//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Betrothed and Betrayed 
// by Nightwings81 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash completed her third circuit of the camp and sat back on her haunches, satisfied that everything was still quiet and peaceful. In fact, it was too quiet. Ever since Applejack had awakened her for her shift—rather roughly too, she thought…she’d only asked for ten more minutes—she’d kept an eye out for danger and had been nearly bored out of her mind.
At least something slightly interesting had happened to Applejack. Before she’d gone back to sleep, the earth pony had said that she’d heard enormous wing beats about an hour into her shift and had looked up through the trees to see a giant shadow blot out the stars. She speculated that it may have been the roc Fluttershy had mentioned. 
Whatever it had been, it hadn’t come back. Rainbow Dash had heard nothing larger than a frog calling from a nearby stream and the light popping of the coals in their fire. Sitting in the dark, she had mentally gone over her entire aerial stunt routine several times, even making a few modifications that she would try out as soon as she had enough clear sky. Then she had quietly sung all the songs on the latest album of her favorite band, Stratosphere. As the hours crept by, she had tried sitting, lying down, kneeling, and even perching in one of the surrounding trees…but she was not a pony who could stay still for any extended length of time. 
At last, she had come up with the brilliant idea of making periodic circuits of the camp’s perimeter. This let her expend her pent up energy and stretch her wings while still doing the task set her.
Now, the sky was gradually growing lighter and she didn’t need the light of the fire to see. Her friends slept on and Rainbow Dash saw no reason to wake them until it daylight had truly broken. Instead, she collected the canteens they had with them and trotted through the trees to the stream she had heard.
It was more of a creek than a stream—little more than a narrow ribbon of water bubbling and gurgling merrily over mossy rocks. It had probably shrunk due to the summer heat, for the blue pegasus could see where it had originally flowed. 
Still, there was enough to fill all the canteens to the brims and to splash on her face, mane, and wings, washing away the dust of the day before. Like any good flyer, she knew the importance of keeping her wings neat and tidy.
The birds were just beginning to sing in the morning when she made her way back to the camp. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were still asleep, but Fluttershy was awake and talking to a mouse sitting on her hoof, while Twilight Sparkle was just sitting up and blinking sleepily.
“Rainbow!” an angry voice with a country twang snapped behind her. Rainbow jumped and spun around to find Applejack glaring at her.
“Uh, morning?” she asked.
“Just where in tarnation have you been? You were supposed to be watchin’ the camp.”
“I did! Everything was fine, so I went and got us all fresh water.” She shrugged off the canteens, letting them fall onto the carpet of pine needles at Applejack’s feet. “I even did a complete perimeter flight before I left. There was nothing out there to worry about.”
Applejack’s green eyes dropped to the canteens, now dripping with condensation, and she gave her friend an apologetic grin.
“Sorry, Rainbow. Ah didn’t mean to bite your head off—just been awful nervous over that thing Ah saw last night.”
“Whatever it was, it never came back. I didn’t see anything at all—just chillax.”
“Ah’m a tryin’, Ah swear.” She bent down to pick up three of the canteens. “Where’d you find the water?”
“A little stream about fifty yards over there.” Rainbow gathered the rest of the canteens and pointed. “It’s almost gone dry…but there was enough to fill up.”
“Was there enough for a bath?” Rarity suddenly asked. She had awakened in time to hear Rainbow’s last statement and stood up excitedly. “You look like you washed up a bit and it would be so nice to be rid of all this icky road dust.” She held up a hoof and stared dismally at the beige tint to her usually pristine white coat.
“It’s just back that way. You can’t miss it if you follow your ears.”
With a squeal of delight, the unicorn fetched a bar of soap from her bags and cantered through the trees.
“Ah guess somepony should wake Pinkie Pie so we can get going as soon as Rarity gets back.” 
Twilight stood up with a groan and stretched, her back cracking audibly. “Ow! Oh…good morning. How did everypony sleep?”
“Like a rock, Twi,” Applejack said with a knowing grin. “How ‘bout you?”
“On a rock, I think. At least that’s how my back feels.” She stretched again with another loud pop and Pinkie Pie snapped her blue eyes open.
“Ooh! Is somepony making popcorn?” she asked, bouncing upright and instantly awake. “I love popcorn!”
“Nope,” Rainbow quipped. “Just Twilight going snap, crackle, ow.”
“Why would you do that, Twilight? Are you writing a song? Ooh, will you sing it to us?”
“Sorry, Pinkie, there’s no song…I’m just trying to…” The unicorn arched her back, throwing her head backwards until the tip of her horn touched her withers. They all heard another loud crack. “There! That’s better!” She shook vigorously. “I’m just not used to sleeping on the ground. I guess if we’d had more time I could have read up on the subject.”
“Honestly, Twi—nothin’ makes sleepin’ on the ground easy ‘cept utter exhaustion.”
“Breakfast time!” Her stomach growling, Rainbow Dash made her way to her saddlebags and flipped them open for the rest of her sandwich. “Hey!” 
The sandwich was gone. She pawed through the contents, knowing she had placed it right on the top last night, but all she found was a single, loose sprout. 
“What’s wrong, Sugarcube?”
“My sandwich is gone! I put it right here last night!” She lifted her head, magenta eyes narrowed. “It’s been stolen! Someone must have snuck into camp last night and taken it. I know it wasn’t during my watch—so it must have been one of yours! What did you see? What did you hear? What else did it take?”
Applejack gasped. “Mah apples!” She rushed to her own bags, breathing a sigh of relief when she found all her supplies intact.
“Oh…actually, Rainbow Dash…it was, um…me.”
The blue pony whirled around to face her fellow pegasi. “You?”
Fluttershy held up the little mouse, which waved a miniscule paw at Rainbow Dash. “This is Gumdrop. He looks small, but he gets really, really hungry. He already ate all of my sandwich so…well,” the pony’s voice dropped to a whisper, “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“A mouse?” Rainbow goggled the tiny creature. “That teensy little thing ate my whole sandwich?”
