Chapter One

Familiar Faces

Made by GlitchyProductions

26th of April 2011

Chapter One: Trip to the Park

The grandfather clock chimed, the sound of the hour has passed and it had been the third chime that she had been listening to. A little girl sitting down in a large living room felt the shade of sadness that stroked only the loneliest of people, a small patch of light made its way through the thick cotton curtains emitting a thin line of light which shined on her pale white face. Her short blonde hair had been radiantly glowing in the small patch of light it made her look like a goddess among others.

“I don’t know what you are worrying about; she will come back in a few minutes.” She said; her voice quiet and calm as ever but with the tone of spite and annoyance, her voice ringed with a posh accent from only the most socially acceptable families in Canterlot would have. Or the women down the street with the purple hair and the passion for fashion.

“I want my mom…” The girl whispered, wanting what she loved so much to be in her arms once more.

“She will be back from her rounds soon, I am sure you will see her in just a few minutes.” She replied to her.

“But I want her to come back now…” The girl whimpered.

“Dinky…” She groaned, placing her hand on her forehead. “Your mother will come back soon; I don’t know how to explain that anymore.” She raised her voice; feeling like the situation had become dry out of options to explain the science between waiting and time.

“But what if she doesn’t come back? What’s gonna happen?” Dinky turned around as sharp as a needle to the woman.

“I told you, she will come back.” She groaned once more.

“How do you know?” Dinky asked.

She paused for a moment, thinking to herself why a mere child is getting worried about her mother returning from her usual week-end job. It was getting old and it was starting to get rather annoying for her to just explain that an hour isn’t the longest time to see her mother gone.

“Carrot Top?” Dinky asked her again, snapping Carrot Top out of her trail of thought.

“I’m going to explain again if you can’t understand that your mother has left for the postal service for ONLY an hour.” Carrot top put emphasis on the word “ONLY”, she wanted to explain the dilemma once more but she couldn’t carry on with such circumstances.

Dinky paused for a moment, putting her finger on her lip, giving off a sign to Carrot top that she was trying to think of the appropriate answer for her care taker, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Listen, Dinky. Your mother was urgently needed for the postal service, your mother had to go in and send off the mail around town because the usual working days postman is sick, meaning that she is going to take a little longer posting the mail because has to do all of the town. Do you understand now?” Carrot top explained, Dinky took full attention at what her care taker was trying to say to say. She couldn’t understand why the postman was sick at a time like this during the week-days, she had just came home from a bad day from school and expected her mother to be here but instead only her care-taker was here to look after her.

“Okay…” Dinky built up tears within her and tried her best to contain herself before letting out her tears and aggression somewhere else where Carrot top wasn’t present.

“Why don’t you go upstairs into your bedroom and play with your toys, I’m sure when you start playing with your toys then time will go rather quickly and then you’ll notice how fast time will go.” Carrot top gave Dinky a brilliant idea, the tears and sadness started to fade in her. It was too brilliant to give up, her face sparked with the amazement and sparkle of happiness. How did she not notice it before?

“I got a good idea Carrot top!” Dinky brought back her smile and looked up at Carrot top.

“What is it?” Carrot top crossed her arms, preparing herself for the worst.

“I make change the clocks and make them go forward, and then mommy will come home faster!” Dinky exclaimed; she couldn’t help herself but giggle at her amazing idea.

“No, Dinky…” Carrot top once again put her hand on her forehead. “Go into your bedroom and play with your toys.” Carrot top groaned.

“Oh…” Dinky leaned back on the couch, just realizing what Carrot top had just said, feeling a little embarrassed at the idea that she just came up with. “Sorry…” Dinky blushed.

“It’s okay Dinky, just go upstairs and play with your toys.” Carrot top ordered.

Dinky silently nodded and proceeded to hop off the couch, landing on the ground with a small thud she quickly ran to the other side of the living room past Carrot top and into the hallway. Looking at her target which was the stair way up to the second floor of the house she quickly dashed her way up to the top of the stairs without a challenge.

Dinky had been sitting on the floor for the entire time, playing with her toys in her bedroom. In her hands she had a plastic toy space ship which she thrown across the room desperately trying to make it fly like a real space ship, she imagined herself as an astronaut landing on the moon and fighting evil aliens that lived in her imagination. When she had to hide from the monsters and the aliens she took safe haven hid herself under a massive space rock which was in reality, her bed.

Dinky had heard footsteps coming from the outside of her bedroom, still stuck in the deepest part of her imagination, she was scared that an alien was inside her spaceship and was going to capture her and take her to the UFO outside her ship and then be made a prisoner on another planet far away in the galaxy.

Trying to hold her breath in her make-shift space helmet made out of a fish-bowl and an excessive amount of duct tape all wrapped across the helmet to protect her from the alien’s super powers. She curled herself into a ball and waited for the inevitable to come, her space ship known as her room was breached all there was standing between her and freedom was the alien that invaded. Who as it? And what did want? Was a question that was soon to be answered?

“No! The aliens are gonna eat me!” Dinky screamed under her bed, closely watching her wooden bedroom door slowly open to show a two legged creature that didn’t look familiar in the slightest.

“Dinky!” The alien shouts out, its voice booming and very deep in pitch.

Dinky quickly grabbed one of the card board boxes that lay under her bed and covered the front entrance to the underside of her bed to create a small blockade so she was safe from the alien invaders.

“Dinky!” The alien shouted out again, the footsteps getting louder with every call-out of her name.

“You won’t get me, you stinky aliens!” Dinky screamed; she managed to grab one of her toy pistols that she kept under her bed encase of an alien invasion.

“Dinky!” The alien roared.

The footsteps stopped, they grinded to a halt and Dinky’s heart had pounded for the last time. She was ready to pounce out at the alien menace and defeat them for once and for all.

“Alright you stinky aliens! You asked for it!” Dinky smirked, ready to crawl out of her bed and attack the aliens with her toy pistol.

“You have nowhere to hide Dinky!” The alien shouted, Dinky saw what the alien was doing to her barricade and she didn’t like it. Her trust card board barricade started to move all by itself, she knew it was the aliens trying to break through and take Dinky away from her mother and the rest of her family.

“Here I come!” Dinky whispered, she crawled up to the card board box and slowly nudged it forwards until she had a glimpse of her bedroom. She managed to see that the aliens hadn’t stolen anything from her room and it looked intact despite them apparently breaking down the door.

Dinky bravely crawled out of her hiding place looked up to see her room was still the same as It ever was, toys littered across the floor and a dim light was shining through the windows because of the very thick curtains. Dinky quickly held up her gun and looked down the sights just like a real army soldier. She slowly walked around the room feeling scared, knowing that aliens are in her room and she couldn’t just run for help because of the invasion. She heard a noise in her closet that she didn’t want to hear.

“I’m in the closet!” A strange voice echoed in Dinky’s bedroom, she didn’t know who or what made the voice but it scared her. But she had to be the brave space marine and find out if there was an alien in her closet. She walked up to the closet and slowly placed her hand on the closet door. Feeling the metal the doorknob was made out of.

“I-I’m coming in!” Dinky stuttered, she could hear her own heart beat her bedroom was so quiet.

Dinky slowly opened the door, the creaking sound that the old wood and hinges made was all the more of an experience and a movie-like one at that, she breathed in deeply and began to hold her breath, knowing that she didn’t want to scream in front of the alien because she was a brave little girl.

The inside of the closet was cramped with coats, board games and even a baseball bat. She looked at every corner to see that nothing was inside of the closet; it was pitch black and nothing large of creepy could have put itself in the closet.

“A-any aliens in here???” Dinky started to shake; her aim was taking the toll for Dinky’s lack of sudden courage.

“No…” The voice spawned behind her.

Dinky quickly turned around to see that a monster was standing in front of her in the darkness, blanketed by the dark it slowly made it’s move on little dinky and quickly made work of Dinky, she kept on taking steps back and the alien seemed to close in.

“Get away!” Dinky screamed, she pointed the gun at the face of the alien still silhouetted by the darkness.

“Or what?” The alien said.

“I’ll shoot you!” Dinky quickly aimed at the monsters head, waiting for its next move.

“Shoot me? Don’t be so stupid!” The alien shouted.

“I will!” Dinky shouted.

“I don’t think I will eat you!” The alien announced.

Dinky lowered her gun, confused at what the alien was going to do to her next.

“W-what?” Dinky asked the alien, rather confused.

“I think I’ll…” The alien paused.

Dinky closed her eyes, she imagined the worst, she would be a prisoner on another planet and she wouldn’t be able to see her mother. Even worse appeared when she thought that she would be killed and then thrown into a pit full of monsters that would eat her body. The torment was endless and it certainly frightened Dinky to her possible limits.

“HUG YOU!” The alien shouted.

“Who-?” Dinky opened her eyes.

The alien sprang out and pounced at Dinky, it quickly wrapped its silhouetted arms around Dinky tightly. She cried out preparing for the worst.

“YAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!” Dinky struggled to break free of the aliens grip. “DON’T HURT ME!” Dinky screamed.

“Hurt you? Why would I hurt my little muffin?” The alien said.

“MUFFIN!?” Dinky froze; she knew who said that, no one else could replace the person that said that.

“Yeah! Muffin!” The aliens’ tone of voice slowly changed, from its serious and demonic tone to a happy and joyous tone. Dinky immediately opened her eyes once again and saw that the alien was no other than her mother. Derpy. She stood in the middle of the light that shined through the crack in the window which revealed her beautiful shiny blonde hair and her beautiful strangely placed yellow eyes.

“Mom?!” Dinky couldn’t believe who it was, she felt like doing a back flip. So much energy and relief had come over her after seeing her mother, it was amazing to see her, but the bigger question remains why was she was an alien.

“It’s just me Dinky, what did you think it was? An alien?” Derpy giggled.

Dinky felt a little embarrassed, after realizing that she was caught up in her imagination too far she believed her mother was an alien. She couldn’t help but giggled at the accusation for a moment and she walked over to her mother who smiled widely.

“Mommy, I thought you were an alien and then they tried breaking down my bedroom door and they were gonna take me to a planet far away in the galaxy and I wouldn’t have been able to see you!” Dinky tried to explain to her mother, Derpy on the other hand reached within her postal baggage and pulled out a small brown package. It had Dinky’s name on it.

“Muffin, I got a present for you. It’s from Mr. Whoovington; he said it was really important that you have it.” Derpy smiled, she lowered herself and stood on her knees at Dinky’s level. She handed over the package and gave it to her daughter.

“A present?” Dinky turned the package from side to side inspecting the naming and the post-code. She looked for a small opening where she could open the packaging and decided to rip the top layer of the package open to slide out its contents.

“He said to me it was very important, it’s for the fate of the galaxy he said to me. It sounds like a very big adventure.” Derpy got excited; she mimicked her conversation with Mr. Whoovington with her fingers, slightly bending them every time she talked.

“Fate of the galaxy?” Dinky stopped opening the package and looked up at her mother.

“Yeah, that’s what he said to me.” Derpy nodded.

“That sounds really cool! I bet it’s a ray-gun that blasts aliens from outer space… or… or… it’s a sword that you use to fight dragons…” Dinky now got over-excited, she wondered what was inside the packaging and now she completely ripped the top of the packaging off and then turned the packaging upside down and let it’s contents slowly spill themselves outwards.

As the contents spilled out, a large wrapping of tissue paper had fallen out, Dinky was rather confused at the tissue paper and noticed it was wrapping up something very thin. She undone the layer of tissue paper and managed to unwrap it all until she got to the core of her very prize.

“What?” Dinky asked, feeling confused and a little disappointed at what her new item was. “A feather?” Dinky shouted.

“A feather? That’s so cool!” Derpy cheered, throwing her arms up into the air nearly losing her balance.

“What can a feather do?” Dinky shouted.

Dinky was looking at a very large birds feather, wrapped in a very depressive grey colour. It shined in the sunlight and it looked like it was plucked off a very big pigeon.

Derpy looked at the tissue paper that Dinky had thrown on the ground and saw a splotch of ink on the tissue paper. She leaned forward and picked it up to see that a letter had been written on the tissue paper in black ink.

“Dinky look!” Derpy called out.

“What is it mommy?” Dinky turned around, feeling sad about her new present.

“There’s a letter from Mr. Whoovington!” Derpy exclaimed.

“A letter? What does it say?” Dinky asked her mother, wanting to know what the letter said.

“Dear Mrs. Derpy and Dinky.

I bring good tidings across the entire world as I have been very busy in my travels across the world have been with my team of explorers to the rain forest, it’s very wet and as I write this letter It is badly raining. Along my travels I found something amazing during my trip through the rainforest and I have found a rare feather that I believe belongs to a very rare race of animals. Despite the local tribesmen and people around town saying that the feather is not real, I have evidence to believe that the gray feather belonged to a rare animal that had long been extinct even before the appearance of man. Due to my employers not allowing me to say the creatures name, I must keep it as a secret for now until I return home. Therefore no other company will find us our discovery site in the rainforest.

As you read this letter it is most likely little Dinky has received the feather I gave to her, please take care of it as it’s a nice little present I sent you.

- From Dr. Whoovington of the Canterlot University.

“Aww… isn’t that nice.” Derpy cooed after reading the letter from Mr. Whoovington.

“What was it all about, I didn’t really get it.” Dinky scratched her head.

“Mr. Woovington said he found a rare feather in the rainforest and he thinks it comes from a rare bird.” Derpy explained.

“You mean this feather is from a dinosaur?” Dinky asked her mother.

“I think so; I don’t know what he means by a rare bird.” Derpy scratched the top of her head.

Dinky had an explosion of happiness; she was the only kid on the block that had a dinosaur feather. She wanted to glomp her mother with a mountain and hugs and kisses. But she had to keep herself back from doing so.

“THAT’S SO COOL!” Dinky screamed as loud as possible when she felt her voice crackling when she tried her best to scream even louder than before.

“I’m happy you love it.” Derpy gave her a smile and decided to get off the ground and sit down on her daughter’s bed, she slowly got on her feet and walked out of the closet and walked over to her daughters nicely made bed.

“Thank you mom!” Dinky followed over to her mother and ran towards her; she jumped up into the air and pounced at her mother who was sitting down on her bed. Causing them to fall back together on the soft bed and hug each other as hard as they could.

“I love you too muffin!” Derpy smiled. “Let’s go downstairs and get your coat on!” Derpy announced.

Dinky looked up at her mother.

“Why? Where are we going?” Dinky asked her mother.

“We’re going to the park!” Derpy announced out loudly.

Carrot top was in the living room, she was on her break and she decided to sit down for a while and have a nice cup of tea while Derpy and Dinky were upstairs playing together, it was the only sign of peace when the two of them were upstairs playing together. It kept them concentrated and they weren’t able to break any of Carrot tops fine china and at least break into the fridge and take some of her specially done food.

She heard footsteps coming from behind them, she turned her head and looked over the couch to see that Derpy and Dinky were coming downstairs, it seemed that Carrot tops peace was only going to last for a few minutes before they started breaking the scenery around them.

“Hello Dinky, Hello Derpy.” Carrot top greeted them.

“Hello Carrot top!” Derpy waved from the top of the staircase.

“May I ask where you two are going?” Carrot top asked her friends, wondering where they are going.

“We’re going to the park!” Dinky screamed in excitement, she ran down the stairs as fast as her little legs could let her and she ran to the couch and sat down next to Carrot top.

“Oh really…” Carrot top seemed a little surprised, but felt unsure that their trip to the park would require her excellent supervision. Knowing how Derpy gets into accidents when she is around town and even in her own home.

“Do you want me to come? Just in case any accidents happen?” Carrot top asked Derpy who slowly made her way down the stairs.

“We won’t be having any accidents today Carrot top.” Derpy explained.

“Oh… How come?” Carrot top wanted to know.

“Me and Dinky are already wearing our pull-ups!” Derpy smiled. She too walked to the couch and sat down beside Dinky, her daughter soon enough followed and climbed on top of her lap.

“Okay.” Carrot top awkwardly nodded, strangely accepting the facts but still feeling worried for the both of them.

“We’re going to the park just to walk around, we shouldn’t be too long.” Derpy said to Carrot top.

“I could come; I have some money to buy some ice-creams or maybe I could get some drinks from the Sugarcube Corner.” Carrot top offered.

“No thanks, we’re just walking around.” Derpy smiled again.

“Are you sure you aren’t going to use any money?” Carrot top wanted to make sure.

“We promise, were just gonna walk around!” Dinky put her arms around Carrot top and leaned her head on Carrot tops arm.

“How long are you going to stay there? I don’t want to leave the house at sun-set just to find you both in a café of something.” Carrot top asked Derpy.

“Just for an hour, I’m going to bring my watch so I can tell the time.” Derpy lifted her arm and shown Carrot top her watch that was given to her by her boyfriend.

Carrot top decided to give in with the questions and let Dinky and Derpy go their own ways and let them go to the park. It shouldn’t be too hard for them to return home at the right time.

“Alright, just make sure you two come back home before tea time. I have a stew I’ve been cooking and I have the chance to use my new carrot recipe later tonight.” Carrot top smiled and lifted herself off the couch with the cup of hot tea in hand.

“Derpy could you please do me a favour?” Carrot top asked.

“What?” Derpy replied.

“Don’t go near Lyra or Bon-Bon, I don’t trust those ladies.” Carrot top instructed.

“Yes ma’am!” Derpy saluted.

Carrot top walked into the kitchen and quickly waved at Dinky before going into the kitchen and continuing her work on her famous stews.

“Dinky.” Derpy whispered; she frantically looked around making sure that Carrot top wasn’t around to see what she had.

“Yes mom?” Dinky turned to look at her mother.

Derpy reached within her postal workers shorts and pulled out a 10 dollar note, Dinky on the other hand smirked and giggled uncontrollably; she put her hand onto her mouth and closed her eyes.

“Carrot top won’t notice; I’m sure we can make her a nice big chocolate muffin to make her happy.” Derpy put the note back into her pocket and got off the couch and proceeded to make her way towards the front door.

“Let’s go to the park, but before we do. Where is your coat?” Derpy asked Dinky.

“I don’t know mom.” Dinky said.

“Oh well.” Derpy shrugged. “It’s nice and sunny out.”

Derpy and Dinky had arrived at the park after a small trek through the streets of Rumsville, they passed many people and they were all greeted happily. Dinky was given a small lollipop by the head baker in the Sugarcube Corner and Derpy was greeted by the owner of the town library and her son, everyone in town was in a very good mood and it really made Derpy happy that everyone else was happy. When they managed to arrive to the park they found out that not many people were inside the park itself. It was confusing to them as they used to see large groups of families come to the park to have picnics and even enjoy sports.

Dinky was the first to run ahead of Derpy and she was fast, she managed to out-run her own mother and managed to run over to the giant oak tree that was in the middle of the entire park. Derpy managed to catch up and grabbed Dinky in a playful manner and roll down the oak hill together.

After they were both finished with rolling down the old oak hill they continued their trek through the park to find two of Derpy’s friends who were sitting under a tree covered in shade. They had both set up a small picnic area around them and they had food to spare. One of them looked at Derpy and gave the signal to come over and say hello.

Derpy inspected her two friends and saw they were not wearing their usual assortment clothing; both of them were wearing swimsuits which confused Derpy greatly. Usually she sees Lyra wearing blue jeans and wearing a green hoodie with the icon of a musical harp on the front and the back of it.

Bon-Bon was also wearing a swim-suit; once again Derpy was confused at the sight and wondered why she wasn’t in her usual baker’s outfit that was colored in a slight cream color.

“Hello Lyra! Hello Bon-Bon!” Derpy ran over towards her friends and stopped in front of them. Dinky on the other hand slowly stood behind her mother, feeling shy and scared of her mother’s friends. She knew them for years as aunts but she was scared of them.

Lyra and Bon-Bon looked at each other and both giggled.

“Hello Derpy.” Lyra spoke first; she brushed some of her green hair out of the way so she could get a better look at her friends. “What are you doing here?” Lyra continued.

“Me and Dinky are at the park today!” Derpy cheered.

“Where is Dinky?” Bon-Bon asked, she took a sip of her lemonade and put it back down on the picnic basket.

Derpy looked from side to side and felt someone tugging on her postal workers shirt behind her; she looked to see that Dinky was gripping onto her t-shirt.

“C’mon Dinky, say hello to aunt Lyra and aunt Bon-Bon.” Derpy grabbed Dinky’s arm and pulled her to the front of it all. She saw her aunts wearing very revealing swim-suits; she quickly closed her eyes trying not to be rude by looking at near-naked ladies.

“Its okay sweetie, we’re just in swim-suits.” Lyra teased, she held out her arms ready to embrace the small child.

Dinky didn’t reply, she slowly made her way towards her green haired aunt and slowly hugged her, feeling her naked body and the soft cotton the bikini was made out of.

“So what are you going to do at the park today?” Lyra said with Dinky in her arms.

“W-walking around…” Dinky whimpered.

“Oh, is that so?” Lyra smiled, looking down at the child.

“You know, we saw a guy giving out free donkey rides for children if you are interested.” Bon-Bon suggested.

“Yeah, I bet you’d like to ride a donkey.” Lyra smiled.

“Some guy is giving out pony rides?” Derpy turned round looking at her friends.

“Just for one dollar, he will put a kid on top of either a horse or a donkey and he will take you round a lap his little pathway for a minute.” Lyra said.

“What do you say Derpy? Shall we all go there and watch Dinky go on the donkey rides?” Lyra cooed.

“Sounds like a great idea!” Derpy smiled.

“I’ll pack up all of my items and then we shall get moving.” Bon-Bon announced.

“Cool!” Derpy yelled out.

Derpy, Lyra, Dinky and Bon-Bon were walking side by side down one of the many paths that were found in the park, they all stood next to each other side by side. Although Dinky was given a piggyback by her loving and caring mother, she held on tightly and she didn’t want to let go for anything. After getting up on her mothers back she closed her eyes trying not to look at Lyra or Bon-Bon. Who on the other hand were looking at all of the men who passed by, winking and blowing kisses to them and each other it was all confused for a little girl like her.

“Are you okay muffin?” Derpy whispered, she continued to walk with her friends who were talking to each other.

“I’m okay mommy.” Dinky nodded.

“You aren’t talking much are you?” Derpy giggled.

“I don’t want to talk.” Dinky sighed.

“Okay muffin, Lyra and Bon-Bon say that we are nearly there. Don’t worry about a single thing.” Derpy reassured Dinky and they continued their way to the donkey rides.

Derpy turned her head and kept on walking with her friends, making sure she held on tight to her daughter and she looked at her friends who were talking to each other.

“Do you think that guy from the farm up the street is good?” Lyra asked Bon-Bon.

“I suppose, I don’t really talk to him.” Bon-Bon said.

“Farmers are the best kind, they always work their behinds off and they like to have fun when it comes to getting drunk.” Lyra winked at Bon-Bon.

“He is a little quiet, I have to admit.” Bon-Bon said.

“I’ve never heard him speak; he is always with his sister all the time.” Lyra said.

“I heard a rumour that the Apple family…” Bon-Bon paused.

“What?” Lyra asked; interested in knowing what was going on.

“I heard a rumour that they keep it in the family, if you know what I mean…” Bon-Bon said, nudging Lyra In the shoulder rather lightly.

“I don’t think they would do that.” Lyra interrupted.

“But think about it, they have a little sister who has no known parents and they are the only ones there to look after her.” Bon-Bon said.

Lyra and Bon-Bon didn’t speak for at least a minute; they continued walking down the pathway until in the distance they could see their destination.

“Hey Derpy, there is the animal rides.” Lyra pointed out to the animal rides in the distance, they could all see someone standing in front of a long line of fences and a small barn and finally, the animals themselves.

“Oh! Oh! Look Dinky! Ponies!” Derpy yelled out, she patted Dinky on the back causing her to wake up.

She raised her head and looked over her mothers head and saw what she wanted to see. Animals.

Derpy and Dinky walked up towards is what seemed to be a small farm that had been built in the middle of the park itself. Fences surrounded this little farm to prevent any of the creatures from escaping to their freedoms. Derpy had expected the regular basis of farm animals to appear, including chickens, pigs, cows and even ducks. But the only animals that were present inside of the fences and the small huts were horses. Lots of them. All ranging from different shapes and sizes, and strangely colours. Most of the horses that were present inside of the fences were made out of strange colours that no mad or woman would have thought up of for such creatures. There was a yellow horse with a pink mane, a very large blue horse with an opaque mane, a pink horse with a pink mane and even a little orange horse with a very weird looking purple mane. It was certainly strange.

Standing inside the fences was a man, he was tending to the horses daily needs and he looked very happy. He was smiling at the horses and he was stroking their manes slowly and carefully. He looked up to see the new visitors he had gained from his little show.

“Howdy ma’am!” The man waved out to his new visitors.

“Hello mister!” Derpy waved back at the man.

Dinky looked at the man and saw that he was wearing a large cowboy hat that covered most of his face and casted a dark shadow across his face. Silhouetting most of his facial features, he wore a leather cowboy coat and was wearing denim trousers. Whether he was someone who dressed up for the day or he was a real cowboy it was rather exciting.

“Ah’ see yer’ lookin’ at ma’ horses.” The man spoke.

“Am I supposed to be looking at them?” Derpy asked, rather confused at her current situation.

“If ya’ want.” The man smiled.

“Okay.” Derpy nodded.

“So, do ya’ wanna ride a horse or does yeh’ sister want to?” The man put his hands in his pockets and walked over towards Derpy and Dinky. He rested his arms on the fence in front of Derpy and smiled.

“My daughter wants to ride a horse.” Derpy felt a little embarrassed.

The man looked down and saw a little blonde haired girl wearing a white t-shirt grabbing onto her mothers legs hiding behind them.

“You wanna ride a horse lil’ girly?” The man spoke to Dinky.

Dinky silently nodded to the man.

“Alright.” The man rose up and looked at Derpy.

“Jus’ pay a dollar an’ she can ride for a minute or two.” The man smirked.

Derpy reached deep within her pockets and searched for the 10 dollar note, she grabbed onto it and pulled it out and gave it to the man.

“A tenner?” The man leaned back, rather surprised. “Well thank you lil’ lady.” The man smirked.

“No problem.” Derpy smiled, she waved a little at the man and started to blush.

“For bein’ so kind t’me, I’ll let yer’ daughter ride on any horse she chooses for two minutes straight.” The man gave a small nod at Derpy and looked at behind her legs to see the scared child.

“Do ya’ wanna go on a horsey lil’ girly?” The man asked Dinky.

Dinky silently nodded and gave a little smile.

“Thas’ what ah’ like t’see!” The man enthusiastically yelled.

Dinky made her way to the front of the fence where she slowly climbed over the fencing and landed on the soft mud with a quiet thud, she looked around wanting to know where the horses are.

“Excuse me, where are the horses?” Dinky asked.

“They are in the small shack that ah’ call a barn. Eatin’ up their oats and wheat’s.” The man told her.

Dinky gave a small nod and slowly made her way towards the small shack, it looked very small and it looked like a small roof over the poor horse’s heads in bad or hot weather, Dinky leaned on the wall next to the entrance of the barn and peeked her head through to see what she could see.

“What…” Dinky close and opened her eyes multiple times, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She looked inside the barn to see that the flooring was covered in a large amount of hay. There were two plates attached to the walls with nails that were filled with oats and carrots for the horses to eat. She looked at the second bowl to find a small amount of cold water in there, still confused at finding no horses inside of the barn when just a minute ago they were all spread out across the whole little farm area.

“Hello? Any horses in here?” Dinky whispered, she slowly curved her body round the entrance and slowly walked inside the small shack, she looked from side to side hoping that nothing was going to pounce out at her or even attack her. She didn’t want a bite mark on her clothing or even her pale white skin. In the corner of her eye she noticed something shining, it was small and it was stuck under the threshold of hay that was spread all across the ground. She looked down at the ground and got on her knees to pick up the strange object. It felt… feathery.

Dinky felt a little awed as she picked up the blue shiny item to reveal it was another feather, mixed feelings from Dinky were coming out of her. She didn’t know what to say, she has seen two giant feathers today and both of them were different colours. Today was certainly confusing for little Dinky.

“Ah’ see y’found a feather.” A voice springed out behind her.

Dinky turned around to find that the cowboy had been standing behind her all this time, she felt scared without the presence of her mother.

“Ah’ see that ya’ went into the barn lookin’ for a nice horsey to ride on. I’ll give ya’ the Grande tour of the barn and all of the horses inside if ya’ like.” The man offered; he spoke gently to the little girl hoping not to scare her.

“W-who are you?” Dinky asked.

“Ah’m a traveller from a very far away land.” The man said.

“Where are the horses?” Dinky asked.

“There through this way, ah’ keep them under the shade so they don’t get burnt by the weather.” The man said, he pointed towards a wooden door opposite both of them.

“How many horses do you have?” Dinky asked the man.

“Too many t’count ah’m afraid.” The man tugged on his hat and kept his shaded face from the light. “But anyhow! Les’ go through that door an’ find out who you’ll be ridin’.” The man continued.

The man was the first one to make the move, he slowly made this way towards the wooden door and reached within his pockets, he pulled out a giant silver key with the words “HARMONIZE” on the front. Dinky looked in awe at the key, feeling excited at where it would take her. The man put the key into the door and twisted it tightly; a massive clang was heard on the other side of the door and then the door opened by it self.

“Well… y’wanna ride a horse? Let’s go get you one!” The man smiled at Dinky.

Dinky was the first one to walk into the new room, she was blinded by the light that was coming through the cracks in the old wood that the shack was made out of. She blinked a few times and opened her eyes to see that she was in another room full of hay again, but not this time. It was full of very strange looking horses.

“These don’t look like horses…” Dinky said, feeling rather awkward at what she was seeing.

“They’re very rare types of horses, ah’ found em’ in ma’ travels across the country.” The man said, he then folded his arms and stood in front of the door way. “Jus’ tell me which one you wanna ride an’ then I’ll let them out.” The man said.

Dinky walked over to the first horse that was eating the hay off the ground, it consisted of a very strange and confusing colour scheme. It had yellow fur and it had a pink mane. Most notably this horse had what seemed to be wings; just like a pigeon a horse had wings. Dinky couldn’t believe at what she was looking at. The horse craned its head and looked up a little Dinky and quickly moved back without hesitation. Dinky thought of the kindest thing to do is to reach her hand out towards the yellow horse and be gentle.

“Hello horsey, can I ride you today?” Dinky whispered to the horse.

The horse instead quickly lowered itself and wrapped her hooves around her face, trying to make itself scarce of the situation. Dinky stood back a little and turned round to the man who had been watching the whole situation.

“Ah’ see y’met Fluttershy.” The man said.

“Fluttershy?” Dinky replied back.

“Yeah, thas’ her name.” The man nodded. “She is a lil’ shy herself, she don’t like people. Ah’m the only one she lets me go near. Especially when ah’ have food for her.” The man explained.

Dinky looked back at the horse and saw that she had hidden herself under a large amount of hay trying to hide from little Dinky.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Dinky tried to apologize to Fluttershy.

“Is’ alright, she’ll feel better soon. She jus’ need to interact with others a lil’ more an’ then she will accept more people.” The man said.

Dinky turned around and looked at the next horse that was on show; this one was a little different. This horse was very small and it seemed to be very energetic to say the least. When Dinky took a closer look at the little filly, she noticed it nearly had the same pair of wings that Fluttershy had. Not thinking to ask the man why the horses had wings she looked at the orange coat that the horse seemed to have along with its strangely done purple mane.

The little horse turned around to look at Dinky and quickly made its way to Dinky’s legs. She stood still just in case the little horse was going to bite or even try to pounce on her. But all the little filly did was rub her head against Dinky’s legs in affection.

“Aww… this one is so cute, it’s a baby horse!” Dinky squealed in excitement. She leaned down and picked the small filly and rested it in her arms and cuddled it tightly.

“That one is called Scootaloo.” The man said.

“Scootaloo? It sounds like a race car.” Dinky giggled.

“Scootaloo is a lil’ too young for riding on, ah’ mean she is as tall as yer knees, an’ she likes playin’ with the kids a lot. A lil’ bundle of energy ah’ like to call her.” The man explained.

Scootaloo licked Dinky’s arms in affection. Dinky replied by giggling loudly to the filly. She raised her hand and quickly tickled the little filly in the centre of her belly. Scootaloo responded by using her hooves to push Dinky’s fingers out of the way from her belly. It seemed to Dinky that Scootaloo was enjoying the attention.

“She likes being tickled!” Dinky screamed out.

“Does she now?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Les’ move onto the next horse. Put her back in her lil’ play pen and les’ move on.”

“Okay sir.” Dinky acknowledged.

Dinky lowered the little orange filly and put her back in her little play-pen for young horses. Scootaloo on the other hand wanted to play some more so she jumped up to the top of the play-pen and looked out of her play-pen. From Dinky’s point of view, Scootaloo’s head was popping out from the team of the play-pen showing off a massive smile.

“Bye Scootaloo!” Dinky waved at the filly.

Scootaloo copied her actions by raised her hoof and proceeded to wave back at Dinky while she was turning around.

“Movin’ on…” The man smirked.

Dinky walked over to the next horse and was impressed; she didn’t expect a horse to look so big before. This one was different than the last two horses that she encountered. This one was huge, and to Dinky’s surprise it had a very long horn along with giant blue wings.

This horse had a very deep blue coat that made her look very dark, this horse was certainly bigger than Dinky herself but she wasn’t nearly as big as the man who owned her. The horse was lying down in the hay all by herself not accompanied by any other horses. She had her legs crossed over as if she was not impressed. The horse looked at Dinky and didn’t react to her presence.

“Hello horsey, how are you?” Dinky greeted the giant blue horse.

The horse didn’t reply, but it kept on looking at Dinky and started to frown.

“That one is a very special horse, her name is Luna.” The man said.

“Luna?” Dinky thought to herself. “Like a space ship?” Dinky asked the man.

“Kinda.” The man shrugged. “She’s one of them horses that don’t like bein’ around other people, she likes her mane being brushed all the time an’ she usually get’s first pick on the food cause’ shes the biggest.” The man explained.

“Is she a bully to Scootaloo?” Dinky asked the man.

“Ah’ve never seen ‘em interact since Luna don’t like company.” The man said.

Dinky looked back at the giant blue horse and smiled back at it; the horse on the other hand turned its head away from Dinky and huffed loudly.

“Aww… come on Luna, please be happy.” Dinky said, reaching her hand out towards to the blue horse, she placed her hand on her large muzzle and started to slowly stroke it.

Luna quickly moved the humans hand away and turned her whole body round away from the humans in front of her.

“Don’ worry kid. Luna is a bit of a loner, she don’t like people as ah’ said.” The man explained.

“I think she should have a hug from someone and then she’ll know that people like her.” Dinky smiled.

“Luna is a bit too big for ya’ to ride anyways, she wouldn’t let you ride her without an accident happening.” The man said.

“You don’t have to worry about problems mister.” Dinky said.

“How come?” The man raised an eyebrow at the little girl.

“I’m wearing pull-ups; I think I’ll be okay.” Dinky giggled.

“Okay…” The man tried to ignore what the girl was saying. “Let’s move t’nother one.” The man tried to change the subject.

Dinky continued her inspection of the horses inside the shack and she moved onto the final one that seemingly was the most noticeable. This one was very strange compared to the normal horses that Dinky had just encountered.

“Ha-ha! That’s funny!” Dinky giggled and pointed at the horse.

“Ah’ wouldn’t laugh at this one.” The man said, his hand stroking his small goatee.

“Why not? Her eyes are really funny!” Dinky screamed.

“Would ya’ laugh at a disabled person in a wheelchair? Or even laugh at a guy with one arm?” The man asked Dinky.

“No.” Dinky replied.

“There ya’ go, this one is special compared to the others.” The man said.

“Why are her eyes so funny?” Dinky asked the man.

“Ah’m thinkin’ she was born like this. Ah’ think she can’t help havin’ crossed eyes.” The man said.

Dinky and the Horse Owner were looking at a gray horse, the horse was resting her head in a pile of hay when she looked up at the two humans who looked back at her. She stood up on all four of her legs and slowly made her way over towards the small wooden gate that kept her from escaping.

“Ah’ called this one Derpy.” The man said.

Dinky quickly turned upon hearing what the horse owner had just said, she couldn’t believe that the man had called his horse the same name as her mother. It was impossible in her books; she couldn’t understand how that would have happened.

“Hey! My mommy is called Derpy, that’s so cool! They have the same names!” Dinky screamed in realization from both names.

“Yer’ mother had the same name as the horse? Dang…” The man stood there, rather impressed at the coincidence of the naming choice.

“I can’t wait to tell my mommy about the horse’s name!” Dinky jumped up and down repeatedly.

“Would ya’ like to read this one? Derpy is a really friendly horse, she likes to play with kids an’ ah’ think she likes you…” The man pointed at Derpy who had jumped up to the edge of the gate and peeped her face over the gate to look at Dinky.

“Yeah!” Dinky screamed.

“Alright, les’ get you saddled up ready for ya’ mother.” The man smiled.

“Would you date that Fancy Pants guy who came into town last week?” Bon-Bon asked her friend.

“No, I would date a real hard-working man, y’know… like that guy from the Wonder bolts rock band or Big Macintosh from the farm up the road.

“It’s always about the men with the muscles isn’t it?” Bon-Bon teased.

“Nah, you obviously want a guy to look nice while working for his money.” Lyra said.

“I want a man who can do a back-flip.” Derpy interrupted.

Lyra and Bon-Bon stopped their conversation and looked at Derpy for her randomness.

“A back-flip? Why a back-flip?” Bon-Bon asked her friend.

“Because then… uh… I dunno… I just like back-flips…” Derpy smiled.

“Anywaaays…” Lyra groaned.

“Hey, check it out. That guy from the donkey rides is coming out of his little barn house.” Bon-Bon pointed.

The man was the first to exit his shack; he was holding a leash and some carrots in his hand. He slowly tugged the leash a little and soon after Dinky and a horse came coming out of the shack. Dinky was sitting on top of a grey coloured horse with a blonde haired mane that strangely had crossed eyes.

“Hey Bon-Bon, check out the retarded horse…” Lyra giggled.

“Lyra.” Bon-Bon said.

“Yeah?” Lyra replied.

“Shut up.” Bon-Bon sternly said.

Lyra leaned back a little, feeling a little awkward for not getting an audience to laugh with her about the cross-eyed horse.

“Why?!” Lyra yelled.

Bon-Bon tilted her head towards Derpy and then looked back at Lyra.

“Oh… sorry…” Lyra said, feeling embarrassed and really stupid about what she just said.

“Hey Mommy! Look at me! I’m riding a horse!” Dinky shouted out across the fence, she waved her arms feeling excited that her mother is watching her play.

“Keep on riding Dinky! Woo-hoo!” Derpy shouted out loud, she waved her arms from side to side at her daughter. Which in return Dinky waved back at her mother again.

“Now what ah’m gonna do is take you for two laps an’ Derpy is gone carry you all round the field, hold on tight.” The man announced.

“Yes sir!” Dinky saluted at the man and they started their little trip.

Dinky put her arms around the neck of Derpy and held on tight so she wouldn’t fall off and hurt herself in the process. The man began pulling the leash that was also connected to Derpy’s neck. And thus it started a magnificent adventure across the muddy field.

“Hey, do you notice something about that horse?” Lyra asked.

“I swear to god, if you make fun of Derpy I’ll kill you.” Bon-Bon quickly turned around to Lyra.

“No… it’s just… uh… they look a little similar…” Lyra moved back from her angry friend.

“What do you mean?” Bon-Bon said, while listening she checked the straps on her bikini bottom and tightened the small ropes up.

“I mean… well… look at the hair that the horse has got… it kind of looks like Derpy’s… heck it might even be the same…” Lyra paused for a moment. “Also look how the horses grey fur is the same colour of Derpy’s postal service clothes.” Lyra pointed out.

“I see what you mean.” Bon-Bon took a closer inspection of the horse and saw the differences and similarities too, it was very strange.

Lyra and Bon-Bon looked at each other for a moment, then both turned round and looked at their friend Derpy, and then they looked at the horse and then back to Derpy once more. Bon-Bon came up with the conclusion.

“Well… there is one thing I can say…” Bon-Bon gulped.

“What?” Lyra peered over towards Bon-Bon.

“You’re crazy!” Bon-Bon giggled.

“You can’t be serious!” Lyra folded her arms in anger.

“You’re jumping the shark!” Bon-Bon laughed.

“What?!” Lyra shouted out.

“You’re going overboard with this speculation stuff.” Bon-Bon slapped her knee; she couldn’t take anymore of this.

“Hey guys! Check out Dinky!” Derpy yelled over to her friends.

“What’s going on?” Bon-Bon asked; she wiped a tear that came down from her eye.

“Dinky is nearly passing by us!” Derpy shouted in excitement.

“Okay, calm down Derpy.” Lyra said.

Dinky and the man passed by Derpy, Bon-Bon and Lyra. They both stopped in front of them and the man opened the gate so all three of them could enter the area and interact with the horse. Derpy was the first to interact with the horse.

“Aww… the horse is so cute!” Derpy squealed out in joy, wrapping her arms around the horse’s neck trying to avoid hitting the leash.

Lyra and Bon-Bon stood next to each other watching Derpy interact with the horse that was said to look like her, they saw Dinky looking away from them as usual and the man was curiously looking at both of them.

“Like what you see?” Lyra asked the man.

The man snapped out of his thoughts and looked back up at the ladies in bikinis.

“Ah’ didn’t know what ladies were allowed to wear things like that in public.” The man said.

“Me and my friend are soaking up the sun as much as we can before the weather starts to change.” Lyra flirted, she winked at the man.

“Good fer’ you.” The man whispered.

“Why the job with the horses?” Bon-Bon asked him.

“Ah’m a traveller an’ ah’ like to please children by lettin’ them ride animals.” The man said.

“Don’t you have a home or someplace where you could stay?” Bon-Bon asked.

“Ah’ don’t like stayin’ at home. It’s too far away to go back to anyways.” The man shrugged his shoulders.

