> Making Friends
>  by arcum42
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Imaginary Ponies Are the Best Ponies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Making Friends


"You know, I've always wanted to visit Manehattan. A romantic candlelit dinner, alone in the Big Apple..."

"How about a trip to Prance? High culture, fine dining, museums and galleries, and some time spent with just the two of us..."

Sweetie Belle listened to her parents throwing lovey-dovey ideas for their latest vacation back and forth and wanted to gag. They were too busy planning things out to make any time for her. Worse, it sounded like they were leaving her behind yet again.

They'd suggested she go outside and play with her friends, but she wasn't really sure what she could do. It was also another sign of how much they'd been ignoring her, because she didn't actually have any friends. Not really. Making friends was something she'd never been good at.  And who'd want to hang out with a useless, talentless blank flank like her anyways?

Oh, don't be so down on yourself. What about those sweet songs you've been writing?

She perked up a bit at the reminder. Given her lack of real friends, she'd ended up inventing an imaginary one instead. The two of them had spent enough time playing that by this point, she seemed as real as anypony else she'd met. Other ponies may think it was lame, but what did they know?

"Do you really think they're any good?" she asked, fishing for some extra reassurance.

Any good? They're awesome! You should really try singing them in front of somepony else someday.

Sweetie Belle shuddered at the thought of performing for a crowd of ponies. She'd forget the words, or have her voice break right in the middle of a verse, and they all start laughing. She wasn't sure she could take it.

"So what do you want to do?" she asked her imaginary friend. She knew that she was really just asking herself, but with all the time they'd had together, it didn't feel that way.

I... don't really know. Lets get out of here, anyways.

She supposed that made sense. They could figure out something to do later. She put on her saddlebags, making sure she had plenty of paper and pencils, and headed towards the door.

"Mom! Dad! I'm going outside to play!" she called out behind her.

"That's nice, dear. Don't stay out too late." She faintly heard behind her as she went through the door. Parents. She wasn't even totally sure if they'd really been paying attention, or just replied to her automatically.

Well, they acted like they heard you, anyways. So they shouldn't come back later and say they didn't know you left. 

"True," Sweetie Belle replied under her breath. Now that she was outside, she didn't really want ponies making fun of her for talking to thin air.

You know, you think too much about how other ponies see you. Do you think Rainbow Dash cares what anypony thinks when she goes and tries those awesome new moves of hers?

Well, maybe not. She changed the subject. "So, where should we go?"

She could almost see her friend next to her, head cocked, considering. How about we head over to the pond?

The pond was a bit of a favorite hangout for them, as no one ever disturbed her there, or seemed to go there too much. Well, Ditzy seemed to go there fairly often, but she always seemed to know when Sweetie Belle wanted some space, and left her alone.

"All right, the pond it is!" In fact, she supposed she could make it into a quest of sorts. That could be fun.

Sure. Let's see. The Noble Sir Rocinante has been turned into a frog by an evil enchantress, and has been left in Frogbury Pond. The Lady Belle, and I, her faithful squire Rucio, have embarked on a quest to find and free him from his ensorcellment!

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Ok." She then shifted into full adventuring mode. Tail waving back and forth, she pounced on a nearby bush, and hid in it. She stealthily crept from bush to bush, and hid in the tall grass. 

Once she was actually starting to get closer to the pond, she slowed down. The evil enchantress may still be lurking around, after all. Crouching behind a tree, she poked her head out, and surveyed the area around her, looking for any threats.

Lady Belle? Her squire said to her from a nearby bush, clearly getting into her role. I see a maiden lying in the clearing to your right. Perhaps she can be convinced to join your quest?

Looking in that direction, she saw a familiar grey mare stretched out in the sun. Well, the more the merrier, and maybe Ditzy would be willing to play along. She'd always seemed rather nice in the past. Sweetie Belle entered the clearing, totting out into full view of the blond mare.

"Greetings! I haight the Lady Belle of... um... El Toboso, and this is my faithful squire Rucio. We  have embarked on a quest to rescue the Noble Sir Rocinante from his ensorcellment by an evil enchantress!"

Ditzy looked over at Sweetie Belle and smiled with suppressed merriment. "Oh? A worthy quest indeed. I am the Lady... Dorothea of Torte, at your service. Tell me more of your quest."

Ditzy got up, and executed an exaggerated half-bow in Sweetie Belle's direction.

Sweetie Belle smiled as well. Ditzy was going to play along with her game. With both of them and her imaginary friend involved, this would be a lot more fun.

"They say the evil enchantress worked a transmogrification spell on Sir Rocinante, turning him into a frog. I have heard both are located somewhere in the vicinity of Frogbury Pond," Sweetie Belle said, elaborating on her mission.