“Well…it was just a half…”
Rainbow Dash began to laugh, unable to stay angry at Fluttershy for long when a dragon wasn’t involved. Finding any laughter contagious, Pinkie Pie joined in.
“Hahaha! That’s so funny because he’s so itty bitty! Hehehehe!”
“You all don’t mind if Gumdrop comes with us, do you?” Fluttershy asked softly, passing the mouse to Rainbow. “He’s scared to be by himself and he says he likes us.” To prove this, Gumdrop kissed the provider of his breakfast on the nose and Rainbow Dash melted into uncharacteristic cooing.
“Ah got no problem with the mouse, Sugarcube…long as he don’t like apples too much.”
Gumdrop squeaked and shook his head.
“Well, that certainly was no treatment at the spa, but I guess it was better than nothing.” Rarity came back, her mane wet, but her coat glowing white again. “At least it was refreshing…now, anypony for some breakfast?”
She looked perplexed as her friends all fell into gales of laughter, but took it in stride with a shrug and set about styling her hair back into its elaborate curls.
**
They reached the tiny village of Shirevale three uneventful days later, Rainbow Dash spotting smoking chimneys and the thatched tops of small houses during one of her aerial checks of their position. Swooping down from the cloudless sky and folding her wings, she broke into a trot beside Twilight.
“Place seems pretty quiet…I didn’t see many ponies.”
“They’re probably all hiding away inside to escape this dreadful heat,” Rarity complained. Her mane was frizzing despite all her efforts and it was making her miserable. 
“How much further, Rainbow?” Twilight wanted to know.
“Couple of miles. The trail’s gonna fork soon…we have to go right to reach the village.”
“Ooh! This is exciting! All those new ponies to meet!” Pinkie Pie bounced along the trail, unbothered by the heat, dust, or the long miles of unbroken forest they had traversed. “Maybe they’ll throw us a welcoming party! I could give them some ideas. I wonder if they’ll have balloons and streamers and confetti…I suppose I could lend them some of mine!”
“Let’s just play it by ear, Sugarcube. These are workin’ ponies all the way out here. They wanna eat somethin’ they have to grow it themselves. They’re probably all busy in the fields.”
“Boring! That means they’re probably desperate for a good party.”
“I at least hope they have some supplies we can buy from them,” Twilight said. “We’re almost out of food and I haven’t really seen much that we can eat in these woods.”
Following Rainbow’s directions, the ponies made their way towards the village. After a mile, they noted that the trees were thinning considerably, shrinking down to thin saplings before being replaced by shoulder-high bushes covered in large blueberries.
“Ooh! These look good!” Pinkie Pie edged up to a bush, licking her lips.
“Don’t even think about it, Sugarcube!” Applejack hurried to put herself between the pink pony and the bushes, bumping Pinkie Pie backwards a step.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, Pinkie…but these aren’t wild berries. Somepony’s planted them, and we can’t take their crop without askin’, now can we?”
Pinkie sighed and looked regretfully at the purplish fruit. “I guess not. Even if they do look super duper yummy.”
The bushes grew thicker and more regular. Soon they were trotting through neat rows that buzzed with bees and smelled wonderfully sweet and juicy.
“Looks like this used to be a meadow before ponies settled it,” Twilight observed. “There must have been wild blueberries here at some point and the ponies just cultivated them. It’s brilliant…”
“Oh, ew!” Rarity stopped and lifted her hoof, grimacing at the large purple splotch. “This had better not stain!”
“It’s alright, Rarity…it’s a really pretty color,” Fluttershy murmured. As she spoke, Gumdrop appeared from her hair and raced down her leg, squeaking joyously as he launched himself at a large, fallen berry. “Oh no, Gumdrop…don’t do that! Did you hear what Applejack said?” She scooped up the mouse, but couldn’t convince him to leave his berry behind.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Fluttershy…Ah don’t think one berry will make much of a difference.”
Rainbow Dash had been flying overhead, twenty feet up. Now she pulled up sharply, her eyes widening. “Uh oh!” Spinning head over tail, she dropped down swiftly to her friends. “Heads up, everypony…we’ve got company coming, and they don’t look like they want to throw us a party.”
“Really?” Pinkie asked. “Why not? Do you think it’s because they don’t have the balloons or cupcakes or—”
Rainbow Dash clapped a hoof over Pinkie’s mouth as four earth ponies approached down the main row of bushes, two carrying pitchforks and the third a scythe. The forth was unarmed, but the look on the beige stallion’s face was enough to tell the young mares that this was not exactly a welcoming party.
“Stop where you are!” the stallion ordered, coming to a halt before them. His companions continued around the six, taking up positions on the sides and behind their clumped group. “Who are you? What is your business here?”
Twilight glanced at her friends, then took a slight step forward. One of the pitchfork ponies pointed the sharpened prongs at her and she froze, swallowing hard.
“Uh, h-hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends—Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash.” She indicated each pony in turn. “We’re from Ponyville and we’re on a very important mission from Princess Celestia. Um…” She glanced nervously at the pitchfork hovering uncomfortably close to her throat. “Wh-who are you?”
“I’m Bramble, reeve of Shirevale.” His dark green eyes surveyed them all sternly. “Ponyville? That is a long way from here…you’ve been traveling the forest? Just the six of you?”
“Yes sir. On an urgent quest, as I said. We were hoping to purchase some supplies for the rest of our trip.”
Bramble’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “The rest of your trip? There is nothing past Shirevale, Miss Sparkle, but forest and mountains. Just where are you six headed?”
“Nothing past…?” Twilight looked to her friends again confusedly. Their map had shown several other villages between Shirevale and the Saddleback mountain borders. “I’m afraid I don’t…”
“Where are you headed?” Bramble pressed. The light grey mare with the pitchfork on their left raised it higher, her face contorting in a fierce grimace.
“Well, if you must know,” Rarity spoke up, her dark blue eyes flashing with indignation, “we are on our way to Saddellia to speak with the—goodness!”
“What in tarnation?” 
“Watch it!”
The Shirevale ponies had surged forward, their weapons raised. Rainbow Dash instinctively jumped skyward, managing to avoid the prongs of a pitchfork, but hovered helplessly as her friends were taken prisoner.