“Where do you come from?” Bon-Bon asked.

“Down south, near the dragon country.” The man said.

“Do you have anything to do with the Apple family?” Lyra butted in on the conversation.

“Ah’ don’t come from a family as big as that if that’s what yer’ askin’.” The man said, he looked down at Derpy and Dinky and smiled at their interaction together.

“Lyra!” Bon-Bon turned and whispered to her friend and nudged her in the chest with her elbow.

“Ow… sorry…” Lyra squeaked, she rubbed her arm and apologized.

“Is’ okay, ah’ know what it’s like t’be confused with others, jus’ b’cause ah’ have an accent don’t mean ah’ come from the Apple family.” The man reassured the curious females.

“I have a question if you don’t mind…” Lyra spoke up again before Bon-Bon could bore the both of them again with a serious question.

“What?” The man looked at Lyra.

“Why does that horse… not… look like a horse?” Lyra said; Bon-Bon quickly turned to her friend ready for another elbow in the chest.

“Ah’ don’ understand.” The man was confused at Lyra’s comment.

“The horses you have… they don’t look like a regular farm horse… the farm up the road has REAL horses, why don’t you have any real horses? They look like cartoon horses!” Lyra fully explained her question; the man understood what she was talking about.

“These are really rare horses from a far away land.” The man explained.

“What land?” Lyra wanted an answer.

“Well… I err…“ The man began to speak, but he was cut-off.

“OW!” Lyra yelped out again, rubbing her arm instantly.

“Lyra! Their exotic horses just leave him alone.” Bon-Bon defended the man; she curled her fingers and made a small fist.

“Since when does a horse have wings?!” Lyra wanted to know.

“Ah’ told ya’ missy, they’re rare types of horses that ah’ found some time ago.” The man said, he crossed his arms and looked at the angry greened haired woman.

Without replying, Lyra turned away from her friend and the horse owner and began to walk away from the entire scene, causing Bon-Bon to unravel her fist.

“Where are you going?” Bon-Bon yelled out, she cupped her fingers around her mouth to make herself sound louder like a megaphone.

“I’m going home…”Lyra yelled back.

“She sure is a ball a’ fire ain’t she?” The man commented.

Bon-Bon turned to the man still leaning on the gate with a small unsatisfied smile.

“Yeah, and she is my wife… sometimes I wonder why I married her…” Bon-Bon sighed.

The man instantly leaned back from his leaning position and stared at Bon-Bon rather confused. Bon-Bon reacted the same way but she didn’t lean back.

“Yer’ wife?” The man choked on his own words, he was curious why the two women had a relationship for each other.

“Yeah, same sex marriages are allowed in Rumsville.” Bon-Bon stated, trying to reassure the man by his confusion on relationships.

“Well… that’s weird… where ah’ come from, it’s not allowed.” The man said; he tugged his hat trying to reposition the silhouette that covered most of his face.

“Lyra is just a little hot-headed sometimes, she gets angry pretty quickly at pretty stupid things most of the time.” Bon-Bon wanted to change the subject as quick as she could, she didn’t want to explain why same sex marriages were allowed in town. It was pretty obvious if someone looked at the town’s female population.

“Okay, she is a nice lookin’ gal’ if ah’ were t’say.” The man sheepishly chuckled to himself, Bon-Bon didn’t laugh at his little joke.

“She can get the boys’ attention quite a lot of time. I’m sorry on her behalf for asking silly questions.” Bon-Bon blushed.

“Don’ worry miss, ah’ get a lot of tosh said about me an’ ma’ animals. Ah’ have little baby horses an’ some animal companies that are in the city come t’me and try to take away ma’ horses ‘cause them princesses don’t think ah’ should have them or somethin’ ah’ forget a lot.” The man said, he was calm about the situation and he needed to end the conversation to give Dinky her second horse lap.

“I’m sorry about people trying to take your animals away; I bet they mean a lot to you.” Bon-Bon felt a little sad.

“Ah’ look after them the best ah’ can, ah’ feed ‘em, groom ‘em, brush their manes, an’ even bottle feed the recent addition.” The man said.

“Bottle feed?” Bon-Bon asked the man.

“Ah’ got a new addition to the group an’ she’s a little baby horse.” The man smiled.

“That sounds really cute.” Bon-Bon cooed.

“Now if ya’ s’cuse me, ah’ gotta finish this lap for lil’ Dinky.” The man got off the part of the fence he was leaning on and he gave a small wave to Bon-Bon, which she waved back when he looked back at her the second time. The man walked over to little Dinky and saw her still sitting down on Derpy.

“This horse is so cute!” Derpy shouted, she giggled loudly and felt the horses wet tongue slide across her face.

“Hey mister! Why does the horsey like licking my mommy?” Dinky held on tightly to Derpy’s neck and hugged the horse at much as she could.

“Ah’ dunno, maybe she likes yer’ mother.” The man said, he gave off a small smile and he grabbed onto the leash that was still attached to Derpy’s neck. After rummaging through a small pile of left-over hay he picked up the leash and began slowly tugging the neck.

“C’mon little Derpy, we gets to take you for ‘nother lap.” The man cooed to Derpy, he patted her on the mane and ruffled through her mane hair.

“What?” Derpy perked up. “But I’m Derpy…” Derpy stood up and looked at the man.

“Ah’ called ma’ horse Derpy a long time ago, ah’m supposin’ yer’ also called Derpy?” The man asked.

“Yeah, it’s really cool there is a horse with my name! It’s so cute!” Derpy threw her arms into the air and waved them from side to side.

“How ‘bout we say Ditzy until this is all over, t’stop the confusion.” The man said.

“Cool!” Dinky screamed out.

The man kept grip of the leash and leaned down onto his knees and looked at Ditzy in the eyes, he patted her on the cheek and proceeded to stroke her blonde mane hair softly.

“Do ya’ like the name Ditzy?” He spoke to the horse.

Ditzy on the other hoof nodded randomly, her out of place eyes couldn’t help the man smile a little; he patted her on the cheek and raised himself up back onto his legs.

“Les’ do this other lap.” The man humbly smiled at Derpy and Dinky.

Dinky and the man had finally done the final lap and they were please will what they both achieved together with Ditzy, it was now time to put Ditzy back in her pen and feed her. But before Dinky, Derpy and Bon-Bon were to leave. The man had a little treat for little Dinky.

“So Dinky did ya’ enjoy yer’ ride?” The man asked the child.

“Boy, did I?!” Dinky screamed in excitement. “I don’t wanna get off the horsey!” She squeaked, grabbing onto Ditzy’s neck and hard as she could without trying to choke the poor horsey.

“C’mon muffin, it’s time to go home. It’s starting to get late…” Derpy cooed, she looked at her watch and saw that the time was five o’ clock. They really needed to go home before Carrot top would notice and shout at them for being so late.

“Aww… do we have to?” Dinky groaned; she didn’t want to leave the little horse that had the same name as her mother. She felt rather connected with this strange little horse.

“Yes muffin, we need to get home before Carrot top finds out we have been gone for a few hours. I need to get some sleep for my night rounds at the post office.” Derpy said, she climbed over the fence once again and walked over to Dinky and Ditzy, she leaned down and picked up Dinky like an infant and carried her in her arms.

Ditzy on the other hand had the idea of following them, she trotted over to Derpy and grabbed Derpy’s trousers with her mouth, she didn’t bite the post woman’s shorts but she slowly tugged on the adult to grab her attention.

“Aww… does Ditzy want a hug too?” Derpy cooed, she leaned down making sure not to let go of Dinky and slowly ruffled the horse’s mane. But Ditzy still kept on latching on to her trousers.

“Now, now Derpy, let go of t’nice lady.” The man said; he crossed his arms expecting better from her.

Ditzy soon let go of Derpy and turned around to her owned, her usual confused and happy galore turned to a sad and depressing frown. She looked up at the man and licked his trouser leg.

“Dinky, can ah’ ask ya’ somethin’?” The man said; Dinky soon turned around from her mothers grip and looked at the man, feeling tired from riding Ditzy.

“Yes mister?” Dinky whispered.

“Would ya’ like t’feed the horses b’fore ya’ leave?” The man suggested.

Dinky’s little golden heart exploded into pieces, never in her life someone asked her to do such an act of good will before, feeding horses must be important she thought to herself, it must be a very big honour if she is allowed to feed Fluttershy, Luna, Ditzy and Scootaloo.

“YEAH!” Dinky raised her arm into the air and screamed as loud as she could.

“Alright, how ‘bout ya’ feed Scootaloo, then we feed Fluttershy?” The man suggested to little Dinky who was on the verge of literally exploding.

“Mommy can I feed the horseys?” Dinky quickly turned to her mother and looked at her.

“Sure thing muffin, don’t take too long!” Derpy laughed, she lowered Dinky to the ground and placed her on her feet, she then looked at Bon-Bon who also looked tired.

“I’ll be back in a minute mommy!” Dinky ran off into the wooden shack without the man saying, she knew where to go and what to do. Derpy watched Dinky run inside and soon the man followed her soon after.

“I need to get back to my candy shop before sun-down.” Bon-Bon said to Derpy.

“Why?” Derpy asked.

“I’m still in a bikini; I need to go back before it gets dark. I don’t really think it would be the right thing to do if I were to walk around the streets in a bikini at night.” Bon-Bon yawned; she needed to really get back. She felt the nights wind blowing early enough, the orange sky was the tipping point for the night and it were to come soon.

“Are you going home now?” Derpy asked her friend.

“I think Lyra and the shop can wait.” Bon-Bon grinned.

“Okie-dokie!” Derpy nodded up and down, she gave her friend and thumbs up and Bon-Bon soon copied.

Dinky and the horse owner were walking through the same door that they walked through a few hours ago, they both looked at the same room that had Fluttershy and Luna inside and they had all fallen asleep in the giant piles of hay. While on the other hand Scootaloo was still rummaging around for something to do, she looked around the hay and dug her head into the massive piles.

“Scootaloo!” Dinky called out, she ran over to the orange foal and quickly picked her up, Scootaloo was unaware of the human’s presence.

“Scootaloo seems t’be the only one awake.” The man said. He looked around the room to see that Fluttershy had wrapped herself in the piles of hay to make a nice and cosy blanket for herself; Luna on the other hand had stretched her body out on top of the hay and was snoring quite loudly. He still had the leash that directed Derpy into her pen and he led her into her pen which consisted of little-to-no hay on the floor and a massive cardboard box that the mare usually hid herself inside of.

“But it’s only five; my mommy told me the time.” Dinky reminded the man.

“Ah’ know Dinky; they seem awfully tired even though they came out only once.” The man walked over to Luna and leaned down to tap her on the muzzle, Luna opened her eyes to see her owner had tapped her on the edge of her nose. She pushed his hand away with her snout and turned around to try and get more sleep.

“Luna sure is grouchy today…” Dinky said, she held the orange foal in her arms and cradled the little one slowly.

The man turned around to see what she was doing and saw that Dinky was holding Scootaloo like how a human would hold their infant child, it was a cute sight and he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

“When do I get to feed Scootaloo?” Dinky wanted to know.

“Right now.” The man nodded.

“Right now?!” Dinky exclaimed.

“Yeah, right now.” The man nodded again.

“Cool!” Dinky squeaked out, holding the orange foal tighter than ever.

“Lemme’ get her food.” The man said, he turned around to the entrance of the shack and walked over to the table that was near the door, he opened one of the drawers to reveal that a small fridge was hidden inside of the wooden table, the contents of the fridge were simple. Three bags of carrots, a milk carton and a large baby bottle that was full to the brim with cold milk.

The man picked up the bottle and held it upside down, letting some of the liquids spray out. He then turned it back upright and then looked at little Dinky through the doorway, he walked through and handed the baby bottle to her.

“Jus’ put this in her mouth an’ she’ll fall asleep in no time.” The man instructed her.

“You mean like this?” Dinky tilted the bottle in one hand and the foal leaned her head up towards the amber nipple and began to plunge the nipple into her mouth. She then started to suck on the nipple and the white liquid began to dribble out of the nipple and soon enough the foal began quenching her thirst with the milk.

“Good job Dinky, yer’ doin’ fine!” The man gave a small thumbs up to the child as he climbed over Fluttershy’s pen and stepped in front of the large pile of hay that the yellow mare was sleeping in.

“I’m doing it! I’m doing it!” Dinky shouted, feeling happy for her good efforts so far.

“Yes you are.” The man humbly chuckled to himself, he repositioned his hat to cover up his silhouette and began to move some of the pile of hay that were in the corners of Fluttershy’s pen and spread the straws out across the parts of the floor that were naked showing the wooden flooring under the mess of hay.

Scootaloo’s eyes began to feel heavy, she tried to keep them as wide and awake as possible, but the milk’s effects were too strong. Human milk did its work and it caused her to fall asleep within a matter of seconds. Dinky took notice of the sleeping foal and managed to pull the bottle out of the foal’s mouth with the nipple still dripping with a small amount of left over milk that fell out of the bottle.

“Mister! Scootaoo has fallen asleep!” Dinky whispered to him.

“Has she?” The man turned around and cancelled his current actions to look at the little girl.

“Yeah.” Dinky smiled and looked down at the foal and saw that she had curled herself into a ball in Dinky’s arms.

“Lemme’ put her back in her play-pen an’ then you can go home.” The man said; he tried his best not to awaken the yellow mare that wrapped herself in the hay.

Dinky looked down at the sleeping foal once again and smiled; she lowered her head and kissed the foal on the top of her forehead.

“Goodnight Scootaloo.” Dinky giggled.

The man reached his arms out for the foal and Dinky complied, she gave him the little sleeping foal and he slowly made his way over towards the little play-pen that was full of old and ripped up toys and plushies that Scootaloo played with. In one of the corners was a little pillow made out of cotton, inside of the pillow was feathers. A small hole in the pillow gave the contents away and it was obvious to see.

“Ah’m gonna’ put her on the pillow an’ then she will sleep for the rest of the night.” The man said; Dinky watched as the man placed the sleeping foal onto the soft pillow. It was a heart warming scene and Dinky couldn’t help but smile and giggle at the sight of the foal lying on the pillow, instantly tossing the turning trying to find a comfort spot on the pillow.

“Now that ya’ fed Scootaloo, we’re gonna leave Luna alone fer’ now an’ so you can go home. Yer’ mother is waitin’ for ya’.” The man whispered; he put his finger on his mouth.

Dinky silently nodded.

Dinky and the man walked out of the shack with smiles on their faces, Dinky was proud of her achievement. She still couldn’t believe that she just fed a baby horse. Her friends at school would not believe what she did over the weekend; it was going to be the talk of the town as she imagined it in her head.

“Did ya’ have fun Dinky?” The man said to Dinky.

“Yes sir!” Dinky saluted at the man, he responded with a light chuckle.

“Y’know, yer’ really good with animals. ‘Specially babies.” The man said.

“I am?” Dinky said.

“A good care-taker if ya’ ask me.” The man smirked.

“Thank you mister!” Dinky and the man stopped in their tracks and the child quickly wrapped her arms around his legs in a very tight hug.

“No problem, yer’ mother might be callin’ ya’. Better get t’her before it get’s real dark.” The man blushed.

Dinky let go of the man and quickly ran ahead of him out of the shack to see that her mother and her friend Bon-Bon had been standing in the same place ever since Dinky and the horse owner went into the wooden shack.

“Muffin!” Derpy called out, Bon-Bon turned around to see Dinky running towards her mother on the other side of the gates.

Dinky ran as fast as she could towards her loving and caring mother and pounced into her arms as Derpy reached out for her child, both of them collided and Dinky was wrapped round in her mother’s soft white arms.

“Derpy, it’s nearly half five. I’m pretty sure we need to get you home.” Bon-Bon crossed her arms and looked at the mother and child hugging each other.

“Bon-Bon is right, let’s go home Dinky!” Derpy whispered into her child’s ear.

“Okay mommy!” Dinky whispered back.

Derpy put her arms under her daughter’s legs and picked her up like how a mother would pick up their infant child and carry them. Which is what Derpy did, she carried Dinky like an infant and Dinky herself wrapped arms half-way around Derpy’s neck.

“Lets start making our way down the hill back into town; I can see the street lights turning on!” Bon-Bon announced.

“Let’s move out!” Derpy turned around and pointed towards town, with a smile on her face.

Bon-Bon and Derpy had started walking down the park path; Derpy held little Dinky in her arms like an infant as she soon fell asleep during the walk home. The world around both adults started to fade as night time began sweeping over the land, the night time wind started to blow and it left a chill that went down all of their spines.

“It’s really cold, I should have worn more clothing today.” Bon-Bon shivered, she rubbed her arms together trying to warm up her skin.

“Don’t worry Bon-Bon were nearly home.” Derpy said.

“I know Derpy; it’s just that Lyra might be still mad at us. She has the keys to my house.” Bon-Bon worried.

“Why does she have the keys to your house?” Derpy asked her friend.

“Because I gave her the only spare set because she is better than me at keeping things in safe places.” Bon-Bon said.

“But you are a really good person; I don’t get why she would be a meanie and lock you out.” Derpy said.

“I don’t know if she had locked me out yet Derpy.” Bon-Bon said.

“Why is Lyra always angry?” Derpy asked Bon-Bon.

“I don’t know Derpy.” Bon-Bon shrugged, she once again tightened her bikini bottom and pulled them up so they wouldn’t start to fall down.

“Did you think that man with the horses was cool?” Derpy asked her friend again.

“I don’t know, seems like a nice guy.” Bon-Bon said.

“I thought the horses were cool.” Derpy randomly said.

“They did look strange for horses, although it’s just for kids and I suppose its good entertainment for them.” Bon-Bon said.

“Do you want to come home with us?” Derpy asked her friend.

“I need to get back to the candy store; I don’t want to keep Lyra waiting any longer. And I don’t think that Carrot top wants me around the house in a bikini at this time.” Bon-Bon giggled.

“I know Dinky had a good time.” Derpy smiled.

“She’s a little girl Derpy; she had a lot of fun.” Bon-Bon said.

As Derpy and Bon-Bon walked through the streets of Rumsville, they saw that the people of the town were starting to turn on their house lights and the late night clubs were starting to open for the music hungry young adults and teenagers. They passed by the Carousel Boutique, the Sugarcube Corner and even the Educational Library which Derpy and Dinky passed by this early afternoon.

“Does Dinky still get bullied at school?” Bon-Bon asked her friend, she didn’t want to bring up the subject of bullying but she just wanted to know what was going on with Dinky.

“She is doing fine.” Derpy gave a small smile, she hesitated to talk.

“I’m just wondering, because I heard from Lyra that she got into a little scramble with some of the kids at school during play-time.” Bon-Bon said to her friend. She looked at Dinky who was asleep in her mother’s arms.

“I don’t know; I didn’t really understand what her teacher was saying.” Derpy shrugged, obviously trying to get out of the situation.

“Oh…” Bon-Bon looked back at Derpy, she knew for a fact that Derpy was trying to get out of the whole conversation that they were both in. “If you don’t want to talk about Dinky’s problems at school, I can understand if you don’t want anyone knowing and stress is obviously being put on you. Because Cheerilee is trying her best to keep Dinky away from the kids because of their behaviour, maybe I can talk to Cheerilee and I can ask her what she is doing and we can try and help her both together.” Bon-Bon looked up at her friend.

“I don’t know; would I have to talk to Carrot top?” Derpy asked.

“Possibly not.” Bon-Bon said.

“My little muffin means a lot to me, I don’t know why those kids pick on her…” Derpy sighed.

“Is she having learning problems in class?” Bon-Bon asked.

“I don’t know…” Derpy shrugged again.

Derpy and Bon-Bon reached the Candy Store, it was a small building mostly made out of bricks and painted over to make it look eye-catching as possible. It wasn’t anything like the Sugarcube Corner but it had its up’s and down’s with the mega-company known as the Cakes Business.

“Listen, you know where to talk to me if you need someone to talk about these things, don’t trust Lyra. She’ll just give you bad advice.

Understand?” Bon-Bon said to Derpy.

Derpy silently nodded.

Bon-Bon leaned down in front of the door mat and lifted it up to reveal a small pair of house keys. Bon-Bon picked up the house keys and turned back to Derpy.

“I’m going inside to change into something more…” Bon-Bon paused for a moment and looked at her body. “Suitable…” She blushed.

“Okie-Dokie!” Derpy nodded.

“You can go home now.” Bon-Bon reminded Derpy.

“Oh yeah…” Derpy giggled. “See you later alligator!” Derpy giggled again.

“Good bye Derpy.” Bon-Bon waved to her friend.

“See you tomorrow!” Derpy yelled as Bon-Bon went through the front door.

Derpy arrived at the front door of Carrot top’s home, as ever it was a beautiful home in the middle of town. It was the size of a regular family sized house with one bathroom, three bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. And because of Carrot top they had a big garden that was filled with bright and luscious flowers that could brighten anyone’s day up. Derpy walked up the pathway trying to avoid stepping on the cracks on the cobblestone pathway. She managed to reach the wooden front door and rang the door bell. She positioned little Dinky so Derpy could hold her in one arm.

The door quickly opened as Carrot top came into the scene wearing her usual night gown and a sleeping cap with a little bob on the top of it. Carrot top wasn’t happy to see the pair and she was even more displeased when she looked at little Dinky.

“Where have you two been?” Carrot top said.

“We’ve been at the park.” Derpy smiled at Carrot top.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come back home a few hours ago, what took you so long?” Carrot top asked; she moved herself out of the way so Derpy and Dinky could enter into the living room. Derpy walked into the living room and slowly placed little Dinky onto the couch.

“What happened to Dinky?” Carrot top asked.

“She is just tired.” Derpy sat down besides her sleeping child and ran her fingers through her soft blonde hair.

“Tired from what?” Carrot top impolitely replied.

“Riding horses.” Derpy whispered.

“I thought you said that you didn’t have any money…” Carrot top said, rather confused.

“Err…” Derpy was at an edge, she had to lie. “Bon-Bon gave me some…” Derpy started to sweat.

“Bon-Bon?!” Carrot top yelled. “You mean that lesbian?” Carrot top was shocked; she leaned back from just hearing the name.

“Yeah, Bon-Bon.” Derpy nodded, unaware of Carrot top’s sudden disgust.

“Why were you with her? I thought I told you not to go anywhere near her with Dinky?” Carrot top felt ill, she didn’t want to resort to shouting at Derpy.

“We saw her at the park and we said hello to her.” Derpy lowered her head, realizing her mistakes.

“Bon-Bon and Lyra aren’t the right type of people that you should keep around Dinky, they might teach their lesbian ways to Dinky and you don’t want that do you?” Carrot top walked over to Derpy and put her hand on her should, which caused Derpy to look up at her friend.

“N-no…?” Derpy felt very confused.

“I knew I should have come with you, next time you are going to the park I’m coming with you.” Carrot top said.

“I-I’m sorry…” Derpy sniffled.

“It’s okay Derpy, its okay to make mistakes sometimes. I knew I should have come with you that’s all…” Carrot top sighed and turned to the kitchen entrance. “I’m pretty sure you and Dinky are hungry?” Carrot top walked into the kitchen, Derpy soon followed and walked with Carrot top into the kitchen.

“No thanks.” Derpy opened one of the cupboards; it was filled with boxes of cereal and a glass jar that was filled with tiny muffins.

“I’m just going to have a muffin and then me and Dinky are going to bed.” Derpy yawned.

“But it’s only half five, it’s barely sun-down.” Carrot top said; she looked at the kitchen clock to make sure of the right time.

“Me and Dinky are just really tired, we don’t know why.” Derpy stuffed the muffin in her mouth and began to chew on it.

“As long as you wake up early in the morning to help me with the carrots in the garden, those pesky rabbits from Fluttershy’s animal care home are starting to come over here and eat the carrots.” Carrot top explained.

“Sure.” Derpy swallowed what was left of the muffin and began to clear her throat.

“I’ll go upstairs now.” Derpy giggled.

“By the way…” Carrot top grabbed Derpy by the arm. “I bought more pull-ups for you and Dinky while you were both out. I put them in her drawer upstairs.” Carrot top said.

“Okie-Dokie!” Derpy nodded, she gave her friend a small thumbs up.

Derpy walked out the kitchen leaving Carrot top behind to pick up Dinky just like she did when they were on the way home, Derpy walked through the hallway and began at the bottom of the staircase and slowly made her way up, and she couldn’t help but notice that Dinky was making an adorable snoring sound that Derpy couldn’t help but laugh at.

As soon as they both got to the top of the staircase, Derpy looked to the side to see Dinky’s bedroom, her door was left open just like earlier today and all of the toys were spread out across the room as usual. The wallpaper of the space ships and the stars started to shine in the moonlight that shined through the thick curtains.

Derpy made her way towards Dinky’s little wooden bed and she lowered her child onto the bed, she took of a piece of her clothing one by one until she was only wearing her shorts and her underwear underneath. Derpy walked over to her drawer and pulled it open to reveal her bed-time clothing. This was a blue pyjama suit that was a one-fits-all size. It was covered in images of stars and cartoony space ships that a child would love to see.

She looked under where she found the pyjama suit and found the pull-ups that Carrot top was talking about; she picked one of them up and closed the drawer with her hips by pushing the hatch closed.

Derpy walked over to Dinky and started to unbutton her trousers and pull them down to reveal her cotton white underwear, it was a careful procedure that Derpy had to follow to make sure that she didn’t disturb her daughter from sleeping and she had to be careful as possible.

She pulled down her daughters underwear exposing Dinky’s nether regions, Derpy looked away trying not to commit the act of rudeness to her own child and she pulled down her underwear without even looking and she managed to sweep them off her feet. Derpy then turned around completely and unfolded the pull-ups and slowly placed them on Dinky’s feet. Slowly but surely she slided it up her legs until it was in the correct position. She pulled the top of the pull-up to make sure no parts were sticking out and Derpy could finally look at her child.

“Good night little muffin.” Derpy whispered to her child, she leaned her head forward and kissed her on the forehead.

Derpy picked up her blue blanket had those images of space ships and even more pictures of things you would normally find in space and placed it on top of Dinky.

“See you in the morning.” Derpy whispered to her child again.

And with that, Derpy turned around and walked over to her drawer once and opened it, she picked up one of the pull-ups and closed the drawer door. She left her daughters bedroom in a hurry.

“I see that you are ready for bed Derpy.” Carrot top said.

Derpy instantly turned round to see that Carrot top had peeked her head through the bedroom door, smiling at her.

“I- I- uh… didn’t see you there…” Derpy quickly pulled down her t-shirt trying to cover up the pull-up she worn.

“It’s okay; I’m not going to laugh.” Carrot top entered the room holding a cup of tea in her hand. “Bladder problems must be hard.” Carrot top said.

“Y-yeah…” Derpy blushed; she couldn’t hold the weight of embarrassment.

“I see that you put Dinky to bed.” Carrot top smiled.

“Y-yeah…” Derpy sheepishly nodded.

“You don’t have to hide your pull-ups from me; I’m not going to tell everyone that you still have toileting issues.” Carrot top sighed.

“Y-you aren’t?” Derpy nearly choked.

“Yeah, may I sit down on your bed?” Carrot top politely asked.

“S-sure.” Derpy blushed.

“How did the trip to the park go?” Carrot top lowered herself and slowly sat down on Derpy’s bed, keeping herself in a certain position so she didn’t spill any liquid onto her friend’s bed sheets.

“I- It went f-fine…” Derpy muttered.

“Did Dinky have a good time?” Carrot top asked, giving off a nice smile.

Derpy silently nodded and looked at Carrot top.

“You know… I can’t remember the last time I had fun.” Carrot top sighed.

“W-what do you mean?” Derpy asked her friend, pulling down her t-shirt to cover up her pull-up once again.

“Well… when I was a kid, I used to have quite a few toys. You know the usual. A toy house here, and a teddy bear there… but when my mom and dad told me that I had to get rid of the toys, I was angry and very sad.” Carrot top paused to take a sip of her hot tea.

“I-I’m sorry…” Derpy apologized.

“You don’t have to apologize, it’s just life.” Carrot top paused again. “When I look at Dinky…” Carrot top paused. “It’s like I am watching myself in rewind, playing with all of the toys… going to school having fun. It’s pretty weird.” Carrot top tried to explain.

“That is weird…” Derpy said.

“She is six years old, and I’m what… 24? I wonder what it would be like when Dinky is all grown up and were old.” Carrot top wondered.

“I don’t know.” Derpy shrugged.

“But I have a question for you Derpy.” Carrot top continued.

“W-what?” Derpy wondered what the question was.

“What is that letter from Dr.Whoovington?” Carrot top asked; she took another sip of her tea.

“Dr.Whoovington?” Derpy replied.

“Yes. The man who sent Dinky the gray feather.” Carrot top said.

“He is uh… a friend of mine…” Derpy blushed.

“Really?” Carrot top looked back at Derpy.

“Yeah… he is uh… a- friend” Derpy tried to explain.

“Oh really?” Carrot top giggled. “How long have you known him?” Carrot top asked.

“C-can I go to bed n-now?” Derpy had enough; she wanted to be left alone.

“Okay.” Carrot top nodded, she understood that she was throwing too many questions at Derpy for her to handle.

Carrot top stood up and got off the bed with her cup of warn tea in hand, she walked over to the bedroom door and looked back at Derpy who was wrapping her herself in her blanket.

“Derpy.” Carrot top whispered.

“Y-yes?” Derpy whispered.

“I’ll make breakfast in the morning.” Carrot top winked.

“O-okay…” Derpy nodded.

Carrot top gave her final to Derpy and she closed her bedroom door behind her, she took a sip of her tea and smiled for the next bright and beautiful morning.

To be continued…

Chapter Two

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Chapter 2: Nights Sky

Dinky lay fast asleep in her bed tossing and turning to find a spot in her bed that would keep her comfortable, something in the back of her mind lingered of the day that passed by. Various images of the Rumsville Park and the wooden fences that kept the horses in the shack, but most certainly the images of the horses that she met earlier today were the most interesting images that managed to stick themselves into her precious little head.

Scootaloo…

Scootaloo, the tiny baby horse that worn a jagged purple mane wrapped in orange fur was the one that managed to stick the most into Dinky’s head. It was a small image, but it was an image that would stay in her head for the rest of time. The baby bottle filled with milk that was used to calm down the baby horse was the moment that stuck out in her head, she wished to see that exact baby horse one more time no matter the cost of what, and she wanted to see that baby horse again.

In the middle of her mind, the epicentre of her beautiful imagination. Filled to the brim with space battles, dinosaurs, monsters and aliens there was a small purple flash within it all, stars and gems that floated around in the aura of space turned to a violent flash of the colour purple. This flash was like a wave of energy, it blasted itself through the ideas of space battles and dinosaurs and wiped them out completely from her mind, the flash was expanding. It started to hurt her from the inside, it felt like she was being jabbed in the head with a sharp butcher knife. She tossed and turned more and more, she couldn’t lay to rest with these strange images and the bright flashes of bright purple. It was like the strange glows of energy were keeping her eyes closed.

Was this a dream? Was it a nightmare? Dinky couldn’t explain or even unfold of what the power of this energy was doing, whatever the purple energy touched within her mind. It faded away into the depths of purgatory. After the beam of purple energy had destroyed all of her thoughts it started building a world around her that she had never seen before, it looked amazing. Forest’s, Mountains, Lakes, Villages, Clouds, Deserts, Canyons, Castles, Cities, Space, The whole universe was forming around her in this imaginary world of her choice and design.

The looked down to see that she was standing above a forest like a giant; she overlooked everything that this world had to offer.

“Where am I?” Dinky spoke to herself, her voice echoed though the sky like a mighty roar of a dragon. In-between her feet she felt something soft, very soft. She slowly looked down to see that she was standing on something white and fluffy. The object she was standing on was floating miles above the surface of the world, Dinky felt her vertigo taking place and she quickly got to her knees to grab onto the strange object to keep her from falling off.

“What is going on?!” Dinky screamed; she couldn’t apprehend the realism of this world. Her dreams consisted of her worlds being tasteless, no smell, no sound, and no life. This world was the opposite; she could breathe in the cold air around her and even feel the objects in her dream. This was magic.

Dinky looked around feeling her tears take her over, she couldn’t believe that her dream was starting to feel so weird and yet to real at the same time. The cloud, the oxygen and the world around it felt all so real. It was like she was on a different planet let alone another dream.

“MOMMY!” Dinky burst into tears, she couldn’t hold the pain no longer, and she wanted her mother. She was miles high in the sky with no possible way of climbing down to the surface, all the tears coming from her fell onto the surface of the soft cushion of a cloud. The clouds pearly white colour started to transform into a dark black colour. Just like any real cloud.

“MOMMY WHERE ARE YOU?!” Dinky screamed out, her voice continued to rage and escalate into the mighty roar of a giant monster; it could be heard from a mile away. Her voice constantly echoed further and further sounding like it would never falter.

Dinky lifted her head to see the world around her and it was still forming, it was like a special being had created a world for her and the world was being constructed around her like a video game. She saw in front of her was a massive castle, only the kind that would be seen in a fairy tale that her mother would read to her to make her fall asleep, it was as tall as the sky and it was surrounded by a massive city that was sitting itself on the side of a giant mountain. Golden towers that reached the top of the clouds with a small city being surrounded by a massive wall made out of bricks. It was a magnificent sight to look at.

“WHERE ARE YOU MOMMY?!” Dinky roared out once again with a scream that would match the roar of a giant dragon, feeling the wave of energy that came out of her she quickly threw herself to the ground. Within her dream she was tired of her own imagination, she didn’t want to scream. She was lost in a world that felt too real to be a dream. She understood that a dream isn’t supposed to feel real, but in this dream it felt too real. She couldn’t understand why.

Breathing in and out slowly but surely she regained her energy to figure out on how to reach the surface without hurting herself. But there was something else, a cold chill made its way through her spine. She didn’t like it, every dream she had resulted in the dead air that followed her from scenario after scenario.

The bright blue sky started to change, from its radiant oceanic blue to slowly churn into a strange gray colour with a constellation of clouds that slowly followed her far from the surface. They all formed to make a gigantic cloud on the other side of the world that she was looking at. She didn’t understand the sudden change in colours for the clouds and sky. The cold air started to turn from calm and warm to a violent chill, the wind started pushing little Dinky around like a ragdoll. She held on tightly to the cloud for her dearest life.

“MOMMY WHERE ARE YOU?!” Dinky screamed, the wind started to rise and it eventually started to rise until it was unbearable, it picked up Dinky like a leaf and thrown her off the edge of the cloud, she quickly grabbed onto one of the pieces of fluffy cloud that managed to stick out. She looked below her to see that her feet were dangling off the edge and the world beneath her was being bombarded with massive torrents of rain. The trees were being swayed around by the gusts of wind that made their way through the leaves, the oceans and rivers started to rise out of the ground and soon after the land were starting to flood. It was a disaster, the villages and towns were starting to feel the effects of the storm, by the corner of Dinky’s eye she could see that a wave of water was making its way towards the giant castle at great speeds.

“MOMMY!” Dinky screamed; her fingers were drenched in cold water she couldn’t hold on for much further, she didn’t know what to do other than accept her watery fate and drop. Or could she stand on the cloud and wait for the onslaught of rain to stop. Or would the gusts of wind throw her off before she had the chance to get a good grip of the top surface of the cloud.

“I’M GOING TO FALL!” Dinky screamed out for help once more, she didn’t get her reply and she didn’t get any help from anyone.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Dinky let go of the slippery cloud and started to fall, the gravity of this dream did its work and it pulled her to the surface without a delay, as she fell from the sky she could only see that the world around her was starting to fade away and blacken before her very eyes.

The cities and towns were flooded by ocean water because of the tsunamis; the trees were left for dead as the wind stripped their beautiful leaves. The castle that was seen on the side of the mountain with the large city sitting underneath it was starting to feel the effects of the natural disasters.

“NOOO!!!” Dinky screamed out once again, she threw herself away from her bed sheets in total shock. Her body shook itself as if it were being pummelled by a jack hammer. “MOMMY!” Dinky screamed out just like in her dream, calling out for the only person who could comfort her during her time of up most need.

“I’m coming muffin!” A voice was heard on the other side of Dinky’s bedroom door, Derpy burst through the door like an action hero and quickly looked at her child who had her hands covering her face with tears streaming down like a river. Derpy ran over to her child after jumping over the toys that were littered across the ground.

“What happened?!” Derpy whispered to her wailing daughter, immediately wrapping her arms around her child to protect her from the dark.

“I-… I-… DON’T KNOW!” Dinky screamed out, she couldn’t breathe in her current state. It was like the fear within her paralysed her and she wasn’t able to move a muscle at all.

“Ssshh… Ssshh… it’s going to be okay, Mommy’s here, don’t worry.” Derpy whispered to Dinky, she tightened her grip on her daughter and rested Dinky’s little head on her lap.

“What’s going on?” Carrot top walked in through Dinky’s bedroom door, unsure and unclear of what was going on. She was tired and she rubbed her eyes to show. She peeped her head through the door to check on little Dinky and to see if Derpy was in the room with her.

“Dinky had a bad dream…” Derpy said to Carrot top, feeling very worried and unsure about everything that happened.

“Oh my…” Carrot top put her hand on her mouth, she slowly entered Dinky’s bedroom and pushed the door wide open, she looked at the closet and walked over to it. She opened the door to check if there were any monsters hiding themselves in the closet. “There are no monsters in the closet.” Carrot top said as she turned to Dinky and Derpy.

“Muffin? What happened?” Derpy asked her daughter who had closed her eyes trying not to look at her mother or even her care-taker.

“I was on a c-cloud…” Dinky sniffled; she let her tears run down her face. “And I f-fell off the c-cloud and h-hurt myself…” Dinky explained to her mother and care-taker. Derpy looked up at Carrot top with a look telling her to do something for her daughter.

Carrot top sighed at what she was instructed to do and she didn’t really want to do it.

“Dinky… please listen…” Carrot top walked over to Derpy and Dinky and lowered her body so she was on Dinky’s level. She raised her hand and began to stroke her short blonde hair to try and calm her down.

“C-Carrot t-top?” Dinky spoke, unaware of where she was due to her eyes being closed.

“You just had a bad dream, these things happen. If you go back to bed you’ll be alright.” Carrot top whispered to her friend’s daughter. “I know you are scared, but you just need to go back to sleep.” Carrot top said; she wasn’t stern or hard on the advice. She was calm and collective, she looked up at Derpy who looked like she was about to cry along with Dinky. “I will leave you two to talk; I’m going back to my room. It’s only half seven.” Carrot top lifted herself up and left Dinky’s bedroom, slowly closing the door behind her and leaving on the bedroom light for both Derpy and Dinky.

“Are you alright muffin? I’m worried about you.” Derpy whispered to her daughter.

“I h-had a bad d-dream…” Dinky whispered back to her mother, still sniffling with tears running down her face.

“What happened in the dream muffin?” Derpy asked, wondering what was going on inside her dream.

“I w-was on t-this cloud and it g-got really windy and then I f-fell off the cloud and landed on the g-ground…” Dinky whispered to her mother, looking up at her mothers beautiful face.

“Oh muffin… you’re safe. I’ll protect you…” Derpy grabbed her daughter and lifted her up into her arms and hugged her tightly, Dinky felt the security and love that she needed when she was inside the dream crying for her life on top of the cloud in the middle of the storm.

“Thank you mommy!” Dinky smiled, the fear that was in her was being washed away by her mothers love and security.

“Tell you what, let me go down into the kitchen and I will make you some warm milk to make you sleep better.” Derpy insisted.

“Okay.” Dinky nodded slowly.

“You stay in your room and I’ll go into the kitchen and make you some delicious warm milk and mini-muffin bites in the microwave. How about that?” Derpy said to her daughter, watching her sad frown turn into a massive smile. This is what she always loved to see from her daughter.

“Okay mommy, I’ll stay in here.” Dinky nodded.

“Okie-Dokie! I’ll be back in a minute.” Derpy lifted up Dinky and placed her back on her bed, Dinky moved herself and positioned herself onto her pillows and picked up one of the toy spaceships that happened to be on her bed and she started playing with it like any child should.

Derpy slowly got up and looked back at her daughter; she blushed at the innocence and slowly made her way out into the corridor outside.

“I’ll get you soon evil emperor!” Dinky pretended to scream.

Dinky had been playing with her toy astronauts for a few minutes, in her left hand she had a NASA space shuttle that was being flung into the air as if it were being launched into space. In her right hand she had an action figure of an astronaut that was on her bed holding a gun.

“You’ll never get me now Mr. Astronaut!” Dinky tried her best to emit an evil alien voice to her little astronaut toy.

“I’ll get you soon!” Dinky lifted the astronaut into the air and made an explosion sound with her mouth to make it look like the astronaut had blown up the spaceship as it were going into orbit.

Dinky dropped the spaceship onto the bed and thrown the astronaut into the air.

“AAaaaaaahhhhh……” Dinky mimicked someone shouting and as she went through with it she got quieter until she was silent.

Dinky looked at the spaceship and the astronaut to see that their fun and use had been taken out of them, now with Dinky being bored she wanted to get more toys out of her closet and so it was her mission to find more toys that she hasn’t played with in a very long time.

She walked over to her closet door that Carrot top politely closed a few minutes ago and she reached out for the door knob, she slowly pulled the knob down to open the door when she felt something was wrong, the door wouldn’t budge and it felt like something on the other side was holding it so that poor little Dinky couldn’t open it.

“Mommy is that you?!” Dinky playfully asked, she was wondering if she was on the other side of the door playing a prank.

There was no response.

“Mommy?” Dinky asked, raising an eyebrow to her null response.

Dinky pulled on the door one more time to feel a slight budge from the other side, she knew for sure that her mother was hiding in the closet ready to scare her, she could hear toys and boxes being thrown about from side to side in the other room as if she didn’t know where she was going.

“That’s it mommy! I’m going to open the door in… three… two… one…” Dinky counted down.

