Putting snout to the air, Pip wrinkled his nose as he smelt the familiar odour of medicine, disinfectant and hospital food. No doubt lunch was just being cleared up. He could still taste the strange flavour of alfalfa and cheap jelly in his mouth. Downing it as quickly as he could, the little colt was too excited to slow down. He was finally going to hear Rainbow Dash’s story!
Rounding the bend, he hurried down the corridor, tentatively sneaking past the room labelled ‘X-RAY’. As silently as possible he scurried past the door, lest he alert the fearsome, armoured griffon that had entered the room the previous day.
As he approached the ward where miss Rainbow Dash was staying, he heard her voice, muttering something indistinct. But there was another voice. Somepony male, with a deep and somewhat gruff voice. Hiding by the doorframe, Pipsqueak peeked round the side of the door and listened in:
“…I mean really, Dash! A terminal-velocity belly-flop into a lake?! You were lucky you only cracked a few ribs!”
“Quit rubbing it in! Things didn’t go as planned, alright? I was meant to go straight down into a dive into the water. Not my fault that tailwind decided to change right then…”
“Yeah, well, you were still darn lucky to get away from it alive! And if you were trying to impress a certain somepony…”
Dash seemed to grunt a moment, and Pip could hear the bedsprings creak as she sat up. “I wasn’t trying to impress anypony…you should know why I did it. You know what happened between me and…her.”
“What are ye…oh, right, her.” The male voice replied “Come on, Dash! Yer still not over her?”
Pip peeked round the corner into the room. The first thing he noticed was that there was a new patient in one of the beds. A rather uptight-looking palomino unicorn stallion, with tan fur and a blonde mane. He popped a few white tablets into his mouth from a jar, before levitating the jar into his cabinet and returning to his book.
But Pip's eye was then caught by a middle-aged stallion, sitting by Rainbow Dash’s bed. He was a boisterous looking fellow, with a short, wispy orange mane, topped off with a bushy handlebar moustache and beard. But the young colt’s eyes were drawn straight to his right hind leg. Or rather, the lack thereof. From the knee down, the stallion’s leg was completely gone, with only a stump below the thigh. A long wooden stake carved in the shape of a leg lay on the floor beside him, with three short leather straps attached to the top.
“What do you know?! She wasn’t your marefriend! She didn’t run out on you, did she?” Rainbow lay back down and rolled over, hiding her face from the stallion.
“Now don’t give me that!” The colt said, “Every cloud’s got a silver lining, that’s fo’ sure. A pegasus like yerself should know that. I mean take me, for instance.” He waggled his stump of a hind leg. Rainbow grimaced at the strange sight. “Before I got this, I was just ‘generic stuntpony guy’, barely makin’ ends meet. Then I had me accident and lost me leg. Now, I’m gettin’ more jobs than ever before! I’ve been run over by chariots, torn to bits by monsters, chopped up by mad scientists, shot with arrows…”
“So what’re you saying?” Rainbow cut in.
The stallion fitted his wooden leg to the stump of his thigh, looping the straps onto three hooks that fitted to a harness around his thigh. “I’m just sayin’, ye shouldn’t let something as small as a breakup ruin yer life like this.”
“AH-CHOOO!”
The stallion and Rainbow looked up at the sudden sound, just in time to see Pipsqueak duck back around the doorframe. The old pony smiled and got to his hooves “Well, I've rambled long enough, so I’ll leave ya be. Looks like ya got another visitor. Just keep in mind…regardless of what she might’ve been like, nopony is worth suicide. Think over that.”
Patting her multi-coloured mane, the stallion turned and headed out the door, his wooden leg clunking against the floor. As he passed Pipsqueak, he grinned again and tousled his hair with a forehoof, then headed down the corridor and round the corner without another word.
Readjusting his hair, Pip watched him go, before entering the ward and approaching Rainbow’s bed. She was still rolled over, facing the empty neighbouring bed. Dragging a stool from the corner of the room, he set it down next to her bedside and perched atop it.
Rainbow Dash rolled over, hastily wiping her eyes and flashing a quick smile to the tiny colt. “Hey kid.”
“Hi Rainbow Dash!” Pip replied happily “So, who was that pony with you just now? He kinda looked like a pirate!”
“A Pirate…?”
“Well, y’know… the wooden leg!”
Rainbow gave a hollow chuckle “Heh, nice one kid. Well, yeah, sometimes he’s a pirate. Other times, he’s a cowpony, a knight, an explorer, all kinds of stuff…He’s a stuntpony, y’see. He does stunts for action flicks.”