“Hey!” she shouted, shaking a hoof at Bramble. “Just what in the hay do you think you’re doing? You back off right now and let them go!” The scythe-wielding pony slashed his weapon at her, but she nimbly dodged just out of reach and stuck out her tongue at him.
Cautiously eyeing the pitchfork pointed her way, Rarity took a small step towards the stallion and batted her long, curved eyelashes. “Now, Mr. Bramble…I don’t think you understood us…we are on official business from her Highness, Princess Celestia and our mission is of the utmost impor—”
“Shut up!” Bramble snarled.
“Wh-what?” Rarity sputtered, stunned. “Of all the nerve!”
“Now you listen here…” Applejack began, putting herself between Bramble and Rarity. Her green eyes were flashing with anger. “We’ve come here all peaceable like…y’all got no call to treat us like this.”
“Yes!” Twilight added, her voice firming in the face of danger. “What’s the meaning of this? Why are you…are you threatening us?”
Bramble stared at them unflinching. Abruptly, he turned about and started walking through the blueberry bushes. “Scouter, Streamsinger—take their bags and bring them to the Vale,” he ordered. “All of them. And if that pegasus tries to get away…”
“I’m not going anywhere without my friends!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, insulted by the suggestion that she would abandon the others to save herself. She followed close, still flying out of reach, as their saddlebags were taken from them and they were marched through the rows to the small collection of huts and house that made up Shirevale.
Two dozen earth ponies in muted shades of grey, beige, and pale green, had gathered in what appeared to be the town square to see them arrive. A flurry of gasps and whispers assailed their ears, and they couldn’t mistake the fear lurking in the wide eyes that watched them.
“Just what in the hay is goin’ on here, Twi?” Applejack whispered.
The unicorn shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. But they sure reacted badly when we said we were headed to Saddellia.”
Bramble led them to a rundown building in the center of the village, one that was hardly bigger than the library tree she called home back in Ponyville. Their weapon-wielding vanguard flanked them as the reeve gestured to the stout doors.
“If what you say is true and you are on a mission from Princess Celestia herself, then you will respect our concerns and remain confined here until we have convened our village council.” He glanced pointedly upwards at Rainbow Dash. “All of you.”
Twilight looked from the reeve to the building and back again. Standing straight, she said, “If we comply with your wishes, will you explain what is going on here and why you are forcibly detaining us?”
Her brave words seemed to strike a note with the stallion. He met her eyes and nodded. “You have my word.” Stepped back, he raised a hoof to the door. “If you will…”
Twilight looked to the friends and sighed. “I guess we have no choice.” Holding her head high, she walked into the building, followed by an oddly subdued Pinkie Pie and a nervous Fluttershy. Rarity took a moment to glare at the Shirevale ponies before flipping her tail and striding into the hut with a disgusted hmmph!
“C’mon, Rainbow. You heard Twilight.”
“Yeah, I did.” The pegasus swooped down to land beside Applejack, her brows furrowed angrily as she shrugged out of her own saddlebags. “And we’ll keep her promise…but they’d better keep theirs too.” She glared at the Shirevalers and trotted into the building.
Applejack hesitated a moment, looking at the dull-colored ponies. “We honestly mean y’all no harm,” she said before following her friends.
The door was slammed shut behind them, the distinctive sound of a bar falling across the front to lock them in.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected.” Rarity shucked her saddlebags and sat on her haunches to take in their surroundings. 
The hut appeared to have been a meeting hall of sorts, but had obviously fallen into disuse. There was a distinct sheen of dust coating the hewn planks of the bare floor and thick cobwebs hanging from the rafters. Two windows were cut into each side wall. They let in ample sunlight, but were fitted with wooden crossbars that kept the ponies from escaping.
“Ooh, these are pretty!” Pinkie Pie said, trotting down the length of the room to look at an array of faded murals painted on the walls. They showed the history of Shirevale, from the settler ponies discovering the meadow in the forest, to their work clearing it for habitation, to their cultivation of the wild blueberry bushes that seemed to be their main crop.
“They were colorful when they came here,” Rarity pointed out, noting that the ponies on the first pictures were as vibrantly hued as she and her friends. “I wonder why they grew so...”
“Bland?”
“Dull?”
“Mean! I thought they were mean…especially when he told Rarity to shut up. He was nothing but a big mean old meany pants!”
“I’m sorry, girls, I hope it wasn’t because of Gumdrop and the blueberry. I tried to stop him, but I should have tried harder…it was all my fault.” Fluttershy held the little mouse in her hooves, rubbing her cheek against his. The mouse rolled his bright eyes and patted her nose.
“Oh, I’m sure it had nothing to do with that, darling. We stepped on more blueberries than that little mouse ate. I just don’t understand it. What would they have against Ponyville ponies?”
“I don’t think it’s because we’re from Ponyville, Rarity. They were standoffish from the start, but they didn’t get vicious until we told them we’re heading to Saddellia. There’s something going on here…these ponies, did you see their faces when we came into town?”
“They were scared,” Applejack said. “Like they thought we’d come to do ‘em harm or somethin’.”
Rainbow Dash was flying in front of one of the windows, peering out at the hamlet. “Two of them are standing right outside…with pitchforks.” She shook her multi-hued head angrily. “Ooh, just who do they think they are?”
“I’m sure they’ll realize they’ve made a big mistake once we’ve had a chance to state our mission.” Twilight laid down on the dirty floor. “So we just have to work out what we’re going to say, to prove to them that we only have the interest of Equestria at heart.”
The mares nodded and, with nothing better to do, relaxed beside they friend. An hour passed, then two. Pinkie Pie asked about a game of tic tac toe and a sing-along, but was gently rebuffed. Rarity tried to remove the berry stains from her coat. A third hour crept by with infinite slowness. Worry was replaced by boredom, then frustration, then anger. Applejack sat with her head lowered, gritting her teeth at the sound of Rainbow Dash’s impatiently tapping hoof and sporadic sighs. Unable to take it anymore, she jumped up and banged on the thick, wooden door with her hoof.