Dinky grabbed the door handle once again and pulled the door as hard as she could without ripping it off the wooden door, she felt a budge, and another one, and another one. She was surely getting close to her target now. She felt one last pull should fully open the door and release Derpy.

“Here it comes!” Dinky grinned playfully.

Dinky used all of her strength out of her little pale arms and managed to pull the door as hard as she could without destroying the door, the door swung open all the way and it made a loud bang on impact when it smashed against the wall.

“Aha!” Dinky pointed at the person inside her closet ready to frame them for what they were trying to do. “I got you now Mo- WHAT?!” Dinky screamed; she jumped back in surprise to see who it was in the closet.

“DITZY!?” Dinky screamed out loud, looking at the mess that was inside her closet. All the toy boxes were smashed and thrown on the ground, Ditzy herself with lying on the floor on her back with a cardboard box resting itself on the top of her very head, her wings were spread out and the leash that she wore at the little farm area in the park was present.

Dinky ran into the closet and pulled on Ditzy’s tail lightly to grab her attention.

“What are you doing in my closet?!” Dinky furiously yelled at the horse.

Ditzy struggled for a minute and rocked her body from side to side to stand up, she managed to get back up on her legs with the cardboard box still lying on the top of her head, she didn’t know where she was going.

Dinky grabbed the leash that was still attached to the horse’s neck and directed her out of the closet and into the bedroom, Dinky reached up for the cardboard box that was on the horse’s neck and knocked it off with a soft punch, thus revealing the blonde haired horse with the strange eyes.

“What are you doing in my room?! My mommy is going to kill me when she finds out you are here!” Dinky explained to the horse, but Ditzy instead walked over to the child and licked her on the cheek.

“Stop that!” Dinky pushed the horse away from her; she climbed up on her bed and sat down in front of the horse.

“How did you get in my room?!” Dinky wanted an answer from an animal that obviously didn’t talk.

Ditzy didn’t reply to her question and she just nodded her head just like how she was told to.

“Who put you in my closet?” Dinky crossed her arms and looked at Ditzy in the eyes.

Ditzy looked from side to side and trotted back into the closet, Dinky got off her bed and soon followed to see that Ditzy was standing in the closet with a large piece of paper in her mouth, Dinky grabbed the paper of the horse and began to unroll the letter to read out what it said.

Dear Dinky.

I have escaped the evil ranch owner to hide in your closet, if you have found me then it's time to go back to the ranch and to free us from the evil ranch man.

P.S: Scootaloo says hello.

“W-what?!” Dinky read through the letter, when she saw the words Scootaloo it meant serious business for her, how could horse’s write letters and how could Ditzy even hide inside her closet when she was put in her pen back at the park?

To be Continued...

Chapter Three

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Chapter Three: Moving On...

"You can't be here!" Dinky pointed back up at the gray mare; Ditzy backed her head away from the blonde child and took three steps back.

"What am I supposed to say to my mommy?!" Dinky breathed in and pointed her finger at the gray mare again; she saw that the horse was backing away from her and it wasn't a good sign. She needed her to stay in the room.

"Am I supposed to leave the house at night and go on a super cool adventure to free some horses from an evil ranch owner!?" Dinky's serious expression slowly turned into a happy and cheerful shout of joy. Ditzy raised her head back at the human child; she was confused at the human’s strange change in tone.

"That sounds like the coolest adventure in the world entire world!" Dinky screamed out in front of Ditzy. The human child jumped up and down on the spot in excitement.

Dinky immediately ran over to the gray mare and locked her arms around its body in an attempt to hug the horse with all of her strength. She continued to lock onto the horse and slowly dug her hands into her long blonde mane and began hugging as hard as she could to release all of her joy into the horse. Ditzy thought otherwise and began to try and push the child away from her as hard as she could, but it was no use. Dinky kept holding on for her for dear life and Ditzy felt the air within her begin to fade away.

"You're the best horsey ever!" Dinky yelled out with her eyes closed.

"Dinky! Dinky are you in there? Who are you talking to?" A quiet muffled voice was heard on the other side of the room. Dinky and Ditzy immediately stopped in their tracks and froze their entire bodies. "Can you open the door? I've got muffins!" The voice shouted again on the other side of the door.

Dinky's happy expression quickly changed; for a moment she was happy as a child could be, but she now had the problem of her mother coming into the room and finding out that a horse was inside of her room with a note explaining that a horse owner is evil. Dinky immediately ran over to the gray mare and stopped right in front of its face.

"You have to hide! My mommy is coming with some muffins! You have to hide in the closet!" Dinky placed her hands on the mare’s shoulders and began to shake the animal back and forth.

Ditzy's expression also changed, she looked from side to side to find a perfect place to hide. She quickly remembered what the human said to her and the closet was the best place to hide from the even bigger human.

"Get inside!" Dinky whispered to the mare, she used her strength to push the mare into the closet; what was unusual was that the mare was sliding on the ground as if it was made out of ice. Dinky managed to push the horse into the closet and she grabbed the door and then closed it in front of the mares face.

Dinky ran as fast as she could to her bed and made a small dive onto her bed sheets and quickly covered herself up with her blanket and laid her head back on her pillow; she then quickly closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

"C'mon Dinky, let's eat some muffins!" Derpy kicked the door wide open with her feet; she was wearing gray postal socks that had a small knitted image of a mail box on the side where her ankles are. She changed her bed time clothing and was back in her usual postal attire and was holding a tray full of food in her hands, there was two bowls full of microwave baked muffins that were bite-size. On the other side of the food tray was two glasses full of cold milk. Derpy slowly took a step one by one towards her daughter’s bed trying to keep her balance and her best efforts to not spill any of the contents and the foods that were placed on the tray.

"Okay mommy!" Dinky pretended to yawn, she stretched her arms and turned around to look at her hard-working mother and watched her as she walked over to her bed still carrying the food in her hands.

"So you want the milk or the muffin first?" Derpy managed to make her way to the other side of the bedroom without spilling any food or drink, which was a personal achievement for her. She turned herself around and sat down on the edge of her daughter’s bed and placed the tray full of food on her lap. Dinky kicked her blankets off of her and crawled across her bed next to her mother looking at the delicious muffins that her mother made.

Dinky raised her hand and put one of her fingers to her mouth and tried to think. "I'll have the... milk!" She squeaked. She reached out, grabbed the cold glass full of milk, sat back, and drank the entire cup of milk in just a few seconds, Derpy watched in awe as her daughter instantly drank the milk faster than anything she has ever seen.

"Careful Dinky, you might hurt yourself if you drink too fast." Derpy scolded her daughter.

"Sorry mommy..." Dinky loudly breathed in and out after feeling a slight chest pain; she put her hand on her chest and began to close her eyes, ignoring the sudden pain in her chest.

"Does your chest hurt muffin?" Derpy said; she began to rummage through the bowlful of microwave muffins and began to find the biggest one for her daughter.

"Yeah..." Dinky strained. She slowly breathed in and out once again to try and calm the pain inside of her.

"Don't worry; the pain will go away in a minute. Don't you worry." Derpy smiled, even though her daughter couldn't see it. Derpy reached out and put her hand on Dinky's arm and began to rub it.

"Mommy, can I ask you something?" Dinky opened her eyes; she had gotten rid of the pain and she looked up at her mother who was busy stuffing her face with one of the muffins that she had brought up.

"What is it?" Derpy muffled, various chunks and pieces of chewed up muffin came out of her mouth since she was speaking with her mouth full.

"What would you do if we found a poor animal?" Dinky asked her mother.

Derpy paused for a few seconds so she could finish the muffin that she had in her mouth and managed to swallow it. She opened her mouth and breathed in.

"Depends." Derpy put her hand to her chin and rubbed it from side to side. "What kind of animal?" She added.

"Dunno, I was just asking." Dinky gave off a small innocent smile.

"I don't think Carrot Top likes animals, ever since Fluttershy's rabbit ate some of her carrots from the house garden." Derpy rubbed her chin even more, trying to remember the incident with Fluttershy's rabbit.

"Bummer..." Dinky's smile lowered a little bit. "So mommy... when are you going to bed?" Dinky politely asked her mother.

"I might go to bed in a minute... or later... but there is something on TV I wanna watch... I don't know..." Derpy scratched her head in confusion.

"Is it okay if I go back to bed now? I feel better already." Dinky smiled at her mother.

Derpy picked up another muffin out of the bowl and stuffed it in her face; she began to chew on the microwave muffin.

"Sure my little muffin." Derpy muffled.

"Goodnight mommy." Dinky smiled, she got up and crawled over to her mom and started to wrap her arms around her mother’s chest and began to hug her as tight as she could.

"Does your pull-up need changing?" Derpy swallowed what was left of the muffin and hugged her daughter back; she patted her behind resulting in a slight crinkling sound.

"N-no... I'm okay mommy..." Dinky blushed, feeling a strange surge of heat pass through her chest. She landed on her backside and used her t-shirt to cover up her plain white pull-up.

"Okay, don't forget. The pull-ups are in the undies drawer if you need to use another one." Derpy informed her daughter. She took hold of the food tray and picked it up.

"Oh, Mommy... could I have a muffin?" Dinky reached out for her mother.

"Sure." Derpy nodded, she dipped her hand into the bowlful of muffins and picked up a large plain muffin with a giant chocolate chip on the top of it and chucked it at Dinky, who gracefully grabbed it mid-air and put it down next to her pillow.

"Thank you mommy." Dinky smiled at her mother, who in return gave another smile back.

"Now don't be up too late, Carrot Top says that we need to help her with her carrot garden in the morning." Derpy gave off a small salute to her daughter and began making her way to the bedroom door, Dinky approvingly watched as her mother opened the door with her foot as it was left slightly open and she walked out.

Dinky leaned back up in her bed to hear her mother’s small footsteps getting quieter and quieter as she went down the corridor with her food tray. After a certain amount of time, Dinky couldn't hear her mother’s footsteps anymore and it was the perfect time to get back up and continue her business with the horse in her closet.

She immediately grabbed the muffin that her mother had given her and rose up from her bed and crawled to the edge of her bed; she then dropped down to the ground and stood up and walked over to the closet door, knowing that she stuffed the horse in her closet and it would have at least made some noise by now. She quickly grabbed hold of the door handle and quickly opened it.

The light in her room quickly made its way into her closet and she began to look around to the closet to check if the horse was still around, she saw the gray horse lying down next to a cardboard box in the corner of her closet. Ditzy looked up and squinted at the child as the light penetrated her eyes; Dinky smiled with her muffin in hand.

"Sorry about that horsey, do you want a muffin?" Dinky apologized; she walked into the closet and reached out for the gray mare with her left hand.

Ditzy nodded up and down, she looked very excited at the sudden word "muffin" Ditzy quickly stood up and walked over to Dinky; the mare’s tongue drooped out of her mouth and it lolled up and down as if she was a dog.

"You look very happy." Dinky giggled at the mare, she couldn't help but giggle at the large smile that the horse was giving off.

Dinky leaned forward with the muffin in hand and put it in front of Ditzy's mouth. The mare opened her mouth and leaned her head forward to take the muffin away from the child, and she began to chew on its soft surface and the chocolate chips that were deep inside of it.

"You're like my mommy, she likes muffins." Dinky smiled, she put her hand on Ditzy's head and started to dig her fingers into her mane and softly stroke it up and down.

Ditzy looked up at the child, small pieces of muffin were falling out of her mouth as she chewed on them. Dinky gave a small smile to Ditzy and she tried smiling back to her. Only to find that more pieces of muffin had fallen out of her mouth.

"Let's get out of this closet." Dinky whispered to Ditzy, the mare nodded up and down in agreement.

Dinky and Ditzy quickly moved out of the little closet, Ditzy stretched each of her legs out wide one at a time to ease the pain in her legs. Dinky ran up to her bed and climbed back onto her blanket, she put her hands on her lap and started to tap them.

"Ditzy..." Dinky said.

Ditzy turned her head to look at the human child sitting on the bed.

"Where is Scootaloo?" Dinky tapped her lap once more with her hands, Ditzy moved closer to Dinky at the sound of the tapping of her lap.

Ditzy stopped in her tracks; she looked at the floor and then turned around and raised her head up to look at Dinky's bedroom door that was open with a slight crack of light coming through it.

"You want me to follow you?" Dinky jumped off her bed and stood upright, she walked over to the bedroom door and closed it before Ditzy could walk out. Ditzy looked up unimpressed at what the child just did, her expression still had a smile but she looked unhappy about what Dinky just did.

Ditzy turned her head and looked at Dinky's little legs and had an idea, she began to move towards Dinky and before the child could even respond Ditzy quickly turned around and stood behind Dinky herself.

"What are you doing?" Dinky asked the gray mare.

Ditzy immediately lowered herself to a crouching position and moved forward under Dinky's little pale legs; she stood directly underneath the human child and began to use her strength to pick her up. Slowly but surely, Ditzy used her strength to pick up the child and managed to get up on all fours with the human on top. Dinky didn't speak; she knew what Ditzy was doing and she understood why.

"Are you going to take me to Scootaloo?" Dinky quickly grabbed onto Ditzy's mane and began to steady herself so that she wouldn't fall backwards and hurt herself.

Ditzy turned her head the best she could and nodded to the child.

To be continued...

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Chapter Four

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Chapter Four: Sneaking Out

Proof-Read by SuperNova708

Dinky and Ditzy slowly made their way down the house corridor, it was past her bedtime and all of the house lights had been shut-off; most of the windows had their curtains closed and they were perfectly locked by Carrot Top with her house keys. At the end of the corridor a faint blue light was seen at the top of the staircase. Dinky knew what this was and proceeded to jump off Ditzy to investigate. Both Dinky and Ditzy stood at the top of the stair-case and looked down to the bottom. Only a small pile of shoes was seen at the bottom of the stairs but the blue light was brighter than ever.

"Okay Ditzy, you have to trust me." Dinky whispered to Ditzy. The mare stood still at the top of the stairs as she watched the human slowly begin to climb down the stair-case to see where the blue light was coming from.

Dinky slowly but surely made her way down to the bottom of the stairs, keeping her head fixed to looking right; she saw the blue light was coming from the living room, she breathed in and out slowly and began to walk into the living room. She moved towards behind the couch and hid herself quickly from sight. She then moved to the edge of the couch and turned her head to look at what was going on.

Derpy had fallen asleep on the couch; her body had curled up into a ball position as her head rested on one of the couch pillows. A large amount of drool escaped her mouth and there were biscuit crumbs all over the floor. Dinky couldn't help but giggle at the sight her mother was in. She looked to where the blue light came from and saw that the TV was left on; it seemed that Derpy was watching the Cowboy and Indian channel while she was downstairs.

Dinky walked back to the bottom of the stair-case and waved to Ditzy at the top, gesturing to come down stairs and continue on with their little trip to the park.

"Okay Ditzy, I need you to be very quiet, my mommy wakes up easy and she doesn't like it when people wake her up. Do you understand?" Dinky told the gray mare.

Ditzy nodded up and down, she lowered herself again so that Dinky could climb onto of her and it begins their journey to the park. Dinky stood over Ditzy and waited for the mare to stand back up. Ditzy climbed back up and carried the human child. Dinky immediately grabbed onto her yellow mane and stumbled back and forth.

"We need to open the front door, but you have to be really quiet..." Dinky whispered once again, this time whispered even quieter than before to Ditzy.

Ditzy slowly made her way down the stairs until she reached the bottom; Dinky patted the gray mare on her head and she smiled. Ditzy looked at the couch and saw the human lying down on the couch. She also noticed the biscuit crumbs and she decided to take a small gander at what was on the floor.

"Ditzy... get back here..." Dinky waved her arms in the air; she raised her voice a little at the mare approaching the couch in the living room.

Ditzy ignored the child and began her journey into the living room for the biscuit crumbs on the floor, she noticed that a whole pack of chocolate chip cookies were spilled onto the ground from where Derpy had knocked them off the table with her arms. Ditzy lowered herself and began to crawl to the nearly empty packet of chocolate chip cookies; she started to lick the carpet picking up the cookie pieces and putting them into her mouth, began to chew on the pieces, and swallow them.

"No Ditzy... that's bad..." Dinky managed to get near the mare and began to tug on her blonde tail, she pulled hard and she managed to pull Ditzy away from her mother and the cookies that were on the floor.

"Bad Ditzy!" Dinky scolded, she waved her finger back and forth at the mare as if she was talking to a little child.

Ditzy lowered her head and looked down at the ground. Dinky just realized what she had done to the mare and dropped her tone of voice and started to lower her arm. Ditzy looked back up still chewing the last remains of the cookies that she managed to snag.

"C'mon Ditzy, we have to go if we are going to save Scootaloo!" Dinky walked behind Ditzy and put her hands on her flank, this was a sign for Ditzy to lower herself so that Dinky could get on top of her. Ditzy lowered herself and Dinky slowly made her way onto Ditzy's back and grabbed onto her blonde mane.

The room was dimly lit; an orange glow from the lamp spread its way across her room. Carrot Top was lying on her large double sized bed sipping away at her delicious cup of tea, lying back on her pillow closing her eyes to relax from the day’s events. Carrot Top put down her cup of tea onto her small wooden drawer and continued to read her magazine edition of Equestria Daily.

"Oh that's wonderful..." Carrot Top flipped the page to reveal about the recent wedding ceremony that took place in the Canterlot Castle of Princess Gaia and Prince Blueblood. An article about the castle’s Royal Guards showing a parade around the town for all to see. Information and reactions and mixed opinions on the Bride and Groom were put into ludicrous detail and all around images of the event happening at the Canterlot castle.

"CARROT TOOOOOP!!!"

Just then, Derpy immediately smashed through Carrot Top's bedroom door by kicking it wide open.

"What is it Derpy?" Carrot Top groaned, she put her magazine down onto her small wooden drawer and looked at Derpy. Carrot Top was immediately taken back at her sudden carelessness. Derpy was crying, sobbing even. Her gray postal workers t-shirt was drenched in a strange liquid and her postal workers shorts were strangely missing revealing her pull-up underneath. Large amounts of tears were running down her face and her breathing pattern was not in rhythm, her hands covered up her entire face except for her mouth.

"SOMETHING BAD HAS HAPPENED!"

"What?" Carrot Top got up from her bed; she walked over to Derpy and wrapped her arms around her crying friend in an attempt to calm her down. Carrot Top moved Derpy onto her bed and sat her down; she soon followed and sat down with Derpy.

"DINKY IS GONE!" Derpy screamed out at the top of her voice; more tears came flowing from her face as she leaned to her side and placed her head on Carrot Top’s shoulder.

"How?" Carrot Top quickly replied back.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Derpy closed her eyes and screamed out loud. Her voice was partially muffled as her head was resting on Carrot Top's shoulder.

"What do you mean Dinky is gone? Where is she?" Carrot Top got up from her bed and stood up, she turned around and looked at Derpy who lowered herself and rested her head on Carrot Top's bed.

"SHE- SHE-" Derpy began to explain, her voice started to stammer and she couldn't get her words out of her mouth. Carrot Top walked over to her small little wooden drawer and plucked a tissue out of the box of tissues that were placed on the drawer; she sat down next to Derpy as if she was a mother trying to comfort her crying child. Carrot Top wiped Derpy's nose and tears from her face.

"Derpy, speak calmly. Calm down and tell me everything slowly." Carrot Top calmly spoke in a soothing voice, Derpy looked up at her friend and wiped the remaining tears herself with her arm. Derpy breathed in and out rather slowly to calm herself down and wrapped her arms around Carrot Top in an attempt to hug her tightly.

"I was downstairs..." Derpy began; her voice was quiet and weak from her very loud screaming. "I went to watch some TV a-and I fell asleep..."

"You fell asleep? Where? On the couch?" Carrot Top asked her crying friend.

"Y-yeah..." Derpy answered. "I woke up a few minutes l-later and the front door was open..." Derpy said.

"The front door was open? I'm very sure that I locked it. I don't think Dinky knows the locks password to open the front door." Carrot Top suggested to her friend.

"I c-closed the door and went upstairs... Dinky wasn't in her room... please help me Carrot Top!" Derpy shouted, she grabbed onto Carrot Top's night gown and repeatedly shook her back and forth in panic and fear.

"Derpy please calm down!" Carrot Top yelled, feeling the strong force of being pushed back and forth. She grabbed Derpy's hands and stopped her from shaking. "She couldn't have gotten that far Derpy; let's get dressed and take a quick walk around the street to look for her. I don't understand why she would leave the house at this time of night..." Carrot Top brainstormed.

"What if she was kidnapped by an evil man?! My poor baby!" Derpy started to cry again at just the thought of someone taking Dinky away, how she would be possibly thrown in a cage and left in there for the rest of her life by the evil man that kidnapped her.

"Don't be so silly Derpy; we would have heard someone come into the house. The front door shouldn't have been open." Carrot Top tried to calm down her crying friend; she wrapped her arms around Derpy and began to hug her.

"Don't worry Dinky; Mommy's coming for you..."

The streets were dark, the lamps started to turn themselves on and bring light for all of the people of RumsVille. No one dared to walk around town at night, what dangers lurked into the dark alleyways was something that not even the Mayor of the town would even think about. Dinky and Ditzy started to make their journey through the middle of Town Hall; the water fountain that spewed out water had stopped for the night. Crickets and weak gusts of wind filled in the blank silence. Ditzy walked forward towards the fountain, she was thirsty. The biscuits that she had eaten took a lot out of her throat and she was parched.

"We need to go to the park Ditzy, why are we in Town Hall?" Dinky asked the gray mare, obviously knowing that she wasn't going to reply back to her. But she was rather confused at the choice of location that Ditzy took her to, all she saw was a row of benches near the Mayor’s Office and the fountain that had turned off its water system for the night.

Ditzy ignored the child and continued to trot down the cobblestone path towards the water fountain. Dinky didn't understand what Ditzy was doing, but it felt like she knew what the mare was doing. Ditzy managed to get to the very front of the fountain, and lean up onto the small ledge on the base of the fountain. Dinky felt her body sliding off Ditzy's back and she soon managed to jump off Ditzy before she fully fell backwards. Dinky crossed her arms and wasn't very impressed with what Ditzy was doing.

"Ditzy? What are you doing?" Dinky raised her voice; she loudly spoke to the gray mare as if she was a mother scolding her child. Ditzy ignored what Dinky was trying to say, she leaned forward and craned her head towards the water in the fountain and puckered her lips to drink the water. She started to drink the cold fountain water and she felt a strange refreshing chill inside of her body. The water tingled her stomach and she started to enjoy it very much.

"C'mon Ditzy, I thought you were taking me to Scootaloo!" Dinky walked up to Ditzy, she leaned down and put her hands on Ditzy's long blonde tail she started to pull her tail just like when Ditzy was trying to eat the biscuits at home. Ditzy tried to ignore what the child was doing and she continued to drink from the fountain until she was finished.

"You know what! If you aren't going to take me to Scootaloo, I'm going home!" Dinky put down Ditzy's tail in a huff, she thought of a small plan to get Ditzy from drinking the fountain water; she started to walk away from the gray mare and began to leave the town’s fountain to go back home. Dinky was so close to getting onto the cobblestone path that lead her back to her comfy and warm home when suddenly she felt a massive tug on the back of her t-shirt.

Dinky nearly fell over as she saw that Ditzy had ran all the way over to her to stop her from going home; Ditzy kept on pulling on Dinky's t-shirt even though the child had turned around.

"Okay that's enough Ditzy!" Dinky yelled at the gray mare.

Ditzy heard what the human was saying and she stopped, she slowly opened her mouth and let go of the t-shirt. Ditzy moved back a few steps and waited for Dinky to continue. She lowered herself so that Dinky could once again get on top of her. Dinky walked over to the mare and stood over her and waited for Ditzy to rise herself so that she could sit on the mare once again.

"Why did you do that to my favourite t-shirt?" Dinky whispered to the mare as she was being lifted up onto her back, Dinky immediately grabbed onto Ditzy's mane and properly kept her back upright so that she wouldn't fall over. Ditzy turned her head to look at the child, she didn't reply. Obviously, she just gave a small smile to the child and Ditzy started to move her legs and they both begun their journey again.

To be continued…

Chapter Five

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Chapter Five: Rally the Troops!
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The candle light was dim; an orange glow illuminated the entire room. The corners of the bedroom were dark and in the middle of the room were a queen sized bed; a large plain white blanket was tightly tucked into the deepest arches of the bed. Two women lay a top of it, resting their little heads with their eyes open. Their bodies were wrapped in each other’s soft and cuddly arms, staring down both into the cores of their pupils which would melt butter.

"Today was interesting."

"It was boring."

"Well, I personally thought it was interesting to hang out with the Doo's."

"It's just that retarded horse, I can't believe how much it looked like Derpy."

"I thought I told you not to make fun of Derpy."

"Yeah, yeah, we're alone now. She ain't gonna hear anything in this room."

"Lyra, she might not mean much to you but she is one of our friends. She should be respected and treated like any other human being."

"I know, but she's just really funny; you can't ignore her. It's like a train crash, you're told to look away but you know you will."

Bon-Bon scrunched her hand into a fist and lightly pounded Lyra right in the middle of her back, Lyra yelped out in slight pain.

"Hey!" Lyra yelled, she unraveled her arms from Bon-Bon and pushed her away to the other side of the bed.

"Let's not argue, Lyra. I just don't like it when people make fun of Derpy and you should know that the most." Bon-Bon leaned up from her bed and looked down at Lyra who was still lying down; she rested her head on the pillow and rubbed her back with one of her arms.

"Are we still going to have our nightly fun time tonight? Or are we going to skip it? I've been desperate in wanting to try on some new lingerie that I brought back from the town market." Lyra finished rubbing her back and began to lean up just like Bon-Bon.

"Didn't you already buy a maid outfit? You know the one that you gave me on my birthday." Bon-Bon asked Lyra.

"Yeah, you looked pretty good in it." Lyra childishly giggled.

"I was thinking of doing something different tonight." Bon-Bon said.

"What? I'm rearin' to go for anything." Lyra's expression changed in an instant, she began to deviously smile as she began to crawl across the bed over towards where Bon-Bon was sitting. Bon-Bon noticed that Lyra had crawled over to her and gave a quick smile back to her.

"Well... I was thinking..." Bon-Bon put her hand on her chin.

"Yeah?" Lyra seductively replied.

"Well... maybe for this night only..." Bon-Bon continued.

"Yeah?" Lyra repeated again, Bon-Bon noticed that Lyra was starting to get excited.

"That we..." Bon-Bon paused.

"What? I'm dyin' to know!" Lyra playfully raised her voice, still keeping her smile intact.

"Play a board game?" Bon-Bon shrugged her shoulders.

"You what?!" Lyra's smile dropped, she didn't expect an answer like this from Bon-Bon, her wife. After waiting all day for some alone time with her love, she is rejected her night-time fun by her own wife.

"I'm not in the mood for wearing the maid costume tonight, nor do I intend in wearing the dog leash like what happened on Wednesday night’s fun-time." Bon-Bon got up from her bed and stood up, she looked back at Lyra who looked like she was about to explode like a volcano. She didn't reply to what she just said, she just had her mouth agape as she watched Bon-Bon walk over to the bedroom door.

"Plus, you're too rough." Bon-Bon blushed a bright red colour. She put her hand on the door knob and turned it; she opened the door and walked out the bedroom with Lyra still inside left to react to what her wife just said.

"R-rough?!" Lyra finally spoke; she couldn't believe what she had just heard. She fell back onto her bed and conveniently her head landed on her green pillow.

Bon-Bon closed the door behind her, leaving Lyra to regain herself after what Bon-Bon just said. The corridor was dark, not a single light in the house was on, all of the windows and curtains were perfectly locked not allowing the smallest piece of light to come through and shine inside the house. Bon-Bon began to walk to the opposite side of the corridor, taking one small step at a time hoping the best not to step on anything or even trip over anything if the dark. Even though she was in the dark, she could see the light switch at the very top of the stair-case.

Bon-Bon walked over to the other side and put her hand on the wall, she rubbed the wall up and down to find the light switch. She felt a small lump on the wall, a little plastic lump surrounded by a cold metal surface. She put her hand on the centre of the metal surface and pushed the little plastic knob downwards. A quiet click was heard and suddenly all of the lights upstairs and downstairs in the landing corridor turned on.

"What do you mean I'm too rough?!"

Bon-Bon turned her head back to the other side of the corridor, now that the lights were on she could properly see Lyra. She popped her head out of the door frame looking at Bon-Bon in a rather comedic way.

"You're just a little too hard on me when it comes to having fun, you expect me to always wear the maids outfit when I just want to have some simple fun and games." Bon-Bon argued.

"Board games are boring." Lyra said, she stepped out of the door frame and moved into the corridor and looked at Bon-Bon, she crossed her arms and impatiently tapped her foot on the ground.

"I just want to do something other than posing in fancy dress." Bon-Bon replied back to Lyra.

"Bu-" Lyra began to speak, although she didn't know what to say. Bon-Bon was right, for the last two weeks it was nothing but putting on fancy dress and receiving a little love from Bon-Bon herself. It was getting tiresome every night.

"I guess you're right..." Lyra sighed, her smile slowly dropped. She moved out of the way from under the door frame and stood out in the middle of the corridor. She began to walk to the other side of the corridor where Bon-Bon was standing, Lyra had her hands behind her back and she kept her head low to the ground.

"C'mon, let's just play a small game of snakes and ladders. Remember that game in school?" Bon-Bon walked up to Lyra and put her hand on her cheek, she began to rub her cheek with her thumb, every single rub across her cheek caused it to blush a bright red colour.

"Where is the game board?" Lyra rolled her eyes.

"In the closet under the stairs," Bon-Bon said.

"Since when did we have game boards?" Lyra asked her wife.

"I've kept them under the stairs since we moved in from our old college home; you should have known better Lyra." Bon-Bon smiled.

"I was too busy having fun with Cheerilee and Berry Punch." Lyra smiled back to Bon-Bon.

"Let's go downstairs, have a small drink and play a board game." Bon-Bon said. She turned around and took her hand off Lyra's cheek Bon-Bon grabbed hold of the rail that was attached onto the wall and she began to travel down the stairs. Lyra soon followed Bon-Bon as they both made their way down the stairs together.

"I take when you mean drink; we drink some wine and then go to bed." Lyra joked.

"I was thinking something less alcoholic Lyra, maybe just a cup of tea and a few biscuits to calm the mood." Bon-Bon suggested to Lyra.

"If I was at work in a meeting I'd drink tea; I'll go for some wine instead." Lyra smirked; she put her hand on Bon-Bon's back and rubbed it in a horizontal motion. Bon-Bon arched forward a little from the reaction she is receiving from her wife.

"I'm not the one who is going to carry you by the shoulder if you pass out from drinking too much." Bon-Bon warned Lyra.

"Don't worry, if I managed to pass off a one-night stand at Berry Punch's parties then I think a little bit of wine won't hurt." Lyra replied to Bon-Bon, sounding a little more playful than before.

"Let's not forget that I-" Bon-Bon began to speak.

BANG! ... BANG!

"What was that?!" Lyra quickly took her hands off Bon-Bon; she looked around from side to side, standing still on the stair-case while Bon-Bon kept on walking down the stairs.

"What?" Bon-Bon turned around towards Lyra, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Did you hear that?" Lyra shuddered; she crossed her arms and raised her voice at Bon-Bon.

"I didn't hear anything Lyra." Bon-Bon shrugged.

BANG ... BANG!

"Now I hear it." Bon-Bon quickly replied back to Lyra, she also turned her head around to find the source of where the sound was coming from.

"What do you think it is?" Lyra took two steps back up the stair-case, feeling a strange vibe of fear coming over her like a wave of water.

"Open up..."

"Did you say something Lyra?" Bon-Bon asked her wife.

"N-no..." Lyra nodded from side to side.

"Open up Bon-Bon, we need to talk!"

"Is it a ghost?!" Lyra yelled out, taking even more steps back up the stair-case.

"No, it's the front door." Bon-Bon groaned, she lifted up her hand and put it on her face.

"Front door?" Lyra repeated.

"Yes." Bon-Bon nodded.

Bon-Bon took a deep breath and sighed out loud; she walked down to the bottom of the stairs and jumped off the last two steps to the base of the stair-case. She walked over to the house front door and placed her hand on the doorknob, she slowly turned the doorknob and heard the inside mechanics of the door start to click and unlock. Bon-Bon pulled the door open to reveal two figures standing outside. The weather was normal and the night’s sky was perfect, one figure was wearing a very large raincoat and the other was not. It was the only thing that she could make out because of them standing in the dark.

"What do you want?" Bon-Bon asked the two figures.

"Can we please come in? This is urgent!" Said one of the figures.

"Stand into the light." Bon-Bon crossed her arms; she leaned on the doorway and raised an eyebrow at the figures.

The figures complied, they both walked into the light that made its way outside of the house. The first figure that walked into the light revealed it to be Carrot Top; she wasn't pleased with what was going on. Nor was she pleased to see Bon-Bon.

"Carrot Top?" Bon-Bon unraveled her arms and stood upright against the door frame; she dropped her small smile and stood in front of Carrot Top.

"Can I speak to you? This is important." Carrot Top raised her voice in front of Bon-Bon, like she was announcing her presence.

"Where's Derpy?" Bon-Bon asked; it was the only question worth asking.

"H-here..." A faint voice behind Carrot Top echoed, whimpering and sobbing could be heard behind Carrot Top, she moved out of the way to reveal Derpy. Tears and snot were running down her face like a stream, she held onto Carrot Top's arm like a little child who didn't want to stray away from her mother no matter what. She looked up and saw Bon-Bon standing in front of the doorway. She immediately forgot about Carrot Top and made a quick dash for Bon-Bon and quickly wrapped her arms around her best friend.

Bon-Bon didn't react, she was pushed backwards by Derpy's quick run to her and she had to position herself properly before she would be properly be pushed over. Derpy wrapped her arms around Bon-Bon and tightly hugged her.

"IT'S HORRIBLE BON-BON! IT'S REALLY HORRIBLE! MY LITTLE MUFFIN IS GONE!"

"WH-what?!" Bon-Bon didn't understand a single thing that Derpy said, she was trying to release Derpy to try and stop her from choking with her very tight hug.

"What Derpy is trying to say is that Dinky is missing, we can't find her any we need..." Carrot Top paused; she felt like choking on her own words. "Your help..." She finished.

"How? What happened to Dinky?" Bon-Bon wrapped her arms around Derpy; she hugged her tightly and tapped her on the back with her hand like an infant child.

"Derpy told me that she disappeared without a trace, the front door to our house was left wide open and she wasn't in her room when we checked." Carrot Top explained the situation to Bon-Bon.

"Come inside..." Bon-Bon gestured.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Dinky groaned, her stomach slightly rumbled and it was late at night. The weather started to get cold and light blasts of wind swept their way through the streets of Rumsville. Dinky's legs felt very cold, she didn't put on any trousers since she was in a rush to see Scootaloo back at the park. The only thing she was wearing was a gray t-shirt, a pull-up and some plain white socks. She regretted thinking ahead for the little orange filly instead of her well-being. Ditzy was unaffected by the cold weather. She kept on walking through the streets of Rumsville as if she knew the whole entire layout of the whole town.

Ditzy turned her head to face the small child and nodded her head left and right, Dinky felt sad about the whole problem of leaving her house without her mother’s permission, she knew that Derpy wouldn't believe such a crazy tale about a horse.

Feeling tired and cold, Dinky wrapped her arms around herself and began to rub her arms to warm herself up. It felt like her teeth were about the chatter because of the fact she was so cold.

She couldn't help but notice that most of the surroundings had changed once again, first they were in the suburbs. Then they went to the town-hall. And now they were in the Rumsville Market district past the giant library. The market district was the smallest part of the entire town. Small huts covered up by sheets of plastic and supported by wooden beams and planks were spread out all around. Signs and directions to each small hut and shop were everywhere. Foods from foreign countries were inside of the marketplace, it was a delight to go through the market.

"Ditzy... I'm hungry..." Dinky tugged on the mare’s mane to try and grab her attention. Ditzy turned her head around once again to see that Dinky had one hand on her mane and the other hand on her own stomach; she rubbed it up and down to gesture that she was hungry to the gray mare.

Ditzy stopped in her tracks; Dinky looked around for a moment and then looked back down at Ditzy. She noticed that Ditzy was looking at something in the distance; it was one of the market stands that Dinky somewhat knew of. It was a market stand wrapped in a plastic sheet that was a basic white and red striped colour. There was a large wooden sign above the market stand with the lettering:

“BON-BON AND LYRA’S CANDY SHACK!”

“What are you thinking Ditzy?” Dinky asked the mare; she wasn’t sure on what Ditzy was going to do, knowing how the whole store is closed down and from her visits to the store there was a locked door which was located behind the stand.

Ditzy didn’t reply; she carried with her little journey but with a new objective to feed the little child. Ditzy moved up in front of the whole stand and tilted her head to the left and right, thinking of a way to get inside.

“Wait…” Dinky said.

Ditzy stopped in her tracks once again; she turned her head to the child and stared at her.

“This is stealing… we can’t go in there… it’s aunt Bon-Bon’s market… she’d be really mad if we stole candy from her store.” Dinky whispered to the mare, she lightly tapped on the top of her head to make sure she was really paying attention.

Ditzy ignored what Dinky said and she started to encircle around the whole stand with Dinky still sitting on the mares back, Dinky was hungry, she didn’t know what to do. She was hungry and she needed at least a tiny bit of food to continue on her small journey to the park.

Dinky leaned to the side and hopped off the horse, she landed on the cold concrete floor and it brought a massive pain and shiver to her feet and toes. She ignored the pain for a second and stood still in place, watching Ditzy sniff and lick the plastic that coated the whole stand. Dinky knew that Ditzy was looking for a way to get inside of the Candy Shack.

“Ditzy… you don’t have to… you know…” Dinky tried to explain.

Ditzy turned her head round and looked at Dinky; she looked like the cold was getting to her and it was taking a beating on her. The mare kept on going her search to find an entrance to the Candy Shack to receive her reward and food for the child.

Ditzy turned around another corner of the small market stand and found a wooden door; it was painted a light cyan colour with a padlock on the front of it. Dinky followed the mare to see that she had found the door that she once remembered Bon-Bon walking through to get inside of the store. Ditzy went up to the door and began sniffing the pad-lock on the door.

“Ditzy, it’s locked. We won’t get in.” Dinky pointed out.

Ditzy ignored what the child said and turned her body around so that she was facing away from the wooden door and her tail was facing the door. Ditzy lifted up her hind legs and bucked the door. Causing a very loud smash and a massive hole in the door that Ditzy and Dinky would easily get inside of.

“Whoa!” Dinky jumped back from the mares sudden actions; she never imagined a horse doing so much damage to a wooden door. Ditzy turned around and looked at Dinky; she then turned her head and trotted into the market stand.

“That. Was. Cool!”

To be continued...

Chapter Six

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Chapter Six: Hunger

Proof-Read by SuperNova708

Dinky followed the mare into the wooden stand to see what Ditzy was doing. If she was going steal candy and run away from the scene like a thief, and then Dinky would have no choice but to stop Ditzy and try to get her away from the candy stand. Dinky walked around to the very back of the stand saw that the full damage that Ditzy had done to the door. A massive hole was blown into the middle of the door, large amounts of sharp pieces of woods were sticking out of the hole and splinters, and debris were all over the concrete floor.

Dinky looked through the hole in the door on the other side and saw that the debris was also inside the store; Dinky did not want to take the chance and get hurt by going through the door and catching a few splinters and injuries trying to get to the other side. Dinky leaned forward towards the hole and tried to find Ditzy inside.

“Ditzy… if you can hear me… err… could you open the door please? I can’t get through…” Dinky cupped her mouth with her hands and whispered to the mare inside.

Ditzy popped her head through the door rather quickly; Dinky immediately leaned back in slight shock from the mares head popping up in the door hole so quickly.

“Oh… Ditzy… could you open the door for me? I don’t wanna get a splinter… my mommy would get upset if I hurt myself… I’d have to wear a bandage and Carrot Top doesn’t like looking at blood...” Dinky blushed a bright red and rubbed her arm in slight embarrassment.

Ditzy stared at Dinky for a moment and lowered herself back into the candy stand; she walked out of the way so that Dinky could not see her. The mare looked up at the tall part of the door and saw the handle that could unlock the whole door. Ditzy raised herself up, stood on her hind legs for a moment, and started to grab the door handle and push it downwards. A slight click was heard from the inside of the door and it started to open.

Dinky smiled at Ditzy’s accomplishment and watched as the door opened all the way, she walked over to the door trying to step over the debris and splinters hoping she would not get hurt. She walked over to Ditzy and wrapped her arms around the mares head, lightly hugging the horse in praise.

“You’re so smart Ditzy!” Dinky patted the mare on the head delightfully; Ditzy began to smile at the human child because of her accomplishment. Dinky dug her fingers into Ditzy’s blonde mane and began to ruffle it.

Dinky stopped giving Ditzy attention and began to check her surroundings, and to her disbelief, she never noticed the complete inside of the candy stall.

The whole entire stall was filled to the brim with cardboard boxes; shelves were nailed on the top of the entire stall. Small glass jars full of candy and various types of sweets were inside on them, Ditzy licked her lips and the awe and amazement of the candy inside of the glass jars. She herself had never seen so much candy in such a small room before, her stomach rumbled.

Dinky noticed that Ditzy was licking her lips, slight amounts of drool started to drip from her mouth. Dinky frowned, crossed her arms, and tapped the mare on the backside.

“Ditzy… we can’t steal the candy… we might be hungry but we have to get to the park. My aunt and mommy will be very angry if they find out we have stolen some of their candy.” Dinky explained to the mare, Ditzy turned round and looked at Dinky, though still having a large amount of drool dripping from her mouth.

Ditzy ignored what the child said and started to check her surroundings, she noticed that one of the many cardboard boxes were piled together to make a small platform that lead up to the shelves where the glass candy jars are located. Ditzy trotted past Dinky, started to climb the cardboard boxes, one hoof by another Ditzy start to climb up to the very top of the cardboard boxes, and managed to reach one of the shelves at the top of the ceiling on the store.

