//------------------------------// // Prologue Part 2 // Story: A Black Belt in a Colorful Land // by DismantledAccount //------------------------------// Prologue Part 2 Ditzy Doo was late for work, again. When she finally opened her her eyes it was ten thirty in the morning, Ditzy was supposed to be at work by nine to pick up the mail for her route. So when she looked at the clock she didn't just jump out of bed, she jumped straight up using her wings and hitting her head on the ceiling. Ouch, that was stupid. Ditzy thought, as she lowered herself to the floor. She rubbed the top of her head trying to figure out if it was bad enough to be an excuse for coming in late, deciding it just might, she ran downstairs to get breakfast. Realizing she didn't have time for a full breakfast she grabbed a blueberry muffin while silently cursing her faulty alarm clock. She grabbed her mailbags, her postal workers hat, and her muffin and flew out of her small house not even bothering to lock the door. I really wish I had a cloud house like Rainbow Dash. She thought, pulling her muffin out of her bag, But the thing, is building a cloud house, easy. Paying a unicorn to enchant the house so I can put items in it such as food or my clothes, impossible with my salary. Between flying, wishing she had a cloud house, and unwrapping her muffin she didn't notice the fact that she was no longer flying toward town. Ditzy's askew eye noticed she was heading right for a cloud a second before she ran into it, dropping her muffin into the edge of the Everfree Forest, which was below her, thanks to her distracted flying. After pulling her head out of the cloud she sat on top of it looking around in confusion, "Heeeere, muffin muffin, where are you?" She said, inspecting the cloud closely. Upon deciding it wasn't up in the cloud she jumped off the cloud diving toward the forest floor. When she got past the treetops she saw part of a creature holding something in its paw out of the corner of her eye as it quickly moved out of sight. "Ahhhhhhhhh!" she screamed, quickly flying above the treetops then making a perfectly straight line for her house. An unusual occurrence for Ponyville's resident klutz. If she hadn't been using all of the air in her lungs for flying she would have screamed the whole way home. A few minutes of frantic flying later, Ditzy almost broke her door down in her haste to get in. Its a good thing I didn't lock my door this morning. She thought as she slammed the door shut and locked it before running upstairs and diving under her blankets. As she tried to calm her pounding heart she moaned, "Today is not a good day, I probably lost my job, lost my muffin, and nearly got eaten by a monster. Why does this always happen to me?" Ditzy looked over to her nightstand to see if it was late enough for her boss to fire her for being late. After seeing what was on her nightstand, her heart, which had just seconds ago been beating furiously, nearly froze in her chest and her pupils shrank down to pinpricks. Ditzy stared dumbly at a note written in her own mouthwriting, her mind not comprehending the five simple words written there 'No work today, it's Saturday'. Ditzy slowly brought her face down into her pillow and let a mixture of noises that sounded like an angry yell crossed with a sigh of relief with a sprinkling of maniacal laughter. After she had been lying in her bed for a few minutes Ditzy thought to herself, Now that I have ruined a perfectly good morning I suppose it is time to get a shower. At least it should help me relax a little bit before I continue on with my day. As she got up she arched her back and flared her wings trying to get rid of the kinks that had formed in her wing joints because of her hasty retreat from the Everfree Forest. As she hopped down from her bed and headed toward her bathroom to get her shower she started thinking about how glad she was nopony had seen any part of her embarrassing morning. Except for that monster in the Everfree, Ditzy thought to herself as she blushed slightly from embarrassment, It probably wasn't even trying to eat me and I reacted like a foal. As she continued to think about the monster she finally realized what the monster was holding, "It took my muffin!" she exclaimed. "Which means it must love muffins too!" Ditzy squealed as she turned on the water for her shower. Ditzy let the water gently massage her back and wings for a few minutes before she even got started with the soap. The shower was helping quite a bit and she could practically feel the mornings tension flowing down the drain. Ditzy turned off the water and stepped out of the shower then shook herself side to side, getting rid of most of the water, but causing droplets to fly everywhere coating her entire bathroom in a misty spray. Oops, she thought, oh well, it should be dry by the time I get back, if not then I'll dry it off then, she decided, coming up with a plan for the afternoon. As Ditzy walked downstairs to her kitchen she briefly wondered if her idea to see if the monster liked her muffins was a good one. When she got to the kitchen she sat down on the floor scrunched up her muzzle, stuck out her tongue, and started tapping her right hoof under her chin in one of the most adorable thinking poses a pony could make. Give the monster a muffin, don't give the monster a muffin, hmmmmm, She thought. Her eyes getting even more crooked due to the lack of concentration she was giving them. The odds of it being able to move faster than a pegasus are pretty low, and it didn't look like it could fly, she finally decided, so I'm going to give it an apology muffin for running away. Ditzy grabbed another muffin out of her stash, this time a strawberry muffin. Looking at it and Ditzy realized she still hadn't eaten anything for breakfast, Or lunch, she thought to herself miserably, looking at the clock. She grabbed two blueberry muffins out of her pantry and promptly ate them, crumbs floating down to add themselves to the pile of muffin crumbs that had already coated the floor of her muffin pantry. "Mmmmmmm, I make delicious muffins, there is no way the monster could ever resist them," Ditzy said as she walked out of her house and jumped into the sky making her way towards the Everfree in her usual flying method. Her usual flight method was a bit unusual, it was more like graceful falling punctuated by periods of powerful flapping with repeated left and right corrections, making for a rather unstable looking flight. Ditzy blamed her eyes for that, they made everything harder to do. Upon reaching the Everfree Forest she sat down on the same cloud she had crashed into earlier, thankful that it hadn't been moved otherwise she might not have found the same place again. "Alright Ditzy don't get cold hooves now, you've already come this far, now just fly down there and put the muffin down next to where you found the monster, easy right?" muttered Ditzy, jumping off the cloud. She quickly fluttered down to where the monster was earlier and placed the muffin gently on a conveniently placed rock then turned around and flew back up to her cloud to watch. Ditzy couldn't see too well past the treetops from her cloud but was certain she could tell if it was the monster and not just some regular forest creature. Ditzy settled down on the cloud, What a beautiful day, she thought to herself, even if don't see the monster again it was worth it to come out here. She started to hum a merry tune to pass the time. A couple of hours later, just as Ditzy was about to give up and go home she saw some movement through the leaves. She watched her muffin intently, trying to get both her eyes to focus. She saw the blob of color through the leaves moving toward her muffin, then stop in front of it. Through a break in the leaf cover Ditzy soon saw the same limb that had been holding her other muffin reach out and take the one she had placed on the rock. Ditzy quietly squealed and clopped her hooves together. It likes muffins! she thought taking off and flying toward her house. Once she was far enough away from Everfree she said to herself, "I'll give it another muffin tomorrow." Upon arriving home she walked into her kitchen to start making extra muffins to try and befriend the creature. I can't call it a monster now that I know it likes muffins, so I will call it Creature until I know its name, she thought to herself as she started humming another tune to make the baking more enjoyable.