The Bug in The Mirror

by Skijarama

First published 16th of May, 2020

Minuette has an imaginary friend that lives in her mirror. Nopony ever talks about it, but she doesn't really hide it, either. The thing is, her imaginary friend is very real. And he's trapped.

Minuette has an imaginary friend. At least, that's what everypony else thinks.

When ten-year-old magic student Minuette comes into possession of an antique vanity mirror, she is surprised to discover there is a creature living inside: A bug pony with big fangs and glowing eyes. Most little foals would probably be scared of such a creature, but not Minuette. Armed with a cheerful smile, she decides to befriend the bug in her mirror and uncover the mystery behind his bewildering predicament.

It's just such a shame that nopony else can see him.

---

Edited by Mister Hypothetical

This story is part of 'The Bugs in Strange Places' series, whose other entries include The Bug in The Herd, The Bug in The Basement, and The Bug in The Cave. You do not need to read any of these previous stories to enjoy this one, as they are not directly connected.

Inspiration for this story comes directly from this fine individual right here.

Unseen, Unheard

He sat on his haunches, watching them all coming and going with a far away, solemn look in his eyes. His ears swiveled around to face every new sound, listening to the ponies walking this way and that through the old, lavish halls of the antiquated estate. Through the tall, narrow window he viewed the world through, he could see rows of long tables set up with knick-knacks, books, old cutlery, and various other household objects scattered across them, each one tagged with a sticker and a number.

An estate sale. He didn’t know what had prompted the owners of the home to put it on. If he was honest, he didn’t really care, either. The ponies who owned this manor were far from kind. They were as full of themselves, and as arrogant as one could ever expect, the defining picture of the contradiction that was pony nobility.

He had half a mind to go and give the owners of this manor a stern vocal lashing. He had seen them yelling at their servants and angrily chastising their only foal for even the tiniest mistakes more times than he cared to count in the few months he had been forced to watch them from behind this accursed glass. More than once, he had spoken up to try and help where possible, but like always, his cries went unheard, his visage unseen by any who mattered.

Save for one.

The colt looked back at him from across the room, hiding quietly behind his father’s legs. Out of the many ponies ambling aimlessly through the halls, he was the only one to have seen him. The only one who could see him. He had been hopeful that he might have found a friend in the little guy, but alas, his panicked screams and proclamations of a monster had dashed those hopes against the glass that separated them.

A few ponies wandered directly into his field of view, briefly stopping to look down at him. He put on a small smile. “Hello…” he greeted quietly, his voice distorted into two tones.

The ponies did not react to his words. They glanced at each other after a moment, shrugged, and moved on. His ears drooped as soon as they were out of sight, his heart withering in his old chest. Of course, they hadn’t heard him. They never did. Why would this time be any different?

How long had he been like this? Forced to watch the world in front of him through an indestructible pane of glass, Unable to interact with almost anyone who crossed his path? It was hard to tell. The years had not been kind to his memory, and he was sure he had forgotten more than he remembered at this point.

No matter how much he forgot, though, one thing remained ever-present in his mind. He was trapped. Trapped in an old mirror he had no control over, trapped in a world he could not interact with or leave, no matter how loud he screamed or how hard he pounded on the glass barrier in front of him.

He gave off a quiet sigh, his eyes drifting back to the colt that had screamed at him before. They locked gazes, and he tried to smile again, acutely aware of the long, sharp fangs jutting down from his upper lip. Some small part of him hoped against hope that such a small gesture of friendliness might make the child reconsider him.

The colt ducked behind his father’s legs again, mumbling quietly, no doubt telling him that ‘the monster’ was looking at him again. As if to add credence to the theory, the colt’s father glared down at him and spat out a hissed reprimand, causing the little foal to crouch down to the ground as if he had been struck.

The ‘monster’s’ blood boiled at the sight. His smile fell away while his black, hole-riddled hoof flew forward, wanting nothing more than to clock that arrogant jerk of a father across his smug jaw. Alas, all his hoof found was the solid glass of the mirror with a loud smack, sending a spear of pain dancing up and down his foreleg. The glassy surface didn’t even twitch from his strike, and he knew it would not budge. It never had before.

Another pony stepped up to once again cut off his line of sight with the poor foal. He was an orange unicorn stallion, his purple eyes looking at him in curiosity. He studied the mirror for a moment until his gaze eventually fell on something just out of sight to one side. His brow furrowed in confusion. “Huh...that’s cheap. Hey, honey?” he called, looking off to one side.

A silvery mare with a mane and tail of blue and silver stepped forward, her bright blue eyes looking over the mirror that was the ‘monster’s’ home with just as much curiosity as the stallion. “Oh, my… this thing looks ancient,” she noted, reaching out to run her hoof along the old, ornate frame of the mirror.

“Because it is,” the ‘monster’ explained simply, his tattered wings drooping at his sides.

“But, they only want a few bits for it?” The mare went on, rubbing at her chin in thought.

“Weird… it’s really nice,” The stallion said, stepping back. “Any idea why?”

“No clue,” The mare replied quietly before looking back towards the colt and his father. She got the look of a mare with a bright idea. “But I think I know who to ask!”

With that, the mare turned and waved energetically to the stallion, getting his attention. He grimaced at the sight and talked at his son before wandering over, an impatient grimace on his face. “Yes? What is it?” he asked in a tired and irritable voice.

The mare wasn’t fazed, pointing at the ‘monster’ with a smile. “Why is this mirror so cheap? The thing’s an antique and in great shape! It must be worth a small fortune.”

The father snorted. “Oh, it is, trust me. I blew a small fortune acquiring the blasted thing, only for my little boy to start crying ‘monster’ every time he laid eyes on it, the stupid child,” he said, glaring at the mirror with nothing but resentment. “Little fella’s too old for his imagination to be running rampant like this, but he’s stubborn. Figure if we get rid of the stupid thing we can get rid of ‘the monster’ he keeps whining about.”

The orange stallion frowned, clearly unimpressed with the father’s tone. “So you’re selling it for dirt cheap?”

“Yes. Why? You want it?”

The ‘monster’ watched as the two ponies thought it over, looking at one another as if to silently communicate. They did not speak aloud for a moment, but he didn’t need them to. With barely even a thought, his vision blurred and refocused, allowing him to see their auras. Clouds of pink and dark mustard yellow enveloped the two. Love and confusion.

“Hmmm… I don’t need a new mirror,” the stallion eventually said with a shrug. “What do you think, Pearly?”

The mare beside him, Pearly if he had to guess, looked it up and down, her muzzle scrunching up in thought. Her eyes then lit up, and she turned back to her companion. “Neither do I, Sunspot, but you know who might?” she asked coyly.

The stallion, Sunspot, got a small smile on his face to match hers. “Oh, yeah. She could use something like this, huh?” he asked.

The ‘monster’ watched them with wide eyes as their auras shifted hues, abandoning the mustard yellow in favor of a glow alike to sunlight. Excitement. Was he about to change hooves again? How many times would that make in just the last ten years? He’d stopped counting after twelve, a decision he had since come to regret.

“Minuette is going to that big school now,” Pearly went on, her eyes shining with fond thoughts of somepony who was not here. “And her birthday is in just a few days, too. Something like this would be nice for her, I think. She could touch up her appearance, practice anything she needs to recite...”

“Oh, please,” Sunspot chuckled. “You and I both know she’s just going to make funny faces at it.”

“I fail to see the problem with that.”

Sunspot rolled his eyes. “Meh. Fair enough.”

The father cleared his throat. “Ahem. So I take it you’re buying this thing?”

“I’d love to,” Pearly replied, turning back to him. “We have a little filly waiting for us back home. She’s about to turn ten, and I think she’d really like this.”

“So I heard,” the father dryly replied before stepping back. “Alright, then, pick it up and follow me. Box with the bits is near the front door.”

“Alright. Honey?” Sunspot asked.

“On it!”

The ‘monster’ braced himself. All at once, his entire world became awash with a pale blue glow as Pearly grasped the mirror in her magic. A wave of vertigo and nausea flooded his senses as his world was lurched upward, the floor dropping away beneath his hooves. His wings sprang into life to keep him afloat, and he spun around to face away from the mirror.

Behind him, a perfect replica of the manor drifted by, moving of its own accord as the mirror was pulled along. Unlike the manor through the glass behind him, however, the great rooms and halls in front of him were frighteningly empty. The tables, loaded with goods to be sold, were still scattered about, but there was not a pony to be seen. Empty as always. The world was reflected, but not the creatures that gave it life or meaning.

He allowed his mind to wander with the world shifting beneath his hooves. He was about to be passed off again, sold like some simple trinket. And if what he had heard earlier was any indication, he was to be presented to yet another foal as a birthday present. A little filly about to turn ten years old...

Repressing a sigh, he turned around and looked out through the mirror again. His eyes found the colt he had frightened. The young pony was looking back at him, his ears drooping. He almost looked guilty, as if he were only now regretting his previous behavior now that it was too late to take it back.

The ‘monster’ sighed. It didn’t matter now. What was done was done, and he could do nothing to change it. His ears folded back at the memory of the colt ahead of him screaming in terror when he had first revealed himself. The moment had shocked him, it had been so abrupt, and his best efforts to soothe the situation had amounted to nothing when maids and servants came rushing in to check on the foal. In all of the chaos, things only got worse, until the little guy had fled his own room in a panic.

“...I don’t want that to happen again,” the ‘monster’ said under his breath. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Foals were skittish things, this he knew. If this ‘Minuette’ was anything at all like the colt he was leaving behind, then there was no good to be had from showing his face to her. “I can do without a friend for a little while…”

“And here you are!” Pearly’s voice came from somewhere out of his line of sight.

“Thank you. Now please, get that thing out of here,” the father asked, clearly eager to be rid of the mirror.

The monster grimaced. “...At least one of us has that luxury.”

Without another word, Pearly and Sunspot carried the mirror along as they took their leave, eagerly chatting amongst themselves. That was it, then. The deal was struck, and his future was decided. The ‘monster’ took a deep breath and focused ahead as the mirror was floated for the front doors of the mansion.

“...Alright, then,” he thought, bracing himself. “Let’s see my new home.”

The doors opened, and his eyes were flooded with light.

Author's Notes:

And here we are with yet another Bug in The 'X' story! This one is likely going to be a LOT longer than Bug in The Cave was, as much like Basement, it will take place over a substantial period of time. I hope you all like what I have cooked up for you this time!

Double Digits

The home of Sunspot and Pearly White was a modest affair by Canterlot standards. From the outside, it was little more than yet another white and blue Canterlot home, coming in at two stories tall. It was, on most days, quiet, and pleasant. The ponies who passed it by never had much reason to give it any attention, beyond a cursory glance at the owners if they happened to be out in front at the time.

Inside the house, however, it was a very different story. While things typically appeared to be no different than any other Canterlot home, the owners knew better. Times of ‘peace’ and ‘quiet’ were rare and far between, and the couple who called this house their home had long ago learned to cherish and savor those all-too-fleeting times with all their hearts.

Right now was one such time. Nopony moved within those halls, and Sunspot listened to it all from his chair in the living room. He took in a long, deep breath, savoring the familiar smell of home. He swept his eyes across the room, taking note of the spread that had been put out before the entrance.

A set of two boxes had been placed atop a table against the far wall, while a much taller third box was leaned against the wall beside the table. Each one was wrapped up in bright, colorful paper and bound with even-more-colorful ribbons. Pearly looked on at them from her place in the chair across from Sunspot’s, a tender smile on her face.

“Well… is there anything else?” she asked quietly.

Sunspot shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s all in place…” he said, idly tapping the tip of his hoof against the arm of his chair.

Pearly hummed at that before rising to her hooves. “So… shall I summon the beast?” she asked, a coy smirk spreading on her lips.

Sunspot snorted. “The beast? I thought she was our little angel.”

“She is,” Pearly replied without hesitation. “Until she has too much sugar. Then she becomes a little beast. And you and I both know that we can’t stop her from chowing down on the cake!”

Sunspot rolled his eyes and rose to his hooves. “Heh. You got a point there,” he conceded, trotting over to stand by his wife. He glanced over at the gifts, his lips curling up. “...Wow. Ten years old already. Feels like just yesterday we were learning you were pregnant with her…”

“Or conceiving,” Pearly added with a very deliberate purr.

“Hon,” Sunspot was quick to say, placing a hoof against her lips. “C’mon. She might be listening.”

Pearly giggled merrily at that before leaning into his side. She gazed towards the presents as well, a dreamy look coming into her eyes. “But yes… ten years. It really doesn’t feel like it’s been all that long, does it?” she asked in a far quieter voice.

Sunspot nodded, draping a foreleg over Pearly’s shoulders. “It doesn’t… I guess it’s true what they say. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Fun indeed,” Sunspot murmured. She turned and quickly snatched a kiss away from her husband. When she leaned back, she stared up into his eyes with a big grin. She was clearly excited and eager to get this show on the road. “So…”

Sunspot nodded and released his hold on her. “It’s time. Summon the beast.”

The smirk that appeared on Pearly’s face then could only be described as ‘devilish.’ She barely stifled an ecstatic giggle before spinning on her hooves, raising her head, and bellowing out at the house. “Minuette! We’re ready, come on down!”

And just like that, the tentative peace that the small home had known was reduced to paste. Not that it was ever really an option to the creature they had just called forth.

A door slamming open was heard upstairs, and barely a moment later, a blue ball of excitable energy and high pitched squealing noises came barreling into the room like a gerbil on a sugar rush. A messy head of hair sat atop her head, evenly divided between dark blue, and pale, silvery-blue. A short horn rose out of her forehead, nestled comfortably over ocean eyes that shined with excitement and anticipation.

“Is it time to open presents?!” she squealed, hopping up and down in place after sliding to an abrupt halt in the room. “Is it?! Please, please, pleeeeaaase?!”

Pearly and Sunspot shared a glance and burst into giggles.

Minuette puffed up her cheeks, practically vibrating on the spot. “Hey! What’s so funny?! Stop laughing! It’s my birthday, you’re not supposed to laugh at me!” she protested, skipping forward to prod her father’s hoof.

That only made the parents laugh louder. With one swift movement, Sunspot hefted his daughter up onto his back with his magic, making sure to spin her once or twice on the way up, eliciting a few giggles from her as she went. “Heh. What can I say, kiddo? You’re just too adorable,” he told her.

Minuette sat upright, seemingly aghast. “What?! Adorable?! But I’m ten! I’m supposed to be something other than adorable now, aren’t I?” she asked, looking down at herself as if for evidence to that frankly absurd claim.

Pearly reached over to ruffle her child’s mane. “You’re our daughter. You will never stop being adorable to us!” she declared with finality.

Minuette blew a raspberry at her, then jumped down from Sunspot’s back to scamper towards the presents that had been arranged against the wall. “Presents! It is time for them, right?!” she asked eagerly. Her eyes found the tall one, flying so wide Sunspot was afraid they might pop out of her little skull. “Woah! This one’s big!”

Sunspot rolled his eyes, following after her to make sure she didn’t accidentally break anything. “Heh, yes, it’s present time. And be careful with that one, it’s breakable,” he warned her gently.

Minuette didn’t seem to register the warning. She immediately lit up her horn with a gentle yellow glow and plucked the smallest of the three boxes off of the table.

Pearly intervened, quickly snatching up the box before Minuette could tear into it. “Oh, come now, have some patience!” she playfully scolded, lightly poking Minuette on the nose. “You’ll get your presents in just a moment, but let us hoof them to you first, okay?”

Minuette whined impatiently before plonking dutifully down onto her haunches. “Okay,” she grumbled, puffed up her cheeks in childish indignation.

Pearly rolled her eyes before sitting down on her haunches. Sunspot sat down next to her, taking the package in his own magic. “This first one is from your mother,” he said, hovering it down to Minuette.

She quickly snatched it up and tore into it like a rabid rabbit into a bowl of freshly diced carrots. The little squeaking snarls were evidence enough of that. Scraps of paper went flying in all directions before Minuette rose to sit upright, clutching a thick book in her hooves. Her eyes widened, shimmering with fascination.

“Woooaaah…” she mumbled, turning it over and affording Sunspot a view of the front cover.

“Fangs and Teeth of all shapes and sizes: The Foal’s Encyclopedia to Dentistry!”

Pearly giggled at Minuette’s fascination. “I remembered how you kept asking me all about my job a few weeks ago, and I figured, what the heck? You could probably get a lot out of that thing. It talks about the teeth of ponies and all sorts of creatures.”

Minuette flipped it open, her eyes skimming the pages. She gave a nod and a short ‘mhmm!’ before setting the book down. “Thanks, mom! I’ll read it tonight before I go to bed!” she declared. “What’s next?!”

Sunspot plucked the next package from the table and brought it down, his smile growing. “This one here is from me,” he said.

Minuette pounced on it with gusto, and much like with the book, tore away the paper wrappings. When she was done, her weres were met with a package containing pale blue sheets with a darker blue comforter decorated with fluffy white clouds. She gave off a little coo as she looked it over, no doubt imagining what it would feel like on her fur. “Aw, cool! I’ve been needing some new sheets!”

“Yeah, I know,” Sunspot said, leaning down to ruffle her mane. “Promise me you won’t jump on these ones, okay? You’re too big to be doing that, now, and your hooves aren’t soft anymore.”

“Hmmmm… nuh-uh,” Minuette denied without missing a beat, casually setting the package on her other side.

Sunspot gave off a resigned sigh, leaning back. “Of course not.”

Minuette giggled at his resignation before focusing on the tall package leaning against the wall. “So, what’s the big one?” she asked, her tail wagging behind her with enthusiasm.

Pearly and Sunspot turned to face it. They shared a glance, their expressions becoming a touch more serious. It was Pearly who spoke. “Well, Minuette, since you’ve started going to Celestia’s School a few weeks ago, your father and I have been thinking that something like this would be good for you to have.”

“You’re going to have to give presentations to your classmates, and sometimes you’re going to have to look your best,” Sunspot added, scooting off to the side to allow Minuette to approach unobstructed. “And, between all of that, you can probably have some fun by making weird faces at it.”

Minuette scrunched up her muzzle, her horn lighting up with yellow light. “...So… what is it?” she asked even as she began to peel away the paper. Her eyes slowly widened as, bit by bit, the mirror came into view. She stood up, her eyes tracing over the ornate frame before locking onto herself in the glass.

There were a few moments of uncharacteristic silence. Sunspot swallowed heavily, a sudden feeling of unease coming over him. Did Minuette not like it? She was generally easy to please, but she wasn’t squealing with complete and total unrestrained joy yet. In his experience, that was a bad thing.

