WORST HOLE OF THE INTERNET, BECOMING A MEME!!!”

Zipp finishes reading all the messages, now has on an enraged face, “The nerve of these ponies… the minute I put my hooves on them… ugh I have to fix this. No one ever makes my baby sister upset and gets away with it.”

Hitch hurriedly blocks the door and nods to Izzy who then transforms the door into a brick wall.

“Hehe, it’s a new spell I learned after trying to open beans for Sunny.” Izzy explains with a giddy smile.

Sunny chuckles at the memory before clearing her throat, “Zipp we can’t let you go outside and make matters worse. Judging by your reaction it must have been something really bad that they said”

“Oh 'Bad' is an understatement”, Zipp interrupts impatiently,

Sunny changes the way she addresses the situation, “Ok... but Zipp the last thing Pipp needs is for the pegasi to be proved right. What I mean by that is, they probably think she’s a useless princess right? Spoiled? Can’t do anything right?"

Each example she points out makes ZIpp grow even more defensive, "So what! You can't possibly say that what they're saying is right! She hasn't done anything to them ever except try to please those jerks"

"I know that, but Zipp, you going out there and talking to them will only confirm what they are saying. This is something Pipp needs to do on her own, and besides the pegasi look up to the royal family still even if they are not conscious of it, so Zipp you need to calm down before you do something you regret.”

Zipp takes a deep breath in then exhales and looks at Sunny with a grim face, “Then what do you suggest Pipp does?”

With that Sunny slides off Pipp's bed and trots towards Zipp, hooking her hoof around Zipp’s shoulder, “Two words.”

“✨Training Montage✨” Sunny sings, and Pipp, Izzy, and Zipp stare at her confused.

“You mean like in the movies?” Pipp sits up and wipes away her ruined mascara with her wings.

“Exactly like in the movies!” Hitch tunes in and leaves the doors once he's sure that Zipp isn’t going to do a 180 and try to escape. He stands next to Sunny with a knowing smile.

Izzy, though still confused, asks, “What’s a training montage?” and just with that sentence the rest of the four, whip their heads, and stare at her in horror.

Pipp looks towards Sunny, “What happened to that movie date, to see the Amazings, you were planning on taking us too but me and Zipp had to cancel at the last minute?”

Sunny thinks back on that, “Oh, me and Hitch had to cancel as well. It was environmental cleaning day for Maretime Bay. Me and Izzy were stuck cleaning the beach. By the time we left, it was already night time, so we didn’t have time to watch the movie.” She heads towards Izzy with a big grin on her face.

“Don’t worry Izzy! All you need to do is watch as we transform Pipp into the princess she always has been! Now Zipp hit it!” Sunny orders, making sure to strike a dramatic pose.

It takes Zipp a couple of minutes to process what she means, “O-oh, you mean the music! Got it.” With that, she would fly into Pipp’s closet and bring out a stereo, “Any suggestions?”

“Just something cool and catchy!” Hitch suggests and Zipp nods looking at all the CDs but there is one problem… all of the songs are Glowing up, “Jeez Pipp, a little obsessed with your song?”

“What can I say? It’s utter perfection!” Pipp responds, very excited for the training montage to happen. Zipp would then roll her eyes amused and play the song and with that, the montage began.

[Disclaimer: You can skip this montage, from where the line ends, cause it doesn’t have anything important to the plot]
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Sunny gives out masks of ponies laughing to Hitch and Izzy. Together they wear them as Sunny starts motioning for Pipp to start talking. One word in and Pipp would freeze on the spot after looking at every pony. Everypony takes off their masks and looks at each other with worried glances. Sunny pulls out her notebook and crosses out that idea.

Zipp finishes setting up her training course invention inside of Pipp’s room and props her up into the platform, starting the machine up. Everypony else inside the room run to the TV on the other side. Izzy points out how it looks like a fun ride and asked Zipp if she could go on next to which Zipp agreed to. Well that was before Pipp rushed out of the machine, and everything crashed down behind her. Zipp would make a horrified and defeated face after seeing all her beautiful hard work ruined. Sunny quickly crosses out that idea from her notebook and goes to cheer up Zipp, who was tweaking a little and beginning to talk gibberish in a high-pitched voice.

Hitch brings in some cookies and tea, and sets it up on a table next to Pipp’s bed. After situating himself he brings out a clipboard and starts asking questions about how Pipp felt about the experience. It looked to be going well and Sunny started feeling a little bit hopeful. Well that was before Hitch, thinking Pipp was ready, showed Pipp the video of her being exposed to the whole world on her phone. That was a bad call, and Zipp immediately whacks him on the head after Pipp starts crying again.

