//------------------------------// // 14 - All Pretty Shook Up // Story: The Daughter Doo: Honorary Cutie Mark Crusader // by Ponky //------------------------------// Chapter Fourteen All Pretty Shook Up “Dinkyyyy!” Sweetie Belle shouted on the shore. “Dinkyyyyyyyyyy! Oh, where did she go?” She bounced on her front hooves, pounding little craters into the sand. Apple Bloom cast a wary glance at the rising Sun, then at their grounded canoe. “Ya don’t reckon she went swimmin’, do ya?” “She can’t swim!” Sweetie Belle growled. “That’s my point.” Apple Bloom gulped, staring along the river’s steady flow. “This is stupid,” Scootaloo grumbled under her breath, drawing lines in the sand by the empty firepit. “It’s all so frickin’ stupid.” Apple Bloom shook her head. “Oh, now ya finally figure it out, huh? Where was thinkin’-Scootaloo when we was jumpin’ off an aqueduct with a certified madpony?” “Yurasirtafymaponi,” Scootaloo mumbled, lowering her head. “What was that?” Apple Bloom leaned closer, squinting. “You’re a certified madpony!” Scootaloo’s crackly voice suddenly yelled. Gaping, Apple Bloom stepped back and brought a hoof to her chest. “Excuuuse me? Uh, forgive me if I’m rememberin’ somethin’ wrong here, but ain’t I the one who tried to get us to leave Zoccolo the whole time?” “Why’s this gotta be about Zoccolo, huh?” Scootaloo shouted. “Why can’t this be about you always having to be in charge and me always having to save your hide?” “What!?” “I didn’t have to chase that diamond dog, you know! I didn’t have to grab that stupid horseshoe and save your blank flanks!” She pointed to the golden thing, stabbed into the sand nearby. “Blank flanks?” Apple Bloom shot a scathing look at Scootaloo’s own haunches. “Yeah, nice one, Scootaloo. Really hits me where it hurts.” “Well, it should!” Scootaloo stood up and marched toward Apple Bloom. “Isn’t that what this is supposed to be about, huh? The Cutie Mark Crusaders? Sure, we’re helping Rainbow Dash, and yeah, the Cake foals need our help, but we’re doing this together to find out who we are, and all I see looking at you is a prissy know-it-all who can’t stop complaining for the five seconds it would take to help another pony!” “How dare you?” Apple Bloom stood her ground, even as Scootaloo brought her fuming face closer and closer. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been worried about Dinky this whole time, Scootaloo!” said Apple Bloom. “Then where is she, huh?” Scootaloo stomped right up and smacked her forehead against Apple Bloom’s so that their bulging eyes were almost touching. “Drowning? Running home? Foalnapped, too? You wanna be this great leader, but you can’t even take a hint! We’re supposed to be a team here!” “This has nothin’ to do with me wantin’ to be a leader, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom pushed back into her forehead until both their necks were shaking. “You’re the one that’s always tryin’ to be the hero! You ain’t nopony’s Rainbow Dash, y’know!” “And you’re about as far from Applejack as we literally are right now!” “KNOCK IT OFF!” Sweetie Belle rushed between them, shoving both fillies into the sand. She heaved and glared from left to right, boring into her quarreling friends with harsh green eyes. “Dinky is missing! She could be anywhere! And you two are just fighting about who’s more like their siser?” “Rainbow Dash ain’t her sister,” Apple Bloom said, rising to her hooves and brushing off sand. “As much as she pretends otherwise, she ain’t got no family.” “Why, you ― !” Scootaloo dove to attack Apple Bloom. “Whoa!” Sweetie Belle managed to blast Scootaloo aside with her magic, then turned and gave Apple Bloom a telekinetic slap as well. “Hey!” “Why would you say something like that?” Sweetie Belle asked shrilly. Then, glaring at Scootaloo, she said, “And why would you let it get to you? You know how many ponies in Ponyville love you, Scootaloo.” “Oh, shut up!” Scootaloo spat. “You’re one to talk, you spoiled―” “STOP IT!” Sweetie Belle kicked sand at the grounded pegasus. “Stop it, both of you! This doesn’t matter! We have to find―” “Uh, is everything okay?” asked Dinky Doo as she approached the campsite from the greener hills beyond the beach. Sweetie Belle