Prisoner of Butterfly Island

by Magic Step

What's Mine Is Yours

Twilight emerged from the water and gasped for air. A little blue flower was tucked into her mane. She was careful not to dislodge it as she climbed out and used an air-drying spell. “I got the flower, Starlight!”

“That was certainly fast,” Starlight Glimmer said. She was flipping through her spell book making notes. “I didn’t even get a chance to observe you; did anypony suspect anything?”

“No,” Twilight said nervously. “Because Fluttershy is nice and sweet and gives me flowers all the time…”

“Good to know,” Starlight Glimmer said. “Then you should be able to steal the other pieces without them suspecting much.”

“St-steal?” Twilight Sparkle said. “I don’t want to steal things from my friends!”

“They aren’t your friends, Twilight!” Starlight Glimmer snapped her book shut. “Would friends lie to you your whole life?”

Twilight blinked tears from her eyes. “What’s the next item…?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore.

Starlight took the flower from Twilight’s mane. “We’ll need something soft and floaty and colorful to represent the fun and joy of flight. I was hoping you could get me some ribbons from your jailer Rarity.”

“Stop calling them that,” Twilight snarled. Then she blinked. “Wait. But I wouldn’t have to steal a ribbon! Rarity just puts those on every dress.”

“It has to be a rainbow ribbon though,” Starlight Glimmer said. “And my recon revealed she saves that for extra special occasions, and your special occasion just passed.”

“Oh… she does love her rainbows…” Twilight Sparkle said. “Are you sure it has to be that one?”

“It needs to be very colorful,” Starlight Glimmer said, nodding with authority. “Rainbows are saturated with sky magic so rainbow ribbons will be perfect for this spell. I just need a tiny spool. She can always get more.”

“Sky magic…?” Twilight had never heard of that before. But then it wasn’t like magic was her talent or anything… the gemstones she and her friends wielded didn’t really count.

Starlight Glimmer placed her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. “Just remember; you have a tyrant queen to overthrow. You can’t put that off based on sentiment.”

Twilight nodded numbly. Rarity would understand, surely…

***

Rarity’s dress studio used to be a sunroom in her house; she’d filled it with fabric and thread and manikins and patterns in accordance with her hobby and had never lost an obsession with fashion. Sometimes Twilight found it borderline scary, but for the most part it was one of Rarity’s most endearing qualities.

Twilight had very carefully ripped a favorite dress on a nail in order to have an excuse. She planned to go to Rarity’s first thing in the morning.

As it happened though, two changelings, a male and female, had robbed a fruit cart, and she and her friends had to chase them all over town to vaporize them. What a pain; at least none of the kiwis had been eaten.

Then they had to spend the afternoon on some wacky shenanigans when Big Mac and Sugar Belle had difficulty running the ice cream parlor the way the Cakes did. Finally they’d settled into a rhythm and everypony could go home.

“Well,” Rarity said as the six friends walked away from the ice cream parlor, “I guess we know what the moral of that story is, don’t you Twilight?”

“That nothing will ever replace the Cakes…?” Twilight said, her voice hollow.

“N-no, dearie, I meant that you shouldn’t try to replicate the past,” she said, looking disturbed. “What’s then is then and what’s now is now. Look forward, not backward! Embrace the change!”

Twilight tried to muffle her internal screaming. At least she’d no longer feel bad about what she was about to do. “Speaking of change… um, I had a dress that needs fixing. The one from the Sibling Ball.”

“And just after I got done saying to stop looking back,” Rarity said with a sigh. “But I must admit, I have a fondness for that dress; it was one of the first I’d made entirely by myself… All right. Bring it in.”

***

Rarity’s sewing room playset was deeply familiar to Twilight since they were in and out of it all the time for their new dresses. One of the walls had such huge windows it was nearly all glass, for natural lighting, and the ceiling was a glass dome skylight. But to keep nosy ponies from watching her struggle in frustration, she also had thick lavender velvet curtains around each window.

The other walls were crowded with shelves and racks of fabric bolts. In the middle was the sewing machine. Rarity gently carried Twilight’s yellow silk beribboned Sibling Ball dress in her blue aura. She carefully arranged it under the silver needle. “This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, dearie,” she said.

This was it. Twilight had a few minutes to think of a plan.

What was she doing? Here Rarity was going out of her way to help her, and Twilight was going to rob her. But then, nice ponies didn’t try to make their friends forget that other friends existed. Right?

The needle whirred, the sound hammering in Twilight’s brain as she scanned the sewing room. The rainbow ribbon was right where Rarity always kept it, on the top shelf next to her silk. It was right behind Rarity’s head, out of her field of vision. It was her last spool. All Twilight had to do was levitate it down…

Surely the spell didn’t need all the ribbon, right? She could snip off whatever Starlight needed and sneak the rest back. It would all be fine.

“Something wrong, dearie?”

Twilight gasped and dropped the ribbon. It rolled out all over the floor. “S-sorry,” she said, praying Rarity wouldn’t look down. “L-lost in thought.” She tried and failed to scoop all of the ribbon back into her telekinetic grip. Her concentration was scattered. Jerking her head to the window, she cried, “Oh no, Rarity! A dog just chased Opalescence away!”

“What!?” Rarity leapt away from her sewing machine and ran outside.

Alone at last. Twilight sighed and started scooping the ribbon up, taking her time. Then she slipped it into her saddlebag.

“What are you doing with my sister’s ribbon?”

Twilight whirled around to see Sweetie Belle staring at her. “Oh gosh-! I forgot you were…”

Sweetie Belle looked so innocent. So concerned. What on earth could she say? She couldn’t tell her the truth because she might be in on it- no, a conspiracy involving preteens? Surely not…

“It’s bad to steal,” Sweetie Belle said. “And it’s bad to lie. Opalescence is in her cat bed; I saw her.”

“I… I…” Say something, anything… “I don’t want to show her that I messed it up and I just need a moment to get it back on the spool. Alone. You know how she freaks out when things get messy.”

“Oh, but you don’t have to be worried about admitting mistakes to your friends!” Sweetie Belle beamed with pride. “You can even admit others’ mistakes for them; that’s just what makes a good society!”

“No, Sweetie, please don’t tell, I said I just need a moment,” Twilight Sparkle panicked.

“No, I think this sounds like a very important lesson to learn.” Sweetie Belle’s eyes were shining with excitement. “I get to teach Twilight Sparkle a lesson! I want strawberry-”

“Strawberry what?” Twilight Sparkle said, going from anxious to suspicious in seconds flat.

“St-strawberry, um, lesson!” Sweetie Belle looked alarmed. “Y-yeah, lessons have flavors now! I learned about them in mainland school-”

“I have a better idea,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I’ll forget you said that if you forget you saw me. Deal?”

“Deal,” Sweetie Belle squeaked, looking way too panicked for somepony who’d just said something a little silly.

Twilight sighed with relief.

“Twilight, are you sure?” Rarity trotted back into her sewing room, looking a little exhausted but no longer in a panic. “Rainbow Dash was clearing clouds outside and she said she hadn’t seen Opalescence all day.”

“S-sorry, I guess I must have seen a bunny or something and panicked,” Twilight told Rarity. “Can I make it up to you? Would you like to cool down with some lavender lemonade?”

Rarity dramatically collapsed on a couch with a heavy sigh. “That would be delightful… of course I forgive you, Twilight.”

Twilight smiled and trotted off to get lemonade, then noted with a concerned furrow of her brow that Sweetie hadn’t stopped looking shell-shocked. What was the poor thing so afraid of…?

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