//------------------------------//
// Not the First 
// Story: Wallflower's Bud 
// by Shadowmane PX-41 
//------------------------------//

The sun was beginning to set for both Twilight and Wallflower, who were sitting under the shelter of the back porch. The giant amber orb sinking beneath the clouds and giving the leaves, trees, and grass a golden tint to them as the sky melted from bright blue to orange, and getting ever darker with each passing second.

"Man. I gotta hand it to you, Twilight. I don't think I've ever had a workout like that in my life." Wallflower rubbed the back of her head, the sweat she had been feeling beforehand starting to diminish, but not entirely vanish from her locks. "How did you manage to get through that course without breaking a sweat?"

"Well, I might have had a help from Rainbow Dash..." Twilight gave her a wink, still having the memories of her rigorous training burned into her mind. How she lasted longer than Sunset was still a question that puzzled her to this day. "You weren't too bad yourself, Wallflower." She reached over and petted Smolder, who was sitting daintily on Wallflower's lap, panting after a fun session with her. "You or Smolder for that matter. You seem like you'd have lots of fun playing around together."

"Yeah. We did have fun, didn't we?" Wallflower gave Smolder a tender rub under her neck, causing the dog to fidget and shake her head in satisfaction. A small sigh slithered out of Wallflower's lips as she wrapped her arms around Smolder, letting her fur brush her arms.

Suddenly, a thought popped into Twilight's mind. "Hey, Wallflower? This is gonna sound a little odd, but did you ever own a pet before?" She asked, the truth of Wallflower's past isolation still playing on her mind. "Like, when you were a bit younger?"

"Well... now that you mention it, I did have some faint memories of this big dog my family used to have when I was just finishing pre-school." Wallflower turned to Twilight, her brain beginning to dig deeper and deeper into the recesses of her mind to find some trace of it. "I think his name was... oh, now was it Fluffy or Rover? Either way, he was a big dog. Big enough to little kids to ride on his back." As she spoke, she brushed Smolder's back tenderly, ruffling the fur on it.

"What kind of breed was he?" Spike asked with a raised ear. "Was he a Great Dane? Those guys are big. I'm talking super big, girl."

"No, I don't think he was that big. I'd say he was more like a Rhodesian Ridgeback." Wallflower splayed her fingers out and wobbled them, as if to give a 'so-so' gesture. "But regardless, he was pretty nice. He always had a thing for licking me and Fuchsia too."

"That's just a sign to say that a dog loves you, Wallflower. Either that or he's licking the salt off of your face. One or the other," said Twilight. "Just make sure Smolder or any other dog you see licks any wounds you get now, because they can accidentally reopen them, and that'll just make the pain even worse."

When the word hit her mind, another question ran through Wallflower's mind. She watched as Twilight had a small chat with Spike; the words blurred as she just let the shaping do the talking for her. Eventually, after struggling to find her breath, it finally escaped her lips. "Twilight? Was Spike your first pet? Or was there another?"

There was a long silence between the two of them after that. That single sentence ruptured the tranquillity and sent a small shiver up Twilight's spine. Something that she had long neglected to talk about, for fear that she would have let the pain return after all these years and swallow her whole. It had been ages since she had even tried to remember, or even recall his name after all this time, but at long last, she slumped her shoulders, took a huge breath and felt her face melt into a frown as she let the harshness of the past burrow into her mind.

"Well, it's... funny that you mention that, Wallflower. Y'know, considering we were just talking about your last dog," even her sheepish chuckles couldn't mask what she was really feeling, and the muscles stretching on her face just added to that. "But... I did have a pet once, when I was young. A very special kind of pet; and a bit of an odd one too."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I strike a bad nerve?" Wallflower put her hand to her mouth, watching as Twilight began to turn pale. "It's alright, Twilight. Really. We don't have to talk about it if it'll make you feel upset. We could just move on to a different subje—"

"No, Wallflower. This is something I need to get out to someone." Twilight just pushed her hand into Wallflower's face, "I can't just let this go by silently. I don’t know just how much it'd hurt more and more if I just kept it to myself."

