The Presentation
"Today's the day, Dad! I actually have a plan this time. Wish me luck!"
Adjusting the picture of herself and her father, Sunny shut the door, strapped on her inlines, and set off. Down the Point and around into Maretime Bay, at top speed, a pony on a mission. For the past year, she'd toned it down, reeled it in. She'd managed to find a job delivering smoothies for Natural Flavors, who ran the smoothie stand on Shore Street. And she'd worked hard on fitting in and getting ponies to like her, or at least stop frowning in her direction as she swept by.
Well, enough of the restraint, she told herself. Today, everything changes. Today, the gloves come off...
Today was the Annual Presentation at Canterlogic. Take number two, and time to put her plan into action.
As she skated through town on her delivery route, with the smoothie-cart rattling along behind her, she put up stickers of smiling pegasi and unicorns. She drew hearts on the posters of the dark, menacing pony. She made balloon animals and smiled at fillies and colts, getting them to smile back at her, unsure why they were doing it but eager to join in.
She let out all the pent-up excitement, all the way through town. Today she was going to make a difference. Today she was getting in. And everything would change, she was sure of it.
Eager and excited, she rolled up to the front walkway of the Canterlogic factory, smoothie-cart in tow. And was quickly confronted by Hitch, appearing from behind the sign at the base of the walkway.
"Aha! There you are, Sunny. Just the pony I was expecting."
"Morning, Sheriff Hitch." Then she smiled past him. "I see you brought the whole squad along again."
Hitch glanced at the two seagulls and shore-crab escorting him. He groaned. "What is it with me and critters? I'm like a magnet to them. Guys, c'mon. Give Hitch a little space!"
The seagulls and crab stepped back smartly. Nearly an entire inch.
"So?" said Sunny breezily. "What's up?"
"Oh, please," Hitch retorted, "like you don't know? Today is the Annual Presentation at Canterlogic --"
"Hey, I'm headed there right now!"
"Uhh, no you're not! Listen, I know you've come up with some hare-brained scheme to sabotage it. And if you think I'm just gonna let you walk in there..."
"Hey, Hiiiittchh..." she said, playfully.
"No."
"C'monnnn!"
"Good Morning, Sheriff Hitch!"
"'Morning Mayflower! Dahlia!" Hitch nodded to the passing mares. Then he turned back to Sunny. He scowled fiercely, refusing to be drawn into whatever she had in mind.
"Sunny, I'm on duty."
She waggled a hoof in the air. And even with the skate on, Hitch recognized it. The old club hoof-shake. Which they hadn't done for moons. And thinking that, Hitch realized he was being exactly the kind of gloomy, by-the-books pony he'd always worried about. And she was calling him out on it.
Well, I did ask her to, he told himself. And he gave in:
Up high, down low,
Hitch it to a post,
Flip it sunny side up,
And on a piece of toast!
And even as Hitch said it, he had to admit it did make him feel better. It was just like old times, when they were little. He kept her out of trouble, while she, well... kept him honest. He'd missed that. Missed having a friend like her.
Unlike some ponies I might mention...
As he thought that, he heard an exhausted, gasping sound coming from behind him and turned to see Sprout himself, trudging up to lean against the placard.
"I did what you asked for, Hitch. She never left my sight. Not even once."
"Oh, hey, Sprout!" Sunny said. "You okay? You seem kinda wheezy."
The red colt managed to pull himself together enough to look affronted. "That's Deputy Sprout to you."
Sunny started to turn away, towards the path, and Hitch quickly got in front of her. "Hey, wait up! I'm not finished! Sunny, we both know how this goes. Every year you try to sneak in, and every year I stop you."
"Look, you have nothing to worry about," she said. "I'll just go into the factory... deliver my smoothies..."
"Nuh-uh!" Sprout shouted. "You can't set a hoof in there! My mom had you banned!"
"But I..."
"I'm asking as your friend, Sunny," Hitch said, and meant it. "Not as Sheriff. Just... please try not to pull any stunts today?"
"Okay, okay!" she said. "I'll try..."
"Thank you. Now, give your delivery to Sprout, and go home."
Then Hitch was distracted by a pony nearby casually tossing aside a candy-wrapper. He rushed off, quoting regulation numbers, with the critter brigade hurrying along behind him.
Sunny grinned at that. And turned...
... to find Deputy Sprout smirking at her.
"Buh-bye..." He snickered triumphantly.
Sunny rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving Sprout to tug her smoothie-cart up the path and into the factory.
Which... was the plan all along. Sunny smirked at how easily she'd pulled it off.
Hitch was mollified and not watching her closely. And if Sprout didn't actually drink all the smoothies himself and end up in a sugar-induced coma somewhere, he'd at least be kept busy trucking them around the factory. Long enough for Sunny to casually stroll round to the side entrance, where neither the Sheriff nor his Deputy were on duty now. And hoping against hope Sprout was only exaggerating, as usual, about her being banned.
