Dinky Doo knew everything anyfilly should know. She knew how best to take a tumble and where the best places to hide were around the schoolyard. She knew exactly how to get out of trouble with mommy, and when it was important to take responsibility. But most importantly of all, she knew every story everypony knew was true but most adults had to pretend weren’t. She wasn’t quite sure why that was, but she was pretty sure she’d get it explained to her when she went to what Mommy had called ‘college’. Apparently that was where every young pony went to learn everything adults were supposed to know.
But for now, she could just outright say they were true, because they were. Like the Pony in the Dark who watched over little fillies and colts who got lost at night, and Miss Merry Meet who brought gifts to good little foals on Hearth’s Warming, or Princess Fortuna who loved dice and hated cheaters, or The Ragdoll who would make your favorite toys disappear and break things if you didn’t take care of your toys properly, and Mister Oogie Boogie who’d gamble with you for your magic if you weren’t careful, or-or-or… well there were a lot of them!
Silly adults didn’t seem to understand that, though. But that was okay, they had other big things to worry about like Changelings and Dragons and Discord, so maybe that was what they focused on worrying about instead of making sure that the Grumblegrab didn’t thieve your homework.
Lately though, she’d been consumed with an all new mystery. Where had all those little balls of dust under her bed come from? Mommy had told her to clean her room yesterday and specifically mentioned the little balls of dust, hair and cobwebs that mysteriously had appeared behind her boxes of toys and games. By the time Dinky had gotten to them, Mommy had gone to see some friends and left her to her bizarre mystery. They couldn’t just be something that happened, they looked way too um… made!
That was the word, right? Made? Whatever, they weren’t the result of some kind of science. (Dinky was becoming very well versed in the idea of ‘science’ thanks to Princess Twilight taking over for Miss Cheerilee on Fridays. It was apparently something that tried to explain everything in the universe with math, which confused Dinky. How did you turn a hayburger into a math problem?) Well, she didn’t know yet, but maybe that was for ‘college’ too.
Whatever the purpose of it was, it was obviously the hoof of some strange creature that had created them. She’d finished cleaning the rest of her room only to be stopped short by the little fuzzy creations. They had an air of purpose about them, a sense of craftsponyship. Somepony had put them there, but who? Mommy didn’t like dust, so she was right out. Miss Carrot Top was of a similar mind, and so out with her too. It was possible that Button or Snips or Snails might’ve done it, those boys seemed to love dirt, but why make such cute little fluffballs? That didn’t make sense.
In fact, the only thing that made sense to Dinky was that they had to have been made by some kind of tiny creature for some kind of tiny creature purpose. She’d wracked her brain to try and suss out which of the many obviously-real creatures could’ve been responsible. Grassdancers weren’t well known for doing anything but frolicking, even if they made quite a mess doing so. And while Sneak Shadows were known to do very creative things with dirt and dust, she’d made sure to properly ward her room against them with broccoli stems. (Sneak Shadows hated broccoli worse than most foals did!)
Lacking another explanation, Dinky had decided the only way to figure out the problem was to catch the culprit in the act! Which was to say she’d bait a little trap and see if it drew out any strange spirits with dust obsessions. (Perhaps it’d been a Sweep Clean Spirit, like Zecora kept happy at her tree-house with bits of shredded newspaper and pickles.) She’d strewn some of the dust balls from under her bed around her room in a random manner and had prepared to settle into her closet with a package of cheese crackers, three apple juice boxes, and a fluffy soft pillow.
She awoke raring to go in the wee morning hours just after Mommy left for her job. It was still pretty dark outside, so she took a chance to run and fetch the juice from the fridge and to make sure Mommy hadn’t forgotten her work hat again. Mommy seemed to forget it a lot for her half-days, probably because she was so excited to come back home and spend time with her. But the hat was gone from its post, which was a good sign.
Then she was back to her room and zipped into the closet, carefully closing the door until only a mere crack remained. It gave her an excellent view of the scattered dust balls, but not much else. She had… she figured, a couple of hours before Mommy came back home. Thanks to science, she’d positioned her dustballs to be her timer too. If the sun hit the one on the left, she’d have just enough time to clean up before Mommy got home.
The waiting was likely to be the toughest part, but Dinky knew (like every foal knew) that if you wanted to catch one of the hidden folk you had to keep a sharp eye and know your target. Since she didn’t have any idea what her target liked to eat, she had to settle for disrupting its work. It’d probably be pretty upset at that, but she was sure that she could settle it down once she knew what it was. She wished she had Silver Spoon’s Guide to the Spirits of Harmony but Silver Spoon didn’t loan it to anypony who wasn’t Diamond Tiara and it probably didn’t cover stuff like dust balls anyway.
She very quietly sipped her juice and watched patiently as the room grew steadily brighter before her eyes. Someponies might’ve found this boring, but there was a tension and a thrill to this that Dinky couldn’t explain. Maybe it was trying to discover things that were hidden from ordinary view, or maybe it was proving to herself that there really was magic behind every corner if only you bothered to look.
