This particular summer’s evening, Dinky crept out and about the streets of Ponyville. Well after her bedtime. She giggled at her subversive deed.
Tonight: a special night. The meeting of the Sisterhooves Sisters was nigh.
As she tiptoed from house to house, pressing up against the walls and fences or peeking around corners, she twitched at the shadows everywhere. For all she knew, on the next step she’d bump into a zombie or vampire or ghost or giant death boa waiting where she couldn’t see it. That’s why she giggled with the thrill of this scary sneaking mission. Her imagination gave her horrors tonight, just for a change of pace.
When she looked up, though, she genuinely shivered. No Mare in the Moon. She swore she’d never get used to looking up and seeing a round blankness where the dark face once watched over her. A piece of childhood fantasy was lost forever.
No other lights guided her that night. Except those of Berry Punch. Her cottage remained awake, long after all others had gone to sleep. Relieved, Dinky dropped her imaginary horror monsters like toys and ran over to the front door happily.
She gave the secret knock. No one had ever agreed to secret knocks, but she made one up and gave it anyway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. A good idea for her story, too.
From inside came excited squeaks, and then hooves blundering up the corridor. The door opened.
The others had taken ages to decide on whose home would serve as their rendezvous point. It came down to who had the most liberal parent or sibling. Few were as accommodating as Berry Punch.
Berry peered out from her world of light. Her broad smile had traces of imp in it.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Dinker the Thinker.” She winked. “Brought a bottle?”
“Dinker the Thinker! Dinker the Thinker!” Berry’s little sister bounced out from behind her and leaned forwards eagerly.
From her saddlebag, Dinky produced some mango milkshake. “I’ll tell Ammy I got up in the night and drank it.”
“Ha! And she’ll believe that?”
“Don’t know. She is very smart. But I like a challenge.”
“Thattagirl,” said Berry Punch. “Don’t let the worrywart worry. Come plant your butt by the fire. You must be freezing your hocks off. Give her some room, Little Sis.”
“Anything you say, Big Sis!”
Thus graciously invited, Dinky hopped into a world she rarely knew at home. Pop music danced in the background. Baking smells wafted from the kitchen, and laughter from the living room. Every firefly jar and magical strip light that could be on would be on, and should be, in her juvenile opinion.
In deference to the neighbours, Berry hadn’t thrown a full party for them. But she’d clearly wanted to. You couldn’t hate an earth mare who loved the sound of foals drinking and arguing and tapping their hooves to the music, especially an earth mare who didn’t believe in bedtime.
Amethyst always said it was wise to keep an open mind about other ponies’ beliefs. For once, Dinky was going to take her big sister’s advice very seriously.
Beside Berry Punch, Berry’s little sister – Piña Colada, back when their parents had tried being classy – sniffed the bottle like a puppy sensing a treat.
Berry Punch laughed and beckoned them to follow. “Bring that mango to the tango, little one! All drinks have to come to the kitchen so they can be properly introduced. Piña, give her some room, for goodness’ sake.”
“As you decree, ma’am.” Dinky scurried after her, settling in already. She didn’t have nights like this every night, after all.
She and Piña walked in single file; Berry Punch had many virtues – at least from a foalish point of view – but owning riches was not among them. The corridor from front door to kitchen was too narrow, as if even space had to be saved up carefully.
In the kitchen, Dinky blinked. So many lights burned that the place was a pure heavenly blaze.
Berry Punch tittered with the voice of fallen angels. “Oh, I’d love to see the Grim Reaper’s face if she knew you’d sneaked out for this.”
The Grim Reaper was Berry’s name for Amethyst. Dinky assumed it was a sort of morbid flattery: Berry and Amethyst were the sort of casual enemies that achieved, in their own way, a kind of mutual antithesis. Stiff sobriety versus wild partying. Kind of like if ice and fire – or rather, liquid nitrogen and the sun’s molten core – could politely hate each other.
Several punch bowls waited for them on the sideboard. Fascinated, Dinky watched Berry take the mango milkshake and a bunch of other bottles, mix them in an empty bowl, and produce… a rainbow.