“Ditzy! No!” Dinky waved her arms from side to side, her smile and motherly scolding tone began to drop and a wave of worry became over her. Her mouth dropped, her eyes widened and her pupils shrank a little.

Ditzy kept on with her mission to grab a piece of candy for one of the glass jars, she managed to get onto one of the wooden shelves hoping that the wood or the support beams wouldn’t either snap or break. Ditzy trotted across the shelf taking a small gander at what was in each jar on this particular row.

The looked inside each glass jar and saw Bubble-gum, liquorices, candy canes, jelly babies, jellybeans and even very large jawbreakers, bigger than the ones from home. She moved her head back and forth, ignoring Dinky’s calls and pleas to come down to safety. After coming up with an idea for what she wanted to eat, she also considered sharing with the human child.

“Ditzy! This is stealing, please come down!” Dinky plead to the mare, tears began to form in the eyes just from the thought of all of the consequences that could happen from just breaking and entering into a small candy stall in the marketplace. Stealing the candy was worse, knowing that being thrown into jail would be added into the punishment.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble! Please come down Ditzy! We can eat some food when we go back to my house!” Dinky tried to plead for the final time to the gray mare. It was no use; Ditzy was already taking off the lid on one of the glass jars with her mouth and began to pick up the jar by the small plastic handle on the side of it.

“Ditzy! Not the jellybeans!” Dinky put her hands up to her cheeks and began to overreact, she watched as the mare came back to the giant pile of cardboard boxes with the glass jar filled to the brim with jellybeans being held in her mouth by the handle.

Ditzy managed to travel across the shelf without causing any problems, she never pushed over any glass jars over the edge, she did not weaken the strength and wood of the shelf, and it seemed that there was going to be no problem. Ditzy started to lower herself onto the cardboard boxes; the boxes themselves were not attached to the wall and they were prone to moving about, even falling down.

“Be careful Ditzy!” Dinky warned, waving her finger at the mare like a parent scolding her child.

Ditzy started to put her hooves on the cardboard boxes, feeling her balance was going to turn her around. She put all four hooves on the cardboard box at the top of the very pile, she needed to put the glass jar down on the ground quickly, she could not let the glass jar roll down to the bottom of the pile or else it would smash. The contents would splash out and split.

Ditzy placed another hoof onto a cardboard box lower than the last, feeling her weight and balance sliding around with the jar in her mouth. Dinky immediately walked over to the base of the cardboard boxes and stretched her arms up into the air, preparing to catch Ditzy if she fell from the top of the cardboard boxes.

“Don’t worry! I’ll catch you Ditzy!” Dinky waved her arms around like a lunatic; she widened her eyes and prepared for the worst to happen. Ditzy lowered herself again to the third box in the pile, getting closer to the ground than ever.

Ditzy leaned forward and lowered her hoof onto the next box; she placed her hoof on the edge of the box and saw a little hole on the edge of it. The glass jar started to slip from her mouth, drool started to dripping down from the cold hard glass and the handle started to ebb towards the floor. This wasn't good. Her drool and the weight of the cup started to throw her off, her hooves were scrambling around to regain her balance.

Dinky couldn't watch. She knew what was going to happen before it had even happened. Ditzy was going to fall, reminding her of her mother when she used to watch her mother try and get the cookie jar from the top of the cupboard in her kitchen.

Dinky jumped back and closed her eyes from the destruction before her, covering her face with her arms as she heard violent sounds ring tone into her ears: smashing, cracking, snapping and small high pitched yelps of pain.

"IF MY LITTLE DINKY ENDS UP IN A CAGE... I'LL BE REALLY SAD!"

"It’s okay Derpy, we'll find her." Bon-Bon whispered to Derpy, wrapping her arms around her back and lightly tapping her on the back.

Carrot Top, Bon-Bon and Derpy all sat down in the middle of the living room. Bon-Bon and Derpy both sat down on the couch with both Derpy and Bon-Bon sitting down on the couch and Carrot Top standing up, crossing her arms not looking very impressed at Bon-Bon's performance to calm Derpy down. Derpy had covered her face with her hands; tears and snot were running down her face like an endless stream.

"What do you mean we?" Carrot Top put emphasis on "we", as if she was heavily disgusted by what Bon-Bon had just said.

"Well..." Bon-Bon paused, looking up to Carrot Top who didn't look so happy. "We need to work together to find Dinky, maybe look for clues or hints to where she might have gone." Bon-Bon tried to explain to Derpy's care-taker.

"No, no. I don't think we need your help." Carrot Top scoffed, rejecting Bon-Bon's offer to start looking for Derpy's missing child.

"And why is that?" Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow; she knew that Carrot Top was starting to get up to her antics. She didn't need this problem.

"Well..." Carrot Top began to speak, before being cut-off.

"ALL SHE ATE WAS A MUFFIN AND WE SAID GOOD NIGHT TOGETHER!" Derpy screamed out, Bon-Bon and Carrot Top shifted their attention towards Derpy and still saw that she was crying. Bon-Bon continued to rub and tap Derpy's back in another attempt to calm her down.

"What's with all the noise? I go upstairs for a moment to try on some clothes and I hear some brat cr-" Lyra stormed into the living room, Carrot Top and Bon-Bon looked at Lyra walking into the living room in surprise. Lyra had taken the time to put on one of the very skimpy and revealing maids outfit for nightly fun-time. Carrot Top shrieked in terror and Bon-Bon's face immediately blushed a bright red at the sight of Lyra.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" Lyra looked around and saw Carrot Top standing in front of Bon-Bon, who was holding Derpy in her arms on the couch. She crossed her arms and dropped her smile.

"If you must know lesbian, I am here to ask for help." Carrot Top scoffed, she crossed her arms and looked away from Lyra who just as well, didn't look very happy.

"Help for what? You need some carrot plucking from your garden or something?" Lyra teased, raising an eyebrow at Carrot Top and her tone of voice.

"No lesbian. We need to help Derpy." Carrot Top scoffed.

"Girls, this is no way to talk to one and other while we have a missing child on our hands." Bon-Bon interrupted both women and they looked over to Bon-Bon, both of them not looking very happy. Lyra frowned and Carrot Top just didn't look very happy.

"I guess you are right les- Bon-Bon." Carrot Top admitted. "We need to contact the police and ask them to carry out a search." She added.

"No." Lyra nodded from side to side, putting her hand on her face.

"What?" Carrot Top paused. "You have a better idea Lyra?" Carrot Top scoffed.

"Yeah. I do." Lyra smirked.

"Then please. Why don't you tell all of us?" Carrot Top raised her voice at Lyra one more time.

"I was suggesting we go and SEARCH for her ourselves." Lyra put emphasis on "SEARCH", causing Carrot Top to frown.

"Fine... let's search for a missing child we have no idea of locating with no possible use of professional trackers." Carrot Top sarcastically groaned.

"B-but... what about my m-muffin?" Derpy also tried to butt in the conversation between Bon-Bon, Lyra and Carrot Top.

"Don't worry Derpy, you stay here and we will go outside and look for her." Bon-Bon whispered to Derpy, rubbing her back to calm her down.

"I j-just don't k-know what went w-wrong..."

To be continued...

Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven: Catching Up

Proof-Read by SuperNova708

"Derpy, let's just call the authorities." Carrot Top walked over to the phone on the other side of the living room, it was attached to the wall and small wires poked out of the sides of the wall. She reached out for the phone but then she felt a small tug on the back of her orange t-shirt. Quickly turning around to see who it was and it was none other than Derpy, reaching out and pulling away from the phone.

"No Carrot Top! The police might take Dinky away! I don't want to lose my muffin even more!" Dinky pleaded with her care-taker, Carrot Top tried to move out of the way so that Derpy wouldn't reach out and grab her. But as she moved further and further away, Derpy leaned forward and jumped off the couch and grabbed Carrot Top's arms.

"Let me go Derpy, we need to ring the police. This might be serious; she might have been kidnapped by a madman for what we know!" Carrot Top put her hands on Derpy's chest and began to push away from her friend, making her let go of her grip.

Both Lyra and Bon-Bon watched as Derpy and Carrot Top fought over the phone. Lyra walked over to her wife and leaned next to her head and began to whisper into her ear.

"And you thought I was childish?" Lyra whispered.

"You still are, throwing tantrums and getting angry for no reason." Bon-Bon turned her head and smiled back at her wife, playfully pushing her head away from her ear.

"I don't care much for kids, but this Dinky stuff sounds serious." Lyra admitted.

"We need to help Derpy; she would have helped us if we had a kid." Bon-Bon said.

"But we don't have any kids." Lyra shrugged back at her wife.

"We can adopt... a nice little girl or something." Bon-Bon began to blush a bright red.

"That takes too long." Lyra sighed.

"Either way, we need to do something about Derpy. Could you imagine her without Dinky? That would be painful." Bon-Bon put her hand on Lyra's back and began to rub her back lightly up and down.

"Well... I don't like Dinky... she's just like any other loud and obnoxious kid... but I'll do it for Derpy... I owe her a favour since college." Lyra got off the sofa and stretched her arms into the air, letting out a small yawn.

"Alright you two." Lyra raised her voice and yelled to both Derpy and Carrot Top.

Both Carrot Top and Derpy stopped in their tracks and turned around to see Lyra was looking at them. Derpy began to sniffle; she wiped the tears from her face and walked back over to Bon-Bon, ridiculously sitting on her lap like a child. Derpy lowered her head and rested it on top of Bon-Bon's hair, wrapping her arms around Bon-Bon's body. Carrot Top wasn't pleased, she crossed her arms and stared back at Derpy and Bon-Bon.

"Carrot Top? What's wrong with you?" Lyra quickly said, putting Carrot Top on alert.

"What? You don't want to see Dinky returned safely by the power of the authorities?" Carrot Top fired back.

"You mean you don't want to search YOURSELF with your friends?" Lyra smirked.

"What on earth are you on about?" Carrot Top raised an eyebrow at the woman in the maid’s costume.

"You're just like every single person from Canterbury: snooty, stuck up and lazy." Lyra started. "You just want to call the authorities so you don't have to search with us." Lyra finished.

"How dare you!" Carrot Top immediately reacted back, pointing a finger at Lyra.

"Please will you two just shut up...?”

Lyra and Carrot Top both stopped talking as they turned their heads to Derpy and Bon-Bon.

"Could you just let Derpy speak for a moment?" Bon-Bon gave a cold look at both Lyra and Carrot Top, feeling like she needed to punch them both in the head for their constant bickering.

Derpy unraveled herself and looked at both Carrot Top and Lyra, letting go of Bon-Bon and turning her whole body around still sitting down on her lap.

"P-please... I don't want m-my muffin to disappear..." Derpy sniffled. "C-can we g-go outside and f-find her?" She wiped the tears off her face and sniffed once more.

"Where do we start? Where would Dinky go at this time at night?" Lyra interrupted Derpy's talk.

"How about we re-cap on what happened earlier today." Bon-Bon suggested, still holding Derpy on her lap like a child.

"All we did was sun bathe in our bikinis at the park... then we watched Dinky ride the horses at the park." Lyra raised her voice, trying to explain to the group of today’s boring events.

"Horses?" Carrot Top questioned.

"Yeah, we watched this guy put Dinky on a little dumb horse and then we just watched her go around the track. I didn't stay for long though." Lyra explained to Carrot Top, still feeling sick about speaking to her, let alone giving eye contact.

"What type of man?" Carrot Top kept on questioning.

"I don't know some cowboy with a hat. We couldn't see his face... there was a shadow across it." Lyra groaned.

"Did he look a little suspicious?" Carrot Top asked Lyra once again.

"The hell should I know? He just likes entertaining kids." Lyra threw her arms up into the air in a fit.

"Okay, calm down." Bon-Bon interrupted again. "Do you think the park would be a good place to start a search? She did like the horses there; maybe she went back to the small shack to see the horses or something." Bon-Bon said.

"Dinky doesn't like animals." Carrot Top scoffed. "I don't allow animals in my house."

"Yet, you're living in one yourself?" Lyra giggled.

"I don't see how me being an animal would help the situation, lesbian." Carrot Top crossed her arms.

"It's just a little theory, Carrot Top. I don't think Dinky would actually go back to a small shack full of animals without Derpy's permission." Bon-Bon tried to butt in.

Dinky lay still in the middle of the candy stall, sitting down on the floor with her vision being blocked by her own hands. She didn't want to see Ditzy fall from the top of the cardboard boxes and hurt herself. Any possible sight of blood or bruise marks on the gray mare was enough to make the child feel light-headed. Dinky moved her hands out of the way to see what happened around her.

The whole inside of the stall was trashed; the entire side of the stall was destroyed. The cardboard boxes that Ditzy was climbing on had fallen out of place and a few of them were scattered around the floor. Some of the candy jars on the top of the shelves had fallen off and landed on the wooden floor. Surprisingly they didn't smash, but the lids that contained the candy had fallen off and spilled out nearly all of the candy.

Dinky rose up from the ground and slowly walked over to the cardboard boxes, mindlessly pushing them out of the way trying to look for the gray mare under the pile of boxes.

"Ditzy? Where are you?" Dinky began to worry, double the fear and worry she started to get when the mare started to climb the shelves it was starting to feel a little overwhelming for the child. Continuing to move the boxes out of the way to find the gray mare Dinky noticed a small patch of room that wasn't affected by the recent damage. She looked closer and saw a gray body. A small smile drew itself across the child's face and she immediately turned herself towards the gray coating.

"Ditzy is that you?" Dinky raised her voice, loud enough for the mare to hear her.

The ears that stuck out from the tall boxes suddenly perked upwards, Dinky smiled and rushed over towards the mare, not caring if she was kicking the boxes out of the way with her feet. Even if she didn't have any shoes on, she needed to get to the other side of the room to Ditzy.

Dinky finally made it to the other side where Ditzy was lying down on the floor, her whole body was lying down on the ground in a resting position and the mare dug her head into one of the glass jars, half empty candy still lying inside. Dinky saw what the mare was doing as Ditzy stuck her tongue inside the glass jar to pick up the jelly beans that she had acquired earlier.

"Ditzy? What are you doing?" Dinky childishly giggled out loud, quickly standing next to the mare’s side patting her on the back.

Ditzy turned her head and saw who it was; she smiled and then returned to her job trying to get the jelly beans out of the glass jar continuing to stick her tongue into the deepest crevices of the jar to get the tasty jelly beans.

"C'mon, we need to get out of here!" Dinky patted Ditzy on the back and turned round to pick up her tail with her hands; she began to lightly tug on the gray mare’s tail and began to pull. Ditzy didn't move at all as she continued to eat her delicious jelly beans.

"I want to see Scootaloo now!" Dinky whined, still pulling on the mare’s tail trying to get her to move.

Ditzy didn't move at all, she continued to dip her mouth into the glass jar with the jelly beans inside of it. She ignored the child and continued her job trying to get the final handful of jellybeans into her mouth.

"Are you going to move at all?" Dinky threw her arms up into the air, this was the second time that Ditzy ignored what Dinky was doing. She was starting get a little irritated at what the gray mare was doing, stalling all of the time for her own personal needs instead of taking her to Scootaloo at the park where the stables and small wooden shacks were.

"You know what!" Dinky raised her voice and began to shout, still waving her arms up into the air.

Ditzy stopped what she was doing and she turned her head towards the small human child, the mare took note of the child's anger and irritation. She knew that staying around the candy stall was going to make her even more angry and just the simple desire for food was starting to make the child upset. Ditzy needed to think fast to make sure that she didn't run home and ruin her plans.

"I might as well go home an-" Dinky began to speak again towards the gray mare, raising her voice every two words that she spoke out. But as she began to turn around to leave the candy shack, she felt yet another tugging feeling on the back of her t-shirt. Dinky began to groan out loud and she turned around to see what Ditzy wanted this time.

"What?" Dinky impatiently yelled, she crossed her arm and frowned at the gray mare.

Ditzy let of Dinky's t-shirt and turned her head towards one of the jars full of candy, it was a large jar made out of thick glass with jelly babies inside of it. Dinky uncrossed her arms and stared at the glass jar along with Ditzy; the mare crawled over to the glass jar and picked it up by placing her mouth around the top of the lid. She lifted it up and placed it in front of Dinky, using her hooves to take off the lid allowing the child to take the contents on the inside.

Ditzy pushed the jar over onto its side, allowing the jelly babies to fall out like a small tsunami. Spilling all over the place next to Dinky's naked and dirty feet, she took a step back wondering what the mare was trying to tell her.

"Y-you want me to take some?" Dinky pointed at herself whilst looking at Ditzy.

The mare nodded her head up and down and then lowered her head and used the tip of her nose to push certain jelly babies towards Dinky's little feet. Dinky hesitated at first but then leaned down to the ground to pick up a few jelly babies. She picked up a small handful of jelly babies and slowly put them to the outside of her mouth, her senses didn't want her to eat the jelly babies as they had landed onto the dirty wooden floor. But the mare was watching her and she looked like she was hoping that the child would eat the jelly babies.

The mare moved closer to the child and began to show a little smile and the moved up closer to the child’s hands, watching the jelly babies going to be eaten by her. Dinky slowly lifted up her arm and began to put the jelly babies into her mouth, tasting their fruity combinations all together. Dinky felt this small situation was like the time Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon made her eat dirt during one of the worst days during her time at school.

Dinky began to chew on the jelly babies and adjusted herself to the flavours that came out of them; she wrapped her tongue around the chewy candy and began to swallow the remains into her throat. Leaving a loud gulping sound, resulting in an even bigger smile from the gray mare. She began to walk around Dinky to her backside and she lowered herself, Dinky knew what was going to happen, she stood still waiting for what Ditzy was going to do.

The mare crawled through the child’s legs and positioned her hooves in the correct places on the wooden floor and began to lift up the child onto her back. Without much trouble once again she lifted up Dinky onto her back without any problems, Dinky immediately grabbed onto Ditzy's mane and began to hold on as the mare started to trot out of the candy stall leaving the damage uncleaned and intact for its owner to clean up.

To be continued...

Chapter Eight

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Chapter Eight: The Late Hours

Proof-Read by SuperNova708

"So what's the plan? Are we going to split up or something?" Lyra nudged at Bon-Bon's back, putting her arms through her coat and locking the zipper on the front and pulling it up to the top. She wore a thick green hoodie with the image of a harp with a musical note in the background. Lyra pulled onto the strings coming out of the collar and tightened up her hood as she placed it on her head.

"I suggest we all split up." Bon-Bon said to the whole group as they prepared to leave the house.

"Into groups?" Lyra asked Bon-Bon with a common question.

"Each of us split up on our own and spread out across town; I'll search around the Marketplace with Derpy while you go to the town square and look for her." Bon-Bon explained her plan to her wife.

"What about the angry ginger over there?" Lyra referenced Carrot Top to Bon-Bon.

"I will tell her to search the main street and look around buildings like the Sugarcube Corner and the Farm at the top of the hill." Bon-Bon added, slightly chucking at Lyra's reference to Carrot Top.

"Will we regroup?" Lyra also asked.

"Let me explain what is going on to Carrot Top and Derpy and I will tell everyone where we shall meet up. Also, are you sure, you are going to be warm? That maid outfit doesn't really appeal to keeping your legs warm." Bon-Bon looked down at Lyra's skinny and pale white legs, concerned for her partner's well-being.

"I'll be alright, I'm sure you would have done the same thing." Lyra giggled.

"Maybe you should have put on some thick stockings or something... I'm not as good as the woman at the Fashion Boutique when it comes to well... knowing anything about fashion and clothing, but I do know you'll end up with some cold legs." Bon-Bon warned her partner.

"Don't sweat it Bon-Bon. After this is all over, you can rub them for me when we get back to bed." Lyra put her hand on Bon-Bon's chest, giving her a small and quick kiss on the cheek to alleviate the small worry about her own legs.

Bon-Bon began to blush a little, knowing that Derpy and Carrot Top were watching them put their coats on. However, obviously, Derpy did not know what to make of them kissing; Carrot Top would call it revolting as usual. Bon-Bon finished kissing Lyra back and she turned around to her houseguests, she saw that Carrot Top had taken her place on the couch and sat down next to Derpy. Derpy on the other hand had placed her head on Carrot Top's shoulders and crossed her own arms, still sniffling and quietly crying to herself.

"Alright Carrot Top... Derpy... Me and Lyra have made a little plan." Bon-Bon announced herself to Carrot Top and Derpy, both of them turned their attention to Bon-Bon and waited for her to speak out and tell the plan.

"We are going to split up and cover more ground to look for Dinky. If we all split up and go into different parts of town, we might be able to find her quicker and the whole problem will be over, so to say," Bon-Bon began to explain her plan to Carrot Top and Derpy.

"So... who is going with who?" Carrot Top impatiently asked Bon-Bon.

"Me and Derpy will go to the marketplace to search around the stalls, Lyra is going to the town square to look for her and you can search for Dinky around buildings like the Sugarcube Corner and the Fashion Boutique."

"Excuse me, wait... why is Derpy going with you? Shouldn't Derpy come with me? She lives in my house; she should have the right to come with me," Carrot Top immediately responded to Bon-Bon in a negative manner, very angry and displeased with the unexpected plan.

"Oh... just shut it ginger. We need to find Dinky and that's that!" Lyra butted in by peeping over Bon-Bon's left shoulder.

"Fine." Carrot Top scoffed, placing her hand on her face trying to groan as loud as possible to show signs of irritation.

Derpy immediately got up from the couch and walked over to Bon-Bon and Lyra; she tried her best to wrap her arms around both of them and hugged both of them tightly.

"Thank you Bon-Bon and Lyra! I love you both, you're really good friends!" Derpy shouted out in joy, she could not wait to find her child and hug her once again.

"It's alright Derpy, we will find Dinky." Bon-Bon smiled, she patted Derpy on the back of her head in a lovingly manner.

"Oh please..." Carrot Top rolled her eyes and groaned at the scene.

"Let's just go and look for her... wait... Bon-Bon, you didn't talk about where we would meet up." Lyra choked on her words as Derpy hugged her rather tightly, reminding Bon-Bon of what she did not include in her plan.

"Oh yes... please let go Derpy." Bon-Bon tapped Derpy on the back, telling her to let go of her and Lyra. Derpy lowered her grip on her friends and fully let go of them, allowing Bon-Bon to speak.

"Oh yes, after ten minutes of looking around at the places we were told to... let's all reunite at the park and then all together look at the park." Bon-Bon announced her plan to Carrot Top and the Derpy.

"Why the park?" Carrot Top questioned.

"I think to my knowledge of Dinky, it's the last place that I think she would go to if she was able to walk around town on her own. I don't think she would stray away so far from home like that."

"Heh, you do not know anything about Dinky. She loves parks, why don't we go there first?" Carrot Top butting in to Bon-Bon's explanation.

"I'm sorry... what? You know more about Dinky more than her own mother does. How the heck is that possible?" Lyra finally butted in the conversation and peeped her head over Bon-Bon's shoulder to speak.

"I have ta-" Carrot Top began to speak, only to be butted in by Lyra once more, she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"You haven't taken her anywhere... we do more for Dinky more than you ever could!" Lyra playfully shouted at Carrot Top.

"And what did you do for Dinky?" Carrot Top scoffed.

"Remember we set up her 7th Birthday at the Sugarcube Corner? On the other hand... that time when we took her to Canterbury to watch the Royal Parade to see the Princesses and the Royal Army. Hey... even that time we took her to the Museum and even Cheerilee came along, AND you don't seem to like her as well!" Lyra laughed at loud, she knew that she won this argument, plain and simple.

Carrot Top paused for a moment, she knew that Lyra had won this argument. She loudly sighed at the three people in front of her; she put her hand up to her face and began to rub her face.

"Let's just go and find Dinky... I need a drink..." Carrot Top moaned.

"You know my mommy is a really nice person Ditzy, she likes to bake muffins and deliver mail to all of the people around town. Everyone thinks she is crazy because of her eyes, but I think she is smart. She knows when I should go to bed and when I am supposed to have dinner, I love her very much... oh; she has some friends called Lyra and Bon-Bon... I don't like them very much, they are weird, they are both girls and they love each other. At home, Miss Carrot Top told me that boys and girls are supposed to love each other, but Lyra and Bon-Bon are both girls... it's really weird and she doesn't like it..." Dinky happily explained her daily life and friends to the gray mare; Ditzy was more than happy to listen to the child talk about her life and how interesting it was.

Both Ditzy and Dinky were getting closer to the park, Dinky was still sitting on top of Ditzy and she kept herself upright so that she did not fall off. The child had a small handful of jelly babies, she regularly slipped a jelly baby into the mare's mouth, her own mouth when she had the chance, Ditzy enjoyed being fed by the child, and it was more of a small incentive to keep on moving to the park.

"I have a friend at my school called Pipsqueak, he is a boy. And he likes pretending to be a pirate when he gets home, he told me that he explored all of the seas in the land and he had a fight with a giant evil octopus called "Merrick"... I don't know what a Merrick is, but I thought it was a cool name. We play together at school during playtime and he likes pretending to use a cardboard box to make a pirate ship. He's really cool and he likes coming over my house to play." Dinky explained more about her life and her friends to the gray mare, still being carried by Ditzy who was still happily listening to Dinky and her ways of life in Rumsville.

"Maybe we could go and see him tomorrow and we could play together..." Dinky gasped, she came up with a brilliant idea that involved her, Ditzy and even Pipsqueak to play together resulting in a massive adventure full of fun.

Ditzy was fed another jelly baby and she began to spawn a small smile, nearly having reached a small split in the cobblestone road, Ditzy had to think for a minute, she looked down the path and saw that the cobblestone path split up into a fork shape, but in the middle of the shape was a tall metal post sticking out of the ground with a sign post attached onto the side of it. Large letters and arrows pointed to different directions, and yet Ditzy needed to know which way to the park was the right way.

"Is that a sign?" Dinky asked the mare she was riding.

Ditzy did not respond; she tried to look up to see what the sign tried to say, she was not tall enough to see what the sign said. It was too high for a short mare like Ditzy and she was not used to the way that the people of this town do things differently compared to her town.

"Do you want me to read it for you?" Dinky suggested to Ditzy, the mare turned her head around to look at the child and slowly nodded up and down telling Dinky to read out what the sign said.

"Uh... okay... I can read pretty good... uhh..." Dinky looked up to the sign and squinted her eyes to try to get a better view of what the sigh had said.

"G-g-go... l-le-lef-left... t-to wa-wah-water... m-mi-ill-mill!"

"Aha! Go left to the Water Mill!" Dinky shouted out, she felt like a light bulb was about to pop out of the top of her own head to give her some praise. Ditzy turned her head around and gave off a small smile for the child, silently praising her for what she had just done.

"Uh... the next one..." Dinky raised her arm and scratched her head in slight confusion for what the other direction had written; she looked up again and began to read out what the other side of the sign had.

G-g-go... ri-r-right... t-to th-the p-par-park."

"Aha! Go right to the park!" Dinky shouted out once again, in amazement of her unbelievable reading skills Ditzy turned around and gave another smile for Dinky to praise on.

"Thank you Ditzy, you're really helpful!" Dinky wrapped her arms around the mare's arms and hugged Ditzy rather tightly.

Ditzy knew where she had to go now, Dinky had read the signpost and now she had the directions and the information to manage to get to the park without any trouble. They were so close to reaching Scootaloo and the other horses in the shacks at the park, Dinky was excited, and she could not wait to feed Scootaloo with another baby bottle filled to the top with sweet milk. She also wanted the chance to see Luna and Fluttershy so that she could be good friends with them and get to know them better.

Ditzy started to get back on track as they pulled her weight with Dinky on top to travel down the cobblestone path which had the sign pointing down to the direction of the park, she went down the fork path that lead to the park and she continued her journey.

Bon-Bon was the first to exit the house, then Lyra, then Derpy and last Carrot Top. Bon-Bon waited for Carrot Top to leave the house and used her house keys to close and lock the door so that no one was able to break in and steal anything. Leaving Lyra, Derpy and Carrot Top standing there on the cobble stone path waiting for Bon-Bon to finish with what she was doing.

"Okay so... let's all split up..." Bon-Bon finally started the search.

"I'll go to the Town Square... hey... I could knock on Berry Punch and Cheerilee's homes and ask them to help out." Lyra realized a certain idea to add in more people to the search, her face beamed with genius.

"That might not be such a bad idea, but I don't think knocking for Cheerilee would be such a good idea. She is going to Canterbury tomorrow to study something at the University, teacher training if I recall." Bon-Bon interrupted and told what is wrong with calling Cheerilee.

"C'mon, I think looking for a missing child is more important than stupid lessons at a big dumb school." Lyra shrugged, raising her voice loudly.

"You can call for her, but I don't think she might help." Bon-Bon gave in, allowing Lyra to call for Cheerilee.

"Gotcha!" Lyra walked up to Bon-Bon and gave her another quick kiss on the cheek, Bon-Bon replied back by giving off another quick kiss on the cheek before Lyra left to walk over to the town square. Lyra turned around and walked down the pathway towards Town Square, Bon-Bon turned around to see that Derpy had crossed her arms and was nervously shivering because of the cold weather. Carrot Top had just crossed her arms and sighed at the sight before her eyes.

"I-it's r-really c-cold Bon-Bon..." Derpy shivered, walking over to Bon-Bon and wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to keep warm.

"Okay, Carrot Top. Please walk around Middle Street and try and find Dinky, remember: we are going to meet up at the park in ten minutes." Bon-Bon put her hands on Derpy's back and patted her on the back like a child; Carrot Top silently nodded and walked off all by herself in a different direction towards the Sugarcube Corner.

"Now, Derpy... we're going to walk together to the marketplace to try and find Dinky. Please hold my hand and we'll walk down to the marketplace, I'll even open up my candy stall and get something for you if you like." Bon-Bon watched Carrot Top walk down the road, when she thought that she was out of ear range, she began to calmly talk to Derpy like a child, and she reached out her hand and placed it on Derpy's.

"Oh... umm... okay..." Derpy nodded up and down, she gripped tightly onto Bon-Bon's soft hand and let her take her to the marketplace.

The search had finally begun.

To be continued...

Chapter Nine

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Chapter Nine: Thievery

"Bon-Bon... where is Dinky?" Derpy sniffled; she tilted her head over towards Bon-Bon and whispered into her ear.

"Don't worry Derpy, we will find Dinky and we will find her soon. Let's just stay together and find her together." Bon-Bon reassuringly explained to Derpy, hoping to calm her down.

"But why did Lyra and Carrot Top disappear?" Derpy asked Bon-Bon, still curious as ever.

"I told them to split up Derpy, if Lyra and Carrot Top split up they can search more places around town that we can't go to. In a few minutes were going to meet up at the park, do you understand?" Bon-Bon calmingly spoke to her friend, tightening the grip on her hand making sure she did not let go of Derpy holding her hand as if she was a small scared child.

"I think so..." Derpy scratched her head with her other hand which was free, still feeling confused about what Bon-Bon was trying to say to her.

"Now, the reason why I decided to go to the marketplace with you is because I can open up my candy stall and get some candy for you." Bon-Bon used her free hand and rubbed Derpy's arm keeping her warm from the cold. Derpy returned herself by smiling back to Bon-Bon and trying her best to look at her.

"Can I have some cotton candy?" Derpy asked Bon-Bon.

"Sure you can." Bon-Bon smiled.

Both Derpy and Bon-Bon began to walk down the path that began to spread further outwards, little stalls covered up by sheets of plastic and held together by weak wood were scattered around the street. Small tents and large tents were scattered around the whole area with massive signs on all of them. Butcher shops, Vegetable shops, Toyshops, Alcohol and even foreign books. Lively boldly colored names shined in the moon bright light.

"Okay, we're now in the market, let's just walk to the Candy Shack and I'll get some cotton candy out for you." Bon-Bon looked around, feeling a slight tingling in her spine. She loved business. Especially with the pink haired woman who works in the Sugarcube Corner, not just so much of a friendly competition.

Derpy and Bon-Bon arrived at their destination; they had finally reached the candy shack in all of its own beauty. The stall was closed down for the nighttime and the windows were boarded up with wooden planks that could easily be removed with a simple hammer. Bon-Bon put her hand in her pocket and began to rummage around for the keys within her pocket; she then grabbed hold of her house keys and pulled them out of her trouser pocket.

"So you say that you want a small bag of cotton candy?" Bon-Bon asked her friend again.

"Uhh..." Derpy put her finger on her mouth, trying to think. "Yes please." Derpy nodded up and down.

"Let me just open up the back door and I'll get you some cotton candy. I think Lyra left one of her hoodies in the store last time I was working here, if I can find it, you can wear it. I'm sure Lyra wouldn't mind." Bon-Bon smiled.

"I can wear Lyra's hoodie?" Derpy questioned.

"Yes." Bon-Bon nodded.

"Cool!" Derpy yelled out, raising her fist into the air.

Bon-Bon and Derpy started to walk around the Candy stall to get to the back door, Bon-Bon held up her keys and looked through each single one and saw the right key to open up the back door. She held the correct key into her hand and proceeded to walk around the Candy stall with Derpy slowly following, hoping that the green hoodie that Lyra left in the stall was still there.

Bon-Bon was the first to turn round to the back of the stall; she saw small pieces of wooden ranging from small chips to large chunks all over the floor where the door is. Her heart skipped a beat for a minute as she looked at where the possible source of the damage would have happened; she saw that her back door had a massive hole going straight through the middle of it. Derpy soon catched up to her friend and saw Bon-Bon standing in front of the damage before her.

"W-what happened, is Dinky here?" Derpy walked over to Bon-Bon and lightly tapped her on the arm, Bon-Bon seemed to have frozen up, she did not move at all. Bon-Bon's mouth was standing wide open and her pupils had shrinked to the size of peas.

"N-no Derpy..." Bon-Bon unfroze herself; she moved her hand up to her face. Her movement seemed a little jittery and very slow, but she finally placed her hand up onto her face and groaned out loudly.

"Are... are you okay?" Derpy put her hand on her friends shoulder; she wrapped her arms around Bon-Bon's chest and softly hugged her.

"I- I'm okay D-Derpy..." Bon-Bon stared at the damage done to her wooden door; she looked at the damage by spacing her fingers past her face allowing her to see properly. Derpy tried to hug Bon-Bon once again, and Bon-Bon accepted the hug once more.

"What could have done that?" Derpy whispered to Bon-Bon, starting to feel as scared as Bon-Bon.

"I d-don't know..." Bon-Bon sighed. "I n-need to check that n-nothing was stolen..." Bon-Bon walked up to the top of the debris and walked over it, she saw the hole in the door and noticed that the door was now unlocked. Her idea of an animal trying to break in and steal the candy in her store was out of the window, now she fully understood that an actual person had broken into her store.

"I h-have to check Derpy... I w-will be a minute..." Bon-Bon put her hand on the door handle, she slowly turned the handle and the insides of the door had clicked out of place, Bon-Bon pushed the door forward and now saw the full extent of the damage.

Bon-Bon peeped her head on the inside of her precious stall to see the epicenter of the damage that has been done, all of the cardboard boxes that she had placed neatly into the corner of the store were somehow thrown across the entire stall, all sorts of jars and pieces of candy were all over the floor.. It was a complete mess; Bon-Bon could utter a single word for what had happened to her precious candy stall.

"Oh... this is just horrible..." Bon-Bon gasped for air, feeling like the room was constantly losing it.

"Bon-Bon are you okay?" Derpy walked up to Bon-Bon from the behind and tapped her on the back.

Bon-Bon slowly turned around, looking very sad about what had happened to her stall.

"W-What's wrong?" Derpy asked; confused at what was going on.

"It's nothing, Derpy... an animal broke into the store." Bon-Bon lied, feeling a massive knot in her stomach was forming, and she still could not believe what had happened to her stall.

Derpy stepped inside the stall and saw the damage lying around her, wooden debris were all over the floor and pieces of candy were scattered around, the cardboard boxes were all over the places and one of the shelves looked like it had been damaged. Derpy did not understand what was going on, but it looked very bad, and seeing Bon-Bon looking very sad was a sign to the situation.

"Does this mean I can't have any cotton candy?"

Lyra walked down the town square with her hands in the pockets on her hoodie, keeping her head down and low from any possible sight from any of the passersby. She kept her eyes open for Dinky and was definitely on guard for when she saw her, Bon-Bon was right. She needed something to cover her legs, but now was not the right time to complain about the weather. She had a child to look for and some friends to call apon.

Lyra entered the town square; in the middle of the town square was the large fountain, which was always turned off at nighttime to conserve water. Lyra walked up to the fountain for a moment to look at her own reflection in the water, deep in the water was the reflection of her own beautiful face hidden under her hoodie and the gigantic moon shining it's moon light on the whole land. Lyra looked up and checked her surroundings for a moment, she looked at the mayor’s office, for this time of day it was closed, and the mayor had gone home to get some rest.

"Dinky!" Lyra put her hands next to her mouth to create a megaphone and shouted Derpy's daughter's name aloud in the middle of the street.

...

No response, Lyra did not understand the whole situation; she did not understand why Dinky would run away from her mother and Carrot Top. Small ideas and theories began to well up into her head and it was for certain that most of them would not likely of actually happened to the child.

"Dinky where are you?" Lyra called out again.

...

Lyra sat down on the edge of the fountain for a minute, keeping herself intact and making sure, she did not fall into the fountain. She put her hands up to her face and began to rub her eyes, easing the pain that built up over time not being able to get some sleep.

Lyra stopped rubbing her eyes and turned around to look back at the fountain, she saw a small shine at the bottom of the fountain in the corner of her eye. It was a strange white shine and it managed to catch her attention, Lyra turned herself around properly to see a strange gray feather was in the water.

She reached out for the strange looking feather and quickly grabbed it, picking up the soft feather to much of her curiosity. It was a very long gray feather that looked like it belonged to a very large type of bird, it was very strange as Lyra could not imagine rare types of birds coming to the land and stay near actual towns without being chased away by the locals.

"What the..." Lyra took a closer inspection of the strange feather; she saw that even when it was not in the water it was still shining a magnificent color and it shined in the moonlight perfectly. Lyra looked to her left and her right to see that no one was still around at this time of night. She quickly stuffed the feather into her hoodie pocket and continued her search for Dinky.

"Here you go Derpy." Bon-Bon gave Derpy a small plastic bag filled to the top with soft and delicious cotton candy, Derpy immediately ripped open the bag and shoved the cotton candy into her mouth and let it melt by swirling her saliva around her mouth. Bon-Bon did not look very happy, and Derpy could see that. She had just tried her best to fix her stall and moved all of the cardboard boxes back into the corner and picked up some of the candy using a dustpan and bush, Bon-Bon walked over to Derpy and lightly tapped her on the shoulder.

"Are we going now?" Derpy muffled, not being able to speak properly with all of the cotton candy shoved in her mouth.

"Yes Derpy. Me and Lyra will come back here in the morning and clean the place up, but firstly we have to find Dinky." Bon-Bon walked back over to the counter and picked up the green hoodie that belonged to Lyra, she put it over Derpy and she inserted her arms through the arms of the coat. Bon-Bon took grip of the zipper, connected it up with the other side of the coat, and pulled it up.

"What do you think happened here?" Derpy muffled, still trying to chew on the cotton candy.

"I will tell you tomorrow Derpy, let's go find Dinky..." Bon-Bon rubbed her eyes; feeling tired from what has been going on, first Dinky, and now her precious candy stall.

"So were going to find Dinky now?" Derpy was confused, she did not really listen to Bon-Bon, and she was more interested in finishing off the cotton candy and then getting back to finding her daughter.

"Yes." Bon-Bon nodded up and down. "You can hold my hand if you want and we will go to the park and regroup with everyone else." Bon-Bon held her hand out to Derpy for a moment, Derpy reached out and grabbed Bon-Bon's hand and she allowed Bon-Bon to take her to the park.

Bon-Bon was the first to walk out of the candy stall, Derpy soon followed out with her hand being in grip with Bon-Bon's hand, she reached into her pocket with her free hand, got her own house keys, and locked the door. Bon-Bon just realized that locking the door with a massive hole in the middle of it was a bad idea. People were still going to get inside of it and she could not help but groan a little.

Carrot Top walked down the big streets of Rumsville, she looked from side to side keeping an always-observant eye out for Dinky and any other people that she could be able to talk to. She had just walked past the Sugarcube Corner and the Fashion Boutique looking for the child and there was no luck in finding her.

Ten minutes had passed after checking street after street and there was no sign of Dinky anywhere, not even a single sound or sign of a possible clue anywhere. Carrot Top looked at her wristwatch for a moment to see it was time to regroup at the entrance to the park. She put her hands up to her face and sighed aloud, slowly rubbing her eyes trying to release the pain that built up after not being able to sleep for now.

" This is hopeless... " Carrot Top spoke to herself. " Stupid lesbians... " She looked around the street she was on once again and finally accepted that she couldn't find Dinky at all, she turned around and began to walk to the Rumsville Park.

Ditzy and Dinky walked up the path that lead to the Rumsville Park, the cobblestone path had changed into a long path made out of dirt and a large series of flowers began to appear all over the bright green grass. The pond in the middle of the park was silent and the small wildlife that resided in there were calm and collected. Ditzy decided to check on the child and so she turned her head around but kept on walking.

Dinky was leaning against Ditzy's neck, arms tightly wrapped round and Dinky was making a muffled snoring sound. Ditzy took a closer look at Dinky and saw that she had fallen asleep on her own back, she must have been tired from her lack of sleep and the fact that she was taken away so far from home.

Ditzy saw the horse stables on the other side of the park near the forest, all of the small lights that lit up the ranch had been turned off, she hoped that the ranch owner was asleep so that she could sneak past him and lay Dinky down into the stables with the rest of the other ponies.

"Ditzy..."

Ditzy turned her head again, quickly confused at the strange voice, she looked from her left and to her right to make sure no other person was looking at her or even watching what she was doing.

"Ditzy... you're my bestest friend..."

Ditzy turned her head round and noticed that Dinky had said those words, but she did not understand. The child was asleep, how could she speak in her sleep.

