> Reversed Realities
>  by The1975Dash
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> Well How Do I Begin?
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Well how do I start? It feels like everything happened just yesterday. One moment I was there and now I’m here. Allow me to explain everything in more detail. You see, I haven’t always been where I am. I don’t think I regret being sucked into all of this, but I might miss what I had sometimes. I’m sorry for the ambiguity; sometimes I can’t believe it myself. My name is Maria Pearson and this is my story of how I managed to survive in the land I once thought was fictional, Equestria. I wasn’t even searching for anything other than how to get back, but it turns out you can’t go in that land without being greeted.

It started on what was a completely normal day for me. However, it really wasn’t a day I was looking forward to. I had to look after my four year old cousin, Isabel, whilst my parents, aunt and uncle went out for the day. I wouldn’t for one second say I disliked Isabel, but I’m sixteen and she is four; what we like is completely different. The moment the door shut and I was left with her, she grabbed my arm and practically dragged me to the living room. “So, Isabel, what would you like to do?” I smiled sheepishly. The last time I had to look after her, all we did for the whole day was play princess dress up.

I wasn’t exactly known for being girly, so seeing myself in a prissy pink dress was like looking at another person altogether. To anyone who didn’t know me, I looked like a sweet cheery girl. However, what they didn’t know was that I was almost the opposite of what I looked like; I wasn’t in to makeup or fashion. As long as I was comfortable, I was happy. I wanted to dye my hair black, but my parents wouldn’t let me until I was eighteen. I had light brown hair and some rather modest blue eyes to go with it. However, I was wearing some coloured contact lenses, making my eyes appear rose tinted at the iris. I was in no way as thin as a model, but there was little fat on me, so I guess that I had nothing wrong with me physically. I was just a little bit over the average height for a girl my age and I found it almost amusing when I met up with my shorter friends. To be exact, I was nothing special.

Anyway, my cousin pulled me closer to the television and showed me her collection of DVDs. I noticed one particular correlation. They were mainly My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. “I wanna watch that one.” She sweetly demanded. I smiled a little bit, remembering how when I was younger I’d seen My Little Pony a few times, but never really watched it week in week out. “We’re gonna watch it all, right?” she smiled at me, and I’m not so mean that I would crush a four year old’s feelings. I nodded and put in the disc, thinking to myself ‘It’s just one season. Just one season of twenty six episodes…’ I sighed as I put my cousin on my lap and we began to watch. I almost cringed at the theme tune; far too girly for me, but I smiled at my cousin as she was clearly enjoying it. If it made her happy then I sure as hell would try to hold out through it.

I couldn’t help but giggle as she sang along with the tune and when the ‘evil’ pony came along, Nightmare Moon; she even gasped and shared the same emotions as those other ponies trembling in fear. “Heh, always trust Twighlight.” I found myself saying, and I blushed a little bit at how in the short space of twenty minutes I had gotten into it. ‘Maybe it won’t be so bad to watch this.’ I giggled. Another episode passed and I found myself actually smiling along with my cousin, enjoying the show as much as her. Already I’d picked out my favourites, Rainbow Dash and AppleJack seemed to be my favourites, although all of the characters were great in my opinion. I couldn’t find anything to fault the show and soon I was singing along with my cousin to whatever song came along.

However, all good things must come to an end and we had finished the entire first season and wouldn’t have time to finish the whole of the next season, so we decided it would be best to do something else. “Wanna draw?” was all she asked and immediately the both of us knew what to draw. “Ponies.” We nodded and got to work straight away. Needless to say I was quite proud of my drawing, the Pegasus I had created consisted of black fur and a black and red mane and tail; her eyes were made similar to mine for obvious reasons. Her beautiful wings were of the same colour as her mane and tail. Her mane ran just over her head, brushed to the side slightly to keep out of her eyes, and it was separated into three parts by the zigzag pattern of red in two of the sections. Her tail was serenely long and I could just picture the shine of it. It too was controlled by the red streaks across it. Her hooves I felt were too precious to touch soil, so she wore golden shoes, fit for her regal stature. Finally, to finish it off I drew around her a white band, just because I thought it looked nice.

My cousin walked over to me with intrigue and observed my drawing. However, her reaction was not the one I was expecting, or hoping for. She just laughed. I frowned and grabbed her, tickling her lightly. “What’re you laughing about?” I smirked.

“You’re tickling.” I stopped and asked her again. “Oh, well you drew an adult one. Even Princess Celestia was a young filly once.” She proudly presented her perfect picture of the princess with a smaller pony by her side “That one is me.” She pointed at the smaller, blue and green filly that was looking up at the princess in awe. I had to admit, in comparison of our drawings and considering she was only a quarter of my age, she was better than me. “You need to draw your one as a young filly.” I nodded in serious agreement with her. For some reason I had a tendency to go serious for no reason. I got to work, drawing the same outline, except a bit smaller. I made the mane neater because I thought it would be styled by the filly’s mother, although the tail remained free albeit shorter. I stared at the blank flank that not only the filly had, but also my full grown version of her.

“Huh, no Cutie Mark. I can’t think of one.” I sighed, but put the paper down and looked at the two ponies “Well, I guess a name would be good first……I have it! Aero Crown.” I smiled in jubilation at my rather…creative name. The whole time I had been seeing the drawing as a princess figure, and as she is a Pegasus the name only seemed fitting, but still no Cutie Mark idea. It was really troubling me and as I stared down at the piece of paper, sweat starting to form on my brows. I sat back in exasperation. “Great now how can I possibly complete this?” My attention was briefly pulled away as my cousin tugged at the sleeve of my jacket. “What is it Squirt?” I raised an eyebrow.

“They’re home!” she squealed in delight, running off to greet her parents as well as mine. I got up and left the drawings on the floor of the living room. “And then we drew pictures!” my cousin exclaimed as she was picked up by my uncle and hugged.
“There’s my little girl. Come ‘ere Emmy.” I gave a blank look to my dad and I walked over to him only to be pulled into a hug with him. “What’s got you down Em?” he leaned in a little bit. I pushed away and walked back over to the living room where Isabel was already showing her parents the drawings.

After everyone had talked some more, my family and I left. However, before I could leave, Isabel ran up to me and gave me the pieces of paper with our drawings on them “So you remember me.” She smiled.

“How could I forget you? I’m coming back next week.” I chuckled and pulled her in for one last hug before getting in the car and being whisked away back to my home. As soon as I got back in I looked at my drawing again and found myself in the same frustrations as before. I glared at it for hours on end, trying to figure out what the Cutie Mark could be for my precious drawing. I obsessed over finishing this and found myself almost getting lost from my surroundings as I gazed at the blank flank that I had been presented with as a problem.

I groaned and slumped back on my chair, rubbing my eyes as I checked the time. It was past midnight and my eyes were feeling heavy as I was feeling tired. I literally rolled across onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow “Ugh, tomorrow I guess.” I grumbled as the sweet mistress of slumber crept over me. Invading my thoughts however were mental images I had of Ponyville and Equestria, and the images of everypony there. Then I saw her, my own drawing, although she seemed to be too shy to talk to anyone, and that’s when I noticed her lack of Cutie Mark, showing reason to her embarrassment. Then blank. Everything from my mind just went and I shut off as I fell asleep.

I stirred from my sleep as the wind brushed past my hair gently. Immediately my eyes shot open and went wide as I realised that it’s not normal for wind to be blowing past my room, considering my window wasn’t open. I instantly regretted opening my eyes so fast. The sunlight sent harsh beams to sting at my retinas, so quickly I closed them. However, whilst slowly opening my eyes I could see that the scenery was very different to my own room. “Good lord. If this was me sleep walking, I’ve really outdone myself this time.” I chuckled although I had some aching feeling of doubt stirring.

I looked around only a little bit before I frowned at what I was seeing. The trees looked nothing like what I knew from my neighbourhood. “Where the heck am I?” I raised an eyebrow and began to feel a bit more nervous. I rolled a little bit, but felt something sting so I went back to how I was. I lifted my arm and scratched my ear absentmindedly. However, I couldn’t even feel my fingers, and my ears felt different somehow. As my eyes started to adjust even more, I put my hand in front of my face to see a black hoof. In my tired state, I blinked a couple of times before realising something.

I waved my hand and the hoof waved at the same time. I put my hand down and the hoof did the same. My eyes widened in realisation. “How can that b-be?” I stuttered and kept on trying the same tactic to break myself away from this. However, the results all pointed to the same conclusion. The hoof was mine. A jet black hoof. Just to check, I raised my other hand and I gasped when I saw it was also a black hoof. I traced the origins of this hoof and found myself looking at the chest of a pony, the fur a shiny black. I reached up with my ha-hooves and felt my ears again, and then they twitched. I jolted quickly and put my hooves down on the ground again. Those ears definitely didn’t do that before. I never felt the urge before, but when I looked back I actually felt the urge to scream. I saw two small wings and a small tail to go with it. I stopped and stared for a minute, maybe two, hoping that this was all just an illusion. I gritted my teeth as I saw my tail twitch and sway with a mind of its own, although it was too short to sway with any real serenity. 

Something about the colours struck me. They seemed familiar to me, but I was too confused by the early start doubled with the strange findings it brought. Then I realised. I screamed as loud as I could. The colours were the same as the ones I drew on that Pony with my cousin. Before I knew it I saw a pink flash bowl into me, sending us both crashing and rolling along the ground. When we came to a stop, I looked up to see a pink pony with large blue eyes cradling me perfectly despite the tumbling. “Are you okay? Did you miss a party? I’d cry to if I missed a party.” She reassured me, but I started hyperventilating as I remembered who this pony was. I looked over her shoulder and fainted as I saw five other familiar equines. “This can’t be ha..” was all I could say before I was out.

> Odd Introductions
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When I woke up again I was still in the same place. The trees seemed to be the same, although in the higher sun their shadows had changed and now they appeared to be even taller. I shivered when I looked down and saw the rest of my…pony…body. I was about to scream again but before I could I had a whole han-hoof shoved into my mouth “Don’t scream again. It hurts my ears. And it means that you’re either really happy or really sad. Oh it’s a guessing game, I love those! Oh are you…” the voice paused as she was guessing, but I had to quickly pick up the pieces of my scrambled mind from how quickly she was talking. I looked to my left and saw nothing. I looked behind myself and saw nothing. Then I remembered that I had a hoof in my mouth and followed the leg all the way to its own body. I went wide eyed as I saw it was none other than that pink pony from the show, Pinkie Pie. I tried speaking as I struggled to get her hoof away. She giggled quickly and let her hoof out. “What was that?” she blinked.

I looked up at her, worried despite her less than threatening appearance “This can’t be happening. You’re not…I’m not…” I started hyperventilating again, but I sat up this time, sitting like they often did on the show. “You’re P-Pinkie Pie…” I gasped. I looked around to see my new body again, only causing me to freak out even more. “Why am I like this?” I squeaked, only now noticing how my voice had changed and sounded younger than what I was used to.

Pinkie just giggled again “Well you kinda went all screamy on us and then when we found you, you crashed back to the floor like you were sleeping. So you’re like this because you’ve just woken up.” she grinned, but was soon pulled away by a light blue kind of glow that surrounded her “Rarity, off!” she squealed as she was dragged away by the light and replaced soon by none other than Rarity herself; she looked even more beautiful now that I was seeing her for real. However, I wasn’t in the greatest of mental states, so I can’t say I actually noticed at the time.

Rarity walked over to me “Pinkie, you can’t just jump at her and expect the poor filly to be alright. You must be a little gentler with the filly.” She trotted to my side. “Now dear, can you tell us how you got here?” she looked down at me, trying to be as careful with her words as possible. 

My lips trembled slightly as I tried to answer back “No….no I don’t know.” She hushed me softly and gave me a warm smile.

“That doesn’t matter for now darling. We just came as soon as we could after we heard you screaming. You really shouldn’t be out here anyway. The Everfree forest is no place for a filly to go all by herself.” She explains, forcing my ears to fall back as I felt a pang of guilt that they had to save me.

“I’m sorry you had to come all this way. I must’ve got in the way of something.” I mumbled, only loud enough for Rarity to hear.

She put a hoof to her chin and thought for a second “Well Opal was in need of Fluttershy’s assistance. She does need a lot of work done and Fluttershy is just terrific, but you needed help, so don’t worry darling. We need to get you back to Ponyville don’t we?” she smiled again and then looked back. I looked in the same direction and my mouth went agape as I saw all of the others. Rarity looked back at me and then back to the girls repeatedly. “Oh don’t worry. They’re just my friends. Excuse Pinkie, she’s just…friendly. Yes, friendly.” She trotted away.

I found myself consumed by the same blue glow that Pinkie Pie was. I felt weightless as I was lifted, and because I wasn’t used to it, I started flailing all of my legs to keep some balance despite the fact I was held in place. The purple unicorn, Twilight began to walk beside me and smile. “Hi there, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I know you don’t know any of us, but you need help on anything, and I mean anything then you can come to mine for at least a little while and we could talk things over, make a plan of what you could do until we figure things out, y’know, stuff like that.” She chuckled nervously.

I looked across to her to see her smiling with an equally nervous expression. I gave a small giggle to her, making the mood seem a little less tense. “I’d like that.” I replied, keeping my eyes on hers. Before she could reply though, she was quickly swiped away by Rainbow Dash.

“Hey there kid. I see you’re also a Pegasus like me. Are you fast? I mean like really fast. Like my kind of fast.” She smirked and hovered next to me. “If you are, who knows, I could put in a good word for you at the Wonderbolt junior academy. If not, you can chill with me and Scootaloo. She’s pretty cool too. She’s just like a little sister, although maybe a little too fond of herself at times.” She chuckled. I couldn’t help but stare at her, thinking just how ironic those last few words were. I blinked twice, my face saying nothing as she looked back at me “What?” she cocked her head to the side.

I stayed still and then shook myself free of the thoughts; I was over thinking this “Uh, yeah, that sounds great.” I muttered, showing a weak smile to her, although it was clear on my face that something was troubling me. I was still trying to work out how I could actually be in the world of Equestria. To a person like me, it seemed cool in some respects, but I shared the view of most others that it shouldn’t be possible for me to be able to get into this universe. All of the illogical and unrealistic ways that I could have got here were starting to hurt my head and I groaned ever so slightly.

Dash got closer “Hey, are you alri-woah!” she screamed as she was hauled out of the way by Fluttershy “Woah, Fluttershy what was that for?” Rainbow seemed to growl in frustration.

Although Fluttershy was now next to me, she kept her eyes down to the ground and muttered something to me. “I’m sorry Miss Fluttershy, but I didn’t hear that. Can you please repeat it?” I nearly shuddered at hearing my much more childish sounding voice. That was going to take some getting used to. Again she muttered, her eyes only glancing across to me briefly. “I’m sorry Fluttershy. My hearing has never been great.” I lied just to make her feel a little better.

“Is there something wrong?” she said softly, her voice instantly calming me; her face shared the same effect as she looked at me with a caring demeanour and smiled at me. “If there is something wrong, I would very much like to help. I-if that’s okay?” she looked back down to the ground as we continued to forward.

“That sounds like it would be nice Miss, but there’s nothing really wrong, just an ache here and a bruise probably, but nothing unusual.” I kept my head low just in case I had disappointed her. She was about to answer back as I heard her take in a breath.

However, whatever she said wasn’t heard because I was finally approached by AppleJack. “Nah, she’s good. What yur sayin’ is true, but what ah say is unusual is how you got ‘ere. So pardon me little filly but how exactly are you here? Do ya know where ya parents are? I’m sure they’re mighty worried ‘bout you.” My ears lowered again and gave a rather sad look to Apple Jack “No parents huh?” I nodded and she looked back at me; her face written with empathy “Ah see. Well you can always come over to see mah family. Well I jus’ know that AppleBloom would be delighted to have another friend.” She moved on a little bit more. I felt sorry for her almost, but I’d seen enough of the show to know that she is still a happy pony.

My mind began to wander again as I thought about how different this world might actually be to the way the show portrays it. I hoped that it would be everything like the show. Although I was clever enough to work out that with my presence there, things would be different. Another thought clashed with that; it said to me that I would now be included on the show; how I didn’t know, but it was just another idea I was coming up with. “To Fluttershy’s, are we all in agreement?” Rarity asked as she continued to carry me with whatever energy she was finding in the air. The whole group agreed, even Rainbow Dash reluctantly accepted it. “Good then. Can someone else carry her? Before all of this happened, I had an important order to make. Sorry girls. I hope you can at least appreciate what I’ve done.” She chuckled nervously and sweat dropped.

Twilight beamed to all of them “You guys, I’ve got to tell the princess that we saved a lost and hurt filly, I just know she will be so proud of us all.” She shook herself out of her excitement and then looked directly at Rarity “Rarity, your generosity has got us so far. You’ve done great. I’m sure that Rainbow and Fluttershy can get her the rest of the way.” Rarity dropped the energy and I fell, landing straight onto my new legs. I landed straight and jarred my legs enough to make me collapse under the pressure. Immediately the Pegasi rushed to me and Fluttershy lifted me onto Rainbow’s back. I looked over her shoulder to find I was already about ten feet off the ground and I gulped. “Rainbow, be careful. She’s been through a lot already. I know you like impressing the little ones, but she seems a little too fragile at the moment.” Twilight advised, but only got a snort of laughter in response from Rainbow.

“Aw come on. When I was a filly I always wanted to go fast or ride on the backs of those Pegasi who were even quicker. The rush you get from going fast is just too good to miss at her age.” She grinned and then looked back at me. “Kid, just hold on tight and we’ll be at Fluttershy’s in ten seconds flat.” She looked back and I raised an eyebrow, knowing all too well that when Rainbow Dash sets herself a challenge that she will do all that she can to succeed. I did as instructed and clutched around her just as she let out a huff to get ready “See Twilight, what’d I tell ya? She’s rearing to go.” Twilight just rolled her eyes and before I could wave goodbye I found the initial jolt as the speed dramatically increased. I felt the air going past so fast that my cheeks were even catching some air. I quickly snuck a look behind to see nothing but a rainbow streak following directly behind us.

The speed of it all was a major adrenalin boost and I looked ahead. Everything was a blur and I’d only been on her back for about five seconds. I glanced down to see that she was gritting her teeth and concentrating just to make sure she completed her challenge. The world looked like it was spinning quicker at the rate Rainbow was going. I gave a childish grin and took off one hoof, clutching tighter with the other as I raised my leg and cheered “Woohoo!” I screamed before all the air I took in was taken right away as she halted to a stop almost straight away. 

Rainbow chuckled as I flopped off of her back, a big grin plastered on my face. I didn’t even react when I hit the ground; I just stayed lying upside down with the same expression, looking up at Rainbow. “Heh, I knew you’d like it. There’s nothing like the feeling of wind blast past your mane and the world around you seeming much slower. It’s safe to say that it is almost as awesome as me.” She giggled and turned me back over. “Hey kid, you never actually told us your name. Would you mind spilling the beans?” I shook my head.

Suddenly I froze and went silent for a little bit. I was stuck between saying my real name or choosing a name for my new self. I was biting my lip in thought. I already made a name for this pony, but I couldn’t remember it at first. “My name is……” I paused, trying to bide my time by looking around at anything. Being at Fluttershy’s was handy because I could easily get distracted by the animals. I watched as the famous bunny, Angel hopped past. It took a few seconds of this before I remembered “Aero Crown!” I cheered, receiving an odd look from Rainbow “I mean..” I piped down “Yeah, I’m Aero Crown.” I lowered my head.

When I looked up again I saw that Rainbow was now grinning at me and pacing on the spot “That’s such a cool name. I can tell already you’re gonna be awesome; maybe…nah, nearly as awesome as me.” She winked and quickly nuzzled me. “Although if you want to look cooler, then I’d change my mane style.” This time I gave her an odd look and she blushed, rubbing the back of her head “I mean, not that I would know anything about fashion. You’d have to see Rarity about that kind of stuff.”

We both laughed with each other. We both agreed that I would need to get inside so that I actually help out Fluttershy at least a little bit. I stood up, my legs wobbling. I froze again as I realised that I had never actually taken steps in this body before and now I was going to have to act as if nothing was wrong. I boldly took a step and put one hoof ahead of me; it felt strange. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was nothing like when I would walk with my feet. I missed my feet. However, when I took the second step I realised just how much I missed my feet. I put my other foreleg forwards and found myself not moving forwards, but to Rainbow Dash, it just looked like I was stretching, or so I assumed. However, Rainbow walked right up to me and gave a curious look towards me “You having some problems walking there?” I shook my head, denying the thoughts and the truth to myself. Reluctantly I put that leg and hoof back to where they were and thought in my head about it. I moved my back leg, the one the same side as my forward forehoof. Unfortunately, all that did was cause me to fall over onto my side with a small thud on the ground. Rainbow chuckled and posed “I knew I was fast, but even I didn’t know I could disorientate a pony’s walking.” She held out a hoof although there was a small frown on her face “Seriously though, are you okay? I mean can you even walk?” she cocked her head to the side, raising an eyebrow as if she was waiting for my answer.

I got up with her help and I smiled, although I felt an aching pain of doubt because of how obvious my lack of motor skills actually was. “Thank you Miss. My walking is fine…I just can’t really remember what happened, but I think it shook my walking a bit more. Give me a bit of time and I’ll get it again.” I politely replied. I noticed Dash nod, but she still wore an almost suspicious look on her face. I tried again and sighed when I fell over from the extra few steps; it was far from a relief. I got frustrated quickly and I stamped my hoof to the ground and huffed. I could tell that Dash was watching me with some wonder. I steadily tried to adjust to my situation and I looked down at the ground, watching where I put my left forehoof, making sure that I didn’t mess it up this time. I didn’t let myself get happy after I made the first step.

“Um, that looks a little bit awkward. Are you sure you’re okay?” Rainbow asked and I turned my head to smile back at her and nod, although I was getting sick of having to pretend. “It wouldn’t be a problem to help. It’s just a little odd is all.” She retorted and I felt my frustration rise as I tripped again. I took a deep breath and concentrated even harder on my steps “Lets just hope Fluttershy gets here soon.” She sighed. I cursed in my head to no ends from the amount of times I fell over, but finally I was starting to get a few consistent steps in without stumbling over. I mentally cringed as I heard the ‘clip-clop’ from my hooves making contact with the ground. I made a quick mental note to myself that I should try out going faster when I have the time. “Why are you looking to the floor so much? Everything is ahead of you.” She commented and I groaned quietly, wanting to block that comment out despite the fact that she was right; if I was always looking down I would probably bump into some unhappy pony. 

Just as I thought I had got the hang of walking, I made my way to Fluttershy’s front door, but I soon found myself crashing to the floor again as I heard a loud voice; the loud voice of……Fluttershy. “Wait just a second there.” She called as she came gliding in. My first thought was not exactly a kind one, so I chose to keep it to myself.

“What took you so long?” Rainbow asked, her voice sounding bored more than anything. I looked back to see Fluttershy smile at me, although I couldn’t work out whatever motive she had for the smile. These ponies may have been really nice to me and I may have enjoyed them on the show, but it still didn’t change the fact that I needed more time to trust them.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, it’s just that Rarity said that she had actually finished her dress and she was going to bring Sweetie Belle over to say hi and make a new friend.” She smiled again, although covered her eyes with her mane when she saw Rainbow’s less than amused look. “I’m so sorry Rainbow, it’s just that you left in such a rush and no one can catch up to you.”

Rainbow shrugged and turned back to me “Fluttershy, Aero Crown seems to be fine. I think she can come with me, maybe and we’ll be able to catch Rarity and Sweetie Belle so they can be friends.” I could see that Rainbow was just lying to Fluttershy by hiding my struggle with walking. I couldn’t try and guess her reasoning, so I just stayed quiet and hoped she knew what she was doing.

Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin and shook her head slowly “Hmm, I dunno Rainbow, Twilight was pretty specific that I looked after her, and I wouldn’t want u..” before Fluttershy could finish, the cyan Pegasus was in front of her on her knees with her hooves clasped together, and her eyes made all sad.

Rainbow pretended to cry and beg “Oh please Fluttershy, I only want to show her how much fun I can be……Please?” she sniffed, looking up at the other Pegasus with hope, her voice started to squeak as she put all her effort into the performance. Although I was sure I could catch a glint in her eye “You know I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.” She was really selling it to her.

Fluttershy held the other’s hoof in hers “Only if you promise she will be alright. And get her back to Twilight’s when she’s done. If you can do that then I wi..” before she could finish, Rainbow was tightly hugging her. Rainbow leapt of and dashed over to me, picking me up and we sped away. Once again, the feeling of adrenalin came around.

Within just a few short minutes I felt Rainbow dive down, landing safely as she let me flop down again. I shakily stood back up, but soon thought I was going to be down again when I heard a few excited squeals. I shook my mane out of my face and saw three fillies; about my height and age, and they were all looking at me. Behind them were two familiars; AppleJack and Rarity, watching over them. “Oh, we thought you two would be at..”

“At Fluttershy’s? Please, me and Aero had better things to do than rest. Besides, if she didn’t get out then how would she meet new friends?” Rainbow interrupted, smirking at the two of them.

AppleJack smiled “Ah, so that’s yer name. It’s nice to meet you Aero. This here is my sister, AppleBloom, and these are her friends.” She greeted and I looked at the filly directly in front of her to see that she was smiling back at me; grinning in fact.

Just as Rarity was about to speak, the light olive coloured filly raised her voice “These here are mah friends; that’s Scootaloo.” She pointed at the orange one, who waggled her hoof excitedly. “And that’s Sweetie Belle. She’s Rarity’s little sister in case you din’t notice.” The small unicorn smiled at me and all three girls got closer and closer. I wanted to move away, but thought it might have seemed a bit odd if I did. They got up to me and for some reason kept looking around me. “Attention all. Attention all. We have an official blank flanker. I repeat, we have an official blank flanker.” AppleBloom drilled out like a military sergeant. She quickly leaned into me “No offence, we’re all the same, don’t worry Aero.” She beamed and then called her friends into a huddle. Something told me that I was the focus point of whatever they were discussing, and I wasn’t too sure if I liked that idea.

> Time Flies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We all stood in silence, apart from the three fillies huddled together as they discussed something that was exclusive to their little group. Occasionally one of them popped their head out of the huddle to glance at me. I just looked around anxiously, receiving slightly embarrassed smiles from each of the older sisters. Rainbow was just like me, she was curious at what they were saying, so she tried to hover around them and listen, although each time they successfully blocked her efforts. Soon though, the trio disbanded and formed a line in front of me. AppleBloom stepped forwards and cheered “We are happy to say that we can accept a new member to our group.” The three of them whinnied to contain their excitement. “Aero, we’d like ya to be our newest member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” she grinned and offered a hoof to me in friendship.

I looked up to the others and saw that AppleJack nodded at her sister “Well ah think that’s a mighty fine idea AppleBloom. Together I’m sure you’ll find your Cutie Marks.” She smiled and I was nudged forwards by Rainbow and clapped my hoof onto AppleBloom’s without realising. 

“Wait, so that means you really want to?” Sweetie Belle’s eyes glimmered.

I was about to speak when Scootaloo cut in “We need to see you at AppleBloom’s to officially accept you though, and don’t think we just let anyone in.” I opened my mouth to speak again, but I was interjected again “We know you’re desperate, but save your voice for later. We need to know everything.” She explained, although I was going to say I wasn’t sure about joining. However, I couldn’t get a word in edgeways and the girls all seemed adamant that I was going to be their newest member; besides, it couldn’t hurt to have some friends in this world.

Rarity stepped forwards and looked down at the four of us. “Rainbow, can Aero fly?” This caused her to shake her head at Rarity “Well, her wings look perfectly fine. Perhaps you could teach her sometime.” Rarity winked at me and I looked back at my wings, only now realising that I had some control over them, as well as some feeling. I slowly flapped them and smiled at the feathers as the flowed through the air softly. It felt nice to actually stretch my wings out. Immediately I had Scootaloo dash next to me.