The workpony who was stationed by the side door looked up in surprise when she coasted up to it.
"Oh! Hey, Sunny."
"Hey, Pipe Wrench!" Sunny beamed sheepishly. "Look, I was in a bit of a rush this morning. So I asked Sprout to take my smoothie cart around in the factory?"
"Oh yeah," the workpony nodded. "I did see him walkin' by with it."
"Yeah. Unfortunately," Sunny went on, "he hasn't brought the cart back yet. And I'm done with my other rounds."
"That Sprout..." The workpony shook his head. "He might be Deputy, but he's not the brightest bulb in the box, you know what I'm sayin'?"
Tempting as that was, Sunny let it go. Eyes on the prize, she reminded herself.
"It's just that, well... Natural Flavors will be ticked if I show up without the cart. He's gonna need it for the afternoon crowd, after the presentation. Would it be okay if I just popped inside, found Sprout, and got the cart back?"
Sunny gritted her teeth. It was make or break now.
"Pleeeease?"
The workpony looked doubtful. Then grinned. "Sure. Go on in." He waved a hoof. "Don't tell nobody I let ya."
"My lips are sealed," she assured him, and skated on past.
And as she navigated the corridors beyond, she resisted the temptation to burst into song. I'm in, she thought. Now, to pick up my cache of supplies, and we're ready to rumble...
She felt briefly guilty for deceiving Hitch. Then she shrugged resignedly.
At least I didn't have to flat-out lie to him about it. I said I'd try...
------------------------------
It was much later, that afternoon.
After the debacle at the factory. After the panic in town. After the showdown in which Sunny blatantly defied Hitch's authority as Sheriff, then ran away from justice...
Geez, Hitch thought to himself. Was there actually anything utterly crazy that didn't happen today?
Hitch was standing in front of the lighthouse on North Star Point, staring in disbelief at a distant hilltop over which the road out of town curved and dipped away. Watching Sunny gallop away into the distance, accompanied by the blue-haired, freakishly blasé unicorn, who had somehow managed to throw the entire town into chaos just by showing up.
As he watched, the two disappeared from sight. And even with his anger at Sunny for breaking her word, for deceiving him, for harboring a fugitive, for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, for...
Hitch brought himself to a halt.
Sunny was right. That's Brisk Bronco talking.
Even given all of that, Hitch's heart sank at the sight. It felt like... like he was losing her. Losing Sunny, the one real friend that he had in the entire town.
Hitch had never understood the way she thought. He constantly found himself at a loss facing her brilliantly anarchistic approach to pretty much any problem. She broke every rule, turned things upside down, seemed to delight in the chaos she caused. And she always, always left him grinding his teeth, trying not to shout at her to make her see sense.
Yet despite all that... he just couldn't stand the thought of losing her.
What would I do, Sunny, he thought sadly, if you never came back? Who would I be without you?
The thought jogged a memory, of the one time he and Sunny had been on anything approaching a date. It was ice cream, at the food cart by the railing on Shore Street. They were celebrating Sunny landing the smoothie delivery job from Natural Flavors, the one employer in town still willing to give her a chance.
Sunny had apologized to Hitch for being so harsh with him. And she actually apologized too for trying to sneak into the first annual Canterlogic presentation. "You were right," she admitted. "I really should do things differently. Just marching in through the front gate like that, without any kind of plan, that was really dumb, huh?"
"Yeah... it sorta was," Hitch cautiously agreed. "If you're gonna pull something like that you gotta be smoother, more subtle. Never let 'em see you coming..."
"Like Brisk Bronco?"
Hitch stared at her, warily. But she was smiling, in that wonderfully friendly way. Almost as if she was apologizing for making fun of Bronco, too.
Hitch finally nodded. "Yeah, like him. But you know, Sunny, truth be told, if you ever really went totally legit, I might actually regret it."
"Huh?"
"Every year, you try to sneak into someplace. And every year, I stop you. It's gotten to be a tradition with us. And I think the reason I keep letting you off, instead of locking you up and throwing the book at you, like I ought to do," he added warningly, "is because everypony else is so... so... law abiding." Hitch shrugged. "Without somepony like you around, breaking the rules all the time, what would my job be? Chasing after litterbugs and hoping for better?"
Sunny smirked, mischievously. "So you're saying... we're perfect for each other?"
Hitch huffed. "More like we deserve each other." Then he nodded soberly. "But yeah, if someday I finally brought it all to an end... by locking you up, or worse than that, by just standing by and letting you run wild... then where would I be after that? What would I do next? I'm the Sheriff, Sunny! I am the law around here. And how can I be the law, really... without somepony like you breaking it all the time?"