"I believe you are right. An enchantress in the same area has cursed me with the evil eye. I was seeking a way to free myself from its effects when you arrived," Ditzy said, quickly improvising. Given Ditzy's problems with her eyes, Sweetie Belle had to admire how easily she poked fun at it.

Then perhaps the three of us should join forces? Her friend prompted.

"Given that, perhaps we should join forces, as my squire has suggested." Sweetie Belle repeated for Ditzy's benefit.

"Indeed, your squire must be very wise," Ditzy said, giggling slightly.

Sweetie Belle could almost see her companions chest puffing out and wings extending at the complement. "She has her moments."

"So, did you have any plans for finding either this sorceress, or the enchanted noble?" Ditzy asked. "There are a lot of frogs in Frogbury Pond." 

That deflated Sweetie Belle for a moment. How did one tell one frog from another, even if one of the two was enchanted? 

Then something she had missed occurred to her. Weren't all quests supposed to start with an epic music number? And she thought she remembered just the right song for this quest.

"Let's worry about that when we get there," She told Ditzy firmly. "For now, we just need to ease on down the road."

"Ease on down the road?" Ditzy said blankly.

"Ease on down the road," Sweetie Belle repeated with emphasis.

At the repeated words, Ditzy brightened up, smiling as if something had just occurred to her. "Ease on down the road!"

"Right! Come on, Ditzy, don't you carry nothing that might be a load. Ease on down the road!" Sweetie Belle nudged Ditzy with one hoof, and they started walking forwards, laughing. And when Sweetie Belle started singing, Ditzy joined on in.


"Come on and ease on down, ease on down the road.
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road.
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load.
Come on, ease on down, ease on down, down the road."


After they'd sung the chorus together, Sweetie Belle nervously started singing the first line of the first verse. This part was supposed to be a duet. Did Ditzy know the song? She thought so, given her reaction, but wasn't positive.


"Pick your left hoof up when your right one's down."


Much to her relief, Ditzy came right back with the next line, smoothly as if they'd practiced it. 


"Come on, let's keep moving, don't you lose no ground."


She joined back in for the next two lines.


"You just keep on keeping on the road that you choose.
Don't you give up walking 'cause you threw a shoe."


At the last line, to Sweeties' surprise, Ditzy tossed her on her back and took off flying. They looped around the pond a few times while singing the chorus, then Ditzy put her down back on the ground, somewhat to her relief. Ditzy was cool, but she'd heard about her history of crashing into things.

Of course, Ditzy had probably had lots of practice with that particular stunt with Dinky. Come to think of it, she wondered where Dinky was. When she heard Ditzy starting the next verse, though, she snapped out of it and brought her attention back to the song.


"'Cause there may be times when you think you lost your mind."


She quickly slid in with the next line as if it had been planned that way. She was actually kinda surprised Ditzy knew the song well enough for this to work.


"And the steps you're taking leave you three or four steps behind."


She thought that was right, anyways. She did feel a lot more upbeat since she started singing, but then, this song usually had that effect on her. Ditzy started singing with her again for the next couple of lines. She actually seemed to sing pretty well.


"But the road you're walking might be long sometimes.
You just keep on stepping, and you'll be just fine."


Once they were done with the chorus, they started actually trotting over to the pond, rather than just circling around it like they had been doing, and she started in on the last verse.


"Well, there may be times when you wish you wasn't born."


Ditzy ran with the next line of the song.


"And you wake one morning just to find your courage's gone."


And they both continued on with the end of the verse.


"But you know that feeling just lasts a little while.
So just stick with us, and we'll show you how to smile."


After winding down with the chorus, the two of them couldn't help it and burst out laughing, both with exhilaration and at the sheer silliness of it all. It didn't help that in her head, she could hear her imaginary friend laughing right along with the two of them. After a few minutes, Ditzy spoke up.

"Great singing, Sweetie. I didn't realize you'd seen that musical. It's always been a favorite of mine." Ditzy smiled.

"Thanks. It's one of mine, too, which is why it came to mind. And you sing well. I don't think I've heard you sing before." Then Sweetie Belle remembered her question from earlier. "By the way, where's Dinky?"

"Oh, Dinky's visiting her father for the weekend. She'll be back on Monday, though." Looking sad for a moment, Ditzy changed the subject. "You know, I actually played in that musical once. Of course, then I was the Scarecrow, and now I seem to be Dorothy... or Dorothea, anyways." She snickered.

"Really? That must have been so cool!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. No wonder she knew the song well!

"Oh, it was a lot of fun. Though that song was really intended for four ponies. With the two of us and... your squire, that only makes three. Are we expecting somepony else?"

That had kinda bugged her. "Not really. It was just the most appropriate song that came to mind."

