Slice of Velvet and Pear

by David Silver


24 - High Swarm

"You gotta help!" Pinkie was waving at Moon excitedly. "It's super important." She provided as little context as she had the first time.

"Hm?" Moon set her book aside. "I owe you. I am ready to repay that."

Pinkie looked mildly confused at the transactional nature of things. "You know those things Fluttershy is handing out?" Moon nodded slowly. "They're dangerous!"

Moon's glowing horn began plucking various books free. "I should have researched them. That was dumb of me, very foalish."

"No time for that." Pinkie swatted Moon's horn, disrupting her grip and causing a brief rain of books across the room. "I need these." She thrust a list of instruments at Moon. "Now!"

Moondancer simply nodded. "Please educate me after the emergency has passed." That didn't stop her from quickly gathering the books and setting them aside. Inconveniencing Twilight with a mess? No way. "Spike?"

Spike peeked out from the kitchen, chewing a sandwich. "What's up?"

"We require your help." Moon pointed to the list of instruments. "Let's get to work."

So all three of them go to work gathering what Pinkie wanted. Pinkie was glad for the help, but also curious. "You didn't get any of those? Everypony else was getting them by the barrel full."

Moon shook her head. "I forbade it. Strange creatures are usually trouble."

Spike pouted a bit. "Diamond would have loved getting one as a gift."

"That's a gift you don't want to give," laughed out Pinkie as they hurried about, gathering the supplies for what would, somehow, be the cure. "I was afraid nopony would listen to me at all! Glad you weren't busy."

"So long as we complete them by three, all is fine. Celestia is visiting." This fact did not seem to upset Moon much at all.

Pinkie was more than alarmed. "Don't you want to get ready for that?" She stood still as the others worked to outfit her with the instruments. "I'm really sorry if I'm crashing your day."

"Nah." Moon inclined her head as she got the banjo attached at the right angle. "Celestia is the princess. She does not require my help to visit a town. It will be nice to see her."

"All ready?" asked Spike, looking over the equipped Pinkie. "That's all the parts."

"Ready!" Pinkie played with an abundance of energy. She tooted and banged and made all kinds of ruckus as she marched through town, drawing the parasprites to her side to follow after her. They had devoured the food available to them, but the houses remained, and the fenceposts, and all the other, harder to replace, items.

Rarity watched Pinkie go by, leading the procession of little creatures. "Why do I feel like I missed something, dear?" But Pinkie could not give a reply, busily leading the march as she was.

Moon was following a short distance away, with Spike perched on her back. "I do not comprehend this, but I am glad to have assisted. I still want to know more about these creatures." She nodded to the line of bouncing things heading out of the town.

Pinkie succeeded at escorting the menace away. "Those things swarmed the rock farm before." She was squirming free of the outfit that drew them. "We didn't even have much to eat, but they were good at finding it. Once they get in, they're in... Unless you get them to go away."

"Which you did." Moon nodded, appreciating the logic of it. "I hope we have enough food leftover to entertain Celestia. That would be rude if we did not." She started back towards the town. "You are a font of unusual but useful knowledge, Pinkie."

"Thanks!" she sang out, bounding along with grand hops next to Moon. "I kept the Cakes from messing with them, so hopefully we can at least give Celestia some tasty treats!"

"That sounds... acceptable." Moon peeked over her shoulder. "What do you think?"

"Celestia loves baked goods," agreed Spike with a bobbing head. "We should be good if they didn't mess with Sugarcube Corner." It was one disaster that was neatly sidestepped.


"You gotta help me!" Apple Bloom had her hooves pressed together before the two mares. "Please, get me a cutie mark! Yer both great at magic, ya gotta be able to do somethin'!"

Twilight waved that away. "I'm just a librarian, and your mom... who is also my aunt--" She chuckled at that thought, still tickled by it. "--would kill me if I hurt you."

"I am not under this limitation," assured Moon. "Come with me."

"Wait!" But they were off on a quest, and Twilight's cry fell on deaf ears. "Hrm..."

Moon gathered all the books on the topic she could, making a small pile that she flipped through one by one rapidly. "And... here." She set out one book, pointing to the open page. "This says that we can manipulate the forces involved, but there are risks involved." She raised a big, bushy brow. "Nothing we can't handle."

"What kinda risks?" Apple Bloom raised a brow at the confident unicorn about to do something to her. "We talkin' a rash or somethin' a lot worse than that?"

Moon waved it away. "Nothing we can't handle with proper preparation. Speaking of..." She vanished with a magical pop, just to appear a moment later with a cup of something. "Drink."

Apple Bloom accepted the cup between her forehooves, sipping nervously. "Yer makin' me a little nervous... What is this? Tastes a little funny-like."

"That is to ensure your internal networks remain--"

"--Ya stop that right this instant." Standing in the doorway was an incensed new mare, Pear Butter. "Mah daughter ain't no experiment." She hurried up and grabbed Apple Bloom by the ear in her teeth, pulling her away from Moon Dancer. "And ah'll thank ya not to get her confused fer such!"

Moon inclined her head at the angry mother. "I was taking all due precautions for safety."

