It was a lovely day in Equestria. The bright yellow sun was shining at its brightest in the middle of the sky on the warm afternoon. Many ponies had retreated back to their cool houses in order to keep out of the scorching rays that the sun was beaming down.
Many. But not all.
To Waterworks and her little brother, Squirt, this was perfect weather for practising their swimming skills and tricks in the swimming pool outside Waterworks' house!
Waterworks herself had invited some of her friends over to have a shot in her swimming pool as well. Corva, the pegasus with a talent for training birds to do tricks, Sea Snap, the slightly grouchy but otherwise well-meaning sea minding pegasus, Bubblegum Flash, an Earth pony with a talent for racing to her hearts content, Strawberry Cream, a mare who's talent is with making sweeties out of fruits! And also Inky Iridescence, a pegasus who had the nack for creating all sorts of things! And then there was Copper, a recent new friend of Waterworks who hadn't met any of the other ponies, but Waterworks was sure that he'd get along with them!
Waterworks hoped that all of her friends would come, but she guessed that she would be happy with any, really. She decided to focus on teaching Squirt a new kind of dive that she had made up. Squirt wasn't really getting that hang of it, but he was determined to get it right!
"Oh, come on, sis!" Squirt exclaimed after his fifth uncompleted dive, slightly trembling since he had made a very sore belly flop. "Sixth times a charm, right?" He gave a weak smile.
Waterworks rolled her eyes, "I admire your tenacity, lil' bro, but you're just not cut-out for the Front-Flip Dive yet!" Waterworks cringed a little as Squirt's smile turned into a sad frown. She sighed.
"Well..." Waterworks thought of something that Squirt could do without feeling left out, but also fun. She scratched her head as she thought of something, the awkwardness slowly forming an invisible mist in the air between her and her little brother.
Then, out of the blue, Waterworks heard the familiar cry of a certain murder of crows, and a startled voice trying to calm them down. Waterworks smiled and turned around to see a purple pegasus mare, trying to calm down the crows to no avail.
"Now, now, you lot," Corva said in a calming tone, "I know you don't like being too close to water for long, or being separated from me for too long for that matter..." The crows looked at each other and then tried to herd Corva back to Cloudsdale , she flew higher up than them before appearing behind them.
"But," She continued, "I really want to see my friend today, I've had to cancel her other invites because I've been looking after you guys. Isn't it a fair deal?" Corva asked her crows. They huddled together and mumbled with each other for a while before turning back to Corva and nodding before setting back off to Cloudsdale.
Corva sighed in relief and flew down to Waterworks and hugged her. "Waterworks!" She said, after finishing the hug, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to see you for a while! Some of the boys were a little ill for the last few weeks and I just-"
Before she could continue, Corva was cut off by a large SPLASH coming from the far side of Waterworks' swimming pool. The two mares as well as Squirt both turned and ran to see what had fallen in, but, before they could look into the water, the thing that had fallen in burst back out.
It was Copper! The new pegasus stallion that Waterworks had become friends with! He landed on the tiling not too far away from the three ponies. He shook himself in a halfway attempt to get himself dry. It didn't work well for two reasons.
Reason number one was that he didn't make himself that dry, his mane and tail just became very fluffy, and reason number two was that, while shaking himself, Copper managed to get Corva absolutely soaked. Waterworks and Squirt were already wet from swimming before.
"Well, that's one way to make an impression." Corva thought, starting to not like this pegasus straight away. Waterworks, wringed out both ponies' manes and tails with her magic while nervously darting her eyes back and forward between them, hoping that they wouldn't start fighting.
Copper opened his mouth to say something after Waterworks had finished, but a radio and some talking was heard not too far away. And then, in a flash of dust smoke, appeared a bubblegum pink mare with a dark navy blue and light blue striped mane and tail. She grinned devilishly when she saw Corva looking so intensely at Copper, and her mind jumped to conclusions.
"Oooohh!" She chimed, cantering between them. "Looks like somepony has found their own little somepony~." She continued, laughing at her own joke. Corva glared at Bubblegum Flash, her heart was always in the right place, but Bubblegum Flash could go a little too far at times.
Waterworks put her hoof over Bubblegum Flash's smart mouth to stop her from making a bigger scene. "Bubble, you can talk to Corva and Copper after they've talked to each other and resolved their little dispute." Bubblegum Flash nodded her head vigorously, looking a little scared. When Waterworks got angry, she really got angry! So Bubblegum Flash didn't want to get on her bad side.
"Okay then." Waterworks said, nodding her head, her red goggles bouncing a little as she did. The music was now much closer than before, and the voices as well. Since Waterworks, Bubblegum Flash, Corva and Copper were starting to talk, they didn't really notice. But Squirt did, since the others had sort of forgotten about him.