Minuette stepped up to the mirror, looking at her reflection with wide eyes. “Woah…” she mumbled, lifting a hoof to the frame. She stared at her reflection for a few seconds, her face completely unreadable.

Pearly and Sunspot stared anxiously at each other.

And then Minuette stuck out her tongue at the mirror.

And just like that, all was well with the world again.

Pearly and Sunspot shared a sigh of relief as, much like they had predicted, Minuette began to make funny face after funny face at herself in the mirror.

“Do you like it?” Pearly asked after a moment.

Minuette nodded emphatically, turning to face her parents with an enormous grin. “I love it! ALL of it! And you! You guys are the best!” she declared before throwing herself against first Pearly, and then Sunspot, giving each of them a quick but bone-crushing hug. “Thank you guys! Thank you, thank you!”

“Oof!’ you’re welcome, you excitable little thing you,” Sunspot laughed, patting her on the head while he had the chance.

After a moment, she let go and squirreled back a few paces before spinning around to look at them. “So, cake and song next?” she asked in such a manner that suggested she knew the answer already.

Pearly and Sunspot rose to their hooves. “Of course, Minuette. But only one slice of cake today!” Pearly said, adding a layer of warning to her voice.

Minuette pouted up at her. “Aaaaw, why?” she demanded.

Pearly swiftly scooped her daughter up in her magic. “Because you have school in the morning, young lady, and you need your sleep!” she replied with a grin. “And if you have more than one slice, you’ll get a tummy ache, and you’ll get a sugar rush, which is not a happy combo for you or for us. So one slice.”

“But I’m ten!” Minuette protested as if that was somehow a perfect defense.

“And I’m thirty-seven,” Sunspot shot back with a coy smirk, following his wife and daughter to the dining room. “And she never lets me have more than one slice, either.”

“That’s because you’re old! Your old pony stomach can’t handle it!”

Sunspot winced, his ears drooping while Pearly’s hoof flew up to her mouth to cover up her astonished laughter. “Ooooooh, dang! Your daughter really is a little beast!” Pearly declared, struggling to contain herself.

Sunspot sighed, running a hoof down his face. “Yeah, well, if I’m old, then you’re the tomb I’m buried in.”

“Darn straight!”

Minuette laughed at them, her delighted giggles being the only sound to be heard as the family of three vanished into the dining room to commence with the cake.

The next few hours were something of a blur for Minuette. She had devoured her cake with great enthusiasm and had sung along as her parents went through the traditional pony birthday song. Once that had been done, she had spent some time running around playing tag with her father while her mother brought her presents up to her room to get things put away and arranged.

As it so happened, her father was really, really good at tag. She had chased him around the house for what must have been an ice age or three before she finally wore herself out and had to stop to rest. Apparently, this had been done to help her shoot down the inevitable ‘sugar rush’ that was on its way.

After that, it became a haze of spending time with her parents, reminiscing about past birthdays, and then eventually having dinner. Minuette tried to steal another slice of cake somewhere in the mix, but her parents were onto her tricks. The mission ended in failure when Pearly simply levitated the cake away and dragged Minuette out of the kitchen, no matter how loud she complained that ‘one more bite’ wouldn’t be the end of the world.

It would probably only be the end of her stomach, but hey, it would be worth it!

Now, Minuette found herself resting on her belly in her room, the book her mother had gotten for her open at her hooves, and the big mirror set up against the wall to her right. Every time she used her magic to turn the page, she could see herself reflected in the glass surface, and she took the opportunity to make funny faces at herself every so often.

Several photos and illustrations of tiger teeth stared back at her from the pages, along with blocks of text talking about the creatures themselves. Minuette read them over, taking it all into her mind with great interest.

“So tiger cubs are born without teeth, huh?” she mumbled to herself, turning to the next page. A small, adoring coo slipped past her lips at the sight of a baby tiger yawning at the camera while sprawled on its back. Sure enough, its big mouth was devoid of the sharp-looking chompers of its grown-up counterparts. Not nearly as threatening.

Now she was thinking about how it would feel to have a baby tiger trying to gum her to death. She giggled at the thought before shaking her head.

“Aw, that’s so cute…”

A gentle knock came to her door, drawing her from her thoughts. She looked up as it swung open to see her mother poking her head in. The mare gave her a small smile. “Hey, sweetie. Enjoying the book?” she asked quietly.

Minuette nodded. “Mhmm! It’s real interesting!” she said, tapping the page for emphasis. “Did you know baby tigers don’t have teeth when they’re born?”

Pearly stepped in, closing the door behind her. “I absolutely did. And did you know that those big gaps in their teeth are to help them hold onto prey when they squirm to get away?” she asked, a knowing glint in her eye.

Now Minuette was imagining being held in the clutching jaws of an adult tiger. Her smile disappeared for a moment before returning all over again. “Oh. Wow, that’s interesting!” she said, looking back and turning the page back to get a better look at an adult’s mouth. Sure enough, there were several large gaps between their teeth, and thinking about it, she could see now how those would be helpful in holding something still. She winced. “...And kinda scary.”

“And that is why we don’t make the big predator cats angry,” Pearly commented as she sat down beside Minuette. “They’ll come and gobble you right up!”

“But that’s mean!” Minuette protested. “They’re mean!”

“No, they’re just hungry. I mean, are we mean because we eat plants?”

“No, because plants are food!”

“To us,” Pearly corrected with a nod. “Because we are herbivores, remember? But Tigers are carnivores. They only eat meat.”

“That’s dumb. They should be vegetarians like us!”

Pearly laughed. She reached out to ruffle Minuette’s mane with an affectionate smile. “You know that isn’t how it works,” she said before looking up at the mirror. “What about the mirror? So you like it?”

Minuette nodded. “Uh-huh! It’s super tall!”

“It is,” Pearly acknowledged, standing up to get a brief look at herself in its surface. “And pretty. It’s the right size for adults, you know, so if you take good care of it, it should last you for a very long time.”

Minuette looked into it as well, her smile growing. A long time, huh? She could get behind that idea, no problem. She looked at herself in the mirror, then her mother, and then herself again. The reflection was remarkably clear, she was beginning to realize. Despite the signs of age on the frame, the glass was completely devoid of imperfections or damage. It was almost like the room just extended beyond the glass, perfectly reflected on the other side.

Minuette blinked. Something didn’t seem right. She squinted in confusion, idly scouring the image. A few seconds later, her eyes landed on a shadow in the back of the reflection that didn’t seem right. Confused, she glanced back over her shoulder, only to find that no such shadow existed in her room.

“...huh?” she wondered.

Pearly looked down at her. “Hm? What is it?” she asked.

Minuette turned back to the mirror, but the shadow was gone. She blinked, leaning forward and squinting to try and get a better look. But there was nothing. Whatever she had seen, it was gone. But how could it be gone? And what was it? Was she just seeing things?

...Yeah, she was probably just seeing things, she decided.

“Nothin’,” she dismissed with a chirpy tone.

Pearly smiled and ruffled Minuette’s mane one more time. “Alright. Well, you should probably be heading to bed. You have school in the morning, and you need to be awake for that. You have a big test in the morning, don’t you?”

Minuette gave off a long, dejected groan. “Ugh, yes. First big test of the year. Hmph,” she protested before looking up at Pearly with pleading eyes. “Do I have to? Can I just stay up a little longer?”

Pearly looked down at her for a few seconds, and Minuette capitalized on the opening. She opened her eyes as wide as she could and made her lip tremble, focusing on looking as pitiful and pathetic as possible.

Pearly’s resolve lasted about as long as a slice of butter in the desert against such a look. She sighed in defeat before smiling. “Oh, alright. You can stay up long enough to finish reading about tigers, but then you’re going to bed, and I won’t hear you complaining about it, you hear me?”

Minuette clopped her hooves together before darting in to give her mother a big hug. “Awesome! Thanks, mom!”

Pearly laughed and returned the hug. “Heh. You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she said, nuzzling her little girl. “Other mothers might not be so lenient.”

Minuette smirked triumphantly before plopping back down to look into the pages of her book. Pearly sat down beside her to read with her, though Minuette knew that she was mostly doing this to make sure the little filly did as she had been instructed. Not that she minded, really. Spending time with her mother like this was something she could never complain about.

And so it was that the mother and her child sat together in that little bedroom, reading from the present one got for the other, smiling and giggling every so often as one or the other made some humorous remark or comedic observation.

Unbeknownst to either of them, however, they were being watched. The silent observer, hidden from view within the mirror, stared at them, his glowing blue eyes warming with appreciation, and a small smile spreading on his lips.

“Yeah… I think I like it here better.”

Author's Notes:

And so our lead protagonist enters the stage by barreling down the stairs!

Musical accompaniment for Minuette's arrival:

https://youtu.be/kNphhN6hLgE

Celestia's School

Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was without question the most prestigious in all of Equestria. It would have to be, seeing as the headmare and most prominent teacher within those old halls was none other than Princess Celestia herself. The campus stood tall and proud just outside of Canterlot Castle’s walls, larger than all of its contemporaries in the city.

When Minuette had first started attending this school a few weeks ago, she had been more than a little intimidated. There had been so many ponies, and the buildings were just so large. She was a chirpy and friendly pony by nature, but so many of her new peers carried themselves with an air of superiority that made her feel lowly by comparison. Add onto that the near-labyrinthian layout of the school, and she had been lost for much of her first day, only ever barely blundering into the right classroom on time by pure luck.

But that had been then, and now was now. Minuette slipped through the crowd, easily threading between groups as her hooves carried her for her first class. Magic Fundamentals 1. It wasn’t long before she was inside and hunting down the room in question. She hummed a merry tune as she went, her eyes bouncing from number to number on the walls by each of the doors.

“Aha!” she quietly cheered as she came to hers and pushed it open with her magic. Most everypony was already at their seats, talking amongst themselves energetically while they awaited the arrival of the princess. Celestia herself taught this class, and that automatically made it the best class in the whole school, according to some of the students.

“Minuette!” a filly called out from the right, drawing Minuette’s eye. The filly was maybe a year older than her, at the very most. She had an almost-white pink coat with a vivid red mane and tail that she kept bound behind her head in a neat ponytail. On her flank was a cutie mark of a first aid kit. Fitting, seeing as her name was-

“First Aid!” Minuette greeted, cantering over, and enveloping the other unicorn in a bone-crushing hug. “You missed my birthday, you big silly!”

First Aid’s eyes widened. She pulled back to gape at Minuette like a deer in the headlights. “What?! You’re birthday was yesterday!?” she asked, alarmed.

Minuette giggled and nodded, taking her place in the desk next to First Aid’s. “Mhmm!”

“You never told me!” First Aid pouted, lightly shoving Minuette once she was seated. “I would have come to celebrate, and I woulda bought you a gift, too!”

Minuette shrugged, a sheepish grin on her face. “Eheh. I guess I forgot. Too excited…”

“Heh. That’s kind of a contradiction,” a Colt’s voice answered from behind her. Minuette jumped with a high-pitched squeak and spun in her seat to face the new arrival. He was around First Aid’s age, with a light blue coat and a dark gray mane and tail, the former styled into a bowl-cut. He smiled down at her before ruffling her mane with a hoof. “So excited by your birthday that you forgot to mention it? The logic train’s not really working there.”

Minuette lightly swatted his hoof away with a smirk. “Oh, hardy har!” she laughed sarcastically. “You know what I mean, Split End!”

Split shrugged and sat back down in his desk. The unicorn beside him, a more elegantly built colt with a pale yellow coat with a light brown mane and tail rolled his eyes. “Hah. I see why First hangs out with you so much. You’re a fun one to watch.”

First Aid rolled her eyes in response. “That, and she’s my friend, Bristle,” she reminded him.

Minuette clopped her hooves together a few times in response to that. “Mhmm! Yup!”

Bristle hummed with a nod. “So she is.”

Minuette blinked and tilted her head to one side. She opened her mouth to speak, but a subtle nudge from First drew her attention.

The filly smiled at her. “So, did you practice for the test?” she asked.

Minuette tilted her head the other way. “You mean study, right?” she asked, shifting in her seat.

“Well, yes, that,” First Aid replied with a slow nod. “But also practice.”

“This isn’t just a written test, you know,” Split End piped up, leaning forward in his seat to look at Minuette more directly. “It’s a practical one. Gotta show the teacher that we actually know how to use magic, not just talk about magic theory on some paper.”

Minuette blinked, her cheerful smile persisting. However, her ears slowly fell to rest flat against the sides of her head. “...Oh.”

First Aid’s eyes widened. “Wait, you didn’t know?! How did you not know?! You were here when Celestia told us about it!” she asked, stunned.

Bristle raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t slacking, were you?”

Minuette gulped, unable to stifle a nervous chuckle. “Eheh, uh, well… I may have been a little distracted… by my, um… birthday coming up…” she admitted, rubbing the back of her head. Somehow, she had just known that something hadn’t been right when she left class that day...

Split End frowned with a regretting grimace. “...And now I feel bad for making fun of that,” he admitted slowly.

First Aid shot him a sideways glance before giving Minuette a reassuring smile. “Well, uh… I’m sure you’ll do great! If you grasp the theory, I’m sure you can figure it out in no time! I’ll be cheering for you!”

That cheered Minuette up,. She perked up with a smile, her ears lifting to stand straight. “Right! Cheer extra loud, okay?”

“But we’re in school,” Bristle pointed out. “We’re not supposed to be disruptive.”

“Shushen!” Minuette snapped at him with a playful swat, eliciting a chuckle from the other unicorn.

First Aid rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant,” she said. “I’ll be cheering for you as loud as I can inside. I don’t wanna be too loud for real, though, because then I’ll distract you, and it’ll go bad. You have to focus to do good magic!”

Minuette beamed and gave a sharp nod. Unfortunately, any more chatter was summarily ground to a halt by the school bell ringing out through the classroom. The assembled students immediately quieted down as the door in the back swung open, admitting the tall, graceful form of Princess Celestia. For a moment, Minuette’s jaw dropped in awe, any small anxiety over the test forgotten in an instant.

She had seen the Princess up close several times now, yes, but it never ceased to amaze her just how majestic the ancient alicorn was. How her feathers never appeared even a tiny bit out of line, how her pastel rainbow mane flowed in an invisible breeze, how her face never once became tarnished with anger or impatience.

The worst emotion Minuette had ever seen on her face, in fact, was little more than mild annoyance or disappointment. But even those were enough to fill her with boundless shame when she beheld it, even when she was not the one who had incurred the princess’s quiet wrath. Her eyes carried a thousand years of practice behind them, and it showed in every single precise movement she made.

All of those things amazed Minuette and filled her with wonder. Well, all of those things, and the fact that Celestia was just really flippin’ tall. “Seriously, how did she get that big? Does she have a stretcher or something? Or is it something magical, like her mane?” Minuette wondered.

Alas, she would never know.

Celestia took her place at the front desk and lifted her head to speak to the whole room, a practiced, motherly smile on her face. “Good morning, my little ponies.”

“Good morning, Princess Celestia!” came the unanimously respectful answer.

Celestia’s smile grew, her eyes shimmering just slightly as she looked between all of her assembled students. “I hope you all slept well last night. This morning you will be taking your first magic test in this class.”

When a collection of affirmations answered her, she continued, pulling a stack of papers from her desk with her magic. “As this is your first test, and as many of you are still quite young, it will be very easy, and won’t count for much in your overall grade. That does not, however, give you license to ‘half-hoof’ it.”

“Blast,” Split End mumbled loud enough for the class to hear, eliciting a series of amused chortles from around the room.

Celestia shot him a small smile as she drew near. She delivered the test sheets to each student swiftly and efficiently, working her way through the crowd with effortless ease. Minuette watched her go with a small, thoughtful frown. Why did she do it like this? All of the other teachers in this school gave out sheets like this with their magic without leaving their desks.

Eventually, Celestia came to Minuette’s desk and deposited her sheet. Minuette smiled up at her, and for a moment, the two made eye contact. Minuette paused as she stared into Celestia’s deep violet eyes, suddenly feeling like she was being scrutinized from top to bottom.

And then Celestia smiled. Her eyes shined with surprising warmth, and Minuette couldn’t help but feel soothed by that look. It was a gentle, easy smile, one that promised that everything would be fine.

“If you have any questions or concerns,” Celestia went on to the whole class, despite keeping her gaze on Minuette for a second longer. “Now is the time to ask.”

Minuette’s mouth dropped open as the Princess passed her by. “Was… was that directed to me?” she thought to herself. The Princess had been speaking loud enough that she could only have been talking to the whole class, yet her eyes had never once left Minuette’s until she was done and had moved on.

Before Minuette had a chance to ponder it, the teacher had already moved on. Minuette watched her go before shrugging and looking back down to her test sheet, giving the listed questions a preliminary read through. It didn’t seem so bad, actually. The only part she was worried about was actually having to put her knowledge into practice in front of the whole class.

If she screwed it up...

As if sensing the small pearl of unease Minuette felt at that idea, First Aid leaned over to whisper an encouragement. “You got this!”

Minuette’s anxiety died down a bit from her friend’s support. She gave her a chirpy nod and grin. “Yeah, I do!”

Mercifully, the paper part of the test was short and, as Celestia said, easy. It was a single sheet, and there were only questions on one side, many of which were multiple choice. It didn’t take long at all for all of the sheets to be turned it, many of them at the same time. Minuette and First Aid were last, right behind Bristlestroke and Split Ends.

Celestia smiled and nodded as the last sheets were deposited, before rising to her hooves and speaking up. “Alright, I do believe that is everypony. It’s time for the second part of the test,” she announced to the class. “Everypony, please clear a space in the middle of the room. Try not to scratch the floor tiles with your desks if you can help it, the janitor will have a conniption.”

A few amused giggles went through the class, along with a few quietly uttered instances of “what’s a conniption?” Everypony went into motion, the room filling with a loud cacophony of desk legs scraping on tiled floors as foals moved everything aside, clearing a sizable space in the middle of the room.

Celestia looked it over for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. “Good. Now, everypony please clear out from the center. I will call on you by name one at a time, and test you individually,” she instructed, and the foals did as they were told, shuffling around to where there was space. Minuette was quick to work her way over and stand beside First Aid off to the side. First smiled at her. “So? How did you think you did?”

Minuette shrugged. “Paper? I think I did good,” she said before nodding forward as Celestia called forth the first student. “This part, though…”

First Aid patted her on the back. “You’ll be great! I know it!”

“Hey, shh,” a colt whispered to them. “Don’t be noisy.”

Minuette pouted at him but did not speak again.

“Twilight Sparkle, you’re first.”

