“We can really go ride the Boomer?” asked Scootaloo, hopping in place as if she were attempting to hover.

“Only once,” said Diamond Tiara as she dashed for the exit to the topiary garden with the other three in close pursuit. “And we need to make it fast.”

“Isn’t Aunt Fix coming with us?” asked Scootaloo, lagging near the back of the running pack due to a lack of wing-assist.

“She has to supervise the others,” said Diamond, not even slowing in her headlong dash. “Twilight’s like twenty something, so she’s in charge.”

“Me?” The rhythm of running hooves beneath her faltered as Monster hesitated, only to catch back up with a burst of acceleration from the feeling of the enthusiastic earth spirits that sent a surge of energy up her shanks. There was something wrong with the situation, but something intensely right too, as if the whole world was willing to shift in its tracks just so that Monster would be where she needed to be.

Wherever that was.

Scootaloo and Featherweight were all excited about their upcoming ride and chattered to each other unceasingly while they got in line for the somewhat worn and aged wooden structure, while Monster lagged back with nervous glances at the way the arches of timber and steel stretched up above them. The big steel cars that rode on the rails made horrible screeching and rattling noises above them as the fairly short line advanced, moving in short fits every time another group was loaded for their ride. As the line progressed along the dirty and stained concrete path, it took all the willpower she could muster to walk under the the creaking structure that trembled every time a car rumbled by.

Featherweight took a few pictures before putting his camera back into the case and bundling it up with his jacket, explaining that nopony could wear loose clothes or carry objects on the ride. It seemed like a logical precaution, although Monster kept scooting closer to Diamond Tiara as they approached the front of the line. Despite the deafening sound of screaming ponies, the rational part of her mind insisted that the number of unharmed ponies exiting the ride was equal to the number of ponies going into the ride, and some of them came right back to get into line again, so there was nothing to really be afraid of, provided they followed the rules.

No running was easy, as Monster was so frightened she could hardly shuffle forward as the line moved. No food or gum, even easier. A quick swallow took care of the last shred of the flavorless stuff, long ago deprived of any tiny bits of spearmint flavoring. No photography, no problem.

Problem.

“Hey! I know you.” A grinning teenage unicorn dressed in a Funland shirt stepped forward and waved at Diamond Tiara. “Scootaloo! It’s been a couple of months since I’ve seen you around here. Your aunt finally gave you permission to ride the Boomer?”

“You bet!” declared Scootaloo, bouncing up and down to the side of the young pegasus that the employee was talking to. “Everypony, this is Widget. I met him at the bumper cars a few months ago. He had run out of water, and I got him a soda. He’s going to go to college to be an engineer!”

Widget paused to brush his mane back over his horn, his violet eyes flickering from little earth pony to little pegasus and back again. “You’re Scootaloo? I thought you—”

“It’s a long story,” said Scootaloo. “Widget, this is Diamond Tiara, Featherweight, and Twilight.”

“Good to meet you all,” said Widget, still seeming a little perplexed by the name change. “This going to be the first time on the Boomer for all of you? Because the tee-shirts are okay, but you can’t wear those capes in the cars.”

“I’ll put it with the camera, Twilight,” said Featherweight, who seemed to be appointed at the official cape carrier as Scootaloo dumped hers on top of the growing pile. Twilight swallowed, her wings rustling nervously as she undid the cape tie and added hers to the collection.

“Whoa, there,” said Widget with sudden frown. “Not you. You’re too small to ride. See.” The teenage pony floated a measuring stick out from behind a nearby partition and held it up next to Scootaloo. There was a solid black band around the middle of the stick, with ‘2 Short’ written below it. Scootaloo just barely came up to the mark, and Featherweight reached the black only with a little judicious stretching and some ear-extending.

Then it was her turn. Time shifted beneath her hooves as Monster could see him turning to face her. The measuring stick slowed as it swung with a glitter of sunlight off the light blue magical field of the amusement park employee, so much like Cadence’s magic. A rise in the babbling of the air spirits rushed through her short mane, ruffling it forward across the suddenly cool spot on the top of her head where a crown would sit someday. The lines between is and might be twanged in a sharp chorus while the otherwise normal stick descended to her side, making her heart hammer away with suppressed panic. There was something here, something important that she had to be here for. Just for the tiniest fraction of a second, she could see a cascade of glittering threads extending out into the distance. In all of them, Scootaloo was going to fall to her death.

In all of them but one.