“Hey Rainbow Dash, could you teach me as well?” she asked, her tone sounding awfully close to begging. Rainbow nodded to her and smiled as she started to talk to Rarity and AppleJack about something else. My attention turned away from them and as I turned my head my vision was obscured by an excited looking Scootaloo “We’re gonna be taught by the greatest flyer in all of Equestria…I can’t wait.” She pulled me over to the other two. “You’ll never guess what me and Aero are going to do.” She stated proudly, and the other two just gave a roll of their eyes, but they smiled anyway. “We’re gonna have Rainbow Dash as our flying teacher. It’s gonna be so awesome, right Aero?” they all looked to me and I gave a shy nod in response before being hugged in a vice grip by my new friend “I knew she’d be as happy as me.”

The two others gave a small chuckle and joined in the hug, squeezing me tighter. “Oh crusaders careful.” Sweetie Belle squeaked and weakened her grip around me. I was soon joining the group hug, and not being squeezed. “What do you girls wanna do?” I shrugged as best as I could. She soon spoke out again “Rarity, can we take Aero home? You said that I can have a friend stay over.” She blinked twice at her older sister and made her bottom lip shake.

Rarity; broken away from her conversation looked at her sister and I could see that she was reluctant, and I couldn’t blame her. I was completely new to the area……not to mention the universe. To me it was obvious that she was going to say no. however, as I watched Rarity turn her head to look at me and then Sweetie Belle once more, she sighed and gave a faint smile “Okay, just make sure you girls are on your best behaviour. I’ll need to tell Twilight though. She wants to speak with Aero about a few things.” She turned back to her peers and started to guide AppleJack and Rainbow Dash away a little bit. “You girls go on and play. But don’t go near the Everfree forest, I’m sure Aero could tell you why when she remembers.” They trotted away and almost instantly I was pulled into a group huddle without even realising.

“So girls, what’s the plan?” Scootaloo asked and then looked directly across to me “Any ideas Aero?” I shook my head and looked across to Sweetie Belle “You don’t say much do you?” she giggled, smirking at me.

I went a light shade of red, noticeable even through my black fur as I flushed from the embarrassment. I wasn’t used to my voice and it was just strange to have a voice that sounded so much younger than my own, although my current voice was now the voice I had and despite my protest to talk, I had to just prove the young Pegasus wrong. “You try talking loads in front of new ponies you’ve never met.” I replied with a flare of sass. I began to grow fond of it, and I felt rather admired by them for just one second before Scootaloo answered back.

“Well it’s not really a problem for me. I’m not new. Where are you from anyways?” I blinked; her tone changed so quickly I almost didn’t have time to register, but then I found an old urge resurface in response to her.

A certain talent of mine was being vague just at the points where it really wasn’t necessary and I know how much it annoyed my parents. “I’m not from here.” I stated blankly, smirking at the filly.

AppleBloom cut into the centre of the huddle, preventing the potential argument from breaking out. “Now girls, we’re s’posed to be gettin’ along.” She chirped, grinning to try and maintain the peace she had found “Whilst you two were going at each other’s necks, Sweetie Belle and I had a great idea.”

I sighed in my head. This couldn’t be safe, whatever they were thinking. “Yeah, maybe we could get our Cutie Marks in being daring. Like…” Sweetie Belle looked around at the ground, kicking up a little bit of dust. “I’ve got it! We could get our Cutie Marks for being daring by being shot out of a cannon.” My eyes went wide in shock. Being shot out of a cannon was spoken of so lightly here. I blanked out for a second, but reeled back when I had all three with their eyes glued to me. “What do you think Aero?” 

I groaned and tilted my head to the side as I traced a hoof along the floor “I..” I looked back at them to see all the hope in their faces and again, I sighed to myself ‘I’m gonna regret this. I can tell already.’ “I think it sounds awesome!” I giggled with glee and they joined me. 

We rushed away from our standing point and headed to Ponyville. We were going so quick that I didn’t even realise when we got to Ponyville how far we’d gone. I followed them all to Sugarcube corner and we went inside. I was amazed at all the different cakes I saw. It was incredible how they managed to make the cakes with their hooves, but then again I had a sneaking suspicion that these hooves weren’t like the ones that were in my previous world. The treats were starting to make my mouth water and I had to quickly wipe away any drool. I was sure AppleBloom caught me and was even doing the same as me. We both giggled quietly when the two, who I presumed to be the owners of the bakery arrived. “Hello Mr and Mrs Cake. Is Pinkie Pie home?” Sweetie Belle asked.

The next thing we heard was a loud bang and crash before seeing the pink pony herself leap down the stairs. “Did someone call my name? Oh, it’s a guessing game. Was it…..you?” she pointed at me, her eyes going wide and serious. She quickly turned and did the same to the rest of them. “I give up, you’re good. I couldn’t get the answer from you. So, what do you want?” she grinned, leaning in to us. I felt a little bit creeped out by her, but I couldn’t help utter a small laugh at her actions. It seemed like she saw everything as a game, and to be honest it was a good trait, although it was the kind of thing that most people would have scorned back in my old home. “Oh let me guess again!” we rolled our eyes and Scootaloo took the initiative to grab a cupcake and shove it into her mouth. It made all of us laugh when she tried talking even though she had the cake in her mouth, making it impossible to understand her muffled speaking.

AppleBloom grabbed Pinkie’s head and pulled her closer. She smiled and whispered something into Pinkie’s ears, causing both of them to smile as Pinkie nodded. AppleBloom looked back at us and quickly saluted with a cheeky smile, letting us know that she had secured the deal for our plan. ‘Great’ I thought to myself ‘Now I have to do it.’ “Sooo…you want me to let you borrow my party cannon to shoot yourselves into the sky and get your cutie marks. That would be amazing!” Pinkie yipped excitedly. “Let’s get this show on the road everypony!” we were all grabbed and quickly whisked away.

Pinkie had got the cannon ready for us and we found an open area where I made sure that there would be as little chance as possible of crashing into some poor, unsuspecting pony’s home. Scootaloo volunteered to go first because she already had a helmet for the landing. Pinkie Pie gave me one of her helmets, and although it looked silly, I knew that it was good enough because of how much experience Pinkie must have had with that cannon, and the helmet. Sweetie Belle had her helmet, designed by her sister Rarity, and AppleBloom seemed to have a full-on crash helmet. She noticed me looking and blushed, giving a rather sad expression of distaste “Don’t ask. It’s just mah sister AppleJack is really overprotective of me.” I giggled causing her to blush even more “Please don’t laugh at me, ah can’t help it. Ah try tellin’ er all the time, but she doesn’t notice.” She sighed and I walked up next to her.

“Sorry AppleBloom. I just couldn’t stop myself. At least you have a sister to keep you safe.” I smiled and she returned with a small hug. I noticed the young Pegasus clamber into the cannon and Pinkie was standing beside like one of the royal soldiers in England; her face was blank of expression until Scootaloo made it in. she seemed to bounce into life again and set a spark on to the cannon’s detonating rope. “Are you sure we should do this?” I asked and received three nods, each from Pinkie, Sweetie and AppleBloom. “Okay then.” I shrugged and reluctantly watched as the cannon got closer to firing. 

The spark reached the cannon and within an instant we heard a long bang and saw a certain orange Pegasus filly soar through the skies, her small wings flapping at lightning speed. I was sure that flapping her wings that fast would tire her out, but I wouldn’t say anything just in case I looked like an idiot to the others. We all gasped in wonder as we saw her disappear from view; maybe my safeguarding measures hadn’t been quite so perfect. How was I supposed to know that Pinkie’s cannon would rival any other military cannon. I sighed in relief as we all heard her cheer from wherever she landed “That was awesome!” we all giggled and Pinkie hugged us all. Once again I was feeling the force of a very strong hug.

“Which one of you brave crusaders are next?” Pinkie asked, setting up the cannon again. I wasn’t sure but I could have sworn that she changed the gradient in which the cannon pointed, but maybe I was just imagining things. “You have a go!” she pointed to me and grabbed me by the hoof, almost throwing me into the cannon. The inside of it was a lot softer than I thought and when I looked down I found out why; it was covered with confetti and various other party features that Pinkie was famous for bringing. “Now remember, try to flap your wings.” She warned.

I froze “Wait, what? Why do ahhh!” I screamed as I was shot out of the cannon. I did just as I saw Scootaloo do and I flapped my wings hard. I looked to the ground and saw that I was descending rather fast. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and started flapping harder. Before too long all I could hear was the relentless flapping of my wings and my heavy breathing as I struggled to stay up, and then I heard something else. It was Scootaloo.

I had got past her, and yet she called as if it was a great thing. “Aero. Open your eyes!” I did as she said and opened my eyes slowly, seeing that I was not falling at all now. I looked across to see my small wings outstretched and I was flying. I was actually flying. Being on Rainbow’s back as she flew was fun, but this was so much more so. The wind I felt breeze past my mane was gentle and I started kicking my legs, cheering. “Way to go Aero! You’re flying!” Scootaloo yelled happily. I was a little bit surprised, considering that she would also want to fly. Yet she didn’t seem jealous that I had got to that stage before her.

I called out loud “I’m actually flying.” I was in utter disbelief and from above the land of Equestria; I could see just how scenic it all was. I looked back down at Scootaloo and gave a few more confident flaps of my wings before turning around and going back to her. Unfortunately, I got a little too over my head, and as I descended I closed my eyes to get myself down steadily. “I can’t believe it” I grinned again, but a gust of wind that I didn’t detect meant that I was nearly over turned and as I tried to right myself I lost all control and plummeted to the ground. It wasn’t one of those times where I was saved just before I hit. I hit the ground and I hit it hard. I hazily lifted myself up onto my legs and saw I made an actual dent in the ground.

Despite the obvious pain I was in, Scootaloo giggled “Well okay, you can nearly fly.” She smirked; her tone immediately snapping me out of my daze.

I pressed my face up against hers and we playfully glared at each other. “You saw it. I was flying and you know it.” My competitive side was starting to show itself. Scootaloo just laughed and repeated what she said the first time. “Well why is it nearly flying?” I questioned, starting to get a little too worked up about it, and it was obvious Scootaloo had worked out that I was easily wound up by anything that involved being good at anything, particularly if I was proud of said achievement.

She shrugged and smirked again, her eyes closed as she tried to hold back even more of her laughter. “Well. To be able to say you can fly means that you’ve gotta be able to land properly and you couldn’t do that, so you can ‘nearly’ fly.” She pointed her nose in the air and smiled triumphantly.

I was starting to get desperate for reasons and I was getting really annoyed now. “I can’t help it if the wind suddenly got stronger. That’s the first time I was flying by myself. How was I supposed to know the wind would do that?” I argued although it didn’t change her expression.

She held the same smug expression “Well, even if you just want to fly then you would know that if the wind changes then you have to adapt to it. It’s what all the best flyers do. Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to know that.” She flicked her tail at my nose. I was almost in a fit of rage and I wanted to argue my point as much as I could but I couldn’t even get another word in before we had AppleBloom land right in between us.

“Oof!” she grunted as she hit the ground. I can only imagine how much that hurt for her and I winced as she hit the ground on a rebound. I was n awe on how she just got up and shook it off, although I guess being a farm pony makes you pretty tough, but it was still ridiculous. She stood next to me and look to Scootaloo. “Hey Scoots did ya see Aero tryin’ ta fly. I couldn’t believe mah stars. She was actually flyin’ and it was amazin’.” I smirked back at Scootaloo and winked, my pride having been defended. “Uh girls. As much fun as that was, ah don’t see us getting’ our cutie marks from being shot out of a cannon. Sweetie Belle wouldn’t even do it. She was too scared. And ah don’t think that she wanted to be seen in that helme-aaaahhhh!” she screamed as Pinkie landed right next to her.

Pinkie grinned and looked around as we all came out from behind a bush after being startled like that “Oh hey! So, do you wanna go back now, or do you wanna do it again or what?” she neighed excitedly.

I lowered my head and looked up at her “No offence Miss Pie, but I think we’ve all agreed that we’re not exactly cut out to be daredevils like we thought at first.” I sighed in relief that the others had agreed that we shouldn’t do anything dangerous now. I stopped for a second and then frowned. “Did you leave Sweetie Belle on her own?” Pinkie shook her head. “Then who exactly did you leave her with?”

“With those other two fillies who said they are her friends of course, silly. I wouldn’t leave her with anyone. Duh.” Pinkie started to trot back to the cannon, which was very far away, but thank fully we hadn’t gone into the Everfree forest. “Huh. Does anyone smell something funny?” Pinkie asked before suddenly galloping. The three of us struggled to keep pace with her.

I started to pant hard “H-how is she so fast?” the other two were concentrating too hard on keeping up with Pinkie, so I just shook my head and continued to follow behind her, although this was proving too much of a task. “Pinkie, wait!” I cried out and within a flash she had stopped. She stopped quicker than any of us could react and we all tumbled into her, sending the four of us rolling along the ground. We screamed out, except Pinkie seemed to be screaming for joy.

When we came to a stop I stood up and shook myself back into sanity. When my vision stopped spinning and I steadied myself I saw that Sweetie Belle was indeed accompanied by two other ponies, and they looked to be her…our age too. I smirked “Last one there is a rotten egg.” I charged forwards towards Sweetie Belle and her two accomplices. I snuck a look back and saw that the two others fillies were staying behind, looking scared and worried for some reason. When I finally reached Sweetie Belle I actually grinned and hugged her as if I had been her friend forever. Again, I noticed how she had gone rather limp in her attitude. “What’s wrong?” I asked as I saw her start to sob.

“Who are you?” a voice sniped. I looked around to see the two other fillies that were with Sweetie Belle. I cleared my throat and smiled at them.

I put one hoof to my face “My name is Aero Crown. What about you?” 

The magenta coloured pony just scoffed and glared daggers at me. Instantly I felt a little bit insecure now. “Haha, I see that the Cutie Mark Crusaders have made a new playmate. And she’s another blank flank.” The two fillies giggled with each other again “I am Diamond Tiara, and this” she pointed to the grey pony next to her “is Silver Spoon. “The two of them already appeared a bit too arrogant. I was tolerant and arrogant a lot of the time myself, but there was a limit, and these girl’s demeanours were just dripping arrogance and self righteousness. I rolled my eyes as they got together “bump bump sugarlump rump.” They chimed. I rolled my eyes again and sighed, stepping forwards even as I saw the others practically shake in their presence.

“You’re actually going to make me sick if you do that again.” I said, frowning at them. Once again all they did was laugh and call me a blank flank. “I think I’d rather have a blank flank than know you though.” I kept my tone flat; just to see if I could crack this girl. I smirked as the first signs were showing.

She huffed and got right into my face “Yeah, well we can arrange you being gone if that sounds better to you. You blank flanks are nothing special, you hear me?” she smirked back at me, flicking up one of her eyebrows. They both turned and started to trot away. I was seething with anger. I had just been openly insulted and I couldn’t do anything to bring her right back into the argument. I was about to charge for them, but was tugged back by my tail. I yelped at first and looked back to see that it was Sweetie Belle holding me back with her mouth on my tail.

I fell back and narrowly avoided crashing onto her. She looked at me with the same expression of despair that the other two showed me and I could see the last few tears she had been working up fade. “Don’t bother.” She sulked “Going after them won’t make them stop, believe me if it would then we would have done it a long time ago.”

I felt myself twitch with my anger fading, but still present. “I promise I won’t. I just don’t understand why she has to be such an arrogant, self centred little pony. What is her problem?” I raised an eyebrow, looking at Sweetie Belle curiously. However, she seemed too upset, so I stopped “Don’t worry about it. I took the brunt of it for you.” She leapt up to hug me. We in turn were knocked down as Pinkie and the other two joined the hug.

Pinkie lifted her head above us and her eyes darted across us as she smiled “So we’re done right?” we nodded. “So you and Aero go back to Rarity’s and I’ll take the other two back home. Heck I know AppleJack will be getting some cupcakes at this time anyway.” And she was gone with AppleBloom and Scootaloo in a quick pink flash.

I sat there for a moment “Is she seriously always like that.” Sweetie nodded and started to walk back, her head still hanging low. “Hey come on now. You’ll see that your future is brighter than those two.” I cooed and found a faint smile growing on her face “The more you smile the better you’re gonna feel.” I giggled and she gave a massive grin “Although maybe not that much.” She frowned at first until we both broke out into laughter. I was just thinking of how in one day I had managed to get so involved. It was more than I had done in most days of my life back in my human body. And yet I still had a whole slumber party with Sweetie Belle to get through yet as well as Twilight ‘discussing’ a plan for me to follow when I start living with her. It was gonna be interesting, that’s for sure.

> A Fitting First Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity welcomed both Sweetie Belle and I as we got to the carousel boutique. The both of us had been laughing on the way back and I had Sweetie tell me what seemed to be all of what she could remember, although we stopped once we got back. Rarity opened the door for us and we walked in. I gasped as I looked around; everything looked so well polished and exquisite. I looked and saw some of the dresses she had made and for some reason I felt like my heart was beating twice as fast. Back on Earth there was no way anyone would catch me wearing a dress. The only time I had worn a dress was when I went to my school’s prom, and I felt ridiculous. However, these dresses were simply dazzling. I could understand why others were amazed by Rarity’s talent, it was incredible. I shook myself from my stupor and tried to act normal. For some reason though I actually liked those dresses particularly the golden one with some rather stylish looking shoes that looked almost Herculean. “You like my clothes?” she smiled and lifted a smaller dress with what I now presumed was magic and guided it over to me. “On to your hind hooves for just a second darling.” She said and I found that I was able to. The dress slipped on into a perfect fit. Rarity came trotting over to me, carrying a mirror with her magic and she held it up to me, so I could see what the dress looked like on me “What do you think? Est-il beau?” she chimed and then looked over it, frowning quickly “Oh no. What was I thinking? That colour does not suit you at all, how could I have not seen it before?” The dress was quickly taken off of me and I soon saw that there were a range of coloured fabrics now floating around me. “Mm no. No that’s not it. No. No. I’m sorry my dear, but I seem to be having a little mental block for your own dress.” She chuckled as she searched through the other colours. However, all the fabric dropped to the floor when Sweetie Belle intervened.

“No stop, she’s my friend Rarity.” Sweetie protested. “Aero, my sister as you probably tell makes dresses and stuff. I’ve tried to and I made the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ capes. I guess I’ll have to make you one soon seeing as you’re going to be one of us.” She smiled with large eyes and her horn sparked off a little bit of magic. “Rarity can I have more of that cool golden fabric?” she looked back to her sister and gave her a look of pleading. Rarity sighed heavily before nodding although I could see she was reluctant. “Okay let’s go.” I was suddenly grabbed and dragged away to her room. “C’mon, we’re gonna have the best slumber party ever!” she cheered and let go because we’d got into her room. It wasn’t as grand as when I walked into the boutique, but it was actually very nice. “So Aero what do you want to do?” she tilted her head to the side and waited for a response. 

I looked around the room as I tried to think of something. “Uh well I have never been to a slumber party before. I don’t really know what to do.” I laughed nervously, feeling a bit insecure about it now. Back on Earth I never went to slumber parties to keep up my reputation of not being ‘girly’; and I couldn’t see the appeal to them. What was the fun in them and why were so many girls I knew obsessed with having them? I could never work it out, but I thought that I might as well give it a go, just to be kind to Sweetie. 

She looked around as well; clearly we weren’t getting off to the best of starts because I didn’t know what to do and she didn’t know what I would like to do. “No matter, I’m sure Rarity can help us. She’s been to loads of slumber parties and she says that they’re great fun.” She sighed “I just wish that AppleBloom and Scootaloo could’ve stayed the night, but they both have other things to do. That’s why I was so happy when you were allowed to come over. I won’t mind so much when Twilight speaks to you. In fact I think she would let me help you.” She gasped and smiled ecstatically “Maybe I could get my cutie mark for helping others with advice.” She proudly trotted over to me “I think it would be best if you behave yourself whilst here.” She was quick to check her flank to see if it had appeared, but was disappointed to see nothing new appearing there. “I guess it won’t happen after giving you advice once.” She shrugged and went over to her bed, hopping up onto it and picking up her pillow. “I think Rarity said that she had a pillow fight at one slumber party, so wanna try that?” I nodded and she tossed me her other pillow. I don’t know how to explain it, but I was able to pick up the pillow with one hoof. I decided it was best to not question how, because the laws of irony would then state that I would be unable to actually pick anything up because I would think about it too much. 

I narrowed my eyes as I held the pillow in my grip “Game on sister.” I gave a small war cry and charged forwards as she leapt off of her bed and whacked me with her pillow. I could hardly say that hurt but I still grunted a little on the impact anyway. I tried to hit her even though she was behind. I fell down as my hoof knocked over my other forehoof. She struck another blow and I couldn’t help but giggle. “Not bad, but now I’ll start trying.” I taunted and got up, running to the other side of her room. I turned around and saw her charging at me. Out of nothing but pure reaction, my wings flapped and I was lifted into the air out of her reach. She stopped below me and frowned.

“That’s no fair, I can’t fly.” She whined and I soon went back down, landing just fine. I made a mental note to remind Scootaloo of my success next time I saw her. How I didn’t see that coming down was a bad idea I don’t know because as soon as my hooves touched the floor I was whacked in the face again by Sweetie. She giggled and ran away, anticipating a comeback from me. I glared playfully at her and charged forwards; able to catch up to her and I gave a hefty hit to her back, although because it was only a pillow it didn’t really do much. “Wait.” She called, stopping my assault with the pillow in its tracks. “We need more pillows.” She dashed out of her room and left me in there by myself. I dropped my pillow and waited for her, sitting on my haunches. I couldn’t understand why we would need more pillows; I personally couldn’t see myself being able to hold a bipedal stance for more than a minute. It was quiet other than the scuffling sound that I could hear from Sweetie who was obviously retrieving more pillows. She came back with three pillows on her back and one in her mouth. She dropped it and smiled “Problem solved.” 

“What exactly was the problem?” I questioned, causing her to giggle and then turn around, facing away from me. I couldn’t work it out, but I was forced to understand when I saw her buck the pillow as best as she could. I wouldn’t imagine it was anywhere near as strong as if AppleJack did that, but I could still feel the force behind it when it made impact with my face. “Oh that’s why you wanted more pillows; so you could do that.” I grinned and dived for her, catching her left forehoof and grabbing a pillow with my free one. In one quick motion I swiped the pillow into her face and moved quickly enough to pin her down. “Surrender.” I smirked and gently hit her again with a pillow as we were both giggling hysterically “Well do you surrender?” I lifted the pillow up high.

She shook her head and rolled us both over so we were both on our sides. As she did this she grabbed a pillow and we both hit each other’s. we dropped our weapons and kept on giggling at each other “Oh Aero I wouldn’t give up, besides I was going easy on you because it was your first slumber party.” She pouted, winking at me.

I scoffed and nudged her “It’s my first slumber party, not my first pillow fight.” She rolled her eyes and nudged back. I swung my pillow, but she caught it and shook her head.

She stood up and gathered all of the pillows “Y’know what we could do?” I gave a look of bewilderment and she smirked “We could build a fort out of the pillows. I’ll get my sister’s; she has too many anyway. What pony needs four pillows?” she questioned before quickly looking back at me almost as if she knew I was going to answer back with a sarcastic and blunt comment “Apart from my sister. And I don’t even think she needs all of those pillows. Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be really impressed with the for that we make.” She giggled and walked out the door. This time I followed her and went into Rarity’s room. It was grand and had many more designs for dresses, although it was clear they were still works in progress. I was about to question if we should be in there, but it seemed as if Sweetie was able to see what was on my mind “Don’t worry, Rarity won’t mind as long as we don’t touch her stuff.”

I frowned a little bit and tilted my head questioningly “Isn’t taking her pillows touching her stuff.” Sweetie gave a small look of distaste and went back to taking all but one of the pillows. However, she soon dropped them onto the floor when she saw the various bits of fabric assembled around the room. “Sweetie Belle what are you thinking?” I felt a little bit worried to say the least and it wasn’t helped when she turned to me with a smug smile.

She stepped closer as I took a step back “Aero Crown. I am going to give you a makeover, and you are going to look so pretty.” She took a step closer and I found myself up against the wall. “Rarity said how pretty you could be with just the right clothing. Can you imagine just how impressed she will be when she sees that I’ve made you a dress that’s perfect.” Her eyes twinkled and she quickly got her sister’s measurer. I tried to get away, but she was so determined it was impossible; I’d never known something to move so fast other than Rainbow Dash. I was pushed against the wall as she clumsily took the measurements and then she got to work as quick as she could. The colours she picked out actually would suit me, but they were also the same colour as my fur, mane and tail. 

After a few more minutes of watching her work on the dress she was done. I knew that if a piece was done that quickly then it couldn’t be that great, and seeing as Sweetie wasn’t actually known for her excellence in fashion like her sister, I didn’t expect it to be a masterpiece.  “I’ve done it. Now let me put it on. Close your eyes and no peeking. You will be lost for words.” I chuckled in my head. I was sure I would be speechless, but I wasn’t sure it would be for the reason she hoped for. I felt her shuffle me and lift my legs as she put the dress on me. From what I could feel of it, the fabric was fine and it didn’t feel like an uncomfortable fit. So far, I was amused and pleasantly surprised by her piece. However, when she cooed “Open your eyes now.” I nearly fainted from how it compared to one of her sister’s pieces of work. It wasn’t that it was bad; it’s just that it was so striking that it caught me off guard. Unfortunately, the way she used the colours of me just seemed to make them clash when I wore them. The stitching was a little bit less professional looking, but I smiled to her nonetheless.

I posed for her and nodded “Yeah, I like it. You look like you could follow in your sister’s footsteps, although not without any practice.” She grinned and I could see that is what she wanted to hear. However, I felt a pang of guilt rise in my gut because I just fed her some false hope. I laughed nervously and spoke up again “But wouldn’t it be cooler to be unique from your sister? So that you two could work together when you’re older.” I hoped she would take it and accept my offering. She stopped and stared around the room.

“You’re right. When I am travelling the world to give everypony advice, she will be my costume designer. Ugh Aero you’re so right!” she squeaked, hopping up and down on the spot happily. The mood went from euphoric to desperation within a second as she stopped and gave an upset look to me “Oh no, Rarity’s coming upstairs and we made all of this mess.” She panicked and paced around the room. “Quick! Get the dress off and go distract her whilst I clear up everything.” She ordered and nearly ripped the dress off of me, proving the slight lack of quality her amateur project had. I nipped out the door and walked towards the stairs.

I was greeted by the sight of Rarity coming up the stairs, her purple mane in the same style as it was always seen. “Oh hello there Aero. Do you know where Sweetie Belle is?” she asked and I shook my head at her, smiling as innocently as I could.

I looked around for her and then shook my head again “I think she just went to get something.” I heard a small thud come from rarity’s room and was thankful that Rarity didn’t notice even though I visually twitched in time with the thud. “Uh, Rarity could you tell me what the best things to do in Ponyville are? I guessed that if I am going to live in the town now, I should probably know what all the good things are and where the best places to go are.” She just chuckled as I waffled on at her. “What?” I pondered my left wing twitching as I became self conscious.

“Don’t worry darling. I was just laughing because you speak as if you’ll have time for all of that. Why at your age you will be at school with Sweetie Belle and your new friends. I suppose there are some good things to do at the weekend. Well there is a bowling alley and then if you ever want to have some fun I’m sure that Pinkie will be more than happy to assist you. That girl acts like she’s just a young filly anyway.” Rarity laughed and shook her head at the thought of Pinkie. I was too busy being annoyed that I would still have to go to school. It didn’t matter what universe I was in it seemed; I would still have to go to school and because I was now even younger I would have even longer in another education system. “Excuse me Aero, I need to quickly get something from my room.” Immediately I snapped into my thoughts and actually flew in front of her. “My goodness. You’ve learnt to fly already. Why, Rainbow Dash will be overjoyed.” She bit her bottom lip “And might I add that your wings look so striking, yet so delicate. Tu es magnifique.” She whinnied and then just walked around me and was about to open the door.