“Hey y’all out there! Enough is enough! We’re burnin’ daylight and we’ve got a lot of travelin’ to do!” She waited for a moment in ringing silence, then smacked the door again before running to the nearest window and looking out at the guarding farm ponies. “Hey, Ah’m talkin’ to you! We want to see the reeve! Where’s Bramble?”
“AJ!” 
“Ah’m tired of waitin’, Twi. This is ridiculous! We’re still in Equestria, for lansakes, and we’re bein’ held against our will and, Ah swear, if Ah have to listen to Rainbow tap her hoof on the floor for one more minute Ah’m gonna throw her across the room!”
“What!” Rainbow looked down at her bouncing hoof and consciously forced it to be still. “Well, you could have just said…”
“Ah’m sorry, Sugarcube. Ah ain’t mad at you…but if’n they don’t open this here door real soon, these Shirevale ponies are gonna get an example of patented Apple fam’ly applebuckin’.”
“Oh yes, Applejack, that would just work wonders to get us in their good graces,” Rarity said dryly as she examined a hoof.
“It’d prob’ly work better than your eyebattin’ charmy ways did.”
“Girls, please…fighting amongst ourselves isn’t going to fix anything.”
“You’re right, Twi…but neither is sitting here starin’ at one another until we go cross-eyed.” Applejack returned to the door and raised her hoof to knock again, but it opened before she could, revealing a thin, elderly mare with a grey mane and pale sepia coat. She wore a fringed vest with an elaborate collar embroidered with silvery-colored thread.
“Hello…my name is Checkerberry,” she said in a low, smooth voice. She stepped into the room and turned slightly sideways, revealing a cutie mark of a cluster of small red berries surrounded by a halo of dark green leaves. “I am Elder Dame of the Shirevale council. I’ve been sent to ask you some questions about this…mission you have mentioned. Who is the leader of this party?”
The ponies looked as one to Twilight Sparkle, who swallowed hard and climbed to her feet.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle of Canterlot and Ponyville, and these are my friends.” She introduced them all in turn and was pleased to see that the mare studied each of them for a moment, committing their names to memory. Buoyed by this, she continued, “We carry with us official documents from her Highness, Princess Celestia—they were in the bags that were taken from us. And we wish to know why the ponies of Shirevale have attacked and imprisoned us.”
“And threatened!” Applejack pointed out. “Don’t forget that…them ponies jabbed pitchforks at us and one even tried to knock Rainbow here out of the sky with a scythe!”
Checkerberry looked askance of Twilight Sparkle, who nodded gravely. The sepia mare shook her head and frowned. “I will apologize for Bramble and his patrol, Twilight Sparkle. Please know that he is a good pony and a dedicated reeve with Shirevale’s best interests at heart…but due to recent events, he has overreacted in this case.”
“What events are these, if I may ask?” Rarity queried. “It must have something to do with the Saddellians crossing over Equestrian borders, am I correct?”
“H-how…?” Checkerberry looked startled.
“It’s the reason we’re here, Checkerberry,” Twilight told her. “And the reason we are traveling on to Saddellia as soon as you let us go.”  
The sepia mare took a step back and gestured to the open door. “Please, if you will come with me, we will discuss this with the council over some lunch. I’m sure you must be hungry by now.”
“Oh boy! Lunch! I’m so hungry I could eat an ursa minor! Or maybe an ursa major!” Pinkie Pie bounced eagerly to the door. “Is there something bigger than an ursa major…like an ursa colonel or ursa general?” She shrugged. “Maybe not. I hope there’re blueberry muffins!”
They followed the council mare out of the hall into the street, where they were once again the subjects of intense scrutiny and awe. Several ponies even gasped when Rainbow Dash, glad to have open air and space around her again, sprang off the ground and flew just over the heads of her friends. 
“Look at their coats…and that one’s mane and tail! So bright!”
“Too bright, if you ask me. Almost garish.”
“Two of them are unicorns…”
“Oh, mama, look! She’s like a bird! Why can’t I do that?”
“Why does that one have a mouse on her head? And why doesn’t she fly like the other one? She has wings. If I had wings, I would fly!”
Rainbow Dash was flying low, parallel with her friends, when she felt a sudden sting on her rump. With a yelp, she shot skyward, turning to see a sand-colored filly winding the blue and green strands she had plucked from the pegasi’s tail through her blonde mane. 
“Ow!” Rainbow rubbed her sore bottom. “What gives! I didn’t say you could do that!”
The little filly waved up at her, smiling cheekily, and scampered away with her friends. Looking scandalized, Checkerberry hurriedly shooed the other Shirevalians away and led her guests across the town square to a pretty house with flowers and carefully pruned bushes fencing in the front yard.
“This is my home. I’ll host you here for lunch. We felt it would be better to meet and talk in a more comfortable setting than the old hall—our town is so small that it rarely gets used and is dusty enough to show it.” She beckoned them into the house, glancing up wards at Rainbow Dash, who still flapped ten feet in the air. “It is safe to come down, Miss Dash—and I apologize for little Dusty’s dreadful behavior. She’s a brash and daring thing—gives her family no end of trouble.”
“Hah! Sounds like a certain pegasus we all know and love,” Applejack joked.
“Very funny.” Rainbow performed a small backwards loop and landed beside the earth pony, following closely behind as they went inside.
The interior of the house was simple, but clean, bright, and well kept. Though the walls were roughly hewn planks, the elderly pony had covered them in pretty, abstract patterns woven from twigs and differently colored grasses, and had lined the shelves with delicate knickknacks and colored glass bottles. Ushering them through the small kitchen, Checkerberry bid them make themselves comfortable in a small parlor furnished with cushioned log couches.
Four ponies were already present in the room. Twilight and her friends recognized Bramble immediately. The others were a dark brown stallion, a straw-colored mare, and an older stallion with a charcoal grey coat and flaxen mane. He nodded to them and raised a wrinkled hoof to indicate the empty coach across from his.
As she sat down, Twilight noticed their confiscated saddlebags piled beside the other couch—her own sat at the top of the pile, the flap open to reveal her maps, supplies, and the official, stamped scrolls Celestia had sent her. She opened her mouth to protest, but the grey waved his hoof at her and spoke first.