There was a short pause before the young unicorn’s eyes opened wide in shock. The dark bar that separated the small from the tall rested right across Monster’s ears, in exactly the same spot it had been on the somewhat taller Featherweight. He picked up the stick and looked at it, and then placed it next to Featherweight again. “That’s odd.”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “That’s just Featherweight. He’s like that.”

Widget put the stick next to each of the other three and carefully examined it before turning back to Monster. “That’s can’t be right. They’re all taller than—” He stopped with the stick only part-way back over to her and a look of sudden enlightenment spreading across his face. He looked at her cutie mark, and then her face, and finally at the name on her shirt with a growing smile. “Twilight Sparkle! That explains it. Fantastic costume!”

She met his upraised hoof with a gentle lady-like bump, much like Sweetie Belle had been teaching her, trying to look sufficiently unconfused despite a growing sense of bafflement as he went on. “You must have gotten that disguise spell over at the new pavilion display. That is one bad costume, ‘Twilight.’”

He actually held both forehooves up to make imaginary quote marks around her name. It was a good thing Sweetie Belle was not here, or she would have squealed in horror at the sight. “Bad?” she asked, almost cringing.

“Bad is good, Twilight,” said Diamond Tiara. “Unless it’s bad, in which case it’s really bad.”

“Yeah,” agreed the young colt. “That costume is righteous! I knew they were doing coat dyes and cutie marks over at the Daring Do Pavilion, but I didn’t know they were doing whole body jobs. Hey, Marseille!” He waved across the the crowded waiting area at another employee, who had just gotten done buckling two ponies into one of the roller-coaster cars. “Check out Scootaloo’s friend and her radical Twilight Sparkle costume!”

If she had a moment to think about it, Monster would have cringed away or tried to hide behind the rest of her friends. Every pony in line to get into the roller coaster cars turned to look at her all at once, each of them with a growing smile or gasp of admiration.

“Alicorn Twilight!” squealed a teenaged filly while clutching a hoof to her chest. “That is Awesome! How much did it cost?”

“Where can I get one?” asked another, crowding close and reaching out to gently touch her wing.

“They look so real,” gasped a third teenage filly. “Can we get different colors than purple?”

As the other ponies drew close and Monster felt her heart began to flutter, Diamond Tiara stepped forward and raised her voice. “A little space for my friend, please.” The rattle and clatter of the departing roller coaster car drowned out most of whatever she said next, but the crowd did stay back far enough that Monster did not feel as if she were suffocating too badly. The constant repetition of the word ‘Awesome’ made Monster feel a little less nervous about all of the attention, as well as raising a little twinge of curiosity at how Trixie was doing out at Flax & Wheat's New Age All-Natural Wellness Center.

“Awesome!” declared Trixie’s youthful companion as she bounced up and down in the distasteful mucky mixture of decaying organic material and mud that passed for ‘mulch’ in the communal fertilizer pit of the commune.

Trixie had been in many spas across Equestria and was fully comfortable indulging herself in their pampering and primping. This ‘Wellness Center’ had very little to compare with against them, other than a still-sticky sign out front that said ‘Spa’ that Awesome Filly ('Oz' for short) had painted after her arrival and subsequent cut-short rant. A bunch of aging hippies in a decaying commune was not what Trixie had been expecting for a two day trip to the spa, although the ‘limo’ ride in the little cart pulled by a spaced-out scrawny stallion should have at least warned her. Flax Seed had wasted at least an hour of the trip pulling the wagon after a butterfly instead of following the road, and when they had finally come over the last hill to see the colorful weavings and bright flags flying over the decaying buildings of the converted farm, Trixie had almost turned around right there and walked back home.

Having both of Twilight’s little unicorn friends come bounding out to welcome her to their home in the commune had stopped her cold.

Awesome Filly and Wheat Shock had not changed a bit in the few weeks since they had left Ponyville, while Trixie had become both purple and married during that time. Time seemed to have little meaning to the little ponies, and they had both promptly clung to Trixie’s every word about what had happened to their friend.

And for some reason, they asked about Trixie too. It was probably the purple dye.

Both of the teenaged unicorns were so much like Twilight Sparkle, lacking only wings and the astonishing surges of power, which made Trixie oddly at home while they showed her to the ‘Luxury Suite’ (it had a roof, or at least most of one) and the baths (Carry Your Own Cold Water). Most of the rest of the morning was taken up by catching up until Wheat Shock had to leave for a long day of wheat harvesting at a nearby farm. Trixie suspected it was because of the upcoming lunch at the commune, which was served right after he had left. ‘Served’ was the right word too, because the muffins could have been used in a tennis game, and the tossed sprout salad definitely needed a restraining order.

