Homeward Bow

by Someguy458

Chapter 1: It Came From Bonneton

It was an ordinary day in Ponyville: birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and a narrator was listing cliches.

Little did Ruby Red Balloon know that her whole life was about to change.

She was reorganizing her room, when she discovered a bow behind her clothes dresser. She looked at it for a moment, trying to remember if she’d purchased a bow of this shape and size.

Suddenly, it grew eyes.

"GAH!" she shouted, throwing the bow to the ground.

The bow floated up, and in a flash of light, it became a ghost-like creature with the bow as its face. "Where am I?!” it started panicking, its voice feminine. “How did I get here?"

"I-I don't know, I'm just as confused as you!” Ruby was now cowering away from what was in front of her. “Have you been my bow this whole time?!"

"I'm not sure; maybe?"

She looked around. "How long have I been gone? My [Cappy] friend must be worried sick!"

Ruby did a double take. "I'm sorry, what'd you just say?"

“My [Cappy] friend must be worried sick!"

“ ‘[Cappy] friend’? How do you even pronounce that?”

"I-I'm not sure, actually..." the bow admitted. "Look, in-jokes aside, I'm gonna need some help if I want to get home. Could you please help me?"

"O-okay,” Ruby hesitantly said, “as long as you don't try to, like, take over my brain or something."

"Deal!" Ruby then shook her…. nub-like appendage. She then flew upwards, turned back into a bow, and landed on Ruby’s head. "Now all we need to do is get directions to the Cap Kingdom! To the nearest brochure stand!"

Ruby wasn’t sure what to make of this.

---

"Alright, let's see here..." The bow picked up a brochure (makes you wonder why she turned into a bow if she was just gonna turn back a few minutes later) and looked through it. "Okay, so I'm in the Equine Kingdom, specifically Ponyville."

"Well, I could've told you that," Ruby sighed.

The bow looked at the map confusedly. "...aaand I have no idea where this place is in relation to the Cap Kingdom, so we're still stuck."

She began looking through the other brochures. "Maybe there's another brochure here, of someone around here might know, or..."

Ruby looked at the stand, where a globe was sitting. She then scanned it and asked, "Is that hat-shaped island the Cap Kingdom?"

The bow jumped. "There's a globe here? I didn't even see it!"

Ruby rolled her eyes.

She then started looking. "So, there's the Cap Kingdom, and we are..."

"Here!" Ruby pointed to a point about a third of the way around the globe, to the west.

"That doesn't seem too far away! But we'll still need a vehicle to use... Are there any large, metallic, hat-shaped structures nearby?"

The brochure salesman interjected, "You know, I've heard rumors that there's an odd hat-shaped airship somewhere in the sewers!"

"Why, thank you, kind sir!"

"How convenient..." Ruby muttered.

"Let's go!"

Ruby used her magic to pick up and move the nearest sewer grate, and they went down.

But all the while, unbeknownst to them, a police officer watched them, content in her eyes.

---

(Illustration 1)

They walked through the dank and smelly sewer, the only light coming from Ruby's horn.

Ruby decided to break the silence: "So... Tell me about yourself."

"Well, okay! My name is Bowlina, and I'm a Bonneter." she said as she put the brochure into her bowstrap.

"A what?"

"A Bonneter. That's the name of my species."

"There's more of you?!"

"Well, it wouldn't be much of a 'kingdom' with just me. And we're all different kinds of hats, too. There's me, then my friend [Cappy], who's a white top-hat. He also has a sister named Tiara, and I'll give you three guesses as to what kind of hat she is."

Ruby giggled at the joke.

"There's also Derby, an old Derby Hat; Capper, a baseball cap who loves music, oddly enough; and Queen Bonnie, a bonnet with a brim of steel, but a lining of gold - literally. I even have a brother, Pan!" She then hesitated. "...and then there were my parents, Homburg and Sunny."

"Wait, 'were'? What -”

Ruby then saw that Bowlina was starting to cry. “Oh... I'm so sorry...."

---

After a few minutes of silent walking, Ruby noticed a light ahead of them, coming out of a crack in the wall. "What's that?"

They approached it, and used a nearby rock to knock it down. They were then awestruck by what they saw. "There it is!"

It was a run down top hat shaped airship, with the light coming from the single headlight.

Bowlina noticed the inscription on the side of the brim. "It appears to be called 'Homeward Bow'."

" 'Homeward Bow'? That's gotta be the dumbest pun I've ever heard!"

"I'll admit, it's pretty lame, and rather 'on the nose'."

"I'll say! You'd have to be pretty dense to use that as a name for anything!"

They then stared off in a direction that made the joke work in the comic version of this story.

After a moment, they walked to the ship and started inspecting it.

"So, how do we power this thing?"

"I'm pretty sure we need to find some Power Moons."

"Okay, what do they look like?"

"Well, they're football-sized crescent moons with eyes, and their color varies by region."

Ruby looked off in one direction. "You mean like that?"

Bowlina looked where Ruby was looking, and was amazed at what she saw. There, floating in front of them, were three Power Moons stuck together at the tip, like a bunch of bananas. "Wow! That's a Multi-Moon! It has the power of three Moons combined!"

"Yeah, I kinda figured..."

Ruby reached out to grab it. The moment she touched it, her and Bowlina lost control as they did a victory dance, then leapt up as floating text congratulated them.

Ruby then regained control and dropped to the ground. “What the heck was that?! All I did was touch it!”

“You’ll get used to it…”

They walked back to the ship. "Now, just stand on the front deck and present the Moons to the ship."

"Like this?" She held the Multi-Moon up in front of the ship. They then started floating, broke apart, and flew into an orb on the top of the ship. In a flash of light, the ship had repaired itself, looking much fancier, and with a mast poking up through the ground above them.

"Ooooh!"

Bowlina then turned into her bow form and dropped onto Ruby’s hoof. "Finally, throw me onto the globe, and we'll be off!"

"Like this?" She threw Bowlina at the globe, and she attached with a ‘p-toing!’.

"Yep! Let's go!"

The engines started up, smoke came out of the exhaust pipes in the back, and the ship started to rise, breaking the ceiling and opening it to the sky.
"Now, it should be smooth sailing, as long as nothing interrupts-"

"Stop right there!" a voice interrupted them.

Ruby looked to the source of the voice, the cop that saw them earlier, and gasped.

“You’re in direct violation of Ordinance 743: ‘No civilian may enter a sewer without proper paperwork’. I'm going to have to bring you in for some questioning.”

Ruby turned to Bowlina. "Bowlina, stop the ship!"

"I-I can't!"

"What?! Why not?"

“As soon as this thing starts, it won’t stop until it reaches its destination! No time to explain it!"

"I said stop!" The cop began walking towards them.

“Can’t you re-set the destination to right here?”

“It doesn’t work that way!”

“What kind of backwards design is that!?”

"That's it! I'm using force!" The cop then grabbed Ruby, who was panicking.

"Hey! We're trying to -" Ruby tried to wriggle out, then screamed "STOP!"

As she did this, she flung out her hoof, accidentally punching the cop in the face and breaking her glasses.

“Oh sweet Celestia…”

The cop looked up, her face bloody from shrapnel. The ship then broke free of the ground. The cop tried to grab them, but they had already risen higher than she could reach. Ruby watched as she pulled out a radio and said, "Officer Sargent to Base. I'm going to need backup."

And with that, the ship zoomed into the sky.