Minuette blinked. “Twilight Sparkle?” she thought. She looked back to the cleared space to see a lavender unicorn stepping forth, her head held high. Her dark blue mane and tail were neatly combed, giving the impression that she was always in control of the situation. On her flank was a depiction of a starburst, surrounded by five smaller white sparkles.

This was Princess Celestia’s personal student, although what that really meant, Minuette didn’t know. The filly shared this class with the rest of them, and yet was claimed to be especially close to the monarch in the room. Maybe she just had some fancy extracurricular activities or something?

It didn’t matter just then. Celestia smiled down at Twilight before speaking loud enough for the rest of the class to hear. “For this test, I will ask you to create a simple orb of light in the air in front of you,” Celestia said with a soothing smile. “It does not need to be large or bright, merely present. Take your time, and do not overexert yourself. Ready?”

Twilight gave a sharp nod. “Ready, Princess!”

“Then begin,” Celestia said, taking a step back. She added with a sly wink. “Brighten up our day!”

Twilight grinned before lighting her horn with a pale purple light. A few seconds passed as her brow furrowed in concentration. The light on her horn grew brighter and brighter until the light leaped from her horn to hover in the air in front of her face. Minuette’s eyes widened as it flickered once and then solidified, just like that.

Twilight opened her eyes and smirked triumphantly at her creation. Celestia nodded with a flicker of pride in her eyes. “Very good, Twilight,” she said before nodding to one side. “Return to the others, please.”

Twilight nodded before turning and making her way back into the sea of foals. Minuette watched her go, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open. “She made it look so easy! Well, okay, it’s super easy to adults and stuff, but she’s barely older than I am!”

Well, at least the ‘Celestia’s personal student’ title made sense, now. That filly was clearly loaded with potential.

“Next, Lemon Hearts, please step forward.”

Minuette turned her thoughts away from Twilight and watched as Celestia called foals forward to demonstrate their understanding of the spell. Not a single one of them nailed it so quickly like Twilight — who was now reading a book, Minuette noted. All of them faltered for a moment or took longer to create the light, and one or two outright failed to produce anything meaningful or substantial in spite of their best efforts.

Finally, at long last, the moment came. “Minuette, it’s your turn.”

Minuette locked up for a second. She glanced over at First Aid, the other filly giving her a reassuring smile and nod. Minuette took comfort from that, followed by a deep breath. She stepped forward until she was in front of the Princess, a cheerful and optimistic smile on her face.

Celestia nodded at her, her eyes soft and soothing. “Go on.”

Minuette nodded and closed her eyes, focusing on the spell. She called back to all of her studies and reading as her horn lit up with yellow light. A small needle of pain began to stab into the side of her skull from the strain, and she knew then and there that she really should have practiced more.

“Gently now, don’t hurt yourself,” Celestia said softly, her voice a soothing song that reached through the darkness to guide Minuette’s way. “Concentrate, but don’t obsess. Direct, but don’t dictate. Magic flows like water. It must be guided with intent and intelligence, not force or recklessness.”

Minuette did her best to follow that advice, she really did. For a moment, it began to pay off, as a tiny, flickering ball of light began to form in front of her. She cracked open an eye, hope soaring in her chest, and spurring her on.

Unfortunately, it could not last. Try as she might, she could not maintain a hold of the light with her magic as untrained as it was. For a moment, the pearl of light grew exponentially brighter. And then, with an almost deafening pop that reminded her of a light bulb, the light shattered. A sudden forced jerked her back from inside of her skull, starting at the base of her horn, that sent her sprawling to the ground with a cry of pain.

Celestia was at her side in a heartbeat, crouching down and looking her over for any signs of serious injury. “Minuette! Are you alright?!” she asked urgently.

Minuette nodded and cracked open an eye. Her head was thumping, and her horn was tingling something fierce. The closest way to describe it was if she shook up a bottle of really fizzy pop and then dunked her horn into it and was feeling the bubbles do their thing. She found her voice after a second, mumbling out an affirmative “Uh-huh.”

“Somepony wanna remind me why the daughter of a dentist is in this school?” a colt’s voice rang out from the crowd, lined with an edge of combined amusement and disdain.

Minuette’s eyes widened, her heart withering in her chest.

Celestia glared past her, and any laughs that echoed out from the colt’s remark died in an instant. “Watch your tongue,” she warned before gently helping Minuette to her hooves. “Do you think you can try again?”

Minuette grimaced. Once she was on her hooves, she lit her horn just to feel it out. The tingle of bubbles became pins and needles, making her shudder and drop the magic instinctively. She sighed and shook her head. “No. My horn’s all tingly. It kinda hurts, too...”

Celestia nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. “Good. Given how violently that spell discharged, it could have hurt a lot worse,” she said before lightly nudging Minuette back for the others. “Go ahead and rejoin your classmates. Rest your horn.”

Minuette nodded, sluggishly pulling herself back toward First Aid. She did her best to smile and find comfort in her friend’s returned gaze, but her efforts were hindered by the feeling of an entire classroom staring at her.

Her face slowly began to heat up with embarrassment, and she couldn’t get back into the crowd fast enough.

Parental Guidance

The rest of the day passed in an embarrassing blur for Minuette. Try as she might, she just could not force her humiliating and flashy failure during the first major test in her magic class out of her mind. It didn’t help that she didn’t share many of her classes with her friends, at least not until the end of the day, meaning she was forced to fend for herself for most of the day.

But, for a mercy, the school day eventually drew to a close. The moment the final bell rang, Minuette gathered her things into her saddlebags and practically bolted from the classroom, in spite of the teacher’s insistence that ‘the bell does not excuse you, I do!’

“That’s not how it works,” Minuette thought as she fled through the door. “If you excuse us and not the bell, then why do we have a bell at all? That’s a dumb thing to say. That teacher is dumb.”

Thankfully, the teacher did not deem it fit to go after Minuette, allowing her to make her way for the exit without incident. She ducked and weaved through the densely packed crowd until she was back outside in front of the school. She glanced up at the sky, feeling the warmth of the afternoon sun on her coat. She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath, savoring the fresh mountain air, letting it chase the embarrassment out of her system.

“Minuette!”

She was drawn from her momentary reprieve by the voice of First Aid. She turned around to see First Aid, Bristle and Split approaching her at a steady canter. First smiled as she came up, reaching out to nudge Minuette’s shoulder. “How did your day go?”

Minuette returned the smile, albeit weakly. “It was… uh… it was okay? I guess? Meh,” she shrugged and looked ahead.

Bristle Stroke frowned. “Still bothered by the test, huh?” he asked carefully.

Minuette sighed and nodded as they set off down the street. “Mhmm. It looked so easy when all of you did it… Then I had to go and blow up like a lightbulb! Everypony could see it, too! Ugh… it was so embarrassing.”

First Aid placed her hoof on Minuette’s back. “I’m sorry. But hey! You’ll figure it out next time! Just gotta study up and practice a little before the next test comes up!” she encouraged with a cheerful smile.

Minuette perked up slightly, her chest warming up from the assurance. “You think so?” she asked hopefully.

First Aid nodded, her grin growing. “Definitely! You’re smart as all heck, even if your brain is all over the place!”

“But my brain isn’t all over the place. It’s in my head, where it belongs,” Minuette said, frowning.

Split End chuckled and shook his head. “And behold, for she has proven First’s point!” he declared, deliberately exaggerating his native Canterlot accent.

Minuette pouted back at him. “Hey, I am not! My brain’s in my skull, where it belongs! It’s not all over the place, and no, you can’t have it to spread around!”

“A shame,” Split shot back with an only slightly evil smirk. “I was looking forward to getting a new type of jam to put on my sandwich…”

“That is disgusting,” First Aid deadpanned, glancing back at Split with a flat look.

“It is also a joke,” Split End rebuked without missing a beat, completely unrepentant.

“Brain jelly?” Minuette asked, tilting her head. She then stuck out her tongue in revulsion. “Blegh! Gross! You’re a gross pony, Split!”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe. But hey, at least I’m not a light bulb.”

It was like someone had flicked a switch. Just like that, whatever good mood Minuette had managed to accumulate from their friendly banter was shattered and scattered to the wind. Her expression immediately withered, her ears drooping to rest flat against her head. “R-right… eheh…” she stammered out, trying and failing to laugh.

First Aid stopped and faced Split End directly, jabbing a hoof into his chest. “Hey! That wasn’t nice, Split! Apologize, right now!” she demanded, her eyes narrowing with severe displeasure.

Split leaned back, cringing guiltily under the smaller filly’s ire. He glanced back up at Minuette and briefly made eye contact with her before looking away. “I, uh… sorry, Minuette,” he apologized weakly, scuffing his hoof along the ground. “I wasn’t really thinking…”

“Yeah… I’d have at least waited a few weeks to make that kind of joke,” Bristle pointed out carefully. “Ya know, so it’s not so fresh, and so we can actually laugh at it without upsetting you.”

Minuette hummed, her ears perking up just slightly from the apology. She nodded and gave Split a small smile. “It’s okay, Split… I know you can be kind of a big dumb head sometimes,” she said slowly and quietly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Split agreed, seemingly having missed the cheeky insult Minuette had snuck in. “My mouth opens before I- Wait, hold on one bloody second!”

Ah, there it was.

Minuette giggled as Split’s cheeks puffed up in indignation. She pointed a hoof at him in the process. “Ha! Ya see, that’s called a joke! Even if it’s true!” she forced out between her amused giggles.

“No, we call that a burn,” Bristle pointed out while nudging Split in the side with an elbow and a teasing smirk. “Kid’s got a mouth on her.”

Split mouthed uselessly like a fish for several seconds before throwing his head up to just his pointy nose at the sky. “Hmph! Okay, fine! You win this time! But next time will be different, you’ll see!” he decided with a huff.

A few amused giggles passed through the group, and First Aid visibly relaxed on seeing the tension so swiftly defused. She gave off an audible sigh before turning back to Minuette and grinning at her. “Whew. Nice recovery.”

Minuette beamed. “Mom and Dad call me a little beast!”

“With good reason,” First replied before nodding back at her friends. “Anyways, these guys invited me over to their house for a little while to play some games. If your parents give you permission, would you like to come with?”

Minuette paused at that, her smile faltering. She looked between them all for a few seconds, the cogs in her brain slowly spinning into life. It was tempting, that was for sure. These three were really the only friends she had in this school so far, and most of her other friends lived a little too far away for her to go and see them without her parents taking her.

But at the same time, going with them would mean she wouldn’t have time to focus on her homework or work on figuring out what she had done wrong with her spell. She shuddered at the thought of standing before the class again, primed and ready to perform the simplest of magic spells, only for her horn to pop all over again.

She had no desire to get some stupid nickname like ‘Minnie the lightbulb’ or ‘blown fuse’ or ‘Botched cantrip the wonderfultastic!’

Not that anypony would come up with that third one, but still!

Minuette stared at her friends for a moment longer before offering them an apologetic smile and shake of her head. “Sorry, guys, but no… I gotta practice that spell and get some homework done. Kinda slacked on some of it thanks to my birthday yesterday.”

There was visible disappointment in the trio before her, but they were quick to recover. First Aid nodded in understanding. “Right. That’s okay, Minniuette. We’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” she said with a big smile.

“Good luck, Minniuette,” Bristle added with a nod of his head. “We’re rooting for you.”

Split grumbled out something to that same effect, but it was lost under his still lingering annoyance from being so magnificently ‘burned’ as Bristle had called it.

Minuette nodded at all of them one more time before turning and sweeping her eyes across the sea of faces coming and going from the school. Foals, both younger and older than her, were scattered about. Those on the older end of the spectrum were seeing themselves home, while those nearer her age kept busy by their own little spaces to await the arrival of their parents to escort them home. A few staff members from the school were parked in strategic locations to oversee the proceedings, occasionally taking a moment to strike up a conversation with some students.

Minuette had a hard time picking out any distinguishing features or faces In all of the chaotic hustle and bustle of the crowd. That was, of course, until the tell-tale face of her father came wandering into view, his own eyes scanning through the crowd for any sign of his little girl.

Minuette perked up and waved at him. “Dad! Over here!” she called out, drawing the stallion’s attention.

Sunspot turned to face her, his face lighting up with a smile. He cantered over, his gaze briefly flicking to her friends gathered behind her. “Hey, kiddo. How was your day?” he asked once he was in speaking range.

Minuette paused before glancing back at the school, an uncomfortable grimace on her face. “It was okay. First period kinda sucked, though.”

Sunspot frowned, coming to a stop right in front of her. “That so?” he asked curiously, crouching down to be her at eye level. “Do you wanna tell me about it?”

Minuette nodded. “Uh-huh. On the way home?” she asked before moving forward and casually lumping herself onto Sunspot’s exposed back, eliciting a grunt of surprise from the stallion.

Sunspot grimaced before rising to his full height. “Oof. Sure, but do you have to make me carry you? You’re ten, for pony’s sake. And bigger than you used to be.”

Minuette smirked down at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Uh-huh! If I can’t have more than one slice of cake on my own birthday, then you get to make it up to me by carrying me home!” she declared, patting her hoof on his head like a judge’s gavel, finalizing the sentence.

Sunspot groaned in defeat before smiling down at her friends. “Heh. I hope she didn’t cause any of you too much grief,” he said, though his tone implied he suspected she had.

Split scuffed a hoof along the floor. “...She roasted me a minute ago.”

“And it was magnificent,” Bristle added, grinning up at Minuette with an odd form of respect shining in his eyes. “Your daughters clever, there, mister.”

Sunspot chuckled. “Heh. Yeah, that she is…” he acknowledged before turning sideways so Minuette could see her friends. “Anyway, we gotta go.”

“Oh, okay,” Minuette said before smiling down at her friends and waving at them. “Bye, guys! See ya tomorrow!”

First Aid waved happily in response, her lips peeling back into a big grin. “See you, Minuette! Study hard!” she called as Sunspot carried her away.

Minuette nodded. “I will!”

She kept waving for a while until, finally, the forms of her friends faded entirely from view amidst the ocean of bodies. Once they were gone, she got comfortable on Sunspots back, allowing him to carry her horn.

“So… what happened in first period?” he asked once they were a block or so away, swiveling his ears to face in her direction. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

Minuette frowned, shifting in place to get more comfortable. “Um… no… well, okay, yeah, totally. I failed the second half of the test…” she admitted, lowering her head to hide her eyes behind her bangs.

Sunspot paused for a second before carrying on. “Second half of the test…?” he asked, seemingly confused. He perked up a moment later as the realization hit him. “Oh! It was a practical test, wasn’t it? Actually casting a spell and not just writing about it?”

Minuette hummed and nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“What went wrong?”

“Um… I kinda popped like a lightbulb…”

The return journey to the house was filled largely with Minuette regaling her father with what had happened during first period. She recalled how so many others had done well before and after her, especially Twilight Sparkle, and how among those who failed, hers was perhaps the most flashy. None of the others had created quite such a light show in their blunders.

Recounting the tale had, unfortunately, done wonders to immediately crush what high spirits Minuette had managed to build up from the banter with her friends. By the time they stepped into the living room of the house, Minuette held no desire to socialize any farther, and instead went directly to her room.

And that was where she now found herself a few hours later, a school-lent textbook on beginner’s magic open in front of her. Foal-friendly drawings were scrawled along the pages to go with the more clinical text, helping to add some visual aids for the more abstract concepts of spellcraft.

Minuette’s eyes skimmed over the page time after time after time, soaking up all of the details she could. She had to figure out where she had gone wrong so that she could do it right next time! Her parents weren’t the sort to get on her case for bad grades unless they were really bad, primarily because they knew she wasn’t a slacker and usually bounced back from such occurrences.

It wasn’t them she was worried about. It was everyone else. She hadn’t been in Celestia’s school for very long. None of the ponies in that class had, but that didn’t change the fact that, as far as she knew, a fair few came from upper-class families in the wealthier parts of the city. Bristle and Split Ends were examples of that, both of them coming from very well-to-do families. Hay, even that Twilight Sparkle filly was the youngest child to some minor noble family or other.

But the same could not be said about Minuette. Her family had wealth, sure, enough to live comfortably in Canterlot, but they were far from living a life of luxury. Her family didn’t carry impressive business influence or any sway over local government. She was, among her peers, basically a nobody…

“Somepony wanna remind me why the daughter of a dentist is in this school?”

The scorn in that colt’s voice… the contempt. Minuette had heard it but the once, and she did not want to hear it ever again. But to do that, she had to prove herself worthy of their respect, or at least above their condemnation. And to do that, she had to get her act together and nail the next test that came her way.

Minuette took a deep breath and lifted her muzzle from the book. She was situated in the center of her room, her bed to her back and a window set into the wall ahead of her, affording her a pleasant view of the city. Celestia was in the process of setting the sun, causing the world outside to slowly fade away into orange-tinted darkness.

Minuette took a long, deep breath before closing her eyes, tuning all of it out and focusing on her magic. Her horn lit up with yellow light, and she began to try the spell that she had failed before. Her brow furrowed in concentration, small needles of pain starting to stab into her skull from the strain.

“Come on, come on, come on…” she thought, gritting her teeth behind tightly pursed lips in a desperate bid to get it right this time.

The light formed on the tip of her horn. It was small, fragile, and barely even noticeable. That ephemeral point of magic drifted forward a few inches before, like last time, Minuette felt it starting to unravel at the seams. Resisting the urge to curse, she cut off the flow of her magic and canceled the spell before she could pop again. Opening her eyes afforded her a disappointing glimpse as a few stray sparks of energy drifted out of view before fading away, like the last dying embers of a pitiful campfire.

Minuette growled in frustration. “UGH! What am I doing wrong?!” she demanded, pressing her face into her hooves.

She took a few minutes to calm down and catch her breath before scanning the page and trying again. As before, she closed her eyes and called upon her magic. Like before, her horn began to glow with yellow, and a small pearl of ephemeral white light formed on the tip of her horn. Minuette tuned out everything else, focusing instead on just the spell. She took her time, working on it bit by bit, piece by piece.

She was making progress! She couldn’t repress a smile as she realized what she had been doing wrong. It was all kinds of technical, and she really didn’t want to commit any brainpower to figure out the specifics just now, but whatever she was doing differently this time, it was working better than before!

Spurred on, Minuette put a little more power into the spell.

“Careful…”

“Huh?!”

Minuette’s eyes snapped open as an unfamiliar voice reached her ears. Her spell forgotten and winking out of existence, she pivoted on her haunches to face the source of the noise, only to find there was nopony there. It was just her, alone in her room-

Movement. Minuette’s eyes flew to her mirror as something, a shadow, darted out of her view in its surface. She sprang to her hooves, her heart spiking in her chest. She had definitely seen something moving in her mirror, she was sure of it. Suddenly feeling cold, Minuette spun in a slow circle, casting her gaze across her room for any sign of the intruder.

