Midnight Belle (and the Case of the Vanishing Foals!)

“You sure you can’t make it?”

The sound of the emptying classroom in the background made conversation impractical, but not impossible. Sweetie could still hear the ringing of the end-of-day bell in her ears. Unlike most days, she didn’t feel the burning ‘run home to enjoy the rest of the day’ insistence that usually came with it.

Applebloom joined Scootaloo’s hopeful wide stare towards Sweetie Belle, the two of them looking like sad puppy dogs begging for something unspecified.

Sweetie almost felt her resolve break, but it mended at the last second. She sighed.

“I’m sorry, guys. I really can’t.”

“It’s alright.” Applebloom seemed to take the news better, as opposed to Scootaloo, who frowned and kicked at the dirt. “I know how it is. Big sisters can be a pain sometimes.”

Neither of them looked towards Scootaloo, who was doing her best not to listen.

“Hope you guys have fun. Get some extra candy for me, if you can.”

“We’ll do our best,” Applebloom said. She smiled at Sweetie until Sweetie turned with her lunch-box between her teeth and began the walk home.

Sweetie Belle spared one glance backwards as she left. Scootaloo and Applebloom both looked like spoiled fillies on Hearth’s Warming morning, giddy to open their most fanciful presents.

Sweetie sighed through the plastic handle of her box.

It was going to be a long walk home.

Sweetie tried to recreate her emergency route on the way home as well. It was a bit difficult, as her senses in the morning had been muddied by panic. She’d had enough time to come up with something reasonably straightforward in lieu of her usual alley access being restrictive, but she couldn’t remember exactly where she’d turned. The houses seemed closer together on this side of town, almost like a maze. Sweetie Belle felt like she was getting lost in-between them.

Here, there was the same one she’d just seen a minute ago, bright orange walls and window trimming. But then as she turned the corner, there it was again, but with a slightly different lawn decoration, a pinwheel instead of a pink flamingo. Or, maybe the one she'd passed first had been a flamingo, and the second one was a parasprite gnome. And this house was blue, but it was orange on this side, which meant maybe she had just gone to the right instead of the left. This corner looked familiar, because she remembered that scribble on the wall that somepony had left, and around the corner of tiny vandalism there was—

“Oof!”

Sweetie hit a wall for the second time that day, though this one at considerably less velocity. It was still enough to topple her backwards, and to knock the lunch-box from her teeth. Her book-bag jostled on her shoulder, but luckily remained secure.

To her horror, this time the something she ran into was also carrying something.

It also had a green coat and a spinny-eyed look of confusion from the impact.

An empty crate was on the ground to the right, about Sweetie Belle’s size, or maybe a little bigger.. All around it, its contents fluttered in the soft breeze as they found places in the grass.

Sweetie studied them for a second. White, puffy looking, about the size of a sunflower. With five points, but not in any type of symmetry. All at one side, like a misshapen starfish.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. There was still a pony next to that crate.

“Are you okay...Lyra?!”

For the second time that day, Lyra collected herself, though she seemed more shaken up this time. Being hit by a fast-moving Sweetie-bomb was one thing, but even though this one had been low-impact, the crate toppling and subsequent full-body collapse were evidently more to recover from.

“Uh... I think so. I can’t feel my toes though.”

“Your what?” Sweetie stretched a foreleg out to help Lyra up, which she took with both of hers. Sweetie grunted and began to sweat as she tugged Lyra upright, and then onto all fours.

“My... oh, right. Nevermind.”

Lyra smiled at Sweetie as she found her footing, though she still looked a little out of it.

“I’m so, soooo sorry,” Sweetie said. “I didn’t mean to hit you again... I’m just having a really bad day.”

Lyra dusted off one of her shoulders before she used it to shrug.

“It’s okay. No harm, no foul. Although... did you see what happened to the box I was carrying?”

Sweetie’s eyes went wide like she’d seen a ghost. She didn’t want to have to point Lyra in the direction of her capsized crate’s contents.

But, she didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

With a horrified expression, Sweetie pointed behind Lyra and to the right. Lyra studied Sweetie’s expression for a curious second before turning to see what was causing all the fuss.

