Spike rushed through the front door with Applebloom trailing behind him. “Twilight, are you still here?” His yell echoed in the library.

“A minute, Spike!” Twilight shouted from behind a bookshelf. She half-crawled out, her magic juggling a bright point of light and a dusty book. “I found where the fourth volume of Rebrand’s ‘Bullion and Booty’ series had gone. One down, seven to go!”

Applebloom flicked an ear in interest. “Is that a pirate book?”

“It’s a metallurgist pirate book!” Twilight corrected giddily, hugging the novel she had worried over. “It’s one of my favorite series.”

Spike’s groan of sheer disappointment told everypony how highly he rated it. “It’s the most boring pirate story ever. Every time Bullion finds or loots treasure, you get to read a treatise on where it was excavated, how it was forged, its Bridle Hardness Number—”

“It’s called learning with fun,” Twilight grumbled. “I wanted to start it over. Spike, do you know if somepony borrowed them and didn’t sign the ledge or did we forget anything in the boxes?”

“Dad and Luna checked them out.”

A relieved breath flew between Twilight’s lips. “Oh, thank Celestia. Then they probably have the rest of them down in the basement.”

“Yeah, looking below surface level is a step in the right direction,” Spike mumbled while staring guiltily at the dirty shovel that somepony had left next to the door leading to the library’s basement. “Twilight, Applebloom and I are going to meet up with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle and—Applebloom, stop!”

Keeping up a spell as easy as a light was almost negligible to Twilight, so much so that she would more often than not unconsciously move it to the side rather than remember to banish it. It wasn't a dangerous spell, until a child unaware of the properties of it tried to swat it out of boredom.

Luckily, Spike’s warning made Applebloom’s hoof freeze halfway there. Twilight’s flow of magic snapped, and the spell flickered off and vanished.

“Uh… was ah doin’ something bad?” Applebloom asked guiltily.

Although relieved and knowing she never touched it, Twilight couldn’t help but check Applebloom’s hoof for any marks. “You never touch a light spell, Applebloom. It could hurt you.”

“What, really?” Applebloom asked in shocked wonder.

“Nothing serious in most cases,” Spike added. “Usually it just shocks you as soon as you get close enough, but if you stick your hoof in it, it can electrocute you something fierce. It really stings.”

“Huh.” Applebloom gazed at the space the spell used to occupy. “Ain’t that strange? Ah’d reckon it’d burn ya instead. Why does it do that?”

Twilight took a deep breath and stood straight in preparation to give a detailed explanation… until she made a face and proceeded to stare at the same spot. “Why does it do that?”

The insistent snapping of claws in front of her muzzle split through the murky haze of thoughts and calculations in her head, bringing her back to reality. “What, Spike?”

The baby dragon glanced at the clock on the wall. “Only two minutes. Super attentive today,” he stage whispered to Applebloom, making her laugh. He continued in a normal tone: “We’re heading off to meet the others. Do you need anything before we go?”

“Oh. No, nothing, Spike, thank you. Luna and I need to leave as well and meet Raegdan soon. Are you sure you don’t want to come along? It’s your furniture we're shopping for.”

“Stuck around you, Luna, and Fluttershy, choosing what to buy?” Spike pondered loudly, tapping his foot. “Hmm… Nope, I’m not crazy enough to do that. I’ll let Dad have the fun instead.”

“Okay, fine,” Twilight grumbled while the two children left, and shouted behind him as he closed the door: “You are the one missing out on all the fun! Luna and I are going to bond and it will be amazing!”

Rarity’s hoof tapped a rhythm that she had heard Pinkie Pie sing once, though remembering the lyrics would be an impossible task. It had been astoundingly catchy however, and the artistic side of Rarity mourned the fact that for Pinkie Pie it had probably been nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment song, now dead in the wind.

The minotaur was covered up to his waist in gray splatters that failed to dry no matter how much time passed. The reason probably was that pure water was barely less viscous. Ditzy was… worse off.

“I got you, I got you!” Ditzy triumphed at the fat blob of what could be charitably called soft mud, dead center on Cast Iron’s forehead.

The minotaur grinned and scooped up Ditzy’s former shot, turning it into his. Ditzy whooped and started running around, below, and over the table and chairs, avoiding Cast Iron’s attempts to smear his goompy hand over her head.