stared at her. A smile flickered across her muzzle. She glanced at her friends on either side of her… and that smile gave way to a fiery scowl. With burning light behind her eyes, Sweetie Belle took a thunderous step forward and bellowed at Dinky, “WHERE WERE YOU?” Dinky froze with a hoof in the air and blinked. “Wha-what?” “Where were you?” Sweetie Belle asked again, taking more heavy steps forward. “You can’t go running off like that in the middle of the night, Dinky! I was terrified! And they won’t stop fighting! And if we can’t work together and find those foals, how are we ever gonna get home?” She took a deep breath and shouted, “If you’re gonna run off and have your own adventures all the time, why did we even bring you along!?” Dinky’s lip quivered… and soon enough, so did Sweetie Belle’s. The older unicorn dropped to her knees and hid her face near the sand, crying loudly while Dinky sat down further up the shore and stared at the ground. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo shot a worrisome glance at each other, then quickly remembered that they were feuding, too, and turned away. The Cutie Mark Crusaders and their honorary member stayed like that for several minutes, separate and despondent, until Apple Bloom trotted directly to the canoe. As she struggled to push it back to the river, Scootaloo gave her a wary glance. “What are you doing?” Scootaloo asked hoarsely. “Tryin’ ta… save… some foals,” Apple Bloom huffed as she pushed. With a cranky sigh, Scootaloo got to her hooves and, standing on the other side of the vessel, helped guide it back to the river. Without looking anypony in the eye, Sweetie Belle ― sniffling and hiccuping nonstop ― shuffled to the boat as well and clambered inside. Dinky was hesitant, but eventually joined, and when all four fillies were in the canoe, Scootaloo used an oar to slide them into the river’s current to continue on their journey. The fillies sat in single file, all faced forward to the east. Scootaloo was in the back, holding the oar steady over one side. Sweetie Belle was in front of her, slumped and crying quietly. Dinky took the next space up, watching the water with glassy eyes. Apple Bloom took the very front, watching for any obstructions in the river. Nopony said a word for hours. {-DD-} The River Pon flowed quickly, and the scenery around it changed. From the cliffs of Pelola to the sandy shores by the great green field, and then onward past wastelands and through small, dirty port towns, the day careened as each young filly found something to marvel at on the shores they swiftly passed. It became clear that they had left fair Itaily and entered what must have been Haissan, though nopony put it into words. At some point, Scootaloo gave up on the oar. She tucked it into the side of the canoe’s long cavity and steered instead with her wings. It was a welcome and familiar feeling, flapping her orange feathers one way or another to push the boat in the right direction. Pushing from the back of a vessel rather than pulling from the front presented a new challenge, but it was nothing Scootaloo couldn’t adapt to. Apple Bloom wracked her brain for some kind of plan, but she just didn’t have enough information. What waited now between them and the foals? Too many variables led to too many guesses, and she resorted to chewing on her bottom lip as the canoe floated faithfully forward. At least the river’s flow was predictable. Sweetie Belle had very few thoughts behind her dull green eyes, glued solemnly to the floor of the canoe. And Dinky… Dinky kept seeing a hoof reach down to grab her from the water. Bright eyes above the surface were blurred by ripples and splashes. She always thought they were golden… like her mother’s sweet, easing eyes… “What the hay is that?” asked Apple Bloom. As the first words spoken for hours on end, her question startled the other three ponies squatting in the boat behind her. “Is that the palace?” Apple Bloom asked, squinting at the river’s distant vanishing point. The landscape, arid and stony, sloped upward from the riverbeds. Too many crags and rough, grey patches made the shores impossible foundations; there was no life and no settlement in sight. Dinky couldn’t remember the last fishing town they’d passed. “I don’t see anything,” Scootaloo said, stretching her neck to peer past the canoe. “I think that’s the palace!