“Wow,” Dinky said. “You must know magic to do stuff like that, Miss Berry Punch. Or maybe rare chemistry? Alchemy?”
Berry laughed like an indulgent aunt. “Is this the sister of Amethyst speaking? Did she who made the Am make thee?”
“Oh, Ammy’s all right. She’s sweet. She’s just not very imaginative. Like a chocolate after you’ve already eaten some chocolate.”
Someone laughed harshly behind them.
Another filly was sitting at the little kitchen table. Or rather slumped over it: it was apparently one of Odd Job’s duties to stare out at the world in a sort of put-upon bewilderment.
“Better than Golden Harvest, anyway,” she muttered.
“Oh, Goldie’s a fine enough carrot mare,” said Berry Punch, still pouring out drinks. “In her own way.”
“She doesn’t like me coming to parties,” muttered Odd Job.
“She would like you coming to parties. She just… never has the time for them herself.”
Dinky and Piña exchanged worried looks. Generally speaking, sisters tried not to talk ill of their own flesh and blood, and Odd Job usually wasn’t in a talkative mood, either through good upbringing or simply because she was too tired at the end of a hard day’s work on the carrot farm outside Ponyville. Only on secret times like this did a certain dark part of her come oozing out like tar.
Thankfully, for now it was kept at bay by Berry’s finest beverages. Odd Job slid off her chair and made a passable attempt at scurrying over in something akin to excitement.
“Well, you’re making your own time now!” squeaked Piña happily. Even Odd Job smiled, after a couple of twitching goes.
The three fillies watched the alchemy, near-hypnotized. Berry’s drinks were the unspoken perks of meeting up at this house.
“All righty, there we go.” Berry drew back and gestured dramatically to her latest concoction. “I call it the Wine of Life! Don’t worry, there’s no real wine in it.”
A couple of disappointed groans from the other two. Dinky alone had been smart enough not to expect any.
“Any tasters?” said Berry. “No, no, Piña. Guests first, OK?”
Piña let out another disappointed groan, but not for long. No badness could touch her while she was near her biggest bestest sister ever.
There was a very brief but respectful scuffle between Dinky and Odd Job. Even grown-up ponies would wrestle each other to the ground, just to taste Berry’s least cocktail. Two fillies couldn’t have stopped themselves if they’d been mind-controlled into not wanting any.
Odd Job didn’t win: Dinky was too quick. Instead, she slunk to the back of the “queue” behind her, muttering under her breath.
“Big Sis is the bestest sis ever!” Piña boasted while Dinky ladled out a spoonful. “Try it! Try it! Try it!”
Dinky sipped hers first.
“Close your eyes,” whispered Berry Punch. “Get the full effect.”
At once, Dinky did so, concentrating on her mouth.
What danced across her tongue in a sweeping dress was a shimmering whirlwind of colours, thick and fleshy fruits not merely de-juiced like water squeezed out of a towel, but transformed by the dance into flowing, liquid fruit with no loss of flavour or mass. She tasted tangs like the little stiletto taps of expensive heels, felt the chill as though the ballroom of her mouth had been opened to a winter’s night, found herself dreaming of iridescent snow and the hot chocolate warmth of a Hearth’s Warming Eve…
Dinky shuddered with pleasure.
Not bad for a summer drink. To merely swallow such a concoction would be sacrilege, but Dinky had to, in the end. Nearby, Odd Job got hers: she could tell because the filly gasped. They stared at each other in watery-eyed fellow-feeling.
It had to be alchemy. No one could make fruit drinks so adventurous. Even Derpy at her most indulgent hadn’t gone further than buying another flavour from the shop.
Both Dinky and Odd Job nodded as one. It would be unfair to leave no tribute to the glories of punch. They turned away and then turned back, jangling coins.
Berry Punch held up a smile, of sorts. “Oh, girls. You don’t have to pay for these drinks. I earned enough profit from the Summer Sun Celebration.”
