Kevin lay on his bunk, impressing his small body into the fabric of the mattress beneath him. Back on the ship he'd stowed away on, he only had a hammock to sleep on after they discovered him. This mattress, however cruddy it might be compared to his bed back home, was pretty awesome.

As he thought, Kevin lazily raised a hoof in the air, batting around at nothing in particular. He looked past the green-grey appendage and at the evenly-spaced slats above which held the top bunk in place. The middle of that bunk dipped down in several places where he knew above lay his new companion, some orange filly from… from who-knows-where. She hadn’t said. Nor had she said his name, he realised. Maybe he should ask that at some point. Or just keep calling her orange things.

To be honest, Kevin was a little weirded out by the filly. He was no stranger to young ponies who were confident and independent, but usually it was evident where those ponies had come from. But this filly? She was an enigma. Her ship looked nothing like anything from the Bureau or beyond that he’d ever seen. And she didn’t seem to want to talk about wherever she was from. Maybe he could get some straight answers once they got to the Kindred planet. She’d have to tell the repairpony more if she wanted to get the thing fixed.

But even though he was confused about where the filly came from, it’s not like her timing wasn’t convenient. She truly had saved Kevin from that ship and having to go back to the Kindred planet and whatever consequences his stowing away would have had. And now he could go anywhere… well, anywhere between there and wherever the filly was going. At least anywhere on the Kindred planet, and maybe beyond. He knew she was going there, but not if that was her destination or just a stop along the way.

As he thought about these things, he heard the filly shifting around above. Some sort of scribbling noise, like the sound of a pencil on paper. Come to think of it, it was the sound of pencil on paper.

“Whatcha working on up there, Cheetofeathers?” Kevin asked quietly. The filly didn’t respond at first, so Kevin assumed she hadn’t heard him; he opened his mouth to repeat his question but before he could speak, she replied.

“Oh, just writing. You ever keep a journal?”

“Heh… I’ve tried before,” Kevin replied. “Mostly when I was younger. Usually didn’t end up having much to write when I sat down to actually write in it. I guess I’d have more to write now with all the crazy stuff I get up to, but that seems like a lot of work.”

The filly hummed. “I guess it kinda is a lot of work, especially if you wanna keep it up, but it’s… it’s a habit I picked up from a friend of mine. Now I find it just helpful to process what’s happened.”

“So what are you writing about now?”

“Just, well, y’know… writing about that whole thing on the ship. It had me pretty freaked out.”

“Freaked out? I thought those guys were being nice to you!” Kevin exclaimed. “They gave you all that food and everything.”

“Heh, well, they were being nice to me. But somepony who I thought I could trust lied to me, and… long story short, I ended up crawling through the ventilation tube through the ship until I got to where my ship is.”

Kevin blinked. “Jeez! That sucks…”

“Yeah, but at least I got out okay. I was worried I was going to have to kick some flank!”

Kevin laughed. “Kick some flank? You? Gimme a break.”

The filly above stopped scribbling. “Aw, c’mon. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve! I may be small, but Rainbow Dash always said that size doesn’t matter—it’s your wicked skills that do!”

Kevin adjusted the pillow behind his head. “Rainbow Dash? What kind of a name is that?”

“Oh, she’s… erm… she’s a pony from back home. Probably the most badflank pegasus there is. She’s gonna be in the Wonderbolts someday!”

“The Wonderbolts?”

“Eheh… they’re an aerial stunts team. Everypony back home knows about them—they’re super famous.”

“And how do you think I feel explaining all these basic Bureau concepts to you?” Kevin said, smiling. “Guess we both have a lot to learn.”

“True…” the filly said, trailing off as she extended the last vowel. “Speaking of that… what exactly is this ‘Bureau’ that you and the ponies on that ship kept talking about?”

“You really don’t know?”

“C’mon, Kevin. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t know.”

“Well, sorry! I guess it just weirds me out that there’s somepony out there that hasn’t heard of ‘em!” He paused to clear his throat. “Anyway, they’re, uh… the space police, basically. Their full name is… um… the System Bureau of… something that starts with a C. The acronym is SBC. But basically, it’s made up of a bunch of ponies from the Kindred planet and the next two planets in the system. They’re mostly involved with stuff that’s related to space and travel, but they also have power in space away from the planets and everypony keeps saying they’re getting more and more powerful.”

“Yikes. They sound kinda… evil.”

“Eh… it’s not really that cut and dry. It’s like any government or group like that; there’s some power-hungry ponies but overall it’s there for a good reason and tends to be coming from a good place.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” After the filly spoke these words, Kevin heard her resume scribbling above.

“Whatcha writing now?” he asked.

“Not writing,” the filly replied. “Drawing a picture.”

“Hopefully it’s of my pretty face,” Kevin joked, snickering. He was pretty sure he could hear the filly rolling her eyes in response—that was how strong she was rolling them.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

“You just did!” Kevin replied, grinning.

“Mmmff.”