“Yep”, Sunny thinks, “Hitch is definitely not fit to be a therapist…” and with that she would cross out the last idea.
____________________________________________

Sunny looks up from her notebook and sees that Hitch was knocked out cold from Zipp’s hit to his head, Zipp is back to mourning her machine and trying to piece everything together with pieces that disintegrated every time she picked something up, and Pipp who was still crying on the chair.

Sunny starts to look down dejected before Izzy taps her shoulder, “Hey Sunny, what’s got you so down?”

“Well usually in the movies after one montage the hero is completely ready to take on any challenge! But the music is already done and instead of helping Pipp we just made her state worse. Maybe it’s just better that we let Zipp handle things… it would spare Pipp the trauma.” Sunny sighs and looks out at all her friends.

Izzy though wasn’t having any of it and smashes both her and Sunny’s foreheads together, “Sunny don’t you know in the movies that they are just acting and mostly edit stuff together. Even when we look at this in the angle of their universe, those characters took months probably to finish their transformation! Pipp’s case though is special and to overcome that painful event you have to go and feed her sparkle piece by piece until it’s fully back!”

After Izzy said that, Sunny nuzzles both of their snouts together and tells a now very flushed Izzy, “Izzy you are a beautiful GENIUS! Of course, throwing her through all these challenges didn’t work! Throughout the experience, Pipp felt alone and no pony was with her to help her overcome the experience. Then we should make sure she has all the ponies that care about her right by her side so she can feel reassured!” Sunny exclaims,

“But Sunny, if we did that then wouldn't she become dependent on us, so how would that help her when she's standing on stage alone telling them about everything?” Izzy asks

Sunny looks at her with a smug look, “After this second attempt of a training montage, she will feel so reassured that just knowing we are there watching her and cheering her on will give her just the boost of confidence she needs when it’s the real deal!”

With that, after making sure everyone was no longer in their previous states, Sunny moves to the center of the room and claps her hooves together shouting really loud, “Ok every pony! Now that our break is over, I need every pony back to their station! We will be restarting in under 2 minutes.”

Montage Part II

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Sunny hands out the mask to Hitch and Izzy and positions Zipp next to Pipp. She asks everypony if they were ready and double-checks on Pipp to see if she was ok. Once she gets the ok, each pony with a mask would put it on and start laughing along with the expression on the mask. Pipp very visibly freezes up from this, but Zipp squeezes her hoof around her little sisters as a sign of reassurance that she was there for her and that was all Pipp needed before she started performing in front of them. When Pipp got to the end of the song she would stop and be engulfed with hugs from all sides. Every pony was toppled on top of her making a tall tower, and Cloudpuff flew into the room and plopped himself on the top, causing the tower to fall over, and every pony other than Pipp who was the unconsenting base had a cushioned fall. Sunny after recovering would weakly check off the first box, and then pass out again from the collision

Zipp finishes taping up the now somewhat fixed machine and motions for Pipp to get on the board, but Pipp seeing how unsturdy the piece of junk was, oops I mean the first machine that was fixed through tape, began to feel uneasy. Izzy uses her magic and transforms the machine to look all brand new again. Zipp was slightly offended by this, but it only took a few seconds before that frown turned upside down after all she couldn’t be upset at a friend for trying to help, and she knew as well that her tape method wasn’t at all sturdy. So she gives Izzy a tight hug and then nods again for Pipp to get on the display. Pipp after getting on the display takes in a couple of deep breaths before waving to every pony outside. Zipp starts up the simulation and everypony would rush to the end and start shouting words of encouragement and cheering when they heard Pipp’s voice outshining all the negative comments being thrown at her. When she finally was out she made a dramatic pose and was welcomed by claps from all over the room. Sunny grinning from ear to ear checks off the idea from the clipboard.

Everypony leaves the room for Hitch’s session with Pipp, well Zipp would stay back and give him a little warning on what she would do to him if he ever damaged her little sister as he did before. So Izzy would float her away from the room and firmly lock the door. Hitch hands Cloudpuff to Pipp and then starts his session again, making sure to offer tea and cookies as a way to ease her nerves when the topic got too much for her. He gave her a warning this time before pulling out Pipp’s hoof phone and playing the video of the day when the royal family got exposed. Throughout some parts, Pipp would cuddle into Cloudpuff or tighten her hold on him which Hitch would take note of and pause the video asking if she was okay to continue. This would happen for a couple of hours and when they are done with the session Hitch would open the door being met with very anxious-looking ponies. Pipp would give out a blank face before switching to a huge grin. Izzy and Sunny would move up to hug her and Zipp turns to Hitch and gives him an approving nod which he would let out a sigh of relief.