"Well, okay. I only ask because it looks like you're about to burst into tears over it." Wallflower lowered Twilight's hand and put it back to her side. "So, who was your pet back when you were a kid?"

"Okay. It was back when I was just starting out at grade school." Twilight paused, took a moment to compose herself, then stood up, the wind briskly passing through her clothes. "I was young, and I had trouble staying up to do my studying. My mom and dad were worried that my grades would start to slip up if I didn't balance sleeping, playing, and working at the same time.

"So, one day, when I came home from school, my family all invited me to the living room, where they had a cage with a blanket over it. The blanket was pulled off, and lo and behold, there was an owl living inside of it." She opened up her hands, letting her fingers spread out and stretch, to emphasise the wings of her old, feathered friend. "Yeah. A real life owl just sitting there for me and me alone."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a sec. How come I've never heard of this owl?" Spike interjected, his paw tapping on Twilight's leg. "I thought you said I was your best pet in the whole wide world!"

"You are, Spike. And you still are to this day." Twilight just gave him a pat on the head. "Not many dogs I know can talk like humans can. But Owlowiscious? He was a special kind of special; the kind that makes many kids stand out just for being with them." As the sun finally faded away from the skies and blanketed the two of them in the ethereal glow of the night, owls started to hoot in the distance, with each one making her wince. "But sadly, it wasn't to last between us..."

"How come?" Wallflower asked, standing up and letting Smolder roam the lawn again.

"One one of our field trips, I brought Owlowiscious with me to the forest. We had a few little games together, shared our food, talked about the odd little subject here and there, but then..." She stopped, not bearing to think about the next part. A small tear began to form in the bottom of her eye. With a single blink, the drop split into dozens and soaked her eyelids. "He just... flew away.

"LIterally, out of nowhere, he just decided to run away from me. I tried to chase him down and tell everyone that he'd gotten away, but by the time I got everyone together to look for him, he was just... gone." She fell to her knees and let more and more tears appear. "Even to this day, he still hasn't come home. I mean, the lifespan of owls is pretty long, so I don't think he's gone for good, but still, it made me feel terrible. I didn't stop crying for weeks after he had gone."

In that moment, all Wallflower could do was wrap her arms around Twilight's chest, and pull her into a small hug. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Twilight," she whispered in her ears, in a tone so inaudible that it could have sounded almost like she had turned into Fluttershy. "I don't know how we can ever fix that hole in your heart that Owlowiscious left behind, but you've got me and your friends to help you out."

"Uh, hello? Right here, y'know..." Spike deadpanned and rolled his eyes.

"Wallflower...?" Twilight turned to her with wide and soggy eyes.

"Trust me. I've been there before. But my story didn't have a happy ending either." Tears were showing up in Wallflower's eyes as well. "During one of our little trips to the park, my last dog ate something really bad and got sick in a flash. We took him to the vet, but sadly, he didn't pull through. When my parents told me that he had gone off to play in a special little place that humans couldn't see, I was gullible enough as a kid to believe them. But they knew the truth; my dog was dead." Her throat felt numb as she began to choke on her own memories. "That's the one memory I wanted to remove myself with the Memory Stone, but sadly, it doesn't work on your own..."

"Now, it's my turn to be sorry, Wallflower." Twilight turned around and hugged Wallflower back, pressing her face into her chest as her hands locked themselves around Wallflower's back. "Here, I was moping about my pet just being lost. I didn't think that your dog was gone for good."

"It's alright. There's a lot of things that a lot of people don't know about me. Probably comes with the whole idea that I sucked any mention of my existence out of their heads until Sunset showed me a better way." Wallflower's eyes were a pair of waterfalls now, that flowed even if her mouth wasn't wailing like a siren. "If anything, I think it's better that I still have things that I don't share with others. I don't wanna bring down their days with the fact that I've had a dog that passed away."

"But that's why we're friends. We can share the pain together. After all, a problem shared is a problem halved." Twilight just closed her eyes and sniffled, letting her tears drizzle down onto her shoes.

"Yeah. Thank you so much, Twilight." Wallflower also started to bawl, clutching Twilight close to her as the two of them turned into a human water feature, with Spike having to jump off of the porch so as not to get himself soaked.