"Well, it was a very good one, at that." Ditzy straightened up, and shifted back into 'Lady Dorothea' mode. "Now that we're here at the pond, I was thinking about how you could find the ensorceled frog. I think we can assume the enchantress that cursed me with the evil eye was the same one that enchanted Sir Rocinante. If you or your squire can see the magic on me, they should be able to look for a frog that had the same magic."

No magic here. This one's all on you.

"Great."

Sweetie's mouth quirked. "Given that my squire is a pegasus, that'd be rather difficult for her."

Ditzy laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry. The evil eye must have affected my vision more than I thought." She picked the empty air to one side of Sweetie Belle, and executed a quick bow. "My apologies, Squire Rufio."

Not a problem. It's not like she can see or hear me, anyways.

For that matter, Sweetie Belle couldn't either, really, outside of in her head. She'd just built up a pretty good mental picture of her since they'd started playing together. "No apologies necessary. You seem to be coping pretty well, considering."

"Well, you get used to it after a while, though it wrecks all sorts of havoc with my flying and coordination," Ditzy said, with a wan smile.

Oh. Yeah, having wonky vision like that must really suck.

Thinking about how many issues her eyes must cause her aside from ponies picking on her, Sweetie Belle had a sudden surge of sympathy. "That must be really difficult for you." Then, feeling uncomfortable, she shifted gears. "Right, so lets gather up frogs, and see if we can find the one linked to your curse, then see if we can break both."

Actually, the best she'd be able to do is make sparks, but for the game they were playing, that'd be good enough. Though she was tempted to try some real magic. She was tired of not really being able to do anything with her horn.

So she ran around the pond chasing frogs, and lining them up in a muddy patch, while Ditzy tried to prevent the bored frogs waiting from escaping. The frogs, nonchalant from years of being poked and prodded by young foals, croaked at her as if to tell her to get on with it, so they could get back to their lily pads.

After she'd gathered about a dozen frogs, she decided she had enough, and to move on to the next step.

"So now I have to look at the magical aura around you, and look for a frog with the same aura," she said, then stopped. "How do I do that?"

Um, frogs aren't magical. Why not just look for one that has a magical aura?

This struck her as such a good idea that she was dumbfounded for a moment. She held up a hoof as Ditzy began to speak, cutting her off.

"Actually, my squire just made a really good point. Wouldn't I just need to look for a frog that has a magic aura?" Sweetie Belle said.

Ditzy looked at her for a moment. "You know, I hadn't really thought about that," she said blankly, then hit her head with one hoof. As her tongue was sticking slightly out, and her eyes were crossed, this presented such a comical picture that Sweetie Belle had to laugh.

"I'm still not sure how to see magic auras, though," she said quickly.

"Well, I'm not a unicorn, but I've done a little bit of reading about this because of my daughter. I think you just find the magic somewhere inside of you, channel it up and through your horn outside of your body, then direct it over your eyes. Obviously I've never done it myself," Ditzy said, thinking. "I'm not sure this is such a good..."

"I've got to try this. Just give me a moment."

That description actually made a lot of sense to her. Before, she hadn't really been trying to channel anything to her horn. She'd just sort of assumed the horn generated the magic. She turned to face the frogs, and closed her eyes. She knew this was just a game, but she really wanted to be able to see magical auras.

Concentrating inside her, at first she couldn't find anything. Then, when she was about ready to give up, she detected a spark. She concentrated, making it stronger, then slowly brought it up through her horn...

Got it yet? Her imaginary friends voice suddenly came from inside her head, as if she was right in front of her. Startled, she opened her eyes. And saw nothing, of course, but she had forgotten about the stream of magic being channeled through her horn.

Instead of redirecting it to her eyes like she'd planned, it burst out in a ray right in front of her, scattering all the frogs out of the way. Panicked, and suddenly feeling exhausted, she tried to figure out what to do.  She couldn't really visualize things right yet with her eyes open, so she quickly closed them, and then cut off the magical flow to her horn before passing out.


*****


"Sweetie Belle?" Ditzy's rather scared voice drifted into her consciousness. "Sweetie Belle, are you all right?"

"Just a moment." She mumbled. Her eyelids felt really heavy, and she really only felt half there right now. After a few moments, she managed to open them, to see a concerned Ditzy right over her.

"What happened?" She managed to ask. She still felt kinda strange, and sort of empty.

"That's what I'd like to know." Something seemed wrong when her imaginary friend spoke, and thinking, she pinpointed it. Her voice no longer seemed to be just in her head.

Looking past Ditzy, she goggled at what she saw. In the mud puddle where the frogs had been lay a orange filly her age with magenta hair, covered in mud. In all aspects she resembled her imaginary friend, except one. She was actually there.

"Ditzy, look over there, and tell me if I'm seeing things," she said, getting back unsteadily to her feet, and pointing to her friend. 