But there was nobody. Nothing was even an inch out of place. Minuette wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. She licked her suddenly dry lips and glanced back to the mirror. Whatever she had seen, it was no longer visible there.

Repressing the urge to shudder, Minuette opened her mouth and called out in a shaky squeak of a whisper. “W-w-whos there?”

A knock came to her door the moment those words fled her lips. Minuette let out a high pitched yelp of fear, falling back to her haunches with a grunt. Her eyes flew wide, focusing on her door as it swung open, her heart hammering wildly in her chest as the interloper revealed itself.

It was Sunspot. He looked down at Minuette, blinking. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Minnie! I didn’t scare you, did I?” he asked, slipping inside and giving her a warm, affectionate smile.

Minuette took a few deep breaths before looking over at her mirror in confusion. She knew she had seen something there! She couldn’t deny it! It had been there, clear as day, even if only for a split second! Where had it gone?! What was it?!

Sunspot frowned and drew closer. “Uh, Minuette? You okay?”

Minuette jumped on hearing his voice and turned back to him. Now he was starting to look worried, and all at once, Minuette’s anxiety began to drain away.

Whatever strange thing she had seen, it wasn’t worth upsetting her father over. She put on a warm smile and nodded. “Uh-huh. I’m okay. You just startled me, that’s all!” she said, trying to shove aside the quiver in her voice.

Sunspot didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he did not press the issue just then. Instead, he looked down at the textbook still open on the floor. “Ah. Studying, are you?” he asked knowingly.

Minuette rolled over onto her hooves. “Mmhmm!” she chirped before dragging herself over and plonking herself down in front of the book. “I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong with the test spell.”

Sunspot nodded, lowering himself onto his belly beside her. “And? Made any progress?”

Minuette nodded. “A little bit. I think I was just trying to make it a bit too fast back in school. So it just kinda… popped.”

“Makes sense,” Sunspot said, looking down into the book with a frown. “Yeah… the energy required for this spell is pretty low, but you are still really young and inexperienced. If you pour too much power into it too fast, you risk accidentally overrunning your own ability to maintain it. Kinda like slowly hoofing you more and more weights versus just dropping one really heavy one into your hooves. You can adapt to one, the other will break your shoulders.”

“That sounds painful.”

“It is painful.”

“How do you know? Did you break your shoulders once?”

Sunspot blushed. “A-anyways,” he seamlessly deflected with much grace. “Uh, w-why don’t you try it again?! I can, uh, walk you through it, or something! Eheh!”

“Oh yeah, he broke them hard,” Minuette thought to herself with a predatory smirk before nodding and returning her attention to her book. She scanned the contents one last time, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Her horn lit up with yellow light, and slowly but surely, she began to pour power into the spell. Bit by bit, piece by piece, she put it together, slowly weaving the simple pieces together.

All the while, her father was right there, lending her his voice and his warmth, guiding her along. “That’s it… that’s it. Slow down a little, don’t overdo it. Steady… steady… There’s a gap there, can you plug it?... Atta girl. Okay… okay… nice!”

Minuette’s eyes popped open upon hearing her father’s delighted exclamation. The moment she did, she was rewarded with an up-close and intimate view of the pearl of light she had just made. She stared at it, eyes wide, jaw agape for several seconds. With a small wince of effort, she nudged it a few feet away from her face to shine its light on the whole room.

“I… I did it.”

“You sure did,” Sunspot agreed, leaning down to give Minuette an affectionate nuzzle. “And you did it very well.”

Minuette stared at the ball of the light several more seconds before allowing it to disperse. The moment she did, a pressure that had been building up in her head was released, and she only then realized just how bad her headache had gotten. She wouldn’t be able to do that again for a little while.

Nevertheless, victory was hers! A delighted squeal peeled past her lips as she turned and hurled herself against her father in a bone-crushing hug. “I did it! I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it! EEEE!”

“Yes, you did,” Sunspot agreed in a strangled gasp. “But- ack! I can’t breathe! Oh my!”

Minuette released him, blushing sheepishly. “Oops! Sorry,” she apologized.

Sunspot shook his head with an amused chuckle. “No, no don’t be. You did good,” he said before reaching out and pulling Minuette into another, far gentler embrace. She returned it gladly, burying her face into his chest fur and smiling.

“Thanks for the help, dad…”

“You’re welcome, kiddo… although it doesn’t look like you really needed much help. You pretty much had it-”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Just take the compliment.”

Sunspot rolled his eyes and gave his daughter a little squeeze. “Okay… if you insist.”

The two remained like that for a little while longer, enveloped in each other’s hooves and basking in Minuette’s victory. However small it was, it was still a good one.

Unbeknownst to either of them, the presence in the mirror watched on. It smiled at the two of them, in plain sight of them both if either had bothered to look. Then, without a word, it turned and stepped out of sight, vanishing beyond the frame.

Wait, am I Crazy?

Something wasn’t quite right today.

Minuette glanced around at the other students in the hall as she worked her way for her usual lunch spot. Some of them were looking back at her with scrunched up muzzles or, even worse, knowing smirks. A small few had been doing this earlier when she first got to school, but it seemed even worse now. It seemed that no matter what direction she looked in, somepony was giving her a look.

Normally, she might have enjoyed the attention. Celestia knew that the little filly definitely enjoyed it when the spotlight was on her. But this was different. The way they were looking at her sent a tiny tingle of discomfort working its way slowly but surely down her spine. She shuddered uncomfortably, trying not to think about it, but they just kept staring.

“Okay, need something to distract me,” she thought, racking her brain for something she could use to distance her mind from the looks she was getting. “Oh, I know! Tiger teeth! Little baby tigers and their gummy little mouths!”

She now imagined what it would be like for a toothless baby tiger to try and bite her throat with its slimy little gums. A small smirk spread on her face as she imagined how ticklish it might be, and how much she’d probably be giggling at the wasted effort.

Then mama tiger showed up, and everything stopped being funny and ticklish very quickly. Minuette’s smile faltered, and she decided that imagining tigers biting her was probably not the smartest thing to go to for a self-distracting train of thought. It was distracting, sure, but it went to dark places.

But now she was thinking about teeth that scared her, and no set of chompers spooked her more than those of geese. “Why do they have teeth on the sides of their tongue?!” she thought with a disgusted shudder. “And why do they hate everypony on a personal level?! It’s mean!”

Well, at least wondering why Geese were such rude jerks was more pleasant than thinking about a tiger nomming on her jugular. Still not exactly ideal, though. Those suckers were creepy!

It was then that her mind wandered away from the feathered devils to something a bit more recent. She faltered mid-step as her thoughts shifted back to her personal training session in her room the previous day, and how she had seen something moving around in her mirror. Not to mention the voice that had told her to be careful.

She frowned, her muzzle scrunching up in thought. Had she just imagined it? At the time, that was what she had told herself, so she could focus on her spell and her dad’s instructions. But once she had gone to bed and really thought about it, she had started doubting that assessment. Something about it just being her imagination just didn’t sound right…

“Maybe because I’ve seen something move in it once before?” she wondered, thinking back to when she had first gotten it. She knew she had seen something moving in the reflection at least two times now.

“...Wait, am I crazy?” she finally thought, a crooked smirk spreading across her face. “Ha! I am totally going crazy. Maybe.”

She’d figure it out later. At least now she wasn’t thinking about all of the odd looks everypony kept giving her today.

Mission accomplished!

Minuette soon stepped out of the doors, and into a wide-open courtyard of sorts, surrounded on all sites by other sections of Celestia’s School. A steady stream of ponies ranging from little foals to mid-teenagers traveled this way and that in vaguely orderly flows, following paved stone paths that wound through the courtyard in an expansive circle. A large statue of Celestia herself was erected in the center of the courtyard, her wings fanning out wide as if to grant shelter to all who passed beneath.

Off to one side, a grassy patch beside the path, Minuette saw her friends sitting around, nibbling on their pre-packed lunches with smiles. Perking up, she cantered over, already reaching into her saddlebags to withdraw her own lunch.

“Hey, guys!” she called as she approached.

First Aid looked up, smiling widely and giving a friendly wave. “Minuette! Hey! You’re a little late,” she called.

Minuette set her saddlebags down before plonking onto her haunches. She gave First a bewildered look. “I am?” she asked, pulling a sandwich from her saddlebags.

“About five minutes late,” Split pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “Looked like you were walking slower than usual when you came out.”

“You also had this real thoughtful look on your face,” Bristle added, taking a bite from a boxed salad. “Like you were trying to solve that, uh… that number thing that goes on forever. What was that called again? Pi?”

“Princess Celestia has been working on that equation for the last seven hundred years,” First Aid noted with a slow nod. “Last I checked, she told the class that she was at, like, four billion decimals? I think?”

“That is a big number, and I have no idea what it means,” Minuette dismissed with a roll of her eyes. She took a big, healthy chomp from her sandwich. She glanced over at Bristle and spoke up once she had swallowed. “But yeah, I was thinking, actually.”

“What about?” he asked, shifting slightly on his haunches.

Minuette glanced back at the building she had emerged from, her ears lowering just slightly. “Um… well, I noticed a lot of ponies giving me odd looks as I was coming out here,” she said slowly, the tingle of discomfort returning. “Like, did I do something funny? Am I popular all of a sudden? And why don’t I like it?”

An awkward silence hung in the air. Bristle, Split, and First all looked among themselves for a few moments before Split cleared his throat and spoke up. “Er, well… apparently, word started going around about your little ‘incident’ during that test,” he recounted slowly. “And, uh… well, it looks like you might have a reputation as a ‘spark plug’ now.”

Minuette deflated, her ears resting flat against her head. “...Oh,” she mumbled, a combined feeling of dejection and embarrassment filling her system. Of course, word about that had gotten around. How had she managed to trick herself into thinking it wouldn’t?

First Aid touched a hoof to Minuette’s shoulder, offering her a kind, sympathetic smile. “Hey, it’s okay. All you gotta do is pass the next test, and everypony will forget it soon enough!” she encouraged with a perky nod.

Minuette managed to give her friend a tiny smile at that, but her mood did not lift as much as the other foal had probably been hoping. She looked down at her sandwich, her appetite now well and truly squashed. Great. She was the class clown now, wasn’t she? She certainly felt like it…

“Hey, First’s right,” Bristle pointed out a moment later. “Might take a bit, but all of this will go away eventually.”

“And if anypony really gets on your case about it,” Split added, a small edge of sinister amusement creeping into his tone. “Just report them to Celestia. She’s pretty good about dealing with bullies.”

“Princess Celestia,” First corrected automatically.

Split shrugged. “Eh.”

Minuette hummed quietly before looking between her assembled friends. A tiny, weakened smile spread on her lips. They were probably right, she figured. It might take a bit, but things would turn out okay. All she had to do was pass that next test and make sure any bullies got their just deserts.

“Heh… thanks, guys,” she eventually muttered before returning to her sandwich.

A few moments passed in an awkward silence before her friends began to talk amongst themselves again. Minuette didn’t pay them much attention, though. She was trying to distract herself internally from the unfortunate situation she had found herself in. Whether or not the odd looks and mockery would go away with time didn’t matter right now, because right now, she did have that poor reputation, and she was going to have to put up with who knew what kinds of garbage until she moved past it?

She didn’t want to think about that, though. She forced herself not to think about it. She looked around the courtyard for something, anything she could use to distance herself from those worrying, anxiety-inducing thoughts. But sadly, there wasn’t much to go on. Just ponies going about their day, the statue in the center, the various luxurious buildings that made up the campus, and her reflection looking back at her from a nearby window with the curtains drawn.

“Hold on a tic.”

“Do you guys ever see stuff moving in mirrors?”

The conversation the others had been going into died the moment Minuette blurted the question. She turned to look at them to see an assortment of bewildered faces staring back at her, none of them quite comprehending.

“Er, what?” First asked in abject confusion.

Minuette gestured vaguely. “Ya know. Stuff in mirrors moving around that aren’t moving in the real world. A shadow in the corner or something,” she explained, her vague gestures becoming downright absurd. “And maybe they talk at you sometimes, telling you to ‘be careful’ when practicing your magic.”

There were many seconds of silence after that where First, Bristle, and Split all stared at her like she had just grown two new heads that belched toasters. They looked between each other for a few seconds before First Aid tilted her head. “Um… no? That’s not supposed to happen.”

“Huh. Weird,” Minuette replied, leaning back and taking another, larger chomp from her sandwich. “Cause that’s been going on with mine. Maybe I’m just crazy or something.”

Bristle and Split shared a look before breaking out into amused grins. In was the latter who spoke. “Heh. Yeah, I agree. You have gone completely bonkers.”

“Split!” First Aid lightly chastised him, frowning. “That’s not nice!”

“Hey, she said it, not me! I’m just agreeing with her!”

“It’s still not nice!”

Split End threw his hooves up into the air with a loud, exasperated groan. “Ugh! There is just no winning with you, is there?!”

“Not really, no,” Bristle remarked with a chuckle. “My dad says you should never annoy the nurse, after all.”

Split grimaced. “Huh? What’s that gotta do with this? First Aid isn’t a nurse!”

“Look at her name,” Bristle shot back. “First Aid. As in First Aid kit. Filly’s gonna be a doctor or a nurse or something.”

First Aid puffed up her cheeks as she seemingly fell into the background of the discussion. “Excuse me?! Are you two ignoring me?!” she demanded indignantly.

“No, we’re talking about you,” Bristle replied casually. “Bit different.”

“Oh, you two are the worst!”

“And Minuette’s crazy.”

Minuette rolled her eyes and laughed at that. Using her magic, she hefted her sandwich up into the air and gave it a few fancy twirls, being careful not to send any of it flying. That would suck. “Heh. Yeah, I am. So crazy, that I’m gonna pass the next test with flying colors!” she decided then and there, thumping a hoof against her chest.

Bristle glanced at her from the side. “Er, that’s not quite how that-”

“Flying colors, Bristle,” Minuette shot him down before taking a very big, exaggerated chomp from her sandwich. When next she spoke, it was with her mouth full muffling her words. “Phwying. Cowurs.”

First Aid looked back and forth between the two before sighing and slapping a hoof to her forehead. “Ugh. You guys…” she groaned quietly, earning more amused chortled from her company. After a moment, she lifted her eyes to Minuette and lightly punched her shoulder. “Well, I’m holding you to that, Minuette! Flying colors!”

Minuette swallowed and made a cross over her chest. “Flying colors! Absolutely!”

Split smiled at them for a moment before tilting his head to one side. “Wait a second… do colors actually fly?”

“Rainbows are a thing,” Bristle noted. “So I think so?”

“But they touch the ground at both ends,” Split sent back. “So, does that really count?”

“Maybe? I dunno, man.”

Minuette and First Aid shared a glance as Split and Bristle kept on bickering about whether or not colors could fly or not. They then smiled and broke down into giggles, taking much joy in the dumb antics of their two friends.

That little moment did wonders to ease Minuette’s newfound worries. As simple and seemingly pointless as it all was, it stuck with her for the rest of the day, and she found it rather difficult to get the small smile off her face until well after the final bell had sent them all home.

The Bug in The Mirror

Anxiety had a weird way of creeping up on ponies.

Minuette lay in her bed around eight days later, her eyes staring blankly into the wall while her mind ran like a leashless puppy after the mailmare. Except, in this case, the mailmare was a collection of anxious worries and probably irrational fears. Each and every one made her feel more and more uncomfortable, and she couldn’t help but repress a small shudder.

The next test was rapidly approaching. In fact, it was tomorrow. She had been studying fiercely all week long to make sure she got this next one right, and she had done routine exercises to make sure she could actually cast the spell asked of her this time! She had been at it relentlessly, and her parents seemed confident that she would do fine.

And really, they were probably right. Minuette wasn’t stupid or weak, she knew that she was all set to do it right… Probably. However, that rational understanding was routinely undermined by a string of what-ifs and hypotheticals that drove her to climb the walls. Or would, if she had spider legs.

Now she was thinking about spiders. Gross.

And matters were definitely not helped at all by her mirror. Over the last several days, she knew she had seen something moving around in there. But every time she had gone to take a closer look, it just disappeared. Snuffed out and gone from view like a candle in a blizzard. It was getting a little frustrating, to be perfectly honest.

She knew she wasn’t crazy. Crazy ponies didn’t see the same thing with such regularity, did they? Crazy ponies saw weird, wacky stuff, like talking heads, or floating heads, or the floor being made of literal lava or something. They didn’t imagine movement in their antique birthday mirrors, and literally nowhere else.

Right?

She would really have to do some personal research into crazy ponies and what they saw, she decided. But later. For now, the magic test. Tomorrow morning. Yes.

She did not feel ready. Not at all.

She gave off a quiet huff and closed her eyes. Sleep. That was what she needed. A nice bit of sleep would chase away her doubts, leaving her feeling refreshed and ready to tackle whatever the school day saw fit to throw at her!

Such a shame sleep had decided to take an unscheduled vacation to Saddle Arabia. Minuette had been laying here in the dark for what must have been hours, so far, she had not managed to get a single wink of sleep. It was frustrating enough on its own that she couldn’t fall asleep, but it was made even worse by the fact she felt tired enough to fall asleep then and there. She just couldn’t do it. All because of this stupid anxiety!

She sighed and rolled over to face the rest of her room. A moment passed before, on a whim, she opened one of her eyes just a crack.

And just like that, all of her fears over the upcoming test were driven from her mind.

All of her fear over failing the test and forever being a laughing stock to the other foals was replaced with a whole new, primal sense of fear as she realized that there was somepony else in the room with her. Or rather, something was in her mirror, staring back at her with large, glowing blue compound eyes.

She focused on it for a moment, careful not to breathe too heavily or open her eyes too much. She didn’t want it to notice her. Now that she was looking, she could more effectively make out its body and its shape. It was more or less the same shape and size as a typical pony stallion, albeit with harder angles and sharper edges. It almost appeared to be insectoid, with a hard, armored carapace of black chitin instead of colorful fur. A curved horn rose up from its head, while tattered transparent wings wavered gently upon its back. Two sharp fangs jutting from its upper lip drew Minuette’s eye as they caught what little light was in the room.

The oddest part of its appearance, however, had to be the holes that tunneled through all four of its legs. The best comparison she could think of was swiss cheese, which was not at all flattering for whatever this creature was, and she decided then and there she would never make that comparison again. Probably.

She stared at its eyes, waiting for the mysterious creature to do something. Was it going to step through her mirror and suck up her blood? Was it a vampire? It definitely had the teeth for it. But then again, vampires typically had normal pony bodies and bat wings, right? So no, not a vampire. Just… something. It was something, and it was weird, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

As her fear of the strange creature reached a peak, almost enough to make her cry out, the creature suddenly sighed and lowered its head, much to Minuette’s surprise. It almost looked… sad.