“You make the best drinks in Ponyville,” said Odd Job, life’s worries totally forgotten. “You deserve every penny you get, and a lot of pennies you don’t get too.”
“Besides,” said Dinky, “every little bit helps.”
“Every little bit helps what?” said Berry.
“Uh… you? The economy? Um…” How would Ammy put it? “The principles of business… ish?”
Guilt and greed squirmed over Berry’s face. At last, she shrugged and let them plant the coins on her raised hoof.
“If you insist,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Figures the Grim Reaper would teach you to act responsibly, Dinker the Thinker.”
As soon as Berry slipped away and let them ladle their second cups, Piña bounced up and down on the spot through sheer smug joy.
“I told you Big Sis is the bestest best sister ever!” she blurted out.
“Where’s Ruby Pinch?” said Dinky politely; Odd Job slurped behind her, unable to resist a second cup any longer.
“Ah, she’s upstairs. Sleeping,” said Piña in horrified disgust. “What a party pooper.”
“Now now, she’s just tired like the rest of us,” said Berry, passing by. “Not everyone’s got your stamina, Pinny. You just look after the ones who are awake, all right?”
Piña preened herself, as a courtier might upon receiving not just the queen’s blessing, but the right to rule the country for her.
“Yes, Big Sis!” she squeaked excitedly.
Dinky winced. One of the things ponies learned about Piña – very quickly upon meeting her – was that she had the sort of ingratiatingly cute voice which threatened to turn the perfectly serviceable “r” into a precious “w”. Only Berry Punch seemed immune to it; she, alone of the citizens of Ponyville, could smile upon Piña as her sincere “pwecious”.
The three fillies entered the living room, where the other two of their sisterhood sat on the floor and argued between themselves.
“Where have you been, Apple Bloom?” said the pegasus filly haughtily. “Cloudkicker moved out ages ago. She said Cloudsdale’s way too competitive.” She added, with feeling: “Pansy.”
“Well, that don’t seem fair.” The earth filly drew herself up equally haughtily. “You know what Ah think? Ah think you’d miss her. You just don’t wanna admit it.”
“Miss her? She drove me up the wall! Being sensible and organizing everything. And she kept saying sorry a lot. My mom said if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the stratosphere.”
“Yeah? Well, if Applejack left us, Ah wouldn’t act like you act. Family should stick together.”
“Yeah, but I bet Applejack’ll never leave the farm. Nor will Big Mac. If anyone leaves your farm, it’ll probably be you. You don’t act like an apple farmer.”
“You’re such a pegasus, Alula!”
“And you’re… you’re such an earth pony, Apple Bloom!”
“That don’t make no sense.”
“You don’t make no sense,” said Alula, but happily, because she liked nothing more than spirited one-upmareship.
The other two earth fillies sat among them, Odd Job quietly sipping her drink, Piña egging them on indiscriminately. Meanwhile, Dinky watched them all, taking them all in.
And there they were: the Sisterhooves Sisters.
Last year, the five of them had taken part in a special event known as the Sisterhooves Social. All of them had gone – or been dragged onto, or had hero-worshipped and followed their sister to, or had leaped at the curious chance to see – Sweet Apple Acres, the biggest farm in all of Ponyville and the pride of its conspicuously apple-based economy. Apples were the core of the town, the seed from which it had grown, and a persistent litter problem on some streets where the attitude was: “Toss it on the ground; something’ll eat it.”
All five of them had met on the track, leaping mud pits, eating pies, making grape juice, and carrying eggs. Trauma like that binds ponies together in a way no other experience can hope to match.
So every now and again, whenever the opportunity arose, they met up. Clandestinely, in some cases: unfortunately, their elder sisters tended to view each other less as fellow passengers of life and more as rivals fighting over life’s last train ticket.
Dinky hummed to herself. The “Big Five”, perhaps. Or rather, the “Little Five”.
She’d gone along with Amethyst way back, when Amethyst did not automatically turn her nose up at social events and when Derpy had tried to encourage them to go out more. Dinky had emerged from the experience staring into space, gaping at the marvels, transformed into a new mare with a far more exciting future than she’d ever imagined. An experience which happened to her about once a week.
