Minuette stretched like a cat across the lush grass of Ponyville’s central park, grinning as the courting blades and leaves pressed the various aches from her body. The dance classes she instructed were always tougher on Saturday mornings—colts and fillies making the transition from beginner to intermediate stages often needed heavy lesson repetition—but she had survived, and could now look forward to an afternoon of doing nothing but staring at the cloudless sky and eating lettuce sandwiches.

The first of these was hovering just in front of her lips when the sound of sobbing broke across the sun-tempered air. Reluctantly lowering the sandwich, Minuette looked over her shoulder to see a small, pink-coated filly sitting alone on a park bench with her head in her hooves. Hastily packing the sandwiches away in her saddlebag, Minuette trotted across the park and climbed up onto the bench. Smiling a smile that would have embarrassed the sun on a cooler day, she looked down at the filly.

“Hi there, I’m Minuette. What’s your name?”

The filly glanced up. Blue eyes shimmered from beneath the magenta and plum mane that was swept high above her face, and she hastily rubbed at them with a hoof.

“Uh… S—Strawberry Parchment,” she replied between loud sniffs

“Well hello, Strawberry.” Minuette leaned in close and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know, I don’t think the pegasi are gonna appreciate you stealing their work and bringing in the rain early. Why don’t you tell me what’s up, and I’ll make sure you avoid a night in cloud-gaol. Deal?”

After a few seconds, the echo of a smile twisted Strawberry’s lips, only to be quickly stolen away by the passing breeze.

“I’ve… I’ve lost my friend.”

“Your friend, huh?” Minuette glanced around the busy park. “No problem. What do they look like?”

“Um… He’s little, and… and he looks like a snake with wings. You know, like in Daring Do?”

Minuette blinked. “Yowzer. A snake, huh?”

“With wings.” Strawberry Parchment looked forlornly at the ground.

“So an imaginary friend then?” Minuette giggled. “That’s neat.”

“He’s called Cedric.” A frown darkened Strawberry’s features, though her lip shivered and twitched against it. “We had an argument... It’s okay to have arguments with your friends, right?”

Minuette swept a foreleg around the young filly and pulled her close. “Of course it is! I used to argue with Alabaster, my imaginary friend, all the time. I always wanted to try and explore cumulonimbus cloud castles, but he always wanted to keep his paws on the ground.”

Strawberry Parchment chewed her lip. “We... um... We argued about me not wanting to make friends with other ponies and I told him to leave me alone. Cedric... He kept trying to talk to me but I ignored him, and now he’s gone!”

Minuette felt the edges of her smile grow heavy. When imaginary friends disappeared, it tended to be for good. It meant you were growing up.

“So... You got anyone who can help you look for him?”

Strawberry Parchment scuffed a hoof across the bench. She flinched at the contact, and then smoothed down the frayed wood.

“Ah, don’t you worry,” Minuette continued, patting the filly’s shoulder. “You’re talking to an expert in tracking down imaginary friends. So come on, why don’t we head over and look in the play-park over there? Play-parks are always good places to find friends.”

The play-park was a microcosm of chaos at the centre of the otherwise serene park, rippling and erupting with welcome energy and noise as they approached. Standing at the edge of it, Minuette and Strawberry Parchment watched the colts and fillies as they tore across sandpits and leapt onto glittering apparatus.

Minuette pointed a hoof at the sandpit. “Shall we start looking there?”

Strawberry Parchment’s eyes darted between the laughing foals, and her whole body tensed. Then she exhaled and gave a slight nod. “Um... Sure.”

“Great! But listen, we’ll probably need to sneak up on them, so let’s creep through those bushes to get there. Be careful of poisonous snakes though, ’kay?”

“Snakes?” Strawberry Parchment’s eyes were wide as she peered at the shadow-scarred shrubbery. “You don’t get actual poisonous snakes in Ponyville... do you?”

Minuette grinned. “Wanna find out?”