A small heart warming tingle warmed up Ditzy and a small smile grown on her face knowing that the child loved her. In addition, she was so close to the ranch, she felt so happy that she was so close to her objective and the child loved her.

Ditzy's role in the great plan was nearly finished; it was time for the other ponies to achieve the next step in the great plan. All they had to do is wait for Dinky to wake up and the fun would begin.

To be continued.

Chapter Ten

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Chapter Ten: New Friends

Dinky had a soft feeling within her; she moved her arms and legs lying on the most comfortable thing she had ever put herself down on. She nuzzled her own head back into the soft material that she wasn't able to see, tightening her grip on the soft object trying to achieve her own perfection on this material. It was great, really soft and Dinky felt like she was in absolute heaven.

A small nudging feeling poked into her backside, it was a small nudge that didn't cause any pain at all. The soft material kept Dinky happy and she kept her eyes closed for the time being, she knew that someone was trying to wake her up, but she didn't want to get up now. It was too good for her.

"Mommy... I don't want to get up for school..." Dinky groaned; her voice was weak from her fatigue and overall lack of sleep. She put her hand on her forehead and rubbed it from side to side, feeling like her loving and caring mother was trying to wake her up for another boring day at school. She had to get up, but on the other hand her blanket was so good she didn't want to wake up.

The nudging started to come back, but it wasn't the soft tap that she felt a moment ago. The nudge was amplified and Dinky was pushed from side to side in an attempt to wake her up.

"Okay! I'm awake!" Dinky slowly leaned up; she placed her hand on her eyes and started to rub them once again.

She opened her eyes and saw Scootaloo standing right in her face, standing on her stomach looking down at her with a strange curious expression. Dinky's mouth dropped, she paused for a moment and quickly grabbed Scootaloo and wrapped her arms around the orange filly.

"Scootaloo!" Dinky wrapped her arms around Scootaloo and hugged her as tight as possible; the orange filly dug her head into her chest and started to snuggle up with Dinky.

"It's so nice to see you!" Dinky kept the orange filly into her arms; the filly began to smile and wagged her purple tail from side to side like a dog.

As Dinky was hugging Scootaloo, Dinky felt another massive nudge in her backside, this time it really hurt. Dinky didn't let out any yelps or squeals of pain, she immediately let go of Scootaloo and turned herself around to look behind her.

"Hey! Now what's the big idea?" Dinky turned around as fast as she could, she turned around to see something that she did not expect, she thought during her little nap, she was resting her head on a very nice pillow. But it seemed that she was resting her head on Luna's side, Dinky's mouth dropped and she immediately moved away from the giant blue mare.

"L-Luna!" Dinky crawled away from the blue mare, trying her best to keep her distance from the angry horse. But Luna didn't look angry; she looked rather puzzled at what Dinky was doing.

"I'm s-sorry... I... uh... didn't mean to..." Dinky immediately apologized to the blue mare, she kept on crawling back until she bumped into something behind her, and she turned her head to see that she had bumped into Fluttershy. The yellow mare with the wings, Dinky immediately yelped in slight fright and backed herself off into a corner away from both Luna and Fluttershy.

"I'm s-sorry... I d-didn't m-mean... to bump i-into you..." Dinky put her hands across her face, trying not to look at the mares that she had bumped into.

Fluttershy and Luna looked at each other, both feeling sad for the child that they had scared. Fluttershy was the first one to slowly move over towards the child and she craned her head down to the ground and stood next to Dinky. Fluttershy nuzzled Dinky's leg and the child looked up and moved her hands out of the way so that she could see who tapped her.

"F-Fluttershy?" Dinky was scared, she didn't know whether the horses were going to do something bad to her, Fluttershy looked tall; she was standing in front of Dinky with her head craned down to look at her. Fluttershy slowly lowered her whole body to the ground and rested herself on the hay. She gave a small smile and a friendly look to Dinky, letting her know that everything was okay.

Fluttershy lifted out her hoof and placed it on Dinky's leg; she put her hand on the yellow mares hoof and used her fingers to slowly stroke her hoof.

"I-I'm s-sorry... I t-thought you w-were going to... uh... do something bad t-to me..." Dinky stammered, she didn't know what to say to the mare, she didn't know if the mare could understand would she was trying to say like what Ditzy done throughout her journey to the park.

Scootaloo slowly moved over to Fluttershy and Dinky, really curious about what they were doing and she obviously didn't want to miss any of the action at all. The orange filly moved over to Dinky and Fluttershy and climbed up on Dinky's lap. Dinky used her spare hand and placed her hand on Scootaloo's back, stroking her fur just like she was stroking a cat.

"C-can y-you all under understand m-me?" Dinky lowered her head next to Fluttershy and Scootaloo, she whispered to them not including Luna in the conversation.

Both Fluttershy and Scootaloo nodded up and down in unison, Scootaloo placed her head next to Dinky's stomach and nuzzled herself into her stomach and smiled at the child. Dinky smiled back as she gave both Scootaloo and Fluttershy attention, she made the decision and realized that both of them were very friendly, they seemed to enjoy her company.

"Does it get lonely in here?" Dinky asked Fluttershy, whispering to her as if it was a very private question.

Fluttershy didn't respond; she just nodded up and down.

As Dinky tended to Scootaloo and Fluttershy by giving them some attention, she looked over Fluttershys shoulder and saw Luna in the corner of the stable. She was lying down looking at Scootaloo and Fluttershy, her head was rested on a small pile of soft hay and her whole body was rested down the same way. Dinky noticed that Luna looked very sad, she didn't like being around the others for some reason, just like what the Ranch Owner said to her earlier this day.

She picked up Scootaloo by placing her fingers underneath her belly and placed her down on a nearby pile of hay and then gently picked up Fluttershy's hoof and placed it down onto the hay. Dinky stood up and slowly walked over to Luna, the large blue mare looked up at the child and saw that she was walking over to her. Luna immediately got up and sat herself down on the hay, waiting for what Dinky was going to do.

"H-hello L-Luna..." Dinky began to blush; she waved a little to the blue mare and stood in front of her.

Luna didn't respond, she looked up and inspected the child, taking a look at her clothing. The gray t-shirt and the strange undergarment that she was wearing in between her legs with the images of flowers and butterflies scattered around the front of it. Luna craned her head down towards the child and used her nose to poke and inspect the strange clothing that the child was wearing. Dinky didn't move, she watched the blue mare inspect her clothing until Luna craned her head upwards and looked at Dinky in the eyes.

"I-I'm sorry... for... uhh... you know... being scared... of you... and I... just want to... ask you something..." Dinky felt like a stone statue, she didn't move a single muscle. Luna's eyes were like a hypnotizing trance.

Luna waited for the child to speak.

"D-do y-you want to be... uhh... my friend?" Dinky blushed, she stuck out her arm and handed it to Luna, hoping that she was able to understand what she was saying, more importantly wanting to be a friend for the moment.

Luna paused for a moment, she didn't respond, but she instead lifted herself up properly and began to walk over to Dinky, letting various pieces of hay and all sorts fall to the ground. Dinky took a small step back from just the sheer size of Luna, she was bigger than Dinky. But she wasn't that tall by a mile like a regular farm horse, but she was still an impressive size.

Luna craned her head down to Dinky's level and stared back into her eyes once again, Dinky kept her hand still held out and she saw that Luna placed her hoof on Dinky's little hand, her hoof was huge, but Dinky didn't comment about it.

Dinky tried to wrap her fingers around Luna's hoof and she shook it up and down, Luna moved her head away from Dinky and noticed that she looked rather happy. Luna was smiling, she couldn't get around that. Dinky walked up close to the blue mare and wrapped her arms around Luna.

Bon-Bon and Derpy stood at the entrance to the Rumsville Park; they stood outside the park entrance sitting down on one of the benches next to the cobblestone road. Derpy had taken up nearly all of the room on the wooden bench by lying down on it as if it were a bed, she fallen asleep with Bon-Bon digging her hand into her hair, rustling it and calming Derpy down.

Bon-Bon looked at her watch and saw it was time for everyone to regroup, she hoped that Berry Punch and Cheerilee were called along by Lyra to speed up the entire search. Bon-Bon looked from side to side constantly checking that either Lyra or Carrot Top would return with good news or either Dinky in hand.

"Bon-Bon!"

Bon-Bon turned her head to the left to look at where the voice came from, she saw Lyra on the other side of the road walking towards the entrance to the park. Bon-Bon stood up and waved her arm, gesturing Lyra to come over to where she was. Lyra looked left and right in the road and quickly crossed it to the other side.

"Did you find her?" Bon-Bon walked over to her partner, leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek.

"Nah, I tried knocking on for Berry Punch and Cheerilee, but they wouldn't answer." Lyra returned a kiss back.

Bon-Bon crossed her arms, frowning a little at Lyra.

"What?" Lyra shrugged, confused at what Bon-Bon looked angry about.

"Tell me, now." Bon-Bon demanded an answer from Lyra immediately, she wasn’t messing around.

"Oh okay..." Lyra groaned. "I saw Cheerilee lying in bed with that cute farmer guy from up the road; I peeked through the window trying to see if she was in." Lyra blushed.

"It's their personal business." Bon-Bon scolded Lyra.

"Hey! At least Berry Punch wasn't there, that would have been worth watching all the way through." Lyra playfully giggled.

"I'm going to have to talk to you about this sooner or later about peeking through peoples windows..." Bon-Bon placed her hand on her face and quietly groaned.

"Hey, what's with Derpy?" Lyra tried to change the subject, she pointed at her friend who was sleeping on the park bench.

"She's tired; all that walking worked her out. Plus, it's also late out. She sleeps and snores in the most adorable way, just a like a little child." Bon-Bon explained, moving her hand off her face.

"She's always been a kid Bon-Bon, what makes you think she'll ever do something that a grown-up would do? Also, why did you give her my spare green hoodie?" Lyra walked over to Derpy and leaned down to Derpy's level, she took a look at how Derpy was sleeping and she had the hood up as a pillow on the rough hard bench.

"She was cold; I had to give her your spare hoodie, which was inside the candy shack." Bon-Bon crossed her arms; she knew that Lyra was going to complain about Derpy using her clothing.

"Well... as long as she doesn't wear any of my trousers or something stupid like that, I couldn't care." Lyra got back up on her feet turning around to Bon-Bon. "But hey, maybe one day I could let her borrow one of our French maids costumes, how about that?" Lyra stood next to Bon-Bon and leaned against her side, wrapped her arms around Bon-Bon.

"She has to look after Dinky; I don't think Derpy isn't that type of person." Bon-Bon wrapped her arms around Lyra, just like how Lyra wrapped her arms around her.

"There's nothing wrong in experimenting once or twice." Lyra childishly giggled.

"That maybe so, but we still have to wait for Carrot Top now." Bon-Bon said.

"You mean ginger?" Lyra corrected Bon-Bon.

"Let's not get our aggressions ahead of us; we still need to look for Dinky." Bon-Bon reminded her partner of the situation at hand.

"Speaking of aggressions... look over there..." Lyra pointed to the other side of the road. Bon-Bon turned around to see Carrot Top walking towards them, seemingly displeased, but Bon-Bon and Lyra always knew that Carrot Top would never be happy.

"I take it you haven't found Dinky." Carrot Top walked up to Bon-Bon and Lyra.

"Well... I saw Cheerilee and Big Ma-" Lyra spoke first; she was immediately blocked by Bon-Bon as her partners hand stopped her from speaking.

"No, we haven't found her. And Derpy has fallen asleep on that bench over there." Bon-Bon replied.

Carrot Top turned around to see Derpy lying down on the wooden park bench asleep, she rushed over to Derpy and inspected her.

"Is she alright?" Carrot Top turned around back to Bon-Bon and Lyra.

"She's just tired ginger, calm down." Lyra yelled out.

"Oh, I am sorry, lesbian. I'm just caring for Derpy as I always do." Carrot Top yelled.

"Just calm down, she is just sleeping, nothing to get worried about." Lyra giggled, playing to Carrot Top's obvious anger.

"I should take her home; she is too tired to keep up with us." Carrot Top turned around to Derpy and began to walk over to her. Lyra immediately reached out and grabbed Carrot Top's arm, stopping her in place.

"Dinky is Derpy's daughter, she should be looking for her. Not waiting at home." Bon-Bon strangely interrupted, Lyra was a little happy to see that she had joined in on the small argument.

"I'm sorry, but I am going to disagree with you. Derpy is going to slow our search down if we let her sleep; it's best I send her home and put her into bed." Carrot Top explained to both Bon-Bon and Lyra.

"Hold on a moment." Bon-Bon paused everyone, she silently walked past Carrot Top and over to Derpy. She lowered herself and tapped Derpy on the shoulder, causing her to wake up.

"Bon-Bon?" Derpy meekly replied; rubbing her eyes in the process, feeling tired as ever. "Did we find Dinky?" She yawned.

"No sweetie, you just fell asleep, it's time to go into the park and look for Dinky." Bon-Bon whispered to Derpy, rubbing her arm to keep her warm.

"The park?!" Derpy immediately shot up like a bullet, quickly leaning up and energetically leaping off the bench and onto the stone floor. "We need to go in the park to find my muffin!" Derpy pointed towards the entrance to the park, she looked back and forth making sure her friends were looking in the same direction as her.

Carrot Top stood there, awed. She couldn't believe that Bon-Bon had just woken up Derpy like that, how disrespectful. Bon-Bon and Lyra walked past Carrot Top as she stood on the stop trying to comprehend what Bon-Bon just did, she was never able to wake Derpy up in such a hurry before.

As Derpy, Bon-Bon and Lyra set foot into the park, Lyra turned around without Bon-Bon knowing and raised her arm up and stuck out her middle finger while also sticking her tongue out of her mouth at Carrot Top in a very childish manner, Carrot Top's mouth couldn't get any wider from what she had just saw.

To be continued...

Chapter Eleven

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Chapter Eleven: Life Leech.

"You're so cute Scootaloo." Dinky wrapped her arms around the orange mare and began to hug her, tightening her grip on her and keeping her in place. The orange filly dug her head into Dinky's chest and nuzzled her with the tip of her nose, enjoying the attention and love from the child. Fluttershy and Luna both looked at each other and saw the child and Scootaloo play together, it was an interesting sight and Luna rested her head back down onto the pile of hay she was lying on.

Fluttershy walked away from both Scootaloo and Dinky and she let them play their own games, waiting for Ditzy to return with the supplies. She walked over to a small pile of hay and she lowered herself, rested her belly on the hay, and started to get comfortable.

"Scootaloo, can I ask you a question?" Dinky lowered her head and whispered into the filly’s ear, Scootaloo lifted up her head and stared at the child.

"Why do you have wings?" Dinky placed her hand on the filly’s side and poked the orange filly’s left wing, the wing quickly flinched and out moved out of her back for a moment and then receded back into her.

"Can you fly?" Dinky secretly whispered to Scootaloo, she did not want Fluttershy and Luna to hear what she was saying to her friend. Scootaloo stared back at Dinky and did not reply; she did not nod nor give a sign that she possibly could. Dinky quickly tilted her eyes up to Luna and Fluttershy and both of them were looking at her, looking like they knew what Dinky just said.

Scootaloo jumped down from Dinky's lap and landed on the hay that Dinky was sitting on; she stood in front of Dinky and looked up. Scootaloo used all the strength in her hind legs and stood up on her back legs like an actual human, leaving her forelegs to dangle in front of her belly. The orange filly stretched out her tiny wings as far as her muscles would let her, Dinky's mouth dropped at the sight of the filly stretching her wings out for the first time.

"That... is... awesome..." Dinky gasped, she put her hand over her mouth trying to contain the excitement that lied deep within her. Dinky leaned forward and pointed at the wings, she lightly poked the filly’s wings trying to feel the soft short feathers. Scootaloo did not react very well to Dinky's poking and she fell down onto her rump, causing her wings to shrivel back into her sides.

"Imagine if you could fly... that'd be so cool, you could go to the sea side whenever you want! Or... go to space and land on the moon..." Dinky spewed out some ideas for the little filly to try, she did not understand that the filly was not able to fly.

Dinky picked up Scootaloo by the belly again and placed the filly on her lap and began to pet her, Scootaloo soon settled down and rested herself on Dinky's lap.

"C'mon Carrot Top! We need to find Dinky, please don't slow down!" Derpy grabbed Carrot Top by the arm and pulled her up the path, constantly speeding her up the park path and reminding her of the problem at hand. Carrot Top was angry, not to mention sick of Lyra and Bon-Bon being in charge during this whole entire situation. She could not wait to get home and forget all of her troubles whilst sleeping in bed.

"If this is the last place we are going to look in, then where would be the best place to find Dinky?" Carrot Top asked Bon-Bon after getting out of Derpy's grip and walking over to her, trying her best to keep her distance from Lyra.

"The park is small, I suggest we all stay together for this one and explore the whole area." Bon-Bon said; keeping Lyra under her arm as her partner was starting to get tired from all of the walking. Bon-Bon kept herself awake and kept on turning her head every few seconds to keep an eye out for Dinky.

"Why can't we split up again? I felt moderately better when I was alone looking for Dinky." Carrot Top tried to push on the idea of another split-up, Bon-Bon turned her head around to Carrot Top looking a little displeased at what Carrot Top was trying to suggest.

"If you want to split up, that's fine. But me, Lyra and Derpy are staying together to find Dinky." Bon-Bon calmly said to Carrot Top.

"Have you ever considered taking Lyra home yet?" Carrot Top strangely changed the subject of the conversation; Bon-Bon was a little confused at what she was trying to do yet.

"Lyra is a strong woman; I'm sure after a little kick start from me will tempt her to stay awake for much longer." Bon-Bon giggled, seductively looking at Lyra.

"That sounds disgusting, how could you even kiss another woman like that?" Carrot Top leaned back, slightly disgusted at what Bon-Bon was trying to imply.

"No, I meant talking to her." Bon-Bon frowned. "We don't kiss in public." She added.

"But you did it outside the park." Carrot Top said.

"It's night time, no one can see us." Bon-Bon said back.

"Yes, and I'm sure no one can see Lyra's revealing dress. After all, she is a perfectly normal woman of natural tastes that doesn't like to appear as a pleasure hungry savage." Carrot Top insulted Lyra, although she was too tired to hear the insult made by Carrot Top.

"What's wrong with you? Lyra didn't have enough time to change her clothing; we instead quickly aided Derpy without thinking of ourselves." Bon-Bon tried to reason with Carrot Top, feeling incredibly hurt by such an insult.

"I'm tired of both you and Lyra taking charge of the whole situation, what makes you and Lyra so important?" Carrot Top stopped in her tracks, so did Bon-Bon, albeit looking very angry at what Carrot Top had just said.

"I don't understand what you are trying to say." Bon-Bon kept her cool; she did not want to shout while Derpy and Lyra are in the area. This was not the time and place to get angry with someone like Carrot Top.

"You are always making the decisions and the orders for all of us; we should have gone with my idea and called the Authorities. Walking around town at night is dangerous and it is a waste of time, we should have let a professional group of trackers find her and they would deliver her to us safely." Carrot Top explained.

A slight paused interrupted both Bon-Bon and Carrot Top, while Carrot Top felt sly and smug, Bon-Bon felt defenseless without Lyra to help her in this argument.

"Maybe you just can't understand, as usual..." Carrot Top scoffed.

"We're just helping Derpy find her missing child, please show some humanity for the sake of Dinky." Bon-Bon pleaded.

"Dinky?" Derpy immediately butted in, she walked back to Bon-Bon and Carrot Top to see what they were talking about. She noticed that Bon-Bon did not look very happy and Carrot Top looked very angry.

"Are you okay Bon-Bon?" Derpy walked over to Bon-Bon and put her hand on her arm, confused at why Bon-Bon looked very sad.

"Yes Derpy, I'm okay. Don't worry about me; we still need to find Dinky." Bon-Bon released a small smile.

"But what about Lyra? She looks really tired." Derpy pointed at Lyra and poked her on the head; Lyra did not move or react to what Derpy just did.

"She'll be alright Derpy; I'll wake her up in a minute." Bon-Bon had a strife of sadness within her voice; luckily, Derpy was not able to notice the strange tone in Bon-Bon's voice. Carrot Top had crossed her arms waiting for the conversation to end so that she could talk to Bon-Bon some more about her mis-use in leadership and authority.

"If you don't mind Derpy, would you please stand over there for a moment? Me and Bon-Bon were talking to each other about something very private." Carrot Top butted in on the conversation and stood in between both Derpy and Bon-Bon, cutting off their talk and causing all of the attention to focus on her.

"Oh... uh... okay..." Derpy happily nodded up and down, she turned around and walked away from Carrot Top and Bon-Bon and stopped when she managed to get out hearing range for Bon-Bon and Carrot Top, using her imagination to curve her fingers and turn her eyes into a makeshift telescope to keep an eye out for her daughter.

"So... as we were discussing..." Carrot Top politely began to speak to Bon-Bon, who was still upset with what she had said about her partner. Bon-Bon softly tapped Lyra on her backside, causing her to open her eyes and look around to see who or what slapped her behind. She looked up to see that Bon-Bon had been carrying her.

"I don't want to talk to you anymore Carrot Top, what you have said isn't even worth listening to." Bon-Bon did not want to talk to her, she really did not want to. All she wanted to do is escape from the scene and continue her search for Dinky without any more problems, first the candy shack's destruction and now the barrage of insults from Carrot Top.

"I suppose you want me to take Derpy home while both of you search for Dinky? What are you going to do after that? Kidnap her and take her for your own purposes?" Carrot Top scoffed, not being able to keep in her laughter for what she had just said. Lyra yawned, not realizing what Carrot Top had just said, but it sounded bad. Bon-Bon did not move; she kept her arm around Lyra for protection.

"Woah... what are you trying to say?" Lyra yawned; she moved away from Bon-Bon and meekly stretched out her arms and began to groan in pain. Not understanding the whole conversation that Bon-Bon and Carrot Top trying to talk about, she wanted in.

"I'm saying that I am taking Derpy home, this search has become pointless and I will call the authorities to send out a tracking team to find her and return her to us." Carrot Top felt as if she was on the top of everything, she thought she had them in their hands, reading for anything. It was time for her and Derpy to head back; she did not want to be around Bon-Bon and Lyra any longer.

"Ginger..."

"It's a better idea than just walking around the park for a few hours trying to find Dinky, when we do not even possibly have any clues to where she might be..."

"Ginger..."

"Derpy is a forgetful soul; she won't remember any of this after it's over. Using the police to fill out their own investigation is a better idea than going on what Derpy thinks is a dumb childish adventure to rescue her daughter!"

Ginger..."

"Will you stop calling me that?" Carrot Top became angry, she shouted at Lyra for her constant use of her insulting nickname.

"Look behind you..." Lyra placed her hands over her face, not ready to see what is going to happen.

Carrot Top slowly turned around, holding her breath and keeping her composure intact. She looked behind her to see that Derpy was standing right behind her, Carrot Top's pride suddenly fell and so did her grin. Derpy did not look very happy, tears were falling down from her face and she began to sob aloud. Bon-Bon and Lyra looked at each other not knowing what was going to happen, but they prepared for whatever was going to happen.

"Y-you th-think this is a g-game..." Derpy spoke out, her sobbing did not allow her to speak properly but her words were understandable.

"No Derpy... I-" Carrot Top began to speak, but she instantly cut off by her sobbing friend.

"I m-miss my b-baby... why a-are you so m-mean t-to my friends?" Derpy wiped her tears from her face using her arms, Bon-Bon and Lyra immediately rushed past Carrot Top and quickly comforted Derpy.

"It's okay Derpy, we'll find Dinky. We promise nothing bad is going to happen, please calm down." Bon-Bon wrapped her arms around Derpy and hugged her, knowing what random emotional state that she can be in at anytime, this was hurting her. Bon-Bon closed her eyes and planted her fingers through Derpy's long blonde hair.

Carrot Top stood there at the scene, with Bon-Bon trying to calm down Derpy from another emotional breakdown, Lyra also stood at the scene watching her partner calm down her best friend. Lyra slowly turned around and faced Carrot Top, without a second thought Lyra immediately walked up to Carrot Top not looking exactly pleased and stood right in front of her.

"I think you should leave." Lyra sternly said, crossing her arms squaring up to Carrot Top.

"Not without Derpy." Carrot Top replied.

"No, I think Derpy and Dinky are better off without you." Lyra said.

"What rights do you ha-"

"Just go." Lyra calmly spoke over Carrot Top. "You're not needed here, and I don't think they ever needed you to begin with."

Carrot Top opened her mouth and was about to speak, but she paused and then closed her mouth and began to turn around towards the park exit without saying a single word.

Lyra watched as the ginger haired woman walked down the dirt path into the darkness, she was now unseen in the moonlight and Lyra began to turn around and walk back over to Derpy and Bon-Bon.

"What happened to Carrot Top?" Bon-Bon whispered to Lyra.

"I spoke my mind." Lyra quickly answered.

"Fluttershy..." Dinky crawled over the piles of hay and moved closely next to Fluttershy. Dinky lowered herself and sat down next to Fluttershy with Scootaloo slowly following to see what was going on, Dinky leaned her head forward close to Fluttershy's ear and began to whisper a question.

"Where is Ditzy?" Dinky curiously asked, cupping her hand and placing it next to the mare’s ear so that no one else could hear her.

Fluttershy turned her head towards Dinky and did not reply, instead. She rested her head down on the hay that she was laying on and ignored Dinky. However, she did not mind, knowing Ditzy, she must have left the stables again to find more food.

"Do you know where Ditzy is, Scootaloo?" Dinky leaned down and looked at Scootaloo, the little orange filly nodded her head from side to side not knowing where the gray mare was. Dinky became a little concerned about where Ditzy was hiding; in a small stable for all of the horses, there were not many places to hide. The hay was not that thick and no grown mare was not able to hide under it.

"How about you Luna?" Dinky turned her head towards the blue mare, she lifted up her head from her own pile of hay and looked at the child and nodded her head from side to side. Dinky slightly sighed wondering where the gray mare was; she knew that the last time she saw her was during the time when both of them entered the park and she began to fall asleep.

"I wonder where she could be." Dinky put her hand on her chin and began to ponder on all of the strange and wacky ideas of Ditzy's location.

"Hey Scootaloo... do you want to play?" Dinky said to the little orange filly, Scootaloo smiled and quickly nodded up and down. The filly ran over to Dinky and began to stand in a playful pose, waiting for Dinky to move.

"What should we play?" Dinky smiled.

Scootaloo did not respond; she just kept on wagging her tail and smiling at Dinky.

BANG! BANG!

Scootaloo immediately stopped wagging her tail; her ears drooped down to the ground. Fluttershy and Luna quickly raised their heads from the ground and got up from their own piles of hay and quickly walked over to Dinky, the child watched what the mares were going to do and Luna placed her mouth onto Dinky's t-shirt. Pulling her over to the corner of the room in the stables, Dinky did not argue with what was going on, but she was confused at the strange banging sound.

Fluttershy picked up a large amount of hay in her mouth and quickly placed it on top of Dinky, the child did not move the hay out of the way and she watched as Luna picked up an even larger amount of hay and placed it on top of Dinky. Completely covering her up from sight, so that no one could see her.

"Wh-what's going on...?” Dinky mumbled; feeling scared of what the mares were doing.

Fluttershy walked over to Dinky and sat in front of her, covering her up some more so that no one else could see her.

"Ah' told ya'll t'stay quiet!" A familiar voice shouted out, Dinky froze in position and lowered herself further downwards so that the ranch owner was not able to see her properly.

The man walked out of the shadows, still wearing his leather cow skin jacket and his large brown Stetson hat. This conveniently covered his face casting a large shadow so that no one could see his identity. He scanned the whole stable and saw that all the horses were bundles together in one part of the stable; he walked over to the gate and leaned on it looking at his prized possessions.

Taking a small look at Luna, he saw that she was resting her head on the large pile of hay and she tilted her head so that she looked up at the ceiling. Fluttershy sat down right in front of a large pile of hay and licked her own hooves in an attempt to cleanse her. Scootaloo sat next to Fluttershy with her head rested on the hay and her eyes were closed pretending to sleep.

"Hrmm..." The man groaned, rubbing his face with his hand pondering at the sight of the horses in front of him. "Luna." The man whispered.

The blue mare looked up at the man leaning against the gate; she blinked twice and wondered what he was going to do.

"Yer' next. Ah'm gonna send Derpy back in an' then ah'm gonna test th' fancy head band on ya'." He grinned; Luna frowned.

Dinky listened in on the scene as it developed between the ranch owner and Luna; she was scared of what the man was going to say next. She did not understand by what she meant when he said "Headbands" and even saying her mother’s name.

The man slyly chuckled and walked out of the stable for a moment, walking back in holding a leash in his hands. Dinky could not see what he was holding with the leash and it was starting to get very awkward. The man used his spare hand and unlocked the gate; the gate had a small lock that was closed by a small handle. The man pulled it up and the gate slowly opened, he tugged on the leash twice gesturing the creature to make a move on and get inside the stables.

Ditzy walked through the gate, but something was wrong. Ditzy did not look very happy, she was not smiling and tears were running down her face. The mare sniffled and craned her head down to the ground trying not to look at the others, Dinky noted that the gray mares fur coat and mane was now a different color. Her entire body except for her eyes had been turned to a tint of gray, sucking out some of the color from her whole body.

"Git' in there." The man mumbled he lifted up his foot and placed it on Ditzy's flank; she was then immediately pushed into the stable. Her weak legs were not able to support the rest of her body weight and she immediately tripped over her own legs and landed face-first into the piles of hay with her tail and flank sticking up in the air.

"Ah'll get the big leash for ya' Luna, an' then we'll start testin' it's gonna be pretty chaotic when we test it on ya'." The man chuckled; he put emphasis on the word "Chaotic", causing the rest of the horses to shudder a little. As if his words actually meant something to the horses and they were supposed to react to it.

Dinky could see that Fluttershy looked a little worried when the man said that word, it sounded like a bad word and Dinky held her breath, feeling like something was going to happen.

The man walked out of the room to obtain the leash ready for Luna, Dinky did not move a single muscle, she instead looked as Luna did not move herself, she just waited for the man to return and wrap the leash around her neck, but that was one thing that she did not understand.

"Luna..." Dinky whispered.

Luna turned her head towards the child and saw that she was still lying in the pile of hay that Fluttershy and Scootaloo hid her from the ranch owner.

"Don't go... please don't go..." Dinky quietly begged the blue mare.

Luna turned her head, ignoring the child. She looked at Ditzy who was in an absolute state; some of her colors were strangely sucked out of her. Letting her tears just drip down her face with her flank still high up in the air. Luna rose up from the hay that she was lying on and slowly trotted over to Ditzy; Luna craned her head down to the gray mare and grabbed her by the neck using her teeth. Strangely enough, Luna used her strength to pick up Ditzy just like a newborn foal, and dragged her across the stable, and put her next to Fluttershy. The yellow mare cowered as Luna trotted up with Ditzy in her mouth, to them it was scary. To Dinky, it was weird.

To be continued...

Chapter Twelve

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Chapter Twelve: Breaking Point

Luna placed Ditzy down on the soft hay next to Fluttershy, the yellow mare didn't seem to like the alterations that the ranch owner did to the gray mare and it was scaring her beyond belief. Though in the back of her head she still had a mission to do, she and Scootaloo had to protect Dinky and keep her out of the ranch owner’s sight for some time until it was right. Dinky watched as Luna turned away from the group and stood next to the gate waiting for the ranch owner to come back.

The ranch owner opened the door to the stable once again and quickly walked in to do his business with Luna, he was holding a tattered leash made out of cow’s skin with a collar attached to the end of it. He held it in both hands as he began to walk over to the stable gate and open it to walk inside the stable, kicking hay and other pieces of food out of the way.

"Now... stan' still an' ah' won't hurt ya' is' that simple." The man stood right in front of Luna, now unravelling the leash so show off its prowess. A very long and almost daunting leash captured the eyes of the ponies in the room, Dinky wasn't afraid, or so she thought. The man leaned down onto his knees and began to wrap the collar round the blue mares neck, Luna only struggled for so long until she gave up. Only just moving her head from side to side to prolong the inevitable, the man smiled at his accomplishment and violently tugged on the end of the leash causing Luna to slightly jerk out a small yelp of pain.

"See? Wassat' so hard princess?" He humbly chuckled to himself.

From what Dinky had just seen, she noticed it looked like the man was enjoying the fact he was pulling on the leash and hurting Luna. Luna didn't look very happy, it looked like she was about to burst into a stream of tears.

Luna looked up at the ranch owner, fuelling anger within so that she didn't attack him or else the strangling on her leash would become more severe. The man began to turn around and slowly walked towards the door and exited to the other side of the shack, Luna soon followed as the leash began to guide her towards the door, she squeezed through the door leaving Scootaloo, Fluttershy, Ditzy and Dinky to wait for her until she comes back.

"Ditzy..." Dinky immediately kicked off the hay that surrounded her and crawled over to the gray mare; she placed her hands on her stomach and turned the mare round to see what the evil ranch owner had done to her. Feeling both scared and curious about what he had done to her she needed to know, the drain in some of her colours especially her mane was strange and it gave off the feeling that the ranch owner did something more than just hurting Ditzy to make her look like this.

Ditzy sniffled as she looked up at the child leaning above her; the gray mare leaned up to see that Dinky had crawled to her rescue to see how she was. Dinky wrapped her arms around the mare in hope to make her feel better, but it was no use. Dinky looked back and forth to see if Ditzy was going to smile or not, and after a few hugs and pets of her mane it didn't seem to work.

"What did he do to you?" Dinky whispered to the gray mare, she didn't reply as usual. Instead, she turned her head away from Dinky and walked away from the child to be alone from what she had just experienced.

Dinky's mouth slightly dropped, that man had not only made her cry, but she had done something to make her feel terrible on the inside. Dinky immediately dropped all doubts and stood up, both Fluttershy and Scootaloo looked at each other as the child walked over to them not looking very pleased.

"C'mon Scootaloo! Let's go talk to that evil man!" Dinky crossed her arms, feeling like Carrot Top when she was angry.

The orange filly looked at Fluttershy and then slowly turned herself to look at Dinky, this sudden change of actions was going to jeopardize the plan completely and even Fluttershy knew what the child was going to do.

"I'm not going to let hi- HEY!" Dinky began to walk over to the gate on the other side of the stable, planning to get out of the stable and go and find the ranch owner to make him stop whatever he was going to do with Luna. She didn't like what he did to her and it was starting to make her angry, but before even reaching the gate she felt a familiar tugging feeling on the back of her t-shirt. Dinky quickly turned around and saw that Fluttershy had grabbed onto her t-shirt using her mouth to stop her from walking in on Luna and the ranch owner.

"Let go!" Dinky scolded Fluttershy; the child grabbed the yellow mare by the snout and tapped her directly on the nose. Fluttershy's ignored what Dinky was doing and she still kept on holding to her t-shirt, Scootaloo looked in between both the yellow mare and the child. She didn't know which side to pick, she knew about the plan, but she wasn't involved in it.

Fluttershy couldn't take the slight pain on her nose for much longer, Dinky was strong and her flicking of the mares nose was starting to work. Fluttershy's grip on her t-shirt was starting to weaken and Dinky was able to walk her way towards the stable gate, Fluttershy quickly pulled back for the last time when she realized that she didn't have much grip left on the child, the t-shirt inside of her mouth quickly starting to slip out of her control and it quickly flew out of her mouth. Giving Dinky a chance to make a small getaway before Fluttershy could stop her.

Scootaloo quickly ignored Fluttershy and ran after her two legged friend in an attempt to stop her from confronting the evil ranch owner, but it was no use. Scootaloo could not call her out or even stop her; she was too small to even get in the way of her feet. The orange filly kept behind Dinky and watched everything she was doing; she child got to the stable door and slowly turned the knob, resulting in a quiet creaking sound as the door opened.

Dinky looked around the new room to find out that it was very dark, there wasn't much light and an orange aura filled the middle of the room. She could hear the ranch owner talking, but she didn't know what he was talking to. Candles were lit up on certain shelves giving off a very poor amount of light; Dinky could barely see where she was going.

"Ah'm gonna test this fancy headband on ya' an' ah'm gonna see if it fits ya', dussat' sound good?" The man chuckled out loud; Dinky turned her head to peek over to the corner. She saw that the ranch owner had tied the leash that connected Luna to a large wooden pole, she wasn't able to freely move and was stuck in one small position while the man sat in front of her while he sat on a small box.

Luna turned her head away from the ranch owner and looked like she was pouting; the man stared at the blue mare and got up from his seat. He got up from the small box and walked over to Luna, he kneeled down to the ground in front of the blue mare and reached out for her and placed his hand on her snout.

"C'mon lil' princess, ah'm sure if ya' cooperate ah'll buy ya' some real good food." The patted the blue mare on the snout twice and smiled, Luna pouted once again and continued to turn her head away from the ranch owner.

"If ya' don't want to put on th' fancy headband, ah'm sure that Scootaloo would like t' try it on." The man teased, Luna's pouting expression suddenly changed, she looked up at the ranch owner with an expression that he had never seen from her. She was begging; she didn't want anyone else but her getting hurt in the situation.

"So are ya' gonna put it on?" The man asked Luna for the final time.

Luna quickly nodded up and down, hoping to get the whole ordeal out of the way.

"Good girl." He praised the mare. "Ah'll jus' have t'do one thing b'fore it all starts." He added.

Dinky quickly turned her head round the corner to hide herself; she just knew that she was in trouble now. As she hid herself round the corner Dinky heard the man’s footsteps getting louder. Dinky held her breath and felt her heart beat faster and faster, sweat began to drip down her head and she was starting to feel really scared.

"There's a pest in the stables..." He mumbled.

"Bon-Bon... my feet hurt..." Derpy moaned; feeling tired from all the walking around the park that she had done for the past thirty minutes. She was holding onto Bon-Bon's hand so that she didn't get lost during the whole trip around the park, Bon-Bon used her spare arm and checked the time on her wrist watch and saw that it was nearly two o' clock in the morning.

"It's okay sweetie, we'll just find a bench and plan what to do next." Bon-Bon reassured Derpy of her troubles, giving off a motherly smile to her friend.

"We've been... what? Going around this park for at least thirty minutes or so and we haven't found Dinky, are you sure this was the best place to search for her?" Lyra asked he partner.

"We still need to head to that ranch to see if that man has seen her or not, maybe he could even help on the search. He seemed friendly enough." Bon-Bon said.

"The guy with those horses? Sure, he looks pretty cute but I don't think he would help us look for her." Lyra explained.

"What makes you say that?" Bon-Bon asked her partner about what she just said.

"Well... He doesn't look like that type of person who would help anyone from around here." Lyra said.

"We never know until you ask them dear." Bon-Bon said.

"Even if he did help us... where would be the next place to look for Dinky? I'm pretty sure she wouldn't leave town for anything unless Derpy was with her." Lyra said.

"Let's just sit down and then we can figure out what to do next, I am pretty tired also, I'm sure you are as well." Bon-Bon yawned, using her mouth to cover it up.

"I'm not tired, I've done two days in the row without sleeping once, can't be that bad." Lyra stretched her arms up into the air, trying to show to Bon-Bon that she wasn't tired.

"Yet you fell asleep in my arms earlier." Bon-Bon slightly giggled at what Lyra had just said.

"I was just resting..." Lyra argued.

"You can stay up as long as you like, but do not wake me up when I go to bed please." Bon-Bon sighed.

"By the way... I forgot to ask you... what's wrong? You don't seem very happy..." Lyra put her hand on her partners shoulder and began to rub her in an attempt to calm her down. Bon-Bon wasn't smiling, she instead looked very sad and on the verge of tears.

"Oh it's nothing... Me and Derpy went to the Candy Shack just to have a quick taste of some cotton candy, but when we got there... the whole shop was ransacked by a burglar of some sort..." Bon-Bon breathed in and explained the situation to Lyra, her mouth dropped at just hearing at what she had to say.

"So what? The whole entire store is empty?" Lyra quickly asked her partner, raising her voice loud enough so that Derpy could hear her.

"No, some of the boxes filled with candy were placed all over the floor and certain jars on the shelves had fallen off and spilled everywhere... I cleaned it up a little for when I go back to fix everything tomorrow... even the back door leading into the stall was broken, a big massive hole with wooden debris was all over the place." Bon-Bon explained.

"Dang... who would do that?" Lyra shouted, thrusting her arms into the air.

"I don't know..." Bon-Bon looked up back at her partner, she looked like she was about to cry.

"Why didn't you tell me this when we got together outside the park?" Lyra stopped in her tracks and grabbed Bon-Bon by the shoulders with both hands, Bon-Bon let go of Derpy and she grabbed onto Lyra's wrist's.

I'm sorry Lyra..." Bon-Bon apologized.

"It's okay... I can ask the Sugarcube Corner for more candy... I'm sure Pinkie Pie and the rest of the Cake family have some spare produce left in their ovens somewhere..." Lyra softened her grip on her partner and instead wrapped her arms around Bon-Bon, comforting her from what has recently happened.

"Lyra... is Bon-Bon okay?" Derpy silently dropped in on the conversation between both of them and watched them hug each other.

"Yeah, she's alright. We still need to find Dinky; I'll tell you later after this is all over." Lyra reached out and lightly tapped Derpy on the chest, Derpy nodded up and down and proceeded to walk down the dirt path first.

"Can we just take a break for a moment and just sit down on a bench... I think we all need to rest for a second." Bon-Bon gave off a nice smile to her partner, Lyra agreed and nodded up and down. Noticing that Derpy had started to walk down the path without them, they needed to quickly catch up.

"Bon-Bon, I guess you were right." Lyra smiled.

"Right about what?" Bon-Bon questioned.

"My legs are starting to get really cold." Lyra said.

"I warned you." Bon-Bon chuckled.

"Not to mention that the Maids Outfit is doing some serious damage to my chest, it's squeezing me to death." Lyra added.

"That's why you aren't supposed to wear them for more than one hour or else they will start to tighten on your body." Bon-Bon said.