_____________________________________________

The ponies are now eating the rest of Hitch’s homemade cookies and chatting with each other onto of Pipp’s bed. They were in a circle talking about everything and anything and the topic changed at every second.

Sunny was content with this change of mood until she remembered what she had to bring up a while ago. “Everypony…” Sunny cautiously interrupts Pipp who was in the middle of telling a story of when she pranked Zipp when she was a filly.

This catches everypony's attention. Sunny has on a serious expression now this in turn now leaves Izzy to stare at her with concern, “What’s wrong Sunny?”

Chapter 5 Author's Note

Sorry for the late upload, forgot that this was the second week haha

Oh please don't hate Pipp after this chapter...I lowkey didn't remember how emotional she gets this chapter 😢, she does make up for it I promise.

Chapter 5

“Well, before I say this, do know that I don’t mean to spoil the celebration, nor do I want to make your relationship with your parents sour, Zipp and Pipp, but I saw something when the guards were taking us to your room. Something that I think should be brought up.” Sunny nervously states,

Zipp glances at Hitch, who in turn looks back at her as well, each seeming to be guessing what might have happened.

Pipp stares at Sunny innocently, causing Sunny to feel even more guilty. “Well…when we were planning to run off after you we were stopped by the guards since we couldn’t enter the area due to us not having an authorized presence or something like that. So in response, I showed them that badge Zipp gifted me that one time we hung out a few weeks ago, which thanks by the way! That saved our flanks…well for a second at the very least.”

Zipp says a quick it’s fine and then urges her to continue,

“We were about to go in, that is until your dad stopped us saying that we caused you, Pipp, enough pain and that we should go. Which was totally reasonable since like we were in the crowd when that whole fiasco was happening so his conclusion made sense. Immediately your mother showed up behind him and told them to let us in, and they kept on going back and forth until Izzy made them shut up, which thanks Izzy also for that as well.”

When Izzy hears her name she does a mini cheer that brightens the mood inside the room a little with everyone chuckling at her notion.

Sunny clears her throat then continues, “After Izzy did that he said that your mom won that time? I don’t know, I was honestly confused about that, but after that, he would supposedly fly away. The thing is when I turned my head around a couple of moments after there I saw that your dad was next to your mom again, but this time he whispered something to her which...well it made her basically turn into a ghost in a sense.”

Once Sunny says everything, she lets out a sigh of relief and looks up nervous.

“So?” Pipp comments a little confused. This made everypony look at her shocked,

“I mean aren’t you worried about your mom?” Izzy asks,

“My mom is a grown pony, if she has problems she will deal with it as she sees fit. She also would not put up with anyone berating her and put them down in their place if that ever happened, my dad is no exception. You probably misunderstood what happened, I mean did you hear what my dad said to my mom?”

"W-well no...but it just felt weird. Plus added with what happened in the throne room earlier-"

"I appreciate your concern Sunny, but my mom and dad's relationship is none of your business. My dad came back from a long and grueling war to a world that is completely different than the one he left to protect, he's very tense and on edge right now. So yes, his recent actions might seem weird but they aren't completely unjustified. He just needs some time to rest, something that we haven't been able to give to him because of all the stupid events building up upon one another until we have this mess we are jumbled up in." Pipp's voice begins to rise a little at the end but she manages to keep her cool, not wanting to scream at Sunny.

Zipp hearing Pipp's perspective lower her ears not wanting to be the one to break the news but knowing that it eventually had to be done. She shakes her head and shakily opens her mouth about to say something, but Hitch puts his hoof on her shoulder and speaks up on her behalf,

“Sometimes the ponies we think we know can be the ones to surprise us, and the things we think wouldn’t at all bother them is actually the thing that makes them shatter emotionally."

"I don't get what you're trying to say, Hitch..." Pipp's irritation starts to build again,

"What I'm saying is...ugh, Pipp, you can’t tell us that you haven’t seen the way your father addresses your mother or even how she acts around him. Does she really seem happy? ” Hitch ends before covering his mouth, widening his eyes, knowing his words didn't come out the way he wanted them to.

“What I CAN say is that you need to put your snout away from where it’s not supposed to be and learn your place! You honestly can't be someone to question my parents, when your parents never even bothered to raise you!”

Sunny and Izzy whip their heads to Pipp with wide eyes after hearing the last thing she shouted.

“I’m sorry I-I was just trying to help…” Hitch mutters and leaves the room on the verge of tears.

“Pipp that was uncalled for and you shouting at him did not help.” Displeased, Zipp glares at her.

“It was completely called for, he shouldn’t have put his snout where it didn’t belong and just stated his opinion. But no~ he ended up insulting mom and talked about dad as if he knew him past the two encounters he's had with him. The very least he can do now is share how I feel right now.” Pipp waves off her sister's concern.