They pressed through the cool undergrowth, dipping beneath thick branches and trying not to sneeze from the pollen-laden flowers that clustered amongst the leaves like rubies. Strawberry Parchment squealed in surprise every time Minuette trailed a leaf across her back, or a vine against her legs, but the filly was soon giggling at the fictitious snake attacks, and that made Minuette giggle too. As she pretended to wrestle with one particularly dangerous species of ivy snake, Minuette saw a flash of movement between some of the branches, and her smile grew even broader.

Eventually they reached the border of the bushes and the sandpit. Leaning out, Minuette gazed across the small expanse of sand where a lone filly was sat digging holes. Her sky blue coat and navy mane were caked in the stuff, and the particles of quartz made her body shimmer as she moved. Her blue eyes were narrowed in concentration, but every now and then Minuette thought she saw a shadow pass across them.

“Psst!” She craned her head forward. “Hey!”

The filly looked up and blinked. She glanced quickly over her shoulder before turning back to Minuette. “Who, me?”

“Yeah, you! We’re on a top secret mission, and we need your help.”

The filly wiped her dirty forehooves against her chest and cocked her head, doubt creeping into her gaze. “Who’s ‘we’?”

Minuette looked down to find Strawberry Parchment hiding behind her. She stepped aside and pushed her forward. “This is Strawberry Parchment, and we’re trying to find her imaginary friend.”

“Oh…” The filly looked as though she was going to say something further, but she instead just gave Strawberry a shaky smile. “Hello, I’m Petunia—Petunia Paleo. Golly, I like your mane.”

“Oh, er… Thanks.” As silence draped itself across the sandpit, both fillies started to shuffle their hooves. Minuette cleared her throat.

“So then, Petunia, do you wanna help us?”

The little filly beamed. “Sure! I love looking for things. I mean, I don’t think imaginary friends really exist, but—”

Minuette gasped and pointed a hoof. “Well if they don’t exist then why did I just see one jump down that hole over there?”

“What? Where?” Both fillies turned, confusion and excitement blossoming across their faces.

“Quick, catch him!” Minuette giggled, launching herself from the bushes. “If he starts burrowing down through the sand then we could be here all day trying to dig him out!”

Without waiting she galloped forward and leapt down the nearest hole. Moments later she heard Strawberry Parchment and Petunia Paleo giggling as they started to dig their own holes. Sitting back on her haunches, Minuette smiled to herself as she pressed a hoof against the sand beneath her, wondering whether she could reach some lost underground kingdom if she dug deep enough. Then, satisfied that she could providing she had the time, she poked her head out again and watched the two fillies work.

“So, um...” Strawberry Parchment took a deep breath and started again. “Do you like... Daring Do?”

“Do I?” Petunia shook sand from her face and beamed. “Golly, going on wild adventures and finding lost treasure? I want to be just like her when I’m older.”

“I think Dr. Caballeron is pretty cool,” Strawberry Parchment replied. Her cheeks darkened at Petunia’s expression and she hastily returned to her digging. “Um... Anyway, how are you going to become like Daring Do?”

“Oh, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” Petunia replied. She pulled a small card from behind her ear and held it out to Strawberry. “But look—I’m already a member of her exclusive junior action archaeologist academy. How cool is that?”

Strawberry Parchment peered at the card. “Wow, did Daring make that herself? It looks so homemade.”

“Y—Yes!” Petunia held Strawberry’s gaze defiantly for a few seconds before colour started to rise to her cheeks. “No... Actually, Mother made it. But if Daring Do did have an academy, then this is definitely what the membership card would look like.”

“Oh, sure... Um...”

“Ah...”

Minuette stifled a giggle as she climbed out of the hole. Trotting across to the fillies, she looked down with a smile on her face. “Yowzer, look at all them holes, huh? Much deeper than mine, that’s for sure. So did you find him?”

Petunia’s muzzle was scrunched into a pout. “No, nothing. Well, except this old bone.” She held it out to Strawberry with an apologetic look on her face. “Do you want it? I know it’s not an imaginary friend or anything.”

