The Little Mare-Maid

Chapter 3

In a cottage near the edge of the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy was busy feeding her animal friends while humming a tune. "Fluttershy!" Twilight Sparkle called out as she knocked on the cottage door. Fluttershy finished feeding the birds, and walked over to the door. She opened the door to see Twilight Sparkle and Spike standing. "Oh, hello Twilight!" Fluttershy said as she stood aside to let Twilight Sparkle and Spike inside her cottage. "Come on in." When Twilight Sparkle and Spike walked in, Fluttershy closed the door as Twilight Sparkle opened her bag and placed her two treasures she found earlier on a nearby table, and said "Fluttershy, look what we found!" "Yeah, we were in the castle of the two pony sisters." Spike said. "It was really creepy." "Alicorn stuff, huh?" Fluttershy asked walking to the table. "Let me see."

Fluttershy looked at the fork, and said "Look at this. Wow. This is special. This is very, very unusual." "What?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "What is it?" "It's a dinglehopper!" Fluttershy said as she picked up the fork. "Alicorns use these little things to straighten their mane out." She then placed the fork in her mane, twirled it, and said "See, just a little twirl here, and yank there. She pulled on her mane, and when the fork came out, it puffed up the mane. "Ta-da!" Fluttershy said smiling. "You got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of mane that alicorns go nuts over." Twilight Sparkle looked at the fork with amazement, and said "A dinglehopper!" "What about that one?" Spike asked pointing at the pipe. Fluttershy looked at the pipe, and said "Ah, this I haven't seen in years. This is wonderful! A banded, bulbous, snarfblat!" "Oohhh." Twilight Sparkle and Spike said in awe.

"Now, the snarfblat dates back to prehistorical times, when alicorns used to sit around, and stare at each other all day." Fluttershy said telling her friends about the pipe. "Got very boring. So they invented the snarfblat to make fine music. Allow me." Fluttershy then blew into the pipe, but only smoke puffed out. "Music?!" Twilight Sparkle asked remembering what day it was. "Oh, the concert! Oh my gosh, my father is going to kill me!" "The concert was today?!" Spike asked in shock. "Maybe you could make a little planter out of it or something." Fluttershy said looking at the pipe closely. Twilight Sparkle then took the pipe from her friend, took the fork from the table, and started running towards the door. "Uh, sorry." Twilight Sparkle said. "I've gotta go. Thank you, Fluttershy!" As Twilight Sparkle and Spike took off, Fluttershy said "Anytime, Twilight. Anytime." Twilight Sparkle and Spike made a run for a hot air balloon that would take them to Cloudsdale. Little did they know that they were being watched by two unicorns named King Sombra and Trixie.

King Sombra's horn and Trixie's alicorn amulet were projecting the image of Twilight Sparkle and Spike heading to Cloudsdale, and in the Carousel Boutique, a beautiful unicorn with a moderate indigo mane, moderate azure eyes, and three blue diamonds for her cutie mark named Rarity was watching the projection on the table from her purple throne-like chair as she said "Yeeeeeees, hurry home princess. We wouldn't want to miss old daddy's celebration, now would we? Huh! Celebration indeed. Bah!" Rarity then ate a piece of shrimp, and said "In MY day, we had fantastical feasts when I lived in the palace." She looked at her hooves, shook in anger, and said "And now, look at me. Wasted away to practically nothing. Banished and exiled and practically starving, while he and those foolish ponies celebrate." She got up from the throne-like chair, and said "Well, I'll give them something to celebrate soon enough."

Rarity looked at the projection and said "SOMBRA! TRIXIE!" The unicorns got startled by their mistress's loud voice, and Trixie bumped her head on the roof of the small cave they were hiding in. "Ow." Trixie muttered. "I want you to keep an extra close watch on this pretty little daughter of his. She might be the key to Rainbow Blitz's undoing." Rarity said smirking cruelly as her eyes flashed green.