‘Lunar, have you seen my homework? I can’t find it.’ Scootaloo asked, realising it wasn’t where it though it was.

‘Yeah, it’s on the table. I read it with breakfast,’ the fox chuckled and grinned at the now maddening filly, ‘I must say. It’s really good. How did you know that Rainbow Dash kept a tortoise as a pet after he saved her? She didn’t tell me that side of the story. She just said how awesome he was during the trials she’d set up.’ He had changed the subject to a more delicate one: how did Scootaloo know so much about Rainbow Dash and her personal life? A subject he knew from a previous conversation with Dash would put her in an awkward situation.

‘Well… I hang around with her a lot and-‘

‘You’re lying to me,’ the fox interrupted, ‘you spend most of your time either Crusading for your cutie mark with Apple Belle and Sweetie Bloom, or at school. You told me that yourself. So what exactly do you do when you’re not doing anything, eh?’ Lunar smiled as, for once, he wasn’t the one being questioned. He was even about to get a truthful answer after a long sigh from the orange pegasus, but that was before another pegasus, this time blue and frantic, burst in shouting.’

‘Get your stuff now. We’re leaving this place tonight. They know.’ Rainbow Dash shouted, panicking and needing to be calmed down by some pony. It just happened that there was one other in the tree house.

‘Rainbow, please. Calm down. Why and where are we going?’ the school filly asked, waving her hooves in the fashion that was commonly the symbol for ‘calm down, take a deep breath.’ The cyan mare looked at her in confusion and then realisation. She closed her eyes and took a very deep, very calming breath. Her heart rate was almost instantly declining. The second she opened her eyes, she felt calm, relax and couldn’t remember why she had been panicking in the first place.

‘So…Where are we going?’ Lunar asked with a polite smile of patience stretched across his face. Then Rainbow remembered why.

‘Ummm… I don’t know.’ Her face showed her sudden realisation that she hadn’t planned ahead. It was only now that she thought about where she would take him. She couldn’t take him to her house as he fall through the floor. She couldn’t ask Scootaloo to take him because, well, she’s Scootaloo. She couldn’t ask her friends as they were the ones she was hiding him from. There was almost nowhere to go. Unless…

Rainbow Dash sighed. She knew she’d have to ask Lunar at some point, but it was too soon. If he said yes, Rainbow Dash, as a completely non-romantic present for Hearts and Hooves day, would tell Fluttershy of Lunar’s hiding place. She knew that Lunar himself would be more than happy to have Fluttershy of the 5 other ponies to help. No one knew more about animals that Fluttershy herself. But she still had to ask.

‘Lunar. We’re going to Fluttershy’s, but only if you want to, if you wouldn’t mind.’ Rainbow was starting to sound like her yellow Pegasus friend. It actually quite frightening not knowing how someone would react to such a delicate question. But the response came to be something she hadn’t expected. If names had anything to do with powers, the princess of the night probably would have something to say about the two wide glistening orbs in front of Rainbow right now.

‘Brilliant!’ he exclaimed with such eagerness that even Scootaloo, who was tidying up her homework papers, threw them in the air, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of her sooner. I just hope that she’s forgiven me for the mess I made of our first, second, third… all of our meetings.’ He smiled and looked away. Scootaloo sighed as she cleaned up her papers and wanted to join the conversation.

‘Yeah. I’m sure she’s forgiven you. She’s not the kind of pony to hold a grudge.’ Rainbow chuckled, finding Lunar’s lack of knowledge about Fluttershy amusing. Rainbow’s eyes met the still widened eyes of the fox. His face showed he was being sarcastic, but his eyes showed that he knew he’d hurt Fluttershy when he’d run away. He’d passed her cottage the night after escaping and heard her whimpering about him.

Lunar walked up to the window sill and peered over to see two mares, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. He knew that Rainbow wouldn’t be the best of ponies to comfort Fluttershy when she felt down, but he also knew that they were friends. What other kind of relationship let one pony almost bathe another in tears?

‘Don’t worry, ‘Shy. He’ll be around. I’ll make sure of it,’ the cyan mare sighed, ‘I have a hunch that he’s closer than you think.’ Fluttershy looked up from the soaked patch on Rainbow’s coat, and stared into comforting eyes. They both smiled and Fluttershy sat up, not breaking eye contact. Rainbow blinked and opened her eyes to see Fluttershy coming closer, almost going red. They drew nearer and…

CRACK! The pile of timber Lunar had stood on gave way and made him barrel roll down the hill. He was dazed as both mares came into sight looking, heads out through the window.

‘You heard something as well, right?’ Rainbow Dash asked, looking around, missing my gaze by millimetres. I wanted to shout out, to call for them. I would have if I could. But I broke Fluttershy’s heart; I had abandoned her and her friends for my own cryptic reasons. I’d be torn to shreds if I tried to go back. That’s why I had to meet with one of them. I had to meet with the one that had spent the least time with me. Rainbow Dash.

I sat there, staring at the window where the mares were retracting their heads. I missed the opportunity to shout out, if I had wanted too. I turned around to walk away, to meet Dash that very evening. I sighed and muttered some obscure and impractical plan to myself to actually drag myself back and reveal myself to them.