Zipp opens her mouth to respond then closes it knowing it was useless to try and argue with her. She then gets up to leave the room,

“Go ahead and leave me to console your colt-friend! All that talk about you changing, and never leave me alone again I guess was fake! I should have known you’d always think about me last...”

Izzy and Sunny, who were just sitting on the sidelines watching the whole thing blow out, grow worried looks on their faces. They glance toward Zipp who could be seen very visibly fuming.

“Be quiet, you don’t know what you are talking about…” She says through clenched teeth.

Honestly, at that point, Pipp should’ve backed down, but apparently, she didn’t know better and kept on going.

“Oh, I don’t? You've done more to help him than help me our whole fillyhoods! Its the way you pathetically chase after him like some lovesick puppy. But you couldn't have granted me one measly second just to chat. Some kind of sister you are” She ends with a bitter note.

“Ever since you were a foal all I’ve been doing is protecting you! I've never willingly abandoned you! All those times you've been playing around I was busy learning how to rule this whole kingdom so that stupid burden doesn't fall on your hooves. But there are times when you need to be on your own, and now seems to be as good of a time as any other.” With that she leaves Pipp’s room, not forgetting to close the door carefully.

Sunny and Izzy gets up and trots to Pipp. Looking down at her, disapproval dripping from their faces. Pipp looks up at the both of them feeling instant regret. The realization finally dawning on her that she screwed up big time,

“Great going princess, you really screwed up this one. Sunny and Izzy, could you guys help me with making an apology? Please...”

“Sure! The good thing is that you recognized and owned up to your mistake. That and you regretting everything is all you needed to get us on board.” Sunny shrugs and the trio get into work on crafting up an apology immediately.

Zipp trots down the halls looking around for Hitch only to overhear shouting coming from an upcoming room. Curious, she goes into her sneaky mode and sneaks close to the door frame to better understand what the two ponies were arguing about.

“What is with you Thunder?!? The first thing you are supposed to do when you come back from a very long war is obviously to relax, but no! Ever since you stepped foot inside Zephyr Heights you have been seeking problem after problem with any pony you are given the chance to.”

“It’s not my fault that my supposed wife doesn’t know how to properly mediate any distractions before an important event”

“What does that even mean???”

“Nothing, what I want to know is how you were able to screw up so badly that you and both our girls were kicked from their social standings and lowered to outcasts.”

“Like I told you before it was an accident that was necessary to have happened or else the pegasi wouldn’t have been able to fly. In our kingdom we have to prioritize the now instead of the past, so can you please stop bringing that up and forget about it?”

“How can I just forget about it? Our youngest was just publicly bullied and humiliated! It probably formed a kind of trauma for her where she can’t even trust others around her!”

“...I admit some fault in that. I should have thought of the possibility of this happening and discouraged Pipp from performing publicly then this whole fiasco wouldn’t have happened...but it did and if I could shoulder half the burden Pipp had to have gone through don’t you honestly think I would’ve by now Thunder! WHAT KIND OF MOTHER WOULD THAT MAKE ME?!?”

A sniffle could be heard after the outburst and some shifting could be heard, so Zipp sneaks a little peek and sees her father put a feathered wing around her mother. Squeezing Haven’s shoulder a little with it.

Thunder would put in a deep breath and then exhale before looking away a slight blush present, “I’m sorry….”

Queen Haven's ears would perk up at this, snorting finding the situation amusing, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Thunder, but it’s too late for apologies and your behavior today reinforces it.”

“Can you just shut up and take the apology!" Thunder shouts frustrated and glares at her. Queen Haven raises her eyebrow as if to signify he proved her point.

"Look...I might have been looking for a fight or whatever this whole day. It's just, ever since I got into that war and was brought up with the reality that I might not be able to return to you all, it had me thinking about how much I’ve wronged you, and not really set the best example nor be there for both our daughters. The longer I stayed, the bigger the resentment toward myself came. I should have led with an iron fist and been more involved in the training of young cadets..."

Queen Haven when listening at first became a little hopeful, but then her hope immediately plummeted down. The bastard still hasn't recognized his wrongs.

"I should have planned out their futures so they could easily follow that plan and have a surefire future, while also being safe. I should have also been more generous with you and accepted that proposal for a royal council. Then maybe our kingdom wouldn't be in the shambles it is right now, and that’s why the least I could do is apologize to you even if it wouldn’t amount to the years of pain you had to go through due to my failings. I fell back into old habits today, so for that, I’m sorry too.”