Not bad for what even she’d admit was basically a bit of country fun ‘n’ games.
So Dinky had loved it. Apple Bloom, as one of the Apple clan, had hosted it. Odd Job hadn’t wanted to leave it. Alula had made it her life’s purpose to win it. And Piña Colada had cried because she’d never won it, which at least meant her friendship with the others started with them offering her hankies or teases.
Since then, they’d agreed to meet up… well, it had been once a week, to begin with.
Then Odd Job and Apple Bloom had worked more around their sisters’ farms as and when needed, so it stretched out to once every two weeks.
Then Alula had sulked because living in Cloudsdale meant no one could visit her home, so it stretched out to once a month.
Now it was once every other month.
Dinky noticed all talk had ceased. They had no leaders, as such, but she saw no point in letting anarchy reign supreme. A little bit of Amethyst had rubbed off on her.
“Ahem, ahem,” she said, politely as she could.
“Hey, Dinky!” Alula held up a forelimb for the high hoof-bump. Dinky – keen to blend in with the natives – obliged. “So what do you think of that new unicorn in town, huh?”
“Twilight Sparkle?” said Dinky.
“Is that her name? Cool! Is she a princess?”
“Everything’s a princess to you,” said Piña, smirking, “if it comes from Canterlot.”
“Hey!” snapped Alula, ever ready to fight. “Who doesn’t like awesome princesses?”
“You sure don’t…” Piña giggled. “Princess Erroria!”
Alula’s face turned to sunburnt red. “I said the name right! I said the name right! You just don’t remember it right!”
“I’m with Piña on this one,” said Dinky, hoping she sounded reasonably mature. “You did say ‘Erroria’.”
“I said ‘Princess Aurora’! Anyway, my Nightmare Night costume was better than all of yours put together!”
The others tittered, each behind a hoof. Alula had been annoying some of them lately.
“Yeah. Ah’ve met that new unicorn already,” said Apple Bloom. “She come down to Sweet Apple Acres to check on the Summer Sun caterin’.”
“Oh, and did she like it?” said Alula, lashing out.
“Too right she did!” snapped Apple Bloom.
“Bet you gave her tummy ache.”
“No, we didn’t! Anyway, Ah’ve met her, and she ain’t so bad.”
Awestruck from shiny eyes to tiny gape, Piña leaned forwards as though to genuflect before this fount of information. “Did she… have a dragon?”
“Only a little one…” began Apple Bloom smugly.
“His name’s Spike,” said Dinky.
Suspicion shot from the bow of Apple’s eye. “How d’you know?”
Resisting the urge to boast, Dinky calmed her voice before replying, “I’ve met her before, too. I went to Canterlot long ago with Ammy, and I met her there.”
The others switched from Apple Bloom to Dinky as their new master of the sacred knowledge. Apple Bloom’s fount sputtered and dried up, as did Apple Bloom.
Well, “met” was a bit much, Dinky had to admit. Unless you were a book, Twilight barely noticed you existed. Certainly, Amethyst hadn’t been keen about her. But Dinky had technically been within speaking distance of Twilight once or twice. Besides, when it came to telling the truth, she liked to play around with it a bit, especially when someone was giving her funny looks.
“So what’s she like?” said Piña “Is… Is she a princess really?”
“She’s a Canterlot pony,” said Alula eagerly. “So she’s gotta be a lady, right? Is the dragon her pet?”
“Oh, it’s like a fairy tale! A princess in Ponyville! A princess in Ponyville!”
“Yeah, yeah, does she have superpowers? Does she fight evil nightmare creatures all the time, or was the Summer Sun thing just a one-time deal?”
Dinky let them go on like this for a while before dropping her next bombshell. “No, nothing like that. She used to study at Celestia’s School. Ammy told me she likes books.”
This caused a pause in the excited speculations, but both Alula and Piña recovered magnificently.
“She’s a secret pony princess warrior!” Alula almost fluttered to the ceiling. “She goes to school and then she turns into a fighting unicorn to fight against evil!”