Squirt turned to the direction of where the music and voices were coming from. He looked back at the four talking ponies and thought to himself, "Eh, they'll be fine." He then turned around and climbed on top of the highest diving board that Waterworks had. She had told him that he wasn't allowed to jump off of it, so he wasn't breaking any rules by just going on it, wasn't he?
He looked around the area. His bis sisters' tallest diving board was the highest place that he could go up without putting himself in very serious danger, that is, if his hooves were never wet and didn't make him slip.
After he was looking around for a while, Squirt saw three ponies not too far off, one with a radio around her neck that was playing music, a blue pegasus with a red mane, and a brown-ish pegasus that was flying above the other two who were chatting. As soon as he saw the male pegasus, Squirt jumped for joy!
"Sea Snap!" He shouted out, waving his hoof, "Sea Snap, over here!"
Sea Snap looked over to where Squirt's voice was coming from, so did everypony else. Waterworks screamed at the top of her voice.
"Squirt!!" She yelled up at him, "Stop moving so jerkily! Or you'll-"
Waterworks didn't get to finish her sentance, because as she was just about to say the last word of her sentence, Squirt slipped. And he was falling.
The water's surface was quickly nearing closer and closer as Squirt tumbled towards it. He screamed out in fear, covering his dark red eyes with his hooves. Everypony was too shocked to move a muscle, even Waterworks, who just stared as Squirt continued to fall to the pool surface.
And then, like some kind of miracle, a flash of brown and green whizzed towards Squirt and and he was gone. Just like that. Then, just as quickly as he had disappeared, Squirt reappeared in front of the four shell shocked ponies on Sea Snap's back. Inky Iridescence and Strawberry Cream were hurrying over, Strawberry Cream's bag bouncing up and down as she did. A radio was inside one pocket but she turned it off when she and Inky Iridescence stopped to catch their breaths.
When the shock had worn off, Inky Iridescence and Strawberry Cream picked Squirt off of Sea Snap and comforted him.
"Shh... Its okay, Squirt, you're fine now, okay?" Strawberry Cream said to Squirt as she hugged him.
"Yeah, Sea Snap saved you, didn't he? It won't happen again." Inky Iridescence told Squirt in a soft, soothing voice. She looked over to Sea Snap and saw his angry expression. She turned to Strawberry Cream.
"Berry, I think we should take Squirt indoors. He's had an awful fright and I think Sea Snap wants to have a little word with Waterworks and the others." She said to her in a slightly hushed tone. Strawberry Cream nodded and nudged Squirt slightly.
"Come on, Squirt." She said to him, trying to encourage him to stand up. "We can go into your house and share some of the sweeties I brought with me." She reached into her bag and pulled out a sweet that had a dark blue wrapper. "See? Its blueberry flavoured, your fave."
When he heard the sweet wrapper crinkle, Squirt turned his head to it straight away and nodded slowly. Strawberry Cream and Inky Iridescence smiled and Strawberry Cream started to lead Squirt to the house. Inky Iridescence turned to the five ponies.
"Me and Berry will keep Squirt company and calm him down while you lot have your..." She tried to think of the right kind of word, but Waterworks looked at her.
"Its okay, Inky," She said to her, a calm smile on her face, you go with Berry and squirt and we'll talk." She continued, nodding at Sea Snap at the end of her sentence. Inky Iridescence nodded and trotted off to follow Strawberry Cream and squirt.
When the back door to Waterworks' house was closed, Sea Snap burst.
"What the HAY did you think you were doing!?" He yelled, making all the ponies jump since the tone had been relatively quiet for the last few minutes. "Why wasn't any of you keeping an eye on him? You know fine well that he's only young!"
Sea Snap felt very strongly about things like this. He had an adopted younger sister called Poppet who'd hurt herself not too long ago because Sea Snap wasn't watching her, and since then has always been touchy about the thought of young ponies getting injured. Waterworks took a deep breath after he had finished ranting and was waiting for her response.
"Sea Snap, first of all, I cannot thank you enough for saving Squirt like that." Waterworks hugged Sea Snap, he didn't object, but he rolled his eyes when he saw Bubblegum Flash wiggling her eyebrows.
"Second of all," Waterworks continued when she pulled away. "Yes, none of us were watching Squirt, but we didn't know that he was going to go on top of my highest diving board. I had told him that he was absolutely not allowed up there without someone supervising him." She finished, hoping that Sea Snap wouldn't, well... Snap at her for not being to vigilant as she usually was. But Copper bumped in before Sea Snap could say anything.
"Um, she does have a point.... Sea Snap." He said timidly, this stallion pegasus was taller and looked stronger than Copper. "We didn't know that Squirt was going to go up the board, and didn't he not fall down in the first place because he saw you?"