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “Girls, we made it! That looks like the palace!” “What are y―? Whoa…” Scootaloo’s eyes finally focused on the spires rising past the end of the river. Towers topped with pointed bulbs glinted in the light of the late afternoon, but remained hazy like a mirage due to the distance yet to go. “You think the foals’re in there?” Apple Bloom asked. “Psh. They freakin’ better be,” Scootaloo grumbled. She flapped her little wings even faster to give the canoe a steady boost. Dinky watched the tiny palace grow on the horizon. A tall frame of grey stone grew much faster around it. She realized that a rocky hill eroded through the middle stood between them and the palace. The closer their little boat drifted to the hill, the clearer its details became: two tall, jagged spikes stood straight on both sides of the river, with several smaller (yet still enormous) columns of pale rock leaning toward them. To Dinky’s surprise, she noticed when they were within a thousand feet of the structure that the two grand spikes were still connected by a strip of stone high overhead, forming an angular archway that the river passed directly beneath. “The palace is right there!” Apple Bloom whooped, leaning forward over the edge of the canoe. “I can see a little door at the base! No guards! Looks like the river bends around thataway, like a big moat.” She swung her forelegs in a leftward curve, imitating the river. “We just gotta steer straight once we pass under this arch!” A low whistling sound, like a moan from a bottomless lung, swept around and over the fillies and tossed their tangled manes. Apple Bloom slapped a hoof over her bow when the wind picked up. “What the…?” The canoe lurched as a strong wind picked up its front end, tossing the four fillies backward. With shouts of surprise, Apple Bloom hit Dinky Doo who slammed into Sweetie Belle and squished little Scootaloo. “Oof! Whoa-oa-oowaaa!” Scootaloo desperately waved her wings and forelegs, struggling to balance the four of their bodies. Mercifully, the wind parted slightly and the canoe splashed down. The fillies had mere seconds to untangle themselves before another gust slammed into the side of the long craft. It spun on the surface of the water, and the little fillies tumbled and bumped into oars and skulls and polished canoe. “What’s happening?” Scootaloo crackled. “The Wailing Gate!” cried Dinky Doo as the strongest wind yet roared toward them. “Hold on!” The fillies grabbed whatever they could… except for each other. The strong wind hit them broadside, and the entire canoe lifted into the air, spinning like a drill as it soared away from the grand stone arch. “Aaaaahhh!” Everypony screamed as, one by one, they were thrown from the rotating canoe. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo landed near each other in the water. Apple Bloom splashed far away and scrambled for the surface, breaking for a massive breath just in time to see Dinky’s tiny body flip toward the sharp, rocky shore. “Dinky!” Apple Bloom screamed, swimming through the river as fast as the could. Dinky gasped, closed her eyes, and prepared for a painful impact. Instead, another swirl whooshed in from below, catching Dinky in all the right places and carrying her gently to a small spot of smoother stone. Apple Bloom froze in the water, gaping. “Whoa…” “Did you see that?” Scootaloo asked Sweetie Belle downriver. Though the unicorn’s eyes were wide and fixed to the spot where Dinky stood, she did not answer with words. “Maybe it doesn’t wanna hurt us?” Scootaloo guessed, paddling until she turned around to face the arch again. “Like, maybe some unicorn is pushing us away, but it doesn’t actually wanna―” CRASH! Scootaloo flinched as something behind her shattered. Sweetie Belle gasped loudly. “Was that the c-canoe?” Scootaloo tread water and dared look over her shoulder to where their boat had finally landed… and shattered into splintery pieces on a stretch of jagged shore. “Ho boy.” “The r-r-river!” Sweetie stuttered, smacking the surface of the