She didn’t wait for spike to get his breath before she scooped him up,slipped him into the pocket, and made a mad dash for the town. She didn’t stop until….a rock tripped her in the plaza.
If the snow could talk, it would probably be asking for rent.
As she began wondering if you could sue wayward rocks, she finally got to see the town around her, and began to stare in wonder. All around her were penguins doing all the things that ponies would do back home. They were walking, running, playing and talking like those back home.
In fact, some of the penguins seemed ...familiar.
A mint green penguin and a cream color penguin are sitting on a bench and nuzzling.
A brown penguin with a tie and a small screwdriver thing was running out of the pizza shop in a frenzy.
And most obviously, a grey penguin with crossed eyes and a blonde hairdo was skating around, slamming into everything. Twilight might have been filling in blanks, but she thought the penguin had said. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”
Trying not to freak out, she did the breathing technique that she had seem some of the ponies back home do. It did help some. But before she could try and find a library or something of the like…
“Uh...I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t directed at her, but she could still hear it. As she turned to look for where it came from, she saw an alleyway in between the petshop and the theatre.
As she approached, the voice began to take on a familiar tone. It was quiet and delicate, but it had a more self-assured tone to it as well, almost as if Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s voices were mixed together.
And then came another voice.
“HAH!!!”
Twilight turned the corner, half-expecting to see a certain pink-haired yellow friend, but sadly, it was not to be.
Instead, the voice came from a brown penguin with long brown hair in a ponytail. She was wearing something that looked like a safari outfit. Surrounding her were creatures similar to spike in all colors of the rainbow. They looked concerned for this brown penguin but were unable to help.
Then she saw the penguin that was confronting her. It was a golden penguin with red and yellow striped hair. She was wearing a black leather jacket, pink tank top with a sun on it, and a orange skirt with pink and yellow. Her expression was one of a condescending smirk.
“Well just so you know, no one wants to hang out with some earth-saver freak. It’s no wonder your best friends are all stray Puffles!” said the girl with almost a cackle.
Twilight didn’t bother to (or need to) think for more than a second.
“HEY!” said Twilight as she took a step forward.
THe girl turned quickly with an annoyed face.
“That’s not nice AT ALL. Would you want someone saying that to you. Who do you think you are?!”
The girl’s tone went from annoyed to psychotic as she stomped over to Twilight and gave a smack right across her cheek. Twilight cringed as she rubbed her cheek to sooth it.
“Who do i think I AM?! You know, you should watch whatever sludge comes out of your stinking’ mouth. Because if I had my way..” The girl then pulled Twilight up to the point their beaks pressed together and hissed “I’LL MAKE SURE YOU WILL NEVER. SPEAK. AGAIN!!!”
The girl then let Twilight go, before stomping away in annoyance. As she passed a blue penguin with a blond ponytail, she made a motion of “What are you looking at.” causing the penguin to flinch.
As Twilight and Spike watched, the brown safari penguin finally stood up with an expression of awe.
“I can’t believe you just stood up to her like that!”
Twilight turned in surprise. “I couldn’t just stand there and let her keep going. She could have hurt some of your...Puffles, or ever worse, YOU!”
The safari girl merely blushed, but then said. “Well...it’s just surprising because….because...no one ever...EVER stands up to Sunset Shimmer.”
Twilight perked up at the mention of the name. “Sunset Shimmer?” she then turned to where the Sunset penguin went, but she was gone by the time she looked.
“Is that who I think it is..?” whispered Twilight to herself.
Before she could leave, though, the safari penguin quietly spoke up. “Um, sorry if this is disturbing you, but you seem new. You’re not from around here are you?”
Twilight realizes that through all this, she and Spike had never decided on a cover story. She had to decide on a name for her penguin self. She quickly went through various names before deciding on one quickly.
“Uh...yeah. We just came here yesterday. My name is Dawn Borealis.” said Twilight deciding on the name they had decided to for Shining Armour, had he been born a girl.
Safari rubbed the back of her head. “Nice to meet you Dawn.” she then went to shake her hand. Twilight noticed after she had calmed down, she was actually pretty self-assured. Not Rainbow Dash-levels, but she seemed to have a healthy self image.