Pip tilted his head in confusion “Flicks? What’s that?”
“Y’know, movies. Films. Filmmakers get him to do the tricks and stunts that the real actors can’t do.”
“Huh…I’ve never seen a movie before.”
“Eh, you’re not missing much.” Rainbow said nonchalantly.
“Is that what you do? The tricks and stunts I mean. Is that how you hurt yourself?”
Her smile faded “Nah. That was…somethin’ else.”
An awkward silence hung in the air between the two ponies. The only sound came from the old pony lying in his bed, humming cheerfully to himself.
“So, “It was Rainbow who finally broke the silence “I’m guessing you’re here to hear that story, huh?
Pipsqueak instantly sat up straight, nodding vigorously, “Ooh, yesyesyes!”
Rainbow smiled again, sitting up and resting on an elbow “Heh, alright then! So, for starters, I want you to close your eyes.”
Pip obediently did so, clamping his eyelids firmly shut.
“Now try to picture the darkest night you can imagine. Like, no lights at all but the stars in the sky. And even then, just a few stars, two or three. As dark as you can picture.”
In Pip’s mind, he saw everything as if in front of him.
“The story begins on a night just like this… On a tiny island, in the middle of the sea, surrounded by calm waters… But that calmness was deceiving. Because at that moment, five ponies were sitting on the island, desperately planning some way to escape. Now, the first pony was a big, tough stallion, a paladin,”
“What’s a paladin?”
Rainbow paused for a moment. Now that was a question and a half. What exactly is a paladin? She only knew the word from those weird board-games Twilight convinced everypony to play, with those little figures, books full of confusing charts and numbers, and endless dice-rolling.
“Well…it’s like a…like a knight. Yeah, they’re like a kind of knight. Anyway, this silent paladin was a huge, strong guy, once married to the most beautiful mare in the world. Or at least, that’s what everypony said about her. Now, word about this mare eventually reached a guy called…Lord Sinistar.” She finished, coming up with the most evil sounding name she could think of in a hurry. “Lord Sinistar wanted to kidnap this mare and make her his own wife. But the mare was seriously shy, and never left the Paladin’s house. So Lord Sinister disguised himself as a beggar and went to the house, askin' for food. And when she answered the door, and he saw her face, he instantly fell for her.
That night, the Paladin did his usual guarding the house, patrolling the outside and inside. But what he didn’t know is that he was guarding an empty house, because Sinistar had already kidnapped her!
So the mare was kept in Sinistar’s palace as his prisoner. But every time he came to see her, she hid her face from him, 'cos she was determined to be loyal to her husband. So, he locked her away in a huge maze, telling her he’d only let her out if she agreed to marry him.
She wandered around the maze for days, totally lost. After a week, she gave up hope of escape. But she never agreed to marry Sinister, and instead, took her own life, jumping from a high tower in the maze to her death.”
Pipsqueak gasped, holding a hoof to his mouth.
“So, the mourning Paladin swore a silent oath that day, to never love another mare again, and that he would be responsible one day, for Lord Sinistar’s death!” Rainbow finished, dramatically punching the air with a hoof.
“…Wow…I like him!” The colt said, settling down in his seat “Go on!”
Rainbow smiled “The next pony was an explosives expert, named Napalm. Napalm Fireball. He was one of the best ponies in the business of explosives and bombs, and he was known through the whole land as an expert. Now, Lord Sinistar heard about him too, and hired him to build the most powerful bomb he could! He agreed, and built the bomb, powerful enough to demolish an entire building in one go. Problem was, that was exactly what Sinistar planned to do with it: He was gonna use it to attack a building that refused to pay rent to him!
When he found out, Napalm personally hid the bomb, refusing to even show it to Sinistar. As punishment, Sinistar had him banished, makin' it a crime to even speak to him. When his own family refused to talk to him, he swore an oath to be the one responsible for Lord Sinistar’s death!”
Pip nodded “I like him too!”
“Now, the third pony was actually a zebra, like Zecora. But he was a stallion, named Askari. Askari once lived in a village in an awesomely beautiful valley. Lord Sinistar thought so too, and tried to buy the land. But the zebras refused to sell it. So, he decided that if he couldn’t have the land, nopony could! He sent his soldiers to attack the valley, and they invaded the zebras’ village, killing everypony. The only villager that survived was Askari, who swore to never stop until he had personally killed Lord Sinistar.