water. “It’s p-pulling us b-back to the wind!” “Huh?” Scootaloo watched the shore nearest them, finally noticing how quickly the river’s flow was guiding them eastward to the arch. “Crap! Uhhh, uhhhh… swim to shore, Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo planted a hoof on Sweetie Belle’s back and pushed her toward the rocky bank. “I’m gonna see if I can swim under the wind!” “What? S-S-Scootaloo, don’t!” Sweetie grabbed her hoof and tried to pull her along. “Th-that’s the Wailing Gate! It’s made to stop us from p-p-passing!” “What’s with the stutter all of a sudden?” Scootaloo asked, yanking her hoof away. Sweetie choked on a sob. “I’m just s-s-scared!” “And what the heck is the Wailing Gate?” Scootaloo blinked and lowered her brow. “Did you know this was coming?” “I forgot about it!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “Calupan told us back on the ocean.” “I feel like I would remember that!” “No, I mean he told Dinky and me!” “What? Why didn’t you tell the rest of us?” “I’m pretty sure Z-Z-Zoccolo mentioned it at s-some point…” “Sweetie Belle! You knew about this? We just lost our canoe! We should have pulled off the shore and found another way in!” “Calpuan says the wind is everywhere! All around the p-palace!” “Then what the heck are we even doing here!?” “We’ll find a way! We have to s-save the-eeehh-aaaahh-AAAHH!” Like an enormous spoon, the wind scooped up Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo together from the surface of the water as they neared the natural gate. It looped them around in the air like a poorly thrown paper airplane and then launched them separately away from the palace. “GAAAAIIEEEE!” Sweetie Belle headed skyward, flipping and spinning wildly. Scootaloo was thrown straight outward and skipped over the river like a stone. “Ah! Oof! Guh! Ow! Neg! Hup! Haw!” She bounced off the water entirely and rolled like a ragdoll over a couple of large boulders on the opposite side of the river to where Dinky stood. “Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom shouted just as she reached Dinky’s steady rock. She climbed out of the water and stood next to Dinky, frozen in shock. “How’d you do that, Dinky?” Apple Bloom asked. Dinky’s head shook minutely. “I don’t know…” “Well, can ya do it again!?” Apple Bloom pointed straight up at Sweetie Belle’s rapidly falling body. “AAAAAHHHHH!” The unicorn was still screaming. Dinky gasped, snapped out of her stupor, and pointed her horn at the airborne filly. As her tiny horn sparkled with golden energy, a swirling stream of wind swept in from the north, catching Sweetie Belle in its wake and guiding her like an autumn leaf to the shore where Scootaloo lay moaning. “Wowee!” Apple Bloom hollered as soon as Sweetie Belle’s hooves touched dry ground across the river. “Where’d ya learn to do that, Dinks?” Again, Dinky’s head could only quiver. “I-I-I don’t know, Apple Bloom.” Her horn stopped glowing and she touched it gently with her own hoof. “It’s so… easy.” “That’s amazin’!” Apple Bloom ruffled her mane. “Any chance you can use that fancy new magic to carry us across the river, too? I gotta check on Scootaloo!” “Yeah… yeah, Scootaloo.” Dinky’s breath became heavy, but she nodded and focused on her friends across the noisy river. “Okay, here we go!” She concentrated, but her horn didn’t glow, and the only wind they felt was left over from the Wailing Gate. “Huh…” Apple Bloom frowned, but shrugged at the same time. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. You stay here, okay? I’m swimmin’ over!” Apple Bloom jumped off the rocks into the water and swam with all her might across the river. Dinky hyperventilated. Her mind rattled with questions and memories. Dizzy, she watched Apple Bloom arrive at the opposite shore, galloping on dripping legs to Scootaloo’s motionless body. She watched Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom kneel around their limp, bruised friend, and felt tears jump to her eyes. Sweetie Belle was right. Dinky Doo was not a Cutie Mark Crusader. She was not the child of a thief, nor was she a sudden master of wind magic. So what was she? Dinky looked down at the rushing water and gulped. Stepping away from the edge, she