Queen Haven sighs and looks up a Thunder with a small smile on her face deciding to trust his words this once, “I appreciate the apology, but like I said before it’s too late. The only reason I'm still with you is to spread a stable environment for our girls. Don't confuse it for any nonexistent affection I have for you. I don’t think we can go back to how we were when it was just us three...”

Thunder hearing her blatant rejection wears an ugly scowl, but quickly masks it with a saddened smile, “Well then if there is a new stallion in your life just tell me and I'll make sure to measure him up to see if he's good enough for you. I’ll make sure to give them a lesson or two”

To show his point he flexes his hooves a little and Haven laughs at the gesture now in a better mood. Thunder seeing this puts on a wistful smile until Haven looks directly at him. Clearing his throat he switched to the next topic, “There is something you should know. It’s about the war.”

When Thunder says this Queen Haven looks up now confused, “What about it?”

He awkwardly twiddles his hooves, “We never really won it, and when magic came back both sides were very unsure of the outcome that at least one pegasus would come out alive, so we struck a treaty deal. There is just one term that I insisted be optional but I am unsure if it would not be seen as an insult if not gone through by our party…”

Haven now getting an idea about what the term clings to him desperately, “...please don’t tell me you did what I think you did…”

“The term that we agreed to was for the princess of Hoofili, Ebony Aura, to be arranged in marriage to the princess of Zephyr Heights, Zipp Storm. Each pony named in this arrangement will be required to go on a date and associate with one another before agreeing if they would like to accept and go through with the marriage.”

Zipp immediately comes out from her hiding spot and shouts alongside her mother, “YOU DID WHAT?!?”

After hearing Zipp both Haven and Thunder would turn their heads towards where she was, both completely in shock.

“Zipp this is not how I wanted you to know, I was going to discuss it with your mother first before telling you-”

“Telling me what? That you used me as a political bargain? Honestly, how did you think I was going to react, huh? Having to be queen is already ridiculous enough and now you have me engaged to our enemy? How pathetic can you get! And to think after hearing all that, that maybe you have changed…but I guess you are still the same bastard that would always belittle mom and put all of your frustrations on to her.”

Queen Haven turns pale and asks, “Y-you knew?”

Zipp, completely fed up, glares at her, “Yes! It was honestly pretty obvious. The guards noticed but said nothing, except silently usher me away from the area saying you both were just discussing political stuff. Every single day I saw what he did, what he said, to you! Every single time thinking to myself that you would one day be the courageous queen I always see in public and stand up for yourself and say that you’d had enough and kick him out. Except you stayed, and continued to endure it... Why did you think I was dancing around like a filly on hearth's warming eve when I heard he had gone to war against the pegasi of the north!”

Thunder, hurt at her words, glances at Haven silently asking her if Zipp actually did that to which she responded in kind with an annoyed eye roll.

“Look Zipp, you may disapprove with how I used to treat your mother, but this was a hard decision, as our future queen you have to know that sometimes when in power you have to make serious sacrifices for the greater good of your kingdom. Those pegasi that looked to me as their leader depended on me to be able to get them through that war safely so they can get back home to their families after 650 long moons of having to be stuck in that war. We lost some courageous cadets, if I didn’t take this deal then how would that make me look towards their loved ones? How would that get your mother to look? You have to know I do care about you and Pipp. I mean you are my daughters. Why would I ever give one of you away willingly unless my hooves were tied?” Thunder tries to reconcile with his daughter, but it would fall on deaf ears.

“I’d rather you have died in that war instead of making me do this! Mom when did you become so pathetic!?!” With that outburst, she flys out of the room (or zips out?? 🥁)

Queen Haven chases after her shouting desperately at her “Zipp! Zipp! Zephyrina Storm, you better stop flying and apologize to your father this instant!”

She eventually stops out of breath and looks behind her glaring at Thunder

"Look what you did!"

Chapter 6

Zipp flies through the hallway, dashing around every corner, not stopping as she kept hearing her name being called constantly by her mom deciding to block out the sound with the wind in her ears.

She takes one more turn still hearing her name being called about to shout at her mom to leave her alone, but then notices that the voice was turning into one of a stallion's.

Noticing this shift she looks behind her only to see Hitch chasing after her, so she slowed down and lowered herself toward the ground. Making sure to mask her emotions to look like her normal cool self,

“There you are, Sheriff! I was looking for you everywhere, but haha! Look the pony I was chasing ended up to be the one chasing after me the whole time! I want to apologize for Pipp’s behavior earlier, it was completely uncalled for.” She trots up towards him

Hitch stops where he is and takes a deep breath, “You seriously…*pant*...didn’t hear any of my screams for the past 20 minutes…*wheeze* …of you flying?”