“Everyone calls me the Puffle Handler, or PH for short. But my name is actually Paige.” said the girl, before her eyes inched their way over to spike.
“It’s good to meet you Paige. This is my um… puffle. I call him Spike.” Twilight was uncomfortable with lying to anyone about her name but she had to make sure things went alright and that Sunset Shimmer didn’t hear that Twilight had followed her, because if Sunset came from Twilight’s world than she would KNOW Twilight as well.
Paige’s face went to wild excitement, as she went from 0 to 60 and practically leaped at Spike.
“Oh my CODFISH!!! This must be a rare breed of Puffle! I’ve never seen one with two colors before...but wait.”
She licked her flipper and tries to wipe of the marks of green. When they didn't come off, she went back to smiles. “It’s genuine!” Paige then turned to Twilight.
“You must let me get pictures! My friends at Puffle’s International will go Crazy!” said Paige, practically begging as she clutched an instant-development camera. Twilight and Spike exchanged confused glances and then looked back at Paige. “Um… how many pictures exactly?” Twilight asked. “I’m on a bit of a time limit you see.”
Paige quickly nodded and began snapping picture quickly. She quickly got Spike from many angles. She took about 30 seconds worth of pictures, before pausing.
“Say, can I ask to see you and Spike sharing a cute moment. I always like to see Puffles and their caretakers sharing a bonding moment together.” asked Paige, looking wistfully away as she spoke the second part. Spike pushed against Twilight indicating they had to get going. Twilight nodded. ‘Uhh maybe another time. I’m awfully sorry but I have to get going. Can you tell me where the Library is please?”
Paige looked over. “We don't have a ‘proper’ Library, but there’s one in the Cafe. It’s on the second floor.” She pointed toward a building with a huge sign of a cup of coffee on it. Twilight gave the kind Paige a ‘flipper’ shake as thanks and disappeared into the Cafe quickly, before Paige could hinder Twilight’s progress any further.
Barely noticing the smell of roasting coffee, Twilight ran with Spike up the stairs to the Book Room. Quiet bossanova music filled the air as a couple penguins sat in various eats, reading books and sipping their coffee’s. Twilight stepped up to the bookshelves and began scanning the spines to look for something to go off of.
“Let’s see. Paint by Letters...no...How to Train your Dragon Puffle….no...50 Shades of Feathers?!” The last one made Twilight blush. If it was anything like ‘50 Shades of Hay’ back home…..yeah, NOPE.
Then Twilight’s flipper grazed a book that seemed strange for a coffee house. “Club Penguin Yearbook?” she said, taking the brown leather book out from the shelf. She then sat down in a red armchair and cracked it open.
The book contained a summary of all the events that had happened over the past year, separated by each month. Twilight was confused. The penguin’s appeared to have holidays called Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day. She could only assume they were their versions of Nightmare Night, Hearth’s Warming Eve, and Hearts and Hooves Day respectively.
She then saw what apparently the island’s “Mascots”, a set of penguins that were the one that the civilians turned to when they needed help, or for social and entertainment functions. Scanning through the names, one of them caught her attention: “Aunt Arctic”
It wasn't just the pun that got her attention. Her short bio said that she was the ‘Island Director’ in addition to being a columnist for “Club Penguin News”.
“Ooh! This might be what I’m looking for! ‘Island Director’ sounds pretty much like the ruler to me!” said Twilight to herself and Spike. “Maybe she can help me find the crown. And if not, she could at the very least help me find someone who COULD help.” Twilight then closed the book and slipped it back into its spot.
After walking back outside, she needed to figure out where this “Aunt Arctic” would be. The yearbook didn’t show an address for her house, and all the pictures associated with her were taken BY her, but none actually CONTAINED her, so she didn't even have a face to work off of. She would have to ask around the town to try and find some kind of clue.
As she tried to think, she was distracted by a sound. It was a bass-y, repetitive thumping sound, almost like the rhythm of a song. Looking around she saw a building labelled “Dance Club”, which seemed to almost pulsate to the beat of the dance music. Twilight thought for a minute, but then decided to check it out for tips from ‘the scene’. Heck, it was better than nothing at least, she thought.
