The filly lay on her bed of clouds and performed the age-old ritual of all foals who don’t want to go to bed. “But Breezie, I’m not tired! I still want to play! The sun is still up! Come on, Breezie, please!”
The teenage pegasus sighed, it was always the same with those foalsitter jobs. She pushed a flick of her golden mane out of her face. “Now Fluttershy, you know what your parents said. 8 PM is your bedtime, and it’s 8:15 already. No more discussions.”
The filly pushed out a quivering lip and looked at her with her adorable eyes, a small tear ready to roll out if she didn’t get what she wanted.
“Don’t give me the puppy-eyes, little one, I play that card myself with my parents.” As if to proof a point, her face turned into heart-wrenching display of despair, “you see, that won’t work on me.”
Even though Breezie had not expected it, Fluttershy just slumped on her bed.
“Tell you what, I know a great bedtime story. Once upon a time, long before the Princesses and even before Equestria was founded, the pegasus ponies of Cloudsdale were not only responsible for the rain and the wind and all the other weather. They were the best fighters and protectors for all the other ponies. There were a lot of things that the other ponies had to be protected from.
The Everfree Forest was much bigger and much scarier, monsters attacked from it every day! The griffins were not friendly either, there were even marauding groups of highwaydonkeys that would assault a travelling pony. But the greatest danger of them all were the dragons. Big, scary, fire-breathing dragons!
And once every generation the biggest and fiercest dragons would band together in a large dragon raid and attack every city, castle or cloud that they could find. Because they were mean and greedy and totally not friendly with us ponies.
So the pegasus ponies of old would train hard all year long to be ready to save all the other little ponies from the dragon raid. Because there was nopony else who could do it.”
At this point Fluttershy was sitting up from excitement. “Those must have been the bravest ponies of all times!”, she beamed.
“Yes, yes they were. And the bravest of them all was Commander Sunspot, a real hero. Not only was he strong and a great warrior, but he was also clever and could fly so fast, he could tie a knot into a bolt of lightning. He had fought against many monsters and had never been injured, and the bad griffins stayed away wherever he went.
And so everypony was sure that the dragons would not -”
The sound of the opening door made both ponies look up. Fluttershy’s mother walked into the room, “Oh baby, shouldn’t you be asleep right already?”
Breezie scratched her ear, “Yeah, I was telling a bedtime story, guess I lost track of time. I’m sorry.”
“And it was a great story!” Fluttershy chimed in.
Fluttershys mother smiled. “But now it’s time for little ponies to go to bed, my baby” She kissed her on the forehead. “Breezie, you better talk to my husband. Have a good night and thanks again for being here on such short notice.”
“No problem, anytime”, Breezie said. ”Goodnight Fluttershy, you’re a great kid”, she waved a goodbye and was gone.
Fluttershy’s mother tucked her foal in, nuzzled her once more. At the door she smiled again to her and asked “What story did Breezie tell you, my dear?”
“The legend of Commander Sunspot, mummy.”
“Aren’t you a bit young for that?”, Fluttershy’s mother raised an eyebrow.
“Naw, it was exciting. But she didn’t tell me the end of the story.”
“You are so brave, my little Flutters. Sweet dreams.” She closed the door and walked to the living room.
But because grownups always underestimate how good foals can hear, Fluttershy heard her mother talk to her father in the living room.
“The legend of Commander Sunspot! Can you believe it? She told my baby about how the dragon migration slaughtered our city and ripped his wings out as a bedtime story! We’ll never ask her to babysit again.”
In the darkness a filly tossed and turned in her bed. Her pink mane was wet with tears and snot.
“Not my wings, please. Not the wings.”