Sunny nodded. "And why would I keep doing it -- breaking the law, I mean? If I didn't have a friend like you trying so hard to stop me? You're right, Hitch, we do deserve each other. You keep me going. You keep me from giving up."
Hitch shook his head. "This is just not fair. It's easy to keep ponies in line when you don't know them personally. It's a lot harder when it's somepony you know so well. A friend you've known and liked ever since you were little. But I don't get to choose, do I? Around here, I am the law. So this one's on me -- at least, so sayeth Sheriff Bronco."
Sunny smiled, amused at how serious he was taking it. Then she held up a hoof, waggling it. And Hitch smiled thankfully. And did the hoof-shake with her:
Up high, down low,
Hitch it to a post,
Flip it sunny side up,
And on a piece of toast!
It helped, same as it always did. The same as she always did.
That was the reason he kept visiting the lighthouse.
And, Hitch decided, his thoughts coming back to the present, that's why I'm not going to let it end like this. I'm going to go after her. Bring her back personally, to face the full force of the law. Because I'm not just the Sheriff. I'm also...
... her very best friend.
And she deserved no less from him.
The End
My Little Pony: A New Generation, its characters and indicia are the property of Hasbro.
No infringement is intended. This story is a work of fan fiction, written by fans for fans of the series.
This entire story is mainly derived from this one scene, plus a few background hints elsewhere in the movie:
And here's the hoof-shake in particular:
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Serina · 1.7k words · 48 2 · 695 views
- pubbyrot · 1.1k words · 60 2 · 2.3k views
- Moproblems Moharmoney · 7.7k words · 15 0 · 1.4k views
- hyreia · 4.4k words · 47 0 · 754 views
- Lets Do This · 6k words · 52 5 · 1.3k views
- Admiral Producer · 6.3k words · 69 7 · 2.7k views
- steel soul · 2.2k words · 39 1 · 1.6k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.122 seconds
Total duration
945 users online
451,919 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well. Sunny is trespassing, and Hitch is just being nice by letting her go with a slap on the hoof. At some point, Canterlogic would stop being nice, and deal with Sunny themselves, and I doubt it would be pretty.
And Hitch would be unable to do anything precisely because of Sunny's prior record, and his constant warnings to stop, and her refusal to listen. Equestria is just racism talking methinks.
Before I read the story anyway, that's what I think.
oohhh i love this!! and especially love the dark mysterious shadowy figure [cough cough luna cough] that seems to be... abducting ponies? killing them? possessing them? all very interesting
MLP seems to have a very nebulous idea of what "moon" means in regards to length of time.
11708289
It means a year in pony language.
11708289
11708380
The writers literally said that they never explained how long a moon was because that way it'd be impossible to notice any plot-holes in the timeline.
11708401
That is true, but moons seem to have become synonymous with years according to the term’s usage in both FIM and Make Your Mark respectively. Stands to reason that moons are just a unit of measurement that indicates how pony society measures years.
one of my favorite song of the movie
He'll be very surprised once he discover his other Talent which turns out to be like Fluttershy's which I was right about that
Oh wow we finally made it to the park where Izzy made it to the town and both her and sunny made an escape
A little shipping feel here aren't we which I think it's very cute I like those two together
Wow that was a pretty interesting story here so it looks like things did happen in the movie a normal day sunny is still trying to make a point about unicorns and Pegasus and hitch has to stop her before making mistakes and it looks like Izzy made it to town and causing havoc but thanks to Sunny both of them made their escape and hitch is reminiscing about their time together and even having a little moment so he made a decision to go after her either bring her back will help her somehow and basically this is the beginning of their Journey I got to say this was a pretty interesting take on I wonder there will be more something like this I guess that's another story either way keep up the good work
Well, I'm still confused. Why did Tempest kill Sunny's father and why was her body walking around without her? What's going on with people's memories? Why is most of the world gone? Why was it important to keep Sunny from sneaking in anywhere? What is the Scholarship? Nothing's been answered!
11708551
Not...really? Both FiM and G5 have used the term "moons" rather vaguely, without it ever being clear if it was really analogous to a year or not. FiM also used "years" as a measurement more than once, and generally very clearly as a measurement separately from "moons," so I highly doubt it ever meant the two to be synonymous, given the contexts it was generally used in. As for G5, there's insufficient evidence on just what is meant by "moons," and it only ever seems to come up solely in the context of referring back to the time of G4, such a long time ago that it doesn't matter whether its moons or years, it was a long time ago. And even then it uses "moons" specifically as if "years" isn't a large enough a measurement, or so it seems to me. Whatever the case, it probably only uses "moons" at all precisely because FiM did, in which case, whatever interpretation FiM used for "moons" probably applies to G5 too.
