Little buggy ♪ little buggy ♫
Today I'm feeling kind of huggy ♪
Be my friendly little buggy ♪
Don't fly away! Aaargh!
Izzy Moonbow sang and then aargh'd as she leapt out of the bush, hopping after the little beetle she had just startled. She squeezed her mouth shut in a tiny little pout, in the hopes that silence might help her in pursuing her quarry.
It was a very pretty beetle, red and pink with hearts and spots, and very round. Izzy liked tiny little round creatures, like bugs and baby birds. When she found it, it had been sitting on a leaf, pulling its little bitty foots up to rub at its face. It was at once so elegant and so cute and a little scary because of all those foots. And then Izzy started singing and it froze, and when she got close enough it started flying off.
Izzy supposed she would also have wanted to fly off if someone a hundred or two times her size came over and bothered her while she was cleaning her face with her foots.
Izzy chased after it. She would tell all her friends that she hunted a rare beast for seventy-three days and seventy-four nights, and that the extra night was because she fell through a wild time paradox, as opposed to a domestic one, which only produced more time on command, but she wasn't licensed so she couldn't control them, and she went back in time and met the Hero of Cheer, who was very tubby and wanted to eat her, so she took a bath in garlic water.
More likely she'd forget all about it, actually.
In reality, Izzy hopped after a random ladybug for an afternoon, keeping her hooves all pressed together like she was hogtied, and tripped on a rock once. "OOF!" she yelped as she rotated perfectly from the hooves up like a falling statue and fell nose-first into the dirt.
Izzy had spent her whole life with little more than dirt to play with, so she hopped right back up. She didn't bonk her horn, fortunately. A bonked horn was one of the best ways to get an unhappy Izzy Moonbow. Nobody wanted an unhappy Izzy Moonbow. Especially not Izzy Moonbow, because bonked horns hurt like heck.
For some reason she kept thinking about that, like something deep inside her was trying to warn her. She bonked her horn once as a filly and had to eat soap. So many bingbongs. Izzy was super careful now, she was bonk-proof. Wasn't she? She hoped so. She didn't really like the taste of soap.
She looked all around with a big wide smile until her eyes crossed to spot the little beetle settling onto her dirty nose. "Hey," she complained, "That makes my eyes hurt, stop it, you." After a pause, she gently shook her head and resumed chasing the beetle as it flew off again in clumsy spirals. "Hehe! Tag, I'm it!" she chirped.
Izzy continued to pursue the beetle, ignoring the paved road appearing under her hooves. She paused, however, to sniff at the air, wrinkling her nose. "Euuuh," she grimaced, "What's that stink? Did you make that stink, mister beetle? Are you a stink beetle? Thank you for waiting until you weren't on my nose anymore."
The beetle turned towards her with what she decided was an offended expression, but was probably really its regular little beetle face.
"It's okay if you did, mister beetle, everyone does it. Thirteen times a day, actually," Izzy told the beetle, then blushed and looked down with her hooves turned in. "I always blame someone else."
The beetle turned again and continued onward in a hurry.
Izzy followed the beetle down onto the gradually more regular brickwork.
In between the raised aisles of grass and well-cared for plants.
Under the big brick gate.
And, as it flew upwards, perhaps to find a nice flower in someone's window, she looked gradually higher after it, still cantering blindly onward, until she realized that weird noise she was hearing was getting much louder. Then her vision was suddenly obscured with light and she bashed her chin. "Eep!" she cried, stumbling back and falling onto her rump.
"Eyaaaah~! Best Friends, please, don't poke!" somebody said. Then someone else started gently singing over pianos and saxophones, a real bossa nova jazz kinda thing.
A passing earth pony froze mid-step to witness this, then rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Crazy freaking unicorns..." she mumbled as she headed on. Darn, Izzy thought she had eliminated all the racisms. She'd have to get a vacuum cleaner for the last ones.
Looking back, she realized she'd bumped into one of those mystical animated noise-making signs, like the ones in Zephyr Heights - but this one was mounted all on its own, rather than tacked onto the side of a building. Also, she realized as she looked around at the modest brick buildings next to the sea, this was Maretime Bay.