I sighed in relief as I heard the door getting knocked and Rarity turned around “Well I suppose I’ll have to go see who that is.” She looked over to me “I would imagine that it’s Twilight. She wants to speak to you about; as she called it ‘life plans in Ponyville’. I shouldn’t worry my darling. I shan’t be long.” She disappeared from my sight as she descended down the flight of stairs. I scampered over to her room and opened the door to see the horrible mess that Sweetie Belle had accidentally made. She smiled back at me timidly. I closed the door behind me and started to move things.

“Come on we’ve still got time before she gets here. I think Twilight is at the door. We just need to be quick.” I asserted and forced her to get up and start putting the pillows back on Rarity’s bed. We both started to panic and speed up as we heard the hoof steps up the stairs. 

Sweetie Belle opened one of Rarity’s closets and gestured for me to go to her “We can hide all of it in here if we’re quick. Let’s hurry.” We collected all that we could and shoved it into the closet. Sweetie gave the signal to close the door and we both grabbed each door, closing as quickly and as quietly as we could before we both rushed out of her room and made it back into Sweetie’s room before we were seen. “That was too close. Do you think she’ll notice that we’ve been in there though?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment before smiling hopefully “Well I don’t think so. I think we did a pretty good job of it all. I mean obviously you were great at getting everything away and then I had the genius plan of putting everything in her closet. Maybe you and I will….no never mind.” She giggled. I soon joined her and without knowing, the door had opened and there were the two mares smiling as they watched us.

I froze when I saw the two unicorns and went on the defensive “How long have you been watching?” I snapped although Sweetie Belle was still giggling to herself, smiling to the older two ponies. “I mean…sorry.” I lowered my head, knowing I jumped to the defensive way too quickly.

Twilight shook her head and smiled “Well Aero Crown I see that you’ve gotten along and made friends already. I know from experience that friendship is a great thing to have.” I nodded, actually knowing exactly how she discovered how great friendship was. “It’s great to see you settling in, it really is. Would you like to discuss the plans now?” she asked. I nodded. It was better to get it out of the way than delay it for an even worse time. “Great. Rarity is it okay if Aero and I can discuss these plans alone. It will probably get Sweetie Belle bored and someone’s got to keep her company.” She looked to Sweetie “Sorry. I’ll just be borrowing Aero for a little bit. She’s going to be staying with m”

“Yeah yeah I know. Rarity told me earlier.” She trotted away with rarity following her. I could tell that Sweetie Belle was a little bit upset that she didn’t get to try out her new cutie mark idea, but I would find a way to cheer her up later. Twilight plopped onto the bed when we were alone and I sat next to her.

She sat up and looked at me “Hey don’t look so scared. I’m not exactly difficult to live with. You’ll just have to ask Spike that.” She pouted and gave a proud pose. I tried to hide a giggle, having seen on the show that Twilight can be rather high maintenance at time, in my opinion at least. “Right. The ground rules; you will get up when you are told. You will eat all of your food that Spike will have prepared for you. You will respect my studying hours, and seeing as you will also be at school I expect you to study at the same times as me. I expect you to have done all of your homework on time. If you’re finished reading a book then put it back exactly where you found it. If you can’t remember just give it to Spike and he will be able to work out where it goes. There will be no staying up late, especially for a young filly such as yourself. You will help out with the various chores that Spike and I will also be doing. I expect you to respect studying time as a silent time; how else can you concentrate on what you’re doing?” my eyes got larger as the list continued. I didn’t know there could be so many rules. Back on Earth the rules I had were less strict and more like ‘make sure you don’t do drugs’ and that was about as extreme as it got. “Those are the house rules.” She smiled “Now on to the rules if we are in public..” I silently groaned as she began again; I was hoping for a smaller list than this. “I expect you to be polite to anypony. If they aren’t polite to you just tell me, but I still expect you to be polite regardless. If I give you an allowance to get something; the allowance is for the month, so don’t spend it all in one go…” I could feel my eyes start to droop a little bit as she pressed on with her regimental rule setting. “…Finally,” my ears perked at the sound of that one word, it was nearly over “if I say no to anything; it means no. Comprende?” I simply nodded and smiled as I found that it was finally over. “I have already told Miss Cheerilee that you will be joining her class as soon as you’re ready and she’s made extra space in her class just for you.”

I yawned after hearing all of that. “I think I’ll be ready tomorrow I guess.”

Twilight smiled “Great! I will meet you after school tomorrow. I’ll be waiting out the front so I can show you where your new home will be.” She clapped her hooves together excitedly “This is gonna be so much fun. Having you around will be like having a little sister I’m sure.” She suddenly sat up straight and looked down upon me “This does mean that you and Sweetie Belle will have to get a decent night’s rest, okay?” I smiled and nodded, knowing full well that we wouldn’t be sleeping much; we’d barely got started. “I guess that’s everything we needed to do then. Uh…” she paused and looked around for something to say, making the atmosphere feel a little awkward “welcome to my family I guess.” She quickly back tracked “Well not my bloodline, but you’re living with me and…never mind. I look forward to spending time with you.”

I giggled “Twilight I knew what you meant. And thank you. I look forward to staying there. You said it’s a library, right?” she smiled and nodded “Yeah I like libraries. Can’t remember the last one I went to though…I can’t remember much since waking up earlier actually.” I frowned, just to keep up an impressive lie. I couldn’t tell them I wasn’t actually from this universe; it would have blown their trust of me right away.

“I’ll be on my way then. I’ll see you tomorrow Aero. Have a great slumber party, but make sure you don’t….” she was interrupted by the loud scream we heard from just the next room. It was Rarity; I cringed as I worked out what had happened. I felt sorry for Sweetie Belle because she was with Rarity when her ‘discovery’ was made. Twilight and I went to her room and saw Rarity practically hyperventilating with the dress that Sweetie made on the floor in front of her. “What’s going on in here?” Twilight calmly asked. Rarity could only manage to point feebly at the fashion ‘faux-pas’ that she was looking at. “What is that?”

“It’s a dress I made for Aero.” Sweetie said quietly, waiting to be scorned. I lowered my eyes as I’d now been dropped into it. “I just thought that because Rarity said she couldn’t find the right colours that maybe if I did then she would like it and let me help more often. Isn’t that right Aero?” all heads turned to me and I froze on the spot. I didn’t know what to do; I could see that Rarity was likely to get worse if I accepted what Sweetie was saying. However, I didn’t want to lose somepony who considered me a friend so quickly. 

I took in a deep breath, nodded and spoke up “Yeah it’s true. She only did it because she was trying to be like Rarity, honest.” My voice sounded so small and so weak when I said that. It felt really strange to be almost influenced by the fear I had of being punished; I’d got over that many years before…in my human body.

Rarity calmed down, but kept her eyes on the ‘dress’ “Twilight. Can you put these girls to bed please? I need some time alone.” She took deep breaths and tried to calm down, but her voice was shaky and she seemed a little bit unhinged; was it really that bad? Twilight nodded and gently guided us out of the room and into Sweetie Belle’s. She made sure we were in bed and turned out the lights as she walked out.

I whispered to Sweetie Belle “What do you wanna do next?” I was a little bit nervous to her response and I felt my tail twitch as I waited.

She sighed heavily and turned to face me on her side “I dunno Aero. I think this time we should go to sleep. My sister looked pretty upset. It’s probably best that we go to sleep rather than cause more trouble.” She sighed again and went back to cuddling her half of the blanket, lying on her back.

I turned to face her again “Okay then Sweetie Belle. Before we go to sleep can I ask you one more thing?” she turned to face me again although she still looked worried.

“Okay. One thing though.”

“Can I sit next to you in class tomorrow?” I blushed, feeling embarrassed that I’d even have to ask such a question.

“I think Miss Cheerilee would let you if we asked nicely.” I smiled and we both then began to drift off into a peaceful sleep. At least, it was for me despite the worry of Rarity’s reaction in the morning.                                

> Higher Learning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Sweetie Belle and I woke up we were quickly alerted by the sweet aroma that had wafted across into the room. We moved towards the source of the smell as if we were possessed. I could only guess what it was, but I didn’t care because it smelt wonderful. “Hey Aero what do you think it is?” Sweetie said, still following the scent in her daze. I was too caught up in my own to respond properly so instead I gave a small nod and kept on walking. We got closer to the source as we were faced with the kitchen, but still it wasn’t in our sight. We darted in and saw Rarity sitting at the table with an empty plate, yet the smell was clearly coming from that plate and our ears fell back slightly “I should’ve known Rarity would do something like that…” she sighed.

Rarity turned her head towards us and smiled. “Good to see you’re up girls. That breakfast I had was simply divine. It was one of AppleJack’s apple fritters and it was irresistible.” She teased as our stomachs started to rumble. “You girls really missed out on a treat, but you know what they say; the early bird catches the worm.” She smirked and I could see Sweetie Belle almost steaming with anger. It was clear to me that Sweetie Belle was a pony who appreciated breakfast and didn’t want to miss out on it. I hadn’t actually eaten since I arrived in Equestria, so I was quick to join Sweetie in her aggressive stance and all Rarity could do was laugh. I was slightly confused by her laughter and began looking around and then looking at myself and Sweetie to see if it was us. “You two are adorable. I went out early in the morning to get those fritters and you think that I had them all to myself? That wouldn’t be very ladylike of me.” She winked before pulling away the extra bit of cloth on the table and revealing two extra fritters, each on their individual plate. “Did you girls both think that I would stop you from having breakfast?” we both nodded firmly and then sat at the table. “Why on Equestria would you think I would do that?”

“Because yesterday we upset you by using your fabrics and making a mess.” Sweetie stuttered. I could see Rarity visibly twitch just at the thought of last night’s drama, but she regained herself and shook her head.

She stood in between the two of us and gave a soft chuckle “Oh you young fillies were just being creative, and how could I not understand? Last night I was just being irrational and I should’ve realised that you were trying to be helpful.” She smiled and walked back a couple of feet “Now dig in girls. You haven’t got long before you have to go to school, and Aero don’t forget that Twilight will be meeting you outside after school has finished.” I nodded and both of us started to eat our breakfast. 

Initially I was a bit reluctant to start because I had never been a fan of apples or any apple based product, so having an apple fritter didn’t seem too appetising to me, but my stomach rumbled enough to tell me that I would have to put my fussiness behind. I watched Sweetie Belle eat hers without using her hooves or anything, so I assumed it wouldn’t look silly for me to do that, although when I started I wasn’t quite as messy as her. “Sweetie Belle, look at Aero and see how she’s managing to keep the crumbs on her plate. I want you to be able to do that as well.” Rarity scolded. After the first bite my mind went all numb and fuzzy. This apple based product was amazing and I felt stupid for my previous doubts. The taste was simply incredible; it was sweet yet with a certain hint of sour flavour in it. The texture was incredible and I couldn’t get over it; it was just like it was melting in my mouth. When I realised how good it was I was soon eating at the same rate as Sweetie Belle, if not quicker. We finished at the same time and both turned, grinning at each other.

I giggled “Sweetie Belle. You have some on your face.” We both began laughing incessantly, but we were silenced when a cloth was levitated in front of both of us and then it closed its distance and wiped our faces. We could only hear Rarity laughing and we couldn’t help but join in even whilst our faces were being cleaned by the cloths.

I looked on at Sweetie Belle as her face was still being cleaned and I looked across to see Rarity enjoying this. Finally the cloth dropped and Sweetie shot a glare at her sister. The purple-maned unicorn put a hoof to her chest to say she’s innocent, but all three of us were quick to burst into laughter. This was cut short when an alarm went off and I panicked; was something bad happening, was there a fire? I realised soon that I was being laughed at by the other two. I frowned and Sweetie Belle disappeared briefly, returning with a saddlebag on her back and another in her mouth. She dropped it on the floor before speaking to me “That was just the alarm to say that it’s time to go. It also signals the start to Rarity’s working hours, but it works with both happening at the same time. You can have my old saddlebag” she gestured to the stylish pink and purple saddlebag. It was obvious who had made this one. It was lifted by the same purple aura that lifted me just yesterday and the saddlebag was placed on my back. It was a perfect fit and I actually found it rather comfortable, although its colour was not normally my style. However, despite it not being my style I found it suitable and I could always get a new one if I wanted it. I was sure Twilight wouldn’t mind if I used my ‘allowance’ she was talking about, to get something related to education. “C’mon Aero we’ve gotta go. We’re already running late.” She blurted, now beginning to panic a little bit.

She dashed out of the door and I followed after her, trying to keep up, but it seemed like she was rivalling Pinkie Pie with that speed. I gritted my teeth and tried even harder. She wasn’t getting any further away, but I wasn’t getting closer at any rate. As I ran I felt a familiar breeze rush past me and then rush back, but all I could see of it was a rainbow trail. “Hey kid. You have wings for a reason.” I looked at my wings as if I was confused “C’mon I saw you flying just fine yesterday. It’s faster and much less effort once you get the hang of it.” Rainbow encouraged as she kept on whizzing past me. “Here let me help.” She chuckled and I found myself being picked up. She kept at the pace I was running and held me “Open your wings up, but make sure that it’s not open to the wind except at the narrowest point so……have them horizontal.” I opened out my wings and found the wind catching on to them fast, almost pulling them back “Horizontal” Rainbow repeated. With eyes that were watering from their exposure to the air I looked back at one of my wings and started to turn it so that it appeared flat and my other wing followed. Immediately I felt the resistance decrease dramatically “See I told ya. Now what you’re gonna do it you’re gonna flap your wings so that it pushes you off the ground a little bit, but it’s also going to propel you forwards. Try it with me.” She urged and let go of me, making sure to keep pace with me. “Ready?” I nodded, looking forward to concentrate. I started flapping my wings just like Rainbow said to and I soon found myself moving forwards. It started out slower than my run, but I soon gained momentum and I was moving even quicker than before. “Atta girl Aero!” Rainbow cheered as she drifted beside me, almost trying to let me know how much faster she was. 

Sweetie Belle’s once disappearing figure was now getting closer and closer. I smirked as I rushed past her, sticking my tongue out. I didn’t realise how fast I was going and looked back to see I was going fast enough for Sweetie to stumble from the force that followed behind me. I laughed almost manically and even Rainbow chuckled a little bit. However, I realised something. “I don’t actually know the way to school.” I looked back again at Sweetie Belle to see her running again and comically panting in her efforts to get to school on time. I wasn’t looking where I was going and as I turned my head back I saw a tree coming impossibly close and I started to flail my wings to stop myself, but it was too late and I whacked into the tree and dropped down after the impact. As I sat up I groaned and rubbed my head “Ouch…that hurt.” I said rather nonchalantly. I was thankful I had managed to keep my pain barrier after my transformation and I stood back up feeling a little bit dizzy, but actually okay. 

“Come on Aero lets go!” Sweetie Belle called and ran past me. I was still amazed that my saddleback was still on. I caught up to her with the trick Dash had taught me. I looked around to see that the pony had completely vanished, nowhere to be seen. I looked up to the sky and caught a faint glimmer of a rainbow. Obviously she had decided on an impromptu lesson and then left when she was done. Did she even see me crash? “Nice flying trick. It’s just a shame you still can’t land.” Sweetie chuckled as I followed her and we finally caught sight of the school. To me it looked pretty old fashioned and quite small; maybe only enough for one or two classes. I had to remind myself that as a pony I’m probably much smaller than I was as a human and so there was probably more room than I thought. “Race ya!” Sweetie cheered before darting away. Immediately I did what I had just learnt and caught up to Sweetie Belle, winking at her as I went on past her. “Watch out!” she screamed and I soon found out why as I crashed into somepony else. The two of us rolled a couple of times on the ground before coming to a stop. “Oh no.” Sweetie moaned as she saw who I had crashed into. I looked to see a magenta coloured leg. I swore in my head. There was only one pony I could think of with that colour fur.

She huffed and stomped on one of my hooves “Watch where you’re going blank flank!” Diamon Tiara snapped. “Some of us have to make sure that we can use our talents. So beat it!” she squawked and stomped off to the school. Sweetie Belle walked over to me, keeping her eyes on Diamond. “I can’t believe her. She turns up out of nowhere yesterday and then flies about as if she owns the town!” I heard her rant on to whoever was listening and stood up.

Sweetie adjusted my saddlebag a little bit and walked beside me “You sure know how to make an impression on Diamond Tiara. Usually she would act nice at first.” I shrugged and we finally made it into the school. It was simply one large classroom and it appeared to just house for ponies of my age. There was one pony that was much larger than all of us and I quickly deduced that as Miss Cheerilee. We approached her and Sweetie spoke up, getting her attention “Miss Cheerilee because Aero is new can she sit next to me? I’m the only one she really knows.” 

I looked up at the mare, feeling a bit more nervous than I thought I would. I was glad that Sweetie Belle was so comfortable with speaking to her teacher because I sure wasn’t. I’d never been any good at talking to teachers; I always felt like I was going to be patronised. However, when she spoke to me I didn’t feel as if I was being talked to like a baby. “Aero who do you want to sit with?” I pointed to Sweetie Belle and she smiled proudly before she walked over and wrapped her leg around my shoulders, her hoof pointing at the chair next to hers.

We walked over there. On the way I was nearly tripped up by none other than that brat known as Diamond Tiara. She stuck her tongue out and let me pass, whispering yet another imaginative insult…well it was imaginative to her. I may have been a blank flank, but she had a blank mind. I sat at my desk and then a book was dropped in front of me on my desk. I tried to grab the pencil that was there, but woe is me, I forgot about the hooves. Although they could grip some things, a pencil seemed too much. I looked around to see the unicorns using magic, except for Sweetie Belle who was just opening her book and reading. Then I saw AppleBloom using her mouth to write. I cursed to myself again and picked the pencil up with my mouth and I carefully crafted my name onto the book’s front. It looked a bit untidy and could probably seem a bit more refined, but it would do for now, besides I would have lots of time to practice my handwriting…if I could even call it that. “Today we will be starting on some algebra.” Cheerilee announced and it was followed by a groan from most of the class. My ears perked up at hearing the word algebra. I was never the best at it, but I wasn’t bad. It was basically what maths had turned into at my age as a human. “Now can anypony tell me what X is if seven equals five plus X?” I raised my hoof quickly as I saw everyone writing down what she had put on the board. “Yes Aero?”

“X is equalled to two. Because if you rearrange it then you can have seven minus five is equalled to X and seven minus five is two, so therefore X must also be two.” The whole class nodded, not exactly shocked with me getting that right because it was fairly easy algebra anyway. But then I guessed that because this class is for ponies at a younger age than I actually was, the maths would be easier anyway.  

Cheerilee smiled and nodded “Exactly.” She paused for a moment as she thought of another “Okay this one is quite a lot harder and at your age I wouldn’t expect most of you to understand it. Okay, find X when Y=7-3X and 2X+5Y=9” I could Cheerilee was feeling confident, but again it seemed fairly simple to me. I had the advantage of being older than I actually appeared.

I sat back a little bit as others tried to answer. I will admit that I felt a little bit smug then “X equals two.” All eyes turned to me in wonder “If you add all of them together and then separate the letters from the numbers then you can take 3X plus Y and times that by five  so that the whole sum can  mean only X is left when you take away from the other sum and have 15X-2X and 5Y-5Y which would give 13X=26, so X would equal two.” I decided to give it some more flare and I smiled “Which means on a graph, the lines would intersect at two on the X axis. I could find the Y co-ordinate if you want?”  Cheerilee smiled softly and shook her head.

“No that’s quite alright thank you Aero. That’s quite impressive knowledge you have there. Let’s hope it’s not just one thing you can do.” She smiled and set down a textbook on each of our desks. “I want you to all get through as many questions as you can on the algebra section.” I opened my book and saw a vast amount of simple algebraic problems. I sighed to myself, this was going to go painfully slow and I could tell that already. 

The lesson dragged on for a long time. It had been an hour and I was already done with all of the sums. Cheerilee was helping AppleBloom understand it because she was struggling. I sat back on my chair and smiled to myself, but I was snapped back to reality when I felt Sweetie Belle nudging at my side “Are you done?” I nodded and she showed me her book and pointed at the last few questions “Can I have some help?” I nod again and look across at her work. I guided Sweetie through an extra few questions until the bell went. I was so relieved to hear that sound; as good as I was at maths, I didn’t actually enjoy it unless it had some relevance.

We bounded out of the class and met up with the other two ‘crusaders’. I was immediately the centre of attention “How can you do math that good? Ah’ve bin tryin’ for so long to get mah head around it, but it jus’ won’t go in.” AppleBloom sighed. 

I nudged her and smiled “Don’t worry about it. So I know a bit more about maths than you do. I’m certain you know more on other things than I do.” She perked up a bit more and gave a small smile, blushing a little bit through her light fur. We were forced to turn around when we heard Diamond Tiara clearing her throat for our attention. She had a smile on her face that practically demanded everyone to be quiet for her “Oh boy I can’t wait for this.” I sighed, sarcasm making my voice sound flat. “What are you going to say now? Let me guess first; something to do with me having no cutie mark?” I smirked as I saw her getting more frustrated because I wasn’t letting her talk. “Well come on then. Our break doesn’t last forever.”

Diamond stepped forwards again, getting closer to me than I would’ve liked “You listen here! Just because you can do a few sums doesn’t mean that you’re better than everyone else. I would never become stuck up like that.” My jaw nearly touched the floor in shock of what she just said, although I could see her point. Maybe I was being a little bit too proud of myself from that lesson, but I didn’t think I was bragging about it. “You’re nothing special.” She huffed at me.

I scowled at her comment and felt very close to the edge of my tolerance. “Watch what you say Diamond.” Scootaloo warned, getting angry herself “We already explained that having no cutie mark means that there is still potential for her to be anything.” The others nodded in agreement.

I bit my lip and smirked at her “Yeah. You’re stuck being stuck up. You can’t even change the way you act.” I casually blew a few lone hairs from my mane out of my face. We turned around and even though I was still itching to just attack her I didn’t “Girls one day somepony is going to sort her out and put her in her place. If no pony will then I’ll do it.” I held my hoof up and the other clapped theirs against it. I was finally part of a group of friends rather than floating between people. 

We were approached by two fillies that were from our class and they walked up to us with one handle of a skipping rope in each of their mouths. They looked at me as if they were saying something. It didn’t take me long to work out what they were asking, so I nodded and I stood in between them as they started to spin the rope. It was slow at first and I jumped it pretty easily. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle joined me and started jumping with me. The two of them started singing some kind of tune, but I didn’t know what to do so I just kept jumping. When the rope got quicker I naturally had to jump quicker. However, it was easier said than done and my legs were getting tired. “Hey Aero I bet I can last longer than you.” Scootaloo taunted as Sweetie Belle left. How could I say no to that challenge?

“You’re on.” I smirked and we both nodded for the rope to go quicker. Pretty soon I was regretting the decision and I felt on one of the jumps the rope clipped one of my hooves, but that may have been because the rope was slightly higher. However, what I didn’t notice was Diamond Tiara whispering to the fillies with the rope. I heard some giggles, but I was too busy concentrating. “You still good with this, Scoot?” she nodded, grinning back at me. 

Just as I thought I was getting into a rhythm again the two fillies were replaced by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They didn’t start spinning the rope but pulled it so it would straighten out. I was still over it so it caught my forelegs and flipped me over onto my back. I saw that Scootaloo had gotten out of it just fine and everyone was crowding around me to see if I was okay “I’m fine. I just wish that bi…Diamond Tiara would stop attacking me for no reason. I’ve done nothing.” I whined feeling a little bit hurt and now fed up. Thankfully the bell went again and we went back to our class.


Miss Cheerilee walked into view and smiled again. “Now I have some exciting news children. A friend of this school, Twilight Sparkle has been able to get five pupils to visit Canterlot castle with the princesses’ permission. I will be choosing which five pupils are to go based on their behaviour in class. It is my understanding that Twilight and the princesses have set up various fun challenges for the students to complete, so you will be in teams of five. I will let you choose who you are with, but make sure they are ponies you will work well with and not mess around.” Immediately the four of us ‘Crusaders’ banded together. We found that everyone else was in their groups, leaving us as a four, but we didn’t mind so much because it was probably the most appropriate group for us.  “Another thing children, we are done for the day. I expect you to all be ready for the algebra test tomorrow though, so I expect you to all study and revise with the time I’m giving you off.” We all began to charge for the door. “Wait! We still need to decide who does their family appreciation day on Thursday.” We all stopped and went back to our seat and I only just noticed that I would’ve left without my saddlebag. 

Diamond Tiara seemed to be keen to speak up about me again “Why doesn’t Aero do it seeing as she’s new?” she frowned.

Just at the mention of that Cheerilee perked up and looked at me “That’s not a bad idea Diamond. Well Aero, how about it?” I frowned back at Diamond and shook my head, sighing. I couldn’t exactly tell them anything without them thinking I was crazy.

I grit my teeth for a second and let my tail swish slowly as all eyes were going back to me, all of them waiting for an answer. “I don’t think I can…my parents aren’t actually around anymore.” I chuckled nervously as I scratched the back of my head. “Nor are any other relatives, they’re all gone…I’m the only one left.” I started to feel tears form in my eyes. I couldn’t understand it, because if anything it would be my family would think I’m gone. “I could try and tell you what I remember though.” I gave a reassuring smile. I had now given myself a lot to do. I had to think of everything I could and twist it slightly to make it seem more believable for this world. I thanked my luck that I was going to be living in a library. “Yeah, I’ll do it.” I smiled. Diamond seemed disappointed, which was telling me that she knew of what family I had in this world.

“Great! Well class dismissed and I’ll see you all tomorrow for your test.” Cheerilee cheered and once again we all made a beeline for the door, this time I remembered my bag and I was quick to open the door, unleashing the torrent of young fillies and colts into the streets as they broke out of the school and made their way home. Among the ponies I was able to spot Twilight waiting for me, barely able to avoid the oncoming surge of the other ponies just having gotten out of school.

I flew up and gently glided over to her, steping down to the ground when it was cleared “Hello Twilight.” I chirped, also feeling happy that I was able to get out of that school this quick.

She smiled at me and lifted the saddlebag off of me, carrying it in her magical grasp. She lifted my maths book out of its pocket and opened it. “Hmm algebra. I guess you find this pretty easy if you got through all of the questions…” she paused as she read them “and you got all of them right. Wow, you’re a clever little pony.” She whinnied slightly and smirked “Looks like you’ll get on just fine where I live. Just think of it. Two intelligent ponies living and studying together until their brains are fit to burst with information.” I shuddered at the thought. 

We started walking down the street and to where I assumed was Twilight’s house in the library. “So, who are you in a group with for the trip to Canterlot castle?” she asked, once again looking proud, probably because she organised the whole thing with the princesses. “Was it with the other crusaders?” she chuckled and I nodded. “What crazy things did you guys do yesterday?”

I sweatdropped and smiled nervously “Well they all thought it was a good idea to get our cutie marks by being daredevils and being shot out of a cannon. Nothing happened except I learnt how to fly then.” I shrugged and she stopped suddenly, turning to face me. 

“Aero that’s brilliant. Learning to fly is such an achievement and it’ll stay with you for the rest of your life, so don’t take it for granted.” She chimed and gave me a quick hug before we were back on our way.

I smiled and shook my head, never being used to that kind of sudden affection, not that I minded. I looked around when I heard hoofsteps fast approaching and I saw the other three crusaders. “Aero we forgot to say goodbye to you so…goodbye.” They grinned innocently before speeding away again.

“Huh weird.” Twilight mused.

I chuckled and shook my head before turning around again to walk with Twilight. “So what’re we gonna do?” she looked down at me and shook her head.

“Well tonight we’re revising for a test.” I perked my ears up, looking at her in confusion “Don’t give me that face you silly filly. You know that you have an algebra test tomorrow and you WILL be studying for it. No one under my household will be failing a test.” I opened my mouth to speak “No buts missy. I have an important assignment due in tomorrow for Princess Celestia and she will be here to pick it up.” I closed my mouth and nodded.

We reached Twilight’s house and I opened the door. All the lights were off which could only mean one thing, especially after watching the show. “SURPRISE!” a whole room full of ponies cheered, headed by Pinkie with a party popper full of confetti. I couldn’t have predicted it until the door opened. I felt my smile slowly but surely shifting into a grin of excitement.  