They both laughed and giggled so hard, they almost didn’t hear more ponies entering the kitchen.

The cackling commotion of the couple came to a close.

“Ditzy, I’m going to take Dinky and Stormdrain to Sugarcube Corner. Do you mind?” Mint asked.

“I don’t mind! Bring us some muffins!” Ditzy replied, one eye on Dinky, the other easily tracking Cast Iron and his sneaky attempts to inch closer. “Have fun!”

“If we have half as good a time as you, it’ll be great!” Mint’s smile twinkled merrily.

“Bye bye, mister Cast iron!” Dinky’s hoof kept waving until she was out the door.

The minotaur waved goodbye, the non-cement dripping off his open palm and on his trousers. “Bye bye, Dinky! I love that kid,” Cast Iron said to nopony, making Ditzy smile proudly. “I suppose I should get back to work,” he sighed, wiping his hand on his clothes, mortifying Rarity.

She couldn’t help herself; she had to interject again. “Cast Iron, dear, are you certain you don’t want me to pop over and ask Raegdan to come over and show you how to mix the cement?”

“No, Miss Rarity. I think I know what went wrong,” Cast Iron said, and to his credit, he sounded as if he believed it this time…

Rarity considered the kitchen floor that was all over the place, except on the floor. “I’m sure you do, but even so, a smidgen of instruction couldn’t hurt,” she insisted while moving to open a window. The cement dust in the air was starting to make her dizzy.

She throttled her head out, taking deep breaths of cold, clean air. Rarity slowly opened her eyes with a satisfied sigh, and she managed to spot Spike and Applebloom bouncing merrily on their way towards the edge of the Everfree Forest. Now, she had known that the girls wanted to visit Zecora again; Sweetie Belle had asked her to take them there just this morning, but only now the thought crossed her mind that she should be slightly worried.

Would the three impatient fillies succeed in finding a replacement to be their escort, and if not, would they be wise enough to leave it aside? Rarity was not certain that they would, and Raegdan’s threats to chastise the elder sisters’ behinds aside, she had taken his warnings that ‘something needed to happen only once’ at heart.

“Cast Iron, Ditzy, I’m going to have to leave for a little while,” she said while putting on her winter jacket. “I think my sister and her friends may get themselves into trouble again.”

“Oooh, Dinky told me all about that. I’m glad my little muffin knows to let me know where she is at all times,” Ditzy said with the enviable assurance of not having a minor heart attack everytime somepony started a sentence with ‘Your little sister today…’

“They’re not going to go into the forest after last time, surely.” Cast Iron blinked, trying to get into the headspace of pre-teen girls and his brain doing a hasty reset. “I’ll come with you. Sometimes an animal from in there will decide to edge out if it thinks it’s worth it.”

“I’m coming, too!” Ditzy cheered. “We can be the… Cutie Mark Crusaders’ Cutie Mark Crusader Guardians!”

“No.”

Twilight would strangle Luna before the hour was done if this trend continued.

“It is bigger,” Luna repeated.

Twilight’s hooves trembled, a mere inch before reaching for her own mane and pulling it out. “Size. Does not. Matter,” she reasserted for the tenth time.

“It does.”

“It does not!”

“Are you truly attempting to convince me that there is objectively no difference between this—” Luna spread her hooves a few inches apart “—and this?” she finished as her hooves reached almost a foot apart.

“Not in this kind of thing. Everypony knows it!” Twilight insisted.

The starry mane flicked to the left, accompanied by a bored rolling of the eyes. “Don’t be foolish. They just say that. Of course it does.”

“No, it does not! Look, I can prove it!”

Before the stunned store owner knew what was going on, Twilight pounced. She grabbed the large blackboard from the window behind him, wiped the ‘The boss has been discorded - Winter Sale at 30% off!!!!!’ sales pitch—growling at the demonic abuse of the exclamation mark—and scribbled her own calculus:

“First, we measure how much pressure the mattress can withstand before deforming, the rate of deformation by p.s.i.—”

“How did you do the dots?” Luna asked.

“—and calculate the maximum limits. We will need to take into account the pliability of the bed springs and factor in any bending. Knowing all that and already having Spike’s height, weight, and favorite sleeping position, we come up with this formula—”

Fluttershy was only a few paces away, trying to decide between bunny or squirrel decorated covers. She looked into the heart of the math, and the math looked back.