*THUD*

Hitch collapses onto the ground after saying the last words. Zipp grows a little worried but she pretends to be amused.

“What can I say? The wind got to my ears. Wow, Sheriff, I didn’t know you were this out of shape. Seems to me like those well-defined abs…, ahem, that you like to brag about so much were just for show. Remind me to make a training course just for you.” Zipp looks away from him to hide her embarrassment

She offers to help him, but he politely declines and pulls himself up. Zipp, though now noticing how long she was out in the open, leads Hitch to the nearest room and makes sure that nopony else is in sight before carefully closing the door.

Hitch notices this motion, sits down on the floor, now offering his hooves out for a hug, “Something tells me that has something to do with why you weren’t able to hear me till a couple of minutes ago, so here you go.”

She hesitates for a few moments, then carefully takes a couple of steps forward trying to play it off cool, but quickly embraces him. Hitch strokes her mane and she buries her face into his chest smiling, “One more thing to add to your list I see…”

“What list?” Hitch asks, trying not to laugh when Zipp nuzzles herself onto his chest, he tries to hide it but every pony finds out very easily how ticklish this stallion is,

“Oh, you know the list of all your talents.” Zipp jokes around and Hitch snorts at the response and props his head on top of hers.

“Well, I’m just using my past experience with what happened in the cave, and also when I had to comfort Sunny as a filly due to her father…you know.”

When thinking back about Argyle, Hitch wished he could have appreciated him more, after all, he made the best desserts and was basically like another father to him.

Zipp makes a disgruntled noise when Hitch brings up the cave though and the tips of her ears and cheeks turn a light pink, “Sorry about ... kissing you so suddenly without asking for your consent. At the time it felt like the right thing to do, I guess. Which now that I'm thinking about it again...that doesn't make sense? Guess I was just too desperate to have a chance at something that couldn’t work out and took advantage of you during the process…” She takes a deep breath now relieved to let out a problem that she was pushing off for some time.

The intimate moment now dawns on Hitch’s mind since he forgot about it, so he slowly lifts his head away from hers and tries to wave it off, “It’s fine, I forgot it even happened. Next time though, give a stallion a heads up? Almost gave me a heart attack.”

Zipp, being convinced, also lifts up her head and accidentally crashes into his jaw, “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry, are you ok?”

He rubs the tip of his chin smiling to try and reassure her

Zipp on the other hand was busy rubbing her forehead as it was throbbing from the collision. Not really paying attention to what he was saying at the moment.

“...ld work” Hitch would finish saying and then looks away trying to hide his embarrassed face.

Zipp, finally paying attention to him, would be confused about what he said. She turns his face towards her with her hooves, “I’m sorry to ask this, but like could you repeat what you said? I didn’t hear you properly the first time.”

With Zipp asking this Hitch’s eyes fly everywhere, his face heating up at each passing second, until they finally land on hers and he takes the time to finally notice all the little details in them, like how they sparkle under the dim light-

“Hello?”

Zipp speaking snaps him out of his thoughts and he repeats what he said,

“That thing you said earlier…a-about you and me not working? We…could work.” Hitch now says less confident than before, but he does the unexpected and put his hoof on hers which was holding onto his cheek.

Oh my, what is this I see!?! A new sudden surge of boldness coming from Hitch?!? Ooh, this is getting juicy!

You are probably wondering, “Hey Narrator, what is happening?” Well I am going to tell you this, I don’t care to know so imma skip this sappy scene

*universal slap*

…Ahem, I mean I will do my job which I was NOT at all PAID for, and INVADE these two INNOCENT ponies PRIVACY…*cough* I do not know why my throat was so sore that I had to scream COMMON SENSE to the unknown *cough*, yeah I am now better

With his hoof on hers, Zipp sports a small smile, “Hmm, maybe we could've...”

Saying this she strokes his cheek slowly to not have his hoof fall off of hers. Hearing this he would slightly tighten his grip on her hoof and asks her with sad eyes, “Could've?”

“Everything is going to be ok. I’m going to make sure of that, so all you need to know is that I’m going on a date with the princess of the northern pegasi empire.”

Hitch’s ears pop up and he raises his eyebrows confused. Judging from Zipp’s tone and earlier answers it seemed to be something she didn’t plan. He leans closer to her face and then asks with a straight face,

“Can I kiss you?”

"What?" Zipp leans back, checking to make sure she heard him, right, "Uh...are you feeling ok?"

Hitch uses his hoof to pull her closer. Both their faces are now inches apart, if one of them spoke their breath would surely hit the other’s face.

Zipp murmurs under her breath deciding to play along, “My, my Sheriff, I want to know where this confidence boost is coming from?”