“Ladies, my name is Brookstone, and these are Turfkicker and Chamomile. Please allow me to apologize for your earlier treatment and…incarceration. We were told that you’re traveling under order from her Highness, Princess Celestia, and this,” he held up one of the scrolls with Celestia’s royal seal, “corroborates your claim. Let it be said that it was never our intent to go against the decree of the princess. Please allow us to explain?”
Applejack plopped onto the cushions between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie as Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash arranged themselves on the braided carpet. “We’re listenin’,” she said.
Checkerberry appeared with cups of cooled barley water which she passed around as Brookstone cleared his throat.
“As you have probably realized, Shirevale is a very small village and what we have we generally build or grow for ourselves. We only see a merchant from the larger towns once a year or so. Yet we do trade with our nearest neighboring villages.
“Recently, one of our trader ponies struck out for Ivy Lanes with a shipment of blueberries to trade for honey and barley oats—but he returned almost immediately with a horrible tale. The town had been attacked and nearly a dozen of their strongest young colts and mares had been violently ponynapped.”
“The ponies left behind recognized their attackers as Saddellians, and they had come from over the Saddlebacks,” Chamomile spoke up softly. “The ones who weren’t taken said they’d had no warning—the Saddellians came down on them in the early dawn. They took ample food supplies from the village along with the captives, but no other goods, trinkets, or treasures.”
“That was two months ago,” Turfkicker said, snorting through his nose. “Since then, we’ve learned that two of the other villages within a few days ride of us have also been attacked, with more young ponies stolen. So you can imagine our concern when six strangers trot up to our village, bold as day, and announce that they’re on their way to Saddellia.”
Twilight exchanged glances with her friends, then lowered her eyes sadly. “The Saddellians are taking captives for slaves,” she murmured. “Five days ago, I received notice from Princess Celestia that one of those captive ponies managed to escape and made his way to Canterlot. That is why we are here—we’ve been asked to travel to Saddellia and bring a peace treaty to the royal family to stop these attacks and ponynappings.
Turfkicker snorted again, the sound unmistakably rude. 
“You’re joking! Look at you! You’re all hardly more than fillies! Why would the princess send a group of pretty little girls to do such an important job?”
Applejack drew in an indignant breath and Rainbow Dash’s wings snapped up angrily, but Rarity beat them both, rising to her hooves and snapping, “Excuse me, sir, but I don’t see what being young or a girl has to do with anything!” She waved a white hoof at her friends. “We may be small, we may be young…and we are most certainly pretty…but that hardly makes us weak and helpless. Together, we have faced down a manticore and a dragon and defeated Nightmare Moon. Twilight has even subdued a raging ursa minor all on her own. Have you ever done that?” 
While the stallion tried to stammer a reply through his shock, Twilight Sparkle levitated one of the princess’s scrolls from her bags and turned it so the royal wax seal was clearly visible.
“The princess obviously trusts us with this task, as you can see from the seal here. And we would have explained our mission had your reeve given us half a chance before he started pointing pitchforks at us.”
Bramble closed his eyes briefly, frowning and shaking his head. “It is my duty as reeve to protect Shirevale. One of the ponies taken from Ivy Lanes was a cousin of mine. I wasn’t able to help her, but I will not allow any of the citizens here to meet the same fate. As far as I’m concerned, all strangers are enemies until they have been proven otherwise.
“Bramble! Please!” Checkerberry tried to interject.
“No! You didn’t see my aunt and uncle crying over Thistledown, Checkerberry. You didn’t see the empty storerooms and trampled fields. It’s hard enough eking out a life here on the outskirts of the kingdom with wolves and crop failures and long winters without having to deal with ponynapping raiders as well. And now our so called princess, who is supposed to have our best interests at heart, can’t even stir herself from her glorious castle and sends out a gaggle of giggling fillies who are more concerned with keeping their hooves polished tha—” 
“Now wait just a minute here!” Rainbow Dash launched herself from the floor and flew straight across the room until she and Bramble were eye to glaring eye. “Just where do you get off talking about us and the princess like that? You don’t know us and what we’re capable of…and you sure as hay don’t know the princess. If you did, you’d know that she would have come out here in the blink of an eye if she could, but gee…she kinda has that pesky job of RAISING AND LOWERING THE SUN to worry about too!” As she spoke, the enraged pegasus flapped closer and closer to the Shirevale pony, her wingbeats so hard they stirred up a breeze that tossed her mane and stung Bramble’s eyes. The log couch on which he sat tipped backwards precariously as he tried to get away from her.  
“Okay, Rainbow…that’s enough!” Applejack caught her friend’s tail in her mouth and dragged the pegasus backwards. Rainbow strained against her for a moment longer, then plunked onto her haunches beside the orange earth pony. Her wings stayed raised as she continued to glare daggers at the reeve.
“M-maybe we all need a bite of dinner to calm us down a bit,” Brookstone said hesitantly. “Checkerberry, what have you prepared for us?”
To Pinkie Pie’s delight, dinner consisted of blueberry muffins with honeyed butter, a tossed salad of mixed greens with a blueberry vinaigrette dressing, and a blueberry crème trifle for dessert. As they ate, the six listened in stunned horror while Turfkicker described a scouting party he had led to the tiny hill village of Rocktown. When he’d gotten there, he’d found that, like Ivy Lanes, the raiders had struck and carried off all of the younger ponies out of foalhood. Only the tiniest of fillies and colts and the elderly had been left behind to care for the needs of the town. Because of this, Shirevale feared that they would soon find the raiders at their own doorsteps and they had taken drastic measures to protect themselves.
“But we’re still only farm ponies,” Checkerberry explained. “And from the stories we’ve been told, these raiders are all warriors and well armed. If they come here, I don’t know how we’ll manage to defend ourselves and our kin with only pitchforks and harvest tools.”
“I’ll fight them with my bare hooves if I have to,” Bramble growled.
“Hopefully you won’t have to—if we’re able to come to an agreement with the Saddellians then these attacks will cease and all the prisoners will be released.”