Everyone breathed in sharply. Copper was new to the group, he didn't know what had happened with Sea Snap and Poppet. Heck, he didn't know that Sea Snap had a little sister at all! But everyone else did, and everyone else knew that you should never blame, whether on purpose or not, Sea Snap of putting a colt or filly in danger.
Corva and Bubblegum Flash got ready to push the two away from each other and Waterworks readied her magic in case Sea Snap went for Copper.
Sea Snap glared intensely at Copper, who was quacking a little as he stood. "Oh no..." He thought to himself, "What have I done now?" Sea Snap's eye twitched and he took a step forward and stretched out his wings, making Copper jump. Waterworks, Bubblegum Flash and Corva stepped forward as well, Corva slowly unfolding her wings in case Sea Snap tried to attack Copper form above. Sure, he got her mane wet and all, but Copper wasn't that bad.
Sea Snap yelled out in rage and was about to make a pounce for Copper but a voice was heard from the back door of Waterworks' house.
"Sea Snap!" A shrill voice shouted, all five ponies turned to see a very annoyed looking Earth pony filly with a light lilac coat, a cream and white coloured mane and tail and very angry-looking yellow eyes. She was tapping her hoof and glaring at Sea Snap. Sea Snap himself gulped and folded his wings back before fully turning to the filly. "Oh.. Hi, Poppet." He grinned nervously.
Poppet scowled and trotted over, speaking as she did. "Sea Snap, what in the the name of Celestia do you think you're doing?!"
"U-uh, well I was just-" Sea Snap stuttered as Poppet got ever closer and her voice louder. "Don't you talk back to me, young stallion! What part of 'don't cause any trouble', do you not understand!?" Poppet stopped in front of Sea Snap and pushed her nose right up into his own. "Well? I'm waiting."
Sea Snap backed up. Corva and Bubblegum Flash giggled a little and Waterworks just smiled and rolled her red eyes. Copper was just thankful that he hadn't gotten hurt. Whoever that little filly was, she had some real guts, standing up to Sea Snap like how she was doing.
Speaking of which, Sea Snap was struggling to come up with a reply. A thought then came to Corva's mind, she stepped forward to Sea Snap and Poppet. "Wait, Poppet?" Poppet flicked a bit of her mane out of her face and nodded at Corva, "How did you get here? I'm pretty sure that Sea Snap left you up in Cloudsdale with Cakewalk and Chickadee. In fact, I remember seeing you playing with Chickadee when I was coming down from Cloudsdale! Plus, you're an earth pony!"
Poppet smiled smugly, happy that she had successfully confused an older pony. "Oh, I have my ways." She said, giving them with a condescending look. Corva and Sea Snap blinked and looked at each other, unsure of what to say to that. Squirt's voice broke the short silence as he trotted over some sweet wrappers in his mane and holding some sweets in his mouth.
"Hey, Gocket!" He half mumbled, half shouted over to Poppet. She turned around and walked over to Squirt. "Oh, wow, Squirt! Where'dya get those from?" She exclaimed when she stopped in front of Squirt. He put down the sweets between them.
"Strawberry Cream brought some over with her; here, have some!" He pushed two sweets towards Poppet. She unwrapped one that smelled like bananas and popped it into her mouth, savouring the delicious taste. "Mmm!" She went, reaching for the other sweet, its wrapper dark green one with little black speckles on it.
"Well, that's another satisfied customer." Strawberry Cream mumbled to Inky Iridescence when she saw Poppet and Squirt when they walked out of the back door. Inky chuckled as she looked at the two foals. She and Strawberry cream continued to walk towards the other ponies.
"So.. Everything sorted out?" Strawberry Cream asked Sea Snap and Copper. Sea Snap nodded slightly, "I suppose, Poppet interrupted before I hit the roof. So yeah, Things are better now, I guess."
Inky Iridescence smiled, "That's great," She said and turned to Waterworks. "Now, can we get to do what we came here to do?" She glanced at the swimming pool and sun chairs that had been layed out along the other side of the pool. Waterworks laughed.
"Of course we can!" She said, popping on her goggles and turning to the pool, "Come on you guys! Last one in the pool's a Sally Slowcoach!" She giggled and jumped into the pool.
All the other ponies followed, apart from Sea Snap, who had given himself the responsibility of making sure that Squirt and Poppet didn't try to get into the pool since they'd just eaten. They protested at this, but Waterworks agreed and they had to stay out of the pool until their food had gone down.
*~To be continued~*
Author's Note
Inky Iridescence belongs to rainbowpanda101 on deviantArt.
Copper belongs to YeWelshTabby on deviantArt
All other characters, and only those characters, belong to me.