And then it spoke.

“...You really have nothing to fear, little one,” he said quietly, his voice unevenly distorted into two tones and partially muffled as if by a thin wall of glass. Of course, he was reflected in the mirror, so that made sense. “I have seen you practicing relentlessly. You are more than ready for this ‘test,’ I know it… You don’t have to be scared.”

Had Minuette’s eyes been open more than a crack, she would have blinked in confusion. Did the mirror bug thing just… talk? And furthermore, was it complimenting her? And why did it look so sad?

The bug looked back up to her, his lips curling up into a small smile. “I hope you sleep well, kid. And when you wake up, I know you’ll do just fine.”

That was the straw that broke the proverbial camels back. Minuette took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes, making direct eye contact with the bug in a manner she knew he would notice. And notice he did, for he immediately locked up, his ears folding back against his head.

For what felt like an eternity, neither of them moved. They just stared at each other, wide-eyed and nervous. Slowly, ever so slowly, Minuette pushed herself up to a seating position, keeping her gaze fixated on the bug the whole way. “...Huh?” she asked in a barely audible whisper, yet even that tiny noise was deafening in the silent room.

The bug flinched back, his wings giving a quick buzz. Without a word, he suddenly turned and went to dart out of view. Minuette’s heart spiked in her chest, and the need for sleep was forgotten. This was what she had been seeing in her mirror all this time, and now was her chance to figure out what the deal was!

“Hey! Hold on!” she called as she leaped from the bed. The moment her hooves met the floor, she galloped up to the mirror, placing her hooves against the glass just as the bug vanished from view. Minuette craned her neck, trying to get an angle to see the mysterious creature, but to no avail. “Wait! Come back! Who are you?! What are you?!”

Her words, alas, seemed to fall on deaf ears. Minuette kept her hooves and face pressed against the glass as if it were a mirror for several seconds, hoping against hope that the creature would come back. Several seconds came and went, and she eventually realized it was pointless. Whatever she had just seen, it was gone.

She slowly slid down and fell to her haunches, her ears drooping. She had been so close, and she had blown it! Maybe if she had just stayed quiet, the bug would have talked to her some more. Or maybe she should have thanked him for saying those nice things about her. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

...Maybe he could still hear her? Maybe he was right around the bend? She had no way of knowing right now, seeing as she could not see him.

She sighed heavily and leaned forward, resting her forehead against the glass. “...Um… are you still there? I’m sorry if I scared you. Can you come back out again? I, uh… I heard what you said. About my test, I mean. You were real nice…”

A second passed. Minuette held her breath, watching her reflection with anticipation and rapidly dwindling hope. Then, to her shock, her reflection began to fade, leaving just her room. And then, from off to one side, the face of the bug came into view. He moved slowly and timidly, almost like a scared dog. His ears were folded down, and his wings were tucked against his back. His eyes, however, shined with a mixture of confusion, curiosity, and relief.

Minuette put on a small smile. He was a lot bigger than she had first thought. He was easily the size of an adult stallion, if not a little larger. She looked up into his eyes. “Hi. I’m Minuette.”

The bug blinked at her, slowly sitting on his haunches in front of her. He lifted a hoof and pressed it to the glass on his side. He worked his jaw for several seconds before managing to find his voice. “I… uh… H-hello, Minuette,” he stammered out awkwardly as if he wasn’t sure he was doing this right.

Nevertheless, Minuette’s smile grew. “I heard what you said, mister. Thank you.”

“Uh… w-well, uh, you’re welcome,” he eventually managed to reply, looking down with shifting, confused eyes. “I, uh… I’m sorry, I’m just confused. You’re not… scared of me?” he finally asked, looking up at her with his head tilted down, almost making him look like a sad puppy.

Minuette shook her head. “Nope. Well, I was for a second, but then I saw how sad you looked, and sad ponies aren’t scary, they’re depressing by proxima.”

The bug tilted his head. “...What? Proxima? Oh, heh, I think you meant proxy,” he corrected after a moment, a tiny laugh slipping past his lips.

“That too,” Minuette chirped without missing a beat.

The two were quiet for a few seconds. Minuette took the chance to get a closer look at him, spotting a lot of smaller details. There were some scratch marks in his chitin, and she realized that his carapace was segmented, the lines that divided each piece of his outer shell providing some fascinating definition to his shape. He was very distinctive to look at, that much was certain.

His fangs were amazing to look at, too. They were so much larger than the ones she had seen on the tigers in her book, relative to his body size. She was genuinely kind of impressed he could talk through those things. She knew for a fact they would give her a lisp or something if she tried to speak with them.

Eventually, he spoke again, snapping her out of her casual analysis of his body. “So… you heard what I said?” he asked.

Minuette looked up into his eyes and nodded. “Uh-huh! You told me that I could do it, and that I’d ace the test, and that I needed to get some sleep, and-” she abruptly paused as a possibility made itself known to her. “Wait a minute… are you just me seeing stuff because I can’t get to sleep?”

The bug gave a short laugh at that. “Ha! Oh, I hope not. That would be so unsatisfying after all this time,” he replied, a small amount of mirth in his voice.

Minuette giggled at that before tilting her head at him. “Well… okay, if I’m not seeing things, then, what are you? Who are you? Why are you in my mirror? And what’s your name?”

The bug looked down at her for a few moments, his expression turning visibly grimmer. He opened his mouth to speak, working through several false starts before, at last, he began to find his words. “I… uh… I don’t-”

“Minuette!”

Minuette all but jumped out of her skin as the door to her room suddenly opened, revealing her mother staring at her with stern disapproval on the other side. Minuette turned to face her, her ears folding back. “Oh, I am SO dead!”

Pearly sighed and trotted over. “Oh, sweet Celestia, Minnie. You’re supposed to be in bed sleeping,” she chastised in tired exasperation. “What are you doing talking to yourself?”

“I’m not!” Minutette protested, jabbing a hoof back at her mirror. “There’s this bug in my mirror!”

“Oh, don’t make things up, it’s too late in the night for that,” Pearly told her before lifting Minuette in her magic and carrying her for the bed.

“B-but, but!” Minuette protested, jabbing her hooves at the mirror while trying to get a good look at him behind her mother. “Bug thing! Look, right there!”

“There’s nothing there, sweetheart,” Pearly dismissed with gentle finality as she tucked her daughter back into bed. “Now go to sleep, okay? You have a test in the morning.”

“But-”

“Sssh,” Pearly shushed her by placing a hoof to Minuette’s lips. “No buts. You’ve been studying hard for this one all week, so you get some sleep so you can be well-rested and do it right. Okay?”

Minuette pouted up at her, sneaking one more glance toward her mirror, hoping to catch the bug’s eye so he would speak up. However, to her disappointment and confusion, he was gone. There was nothing in the mirror save for the typical reflection of her room.

She stared at it for a few seconds before looking up at Pearly and giving her a tired nod. “Okay, mom…” she mumbled out.

Pearly smiled and planted a light kiss on Minuette’s forehead. “That’s my girl. Get some sleep,” she whispered before standing up and quietly making her way for the door. Minuette watched her go the whole way, her eyes darting back and forth between her mother and the mirror. Alas, the bug did not reappear, and soon enough, Pearly slipped out, closing the door behind her with a gentle thunk.

Minuette waited for a few minutes before looking at the mirror again. “Hey, are you still there?” she whispered at it as loud as she dared.

There was no answer—Only silence. Minuette huffed in disappointment before setting her head back down on her pillow and closing her eyes. “...Who was that?” she whispered to herself before turning over onto her side.

“...You really have nothing to fear, little one. I have seen you practicing relentlessly. You are more than ready for this ‘test,’ I know it… You don’t have to be scared. I hope you sleep well, kid. And when you wake up, I know you’ll do just fine.”

The bug’s words echoed in her ears a few times, and a tiny smile crept onto her face. She wasn’t sure why, but something about his voice soothed her anxiety and dread. Maybe it was the vibrations in it. Who knew?

Whatever the case, with those words of encouragement ringing in her thoughts, Minuette, at long last, fell into slumber.

Author's Notes:

Took us long enough, but hey, the two have finally spoken to each other! :D

See? Flying Colors!

Minuette’s eyes slowly peeled open as the first rays of the morning sun streamed into her room. A long, drowsy, and frankly unattractive yawn worked its way out of her before she pushed herself up to her haunches. She took a moment to collect her thoughts and wake up a little, allowing her eyes to aimlessly wander over her room.

Eventually, her gaze settled on her mirror, and her train of thought ground to a sudden halt. Immediately, she remembered the bug she had seen in it the previous night. Or… had it been a dream? She frowned in thought. The memory of the interaction was hazy at best, and all she recalled with any degree of clarity were his distorted assurances that she would ace this upcoming test.

With a quiet hum, she hopped down from her bed and walked up to her mirror. Her tired reflection stared back at her, eyes drooping with bags under them, her mane tousled and wild from a night of tossing and turning. But even as she squinted and peered past her own visage for any sign of the exoskeletal interloper, she saw no sign of him.

“...Um… hello?” she called softly, wondering if he might wander into view again like he did last time. To her disappointment, however, no such thing happened. It was just her own image staring back at her.

“Hm… musta been a dream, then,” she mumbled before turning and dragging herself out of her room.

The home was largely quiet as she picked her way through it, although she knew her parents were up. The smell of breakfast being cooked drifted up the stairs and up her nostrils, making her stomach growl and her mouth water. Minuette gave out a pleased and eager hum, ready to dig into whatever her parents had seen fit to make this time.

She could hear them talking as she sleepily came down. Curiosity got the better of her. She perked up her ears once she reached the bottom and listened in. The chatter was mostly routine. Her parents were simply discussing with one another their plans for the day, much of which went right over the filly’s head. Nothing stood out to Minuette for a while, and she was about to step out into the kitchen to ask when breakfast would be ready until a question from her father made her think better of it.

“A cupcake with breakfast?” Sunspot’s voice asked, clearly skeptical. “Pearl, honey, you know I love you, but are you sure we should be giving sugar like that to the beast first thing in the morning?”

Minuette stifled a giggle. “Hah! Beast.”

“She didn’t get to bed until late last night. I found her talking to her mirror before I came to bed as if it could talk back.”

Minuette froze, the giggles dying in her throat. “Wait… mom saw that? Then, that means it really happened!”

And if it really happened, then the bug in her mirror was not, in fact, a dream. He was real — or at the very least, he was a figment of her waking imagination. But that didn’t make any sense! How was there a talking bug pony thing in her mirror? How had he gotten there? And if he was really there, why hadn’t he answered her when she called out to him earlier? She felt the urge to go running up and call out for him again just to see, but that idea quickly fell off the tracks when a thought occurred to her.

“...Maybe he was just sleeping,” she eventually mumbled to herself. It was the only explanation that made sense, and if it was true, she didn’t want to be mean by waking him up. She remembered how cranky her dad could get if he got woken up too early, and she didn’t wanna do that for the bug… Whoever the bug was.

Unfortunately, that left her in a tricky spot. There was little she could do about the bug right now, with school looming just ahead, and her mother had seemingly not been able to see the bug. All she could do for now was keep going about her day.

“I’ll try to talk to him again when I get home,” she decided with a nod to herself. “Then he’ll have gotten all the sleep he needs, and I’ll have passed my test!”

With that resolution burning in her mind, she drowsily dragged herself into the kitchen, giving off a mumbled greeting to her parents as she went. Thankfully, they did not seem to catch onto the fact that she had just been eavesdropping on them, and soon enough, she was consuming a breakfast of cereal and a single blueberry cupcake with sprinkles.

As she ate, her mind wandered back to the bug, and his words from beyond the wall of glass rang in her ears once again.

“...You really have nothing to fear, little one. I have seen you practicing relentlessly. You are more than ready for this ‘test,’ I know it… You don’t have to be scared. I hope you sleep well, kid. And when you wake up, I know you’ll do just fine.”

Minuette smiled to herself. “Yeah, I will do just fine. I’ll pass this with flying colors, just like I said I would!”

When Minuette marched into the classroom later that morning, it was with her head held high and a confident look on her face. In her head, she was marching heroically face-first into the storm of discord and adversity that would surely mold her into some great hero. She could totally imagine a cape billowing epically behind her in an unfelt breeze, a light shining down from her above.

Yes, she was the big good, and the various chairs and the whiteboard was the army she was to single-handedly strike down! All she had to do was wait for the word from above and-

“Hey, Minnie!” First Aid called out from the right, instantly shattering Minuette’s self-empowering fantasy.

The blue unicorn did not miss a beat, though. Her face lit up with a large grin, and she scampered over to her seat, finding that her three friends were already gathered and waiting for her. Split lifted a hoof in greeting. “Hey, Minuette. Studied this time, I hope?” he greeted as she plopped down in her seat.

Minuette grinned back at him and gave a sharp nod. “Uh-huh! I got this!”

Bristle let out a low whistle, leaning back in his seat with an amused smirk. “Ooh, confident today.”

“Yeah! I got this!” Minuette repeated, lighting up the very tip of her horn to give off a few small pulses of light, while her face remained split into a big, energetic grin. “I got some real good advice from someone at home, I studied real hard, I did my practice, I ate a cupcake for breakfast! WOO! I am READY for this!”

First Aid giggled before reaching out to nudge Minuette’s shoulder. “You ate a cupcake for breakfast?”

“Uh-huh! Mom made me! Said I slept like crud, and the sugar from the cupcake would help! Now I’m really awake and ready to do this!”

Split End raised an eyebrow. “Uh… I’m not sure that’s how that works,” he mused skeptically.

His words were lost on Minuette, though, who was currently mid-sugar rush. Her eyes were wide and rapidly scanning the room, and she noticed she was getting a few odd stares from her classmates. Some of them had anticipatory smirks as if expecting her to fail as spectacularly as she did last time.

“I ain’t failing!” she decided with finality, thumping her hooves together over her chest as if for emphasis. Although, in truth, it was just because she was basically vibrating, and some of that energy needed to go somewhere.

Shortly after, the bell rang, and once more, Princess Celestia stepped into the room, her gentle eyes passing over the students with a motherly smile to match. “Good morning, class!” she greeted, earning a unanimous greeting from her students in response. Her eyes briefly lingered on Minuette, and an amused glimmer entered the alicorn’s eyes before she continued. “As I said yesterday, we have another magic test today. This test, as your homework will have made clear, is to create a basic, rudimentary illusion. I assume you have all done your research and gotten plenty of practice?”

“Totes!” Minuette barked, jumping slightly in her seat and drawing some chuckles from the rest of the room.

Celestia giggled at the response. “Hahaha. I’m glad to see such enthusiasm from you this morning, Minuette. Even by your standards, you seem rather cheerful,” she noted with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, she ate a cupcake, apparently,” Split pointed out with a hoof pointed at the vibrating filly.

“We’re all gonna die!” another foal playfully squealed from somewhere else in the room, drawing another round of laughs.

Minuette’s cheeks puffed up in annoyance, and a few agitated, wordless sounds escaped her before she sat back in her seat with puffed up cheeks and an annoyed growl.

Celestia allowed the children to have their laughs for a moment before softly clearing her throat. The moment she did, the room fell silent, as all of the foals paid dutiful attention to their princess and magic teacher. Once she was sure she had their full attention, she continued. “As before, there will be a written portion to this test, and then the practical demonstration of the spell. Are there any last-minute questions or concerns?”

When nopony answered, Celestia nodded her head. “Very well. Then we may begin,” she declared. As before, she lifted a stack of parchment in her magic, delivering each sheet to her students individually. Minuette accepted hers enthusiastically and delved right in, her pen primed and ready to go.

The room fell into utter silence. Minuette’s gaze traced over the test in front of her, her brow furrowing with concentration. A small bead of anxiety began to well up inside of her, reminding her of the possibility, however remote, that she might fail this time, too. She’d be a laughing stock if that happened.

And- no. No, she had prepared for the test this time. She had practiced the spell until her horn was sore, she had read the material at least five times to ensure she had it all memorized. She took in a long, deep breath and set about writing down her first answer. “I got this,” she reaffirmed.

She allowed her thoughts to drift into silence after that, focusing entirely on the paper before her. The sound of pens scratching against parchment and the gentle shimmering of magic were the only sounds to be heard. Every so often, Minuette snuck a glance at her friends to see how they were doing. Of the three of them, First Aid seemed to be having the most trouble, her muzzle scrunching up with thought and concentration. Split and Bristle were doing somewhat better, but there was definitely a bit of strain in there.

At one point, Minuette caught First’s eye and gave her a short nod and encouraging smile. First Aid blinked in surprise before reciprocating the gesture and returning to her work.

Soon enough, the papers began to get turned in. Much like last time, the written portion of the test was short and fairly simple — nothing more or less than a means to ensure that the students clearly remembered the premise of the magic they were working with. As the last sheets were deposited on Celestia’s desk, the alicorn smiled and rose to her hooves.

“I believe it is time, then,” she said to the class, her wings adjusting on her sides. “Just like last time, my little ponies. Clear the middle of the room!”

It was just like before. A flurry of movement, the legs of the desks scraping across the hard floor, ponies chattering amongst themselves to hype each other up or speculate on what was to come next. Minuette found her place by First Aid and waited for her turn as Celestia called the other students forward one at a time to perform the spell.

“Lemon Hearts, why don’t we begin with you?”

A bright yellow filly with a curly blue mane and tail with a trio of colorful hearts on her flanks stepped forward, her deep pink eyes shimmering with a mixture of nervousness and anticipation. Celestia gave the foal an encouraging smile before stepping back. “The spell, as you know, is a minor illusion. I would like for you to manifest a small object of your choice in the air. You may be as elaborate or as basic as you wish with the visuals, so long as you can project the image in your mind so the rest of us can see. Begin whenever you are ready.”

The room watched with bated breath as Lemon Hearts nodded her head and closed her eyes. Her horn lit up with a magenta aura to match her eyes. Her muzzle scrunched up, and her brow furrowed with concentration. A few awed murmurs passed through the crowd as, slowly but surely, the air before the foal began to shimmer and ripple with light. A shape began to emerge, starting as a mere distortion, like heatwaves from an open fire, but filling in as if by multi-colored smoke. A lone butterfly appeared in the heart of the room, its wings beating slowly but surely in a steady, if rigid, beat.

Minuette blinked a few times, taken aback somewhat. She had not yet given any thought to what she was going to have her illusion be. She scrunched up her muzzle in thought before leaning to the side to whisper to First Aid. “So… what are you gonna make?”

