//------------------------------// // ~Tied to a Ribbon's Heart. // Story: The Mystery of Breakwater Island // by Plumage //------------------------------// The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Two: Tied to a Ribbon's Heart Told from the journal kept by Ribbonetta Samantha Hearthus Written by Feather * * * The crowd murmurs in surprise. I must have heard wrong. The unicorn coughs. "Umm - I mean, you won't be allowed to leave the fun! Because if you did, then it would be boring, and wouldn't that be horrible?" Nods from the ponies. It would be kind of boring. "My name is Raritellen Lily Elliseve, but you all can call me Miss Rarity. I'm the top head around here, so if any of you have any problems with the island please speak to me about it." The doors around the room snap open again. The pony behind me, an orange pegasus with a red and green mane, yellow eyes and a pair of maracas for a cutie mark, looks very relieved at this. Maybe she doesn't like being cooped up? Miss Rarity smiles. "Your rooms are just down the hall from this room. This room is the Entrance Hall. Make some friends tonight! Enjoy yourselves." She sweeps her front hooves out in a dismissive gesture. "Go, my ponies!" Slowly, the crowd disperses. I walk down the hall to the second-to-last door at the end of the hall. 139. I find the door and push it open. The apartment is lush and it looks like it is very expensive-looking. I look around. There is long velvet couches, lots of clothes, plush carpets, even a four-poster bed. I nearly salivate as I examine what I suppose is my quarters, thinking, It's almost as if this room came out of the Princess's castle! I step carefully into the room, as if my normalness will dirty the poshness in here. I walk over to be vanity mirror. And gasp. The mirror is adorned with ribbons. My special talent. Beautiful, beautiful ribbons. Red ones, blue ones, pink ones, yellow ones. And then I see the ribbon carefully laid out above the mahogany. It's a pastel blue, but there's a sheen to it that suggests it was sparklier than it is now. I share that sheen. I know exactly what it means. This is a Crystal Pony's ribbon. I look up into the mirror and a baby blue pony with both light and dark pink in her hair looks back. She has ultramarine eyes. I grin at my reflection guiltily. I'm mostly Crystal Pony. When King Sombra reigned over the Empire my mother was one of the few to escape just before his downfall. She was a Crystalli, a very pure and true Crystal Pony lineage. The Crystallis were stewards to the queens and kings before Sombra. She crossed the Arctic and came to Canterlot, where she met my father, Lyon James Hearthus, a unicorn with a talent for photography. Then they had me. I'm a unicorn, but I have really, really weak magic and I frequently forget the fact that I have a horn. I have the Crystal Pony sheen, like my mother. My special talent is manipulating ribbons. I use two in my hair, although it looks like only one. The Crystal Sheen wears off outside the Empire, but there are two conditions: One is that we still have a slightly shiny or metallic sheen. Crystal ponies outside the Empire are always a pale or light colour. My mother was a rosy pink. I'm a pastel blue. Two, if we come in contact with any gem or crystal we will turn crystal again, and it doesn't wear off for forty-eight hours. My parents were fine with me coming on the cruise and that they were thinking of going away for a little while anyway. So here I am. Strangely, the Crystal Pony ribbon seems like a threat. I don't know why, but it seems hostile in some way. So I leave it next to the mirror and put my own dark blue ribbon on my bedside table. I snuggle down into the covers and I'm as good as asleep when - "Uh - Hello?" I open my eyes a crack. "Mf?" "Hola! Bonjour! Salutations! Konnichiwa! Kia Ora!" The voice is unmistakably female, very bright, and hard to understand because of the speed of which she speaks. "Just hello is fine," I mumble. "Hi!" I sigh and my eyes drift shut again. "Wait - don't go to sleep! I want to ask you a question!" "Mff." "Do you think it was a bad idea coming on this cruise?" "What?" I mutter. "What on earth are you talking about?" "Never mind," she sighs. Cranking one eye open I see the pony in the doorway is the orange pegasus from before. "I'm Sombrero," the pegasus says brightly. "What's your name?" "Ribbon Heart," I mumble. "What was that?" "Ribbon Heart." Not much louder than before, but oh well. "Cool name! I'm in the room next to yours if you want to - " "Goodnight Sombrero," I interrupt her. "G'night, amigo." I wondered briefly what an amigo was before falling asleep.