> Belonging 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stood in the doorway of the library, my mouth plastered with a grin. I was rushed away by a pink blur that I could already assume was Pinkie. “Hey there this is your surprise party. I throw one every time I see somepony new or if it’s their birthday, but because you’re new I didn’t think you’d know anypony and if you didn’t know anypony that would mean that you wouldn’t have many friends and if you didn’t have many friends then you might be sad and lonely and then if you’re sad and lonely then no pony will want to be your friend and then if no pony will want to be your friend you’ll be forced to live out your days alone!” Pinkie gasped in a dramatic tone and I was feeling a little bit more scared at this point. I nervously shuffled across to Twilight, who had managed to make it close enough to me so that I didn’t have to go far. Personally I was amazed that Pinkie could talk for that long with only one breath, but in this reality I supposed Pinkie could do pretty much anything. 

I didn’t know why I was so nervous and even terrified of Pinkie’s rant, but for some reason it just happened; the little voice at the back of my head was laughing at me and questioning why I would do something like that. I was never one of the tough girls back on Earth, but I wasn’t easily spooked. Twilight stepped over me and chuckled at Pinkie, although it was more of a forced chuckle than a genuine one, undoubtedly to say something to protect me “Pinkie.” She tried to whisper in the party’s noisy atmosphere. “I appreciate the effort and the party is fantastic as ever, but maybe you could avoid talking worst case scenarios to the filly.”

Pinkie giggled and bolted past Twilight, causing her to spin around in confusion. Pinkie sat next to me and nodded at the purple unicorn with a serious face “I’m only kidding Aero, I know you have friends already, like those three fillies yesterday.” She said in an oddly calm tone for her. “But hey, do you wanna play pin the tail on the donkey?” she grinned and rose to her hooves, her hair flailing around as if it had a life of its own. “Or do ya want a cupcake?” she held out a small cupcake from nowhere and then smothered in a red sauce I could only assume was ketchup. I reluctantly nodded, not sure how ketchup was going to taste on a cake. I was about to say thank you, but before I could speak, my mouth was filled with the treat. I chewed for a bit to clear my mouth, but I stopped.

I felt a searing hot pressure spread throughout my mouth. I put a hoof over my mouth to stop myself from screaming; it was not ketchup at all. The sauce that was on the cupcake had to be something as fiery as whatever could be found in the pits of hell. My eyes were starting to water and I was breathing rapidly through my nose; I could only thank the stars that I hadn’t had a blocked nose or else I don’t know what could’ve happened. Pinkie raised an eyebrow at me as I felt sweat form on my forehead “Hey are you okay?” she asked, but then smiled with eyes full of pride “Duh, of course you’re okay. You’re just so happy you’re speechless. Silly me.” I chewed the cake some more and found the strength to swallow the crushed up inferno that was in my mouth; I could even feel the heat of it as the food slid down past my throat and down my oesophagus. It was slightly painful to say the least and I was still left with the burning feeling in my mouth, although it was starting to die down a bit. Once it faded I let my tongue loll out as I panted, letting the cool air try to calm down the fuss that my taste buds were screaming out.

“What was in that sauce?” I asked, looking up to Pinkie with wild eyes. She simply pointed at the bottled sauce, and its label read ‘Hot sauce’ I sighed and lowered my head. Of course it was the hot sauce; I remembered on the show she had done the same to Twilight for her welcoming party. After a few minutes of near silence from me, I felt everything cooling down and I was able to feel normal again “Pinkie why didn’t you tell me that you put that sauce on there? I thought it was ketchup.”

Pinkie giggled and smoshed my cheeks together “It wouldn’t have been a surprise party, duh.” As much as she had a point, I was not happy with it. My mouth had nearly been incinerated by that sauce and I was going to have to find revenge somehow. Suddenly I remembered that ‘everyone’ was here and I went in search of Rainbow Dash. It didn’t take long to find her, but once again I was dragged away by Pinkie. I opened up my wings without even thinking and put them to the ground for extra drag, but it was no good. 

“Pinkie what are you-whoa!” I was suddenly blindfolded and spun around at a ridiculous pace. I teetered unstably after I was finished and I felt Pinkie hold me steady for a second. My mind was a blur and even though I could think, the thoughts came out as if I didn’t understand them. One of my hooves were forcibly lifted and given something. I could only feel the edge of this object and something dangling from it. I used another hoof to feel the fabric that had been hanging from the object I held and realised that I was playing pin the tail on the donkey. I heard some of the ponies laughing at my expense whilst I heard others telling me which way to go. I didn’t know if I could trust them until I realised whose voices they were. What gave it away was the familiar squeak in a certain filly’s voice. It was undeniably Sweetie Belle’s. I stumbled forwards, almost tripping over my own hooves. It felt like I was learning to walk again and I hated it, but from all the encouragement the girls were giving me I managed to find some kind of strength and I charged forwards to slam my hoof on to what I presumed was the picture of a tailless donkey. 

However, upon lifting my blindfold I was presented with a not too happy looking purple dragon; the pin locked between two scales and the tail hanging from his wrist. “Next time, don’t follow what your friends were telling you.” He warned, sounding as angry as he could, but it still looked cute to me. I pulled the pin out and blushed slightly. “It’s okay I guess.” He sighed and proceeded to stomp to the cupcakes, eating one whole with the dreaded hot sauce as well as a small ruby.

I turned to see the three fillies that caused my embarrassment and they sat looking at me as if they were innocent little angels. I smirked and walked towards them, already knowing better. It became more than obvious when Scootaloo and AppleBloom started trying to hide their laughs, snickering behind their hooves. “Ah think ya jus’ missed it bah this much.” AppleBloom giggled, still trying to hold in her laughs. She nudged Scootaloo and smiled “What’re ya laughin at Scoots?” she prodded again before both of them couldn’t contain it anymore. I looked across to see the dragon scowl to them. I shook my head and rolled my eyes as the two of them shared the enjoyment of it. 

“Very funny girls.” I raised an eyebrow, smiling at them with a hint of sarcasm. As bad as I felt for the dragon, I couldn’t help but find it as funny as them. “No one told me about you three being here, when did you find out?” they gave me an odd stare as if I had said something that made no sense at all. I took a couple of steps back and I gave a sheepish smile to them “Uh hello, girls? Sweetie Belle?” I wanted to whimper, but I was able to hold back the urge to save myself from any further embarrassment.

They stepped closer to me and backed me up against a wall. I don’t know why, but I got a familiar feeling from all of this and I wasn’t entirely convinced I was enjoying it. “What did you mean by some-one? Aero we know you’re clever but even we know that’s not a word.” Sweetie stated to me. I sighed inwardly after this, I was expecting them to suddenly turn against me, but it was something like that. I frowned in thought, although it was just a façade to make them think I was trying to come up with a reason.

I smiled back at them as if I’d forgotten the incident “I have no idea where that came from. I just thought it up I guess…It sounds stupid though, so maybe I shouldn’t say that again in a hurry.” I looked around to change the subject, hoping to find something, anything. “Have you tried those cupcakes that Pinkie made? They’re delicious.” I beamed and pointed over to where the dragon was still covering his annoyance with the cupcakes “Quick, before he eats them all!” I giggle and we all made our way over to the table.

Pinkie immediately appeared to greet us. She showed us the variety of cakes she made and all the girls were staring at them, their hunger suddenly being found as they licked their lips. I smirked as Pinkie declared “These ones are a gift from me.” And she shoved the cupcakes in their mouths. Revenge on the three of them was sweet and I started laughing at them as I saw red blushes appearing on their faces from the sweltering hot sauce that the cakes were covered in. I watched as they tried to munch their way through the painfully hot treat. I wasn’t even hiding my laughter at them because it was probably the funniest thing I had seen since being in this world. I found a little bit of joy seeing them in pain. However, karma had it in for me because whilst I was laughing, Pinkie had seized the opportunity to shove another cupcake in my mouth with the same kick as the one I had before. I saw that the other three were laughing at me through their own experience and I soon found myself joining them. Despite the pain of it I was having a great time because of my new friends. “Aww you all look like you’re enjoying them so much.” She darted away and cheered hysterically, bowling several others over.

AppleBloom finished first and was gasping for some of the cooling touch that the air seemed to hold. “Well ah’ll be. That was the spiciest thing I ever tasted.” She panted until her breathing slowed and she calmed down. I was lucky enough to find a quick way to finish mine without feeling as if my throat was going to be charred from the experience.. “Say Aero, are you gonna stay with Miss Twilight from now?” I nodded, although it had struck me as odd that I was quickly taken in like that, but I wouldn’t be complaining about it. Twilight seemed very nice albeit a little bit too over the top with studying, but I could cope with that. In the long run it would just seem normal. I paused in my thoughts and realised that I might never get to go back to where I was actually from; the thought scared me and I felt my bottom lip tremble slightly. I liked it here so far, but being here meant that I wasn’t with my family and that would probably mean they thought I’d been kidnapped or something. The only problem was that I didn’t know if there was a way back, let alone how I was going to get back. “Well thas great!” AppleBloom cheered and the three of them clopped their hooves together. “Ah know who am gonna call on if ah need some help with school work.” The other nodded.

The girls and I spent the next couple of hours talking or playing more of Pinkie’s games that she had set out for us. Soon though the party goers were leaving and the rooms of the library were becoming emptier, making the place seem bigger than before. AppleJack and Rarity were leaving and took the three fillies with them. I stood by Twilight’s side as they left, waving them off as their figures disappeared into the distance. Pinkie popped into view again, smiling and waving as well. “Twilight I’ve cleared it all up. I’ll see ya later.” She cheered and then fled the scene, only a blur of pink showing where she had gone. I turned around to see that the library was indeed clean, it was spotless and not a single thing looked out of place to me, but then again, this was me and not Twilight. I looked up to see Twilight giving some signs of contentment with them room’s appearance.

“I’ll check later. Aero come with me. You’re gonna be meeting someone who I can’t wait to show you to.” She walked ahead of me out of the door. I took only a step before I heard the door close behind me “Spike will look after everything whilst we’re gone. Trust me, he’s my number one assistant.” She assured and trotted along. I had basically given up on walking next to her, so I did what I could and I started flying beside her, keeping pace with just a few flaps of my wings. I could sense that Twilight was still feeling nervous about this and I was trying to figure out why. Who could be so important that she would get nervous over meeting? We made it to a rather secluded area, hidden from Ponyville by a large mass of tree hiding it from view. “Okay Aero we’re going to have some food.” She smiled, but it was obvious to me she was hiding the full truth.

“Lucky for you two I brought some of my own food for us to share.” A calm voice spoke. My eyes widened as I realised who it was. I turned around to see none other than Princess Celestia; she looked regal yet her body language suggested she wasn’t demanding any extra attention. “Twilight Sparkle it is a pleasure to see you again.” The princess gave a warm smile, exchanging it with Twilight’s own. Celestia turned to me and looked down; lowering herself so she wasn’t intimidating me with her height “You must be Aero Crown. Twilight sent me a letter concerning when and how you showed up. Fillies don’t just come from nowhere.” I felt my ears fall back a little bit “We will get to those questions after we have eaten though.” She chuckled, obviously noticing how I faltered at her concerns. The yellow magic surrounded the air for a moment until a large blanket covered the ground and the blanket itself had several small items of food. It wasn’t what typically appeared in my idea of a picnic, but then again as a pony I wouldn’t be having any meat products, so it wasn’t a huge surprise at what I saw either. “I took what I could without the chefs noticing.” Celestia winked at both of us as we all sat down on the blanket. “Tell me Aero Crown. Have you enjoyed being in Ponyville?” I couldn’t explain it but I was so nervous in the princess’s presence and all I could muster up was a weak nod for her accompanied by an equally weak smile. “Have you learnt anything new?”

I nodded in response, but this time I couldn’t help open my mouth and smile at the brief, but still important memories I had of being here “Yeah I learned to fly. I’m not very good yet, but I think with Rainbow Dash’s help I can get good enough to be about half as quick as her.” I beamed before losing all my confidence again “A-and uh yeah…it was fun… your m-majesty.” I stuttered, lowering my head. I silently cursed at losing my cool in front of royalty, but knew it was too late to try and reverse it. I just hoped tat she didn’t mind my awkwardness.

I felt Celestia’s hoof on my left shoulder and I looked up to see her smiling at me “Learning to fly is a great achievement. Don’t think being expressive will bore me or make me dislike you. I also know they joys of flying.” She reminded me by extending her long, pure white wings. They were covered in the most delicate looking feathers that made me stare in wonder. I felt like the world was at peace just by staring at them. I reached out with one hoof and stroked her right wing. It felt so soft and smooth. She elegantly folded them back and smiled down at me again “Of course my wings are no better than yours and we both felt the same kind of rush from soaring through the air, no?” she smirked and tilted her head to the side at me. I giggled at her and nodded. She seemed so down to earth for someone of royal stature. I had never met royalty before and if they were all like this I was going to feel a little bit better about meeting them.

Twilight cleared her throat for our attention “Well I’m glad both of you know what it’s like to fly, but flying isn’t everything.” She said, a hint of jealousy seeping through her voice. “But I guess it would feel cool.” Both Celestia and I nodded eagerly. “Anyway princess I have some news.” Twilight levitated a sandwich around her as the princess and I started to eat our own. “So my friends and I have been talking about Aero here and we’ve decided that it would probably be best for one of us to keep her.” I looked to see that Celestia had gone quiet and was watching Twilight with an intense gaze; it was no wonder Twilight would feel nervous around the princess. “AppleJack and Rarity already have little sisters to care for, Pinkie wanted to, but we weren’t so sure about her taking care of Aero.” I sighed in relief at that news, although I made sure it was as quiet as possible. “Rainbow Dash didn’t want that much responsibility on her hooves and Fluttershy already has to tend to the animals she looks after, so that left me. I know I have to make sure I give in work to you, but because Aero has a knack for knowledge too I figured that having her around wouldn’t slow me down at all.” I shuffled on the floor nervously; by now I had eaten the sandwich, an apple and a smore, all because I got nervous at what Celestia would think.

Despite Twilight’s smiles I could tell that the princess wanted to say something about the whole arrangement; I could only hope she wanted to say something good, but it didn’t seem like she would hold back anything if it was something good, so I had to assume it was bad news. “Twilight,” she started “what you and your friends have started to organise is fantastic and really shows how all six of you really do trust each other with any task, and choose to find which pony would be most suited.” I had to laugh a little bit. All had been trusted…except Pinkie; I felt a little bit sorry for Pinkie, but from the looks of things she hadn’t seemed phased at all by the decision. “However, Aero Crown cannot be owned by you I’m afraid Twilight. It pains me to say this, but unless her parents arrive, Aero Crown will be an orphan and we’ll have to put her in an orphanage.” Suddenly I got many images of different orphanages running through my mind, and the one that stuck in my head the most was a pony version of Oliver Twist. I had it set in my mind that I would be going to some grotty old orphanage ran by a fat pony whose mane was probably falling out and he probably had a couple more gold teeth than he should do.

Twilight shook her head “But I don’t understand princess. There would be nothing wrong with me looking after her.” She gently stomped her hoof on the ground and shook her head again. “It just doesn’t seem fair; we know she hasn’t got her parents anywhere close by and we know that she would be fine with me…I don’t see the problem, princess.” 

Celestia looked to the ground and then to me, levitating me up slowly. “If she has no relatives then it is law for this filly to be put into an orphanage. There is one in Ponyville if I’m not mistaken and it’s a nice one too. Aero Crown would be embraced and loved there until a loving family would like to give her that love themselves.” She paused for a moment, dropping the magical energy around me and letting me fall to the ground about a few inches below. “If I was allowed Twilight then I would let you look after her, but it is law and even I must obey the law or else my family would be looked upon with distasteful eyes.” She seemed to perk up again after she said that. “Twilight perhaps you could adopt Aero Crown when she is available.” She smiled and lifted me up again; I was getting awfully used to it by now and I was only listening to them, not thinking about anything else. “I’m certain that the orphanage would allow you to be Aero Crown’s adoptive mother.” I went a beat red underneath my fur after hearing that. “Like you said, there is nothing to suggest you wouldn’t be a good role model to look after this filly.” Only then did I start to perk up from hearing that. It meant that I wouldn’t be in an orphanage to rot for the rest of my life. Maybe I was overreacting about the orphanage’s treatment, but I didn’t want to be in one at all.

“I suppose I could do that, but what if some other family wants to adopt her before I do?” Twilight worried and lifted me over to her side. “I mean I barely know her, but my friends and I did find her and it would feel kind of wrong of me to let her go just like that.” She argued, nudging me softly and smiling at me as she continued “I would have to be able to adopt her. I just get the feeling that we could both learn so much from each other.”

The princess of the sun nodded “Twilight I think that you should do that.” She paused and looked down to me “It is with great reluctance that I have to declare the young filly, Aero Crown, an orphan and therefore should either find relatives or be sent to live in an orphanage until a willing family or pony” she winked at Twilight “steps forwards to look after her like one of their own.” Celestia closed her eyes and spread her wings out wide as a large aura of light surrounded her until she closed her wings again. “It was lovely meeting both of you, but I must go now. I cannot leave my sister or any of the ponies waiting on me any longer. Remember Twilight, you need to be the first to want to adopt her.” Twilight nodded as the princess stood up and let loose a brilliant yellow light, it was so bright I had to close my eyes.

Then there was nothing. I opened my eyes and Celestia had disappeared. I looked across to see that Twilight was still there and she was now approaching me; it hadn’t caught my attention that the picnic set had gone with the princess. “Aero I’m sorry you had to hear that, but it is law and I can’t break the rules so we’re going to take you to the orphanage.” She had a glum look on her face and put a hoof on my shoulder before saying “Sorry.” A bright flash of light blinded me again. My vision returned and I saw that we were in front of a rather tired looking building; its walls were losing its original layer of paint and a window had a couple of cracks in it. This had to be it; this was the orphanage. However, Twilight guided me further on “Whoops. It looks like I got that wrong, but don’t worry; the orphanage is just up ahead.” She chuckled nervously and I just followed behind without saying another word. She stopped and turned to face me “I know this isn’t exactly what we wanted and trust me I would much rather you start staying with me straight away, but the princess said that we need to do this. I’ll adopt you as soon as I can and then it’ll all be back to normal.” She beamed, raising her eyebrows at me. “I Pinkie promise that you will be in that place for no longer than a month.” She did the Pinkie promise and made me giggle at her. The only problem was I still had to endure a month in what was likely a grotesque old manor with several young ponies running through the halls with knives and various other dangerous things. I had guessed that I would be staying in my room like a recluse just to stay alive.

Twilight stopped in front of a large house, at least three storeys high and looked down at me “Here we are. Your home for the next month will be here, but don’t worry. I’ll visit you anyway, so it’ll be like you’re living with me anyway.” She ruffled the front of my mane and then gestured for the both of us to walk inside. Once we got inside I couldn’t believe it, the place looked so organised; almost as organised as Rarity’s home. All images of my time in an orphanage being like that of Oliver Twist’s were quickly receding fast. Twilight and I walked over to the counter. I hated being small; I couldn’t even see over the top of the counter. “Excuse me?” Twilight called as she rang the bell with her magic.

We were soon greeted with the presence of a light brown earth pony rushing in and she looked like she had just won the lottery when she saw us. “Hello there. How can I help you?” she seemed to be twitching a little bit. “My name is Joy Grove and I run this orphanage with my husband Earnest Grove.” She introduced and looked over the counter to see me. I looked up and saw she had a crazy look in her eye, although it didn’t seem like a dangerous crazy like Pinkie sometimes had. “And who might you be my dear?” she cooed down to me before looking up at Twilight “My my you are a young mother for this filly…don’t worry though, we’ll take good care of her and if you want you can visit anytime.” She spoke sweetly to Twilight. We’d both been taken back a bit by Joy’s comment.

“My apologies Misses Grove, but I’m not Aero’s mother. Princess Celestia told me herself that I needed to take this filly here because she has no relatives to look after her, so she needed to be taken to an orphanage where I would then propose that I would like to adopt her.” Twilight explained, smiling at the last part before blushing slightly. “If that’s okay?”

Joy looked at both of us, frowning in thought. She twitched again and smiled at us. “Of course you can Miss…” she prompted for Twilight to talk.

“Sparkle, Miss Twilight Sparkle.” She finished the earth pony’s sentence.

Joy smiled “Well Miss Sparkle you can adopt this young one now.” She smiled, but I could tell there was a hitch already. “But…” I knew it and I rolled my eyes. “My husband and I will have to assess your home to see if it’s suitable for raising a filly. If there’s something that’s not quite right we would require you to fix that problem and then we would reconsider. If your house I a disaster and just a trap waiting to injure anypony then you would be off the list immediately, but I wouldn’t imagine your home could be that bad.” She assured “Once we approve of your home and how good you are with foals then we will let you adopt young Aero.”

Twilight nodded with a determined look on her face. It struck me just how much Twilight seemed to want me to get out of the orphanage; she knew that I wasn’t keen on the idea of it at all, but we both knew I had to comply for at least a little while. “How long will this all take?” Twilight asked, her tone was flat and serious. I felt a little bit embarrassed that I was practically being fought for.

Joy twitched again and grinned “I thought you’d never ask. You really are keen to adopt this young filly aren’t you?” Twilight nodded “Well it will take just a couple of days to have you fully assessed and then if you’re given the okay you’ll have the filly two weeks from today.” She practically wobbled with excitement even though it would be Twilight adopting me and not her. I sighed; she seemed nice enough albeit a little bit crazy, but I guess you can’t run an orphanage and not be caring…except in example like Oliver Twist. “Now how about we show the little filly to her new room?” she squealed with excitement and began to lead Twilight and I through the hallways. I glanced into a large room to see a few other ponies around my age playing games, and they didn’t look tired or beaten, so I had to assume that this place was actually okay. “We have just finished refurbishing the whole place and Aero will be the first to stay in our newest room. It’s perfect for little fillies like her.” She beamed and led us down one final hallway until we stopped at the front of a white door. “Well here we are. I’ll leave you two. Aero can settle in and come down when she’s ready. I’ve got to go check on those cheeky little colts upstairs.” She snickered and trotted away.

I pushed the door open and walked in to find a room covered in a sky blue paint with several drawn on pegasi and alicorns. There was a wardrobe and even a set of drawers in the room. The wood it was made out of was in perfect condition and I could see that nearly everything in this room was completely new. I had a view out into one of the meadows neighbouring Ponyville and I even had a decent sized bed that fit snugly into the opposite corner that the door stood at. I guessed that the bathrooms were elsewhere and were used by everyone. A desk was set out at the edge of the bed and a chair was placed neatly next to it. I moved the chair across to the window and I stood up on it, looking out the window from a higher perspective. It was a nice view and I could see a few of the worker ponies pulling the ploughs over the fields in the distance. It all looked so peaceful and because of the colour in the room it felt more spacious, as if I was in the sky with the other ponies drawn on wall. It made me feel like I was finally at home.

That’s when it hit me; a wave of sadness passed over my thoughts as I remembered that this wasn’t my real home and I was thinking it was likely I would never see my real home again. I started sniffling as I felt tears start to form in my eyes. This was it; this was where I would be for the rest of my life. I would never see my family again and in this land I had no blood relatives at all. My body started to shake as I quivered and felt the sadness take over. The tears started falling like rain and I was crying now. I hadn’t cried properly in years, but it was all hitting me at once now. I had to spend the rest of my days without my actual family with me. I was placed on this world as an orphan and I couldn’t see things getting any better; for now I was just that filly with no parents and no pony to love her. Twilight wanted to adopt me, but I couldn’t break the wave of sadness with that thought alone. I slumped down on my chair and started wailing. I felt Twilight reach over and pull me into a hug. I felt a lump in my throat as I continued to blubber like a baby. “It’s not fair.” I moaned whilst having to hold back yet another surge of tears. “No one loves me and I’ll be alone forever.” I cried out. Twilight just held me tightly and gently rocked us as she sat on the chair, holding me. I couldn’t stop myself as I thought of all the things I was going to miss with my family. I was stuck as a pony and there was no way of getting back and I didn’t even get to say goodbye to them. As I filled my eyes with more tears I could feel Twilight gently stroking my back and stroking my mane to calm me, uttering soft “Sshh” noises to me, trying to get me to stop. I was out of hope. I was out of ideas. I was missing all those that I knew before and everything seemed hopeless.                                                                                                         

> Melancholy Moments
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had huddled up on my bed, sobbing quietly whilst Twilight held on to me. Her gentle voice was all it took to eventually calm me down, but it wasn’t enough to quell my despair. I stayed practically silent minus the sobs that seemed to echo throughout the room. It was unsettling for me because I’d never cried this much in my entire life for as long as I can remember. It was unbearable; I hated it when I cried. It showed that I could be vulnerable, and although Twilight didn’t seem to care about my weakness, I did. I couldn’t have been certain but I may have gone to sleep at some point because my eyes felt as if they were as heavy as my head. I groaned slightly as my head throbbed from a dull ache that had been sustained during my crying outburst. Twilight gripped me tighter whilst keeping her hold gentle. “Aero it’s going to be okay.” She slowly stroked my mane. “You’ve got such great potential and I just know that you’ll get through it. Just remember that you’ll only be here for two weeks. I’ll make sure of it.” She loosened her grip to look me in the eyes. I was almost lost in her eyes until I saw a little twinkle in the corner of her iris. She wiped away a lone tear from me and smiled “You’ve just gotta see the good side of things. Just think like Pinkie.” I shivered at the thought and Twilight must have noticed “I’m not saying act like Pinkie. Just think positively, whatever situation you find yourself in. Does that sound like a good idea to you?” I nodded and forced a small smile for her. I didn’t have the resilience to make Twilight upset as well as myself. Reluctantly she got up and off the bed and stood at the doorway. “I’ll come by later, but I have to get the library ready to be assessed. I also need to do some studying just in case they ask any questions. See you later Aero, stay strong.” She smiled and closed the door behind her as she walked out. 

My head was raised the whole time until I heard her hoofsteps disappear and then I buried my head in the pillow, believing that all of this heartbreak would end and it would be within the dream of me being in this world. I couldn’t work it out, I just couldn’t get to grips with how horrible I felt, but being in an orphanage was only part of it. I hated the fact I was now an orphan, but I couldn’t help it and I knew that in time I would be fine with it. I sat up and walked over to my desk and I looked into the small mirror that had been placed there. I looked at myself in the mirror. It was the first time I had seen myself for what I now was. I looked around at my body. The black fur that covered it was shining and it was thin enough to show the various muscles this body held. My red mane was kept in a neat style that kept it from falling in front of my face. That’s when I noticed the hairpin that was in my mane, and it was undoubtedly one that I had worn back on Earth. At the sight of it I felt even more memories come flooding back to me. My bottom jaw started trembling as I stared at the hairpin. It was odd how such a small item could set off the chain of emotions that it did. When I looked at my mane again it was styled exactly like my hair was as a human except it was a beautiful jet black with a deep crimson zig-zag stripe on two parts of it. Before I could observe any more I nearly fell off the desktop when the door was swung open with such force that I was startled from the noise. I cowered underneath the desk and kept my eyes shut. “Who’s there?” I stuttered. The hoofsteps of whoever opened the door were getting closer and I could just about make out the light ‘clip-clop’ sound like the pony was skipping towards me. “S-stay back or I’ll attack you.” I kept my eyes closed and waved one hoof about recklessly as if I was trying to grab something. I gritted my teeth and found a surge of courage come through. I yelled and dived into whatever had entered my room. “What are you doing here?”

I opened my eyes and saw a blue foal beneath me. I had pinned him down and he looked terrified of me. I looked at him and kept my teeth gritted even as I realised that he was likely even younger than me. “I-I’m sorry.” He whimpered “I was just looking for a place to hide and I didn’t know that you had moved in. I’m sorry.” He whimpered again. I rose and got off him. I couldn’t help but think how cute he was. Any word that had the letter ‘R’ in it, like ‘sorry’ was out of his vocal range. Instead it came across as ‘sowwy.” And his voice was so quiet and nervous it made my heart melt. How could I have been so mean to him? I heard some other giggles coming up the hallway and I quickly pushed him underneath my desk and I moved the chair sideways in front of him. I looked back at him and he seemed to notice that I was actually helping him in his game. It made me feel a little bit better about what I had done.