“I dunno. Something,” First Aid replied in an equally hushed voice. “Maybe a monkey.”

“Why a monkey?”

“I dunno. Monkeys are funny?”

Minuette shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t exactly argue with that sentiment. She returned to standing straight and watched as Celestia called on the next student. One at a time, they came forward, each one conjuring a different illusion. One of them made a tea set, while another made his favorite toy. One of them created a rudimentary depiction of his dog (which earned a few adoring coos from the class), while another made a big box of doughnuts.

And then, the moment came. Celestia’s smile fell on Minuette. “Minuette, you’re next.”

Minuette’s heart skipped a beat. She had been so focused on the other foals that she had almost forgotten that her turn was coming up. She swallowed heavily and turned to her friends. First Aid smiled back at her, while Split and Bristle gave her nods of encouragement. She hesitated for a moment. It was strange. Something about the looks on the colts’ faces didn’t seem quite right to her. It was as if they weren’t really confident in her success like First Aid was…

After a moment, though, Minuette turned and stepped into the center of the room. A collection of snickers went through the crowd, and she knew, she just knew they were laughing at her, no doubt remembering her little ‘explosion’ from last time. She shuddered under their jeering stares, her ears folding back with indignation. Not even fifteen minutes ago, they had been laughing because she was being deliberately funny, but now they were laughing in anticipation of another cosmic failure.

She shook her head to dispel her doubts. She lifted her head and set her jaw, coming to a stop in the core of the room to face the princess. Celestia gave her a small, encouraging nod. “Go on, Minuette. Show us what you can do.”

Minuette took a deep breath and nodded. “R-right. Okay,” she said before closing her eyes and lighting up her horn. Several seconds passed as she racked her brain for an appropriate image to manifest, but to her growing dismay, she was drawing blanks. Maybe it was being put on the spot like this or having all of those eyes staring judgmentally at her from the edges of the room. Whatever it was, it was driving all of the creativity from her thoughts—a bead of sweat formed on her brow, an anxious whimper threatening to slip past her lips.

“You really have nothing to fear, little one…”

Minuette’s eyes snapped open as she gave an audible gasp, the image of the bug flashing in her mind. She latched onto it with everything she had and focused on her spell, pouring as much power as she dared into making the image come to life. Bit by bit, the air before her began to shimmer and ripple. Then, with a small pulse of light, the image became clear.

It was crude at best, and not quite accurate to the real deal, Minuette realized, but standing before her in the middle of the room, clear for all to see as a symbol of her success, was a vague recreation of the bug she had seen in her mirror. A silence fell over the room for several seconds.

“I… I did it,” she whispered to herself, her eyes glued onto the illusion. A few moments passed as the realization set in, and her gaping mouth formed into a wide, ecstatic grin. “I did it! I did it, I did it, I DID IT!” she squealed, hopping in place a few times. She came to a stop when a sharp throb of pain tore through her horn, causing the image to flicker.

With a grunt, Minuette decided that, for the moment, enough was enough. She lifted the image into the air over their heads and dispelled it in a shower of sparks. A few shocked gasps tore through the crowd, and some of the foals even gave off mystified calls to see it again.

Several long seconds passed. Nopony said a word. Minuette looked around at the other foals, seeing wide eyes and hanging jaws staring back at her. Her smile began to fade, and some irrational part of her brain began to wonder if she had done something wrong. She turned back to Celestia for answers and found the alicorn smiling down at her.

“Well… that was certainly the most unique thing I have seen during one of these tests in a long time, Minuette,” she said quietly. “You have quite the imagination, don’t you?”

Minuette gave a loud sigh of relief before grinning widely up at the princess. “Uh-huh!”

Celestia’s smile grew wider. “Well, you did a wonderful job. Return to your classmates now. There are still more students to get through.”

Minuette gave a chirpy nod before turning and scampering back to her friends, a visible skip in her step. First Aid greeted her with a hug the moment she rejoined them, squealing with delight. “That was amazing, Minuette! Better than anypony else here, I think!”

Minuette returned the hug, bouncing in place with a wordless squeal. She then looked past her red-maned friend to grin at the colts behind her. They were looking back at her with similarly wide-eyed looks of shock and alarm at what they had just seen her do.

“See? What’d I tell ya?” she asked cockily. She waggled her eyebrows at them and gestured back at the center of the room. “Flying colors!”

Author's Notes:

Victory!

Fangs

The rest of that day passed in something of a blur for Minuette. She was swallowed whole by the high of having absolutely destroyed that test. She could tell that whatever silly reputation she had earned as a ‘dunce’ had been thoroughly demolished. The only pony whose illusion managed to outdo hers wound up being Celestia’s personal student, but that was to be expected.

First Aid had done pretty well, but to Minuette’s surprise, Bristle and Split both almost failed. Either they had a hard time grasping how the spell worked, were lacking in stamina, didn’t sleep well, or they just didn’t study like they were supposed to. Whatever the case was, the end results were two near-miss spells that almost ended in disaster. They scraped by with a passing result, though.

Neither of them had been in a good mood after that and had left without a word when the bell saw fit to usher them along to their next period. Minuette had wanted to go and make sure they were feeling alright, but the school would not wait for her. Nevertheless, she flitted from class to class like a happy butterfly, doing her work with gusto before, at long last, the final bell saw fit to release her and her fellow foals from their obligations.

Her father had come to pick her up alone today, and he had been more than a little delighted to hear about her stunning success.

“You made a full-blown bug pony?!” he asked as they made their way home, his daughter riding on his back.

Minuette puffed out her chest and struck a hoof up into the air. “I sure did! He was super cool, all black and buggy and stuff!” she declared, electing to keep quiet the fact that she had drawn the image from the bug in her mirror. She had plans to talk to that guy later and didn’t want any unwanted interruptions from her curious parents.

“Well darn, kiddo, that’s impressive,” Sunspot praised, lifting a hoof up to ruffle her mane. “I’m proud of you. You keep it up, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir!” Minuette chirped before resting her hooves on her dad’s head and grinning. Their house was now in sight, just up the street, and Minuette was ready and eager to get inside.

“Honey, we’re back!” Sunspot called out as he opened the door, stepping inside with his own lips split into a wide grin. “And guess which little beast managed to ace her magic test!”

“It was me!” Minuette declared, not even bothering to give her mother, who was not in the entrance hall, a chance to answer. “I aced it! I did it better than anypony else in the class! Flying colors, oh yeah!”

Minuette’s ears perked up as an elated gasp came from somewhere deeper in the house, and her mother came cantering into view from the living room with a wide smile. “You did? Really?!” she asked, hefting her child up with her magic.

Minuette nodded enthusiastically, her smile growing significantly. “Uh-huh! I made a bug-pony-looking thing!”

Pearly hesitated for a moment, and it was then that Minuette remembered that her mother had witnessed her talking to the bug in question. Although, at the time, it had been pretty obvious that Pearly had not seen him. Still, she was quick to recover and put on a bright, cheerful smile. “And you aced it?”

“Perfect score!”

“Well, predicted perfect score,” Sunspot clarified with a chuckle. He set Minuette down with his magic, ignoring the disapproving pout she shot his way. “The written part of the test hasn’t been graded yet. She got a perfect score on casting the spell, but that’s not her whole grade-”

“Flying colors, dad! Flying!”

Sunspot chuckled and reached down to ruffle her mane again. “Heh. If you say so, kid.”

Her pout intensified. She indignantly swatted his hoof away before backing up. “I do say so! I know so!” she protested sharply. Then, sensing an out, she turned and shoved her nose up into the air in an exaggerated display of haughty superiority. “Now, I’ma go read that book on teeth Mom got me!”

Sunspot and Pearly shared a confused glance at that, but neither of them questioned it, thankfully. Pearly gave Minuette a nod and a smile as she started for the stairs. “Alright, Minnie. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner, okay?”

Minuette nodded back at her as she began her ascent. “Kay!” she called before sprinting up the stairs as fast as her short, filly legs could take her. She rounded the bend and darted into her room, closing the door behind her before anyone had a chance to stop her. She pressed her ear up to the door and listened for any sign of them following her, but to her relief, she instead heard her parents scattering throughout the house.

She turned back to face the room, and her eyes rested on her mirror. The bug was not there at the moment. A few seconds passed before, with a grunt, she pried her saddlebags off and set them down by the door. With a deep breath, she approached the mirror and stared at her reflection.

“...Hello?” she called softly, lifting a hoof and resting it against the glass. “You there? I… um… I passed the test, just like you said I would.”

Several seconds passed in silence. There was no movement and no response. She pressed her hoof against the glass a little harder and rose to her hind legs, trying to get a better look past her reflection. “...Hello?’

And then, finally, it happened. Her reflection faded from view, and the bug walked into view from the left, his eyes set on her. “...Hello, little one,” he greeted in a friendly, albeit reserved, tone.

Minuette smiled and gave off a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, good. You’re real,” she said before thumping back onto her haunches.

The bug chuckled, sitting down in front of her. “Well, yes, of course, I am. I said so last night, didn’t I?” he asked rhetorically.

“Well, yeah, but you’re a bug pony that’s talking to me from inside my mirror,” Minuette countered matter of factly. “I mean, that’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” The bug agreed with a noncommittal shrug. “But, it would also be very unsatisfying.”

Minuette giggled at that. “Heh, yeah, I guess so,” she agreed before looking into his eyes again.

He smiled back at her. “So, you passed the test, just like I knew you would. Congratulations, little one.”

She beamed up at him, showing off her teeth in a wide, happy grin. Her smile slowly faded after a moment, and her expression morphed into a scrutinizing, puffy-cheeked pout. “Heeey… how come you didn’t say anything to me this morning if you’re real?!”

The bug lifted his hooves defensively. “Hey, now, you had to go to school. I knew that if I showed myself to you, you probably wouldn’t want to leave. So, I decided to stay out of sight, so you could go and pass that test without distractions.”

“You coulda at least said ‘hi,’” Minuette protested indignantly.

“I could have,” the bug agrees with a slow, sage nod. “But, I didn’t.”

Minuette gave a pitiful, annoyed whine, slapping a hoof against the floor. “Why, you… HMPH!” She turned her head to the side and thrust her nose into the air.

The bug chuckled at the display before lowering himself to his belly. “Haha… you know, I’m still surprised you’re so… okay with this,” he said, a less-amused tone slipping into his voice.

Minuette opened her eyes and looked back to him. “Huh? What do you mean?”

He gestured at the mirror. “Well, like you said, I’m a talking bug pony trapped in your mirror. Most foals would, at least at first, be terrified of me, and skeptical for a while after until I could prove I meant no harm. You? Like a moth to a flame.”

Minuette tilted her head at him. “...A moth to a flame? But… Fire burns. Why would a moth fly up to one?”

“Ever seen a moth fly up to a lamp?”

“Uh-huh. It’s funny.”

“Yeah, they like light,” the bug explained. “They navigate in the night by using the light of the moon, but other light sources throw off their senses. That’s why moths will so often settle on windows with lights inside, or fly up to lamps or torches.”

“...So you’re a fire?”

The bug broke out laughing again. He shook his head a minute later. “Ha! No, I’m not a fire. I was just making an expression.”

Minuette blinked, her cheeks lighting up with a faint red tint. “Oh… uh, I knew that.”

“Did you, though?”

“Y-yes!”

The bug raised an eyebrow.

Minuette shrank back into herself, her cheeks puffing up. “N… Y-yes.”

The bug laughed again, causing the blush of Minuette’s cheeks to spread out. She gave off another groan of embarrassment, her ears drooping. A few seconds passed before she heard a tap on the glass. She looked up to see the bug’s smile had shifted from amused to apologetic.

“Heh… sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve properly spoken with anypony. I just had to get it out of my system.”

Minuette blinked at him a few times before slowly rising to an upright position. “Oh… that reminds me. You never got to answer my questions last night,” she said, her blush forgotten in her curiosity.

The bug tilted his head. “Hm? What do you mean?”

Minuette tapped the frame of the mirror, her muzzle scrunching up. “Well… who are you? What are you? And what are you doing in my mirror?”

The bug’s smile immediately fell away, replaced with a forlorn frown. He looked down at the ground, his ears folding back. “...A-ah. I see…” he mumbled softly, surprising Minuette with just how… sad he sounded.

A few seconds passed. He shook his head and lifted his eyes to meet hers again. “The truth is, little one… I honestly do not know.”

“Huh?” Minuette asked, bewildered. “What do you mean? How can you not know?”

The bug sighed and looked off to one side. “...I have been inside of this mirror for as long as I can remember. Two… three hundred years, at least,” he said softly, his hoof rising to touch his chest.

Minuette gasped, her eyes bulging in their sockets. “WHAT?! Three hundred years?! Like, three, and then two zeroes?!”

The bug nodded, this time finding no amusement in her antics. “Far longer even than that if I had to guess. I… I have been trapped in here for so long, that any memories I had of before, if ever there was a before, have faded away completely. I don’t know my own name, if I had any friends or family, where I could have come from, or even what I am… all I know is that this mirror, and whatever is reflected in it, is my entire world.”

“Oh my gosh… that’s awful!” Minuette gasped. Her hooves wandered up to cover her mouth. She couldn’t fathom what it must have been like, being stuck in that mirror for so long. “But… but you’ve had friends since, right?”

The bug nodded. “Some. Here and there. There was a family that had me in their possession for many generations, as I recall. They were wonderful ponies, and my time in their care is the best time I can remember. But, when the last of them passed away without an heir… I was left alone, again. I was stuck in an old warehouse for many, many years. I don’t know how many. Every so often, somepony would come by to take inventory. But none of them were foals. None of them could see or hear me, no matter how loud I called out to them… And then somepony threw a tarp over the mirror, and my world became nothing but darkness and fabric for who knows how long.

“Eventually, the tarp was pulled away, and the mirror was sold off at an auction to some rich nobles here in Canterlot. Then, when their son spotted me and cried out that there was a monster in his mirror, his parents deemed it appropriate to sell me… and so it was that your parents found me and brought me here… to you.”

Minuette blinked at him a few times, her eyes shimmering as he concluded his tale. “Oh my gosh… I… I’m so sorry…” she whispered, reaching one of her hooves out to the mirror, every one of her instincts screaming at her to hug him. Her hoof met the glass, barring her passage, separating her from the despondent bug that sat across from her. “I’m so, so sorry…”

The bug looked back up at her, his lips curling up into a sad smile. “Thank you, little one… I am glad to know that there is somepony there who can see me again.”

“Because I’m a foal?” Minuette asked, recalling what he had mentioned earlier. Her heart began to beat a little faster, and her ears folded back. “W-wait, if only foals can see you, then… w-will you disappear when I grow up?”

The bug, to her relief, shook his head. “No, no. Whatever curse binds me to this reflection, it’s kind enough to allow you to continue seeing me. Had you been much older when you first got this mirror, I would have never appeared to you. But now that you have seen me, I will appear to you for the rest of your days. It is a bewildering kindness, but nonetheless one I am thankful for.”

Minuette stared at him for a few minutes, blinking a few times as she tried to absorb the deluge of information her young mind had just been hit by. She swallowed heavily before reaching a hoof up to the surface of the mirror. “So… you’re just gonna be around, now?” she asked quietly.

“Unless you don’t want me to be, yes,” The bug replied gently. “I am at your mercy, after all. I have no power in your world, save for my words. I will be here should you want me, but if you do not, then I will stand aside. That is what I was planning originally, after all.”

“Oh, no, I want you around, absolutely!” Minuette said eagerly, placing her other hoof against the glass. “You helped me pass my test, and you’re really nice, but you’re also really sad, and I don’t want you to be! If you want a friend, I’d be happy to be one to you!”

The bug smiled at her, his wings wavering on his back. “You are too kind, little one… thank you.”

Minuette grinned before withdrawing her hooves. “You’re welcome… now, if you’re gonna stick around, you need a name…”

The bug shrugged. “I have had many. You may call me whatever you want.”

Minuette lifted a hoof to her chin, her muzzle scrunching up in thought. “Uuuummmm…” she drawled out as she swept her eyes over his chitinous form. “How about… Reflection? No, that’s lame. Tatters? No, that’s sad. Swiss?”

“Like swiss cheese?” the bug asked with a raised eyebrow. He glanced down at his hole-riddled forelegs and grimaced. “I’d rather you not…”

“Okay, okay, so not Swiss,” Minuette conceded. “What about Buggy?”

“I mean, while not inaccurate, it’s not terribly creative, is it?” The bug asked with a faint hint of amusement slipping back into his voice.

Minuette hummed, working her little brain for all it was worth. There had to be some identifying feature about the bug that stood out to her that wouldn’t be insulting or upsetting. She swept her eyes over him one more time, starting from his hollowed legs, to his armored carapace, before her eyes finally settled on his glowing blue eyes and the two, long, sharp fangs that jutted from his upper jaw.

It clicked.

“Fangs!”

The bug blinked, reaching a hoof up to his teeth. He gave it thought for a moment before peeling his lips back to show off more of them to Minuette, drawing a fascinating coo from the filly. His teeth were all very sharp and numerous, giving off the impression of an impressive carnivore.

He clamped his muzzle shut a second later, smiling down at her. “Fangs, huh… I like it…”

Minuette’s grin returned in full force. “That settles it, then! From now on, your name is Fangs!” she declared, striking her hoof on the ground as if it were a gavel, and she was the judge delivering a sentence.

Fangs smiled back at her and nodded. “So it is…”

“Great! Now we can properly introduce ourselves! Ahem… Nice to meet ya!” Minuette chirped, pressing her hoof to the glass once again. “I’m Minuette!”

Fangs nodded at that, pressing his own hoof up to the glass to mirror her own. He met her eyes and gave her a large, genuine smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, Minuette… My name is Fangs.”

Author's Notes:

And our buggo has a name.

Funny Faces

Several days later, a most peculiar scene was unfolding in the bedroom of Minuette. Were there anypony else there lucky enough to be capable of seeing Fangs, they would see him knelt down, belly to the ground, with his lips peeled back to show off his rather impressive array of sharp, carnivorous teeth. Especially his two great fangs that jutted from his upper lip, which were visible at all times.

That wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was the little blue unicorn filly who was absolutely gushing over what she was seeing. A little notepad was floating next to her in her magic, along with the book on teeth her mother had bought for her. She was giggling and talking excitedly at herself as she looked between Fangs’ mouth, the book, and then went to furiously scribble something down on her notepad.

This had been the scene for the last ten minutes.

“So…” Fangs began, briefly closing his mouth so he could talk. His eyes darted over to the patch of morning light against Minuette’s wall. “Don’t you have school today?”