Then, there was…there was…” Rainbow hesitated again, her mind drawing blank as she came up with characters.C’mon, think, her mind whispered Think! Old story, classic characters, who could….aha! “There was the unicorn, Clover the Clever.
Now Clover was a total egghead, one of the smartest guys around. He knew hundreds of spells, and studied all sorts of subjects.”
“You mean she.”
“Huh?”
“She.” Pipsqueak said “Clover the Clever was a mare.”
Rainbow grinned “Actually, Clover was a colt. He’s just played by a mare in the Hearth’s Warming Eve Pageants. Y’see, back in the old days only girls were allowed to perform in the pageants, so even the guys were played by girls. Nowadays stallions and colts can be in the play too, but the main characters can only be played by mares. Tradition or something.”
Pip paused to digest this new information, before nodding in understanding.
“Anyways, Clover the Clever. One of his favourite things to study was plant and animals. And he was always followed by his pet, Bumpkin the rabbit. Clover loved all living things, but especially, erm…”
Rainbow once again found herself at a loss. Glancing around the room for inspiration. Movement outside the window caught her eye, and she turned to see a small insect fluttering past the window. A fluttering little creature, with blue and yellow wings.
“…Especially butterflies, yeah. It was his dream to own a live butterfly of every kind. And he and Bumpkin did pretty well at it too; he kept thousands of butterflies of all kinds. Except for one: The elusive Equestriana Exotica!” Rainbow said, her mind going back to a name she remembered from when Fluttershy forced her to join her in watching the Great Butterfly Migration.“The only known butterfly of that kind was owned by Lord Sinistar in his private collection. Of course, Sinistar didn’t care about something as small as a butterfly, so just to make him mad, he sent Clover the ultimate insult: a dead Equestriana Exotica.
So Sinistar banished the heroes to a single tiny island. He kept them here, hoping they’d finish eachother off. But instead, they joined together, vowing to find Lord Sinistar and destroy him.”
Pip’s eyes grew wide with awe at the backstories of the characters “Lord Sinistar sounds like one bad pony!”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Rainbow Dash sad with a grin. “So, the last of this band of buccaneers…”
“What’s a buccaneer?”
Rainbow frowned slightly at this new interruption “Well, it’s sorta like a pirate. Pirate, Buccaneer, they’re basically the same. I’d expect you to know, I thought you kinda had an interest in pirates.”
Pip shook his head “Well, yeah, but can’t they be something else instead? I’ve heard so many stories about pirates, I wanna hear something new!”
Rainbow was slightly taken aback, but continued her story afresh “Well, a-alright then, they’re not pirates. It’s a..a bandit story. In fact, the final hero couldn’t even swim. That’s what made Sinistar’s banishment so good. But apart from that, not much was known about the mysterious Masked Black Bandit. All that was known about her was that she and her brother, the Red Bandit, had escaped execution by Lord Sinistar’s minions. The brother and sister knew their chances of survival would be better if they split up, so they separated, both swearing to kill Sinistar for what he did to them!”
Clover strained and grunted as he channelled his magic, his horn glowing a bright red, a small red pendant held in his hoof. Within his mind, he followed the trace of the Red Bandit, tracking him to his exact location. He had performed the tracking spell many times in the past, while tracking rare specimens of animals, or trying to find Bumpkin after he had scampered off for the umpteenth time. However, as he learned the Bandit’s location, his eyes snapped open.
“Good heavens!” He cried, panting from the strain. His shout drew the attention of Napalm, who hurried to his side.
“Clover! What did you see?” he muttered. Casting a furtive glance to the Black Bandit, standing on the other side of the tiny island “Any news of her brother?”
Clover gulped, “The worst news.”
The masked mare turned and approached the two stallions, her masked eyes revealing nothing “What is the worst news?”
Clover and Napalm glanced nervously at eachother, neither willing to speak up.
“Tell me!” The Bandit shouted.
Clover flinched under her shouting “Erm…I-it appears that your b-brother, has been, ah, captured, by Sinistar…They p-plan to execute him in the morning.”
The Black Bandit sunk to her knees as the news hit her like a thunderbolt. Taking her wide-brimmed black hat off, she ran her hoof through her mane of many colours. She prided herself in her rainbow-coloured mane, but it wasn’t exactly useful for stealth missions.
“Well then, it’s all the more important we get off this island! I can’t let my brother be executed! Besides,” The Black Bandit took the red pendant from Clover, looping it around her neck. “I promised I’d give this back to him.”