“No, that’s okay, you keep it.”

Minuette frowned, and surveyed the play-park again. “He’s certainly a tricky fellow, isn’t he? I think it’s time for Plan B-8.”

Brightness returned to Strawberry’s face. “B-8?”

“Yeah, B-8. Bait. Get it?” Minuette giggled. “Yeah, of course you get it.”

She led the fillies to the far side of the play-park, where dense shrubbery retreated into rows of corn that swayed and bobbed in the strengthening breeze. Minuette watched the golden ocean growing dark beneath the approaching clouds, and then gestured to Strawberry and Petunia.

“I’m sure the little guy is probably feeling peckish after all that running and hiding,” she said, pulling two long sticks from the ground and tying vines to them to form a pair of nooses. “We just need to leave some food out for him and then snag him when he comes to take a nibble.”

Petunia examined her friend-catcher before giving it an experimental swish. “What does he eat anyway?”

Minuette looked at Strawberry Parchment. The filly scuffed the ground. “Um... Hazelnut, chocolate and damson jam sandwiches... with the crust cut off.” Her eyes darted between Minuette and Petunia. “He’s a fussy eater.”

“Well he sounds like he has an amazing taste in food,” Minuette giggled, clapping her hooves together. “Right, so let’s cast our catchers, close our eyes, and think of chocolate, hazelnut and damson jam sandwiches sans crust.”

Petunia flicked her stick and the noose disappeared amongst the towers of corn. Then she blinked. “Wait, think?”

“Sure. I mean, you can’t catch imaginary friends with real food. So come on, close those eyes and think of delicious sandwiches.”

Strawberry Parchment scrunched her eyes shut, Petunia less so. After a moment, the latter made an apologetic sound in her throat.

“Um, I have to admit, I’ve no idea of what one of those sandwiches even looks like, let alone tastes like.”

Strawberry Parchment’s eyes popped open. “Oh… Um, sorry. I’ve got some with me if you wanted to, um, try one. It’s kinda my favourite too…”

She reached into her saddlebag and unwrapped a bundle of sandwiches, passing one over to Petunia.

“Mmm, that is good,” Petunia said, her muzzle thick with gooey chocolate and jam. “I’ll have to ask Mother to make me these.”

Minuette turned her gaze back to the corn field, smiling as she listened to Strawberry Parchment explain exactly how one went about making a hazelnut, chocolate and damson jam sandwich (without the crust). Above them, the sky continued to darken as thick, roiling clouds pressed on towards Ponyville. It looked for all the world like the bloom of paint being washed from a paintbrush, and Minuette found herself wondering, if some large being really was washing its paintbrushes in Equestrian sky, whether a pony could feasibly climb up the brush itself and—

“Hey! Something is pulling my stick.”

Petunia gasped. “Mine too!” What do we do?”

Minuette looked down at the fillies, who were both straining with the effort of holding their sticks in place. She dropped down between them, gesturing with her hooves.

“You gotta give him a bit more slack when he’s pulling—let him tire himself out a bit. No, don’t pull your stick yet, Strawberry—see, look you’ve got small crack in yours already.”

Strawberry’s face contorted as she continued to pull. “But... But I can’t let him get away.”

“Don’t worry!” Petunia tugged on her stick. “We won’t let him—”

A muted pair of cracks echoed across the field as both sticks splintered and disappeared into the growing darkness of the cornfield, leaving only small stubs behind in the fillies’ hooves.

Petunia turned quickly away from Strawberry’s crestfallen expression and sighed. “Golly, he really was hungry.”

It had begun to rain by the time the three ponies returned to the play-park; all around, colts and fillies were either running home or taking shelter under the equipment and trees. Petunia shook droplets from her mane and sighed.

“I have to go home. My parents are okay with me getting muddy or wet, but not both.” She pressed a hoof into the ground and twisted it. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find your friend, Strawberry.”