“In an hour,” Minuette chirped without missing a beat. “Wednesdays have late starts, so I don’t gotta go quite yet.”

“Then shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Nuh-uh,” Minuette shot down with a shake of her head. She pointed the tip of her quill at Fangs and grinned. “Because you got chompers and I wanna see em!”

Fangs gave off a mixture between a sigh and a laugh, rolling his eyes. “Well, we’ve been sitting here for ten minutes. Do you still need to see my teeth? My lips are getting sore.”

In answer to this question, Minuette spun around her notepad to show him what she had been working on. He paused, raising an eyebrow as he was met with a remarkably detailed illustration of his open maw, complete with footnotes, labels, and cute little butterflies down in the corner.

“That’s… detailed,” he noted slowly.

Minuette’s grin grew significantly. “Duh! Cause I got a good reference right in front of me!” she said before tapping the mirror. “Now open up! I still gotta get the ones in the very back! Also, your tongue is forked.”

“It is,” Fangs acknowledged. He gave a weary but charmed sigh and opened his mouth again, giving Minuette a view that he recalled most other creatures would probably be at least mildly grossed out by. Not her, though. Minuette just went right back to taking notes and drawing the inside of his mouth with all of the gusto of a world-renowned artist on caffeine and sugar drops.

Several minutes passed before, with a nod and hum of approval, Minuette snapped her book closed. “Okay! I think that’ll just about do it!” she declared. “You can close your mouth, now.”

Fangs obliged, clamping his jaw shut and rubbing it lightly as if it were sore. “Whew. Thank goodness. I was afraid my jaw was about to fall off.”

“Nah, it won’t do that,” Minuette replied with a giggle. “It would’ve done it already if it could do that.”

Fangs smirked back at her, a little hint of mischief filtering into his eyes. “Oh yeah? Are you quite sure about that, little one?” he asked slowly, a plan to entertain himself being born.

Minuette nodded. “Uh-huh!”

“Hm. If you say so,” Fangs said slowly. He then looked behind Minuette and blinked, widening his eyes. “Wait, is that a big spider on your wall?” he asked, pointing at a section of wall where there was a very distinct lack of a spider.

Minuette paled and spun around on her hooves. “Spider?! Where?!”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Fangs thought victoriously before hiding his face with his hooves. While Minuette’s back was to him, he briefly closed his eyes and focused. It had been a long time since he had had an occasion to do this, and it took a second to recall the steps. Instinct took over soon enough, though.

Green flames suddenly sprouted along his face and jaw, almost like a beard. With a wince, he imagined the changes he wanted and opened his eyes. The flames vanished, and when they did, Fangs’ muzzle had disappeared completely from his face, leaving nothing but a smooth curve that blended perfectly into his throat.

Minuette tilted her head before slowly turning around. “Well, I don’t see any spiders- FANGS?!” she squealed, her hooves flying up to cover her mouth at the sight of Fangs’ distinct lack of one.

Fangs opened his eyes wide and thumped his hooves against the glass as if to convey that he was scared and confused. He also made muffled cries through his vocal cords, which made the chitin of his chest vibrate in very entertaining ways.

“Fangs, where’s your mouth?! Oh my gosh, did it really fall off?!” Minuette babbled in a panic, rising to her hooves and running in place. “Oh no no no no, I didn’t want this to happen! Uh, uh, um, uh!”

Her horn suddenly lit with magic, and Fangs watched as an illusion began to form in the air in front of her. He paused and tilted his head before turning around, and watching as a perfectly mirrored copy of the illusion appeared in his reflected world. It was an illusion of his muzzle, floating there, waiting for him to put it back on.

He looked back at Minuette, then at the illusion. This filly seriously thought his muzzle had fallen off. He had successfully fooled her, and now she was trying to make him a new one with manipulated light.

If he still had a nose, he would have snorted with the effort of keeping his laughter inside.

“Fangs, put it on!” Minuette groaned through clenched teeth, putting on display how much effort this was taking.

Fangs decided to play along, scampering over and quickly positioning himself so that the fake muzzle would line up to more or less where his real one would be. Then, with another flare of green fires, his true, real muzzle was restored to his face.

Minuette saw those flames, and with a sigh of relief, dispelled the illusion. She ran up and pressed her face up against the mirror, causing her cheeks to squish up and flatten on the cool surface. “Are you okay?! It’s not gonna fall off again, is it?!” she asked anxiously.

Fangs opened his mouth to speak, to tell her that all would be well, that thanks to her quick thinking and skills with magic, she had successfully restored his muzzle to his face. He opened his mouth to tell her these things and praise her creativity.

All that came out was a howl of uproarious laughter.

Minuette paused, her face screwing up with confusion. “Heeey! What’s so funny?! You lost your mouth!” she demanded indignantly, thumping a hoof against the glass.

Fangs took a few deep breaths in an attempt to quiet down his laughter, shooting her a knowing look. “Ha! No, no it did not.”

Minuette tilted her head. “But… what?”

Fangs stepped forward, his laughs finally dying down, and got comfortable before the glass. “Jaw’s don’t just fall off, you know. I may be a weird mirror bug, but that rule still holds true for me,” he explained with a mirthful smirk.

Minuette tilted her head. “But… then… what happened?”

Fangs closed his eyes and focused. Another swirl of green flames enveloped his head, and once again, his muzzle disappeared. He opened his eyes to look at Minuette to see that she was staring back at him in wide-eyed shock and confusion. Before she could freak out again, he quickly restored his muzzle and smiled more gently. “There are many things I do not know about myself or what I am, but what I do know is that I can change my body at will. I can add or remove limbs, or even turn into completely different objects and creatures. It’s quite fascinating but very tiring.”

Minuette’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “You… can transform?!” she asked in a mystified whisper. “What can you turn into?”

“Many things,” Fangs replied simply. “Although, I cannot remain changed forever. It drains my magic to remain in a different form, and the more differences between my new form and my true one, the faster it will drain me. If I were to become a full-sized elephant, for example, the size difference between such a creature and myself would cause an immense drain on my magic. If, however, I turned into, say, a pony...”

To prove his point, Fangs was swallowed in another swirl of green. When it passed, a perfect duplicate of Minuette was looking back at her with a cheerful smile. The now-disguised Fangs thrust a hoof into the air and spoke in Minuette’s young, squeaky voice. “The size and shape differences are small enough I could stay like this for weeks if I had to!”

Minuette stared at Fangs slack-jawed, even when he dispelled his disguise and returned to normal. She slowly tilted her head to one side, as if she were trying, and failing, to properly process the bombshell he had just dropped on her.

“...That… is… awesome!” She suddenly squealed, hopping in place several times, her ecstatic grin returning in full force. “Ooh! Ooh! Turn into an hourglass!”

Fangs recoiled a bit at the sudden suggestion. But, after a moment, he rolled his eyes and allowed himself to shift. Hooves gave way to a gold-colored frame, and chitin shifted into transparent glass. He could already feel the unorthodox shape sucking his magic away, and so only held it for a few seconds before snapping back to normal.

It’s short time in existence did not seem to bother Minuette at all, who began laughing. “Oh, wow! That is so amazing! Oh, oh, do a tiger! Lil baby one, like in my book!”

Fangs chuckled at her. “Did you miss the part where I said it tires me out?”

“You can take a nap when I go to school,” Minuette pointed out without missing a beat. “You’ve got nothing but time to kill when I’m gone!”

Fangs opened his mouth to protest, but the words did not come. No matter how much he hated to admit it, she had a point. It’s not like he had much else he could do here when she wasn’t around, so he could absolutely take some time to just rest when she went to school. And even if it was exhausting, her laughter was a wonderful sound he had gotten addicted to in the short time he had known her.

His lips curled up into a small smile. “Oh, very well. Just remember, I have limits,” he said before changing once again. This time, a baby-faced tiger emerged from the flames, pouncing against the glass with the mew of a common house cat.

Minuette’s hooves flew up to her cheeks, her eyes bulging with adoration. “D’aaawww, you’re so cute!” she cooed, her cheeks flushing slightly. “Lookit your paws! They’re so fluffy and small!”

Fangs pawed at the glass a few times, then rolled over onto his belly to show off his generously proportioned chest fluff. That got Minuette squealing and pressing her face up the mirror with repeated chants of ‘Fluffy, I wanna hug it.’

Minuette soon lost track of time, asking Fangs to turn into thing after thing, and being increasingly impressed with each new creature or object he turned into. Tigers, dogs, cats, birds, turtles, a rock. He was quite versatile, explaining that, during long periods of being all on his own, one of his only means of entertaining himself to stave off insanity was changing into different things and just existing as them for a while.

Eventually, though, her fun had to come to an end. A knock came to her door, drawing a startled yelp out of Minuette. She spun on her haunches to see the door open, and Pearly poking her head in.

“Hey, Minnie. It’s time for you to get going,” she said with a smile.

Minuette pouted and pointed at the mirror. “Aaaw! But I wanna keep talking to Fangs! He can turn into stuff!”

Pearly paused, her brow furrowing. In the mirror, Fangs reverted back to his true form, looking a little worn out if his heavy breaths were any indication. A few seconds passed before Pearly walked into the room, approaching the mirror. “Fangs… is that your new imaginary friend?”

Minuette wilted. “N-no! He’s-”

“Little one,” Fangs cut her off, drawing her attention. He met her gaze and slowly shook his head. “It’s no use. She can not see me, nor will she ever be able to. It may be for the best if you just go along with it…”

“But… you’re real,” Minuette protested.

“I am,” Fangs acknowledged with a slow nod. “But she will never believe that. Nor will most others. If you go around telling everypony that I’m real, it could invite problems for you, me, and your family.”

“...But…”

Fangs smiled softly and placed his hoof against the mirror. “It’s fine, little one. I do not mind. And in truth, do others really need to know about me? I am your friend, and you are mine. That is more than I can say I have had in decades. Let it be enough…”

Minuette eyed him for several moments. She didn’t like it. Why should she have to hide the truth about him behind such a silly lie? He wasn’t imaginary, he was real. He was right there! She had spoken with him every morning before going to school and every night before going to bed for days now. She knew he was real… why couldn’t she say so to everypony else?

In the end, though, she was forced to accept reality. She could not force others to believe her, and since she had no way of proving it to the adults, all she could do was hide behind that explanation. It didn’t feel right to her, but there wasn’t much else she could do…

“Okay,” she whispered to him before turning back to Pearly, who was staring back with a raised eyebrow. Minuette sighed and nodded. “Er, yeah… Fangs is my imaginary friend.”

That actually seemed to come as a relief to her mother. Pearly smiled and nodded. “I see. Well, you can talk to fangs when you get home then. And maybe you can tell me a little more about him?”

Minuette nodded, getting up to her hooves. “Sure, I guess,” she mumbled, frowning.

A few seconds passed in silence before Pearly strode forward and placed a hoof on her head. “Okay, come on, Minnie. You need to get to school. Your father already has your saddlebags packed and ready to go by the door.”

“Okay,” Minuette acknowledged, getting a small bounce back into her step. She smiled back at Fangs as she made her way for the door. “Bye, Fangs! I’ll see you later!”

Fangs waved in response. “Have fun at school, little one. I’ll be here when you come home!” he called after her before the door closed, blocking him from view.

Not So Funny Faces

Minuette’s journey to Celestia’s school was somewhat slower than usual this morning. Despite Fang’s assurances that it was fine, the fact that she was supposed to refer to him as her imaginary friend when speaking to others just did not sit right with her. Fangs wasn’t fake! He wasn’t imaginary, she knew it! He was real, he was in her mirror, and she didn’t want to lie about him.

But what choice did she really have? She gave off a heavy sigh as, for the seventh time since she left her home that morning, she realized that Fangs was probably right. Trying to prove that he was real when no adults could see him would likely only cause everypony a lot of stress.

However, just because she couldn’t show Fangs to any adults, that didn’t mean she couldn’t show him to her friends. They were still foals, only a little older than her—First Aid, Split End, Bristlestroke. Minuette’s lips curled up into a small smile at the thought of showing Fangs to them. He would have three more friends, and there’d be somepony who would believe her when she said that Fangs was real!

Although finding a good time to show them would prove to be a hassle, she knew. Bristle and Split were typically very busy when they weren’t in school. Between Split having some family matters he always had to take care of when he left school, and Bristle having a private art tutor, their time after school was out was typically swallowed up. In truth, she had only gotten to hang out with the two of them once or twice outside of Celestia’s school since First Aid introduced them.

First, though, would be a simpler matter. She didn’t have the extracurricular activities or other such obligations that those two did…

Minuette was pulled from her internal musings as Celestia’s school, and her friends came into sight. They were standing in front of the regal statue of the solar alicorn that presided over the front yard of the campus, speaking in hushed tones as a veritable river of other students walked by.

“And with a few minutes to spare before class!” she thought.

Grinning and hoping to put her plans into motion now, Minuette picked up her pace. “Hey, guys!” she called out to them as she approached, thrusting a hoof into the air to wave.

Her friends looked to her and First beamed. “Minnie! Morning!” she called over, taking a few steps to meet Minuette.

Split and Bristle exchanged glances, the latter grimacing. “...Hey, Minuette.”

Minuette paused, one of her ears drooping in a lopsided gesture of confusion. That had been a rather less cheerful greeting than she had been expecting. She tilted her head at them and frowned. “Uh… you two okay?”

Bristle nodded. “Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” he said in an almost dismissive tone. “Just… tired.”

“Oh. Didn’t sleep well?” Minuette ventured, her confusion giving way to mild confusion.

Split shook his head. “No, no. Don’t worry about it,” he said, prompting Minuette to clam up. He shared a glance with Bristle, then turned to First. “We should probably be getting a move on… class is due to start in a few minutes.”

“Oh, uh, sure…” First replied, though she did not move even as Split and Bristle made their way inside, each of them casting a glance in Minuette’s direction.

She watched them go, an uneasy feeling setting up shop in her stomach. Something was wrong. She could feel it. She swallowed heavily and turned to First Aid, who was still staring after their departing friends with a similarly concerned frown. “...They aren’t okay, are they?” she asked in a hushed whisper.

First sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno. They’ve been acting kind of off for a little while now. I think they didn’t do very well on that last test in Celestia’s class…”

Minuette’s ears drooped. “Oh…”

If that was the case, then she knew how they felt. Her bungling of the first test had left her in a very sub-par mood. She looked back at the entrance, but Split and Bristle were already gone. Her frown deepened. “Well… I’m sure they can turn it around! I know I did!” she said, trying to force some more of her energetic optimism into her voice.

“Maybe,” First replied before taking off after them. “Just be careful about talking about it around them. I’ve known those two a lot longer than you have, Minnie… they’re good guys, but they don’t always take it well if they fail.”

Minuette hesitated, her brow furrowing. Yet again, she was being asked to hold her tongue. It didn’t sit right with her. Those two were her friends, weren’t they? And friends looked out for and supported each other!

But First Aid had a point. She had known them long before Minuette had. For the time being, it would be best to follow her guidance and not breach the subject directly.

With a small sigh, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll try not to,” she promised.

First Aid smiled. “Thanks, Minnie.”

The school day passed by in something of a blur after that. Bristle and Split were remarkably quiet during class, only ever talking once or twice to ask questions. After that, as always, Minuette’s other classes forced her to be pulled away from them. She did her best not to worry about them, but then came lunch, and their moods seemed even lower than before when she joined them.

As a result of her growing concern and curiosity over her friends, she had a harder time than usual paying attention in class. She couldn’t help it. Her mind just kept wandering back to them, and First Aid’s request that she not bring up their lowered mood with them. It was disheartening, and she didn’t like it, not one bit.

They were her friends, after all! Friends helped each other, didn’t they? That’s what her parents had always told her, at least, and she had no reason to doubt them about that. But how could she do that without going against First’s request that she not breach the jar of spoiling beans?

Not caring about how odd that metaphor sounded in her head, she began to put some serious thought into how she could solve the problem without going against First’s request. She couldn’t speak up to them about their grumpiness directly; she knew that. But that didn’t mean she was out of options…

“I got it!” she suddenly exclaimed in the middle of her alchemy class.

The teacher glanced at her from his desk with a raised eyebrow, along with a few of the other students, who all seemed less than pleased with her sudden outburst. The teacher adjusted his glasses with a hoof. “Is that so? I assume, then, you’ve figured out exactly how to put out the glow on the nebulae moth trap plant?”

Minuette blinked. “Huh?”

The plant on the table in front of her, as if annoyed that she had forgotten about it, lurched forward to snap at her face. She leaned back from it with an alarmed squeak as she was given a very intimate view of the sharp-looking teeth of the plant, with a lure akin to an anglerfish’s dangling from its top. In fact, the whole plant was basically an anglerfish, except it was a carnivorous plant.

Gross. She didn’t like these teeth. They were slimy and smelled like honey that had gone bad.

“I will take that as a no,” The teacher deduced with a bemused shake of his head, accompanied by a few amused chuckles from the class. “Try to keep it down, Minuette, okay? I know you’re excitable, but you should keep your personal epiphanies to yourself in class.”

“Right. Sorry,” Minuette apologized sheepishly before glaring at the plant. It glared back at her, or she imagined it would be if the freaky thing had eyes.

“...Gross,” she grumbled before carrying on with the lesson, allowing her body to go on autopilot while her mind worked.

“I can’t bring their grumpiness up with them directly, but I know ponies laugh when I’m around! Maybe I can invite them over to my house today, make them laugh a bunch, and even show them Fangs and the mirror! Then they’ll have somepony cool to distract them, Fangs will have some new friends, and somepony will finally believe me when I say he’s real! It’s the perfect plan, nothing could possibly go wrong!”

With that resolution burning firmly in her heart, she carried on with far more vigor and enthusiasm until, at long last, the bell saw fit to release her. She saw herself out of her last class at a brisk pace, ducking and weaving through the ponies around her until, at last, she stepped out through the front doors and emerged onto the campus’ front yard.

However, to her surprise, Bristle and Split were nowhere to be seen. There was just First Aid, standing by the statue with a distant look in her eyes. Minuette frowned, slowing her pace to a more timid walk as she drew near. It wasn’t until she was within a few feet that First finally noticed her and looked her way. “Minuette. Hey,” she said quietly.

Minuette’s ears drooped. “Hi. Uh… where are the guys?”

First sighed and nodded down the road. “They already went home. They said they had a lot of homework to deal with,” she said, though her tone of voice implied she did not believe that excuse for a second.

And neither did Minuette. She frowned, looking in the direction First had indicated. They were nowhere to be seen. “Oh… Are they feeling better now, at least?” she asked, hoping against hope that they were being genuine.

First sighed and shrugged. “I dunno. They didn’t stay to talk. They seemed like they were in kind of a hurry, honestly.”