"Man, Wallflower could have not picked a better time to get Smolder, could she?" Spike watched as Twilight and Wallflower sat themselves back down again, still crying to themselves. His eyes then drifted off to see Smolder running the course again, still barking and yipping to herself as she nimbly ran through posts, tunnels, and up some of the see-saws. A leap from the puppy landed her by Spike, causing both of their eyes to lock. "Well, at least you're still happy about this." His cheek was then licked by the orange dog.





Eventually, the skies turned as dark as possible, the streetlights filling up the light that had left the town, casting thick spotlights down on the sidewalks and giving each house a slight shade of colour in the shadows. The air had grown noticeably colder than usual and many of the people had vanished into their houses for the night, just leaving Twilight and Wallflower together with their dogs.

The two of them had stopped crying at long last and the grass had been completely stripped of the course that they, Spike, and Smolder had been using together. Now, the two teenagers were just gazing up at the stars, with Twilight pointing out each constellation in detail to Wallflower.

As the two of them were lost in their little stargazing venture, Sunset and the other Rainbooms approached from the distance, carrying supplies, toys, and other dog essentials in their arms, with some of them about to give out from a combination of the weight they were holding, in conjunction with the long travel they had taken from the pet store to Twilight's house.

Wallflower was the first one to notice, and stood back up when her eyes caught that of the Rainbooms'. "Hey, girls. Was it a long day at the store?"

"Long doesn't even begin to describe it, darling." Rarity fanned her face, while still keeping a steady grip on her items. "Queues aside, we really had to think long and hard about what would make Smolder happy, so we just decided to by a bunch of things on a whim. And then it struck us that we needed to all chip in in order to get everything and only barely made enough to reach the budget. So let's just say that this little venture put quite a dent in our wallets, so to speak."

"A dent? More like they completely tore our wallets to shreds, Rarity!" Rainbow Dash groaned as she let her things fall to the ground. Luckily, she was only carrying the food, so nothing really had been at risk of being broken. "I'm gonna have to pull a lot of jobs on the side in order to get that money back!"

"Oh, quit yer bellyachin, Rainbow Dash. With the speed of how you work, those jobs'll just fly by. Especially with that little doohickey around yer neck and all." Applejack just tapped on Rainbow's geode. "Why, I bet you'd be able to do every small job in a single day with that kinda magic."

"Yeah. I wish." Rainbow just groaned as her entire body gave way and fell to the ground. "You don't know how hard it was just to keep hold of this thing all the way without having to use it. You're lucky you've got that super-strength magic of yours, otherwise you'd be complaining about this kinda stuff too y'know!"

"Welcome back from Pet Palanquin, everyone." Twilight got back up herself and rejoined the Rainbooms. "Did you get everything?"

"Yeah. We got food, toys, grooming brushes, everything that Wallflower needs to make sure that Smolder over there has a nice, happy life with her." Sunset jabbed a thumb towards Smolder, who just leapt into Wallflower, toppling her to the ground.

"Aww, look at the two of you. You make the best of friends!" Fluttershy just swooned at the sight of Smolder licking Wallflower's face. "I should get my camera out. This'll make a wonderful picture."

"Hold on, Fluttershy. Before you do that, I think we need to get into a better place." Twilight went off to pick Spike up and carry him over to the porch. "It is pretty dark out here, and I think it'd be better to get a shot in a place that has a bit more light to it, don't you agree?"

"I agree with that. In fact, come on, Smolder. Let's get going." Wallflower clamped her hands around Smolder's chest and lifted her over towards the porch, before sitting back down and letting her curl up on her lap again. "There. Now, be sure to get our good sides, girls."

Twilight sat down beside Wallflower, with Spike brushing smugly up against her as she put her hands on her chin, pointing her elbows to the ground. While her feet dangled over the bottom step, Wallflower's legs were crossed, almost like she was sitting on a yoga mat. A big, almost cartoonish smile took over her face as she showed off Smolder for the shot.

Then, with a click of the camera, the picture was taken. The friendship between Wallflower and Smolder solidified in a grand, digital, singular image. Now, she had a new friend for life; one that would never leave her side.