The group of young ponies followed the giggles until they came into view. They looked over at me and grinned as they walked up to me, looking up at me as if I was the coolest thing they had seen. “What’s your name?” a little yellow unicorn filly asked. I blushed at hearing her voice, I had no idea this orphanage was full of so many cute little foals. “My name is Aria Shine.” She perked up, waiting for my response.

“My name is Aero Crown.” I said, forcing a smile to her “I’m new here and this is my room. Now what are you all doing?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to keep as good an appearance as I could. I still felt some pain as my mind was still swimming with the thoughts of being left alone in this place.

The group all talked amongst themselves until Aria spoke up again. “We’re looking for somepony and he went this way. Did you see him? He’s blue colour and is this big.” She stretched a hoof up to her height and smiled hoping for some answer. I briefly glanced back to see the foal and he shook in anticipation. I turned back to the group and shook my head, smiling at them softly as they turned around and charged away in their group. I felt a little bit sorry for Joy after seeing just how destructive they could possibly be. 

I waited until the group was gone before turning around to get the foal out of hiding. “Come on out. They’re gone.” I called, sounding happier than I felt on the inside. I was only helping him because of how much I had scared him earlier; I owed it to him, but that time was up and as cute as he was I was still upset, so I shooed him away once he was out; not in a mean way, just being firm to him. He scampered away and looked around other rooms to see if he could hide there. I knew he would probably wander into some other pony’s room and scare them the same he did to me. However, it had occurred to me that I was actually more timid than when I was a human. Was it possible that my transformation had not only resulted in the loss of my humanity, but also in the loss of some of my confidence? There were moments where it seemed as if I had no problems with my confidence, like when I stood up to Diamond Tiara, but then other times I seemed to be a complete nervous wreck like when I was in the presence of Princess Celestia. My personality seemed so different now despite the fact I knew I was the same person, but I was trapped in a pony’s body. I thought I had got used to it earlier, but my outbreak seemed to tell me otherwise. “Why?” I snivelled and went back to my bed.

It wasn’t long before I heard the door open again, although this time it was slower and not as frantic. I turned my head to see who was there and I was greeted with the sight of a dark green Earth pony. He was clearly an adult and appeared to be kind of old. His dark blue mane was greying slightly with age and his amber eyes were starting to lose their spark for life. “You must be the newest member of our family.” He spoke softly and sat down on the bed next to me. We both stayed silent for a moment until he broke it with a content sigh “I know just how you’re feeling kid. Well at least I did know what it felt like. I remember how it felt; I thought I didn’t belong with anypony and I thought that nopony could possibly love me because that’s why I was an orphan, because there was no one left to love me.” He appeared to be smiling at the memory “I even know how to pull that frown you’ve got there.” He chuckled and mimicked my facial expression. “I think that you’re just sad because you’re not where you want to be am I right?” he looked down to me and his small specs fell underneath his eyes, exposing his eyes to me. I kept my frown, but nodded at him. “Where are my manners?” he shook his head and chuckled again “I am Earnest Grove and I am the co-founder of this here orphanage. My wife and I made it so that even orphans could feel loved. Now tell me my dear; what is your name?” he leaned in. I nearly gagged at the smell of his breath, but I held back because he actually seemed nice and he was being much softer to me than I thought the owner would be.

“Aero Crown.” I grumbled and held my breath again as I waited for him to speak. He sat up straight for a moment and muttered my name a few more times, bringing a hoof to his chin and he scratched it. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but some part of me was getting curious about what he could be thinking of. He broke out of his thoughts as he saw my form trying to peek at his facial expressions to try and judge him there and then. He simply replied by sticking his tongue out at me.

He ruffled my mane playfully, although it did very little. “Well then Aero Crown it is a pleasure to meet you.” He took the opportunity to lie down beside me, lying down casually as if he was going to fall asleep at any moment. “Perhaps you would like to share with me what has you troubled young filly?” he raised and then turned his head to face me; his mane now flopped on one side as he waited for an answer. I looked back at him for a moment before burying my head in the pillow again. I felt a hoof gently stroke my mane and back “Now come on. There will be no consequences and telling somepony can only make you feel better right?” his approach appeared similar to Twilight’s, but there was no way I was going to tell him the real reason as to why I was so upset; I wouldn’t be believed so there was almost no point. I would have had to have made really close and trustworthy friends before I could tell anypony my secret. It would surely ruin me and then it would genuinely leave me without a friend. “No? You are telling me that you don’t wish to be happy yet?” the pony sighed and got off the bed. “I will come and collect you when it is time for dinner, or if you have any visitors. Remember that you can come to me any time you need help with anything.” He said sincerely before walking out of my room. I was once again left to my own thoughts and I didn’t know whether I should be grateful for that or if I should think of it as a curse, a constant reminder of what I had become. I was a pony for nopony and that was why I ended up being in this place.

My thoughts drifted to the events earlier on. I was so happy with my newfound friends and everyone around me being so nice, not only to me, but to everypony. It was truly magical to see and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. However, thinking about the picnic with the Princess had made me shiver. I didn’t want to think about it. “Stupid laws.” I muttered as I remembered Celestia talking to Twilight about how it was law that I could not be taken in with such immediate effect. I kept my mind strong as I tried not to think of Celestia as the bad pony in all of this. She had said it herself; she was no more above the law than any other pony in the whole of Equestria. The truth was that maybe I wasn’t meant to have somepony love me. Maybe I had done something so bad on Earth that cause me to be taken away and forced to suffer a life like the one I was living. I couldn’t bare it and I started to cry again. I grit my teeth and moaned in frustration as I tried to force the tears to stop “Come on. Stop crying you big foal!” I screamed to myself, hitting my forehead with my hooves repeatedly until I was too tired to care anymore. I could only mutter in a weak tone about how stupid I was and about how it was my entire fault that Twilight couldn’t keep me straight away. It was all nonsense of course, but in my current mental state at the time anything was believable. “How could I have thought it was a good idea to stay quiet and let those two talk? I had my ideas about it too.” I moaned to myself, picturing the conversation that Twilight and the princess had shared. I wanted to say something, but I felt too nervous to even move much in the royal’s midst. There was something about her that made me feel weak and unfit for anything.

I decided I’d had enough of the bed and I outstretched my wings lazily, yawning. I flew only a couple of feet onto my desk again. I looked in the mirror and saw that the short fur on my face was soaked from all the crying I had done and the whites of my eyes were bloodshot and bleary. I looked an utter state, but through it all I couldn’t help laugh at myself. It seemed a bit out of my normal character, but I had to find something to laugh at in this place even if it was just my reflection. I stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes just waiting for my appearance to get a little bit better. My patience was rewarded and I was able to stop sniffling. I was starting to feel good again and now that I had gotten it out of my system I knew I was gong to be fine again in no time. I couldn’t help it so I started flying around the room in circles. The room itself was certainly too small for anypony to fly in, but because I was smaller and I was only flying in a circle I was able to keep going. I felt that my concentration had shifted to flying and it kept all my negative thoughts at bay. My thoughts only centred in on flying, perfecting the art of staying airborne at great speeds. I smiled as I felt myself going around in the circle quicker. Before too long I knew I was zooming around in my room and I became bold enough to try and move around a little bit more. 

“Miss Crown could you please not do that? With that kind of speed you could create your own mini tornado.” I heard Joy call out as I stopped and whacked into the narrow edge of the now open door. I fell to the floor and looked around to see if I was still awake or if it was some dream land. I groggily rose to my hooves and looked up at the twitching earth pony in an almost drunken state. “I have a visitor who has come to see you.” She stepped to the side and smiled with a small twitch. “Miss Rainbow Dash has is here to visit you.”

Rainbow walked into my room smiling cheekily at me and she slammed the door behind her right into Joy’s face. As rude as that was it made me laugh. “What’s up kid?” she raised an eyebrow to smile at me “Joy Grove is right y’know, flying that fast could cause a mini tornado.” She tutted, but I wasn’t so quick to feel like I had been told off this time. “But..” she started to form a grin on her face and it was increasing the more I watched her “It would be totally awesome if you could do that!” she began leaping about the room like I would’ve expected Pinkie Pie to. She stopped as quickly as we started and she made her way to the window; she was trying to open it, but failing quite terribly. I could hear her huffing, puffing and straining to open the window to make it budge. “What are these windows made of?” she panted. I walked over to inspect with her and I saw that these windows seemed to be extra strong juts in case of any sort of emergency. It was clear that Joy and Earnest wanted the safety of the foals to be absolute priority and they went as far as sealing the windows shut so that there was no chance of them falling out. It baffled me that they would both for my room because it was on the ground floor of the building, but I guess it was easier to get all windows done than just selecting certain ones. “Okay, stand back Aero. I’m gonna bust us outta here.” Rainbow got against the back wall and dashed at the window at speeds I couldn’t quite keep my eye on, but rather than seeing the window become unhinged I saw the cyan Pegasus lying on the floor, groaning from the impact. “That’s stronger than it looks.”

I had hopped back onto my bed at this point after realising that Rainbow had called this place exactly what I felt like it was, a prison. She trotted over to me and put her forehooves on the bed, resting her head on her forelegs and she huffed “Hey there’s no need to feel down. Twilight told me all about it and I think that it doesn’t matter if you’re an orphan.” I winced as I heard that word. I had heard it enough today and I was getting sick of it. I wasn’t an orphan, not from what I knew at least, but it wasn’t as if I could tell anypony because the idea would seem so ridiculous it just wasn’t worth the try. “Oh…that word stings huh?” I nodded “Well don’t worry about it; there’s nothing to be ashamed of. When Fluttershy was your age, she was ashamed that she couldn’t fly too well, but she learned to look past it and she’s doing just fine right now.” She smirked and whispered in my ear “No telling for the future though.” She giggled. She perked up and started hovering above me “I have a great idea that I think you’d love.” She beamed and nodded her head vigorously. She tried pulling me up by my forehooves, but I was feeling stubborn so I just flopped back down and looked up at her to see she was still smiling; showing the energy and enthusiasm of a young child, she grabbed me again and this time just lifted me into the air. Out of nothing more than a natural instinct I started flapping my wings so that I wasn’t held up. “Let’s try something shall we?” she smirked again and raised both her eyebrows before holding on to me around my chest. “If I were you I would hold on tight. This may get dizzy.” She started to fly around in a circle, and she was getting quicker than what I had achieved in seconds, making my twirls seem like a complete flop in comparison to this. I got the familiar sight of everything going blurry, only this time Rainbow and I were surrounded by what looked like a rainbow force field. “This is what a mini tornado looks like when you do it right.” We started circling higher until we were just inches from the ceiling. I don’t know how, but Rainbow was able to stop almost as quickly as she started and it only took a shake of her head to recover.

I stumbled around the room as I felt my head spinning almost like the time I had just gotten off of Dash after she took me to Fluttershy’s. I felt my face change colour to a sickly green for just a moment. “D-dash I think I’m going to…” I took in a deep breath to try and calm my stomach down from all the spinning, but that was a task when my vision was still going in circles. I fell to the floor and looked up, my head was spinning, and my stomach didn’t want to keep the food down below. “I’m going to be..” I gagged as I felt the bile rise up in my body. Rainbow executed an action roll and grabbed me by the body and head, spinning me over until we reached a bin that I actually hadn’t noticed there before. The spinning did me no good and I choked and gagged again, but I managed to swallow it back down. “P-please no more spinning.” I groaned to Rainbow dramatically and she sighed. “I’m sorry Rainbow; I’m just not really in the best of moods right now.”

“How about we go outside so I give you a flying lesson?” she smiled and prodded my side to try and get me up, but it only served to annoy. “It’ll be fun.” She tempted and got closer to me “It’ll be really fun, and I know that nopony in their right mind would want to miss out on something that’s fun, especially a filly who likes to fly and have fun.” She taunted and I could picture the smirk that was appearing on her face. However tempting it sounded wasn’t quite interesting enough to break me from my trance. She clambered next to me and looked at my face. “Come on Aero don’t be sad…actually why are you sad again?” she pulled out a look of confusion and scratched her head.

I sighed and looked back at her, both of us lying down in the same position “Well I’m sad because nopony loves me. I don’t have family or anything to love me. Then I see others with their family and then it makes me remember…r-re-emem-ember.” I started to well up again and I cursed in my head at my sensitivity. I felt Rainbow’s tail cover me in its length and make me feel a little bit warmer, cosy even. I looked back at her and for once there wasn’t a look of competitive drive in her eyes, but there was a look of sympathy and she hugged me for a second before letting go. “I know Twilight’s trying, but what if she doesn’t pass?” I whimpered before drawing out a long sigh.

Rainbow sat us both up and lifted my chin with her hoof. She had her confident smile back on and her competitive streak back in her after the brief moment of compassion. “Twilight will pass. That mare passes every single test without a doubt, although I think if she tried the Wonderbolts exam then she might struggle. You would definitely do better than her, but she doesn’t have wings so…yeah.” Rainbow laughed and nudged me again, finding something where it might have made me laugh, but again to no avail. I just wasn’t in the mood for laughter and I couldn’t see anything positive in my life. I cringed in thought as I never thought I would turn out like this, but I was wallowing in self pity. “So I take it that’s a no to the flying lesson?” she asked, her tone sounding defeated. I slowly shook my head, not wanting to say much anyway. She slowly wrapped me up in one of her wings and lifted me properly onto my bed. “Any time you need some help Aero I’ll be there. Because us pegasi need to look out for each other, and besides you’re pretty cool Aero, and I don’t wanna see you upset, so I hope you get better soon.” She weakly said before closing the door. I wiped away the remaining tears that had come after Rainbow left; just like my current life. I would meet other but they would quickly leave.

I lay on my bed for several more hours until dusk was hitting the horizon and I kept looking to the ceiling, no longer fooled by its attempt to picture a boundless sky above me when I felt trapped and alone in my room, yet I refused to move. If I did then there was a chance that a family would see me and then want to adopt me and if they adopted me then I may be taken away from Ponyville and not see anyone ever again. I’d only known them for just over a day, but I did not want to lose them before I really got to know them. The door creaked open again and I looked across to see that it was Earnest Grove. He disappeared for a moment before returning to my view, pushing a trolley with several dinner plates on it. “Usually we would expect you to join everypony at the main dinner hall, but because this is your first night and you seem upset, Joy and I thought it would be best if we brought you your dinner tonight.” He placed the food on my desk and gave me a quick, gentle peck on my forehead. “Just call for me when you’re done and I’ll take the plate away.” He walked out, pulling the trolley with him and left me in the room with the food waiting to be eaten. I looked across to see that the plate was steaming and it stood up to see what was on there. I felt a little bit under whelmed when I saw that the plate was holding a few new potatoes, some carrots and some hay. I scowled at the hay, thinking it would taste completely bland and boring.

“Well…no time like the present.” I mumbled as I sat up and looked at the food in front of me. I slowly edged my mouth towards the vegetable and carefully stuck out my tongue to make contact. Once again I was pleasantly surprised with the taste of a food that normally I wouldn’t eat and now with my new taste buds I would find any vegetable delicious…or so I hoped. I chowed down on the carrots and made my way to the potatoes; they had clearly been peeled and it gave them a bright yellow, highly saturated appearance. I bit into it without hesitation this time and I was starting to feel better, after all, what doesn’t comfort eating solve? I decided to chance it and try some hay. As I leaned down to reach for it I could only see the mental images I had of horses and ponies back on earth munching on the hay, their chins and muzzles getting a bit messy in the process, but they did seem to like the stuff. I swallowed down my last bit of reluctance and scooped some of the hay up with my tongue. I couldn’t describe its taste very easily, but it tasted starchy and chewy, but it didn’t have a taste dissimilar to toasted bread in my opinion, but then I guess I’m just weird anyway. “They don’t do this every night. It’s just because I’m new.” I assured myself, but I hoped it was all a lie. I could definitely find a positive to living here. I looked from left to right twice just to make sure all was clear and I gave a cheeky burp, causing myself to giggle a little bit. This was more than comfort food. I was feeling fine now; maybe it had just been the hot sauce from Pinkie’s cupcakes. I poked my head around the door and gave a childish smile as I looked down the hallway. “EARNEST!” I yelled, causing the low rumble of the other’s voices to go quiet from my shriek. I hid myself from view again as I heard the tell tale signs of his hooves clopping against the floor. I sat patiently on my bed and held up the plate for him as he walked in with the trolley again. “I finished.” I said quietly.

He smiled warmly and took the plate back, putting it on the bottom shelf with other finished plates. “Would you like a dessert? Joy Grove made them herself.” He winked.

Whatever it was looked delightful and as if to answer my question my stomach rumbled as I looked at it for a little bit longer. He placed it on my bed and began to trot away. As I got started I noticed that the door hadn’t quite closed and that was because another somepony was walking in, it was Twilight. I nearly tossed aside my dessert when I saw the purple mare smile at me when she entered “I can see that somepony is feeling better. Am I right?” I gave a slight nod and got back to the work in hand, namely the dish in front of me. I held a hoof up to hold up Twilight as I finished it. I still do not know what went into that dessert, but it was incredible; the crispy pastry, the sweet taste and the tangy kick at the end of it. I could’ve died right then and have been happy in my last moment. I was snapped back to reality as I saw Twilight laughing at me “You’ve got it all over your face you silly filly.” She levitated the serviette and held me in place as she wiped off the left over food from my face. However, she didn’t stop there. Instead she kept going until she threw the serviette away and used her magic to tickle me. I rolled around, giggling like an idiot as Twilight continued. I was getting short on breath and I pleaded for her to stop by pushing her with a hoof gently. She smirked and made it stop for a little bit. “I want you to promise that you’ll be good and behave yourself in front of the Groves okay? You need to help me out as much as I need to help you out. That way you’ll be out of here in no time.”

I grinned up at her and gave her a certain look whilst clearing my throat “Okay I promise.” I bit my bottom lip and continued to look up at her, making my eyes wider “Oh wait! I Pinkie promise!” I then frowned as she held me down, something was bugging me and I needed to find out. I was just glad it’s nothing bad.

“What’s wrong my little pony?” Twilight asked, turning her head slightly to get a closer look at me, only making both of us giggle a little more as I squirmed under her hold. I kept on squirming until she let me go and we were sitting side by side. I was too nervous to speak to start out with and I silently looked at the floor, swaying my legs from the top of my bed. “Come on Aero you can tell me. I think you and I already have some kind of friendship, so there wouldn’t be any harm in telling me would there?” I shook my head as she inquired “Wait is that a ‘No there’s no harm’ or ‘No I’m not telling you.” I gave a nervous whine and fell onto her shoulder.

“I just don’t understand why you’re doing this for me. The only thing I’ve ever done for you and your friends is cause a hassle and a mess in some cases. It always seems to be me who’s relying on you and the others and it must seem like I’m really incapable of anything. I hate that I can’t do anything without pleading for help or getting myself worked up and crying over it.” Just as I said it I felt tears start to rise again “Twi-ilight I’ve never cried as much as this in my entire life, and I just want to feel okay.” Twilight nuzzled me softly and put a hoof on my shoulder furthest from her as she pulled me in close “It’s just…I have nopony in this world.” I sniffled again looking back on it now I feel sorry for Twilight because the times when I cried most was when she was there and she must have felt like it was her fault at some point. It must have been hard for her not to blame herself. She pulled me closer and shook her head, chuckling softly at me. “W-what’s so funny?”

She shook her head again and poked my stomach “You have nothing to be upset about Aero. You do have somepony in this world. In fact, you have many ponies in this world that believe you mean something to them. You’ve already had that effect on them in just less than two days.” Twilight lifted me with her magic and tucked me into my bed. “Crying isn’t a bad thing Aero, embrace it because if you keep it in for too long you may just find yourself crumble away under pressure.” She nuzzled me again “Never be afraid to show your emotions.” She then gave me a stern look for a second and straightened her posture “Aero you’re just going to have to endure these two weeks and try to feel as okay as you can in that time. When the two weeks is up then you can start to lead a life that you’ll be happier in, okay?” I nodded, although I still had some doubts in the back of my mind.

I reached out for her with a hoof “But what if you aren’t allowed to adopt me? What if…what if?” she shushed me by putting a hoof over my mouth and smiling to me.

She giggled quietly “You worry more than me sometimes.” She paused “Just don’t think of that. You’ll see in two weeks time you’ll be sleeping in the library with me, Spike and Owlowicius.” She beamed gently at me and stifled a giggle as I yawned “It seems like somepony is tired from today. I think she needs her rest for tomorrow.” She gave a delicate kiss on my cheek “Good night my little pony.” She cooed as I drifted away from the waking world. My thoughts kept changing throughout one constant; I could only hope that Twilight was right and by enduring it I would see it to Twilight’s house. I had to keep reminding myself ‘The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell.’                                     

> Assessing The Situation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up after hearing an alarm go off. I couldn’t remember setting an alarm at all. I looked around the room, my eyes not quite adjusted so everything was blurred for a moment. The ringing of the alarm became clearer, although I was still having trouble locating it. My head turned left only the face the sky blue wall. I looked up to see the same blue dominating the room’s colour scheme. The ringing was now sounding far more intense and I shot my head to the sound’s source to my right; my hoof immediately stomping on where I had made the alarm out to be. I heard a cracking noise and I looked to where I hit. Thankfully the ringing stopped, but I could now see the smashed up alarm clock that had somehow made it to my room, along with a bedside table that wasn’t there before. I rubbed my eyes and pushed the covers off me, hopping out onto my hooves. However, it wasn’t long before I found myself hobbling weakly again and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu from my first day. I made my way to the mirror and saw that my mane was a complete mess; the black hairs had crossed over into the red and it dulled down both colours. I looked behind the mirror to see that the sky blue paint wasn’t on the wall, and instead there was a rather blank looking beige patch. Obviously they had missed a spot when decorating the room. I yawned and carefully got down from the desk chair. I stumbled across the room, my black fur completely contrasting the carpet on the floor. It was quite surprising that I hadn’t actually taken the carpet’s colour in at that point, and it was equally odd that the owners had picked the colour that is probably most easily stained. However, looking from the floor to the walls again and I could see why. The room was clearly made for any young Pegasus that was going to be living there, like I already was. 

I was immediately thankful for the doors being able to open both ways. I pushed the door open and walked through the hallway. It took longer than I thought it would to get through the halls and I found myself looking at the various pictures hung up on the maroon coated walls. There were even numbers on the doors of the other rooms; it looked just like a hotel. I made it to the main room and I saw the same desk that Twilight had come with me to just the day before. I was too tired to feel sad and I just wanted to wake up properly. Unfortunately because I broke my alarm clock I was unable to see the time, but I guessed that whoever had set it up, set the alarm for a time I was meant to be up, but it seemed awfully quiet. When I reached the middle of the room I noticed that the whole room had actually been styled as a mini scale version of their world. I was standing on the sun and moon, which was a little bit confusing considering that the same symbol was on the ceiling as well. However, on the ceiling symbol, pillars of light in the colours of the spectrum covered the rest of the area, sanctioning off their own colours. As my eyes followed the colour, I saw that it directed itself to a hallway of the same colour. I wandered around the room to see if it was the same for every colour, and as boring as it may sound, I found it was a good way to pass the time. I heard some steps approaching and I knew it was either one of the Groves. It was Earnest, the steps were sounding far too calm to be his wife. I followed their source and smiled when I saw him walking down the blue hallway. “Ah, good morning Aero. I trust you slept well last night?” I gave a small nod. He smiled back, chuckling “Well of course; it is to my understanding that Miss Sparkle has that kind of effect on some. I believe that she will be suitable, of course she must go through the same routine as any other pony who wants to adopt.” He lectured and I nodded to keep him happy that I was listening, but my mind had gone elsewhere.

“Hmm? Something bothering you?” he frowned, raising his eyebrow. I nodded and looked up at him, keeping my eyes half closed because the light of the hallway was still too harsh. “Are you looking for the showers?” I nodded and he chuckled again, smiling down at me “You fillies are always the most keen to keep clean. Come on follow me.” He strolled past me and I kept close behind him. We were quickly back in the main room and he led me down to the yellow hallway. The intensity of the yellow was almost too much to bear even as my eyes adjusted. We went around the corner to continue down the hallway and thankfully the hall’s colour had transformed to a rather dull looking yellow in comparison. He stopped just in front of two large doors. “The bathroom is in there, and you’ll be allowed to use the shower for ten minutes at most. Remember that other ponies will also want warm water for their showers.” I nodded and smiled at him again, he really was kind to me.

I pushed my rear against the doors as I backed into them “Thank you Mister Grove.” He nodded and started walking away. I was completely inside as I saw the doors close in front of me. I could already see that the room was filled with steam. I turned around to be greeted with a thick mist caused by all the steam; obviously someone liked their water hot. I strained my eyes to see through the steam, but I could only just make out a shower cubicle. I kept walking over the white tiles, making sure I didn’t slip on the moistened surface. I could make out another shower, and another; there were more than I thought. I walked towards where I thought the end of the room would be when I bumped into a familiar pony from before. I looked up to see I had bumped into Joy and she was wearing a towel to cover up her mane. She looked down at me with a quick twitch, showing the smile that was growing wider the longer I looked at it.

She stepped past me for just a second before flicking the towel off of her head “Do you need some help, sweetie?” she smiled, giving a very short twitch to follow it up. I tried to shake my head, but it seemed that resistance was utterly useless because I was being dragged into one of the cubicles before I knew it. “I think we need to get that black coat of yours literally shining.” I felt some of the water pour over me and immediately I forgot all of my worries. The water was a perfect temperature, soothing my muscles and tensions, whilst getting rid of my constant fears; replacing them with thoughts of saving the world’s problems. This was stopped abruptly when I felt hooves on my back and I turned my head to see what was going on. Joy was rubbing soap into my back and humming out a tune, which was melodic in a certain way, but in my situation I could hardly admire a tune. It was impossible to protest as she brushed across my fur with her hooves. “Us ladies need to be fresh and clean for the day ahead am I not right?” she chirped. The hissing of the water splashing on the floor was not doing any good at drowning out her humming, so all I could do was wait and endure ‘The path to heaven.’ I thought to myself, knowing that it would somewhat settle my mind. 

I looked back to see that despite the warmth of the water there was actually very little steam being made, so I guessed that some pony’s bodies could take more of the heat. However, what I noticed more was the lack of a shower curtain and I started to feel insecure. “Uh, Miss Grove…I…think I can do this by myself.” I nodded.  However, it was apparent that my plea had gone unnoticed. I sighed heavily and let her continue. I closed my eyes out of reflex reaction as I felt water running down my head. I kept my eyes tightly shut as the water streamed down my face and over my closed mouth, just leaving out my nose, allowing me to breathe comfortably. I felt her hooves going through my mane, somehow untangling any knots that had been made in my overnight tumble I seemed to have made with my hair. Luckily, my tail was too short to be affected, so the water running down it was enough to clean it to a good enough standard. I gasped for air as the water stopped covering my eyelids, despite being able to breathe normally anyway. I looked around to see that everything was indeed fine. The water stopped completely and I was once again forced away from where I stood. Joy got ahead for a second and returned from the fog to wrap a towel around my head, catching my entire mane in it. 

She grabbed another, larger towel and started drying me off. “You’re a funny little filly aren’t you? Most other fillies would have been happy for me to help, but you just seemed to freeze up. Are you okay dear?” she asked and I nodded in response, not really wanting to say anything in case I gave too much away. “You didn’t look like you would’ve been able to do it yourself either. You’re no unicorn, you can’t use magic to get the shower, and your wings are now far too water logged to do any flying.” She chuckled, drying off the two appendages carefully. I stumbled as her drying was forcing me to shake a bit and move around. “When you grow a little bit you should be just fine. Until then, I can help you any time you want.” I physically shivered at the thought, not wanting to go through that same humiliation every day for the next two weeks, or if Twilight didn’t pass the test then she I would have to face it for several more days, possibly even weeks. Unfortunately this only brought my thoughts back to getting out of this place, and although it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t where I wanted to be. In truth, going to Twilight’s wasn’t where I really wanted to be, I just wanted to get home, but it seemed the closest I could get to calling a place home was in Twilight’s despite the fact I still barely knew her. 