"I had no time to change, I would have gotten into something more comfortable but we had to leave the house to find Dinky." Lyra groaned.

"Question is; what would you have changed into?" Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow at her partner.

"Something comfortable... mostly... and maybe some cool." Lyra said.

"I wouldn't bother... just wear a green t-shirt with some denim trousers." Bon-Bon reached over for Lyra's hand and grabbed it and locked both of their fingers together.

"Hey guys! Look! I found a bench!" Derpy came running back to Lyra and Bon-Bon as fast as her legs would let her and quickly pointed at a small wooden bench for them to sit on for a few minutes. Feeling extremely happy and confident of herself for helping out Bon-Bon and Lyra for such a small deed.

"Good job Derpy!" Bon-Bon broke her conversation with Lyra and praised Derpy for a simple action, making her feel happy.

" SCOOTALOO! HELP! "

Dinky ran back down into the stables screaming her little head off as loud as she could, both Fluttershy and Scootaloo stood in front of her as she backed herself up into the stable corners. The ranch owner stood at the gate as tried his best to unlock the gate in such little time. He quickly opened the gate and rushed into the stable and pushed Fluttershy and Scootaloo out of the way to grab Dinky by the collar.

"What do ya' think yer' doin in here?" The man slyly whispered to the screaming child, he had grabbed her by the back of her t-shirt collar and picked her up off the ground using one hand, Scootaloo immediately sunk her teeth into the ranch owners legs in an attempt to bite him and make him let go the of the child. But it was no use as the ranch owner used his feet to kick Scootaloo out of the way. With Dinky in one hand in the air he walked out of the stable and closed the gate so that none of the horses could follow him.

Dinky tried her best to turn around and swing her fist into the man’s face in an attempt to hurt him and escape from the stable, but she wasn't able to reach him at all. He kept on leaning back after Dinky swung her arms to try and hit him in the face.

As the ranch owner held the screaming child on the back of her collar, he walked into the main shack where Luna was waiting. He walked over to Luna with Dinky still in his hands and placed her down to the ground, Dinky immediately started to try and punch the ranch owner’s legs as hard as she could. Clumsily swinging her fists into his leg to at least do some damage, the man watched silently as Dinky tried her best laying punches into his legs.

"Calm down lil' girl, ah'm jus' askin' what yer' doin' in this here stable." The ranch owner grabbed Dinky's frail arms and stopped her from punching, Dinky shook herself so that he would let go of her and manage to escape from his evil grasp.

"Don't ya' know that lil' girlies' ain't s'posed' t'be here at this time a' night?" He chuckled.

"Get away from me!" Dinky shouted, still struggling to get out of the ranch owners grip.

"Either ya' calm down or ah' shut you up ma' self." The man raised his voice, causing a loud boom to echo through the stables. Dinky quickly shut her mouth and Luna stood up from her resting place to look at what was going on.

For a moment, the ranch owner sat back down on the box and looked at Dinky. Crawling herself into the corner of the room feeling scared out of her little mind and soul, she wanted her mother right now to comfort her and take the evil man away from her.

"Now... ah'm gonna start talkin' ... and ya' better answer up." The man crossed his arms, slightly leaning back into a relaxed state.

To be continued...

Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Thirteen: Lying over the Truth

"Right..." The ranch owner huffed, placing his hand under his chin and putting his elbow on the edge of his knee to support him from falling. "What are ya' doin' here? Ah'm not gonna shout or anythin' ah'm jus' wantin' some answers..." The ranch owner’s tone of voice quickly changed from a rough insensitive yell to a soft and calm friendly whisper.

There was a small pause, Dinky didn't speak, and she covered up her face with her arms while Luna sat down next to the sobbing child in an attempt to comfort her. The blue mare nuzzled Dinky's face and calmed her sobbing down to a slight sniffle; Dinky placed her hand on Luna's head and stroked her fur while still looking away from the ranch owner.

"Are ya' here for them fancy headbands? Has some fancy man told ya' t'look fer' me an' take ma' treasures away?" He asked Dinky, she still didn't reply.

"Ah' see..." He nodded up and down. "Yer' jus' a kid that stumbled onto ma' horses, funny. Ah' saw you earlier t'day an' you were havin' the time of ya' life, sittin' on top'a Ditzy like that." The ranch owner gave a small smile, even though Dinky wasn't able to see his smile.

"Does yer' mama know yer' here or not?" He asked. "Ah'm sure she is lookin' for ya' right now as we speak." He added.

"Don't wanna talk..." Dinky mumbled under her breath, still keeping no eye contact from the ranch owner so what.

"Ah' know that ya' are interested in ma' horses, jus' tell me what yer' doin' in ma' stables an' ah'll maybe... not tell yer' moma, that ya' been in here." He said to Dinky, she cupped her hands and covered up her ears so that she wasn't able to hear him.

"If ya' don't wanna talk, ah'm gonna have ta' call th' police, girly, ah' don' wanna arrest ya' fer' tresspassin' now do ah?" The ranch owner got up from his box and stood still looking down at Luna and Dinky both crouching together in the corner, He crossed his arms and waited for Dinky to turn her head around in the slightest.

"If ya' listen' ah' will tell ya' why ah'm using these fancy gold headbands on ma' horses." He coaxed her out of her hiding. "Maybe even, ah'll give ya' a little souvenir." He temped Dinky to talk, she really wanted to shout at him, but she was so scared and angry that she didn't want to even make eye-contact with him for doing bad things to Ditzy.

"What did you do to Ditzy, you evil man!" Dinky moved her hands and turned around to look at the ranch owner, not giving him eye-contact, but looking at his feet so that she wasn't able to see his silhouetted face.

"Ah' didn't do anything... all ah' did was put the fancy headband on her purty head." He answered back to Dinky's question, ignoring her childish insult. "Maybe if ya' calm down, ah'll tell ya why ah' did it." The ranch owner slowly took small steps towards Luna and Dinky, towering over them with his shadow.

"Ma' name is Lancie, John Lancie." He said. "An' yours is Dinky." He added.

"So?" Dinky childishly replied.

"Why were ya' in ma' stables lyin' with ma' horses?" John asked, he kneeled down right in front of Luna and Dinky and politely asked the child.

Dinky didn't reply, she turned her head away from John and proceeded to hug Luna to comfort herself.

"Oh..." Johns smile slowly disappeared, looking unsatisfied with the answers he got from Dinky. "It seems that ah'm going to coax them answers outta ya'." John got back up and walked over to the other side of the shack, from what Dinky was seeing, he was picking up a strange metallic object that was covered in very old wood. Hearing it click a few times while John put a few red batteries inside of it and clicking it one more time to make a loud cocking sound. He turned around and walked back over to Dinky holding the stick just like a gun.

"Are ya' gonna start talkin'? Ah' wouldn't mess around if ah' were ya' right now." John put his hand under the contraption and cocked it loudly, the sudden realization what just hit Dinky would be enough to kill her tenfold. He was holding a shotgun, Dinky's heart began to race even faster and more sweat became visible. Dinky's breathing pattern started to loosen itself and her breathing became irregular, she knew that she had to talk now even being scared out of her wits.

"So... what are ya' doin' in ma' stables?" John asked Dinky once again.

"Don' lie t'me Dinky, ah' don' want t'do anythin' unnecessary." John spoke to Dinky, not shouting or raising his voice in the slightest. His voice was still calm and collected as if knowing that anything bad was going to happen then he could just use his dangerous weapon to solve it.

"D-Ditzy brought m-me here..." Dinky mumbled under her breath, keeping her eyes locked on the shotgun for her sakes.

John leaned back with the shotgun on his lap, putting his hand on his cheek and starting to rub it pondering on what she had just said.

"Hmm..." He grumbled. "An' how did she bring ya' here?" John asked Dinky, still keeping the dangerous weapon on his lap.

"I s-sat on t-top of h-her..." Dinky quickly replied to him.

"An' she brought ya' here... interestin'." John paused for a moment. "Thas' all ah' need t'know, but ah'm gonna give ya' some answers. Yer' jus' a dumb kid an' yer' wonderin' what ah'm doin' t' suck out the colour from ma' horses by accident..." As soon as John said the word "Accident", Dinky rose up from her hiding place in the corner of the shack and stood up, not looking very pleased with what he just said.

"Accident?" Dinky said.

"Yes." John bluntly replied.

"Why would an evil man do something so bad to a horsey like Ditzy?" Dinky began to raise her voice, ramming her fist up into the air in anger.

"Ah' said it was an' accident." John repeated; sounding a little irritated that he had to explain to Dinky again.

"No it wasn't! You are really evil!" Dinky shouted, walking even closer to John losing her fear and standing up to the evil rancher.

John instantly picked up his shotgun and pointed it and little Dinky, her expression and reaction almost caused her to throw herself back down to the floor. Freezing in place with the edge of the barrel pointed at her she immediately slowly walked back a few steps with her hands up in the air, away from the rancher and his powerful weapon.

"Listen Dinky, ah' don' wanna do this, an' ah' don' even wanna' fire from this. Jus' gimme' some answers an' ah'll let ya' go... that is... if ya' decide t'leave after what ah' tell ya'." John lowered the shotgun and placed it on his lap, letting the edge of the barrel face away from both Dinky and Luna to make sure they were safe from any gunshot blasts.

Dinky moved back even more to where Luna was lying down and she lowered herself so that she could stroke Luna's mane, feeling scared again she made eye contact with John under the silhouette covering his face. Feeling that if she didn't answer a single question, he would most definitely point the shotgun at her.

"Okay..." John grumbled, putting his hand on his chin to ponder. "Do ya' wanna explain why ya' were in ma' stable with ma' horses now?" He returned to a soft and calm tone of voice to speak to Dinky, knowing that she just got the shock of her life from just having a shotgun pointed at her.

"So..." John started off nice and slow. "Who brought ya' here? C'mon, be honest." John encouragingly spoke to Dinky, lowering his angry tone of voice and speaking calmly to the scared child.

"Ditzy... she brought me h-here..." Dinky wrapped her arms around Luna's neck and proceeded to tell her answers to John.

John didn't react to what Dinky had said; he just looked at her and rubbed his chin. Knowing that the horses he had in his captivity were very strong and intelligent creatures but he never expected one of them to actually bring a human and convince her to come to the stables. He now knew something was going on, he didn't want to show his reactions to any one inside of the stables and he needed more information and time to make his decision an absolute.

"Okay." John nodded. "How did she bring ya' here then? Don't suppose that ya' walked here, ya' got no shoes t'start with." John pointed at Dinky's pale bare feet and she picked up a small handful of hay and covered her feet up, as if he said something very bad about them.

"She carried me here!" Dinky regained her childish tone and answered to John, still keeping a firm grip on Luna's neck so that she didn't go anywhere. Luna rested her neck on Dinky's lap with her whole body lying down. It was an uncomfortable feeling since of the leash around her neck pulling on her and occasionally stopping her from breathing.

"An ya' just followed her orders?" John replied back, ignoring Dinky's childish tone and continuing on with his little investigation.

"She gave me a letter saying that you're evil!" Dinky childishly called out once again, yelling even louder than the last time.

"Do ya' still have it?" John leaned forward a little, starting to get a little worried and interested in the situation.

"It's at home..." Dinky lowered her head, feeling like she was about to get in trouble with John because of her not having the letter.

"Okay... ah' guess ah' can trust ya' for a while, but ya' can't tell anyone 'bout what ah'm doin' here." John sighed; he knew getting the answers out of Dinky was going to be a good waste of his time. Instead jumping ahead a stage and needing to trust Dinky and tell her what he is doing in Rumsville, even getting a little assistant to help him with the golden hand band.

"Trust me for what?" Dinky replied; confused at what was going to happen next.

"Do ya' promise not ta' tell anyone?" John's tone of voice was still soft and calm, but he had a small tone of seriousness deep within his voice.

"Oh... um... okay..." Dinky was a little confused at the change in pacing to what John was saying, first it was questions and now it was down to the point of just trusting him. She didn't know anything about his life or anything but she knew that she had just trust him for the moment.

John didn't talk for a moment; instead he walked over to one of the cabinets on the other side of the shack and moved up to the front of a small wooden cabinet that was attached to the wall and opened it to reveal a very shiny large golden tiara that silenced everyone in the room.

Dinky's eyes widened at the sight of John walking back holding the large tiara studding with perfect blue diamonds in the middle of them, at the very top of the tiara is a strange star shaped diamond that is colored a perfect purple. Dinky noted that Luna didn't look very happy when John was holding the strange tiara; she even got to the point where it sounded like Luna was quietly growling at him like a dangerous animal.

John had the tiara in one hand and he sat himself down back on the box, all Dinky could do was look at the tiara's perfection and how pretty it was. He placed his shotgun back on his lap and looked at Dinky.

"Y'see... ah' found this lil' contraption a week ago." John held the golden tiara in one hand and turned it around from side to side, allowing Dinky to have a good look at it.

"What is it?" Dinky let go of Luna and slowly crawled forward to John to get an even better look at the strange golden tiara.

"Ah' don' know, ah'm tryin' t'figure it out." John said. "Ah' found this lil' head band thingy in th' Rainforest, it's also where ah' found ma' horses." He added.

John reached over to one of the tables next to him and picked up a large glass bottle, on the front of the bottle there was yellow text saying "WHISKEY". Using his spare thumb to open up the cap at the top he quickly plummeted the liquid down his throat and then taking a massive gasp for air.

"I don't get how you really found the golden hand band thingy..." Dinky copied John, using his words for the golden tiara.

"Gimme a' sec' an' ah'll tell' ya' all about it..." John quickly pushed down another swab of whiskey down his throat and gasped for even more air. Luna didn't like what he was doing, wishing to protect Dinky she raised her head and reached out for the back of her t-shirt. Grabbing the child from harm and pulling her back to the base of the hay pile where she was lying down.

To be continued.

Chapter Fourteen

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Chapter Fourteen: Seen Better Days

The mood was calm; a weak torrent of wind forced its way across the park. Whistling and rustling of the leaves high on top of the trees created an eerie mood for both John and Dinky, the candle light held a small orange glow across the whole room. Luna kept her head rested on Dinky's lap so that she wasn't able to move towards the evil ranch owner.

John took a swig at his large bottle of whiskey, letting the ginger liquid go down his throat, gripping tight onto his weapon to keep Dinky at bay. He heard the wind pass by, a perfect time to tell his little story to the curious eight years old. Luna didn't like what he was going to say, she didn't trust him also adding the fact that Dinky was going to listen to him was a slight problem. He could lie and she would believe every single thing that he was going to say, Luna had to do something.

"Right..." John gasped for air after guzzling down more whiskey from his large glass bottle.

Dinky leaned up to listen in on what he had to say, but she had her own questions.

"Mister?" Dinky politely whispered, causing John to look up at Dinky.

"Yeah?" John coughed, clearing his voice to make him seem louder.

"Where do you come from?" Dinky asked with common curiosity.

"It dun' matter." John replied back, leaving a small sarcastic smile for Dinky. "Ah'm goin' out on a limb here, an' ah' need ya' ta' trus' me, issat' clear?" John began to speak, calm and quiet for the time being.

"Uh-huh." Dinky nodded.

"Listen..." John paused, he looked down at the tiara and breathed in. "Ah' think this tiara is made'a magic." John began to speak.

"Why?" Dinky butted in.

"Why? cause' it's ta' do with these here horses, ah' need yer' help t' try and figure out how t'make it work." John said to Dinky.

"But why? Ditzy didn't do anything wrong! And you hurt her!" Dinky raised her voice at John, feeling like standing up and screaming her little lungs. She still couldn't believe what he had done to Ditzy, making her cry was the worst thing that could ever happen to her and it was making Dinky even more angry.

"Ah' didn't do anythin'." John replied back, keeping his cool without raising his voice.

"But she was crying!" Dinky yelled.

John quickly leaned closer towards Dinky and Luna who both widened their eyes when they saw John getting closer to them, he didn't look very angry and he still had a very tight grip on his weapon and the golden tiara in his hands.

"Ah' said: Ah' didn't do anythin' it was the dang headband that made her cry." John still kept his cool and leaned as close as possible to Dinky and whispered right in front of her face, Dinky couldn't see his face due to the large shadow covering it.

"What do you mean? You hurt Ditzy!" Dinky stopped for a moment to listen to what he had to say, she was a little confused at what John was trying to say, if he didn't hurt Ditzy... then what did it to her?

"Ah' took Ditzy into ma' shack after she dropped ya' off into ma' stables, it was easy seein' ya' under alla' that hay. Ah' tied her t' the wall with some rope an' then ah' put the head band on her, but then it started t'glow inta' loads'a different colours an' then it caused Ditzy t'look black an' white." John explained himself to Dinky, she didn't, however, know if what he was saying was the truth.

"You mean... you didn't do it?" Dinky asked John, playing along to his words.

"Yeah, ah' didn't do it." John nodded, tilting his head back to take another swig of whiskey.

"Why did the magical hat do that then?" Dinky asked, slowly stroking Luna's neck to comfort her.

"Ah' dunno, ah' believe is' magic thas' doin' it." John gasped, putting the bottle of whiskey down to the floor next to him.

"Magic? You mean magic, magic?" Dinky's mind could have exploded here, all this information was causing her head to hurt. How could magic be real? What did the magic do to Ditzy? Why is the hat golden? Why has it got diamonds in the middle of it? Why is there a giant purple star on the front of it? - Too many questions to think up of and ask at the same time.

"Yeah, magic." John rolled his silhouetted eyes.

"Hello? Is anyone in there?"

John and Dinky both paused for minute to confirm what they just heard, a woman’s voice echoed through the shack causing John to stand up with his trusty weapon at standby. Dinky kept herself quiet as long as possible so that she could hear the strange voice again, John turned from side to side trying to figure out the source of the sound.

"Hey rancher guy? You in there?" Another voice yelled; it sounded like it was coming from the outside of the shack. Dinky's eyes were wide open as she knew who shouted that, John turned to see Dinky's reaction and it was clear that she knew who was shouting.

"Lyra?" Dinky whispered under her breath, Luna perked her head up to listen in on the drama as she heard the voices coming from outside. John pointed at the child and mare with his spare hand.

"Stay here." John ordered Dinky and Luna, they didn't reply, but they didn't move at the same time.

John put down the fancy tiara on a nearby table and cocked his shotgun ready for anything; he slowly walked out of the shack to see that the lights around town had turned on. In the distance were three women both standing at the edge of his gates, one of them were waving their arms up in the air trying to get his attention.

"Yoo-hoo! Over here!" Lyra shouted as she waved her arms, she watched John get closer as Bon-Bon and Derpy were not able to see him holding something they didn't really expect.

"Woah! It's a shotgun!" Derpy raised her voice and pointed at the firearm that John was holding.

"Hello there." Bon-Bon said her hello to John, ignoring Derpy's remarks about his weapon.

"Whaddya' want?" John bitterly asked the three women standing before him.

"Hello there, I was wondering if you could spare us a moment of your time and help us out." Bon-Bon tried her best to sound formal and polite to John as possible, knowing that he was holding a firearm it was a time to be calm and politely speak to him.

"What?" John asked.

"Do you remember us from earlier today? We all came here to watch a little girl called Dinky ride one of your horses for a few minutes, she is eight years old and she wears a gray t-shirt and has blonde hair. We would like to know if you have seen her, since she has recently disappeared from my friends home and we are just wondering if you have seen her." Bon-Bon explained the appearance and situation of Dinky to John; he didn't react in any way to what she was saying.

"Ain't seen 'er since this afternoon." John quickly replied back to Bon-Bon.

"Why do you have a shotgun?" Lyra butted in, curious to why John was holding, and more importantly owning a shotgun. "You know that those things are illegal in Rumsville, right?" Lyra meekly pointed at his firearm.

"Ah' did not know that." John bitterly replied to the green haired woman.

"Luna, my mommy and her friends are out there... what should we do?" Dinky whispered to Luna, the blue mare raised her head and looked up at the child. She didn't reply, and it was causing Dinky to worry. If she doesn't alert herself, then her mother and her friends won't be able to rescue her. But then if she does go, then who would look after the horses when she goes home?

Dinky looked around the shack and noticed that John had put down the shiny golden tiara with the purple star on top of a table in the middle of the room, slowly but surely, Dinky stood up and quietly walked over to the tiara on the table and looked at it with all of it's grace and beauty. Dinky raised her hand and used her finger to slowly touch the golden tiara that was said to be filled with magic, the surface of the tiara was hard, and it felt like a sharp type of metal that could easily slice even the hardest of stone.

"Cool..." Dinky cooed, she wrapped her hands around the tiara, slowly picked it up and felt it's weight in her hands. It was a very heavy tiara, who in the world would wear it and why? Dinky took small quiet steps back over to Luna and sat herself down next to the blue mare trying to figure out what the tiara actually does. Luna tilted her head back from the tiara, feeling like something was going to happen.

"Luna?" Dinky whispered.

The mare turned her head and looked at the child.

"What do you think John meant by magic? This hat looks so cool!" Dinky giggled with excitement as she placed her hands on top of the giant purple star that was at the top of the tiara. Feeling it's jagged edges across her fingers and how thick the purple diamond itself was, it was very strange. Dinky could see her own reflection inside the diamond, truly a brilliant sight.

Luna didn't reply; she instead kept her head down looking sad as ever, Dinky didn't notice until she turned around and saw that Luna was now rested her head in the hay looking upset about what was going on.

"Luna? What's wrong?" Dinky quickly put down the tiara on the piles of hay and quickly attended to Luna's matters; she placed her hand under the blue mares head and lifted it up to look her in the eyes at head level.

Luna did not reply, she instead pushed Dinky's hand away from her and then turned her whole body round to face the wall.

"Luna..." Dinky whimpered, wondering what Luna was trying to do, but then realized that Luna looked very upset. She didn't understand what was going on, but she knew that something had to be done around here. Dinky couldn't stand that everyone was feeling sad, all because of the evil rancher and the strange, yet cool looking tiara that he had.

"No maam, ah' ain't seen no kid today after she left. All ah' did after ya' left was go back ta' bed an' fall asleep." John explained to the women in front of him, Bon-Bon and Lyra were suspicious of his quick-fire replies and his bitter tone of voice, sounding rather annoyed by the presence of the three women. Derpy on the other hand, was taking any lead and chance she would get; she was starting to believe what he was saying, even though she didn't really understand what was going on.

"Are you sure?" Lyra crossed her arms, looking at John rather suspiciously.

"Ah' ain't seen no kid, now... could ya' please leave me alone so ah' can't get some more rest?" John raised his voice a little at Lyra and Bon-Bon, Derpy on the other hand was listening to what he was saying, but she couldn't help a certain feeling that Dinky was nearby.

"We're sorry for wasting your time mister...?" Bon-Bon apologized, but stopped at his name.

"Lancie, John Lancie." He revealed his name to Bon-Bon and Lyra; he turned round and began to walk back to his shack to get back into his comfort zone.

"Wait a minute..." Lyra called out, John turned around and looked at Lyra again, feeling rather angry about these persistent women asking him questions, he had a plan to work off and they weren't helping.

"Whaddya' want now?" John moaned, gripping even harder onto his shotgun.

"Can we come inside for a few minutes? We need to rest... and after we're ready, we'll go home, no problems." Lyra asked John, he didn't like the idea that she had; it was only delaying the inevitable.

"Why not?! Ah' could always use some dang company!" John walked over to the front gate and opened it, allowing Bon-Bon, Lyra and Derpy to walk though into the main part of the small ranch.

"Sheesh, calm down." Lyra replied as she walked into the main ranch.

"Lyra..." Bon-Bon warned her partner, slightly tapping her elbow trying to make her not say anything bad.

"Ah' was enjoyin' some sleep, but ah' guess it's okay... ah' could always use some kind'a company t'keep me awake even longer!" John droned on with his complaining, he turned around and walked to his shack. He got to the front door and realized the child and the mare inside of the main part of the shack; he needed to hide them away from the women before his plan would all be for nothing. He turned around to face the women who were standing right behind him, expecting him to open the door.

"Stay here fer' a moment." John ordered all three of them.

"What's wrong now?" Lyra asked.

"Nothin'" John paused. "Ah' jus' gotta clean up ma' shack is' all... make it look friendly... fer' such purty ladies." John slipped open the door and quickly slided himself through the door and entered into the shack, leaving Bon-Bon, Lyra and Derpy behind to stand outside while John started to shift his master plan.

John closed the door on the other side and took a quick view of his room; the shack was mostly clean for the most part. Spare for the few odd bottles of whiskey, cider and scotch left out on the tables, he had to move Dinky and Luna so that his plan wouldn't be blown. His first priority was on the move and he walked over to Dinky, where he spotted her holding the golden tiara, Dinky quickly looked up and hid the tiara behind her back.

"Plans changed lil' Dinky, ya' need t'go into th' stables." John leaned down and grabbed Dinky by the arm; he pulled her up and dragged her into the stable. Kicking open the stable door and dragging the poor child along with the tiara in hand.

"Wh-What's going on? Is my mommy here to take me home?" Dinky squeaked; she didn't like being dragged around like a simple rag doll, trying to pull away from John, the man turned around and looked at Dinky.

"Ah' guess you could say that!" John exclaimed, he opened the stable gate and pushed her inside, causing her to trip over and land on some hay. Both Scootaloo and Fluttershy immediately came over to the child to check if she was okay, Dinky leaned upwards and got back on her feet, feeling really scared about what will happen next.

"If ya' wanna find out what if goin' on with this magic stuff, then ah' suggest ya' stay here, but if ya' wanna go home an' leave the horses here, not wondering what type of magic is inside that head band, then go home cryin' to yer' momma." John explained, he didn't leave Dinky much time to think about her options whether to go home and forget about everything or continue on knowing that something amazing would possibly happen.

"Uh... I..." Dinky tried to think as fast as possible, it was a tough choice to go back home or stay with the horses.

"Ah'm keepin' Luna in th' shack, so them women are distracted while ah' clean up th; place." John referred to the three women waiting outside to be let in. "After ah'll deal with them, ah' let ya' decide whether ya' wanna go home, but ah'm not gonna' let ya' sit on yer' tush and wait it out." He warned the child.

John immediately placed the lock on the stable gate, keeping Dinky, Scootaloo, Ditzy and Fluttershy inside of their confinement until he gets back, with a sly grin on his face. And a small plan in his head, he quickly set out and left the stable, closing the door behind him and leaving Dinky to ponder on her thoughts with the other horses in the dark.

John turned to the left to see that he needed to clean up, but he then looked at his wooden chairs and saw that they were perfectly clean and had no exact problems with them, he shrugged and let out air from his nose.

"Screw it." He said to himself.

Picking up his shotgun and releasing the locks from the front door and letting the door to slide open, letting his shack room light to stretch out and glow over Bon-Bon, Lyra and Derpy. John moved to the side and allowed the women to enter his shack, giving them a good view of what has been going on in here. They all saw the alcohol, the small statues, the picture frames that had no pictures in them, the poorly lit candles and strangely enough. One of the horses lying on one of the piles of hay in the corner of the shack, Derpy smiled seeing the blue mare and walked over to it, leaning down to try and give the mare some attention.

"Ah' wouldn't do that if ah' were you." John mumbled, closing the door and turning two of the doors locks.

"What's wrong with the big horsey? She looks sad..." Derpy strangely felt sad for the mare, she never seen something look so sad before in her life.

"Why does it have all that strange jewellery on it?" Lyra turned to John, glaring him for a good answer.

"Dunno." John shrugged, he walked over to his little counter and picked up the whiskey bottle he was drinking from earlier and took a massive swig of the liquid. Bon-Bon took a quick look at Lyra, she looked back at her partner and Bon-Bon rolled her eyes.

"Why can't I pet the horsey?" Derpy asked, still trying to figure out why.

"She don't like people touchin' her." John replied to Derpy, taking another swig.

"You should really cut-down on the alcohol; it can hurt your liver." Bon-Bon pointed out, John just turned around to look at Bon-Bon and gave her a hard glare for a few moments.

"Ah' can do whatever ah' want to ma' body, is' the best way t'cut down on stress." John replied.

"It's cool to get drunk on weekends, but on weekdays... not cool." Lyra butted in, standing next to Derpy also giving her inspection on Luna.

"Yer' laws in this country ain't gonna do nothin' fer' me, even if ya' have got two Princesses tryin' to keep the land intact." John took another swig of whiskey and slightly coughed. "Even if ah' haven't got any good food, ah' can keep on drinkin', people these days last twenty eight days b'fore dyin' a' hunger." John continued, shaking his head to remove his tipsy feelings inside.

"You should put that whiskey down; I think you had too much..." Lyra put her hands on her hips, staring at the whiskey bottle and then watching John take another swig of it.

"An' what are ya' gonna do about it?" John walked over to Lyra, getting up close with her, his speech and movement started to delay itself and Lyra felt like it was the right time to move away.

"Bon-Bon... you said this was a good idea... I'm ready to punch his lights out in a minute..." Lyra growled to her partner, Bon-Bon worriedly walked over to John and tapped him on the back of his shoulder; he slowly turned round to get a good view of Bon-Bon.

"Please, just sit down and calm down sir, we don't want any trouble." Bon-Bon calmly spoke to John. "We just want to rest for a few minutes before we head home, just maybe a little drink or just some rest." Bon-Bon tried to reason with him.

John groaned out loud, he walked away from Bon-Bon and backed himself into the corner of the room next to Luna, Derpy had managed to give Luna some attention and she was running her fingers through the blue mare’s mane.

"See Mr. Ranchowner! I'm making Luna smile!" Derpy dug her fingers under Luna's chin and began to scratch her long blue fur, the blue mare smile and wiggled her flank to the side from the enjoyment of being stroked.

John didn't reply; he didn't even look down to see what she was going with Luna. He just kept his eyes on Bon-Bon and Lyra, making sure they didn't go near the stable doors whatsoever.

Bon-Bon sat down on one of the wooden chairs and proceeded to rub her forehead, the lack of sleep and the stress built up by Carrot Top, the destruction of the Candy Shack and the case of Dinky being missing. She too wanted to go home and get some sleep, but she promised that she would help Derpy find Dinky no matter the cost, Lyra felt exactly the same, and she walked over to her partner and sat down on a chair next to her. She rested her head on her partner and kissed her on the cheek.

"Man... am I tired..." Lyra yawned, licking her lips from just kissing Bon-Bon.

"Lyra darling... can I speak to you in private?" Bon-Bon lowered her tone of voice, making it hard for either John or Derpy to hear them as they talked to one another.

"Might as well whisper, that creep keeps on looking at us." Lyra lowered her tone of voice and whispered to her partner, keeping her mouth close to Bon-Bon's ears. "What's the problem?" She added.

"I find that rancher to be a little... suspicious..." Bon-Bon began to whisper her private conversation to Lyra and she listened well.

"Gee, I wonder if it was the shadow covering his face that got you that idea!" Lyra sarcastically whispered, sounding angry and comedic in her tone of voice.

"He seems to try and ignore us whenever we talk about Dinky... he has a very dangerous weapon... do you think he is trying to hide something around here?" Bon-Bon asked her partner, who still kept out for their words.

"I wouldn't surprised if he kidnapped half of the kids from town and gagged them all up into his basement." Lyra growled, causing Bon-Bon to shift back a little with a slight blush on her face.

"Lyra!" Bon-Bon exclaimed.

"You did say suspicious..." Lyra tried to reason with Bon-Bon after what she had just said.

"I have a feeling that he is definitely hiding something, but I don't know what it is..." Bon-Bon whispered.

"I have a feeling were going to be up all night if we keep on looking for Dinky..." Lyra closed her eyes and began to yawn out loud, she opened her eyes and turned her head a little to see that John was still looking at them, occasionally taking a swig from his whiskey bottle.

"Lyra... please..." Bon-Bon pleaded.

"Okay... I'll stop it..." Lyra groaned.

For a minute and a half, Bon-Bon and Lyra looked around the shack to look for possible signs of Dinky, but all there was is the blue mare, a large wooden table that had alcohol on top of it and the smell of John's foul smelling breath. They noticed that John stood next to another door that didn't lead to the exit of the house; instead it looked like a door that lead to another part of the shack. Lyra was the first one to break the silence and got up from the chair and walked over to John, he looked down, groaning at the fact that the green haired woman was going to open her mouth and start asking him stupid questions.

"Where does that door lead to?" Lyra pointed at the door that John stood next to, he turned his head to look at the door and turned back to face Lyra again.

"Is' jus' a part of th' stable, where all th' horses sleep." John finally spoke, his speech was audibly now slurred and he had trouble keeping his eyes on Lyra.

"Then why isn't that horse in the stable?" Lyra asked, pointing at Luna.

"She don' like t'sleep with th' others." He replied.

"Well... it's night time... and all of the horses should be asleep right?" Lyra began to question him again, feeling like she was starting to get somewhere with this conversation.

"All 'cept Luna." John groaned; he wiped the sweat off from his fore head, being careful trying his best not to knock his hat off from the top of his head.

"Can I go inside and see the other horses?" Lyra calmed herself and politely asked John, even giving a small smile to the rancher.

"Ah' said, they're sleepin'." John repeated his words, leaning his head closer to Lyra.

"Then that shouldn't be a problem, the horses are sleeping, why can't I go inside and at least see one?"

To be continued.

Chapter Fifthteen

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Chapter Fifthteen: Running All The Way

"So are you going to let me in or what?" Lyra began to push John's limits; he really wanted to shout at her. But now that Derpy, Bon-Bon and even Luna were watching him he couldn't do a single thing, he couldn't let these women play to his mind and nerves.

"Nah, yer' not gettin' in." John crossed his arms, leaning away from Lyra keeping himself from ending up victim to her again.

"Why? Is it because you got loads of kids down in there or something?" Lyra raised her voice, John saw from the corner of his eye that Bon-Bon quickly stood up and walked over to Lyra and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Scuse' me?" John quickly responded to what the green haired woman had just said; he craned his head down closer to Lyra.

"Yeah! You're hiding something! Just spill it out!" Lyra began to shout; she kept her hands on the sides of her hips and tried her best to not hit him in the face.

"Lyra... what are you doing?" Bon-Bon nudged Lyra in the shoulder; she turned around to look at her partner.

"I'm giving him a piece of my mind." Lyra turned her head to look at her partner; she turned back round to see that John had moved to the side now holding his shotgun, ready to aim it at Lyra.

"Ah' said no." John lifted up his shotgun and placed his sights on Lyra, she and Bon-Bon quickly took a few steps away from John; the look on their faces could have caused them to make themselves cry. They had never had such a dangerous weapon pointed at them before, especially by a drunk foreign rancher.

"Woah!" Lyra yelped, she stumbled a bit and backed herself away from John as much as possible, Bon-Bon gasped having knots wrap around in her stomach and Derpy still didn't understand what was going on. John lowered his gun as soon as the women moved away and pointed the barrel of the weapon at the floor.

"Ah' don' wan' ya' wakin' up me' horses..." John slurred, leaning against the door feeling very tired.

"Jeez... you're really going to point a gun at us for wanting to look at some horses!?" Lyra yelled at the other side of the room, John looked back up at the green haired woman and groaned to himself.

"Ah' don' care, yer' tryin' t'look at ma' property without ma' dang consent!" John took a step forward, walking over to Derpy who was still caressing Luna. He saw that the blond haired woman was still stroking the blue mare and giving her attention was making him pretty angry, John leaned down and reached out for the back of Derpy's collar and grabbed her, pulling her up which caused her to stand on her feet. He dragged her over to the other side of the room where Lyra and Bon-Bon stood; he pushed Derpy into the two women and lifted up his shotgun once again.

"What's wrong with you?" Lyra tried to reason with John, trying to take another step back from John's dangerous shotgun.

"Ah' want all've ya' t'get outta ma' shack an' don' come back!" John walked over to the shack door and turned it wide open, he looked back at the three cowering women and they all obediently walked out of the shack without talking.

"I'm sorry Mr. Rancher..." Derpy tried to apologize for what she had done to Luna, John didn't reply and he just glared at Lyra and closed the door, leaving them all out in the dark night.

"That's just great!" Lyra swung her arms into the air. "What are we going to do now? We just had a gun pointed at our faces like idiots!" Lyra shouted at the group, unable to believe what had just happened.

"Lyra please... there might have been reasons to why he did this..." Bon-Bon butted in and tried to stop Lyra from shouting.

"A reason?!" Lyra exclaimed. "We just got kicked out of that hill billie’s wooden shack and we lost our only possible lead to Dinky's whereabouts!" Lyra explained.

"Dinky? Where?" Derpy added; she frantically looked from left to right to try and find her daughter.

"Lyra, we need to head back home and... well... I don't like saying this... but we should use Carrot Top's plan, she might have been right about the whole thing..." Bon-Bon sighed, feeling terribly tired and aggravated about the whole situation.

"We can't call the authorities! We can do this on our own!" Lyra shouted back at her partner. "There has to be one last place that we can look before we head home and kick the bucket!" Lyra demanded for another option, she couldn't let defeat ring round in her mouth.

"We've covered most of the town Lyra, I don't think there is anywhere else we can look other than... well... it's dangerous... but... we could look inside the forest... Dinky might have wandered away from the town path and maybe have gotten lost inside the forest..." Bon-Bon speculated more of the whereabouts of Dinky.

"C'mon Bon-Bon, even I know that she ain't that dumb." Lyra quickly replied back, walking up and down in a fast pace trying to think of what to do next.

"Then what do we do?" Bon-Bon asked her partner.

"I don't know..." Lyra yelled, placing her hands on her head trying to frantically think of what to do next.

"Bon-Bon... where is Dinky?" Derpy finally turned back to her friend and latched onto Bon-Bon's shoulder, she shook her a few times to try and get her attention like a little child.

"I'm sorry Derpy, but Me and Lyra are trying to figure out what to do next... We'll find Dinky, don't worry." Bon-Bon wrapped her arm around Derpy and gave her a small hug in comfort; Derpy did the same thing and rested her head on Bon-Bon's shoulder.

"Maybe if we go around the edge of the forest and call out for Dinky, if we can't find her, let’s go home and do that stupid plan that Carrot Top came up with." Lyra began to think up of her small plan; however, she cringed at when she had to talk about the plan about calling the authorities.

Bon-Bon paused for a moment and looked away from Lyra, knowing from experience that Carrot Top was an over the top snob coming from Canterbury and trying live the high life in a small town. Lyra also paused and walked over to Bon-Bon to see what was wrong, she could see that Bon-Bon was holding back her tears which she had built up since the beginning of the search for Dinky.

"What's wrong?" Lyra asked her partner, placing her hand on her shoulder to get a better look at her face.

"I'm really sorry Lyra..." Bon-Bon quickly rubbed her eyes to prevent tears from falling down her face.

"About what?" Lyra quickly responded.

"I'm sorry about my ideas and directions... I shouldn't have suggested going into that man’s house or else we would have been shot..." Bon-Bon began to sniffle, her face turning a slight red.

"Hey, you didn't do anything wrong. If theres one to blame, it should have been me." Lyra got up close to her partner and lightly kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm really sorry that I caused all of this trouble, we wasted all of this time when we could have called the authorities!" Bon-Bon carried on.

"Forget Carrot Top." Lyra whispered, wrapping both arms around Bon-Bon, tightening her grip on her. "Just hold it together, it ain't your fault."

"Wake up kid, we're movin' out." John whispered.

"Huh?" Dinky raised her head and looked up to see John standing right in front of her, she was strangely lying down on the hay in the middle of the stables right next to Fluttershy and Scootaloo who had climbed through her t-shirt and snuggled up inside of her.

"Get up now, we're skippin' some of th' plan an' now we're goin' into th' forest." John leaned down and picked up the golden tiara and stuffed it under his arm, he patted Dinky on the top of her head to try and wake her up.

"Wha- The forest?" Dinky leaned up and yawned, she looked up and firstly noticed that Scootaloo had climbed into her t-shirt and fell asleep on her chest, she slowly slided Scootaloo out from under her t-shirt and neatly placed her on the soft hay.

"Ah'm not hollerin' around anymore kid, ya' better hurry up, ah'm jus' gonna get th' other leashes from th' cupboard!" John quickly rushed out of the room and ran back into the shack, leaving Dinky to try and wake up Fluttershy and Scootaloo.

"But what about my choice?" Dinky said to herself, just realizing that she had a choice whether to stay with John or run back home. But in the back of her head, she still wasn't able to make up her mind; she needed the comfort and love of her mother. Yet she wanted to find out what the magical tiara could do and what John was trying to explain to her, it was tearing her apart.

Fluttershy opened her eyes and raised her head to see that Dinky was now awake; Scootaloo was still lying down on the hay where she remembered her being. There was some ruckus going on and she could hear noises and clanging sounds in the other room where the evil man had taken Luna, she stood up on all fours and stretched her legs to relieve some of her pain. She walked over to Dinky and politely nuzzled her in an attempt to get her off from the ground; Dinky looked up and saw Fluttershy standing over her trying to nuzzle her.

"Hello Fluttershy..." Dinky yawned; she got up on her feet and shook her head from side to side.

Fluttershy gave off a little smile to the child and then focused on waking up Scootaloo, firstly with a small tap on her hoof and then secondly with a nice big nuzzle that instantly woke up Scootaloo in a slight panic. She quickly shot up and checked her surroundings to try and find Dinky; she turned right behind her to see that Dinky was standing up. The orange filly quickly shook her head and playfully pounced onto Dinky's leg in an attempt to climb up her body.

"Scootaloo... stop that!" Dinky childishly giggled out loud, Scootaloo's little hooves were tickling Dinky to no end, and she leaned down and picked up the orange filly and held her in a position so that she was able to stroke her mane. Scootaloo dug herself into the Childs arms and cuddled up enjoying the sudden attention.

"Right now... jus' wake up Ditzy, an' we be settin' off to th' forest where we'll meet th' master." John poked his head through the door, raising his voice and alerting Dinky of what is currently happening. Fluttershy quickly cowered at the sound of his voice and stood behind Dinky trying to make herself scarce.

"Master?" Dinky replied back; really confused at what John was talking about.