sat on her haunches and stared downriver at the Wailing Gate. It looked so peaceful and still, but she could hear the whipping winds that constantly tore through the arch. Zoccolo had said she could get through the gate. She had everything she needed. “I need my mommy,” Dinky said under her breath. She wiped away a tear and grit her teeth. Glaring forward at the open air, Dinky stood up and took a galloping leap off the edge. She shut her eyes… and felt the wind whip through her mane from behind. Like surfing a wave of air on an invisible board, she stayed upright and soared directly across the river in a straight line. By the time she opened her eyes, her hooves were only inches from the shore. With a shriek, she slammed into the rocks, bouncing and rolling until her body stopped against the largest chunk of their shattered canoe. She was unconscious before she slid to the ground. {-DD-} Dinky’s eyes fluttered open to a bright light and a bad headache. “Unnngghh…” she moaned. “Dinky!” It was Apple Bloom’s voice, though Dinky’s eyes couldn’t see her yet. “Ugh…” Dinky sniffed. “What happened?” “You jumped across the river!” Scootaloo said next. “It was awesome!” “Scootaloo?” Dinky sniffed again. Something smelled like metal. “Are you okay?” Scootaloo laughed. “Me? Yeah, I’m fine. A few huge bruises on my flanks, but I can move around fine. You, on the other hand… heheh. Let’s just say you took quite a tumble.” “Yeah… I can feel that.” Dinky touched her snout; something crusty broke under her hoof. “Am I bleeding?” “You were,” Apple Bloom said. “I think ya mighta broke yer nose.” “Oh…” Dinky’s eyes were finally focusing. She saw a fire in front of her, lighting up the night using the smallest shards of the canoe. She was still sitting up against the bulk of the crashed vessel, lying upside-down on a flat stretch of grey stone. White stars twinkled around a gigantic, glowing Moon. Dinky blinked. “Um… how long was I asleep?” “I don’t know if you can call that asleep,” Scootaloo said. “More like out cold. It’s been, like, four hours, at least.” “Four… hours?” Dinky fought a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, guys… that was stupid.” Apple Bloom stepped forward and put a hoof on her cheek. “No, no, don’t say that! It’s okay, Dinky!” “Yeah, it’s fine! It was seriously awesome!” Scootaloo was beaming. “First you saved Sweetie Belle, then you got across the river all on your own…. Seriously, I don’t know how we would have gotten you over here if you didn’t make the jump yourself.” “Sweetie Belle…” Dinky looked around. Her neck ached even from such small movements. “Where is Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo gave each other an unsure glance. “She’s right over there,” Scootaloo answered, pointing to a spot on the other side of the campfire. “She’s… pretty shook up.” “I think she feels real bad for yellin’ atcha,” Apple Bloom added in a whisper. Dinky nodded. “Yeah. I know.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry I ran off last night.” “Hey, it’s fine. Seriously.” Scootaloo sighed. “We’re just… all pretty shook up, to be honest.” “This ain’t the trip we were expectin’.” Dinky snorted. “You can say that again.” Scootaloo’s head fell. “Look, Dinky… I’m sorry about all this.” “Me, too,” said Apple Bloom. “Would you shut up for a second?” Scootaloo suddenly spat. “I’m trying to talk to Dinky here!” “Yeah, well, so am I!” “Wait your turn!” Dinky sighed as the fillies kept arguing. She blinked away a film of tears and turned her head to the left. Something glittered in the firelight under a chunk of the canoe. She touched it with her hoof, recognizing the cold curve of the golden horseshoe. “Hey, girls?” Dinky said sharply, interrupting Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. “Thanks for staying up to make sure I’m okay, but… it’s late.” She looked at the rising Moon. “And you two are tired. Just stop fighting and go to sleep. We’ll find another way into the palace tomorrow.” With another glance at each other, somewhat embarrassed and sad, the two older fillies had more to say. “Well, actually… about that.” Apple Bloom cleared her throat. “We had a look around,” said Scootaloo. She gestured to a stack of boulders