Once again I was being paraded to the next place that Joy had planned to take me, although this was the least humiliating as she just needed to hang up towel. “Come with me now.” She smiled and started skipping along happily. I followed behind; looking to the floor despite telling myself not to after how weird it looked to some ponies, even if they hadn’t mentioned it. She guided me out of the shower rooms and back down the hallway I came in from. This time when I noticed the other pictures that were hanging up against the wall, I saw that it had Joy and Earnest with a happy looking foal; it became clear to me that it was their way of remembering past residents of the orphanage, and it showed me just how long they had been keeping it up because I could see that both of them looked much younger, although Earnest seemed to have only got slightly greyer hair in his mane, and relatively unchanged. I stopped in front of one of the pictures and see that Joy and Earnest are standing either side of a young Pegasus; he had a light blue coat and his smile was broad. I felt Joy stand next to me and she gave a small sigh “That little Pegasus there is Rain Dancer. He was adopted by some very fancy family from Manehattan just a couple of weeks ago. He was with us for only a few weeks. I guess some are able to get out quicker than others. We like to remember the children that we looked after here by keeping them part of this place forever.”

I looked down the hallway, right to the corner where I saw the row of pictures. “We’ve sure seen a lot of you young fillies and colts come and go, but you’re all special to us, each and every one of you.” She nudged for me to move on and we made our way down the rest of the hallway, and although it was visually uneventful, I couldn’t help but think of how much this orphanage had done for ponies. We turned the corner and my eyes were met with the vibrant yellow once again. It made me cringe almost; yellow had never been my colour and seeing it in such a bold way was all I could take. “Did you like the alarm clock? It was a present that Earnest and I thought you might appreciate.” I laughed nervously and nodded, keeping my eye contact on something else. Both of us walked past the counter where I had been previously introduced to the female Grove. The counter itself had nothing more than various parenting leaflets and the occasional picture of them with a filly or colt, showing their success in the business they do. It hadn’t occurred to me that I had walked into the food hall and I saw Earnest at the end of the table, awaiting mine and Joy’s company. “The reason we needed you up early is because we need to discuss something with you okay? It’s nothing bad I promise, we just need you to be okay with something.” I listen, nodding at them as I take my seat in between the two of them, so they can both face me evenly.

I chose to stare ahead of me, looking at how long and narrow this room was. This was of course the place where every pony would be eating when it was any meal time. “Now as you know, today Joy and I are going to be assessing Twilight’s suitability for being a possible parent for any child in this orphanage. However,” I took a deep breath in and briefly met my eyes with Earnest’s. I held back the tears as I looked across the room again, noticing how the ceiling was a blue and red chequered pattern, stopping at halfway down to let a black backdrop fall down to narrow and stop at the chair that was at the other end. “because Twilight has already stated her interest in adopting you, we are able to take you along as we inspect. It is in a rare chance like this we are able to see if the child likes the place themselves because it may be okay by our standards, but just like any other pony, you will have your own opinion, so if you came with us it would give us a better idea if Twilight was a suitable parent.” They smiled and I couldn’t help but co-operate with my own. “We will of course need to know if it is okay with you. If you don’t want to come with us then we will be fine with that and it will be carried out just like our normal inspections.” Earnest reassured, putting a hoof up on the table he smiled at me and when I looked back I noticed a small spark in his eyes for just a second.

“Yes yes please.” I beamed and outstretched my wings, showing how excited I was about it. I could easily help Twilight now, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being stuck in an orphanage for the rest of my…this new life. I could feel the hope in my heart start to soar. “Why is it so rare though?” I asked, feeling curious about the decision and a small part of me was even questioning if it was too good to be true. I had said my words too quietly and they weren’t heard, or I hadn’t heard their response, but I was too happy to care about that at the time. When I calmed down I noticed that Earnest was walking away from the table, into another room behind a closed door. I guessed it was the kitchen, considering it also said ‘Chef at work. Do not disturb.’ On the door. I caught a brief glimpse at the inside of it, and I was able to make out the various apparatus in there. 

When he returned, he was dragging his trolley again and he turned to smile at Joy and myself. “I present to you, your breakfasts.” He put forwards plates of fruit to us. Mine had apple slices and orange segments, along with a mug of water. I say much because it had a handle. I quickly discovered that the handle was only needed for those who can’t use magic. I watched as Earnest seemed to hook his hoof into the correct place, so he could hold the mug as if he had fingers. I eyed the mug cautiously and put my hoof through the hole of the handle. I lifted my hoof and found that the mug was staying in the right position from where I held it. I grinned at it, inspecting my hoof to see if there was any trickery, but to my amazement there was nothing. When I looked again, nothing and I giggled at the sight of it. “Are you okay Aero? You’re acting like you’ve never held a mug before.” Earnest chuckled as he took another sip of his drink. I snapped back to my senses and went quiet again, lathering my lips of the mug’s edge and I poured the water down slightly. I slurped up the water, but I quickly put the mug down as I heard the sound of Earnest clearing his throat. I looked at him and he looked irritated “Young lady.” He started “You must know better manners. Slurping your drink is not only rude, but incredibly annoying.” He warned, and although his voice remained soft, I could feel a tingling sense of fear creeping along my body. 

I decided that I would put the drink down for now and move on to the food. I had my apple slices without any problems, although it was because I was far more conscious of what may sound rude to them. The orange segments gave me yet another brilliant taste to add to the list of things in this world. I had finished and I was waiting for either of them to speak so I could leave the table before I did anything else that they might think me rude for. I didn’t want to risk it by staying any longer. “We’ll be leaving in ten minutes, so if there’s anything you want to do before then, I’d suggest you go and do it.” Joy urged, and I swiftly leapt off of the chair and forced a gallop towards the exit, hoping to get out of there as fast as I could. “Watch out!” Joy screamed as I bumped into something else. I looked at what I collided with and saw none other than Fluttershy. She helped me up and smiled at me.

“Are you okay today Aero?” I nodded, still a little bit surprised that Fluttershy was here at this time in the morning…whatever time it was. Joy approached Fluttershy boldly and she visibly stepped back a few paces, getting nervous already. “I’m here early. I just thought that it would mean you could get ready.” She looked to the floor and muttered something that I couldn’t quite catch, although it seemed Joy had because she nodded and wandered off to get some things, like something to write with, or whatever she needed for assessing another pony’s home. I was left in the room with Fluttershy in a rather awkward silence. She dragged her hoof across the floor slowly to break the silence. However, all it did was create a noise that made the scene feel all that more awkward. “Are you enjoying it here?” she gently asked and I shot her a look that told her exactly how I felt about being in this place. She stumbled back a little bit and nodded “Oh I see…well I’m sure it’ll all work itself out.” I gave a small nod to her, hoping she was right. I felt better than yesterday, but it wasn’t hard to achieve that victory. I still felt like I was missing out on something better and that I was left to rot in this world completely alone. I knew this wasn’t true, but I kept on telling myself that I was truly alone here.

Earnest came back into the room and he smiled sincerely to Fluttershy “So good to see you. We trust you know what to do. Your skills in calming little creatures served you well and you seem to be able to look after other ponies with the same expertise. I’m sure we don’t need to tell you what to do.” Earnest beamed, looking like he was going to hug the yellow Pegasus. “Of course we won’t be too long; two maybe three hours in total. A mere fraction of your day. Joy and I greatly appreciate you volunteering on such short notice.” He bowed to her and smiled at the floor, although it was obvious the smile was directed to the Pegasus in front of him. She looked away and hid her face behind her mane as she blushed from the compliment. 

She looked back at him after a short while, but kept her head down “Well thank you Earnest, so much. It was no problem volunteering for you. All of these little angels will be as good as gold. I just know that they will behave themselves if I just show them a little extra kindness.” She smiled, believing every word she spoke. A small smile started to form on mine and Earnest’s face as we knew the reality. Looking after this many children was going to be a challenge, even for Fluttershy. “You just leave it all to me and have fun in what you’re doing.” She chuckled heartily and lowered her head in a sort of, pseudo bow. I wanted to tell her otherwise, but I think Earnest almost saw it as some fun to watch and see the ways different ponies would handle that many children at once.

He nodded back at her and gestured to the whole room “This is where they will have their breakfast, and you will make sure that all of them are up before eight thirty. The three of us who are leaving will be back before lunch. Make sure that none of them go into the kitchen, we can’t risk anypony getting injured whilst we’re away.” He smiled at Fluttershy “Joy and I know that you’re capable of looking after them, but if in doubt, don’t do what Pinkie Pie did and throw a party. Just calm them down, like you do with the animals you look after.” She smiled, looking happy more than nervous now ad she had visibly relaxed to a normal level. “Fluttershy, we’re leaving it to you now. We’ve got to go. Come on Aero.” He ushered as he walked past me and Fluttershy. I waved to her before turning away and walking out of the food hall into the main room. “Don’t worry Aero. She’s done this a few times before, so she knows where everything is and what needs to be done. I would never leave her under prepared.” He assured and stood at the exit with me. “Joy, have you got everything we need?” she appeared as if on cue and nodded back at him, carrying a small brown saddlebag on her back. It appeared to be strapped on tight and she winked at me. “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s validate a new parent!” he cheered as we exited the orphanage. 

I smiled as I breathed in the sweet morning air. The sun was clearly past rising and it was now just making its way to the peak to only fall back down again in its continuous cycle, although…here it was to do with princess Celestia raising the sun. I cleared my thoughts with just those single breaths. I felt rejuvenated and I felt optimistic about today. I would make sure that Twilight was eligible to adopt me; it was the least I could do for her considering she and her friends had saved me from Everfree forest, when I first woke up in Equestria. The walk to Twilight’s home was nothing special. We passed SugarCube Corner and saw the array of old fashioned houses in all different colours.

When we were getting closer to the centre I noticed the purple dragon from before, Spike. He also noticed us and quickly darted away to his home. That dragon seemed in a rush from the moment he had seen us, but I was only left to my thoughts as to why. As we continued through the streets we made it to where the market would be when it opened for the day. Some ponies were already there setting up, so it wouldn’t be much longer before they opened up for business. I was nudged by Joy “Twilight’s house is only just over there.” She pointed her hoof and I could see the oak tree house about three hundred metres away. “I’ll give you a race there if you want?” she beamed “I know how you young foals like to think you’re the quickest Equestria has seen, but let me tell you, I am not too slow myself.” She reared up and started galloping away. My competitive drive instantly kicked in and I galloped as hard as I could, not gaining any distance on her. I slowly spread my wings and flapped once, lifting my feet off the ground for a second. I flapped a few more times to get myself into the air and then I leaned into the wind and flapped harder, catching up to her bit by bit. When I knew I was overtaking her I slowed down to make sure I didn’t crash into anything. I landed shakily on the ground, taking a few extra steps to steady myself on the ground. “A little race always makes things that bit more fun for the day, wouldn’t you agree?” she cheered, rearing up again.

“I do agree with you…although I don’t actually have any wings.” A familiar voice chimed. We looked in its direction to see the purple unicorn we had travelled to meet. I gained a smile on my face just from seeing her, and she seemed to do the same as she looked at me. “Would you like to come in? Spike has just been telling me how you were on your way and I thought it would be a good idea if I prepared some drinks for us all. I read up and found out that one of the things you will do is give me an interview, so I thought why not let it be comfortable for all of us?” she chuckled and moved out of the way to let us in. The library had been cleaned and organised more efficiently and it was all Twilight and Spike’s effort to make it perfect for the assessment. The books had been stacked in an orderly fashion, matched to suit them in alphabetical order and it appeared that the wood shelves had been polished to look new. The refurbishment would not only help their home look better, but it would also make the library a better place to be. I could see above that the owl was watching us and it kind of creeped me out a bit. Its small eyes were set on to me, almost like it was sensing my fear.

We waited as Earnest finally arrived. He looked to me and Joy and we both returned with a sheepish grin, although mine didn’t include the slight twitch that Joy’s did, I guess it was out of excitement, but I couldn’t tell at all. “Shall we get started?” he heaved the air into his lungs and we all went up the stairs. I noticed that there had been a rail put on the side of the drop. I also noticed that Joy and Earnest had already started evaluating and were no doubt writing down their comments on the stair rail, seeing that it was in place to prevent any pony from falling, which would mean it is safer for everypony. The table was in the middle of the room and it was made of oak, carved into an oval shape. On the table was a tea set and around the table were three four seats, meaning we could all sit down to discuss what was needed. We sat down and Twilight poured the drink into our cups before putting it down in the centre again and chuckling nervously at them. “Thank you Twilight. You know why we’re here. Should we deem you eligible to adopt, then you will be able to adopt Aero Crown with immediate effect and we will organise between us the legal information so that she can live with you as soon as possible.” He smiled, sipping at the drink. I couldn’t help but look around this floor because I had never actually been here before. I noticed that there was a smaller flight of stairs leading to Twilight and Spike’s bedroom, and where my bedroom would likely be. There were still many books that were neatly stacked, although it appeared that these books were mainly part of Twilight’s studies and not all part of the library. This was her own personal collection of books that she loved to read more so than any other book. “We’re just going to start with a few questions, okay?” Twilight nodded. 

It was Joy’s turn to talk and she smiled at Twilight, looking suitably calm. “Twilight tell us a little bit about yourself, where you come from, what you enjoy, those sorts of things.” Twilight seemed to smile as her answer started to form in her head. I frowned at the question. It didn’t really seem to relate to adoption at all, or so I thought, but I wasn’t the one who had been doing that job for years. 

She cleared her throat and put down her cup “I started out in Canterlot when I was a little filly and I was raised by my mother and father, Twilight Velvet and Night Light. I have a big brother, Shining Armour and we were all living in Canterlot. When I was still very young I tried out for a place at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and I was lucky enough to pass and get my Cutie mark on the same day. Celestia wanted me to be her personal student, so she could teach me how to handle my magic. I studied for years at her side and eventually I was sent on the task of making sure plans were ready for the Summer Sun Festival, but also to make friends. I was sent here, and well…you know what happened.” She blushed a little bit, not sure how they would react. They only nodded, waiting for her to continue. Joy and Earnest were both jotting down notes on paper, but I couldn’t read it because of my shorter stature. I could fly up, but then it would be too obvious and I would likely fail the whole thing for Twilight. “As you can see around you, there are books. I enjoy reading and I do enjoy studying; how else is a mind supposed to gain knowledge.” She beamed, proud of her work ethic “It’s not the only thing I enjoy though. Spike and I both enjoy baking a few things now and then, but Pinkie and AppleJack are usually the ones to do the baking. I like to go take Owlowicius and Spike outside to the park with my friends. It’s just good for them to get fresh air, as well as myself.” She paused as the other two continued making notes. “Is that enough?” she smiled sheepishly, looking from ones to the other.

“Very good Miss Sparkle, now could you tell us what your views on discipline are.” I watched as Twilight almost grew a smirk on her face. I was almost sure of what was coming next. Her face must have come across as nervous because the other two because Earnest was quick to comfort her “We just want to know so that we can see if you would be able to make sure a child would behave under your rules, or if you’re on either extremity. There is no need to worry about it. If there’s anything that needs to be changed we would tell you at the end of the assessment.” He took a sip from his drink and then looked directly at me for a second, smiling warmly before returning his gaze on Twilight. “We understand that because you have no child of your own, that setting rules may be difficult for you at first because you’ve had no need to enforce them on anyone.”

Twilight smiled again “Because of the experience I had in raising Spike, I find discipline essential to not only make sure that there is order in the household, but it also gains you respect from the child. I can’t even count how many times I’ve had to remind Spike not to breathe fire on curtains; when he was younger it was a real issue, but when he was told not to, constantly, he learnt it was best to do as he was told. Since then, the only issue from Spike is that he’s a little bit lazy, but he does do as he’s told most of the time. When he doesn’t, he knows I’ll be on to him and then he will comply. I choose to not let my anger out on him, after all he is younger and it is very rare for me to get angry at him. I would have a set of chores for the child to do. Not only would it make the jobs around the house quicker, but it would also mean that the foal would learn to handle responsibilities that would benefit them in the future.” The two Groves smiled at her and seemed to be jotting their notes down with glee. Twilight smiled down to me and winked; I knew she had probably been up all night preparing for this, but I had no idea she would be so confident on the questions. She seemed to have learned a script inside out, and it was working wonders so far from the looks of things.

Joy put her notes down on the table and smiled at Twilight, taking a gulp from her drink, the white cup tapped the table’s surface as she put it down. “What would you do in the instance where the foal you have adopted is not behaving well?” she raised an eyebrow; her cheery expressions seemed to have disappeared and she was now just being completely serious. “We need to know if you would have the right disciplinary actions.” She nodded and waited for Twilight to respond.

Twilight looked down at me for a moment and frowned as she thought of her answer “Well it really does depend on the severity of the action. If it was something not very serious, like refusing to eat something because they don’t like it. I think what I would do is I would tell them that it is all they would be having. If it was something serious, like if they were bullying another pony then I would definitely ground them and tell them off. It would be important to teach the foal how bad bullying is and then to tell them not to in the future. If the victim was known to me then I would also make sure that my child would say sorry, so the two of them can make up and move on.” She kept her tone rather blunt. However, Twilight seemed to be getting quite passionate in the middle of her answer, and it made me think just how seriously she was taking this and it was all to get me out of there because of my want to get out. It was only because of what I wanted, and despite the fact Twilight only knew me for a few days, she was still willing to do this for me. “I do allow flying in the house, although any form of racing, especially flying will not be allowed. The only case I would allow flying inside is when they would be trying to get a book or up to a windowsill. The only exception to this is Rainbow Dash because she sometimes thinks it is a good idea to knock all my books down, after trying out one of her exercises.” Twilight sighed, just remembering the countless times it had happened, and how she got everypony’s help to re-organise it all again, only for Rainbow to crash it down again. 

“Very good. Twilight, I must say that you are surprisingly well prepared for this, most other ponies come across far more nervous. You’re not hiding anything from us are you?” Earnest chuckled, winking at Twilight “You haven’t got any children hidden away?” he smirked; it seemed like he had a rather dry, dark sense of humour. He looked across to his wife and she was twitching more often now, almost fuming with irritation. What I could see was Earnest winding up Joy; it seemed like he had a lot of practice at doing it too. Twilight caught on to the joke and chuckled with him, nudging me to chuckle as well. I couldn’t understand why we wanted to get Joy wound up. Earnest was making it seem like a sport. He shook his head and patted her on the shoulder. “Calm down dear. You know I was only joking.” He turned and faced Twilight again. “Perhaps we should see how Aero would feel about those rules?” all three nodded and looked at me. “Aero Crown. Do you think you would be able to live in this house with those rules? Would you be a good filly and make Twilight happy?”

To say I felt patronised was an understatement, but I’d almost gotten used to it after being in this body for three days. However, I took advantage of the situation and I was determined to make Twilight look like the perfect candidate “Yes. They seem like they would be good rules. They seem firm, yet fair. I cannot fault them at all. I think that I would be under a good set of rules to live my life by let alone in this house. I just know that Twilight would be happy if I went with these rules, after all, I want to make Twilight happy.” I beamed, sporting a large grin; my eyes were darting across to see each of their reactions. I widened my grin when I saw that they were all giving me an odd stare. As I thought about it my cheeks went red as I realised I was speaking a lot older than I looked and it must have sounded odd coming from a filly as young as I was. I coughed a bit “I-I mean yes, I would try my best.” The impact I had made from my speech earlier left their stares to focus on me. I started feeling a bit insecure and squeaked “Uh…is that o-okay?”

They still looked at me as if I was some kind of alien, which in all fairness wasn’t too far from the truth. Earnest was the first to shake himself out of the stupor and he smiled at me, chuckling nervously, looking at me to see if there was any abnormality. “Why yes it is just fine. I just didn’t expect such an answer. You talk as if you’re five years older than you actually are.” I just thought to myself how odd that must have looked to them, but I smiled to myself, knowing that my normal thoughts and speaking skills were still there. It was just harder to use them now that I seemed to be nervous around most things. “Are you sure that you would be happy to live under these rules. We would expect you to always obey them.” I rolled my eyes and nodded “That attitude might need to be fixed. Although I’m sure that Twilight would be happy to help you with that.” He smiled back at me, seeming to notice I was getting bored of being mentioned and asked questions. I just wanted to get this over with so that I could be adopted.

Joy hushed her husband and leaned forwards to look Twilight in the eyes; her glare was intense and it seemed to be judging Twilight. I could see her get more nervous as the stare was held for an increasing amount of time. “Twilight. We are happy with the rules you seem to have set in place. Obviously your experience with raising a baby dragon has helped you greatly. However, I’m going to ask you a question on what you would do in an emergency event. So, if the pony you were looking after had run away, what would you do?”  Twilight seemed to freeze up upon hearing the question. I doubted that she had prepared for this question, and so it would probably require her some more time to think of and answer for it.

“If they had run away I would immediately alert all the authorities and I’m sure the princess would help me in a search if she wasn’t busy. Because of who I am I would also use a locator spell and I would be able to track down the pony. I would ask them why they ran away and I would try and comfort them, making them feel better. I would ask if they want to come back. Generally the right thing to do would be just make the foal feel safe and make sure that I could get the foal back home without any trouble.” Twilight explained, looking more nervous than before and I could tell she was trying to go off of pure logic with some of her answers.

Earnest raised a hoof to silence her. “Very good. Now shall we move on to inspecting your household?” he asked and Twilight nodded. I couldn’t help be surprised. I thought that the interview would have taken much longer, but then again, I didn’t know if it was over.

> Empathy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It felt like the inspection took weeks. Both Twilight and I were in the same kind of state; we both gave each other occasional glances as the Groves looked around Twilight’s library, and the actual living quarters; they even went as far as to remove some of the books to see if there were and ‘dangers’ behind them. I wondered if we actually had to follow them around, but I guessed it would give me the ‘experience’ of being in the home. The only upside was that it was quite clear that the Groves were impressed with Twilight and seemed to like her house just as much, which could of course only mean one thing in my mind. At first it was hard to judge because both of them looked so serious, which was a little bit uncharacteristic of Joy, and it was unnerving to watch her assess everything with a rather stern look of concentration on her face. Despite what I say in confidence, I cannot deny that I was nervous because even as they just checked the top of the shelves for dust I felt my heart jumping out of my skin because I didn’t know what was important in these assessments. It seemed like too little a detail, but I couldn’t make any assumptions because I just didn’t want to get my hopes up. Twilight nudged me as we sat in the middle of the main room, the wood at the bottom of our hooves made the familiar sound as I tried to regain my balance and stomped my hooves on the floor to confirm it. That caught their attention and both of the Groves looked back to me and Twilight, both of us forcing out a sheepish grin as we waved at them. We sighed in relief as they went back to their thorough examinations. Twilight looked down to me and sighed in relief. “How do you think it’s going?” she asked me but all I could do was shrug because I had about as much idea as she did. “Well I think it looks like it’s okay.” She smiled, trying to assure me.

I wandered over to my two current carers and cleared my throat “Are we done yet?” I whined, looking bored at them, but they didn’t respond and they carried on working “Excuse me……No? Really?” I raised an eyebrow as they didn’t even respond when I raised my voice. I gave a small smirk as a rather childish plan formed, my eyes narrowing as my smirk spread across my face. Part of me was telling myself to not even try it because it’s really not like me, but a new discovered part of me was raring to go and ready to try this. I stood a little bit closer to them and inhaled deeply, but before I breathed out I found myself blushing at how embarrassing this could be. I could literally feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, making my blush almost show through my black coat. I glanced back to Twilight to see if she had figured out what I was doing, and it was obvious she could see what I was trying to do. She shook her head at me and urged me to get back to her. I felt small beads of sweat forming as I finally let out all the air from my lungs, but it wasn’t in the way I planned. There was no piercing scream to force their head to turn; instead it was nothing more than a silent sigh. As I walked back to Twilight she gave me a look that was telling me to behave, but my mood had immediately changed after my plan was foiled and I huffed at her “What? I want to know when we’re done.” She nipped at my ear and I blinked from the pain, but didn’t make a noise “What was that for?” I frowned.

“That was for being rude. You know I’m trying my hardest and it won’t be much longer; they’ve been at it for about two hours, so I’m sure it’s coming to a close.” I sat down and casually began tapping my hooves on the floor, seeing if I could make a rhythmic pattern of it, even if it was only me who could hear the rhythm behind it. It then hit me; I wouldn’t be able to listen to the music that I was so fond of back on Earth. Being here had so many flaws that I didn’t want to notice, but it was the little things like that I was going to miss. I knew all the lyrics to the songs I liked most, but I wouldn’t be able to hear them from the voices I remembered in their most angelic. I slight smile appeared on my face as I thought of how I could probably recreate the music, finding the right ponies and making them learn everything to be my personal band. However, I had a slight flaw with that, I didn’t know anypony who was a musician, or not as far as I knew. I was nudged from my stupor again by Twilight. “Why do you keep zoning out?” she tilted her head very slightly at me. I gave a small, nervous grin and shook my head, assuring her I was fine. I could tell she wasn’t sure if she should believe me or not, but I wasn’t questioned any further.

Joy and Earnest stepped away from where they stood and turned to face us. “Well the good news is that we’ve finished.” He chuckled “Twilight would you mind coming back with us? There are a few things we need to discuss.” Smiling softly at her, both of them turned around and picked up everything they had. They stood with their tails to us and called back “Twilight?” we started walking over to them, which let them know all they needed to. We walked out the door and Twilight closed it behind us, her magic closing it quietly. She caught up to us fairly quickly and was trotting next to me, with a noticeable spring in her step. “Twilight we must give you our thanks for being so patient. We know that going through somepony else’s home can be a little bit unsettling and, not to mention dull when we take a long time, but we can quite safely say that we were satisfied with how well the house is kept.” Twilight and I grinned at each other, my chance of getting out was getting better by the second as we heard Earnest carry on about how well suited Twilight seemed to be and how she is a brilliant role model for a young filly like me to aspire to be like. I still couldn’t help but shudder at being called a filly, but thankfully nopony noticed and I was able to get through the market without saying a word or doing anything that may look out of the ordinary.

Twilight seemed to perk up at their words and cheerily replied to them “Well thank you Mister and Misses Grove; I just hope that if I do get the chance to adopt Aero that she will be happy.” she seemed to be sticking to a script. It was obvious to me that she was being extremely nice to them just to sway their opinions further, and I had no doubt in my mind that the two ponies in front of us were feeling encouraged by Twilight’s admirable efforts that she promised she would put in. “In fact, I Pinkie Promise that if I am given the opportunity to adopt this filly, I will never let her down.” She called proudly.

Within just a second of her saying that a quick pink blast obscured my vision and made me unsteady, but when I looked to where Twilight was, all I could see was a pile of dust that was only just starting to clear. In the cloud of dust two figured were emerging, and I could tell who one of them was by the voice they used as they seemed to be struggling. Twilight’s form tried to push of the other pony, but that certain pony was not going to budge. Once the dust had cleared to a point where we could clearly see, it was apparent that the very pony to tackle down Twilight was Pinkie Pie and she was holding a deadly serious look on her face “Twilight you know you have to keep that promise now, and it’s a promise that lasts…..forever.” she said the last word with an eerily slow pace that made me shiver. However, Pinkie soon returned to her normal self and bounced off of Twilight, pacing away like she normally would. Twilight got up and watched until Pinkie had disappeared before she turned back to us. All three of us were confused, as well as the entire population that were present at the market. Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but she was caught off quickly by a raspy voice that came from nowhere “Forever..” Pinkie repeated. All of us looked around, but we couldn’t see where she was. It was definitely one of the creepiest things I have ever experienced.

Twilight shook her head and sighed “I should’ve seen that coming.” She looked back to us and saw our confused faces. I personally couldn’t believe how Pinkie managed to appear from nowhere and then seem to know exactly what was being said. “Pinkie Pie is really serious about her Pinkie Promises and she expects everyone else to do the same.” She explained and everypony calmed down, although I felt like I should have known anyway, after watching the first season, but I guess I didn’t pay a massive amount of attention the whole time. “Anyway…” Twilight chuckled “shall we carry on?” I nodded and turned around to see that the Groves had already started again and I had to pick up the pace to catch up because I was still a fair bit smaller so I couldn’t cover as much ground in one stride as they could.