~~That is what I want to know as well, I mean like isn’t he supposed to be shy~~

*This connection has been severed, please wait a couple of minutes for it to be fixed*

Hitch chuckles and responds to Zipp’s question amused, “Well if I’m to lose my chance to be with you…I need to make sure I seize it before it completely slips from my hooves.”

He smirks to himself, “Then again you never belonged to any pony.”

Hearing this, her face heats up a little, but she tries to mask it with a smug grin, “I’m glad you know that…ok then! Permission granted-”

Zipp’s words would be cut off at the end when Hitch finally closes the distance between them and she slowly eases into it. The kiss lasted just a moment before Hitch leans back with a sad smile.

Even though she wasn’t satisfied with this, she knew it was necessary after all feelings, especially romantic ones, are dangerous and cause complications for everything. “I know this is like a typical jerk move...but do you want to stay friends.”

Zipp gets up and moves away from Hitch, who was just looking down calculating something in his mind.

He then gets up and moves toward her, but keeps a friendly distance, “I’ll always be your friend, and nothing will ever change that. I mean yeah if we were something more then I'd be the happiest pony in Equestria.”

"Haha,I didn't know I had that affect on you Sheriff."

"Do you want the answer to that?" She shakes her head. She knew that the answer would be something that would have her heart skip a beat.

"Well then...we should get back to Pipp and the others right?" Zipp suggests and holds the door open for the both of them, making sure to check the outside surroundings beforehand. Hitch walks out first, and she follows after closing the door softly.

They then chatted about random stuff, but it was kind of awkward, as they worked their way back to Pipp’s room. That is until they turned the last corner and bumped into a very frantic-looking Queen Haven.

Both of the ponies looked at the Queen wide-eyed. That is until Zipp remembered the situation that led to her meeting with Hitch in the first place, and then started to turn to leave before being held in place by him. She looks at him angrily, but he is unfazed and whispers something to her ear then heads into Pipp’s room.

Queen Haven stares at her daughter with a pleading face, so even though Zipp is not in the best mood to talk with her mom she goes along and follows her to the nearest room. The royal’s exclusive swimming pool.

Queen Haven stand around awkwardly not knowing how to start talking with her daughter, so Zipp started the conversation for her, “Why?”

Queen Haven looked at her confused, “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean?”

Zipp exasperated starts pacing around the room going to speak out one word and then stopping and then try to say something again before stopping again. This cycle repeated a couple of times, sometimes her making expressions with her hooves. Haven stares at her chuckling a little bit at the show she was being given.

This signals her to look at her mom, at first with a pouty face, and then laughing at her reflection gliding with the pool water. She takes a deep breath in and then exhales, “Why did you forgive him so quickly? Or a matter of fact agree to what he did for the deal? Don’t you know that I don’t even want this? To be queen or even royal?”

When Zipp finally said all the things that were bubbling up inside of her, Queen Haven looks down feeling guilty. Zipp flies to her mom’s embrace craving the comfort that she’s been missing ever since she turned into a full-fledged mare, sad about how she took advantage of this when she was a filly. Queen Haven pets Zipp’s very greasy mane,

“I didn’t forgive him completely, just decided to put it behind me. I know we won’t go back to how we used to be, as much as I wish that was possible. The moments were sweet. Now for your last questions….”

Queen Haven thinks hard about what she was about to say, so to make sure her point was put across she would face Zipp to her,

“I did not say anything about what your father proposed, but due to the situation and circumstances surrounding it I will have to, as you said, agree to what he proposed.” The minute she said that Zipp would start stirring from the hug, assumably trying to escape. Her mother tightens her embrace and hurriedly get her main point across,

“Zipp you need to know that whenever you are a royal, sometimes small…no…large sacrifices have to be made to ensure the safety and possible return of the majority of our citizens! As royals, we have to be willing to sacrifice even ourselves to better protect them. Why do you think that flight scam lasted as long as it did? We needed to give them blind hope in their times of panic if they knew that their precious rulers failed them, we feared that they would be lost, confused, plus mostly misguided! Please Zipp you have to know as your parents we never wanted to do this! I prayed, hoped, begged even to the memory of Celestia that it would never come to this, Zephyrina.” Queen Haven tells this to Zipp, tears threatening to pour at any chance given but her still putting on a strong face and now cupping Zipp’s face in between both her hooves.

“You are my first, oh so very precious and ambitious child. And no, no matter how much you beg and cause a fit I will never stop seeing you as the little foal who could barely lift herself to stand on her own four hooves, but…hehe…you would never stop trying and eventually taught yourself how to fly without those strings. Oh, how time passes! Do you want to know something funny Zephyrina? When I was just a young mare, just a little older than you, I was exactly the same. Not wanting anything to do with my royal status. Celestia forbid me from having children and having to deal with that motherly burden.” Queen Haven would lighten up a little, chuckling softly while recollecting to many moons ago.

