A gray pegasus extracted herself from a clump of trees, shaking off some leaves. A twig remained tangled in her yellow mane, but she seemed unaware of its intrusion. She looked at Sketch with a pair of misaligned yellow eyes and grinned sheepishly. "I was looking for someone and I saw that shack, so I swooped down to get a better look, and… well, I've never been very good at swooping." Before Sketch could say anything, the grin disappeared and her distinctive eyes grew wider. "Oh! Oh oh oh! It's you! I found you! She said you'd be in the shack and she was right!"
"Do you mean… did the princess send you?" Sketch asked. He hadn't yet determined whether or not his interaction with Princess Luna in his dream had been real, but it seemed that it may indeed have been more than just an ordinary dream.
"Yes! She told me you'd need my help!" The mare frowned. "I forgot your name, though. It's, uh… it's Scratch, right?"
"Sketch," he corrected her with a smile. "And you're… Derpy, right?" The mare twisted up her face. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I get it wrong?"
She sighed. "No. Yes. Sort of. It's… everyone calls me that. It's a nickname I got when I was a filly. It sort of stuck."
"Oh. Well… what's your real name?"
"Ditzy Doo."
"Sooo… Ditzy… not Derpy?" Sketch asked with a slight raise of an eyebrow. The mare nodded. "Okay, then, Ditzy. And I understand. I'm the opposite; I don’t like my real name, so I stick with my nickname."
"What's your real name?"
"Waldorf."
She thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Yup, Sketch is much better." They stood in silence for a moment, then Ditzy waved a hoof at the shack. "So, why'd you come here?"
"This was my first home when I came to Ponyville," he said, glancing at the shack, then back at the confused pegasus. "It's a long story. What I want to know, though, is why did Princess Luna send you in particular?"
"Well, I was looking for you anyway."
That took Sketch by surprise. "You were?"
"Uh-huh. I was there yesterday when you were yelling at your father. When you ran away, I tried to follow you. I wanted to let you know that I'm on your side. But I lost you when you got here to the forest, so I went home. Then Princess Luna came to me in a dream and told me to look for this shack and I'd find you."
"Wait, you… you're on my side? You don't think my father should turn Ponyville into a resort town?"
"No!" Ditzy said, and snapped her wings out and in emphatically. "I love Ponyville. I don't want to see it become something different! But everypony else… It seems like they've changed, like they aren't themselves…"
Sketch just about jumped for joy. "Finally! Someone who can see things clearly!" He stopped and looked at Ditzy with a growing sense of embarrassment. "I mean… oh, gosh, I didn't mean…"
Ditzy blinked a few times and then threw her head back, dislodging the twig that had been stuck, and laughed. "I get it! 'Cause… 'cause… my eyes… and I see clearly!"
Relieved that the pegasus was laughing, Sketch started tittering nervously, and then it grew into a full blown belly laugh. All of the negative emotion he had been feeling in the past few days seemed to dissolve in the wake of the laughter that he and Ditzy shared. When the laughter began to die down, he realized that both of them had fallen to the ground.
Ditzy took a deep breath and then asked, "Wait… what were we laughing about again?"
"Oh, nothing important," Sketch said rising to his hooves again and wiping tears from his eyes. "What is important is figuring out how to save Ponyville."
"Right," Ditzy said, straightening up and trying to look serious, though Sketch was doubtful that the pegasus could ever look truly serious. "So… how do we do it?"
"First we have to figure out what's wrong. Princess Luna said she thinks something magical is causing everyone to act weird. And it started when my parents came into town."
"Are your parents unicorns?"
"No. The only way they could do magic would be… would be if…" A bit of information from one of Twilight Sparkle's books floated up from his memory and then the answer came crashing down on Sketch like a bunch of apples. It had been there in front of him the whole time. For years, actually. "That's it!" he cried out loud, startling Ditzy so much that she jumped into the air and hovered there for a moment.
"What is?"
"It's my father's fault! And I know how he's doing it! All these years and I never realized it…" He glanced up. "Ditzy, I need you do something important."
"Uh-oh…"
"It's simple, I promise. No swooping involved. I need you to fly to the library and bring Spike back here with you. Tell him he needs to bring a book with him." Sketch told Ditzy the name of the book and made her repeat it several times before she saluted him and took off, crashing through a tangle of branches and sending down a shower of twigs and leaves.
Alone with his thoughts, Sketch sat down on his haunches and began to do some thinking, when he heard rustling from somewhere to his left. "Ditzy?" he called, thinking maybe the pegasus had crashed again and gotten lost.
"Nope," came a familiar voice followed by three familiar faces. "Just the Cutie Mark Crusaders."
"Apple Bloom! Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle! What are you girls doing here? Wait," he said before they could answer. "Let me guess – a certain princess of the nocturne sent you here."
"Uh… if ya mean Princess Luna, then yes," Apple Bloom answered, the other two fillies nodding.
"And you ponies haven't been affected? No, of course not," he answered his own question. "You're just fillies. My father has no business to conduct with you."
"What's wrong with everypony, Sketch?" Sweetie Belle asked, a tone of worry in her voice. "My big sister has been acting so weird lately."
"So has Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo added.
"And ma sis," Apple Bloom said. "But… you already knew that."
"Yeah," Sketch said, thinking of the way Applejack had glared at him the previous day. "But it's not their fault. They're under an enchantment."
"So what can we do?" Scootaloo asked, steeling herself up as if she was preparing to run a race. "We're ready for anything!"
"Is anything new going on in town? Anything I should know about?"
"Yeah, yer dad is doing some sorta announcement 'r something," Apple Bloom answered.
"A press conference," muttered Sketch. "Typical dad. But…" A slow smile spread over his face. "Perfect for ending all of this. Apple Bloom, girls, here's what you have to do. Go back to the farm. Go up into my studio. There's a painting there I want you to bring back to me." He described it to the Crusaders and they were off in an instant, their red capes trailing behind them.
Sketch watched the fillies head through the forest. A plan was forming in his head. "It's time to get creative," he said to himself.