"Yeah, wer' gonna meet him t'night and see how that magical do-hickey works." John revealed more of himself as she walked out of the doors way, Dinky saw that he was holding a very long piece of rope and some collars which were attached to the rope. She didn't like what was going to happen, but she didn't have any choice or say in what to do.

"What's his name?" Dinky politely asked, feeling curious about this "Master."

"Discor- Nevermind, we're goin' ta' see him soon, jus' wake up Ditzy and ah'll put th' leashes on th' horses." John ordered the child; he opened the gate into stable and walked in, waiting for Dinky to wake up Ditzy.

Dinky looked around and noticed that Ditzy was lying down on a separate pile of hay away from everyone else; she slowly walked over to the gray mare and gently tapped her on her ear. The first thing that Dinky noticed about Ditzy is that the drained colours had disappeared and more colour was back into her mane and body and she looked a little less sad.

"Ditzy... are you awake?" Dinky leaned down with Scootaloo in her arms and whispered into the gray mare’s ears, Ditzy slowly opened her eyes and raised her head to look at Dinky. It took the mare a second to realize who it was, but before anything could happen Ditzy was immediately smiling again.

"You're smiling! You're smiling!" Dinky pointed out, she wrapped her spare arm around the mare and hugged her.

"Dinky, jus' bring Ditzy over here an' ah'll put th' leash on her." John yelled; he put one of the leashes on Fluttershy by attaching one of the collars around her neck while the rope was still connected.

"Will it hurt her?" Dinky asked; feeling very worried about Ditzy and her recent magical change of colour.

"Is' jus' a rope, it ain't gonna hurt anyone." John groaned he first walked over to Fluttershy and leaned down to grab the yellow mare by the neck; he placed the collar around her neck and clipped it together so that it would stick to her. He pulled on the rope which caused the collar to tighten, the mare choked for a moment as the air was taken right out of her.

"C'mon Ditzy, we need to go somewhere now... do you wanna go to the forest?" Dinky waited for Ditzy to get up from her pile of hay, but it seems that she didn't want to. She wasn't moving, she refused to do so.

"Outta ma' way..." John pushed Dinky out of the way and quickly wrapped the collar round her neck, without any time to think, Ditzy was immediately pulled around as John connected the two ropes that held Ditzy and Fluttershy together so they wouldn't escape. Dinky frowned a little at John's rough housing and how he choked the mare until they were out of breath, she didn't like it at all.

"Wait... what about Scootaloo?" Dinky asked John, she still had the little orange filly in her arms that was still digging her head into her chest. John turned his head and looked at Scootaloo then up to Dinky and just groaned out loud, he stood up and made sure that the ropes were strong and tied together perfectly.

"Jus' hold her, ah'm sure ya' can walk through th' forest with no problem." John started to move himself out, he dragged Fluttershy and Ditzy out of the stable and into the shack, he walked over to where Luna was still tied up and he undone the rope that Luna was connected to and then proceeded to tie a knot in the big rope which connected all three mares. Luna struggled a little bit and tried to break out of John's bonds but he was much stronger and he immediately put her in the ropes without much of a problem.

Dinky walked into the shack still holding Scootaloo in her arms and stood next to John while he checked the ropes, she didn't say anything but she kept her eyes on Scootaloo the whole time. John quickly tapped her on her shoulder which caused her to somewhat look up at John.

"Did ya' get th' head band thingy from th' stable?" John politely asked, still trying to keep the mares on his leash under control.

"Uh..." Dinky thought for a second. "No..." Dinky nodded.

John paused for a moment and cursed under his breath, Dinky leaned to the side a little to try and catch what he was saying, but she had no luck. John quickly placed the rope back on its original place and dragged the three mares back onto the pile of hay where Luna had been lying on. John quickly walked into the stable and hopped over to the gate to pick up the golden tiara and walked out of the stable in a hurry. He walked over to Dinky and leaned down to her level.

"Keep it in ya' sight an' don' lose it!" John scolded Dinky. "We're movin' out now, jus' don' talk t'me an' stay close."

To be continued...

Chapter Sixteen

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Chapter Sixteen: Soapy Demise

10 Minutes Later...

A brisk blow of wind passed it way through the trees in the middle of the black night, leaves and bushes rustled around which could be heard for miles on end. Dinky and John walked down a large dirt path that went even deeper into the forest, Dinky walked besides Fluttershy, Ditzy and Luna as they were sheepishly pulled along by John and his leash which seemed to take the energy and air out of them as they made their way towards the Master, Scootaloo lay nestled in Dinky's little pale white arms trying to keep herself warm from the rising weather, the child couldn't help but think that something was not right in the back of her head. She saw the horses being pulled along like farm animals and she hasn't seen her mother since she left the house, now wondering if her mother was upset by her sudden disappearance was rather confusing.

She had the choice to leave and go home, but something within her told her to keep on going to find out the source of the magic and find out what John was talking about. If what he was saying was true, then she could see the magic in all of its powers and glory and show her friends what it is like.

John on the other hand took all the correct steps to go down the pathways deeper into the forest, still keeping his trusty shotgun in his hand and the golden tiara wrapped around his arm like an armband that is used for swimming. He turned his head to check on the mares and Dinky to see if they were okay every few seconds, making sure that none of them could not escape his grasp.

As the group travelled down more dirt paths, John began to see a fork in the path up ahead. He knew which way to take, but he needed to pause for a moment and check up on the mares and little Dinky. As they all reached the fork in the road, there was a very old wooden sign in the middle of the fork, there was a small scroll attached to the sign with large black text on it saying.

"TAKE A LEFT TO TRAVEL TO APPLE FAMILY FARM!" Said one part of the sign.

And another sentence said in bright red text:

"TAKE A RIGHT TO TRAVEL TO WILLOW TREE FOREST" Said the other.

John sighed and slowly turned round to face the mares and the small child, he looked down at them to see that Dinky and the mares looked very hungry and tired.

"Mister... can I sit down for a second?" Dinky coughed.

"No." John coldly yelled back, his tone of voice caused Dinky to take a small step away from him.

"But my legs hurt..." Dinky whined; feeling slightly scared now that she had made John yell at her.

"Gah!" John put his hand up to his face in frustration; he needed to think up of something quickly to make her stop talking immediately.

John instantly came up with a small idea that would solve the problem, he slowly walked over to Dinky and leaned down to pick her up, slowly taking her off from the ground and into the air so that he could place her down again on Luna's back, he gently placed her on Luna's backside and walked back to the front of the group and readjusted the golden tiara on his shoulder.

"Jus' let Luna carry ya, hold on ta' her neck an' don't drop Scootaloo." John pointed at the child and instructed her to stay on the blue mare; he quickly re-read the signs out of frustration and then turned back to the ground again with a small smile on his face. "We go this way." John pointed towards the right fork in the road; this caused Dinky to strangely look back at John.

"W-Wi-ll-l-low F-For-rr-ess-t..?" Dinky looked at the sign, squinted her eyes at the sign and attempted to read what John was pointing at, he watched in amusement at the child's very poor ability to read. But he knew that Him and the horses would be here forever if Dinky were to try and read out the whole sign including the warnings.

"Yeah, Willow Forest, kid." John chuckled, he tightened his grip on the rope and began to quickly pull on it which caused Ditzy and Fluttershy to sheepishly start their way into the correct part of the path, Luna started last as she reluctantly stood her ground for a moment trying to make sure that Dinky was holding on tight. John pulled even harder and caused Luna to lose some of her air for a small moment before making a quick speed up to the rest of the horses with John still taking the lead towards the "Master".

"Mister John... who is this Master guy?" Dinky tried to make some conversation with John to get some basic information out of him, she didn't like where he was taking her and the rest of the horses, the peaceful looking trees began to shape-shift in the back of her mind. Scary faces and monstrous roars that she once heard and seen from cartoons on TV were starting to pop up in her mind reminding her of the Halloween season that had just passed not long ago.

"He's... well... many things..." John replied to Dinky, she didn't fully understand what he was trying to say.

"Many things?" Dinky repeated.

"Yeah, ya' don' really wanna see him angry." John turned his head to look back at Dinky while still walking down the right path.

"Why?" Dinky asked.

"He does things... they aren't pretty..." John spoke back to Dinky, just shivering about the things that he knew that his master was able to do to anyone or anything. Dinky took in the information and pressed this "Master" character to seem very scary, he sounds like he could get angry at any given time and he has powers that no one can do, the child didn't say anything after that, she kept quiet until the next time she was spoken to.

"I don't understand Bon-Bon... why are we going into the forest? It's really scary!" Derpy whined out to her friends, not understanding or keeping up with the small plan that Lyra had come up with to try and search for Dinky one last time before heading home. She was being dragged along by Bon-Bon as she held her friends hand down a dark dirt path which leads deep into the forest, Derpy could hear the owls and various wildlife in the distance make their signature noises and it was really starting to scare her; she had never been this deep in the forest before.

"We're going in the forest to look for Dinky, but if we can't find her then we are going home and then calling the authorities to search for her." Lyra shuddered; she couldn't get the image of Carrot Top's ugly face out of her head from what she had been doing early on in the trip to the park. She turned her head to look at her partner and Derpy to see that they were slowly lagging behind her.

"B-but the forest is really scary!" Derpy whined back at Lyra, she frantically looked around at the trees to make sure that nothing scary or evil was going to pop out and attack her.

"Who said?" Lyra laughed out loud.

"Carrot Top says that an evil witch lives in the forest! And she kidnaps little girls and turns them into wooden dolls!" Derpy explained to her friends, Lyra continued to laugh at Derpy's theory of the so-called monsters that lived in the forest, Bon-Bon sighed and looked away from both of them and kept her eyes on the dirt path instead.

"The only person that lives in the forest is Zecora; she isn't a witch or anything. She makes medicine for the local doctors in town, Carrot Top has been lying to you again, and she’s harmless." Lyra stopped her laughter and explained to Derpy, but it still didn't change the expression shown on Derpy's face at all.

"And how do you exactly know that she is harmless?" Bon-Bon turned her head to her partner and asked.

"Haven't you talked to her when she came into town last week?" Lyra replied to Bon-Bon.

"No, I haven't." Bon-Bon sighed, feeling too tired to even listen to Lyra or Derpy.

"She's pretty cool; she speaks in rhyme all the time." Lyra explained.

"Oh, okay." Bon-Bon nodded her head and proceeded to yawn, soon after she started to rub her eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" Lyra teased.

"I'm just really tired, I think it's now three in the morning and we still haven't found Dinky... I just feel like I can't keep up anymore, I want to go home and get some rest." Bon-Bon yawned out; Lyra felt the same and understood what her wife was trying to say.

"But look on the bright side, we're doing better than Ginger Top and she didn't even care about Dinky whereas we actually do." Lyra replied back.

"I guess you're right... but I also still don't understand why that rancher would suddenly throw us out just because you wanted to see the horses..." Bon-Bon said.

"It's probably because he is a pedophi- WHAA!" Lyra immediately yelped out as she lost grip of the ground beneath her and fell directly onto her backside, hitting her head against the ground landing on a slippery yet somewhat soft surface that swept her off her feet. Bon-Bon and Derpy immediately backed away from where Lyra fell and both quickly looked around to see what was going on around them.

"Lyra are you alright?!" Bon-Bon quickly shouted; she stared at her partner to see that she was lying down on the ground with her hands wrapped around her head.

"Gah! That hurt! What did I just slip over?!" Lyra loudly shouted out writhing in complete agony, rocking her body from side to side.

"Soap." Bon-Bon simply replied; feeling a little shocked.

"What?!" Lyra shouted back.

"Soap." Bon-Bon repeated.

Lyra used her remaining strength to lift her head off from the ground to take a good look at the strange soft substance that she was lying down upon to get a good understanding of what her partner had just said, she looked up and saw that the whole entire dirt path that she had been walking on had strangely turned into a road of bright blue soapy bubbles which seemed to stretch on forever.

"H-How is that possible? What happened to the damn road?" Lyra cried out in pain, she turned her body round and tried to stand up without trying to slip up on the bubbles once again. Her feet and sense of grip felt so weak and trying to apply weight on the strange bubbles which had just randomly covered up the road. She turned her head to get a good look at her partner and Derpy to see that they were holding onto a tree branch trying their best not to slip up on the soapy road.

"Bon-Bon! My feet are really slippery!" Derpy cried out, feeling scared as ever.

"Yes, we know Derpy." Bon-Bon replied to Derpy.

"Bon-Bon... hold still..." Lyra groaned, she took a light step forward to her friends and slowly felt the weight around her feet starting to lose grip of the ground under her. Keeping her body in a certain position so that she wouldn't fall back down and hurt herself even more than she should, she managed to take a good few steps before slipping up and landing back down onto her knees in a crawling position.

"Aah! This bites!" Lyra spat.

"Lyra darling... crawl over to us..." Bon-Bon held tight to the tree branch next, both of her feet were slipping away at the soapy bubbles while her free hand was holding tight onto Derpy who was straight crying out loud in fear and confusion.

"Crawl?! I'm still wearing the maids outfit if you haven't forgotten!" Lyra looked up at her partner and shouted.

"Just do it! No one will see your undies!" Bon-Bon groaned.

"Ugh... okay..." Lyra shouted back, she began to slowly crawl across the bubble filled road over to Bon-Bon and Derpy, as she made it to her friends she immediately leaned upwards and grabbed one of the large tree branches next to Bon-Bon and Derpy, still having that slippery feeling under her feet.

"Lyra are you alright?" Bon-Bon asked, leaning over to her partner.

"Yeah sure, I just hit my head and my backside on the soapy bubbles." Lyra spat out, feeling terribly angry.

"Just what exactly are all these bubbles doing here?" Bon-Bon looked up and down the dirt path and saw that the onslaught of slippery soap bubbles went on for what seemed to be miles on end, up ahead the bubbles continued and made their way down the path towards town, it was strange.

"More importantly, who did this?" Lyra shouted out.

To be continued...

Chapter Seventeen

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Chapter Seventeen: Rest

"Th' bubbles ain't gonna hurt ya, jus' stay on Luna an' keep quiet or else he'll hear ya!" John turned to the group behind him and yelled, trying to be calm and quiet about the sudden change in events as the road that he and the rest of the group were travelling turned into a long road of soapy bubbles smelling of nice flowers. All the mares attached to the rope took very slow steps to make sure that they didn't slip over the magical bubbles, Dinky held on tight to Luna's neck hoping for her sake that she wouldn't fall down onto the mess below.

"B-but it's really scary!" Dinky whimpered! Wrapping one arm around the giant blue mare to keep herself steady whilst keeping Scootaloo in perfect balance within the confines of her t-shirt, the orange filly poked her head out of Dinky's shirt to take a look at what was going on, as the little filly scanned the area she noticed the scary trees and the change in what the road is supposed to look like.

"Ah'm not gonna tell ya' one more time!" John yelled, breaking his coolness and raising his voice. "We're almost there now, don' be complainin', ma' master will look after us an' he can help us figure out what were supposed t'do with th' magic headband."

Dinky fell silent for a split-second, she had really angered John. He was starting to shout and she didn't like it when people shouted at her, especially when Ditzy and Scootaloo were around to hear what he was saying. She didn't really understand why John was taking her and horses to his master and why he looked really angry, but her thoughts were mostly stuck on the fact that parts of the road below her had turned to bubbles and the wind that made it's way through her hair started to calm down.

"Ah'm sorry." John apologized; Dinky chimed in at the last second and managed to understand what John had said. The rancher kept on walking down the soapy path with his face unturned.

"Wh-What?" Dinky wanted him to repeat what he had said.

"Ah' said: sorry, ah'm jus' a lil' tired an' hungry cus' a' what has been happenin' t'day." John apologized once again. "Yer' jus' a kid', shouldn't be shoutin' at ya' like that."

"It's okay, I hear shouting a lot when my Mommy tries to talk to my care-taker, and her name is Carrot Top." Dinky smiled a little, trying to make in some casual conversation, but John did not turn around to look at Dinky or the mares he was pulling along the path.

"Ah' jus' wanna say, we're here now, but ya' mus' promise me one thing b'fore we go see ma' boss." John stopped dead in his tracks, causing the whole group to stop to a sudden halt. Dinky quickly scanned her surroundings and saw nothing, the forest and the rest of the soap continued to stretch on for what felt like an eternity, Dinky didn't see anything that looked like a house anywhere. She knew a house was made out of bricks and they had very bright lights so you could see them from very far away.

"But I don't see a house anywhere..." Dinky whined; confused at what John was doing.

"Cause it's invisible, but there ain't no house." John turned to face Dinky and the rest of the mares, all of them including Ditzy and Dinky gave John a strange stare. John focused on Luna and noticed she was frowning instead of looking surprised, he knew that Luna knew, he didn't care.

"You mean your boss waiting for you in the forest?" Dinky gasped.

"Ah' guess ya' could say that." John sighed, taking in deep breaths before even thinking of moving on forward.

"Is he a nice person?" Dinky asked John.

"Sometimes." John coughed.

John managed to collect himself, taking on the big moment before entering the lair of his master, he turned back to face the mares and Dinky and collectively looked at each one before thinking to walk through the threshold. He looked at Fluttershy and saw that as usual, the mare looked very tired and scared. He then moved to look at Ditzy and noticed that she was smiling, which was unusual. Luna was typical; she was frowning and constantly glaring at him as if he had done something terribly wrong.

"Right." John sighed. "Les' go."

Without thinking of anything to say, Dinky felt the force that John mustered up as he pulled on the leash and watched as Fluttershy, Luna and Ditzy were pulled along by the rancher down the soapy path for a final time and the sounds of the forest had drastically changed. The light blowing of the wind had died down and the tall oak trees had stopped moving, the temperature had gotten colder and deep down, Dinky started to feel scared now that she was about to meet someone else.

As they traversed down the final strip of path, a faint noise could be heard in the distance, Dinky heard this noise and quickly tapped Luna on the back of her mane, and the blue mare turned her head to face the child and waited for Dinky to speak.

"Can you hear that noise Luna?" Dinky leaned over to the mares ears and whispered to her.

The mare nodded and heard the noise, the mare knew what the noise was, but was unable to tell poor little Dinky what the noise was coming from, she didn't want this to happen to a small thing such as Dinky.

" HAHAHAHA! This is hilarious! Celestia, look at this!" An echoed voice swept the area that everyone was in, a loud and deep voice screamed out in entertainment calling out for someone that Dinky had heard of before. Dinky quickly looked around to see where the voice was coming from and no one could be seen at all.

"Who was that?" Dinky asked John, feeling scared of the loud echo; she clutched onto Luna's neck with one hand and held Scootaloo in her shirt with the other.

"It was ma' master." John replied back.

" Look! Look! The big red button changes the channel! This is glorious magic! "

The voice immediately raised itself; sounding like a massive giant ready to rip the world apart, Dinky shuddered at the sound of the Master's deep and grizzly voice. The trees slightly swayed from side to side at the extreme volume of his voice.

As John had reached the end of the journey along with Dinky and the mares, he reached a dead end in the middle of the path; the bubbles had by now, disappeared and popped away, leaving a nice bubbly scent along the way. There was a pile of thick green bushes blocking the road and stopping John and the rest of the group from continuing, the loud voice of John's master was still high in the sky and was bringing down the mood for Dinky and the rest of the mares, Luna was the only one not affected by the loud voice of the Master.

John started to walk towards the bush slowly dragging the mares behind him to walk towards it, Dinky was confused at first to why John was walking into a bush, but then she noticed that John started to walk straight through it as if it were nothing, his body started to disappear as the bushes began to pull him in, after a few seconds, he was engulfed and now the rope was pulling them in. Luna tried to hold her ground but it was no use, the bush was magically pushing her in and it was starting to have an effect on little Dinky.

"John?!" Dinky screamed, her breathing pattern began to break apart and the child erupted into a panic. All of her senses told her to escape from the scene and stay away from the evil bushes but something kept her glued to her seat. She watched as Ditzy was the second one to be engulfed by the bushes and Fluttershy quickly followed, the yellow winged mare struggled to stay away from the bushes as the rope still connected around her neck.

Luna used all of her remaining strength to try and halt the magical powers of the bushes, yet it was no use, the blue mare was being pulled in by the bushes, she shook her backside a few times to try and shake off Dinky and Scootaloo from the instant danger, but Dinky instinctively held on for her dearest life. Luna began to feel the bushes engulf her and her hooves were stuck in the foliage as the roots of the bushes pulled her inwards.

"HEEEELP!!!" Dinky screamed out as the soft leaves attached to the magical bushes began to engulf her, scared out of her wits and still trying to hold on to Luna's neck for comfort she could only just about scream and kick her legs to try and move away from the bushes, yet no one was around to hear her high pitched screams.

She felt something soft right under her body, Dinky could've sworn that she was sitting on the top of Luna's back with Scootaloo embedded, hiding in her t-shirt away from the scary dark night that surrounded them. The small child opened her eyes to see something that she did not expect, iron bars. Stretched around her for unknown reasons, slowly opening her delicate eyes to reveal that she was lying on a very large pillow inside of the encasement that she found herself in. Dinky did not choose to make any noise as she began to look around to find that outside of the cage that she found herself in was a bright light, she immediately crawled over to the iron bars and looked out of the cage, yet her vision was blurred and she wasn't able to see very far out of the cage, she only saw a bright light in the distance and a shadowed shape slowly making it's way towards her.

As Dinky tried to look outside to make out the shadowed shape making it's way towards her, she felt a slight nudge digging into her backside, the child quickly turned her head to reveal that Scootaloo was right behind her, the little orange filly had put a part of Dinky's t-shirt into her mouth and began to pull on her.

"Scootaloo?!" Dinky quickly let go of the iron bars and grabbed the orange filly, she wrapped her arms around the filly’s neck and proceeded to hug her. The filly nudged her head towards Dinky's chest and dug her nose into her comfy t-shirt, Dinky placed her fingers under the filly and began to lift her up and hold her in her arms and comfort the little filly.

"Where are we? Where is John?!" Dinky moved her mouth and moved it close to Scootaloo's ear and began to whisper.

Scootaloo looked up and didn't respond, she just stared at the child and then proceeded to rest her head against Dinky's chest.

Dinky quickly turned her head back to the iron bars to see that the figure had gotten closer, Dinky could barely make out someone holding something, but she didn't know what. As it got even closer, Dinky started to move backwards, the child crawled over to the other side of the cage and held Scootaloo as tight as she could so that the figure would not hurt her.

"You're not going to hurt Scootaloo!" Dinky warned; her quick smile dropped to a fearsome frown as the figure now stepped into the light near the cage.

"Why would ah' hurt ya'?" A familiar voice chuckled.

"J-John?!" Dinky leaned forward, not believing who was walking towards her. "Why am I in a cage?" Dinky asked.

"Ah' put you in it." John stopped his movement and stood in front of the cage that Dinky and Scootaloo were in. "Ah' wanted t' talk to ya' jus' b'fore y'meet ma master, is' kinda important that ya' listen." John added, leaned down onto his knees so that he could get a better look at Dinky and Scootaloo.

"W-Why?" Dinky asked.

"Yer' not in trouble if' thas' what yer' askin', ah'm jus' givin' ya' some food an' then I'll let ya' out." John revealed the item he was holding to Dinky to show that he was holding a dinner tray which had a fancy looking dome on the top of it to keep the food slightly preserved, Dinky slowly crawled over to the other side of the cage to take a closer look at what was inside of the dome, yet she couldn't see it.

John used his free hand to lift up the dome and place it down on the ground beside the cage, revealing a small basic plate that had a very large chocolate bar and a small pile of delicious looking chocolate chip cookies right next to the chocolate bar.

"Candy?" Dinky tilted her head at the strange offer that she was given.

"Ya' seemed pretty hungry when we were travelin', so ah'm bein' nice for once an' ah' thought gettin' ya' some food would b' nice for a kid like you." John reached for the lock on the iron cage and twisted the lock until a quiet click came out of the lock, he opened up the cage and Dinky slowly tried to crawl out when John placed the plate of biscuits and chocolate on the pillow.

"Can I ask you something Mr. John, why did you walk into that bush... and why did it grab me?" Dinky understood she leaned back into the cage and rested herself next to Scootaloo who was suspiciously eyeing up the cookies and the chocolate bar and looked at John with worry.

"Is... uh... a little trick ma' master did with th' bush, ya' see, he has well... special skills where he covered up his lair with a couple'a bushes an' when anyone gets near... they grab that person and pull them in." John explained; he rested himself next to the doorway on the side of the cage, allowing him to speak with Dinky as she reluctantly picked up the cookies and began to put them in her mouth.

"Is he really good at gardening? My caretaker Carrot Top, she's really good at gardening, maybe he can work with her." Dinky giggled, her voice was muffled as she stuffed the confections into her mouth.

"Right." John mumbled, he rubbed his face for his sudden strange fatigue, he felt awfully tired and he did not seem to know why.

"Celestia! Look! It's the Royal Parade! ... I didn't know the other you walked with such awful robes from time to time... HAHA! Look at her fur less skin! ... Is that Luna as a human? HOW UGLY! "

Dinky and John immediately turned their heads as they both heard the Masters loud voice shout from the distance, John obviously knew who it was, but Dinky on the other hand was shook by it, her body started to shiver at the sound of something so loud and frightening.

"Why does your boss keep on shouting?" Dinky immediately grabbed Scootaloo and proceeded to wrap her arms around the orange filly in an attempt to protect her.

"He jus' has a loud voice, can't imagine him yellin' at someone though." John turned back to Dinky and Scootaloo, acting un-phased by how loud his master’s voice had gotten over the time of knowing him, he reassured Dinky by placing his hand on her should and gave a small sober smile to cheer her up. "Jus' imagine in a minute, we haft'a show him to ya', he's dyin' t'meet ya." John continued to lightly smile at the child.

"Is he going to shout at me?" Dinky cowered.

"Nah, he might have a loud voice, but he'll be gentle with ya' ... it's the best ah' can say." John kept his voice low for Dinky, noting that she didn't like to be shouted at.

Dinky had just one cookie left, she raised it up to her mouth to eat it when she stopped for a moment and looked down to see that Scootaloo was trying to climb up onto Dinky's lap like a small dog trying to get their food early by jumping up their owners leg. The orange filly started to look at the cookie and then quickly focus her eyes back at Dinky, giving the small child the sign to give the filly the cookie.

"Oh okay Scootaloo, here." Dinky lowers the cookie down onto the pillow, Scootaloo started to sniff the cookie and she starts to shove the biscuit down her throat whilst chewing on it. "Hope you like it." Dinky finished.

"Now we t'get movin', he's waitin' for ya'." John shook his head and stood part to the ground; he got up on both feet and waited for both Scootaloo and Dinky to climb out of the cage. Both the filly and the child started to climb out of the iron cage together as Dinky took the first step out of the cages bounds and stood on both of her feet and stretched her arms and groaned in pain. The filly soon followed as she tailed behind John and Dinky trying her best to keep up with them, Scootaloo managed to keep up with her friends and now immediately felt scared as to when Dinky finds out who the masters true identity is.

It took only but just a minute for John, Scootaloo and Dinky to make it back to where everyone else was, the voice of John's master suddenly dropped to a quieter level and the weather seemed to calm down as the wind did not cast it's chilling breeze. The clouds moved out of the way which revealed the stars that lay high in the sky, accompanied by the moon which shone it's mystical light across the land. Dinky stood next to John as he halted to a stop, she was so scared of meeting his master that she grabbed onto his trouser leg and kept her grip hard on his leg like a scared animal. John turned to face Dinky and little Scootaloo who had just managed to catch up with both of them due to her short and stubby legs.

"Right..." John whispered, leaning down onto his knees to calmly speak with Dinky. "Ya' gotta promise me somethin' now." He asked.

"WH-What?" Dinky stared at the rancher, feeling rather unsure of what he was going to say.

"Ah' want you ta' stay calm, be quiet, an' only speak to ma' master when yer' spoken to. Okay?" John placed his hand on Dinky's shoulder and shook her a little; the child quickly nodded her head.

"Ya' mus' also promise that ya' aren't gonna freak out about what he looks like." John got back up on his feet and tapped Dinky on the shoulder; he walked forward over to another small pile of bushes and waited for Dinky and Scootaloo to move on.

"B-But..." Dinky quickly pointed at the bush, remembering her previous encounter on how scary they were and how they sucked her into the cage.

"This one ain't gonna attack you." John replied.

"H-How do you know?" Dinky asked.

"It doesn’t jus' watch." John leaned towards the bush and dipped his hand into the leaves; both Dinky and Scootaloo ebbed away from the rancher as he got closer to the bush. But were both relieved when they saw John place his hand into the bush and it did not seem to attack him or magically pull him in as like the last time.

"See?" John turned his head back to his audience with a small smirk on his face.

"My, my, how rude, Luna seems to be naked in the picture box. How unexpected of her human self, that blue robe is seemingly very revealing, don't you agree?"

"Mmph! Mmph!"

"Yes, I thought you would dear. Imagine all the fun and chaos that we could do with all of those little human creatures? They look like the type of little things that would like to have fun, other than the ponies in our world where you coddle them in love and care; they seem like tiny little things that can look after themselves, especially with the powerful magic of their picture box."

"Mmph!"

"I'm sorry Celestia, but I don't think they would find you interesting at all, just look at you. You’re a giant white mare wrapped in chains and gagged to the throat, I don't think they would like chains, if you look at the picture box, it clearly tells that these humans would prefer me over you."

"..."

"Maybe we could visit your alternate self and tell her how much of a stinker you've been to me over the past few thousand years."

"..."

"Oh... so many ideas... do you think they'd like my chocolate rain? I sure want to make an entrance as I walk up to their version of Ponyville and shower them with wonderful chaotic gifts."

"..."

"Oh be like that and not say anything you grumpy old mare."

Chapter Eighteen

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Chapter Eighteen: Meet the Monster

John, Dinky and Scootaloo had finally reached their destination; they had reached the lair of the Master.

The entrance to the lair was a simple and yet scary cave that went deep into the ground, John walked up to the cave entrance and reached deep within his pockets for something, both Dinky and Scootaloo took small steps towards the dark empty cave not knowing what was going to pop out of its eerie entrance.

"John... what are we..." Dinky walked up to John and quickly grabbed his leg; feeling ultimately scared of the entrance to the cave as if all her nerves were telling her to run away. John stopped going through his pockets to look at the child desperately holding onto his leg.

"Don' worry, we'll be alright... lemme' jus'..." John continued to reach within his pockets and grabbed out a small metal torch, he pressed on the button on the bottom of the torch and a very bright light emanated from the tip of it. He pointed the tool at the cave entrance and looked at Dinky and the little orange filly.

"Stay b'hind me an' we'll be alright." John ordered; Dinky quickly positioned herself right behind John still unsure whether to continue on with her journey, she had heard about the caves outside of town, and the scary stories her friends at school used to tell about the monsters that lurked within.

"C-Could you h-hold my hand?" Dinky moved out of position and stood next to John and held out her hand, he slowly grabbed her hand and locked his fingers around the child’s hand to make her feel secure.

"In we go..." John began to walk towards the darkness, Dinky and Scootaloo gulped as they entered the scary cave, the light from the outside world had died away and now they were covered in darkness. The only sounds they could hear were their own footsteps and the light sound of Scootaloo's breathing and the faint drops of water falling from the top of the cave. John did not slow down for anything as he travelled through the cave, he knew where he was exactly going and he didn't slow down for anything, keeping the light steady as he walked down the dark and scary path until at the end of the tunnel he saw a bright light and heard the faint sound of static.

He had found him.

John had finally made it back to his master with the Element of Magic intact, along with his followers still tagging on behind as all of them reach the end of the cave. John squinted at the light to see that his master had once again changed the entrance to the depths of the cave and now added a brick wall that kept everything within the cave, the only sort of entrance he saw was a wooden door in the middle of the wall that had no window or no handle.

"Finally..." John walked to the door and turned off his torch, he didn't need his tool anymore knowing that the light shining out of the cracks in-between the door was enough to help him find the switch that opened the door. He rubbed his hand along the brick wall still keeping his eyes on the door and felt a little lump in the wall; he instantly knew what it was and began to press down on the lump as if it were not supposed to be there. Only to his realization that there was a loose brick in the wall, he pressed it inwards and it perfectly connected with the rest of the wall.

* Click! *

The wooden door swung open and the light on the other side shined through, John and Dinky shielded their eyes from the brightness of the light, Dinky quickly hid herself behind John feeling incredibly shy and scared. She closed her eyes to relieve the pain from the light that came from the other side of the wall, the sound of static had disappeared and now Dinky could hear from a distance... something familiar, something she had heard before. It sounded like... cartoons being played on TV. Dinky was confused, John's boss watches cartoons, that couldn't be, something so childish and immature Dinky though, she didn't know what to think, but she hadn't even seen John's boss yet.

"John... I'm scared..." Dinky squeaked, still holding tight to John's leg.

"Ma' boss ain't frightnin', ya' jus' gotta' talk t'him a lil' an' then he'll treat ya' nicely." John calmly whispered to Dinky, he reached down and tapped her on the head to try and give her a small boost in confidence.

John took the lead and began to walk into the light to meet his Master, yet Dinky didn't want to reveal herself so sudden, she kept herself hidden behind John listening in to the conversation that was about to arise.

"And then the chocolate coated TNT will- ... Well, well, well. If it isn't my little servant wanting to visit little old me again, what are you doing here? I thought you dropped off those other ponies into my dungeon?"

"Ah' brought th' child." John replied to his Master.

"Did you now?"

"Yeah." John nodded to his master.

"Let me see her."

John reached behind him and grabbed Dinky by the shoulder and thrusted her in front of him, she still kept her eyes closed feeling awfully scared.

"Ya' can open yer' eyes now." John lightly tapped Dinky on the shoulder.

Dinky was now officially scared, she didn't like it when she had to meet new people, just thinking about what could happen was starting to bring her down and shake her around. But she had to open up her eyes to meet John's boss, she slowly opened her eye lids to see that the dark ugly cave had disappeared and now it felt like they were in a different world. The open room fitted with wooden walls and soft carpeting running through her toes was a definite surprise, there was an orange glow emanating around the room which was coming from a nicely lit fireplace with a roaring fire.

She was oh-so surprised, she couldn't believe that John's boss lives in such a cosy place, there was a fridge, a TV, a massive couch and a doorway with a stairwell. This place was so big, Dinky just couldn't believe it.

Dinky noticed a shadow over where the giant red couch was, no, two shadows. Did the boss bring his friends round? Or was there more than two people living inside the cave? It was very strange, why would anyone put so many nice ornaments and pieces of furniture inside of a dark scary cave?

"He's talkin' t'ya." John tapped Dinky on the shoulder which took Dinky out of her thoughts and back into reality.

"Wh- huh?" Dinky mis-heard.

"Ma' Master, he's callin' ya' t'join him watch TV on th' couch." John pointed at the giant red couch on the other side of the room, Dinky gulped as she began to depart from John and started to slowly walk towards the couch and the two large shadows. Strangely, the shadows were way bigger than her; Dinky didn't understand how something so big would hide himself away from everyone.

"H-Hello..." Dinky made it to the side of the giant red couch and tried to speak to the Master, yet he didn't speak back. Dinky gulped what felt like a hard stone inside of her throat and began to shake. She didn't know whether he was going to like her or not.

"Hello Dinky, I've been expecting you." One of the shadows sitting atop the couch said.

"H-Hi..." Dinky gulped, she gestured a small wave towards the shadows and stood in place.

"My, my. I've never seen a human so small before." The shadow laughed to itself which thrown Dinky's remaining confidence to stammer and break apart.

"Uh, Wh-What is y-your name?" Dinky asked the shadow, she curiously eyed up the other shadow as it didn't seem to move or notice Dinky at all, it sat motionless sitting next to John's boss.

"My name?" The shadow asked.

Dinky nodded.

"My names... heh, haven’t you ever heard of me before? Does my voice sound familiar to you, at all?" The shadow asked, leaning a little towards little Dinky. She had only just realized how large the shadow was, she took one step back feeling scared by the general creepiness of his voice and his ever-slowly movements towards her.

Dinky shook her head in an attempt to answers the shadows question, the shadow stopped in place and lifted what seemed to be its feet and lifted them off the couch.

The shadowed figure had now revealed himself, Dinky couldn't believe what she was seeing, and it was a monster! It was a very large monster mixed together with body parts of other animals that she had seen before. John's master was a giant monster that was made out of different body parts that looked like they were badly sown together, Dinky gulped and began to take steps back towards John. She ran back to John but felt like something was wrong, she was perfectly running as fast as her little legs could allow her, but she was standing in place.

" JOHN! HELP ME THE MONSTER IS GOING TO EAT ME! " Dinky screamed, she extended her arms at the rancher for some immediate help. But nothing seemed to work, John stood there just staring at her while she ran on the spot, the child dared to look down to see that a strange purple aura was holding her in place. Dinky turned her head to see that the monster had used its giant disfigured hand and placed it under where Dinky was supposed to be standing, she stopped her running only to begin her panic.

"Oh calm down Dinky, I'm not going to eat you. Besides, you don't look very tasty; then again, do you Humans taste like chocolate? You'd only be worth eating if you'd taste like chocolate." The monster began to talk, Dinky placed her hand over her ears trying to block out the sound of his voice and she lied down on the monsters disfigured hand.

" LEAVE ME ALONE! " Dinky screamed, her voice began to break apart in the process as she tried to remove the ugly image of the monster holding her captive.

The monster chuckled to himself. "Oh please, I just want to know you a little better, we've only just met." He gave a sly grin to John.

" NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! " Dinky immaturely screamed out, repeating the same word over and over again.

"Well... if you don't want to be my... heh, friend, then I guess we'll never be able to work out the mystery of the magical tiara." He teased.

" NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Dinky continued to childishly scream at the top of her lungs, kicking and shaking herself to try and break out of the grip that the giant scary monster had gotten on her.

"Oh well..." He sighed. "Dinky, it'd be more useful if you'd calm down. But I know that you're... heh, scared of little old me because I look ugly, but don't worry. How about you rest if you're tired?" The monster offered, trying his best to calm down Dinky.

" NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! " Dinky wouldn't let up; she was so scared by what the monster looked like she continued to scream on as he held her tightly using his magical powers.

"Sir, why don't ya' jus' use one of them fancy magic spells on her?" John appeared at the side next to his Master, looking at the poor child repeating the same word over and over again scared out of her wits.

"Excellent idea servant." He gleefully cheered.

And with that, he used his other disfigured hand and raised it towards the screaming child. He dabbed his finger on the back of her head and Dinky immediately stopped her shouting and began to sway from side to side, her vision started to shimmer and the world around her was blacking out. Her constant shouting began to muffle in itself and she began to spurt out gibberish that made no sense until her legs gave way, Dinky fell onto his hand, asleep before she had even fell all the way down.

"There we are, take her to the cages, when she wakes up bring her back to me when she calms down, we need her to unlock the powers of the Elements for us."

"Yes sir." John nodded.

Dinky shot up like a speeding bullet, she opened her eyes to find nothing, darkness surrounded her in a dark room that she wasn't sure of. Feeling something soft under her legs she reached under herself to feel that she was sitting on what appeared to be hay, she could barely see what was going on around her other than the not-so bright light that was opposite from over she was.

It took her moment, but she looked around and saw that metal bars were once again surrounding her as punishment for something that she didn't understand at all. There were creatures inside of the gate, but the room was so dark she wasn't able to see what was on the other side of the cage.

"H-Hello? John... where are you? I-It's really d-dark in here..." Dinky began to whimper, her fear catched up with her and now she was started to become afraid of what was going on.

...

No response.

"I'm r-really s-scared..." Dinky cried, she put her hands up to her face and began to wipe her tears from her face feeling cold.

"Ya' alright?" A familiar voice sprouted out of the darkness. Dinky quickly jolted up at the sound of his voice, she looked around to see that a large shadow was standing by the cage bars, but on the other side.

"John?!" Dinky leaped for joy as she slowly walked over to the image of John's shadow on the other side of the cage. "Where are we?"

"Yer' in ma' masters dungeon, seems that ya' didn't really get along with him as he'd planned." John moped. "He thought that ya' would get along with him pretty quickly." The rancher added.

"Please let me out! That scary monster wants to eat me!" Dinky didn't listen to what the rancher had to say, her mind told her that was an obvious trap, she needed to get out of here and fast.

"He didn't say that he wanted ta' eat ya', he wanted t'be yer' friend." John groaned, the rancher reached up for his hat and took it off, revealing long blonde hair that fell down and began to cover his face. Yet his actual face was still shadowed even without his hat.

Dinky took a step back as the rancher took his hat off, she took so many steps back that she bumped into something. It wasn't part of the cage, it wasn't a metal bar and she was sure of it. She turned around to see what she had bumped into and saw a giant red stallion standing right in front of her, it's orange mane covered the top of his whole head. Dinky held her breath and began to seize up, she did not want to move, and the red stallion blew air out of his nose causing the Childs hair to fly back a little.

The large red stallion got closer to Dinky and craned his head down and took a good look at the strange creature, her breathing pattern was irregular and she had no fur at all, the stallion raised an eyebrow at the strange little thing and proceeded to turn away from it and return to his post.

John walked around the entirety of the cage and reached out for the light switch, he placed his hand on the switch and flipped it which caused the lights at the top of the cage to immediately light up. As the light entered the room, Dinky was suddenly blinded by how bright the light was. After a few seconds of cowering from the bright light, she opened her eyes to be shocked beyond belief.

"Ditzy?!" The child opened her eyes to see that her best friend was standing right in front of her; the grey mare stood close to Dinky and shoved her face close up to the child. Causing her to take a few steps back, she broke her focus and tripped over backwards on something, she landed on her back-side and saw that she landed on another horse!

"Another girl horsie?!" Dinky chirped at her sudden discovery, she took a good look at what she had tripped over. A white mare with a long and perfectly done mane was lying down on top of a pile of hay; the grown white mare lifted her head up in confusion as to what had kicked her. Dinky got up on her feet, her vision still blinded by the bright light coming from the light bulb at the top of the cage, the mare rose from her resting place and stood up and stretched. She turned her head to get a good look at Dinky, such a strange creature.