“You! Really???” Zipp exclaims when she finally processed the last sentence her mother said.

Queen Haven just nods her head and then makes a mock offended face, “What? Do you think that I was some kind of princess character in all of those movies Pipp was obsessed with as a filly? Oh I hated all the lessons and duties I had to attend, I wanted to be like other ponies my age. Shopping trips, having fun, gossiping about all the latest drama and cutest stallions!” Zipp hearing this would come to a very sad conclusion about her mother's earliest years,

“All you ever wanted was friends, mom, isn’t it?”

Queen Haven hearing this raises both of her ears. She would look at her daughter with wide eyes and hug Zipp even more. “Oh my what a clever detective my own little pony has become! Hmm, yes, I guess so. But now, Zipp, after seeing how my life has become I noticed that I was just truly scared about being given the heavy burden the heir to the crown would eventually have.”

“Do you ever regret…going down this path?” Zipp unsurely asks and Queen Haven quickly shakes her head,

“Were you not listening to anything I was saying before? I would never, if ever given a chance, change a thing. I love my life, and both you and your sister are the best thing that has ever happened to me, literally! There is not a dull day when both of you are around.” Zipp laughs along with her mom when hearing that.

“Zephyrina? Tell me, do you care about Zephyr Heights? Do you want to help make it better and safer to live in?”

Zipp’s eyes shoot up, panicking, to her mom, “Of course I do!”

Queen Haven looks down at Zipp with a proud smile, “Of course you do, don’t you? Zipp you don’t have to do something you don’t want to. This kingdom is yours and you are free to rule it your way. This arranged marriage is a choice, one you can make whether to go on with or kindly refuse. If it doesn’t work out me and your dad will work out all the issues so just relax, alright?”

Queen Haven releases Zipp and ruffles up her hair. Zipp waves her mom away from her hair, then fixes it up,

“I’ll get started with working out the details for an alternative to the arranged marriage” Queen Haven heads to the door,

“I didn’t go on the date yet? Why would you work out the details so early on?”

Queen Haven stops and turns around smiling,

“I don't know...maybe because you've abandoned me for a certain earth pony recently? Sheriff is your nickname for him right? I wonder whose the one in charge?” After her mom said that Zipp’s face heats up

"MOM!"

"Sorry, haha, I couldn't help myself."

“So it was that obvious, huh? Doesn’t matter we broke it off, made sure it would never work before we even tried.” She admits and looks down glumly.

Her mother stares at her shocked and then switches to disappointment, “Why? I mean I thought that you would ignore the ruling, and continue to fight with me and your father or something. I mean I even imagined you'd provoke your father by being extra affectionate to Hitch?”

"Mom! Stop thinking weird things! I kind of confessed to him before I reached the castle, and we talked it through a few seconds ago. I don't want to trap him in this mess of being royal, so I just told him about the engagement saying that there wasn't anything I could do...and it ended like that. I would have gone through with the engagement mom if you didn’t talk to me honestly.” Zipp flexes her wings as a way of distracting herself.

Queen Haven looks down contemplating what to say next. She herself did not know how to fix the situation, so she just looks up at her daughter with an uneasy glance, “Well…you should apologize maybe? I mean you really wouldn’t need to since you did nothing wrong, and just assumed you were doing the right thing.”

Zipp sighs. “Heh, I don’t think that would fix anything. It would probably confuse him even more. It's better this way, and he can go find someone else who isn't going to be queen, who'll have all the time in the world to dedicate to him.”

"Or you could tell him you misunderstood everything, that you want to be with him, and see where things go from there."

"That doesn't work with my style."

"Then make it your style. Wow, I didn't think I'd be talking about this stuff to you Zipp. I now feel more like one of those hip moms!"

"Ugh mom...." Zipp drags her hoof down her face.

Her mom loops her arm around Zipp’s neck and then bump her forehead against Zipp’s with a reassuring smile. Zipp shares the smile and they walk to Pipp’s room with a much stronger bond than before. Queen Haven waves Zipp goodbye before heading to the throne room to organize for the northern pegasi’s visit.

Zipp takes in a deep breath then relax, and carefully opens up the door to Pipp’s room carefully in case her friends and little sister were deep asleep.

*Pop*

When the door was fully opened she was met with confetti and streamers popped into her face. This triggers her reflexes and she punches the pony in front of her. Quickly trapping the mysterious pony in a kotegaeshi.

"Start speaking. Now!"

Chapter 7

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