“Ooh,” cooed Piña in a dream. “I bet she looks so pretty when she turns into a princess!”
“Is that how she beat Nightmare Moon? Cool!”
“And her Spike is her bestest best friend in all the world and guides her and helps her transform with the power of love!”
“Does she fight crime? I hope we get a crime spree soon. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she went full princess on their flanks?”
Once more, Dinky let them go on. In the background, Odd Job stared, silently buffeted by the rush of words, whereas Apple Bloom tapped a hoof impatiently, one cheek inflated with half a desire to tell her off. To Dinky, these fillies were open books.
“She’s just the librarian now,” she said. “Actually, I was wondering if we could put her into this story I was thinking up.”
Whispered speculation followed this announcement, amid the slurping of fillies giving in to Berry Punch’s finest.
“OK,” said Alula at once, “so what’s the game then? Sparky the Space Scout?”
“Story,” corrected Apple Bloom. “Not game.”
“Story, game: what’s the difference?”
Dinky thought about yesterday’s playing session. Not ambitious enough. The Sparky story definitely needed work. Blasting off into space was a good start, but was it the start?
Perhaps it needed the theft of some gemstone or other? Magical-gem hunting made for a good fall-back option if no other story idea presented itself. Perhaps a power crystal? Or a crown? A ring?
Definitely something magical, anyway: no hero would go through a load of death-traps just to swipe, say, a battered old tin can (she’d found one in the street and imagination had taken over until Derpy found out).
“Simple.” Dinky cleared her throat, and the others fell silent at once. “This time, we tell the tale of how Sparky got the dream of space-travelling!”
“I thought we told that story already? When we did the flyin’?” said Apple Bloom. “With Derpy?”
“And now I’m telling the story before that.”
“That’s out of order, though.”
Dinky grinned. “Yep! Still doing it!”
To no one’s surprise, Piña raised a hoof and waggled it in mid-air. To show willing, Dinky nodded in her direction.
“Um,” said Piña. “Does that make it a prequel, or a flashback?”
Dinky licked her lips, relishing the moment. “Either. I’m thinking… She’s got to be a humble milkmaid, dreaming of adventure.”
“Why a milkmaid?” said Alula gruffly.
Dinky summoned all of her thespian ability, paced around them, stamped at the right points to hammer them home, spoke in her best double-whammy of enunciation and oration, let the words come to life…
“Because Sparky has to start off as a humble hero! You know how it goes, girls! The hero goes into hiding – young, inexperienced, totally unaware of her destiny – then when they grow up as a kindly shepherd or a humble milkmaid –”
“A shepherd would be better,” said Apple Bloom. “You know what Ah think? Ah think you wanna be a hero, you gotta be a shepherd. ‘Cause all heroes are like shepherds watchin’ over their flocks. It’s symbolism.”
“And sheep are nicer than cows,” said Piña.
“Hey! That’s disrespectful! Ah know plenty of nice cows. Daisy Jo’s ever so neighbourly, f’r instance.”
“Well, they are! Sheep are woollier and don’t smell.”
“Anyway,” said Dinky diplomatically, ducking in and out between them like a cane coming down. “The hero grows up as a farmer, and then one day they find out they’re descendants of…” Her acting ability dropped the script. Panicking, she added, “…someone really noble, and then they leave the farm to go on a quest unto the –”
“Farmin’ ain’t humble,” grumbled Apple Bloom.
Dinky stopped. A decent audience: you just can’t get them, you know.
“I’m sorry?” she said: Derpy always said to be polite.
“Farmin’ ain’t humble. It’s a very important responsibility.”
“And hard work,” piped up Odd Job resentfully.
“Applejack’s a farmer, but she ain’t descended from no noble ponies. And she’s still a hero,” added Apple Bloom, glowing with pride-by-association.