“It’s okay.” Strawberry Parchment’s frown and quavering lip were slowly smoothed out by the softest of smiles. “Thank you for trying to help me. Um... You’re really great at digging.”

“You’re welcome! I had fun.” Petunia’s cheeks darkened. “I dig a lot back home—you know, in the forest or the garden. Sometimes under the sofa. My parents don’t like that too much though.”

“For what? I forgot to ask earlier.”

Petunia grinned. “For everything! You find all kinds of amazing things underground. Ancient skulls, buried treasure...”

Strawberry gasped. “That sounds amazing.”

“You think so?” Petunia blinked as a raindrop exploded against her muzzle. “Um, well do you want to come round and see my collection? Seeing as it’s raining and all. Mother and Father are always telling me I should try and make a friend, and you seem really nice. I, um, live nearby.”

“I’d really like that—” Strawberry Parchment paused, chewing her lip. Her eyes drifted up to Minuette, who gave her a nod of encouragement.

“Thank you for helping me too,” said the filly. “But Cedric… He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Minuette crouched down close and ruffled Strawberry’s mane. “I’m sure Cedric would prefer to see it as you growing up a little bit and perhaps not needing him as much. Trust me, imaginary friends are cool with that.”

“They are?”

“Totally.” Minuette nodded towards Petunia and winked. “And I think you’re both going to prove him right. ”

Strawberry Parchment’s lip trembled, but she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she smiled, nodded and trotted away with Petunia. Minuette watched them go with a smile on her face, before returning back to her spot in the park. She sat down amongst the damp grass and unpacked her sandwich. It was squashed and limp, and was quickly made more so from the deluge, but it tasted great.

“That was fun,” she said, looking down. “Thanks for coming back out of retirement to help me there, Alabaster.”

“You’re welcome. Again.” The creature beside her, a small white cat with oversized rabbit ears and a pair of clock-faces for eyes, licked a paw before grinning. “Not that I ever have a choice. One minute I’m relaxing, and the next here I am—summoned by daft dreams of giant paintbrushes and subterranean kingdoms and grass snakes.”

“I believe those were vine snakes, actually,” Minuette replied around a bite of sandwich. “And I apologise for nothing.”

Alabaster blew a raspberry at her. “Well, those two seemed nice, at least. The foals you teach on Mondays are much worse.”

Minuette prodded his ear. “Hey, if you’re going to start appearing during class then the least you could do is help me. It’s hard work recreating a jungle adventure for warm-up all on your own.”

“I apologise for nothing,” Alabaster snickered. “You’ve got it covered, though. You always do.”

Minuette smiled, and brushed strands of damp mane from her eyes. “Oooh, do you want to stick around for the afternoon, seeing as you’re here? It’s been ages since we’ve had some fun together—just the two of us.”

Alabaster cocked his head. “What did you have in mind?”

Minuette flopped onto her back and stretched. “I dunno. I did think about just lying here and wondering how many of those cloud islands we could find buried treasure in. Storm clouds are always the best for treasure you know.”

“I know.” Alabaster leapt onto her stomach and stretched out. “You’re still a foal, I see.”

“Yeah.” Minutte looked up at the cloud-filled sky and giggled. “I guess I am.”

Author's Notes:

Thanks for taking the time to read my story. It's been a while since I published anything on here, so for those of who follow me, thank you for having the patience to stick around. I hope it's been worth the wait.

This was my more lighthearted entry for the minific round referenced on the front page, but the 750 word cap did appear to cause some confusion, or at least made my minific more open to interpretation than I had originally intended. What you see here is a little more in line with my original intention, coupled with some expansions and improvements, which benefited enormously from the feedback I received during the round and podcast. It's still just simple fluff of course; it was always my desire to write an unguarded cute/fluffy one-shot, and that desire increased during the revision process. It's been a dark and troubling couple of weeks here in the UK, and focusing my attention on this has helped me feel a little more positive about the world.

Strawberry Parchment and Petunia Paleo were pretty cute characters in the show. Deserving of a little feature-time here, no?

Thanks again, and stay well.