That got her booped casually. "There ain't such a thin' as 'due' precautions when it comes to somepony else's daughter! Double so if ya ain't talked to her." She curled around Apple Bloom protectively. "We Apples take our time finding our mark, but it's always a good one."

Apple Bloom sighed. That avenue denied to her, even if it was a little scary... "Can't she... try, a little?"

"She may not!" Pear Butter set a hoof down literally, glaring at her daughter. "Now shoo." She waved the child away, away from the unicorn that was entertaining her. "Ah'm just glad Twilight told me before she got hurt."

"She..." Moon had been ratted out. Twilight had never done that before. "That wasn't..."

Pear was starting to relax, her daughter removed from harm's way. "You should thank her! If ya went and hurt mah foal, I'd not have the words fer it... Ah'm pretty sure ah could never forgive you..."

Moon flinched back. Reading emotions was not her specialty, but it was hard to miss Pear's bursting anger. "I did not intend any harm."

"That is the only reason we're still talkin'." Pear let out a slow breath. "Yer a good pony, ya are. Ah know ya weren't trying' to hurt nopony... But that wouldn't make Apple Bloom, my dear little Apple Blossom, not hurt! There are some thin's ya just can't take back, 'specially if ya done choose to do it in the first place."

Moon danced from hoof to hoof in a slow motion, thoughts and emotions tumbling in her head. "I wanted to make her happy. She is clearly displeased by--"

"She will do that sometimes." Pear smiled gently at that, strained, but genuine. "Foals will be mighty displeased sometimes. Fer good reasons, fer poor reasons. It's up to us adults to figure which is which, and make it alright in the end." She cupped Moon's face between two hooves. "Ya wanted to help mah girl, 'ppreciate that', but there just ain't a shortcut for what she's dealin' with. She needs supportin' hooves, not shortcuts."

Part of Moon, a big part, wanted to wrench back away from those holding hooves. The energy coming from the agitated mother was intense, and she didn't... She didn't like intense emotions directed at her. "I'm sorry." A single tear escaped her. Was it for what she did wrong, or just the pain of being caught in Pear's grasp, she couldn't even properly say.

A kiss. Pear gently kissed the tear away. "Yer another foal of mine. Half the town is." She rolled her eyes. "Don't mean my children can't cause mischief for each other. Ah... Ah'm not even angry, Moon Dancer... Not anymore." Her anger was fading, perhaps at the sight of the distressed unicorn. "Just promise you'll check in with me before you go throwing easy solutions at any Apple."

"I promise," weakly got out Moon, defeated. Pear gave her a brief hug and left quietly.

Twilight peeked in from the hall, cringing. "You alright?"

"No."

Twilight approached on light and uncertain hooves. "Want to talk about it?"

"Why did you tell her?" Moon met Twilight's eyes. "That was... exceptionally unideal."

"It would have been a lot more 'unideal' if she learned after something wrong with Apple Bloom." Twilight sighed softly. "But I'm still sorry. I don't want you hurt, Moon Dancer."

"She was very loud." Moon pressed a hoof against her head as if to stave off a headache. "She was... angry. Did I err so greatly?"

"That's complicated." Twilight cycled her hooves. "It involved her daughter, which takes everything and multiplies it by... a thousand at least."

"A thousand." One could almost see Moon Dancer working out the actual math of that. "That is, indeed, a grave error then."

Twilight smiled at that. "Then you understand why she was upset?"

"I do." She lowered a hoof from her temple to her chin. "I did not realize the multiplier was so large. If I ever breed, will this occur to--"

Twilight was already shaking her head. "You have a child, Moon Dancer. If somepony threatened Spike, you would...?"

Moon Dancer puzzled through that, imagining it, and a frown came over her. "The last time Spike was threatened, it felt like... It was very illogical, but it felt like the world might end. I was so worried for him, even when I knew he was safe from harm."

"And that is exactly what Pear felt," assured Twilight in gentle tones. "Exactly that. Except this time, you're the cause."

"I made a big mistake." Moon flopped to the ground on her belly, suddenly boneless. "Did she feel as bad as I did?"

"Probably... But she's better now, having talked to you." Twilight directed a hoof at her defeated friend. "Because you know what you almost did and won't do it again, right?"

"Right." Moon slowly sat up. "Yes. Correct. Where did Apple Bloom go?"

Twilight's brows went up together. "Why? I thought we abandoned all those ideas."

Moon waved Twilight's notions aside. "She could be getting into other trouble. If she couldn't get the answer from me..."

Twilight shook her head. "Apple Bloom will find her own way, I'm certain of it." Neither would know until later, but that was the day Apple Bloom made some great friends, even if her quest for a cutie mark didn't slow down at all. At least it didn't involve asking an indulgent unicorn to zap her until something happened. "She's a resourceful filly."

"I would..." Moon slowed to a halt, a sharp frown forming as she hopped to her hooves. "Where is Spike? I have been lax in his upbringing. He could be getting into trouble, right now!" Perhaps inspired by how close Apple Bloom came to potential hazard, Moon marched off in search of her dragon ward.

Twilight shook her head slowly. "Never change." That was, itself, a contradictory statement. Moon Dancer was changing in all kinds of ways, good ways. She was growing as a pony, through challenges and hurdles. "I need to make my own decisions..."