Brookstone shook his flaxen-maned head sadly. “You seem like a bright, brave pony, Twilight Sparkle. All of you do, in fact—but I don’t think you realize what you’re getting yourselves into.”
“How do you mean, sir?” Rarity asked.
“Saddellia isn’t like Equestria. They are all earth ponies there, but they will be even more surprised than we were to see pegasi and unicorns. And that king of theirs…he’s got a genuine cruel streak in him. He rules with an iron hoof and doesn’t believe in giving his subjects a say in the governance of his kingdom. I don’t see how he will take kindly to six strangers telling him to change his ways.”
“Oh, but we’ll be coming to him from Princess Celestia,” Fluttershy murmured. She was feeding Gumdrop tiny bits of muffin as she listened in. 
Brookstone stared at her for a long time before speaking again. “I don’t think that will matter to him…and that kind of naïve thinking will only serve to get you girls into trouble. What will you do if the king refuses to even see you? Or worse, if he orders you taken prisoner with all the other slaves?”
Oddly, it was Pinkie Pie who answered him. She gobbled down her fifth muffin, wiped the crumbs from her mouth, and announced, “We’ve been through bad stuff before…we can’t get through anything when we stick together.”
Her friends all smiled at her, their eyes shining, but Brookstone did not look convinced. He sighed heavily and turned to the other council members, his eyebrows raised. One by one, they all nodded at him, though from Bramble the nod was quite grudging. Slowly, the grey stallion looked back to the young mares.
“We have determined that we have no cause to keep you here or from this quest, futile though it may be. We will provide you will beds for tonight and supplies on the morrow to see you on your way.”
“Thank you!” Twilight leapt from the couch and shook the stallion’s hoof. “And we promise we will do our best to end these raids and bring back all the captured ponies to their families.”
The grey council stallion smiled uneasily. “I hope that you do, Miss Sparkle. For your sakes and ours. I hope you do.”
**
They spent the night in Shirevale, put up in the homes of three families eager to have the distinction of hosting emissaries of the princess. The next morning, they prepared to set out again with packs now laden with blueberry-themed supplies and a new map of the land between Shirevale and the Saddleback foothills. The Shirevale ponies all turned out to see them off, though they seemed less than convinced that the six Elements of Harmony would be able to put an end to the raids.
Even Bramble made an appearance, though he kept a sneer on his face while Brookstone gave them last minute directions and advice. The sneer vanished, however, when Rainbow Dash and Rarity approached to tell him they would watch out for his missing cousin and do whatever they could to send her home again. His face crumpled as he whispered his thanks.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you. I’m just so worried about her. She’s no older than you two…and she’s my aunt and uncle’s only foal. I never meant to insult you or the princess.”
“Rainbow, Rarity! Get the lead out, we’re burnin’ daylight!” Applejack called.
The two turned away, but Bramble stepped in front of them, his green eyes worried. “Be careful…all of you. Brookstone was telling the truth about their king.”
The unicorn and pegasus exchanged looks, but nodded in unison and hurried to join their friends.
With the smell of ripe blueberries hanging in the air, they galloped away from Shirevale, to be quickly swallowed up by the dark gloom of the forest.
They pushed themselves hard, now knowing the severity of their quest and desperate to make up lost time. Within four days, the landscape and forest around them changed, the ground becoming rockier and too dangerous for steady galloping. The familiar oaks and maples vanished, replaced by conifers and a strange type of tree with shiny, star-shaped leaves that were blue on the top and a dark indigo on the bottom. The bark was smooth and silvery, the trunks straight and growing more than ten feet tall before they branched out into spreading boughs. 
By the fifth day, there was no mistaking that the ground was sloping steadily upwards as the foothills gave way to mountains. Brookstone’s map proved very useful in navigating the easiest of the faint trails and valleys and they were able to supplement their supplies with the local berries and grass, but when the moon rose each night the ponies found themselves exhausted and missing the comforts of their homes.
They entered a wide, tree-lined valley on the sixth day after leaving Shirevale that had a floor level enough to make travel relatively easy. Buoyed by the last of their blueberry muffins, Pinkie Pie had returned to her high spirits, bouncing back and forth between her friends and singing a song of her own making—
“Over and away we go
Gotta go fast, we hate moving slow
Bushes, rocks and great big trees
Mountains tall and deep valleys
We march along to my—”
The pink pony suddenly froze in mid-bounce, her hooves remaining suspended in the air for a moment before slowly coming back to the earth. She tilted her head to the side, ears swiveling forward and blue eyes staring straight ahead.
“Pinkie? Are you alright?” Twilight stopped beside her friend, looking at her curiously.
“Ah always suspected something like this would happen one day, Ah just never guessed Ah’d be around to see it! Look here, girls, Ah think Pinkie Pie has finally run out of energy.”
“I highly doubt that.” Twilight waved a hoof in front of her bubbly friend’s eyes. “Hello in there! Earth to Pinkie Pie!”
Pinkie Pie blinked and gave Twilight a confused look. 
“Didn’t you girls hear that?”
“Hear what?” Rainbow asked from ten feet overhead.
“It sounded like somepony was shouting or laughing or something.”
Applejack laughed brightly. “Sugarcube, Ah think you’re letting this little ol’ forest play games with your mind. Ah heard nothin’.”
“Neither did I,” Rarity confirmed.
“No, sorry, Pinkie. I didn’t hear anything either, but I was talking to Gumdrop and maybe missed it. He liked your song, by the way.”
Pinkie Pie frowned slightly, then shrugged it off with her usual aplomb, especially when Rainbow Dash distracted her by pulling the blue and purple leaves off the trees and dropping them down into her hair, chanting, “She’s random, she’s random not, she’s random…” This made the perky pony giggle and she swatted them from the air with her bright pink tail.
“I…I hope this is the right direction.” Twilight stopped to peer at her map, then squinted at the brilliant landscape around them. “These trails are so vague…I hope we aren’t drifting too much—Rainbow, maybe you should fly up to the canopy and take another look aro—”
The wind shifted suddenly, rustling the leaves on the trees and bringing the group of mares a sound that definitely did not belong in a forest.