I got playfully bumped on my right flank by Twilight, who got past me and followed closely behind the Grove duo. After a short burst of speed I managed to catch up to them, although I wasn’t sure if I would be able to carry on; to me it had been an especially long day. I was not used to getting up at some ungodly hour in the morning, and even if I tried I could never be a morning person…..pony. I gave a small yawn to show that I was tired and I received a small giggle from Twilight “You’re okay Aero, just a little bit further……oh we’re actually here already.” She said, sounding quite confused at how we’d gotten there so quick without even realising.

I looked up and saw that we were indeed in front of the very place I was having to call home for now. To me, everything of this place looked just normal now; no more images of Oliver Twist running through my head, only the fact that I was living there and just wanting to be adopted like every other pony in there, except for our two carers obviously. We walked into the building and made our way into the dining room. Much to my surprise, there weren’t the masses of young ponies eating their lunch; there were only the few very young ones who were sitting at the table, barely able to reach their food due to the chair’s height so they were standing on them. I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of them all trying hard just to eat. It dawned on me that the reason why only these ponies were here is because the older ones were at school. “Shouldn’t I be at school?” I frowned, catching the attention of Twilight and my carers.

“Well you should, but I have no doubt that Miss Cheerilee will be accepting of your reason, after all. You’ll be able to go to school after today, and you will have only missed one day so don’t worry.” Joy chuckled and brought me to my senses, why would I want to go to school anyway? We made our way to the far end of the table where nopony sat. “Where is Fluttershy?” Joy pondered whilst lazily looking around the room. “I’m sure she’s helping one of the little ones.” She looked back at Twilight now and gestured for her to sit. “Now Twilight, as we said. We’re very happy with the safety of your home and from the questions we asked, we are confident that you will be a good parent for Aero Crown.” Twilight’s face lit up with excitement, as did mine because I realised where this was going. I thought it would take a bit longer for them to decide, but I wasn’t about to complain at their decision. This was my ticket out of this place and I couldn’t be happier to know that I will be allowed to go. All that worrying I had done because I wasn’t sure if Twilight would be ready or if she suddenly didn’t want me, all of that worry was gone. Twilight looked at them with almost the same expression I was wearing and I could almost feel how happy she was.

She looked like she was finding it hard to stay on her seat “Does this mean what I think it means?” she questioned, trying to show a smaller smile to mask the excitement that she and I were both feeling. Both of the Groves nodded at her “Oh fantastic!” Twilight cheered before blushing a little bit and giggling at herself. “Sorry, I guess I just wanted to give one little filly a new place to call home. So, I did some research and……don’t I have some forms to fill in?” again, they nodded at Twilight and she nodded back to them, smiling quite contently, briefly looking to me with a grin plastered on her face. I shook my head and tried to stop myself from grinning, but I was too happy to stop myself. I was the happiest I had been in a couple of days. It seemed that I had almost gone a full rotation in emotions; and it was to such extremity that I could have rivalled Pinkie at being happy.

Earnest, who had been standing beside Joy’s chair the whole time simply walked over and shook Twilight’s hoof “Congratulations Miss Sparkle, of course we had very little doubt because of the great achievements you have already done. I’m sure this filly will grow up to respect you and we know she’ll behave because she’s been desperate to get out even though she has only been here one night.” He chuckled and winked at me, showing that he was happy for me. I know I didn’t really like the place, but even I could feel a small tear forming in my eyes; the two owners were two of the nicest ponies I knew. “Of course we must get you to sign the forms to confirm that you are eligible to adopt, and then there are the forms to sign saying that you are adopting Aero Crown. After that, it’ll all be confirmed and we will just have a two week provisional period.” He smiled sincerely.

Twilight frowned at him, looking like there was something she didn’t quite catch something that was said “Wait…a provisional period? What is that? I never read anything like that in any of the books.” It sounded like Twilight felt as if she was cheated of something, like she had passed, but the provisional period was just there to make sure she had definitely passed. “I thought you said I was fine to adopt…once I sign the forms anyway.” Her voice sounded like it was lacking the happiness she had earlier and it was replaced by irritation, and despite her best efforts to hide it, the signs were showing as I could swear the hairs on her main and tail were growing split ends. It actually made me giggle a little bit seeing Twilight overreact to this, although I was still a little bit concerned at what the provisional period was. It seemed as if Joy and Earnest had picked up on Twilight’s frustration and at first appeared to be a little bit uneasy about it, but Earnest stepped closer to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder, wearing a warm smile.

He duly let his hoof slide off of her shoulder “Please Miss Sparkle, don’t get worked up over this. The young ones may get worried if they see you like this. The reason you haven’t heard of the provisional period is because it is something that has only recently been allowed, and we are lucky enough to have been granted the permission on this policy. The idea behind it is that if the pony desiring to be a parent wishes to adopt, then the pony they wish to adopt can stay with them for a small period of time. The pony that visits will then come back after some time there and then we will ask for feedback from the visiting pony. If the pony has a good enough experience then we will let the adopting pony adopt the young one. However, in the rare case that the ponies do not get along on either party then we have the right to cancel the adoption. So you see Twilight, it isn’t that you haven’t done enough. It’s just to make sure that you and Aero can see what life would be like if she were to live with you. We are sure that the two of you will get along, and like I said; the cases we have heard of a pony returning unhappy is very rare. This is new to our centre, and we haven’t had anypony coming back unhappy yet.” He smiled down at me briefly “Aero will probably come back feeling her best.” 

Joy nodded and continued for her husband “Oh no doubt about that. The main thing we wanted to discuss with you was our plan for Aero Crown’s provisional period. Earnest and I think it would be a good idea if we adopted a sort of two-to-one scheme. What we mean by that is we will let Aero Crown stay at yours for one day and one night, to be returned by midday, and then she will stay here for two days and two nights before we switch over again. Does that sound fair?” she smiled; her tone had changed from excitable to soothing and soft in just a few sentences. Her voice was so soothing in fact that I felt another yawn let itself be heard. I smacked my lips together a couple of times before resuming to listen to Joy “Of course if that becomes a success then Aero will be able to live with you full time.” Twilight nodded and looked to me with a calm smile, although it soon shifted to a giggle when she saw I was drowsily stumbling on the spot as the early morning was finally taking its full effect on me. 

I felt like there was a weight that was gradually applying more and more pressure onto my back, forcing me to lazily trip even though I stayed practically on the same spot. I could feel the other two looking at me now and I could tell they were trying not to giggle along with Twilight; I must have looked like a complete state, almost as if I was drunk “It appears that a certain little filly needs a nap whilst the grown-ups discuss important things.” Joy chirped. I couldn’t even respond with any more than a slow shake of my head and a tired groan, which caused them to start laughing even more. I didn’t care because I was too tired to even feel humiliated. I tried to spy out a clock and when I caught sight of one at the other end of the room, I let my eyes adjust away from their blurry state and I focused so I could see the time. It read to me that it was only five minutes past eleven. “The poor dear has been awake since five this morning.” I turned my eyes so I was able to see Joy through the corner of my eyes, wanting to glare at her for waking me up at that time, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open for long enough each time I tried. I stumbled again, only to find myself leaning on Twilight, who had got down from her chair and was now standing next to me. “I could tell when she woke up that she was not a morning pony, but I didn’t know it was this bad a case.” She chuckled again. I felt like I was about to stumble over again, but I found that it was now impossible for me to move myself because I was surrounded by a comforting magenta light. 

I regained my feeling of weightlessness as Twilight lifted my body up, which was making it easier for me to just start to drift off. I hadn’t been this tired in so long and it felt odd, almost as if I shouldn’t have felt that tired. Something in the back of my head was nagging at me, telling me that I was almost being in an induced sleep. It was a ridiculous idea though because I could see why I might be tired. I must have only got a little bit of sleep the night before and then I had to wake up early in the morning, so it made sense that I was tired, but something was telling me that my incoming slumber had been put forward by a few hours. “Wow she’s really taken a turn…I’ll go put her to bed first and then I’ll sign those forms if that’s okay?” I found the power of gravity exert itself on my back and my hooves spread out as I noticed through my now hazy vision that I had been placed on Twilight’s back and I could just about make out the two older ponies nod to her before she turned and walked out of the room. After then I just closed my eyes, Twilight new which room was mine. I could feel her neck muscles shift and I heard her giggle “You sure are tired Aero, maybe today was a little bit too much for you. At least you’ll get to nap; I still have to study and sign your forms and…huh, I guess she’s asleep.” She gave a soft sigh and turned her head again, turning a corner and I could tell that she was close to my room now. 

She must have thought I was asleep, so to tell her I wasn’t I let out a small groan and shuffled a bit on her back. “Oh you’re still awake? Well we’re at your room now.” She opened the door and I heard the short squeak as the door started to pivot on its hinges until it met the wall and was forced to stop with a light tap. Instead of being gently lifted off, Twilight opted for the approach that involved me sliding off of her back so that I was lying horizontally on my bed. I didn’t even have the energy now to open my eyes. It was a strange experience because I was still hearing just fine, my only sense that had been lessened was sight, and that had been completely cut out. I could tell that the room was quite well lit because the brightness was just about seeping through my eyelids, making the inside to them appear orange. Once again I heard Twilight chuckle and along with it, my ears twitched as the sound of the blankets being folded told me that Twilight was probably getting my bed ready, and seeing as I was practically immobile I had no complaints. 

I was placed on the bed in the right position and then I felt the blankets move onto me, snugly fitting on top of me, making me give a small whinny in comfort. I feel Twilight get closer to me and then I feel her give me a gentle on my forehead “Have a good rest Aero, I’ll see you soon.” She murmured softly into my ear, causing them to twitch almost uncontrollably as her warm breath sent me into a further state of relaxation. Afterwards I could only hear faint hoof steps as Twilight left the room, but something was telling me that my hearing was now leaving along with my sight. There wasn’t anything distinct to really catch my scent, or so I assumed, but again, I couldn’t be sure. Despite the light still reaching into my room, I was still able to easily drift away into a deep sleep; the last thing I’m able to remember is how soft the blanket felt. I opened my eyes for a second and then closed them to cut out the blinding light. However, I noticed something odd and opened them again, only to be shown nothing. I was totally confused about all of this.

The pitch darkness began to fade and I could now see in front of me. I reached out my arms until I decided I’d give the finger joints a little click. I looked down at my bare feet and wiggled my toes with a small smile. I suddenly stopped what I was doing as I realised something that had somehow escaped me until now “I’m back to being me!?” I shrieked, sounding shocked. I looked at my hands again and moved one to my mouth. I proceeded by putting a finger in my mouth and I started to bite down. I quickly pulled my finger out and looked at the worryingly deep teeth marks “Ouch.” I exclaimed. It may have hurt, but it did give me a smile “Looks like it was all a dream any….nope, it’s not a dream… this is.” I turned my happy expression to a blank one as I looked around where I was standing “Unless I’m in some weirdly colourful mental asylum, then I can safely say that I’m just dreaming. How many places are just endless streaks of colour?” I ask myself, starting to find my questioning rather funny. 

The colour in question I was staring at was a dull beige, nothing exciting, but because of that I figured it wasn’t likely and so I didn’t get my hopes up. I soon felt as if there was someone else there with me. I looked around, turning a full circle to see if I could spot anything, but all I could see was the sea of beige flooding my sight. The colour was even dull enough to make me yawn. “I’ve never yawned in a dream before.” I pondered on that sentence until I heard a ‘swoosh’ go past, behind me; the gust of air that followed alerted to me to which direction it headed. I turned and saw something quite a long way in the distance. Whatever it was, it was turning around and landing. It got closer and closer until it landed when it stopped for a few seconds. I squinted my eyes, trying to get a better look at whatever it was, but it was still too far for me to make out a clear shape.

The figure in the distance was getting closer to me, but before I could get another clear look, I was almost blown over by a large gust of wind. I covered my eyes as I waited to fall again. I looked to the ground as soon as I opened my eyes and sighed in relief as I saw that I wasn’t head over heels, I was just standing upright. However, when I looked down for a little bit longer, things felt different. I saw at the bottom of my revision something black. I followed my sight to it and immediately I groaned “Oh fantastic! So now I’m a pony in my dreams.” I sarcastically called out to no one in particular. I huff and kick my hoof into the floor, making a small ‘clunk’ as it bounced back into the air before I let it back down on the ground. I shook my head and sighed again. “This feels so out of place…” I pause to look around again. “This just doesn’t make sense…why am I even saying that. Turning into a pony doesn’t make sense.” I looked down to the floor again, but this time I was greeted with the sight of an extra pair of hooves. I quickly jump back, raising my head to look at the equine that had joined me in my own dream. I didn’t actually think of anypony in my dream. “This is new…” I muttered as I saw the pony in front of me was covered in a dark blue fur. The coat itself had a perfect sheen to it, telling me that this was a very well kept pony. The further I looked up, the more my sight was filled with navy blue, and quite strangely the colour changed from beige to a lilac colour that wasn’t too dissimilar to Twilight’s own fur. For a moment the navy blue was stopped by two circles of white, filled in with two smaller coloured circles. Once I had got past that there was a little bit more navy blue until I saw a beautiful mane. It was flowing as if there was a constant gentle breeze urging it to come to life; it seemed to glimmer small specks of light, much like an array of stars in the night sky. I could have sworn I could make out a constellation to. How was the night sky on a pony’s mane? I shiver as I mentally run over what I had just seen “A p-pony with no eyes!?” I screamed as my imagination gets the best of me and I turn tail and try to run away, only to find I was going nowhere and I was bound by a cobalt aura. “What the heck?” I mimic my tone from before and try harder, but to no avail.

I heard something sigh behind me, and I could only assume that it was the pony, it sounded annoyed, but I wasn’t going to ask and find out, so I doubled my effort in vain “Why must everypony fear me? I seek no harm to you, young one. I was just curiously peeking into your dream. When I saw you were having a dream in another form it tweaked my curiosity and I could not help but get a closer look. However, yet again it seems my past mistakes have come back to haunt me again.” The voice, which belonged to a female, seemed sad about my reaction, not angry or annoyed. “It seems the stories of my disastrous past have even led the young to believe there is no good in me. Perhaps it is best if I remain in absolute solitude.” She sighed and I felt her magic grip on me fade away completely “Go on little one, run away. I cannot blame you; for I am to be seen as the monster of whom I once became.” I could hear her voice almost cracking and she seemed like she was about to cry. I chanced my luck and turned around to see the pony. 

I couldn’t have felt any more stupid than I did because I realised that the white spots on the ‘pony with no eyes’ were in fact a pair of moderately toned cyan eyes. I felt really terrible that I hadn’t actually noticed, but I think in the rush I was in to see who it was, I didn’t pay close attention. Her eyes shimmered in the current light, although I could tell that they had that particular shimmer because in my rash actions I had upset her, or my reaction triggered a suppressed memory. When I looked her up and down again I realised I had missed something pretty important. At her chest was a patch of black fur with a crescent moon on her. I looked up to her face again, my mouth agape. “Say what you wish to. I have grown used to grotesque language to describe myself now. It is something that seems synonymous with me.” Her sorrowful display was making me sad and I knew I should say something.

“Y-you’re Princess Luna.” I stammered. She nodded solemnly. She mimics my earlier actions and looks to the floor, and she rubs her left forehoof slowly on her right one; the noise of the two hooves scraping together only making the scene even more awkward for the both of us. “You’re not Nightmare Moon, so you’re not scary…I wasn’t expecting to see you and when I did, you were kinda up close and then when I looked up at you, I might have thought you had…no eyes?” I say the last bit whilst wincing as if I was expecting to receive some kind of brutal beating for my sheer stupidity. “I’m sorry I tried to run away…I just didn’t know what to do…I wasn’t sure if…never mind. I’m sorry Princess.” I gave a small bow to her. I looked up to her again and she seemed somewhat surprised at my actions.

She frowned and leaned in to get a closer look at me “You do not see me as a monster? You mean to say that you see me as your Princess, in joint rule over Equestria with my dear sister, and not as the mare whom desired eternal night?” her eyebrows raise up slightly and she gives a soft chuckle before petting me “What is your name little one?”

I smile at the patting, because as patronising as it was, I still like it. “My name is Aero Crown.” She smiles down at me and then proceeds to sit on her haunches. “Uh, Princess Luna…am I right in saying that this is a dream?” she nods to me “Well how come you’re so…well not influenced by my thoughts? Aren’t all dreams influenced by the thoughts of those having the dream?” she looked back down to me and gave me a somewhat comforting smile, petting me for a couple of seconds before stopping and looking distantly.

She started speaking “Well, Aero Crown, as the bringer of the night it is my duty to check on any of my subject’s dreams. However, your dream looked particularly intriguing.” She looked around “It wasn’t so much the area that sparked my interest, but I believe it was something to do with the strange form that your body manifested itself into. I am aware that anything is possible in dreams, but this is the first time I have seen your type of dream. I was simply too curious to pass up the opportunity to observe. Unfortunately it appears that my presence startled you and in the panic, your form was able to reassess itself and shift you into your true form.” I thought about how ironic that was. In actual fact I felt like I had been startled out of my ‘true form’. She noticed my attention had turned to something else and cleared her throat “My apologies Aero Crown. It appears that my fascination perhaps went too far.” She smiled nervously at me, as if I was now the one who could attack her.

I wave my hoof at her and shake my head in a casual manner, which I think caught her a little by surprise “That’s no problem Princess. I do that all the time. In fact for the past few days it’s basically what has been keeping me sane. Although I always end up questioning, myself and then that might make me seem insane if I question myself allowed, but I can’t help it if sometimes I fell like I am the loneliest pony in Equestria. I have no pony to love me and that means that I only have myself to talk to because no pony wants to be around me or some ponies just don’t want me to exist. I know it all too well Princess. They ma….” I trail off as I find myself sobbing almost uncontrollably not for the first time. My thoughts were over the top, but whenever I said them, for some reason my mind would convince itself that my words were speaking the truth. I was also forced to stop because I felt the warmth of Luna’s wing as she embraced me in her feathered appendage. I looked up at her, teary eyes and sniffling like I had a really bad cold.

She used a fetlock to wipe away a stray tear that was sliding down my face. “Aero Crown I feel a degree of empathy for you. I know all too well what it is like to be abandoned and feel like you have no pony in the world to look out for you. I know it from a very deep level, and unfortunately it got the better of me. The tyrant that I became was a result of all my insecurities; I was so upset that no one appreciated me that it drove me into a blind fit of rage.” She gave a soft smile down to me and pulled her wing and my body in closer to her. The feeling of being in between her soft wing and her warm body was something that gave me comfort and I soon found myself calming down again. “As a young filly, I would say you are doing a far greater job of dealing with it than I did. Like I said, I got jealous, upset and insecure. The way you shed your tears is indeed a more clever approach and one that I’m sure has its benefits.” She used a hoof to lift my chin so I looked directly up at her “Aero Crown, do not let any hatred or jealousy rise, for it will make you no better than what you seek to change. I can promise you that.”

I gave her a rather delayed reaction “Thank you Princess.” I reply, my tone weak. I give a small sigh to the floor and I just let her wing hold me tightly “I just really miss my family.” I bit my lip as I realised that I may have just given myself away. “Uh…well y’know I just I-” my ears fall back as I feel Luna lower her head to look me in the eyes. In this dream I almost thought that Luna would come out with some kind of cliché line like ‘You are my daughter’. However, even in the dream I knew that it wasn’t going to happen, although I wasn’t really sure why that thought came to my head.

“I am not aware of your family situation. When you say you miss your family, are you lost?” I frown for a moment as her cyan eyes keep their focus on me. Technically I guess I was lost, so I nodded at her, keeping a frown on my face. “Well then I am afraid I can only sympathise with you on this occasion. If you are lost, do you have any idea where you are and where your parents may be?” I couldn’t help but feel like I had put myself in a tight corner. No one was going to be there to catch me if I fell and messed this up. If I was to give away my past then I risked possibly provoking Luna into some chain of events that would only end badly for me. Something was telling me that a suitable punishment was likely something that I wouldn’t be able to take. I shook my head free of the thoughts but Luna seemed to think it was my response. “Oh I see. I assume that you meant you don’t know where your parents are?” she raised an eyebrow at me. I couldn’t feel any luckier; I had just dodged a proverbial bullet then.

I start “Uh…” Luna’s eyes narrowed at me and I suddenly felt on the edge again. “I know where my parents are living.” I force my ears back and give a sad look up at her; I silently thanked taking up drama lessons because I was forcing out tears just when I needed to, and I made sure I was looking convincing. “L-Luna…Princess Luna they’re gone. A pony told me that they won’t be able to walk again. They won’t be able to breathe again. I’m young, but I’m old enough to feel the deep pain that it brought to my life. I feel the burn on my body every day. But I know I’ll somehow make it to a better place. Luna, I miss them so much. I don’t mind the orphanage, but I would much rather be back with my family. As impossible as it is, I know that it’s what would make me happiest.” I held back the real tears that were forming; it seemed I couldn’t stop being emotional, and I was mainly not on the good side of my emotions.

Luna’s wing pulled me closer and she gave a soft sigh, lifting her head to look off into the distance “I am truly sorry for your loss Aero Crown. Perhaps there is someone who is ad……hang on just a moment. My sister gave a small mention to me of how her student, Twilight Sparkle, had been taking care of a filly, but my sister informed Twilight that the filly must be put in an orphanage…Are you in PonyVille?” I nodded at her and smiled, knowing she had pieced it together “Do you know a young filly that arrived just yesterday? I believe my sister said that she was a Pegasus like you.” She gave a smile that seemed to wipe away her previously downbeat attitude. I was left feeling a little bit unnoticed because she didn’t even think I was the filly Twilight took in. 

I decided to speak up as Luna almost got lost in her thoughts “Twilight did take me in to the orphanage.” I smiled as Luna finally understood what I was saying. “I can’t actually remember my parents. I can’t remember anything before a few days ago when I woke up in Everfree forest. I know this makes me rather…unique. Twilight is probably signing the forms to adopt me as you and I speak…because we are in a dream.” I frown as I think of something and I couldn’t really have a better pony to ask “Because this is a dream, and because I’m controlling myself normally. Does that mean I can control the dream?” I start to feel a little bit excited at the prospect of being able to control my dreams if they’re all going to be like this.

Luna appeared to take some humour from my question. Her laughs were accompanied with small whinnies which I can only assume was a slight variation to her giggle “My dear child, as irritating as this may sound; you cannot alter what is happening in your dreams. Not unless you were to train yourself.” I gave her a frown “I am sorry Aero Crown, but some ponies aren’t able to control things like this.”

I shook my head at her “No I’m not mad at you, I’m just confused…this dream feels so real, which is weird because I’ve never had a dream like this before.” I stay quiet for just a moment, my thoughts processing a thousand memories a second. My ears perked up as I came to an idea “Well…uh…Luna…were you responsible for me falling asleep?” she shook her head at me and shot a curious look at me.

“I would have no desire to enforce a slumber upon an innocent pony, especially not a filly. Why do you ask?” she tilted her head at me, her eyes narrowing slightly in concern. I kept my thoughts to process for few more moments. I stepped away from her embrace and my brow furrowed in concentration. 

“Ah hah!” I cheered as I turned around “As I was falling asleep, I felt like I should be awake and still raring to go for the rest of the day because ponies my age have energy right, lots of energy?” she nodded at me, giving me a look as if I was crazy, and I was sure that the excited look I was giving her was probably a bit creepy “Right I’m supposed to have lots of energy, but I didn’t. I felt like I had none, but if I think over it again then I think that I did have the energy, but something was pushing it away. I didn’t actually feel tired. I was being forced to feel tired. I didn’t naturally fall asleep. My sleep was induced. Someone changed my physical and mental capabilities so that I would go to sleep with a bit of magical persuasion. It went unnoticed to the others, so it was subtle…who would do that?” I asked as I finally started to calm down, my thoughts having lost their excitement now that they had been said. “Who could do that?” I frowned again. 

Luna raised a hoof and waved it to get my attention “Aero Crown I am afraid I have very little knowledge of any magic that subtle. Twilight is one of the most gifted unicorns that my sister and I know. If she didn’t detect it, then the magic must have been extremely subtle. I think I have an idea of who could be responsible however.” She frowned slightly as she started to think of who it could be. “I believe the being responsible for this is……” I watched as her mouth moved, but nothing came from her actions. 
I frown as she seems to be waiting for my response when I couldn’t even hear her prediction “I’m sorry Princess, but I wasn’t able to hear who it was you said. Could you please repeat?” I blushed lightly at her, as if asking was a crime. She opened her mouth and I saw words forming again, but I couldn’t hear them and I noticed that she was actually talking for longer. She was saying something extra now, but I couldn’t here it. She could have been telling me extra information about whoever had induced my sleep. Luna started getting smaller and smaller as I was being moved further and further away. Soon she was just a spec standing in the far distance; she wasn’t trying to catch up with me. I started to panic as I looked to the floor and saw that the colour was draining from it. The colour lost all its saturation and it was just becoming black; I lifted my head and saw that the rest of the colour had done the same thing. Soon I found myself standing on the last remaining blotch of colour. The next thing I felt was my legs going numb and the feeling was soon spreading across my body. 

I stumbled and dropped down to the ground, crashing although I felt no pain from it. I tried to stand up again and get my bearings, but it was no use. I had no use of my legs and I could feel the same paralysing feeling soothing my neck, forcing the muscles to relax and I laid my head down on the floor only to feel the same thing happening to my eyelids. They felt heavy and I reluctantly closed them, although it was a losing battle and I shut them. 

 “Stay down! You must…….rd will……there’s no stopping……break it…go for the…” echoed in my mind as I lost every sense I had until I lost it all and went blank.    

> Joining In
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up and clutched at my blanket, sweating profusely as my breathing started to slow down and get deeper. I knew it was a dream, but it didn’t matter because it was far too real for me to get over. There was something about the ending of the dream that seemed eerie. I didn’t want to hazard a guess at what it could be. I looked around my room, shivering at what I might find lurking around there. However, I was allowed to sigh in relief when I saw nothing was there, waiting for me to notice it. I shuffled out of my bed before I fell down, not landing on my hooves; getting used to them was still an issue when it came to landing on them. I slowly walked over to the window and I was able to see the sun setting over the horizon. I had been sleeping for quite a while and I knew that this would mean I wouldn’t be sleeping too well tonight. I shook my head “Of course I would sleep for too long…I kinda wish I was there for the ‘adult’ talk.” Just as I finished saying that I heard the door slowly creek open, and I felt an ice cold shiver run down my spine; it gave me the same kind of feeling as when the dream was fading. 

I turned my head around and looked straight at the door to see that it was indeed open, but there was no pony there. I trotted over to the door and saw that no one was standing there either. Despite the fact I couldn’t see anypony; I could almost feel something watching me. I didn’t have anything like magic to sense it, so I couldn’t work out where it was, but I just knew that something else was in the room with me. I did the obvious thing to try and I spoke up “Hello? I know that you’re in here, but I would really appreciate it if you showed me where you are because you’re actually creeping me out a little bit now.” I said nervously, gulping and giving a sheepish grin as I circled around the room. My eyebrows soon dropped down when there was no response and funnily enough I didn’t feel like I was being watched any more. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit annoyed at it. I needed to know, and I especially needed to know why it made me feel so cold.

I looked back to the door again and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Twilight standing there. I reassessed it and calmed down almost immediately. She frowned at me curiously before walking over and smiling “I have good news Aero. All the forms and boring stuff like that are signed.” She winked, clearly trying to appeal to my younger side, of which I still agreed with. “And that’s not all.” She grinned at me, seeming to find it quite hard to control herself “The Groves and I worked out a deal. You’ll be staying with me for the night and for the rest of the day tomorrow. Then you’ll stay another night and be returned in the morning where you will spend one day and one night before you come back to me. They said that my home was suitable, and that it appeared there was no danger to you, so they said that I could have the trial period for longer than most are allowed. Isn’t this great!?” she gave a light laugh to force a smile out of me. 