“—which proves, mathematically, that this is the best possible bed for Spike when taking into account the previous results, his growth rate, and the average lifespan of a bed in this price range.” Twilight rested her chalky hoof on the foot of the bed with a self-satisfied smile. “What do you say to that?”

Luna pointed at the bed she had been championing all along. “This one’s bigger.”

“I just said that size doesn’t matter!”

“Fine. It’s softer, too.” Luna pressed on the mattress to prove it. It looked as if her hoof was being swallowed by the material.

“And this exact property goes against what we want!” Twilight didn’t quite scream, but it was a close thing.

Luna tilted her head in curiosity. “Comfort and fun?”

“Proper back support!” Twilight screamed. Oh, Luna was so strangled.

Unnoticed by both princess and librarian, Fluttershy was making notes of all the covers, blankets, sheets, and pillows, she had chosen, and was bringing them over to the store owner along with a request for help.

“Excuse me, could you show me some simple beds for a young colt, about this height?” she asked, extending her left wing the appropriate distance. “Nothing too extravagant, we will probably need a new one soon; he sneezes too often.”

Luna and Twilight kept bickering behind her even while the store hooves were preparing everything for delivery.

Spike picked up another blade of withered grass and mailed it to Applebloom out of sheer boredom.

“Stop that,” Applebloom whined. “My mane is full of them darn things.”

“We’ve been waiting for ages,” Spike counter-whined, dropping on the cold ground. He breathed out a few puffs of flame every once in a while to warm his hands, careful not to start a fire. Everytime he did it Applebloom scooted closer, shivering as the bite of the wind nearly froze her in place.

“Scootaloo’s probably having trouble convincing her aunts to take us to Zecora,” Applebloom unnecessarily explained again.

“You should have asked Applejack or Big Mac,” Spike suggested. He breathed out more flame.

“They got too much work at the farm.” Applebloom’s pout slowly left her face as she gazed towards the Everfree Forest and the path that lead to Zecora’s hut. “Hey, your dad’s there!” she excitedly said, pointing with her hoof.

“Huh? No way; he’s gone shopping with Twilight and Luna,” Spike said, yet he still lifted himself up enough to see.

Applebloom was right. In between the trees there was a certain shadowy figure that Spike was all too familiar with.

“Aw, Twilight’s gonna kill him. Then Luna’ll bring him back and kill him again. What’s he doing out there?” Spike wondered loudly. Raegdan was too deep in the shadows of the Everfree to see him that well. He looked as if he was watching something.

Spike huffed, having figured out what his Dad was waiting for. He wanted to see if Spike or Applebloom would make the mistake of going in the Everfree Forest without notifying anypony or any escort. If that’s what it was, then he was sorely underestimating the intelligence of the Crusaders. None of the three fillies had even raised the possibility of visiting Zecora without following Raegdan’s instructions to the letter; not while he and his palm were still in Ponyville.

“Let’s ask him!” Applebloom yelled.

“What?”

“Yer dad!” Applebloom grinned. “He ain’t gonna say no. He’s the one who said we shouldn’t be going in there on our lonesome. Ah mean, we would be safest with him rather than anypony else, don’t ya reckon?”

Spike wasn’t completely sure if his dad would be up for it, but he had to admit that Applebloom had a point, and that Raegdan would help if Spike asked. Before he could voice his opinion, Applebloom was already at the forest’s edge.

“Hey, Mister Raegdan, we got a favor to ask!” she called out.

“Slow down,” Spike shouted, doing his best to catch up on his own two short legs.

As the two of them approached rapidly, the figure started moving towards them. The closer the two parties got, the more details Spike noticed about the figure.

It was too short. At first he chalked it up to distance.

And there were more of them; five more came out of the foliage like ghosts. In their shock, Applebloom and Spike stared numbly as the figures surrounded them.

Leaf Stream found him sitting on the stairs outside, of course. She knew that some stallions preferred to wait outside rather than go through the ‘horror’ of shopping, but in her opinion that made them look more like dogs that had been leashed outside than any macho delusions they might have had of themselves.

She approached the bane of her existence, and had to bang her hoof on the ground a couple of times until he looked up from his lap. Great. He was either sleepy or feeling sorry for himself again.