Most adults didn’t bother, if she was being honest. Even Mommy just tolerated her amusing obsession with the unseen, but Princess Twilight had seemed genuinely interested in her stories when she’d told them. Maybe it was just that most adults, since they were typically busy with work and stuff, couldn’t spend the time they needed to stop and see all the wonders around them. Even in a magic-filled land like Equestria, she had to admit that for some it would be a little hard to believe in a spirit that liked to eat little foals’ homework.
Even though she herself had never been visited by the Grumblegrab, she knew it existed. Like the way she knew that one day she would catch Miss Merry Meet ghosting magically down their chimney to bring presents on Hearth’s Warming Eve. (Dinky had long planned to tell her to bring Mommy better presents, since it always seemed like Mommy didn’t get the stuff she deserved to have.) And that someday she’d bring that pie that the Pony in the Dark was said to really be searching for. She was convinced this was her special talent to be: Finding and talking with the secret creatures that hid from the world around her. Even if nopony really believed her.
Well, okay that was unfair - Button Mash believed in her (and had offered her a substantial bounty if she could bring him proof of what he called the “Random Number Princess” which he insisted was somehow different from Princess Fortuna.) So did Zipporwhill and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. When she’d told them about her dream, they’d all been super supportive of her even if they were sure they couldn’t do it. Scootaloo had confessed she really didn’t have the patience for this sort of thing, and Applebloom said her sister had forbidden her from talking about some of the tales she’d heard from Granny Smith. (Dinky made a note to ask Granny Smith about those stories sometime. Who knew what the ancient earth pony had learned in her many years alive?)
The sun had almost risen over the horizon by the time she finished with her first juice box and she cracked open her pack of crackers to munch happily on one. Her ears twitched at the faint sound of a… rustling… and she instantly stopped all chewing, trying to zone in on the sound. The rustling kept going on for several seconds before slowly drifting away. Had it been the wind? A tree? Somepony trundling down the road outside?
Her breathing quickened even as she did her very best to quiet it, and Dinky huddled down a little lower to try and keep the dust ball in sight. She wanted to flag her tail in excitement, but forced it to stay limp against the ground. The last thing she needed was too much sound cluttering up her ears. It felt like an eternity as the silence dragged on, and then…
rustle…. who put all these…. rustle rustle…. darnit… rustle…
The voice was faint and mildly squeaky. Like Sweetie Belle when she was really, really excited but it was quieter. Not quite as ear-shrillingly loud. It was almost… cute, actually. The rustling got a bit louder, and Dinky focused. She would have just one chance to catch whatever this was in action, and she was determined not to miss it. Not even if her mouth was really dry from those crackers and tasting of sharp cheese. Not even if the juicebox was just a few inches away. No! She would not look away.
The moments crawled on. Her mouth salivated and begged for a drink of the sweet juice to wash away the saltiness. Seconds seemed to take hours to pass. She was getting ready to give in when a tiny shadow flitted in to where the dust ball sat and began to push mightily at it towards her bed. Her draw dropped and crumbs and bits of wet cheese fell out of her mouth.
It looked like a very tiny pegasus pony.
It had a brown coat and a fluffy grey mane that reminded her of the little dust balls, and little flitting wings as it shoved its shoulder against the dust ball. They weren’t… quite pegasi wings, but they were close enough to obviously somehow be related. But that didn’t make any sense. Ponies never got that small unless magic was heavily involved! But it was obviously a pony! It looked like a pony, moved like a pony, and was even grunting in effort not unlike Rainbow Dash on a busy weather day.
Dinky licked silently at her lips and puzzled at this bit of information for a few moments. That was okay, since it was taking the little pony an awful long time to move that dust ball anywhere. What should she do? Help it out? Stay hidden? She wished she’d asked Twilight to borrow her camera right about now… Having physical proof of such a creature might finally get Mommy to believe! Her heart was racing at a mile a minute and she was having a hard time staying calm from this wondrous discovery…
Which fell apart all at once as the little creature collapsed against the dust ball huffing and puffing and looking quite put out. Geeze. She thought, pursing her lips. I guess I’d better go help fix what I broke before that poor thing strains itself. She grabbed up her juice box in a weak field of unicorn magic and carried out her pack of crackers. Maybe offering it a snack would help make amends?
The little creature hardly noticed her approach, only looking up in time as she came close to it. The pony - Dinky was pretty sure it was a mare - was a mere two or three inches tall. She glanced up to Dinky and her eyes went as wide as little buttons for just a moment before Dinky set down her pack of crackers and scuffed her hoof on the floor. “Sorry.” She muttered, wondering why she felt so guilty about this. Maybe because it was obvious she’d upset the poor things work so badly.