A loud techno theme assaulted Twilight's eardrums as she entered the club, forcing her to cover her ears in pain and shock. She also tried her best to cover her eyes to block the barrage of rapidly flashing lights. She had seen something similar from Pinkie Pie’s parties, but even she didn’t go this fa--!
“BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH!!!!!”
Twilight didn’t even last a couple seconds before vomiting from a sudden and intense onset of nausea. Thankfully, there was a bin next to her at the time and Spike looked at her, worried. “Are you alright Twilight?” He didn’t seem as affected, possibly due to being around loud dragons for the short time he’d been away from Twilight, not to mention being constantly being around gems that flicker light into your eyes when you tune them around.
Twilight lifted her head out of bin and groaned, her vision blurry from the shut eyes. “Suddenly, those flower sandwiches and hay fries were a bad lunch choice.” While she was used to vomiting things like that up, vomiting from a beak instead of a muzzle was completely DISGUSTING!!! It felt like she had just tried to eat the front lawn (which in a sense she did). It must have been her new taste buds reacting negatively to her regular diet.
“Hey, you okay?”
This voice wasn’t Spike’s. It was female, spunky, but friendly. Like Pinkie with Rainbow Dash’s voice affliction. Looking up she saw a pink female penguin. She had short, pink hair, nestled under a pair of headphones. She wore a pink and yellow scarf, black and purple t-shirt, and a pair of black-an-white sneakers. She gave off the vibe of a certain blue-haired DJ from back home.
The penguin looked into the trash can and cringed “Yeesh, did you get bet to eat that stuff? What are you, a HORSE??”
Twilight froze for a second, panicked, but then tried to laugh it off as a joke. “N-no no not at all! That would be silly! I just… had some bad reactions to the lights. I’m not good with this kind of environment.”
The penguin nodded before turning around and making the shape of “T” with her arms. A second later, the lights dimmed to a low pulsing, as opposed to the hyperactive seizure inducers.
The penguin then turned back around and put her arm around Twilight as she helped her up. “Sorry about that, dudette. You feeling okay?” The way she spoke showed no fear of retaliation; She sounded genuinely concerned.
Twilight couldn’t decide what to say but decided to go with the truth of her situation regarding her sickness. “I feel a bit better, truth be told it’s probably a late night feast I had in combination with the bizarre lights.” She answered, which wasn’t completely false.
The two sat down in some beanbag chairs nearby as the pink penguin (or was it red? It was hard to tell under the saturated lights) got her some water to help soothe her stomach. “What’s ya name and what brings ya to this part of the ‘berg, dudette?” The kind penguin asked as she sipped gently on a drink.
Twilight froze. She never thought of an identity for herself outside of a name. She quickly went through all the information she could gather from people’s conversations, the yearbook she read, and just general observations.
‘Dawn’ quickly regained her composure. “My name is Dawn Borealis. I heard so much about this place, and I finally decided that I wanted to move here. I saw in your Yearbook that you guys were having so much fun, that I wanted to experience those as well.” With each word spoken, the pink(?) penguins face grew more and more excited.
“I was gonna try to find a miss “Aunt Arctic” to get a house, but I don’t know where she would be, and the Yearbook didn’t have any pictures. Do you think you could, Miss….Miss….” Twilight mentally facepalmed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask for YOUR name…”
The Penguin gave a cheerful and boastful chuckle. “Name’s Cadence! Though when I’m in the club here penguins refer to me as DJ K-Dance! And I’d LOVE to help you out! If you like we can even be friends! That’d be wicked cool!”
Twilight felt a sense of whiplash. That wasn’t just from the fact that Cadance flung her out of her seat with a strong yank-like handshake. She could see traits of so many of the ponies back home. The boastfulness of Rainbow, the cheerfulness of Pinkie Pie, the street cred of Vinyl; heck, she even had the name of her SISTER-in-law! But for some reason….twilight liked it. It made her feel...what was the word….excited. She felt a surge of adrenaline in her veins. “I’d r-r-really appreciate that thank you! So where are we going now?” Twilight tried to ask while they waddled quickly away from the club.
The DJ penguin (whom she could confirm was indeed pink in the natural light), turned her head with a smile. “Well, you mentioned you didn’t have a place to stay, so I’m gonna take you to see Aunt Arctic. She’s the island’s director, so she can help you find a cool pad and help you settle down.”