Prologue
“And so, it is with great honor that I award Team Y-6 with Second Place for the School of Friendship’s first ever Feats of Friendship!” Twilight called out, her voice magically amplified, to the screaming fans crowded in the bleachers of the arena.
Gallus’ pride was immeasurable as the medal was gingerly placed around his neck by the purple miasma of the Headmare’s telekinesis. Glancing to his left and right, he saw his fellow friends were likewise admiring their own accolades.
Second place was definitely nothing to scoff at, especially for the first time the Feats of Friendship had ever graced the students of Princess Twilight’s now infamous school.
Gallus thought back to the last event. While his team did place second in the competition overall, they definitely earned a lot of awe and reverence from the student body for defeating the Headmare’s magical hydra construct in record time.
Next time, Gallus thought, we’re going for the gold.
That thought did hit Gallus with a twinge of sadness as he took a headcount of all the creatures standing on the Second Place podium with him. Gallus had already gotten used to the company of five other creatures nearly all times of nearly every day.
Yet even he couldn’t deny that their usual six felt just one short.
Ocellus, ever the empath, put to words what all of them were thinking. “This isn’t right. Swift Foot should be here with us.”
While the group of friends wanted nothing more than to celebrate their momentous achievement, their melancholy couldn’t be denied when the one creature who, arguably, put in the most effort for that victory wasn’t there to share in the glory.
Swift Foot entered their lives with absolutely no warning. But her care and concern for each and every one of them and their cultures made her a fast friend to all of them. When they first met her, she was a curiosity. A novelty. The cool new exchange student. But she had proven time and again to possess a kind and courteous heart for each of their group.
When tensions were riding high and the stress of the games were getting to Gallus and his friends, causing them to incessantly snap and bicker with each other, Swift Foot was the only one to put their emotions before her own.
“Pinkie Pie delayed the closing ceremonies for as long as she could.” Gallus said. It did cause quite a stir when, mere moments before the students were to be awarded their medals, Swift Foot suddenly disappeared on them, giving no warning as to where she was going or when she would be back.
“She had a really exhausting few days.” Silverstream reasoned, clutching the seventh extra medal that was left without an owner. “Maybe she went back to the inn to rest? We’ll bring her medal to her later.”
“Y-Yeah…” Sandbar forced himself to say. “S-She wouldn’t leave w-without saying goodbye…”
Gallus' heart wrenched for the young stallion. Out of all of them, Sandbar had built the biggest rapport with Swift Foot. They were young, and none of them were all too experienced with the tricky emotions of romance, but it was obvious to all of them that Sandbar fell fast and hard for the alluring exchange student.
Far above the field of the arena, near the exits between the bleachers, stood the very object of the student’s discussion. A young mare with an ashen gray coat and sea-green mane. Swift Foot looked down at her… her friends and smiled warmly to herself. One of the few genuine smiles she had worn on her face amid all the deceptive and duplicitous smirks she had worn alongside her other masks.
‘I wish I was down there with you all. It… hurts to be apart.’ Swift Foot thought as she felt… something welling within her chest. Something alien and wonderful that she had never felt in her island home of Thrace. ‘But you all earned this moment…’
Though it pained her to look away from the six creatures who had shown her nothing but unconditional joy and companionship, she turned her back to the arena, to the cheering crowds of ponies, and walked away to the open hills overlooking the town of Ponyville.
‘...And I haven’t.’ She thought.
Before she escaped beyond the borders of the small, quaint town that she had come to love more than she ever did her own home, she allowed herself to look back one last time to the thatched roofs of the cozy cottages, to the apple orchard where she had been scared silly by a slobbering orthus, to the castle of the Princess of Friendship, to the school where she had forged a bond with six wonderful creatures that she would carry with her to her final days.
She did not deserve this warmth, this comfort. She had wormed her way into their friendship through lies and deception. Like a snake in the grass, she had turned steadfast friends against each other with baseless accusations and manipulated emotions.
The worst part is that they would never know the truth. They would never know how horrid their ‘new friend’ really was.
But Swift Foot was done living that lie. Her family set her up to be the apple of discord that would tear apart the symbol of unity between the races of the world. Breaking apart the student’s friendship would have been a symbolic victory for her father, King Diomedes, over the ‘lie’ that friendship was.
But Swift Foot knew better now. The magic of friendship was never a lie. Whatever hardship her ancestor, King Thrace, was forced to suffer after that first warming of the hearth between the other three pony tribes, Equestria, nor it’s values of friendship, unity, and compassion, were not to blame.
Swift Foot had won, the student’s friendship was broken until they could do nothing but bitterly argue and fight over meaningless tripe concerning this or that of their cultures or history.
But then, it simply… wasn’t. All it took was Silverstream butchering the Yak language in an earnest attempt to apologize to Yona, and all that animosity and bitterness was washed away with laughter.
For all the effort it took for Swift Foot to dredge up enough resentment and vitriol to turn these stalwart friends against each other, snapping at each other’s throats.
It was all undone in a single moment of forgiveness.
‘Farewell Equestria. Goodbye… my friends.” Swift Foot thought to herself, taken aback by how right the word friend felt after using it so much as a means to an end. ‘Your friendship truly is magic.’
‘I’ll return to Thrace. Try to convince them of your strength. Maybe even that friendship is worth exploring…’ Swift Foot turned on her hooves, ignoring the wet feeling trailing down her cheek, ready to return home. The long forgotten fourth tribe of the Thracian ponies had spat on the very concept of friendship, never forgetting the ancient slight the founders of Equestria made against their progenitor.
‘And if not… I will fight to protect my friends.’
Her resolve was unshaken. This, Swift Foot vowed.
---
Swift Foot looked up at the night sky through the barred window of her cell, deep in the cold, dank dungeons of her own father’s castle.
“Well… That didn’t work.”