“Farmers don’t have to go on quests to be heroes, anyway!” snapped Odd Job. “I don’t see why a hero should disrespect farmers, just because they get to dump their work and go running away on some pathetic quest –”
“Calm down, calm down, I didn’t mean anything by it!” said Dinky, waving her forelimbs frantically; Odd Job might hate farmwork, but she’d fight to the death before anyone else dismissed it. “I-I meant that’s how the story goes. Heroes aren’t better. They’re just different.”
“Well, you did call it ‘humble’,” said Apple Bloom testily.
“Excuse me.” Piña had her hoof up. She looked strained, as though she’d had it up for a while.
Sensing a less heated topic, Dinky turned to her gratefully. “Yes, Piña?”
“Why is Sparky the Space Scout hiding?”
“Aha –” An easy question, yes! “– that’s because of the evil villain, my young apprentice. You have to hide because of villains. Villains always do things that make heroes do things.”
“You need villains if you want heroes,” said Alula. “Stands to reason. If villains didn’t exist…” she frowned slightly “…you wouldn’t have heroes?”
“Yeah,” said Dinky. “It’s like… If there were no bad guys hurting ponies, then ponies wouldn’t be able to show how good and heroic they are…”
A lot of confused looks passed around the circle.
“Can’t they just be good and heroic without the bad guys stomping everyone?” said Piña. She shuddered. “That sounds too mean.”
“Yeah,” said Odd Job. “Why not just throw away the villain and get rid of all the mean stuff?”
“That’s rubbish,” snapped Alula. “Then you’d have nothing but good ol’ awesomeness all day long wait a minute…”
Unusually, she descended into her own thoughtful silence. Dinky watched it for sheer rarity value.
“Nah, you’d get tired eventually,” said Apple Bloom, who Dinky suspected didn’t have a thespian bone in her body. “It’s unnatural being nothin’ but good all the time. Any pony would need a break eventually.”
“You could take pills for it,” said Alula, instant expert on anything she happened to be interested in. “Some ponies take pills to make them happy all day. You can get them at the doctor’s. Cloudkicker does, the pansy.”
“Golden Harvest is against pills,” declared Odd Job.
Shuffling and coughing, the others avoided looking at her scowl. She had a way of dropping declarations into a discussion that ended all but the most tactless of ponies.
“What do you think?” said Dinky, desperately not looking in Odd Job’s direction.
“Ah guess it’s OK,” said Apple Bloom.
“It’s brilliant!” Alula pointed at her own chest. “And I’ll be Cosmo, the cosmonaut who does all the kung fu and jujitsu and judo and karate and… and any kind of fighting, really.”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Ah got nothin’. Ah guess Ah’m jus’ gettin’ too old for games.”
“Come on, Apple Bloom!” said Alula, chummily. “Don’t be a spoilsport. Anyway, you’re the youngest one in our class. I saw Cheerilee’s register once. It had all our birthdays on it.”
“Aw, fine.” Apple Bloom tapped her chin. “Then Ah’ll be… a cowpony! Just like Applejack! The roughingest, toughingest cowpony in all of Equestria!”
The others concurred in a chorus of “not bad, not bad”. Applejack had been a rodeo champion, town hero, and all-around role model even before becoming a Bearer of the Element of Honesty. For instance, the fillies had paid close attention to how she spat in spittoons and shrugged off dirt like it was nothing. Good honest behaviour, all right.
Alula turned to Dinky. “Can you have cowponies in space?”
“Hm. I suppose so, if they’ve been trained like the other astronauts. Or we could go to a cowpony planet first. It’s very… heroic.”
“I wanna be a ladybug!” said Piña with what could only be described as pwide.
This was met with a few sniggers amongst the rest of the sisterhood.
“What? Whaaaat!?”
“You can’t be a ladybug,” said Dinky reasonably. “It doesn’t fit the story.”
“Whoever heard of a ladybug being a hero?” sneered Alula. The others chuckled appreciatively at this rapier wit, or at least at this plastic sword version of wit.
“Yeah,” said Odd Job. “What would you fight? Spider ponies?”
“It could happen!” Piña said hotly. “Anyway, ladybugs are pretty.”
“And I,” said Odd Job, looming up, “will be a princess.”
They stared at her.
