> Peppermint Breeze
>  by Dream Quill
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the cloud-town above Canterlot, an excited murmur went through the crowd. The unicorn, which already was dealt with as the follower of Princess Celestia, has been send away from the capitol city by the command of her Highness.
Immediately, a lot of amazing rumors circulated. So a few ponies represented the opinion, that she did something such dreadful, that she, two days before the Summer Sun Celebration, was banished by the Princess. Others on the other hoof said, that she is merely on a mission on behalf of the Princess.
The majority however was not sure what they had to believe in, such as a little Pegasus girl that barely escaped from the foal-age. Her fur was a pearly mint-green and her mane, which fell in long, slightly curled lanes over her shoulders with a, in sunlight cupreous shining, auburn colour.
This pony had a distressing secret. In comparison to her peers, she did not possess a cutie mark so far. She always covered her hip with a little rag in an attempt to hide her secret.
Actually, she was rather shy and always tried to stay in the background, but as she heard that the princess send her only student away from Canterlot, she was obliged to find out the accurate reason of her absence and hit the road to the castle of the capitol city.
Unfortunately, she never was really good at flying. Indeed she could, like every Pegasi, walk on the clouds and a slow fluttering was possible for her. But when she looked at the reckless maneuvers in flight of the Wonderbolts, she felt dizzy. Now the way between Canterlot and the cloud-town was not really far, because the capitol city by itself was very high-lying. Anyways, she stood shakily at the edge of the cloud.
What did she even think about it at all? Probably, she would not even be able to come close enough to the princess. As she stood there like this and tried to convince herself for her intention, the voice of her mother rang out behind her.

“Pepper! Peppermint Breeze, where are you?”

Peppermint was not pleased, when someone shouted her name like that. Given that her mother definitely wanted to talk her intention out of her, she closed her eyes and made a determined leap to the fore. She sensed how the wind whistled through her mane and just wanted to span her wings, when her fall abruptly aborted.
She slowly opened one eye and her breath stagnated. She has been caught by Soarin, one member of the Wonderbolts.

“Well? Did you fall off the cloud, kid?”

Thereby he hit her weak point, because it resulted, that Peppermint indeed was not a foal anymore, but just nobody realised it. She always has been teased for her height. And as if that was not enough her wings were oversized.
Thus she more looked like a big bird then a Pegasus. Soarin slowly began to ascend towards the cloud-town. Her wings also were the reason why she could not fly properly. Not because they were oversized, but due to the fact that she was always to ashamed at the flight school and sat simply right there, while the others improved their flight skills. She tipped on his shoulder.

“What?”

It already was difficult enough for her to talk to other ponies, but then also raising her voice to such a celebrity.

“Erm...”

Her voice denied its duty. The Wonderbolt raised an eyebrow.

“What is it?”

She worked up all of her courage. “Canterlot.”

He stopped in mid-air. “What does a small filly like you want in Canterlot?”

That was just enough for her and she jumped off the back of her savior.

“Hey!” He shouted frigthened, yet followed another astonished “Hey.” when she sprawled her wings.

On the spot the wind got caught by her long feathers and she started a gliding flight towards the capitol city. Soarin stayed surprised behind. With all concentration, that she could bring up, she headed towards an open place next to the castle.
It caused a lot of trouble to hold her flight steady and slowly she drifted off from her flight path. Paddling with her legs she tried panic-fuelled to change her direction, but the wind let her exactly head towards one of the merlons.
As she only was two wing-lengths away from it, she raised her front legs in front of her face and her wings sprang to her flanks. She felt the impact, however it was not as bad, as she expected.
She lets her front legs drop and breathed a sigh of relief. She had landed on a balcony.

“I am glad, that your landing, even if it was a bit awkward, was successful.”

The voice came from behind her. She picked herself up and slowly turned around.

“I am so...” She did not came even further in the light of the impressive figure, which was standing in front of her.

Her mouth sprang open. In front of her stood actually the Princess by herself.

