//------------------------------//
// 11 - Adventurer in Peace 
// Story: Button Mash's Adventure 
// by David Silver 
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"Well..." Button rocked in place, eyes cast towards the darkened canopy above. "We had monsters, sure, but most ponies just stayed away from them."

Burning shrugged at the idea. "Most ponies stay away from them right here. What's the difference?"

Sweetie hopped to her hooves. "The difference is here we can go fight them, and there they'd tell us to stop getting into trouble... And probably throw us back in school."

"Yeah!" Button pointed at Sweetie with a big grin. "She gets it."

Sidestep sank next to Button. "If you are capable of paying for a formal education, you should take advantage of that, m'lord."

Button peered at his loyal blade. "Afford it?"

Sweetie shook her head. "Our parents send us."

"Yeah! That. I don't pay for it."

This made Sidestep look all the more pleased. "You really are a lord. Your friend is a lady?" She looked to Sweetie with new curiosity. "I had no idea. My apologies."

Sweetie giggled, but did not argue the misunderstanding. "Button has a mom. She's the one that'd chase him to school if she had to, and could. She isn't going to do that here. I doubt she knows where here even is."

The dwarf pony put his mug away. "It's real nice having some extra company, but we both got plans for the morning. Time to get some sleep."

Burning sunk to his belly with a dull thump of his weight coming to a half. "You are a pony of wisdom. Good night."

Button did his best to curl and relax, but something was off. He was being watched. He looked around as quietly as he could. There. The halfling was watching him intently. Button did his best to ignore it, but the staring had no end to it. Glancing about, he could see his other party mates were already passed out. Not wanting to wake them up, or risk Burning's fury, he rolled up to his hooves and walked off like he needed a moment behind some bushes.

It was not a surprise when he heard the crackling of broken branches, someone else joining him. "Is that you, feather?"

"Featherhoof," corrected the halfling, closing in. "You aren't one of those 'they all look the same' ponies, are you?"

"I like Little Feather a lot, actually." Button turned to the other halfling. "But you're a crook."

"Look..." Featherhoof glanced away towards where the others were resting, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I just want Miss Sweetie to notice me. I figured... If I brought her a treasure, she was so... She was really mad when she couldn't open the chest." He worried his hooves. "If I could get it to her..."

Button hiked a brow. "Sweetie?" Her estimation of Featherhoof's taste dropped a step. "Random gifts won't impress her. She's a pony of action!"

"Action..." Featherhoof dug out a pad and wrote that down. "You are too kind. I thought you were still angry with me."

"I am!" But he couldn't quite scowl at the little pony. They were so cute! And he wasn't a threat at the moment to Button's treasure. "But I'll forget about it if you promise to stop being a jerk."

"You obviously know her. Are you... friends? More than friends?" Featherhoof scootched closer with each question. "How long have you known her?"

Button hopped back, beanie twirling in the motion. "Relax. We're just friends. Why do you even care?" His young mind not immediately putting those pieces together. "Oh." There it clicked, brows coming together. "Are you trying to be her special somepony? You know she's gonna, like, leave forever, and also she's way younger than you... I think? How old are you?" He studied the halfling pony and their foal-like hints mixed with adult hints to create a confusing end result.

Featherhoof inclined his head. "She does have a youthful look, one of many things I like about her." He sighed with the deep throes of romantic approval. "But I have to win her heart first."

Button snorted softly, an aborted laugh. "Do... Oh, oh oh. What kind of pony do you think she is?"

"Kind of pony?" Featherhoof looked baffled by the question, mouth moving with unspoken words as he tried to put it together. "A wonderful one. A competent one. She's been a steadfast partner."

"Not that." Button waved that right away. "Like he's a fireborn." He pointed to the slumbering Burning. "And he's a dwarf, and you're a halfling. With me?"

"Oh! Why didn't you ask that in the first place?" He rolled his eyes with a smirk. "She is obviously a halfling, like me, and you."

Button blinked slowly. "Right.... Did she tell you that?"

"No. It's obvious. Look at her stature." He pointed to where Sweetie was curled comfortably with the others. "And already an adventurer, like us. What else could she be?"

"What if... hear me out... What if she's just really young? Me too, since we're on the topic." He grinned at the confused halfling. "We probably shouldn't be adventuring at all, but we are."

Featherhoof crashed to his haunches. "What? But... She's not a halfling?" One could almost see his little worldview tilting on its axis. "So... Oh... Oh oh.... Oh." He flopped forward onto his belly. "I've been chasing that?!"

Button patted the top of the broken halfling. "Yeah..." Surely there was something more he could say? "Um... You didn't know, but now you do. It's not as if you were here just for that." But Featherhoof was only looking more haunted, not less. "Or maybe you were..."

"You don't understand." He forced himself into a sit. "How could you? I've been competing against a foal! And losing!" He threw up a hoof. "And losing!"

"If you thought I was a halfling, why did you ask if I thought you all looked the same? That'd be kinda funny for another halfling to be bad at spotting halflings."

