Ruined! Everything was completely ruined!
Pipp Petals stomped her hooves in frustration. Zephyr Heights’s royalty had always flown on wired wings to keep the spirits of their subjects soaring, but Zipp just had to go and break the illusion. And in the middle of a performance too! Pipp didn’t know how or why, but those two prisoners must’ve gotten into Zipp’s head.
The performance-crashing pandemonium let Pipp slip away. She shimmied out of hanging by a literal thread and vanished under the crowd. It was the one time she was glad to be so small, though dodging everypony’s stampeding legs had been harrowing to say the least. The pygmy pegasus preferred the safety of her mother’s back or perching on top of her sister’s head.
Pipp made a break for a lonely pillar in the ballroom and quickly sidled underneath its shadow to hide. With everypony looking for the “lying royals,” she needed to get out of the castle fast. More importantly, she had a thousand burning questions, and one older sister to grill for answers.
“Arf!”
“Wah!” Pipp lost her balance from the shock, but was caught by a loyal ball of fur.
“Cloudpuff! Oh, thank hoofness it’s you!” Pipp whispered. She turned to give the dog a hug, but bumped against something hard. The Zephyr Crown was in Cloudy’s mouth, or at least the gemstone part of it.
“But I thought…” Pipp pulled out her ponyfone™ smartwatch to quickly check the news on Flitter. Queen Haven’s arrest was trending with ZBS news’ video of guards seizing her and the off-colored crown. It was a very convincing and fabulous fake, but still a fake.
Pipp eyed the loose gemstone. “Did they try to swipe this?”
Cloudpuff barked, dropping the jewel with a thunk.
“They’re not only mud trudgers and horn heads, but thieves too?” Pipp tilted her head back and groaned. “Those two are the absolute worst!”
The dog barked again in agreement; at least, that’s how Pipp took it.
“Quick, Cloudy! Where did Zipp go?”
Cloudpuff brandished a police badge he was holding in his wing.
“She went with them? Fine!” Pipp took the badge and held it in front of her trusty companion’s nose. “Quick, go find Zipp!”
Cloudpuff sniffed, yipped, and then bit down on the badge excitedly, tearing it from Pipp’s grasp. He ran off, deftly dodging several guards before leaping through an open door to hunt Zipp down.
“That’s a good boy!” Pipp started to run after him, but tripped over the loose royal treasure.
The Pegasus Stone was a priceless heirloom of Zephyr Heights’ royalty. She couldn’t just leave it behind. Pipp grabbed a wingtip and tried making a break for the door, only for her legs to sweep out from under her, flopping her to the tile floor.
“What the?” She picked herself up and tried to jostle the crystal, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. “You have got to be kidding me!”
The princess tried a foreleg, then both. Finally, she knelt down on all fours and pushed up against it with all of her might.
“How… the hay… did Cloudy… move this… stupid thing?”
Beads of sweat rolled down Pipp’s fur as she set the stone upright. After her mareculean effort, she collapsed to the floor to catch her breath with the crystal towering over her. Her mom’s neck must’ve been made out of steel. It wasn’t even the whole crown!
Pipp wheezed and looked towards the ballroom doors. The gargantuan, imposing, closed doors standing between herself and freedom. Even if she managed to crack it open while dragging the crystal, she’d never catch up to Cloudy, let alone Zipp. Still, she couldn’t just leave their heirloom behind.
As the weary princess pondered her hopeless plight, a panicking mare sprinted by the pillar. While her hooves missed the crystal, her tail extensions whipped by just hard enough to knock it off balance. Pipp yelped and tried to shuffle away, but the crystal toppled onto her, burying the little pony under a mountain of turquoise.
“Great,” she huffed. This was worse than Zipp trapping her inside a textbook fort. She squirmed around trying to find some leverage, only to accidentally wrap the wings around her neck like an oversized harness.
“That’s it! I’ve had it with you! Get stolen for all I care!” She rose to her hooves and tried to wiggle the crystal off, but stopped struggling as soon as she noticed she was dragging it around with her.
“Wait. This could work…”
“Sunny!” Hitch hissed as he followed the ragtag group of mares. “We’re supposed to be running away, remember?”
“We can’t leave without the crystal,” Sunny snapped back.
“And we need to find my little sister,” Zipp added with palpable worry. “You saw my mom on the news. Pipp’s all alone in here!”
“Fine,” Hitch relented. “But do we have to follow your dog? He could be leading us right into a—”
Hearing an odd scraping sound coming from ahead, Zipp shushed the others. Peering around the corner, she spotted their crystal target slowly moving down the hallway. It appeared to be a trap at first, but then Zipp spotted the familiar tuft of pink and purple underneath.
“Sis!” Zipp cried as she dove for her tiny sister. She whisked the gemstone away with ease and swept her sweaty sister into a tight winghug. “I was so worried about you!”
Pipp tried to push away her big sister’s smothering embrace, but after sneaking around for an hour, the exhausted princess could barely lift a feather. “Somepony seriously… explain… stupid, heavy thing…”
“I’ll tell you everything later.”
After securing the crystal, Zipp placed her sister on her head and made a break for the nearest exit with her new friends.
“Aww! She’s even itsier-bitsier than I remember!” Izzy cooed.
Pipp glared daggers at the others while curling up in her sister's mane. She still wanted answers, but for now, the tiny princess was going to take a well-deserved nap.