Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash stood before Carousel Boutique. Twilight knocked on the door, and the two waited as they heard hoofsteps on the other side. The door glowed blue and was swung open, revealing Rarity with her mane slightly messy and wearing her sewing glasses. "Oh, hello girls." she smiled at them. "I don't have the time to visit, though."
"We just wanted to ask you about Sweetie Belle." Rainbow said.
"Yes, Rarity, something really weird is going on with her and we thought you could help us." Twilight added.
Rarity glanced back at her shop, which was a mess in the inside with rolls of fabric scattered about and half-completed dresses draped over sewing machines. "I've got to finish this order as quickly as possible, I'm sorry, but I simply don't have enough time for chatting." Rarity shook her head. "But you could ask mine and Sweetie's parents. They recently sent us a letter saying that they were in Canterlot on their tour of Equestria. I could find the address of their hotel and I give it to you; they're very nice ponies and probably won't mind you stopping by."
"Great, that would be perfect." The two waited while Rarity raced back into her shop, disappearing for about a minute or two but reappearing with a slip of paper.
"Here you go dear." Rarity closed the door quickly, adding, "Sorry I couldn't help you."
"That was interesting, but at least we should have a great source of information." Twilight levitated the slip of paper in front of her eyes. "Who knows Sweetie Belle better than her own parents? The problem will be getting to Canterlot. I don't have the bits for train tickets..."
"Who needs the train?" Rainbow asked, flapping her wings.
"But how will I get there?" Twilight asked, looking up at the sky. The sun was now starting to descend past the halfway point, afternoon approaching.
"Don't you know how to cast that cloudwalking spell?" Rainbow flew up into the sky before the purple mare could respond. The rainbow blur returned seconds later with a cloud in her grip. She dragged the cloud down to ground level and set it in front of Twilight. "Well?"
Twilight rolled her eyes in a joking manner before closing them. Her horn glowed with magic and so did her hooves. After a few seconds, there was a slight pop and the magical glow disappeared. The purple unicorn hopped forward and stepped on the cloud, not falling through like most unicorns or earth ponies would.
Rainbow Dash grabbed the cloud and pulled it back up into the air. As they drifted upwards, Twilight clutched the sides of the fluffy cloud. "Don't go too fast, please." she whispered in fear, sounding a lot like Fluttershy as she saw how far away the ground was.
"Sorry, what was that?" Rainbow asking jokingly. She planted her hooves on the back of the cloud flew off in the direction of Canterlot, pushing the cloud much faster than Twilight was comfortable with.
~<3~
"That's really spooky." Applejack gazed, wide-eyed at Sweetie Belle's floating mane and tail. The filly was attempting to hold down her flowing mane with her hooves while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom attempted to pin her tail down.
"Call me crazy but Ah don't think is helpin'." Apple Bloom said, disappointed as she stepped back and Sweetie's tail continued moving.
"Maybe this is just my magic freaking out again." Sweetie suggested.
"Ah think we should go see Twilight." Applejack offered. She had come to see what all the fuss was about when Apple Bloom and her friends were shouting, and she certainly wasn't expecting to come across Sweetie Belle with her hair floating like the princesses'.
"I've already seen Twilight twice today!" Sweetie protested.
"And Ah thought you just told me you had a magic-collar thing on." Apple Bloom pointed to the brown collar Sweetie was wearing. The unicorn looked down at the collar, biting her lip as she thought. If her mane and tail were flowing, it wasn't because of her magic because the collar should be blocking it.
There was complete silence for a few moments, before Scootaloo hopped up into the air, clapping her hooves as a thought occurred to her. "You're a princess!" she shouted.
"...what?" Applejack, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom all asked at the same time.
"Your mane and tail are all wavy," Scootaloo grabbed Sweetie's mane and waved it for emphasis. "and your magic is suddenly super powerful."
"But Princesses have wings, Scoots." Apple Bloom pointed out.
"And Mom and Dad aren't alicorns, and Rarity isn't either." Sweetie added.
Scootaloo crossed her forelegs, annoyed that her friends had so quickly poked apart her idea. "It was just an idea."
~<3~
Twilight felt her breathing slow as she and Rainbow Dash approached land. Twilight's mane and tail were messy, having been blown back by the strong winds. She also had screamed for the first few minutes, giving what seemed like every bug in the sky a chance to hop inside her mouth and make her choke.