"It's an insult! Not all insults make sense." Featherhoof clopped a hoof to his face. "I don't even care about that anymore... I must be loose in the head, chasing a foal like that. Maybe I'm the one that can't tell one halfling from the next! What kind of--" He was knocked over backwards, a waterskin bouncing off his head with a meaty thump of the two coming to a violent meeting that sent him tumbling. The waterskin flopped to the ground, robbed of its momentum.

"Shut up," grunted out Burning, trying to go back to sleep.

Button peered skeptically at his large, and dangerous, friend. "Ow..." He placed a glowing hoof on the bashed halfling's back, lending a healing spell. "Good luck with that," he whispered and rushed back to his starting point to curl and sleep.





The next morning, Sweetie's party was down to just herself and the dwarf. "Where'd Featherhoof go?" Button looked around, but saw no halfling anywhere. "Run off ahead?"

Sweetie tossed a crumpled note at Button's head with her magic. "I don't think so."

Button grabbed the note and unfolded it for a peek.



Good morning.

I am sorry to write this, but I have been living a lie. This isn't your fault. I was the fool, and I will remove myself. I wish you nothing but luck, but it will be without me.

Step lightly,
Featherhoof



"Oh..." Button rubbed at his cheek. "Sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Sweetie peered at him skeptically. "You didn't chase him away."

"Uh..."

Sweetie's brows went up together. "Did you chase him away?! How?! Why?!"

The dwarf joined in the skeptical peering. "You two weren't getting along, but it wasn't that bad. What happened?"

Button groaned in a loud echo of his frustation. "Sweetie, he thought you were a halfling."

Sweetie inclined her head slowly. "But I'm not."

The dwarf started. "Yer not?!"

"No? Did I say I was?" Sweetie turned to her dwarven friend. "Just a regular unicorn, that's me."

The dwarf clopped a hoof on his head. "Poor lad... no wonder he ran away. Just gonna hope he doesn't get into trouble. We're a long way from the nearest guild house for somepony to decide to go solo like that."

Sidestep looked back and forth as each pony spoke, confusion clear on her face. "What is the problem? M'lord is quite young." She smiled at Button. "But I can be in their presence. The love one might feel towards a young pony simply must take a different form. He is my lord, but also, in some ways, my child. And I am, in some ways, a mother. We will not have a romantic connection. That would be quite unseemly."

Sweetie burst into laughter. "Ow... You've been shut down." She was eyeing Button as she said it. "I hope you weren't hoping for a 'romantic connection'."

Button began to glow red. "N-no! Sidestep is awesome! She slices the monsters all--" He swiped at the air wildly as if he was wielding a sword and going to town, trying badly to imitate the precise strikes Sidestep would perform. "It's like, um, art. I could watch it all day."

Sidestep colored faintly. "M'lord... I wield your blade for you. What you wish struck down will be. That is the oath I have sworn." She put a hoof on her chest with a content smile. "I am pleased you enjoy my form, but let us keep that to an artistic appreciation of form."

Burning kicked dirt into the smoldering remains of the fire. "This is all well and good, but we're wasting the day away here." He turned to the other party. "Are you going on, or turning back? Sorry Button lost you a member. Doesn't sound like he meant to..."

The dwarf heaved a heavy sigh. "No, don't think he did. Just pointed out a truth Featherhoof was not ready for. Maybe I wasn't either. If you're a foal, why are you out here?" He raised a shaggy brow at Button. "Question goes for you, even if you have less reason to care about my questions."

Burning shrugged with a grunt. "I know he won't no halfling, just some little punk that thinks he can take on the world." He flashed a great and almost feral grin. "And he's managing it so far. My little crack scout. No regrets so far." Childhood safety, clearly not high on his mind.

The dwarf let out a strained laugh. "Seems they are two cut from the same cloth." He looked between Sweetie and Button. "But one of their parties was in on it, and the other fooled themselves right proper. Now... Ah ain't leavin' a foal out to fend for themselves. We are still a party until, at least, we get back to town. Couldn't live with myself otherwise."

Sweetie smiled brightly at her party mate. "Thanks for not just vanishing. Are we... going on, or not?" She waved a hoof at the spooky forest full of monsters and treasures. "I'll get it if not... We were planning on three, not two..."

"Oh... nah... The spirit's been taken from me. Let's get you back. Where are your parents, anyway?" They left without further words on the matter.

Burning started down the path back into the forest instead of away from it. "Let's go. We got the place to ourselves now. Finally... Two parties in the same place, nothing but trouble. Lucky for us, the trouble came for them this time."

Sidestep was at Button's side as they ventured forth. "I do not wish ill on them, and hope they have a safe trip back. They are no threat to my lord."

"The threat's right there." Button drew his sword into his mouth. They had gone far enough away from the safe spot for the monsters to take notice of them. There was no time to consider the intricacies of some other party. They had to put their game faces on and cut their way forward. There was treasure to be found, and none of them were ready to give up on that.