“I can if I want!” she snapped. More dreamily, she soliloquyed to the empty visions above her head: “Oh, I’d love to lounge around all day in a castle. No chores, no duties, giving orders whenever I want, and doing whatever I like…”
The others, even including Apple Bloom, shuffled uncomfortably. Odd Job was the only other available set of hooves at Golden Harvest’s little carrot farm. Unlike the Apple family, she often had to skip school to help out whenever crops, pests, and special cooking occasions got on top of her sister. This was in addition to any domestic chores that her sister rather absentmindedly dumped on her lap; Odd Job had the dutifulness of a yes-mare and the rebellious instincts of a fruitcake.
Eventually, Dinky plucked up the courage to say, “Princess it is, then. Aheh… Now, we’ve got our band of heroes. The astronaut –” she nodded to Alula “– the cowpony –” then to Apple Bloom “– the princess –” hastily to Odd Job “– and… the ladybug.”
“The magical ladybug,” insisted Piña.
“The magical ladybug, yeah.” Dinky wiped her brow and sipped her drink for reinforcement.
“So what are we fighting?” said Alula. “Aliens? Monsters? Evil Galactic Empires?”
“Ooh, ooh!” Piña hopped on her haunches with grinning gusto. “How about dark princesses, like Nightmare Moon!? She was pretty!”
“Don’t say that,” said Apple Bloom, shuddering. “You weren’t there when she first showed up.”
“So? She was still pretty.”
But Dinky shuddered in kind. She hadn’t officially attended – Derpy had insisted on an early night, with Amethyst demanding it behind her – but she’d sneaked out briefly for the big climactic sun-raising, and in a way, it had been an experience never to forget. At least she’d learned sharpish not to stay up late again. Fear was a good if rather intense teacher.
Such dark evil… If Twilight hadn’t been there too, who knows what could have happened…
“Hold on,” said Odd Job. “We haven’t even gotten into space yet.”
“So let’s go!” said Alula, standing up. The others grunted their consent.
All of them looked to Dinky for support. That was what Dinky remembered later. They had no leader, as such, but by dint of usually coming up with the ideas, Dinky ended up saying more than she often wanted.
It baffled her brains, it really did. Surely one of them would come up with ideas too? They seemed to burst out of her brain all the time, especially after one of Berry Punch’s delectable drinks.
She cast her mind to whatever she’d been reading lately. Part of her still wondered, for instance, why Apple Bloom rarely said anything. Sure, maybe Apple Bloom was just as smart – if not possibly smarter – than her. She could’ve made a fine enough leader.
Yet the filly had been acting odd as of late. Paying more attention in class, not talking to anyone much outside of it, hanging out on her off days with that Twist girl, who in turn hung out with no one else. There was something on her mind, surely, but she never said what…
Dinky switched her train of thought back into the present, and, just like that, the idea caught on it and rode into her head along with it. It was as if the brain waited until she was distracted and then lunged and slipped her something genius – from moving train to central station platform – before chugging away again, waving back at her and grinning suspiciously.
So what the heck. Why not?
“Well,” said Dinky, ever the intellectual of the group. “I read about how the world was made up of four elements. There was this ancient pegasus guy called Impedimentes? He came up with the idea…”
“Was he a famous warrior?” said Alula, who was generally suspicious of intellect. “Did he kick butt?”
No. He threw himself into a volcano trying to prove you couldn’t die. He was famous for it. But the nice thing about intellect, Dinky knew, was that the thing that condemned her in Alula’s eyes could also save her. Save her a lot of bother, that is.
“I figured out how to make a rocket from him,” Dinky lied, enough of an expert fishermare to use the right bait. “You throw yourself into a volcano to get a load of explosion and propulsion. That’s how you can get into space. You get shot up like a cannonball.”
Murmurs of vague approval deemed this idea worthy of adventurous undertaking.
“Just like that?” said Apple Bloom suspiciously.