That all said, 11708401 is right, the writers never meant for there to be a specific answer to how long a "moon" is, because they wanted to keep it vague so to not have to worry about getting too technical and precise with their timeline. But since "years" is also used as a valid measurement, I again highly doubt "moons" are equal to "years."
11708811
To be fair, there is a bit of a hook there for future stories, and I also debated whether or not to reference the Princess of War in the story's summary and picture. But ultimately, the main goal here is, as the title suggests, to tell how Sunny and Hitch wound up at that scene where he says "every year I stop you". And why Sunny wound up in the position she was in -- all alone, as pony kind's last best hope for friendship. Plus also hint that you shouldn't judge mysterious, powerful ponies by appearance: what you might think would be the big baddy may actually turn out to be your best ally against an even worse problem. (Like Sprout with a Mussolini complex...)
11709175
I agree. I could maybe see an argument that "years" and "moons" are meant to be synonymous, maybe coming from parallel solar and lunar calendars somehow (like maybe earth ponies use solar, unicorns use lunar, and pegasi do whatever the hay they feel like). But just linguistically it feels wrong: "moon" as a unit of time suggests a month, or maybe a night. It's a stretch to claim that it's meant to be a year. (Though since ponies move the sun and moon and control the seasons in their world, you could in theory come up with a justification for almost any kind of calendar...)
11709183
If she's so helpful why'd she kill (?) Argyle, erase the sheriff, and is doing stuff to memories?
11709199
Who says she killed Argyle? He said there was nothing more for him to do. And rather than let him fade away as well, she took him away, while she still had the ability to do so. She removed a distraction, so Sunny would have to fall back on her own resources. Even though it wasn't something she liked doing, as she remarks while talking to Sunny later on.
The clues are there, you just have to put them together.
11709209
...Fade? Are any of these ponies real?
11709277
Along with the magic disappearing, so were artifacts and even ponies strongly associated with it. Another AU story, The Archivist, goes into this in more detail.
11709281
The summary also implied Hitch needed to keep Sunny from sneaking into Canterlogic for the fate of the world but I saw no sign of that
11709614
As their conversation in the final chapter notes, Hitch keeps Sunny from going too far, and she keeps him from becoming too serious. He's the reason she's in just the right place to meet Izzy, and set off to find the Unity crystals, stop Sprout, and bring back magic. That's pretty world-saving, right there. And it's because each of them needs the other that Hitch is determined to go after her and bring her back. "Arresting you! And... saving you. You know, a little of both. You're welcome!"
I really really liked this. I loved the mystery of the disappearing ponies and I loved how we delved deep into Sunny and Hitch's friendship and why it's so important :DDDD
11712476
Thanks so much! Sounds like you got this story exactly where it was coming from -- glad you enjoyed it!
Review time!
So, one thing that stood out to me was the lack of villains. Phyllis and Sheriff Light weren’t bad ponies, they’re just products of a system with a very messed up set of priorities. It’s good, it feels more realistic than them just being mustache-twirling bigots. Heck, even the dark, mysterious figure who abducts ponies and has mind-altering powers(?) also seems to want to reunite the tribes. Them seem almost Lovecraftain in a sense; it’s not just that we don’t know what they are or what they’re doing, but that it seems like we can’t . It’s a good contrast to the idealism of the story.
Speaking of which, the mystery! Obviously a lot is left unanswered, and I’m not sure if that’s because it’s supposed to be left up to interpretation or because of some future sequel. Some people might be put off by it, but I personally don’t mind it. And of course, the best part of this story by far is the relationship between Sunny and Hitch. You’ve really captured just how complex their relationship was at the beginning of the movie. Sunny knows that Hitch isn’t a bad pony, but he is maintaining something that is morally reprehensible. Hitch knows that Sunny will have no future is she doesn’t change her behavior, but would she really be happy that way? Both represent the thing that the other hates the most, and yet are the most important pony to each other. It makes you relived that the events of the movie let them finally have the friendship that they wanted.
Anyways, this was a very good story and if you ever write a sequel or anything else g5 related, I’d look forward to reading it. Please have a Derpy
11713535
Thanks much for reading, and for sharing your thoughts! As noted in a prior comment, there is intentionally some lead-in for potential future stories here, but the focus really is on Sunny and Hitch. It was fun trying to figure out how their relationship changes over time, and also figure out the instances in which Hitch "stops" Sunny from sneaking in somewhere, prior to the events in the movie. (I did try to make sure there was one such case for each "year" that passes if anyone's keeping score.) And yes, the Princess of War's motives here are somewhat mysterious and a little counter-intuitive, but that's intentional, and the subject of future stories. (She also appears in The Once and Future Princess and has a brief cameo at the end of The Archivist, so I'm not just being random -- there is a purpose here.)
Anyways, thanks much for the review! It's reassuring to know the story worked so well for you!
This is a nice story about the relationship between Sunny and Hitch.