Knights of Equestria: Page

Blizzard Strike crouched on a low lying cloud, watching the surrounding area with half closed eyes. She kept her wings spread in case she had to make a hasty get away. Even though they could barely keep her at the height of the lowest tree branches, she could sustain flight long enough to get to a higher perch if need be. It took a lot of effort on her part to just reach this cloud, which was only ten feet from the ground and two feet from the top of the tree she used to get to the fluffy thing, but it was worth the view of Sky Point, her hometown.

She snorted softly, clearing her head from thought and concentrated on the small hill surrounded by trees beneath her. There, movement at the edge of the tree-line. Then she heard a soft whistle, the signal. Blizzard spread her small wings, jumped from her cloud perch, and glided down onto the top of the hill. Fluttering a little before landing, she looked around and whistled, signaling that she was ready. She heard rustling and then silence. Suddenly, she heard somepony cry "Charge!" and would have been bowled over if she didn't leap to the right. Turning and facing the gray earth pony colt who charged her, she flicked her ears and ducked as a red pegasus filly dived at her. Blizzard leaped at the colt, somehow knowing he would try to dodge left and used her wings to adjust her trajectory accordingly, and knocked him over. She landed slightly behind him and turned around to meet another filly, this one an orange unicorn, nearly knocking her down by grabbing her hind legs in a weak magical grip. Blizzard flapped her wings hard to get some air and dropped onto the unicorn, breaking her grip and knocking her on the ground, nearly losing her own balance in the process and narrowly avoiding a dive bomb by the red pegasus. That left the red pegasus filly. Said filly was crouched on the top of the hill. Blizzard knew the filly had the high ground, so she waited until the filly jumped at her to dive forward and bounce her hoof over mane, which was exactly what happened.

"I win!" Blizzard cried.

"Couldn't you have won without knocking me onto my back Bliz?" the red pegasus asked grumpily.

"Your own fault for not checking to see where I was Flame. Besides, you guys nearly had me when I was gripped by Quartz," came the reply.

"But you still beat us! How do you always know where somepony is going to be?" Quartz complained, helping the gray colt to his hooves.

"Yeah Blizzard, it's almost like you could see into our minds." he said.

"I don't know. It's like I estimate where they're going to be, but I don't look into their heads Fog." Blizzard answered. "Any way, let's go to my house and get a snack, I'm hungry"

As the young ponies left with a collective "yeah", they were oblivious to the shadow that watched them from the tree lines, pondering what it just saw while tracking the youngsters with its golden eyes.

As the three fillies and colt munched on lichen sandwiches, the talked about their recent play fight. Well, three of them were, Blizzard just listened and thought about how such a group of friends came to be. None of them had their cutie marks yet, even though they were all ten years old, so that might have been a factor, but it didn't answer the question. A gray earth pony, an orange unicorn, and two pegasi with opposite natures that were reflected in name and hide color would not really be expected to become the best of friends, and yet they had. Quartz Spark was a unicorn who was calm and willing to listen, sometimes, and having a fascination with anything to do with stones, including the dull and uninteresting looking ones. Fog Step was a quiet earth pony, usually, but was not afraid to protect his friends, he could slip in and out of fog, almost like magic. Flame Wing was hot-headed and rebellious, unless an order interested her or benefited her in the long run, she would grumble about it until she finished whatever she was asked to do. Blizzard however, was a thinker and usually in tuned to her surroundings. She was fierce and fast though, never relenting either if she had a good reason in her head to be unrelenting. So different, and yet they balanced each other out with their particular quirks.

Blizzard was snapped out of her thoughts when Flame shook her shoulder. She looked at Flame and then noticed that the others were almost jumping in their seats.

"Blizzard, wake up! We want to head to the library to check out some books and then go to the square to see why everypony is anxious today. Want to come?" Quartz said.

"Fine. I did want to check out the new adventure novels they had, particularly that Crystal Mirror series. Well, let's go." Blizzard said, trotting over to the door. The others quickly followed.

As they made their way to the library, a crowd of adults was gathering by the news stand. Curious, they went over. After a bit of struggling to get to the stand, Quartz bought a newspaper and lifted it in her telekinesis over to her friends. Together they read the paper and widened their eyes at the story. Apparently, the Equestrian Armed Forces were coming to town to recruit ponies. Of course there were going to be the usual hoof soldiers and avian forces, but the Knights of Equestria were also sending somepony to induct and start training some fillies and colts to be knights. This hadn't happened in centuries! There was even a letter from the Princesses stating:

Dear Honest Subjects,

In light of the recent attack by the Changelings, my sister and I have decided to encourage you to give your support and join the Equestrian Armed Forces. This includes the Knights of Equestria training your foals to become knights themselves. We both know the parents among you will hesitate to agree to letting your foals train as warriors, so I have imposed an age limit. The colt or filly must be at least ten years old in order to join as a page. Keep in mind that the knights will let the foals be foals and teach them what they would normally learn in school, with a few variances to the curriculum. Your cooperation is imperative, as much as it pains us to admit this, the Royal Guard just isn't enough to fend off an attack from foreign invaders and we need more ponies in our armed forces. Thank you for your cooperation in advance.

Signed,

Princesses Celestia

and Luna

"Wow, the Knights of Equestria want pages. I wonder if my parents will let me join?" Flame said. The others started to talk excitedly.

"Well, the recruiter won't come for a while yet, so let's go to the library." Blizzard said. The four are set off again for the library, blissfully unaware of what was to come.