“Well, that’s all fine and good, but there’s no way we could get off this island! None of us are that good at swimming, and there’s no other land for miles!” Napalm replied, sitting down on the white sand.
The five bandits sat on the shingle, each thinking of some new scheme to leave the island. Askari paced up and down the sand. The Paladin sat silently on a piece of driftwood. Napalm brushed at his orange mustache and beard anxiously. Again and again, Clover consulted a ragged and dog-eared map, as if hoping for some new causeway to spring up or some indicator of Sinistar’s location. But once again, he resigned to the fact that his map was useless at the moment and put it back in his little wooden box, pining for the days when the box had been filled with rich, plump cigars, now home to scraps of notes, a sketch of a pirates’ galleon on crimped paper, a tiny wooden model of a sea-serpent, and a few live beetles. Bumpkin, the tiny white rabbit, scampered up to Clover, squeaking and chittering in his ear. The unicorn nodded “Hmm…yes, I know…Well, if it was to carry us, it would need to be a pretty big turtle, and anyway, how would we get it to come to…”
Suddenly, the red-furred Paladin silently stood up. Staring out to the open sea, his orange tail swished up and down as he sniffed the breeze. The Black Bandit stood by his side.
“What is it, my friend? Something out there?” she asked, following his eyes. Beneath her mask, her eyes became wide with disbelief as, as if on cue, the green segmented shell of an enormous turtle emerged from the waves barely twenty feet away from the island.
Hastily the Paladin drew his sword, gripping it tight in his jaws. The other heroes followed suit, drawing all manner of weapons, both of black powder and cold steel, standing ready in case of attack from the colossal beast.
But the turtle calmly floated up to the shingle of the tiny island, resting its enormous head on the sand. It lay still as there was a stirring on its back. One of the segments of its shell seemed to break off, rising up to reveal a bizarre sight.
Standing at ease, segment of shell strapped to his back, looking for all the world like he did not realise he had just emerged from the inside of a giant turtle’s shell, stood a strange old earth pony. His once light blue coat and long indigo mane, now greying with age, drippied with seaweed and was encrusted with salt.
Stepping down the turtle’s neck, the old pony approached the bandits, and began mumbling some strange words, made up of chitterings and odd clicks.
“How sad.” The Black Bandit said, turning down her belt-mounted pistol. “The tortures of this world have driven the poor pony mad.”
But Clover shook his head “No no, not so. I know this language! He’s trying to say that…he had sensed our, our presence in his land, and offers to ferry us to…to Sinistar’s outpost fortress!”
But before anypony could say anything, Clover continued “But, but he has one request: that he may join us on our…our quest to defeat Lord Sinistar.”
The old pony swept a forehoof over the watery landscape, chattering away as Clover translated “Apparently, this whole area was actually once a lush forest, filled with birds and sacred trees, with him presiding over it as the mystic chief…but Sinistar had the trees burnt down and the land flooded…”
Beckoning, the old pony mystic clambered back up the neck of the enormous turtle, perching back atop its shell. The others followed suit, slipping on the wet fleshy neck of the turtle, before taking their seats on the turtle.
Once Askari had taken his seat on the shell, the turtle raised its head from the sands of the island, and turned around, cutting a swathe through the calm waters with its massive flippers.
The Mystic looked expectantly to the Black Bandit, who turned to Clover. “Please tell him that while we are thankful for his offer to take us to the fortress, we have no use for a mystic. We are on a dangerous mission to rescue my twin brother.”
Clover nodded, and began speaking in the same strange dialect the Mystic spoke. As he received his answer, the Mystic’s face fell. Bowing his head, he silently turned his back to Clover and the Black Bandit, facing out to the sea to sulk. Clover and the Bandit turned to eachother, shrugging silently.
Askari, meanwhile, peered down into the water around them, teeming with all manner of marine life. Everything, from the tiniest minnows to large, bulky koi and even catfish swam in the water around them. The zebra was suddenly struck with an idea. “Clover?” He called to the unicorn “Griffons are meat-eaters, are they not?”
“Well, actually they’re omnivores, so they’ll eat plants or meat, but yes. Why?” He asked.
Askari smiled as he gripped a javelin in his forehoof, poised to throw at a particularly fat pair of catfish “Well, Sinistar’s soldiers are all griffons…and now, I may have an idea how we can get into his fortress.”
Mere hours later, Askari hauled a small wagon on his back, up from the docks of Sinistar’s fortress. Stopping by the steps up to the gates, he stripped the harness from his back, gripped a pair of freshly speared catfish in his tail, and called at the top of his lungs “GET YOUR FRESH FISH! FREEESH FIIISH, RIGHT HEEEEEEERE!”