“Oh, is that all?”

Sweetie deflated from her panic. She let herself breathe again.

“It’s not that bad?”

An errant white thing floated by in the breeze, sailing off to parts unknown in its five-pocked asymmetry.

Lyra shook her head.

“Nah,” she said.

The bundle of white things on the ground began to glow—and, as Sweetie watch, every one of them, even the one that had almost gotten away, was pressed into a single large, white ball, which itself was smooshed into the crate that Lyra had been carrying. The ball of things disappeared beneath the crate lid, and the crate righted itself, giving a final shimmer of mint before it returned to its normal, non-magical colour.

“What are those things?” Sweetie Belle asked. Now that the initial calamity was averted (and subsequent apology and cleanup avoided), curiosity was the normal state of affairs.

“These? They’re just gloves. I need ‘em for a project.”

“Gloves?” Sweetie felt like Lyra had been slipping words into conversation that didn’t belong. If Sweetie wasn’t interested, it was easy to ignore them, but this word, and the white things it apparently belonged to, needed some explanation. Sweetie was used to ‘mittens’ or ‘hoof-warmers’—she’d even heard ‘gloves’ at one point or another—but these didn’t look like any glove she was familiar with.

Lyra nodded. “Yeah, gloves. You know, you wear them on your... ah. Ahaha... I guess you don’t.” Lyra’s face became suddenly flushed, and she rubbed a hoof on the back of her head awkwardly.

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. They’re just... yeah. It’s cool.”

“Cool?”

Lyra’s eyes darted back and forth to either side.

“Well, anyway, I’ve gotta get goin’. You know how it goes; places to be, and such...”

Sweetie Belle did know how it went sometimes, but not today. No matter what ‘fun’ things Rarity had planned, chores were still chores, and Sweetie was in no hurry to go home and do them.

Still, she understood the feeling. There were plenty of times she’d darted home from school only to pick something up before rushing back outside to spend time with her friends.

‘Gloves’, though? Not that exciting, upon initial examination.

“Okay, Sweetie said. She watched Lyra as she levitated the crate up into the air and held it at chest level before taking it in one hoof, bending her foreleg against her chest to keep it stable.

“Are you going home to help Bonbon with the candy give-out?” Sweetie asked as Lyra began to walk past, holding the crate precariously, and with the help of the occasional nudge of magic.

“Oh? Naw, that stuff’s not really my style. Too many kids. I’m just gonna go do... other stuff.”

Sweetie’s face fell. Lyra couldn’t help but look back as she spoke, and she noticed the sudden droop in Sweetie Belle’s smile.

“Aren’t you going? Bonbon invited every kid in town, didn’t she?”

“I can’t go,” Sweetie Belle said. “I have to go home and help my stupid sister with dumb chores.”

“Hey!” Lyra used her magic to lower the crate for a second, evidently finding it too heavy to keep afloat for too long. “I’ve known your sister for a little while, and she’s not stupid. The chores I can’t account for.”

Sweetie sighed as Lyra picked up her crate again, holding it against her body like an inexperienced furniture mover.

“I know. I just don’t wanna do ‘em.”

“Well,” Lyra said, adjusting her body to make the hard wood digging into her skin less uncomfortable, “try asking her about my offer to help around the shop a bit. I might not like candy, but Bonbon sure does. Heck, maybe you could even make a career out of it. You’re still looking for your cutie mark, right?”

Sweetie Nodded emphatically, her off-cotton-candy curls bouncing with the motion of her head.

Lyra nodded back with considerably less force.

“Well, there you go then.”

Lyra, seemingly content that the conversation was over, began her walk, holding the crate of gloves at eye-level with magic.

Sweetie watched her go for a bit, but realized as Lyra began to vanish around another suspicious looking corner, that she’d forgotten to say thank you for the offer.

“I’ll ask Rarity and let you know. Thank you!” Sweetie said, waving her foreleg at Lyra’s back and wooden crate.

She thought she could make out the hint of a smile behind the crate as Lyra disappeared.