"That one’s called Rarity, she's a lil' stubborn, so don't let her good looks getcha'" John called out, he watched as Rarity got closer to the child, just like what the stallion had done just a few moments again.

"H-Hello..." Dinky greeted the white mare; Rarity lowered her head and took a sniff off Dinky's t-shirt, the mare instantly backed away after smelling the fur-less skin that she possessed. The small smile on Dinky's face slowly fell apart as she had thought she scared the mare away, Dinky walked up to the white mare once again to try and apologize.

"I'm r-really s-sorry... I didn't mean to do anything bad horsie..." Dinky reached out for the white mare, but it was no use, Rarity backed away constantly until Dinky gave up with trying to apologize. She let out a sigh of defeat and turned to John who was leaning against the cage wall, he had his hand though the cage as he petted one of the horses that Dinky didn't notice before.

The rancher had his fingers ruffled through a pink mare’s mane, Dinky had never seen anything like it before, and there was a pink horse with a fluffy mane. And above all of that, the mare was really happy to see John; all the other horses in the cage didn't seem to be that friendly at the moment. Dinky slowly crept over to John and the pink horse and watched the pink mare fell onto her back-side like a dog and waited for her belly to be rubbed.

"J-John... can you let me out of the cage... I'm r-really scared..." Dinky pleaded, the rancher looked up at the child and paused what he was doing with the pink horse.

"Are ya' gonna scream at ma' boss again? He wasn't too happy that ya' wasn't so calm, he don't like it when people scream cus'a his looks." John gave Dinky a cold hard stare, the child blushed and looked away from the rancher feeling scared about meeting that strange talking monster again.

"I'm really sorry..." Dinky dug her foot into the hay. "I shouldn't have screamed... I was just scared... I thought he was going to eat me..." Dinky apologized.

"C'mere." John snapped his fingers, he gestured for the child to come over to the bars of the cage next to the pink mare who watched the scene unfold.

Dinky walked over to the bars and tried to keep no eye contact to John. The rancher put his hands through the cage and grabbed Dinky's small cold hands; she looked up at the silhouetted face and stared at it.

"Now, ma' master wants ya' t'help him solve this lil' mystery with th' magical fancy whatchamacallits, and he is tryin' to look for some buried treasure around here. It th' magic in th' head band works, then me might share what he finds with ya'." John lowered his tone of voice, he seemed to be putting on his friendly tone of voice and Dinky began to understand what he was saying.

"But what about all of the horsies?" Dinky asked; she turned her head to face the new horses she had met and now realised that more than just the Stallion, Rarity and Ditzy were watching her. There was a horse just like Scootaloo, only which it had blue fur on it with large wings and rainbow coloured hair. A yellow horse which was wearing a big cowboy hat, a purple unicorn with a purple mane, Luna, two little fillies that were the same size as Scootaloo but were in different colours and a small purple lizard that was bound in chains in the corner of the cage itself away from the rest of the other horses.

They all looked at Dinky and John with caution, standing a great distance between them, but the pink mare didn't change, she stood up on all fours and leaned against Dinky for which she took as a nice warm hug.

"See, these horses don't like it when we get th' treasure, ma' master told me to look around town a couple a' weeks ago t' try and find them an' bring 'em back t' him. He thinks that they have special powers that might help us locate th' treasure." John explained to the child, the whole plan was slowly sinking into her head. Choices and uncomfortable decisions arose within her mind, could she even trust him again after throwing her in a cage two times? She had no choice in this, she wanted to find out what the treasure with like, Dinky could be the richest little girl ever.

"So what do ya' say? Ya' wanna help ma' master uncover loads of treasure?"

To be continued...

Authors Notes: I am terribly sorry for those who had to wait for nearly two months for another chapter of the story, this is possibly the only chapter in the whole story that I have had to re-write nearly twice due to the constant holes I was writing in the story. And the fact that I couldn't think of what to do next, some parts of the original draft's that I had for this chapter are still in here, such as the encounter with Discord. All the stuff past his part is the second re-writing. (You know, Dinky in the giant cage.) It's a huge mess, and I am terribly sorry if you have been wondering where the latest chapter has been for so long.

Thank you for staying with me and keep on reading!

- Glitch.

Chapter Nineteen

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Chapter Nineteen: More Exposition!

"So what do ya' say?" John explained the deal to Dinky; the poor child turned her head to look back at the horses that were watching her. They all looked so sad, it was like they knew John and his master, and their expressions stabbed her in the stomach. She didn't feel right while the animals were so sad, even the little purple lizard in the corner of the cage looked sad. Dinky turned back to John for a moment, he crossed his arms and waited for the child's answer.

"What happens to the horsies when we find the treasure?" Dinky asked the rancher.

"We won't need 'em any more after that, ah'd say that ma' master would sell 'em t' some farmer or somethin'." John grumbled; he looked up to stare at the purple mare. She frowned at him with much disgust, and so did the other horses on the other side of the cage, he just grinned a little at the angry group and looked back down at Dinky.

"But are the horsies so sad, what if they're a really, really big family and they get separated... what if they get really sad and they start to cry?" Dinky tried to reason with John, he lightly chuckled as he fixed his eyesight on the horses again, they looked even more angry than before. Completely fixing their eyes on him and never moving away, the only ones that didn't fix their eyes on him was Ditzy and the two other fillies that were the same size as Scootaloo.

"Ah'm gonna feed th' horses b'fore we go up again t'see th' master, b'fore you passed out he was tryin' t' figure out a map that would take him an' me t' this place were magic exists." John began to walk over to a bunch of crates seen in the corner of the room, he picked up a bucket and a giant plastic container full of what seemed to be water. He held both containers in his hands and walked back over to the front entrance to the giant cage; he placed down the food and water and reached within his trouser pockets.

He pulled out a large golden key and inserted it into the lock that served as the door to the inside of the cage; he twisted the key and allowed the door to open by itself. The horses still kept their angered eyes on John, unable to know of what he was going to do next.

Dinky observed as the rancher walked into the cage holding the food and water in his hands, he used his feet to kick the door back into its original position so that on one could escape without him. She looked at the horses in the cage and saw that they all shuffled away from John as he got close to them, he stood in between them all still holding the supplies, neither one of them did anything to him.

John poured the wheat into a small bowl that was big enough to feed all the animals in the cage; he then opened up the plastic container into another bowl which was adjacent to the food bowl.

Instinctively, most of the horses began to rush over to the bowl and began to eat out of it. The purple mare was the only one who wasn't allured by the sweet smelling wheat; John walked over to her and kneeled down in front of her. He leaned his head close to her ear with a grin.

"Dun' think about tryin' t' 'scape Twilight, yer' ain't seen th' show yet." John whispered into the mares ears, she shook her head to drive him away, resulting in John letting out a small laugh. Feeling his imminent victory that his master was going to bring, the purple mare glared at the rancher with a frown and then turned to look at Dinky.

"Is' okay Dinky, she's jus' a cranky one. Go up an' stroke her mane." John chuckled, he brought the food and water back over to the door and placed it down and looked at the group of horses eating out of the bowl.

They all huddled around the bowl taking mouthfuls of wheat and oats, some of them had finished and moved onto the water. Mainly the little ones had trouble eating the food because it was so thick and so different from what they would normally eat, but they didn't care. The red stallion was the only one getting most of the food; Dinky took him as the big boss of the group. She learnt in school that the biggest horse is usually the strongest, and he was the biggest here.

"I don't wanna stroke the horsie..." Dinky nodded her head at John.

"Is' okay, anythin' else you wanna know?" John leaned down onto his knees and placed his hand down on Dinky's shoulder.

"N-No..." She whimpered.

"Names of th' horses or anythin'?" John offered.

"N-No... I don't think they like me very much..." Dinky replied.

"How come?" He asked.

"They keep on running away from me... I didn't do anything bad... did I?" Dinky asked.

"Nah." John proceeded to open up the cage door, allowing himself and Dinky to leave the cage, the child quickly followed as she looked away from the rest of the horses and followed John. "They're jus' scared thas' all, some of 'em don' like me either."

John closed the cage, now with Dinky outside, she was free. The horses had finished their oats and wheat, they are turned round to see that Dinky was outside of the cage, the big red one was the first to move up to the edge of the cage. The stallion poked his head through the iron bars to look at Dinky, but she hid behind John once again in fear.

"Get away Big Mac, yer' not needed here, stay with the others an' be quiet." John warned the stallion.

Big Mac looked up at John, frowned, and then proceeded to blow out air from his nose, this frightened Dinky, the stallion slowly moved away from the cage bars and returned with the rest of the group as they still watched from afar. Curious of what John and Dinky were going to do next.

"Les' go see ma' master again, ah' think he's still busy tryin' t' figure out them headbands." John turned and grabbed onto Dinky's hand, they began to make their way towards the other side of the cage; Dinky could see a small staircase on the other side. She turned back to see some of the horses had begun to follow her and John all the way round.

The mare with the rainbow colored mane had decided to follow them until the edge of the cage, she stuck her hoof out to try and reach for Dinky. But John was miles ahead; he used his free hand to push away the blue mare through the cage to make sure that she did not grab the child at all.

"No Rainbow Dash." He scolded the mare, the horse in return glared at the rancher and slowly trotted away.

"Rainbow Dash?" Dinky squeaked.

"Yeah, what 'bout her name?" John turned and looked at the child.

"I heard that name before... I dunno where though..." Dinky knew that name, but she couldn't lay a finger down on it, Rainbow Dash was one of the many names that John called the horses, she couldn't help but think that something funny was going on. First Derpy, after her mother, now Rainbow Dash.

"Probably from a story or somethin', people always call their kids somethin' after a book or somethin'." John tried to explain. "Now come on': through them stairs is ma' masters room, wid' th' TV an' that fancy lookin' couch. Les' go talk t'him."

"Mwa ha ha! Celly! Look at that! You're so ugly looking on the picture box, it's unbearable! Ha ha ha!" Discord bounced up and down on the giant red couch, his jumping caused the giant white mare sitting beside him to shake up and down as he did. But the only difference was that the chains wrapped around her were banging and causing overall noise that the monster didn't like. Dinky and John climbed up from the dungeon staircase and saw the Mater jumping up and down on top of the chair with his white friend.

"Sir..." John tried to speak, but his masters laughter was unbearably loud. The large chains wrapped around the giant white mare made it much worse; he had to place his hands over his fingers to stop the unbearable noise. Dinky also copied John as her eyes started to slightly ring with pain, she stood behind John's legs and cowered from what the monster was doing.

"Ooh! Ha ha ha! Haaaaa.... that was great..." Discord had finally stopped his bouncing on the red couch, the white mare tried to moan through her gag as she was now lying on her backside. Discord leaned over her and wrapped his deformed claws around her long horn and started to pick her up. "What are you doing on your flank? You've got some picture box magic to watch!"

As Dinky and John watched this madness, John started to walk over to the red couch as Discord picked up the mare by her horn. The monster turned round and saw his little human servant and the scared little child slowly making their way towards him.

"My, my... Is Dinky up for round two?" He leaned over the side of the couch and poked his head at both of them. John stood out of the way and left Dinky to stand all alone against the big scary monster, her heart began to race again, but she didn't want to scream. There was magical treasure involved and she needed to be a big brave girl or else.

"H-Hello..." Dinky put her arms behind her back and rocked her hip from side to side, she firstly didn't like that the monster was up in her face. His ugly features were enough to make her scream again, but she held herself back.

"Hello little thing." Discord smiled; now that he slowed himself down a little he got the chance to see Dinky up close. And what strange features that Dinky had all over her, she was a little fur less thing that stood up on her two legs. Just like most images of humans that he had seen.

"I'm s-sorry f-for s-screaming..." Dinky looked away from the creature and took a good look at the wooden floor; she held her arm feeling bad that she started screaming in the first place.

"Heh heh, my little Dinky, you shouldn't worry about that now. We have a lot to do; we haven't even sat down and watched the picture box..." Discord grew a slimy grin across his face and pointed at the picture box; Dinky took a look at what he was pointing at and saw a large expensive TV that was much bigger than hers.

"We're going to watch TV?" Dinky asked him, Discord leaned his head back and looked at the picture box.

"Is that what you call it? Interesting..." Discord chuckled. "Celestia! Did you hear that my dear? It's called a TV! Magnificent!"

Dinky leaned over a little to see past Discord and saw that the giant white mare was still sitting down on the chair, she didn't understand who it was but since she was sitting on the chair she looked very important. Jewels and crowns were sitting atop of the mares head as if she was some sort of fancy horse, Dinky was curious to why she was bounded up in chains. Was she going to run away is she was let go? Did she have something that Discord wanted? It was just too confusing.

"Uhm... did you play dress up with the big white horsey?" Dinky pointed at the white mare, Discord turned and face the mare and then soon turned to look back at Dinky, with a small smile he nodded and chuckled.

"Yes, she isn't anyone important Dinky. We should ignore her as much as we can; she doesn't like being spoken to. Honest." Discord laughed, the white mare thought otherwise, she squirmed around in her heavy chains and tried to make noise through her gag, but it was no use. She couldn't form a single word and it resulted in Discord laughing even harder.

"But she doesn't look so happy..." Dinky spoke in between his laughter, this caused Discord to die down and stop for a moment to hear out the child. "What if she wants a big hug or some really nice food? I know my mommy would give me some."

"My dear Dinky, you shouldn't be worried about my friend Celestia here. Has my little friend called John told you about the magical treasure that we have been looking for?" He lowered his neck and eyed up the child, slightly whispering as he got close to her.

"Yeah! He said it'd make you famous!" Dinky cheered.

"Heh heh, Dinky. What if I told you that the treasure that we're looking for would make you rich beyond your wildest dreams?" Discord grinned as he saw Dinky's face light up with excitement.

"Really? You mean I could buy lots and lots of toys for my bedroom?" Dinky squeaked.

"Yes, and with this treasure..." He looked around as if he had a terrible secret to tell, Dinky was now curious. " What if I told you that you could teleport to another world? "

"Tee hee that sounds so silly!" Dinky giggled; there was no way treasure like the tiara would do anything like that.

"But it isn't Dinky, it's real." Discord tried to reassure the child.

"How can treasure make you go to another world? What's on the other side? Candy?" Dinky couldn't take this anymore; she just began to laugh out loud, tears streamed down her face in pure happiness. But the monster she was sitting next to didn't look too pleased.

"If I told you I came from another world would that spark a bit of your interest? I'm sure that you would like to meet some aliens or scary space monsters wouldn't you?" Discord was now getting irritated, the childs laughter was starting to tingle his ears and this conversation was going on for too long.

"You can't come from another world Mr. Discord! I've seen it on TV; aliens are just people in costumes pretending to look scary!" Dinky explained.

"Oh? And who told you that?" Discord rolled his deformed eyes and crossed his arms impatiently.

"Me and my mommy’s care-taker Carrot Top! She told us that aliens aren't real, and she's our care-taker so she knows everything in the whole wide world!" Dinky continued to giggle; Discord looked even more impatient than ever.

"But don't you want to know where these ugly horses come from? Or why me and John are trying to figure out the magic inside the tiara?"

Dinky closed her mouth for a second and thought for a second, the horses weren't ugly, they were cute. But she then peeked around Discord and saw the giant white mare eying her up at the same time; it was definitely a big horse. Giant white wings and a large horn to make her look so different, she started to ignore Discords offer and moved across the couch closer towards the giant white mare with a strange curiosity.

"What do you think Misses Celestia? Should we go treasure hunting today?" Dinky placed her hands on her hips and looked directly at the mare.

"Don't bother with Celestia; she doesn't like to talk much. I guess you could say she's been bound up for now... heh, she doesn't like it when normal people are near her." Discord looked at Dinky and then eyed up Celestia, the white mare looked at Discord as they were slightly connected in eye-contact. She looked away and focused back onto the child while Discord chuckled to himself.

To be continued...

Chapter Twenty

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Chapter Twenty: The Other Side

The wind was blowing, the darkest hours of the night shrouded the area in pitch-black darkness. The wind ruffled through the pink bubblegum scented leaves and the wooden cores keeping the trees high up in the air now transformed into chocolate bars. The world had definitely changed as the search party got deeper into the forest, it was starting to scare them beyond belief.

Derpy was unable to see the difference in this strange altered world, it felt the same, but just looked different. Lyra and Bon-Bon on the other hand were scared stiff, in the corners of their eyes they saw the world change as the trees and grass changed colour and physical form. They couldn't believe what they were seeing, the world had gone upside down.

"Bon-Bon, this isn't right..." Lyra grabbed Bon-Bon by the arm and lightly shook her from side to side.

"You think I don't know that? Who could have done this to the trees?" She looked at the nearest tree and pointed at the leaves and the strange chocolaty substance that replaced the dark brown wood.

"That rancher!" Lyra quickly jumped to conclusions.

"How could a simple rancher change so much in little time?" Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow.

"I dunno, this forest is just starting to look like a candy land." Lyra also looked around again and took observations towards the trees and the grass, the pink leaves left a strawberry scent tingling within her nose. "And the scent... man... it's worse than your perfume..."

"Never mind that, we need to find shelter. It's too dark." Bon-Bon sighed.

"Why didn't you bring a flashlight?" Lyra glared.

"I thought we weren't going to be outside for so long, not to mention going deep inside a dark forest looking for Dinky." Bon-Bon looked over to see Derpy walking up to one of the transformed trees, she poked the chocolate hanging off from the stem and plucked it from the tree like an apple. Without a thought, she shoved the chocolate piece into her mouth and chewed into it and swallowed the food down the hatch.

"Hmm... yummy..." Derpy licked her lips.

"Derpy dear, you shouldn't be eating that, it might be poison or something." Bon-Bon reached over and tapped her on the shoulder, she turned round to face her friend looking sad.

"Sorry Bon-Bon... it's just really really really tasty..." Derpy apologized, she locked her hands together and gave a nice smile. "I'm just hungry Bon-Bon... Thinking about Dinky makes me hungry."

"So it tastes like actual food Derpy?" Lyra interrupted.

"Yeah... it's really chocolaty..." Derpy pointed over to the area she plucked the chocolate from and grabbed two pieces and handed them to Bon-Bon and Lyra.

"No thank you Derpy..." Bon-Bon pushed away from the offering and looked back at the path they were walking down. Lyra smiled and took one piece of the chocolate and chewed on a small chunk, she swallowed it and licked her lips and nodded.

"Yep, it's real chocolate. How the heck did that happen?" Lyra got closer to the trees and took a closer examination, constantly breaking off pieces of chocolate with her fingers which caused her to get a little dirty with melted chocolate all over her hand.

"Lyra, I don't think you should be eating that, it might be dangerous..." Bon-Bon worried, she walked back over to her wife and grabbed her by the arm.

"Ugh, if you want me to stop okay. But you're right about what you said earlier, we need someplace to rest. My legs are killing me..." Lyra took a step away from the tree and turned to face Bon-Bon. "But where are we gonna rest? I'm not sitting under a chocolate tree, I'll get all messy. Plus, I need some place private so I can sort out that annoying maids outfit I put on."

"We'll just have to look for a small hill or find a cave or-"

"A cave? What are you? Nuts? If we go into a cave we might a bear waiting to rip us to shreds!" Lyra yelled out to her wife in surprise.

"It's better than staying out in the cold..." Bon-Bon mumbled.

"I'd rather stay in the cold..." Lyra crossed her arms and looked away, she thought about what she was arguing about for a moment and then looked back at Bon-Bon. "I guess a cave isn't that bad... as long as there isn't any bats..." She sighed.

"But knowing the landscape around here, finding a cave would be next to impossible... Especially that the world has been changed to look like a child's game board." Bon-Bon groaned, she moved back over to Derpy and grabbed her by the hand and slowly moved her away from the tree. Derpy complied like a little child and moved over to Bon-Bon who held her close.

"I guess you're also right about that, but how about that hill in the distance?" Lyra mentioned.

"Hill? What hill?" Bon-Bon looked around and scanned the area surrounding her, the only thing she could see was the dirt path, the grass and the altered trees no matter where she looked.

"Over there." Lyra pointed further down the path that they were originally set out to explore when she turned to look at her recent finding, a slump in the terrain. A small hill standing amongst the bizarre candy land unaltered with its flowing green grass and a strange luminous bright light in the distance giving a sign of hope for the trio.

"Is that a light? Lyra... you found something! Come on, we might have found Dinky!" Bon-Bon was pleased with this new discovery, the light was like a beacon of hope to them. The unaltered land seemed like a nice change from the chaotic candy abominations that spawned as far as the eye could possibly see.

All three began to pick up the pace and make their way over to the hill, smiles erupted onto their faces as they got closer to the lump in the ground. The light was getting brighter, it was there. At the end of the journey, they found... a door.

They found a wooden door, a basic brown door with a silver handle attached to the middle of it. A boring old simple door in the middle of the forest attached to the floor at the top of the hill. Bon-Bon and Lyra looked at each other, they didn't know what to make of this.

"A door? That's it?" Lyra leaned down and got onto her knees, disappointment flooded her as she stared at the random object attached to the hill.

"Oh my..." Bon-Bon couldn't hold it anymore, someone played a devious trick. It wasn't funny, Bon-Bon let herself go as tears started to flow down her face in shame, fear and disappointment at what they found. She took a step back and breather in, fanning her hands to help the flow of scented air. "This is unbelievable... I thought we nearly found Dinky..." She choked.

"You mean my little muffin isn't here?" Derpy joined in late with the realization, she looked at the upset Bon-Bon and then looked at the door on the hill for a moment and pondered for a moment what was going on.

Bon-Bon turned to look at Derpy and slowly nodded, Derpy took a few more seconds trying to figure out what she just meant until it finally hit her. She grabbed Bon-Bon's arms and shook them once again as tears began to flow down her face.

"We gotta go Bon-Bon! I wanna find my little muffin! I don't want her kidnapped!" Derpy shouted at her friend, Bon-Bon was getting disoriented as she was being violently shaken back and forth by Derpy's anger.

"Whoa, calm down Derpy!" Lyra quickly turned round and moved in-between the two and broke up their arguing which caused Derpy to back away from both of them.

"We gotta open the door! We gotta open the door!" Derpy shouted like a child, she couldn't control herself now, she pushed Lyra out of the way and ducked to reach down for the door.

"Derpy wait! We can't go down there!" Lyra yelled to her yellow haired friend.

"I wanna find Dinky now!" Derpy quickly reached down for the silver door handle and started to twist it counter-clockwise which caused a loud clicking sound to come out from the door, she pulled it wide open and looked down into what was on the other side of the door.

"Derpy stop!" Lyra regained her balance after being pushed and made a quick dash for Derpy, but as she walked up the hill she felt her legs tripping. As if her control in her legs was starting to weaken and she began to trip over herself, she got up to Derpy but fell over on top of her. The collision between the two pushed them over the edge and into the other side of the doorway, they both fell into the hole in the world together and yelped out for help.

Bon-Bon was absolutely horrified at what she saw, Lyra and Derpy fell into the hole leaving her alone in the middle of the forest. She started to run up to the hole in the ground but before she could make it to where Lyra and Derpy fell in and the wooden door closed itself with a loud slam.

"NO!" Bon-Bon shrieked as she landed onto the door, grabbed the silver handle and started to turn it and pull the lever But the door wouldn't budge, not a single bit. It was as if the door instantly locked itself with no locks or keys whatsoever.

"Lyra!" Bon-Bon desperately tapped on the door, her tears fell off from her face and landed on the door.

"No... please..."

"Derpy... Lyra... come back..."

"Lyra..."

...

"Lyra..."

...

"Lyra... wake up Lyra... It's really dark in here..."

Lyra's head was hurt, she was certain a ringing pain in the back of her head that caused general imbalance to her whole body. She felt numb, her arms and legs felt weak and she didn't want to get up. Derpy's child-like voice was the only thing that mattered right now. She couldn't see a thing, her eyes were perfectly wide open but she wasn't able to see a single thing.

Her mind came onto one conclusion, she was trapped in something. Her body was free, but the surrounding world was dark. She felt no limits around her and Derpy's voice was adding onto the headache she got just from trying to figure out what was going on.

"Derpy...? Where are you?" Lyra groaned, she moved her arms to feel something rustle under her. A certain strange feeling under her felt like she was lying on something strange, her arms began to touch a cold wet floor now knowing they have regained themselves and started to pick herself up. Without any light to guide her, she picked herself up and rested herself on her knees.

"I'm over here Lyra!" Derpy called out, her voice slightly echoed in this new strange dark room.

"Stay where you are and don't move... I need to find a light switch, do you understand?" Lyra muttered, she got up onto her feet and stood still, her balance still wasn't perfect. It felt like the world was tipping over and over and she was in the middle of it all.

"But you've got something on your head..." Derpy spoke again.

"Wh-What do you mean? I can't see a thing!" Lyra kept her ground high, she tried to keep her feet on the ground for as long as possible until she had to drop back down onto her knees again. This was not helping her at all.

"Hold on Lyra... Derpy to the rescue!" Derpy over happily shouted out loud, the sound of crunching could be heard and the breathing that belonged to Derpy.

"What are yo- AH!" She quickly felt a quick tugging pain in the back of her neck, what was Derpy doing? Lyra fell over onto her backside as familiar hands tugged onto whatever was apparently on her head.

"Ggnn... gah!" Derpy grumbled to herself, she pulled on the object so hard with both hands, it was starting to slip!

"Derpy... you're gonna kill me if yo-" As if it were just that, the item slipped off from Lyra's head if it were nothing. Bright lights and the smell of wheat and hay invaded her senses as she closed her eyes from the pain of the light.

"Sorry Lyra..."Derpy apologized. "This blanket was stuck on your head..." She lazily put the blanket on Lyra's legs for her to see. Lyra opened her eyes to see the blanket right in front of her, a red basic blanket was stuck on her head. How was that even possible?

"Lyra... where are we?" Derpy scooted around to Lyra's front and sat down beside her, she landed on her knees and put her hand on Lyra's head and directed her vision only to her and nothing else.

"I don't know... where’s Bon-Bon?" Lyra shook her head to grasp away from her friends grip and started to look around inside of this... cage. She couldn't believe it, they were both trapped inside a large metal cage. Strings and lumps of hay were spread out everywhere all over the ground and various bowls and chew toys were scrambled all over the place.

"Are we dead Lyra?" Derpy tapped her friend on the head again in an attempt to catch her attention.

"Knock it off Derpy! We ain't dead!" Lyra shook her head for the final time, all the confusion and anger within was only adding up to her fatigue. She shouted at Derpy and pushed her away by the chest.

"But how come were stuck in an animal cage Lyra?" Derpy continued to fire off questions to her friend non-stop.

"Animal cage? How do you know that were in an animal cage? We don't even know if were still in the forest or not!" Lyra moaned.

"But we are... look at the horsies over there..." Derpy pointed over to a dark corner of the cage that both of them didn't seem to notice, something or someone was inside the shadows watching their every move. Derpy pointed and waved at the creatures hiding in the shadows gesturing them to come out. "Look Lyra! Horsies! See, were in an animal cage!"

Derpy was right, a large red stallion slowly mulled his way out of the shadows looking very curious about the two new creatures in the cage. He was the first, and then another horse came out, and then another, and another. One by one a group of them emerged from the shadows to reveal themselves. Lyra froze at this moment, all these animals all bundled up in a cage wasn't a good idea.

"Derpy stay away." Lyra whispered.

"Why? They're cute horsies!" Derpy pointed back at the horses and waved to them.

"We don't know if their dangerous or not, just keep your distance." Lyra warned, she crawled away from the group of incoming horses and backed herself up against a pile of hay. Derpy slowly got up on her feet and walked over to the group and noticed the confusion in their eyes, the big red stallion was the first to see what was really going on. He looked up and sniffed her blonde hair in a strange curiosity.

"How is this... the door... and... horses... now... oh, I can't take anymore of this..." Lyra closed her eyes and dropped down onto the pile of hay, she lifted up her arms and dug her fingers into her temple to relieve the pressure building up inside. But on the other hand, Derpy sat down again and was now surrounded by the horses.

"You’re all so cute!" She squealed in delight, she wrapped her arms around the muzzle of the white mare with the purple mane and hugged her tightly. The mare didn't even bother to resist, she looked at the others and then continued to allow herself to be hugged by the strange human.

"I wanna keep you all as pets!" Derpy childishly yelped, she was excited and happy. Such cute horses surrounded her and eyed her up curiously, she obviously didn't notice, but Lyra did.

"Derpy... we can't keep them... we don't even know where they came from..." Lyra rose up from the hay and looked over to see that they were all surrounding her friend. "Who the heck even installs doors like that... we gotta escape..."

"Aww... I don't wanna go... I wanna stay with the horsies!" Derpy turned round and let go of the white mare and saw her friend lying in the hay.

"We can't... we gotta get out of here, I don't want to die surrounded by some dumb horses..." She got herself back up and walked over to her friend and the group of horses, a chill ran down her spine as they all looked at her. Strangely feeling like they understood what she said, they didn't look angry or sad.

"But what about Dinky?" Derpy turned herself round and noticed one of the smaller horses, a little filly with a yellow coat and a red mane. "Aww... look at this one Lyra! She’s got a bow in her hair!" She reached over and picked up the filly by placing her hands under her belly, raising the filly over to her chest and hugging it tightly. The filly didn't resist at all, she instead just accepted the warm hug and nuzzled her way into Derpy's chest.

"I think I'll call you pork chop!"

To be continued...

Chapter Twenty-One

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Chapter Twenty-One: Orange

It was still the same, the world outside was still changing and the cold air still swept through like a disease. She slumped down on the wood with her hand up to her face, tears flew out like a sprinkler and her sobs and moans filled dread through the night.

Bon-Bon was alone in a world gone wrong; she couldn't go on without her wife and her beloved friend. She promised to return Dinky, and she failed. She instead lost both of her closest family all too quickly, Bon-Bon felt numb, whatever she had done to deserve this type of punishment was far beyond a joke. Her comprehension of this door was impossible, it had eaten her loved ones and she couldn't open it for all of her strength.

"Please... open..." She locked her fingers round the silver handle, feeling the remnants of heat that came from the previous users and pulled on it again with all her might and strength but no avail. The still wouldn't budge for anything, it was like it was instantly cemented round the sides so that it wouldn't open after Lyra and Derpy fell inside.

"Please..." Bon-Bon begged; she rammed her fist into the door causing a loud bang and a plethora of pain to swim round her arm. "Ack!" She fell down back onto the wooden surface and held her damaged hand and sobbed even more.

"Why won't you open?!" She screamed; the agonizing pain was too much for her. Bon-Bon didn't know what to do, the whole plan had gone out of the window and her friends weren't there to comfort her.

But Bon-Bon felt it, something was there. In the midst of all the pain surging round her body she felt something soft and wet creep up her backside, almost immediately she froze into position. Her tears and sobbing slowly died down as the strange feeling was moved its way up behind her.

Was someone touching her? Couldn't be, Bon-Bon was too scared to even look round; no one could be around to see her. But at the back of her mind thought that Derpy and Lyra were back, but there was something else gnawing at her to tell her not to move an inch.

"H-Hello..." She was feeling too stupid, not knowing why she just said that.

...

Nothing responded, but that strange feeling was still going on and on.

"P-Please... I n-need help... w-whoever you are..." Bon-Bon knew something was about to go wrong, she just knew it. That wet feeling just wouldn't give up no matter what.

She was getting impatient, a rare trait or her, Bon-Bon started to turn round to see what or who was causing that strange feeling. But to her surprise it was something that she didn't even expect at all. Her vision was slightly blurred as her fresh tears held themselves back but she saw an orange blob lying right next to her.

Without a second though, Bon-Bon jolted away and landed on the grass and wiped her eyes so that her vision was crystal clear.

Her mouth hung open at what she saw, a strange little orange horse with a purple mane lying down where Bon-Bon once sobbed. Eyes closed and legs retracted so it could try and stay warm in the cold dead night. It was a poor little weak thing, the little horse was strange. Bon-Bon eyed it up and took a good look at its unusual features that a normal animal wouldn't have. The short purple hair and the bright orange coat of fur, how strange. Bon-Bon was scared and surprised; she didn't expect such a small creature to appear out of nowhere.

"H-Hello?" Bon-Bon slowly ebbed her way over to the animal and leaned over it like a giant, and inspected the wings on the filly’s backside.

The filly slowly opened her eyes and scanned the area for a moment and looked up to see the human sitting down in front of her, she didn't move at all she continued to stare curiously.

"Wh-What are you... no..." Bon-Bon turned away from the filly and sighed. "I'm talking to a horse... she wouldn't understand... what is happening to me..." But as Bon-Bon moved away to recollect herself. But the filly had other plans; she got up on all fours and slowly trotted over to the upset human.

Bon-Bon breathed in and out to calm herself down until she felt something soft brush up against her legs, as she looked down she saw the little filly had moved and stood up to climb up on her lap. Bon-Bon stood still for a moment and watched as the little orange filly climbed up onto her lap and nuzzled her affectionately.

"Do you th-think I'm your m-mother or s-something?" Bon-Bon was anxious at first, but she moved her arms over the filly and began to pet it. The soft orange fur was somewhat calming, something this soft felt relaxing just to stroke. The purple mane scrunched against her shirt causing its roughness to lose edge, but that was what the filly wanted. Attention.

"You can't be real... why is your fur orange? Who did this to yo- great... now I'm talking to a horse..."

"Derpy put that little horse down right now!"

"But Porkchop wants a hug..." Derpy lifted up the little filly and shoved her in front of Lyra's face; the filly leaned forward and licked the green haired human across the face.

"Deugh!" Lyra quickly leaned back and wiped her face from the slobber that came from the filly, she pushed Derpy and the little small horse away. Derpy quickly hugged the filly again and held her close to her chest again. "We need to get out of here now Derpy!"

"I don't wanna leave Porkchop and her friends behind!" Derpy yelled out, the horses turned and looked at Lyra slowly eying her up awaiting a positive response from her.

Lyra couldn't take this anymore; this was getting out of hand for her. Being stuck in a cage with horses is one thing, but falling through a forest and into a place she didn't even recognize is pushing it too far. She quickly walked back over to Derpy with a frown on her face, not-so politely pushing the horses out of the way to get to her friend. Lyra leaned down and grabbed her by the collar.

"Derpy listen!" Lyra pushed the little filly out of Derpy's arms and picked up her human friend by the collar on her shirt. Causing her to quickly whimper, Lyra picked up Derpy up and made her stood on her two feet in a quick shamble. The horses cowered out of the way and watched as both humans argued. "Derpy, were looking for your damn child! Remember? Dinky! Don't forget about Dinky!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Derpy cried out, she moved her arms in front of her face and shielded herself from the impended pain she was about to get.

"Derpy, I'm not gonna hit you! We need to keep on looking for Dinky even without Bon-Bon, these horses don't mean anything. We gotta get outta here and we need to find Dinky! I'm not spending the rest of my life in this cage with a bunch of stinking horses!" Lyra calmed herself down and let go of Derpy, but her friend didn't stop. She dropped to the ground and instead fell onto the hay.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Derpy..."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Derpy... shut up… now..."

"Please don't hurt me Lyra, I didn't mean to!" Derpy cried out, tears fell down from her face and her body flopped down onto the rest of the surrounding hay.

"I said I'm not!" Lyra repeated, sounding angrier.

"Don't make the horsies sad!" Derpy leaned up and pointed with one arm, she used the other to shield herself from Lyra.

Lyra turned round to see the big red stallion and the little yellow filly standing right behind her, the red one didn't look so happy while the little one had a small bruise on her leg that Lyra didn't seem to notice at first. She was in trouble; she had hurt one of the horses.

"Woah, sorry horse, didn't mean to hurt that little one..." Lyra took a step back away from the red horse, but the stallion kept his ground and slowly trotted up to Lyra and then stood still. Behind her own backside she had her fist ready incase of an attack, a weak gesture, but the only defence she had in this situation.

The stallion glared at Lyra and the strange clothing that she wore; after he was finished he slowly turned round back to the others and swished his tail. Lyra obviously didn't understand, but she moved back over to Derpy and leaned down to pick her up.

"Lyra..." Derpy frowned. "You hurt the horsie!"

"Hey, I didn't mean to. I was tryin' to get some sense back into you, were still looking for Dinky aren't we?"

"Yes..."

"And we need to escape this cage."

"Yes..."

"With or without the help of these horses."

"Okay... but only on one condition..."

"What?"

"You say sorry to Porkchop!"

"Why would someone so cruel tape wings onto your back little horse?" Bon-Bon wrapped her arms around the scared little orange filly; she could feel the soft orange fur wrapping itself round her hand as she protected the poor animal for harms way.

The filly didn't even care; she rubbed her head against the human’s chest showing her affection for the warmth and care that she was giving.

"Did you get separated from your mother little one?" Bon-Bon patted the filly on the head, lightly touching the short purple mane hairs that blew in the cold wind. The filly looked up and stared directly into the humans eyes as if they were something she had never seen before, the expression she gave made Bon-Bon feel upset. As if this animal were just left alone to wander the forest.

"Heh... I go on a search for Dinky and now I find a lost little horse in the middle of a candy land..." She mumbled to herself.

The fillies ears slightly perked up, one of the words that the human said had great importance.

'Dinky'

That word was like a trigger, the filly almost immediately squirmed until she was out of the grip of the human. She took a stance and wagged her tail to grab the attention of the confused human, but without a chance to think. The orange filly ran away into the trees, constantly looking back to see the human following her.

"Wait- where are you going? It’s not safe here!" Bon-Bon yelled as she started to follow the filly, the small horse ran through the bushes and trees with her slowly lagging behind to desperately catch up in the midst of the mess. The world was getting more and more jumbled the further she went with the little filly, her shoes and fatigue stopped her from fully sprinting but she managed to keep up with the small animal.

Bon-Bon noticed a quick change in the scenery, she was still in the forest but it looked even worse than it originally did. The trees were now swaying back and forth as the winds started to speed up; all the way to the stump of the trees they appeared to be now made out of rubber. Constantly swinging back and forth from the force of the wind passing by.

The filly had waited for the human to arrive in this new space; Bon-Bon looked at the filly and walked up to it with concern.

"Wh- What did you r-run away for?" Bon-Bon kneeled down and placed a hand on her chest, she was out of breath. The pain inside was giving her a small cramp.

Scootaloo stood still until the human was right in front of her; she gave a little smile to the woman and continued to move. Although slower than before, the filly trotted up to something that Bon-Bon didn't notice at first.

A bright red brick wall was in the middle of the forest, everything was just going to shambles. The orange filly trotted up to the wall and rested against it. But Bon-Bon on the other hand took caution to what a strange piece of materials were doing out in the woods. She lifted her arm and lightly brushed her fingers against the wall and jerked away making sure that nothing would pop out and attack her.

Nothing happened, not a single thing happened. No Dinky, No Lyra or Derpy. This just made her feel worse about herself, she lost her friends and now she had to pay the price.

"I'm sorry little one, I can't go on..."

The filly frowned, she trotted up to the woman and raised her hoof and tapped her on the leg. Bon-Bon looked down still gasping for air to see the little orange filly wiggling her tail round like an excited puppy. She made her way back over to the brick wall and used her snout to point at the brick wall once again.

"Little one... what... are... you... doing..." Bon-Bon took a few steps over to the brick wall and leaned down behind the filly and closely inspected what the small horse was doing.

The little filly was trying to do something, but it was something that Bon-Bon was unable to make out as the horse did it. The filly’s snout was dug into the brick wall. This confused Bon-Bon. The filly was digging her snout and hooves into the thick brick wall clearly trying to push the bricks out of the way.

"Little horse... please stop..."

Lyra and Derpy were now sitting close to each other, their presence among the horses was starting to sink in and both groups became more and more comfortable with each other. Both humans sat down on a small pile of hay, one looking happier than the other. Derpy was still fussing Porkchop; the filly was still wrapped in her delicate arms while Lyra on the other hand was separate.

Lyra crossed her arms and legs and felt dirty, her thoughts was racing back and forth and she wasn't able to concentrate. Tonight has been so strange, a missing child, the forest turning sour and falling through the ground to only end up in a cage in what looked like a cave. She chuckled at the thought of wanting a cave to stay in and now she had gotten her request.

The horses were acting kind; many of them trotted up and gave both Derpy and Lyra another good look before going back to their own piles of hay. Both humans didn't react, they just allowed themselves to be looked at.

But there was something that Lyra didn't expect, one of the horses started to approach them. A familiar looking mare to be exact. With its gray coat and long blonde hair and wall-eyed expression it looked all the same, with a bid of curiosity. Lyra took a good look at Derpy sitting next to her petting and fussing over Porkchop and took note of the gray t-shirt, the blonde hair and the wall-eyed expression.

Taking those details back and forth between her friend and the mare approaching them it felt like a smack in the face. Lyra cringed hard at the thought that a horse could look so similar. But Derpy didn't think of this.

"Aww look Lyra! Another horsie wants to say hi!" Derpy waved over to the gray mare and smiled. Lyra was anticipating this.

The mare slowly wobbled over to both humans and looked up at take a good inspection of them, her eyes were all over the place no- they were the same colour and were in the same unusual places that they were supposed to be in. Lyra's mind was screaming, how could she not act surprised at the sight of the gray mare.

As it got closer, Derpy reached and patted it her blonde mane and ruffled it up to no end. But then something hit her, Derpy quickly stopped and pulled her hand away looking very shocked.

"Derpy? What's wrong?" Lyra spoke up; she noticed the change in Derpy's expression. It wasn't a good one either.

"This horsie..." Derpy was shaking, her arms flopped and she let go of Porkchop in an instant. Letting the filly slowly slide down her legs unintentionally. The mare quickly did the same; she quickly took a few steps back. And caught the attention of the other horses inside the cage. They knew something was up, and they weren't going to let down.

"This horse is what?" Lyra slowly placed her hand on her friends and shoulder, but she was quickly denied as Derpy pushed her hand away.

"M-Me..."