The gate creaked open, and from within the fortress emerged four griffons, each decked out in a massive black helmet, long cloaks and a thick black armoured apron on the front, as well as dull metal gauntlets on the arms. Each wielded a fearsome-looking battleaxe in a clawed arm, except for the largest, which held a flintlock pistol in its claws.
“FISH, SIRS! THE FINEST IN ALL THE LAND!” Askari called up, holding up the fish for all to see. Behind the wagon, the Black Bandit, Clover and Napalm waited with baited breath, as the Paladin snuck up the side of the stairs, as quietly as his bulk armour would allow him.
Growling and snarling in a way most uncharacteristic of a griffon, the lead guard beckoned for the zebra to bring his wares inside. Askari placed the two fish back in the wagon, readying a large bundle, containing a trio of short javelins with leaf-shaped tips, his trademark weapon. Hoisting the bundle upon his back, he heaved it up the high steps to the gate, as the other three bandits waited hidden behind the wagon.
But as he reached halfway up, Askari's hoof caught on an uneven step and he stumbled, his bundle falling of his back. The bundle unwrapped, and the javelins clattered out onto the steps. The lead griffon hurried down the steps to help the zebra up. But the moment it saw the javelins lying on the ground, he raised his pistol with a snarl, pointing it straight at Askari’s head.
But before it had the chance to fire, the Griffon reeled back, a bleeding bullet hole in its chest. Pistol smoking, the Black Bandit charged up the steps, followed by Napalm, hurling a smoke bomb to the ground to cover their attack, and Clover, simply trying to not get shot.
The other three griffons staggered trough the thick smoke, trying to repel the attackers. But their attention was drawn by the sound of a blade scratching along the ground behind them. Turning, they found themselves face to face with the Paladin, his sword gripped between his teeth.
His blade flashed through the smokescreen. Like lightning, he was upon the griffons, parrying blow after blow of their axes, and countering with slashes and stabs of his own sword. He was like a whirlwind among the first crops of spring, the sheer force of the gale winds blasting the plans from the ground, shredding them to pieces in mid-air. So was the Paladin, as he made short work of the griffon guards.
But as he slashed at the neck of the last guard, it staggered back through the gate, its last ounce of strength used to bar the massive door shut.
The five bandits stood before the door, as the cries of griffon guards within rang out loud and long. Napalm stepped forward,
a lit bundle of dynamite in his hoof. “Stand back, everypony. Before you can say ‘kaboom’, I’ll have this door wide open!”
“No need.” said Clover as he rummaged through the armour of one of the fallen griffons. Around its neck, he found a string with a large iron key. Shoving the key into the lock, he paused suddenly as he heard a new sound from within: Shouing still, but shouts of shock and pain. Quickly he twisted the key and pulled back on the door, heaving it open.
Galloping down the path through the bailey to the keep, the bandits were stopped by a strange sight. Piled high in the middle of the path were a hundred armoured griffon guards, slain and piled high like the stones of a cairn. Atop it, head held high, stood the old Mystic, breathing heavily from exertion.
Awestruck, the five bandits bowed low. Napalm hastily stamped the fuse out on the bundle of dynamite, before it could burn any further.
The Black Bandit was the first to speak “Forgive me, wise Mystic, for my disrespect earlier. It looks like you have a bit of a flair for fighting after all! I would be honoured if you would join us on our quest.”
She turned to Clover, who proceeded to translate for the Mystic. When he had finished, the old pony nodded respectfully bowed back before climbing down from the pile of bodies to join his newfound comrades.
“So, with that taken care of…” Askari muttered in the Black Bandit’s ear.
She nodded “Right! Let’s move! Every moment we waste, my brother moves closer to his execution!”
With that, the bandits sprinted down the path towards the massive keep. The Black Bandit, however, hesitated a moment as there came a strange odour.
“Hey, do you suddenly smell…apple juice?”
Pip sniffed the air. Aside from the usual hospital odours, he did smell the distinct sweet tanginess of apples “Yeah, I do.”
“Where’s it coming from, d’you think?” Rainbow asked sitting up and looking about the ward. “Oh, it better not be…”
“Erm…Rainbow Dash?”
The pegasus looked down to the little colt, who had his head peeked under her bed. She didn't like the way he just said that.“Yeah?”
“I think I found it…” he said, timidly holding up a small, empty glass bottle, labelled with an image of an apple. “Um…I think when I pulled the chair over to here, I might have…spilt it.”