“There! I definitely heard something that time!” Pinkie cried. She looked around at her friends, saw that they had heard it too, and bounced in place. “I told you, I told you! Someone’s out there laughing!”
“Uh…I don’t think that was a laugh, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said. She had stopped moving forward and was hovering in place. Now she came down slowly to land beside the pink pony and put a hoof on her back to still her bouncing. Cocking her rainbow-maned head to the side, she listened closely.
Crickets…reeds knocking together in the breeze…a bird singing in a tree…and an unmistakable scream for help.
“There!” she pointed a hoof into the trees to their left.
“Ah heard it too, Sugarcube! Sounds like somepony’s in big trouble.”
“Rainbow Dash—”
“On it!” The pegasus had already leapt into the air and was flapping rapidly towards the source of the cry. Dimly she heard Twilight Sparkle calling after her, “We’ll catch up with you! Be careful!”
Rainbow Dash shot through the forest, zipping nimbly between trees and bushes with a speed that turned her into a cyan blur. When she had flown a mile, she paused briefly to cup an ear with her hoof. The scream came again, much louder and from straight ahead. She darted forward, forelegs outstretched for maximum speed, and finally broke free of the trees into a small clearing before a towering cliff.
Pulling up short in the air, the pony tried to take in the scene before her, but could make no sense of it.
“What in the—whoa!” She shot upwards as an utterly disgusting, flat face loaded with sharp teeth leapt up from the ground and snapped at her dangling tail. Leveling out at a safe height, she stared down at the…thing, her magenta eyes wide with a mixture of horror and amazement.
The creature was like nothing she had ever seen before. As she stared, she could only think that it had somehow been pieced together with leftover parts from other animals. The hind legs were too short for the body and oddly bowed, giving it a squat and slanted appearance. The forelegs were straight and thin and bony—almost too bony for the bloated body they needed to support. The head was a blunt triangle on a thick neck, with pointed ears, sickly yellow eyes spaced too close together, and a wide nose at the end of a wider snout that gaped open to reveal a jagged mouthful of teeth.
This hideous appearance was made even worse by the filthy, spotted fur that grew in irregular patches on its body, interspersed with bald areas of slimy looking, gray skin. A rank odor rose from the beast and Rainbow Dash gagged, covering her nose with her hoof.
“What in Celestia’s name are you?” she asked the thing. It responded by making a high pitched, yelping laugh and leaping at her again.
“Help me!”
Remembering her reason for coming this way in the first place, Rainbow Dash snapped her gaze towards the cliff and gasped. 
“Oh horseapples!”
A colt was standing on a small jut of stone partway up the cliff, just out of reach of three more of the leaping, slathering beasts. They continually jumped and scrabbled at the rocks, but their stiff forelegs and awkward bodies made climbing too difficult. In their frustration and blood lust, they were making an earsplitting cacophony of loud yelps, whistles, and the strange laughter that set Dash’s skin to crawling.
The colt yelled in fright as one of the beasts managed to get a paw hold on a crack in the rocks and snapped its jaws perilously close to his hoof before falling back to the ground. He scrambled backwards, but his ledge was hardly large enough to hold him. His hindquarters bumped against the wall of stone behind him and, desperate, he turned and reared, plastering himself against the cliff.
“Hang on!” Dash shouted, bucking in the air and diving at the beasts. Fearlessly, she circled the jumper, kicking sideways as she did and scoring a solid blow on its heavy jaw. The impact sent a jarring bolt up her leg, but the thing screeched and fell away. 
“Yes!”
Her moment of triumph was short lived, however. Another beast—this one sporting a badly torn ear—moved in quickly to take the place of the fallen.
Frowning determinedly, the pegasus spun a loop de loop in the air, a trail of rainbow colors following behind her, and rushed at Torn Ear. Rather than kick, she started flying in tight, rapid circles around the creature, moving faster and faster until the rainbow contrail connected and formed a funnel around the confused beast. The force of the air lifted it, barking and laughing in alarm, off the ground.
Rainbow altered her course slightly, carrying the beast over another brute—this one huge and covered with black splotches—then zipped free of the tornado and let one creature fall fifteen feet down onto the other.
Slightly dizzy from spinning, she stopped in midair, wings still flapping hard, and looked around to get her bearings. Three were now down, which just left the one that had tried to—
“Look out!”
A wave of stench and a guttural growl reached the hovering pony a split second before a fifth beast, this one a darker grey that had blended with the rocks, launched itself into the air at her unprotected back.
Rainbow Dash yipped and darted away, but still felt a flare of pain across her left flank, just below her cutie mark and trailing down her leg to her hock. Wincing, she glanced at her leg, her eyes first widening, then narrowing angrily at the jagged tear freely pulsing blood.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You did not just do that!” Whirling about, she dove straight to the foot of the cliff, where broken rocks and shards had fallen in irregular piles. She landed lightly, but her injured leg screamed with pain and nearly buckled even under her scant weight. 
Seeing her on the ground, the regrouping beasts perked up and abandoned their efforts to get the colt. As one, they rushed the blue pony, laughing ecstatically.
“There’s nothing funny about this!” Rainbow told them. She stooped and gathered an armful of loose stones, then rocketed back into the air with the forerunner of the beasts snapping at her heels. Blood dripped from her wound as she flew, some of it spattering on the faces of the creatures. They eagerly lapped it up with mottled black and grey tongues.
“Eww!” Dash exclaimed. “Oh, you deserve this!” She winged over the beasts and started pelting them with the stones, punctuating each throw and a shouted word. “You! Are! So! Gross!” Her aim was amazingly accurate and each rock that landed drew an agonized yelp from the monsters. Soon, they were racing spastically through the clearing, ducking their sloped haunches and snapping at one another. They showed absolutely no loyalty to their fellows or even much intelligence. Two ran headlong into one another, knocking themselves down, and a smaller, yellowish one ran straight into the trunk of a tree.