“Now, since you’ve obviously put a lot of effort in to get here, I would like to know, what you desire from me?”

Peppermint did not brought a single word out, only a little whimper rang out of her throat.
Celestia saw full of gentleness down on her.

“You don’t need to fear.”

The blood whooshed in Peppermint’s ears and her head felt like it would burst into flames any moment. Because she still did not utter a tone, the Princess retracted her hooves and lay down in front of Peppermint.

“Well?”

She could not abide it anymore and fainted.

As she awoke, she relocated herself in a large bed. It possessed a canopy and silken courtains. She was mad at herself, because she simply just let such a great chance elapse. She stood in front of the Princess and just passed out.
She stood up and realized with horror, that her rag was not there. Her ugly, blank, plain flank without a cutie mark was exposed. Hectically, she looked around in the room, but her rag still was missing.
But then the door to the room suddenly opened and a light-purple pony with the costume of a servant entered.

“Excuse me, but is the young lady possibly in search for this rag?”

She dragged the little rag out of her pocket and waved with it in front of Peppermint’s nose.

“Y-yes. That is my rag.”

She babbled and snatched it away from the maid. She scurried as fast as she could behind the bed, where she was protected by the courtain and put her rag back on her flank again. Hopefully, no one had seen that she did not possess a cutie mark. What would the Princess think of her?
In all her fear she did not dare to step out from behind the bed again. Then the maid raise to speak.

“You are here to request an audience with her royal Highness, Princess Celestia?”

Peppermint peeked a little bit out from behind the bed.

“Yes.”

“Well, then I sadly have to inform the young lady, that her royal Highness left towards Ponyville to the Summer Sun Celebration, which will take place there this year, to raise the sun. She makes an formal apology for this reason and requests, that you reappear on a later moment.”

That surely went totally brilliant. She did not only gamble her only chance away to talk with the princess, but also had to wait, until she returned from her excursion to Ponyville.
However, a servant of the Princess should after all know what it was about the departure of the student of the Princess herself. As the maid, after some waiting, still did not get a response, she turned around and wanted to leave the room, as a tender little voice rang out.

“Erm, excuse me?”

She turned around again and eyeballed the little foal. “Can I assist the young lady with something?”

Peppermint was a little bit surprised from the polite phrasing of the other pony. Still, she simply had to know it.

“I wanted to ask why the Princess sent her student away?”

Obviously, the maid was not prepared for this question and was shortly choked up. “What? Twilight Sparkle? She has been sent to Ponyville with the order,to monitor the preparations for the festivities.”

Peppermint breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew. That pleases me. Erm... could you perhaps show me the way to the cloud-town?”

This question seemed to bring the maid at the edge of politeness as well. “What’s about flying? You are a Pegasus-Pony.”

Peppermint rushed the blood in her face. “I can’t fly very well.”

That was just too much. The maid bursted out laughing loudly and Peppermint hid herself behind the bed again. It was the same laugh that her classmates always used for her. Why had anypony to laugh at her?
Full of sorrow, she started to sob quietly and the tears flowed over her face. Why could not she be as self confident as the other ponies? But the response, that obtruded itself, did not appeal to her at all. Everypony had a cutie mark and where therefore something special, only she had nothing what could have made her special.
The maid had to be gone, because she could not hear her any longer. As Peppermint dared to risk a little view beyond the backside of the bed, a strange sight has been offered to her. The maid seemed to be frozen in the middle of her movement, just like somepony had frozen the time of her.
Slowly, Peppermint sneaked up at her and examined this phenomenon. Somehow it looked funny though, but she was not in a laughing mood at the moment. Suddenly, she heard a voice behind herself.

“Do you want to be bigger? Do you want to be more self confident? Do you want your Cutie Mark?”

Peppermint turned slowly around, yet there was no one to be seen. “W-who is there?”