There was an ink drawing of a unicorn mare on the left side. Purple, with dark hair with bright magenta stripes. She had on a white ruffled skirt and jacket, with a purple blanket around her shoulders, tied in front with a ribbon. She was very cutesy, with massive eyes, like a bug. Izzy pouted. Ponies' eyes weren't that darn big. She didn't move, except for her hair and clothes slightly blowing like she was in the wind. She blinked now and again, which actually made it creepier than if she didn't.
With difficulty, Izzy read the rather stylized text taking up the right half of the ad.
HARMONOID™
Hello, Best Friends!!
Coming out of your phone and into the real world, HARMONOID™ is coming to Maretime Bay! Be prepared for a once-in-a-lifetime experience as they perform their recent breakout hits, such as Linking Lonely Hearts and Everyone's Rainbow!
The Harmonoid™s will be performing in the Canterlogic™ auditorium on Hoovesday, Autumnal 8. All six HARMONOID™s will appear and perform: Merciful☆Harmonoid™, Generous☆Harmonoid™, Honest☆Harmonoid™, Cheerful☆Harmonoid™, Loyal☆Harmonoid™, and Kind☆Harmonoid™.
Be sure to be there! The girls would be heartbroken if a single Best Friend missed out!
"Canterlogic" is a registered trademark of Canterlogic, Inc.
"Harmonoid", "Merciful☆Harmonoid", "Generous☆Harmonoid", "Honest☆Harmonoid", "Cheerful☆Harmonoid", "Loyal☆Harmonoid", and "Kind☆Harmonoid" are all registered trademarks of HarmoSync, LLC.
Izzy pouted at this sign, trying to figure out why she was consumed with absolute contempt for it. But then she smiled again, reached out, and touched the sign again, causing the music to dim. "Eyaaaah~! Best Friends, please, don't poke!" it repeated, before the music picked back up. Izzy's mouth opened - wooooow, she was mouthing - then closed.
She poked it again. "Eyaaaah~! Best Friends, please, don't poke!"
Poke. "Eyaaaah~! Best Friends, please, don't poke!"
"Izzy! Stop that, what's wrong with you?!" someone protested, grabbing her hoof to stop her poking again.
Izzy tensed, her ears dropping, then smiled at the peanut butter coat and grape jelly braids and relaxed. "Hi Sunny," she greeted, waving with the offending hoof.
She wanted to tell her about the rare beast and the time paradox and telling the Hero of Charity she had a big nasty zit right on her nose.
... but she forgot.
So she put on a faraway, blank stare and pointed at the sign with the same hoof. "This funny sign talks," she identified. "And it has a bug-lady on it and a lot of weird symbols after words."
"Bug lady..?" Sunny repeated, her brows furrowed, glancing between Izzy and the sign. She took about three passes. "You mean Merciful☆Harmonoid?"
"Whichever harmonica-thingy she is, her eyes are way too big." Izzy continued staring.
"Ah," Sunny nodded, her nose wrinkled. "That's just the art style. Ponies think it's cute."
"Ah!" Izzy gasped, beaming with remembrance. "Bugs are cute! I chased a really cute beetle all the way over here!"
"Of course you did." Sunny stared evenly with a grimace.
"But ponies should look like ponies, not like bugs," Izzy finished, closing her eyes and shaking her head in disapproval.
"Have you ever heard of a changeling?" Sunny tilted her head, smiling with her I've got a book about it face.
"Changelings?" Izzy blinked. "Those little fuzzy things that live in the swamp and climb up outta your toilet 'cause that's where we dig the pipes to?"
"Wha -- Uh, forget it," Sunny shook her head. Mission accomplished. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of Harmonoids, they're kinda new."
"How new?" Izzy pouted suspiciously.
"They only showed up last week or so?" Sunny lifted and waved a hoof to show uncertainty. "You wanna come with to their performance? Me 'n' Hitch accidentally got three tickets in our bid to beat the snipers."
"There are snipers?!" Izzy cried in alarm.
"No, no, as in... never mind," Sunny laughed nervously. "You can come bunk at the lighthouse, it's only a few days away, actually. You're just in time!"
Izzy thought about it, looking back at the weird pony. Something about this stinks, she fretted. I can smell it even through the beetle farts. She blinked. I mean sea air. I can smell it through the sea air.
"... Ooookkaaaaaay," she eventually accepted with such thick hesitation that Sunny wrinkled her nose again.
Maybe she smelled it too.