But upon the sight of the cheese crackers, the little creature’s features went from frustration to pure joy. She squealed in happiness and dove upon the offered snack, buzzing around one of the round crackers like a parasprite in full feeding mode. Dinky watched in fascination as the little thing ate all five of the other crackers in lightning speed, leaving only scattered crumbs in her wake before coming to a sudden halt and looking ecstatically satisfied. “Apology…” It squeaked before giving off an adorable little burp. “Accepted!” And then she flitted up into the air and perched on the tip of Dinky’s snout.
Up close and personal, it was clear they were very much pegasi wings but they were much more delicate and longer. Like a dragonfly, but not quite like a Breezie. She was smiling and doing a little prance on her snout, but she didn’t seem to weigh much of anything. “I love Cra~ckers. Cheeeeeee-seee crackers!” She was doing almost a celebratory dance on her snout and Dinky couldn’t help but giggle a little at that.
Finally the dance came to an end, and the little creature cocked her head to one side. “Did you move my nests?” She chirruped curiously, and Dinky blinked. Cautiously she gave a little nod and the pegasus bobbed easily with her head. Her head tilted to the other side, and the pegasus chirruped again. (It was the only word Dinky could think of to describe her talking. It was kind of like how she imagined birds talking.) “Can you help me move them back?”
Dinky nodded again, and the pegasus gave a little cheer and zoomed off her nose. One by one, Dinky carefully rolled the little things back under her bed, strategically hiding them behind her boxes of toys. Once the task had been done, the creature perched back on Dinky’s snout and smiled. “What’s your name?” Dinky asked cautiously, figuring that it would at least be polite to find that out.
“I’m Dust Bunny!” The pegasus piped up, and wiggled her flank at Dinky… and sure enough, there was a little tuft of dust on her flank, just like a cutie mark. “And dust is my extra-special talent! Nopony is better at dust than I am, nosireebob!” Dinky had to giggle. She sounded so… proud of that. It was adorable. The tiny pony grinned happily. “What’s your name bigpony, huh huh huh?”
Dinky blinked a little at that and gave a tentative smile, remembering only a moment later that the little flitting pony was standing on her nose and couldn’t see it. “Um… I’m Dinky Doo!” She beamed, and put on her very best confident pose. “An’ I’m really good at spotting hidden things!” Well, she thought she was anyway. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it yet, but she had gained a whole lot of points today!
Dust Bunny giggled and winked. “You sure are. I haven’t been seen by somepony in yeaaaaaaars.” She threw her forehooves wide open and fell over backwards atop Dinky’s snout. “Or maybe it was just weeks,” she continued, sounding confused. “I lose track. Mostly because the spiders and mice are so much fun to talk to.” She giggled and flitted around her snout for a few rotations before settling back down.
Dinky couldn’t help but grin at her enthusiasm. “Um… Dust Bunny?” she began tentatively, digging her hooves into the wood floor. She had to ask. Maybe she’d say yes?” Can I um… Can I take a picture of you? So I can show Mommy?” She tried to put on her very best big, teary eyes that mom called the ‘begging’ look.
But the little pegasus shook her head. “Sorry… That’s against the rules.” She puffed up her chest, looking quite stern for such a little thing. “An’ I might not be the brightest pony in the box, but I never break the rules! Nosireebarb!” She nodded her head decisively, then drooped a little. “I really am sorry though. You seem like such a nicepony and you gave me crackers...”
Dinky bit at her lip for a moment then exhaled softly. “Well… I know you exist, and I got to see you.” She put on a brave face, and did the same inside of her head. Really, she couldn’t expect a huge success so early in her career. Even little victories were important! (That was one of Mommy’s favorite sayings.) “So I suppose that’s good enough.” Then she blinked… and got an idea. “Um… If you really want to help me, though, Mommy told me to clean up all the dust in here…”
Dust Bunny perked up instantly. “And there’s nopony better at dust than me!” She piped up happily and zoomed around Dinky’s head in a corkcscrew pattern, giggling happily. “I’ll make you a deal then!” The little pegasus chirped, settling down into a buzzy little fight in front of Dinky. “If you bring me cheese crackers um… once a week! I’ll keep your room dust free!”
Dinky grinned. Not having to dust her room at the expense of a pack of cheese crackers? “Deal!” she bellowed out and couldn’t help but giggle. “But only if you’ll talk to me while you have them. I want to know more about you and the someponies you know.” It was a gamble asking for that, but… this might’ve been the break she’d been hoping for.
“Sure!” Dust Bunny giggled, and then zoomed towards the bed. “I’ll see you next week then! Bye!”
~~~~~~~
A few hours later, Mommy and her were sitting on the couch and getting ready to watch one of her favorite cartoons with a big bowl of popcorn and a snuggly blanket. “So what did you do this morning, muffin?” Mommy cooed happily, hugging her close.
Dinky thought about it for a moment before smiling faintly. Maybe no one could believe her yet, but... “Just playing with the dust bunnies, Mommy.” She giggled and munched on some popcorn. Mm. Buttery.