This story was written in September and October of 2012, and the first draft was very, very different to what exists today. It would have been a prequel to a cancelled adventure story, It's Not A Cold Dark Place, and would have told of Scootaloo’s first adventure in the dream-world.

Li'l Scoots would have battled her way through a forest with trees of ice with blossoms formed of fire, before making her way across a vast meadow with grass made from the stuff of starlight, before confronting an evil power at the waterfall at the edge of the world. Finally, she would have sailed back to Rainbow’s house on a boat which was actually her bed… at which point she would have woken up and written the whole thing off as a mad dream. Until the sequel, of course – a sequel which was already half written and half published, and was doing perfectly fine without the aid of a profoundly unnecessary prequel.

ANYWAY. As far as the original text is concerned, only the cover art survives. It’s unfinished, yet even in its half-done state I still think it’s one of my better ones (I really like the waves splashing against Scootaloo’s bed). And if it can’t appear in front of the story it was made for, I can at least place it at the end of this one.