The smile was far from forced because it was the news I had been waiting for practically the whole time I had been there. “So I think you should get whatever you want to bring with you.” I looked back at the room and saw nothing and then I looked back at Twilight, smirking with an eyebrow raised. “Well I don’t know do I?” she sighed, a grin still covering her face. I trotted out the door with a smug smile on my face. I turned and faced the purple unicorn as she closed the door and I smiled as I saw it as the door closing on this part of my life. I was hoping that it would symbolise the end of my days of misery. However, it wouldn’t escape me so easy that I would forget about what had happened just before Twilight came in. I frowned as I thought of what it could’ve been to disturb me so much.

“Twilight?” I asked and she soon turned her attention to me, her smile starting to become more neutral now. “Before you came in I felt a cold shiver. It was really scary and I didn’t like it.” I explained, making Twilight look at me with concern. She walked right up to me as soon as the door had closed. She nudged for me to start walking; I gave one more quick glance back at the door before I complied and started walking next to Twilight “Twilight? Do you know why I felt that?” I looked up at her to see a blank expression on her face, as if she was trying to ignore me. “Uh Twilight? Hello?” I frowned.

She snapped out of her thoughts to look back down at me with a smile “I’m sure it was nothing Aero. If it was something then you would’ve felt more than just a shiver. I get them all the time. Pretty much every time before an important test I’ll get a shiver, but it’s just because I’m nervous and even excited at the same time. I think you were just excited that you’ll be out of here for good in a couple of weeks.” She smiled as we walked through the hall. The halls were now striped with the vibrant glow of the setting sun from every window we passed on our way out. The magnificent orange created from the sun’s dying glow contrasted perfectly with the maroon walls of the hallway, but my thoughts weren’t entirely focused on colour schemes at that point. Already something was being hidden from me, I could feel it. 

I cursed myself for thinking like that about Twilight because she would be my new carer, although I guessed I’d actually have her as an official mother. “I’ve already talked with Joy and Earnest and you’re clear to go now, but when we get back they want a picture with you. I’d imagine that a little filly might be hungry? You haven’t eaten much today, so I thought it’d be a good idea if we got Spike to cook us something delicious.” My thoughts of being deceived quickly dropped away as I found myself thinking of food, and only food. “I know it might be a little bit cheeky of me to ask him on such short notice, but I know Spike and he would want to make you feel at home and happy, and if cooking an impromptu meal is what it requires then that’s what he’ll do. Spike is my number one assistant for one reason.” She smiled proudly as she thought of the purple dragon who had been with her from the start.

As we neared the exit I saw many of the older foals walking off to the dining room. I smiled to myself as I looked back whilst we were leaving. My view of the others was cut off as Twilight closed the door behind me, and I was soon being levitated above the ground as Twilight started trotting along and humming a happy tune to herself. It was still bizarre to be carried like this because although I was airborne, I couldn’t feel the air going past me, or through my mane, yet I was still moving through the air quick enough; it definitely wasn’t as exhilarating as flying, but it was an equally alien experience at first. The magic that had formed around me was making some kind of shield and it was forcing the air to go around rather than straight through. 

“Twilight can I walk?” I muttered just loud enough for her to hear. She lowered me down and I had to pick up to a canter just to keep up with her. I didn’t expect her to be so quick and I looked to her for a second; exactly when she gave me a wink coupled with a playful smile. I knew exactly what was going on and soon she started accelerating and started to get away from me. “Hey wait up!” I called, trying not to giggle as she kicked up some dust, showing how quick she was starting to go. I strained as I tried to keep up, but I just couldn’t.

My eyes went wide as I felt a sudden rush of speed go past me, followed by a familiar trail of a rainbow. Before I knew it, the rainbow trail stopped and I found that I was running past Twilight who had been stopped by the cyan Pegasus that I suspected was the cause. As I went past she waved and cheered “Go!” however, I soon realised that her cheer was actually for Twilight to start again and I could hear her hooves thumping as she got closer. I could only focus on the ground just ahead of me; the earthy greens and browns came into my view as I made it out of the town centre. I gritted my teeth and put all my effort into the running “Flap your wings Aero! It’s what they’re there for.” I looked up to see her being the spectator in the race, although I think she wanted me to win for some reason. I spread out my wings and started to flap them as hard as I could. 

However, I felt the drag of opening the appendages up and I watched hopelessly as Twilight passed me again, giving a small cheer. Despite this, I soon found my speed increasing and it wasn’t long before I overtook Twilight again. I flapped my wings a few more times to gain some altitude, and before I knew it I was high enough to see her house. I was high enough to see that I was at least twenty feet above Twilight. I glided for a moment, but saw that twilight was picking up speed again. I gave a quick thought of what could be done when I remembered how birds were able to gain speed by diving down. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a proper dive like the birds, but I could go for a slow descent. My hooves, which were outstretched at that point started to point downwards slightly and my whole body followed after their action. 

I grinned and decided I could have a little bit of fun with it; I pointed my hooves back up and flapped my wings as I gained altitude again. This was new to me, before I had only gone in a straight line, but I must have been about sixty feet in the air. I grinned and dived down, rushing past Twilight as the library got closer. I took a quick glance behind me to see how far ahead I was when I dipped my right wing and I started to feel unsteady.

I looked at my right wing and caused my whole body to tilt to that side, so I tried to lift it back up, but it sent me spiralling to the left; I was spinning upside down in mid air and my hooves were flailing everywhere and I couldn’t see where I was going. The whole experience was terrifying and I couldn’t help but give a small scream at first. I tried to clear my head of the negative thoughts and tried to concentrate on getting myself out of the situation in hand. I couldn’t stop myself and soon my eyes were building up tears of frustration. I could just about make out Twilight’s house up ahead, so I knew I’d actually still been travelling forwards, but I just waited for the inevitable crash. Suddenly I felt a large force wind me, moving me out of the way and when I looked to my side I saw that it was the cyan Pegasus who decided to be my saviour. 

She steadied her pace and lowered us to the ground. Once again as my hooves touched the ground I felt all shaky and disoriented, and before I could even speak up I felt another force on me and I soon saw that Twilight had got to me and was holding me close “Twilight I’m fine…I think.” I said, still quite dazed from what had just happened; Rainbow’s rescue had winded me because of how fast she was going, so my voice sounded dry and hoarse. 

“It’s okay kid, you just lost concentration; it happens all the time. You’re just lucky I was there to save you.” Rainbow started and she held up a rather proud pose just to assert herself and let herself be known to us. “I know others could have done it, but I was there just when you needed me the most; I guess that makes me reliable and awesome.” She snickered to herself, causing Twilight to roll her eyes and walk back over to Rainbow, making sure I was staying still.

Twilight circled around Rainbow and put on a rather mocking smile “Oh Rainbow you’re definitely the fastest, coolest, most awesome pony there is, and you’re so modest that it’s no wonder you’re a great hero. I mean you’ve really outdone yourself since the Mare-Do-Well incident.” Twilight smirked, causing Rainbow’s mood to shift and she quickly frowned at her friend “Oh come on Rainbow, don’t be sour. You know I didn’t mean it. I’m thankful that you were able to save Aero in her little…” she looked to me “Her little display.” They both chuckled and I could feel myself going red with embarrassment. “Actually. Rainbow, why were you just there. Y’know, there when Aero and I were racing.” This time it was Rainbow’s turn to smirk and she casually placed a wing over Twilight, chuckling to herself.

“Twilight. From the second I spotted you two running, I knew what was going on and when I flew down to stop you it was because you need to give her a chance; she’s a lot smaller than you and she takes about five steps for every three of ours. Of course you were going to be quicker, but it seems like Aero had figured out the best way to get speed, and when she lost control I was ready.” She cleared her throat and looked back at the rest of the town “Anyway, I probably need to go practice more tricks. The light is running out and I’m not any closer to getting this new trick done whilst I’m talking to you…so…I’ve gotta go!” she grinned before dashing away in the blink of an eye, the only clue being her rainbow trail as she left. I couldn’t help but feel as if her departure was a bit sudden; I kind of wanted her to stay a little bit longer. As I looked off into the distance I could just about make out a small rainbow streak spreading throughout the sky, making the orange colours of the sunset become nothing but a background colour even to the little streak of rainbow I could see.

I looked around to see Twilight holding her door open “Are you coming in?” she smiled at me and I walked in to see pretty much the same as what I did when I visited earlier in the day, except that everything looked a little bit darker with the fading light. “Spike!” Twilight called and within only a few second the purple dragon came stumbling in, carrying what seemed like a large pile of books. “I need you to cook some dinner for us. Something special so that we can welcome Aero.” She beamed, moving to the side a little to let Spike have a clear view of me. He picked up the books and gave a passing wave at me, smiling a little bit as he concentrated on getting the books back in their correct place. 

The books became enveloped in Twilight’s magic and she put them back in their exact places “Come on Spike we don’t have time to waste, she’s really hungry.” I opened my mouth to speak, but I was stopped when I saw Twilight wink at me “Look at her Spike, her tummy was rumbling the whole way home.” She continued in a whiny tone, making the dragon look more like he was in a panic as he scurried back up the stairs to where he would make the food. “That’s why he’s my number one assistant.” She beamed and trotted her way to the stairs. I followed behind and shook my head; it was almost being mean to Spike, but it was still kind of funny to watch him panic over nothing, not that I would let him know it was nothing, going along with Twilight’s game was much more fun.

I smiled as I saw the dragon already working hard on the food, a chef hat placed firmly on his head and he was humming a familiar tune and it made me giggle that the tune was even used here. “Spike I was thinking that maybe you and Aero would like to get introduced properly? I know you two met at the party but it was kind of cut short.” He waved a hand, seemingly dismissive of Twilight. “Well okay then.” She smiled before looking back at me again “Aero, make yourself comfortable please. Spike won’t take that long to finish up, and soon we’ll be talking like all of us have known each other for years.” She gave a hearty chuckle and smiled. 

Twilight and I wandered over to the table and we sat down. “So Aero, how was your nap?” I gave an uncertain look at her as I remembered what had transpired in my dream that ended with a nightmare, although I couldn’t be too sure on what it was. It was still bugging me and now that the dream had been touched upon, its intensity increased, making me more curious. “Is something wrong Aero? Did you have a bad dream or something?” I had to think about that, could I really call it a bad dream? It was a little bit off putting at times, but it wasn’t really bad. I could have called it emotional and strange, but not a bad or scary dream, at least not until the end, although I was more curious rather than scared about that. “Aero?” I shook my head and looked to see Twilight looking at me as if I was something she hadn’t seen before. “You zoned out on me there. Are you okay?” I finally responded, nodding slowly at her. “Well if you’re not you’ve got to let me know otherwise I can’t help you, okay?” I nodded again and she smiled, walking away to Spike after patting me on the head; sometimes I hated being this small, it just gave the older ponies an excuse to be patronising. It was odd; wanting to grow up all over again was familiar to me, but going through those thoughts again was different this time because I knew what to expect for the most part. However, I knew nothing about growing up as a pony, so I was clueless.


Dinner passed by quickly and I was full to the brim. One more bite and I was sure I would look like a pony balloon, which would only attract Pinkie Pie’s attention, and although I like her I guessed she was prone to popping balloons, which wouldn’t be good for me. “And then I became her student.” Twilight finished as she was explaining to me how she got to be Princess Celestia’s protégé. I was able to let my food get digested as I listened to her story; it carried on until the sun had completely set and the moon had risen almost completely, that girl could really go into detail of one event. 

I yawned just after she finished, fearing her reaction if I yawned during her story. I hobbled over to a window and looked out at the moon, I heard Twilight follow after me and she stood next to me, sighing quietly “Luna really does do a beautiful job on the moon. I’ll tell you a story about Luna another time probably. It’s kind of sad, but it has a happy ending.” I knew what story she was talking about, or at least I thought I did. “I think you need to get some sleep. You can have my bed tonight, I’ll get in once I’ve finished working on something; we’ll get your bed soon because I just know you’ll want your own cosy bed.” She chuckled and pushed me in the direction of the stairs that led me up to her and Spike’s bedroom. 

I hopped into the bed and Twilight tucked me in “Comfy?” I nodded and she smiled, walking back down to do whatever she was doing. The bed had starry bed sheets and it made me feel even younger when I was tucked in. Spike soon came up to the room and got in his bed. It took a while for me to get to sleep because I was trying to get used to the room, trying to spot things that could spark some interest. After about twenty minutes I felt my eyelids get heavier and start to droop; I tried to fight it, but it was pointless and I thought to myself that shutting my eyes for a little bit would give the reverse effect and I’d be able to have my eyes open for longer next time. I gave another yawn and I curled up a little bit more, my body relaxing almost completely. I sighed happily as I finally gave in to the pressure that the incoming sleep was putting on me.

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The next thing I knew it was morning. I knew that because I was rudely taken from my sleep by the blinding light that suddenly entered my vision and even through my eyelids the light seemed harsh. I narrowed my eyes to give them time to adjust and I saw a certain purple unicorn smiling at me. I frowned at her, showing my distaste in this treatment. I looked across to see that Spike was giving Twilight the same look as I was. Without saying anything I was ushered out of the bed and told to go downstairs. I protested and instead sat on the floor, looking at twilight, clearly unimpressed still. “You’re not going to make this easy are you?” I asked, knowing the answer, but I thought it would be worth the question to delay her further. “I bet I look terrible though.” I tilted my head with a smirk, thinking it would buy me extra time from whatever she wanted me to do. 

However, before I could do anything else I felt a hairbrush going through my mane and tail, straightening out my hair before Twilight put it back to the style it was yesterday. “Well sure I can look alright, but…actually what are you rushing me out the door for?” I raised an eyebrow at her despite the frustrated look she was giving me “What?” I looked at her as innocently as I could, but it did no favours for me at all.

I backed up a little bit as Twilight’s frustration was getting to her mane as some split ends were appearing and she was becoming an opposite to her usual calm self. It reminded me of Jekyll and Hyde a little bit, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that “Uh Twilight your mane is kinda…never mind.” I backed away a little bit “Thank you for styling my mane…could you at least tell me what we’re doing today?” I chuckled nervously at her and tried to stand my ground as she did start to calm down. I breathed out in relief and I looked up at her questioningly. “What day is it actually?” I raised an eyebrow again; I couldn’t believe I had forgotten what day it was, but it had never actually occurred to me before. I actually had a few more question, the main one being centred on breakfast; it didn’t matter on what planet or in what body I was in, I would always have an appetite.

“Well today there isn’t any school for you, and I thought it might be nice if you actually met my friends properly; I know you’ve met them briefly and I know Pinkie and Rainbow have said a bit more to you, but I thought it would be good if you could get to know Fluttershy, Rarity and AppleJack a bit better. I wouldn’t have thought that you and Sweetie Belle actually said much to Rarity, especially after the…the dress incident.” I nearly snorted from the laughter as my memory recollected that event. Twilight gave me a short scowl before continuing. “I think that Apple Bloom will be happy to see you, so do you want to visit the Apple farm first? It’s a really nice place and all of the Apples are friendly. I was already meant to go to the spa with Rarity today so we can meet her there; oh Aero you’ll just love the spa.” 

The thought made me want to wretch, I had never liked places like that, but I guessed I would have to go along anyway, so I held back my emotional sickness that I felt towards the spa and I smiled at her, letting her carry on her organised schedule. “Then after that we’ll go and visit Fluttershy. We could maybe even see if she will let you pet a few of the animals. Fluttershy would be fine I’m sure; you don’t exactly strike me as somepony who is a rough handler with animals.” It was then that I noticed that Twilight’s owl was actually just sitting by one of the windows with its eyes shut, sleeping soundly. It looked quite creepy just sitting there like it was watching something closely. “and Rainbow would be happy to teach you a few things I’m sure.” I blinked and looked back at Twilight as she finished her day plan. 

I was at least a little bit thankful that this had made Twilight happy again after the less than warm reception I gave her from my rather brisk start to the day. “I thought it would be a nice idea if you and I were to have a bit of an odd breakfast, but quite a nice treat at Sugarcube Corner. We can say hello to Pinkie, have breakfast and we’ll meet her later as I explained.” She led me down the stairs and we walked out the door as Spike waved us off. 

The walk to Sugarcube corner was quick and easy. Twilight paid for our cakes and I looked a bit strange probably because I was just staring at all the different cakes and pastries that were there, finding the choice I had to make very difficult. They all chuckled as I struggled to choose what to have, but eventually after a lot of second guessing I was able to choose what looked like the most expensive one, which I could see Twilight frown at a little bit, but she couldn’t deny me. It gave me a sense of power that I probably shouldn’t have because it was just getting a cake; not exactly gaining power over the world, but it was the first bit of control I felt and it was an advantage of being younger, I was given what I wanted on this occasion. I knew it wouldn’t work all the time, but it was quite fun to pick the most expensive thing seeing as Twilight was paying for it and not me. 

Both of us waited for the cakes to be served to us and when we were served, it was none other than the pink mare who was giving it to us. At first she didn’t notice, but then she suddenly perked up with energy when she saw us. She gave me the cakes and then dived in to hug Twilight “Oh my gosh I can’t believe you’re here! I was gonna come and find you after I finished work to see if you wanted to go see a Wonderbolt show that Dashie managed to get some tickets for, but now you’re here I can tell you now. Twilight do you wanna go see the Wonderbolts’s show with me, Dash and everyone of our friends?” she grinned, getting off Twilight, but she continued to bounce energetically as she waited for a response “Hey Aero!” she waved to me at a million miles per hour, her grin stretching further. “Well come on Twilight it’s not a guessing game. It’s a question; I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out, duh.” She tutted, her mane bounced as she did, seeming to have a life of its own. 

Twilight was about to open her mouth to speak, but Pinkie was quick to answer instead “Great, I’ll let you know when we’re going. It’s going to be AMAZING!” she roared with excitement before she looked back to see both the Cake spouses looking at her, their head shaking; they were clearly just used to her behaviour now and just rolled with the ever changing motion that was Pinkie Pie. Pinkie went back to her work after waving at us again. Twilight walked over to me and took her cake; I had taken the opportunity to have dinner and a show with the performance that Pinkie gave. It was enough time for me to finish my cake and get rid of the excess icing. 

Suddenly, I heard the crash of something not too far from me; I turned to see what had happened and I could have been more surprised when I saw the culprit, or should I say the culprits. The doors swung closed behind them as they laid in their pileup. Scootaloo raced up and out, pointing her hoof at me “I told you she had come here with Twilight, and look who was right.” She boasted. I opened my mouth to speak, but Scootaloo was far too fast and she wrapped a foreleg around me as I looked up at Twilight, confused at their sudden appearance “So Twilight, we were wondering if we could show Aero around PonyVille since she is our new Cutie Mark Crusader after all. It would only be right if she was shown by us, her best and most trusted friends. Would that be okay? We also need to officially induct her into the group. It’s absolutely essential.” She explained, trying to put on her very best formal tone, although it was far from Rarity’s vocabulary. Twilight seemed to be thinking of an answer for them. Her face was scrunched up in thought as she tried to weigh out the decisions. “Well? Can we?” Scootaloo pushed.

The purple unicorn lowered her head to look down at the three of them and she gave a warm smile “You know what. You girls can all spend the day together. Just make sure that you don’t get into trouble. And make sure you don’t get hurt; Celestia only knows what the Groves would think of me if Aero were to get hurt or mistreated when I’m not even there to stop it from happening and then I’ll be looked upon as a bad parent and then I’ll be-” she was halted from hyperventilating by the pink mare that had rushed onto the scene the moment it happened. Twilight soon regained composure “Yes. Just be careful.” She smiled sheepishly.

Pinkie walked next to her friend and chuckled “Geez Twilight you nearly lost your cool. Lucky for you I was there to stop you, although I’m pretty sure you didn’t need my help, but if you didn’t then you would have stopped and I always need to help a friend in need right Twi?” she grinned, tilting her head to the side. Twilight gave a small grin and nodded at Pinkie, causing the mare to bring in another one of her rib-crushing hugs “Oh I knew you would appreciate it Twilight.” She gasped for a moment “I’ve got to get back to work. I think I’ve left some cupcakes in the oven, and that would ruin them if they were burnt! Gotta go!” all that we saw after that was a pink blur and the door leading to the kitchen closing, cutting off our sight beyond that point. 

All of us sat there for a second and watched as if we were expecting her to rush back out, but after a few seconds she didn’t so we all exchanged confused looks before Scootaloo reminded her fellow ‘crusaders’ of their current mission. They were able to sneak me away from twilight without her even seeing, although I couldn’t figure out why they were sneaking me out.

“Is this really necessary? Twilight said it was okay for me to go. I don’t see why you felt the need to get me out of there without me saying goodbye.” I whined, giving a slight edge to my voice, showing my irritation. “Not only that, but you seemed to pay little attention to the fact that-” I was cut off by Sweetie Belle shushing me. “Oh come on, not you too Sweetie Belle. I was only trying to-” the same response came from Sweetie Belle. My expression flattened “You’re carrying me through the centre of PonyVille. I don’t think you need to whisper.” I was completely ignored. “Oh hey, lets play the p..annoy AeroCrown game. It may earn you a cutie mark in that.” I grumbled, but the response was almost immediate because I found myself on the floor, no longer being carried by the three fillies. I winced on landing, my rear experiencing the pain “Ouch! What gives with you three today?” I huffed, feeling even grouchier at that point.

“Could we really get a cutie mark for that?” Apple Bloom beamed before realising the tone that was in my voice and her expression soon turned “Oh… Aero, why’ve ya gotta be so like that?” she asked, looking like I had just crushed her hopes. However, she soon started giggling at herself “Look at me, startin ta weep like a foal. Ah dunno how ah fell for that…” she kept on giggling despite the odd stares she was getting from the other three of us…and some of the ponies passing by in the town centre. 

We ushered her away from the centre and moved to the outskirts of the town “So what exactly are we going to do? Rarity says I have to go with her to the spa today, so I don’t have long.” Sweetie Belle explained; a hint of sadness in her voice. When she mentioned the spa I remembered the whole point of the day that Twilight had set out for me. As much as I hated the spa, and as much as I probably regretted agreeing to going, I had to go. Especially since Sweetie Belle was going to be the only filly there. I couldn’t stand to think of her being bored by herself. I bit my bottom lip and felt my stomach churn as I opened my mouth to speak and allow myself to get dragged into whatever horrible trial was about to come my way in the spa.

“Sweetie Belle. Twilight told me that I had to go to the spa as well and I agreed to go, so when you have to go, I’ll come with you. I’ll keep you company. I’ve never actually been to a spa before, so how does it actually work in there?” I asked, receiving odd looks from the trio; it was something I was getting awfully accustomed to. “What? I just told you I’ve never been to a spa.” Their looks did not cease and I shook my head, getting bolder “Hello, Equestria to Scootaloo…somepony? Anypony?” they all started giggling at me “What did I do now?” I sighed “This is all just a massive joke to you isn’t it?” they all nodded “But you still want me to join your little group of the…crusaders?” again they all nodded in unison. My expression went flat on them “Fine. Let’s do something.” The three of them cheered and I couldn’t help but let out a small smile as I rolled my eyes.

I felt myself being pushed away this time and it was confusing me because I had no idea where I was actually going; until I saw Scootaloo’s scooter. It struck me as an odd place for her to leave her scooter. It had just been propped on the side of a cart. “Get in, we’re going to the clubhouse.” She said, getting onto her scooter. I was clutching to the back of Sweetie Belle as the scooter started; I closed my eyes as we started moving. I had never liked moving fast when I wasn’t in control, although flying was probably an exception. The trailer bounced on most of the bumps and I shook from fear. 

I chanced a peak to look ahead and I saw that we were out of PonyVille; obviously I had closed my eyes for longer than I thought. A few seconds was all I could take as I buried my face back into Sweetie Belle’s back, whimpering a little bit because I hated it. “Is something wrong back there? All I can hear is some high pitched whining.” Scootaloo chuckled and I could hear that the others were laughing with her. I couldn’t even find the courage to look up and scowl at them; I would save that for after we stopped and I regained my composure. Revenge would be in order and it would be sweet to watch I would catch a sweet tooth.

Before I knew what was going on I felt myself crash to the ground after bouncing off of one of the other three. I opened my eyes and looked back to see the trailer and the scooter looking a little bit worse for wear, but I could still hear the motor growling. I stood up, my legs still shaking as I was still adjusting to the solid ground beneath my hooves. I looked at the other three and they all seemed shocked and quiet as they stood up. However, it didn’t take long for them to giggle. 

I couldn’t work out what they were laughing about. “Aero you’re so scared of being on a scooter!” Sweetie Belle sniggered, trying to cover it with her mouth “Your wings are spread out right now.” I raised an eyebrow and looked back to my wings, seeing that they were outstretched. It was odd, I couldn’t actually feel them and I didn’t feel them stretch out like they were. I had to assume it was just a natural reaction in a sort of ‘fight or flight’ response, which was far more literal in my current form. “We just fell and then you stand up looking like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sweetie Belle walked over and put a hoof over me as she continued to chuckle. Despite them all having their own cuts and grazes, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo just set the scooter and trailer upright and then off to the side.

“Why aren’t we going any further?” I asked, getting another chuckle from the others.

“Well it’s because we’re here. Whilst you refused to look ahead, Scoots took a few shortcuts and we got here quicker, but we didn’t plan on falling off, so sorry about that part.” I frowned at Sweetie Belle as she gave a sheepish smile to me, whilst raising her hoof in a salute “I think she’s gonna blow!” she called and immediately I was tackled down to the ground, leaving only the trees and the sky in my view; the light blue only shown in traces through the spots not covered by the dark green of the leaves and the contrasting brown of the bark. The simple view was blocked by two faces staring back at me with a silly grin on their face “What!? That’s not what you should do; you just had to move her attention away from fuming at me. Don’t tackle her!” Sweetie Belle called to them, sounding irritated herself. I struggled in their grip and nearly broke free, but I could only find the whole situation funny so I was fighting through laughter, which only made it more difficult. “Wait she’s laughing. Let her up. She’s laughing.” Sweetie Cheered. 

I felt the weight lift off me and I stood up as quickly as I could, charging at Sweetie Belle with a grin on my face. However, she sidestepped out the way with ease. I kept running, but I slowed down when I looked up and saw the clubhouse; it was impressive to me, and it looked well constructed. I tripped over the start of the stairs the led up to the house and I landed face first; receiving a face full of dirt and a small cloud of dust. I felt like I was going to wretch at the smell that had just come over me. I let the dust settle and saw that just in front of my nose was a rotting apple and I quickly backtracked until I caught a hoof on the stairs again. 

Luck was kind to me on that occasion because I was able to steady myself enough to stay up. I turned to look at the clubhouse again, it looked even better up close, and although the materials seemed pretty much the same for it, the whole building looked well designed. “Girls, I’ve gotta say this is impressive. Did Apple Jack make it?” I looked back to see that they weren’t there. I frowned and followed the sound I heard from them, tracing it up to the top of the stairs; how had I not noticed them going up there? They shook their heads and shared a giggle between each other.

“Na. Ah made it. It was pretty easy, but it took a long time.” Apple Bloom stated, almost gloating in her response. “Come on up the stairs, they’re safe enough for all three of us to walk up them. You’re not scared of us are ya?” she smirked, narrowing her eyes at me, taunting me. I narrowed my eyes back at her, although I wasn’t smirking like she was.

I took one step forwards, keeping eye contact with her, trying to work out if she was bluffing. “I’m not sure whether you’re being serious or not. How can I be sure you haven’t trapped this for me?” she shrugged and then the other two started laughing.

Scootaloo was laughing the loudest and she spoke in between her laughs “Aero we wouldn’t t-trap it for a fellow crusader.” She continued uncontrollably. Apple Bloom started laughing with them, although hers were more controlled and she looked back to me, gesturing me to get over there. I swallowed and walked up the stairs, finding out in embarrassment that I was over thinking things way too much. The other two fillies stopped and stood up straight, moving to the side of the door to the clubhouse. Apple Bloom pushed it open and all three cheered.

“Welcome to the clubhouse and welcome to the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” they grinned as I was pushed inside, Sweetie belle closing the door behind us.