nearby. “Climbed up there. The whole palace is surrounded by a wall. There’s, like, a little city kinda thing to the south, but we saw guards with cool curved swords all over the place.” “The point is,” Apple Bloom interjected, “and Sweetie Belle says that ocean alicorn told y’all the same thing, but… I reckon this ‘Wailin’ Gate’ is our only way through.” She bit her lip. “I think… after tonight, if we can’t find a way through… we’ll just have to go home.” “What?” Dinky sat up, wincing at a pain in her haunches. “No! We can’t go back without the foals! We’ve come so far!” She stomped down a forehoof. “It’s all of us or none of us, remember?” “Well, yeah, that sounds nice and heroic, Dinky,” Apple Bloom said, “but… I mean, just look at what’s happened so far!” “Maybe we’re just not meant to find the foals.” Scootaloo shrugged. “I’m sure your mom and… R-Rainbow Dash will do fine with Daring Do whenever they get here. They’ve got experience and stuff. We’re just kids.” Scootaloo sighed heavily and her head fell even more. “Just stupid little kids who bit off more than they could chew.” Dinky scowled. “Just go to sleep. We’ll try again tomorrow.” Apple Bloom laughed through her snout. “Okay, Dinky. Whatever you say.” She turned around and laid by the fire to Dinky’s right. Scootaloo eyed Dinky up and down, then finally let out a chuckle of her own. “Ya know, you’re a lot different than I thought you were.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. You’re cool, Dinky.” Scootaloo smirked. “Whatever happens tomorrow… I’m glad we got to know you better.” She found a spot by the fire to Dinky’s left and fell asleep as well. Many minutes passed. Maybe even an hour. Scootaloo’s words rang like a bell in Dinky’s head. “You’re glad you got to know me better?” she repeated under breath. “Even though I tore your best friendships apart?” She sniffled and painfully got to her hooves. With a sigh, she quietly trotted around the sleeping Apple Bloom and headed for a little white unicorn lying on a rock up ahead. Dinky laid on her belly right behind Sweetie Belle, close to her head. She watched her ribcage rise and fall as Sweetie soundly slept. “I promised to be your sister,” Dinky whispered near sleeping Sweetie’s ear. “I guess I didn’t act like one.” Sweetie didn’t respond. Dinky sighed. “You were right, Sweetie. I shouldn’t go off by myself. We don’t know what we’re doing out here. We’re alone and… Scootaloo’s right, too. We’re just kids.” Her lower lip trembled. “I wanted to be more like my mommy. I always knew she was brave, even before I found out she used to go on adventures with Daring Do. She’s always been alone, so… I guess it feels like I should be alone, too.” Sweetie Belle stirred slightly, but her steady breath did not change. “But I guess… in a way… Mommy hasn’t been alone.” Dinky looked up at the stars. “She has me. And I haven’t been alone, either. Never. I don’t quite know how to explain this, but… hmph.” She tucked a lock of her mane behind her ear, realizing for the first time that the flute she’d found in the Diamond Dog’s cave was gone. She wondered when it had slipped away. She sighed again. “I talked with Zoccolo last night. Or, this morning, I guess. Right before you… yelled at me.” She shifted her weight. “Something big is happening here, Dinky. Calupan thought so… I could tell. Zoccolo thinks so, too. And I can feel it. Something…” She looked up at the Moon. “Something really bad has been happening for a long time. And somehow, I’m part of it. I don’t know. It sounds crazy. But… something’s been watching me. And leading me. I’ve always felt it, but on this trip, I’ve seen it. In the mirror… in the water…” She blinked. The world around her was absolutely silent… “The water?” Dinky stood up and trotted away from Sweetie Belle. Within a few trots, she was at the edge of the river. Several feet below her, where the waters had rushed and swelled just hours before, there was a remarkable calm, as though the river had stopped flowing. She glanced westward, and noticed a divide in the river that hadn’t been there before. The water sparkled in the light of the Moon, veering aside at an unnatural angle to enter a different riverbed. “How…?” Dinky looked back