“Obviously, you jump in with a barrel of gunpowder,” said Dinky, inventing wildly. “For the fuel. But liquid fuel will do it, so long as it’s between you and the lava when it goes boom,” she added hastily; Alula literally chewed over the idea. Liquid fuel should fit into her cosmonautical dreamworld quite tastefully.
“Hmm, it makes a kind of sense,” her mouth said grudgingly, whereas the rest of her body said, “Heck yes! Let’s do it!”
“So all we need are three things: a rocket, some fuel, and a volcano.”
“Where do we get the rocket?” said Apple Bloom.
Piña waved a hoof until Dinky said, exasperatedly, “Yes, you there in the front.”
“Please! Big Sis keeps barrels! We could use one, and we’d all fit inside it, and I could roll it down a hill –”
“No,” said Odd Job at once. “Anyway, Sparky’s already in space on a rocket. Why do we need one?”
“Because prequel-flashback, of course!”
“What’s the fuel, then?” said Apple Bloom.
Dinky didn’t quite meet her eye. “Someone said milkmaid earlier? If Sparky’s a humble hero, then she’s gotta get some milk, hasn’t she?” Before Apple Bloom could figure it out, Dinky hurried on to say, “And as for the volcano… We’d need somewhere tall and somewhere you could climb?”
Like clockwork, she waited for the inevitable response of the princess-obsessed to –
“How about the library?” said Alula. “Um. That’s tall. And you can climb it. It’s shaped like a tree, after all. I could climb it easy.”
Yes, to see if you could spot Twilight Sparkle through a window. Hook, line, and sinker. Dinky tittered and then trilled, “What a good idea! You girls! We could totally do this!”
The thing about Dinky was that she was smart enough to know when not to parade her smartness. Besides, as Derpy said, it was nicer to let other ponies join in. She couldn’t do all the work.
Not forgetting, deep down, she was sure they could manage the ideas stuff fine on their own, if only they wanted to. She just… gave them a nudge here and there. Nothing showy. Just an odd prod in the right direction. That was all. They had no leaders, after all.
Looking around, she noticed all other drinks had been emptied. Around this time was when words traditionally translated into actions.
Dinky downed her last drop. Thoughts buzzed away inside her head.
The drinks genuinely weren’t alcoholic. Berry Punch indulged a lot of sins, but she had her limits and in her own way was as scrupulous as a saint. But the nice thing about childish minds is that they are already, as it were, naturally drunk. Every idea seemed like a good idea at the time, and the nice thing about childhood is that it keeps on seeming like a good idea at the time.
She stood up and beamed at them. “So let’s do it, yeah?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Odd Job wretchedly, screwing up her face. “I mean, there’s the carrot census tomorrow, and then there’s the summer cleaning, and then Golden Harvest wants to ‘shift some stock’ so she has to go to market and I have to watch the fields –”
“Not in the daytime.” Dinky struck a pose, rearing up, hoof on hip, other hoof punching at the sky. “I mean tonight!”
Odd Job spluttered. “Tonight!? As in… tonight tonight?”
“I can’t think of a better time!” Alula shot into the air, wings flapping. “Count me in!”
“Sounds like fun!” Piña bounced up and down, giggling in anticipation.
“Look, Odd Job, you can’t be scared of the night forever,” said Dinky reasonably, conveniently not mentioning a few bad nights when she’d woken up screaming: “Nightmare Moon! No! NOOO!”
After all, you couldn’t be scared of the night forever.
And Twilight was in town! Dinky relaxed at the thought, then realized she’d been tense in the first place.
Besides, daytime? Where was the fun in doing things properly?
Only then did Apple Bloom’s lips stop moving. She’d worked it out.
“Milk!?” she said. “You wanna make fuel… out of milk!?”
Dinky grinned the sort of grin that Berry Punch would have heartily approved of. “Fresh milk,” she said, for emphasis.
On their way out, the Sisterhooves Sisters asked Berry Punch for a barrel. She graciously rolled one outside for them and then bid them a good midnight romp.
This, they considered – and by “they”, Dinky meant “they once she’d talked the idea into their heads” – was too disappointingly easy.
They needed a bigger challenge…