Trixie needed to lose a pound or two anyway. It's only for two days and nights.

Although this trip was supposed to be all rest and relaxation, Trixie quickly discovered the fly in the ointment, or in this case, flies. Goops All-Natural Hoof Soak had been on the production/activity list for the afternoon, and Oz had volunteered to help her cousin Wheat Grass and Trixie with the production of the base materials which through an alchemy of commerce would henceforth be transformed into gold. It smelled great and powerfully of various types of poo and decaying plant matter now, but after ‘processing’ for several months and aging through the winter, it would be packed around the roots of an astonishing array of plants, which would produce herbs and fruit juices in the spring, which would be turned into little bottles of Goop, and then into bits.

It was a very earth pony process, much like Trixie had left home to get away from, but with the little unicorn student chattering at her side, it was not that bad. Although Wheat Shock remained absent for a long day of wheat harvesting, Oz was more than happy to soak up whatever tidbits of magical knowledge that Trixie felt like passing on while trudging and tromping through the fertilizer process. And since it took her mind off of whatever it was that was squelching beneath her hooves anyway, as well as stopped or at least slowed Awesome Filly's constant chatter, she was happy to oblige.

No wonder Green Grass likes teaching little unicorns so much.

Teaching deserved to be fun, or at least a way to divert bothersome tasks to others. Trixie had a sneaking suspicion that Oz was unable to conceive of anything not fun, and the 'exercise' that she had devised proved that point quite well.

The little multicolored unicorn bouncing at Trixie's side was holding five rotten turnips in her magic and making them describe a somewhat wobbly circle in the air, although they dipped dangerously close to the ground whenever Oz lost her concentration, which was frequently.

“Very good,” said Trixie with a concealed grin. The planned bath, with the extra added feature of the re-dying of her coat to match her original hue, was getting closer with every minute, and she had already identified just what color she was wanting by the test stripes that Awesome Filly was wearing all over her body, much like a cross between a zebra and Rainbow Dash. Trixie was still feeling a little naked, as her cape and hat were safely back in the decaying barn that was the All-Natural Wellness Center’s version of a luxury room. Being as it was at least a room inside, Trixie had not raised a stink.

After all, the stink was all around her now.

“While juggling, a proper magician only needs to maintain her grip on each of the objects during the bottom of their trajectory,” continued Trixie as she continued to stomp the fertilizer mixture. “Twilight Sparkle has been a natural at Trixie’s lessons, and can keep well over a dozen objects in steady motion for several minutes. The key is to be consistent with your grip on — Watch out!”

Trixie hit the ground, such as it was, in a long, wet dive to avoid a stream of fast-moving turnips.

“Sorry!” Oz bounced past in a splash of semi-solid fertilizer and picked the rotten turnips out of the muck, or at least ‘some’ turnips, as there were quite a few floating around to choose from. “I wasn’t watching what I was doing and they got away. Let me try again!”

This time six turnips took flight around the young unicorn, making loops and circles as Oz flicked her magic at them. “Awesome,” said Trixie in her most encouraging tone of voice. “Keep that up and you’ll be able to catch up to Twilight in no time.”

“Radical,” breathed Oz as the whirling turnips wobbled slightly with her distraction. “Maybe next time you visit, you could bring her. I know Shocky gets all flusterpated when he talks about her. How’s she doing? Is she excited about school starting? I wish we could go to school instead of home studying here. Do you think you could visit every week? Can we send her letters like Princess Luna? Have her friends gotten their cutie marks yet? Have they gone on any more awesome adventures? Whoops!”

This time Trixie was ready for the sudden turnip storm and caught the mucky vegetables just as quickly as they shot in her direction. After juggling them for a brief moment, Trixie returned them one at a time while Oz stabilized her magic and returned to the complicated spell.

“Right now they’re all off in Fillydelphia at Funland on some sort of trip,” said Trixie, watching Oz's reaction to the distraction carefully.

“Awesome!” exclaimed Oz in a rain of turnips as her concentration shattered and the juggling turned more into a game of Dodge Veggie. “I’ve always wanted to go there! Do you think they’ll ride the Boomer?”

Trixie glanced up at the turnip impaled on her horn and shook it free. “Not a chance. Twilight is still too emotionally fragile to go on any of the rides.”

“Now keep your hooves and heads inside the car at all times, and enjoy the ride.”