at the water beneath her. It was extremely shallow in several places, almost like a spider-web of earth rising from deeper waters. A criss-crossing path was visible just below the surface. It continued as far as she could see toward the Wailing Gate. “Oh my gosh…” Dinky quickly did three things. First, she made a decision. Second, she trotted on quiet hooves to the fireplace where she snatched the golden horseshoe and looped it around the back of her neck. Lastly, she scurried back to Sweetie Belle and whispered near her ear: “I want to be a good sister to you, Sweetie Belle, just like I promised. I don’t want us to fight like Daring and my mommy. I like being your friend, and I don’t want you to be mad at me. But… there’s something I have to do. I think it’s the reason we came here. I’m going on another adventure… by myself, so you three don’t get hurt again. But I just really want you to know that you’ve been a great sister to me. You cared about me and kept me safe. Thank you.” She gave Sweetie Belle a little kiss on the back of the head, and stood up. “I’ll see you soon,” she whispered quickly, and galloped off the edge of their campsite. She fell for less than a second and landed with a splash on a strip of ground just inches below the surface of the eerily still water. She looked up, trying to follow the web-like paths that approached the Wailing Gate and the palace beyond. Her heart began to hammer in her chest as her eyes lingered on the deep pools of water in between the skinny pathways. Ultimately, with her eyes focused dead ahead, Dinky simply smirked and trotted forward. {-DD-} Sweetie Belle awoke with a start. The sound of a splash lingered in her ears, but she couldn’t decide if it was real or from a dream. Still, the one feeling that was certainly real was peace. She felt better than she had all day. The Moon shone brightly overhead, and her green eyes soaked it in. She sighed, allowing the moment to drown out all other worrisome thoughts. A sudden rumble startled her… and then, in the distance, a colossal plume of fire erupted from the earth, burning like a column of angry orange magic. From her place near the riverbed, Sweetie couldn’t see where the column came from or if there were ponies involved, but a wave of heat washed over her from nearly a mile away. Naturally, she screamed. “AAAAAAAHHH!” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both woke in a panic, leaping to their hooves on opposite sides of the campfire. “What? What?” “Look!” Sweetie shouted, pointing at the plume. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both gaped at the tall, blazing fire for just a moment, for suddenly it was gone. “What the hay was that!?” Apple Bloom asked. “Where’s Dinky?” shouted Scootaloo, running a quick circle around the broken hull of their canoe. Apple Bloom’s face scrunched up. “Consarn it, that little―!” “No, don’t!” Sweetie Belle said, hurrying to her friend’s side and putting a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s fine. Believe me… it’s not worth that.” Sweetie gently rubbed the back of her own head, then turned to where the fire had been. “Do you think she had anything to do with that?” “Doesn’t look like it!” Scootaloo said, leaning over the edge of their landing. “Check it out! She’s right there!” “In the water!?” Apple Bloom barked. “But she can’t swim!” “No, look, come here!” Scootaloo waved at them even as the fillies trotted hurriedly to join her. “The water’s, like… gone! She’s headed for the archway!” “And she’s got the golden horseshoe!” Apple Bloom added. “She does?” Scootaloo squinted in the darkness. “Oh yeah, look at that! Uh… why?” “I got no idea!” Apple Bloom looked to Sweetie Belle with an imploring expression. “You know anything about this, Sweetie?” Staring after her fellow unicorn, Sweetie Belle found herself smiling. “No, but… I trust her.” Her smile widened and she raised a hoof in the air. “I mean, just look at her go! GO, DINKY! You can do it!” “Do what?” whispered Scootaloo. Apple Bloom shrugged, but raised a hoof of her own. “Yeah, woohoo! You can do it, Dinky!” Scootaloo blinked, but soon cupped her hooves around her mouth. “Uhhh, yeah! Go, Dinkster, go! Do the… thing!” “Woohoo!” “Yeah!”