Finally, the cloud touched the streets of Canterlot. Twilight simply rolled off the cloud, laying on her back in the street. she saw Rainbow hiding a smile behind her hoof. "You jerk." the unicorn muttered. "Next time, we're taking the train. At a reasonable speed." Twilight was so happy to be back on solid ground she nearly kissed the stone road beneath her. She took deep breaths and attempted to get her mind back on track.
"Fine, fine." the pegasus waved a hoof, then looked up at the building they had landed next to. "Is this it?"
Twilight rolled onto her belly to get a good look at the building. It was very large and built out of bricks. It had a nice stone staircase leading up to double doors with a sign above reading, 'Welcome to the Amanezing Hotel'. "Amanezing?" she raised an eyebrow.
"That's a terrible pun." Rainbow rolled her eyes, disappointed with their choice of name. "I don't think that should even be called a pun; it's so bad..."
"We're not here to criticize the choice of hotel names, Rainbow." Twilight got to her hooves pulled out the slip of paper that had the room number of Rarity's parents on it. "We're here to get some answers from Magnum and Pearl."
"Is that what their names are?" Rainbow asked as the two trotted up the stone steps towards the double doors.
"Yes, Rarity must have told us a thousand times at our picnics." Twilight said.
"Meh, I guess I just drown that out. Probably why I didn't know you had a brother until the wedding."
Twilight facehoofed and sighed. Rainbow rolled her eyes and pushed the door open, flying in about a foot off the ground. Twilight followed, the door automatically swinging closed behind her. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the room. The floor was made of marble, there was a small water feature, a beautiful chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the desk with a pony sitting behind it was gleaming as if it had just been polished.
"Hello, sir." Twilight greeted him. The pony looked up, his green eyes filled with boredom. He was a deep brown earth pony and was wearing a red and white suit. His mane was black and carefully combed and he had a bracelet around one hoof that had many keys hung on it. "My name is Twilight Sparkle."
"Looking for a room to spend the night in?" the stallion asked, looking in between Twilight and Rainbow with a certain look in his eye. "Just you two? Romantic evening?"
Both mares jumped back instantly, blushing deeply. "W-what? No!" Rainbow said quickly, flying up towards the ceiling as if to flee the scene.
"We're just friends!" Twilight shook her head quickly, waving her hooves in a 'no' motion rapidly. Her face burned. How could he even think that! "We're just here to see the ponies who're staying in room 8!"
"Oh, right." the stallion said, a smile and something in his tone told Twilight he didn't quite believe them. Either way, she rubbed her face with a hoof until the blush went away and when she removed her hoof from her face she saw the stallion had disappeared from his desk. "Coming?" he asked. Twilight turned around to see him standing at the end of a hallway behind her.
"Oh, yes." Twilight trotted down the hallway after him, Rainbow following. The hallway was narrow but well decorated with framed posters on the wall and a beautiful blue carpet was under their hooves. Twilight counted the doors as they passed. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Finally they came to door number 8, decorated with a golden number hung on the door.
"Here it is." the stallion nodded to the two mares before slipping past them and back towards the lobby. Twilight thought she heard a snicker from him before he disappeared.
"Why, that little..." Rainbow growled. She made a motion as if to fly after him.
"Don't run off, Rainbow." Twilight grabbed her cyan friend's tail in her telekinesis. "We're finally here. We can find out why this is happening to Sweetie Belle."
Rainbow rolled her eyes and landed beside Twilight. The unicorn knocked on the door with a hoof. She heard some muffled hoofsteps inside, a soft voice, then saw a gray-blue eye look through the peep hole. "Pearl? Magnum? It's Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash- we're friends of Rarity and Sweetie Belle."
"Really?" the door opened and a pink unicorn mare with a huge, purple mane, a red t-shirt that barely concealed a pearl for a cutie mark, and blue-gray eyes was revealed. "Well, come on in, then!"
"Thank you." Twilight trotted in and looked around the room. It was very small and defiantly wasn't a luxury suite. In the back of the room was one double bed with an open window right behind it. There was a bedstand with a book and notepad on it. The floor was the same carpet as was in the hallway, and the walls were painted an off-white color. There was also a door that Twilight could only assume led to a bathroom and a counter with a tiny refrigerator that was probably the kitchen.
"Take a seat." Pearl waved a pink hoof towards the bed. "My name is Pearl, by the way, but if you're friends of Rarity you probably already know that." Twilight smirked at Rainbow. Both purple unicorn and cyan pegasus walked over to the bed and sat upon it.