Ditzy looked where she was pointing, and gave a startled gasp. "Is that..."

"Probably." Trying to stand up, the orange filly slipped, and went careening into a nearby tree. "Ugh. Mud and tree sap."

While startled by her appearance, Ditzy quickly went over to her side, helping her back up and checking to see if she was hurt. "Are you all right? What's your name?"

The orange filly considered. "You know, I don't think Sweetie Belle ever got around to giving me one."

Ditzy looked back at Sweetie Belle for a moment. 

She gave Ditzy a sickly grin. "Um, Lady Dorothea, meet Squire Rucio. I think."

Ditzy looked the orange filly up and down critically for a moment. "That name is fine for a squire, but won't really work for a young filly. You'll need a proper name. Do you have any hobbies or interests?"

"Well, I can do some wicked moves on my..." Her face fell with sudden realization. "... imaginary scooter."

"Hmmm... Something will have to be done about that, too. We'd better check on Sweetie Belle, though." The two of them walked back over to her side.

"How are you feeling?" Ditzy asked, sounding worried.

Sweetie Belle thought a moment. "I still feel kinda tired, and I feel sort of odd, like something's missing, but I think I'll be all right."

"I think we can assume part of you is missing, since she's on the other side of me," Ditzy said, gesturing. "I'm not sure that's reversible, or even that it should be reversed, though."

"Why reverse it? This is awesome!" the orange filly said, looking herself over. "Hooves. Wings. Really being able to touch things. Ponies being able to see me..."

"I guess... that sorta makes sense." She thought about it, then her face lit up. "This will be cool, actually. Now the two of us can hang out without worrying about other ponies thinking I'm silly for having an imaginary friend."

"Yeah, this will be great! We can totally be best friends and hang out together all the time!" 

"Easy now. There's one thing the two of you may not have thought of." Ditzy cautioned.

"What's that?" Sweetie Belle said, curious.

"What do you think your parents reaction to the two of you will be?" Ditzy asked. "Especially after you tell them that you turned your imaginary friend real, and that she was going to stay with you?"

Thinking about it, Sweetie Belle shivered. "You're right. They wouldn't believe me. And even if they did, I'm not sure they'd take her in. They barely even want me there, really."

Ditzy looked at her with sympathy. "And that's why she isn't going home with you."

"I'm not?" The newly created filly next to her asked, excitement having turned to worry and confusion. "Where am I going? What should I do?"

Ditzy turned to her. "Well, how would you like to come home with me?"

She brightened. "Can I? That'd be great!" She looked back at Sweetie Belle for a moment, then at Ditzy.

"You'll... take her in?" Suddenly, she flung her arms around Ditzy. "Thank you!"

Ditzy returned her hug. "Don't worry about it. Now that Sparkler's moved out, I'm sure Dinky could use the company anyways. And it's not like I'm going to leave a young filly in trouble without doing everything I can for her."

Sweetie Belle breathed a sigh of relief. Then something occurred to her. 

"You will come visit, right? Both of you?" she said plaintively. She really didn't want to go back to being all alone.

The orange filly snorted. "If you think anything's stopping us from hanging out, you've got another think coming."

"I do see you by the pond fairly often. How about we meet there again tomorrow, around the same time?" Ditzy asked.

"Sure!" Sweetie Belle replied.

"So, what can I call you, anyways? You said you like scooters. Scoots?" Ditzy asked.

"I don't know. Maybe as a nickname, for now. We can come up with something better later." She paused for a moment. "We never did finish our quest, did we?"

Ditzy laughed. "Well, that's easy enough to do." 

She began narrating. "And so, as the Lady Belle worked to break the spell the evil enchantress had worked on the Noble Rocinante, her magic suddenly went wild, bathing both the enchanted frog and Dorothea in its light. To her surprise, not only did the frog turn back into Rocinante, Dorothea was suddenly transformed into his missing fiancee, Princess Micomicona, as the curse on her was broken. The two embraced, and a wedding was held not long afterwards. And they all lived happily ever after."

With a gleam in her eye, she continued. "At least, until the evil enchantress returned to take her revenge, but that is a tale for another time."

Sweetie Belle smiled, enjoying how the story had worked out. Ditzy was a pretty good storyteller, being able to come up with an ending like that out of the blue.

"With that, though, we should get going, as I need to get Scoots here cleaned up. How one filly could get this much mud and tree sap in her fur, I'll never know. So, this time tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." They went into a three way hug, somewhat spoiled by the faces the other filly started making during it. 

The hug broke up, and Sweetie Belle watched as the two of them went out of sight before heading home herself. As she walked, she found herself anticipating the coming antics of the next day, and finding herself a good deal less lonely. She had, after all, finally made some friends.