The voice seemed to come out from the mirror of the commode and she carefully stepped up to it. However, the pony she saw in the mirror was not herself. But the pony in the mirror was somehow like her, not short, but tall; and on her flank glowed a beautiful Cutie Mark in form of a cyclone. She was ravished by the sight and eyeballed herself.
But then the picture faded again and only the small, shy Peppermint without a Cutie Mark remained. She saddened again. Then the voice rang out once more.

“I can give you all of it.”

Instantly all shyness and all restraint was forgotten. “Yes! Please, I would do everything for it.”

The voice now continued with a complacent tone, but this did not bother Peppermint a bit. “Well, then you have to do a little favor for me at first.”

And so she followed the voice across the castle. Everypony she encountered on the way fared the same way as the maid and as Peppermint asked the voice, what was wrong with them, she simply got the answer that she did not need to worry about it.
She was too enchanted from her own mirror image to be even longer distrustful and soon, all her worries and doubts were forgotten. The voice led her to a very high leaf door.

“Now you have to fulfill your part of the deal, Peppermint Breeze. Go inside and look for a little, dark blue casket. You will recognize it in an instant, because there are four stars mapped on it. Take this casket and open it.”

To Peppermint, this seemed like a very solvable task. She nodded in excitement and slided one side of the door open. As she stepped in she paused for a second, but then her mirror image crossed her mind again and she bravely stepped forward.
She seemingly landed in the sanctums of the Princess. Everything was decorated so nicely. On a beautifully-worked wooden table stood a photo of her together with a slightly slim seeming purple unicorn. This had to be Twilight Sparkle.

“Strange...” She thought.

She would have estimated the student of the Princess more likely as a pony, which was talented in all areas. She shook her head; she must not be distracted from her intention.

“Let’s see...”

She searched the whole room, but it seemed impossible for her to find the casket. Out of sheer frustration, her wings sprang open and with one of these she accidentally knocked against a bookshelf. This began to threatening wiggle back and forth, while objects fell down from the upper shelves.
It were mainly books, but then she saw it. Within the pile of books was the little, dark blue, with four stars decorated casket. Full of enthusiasm, she picked it up and tucked it under her wing. She was so close to the fulfilment of all her dreams, that she did not even care at all about the remaining books, which had fallen down and left the room.
As she shut the door behind herself, she could hear the voice again.

“Very good, you have the casket and now..... open it!”

The impatience was clear to hear from the voice, but Peppermint did not care. She put the casket on the bottom in front of her, but she found no lock or any other sort of a fastener on it. Desperately, she straightened up again.

“How do I open this thing?”

The voice, obviously trying hard to remain calm, answered to her. “You have to do nothing further than presenting your heart’s desire to the judgement of the casket. Should it be of pure nature, it will open itself to you.”

“And how shall I do this?”

“Just imagine what you desire deep inside of you and the casket will do the rest.”

What she desired deep inside of herself? The answer to that wasn not too hard for her to find. Again, the image in the mirror crossed her mind, but there was more behind her desire than just being tall and possessing a cutie mark.
What she really desired from the depths of her heart was to be accept from the others and making a lot of friends. The realization of her own desire felt so wonderfully warm, it overwhelmed her, so much she desired it.
The four stars on the casket started to shine and the cover flew open. Out of the inside rose four glowing orbs. It almost looked like stars would ascend from it. They floated in a circle around Peppermint.
Suddenly, a loud and cold laughter was heard and at once, all orbs flew away. Her newly gained courage and her self confidence left Peppermint as well.
As suddenly everpony around her could move again, she was as uncertain as ever. Confused,the looked around and as a pony discovered Peppermint and the opened casket, a bloodcurdling scream rang out. At once she was grabbed from behind. As she frantically looked around, she noticed that she was held by two palace guards in their golden armors.
Everpony looked at her like she was a felon. A dressy, older mare came to her and gaver her a slap in the face with her hoof. Peppermint did not understand anything anymore. The old mare looked at her from dark eyes.

“Do you know, what you’ve just done?”

When she got no response from the little filly before her, she directed herself at the guards.

“Away!”

And on the spot she was dragged henceforth by them.