‘What was that? You better not make a move on my Mare, capishe?’ The small white rabbit grimaced, showing me his war face. I had needed something to get my anger out at today. A chuckled and walked past him, dragging my tail across his face so it would turn him around and hopefully lead him to attacking me. It worked and he pounced, unsheathing what miniscule claws he had. I anticipated his leap, and only side stepped from his flight path to send him flying into the fence post. He almost peeled off of it, and stumbled about, fists raised to try and fight. I laughed again and picked him up with my mouth by the ears. He almost swung as I walked him up to the window and threw him in. I ducked behind a nearby bush, whilst some chaos ensued.

‘Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness… Angel, are you okay?’ Fluttershy squeaked. I heard a groan and another mare trying not to laugh. It stopped after a second or two and murmured something about killjoys. I calmly strolled out of the area, with a skip in my step. I wasn’t angry anymore. And I’d got to teach that rude little bunny a lesson in intimidation as a bonus.

‘Heh, so that was you…’ Rainbow laughed, ‘I’m glad you did get him. He’s so annoying; he’ll almost always attack anyone who gets near her if he can.’ She smiled as we strolled through Ponyville. To avoid drawing the attention of other ponies, Lunar was hidden in a red wagon that Scootaloo was pulling. She wondered why she had to pull it, but, as always, she said yes to Rainbow Dash before she heard the question. Luckily, Lunar wasn’t very heavy and the wagon coped with his weight better than they’d thought. Scootaloo was having relative ease pulling it. The few ponies that did glace to see the group saw a mare and filly walking through the streets pulling a red wagon. The disguise was inconspicuous enough. That was until they had to go past Carousel Boutique, where Rarity was supposedly meant to be. That was if she wasn’t following them already…

‘Rurrity, where do ya think they’re going?’ Applejack asked, peering around a house, alongside her white comrade. They had caught them coming out of Sweet Apple Acres after sending Twilight to tell the rest of their friends. They had stalked them from there and had successfully found out that Lunar had beaten up Angel, but they knew nothing else. So in their minds, Lunar was now a bully.

Rarity stood silent, almost questioning herself as to why they were going to Fluttershy’s. She’d worked it out as soon as she heard Lunar’s story. The orange mare looked at her, in case she hadn’t heard her. She repeated the question to no avail. Applejack groaned. It was frustrating being left out of some pony’s thoughts when they involve you. But she followed rarity still as they exited the corner and carried on tracking them.

It was another 5 or so minutes before they arrived at the foot of Fluttershy’s cottage. Rainbow Dash had taken them the long route and had gone in a couple of circles to lose any followers. It didn’t help that while Rarity and Applejack got lost on the 3rd circle, they had seen her going up to the cottage that sat atop the hill on the 5th circle. Rainbow Dash knocked at the wooden door and it opened with a creak as it usually did.

‘Oh, hello Rainbow Dash. I didn’t know you were coming around. Is it Hearts and Hooves day already? I didn’t expect you to be this early…’ Fluttershy smiled at her friend and then to the orange filly that was pulling the wagon while the content remained unseen.

‘Hello, Scootaloo. What are you doing up this late?’ Fluttershy tried to engage the filly in conversation only to receive a sigh of annoyance. She was always being told that she was up too late. She never had gone to sleep before 10 and never even went to bed before 9 either. But Fluttershy was the one mare that she didn’t mind being asked by. She’d always been there to give her a helping hand. Although she still held a slight grudge about telling her that she couldn’t be Dash’s pet. It had been a fool-proof plan apart from that.

The orange, yellow and cyan ponies all went to the main room and sat on some nearby cushions, whilst the white and orange mares that had almost reached the door were locked out and forced to find a window to climb through. Rainbow, doing her best acting, put a smile on, to tell Fluttershy the news.

‘Let’s cut to the chase. Y’know that fox that every pony’s been going on about?’ she asked, non-chalant and hopeful that she’d get the right response. Fluttershy nodded.

‘We found him. Scootaloo, bring him over.’ She gestured to the red wagon. Fluttershy’s eyes widened with anticipation as Scootaloo dragged the red wagon into the middle of the room and look inside. Her fake smile instantly vanished.

‘He’s…gone.’ Scootaloo stammered, her eyes growing to be almost as wide as the cyan and yellow mare’s eyes had grown at the statement. She scurried to the entrance and looked out the front to see where he was. He wasn’t out there and she closed the door almost a fraction of a second before Applejack could stick a hoof in the door to get in. He’d vanished, without a trace.

‘You’re kidding me! Lunar, where are you?!’ Rainbow shouted, amazing and angry at her friend’s sudden disappearance. She almost shouted again until he came down the stairs, rabbit dangling from his mouth.

‘What? I wanted to make sure this little guy didn’t attack me like he did last time!’ Lunar grinned, knowing he’d pretty much made the cyan mare look pretty silly. His grin vanished as he saw the yellow pegasus locking eyes with him. Not communication was needed between the two as he walked down the stairs and approached her without as much as a glance to another pony.

‘Hi. I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before.’ He joked, spitting the rabbit out at her hooves. It lay, sprawling on the floor, groaning. He smiled as he looked back up only to see that her face hadn’t changed. He waved a paw in front of her face but her eyes no longer moved; she was almost paused except for a blink or two. Her mouth was agape and her breathing quiet. The fox turned to his friends and looked them in the eyes with some concern.

‘I think I may have broken her…’