They were, however, smart enough to know where the rocks were coming from and, after a few moments of chaos, learned to run away from the blue pony. They were also unwilling to give up their prey. When Rainbow Dash eventually ran out of rocks, they immediately turned their bloodthirsty attention back to the colt.
He had moved to the edge of his small stone shelf to watch the scene with amazement. Now, as Torn Ear took a running leap towards him, he screamed again and flung himself backwards. In response, the five beasts threw themselves at the cliff, laughing, barking, and clawing their way higher than before.
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted indignantly. “Can’t you take a hint? Leave him alone!” She looked around for more rocks, but the ones she could reach were scattered about the clearing and the beasts were clumped too close to the cliff for her to risk landing there again.
As she cast about for something else she could use as a weapon or distraction, she heard voices calling her name from the treeline.
“Over here!” she shouted as loudly as she could. “Watch out! These things play dirty!”
Twilight Sparkle and Applejack were the first two on the scene and they took in the danger with looks of shock that quickly turned to determination.
“Rainbow, you get him out of there!” Twilight called out. “We’ll fend them off!”
Rainbow Dash saluted in midair and hurried to the rock ledge, landing nimbly on the lip and kicking a basketball-sized rock down on the black-spotted beast. She smiled with satisfaction as it scampered away.
“Hey y’all, over here now!” Applejack flung herself at the beasts, her lasso out and whirling through the air with a shrill whistle. It looped around the back legs of the smallest beast—the scrawny, yellowish thing—and tightened. The beast lost its balance and fell, yelping.  
“Yeehaw!” Applejack shouted, dragging it across the ground. Twilight leapt over the prostrate beast and galloped ahead, horn glowing.
“Go get ‘em!” Rainbow shouted encouragingly, then turned her attention to the trapped colt. He had turned back to the cliff and pressed himself as close to the stone as possible, his eyes squeezed shut and his entire body trembling. “Hi! Let’s get out of here while—hey!” Rainbow had tapped him on the shoulder and had to duck when the colt flailed a hoof and nearly clipped her across the nose.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! I’ll fall and they’ll get me!”
“Knock it off! Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”
But the colt had slipped over the brink into hysteria. He refused to look at the pegasus or step away from the wall.
Rainbow Dash groaned and dropped her head in disgust. “Why does everypony have to do things the hard way?” Lifting off, she spat on her hooves and rubbed them together, then latched her forelegs around the colt’s middle. With a powerful heave only accomplished with the help of her wings, she wrenched the colt away from the wall and dropped off the edge. “Off we go!”
The colt screamed loudly as Rainbow lifted them high into the air. He thrashed and fought, almost slipping out of her grasp when his hoof finally did connect with her face and the pain made her arms loosen slightly.
“Ow! Will you quit that!”
The colt responded by screaming even louder until she managed to renew her grasp on him. He opened his eyes and looked down, tensing when he spotted Rainbow’s friends looking very small far below as they battled the creatures. His forelegs clamped tightly onto hers, pressing them against his chest.
“High! We’re so high!”
“Well, duh! We’re sorta flying right now, in case you didn’t notice.”
“We’re going to fall!”
Rainbow couldn’t help but laugh. “No, we’re not! I’ve got you.”
The colt didn’t believe her. He began to thrash again. “Put me down! Put me down now! Don’t drop me!”
“I’m not going to—watch it! Stop kicking! Hey! Hey! HEY! Look at me!”
Trembling, the colt hesitantly turned his head to look at her. His mouth dropped open as he met her magenta and rose-colored eyes and he went limp in her arms.
“That’s better!” Rainbow Dash smiled and tilted her head, unaware that doing so put her in an errant ray of sunlight that backlit her rainbow mane with a golden aura. “I’m not going to drop you.” Her smile took on a trace of smugness. “You’re talking to the reigning Best Young Flyer in Equestria.”
“But…but…”
“But nothing! Trust me and keep still. I’d never drop any pony, I promise.”
“I…uh, alright, Miss…Miss…”
“Rainbow Dash,” she said absently, looking down into the clearing. “We’re just gonna hang up here for a few minutes while my friends finish up down there. Ooh! Nice kick, Rarity!”
The colt tore his eyes from her and followed her gaze downwards. He gulped, caught in a wave of vertigo, and tightened his grip on the blue pony’s forelegs. Far below, they could make out Applejack standing over two of the beasts, which seemed to have been hogtied, while Rarity launched herself over Pinkie Pie’s back to kick the little yellow beast over.
“They…they’re winning!” The colt sounded amazed. 
“Uh huh. You should see us against a full grown dragon!” Rainbow Dash’s pride in her friends was evident in her voice.
“It’s just…just amazing! And what you did with that funnel thing…”
“That? That was nothing…just a souped up version of my Rainblow Dry, but I guess it must have looked pretty awesome to you. Got some good airtime on the thing, didn’t I? Oh…looks like they got them all down…there aren’t more than five of those things, are there? That one hiding in the rocks kinda took me by surprise.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good. My arms are getting tired.” When the male pony tensed in horror, Rainbow Dash giggled. “Just kidding. Down we go.”
She lowered him to the ground slowly and landed a few feet from where her friends stood in a loose circle around two of the bound beasts. Two more lay on the ground, unconscious, and the fifth seemed to have run away.
“What are these things?” Applejack was asking as they touched down. She nudged one of the prone beasts with a hoof, her nose wrinkled in distaste. “They stink worse than a pile of year old fertilizer.”
“They’re called hyleenas,” the colt told them, his voice much calmer now that he was back on the ground. “They’re nothing but vicious, disgusting, mindless brutes that will kill and eat anything they catch and live in caves filled with filth.” When the group of mares stared at him, he dropped into a low, graceful bow. “And I must thank you for saving me from them. If you hadn’t arrived when you did…” He turned to face Rainbow Dash. “Especially you, my beautiful lady. You have saved my life this day and I am truly in your debt.”
Rainbow Dash blinked her wide eyes, taken aback, and gave a nervous little chuckle. “That’s okay. A pony in need and all…”
“Oh, much more than that, my lady. Please, allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed low again before the startled mares. “My name is Prince Linden of Saddellia, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”