“You brought it?” Raegdan asked.

“Gee, fho knowth?” Leaf Stream said through the cloth caught in her teeth. She dropped the bag. It landed with a rich jingle. “What do you think? Did I?”

Raegdan nodded, and reached for the bag. “Thank you. I appreciate that—”

She hit his hand away, a wicked grin on her lips. “Nuh-uh. Not yet. First we’re talking reimbursement.”

He nodded and made that circly motion of his with his fingers that meant to hurry along. She was all too happy to comply. “Alright! First of all: interest. I’m thinking… one hundred percent?” she endeavored.

He stilled for a moment, deep in thought. “I’ll need three months, then. Two month’s salary won’t be enough,” he said. He was staring down the road at the ponies going about their business.

Leaf Stream scowled, unnoticed and ignored. “Fine. Interest still applies though. And I want something extra since you had me go through all this hassle. Next time we do combat training you will stand there and let me wail on you for however long I want. No stopping until I say so.”

Now he was seriously pissing her off. Just nodding along and everything. “It will have to wait until we get back to Canterlot. They don’t want us to do any training exercises here since the last one.”

“Fine,” she spat, feeling frustrated enough to nearly start punching her own face. Or his. It was a far more tempting target. She kicked the money bag.

Move on. That was the ticket. Ignore him, go back to Broken Gust, whine about being hungry and feeling cooped up until she got the hint. Usually it took saying ‘I am hungry’ and that was enough for Broken Gust to rush her off for a picnic or a restaurant.

Any mention of wanting to stay in or ‘relax’ on their own and… well, everypony else in the house would be bribed away or kicked out and… stuff would happen. All Leaf Stream wanted was to spend another day feeling like somepony good and wonderful really cared for a pegasus that couldn’t fly. Leaf Stream was determined to enjoy this temporary turn of events as much as possible until Broken Gust realized she had far better options.

A second spent here was a second she would regret later on.

She slumped her plump rump down, sitting next to Raegdan and poking him in the ribs to prod him to scoot over a bit rather than taking all space for himself, miserable egoist that he was.

Leaf Stream peeked into the shop through the front glass. Princess Luna, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle were arguing over three different beds each. Well, she said arguing, but Twilight Sparkle was doing her lecturing thing over a straight, rigid bed fit for a dungeon, and yes she was drawing math on a blackboard with a piece of chalk, Princess Luna was pontificating in a similar manner—minus the graffiti—next to a lush, puffed up, princess-sized bed, and Fluttershy was quietly making arrangements for the delivery of the simple, foal-sized bed she had chosen while the other two were distracted.

Sneaky; she applauded that.

“What do you need all these bits for, anyway?” she asked Raegdan.

Raegdan pulled one of his pockets inside out. She noticed it had holes stitched shut and nothing else. Obviously, none of his money went to getting new clothes until there was nothing there to actually stitch together. At least he washed them. He smelled so ripe when wearing the bleeping armor for too long, she was thanking Celestia every day she didn’t have to smell au de Raegdan more often than needed.

“I’m broke. Between the building materials, the fines, and other things I’ve had to pay for, I’ve blown through everything I’ve saved so far. I have money in a bank, but it’s in Blueblood’s name, not mine, and… I’m saving that for something else.”

“Uh-huh… Yeah, I know about your little outing with the Princess the day before yesterday. Seriously, who doesn’t? So this is for what? Do you think that if you take her there for round two you’ll score base faster?”

He shrugged, not taking the bait. “I’m paying for everything they buy today. Thank you for… I really didn’t know who else to ask.”

Leaf Stream blew a raspberry. “You totally did, you just didn’t want to ask anypony else. I bet it was easier to ask a loan from somepony like me rather than risking it, am I right?”

There it was, a small coal burning in his eye again. “I think we’re done here. Isn’t your girlfriend waiting for you? You should hurry. It’s not like you can fly there.”

“Oh, thine arrows, swiftly and without recourse do they wound,” she sassed, bringing her leg over her eyes. “And thus, maimed, I weep. And thee, victorious, sulk like a bitch.”

Raegdan tied the large bag to his waist and waved her off, getting comfortable on the stair he was sitting on. He didn’t even care to respond back, just went back to staring at nothing with the patience of a potato.