"Pearl? Is somepony here?" a male voice called.
"Yes, Magnum." Pearl called back. "Friends of Rarity and Sweetie Belle."
"Ooh!" a gray stallion entered the room, wearing a cap weaved out of hay. "Hi-o, friends of our daughters! Is there something ya needed?"
"We actually came to ask about Sweetie Belle." Twilight said calmly. Pearl looked at her in surprise.
"What about her?" she asked, walking over to close the door.
"Judging by what I've seen this morning, Sweetie Belle is having odd outbursts of magic, magic that's much more powerful than not only a filly should have, but any unicorn should have. It's so powerful even I had some trouble controlling it." Twilight explained. "Rarity brought her to me earlier, and she apparently had accidentally changed the color of her coat, which is a very complicated spell that one shouldn't be able to do 'accidentally'."
"But what do you need to ask us about?" Magnum asked, sitting on the floor in front of the bed. He was much bigger than Twilight and Rainbow Dash, so although he was sitting on the floor, he was still around eye-level for them.
Twilight continued. "The main question I really want answered is; is she related to somepony with powerful magic, or did she had some sort of traumatic experience when she was younger? Both could lead to unusually powerful magic outbursts at her age."
The two parents exchanged looks. "We... don't know." Pearl admitted.
Rainbow Dash, who hadn't spoken before mainly because she didn't really have any idea what was going on, said, "How can you not know? You're her parents, shouldn't you know if she's related to somepony powerful or if something tartic happened?"
"Traumatic." Twilight corrected.
"Whatever."
Pearl and Magnum turned and around and had a whispered conversation, making Twilight and Rainbow tilt their heads in confusion. It sounded like they were worried, and at one point, Pearl bit her lip nervously. Twilight was about to say that they needn't speak if they couldn't handle it, but it looked as if the parents had already come to a conclusion. "We've never told anypony about this before..." Pearl sighed. "But we're not Sweetie's parents."
Pearl and Magnum giggled as they walked through the park in Canterlot. They were watching Rarity, a small filly that was barely school age, pick flowers. She had hopped back when a fleck of dirt had flown at her from a group of foals racing by. "Hey!" the white filly shouted in protest.
"It's okay to get dirty once in awhile, Rares." Magnum patted his daughter on the head.
"But I don't want to get dirty." Rarity pouted.
"Why don't you go play in the sand?" Pearl suggested. "It's like dust, but it comes off with a good shake so you'll have fun and you won't get too dirty."
Rarity smiled, her young, blue eyes gleaming. "Yippie!" she hopped off towards the sandbox.
"She's not going to be happy when she's covered in sand." Magnum sighed, watching his daughter race through the grass on her tiny, filly hooves.
"Oh well, as long as she has fun." Pearl stopped as she spotted a small patch of white and bright purple flowers ahead. "Oh, look, Magnum! It's those Sweet Bell Tulips." She ran forward towards the tulips. Her husband followed her, and they both soon reached the flowerbed, surrounded with decorative bricks and back against a large willow tree.
Pearl leaned down to sniff the flowers. "They're so pretty, Magnum." she sighed with content as the sweet smell flooded over her. Sweet Bells were her favorite flowers. She remembered how, when she was just a filly, her mother used to call them that because they would make the sweetest sounds when they blew in the wind, just like bells...
Suddenly, she heard a soft whistling from within the flowers. That wasn't the sound Sweet Bells usually made. It was like a soft, sorrowful song. She pushed her nose through the flowers and blinked with surprise. Inside she saw a tiny, white foal. It made the quiet whistling noises that sounded almost like it was attempting to sing. It had curly pink and purple hair and a small unicorn horn. All around it the leaves and grass was soaked with blood that came from two large slices in its back.
"Magnum!" Pearl called in alarm, hopping back. "Get Rarity, we need to go to the hospital!"
"What is it?" Magnum asked.
Pearl levitated the small foal out of the flowers and into the air so Magnum could see. The gray stallion immediately ran off towards the sandbox to retrieve his daughter. Pearl, in the meantime, looked over the small unicorn foal. It started to cry now that it was in sunlight and no longer shaded by the tulips. Blood dripped from the cuts on its back, staining the grass at her hooves red. She slipped off the pink t-shirt she was wearing and wrapped it around the foal. She hugged it close to her, rocking to try and calm it down.
"It's alright, my little Sweet Bell." Pearl whispered to her. "Everything is okay now, I'll take care of you."