For a moment, Rainbow felt a twinge of anger. But it subsided as she looked into Pip’s apologetic eyes, and faded to mere frustration “Ah geez, Applejack brought me that specially, back at breakfast. That’s her fresh pressed fizzy apple cordial, that stuff’s not exactly cheap!”
Pip hung his head, biting his lip in shame “Oh…sorry. I-I didn’t mean to, it was an accident…”
Rainbow sighed in annoyance, unable to stay mad at a child for long “Ah, it’s alright…I’ll get her to give me some more after I get outta here.”
Both ponies were silent a moment longer.
“Erm…so, did...did they reach the Red Bandit?” Pip asked quietly, still half-expecting the pony to lash out or shout at him.
Rainbow made to continue, but as she drew up the next scene of the story, something changed. Maybe it was side-effect from her medication, or maybe it was some reaction to her brief moment of anger. But as she thought more and more about it, the story began to morph and change in her head, taking a sudden negative turn…
“…sadly, no. The bandit sped into the main hall of the keep, but Sinistar wasn’t there. Instead, they found the Red Bandit lying on the ground. He’d been tortured and shot in the head….”
The Black Bandit stood still as a statue, her multi-hued hair flowing in the wind of the plains outside Sinistar’s outpost fortress. Beneath her red mask, tears streaked down her face as she faced the body of her fallen brother, now wrapped in a white cloth and placed on a flat rock, his red pendant resting atop his chest. As she placed a hoof tenderly on her brother’s still form, the white wrappings slowly began to fade to a dark red as his blood stained the fabric. The other five bandits stood behind her in reverent silence, as she fought back her sobbing to say a few words:
“That which has been taken from me can never be replaced…my dear brother.” She muttered darkly, running her forehoof over the wrappings “I could have saved you, but I was weak. But now, my grief…has gone blood red with revenge. I’m stronger now.”
Standing, she held up the red cloak of her brother, as she called out to the heavens “By the Red Bandit’s honour, I swear I will track Lord Sinistar down, and annihilate him!”
Turning, she faced her bandit companions, who stood to attention, weapons at the ready. Fumbing with the strap a moment, the Black Bandit ripped the red mask from her eyes, revealing a pair of magenta eyes, burning with hatred and a desire for revenge.
“In the name of my family and my hometown, I WILL DESTROY HIM!!”
Her anguished, furious cry echoed through the plains, fading far into the distance.
“What is her hometown, Rainbow Dash?” Pip asked, literally on the edge of his seat at the story’s sudden dramatic turn “Was she from Ponyville, like you?”
But Rainbow Dash shook her head “Nope. He was from Phillydelphia…”
The Black Bandit faced her comrades, looking each one squarely in the eyes. Loading her pistol and slipping it back into its strap on her belt, she wiped the tears from her face and stood tall.
“Are youse with me, bandits?” she barked in her Philydelphian accent that she definitely didn’t just suddenly start speaking in.
The response was loud and unanimous “WE’RE WITH YOUSE!"
But before Rainbow could continue, there as the distinct sound of a book slamming shut from across the ward. She and Pipsqueak looked up and saw the uptight blonde pony getting up out of his bed and shuffling over towards them.
“Alright! That’s enough!” He barked. “Get back to your own room kid! Storytime’s over. This is a ward, not a kindergarten! I’m not feeling very well, and need some rest and quiet! Go on, shoo!!”
With a squeak of fright, Pipsqueak hastily hopped off his chair and hurried out of the room, casting an apologetic glance at his pegasus friend. Rainbow grabbed the unicorn by the scruff of his hospital-gown. “You leave him alone, got it?” she growled, pulling his face close.
He sneered back at her and brushed her hoof away. Shuffling back to his bed, he lay down and returned to his book, taking a moment to scowl at Rainbow over the top of the pages before going back to his reading.
Rainbow lay back, closing her eyes. A part of her wished she hadn't thrown such a dark twist in her story onto Pipsqueak. But somehow, it felt right. It added a new level of interest the story and prolonged it a bit, which she needed. Besides, he kinda deserved it after spilling your present from Applejack said a tiny voice in her head. She frowned as the unwelcome thought penetrated her brain, and tried to force it out as she devised more parts of the story ahead.
Her mind racing with ideas, she snuggled own into her pillow for a nap. She knew the story would have to be great if she was to keep that kid’s interest. She knew he would probably come back to hear the rest of the story, and deep down, she hoped he would. She needed him to help her.