Now, nopony would be able to say it was her fault that her hoof managed to nail him right on his jaw in a stealthy uppercut. If he had been paying attention he would definitely be able to block it or avoid it. Or, you know, he wasn’t missing an eye. It was totally the victim’s fault.

Leaf Stream stood up as he sputtered a few select words through the fingers holding the lower part of his face. “Now, I don’t know what happened. Maybe you spilled the milk, maybe ate somepony’s leg, but stop your little theater play. You do remember we are leaving in two days, right?”

“What has that got to do with you being a cun—”

She smacked him on the back of the head. “The point being, cyclops, that it’s gonna be months until Twilight and Spike see you again. If you keep acting like a mopey prima donna, what they’ll remember is that nopony on either side enjoyed being around each other. Keep in mind what we talked about, alright? You gotta shore up your act, and not just for a few days.”

He huffed, and turned away.

“Problems in paradise?” Leaf Stream questioned.

Raegdan swiftly turned back, an incredulous look in his eye. “In what?”

“With your old lady,” Leaf Stream specified.

The eye narrowed in bewilderment. “...Applejack’s grandmother?”

“Princess Luna, you idiot!” Leaf Stream bellowed, aiming another hoof at his face that he deftly avoided this time.

“We… had a disagreement,” he admitted. “A fight. I’m not sure how things… stand at the moment.”

Leaf Stream huffed. “Seriously, I get why you’re worried. Let’s face it: not only are you dumb, you are so ugly you put a bag on your own head. But you’re barking up the wrong tree here. If she was going to kick you out then she would have been sane enough to do so long ago. As it stands, it looks she is stuck with your bagged wonder.”

He turned away again, this time deep in thought. “So… This might not actually be a problem?”

“Do you have a problem with the princess?” Leaf Stream asked him straight out.

“No,” he said. There was a tiny hesitation that Leaf Stream wouldn’t have noticed if she was paying anything but her complete attention.

She ignored it for now. ““If the roles were reversed, if she had done what you did and you did what she did, would it be for you?”

Raegdan’s spine snapped straight. “No…” After a moment he turned back. “You’re probably right. I’m… Thanks. Just… thanks.”

Leaf Stream smiled in satisfaction. “You are welcome,” she said, before covering her mouth in a hurry, feeling ashamed. “I mean, don’t mention it, you big-headed jerk.”

CRACK. CRACK.

The booming claps of thunder cut through the chilly air like a scream, and for a moment Leaf Stream would swear she heard the ghost of one. They didn’t have the raw power of other explosions she had become increasingly privy to, but this one carried a connotation not of force but of danger. Like a knife with your own name etched on a blade found in a dark dream. They filled the world for the second they lasted, the second cutting deeply through the first, seemingly coming down from the heavens themselves, even while Leaf Stream could swear they had exploded from the direction of the Everfree Forest.

She was set to ask what the Tartarus that was now, right after that first second where every bone in her body had frozen in sudden fright, but Raegdan was faster. He was moving after the first cloudless thunder roared. Leaf Stream suddenly found herself off the ground, the door that was at her back now rapidly approaching her face. There was a swivel, and a thick shoulder placed itself in front, forcing the door open. The arms that were holding her threw her in and she skidded all the way to the princess and the librarian.

Twilight and Princess Luna opened their mouths in unison to speak. Raegdan didn’t give them the chance.

“Stay in here!” he ordered loudly. “Stay away from the windows, get down, and hide!”

“What was—” Twilight tried to say.

Raegdan shouted a word in his own language to Princess Luna. It was short, crude sounding, and it sounded almost like the bulk of what he usually said when he switched to it. If it was a swear, it was one that heckled the hairs of the Princess’ coat.

Princess Luna’s magic wrapped around Leaf Stream. As she was dragged through the air—and wasn’t that a pang in the heart—she saw Fluttershy, Twilight, and the shopkeeper fall prey to the same fate as Princess Luna’s magic barricaded doors and windows, and pushed them behind the thick counter.

“Hide!” Raegdan ordered again, and slammed the door behind him. They heard him shouting out on the street at the ponies of Ponyville, his shouts strong enough to hurt anypony’s ears. “Everyone inside, now! All of you, hide, and don’t come out no matter what!”