Minuette looked to First, her ears drooping. “Well, so much for the perfect plan…” she thought despondently, her frown turning more annoyed with herself. “Well, now what?”

First shook her head. “I dunno, Minnie… for now, I think we just need to give those two a bit of space.”

Minuette nodded in understanding, though her expression bespoke nothing but disappointment. “Alright…” she relented. A few seconds passed before, with a hopeful smile, she nudged First’s shoulder and got her attention. “Well… when they’re feeling better, maybe you could let them know I was thinking of inviting them over to my place sometime. Ya know, so we can hang out, play some games, that kinda thing.”

First Aid stared at Minuette for a moment, her lips curling up into an appreciative smile. “Heh. Sure, that sounds like fun! I’ll let them know next time I see them.”

“Sweet!” Minuette exclaimed perhaps a touch louder than was necessary as she was able to at least somewhat salvage her perfect plan. It was a bit rickety, but it would drive. “I’ve had something really cool since school started that I’ve been dying to show to you guys! You’ll love it!”

First Aid raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “What is it?”

Minuette’s smile turned a touch mischievous. “It’s a surprise. Gonna hafta come and hang out to see what it is,” she said with a sly wink.

First Aid pouted. “Awww! Minnie! Can I get a hint?” she asked, leaning forward and making her eyes as big as possible.

Minuette faltered. Was this the puppy-dog look she had heard her parents complain at her for abusing so many times in the past? Because it sure as hay felt like it. Try as she might, she could not resist those giant glistening orbs and gave off a relenting sigh. “Okay, okay, just stop looking so sad!”

First Aid’s facade snapped away like someone flicked a switch. In an instant, she was all smiles and eager anticipation all over again. “Okay! Now, hint!”

Minuette rolled her eyes. “Ugh. It’s something really cool my mom and dad got me for my birthday, and I just know you guys are gonna love it, too.”

First Aid nodded energetically. “Uh-huh, uh-huh! And?”

A few seconds passed, and First Aid’s expecting look did not falter.

Minuette blinked. “And… that’s your hint.”

First Aid’s eye twitched. “Wha… but that’s not helpful at all!” she whined pathetically, lightly slapping at Minuette’s shoulder. “How can I tell the guys what you’re gonna show them if I dunno what it is?!”

“You’re not!” Minuette laughed, swatting back. “I told ya, it’s a surprise! Be surprised, dangit!”

First Aid’s pout deepened, and she looked away with a huff. “Hmph! You’re the worst.”

“Nope,” Minuette chirped with a smug grin. “I’m the beast!”

Following that exchange with First Aid, it wasn’t long before Minuette was picked up by her father and taken home. She enthused eagerly about what she had been taught, and briefly touched on the subject of Split End and Bristletroke acting upset all day long. That had been enough to warrant some minimal concern from Sunspot, but not a whole lot. He seemed confident it would be fine in the long term, though his tone implied he felt there was something else going on.

Regardless, as soon as they were back inside the house, Minuette bolted up the stairs for her room, where Fangs was waiting for her. She shut the door behind her with a large grin when she saw him, and he smiled back.

“Welcome home, little one,” Fangs greeted, his wings wavering on his back. “How was your day?”

“Mostly good,” Minuette replied while casually tossing her saddlebags onto her bed. “Though a couple of my friends were acting kinda grumpy and sad all day…”

Fangs raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Minuette nodded, coming forward and sitting down in front of the mirror. “Uh-huh. Split End and Bristlestroke. Have I told you about them?”

Fangs’ brow furrowed as he thought the question over. A second later, he shook his head. “No, you have not. I have heard their names in passing, but I know next to nothing other than they are your friends at school.”

Minuette nodded, adjusting herself to get comfy. “Yeah. I met them thanks to First Aid. They’re good guys, even if Split can be a bit of a dummy sometimes.”

“First Aid?”

“Oh, I met her at a daycare,” Minuette clarified. “Before I started going to school. Mom and Dad had different schedules or something than they do now, and for a few months, I had to go spend part of the day at daycare. I met First Aid there, and we became good, close friends! She knew Split End and Bristlestroke before I did, and introduced me to them a few months before we all got accepted into Celestia’s School!”

“I see. So First Aid is an older friend of yours, while Split and Bristle are newer?”

“Mhmm!”

“And what seems to be wrong with them?” Fangs pressed, laying down on his own belly to be at Minuette’s eye level.

Minuette frowned, her chirpy tone turning a touch somber. “Well… when I first got to school, they were kinda tired and grumpy looking. They’ve been acting kinda grumpy for a few days, actually, now that I think about it… I just didn’t notice until today.”

Fangs hummed in thought, his lips curling into a frown. “Hmmm… tell me about them. I am afraid I know very little.”

Minuette nodded. “Okay! So, Split End and Bristle are both really fun, and both of them live way up in the upper districts of Canterlot, where all of the stuffy nobles live. They’re the kids of some minor noble houses themselves or something. Split End likes hair a lot, and I think he’s gonna be a barber when he grows up. Bristlestroke’s probably the artsiest pony I know and can do these really cool sketches all the time. They’re both really good with magic, and everypony really looks up to them!”

Fangs’ frown turned concerned. “Nobility? Those two are from the nobility?”

Minuette nodded, tilting her head. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

Fangs hummed for a moment before shrugging. “Forgive me. I believe I have told you this already, but I had a less than pleasant introduction to pony nobility when the mirror was purchased by some in the upper city before your parents bought me. They were not kind to their foal and had unrealistically high expectations and strict rules. I do not see that foal developing well under their care…”

Minuette nodded, her ears drooping slightly as she recalled the story. “Right… that kid called you a monster, didn’t he?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“With a scream and eyes more fearful than I am comfortable admitting,” Fangs confirmed with a slow nod. He shook his head a moment later. “...A-anyways, back on track. Tell me, do you know much about their parents? Are they strict, perhaps?”

Minuette shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve never met them, and Bristle and Split never talk about them. Why? Is that important?”

“I am not sure,” Fangs replied, glancing sideways. “...When about did you say this behavior of theirs began? And do you have any idea at all what caused it?”

Minuette blinked, briefly taken off guard. “Oh. Uh, well, they started acting a little tired and grumpy a few days ago, back when I went and passed that test with flying colors like I said I would. And First Aid thinks they’re kinda upset because they didn’t do too well on that test themselves...”

Fangs’ frown deepened. “Hmm… Concerning.”

Minuette tilted her head. “Huh?”

A few seconds passed before Fangs shook his head. “Oh. Forgive me. I lost myself in my speculation for a minute, there,” he clarified before meeting her gaze. “Alas, I can’t claim to know the truth of this situation, and my own theories are based on very little information. The most reasonable assumption I can make is that First Aid, who has known them far longer than you or I, is right, and they are simply upset about not doing well on that test. Hearing about how you were lightly picked on and teased after you failed yours, I can only imagine it might be worse for them, especially considering the fact that they are of the nobility, while you are not. The natural expectation is for them to excel where others fail, but if they come up short…”

Minuette gasped, her eyes flying wide. “Oh my gosh! Do you think they’re being bullied?!”

“I am considering it as one of many possibilities,” Fangs answered in a level tone. “Again, little one, I am not very well informed about your friends. What little you have shared with me does not paint a perfect picture. Take what I’m saying here with a grain of salt.”

Minuette blinked, tilting her head. “A… a grain of salt? What does that mean?”

“It means to be skeptical,” Fangs replied with a smile. “To not take me at my word on this. I may very well be wrong, so do not treat my word as the truth. Treat it as one possibility among many.”

Minuette stared at him for a moment, her muzzle scrunching up. She then smiled up at him and began to laugh openly.

Fangs frowned. “What? What’s so funny?”

Minuette pointed a hoof at him. “You talk kinda funny, you know that? You use a lotta big words!”

Fangs blinked at her a few times before sharing in her amusement, letting off a few chuckles of his own. “Hardly. This is how ponies spoke before I was put under the tarp. From my point of view, you are the ones with strange speech patterns.”

“Nuh-uh,” Minuette shook her head with a large, cheeky grin. “You’re totally the weird one. You’re the bug in my mirror, after all! You’re always the weird one!”

Fangs opened his mouth to protest, shut it, and puffed up his cheeks at her. This only drove Minuette on to laugh even more, eventually drawing a sigh and roll of Fangs’ eyes.

“Fair enough. I can’t exactly argue with that.”

My World Is a Reflection

Minuette lay on her bed, her eyes glued onto her mirror and its lone occupant. It was dark out by now, the sun having set a short while ago. Dinner had been early, and for the sake of getting to school on time and well-rested, she was to go to bed soon. Luckily for her, she still had a little bit of time to kill. Right now, she was choosing to pass it by simply watching Fangs and seeing what he was doing.

The bug was idly wandering around on his side of the mirror, examining things up close for a time, sometimes muttering quietly to himself, and then moving on to some other mundane object. He sometimes traced his hoof along them, a distant look in his eyes, before shaking his head and carrying on.

Minuette hummed quietly to herself as she watched, trying to figure out just what Fangs was up to. He had been like this when she came back up from dinner and had only spared her a brief greeting. Whatever he was doing, it clearly had him very deep in thought.

Eventually, Fangs came to a stop in the corner of his version of the room, right by a ball that Minuette would sometimes throw against the wall to pass the time. He stared at it intently, his glowing blue eyes drinking up every single detail. Minuette frowned, a small bead of concern lighting up in her chest. She glanced over at the ball in her room, then back to Fangs, watching what happened.

Eventually, Fangs leaned down and gently prodded the ball with his muzzle, not unlike how a parent might to gently wake their slumbering foal. However, to Minuette’s surprise, the ball did not budge an inch in his world, nor did it move in hers. It remained completely static and still.

A moment later, Fangs pulled back, his ears drooping. “...Of course not,” he grumbled, lightly kicking the ball to identical results.

Minuette blinked. “Huh?”

Fangs jumped, surprised by her voice. He turned to face her, blinking several times. “Oh. Minuette. You’re… still awake,” he observed distractedly, setting off red flags in Minuette’s mind.

Worried, she hopped down from her bed and wandered up to the mirror. Fangs met her there, settling down on his haunches as she approached. She squinted up at him. “...Well, yeah, of course, I am. I don’t gotta be in bed for another few minutes, and you’re acting funny. And not the good kinda funny, either.”

Fangs hummed, his lips pursing into a thin line. A few seconds later, Minuette nodded past him toward the ball on his side. “What happened with the ball? Can you move it?”

Fangs glanced back at it, then shook his head. “Alas, no… As I’ve told you before, my world consists only of what is reflected in the surface of the mirror,” he said solemnly, his ears drooping. “That which lies behind it is, to me, little more than an empty void. Darkness that stretches on forever, while that which lies before it is static. I can put every ounce of strength in my body into it, yet I would be unable to even move a tiny pebble, or disturb a single grain of sand at a beach…”

Minuette’s eyes widened. She got up on her hind legs to prop her hooves onto the surface of the mirror. “Oh my gosh! So, like, you can’t play with the ball if you get bored?!”

Fangs shook his head. “Not as you do, no. If I were so inclined, I could make a game out of trying to move it, I suppose, but that would not be all that entertaining, I would wager,” he said. He turned back to Minuette, his expression downcast.

Minuette’s heart tugged against her chest with pity. Her face contorted with sympathy as she thought of how boring — now, how maddening — that must be. She couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like… “So… what if something moves in the real world?”

Fangs nodded to the ball. “See for yourself.”

Minuette blinked, then nodded. She turned and scampered over to the ball, swiftly picking it up in her hooves and bringing it back over to the mirror. To her surprise, when her reflection faded away, the ball continued to move all on its own, flying through the air to match where she held it in the real world. Fangs stepped aside as it passed, his eyes locked onto it.

Minuette stopped in front of the mirror and fell to her haunches, her eyes wide. “Woah… so… if somepony moves something over here, it just moves over there?”

“Correct,” Fangs replied, placing his hooves on the ball's underside as if to hold it. “Now… drop it.”

Minuette blinked. “Huh? But…”

“Just do it,” Fangs insisted gently, meeting her gaze. She stared into those orbs for several seconds before nodding and dropping the ball. Her eyes followed it in the mirror as, to her growing shock, it phased right through Fangs’ hooves as if they weren’t even there. It bounced against the carpeted floor once, rolling off to one side an inch or two before coming to a stop and falling still.

Fangs lifted his hooves and stared at them, a disappointed huff escaping him. “...When the reflections change, my hooves find no purchase. It is as if I have become a ghost… A blessing in some ways, for I do not have to worry about objects slamming into me at high speeds… But it is infinitely more a curse, for no matter how I try, I can do nothing to the world around me… and I can feel none of it.”

Minuette blinked at him, her jaw falling open. “You can’t feel… what do you mean you can’t feel it?” she asked in complete bafflement.

Fangs sighed, shaking his head. “My world is a reflection, Minuette, nothing more,” he said. His eyes wandered to her hooves, still pressed against the glass. With a sigh, he pressed one of his own up to hers, as if to touch her. “...Do you feel that? The glass? The surface through which you see me?”

Minuette nodded, swallowing heavily. She ran her hooves over the ancient, smooth surface, taking note of how it felt. It was smooth, devoid of imperfections, and with no discernible texture. It just… was. Only now that she was really thinking about it did Minuette realize how wrong it felt against her skin. She shuddered, wanting to pull away, but unable to. She was transfixed by Fangs and what he was telling her, and some small part of her wanted to truly understand his plight.

A moment later, Fangs pulled his hoof away and tapped it against the floor. “That is what my world is, Minuette. A reflection… and so all within it feels the same way. It’s just glass… I could not for the life of me tell you what the carpet you stand on feels like, for I have not felt such a thing in all my years in this accursed mirror.”

Minuette backed away a few paces, finally pulling her hooves away from the mirror. She stared at Fangs for several moments, working her jaw as she tried to find words. It was to no avail, unfortunately. What could she say in a situation like this? What could she say or do that could possibly make her unexpected imaginary friend feel better?

Suddenly, Fangs’ eyes widened, and he looked away. “Oh… Forgive me, Minuette. I am sorry, I did not mean to become so melancholy with you. It’s just… I have not had a chance to properly ruminate on these things in a long, long time, and your room has given me much to investigate and explore. I just… I got lost in my head, I suppose.”

“N-no. No, it’s okay,” Minuette shook her head, forcing herself to smile. “I… I kinda want to know everything, anyway. I mean, I wanna make you feel better...” she shifted a little closer and smiled up at him. “And how am I supposed to make you feel better if I dunno what’s bothering you?”

Fangs blinked. A smile crept onto his face. “Heh… you truly are a sweet little thing, aren’t you, little one?” he asked in a soft voice, lowering himself down onto his belly.

Minuette nodded. “Mhmm! Being mean’s not okay. It’s… well, mean! I’d much rather be nice and sweet.”

“A good mentality to have,” Fangs assured her, pressing his forehead against the glass. “Truly, I am lucky that your parents are the ones to purchase the mirror. Thank you, Minuette.”

“No problem!” Minuette chirped, lightly knocking on the side of the mirror.

Fangs chuckled at that. The two fell silent after that, allowing the cool colors of the night to soothe and relax them. Minuette looked down at the ball and began to idly roll it around on the ground with her hooves. Her thoughts wandered with the gentle, repetitive motions. Question after question ran through her mind about the rules that governed the mirror and Fangs’ place in it.

She did not have answers for any of them, though, but one in particular stuck out in her head. She thought back on a cool trick First Aid had shown her back when they went to the daycare together, where two mirrors held up to each other would make an endlessly repeating image.

She blinked and looked up to Fangs. “So… what would happen if I put another mirror in front of this one?” she asked bluntly.

Fangs’ eyes flew wide. He looked down at Minuette with an uncomfortably intense look. “Do not do that,” he said quickly, almost frantically. “For the love of, er, what was her name? Celestia?”

“Er… yeah?”

“Okay. For the love of Celestia, do not put another mirror in front of this one!” he commanded.

Minuette tilted her head in confusion. “Huh? Why? Does it do something bad?”

Fangs shuddered, turning away with an uncomfortable grimace. “Trust me, little one, when I say that there are some things better left unsaid… and unseen…” he shivered uncontrollably and wrapped his forelegs around himself.

Minuette stared at him for a few seconds. She had a feeling there was a very interesting story behind that reaction, but for the time being, she figured it would probably be for the best if she simply didn’t pry. So, with a shrug, she moved on to another question. “Okay. So, you said your world is basically just whatever’s reflected in the mirror, right?”

A few seconds passed before Fangs pulled himself together. He took a deep breath and turned back to Minuette, clearly eager to distract himself from whatever horrid memories she accidentally poked with a stick. “Er, y-yes, that’s correct, little one. My world is a recreation solely of what can be seen in the surface of the mirror. Why?”

Minuette stared at him for a few moments, her muzzle scrunching up as her brain went to work. “Well… I was just thinking that you must be bored in there. I mean, you’re stuck in my room, like all the time, and you can’t even play with any of my toys! And when I’m off at school, you don’t have anypony else to talk to.”

“That is nothing new for me, Minuette,” Fangs reminded her. “It is not much of an issue.”

“That’s dumb!” Minuette protested. Fangs recoiled, blinking at her in surprise. Undeterred, she went on. “You shouldn’t be forced to be bored all the time! And you shouldn’t be stuck in my room, either! I mean, it’s not exactly huge, is it?”

Fangs looked around, a whimsical look on his face. “To be fair, little one, a small room is a thousand times more tolerable than being pressed against the mirror’s surface by an immovable tarp.”

“Not the point!” Minuette protested, stomping her hoof against the floor. “I wanna make sure you can have some fun and stuff when I’m off doing stuff at school! And you have those wings, too, but I’ve never seen you use em, and I think that sucks! You got em, you should be able to use em!”

Fangs sighed and turned back to face Minuette. “Well, true as that may be, I am not entirely sure what you intend to do about it. My world is static, little one. I cannot change it no matter what I do, and there are only so many rooms in your house. Besides, I doubt your parents will approve of you moving it around for the sake of your ‘imaginary friend,’ now will they?”

“Not around the house,” Minuette shook her head before lighting up her horn with magic. Fangs’ eyes widened as she enveloped the mirror in her grasp, lifting it a few inches off the ground. She grunted and groaned with effort, her horn aching from the exertion of lifting something so big and heavy compared to her.

“Minuette? What are you doing?” Fangs asked in alarm.

Minuette grunted, her teeth grinding together. She slowly turned the mirror around as she floated it over a few feet to the right. She could see Fangs’ moving to try and keep her in his sights as the mirror turned, and the world within it changed to match. Eventually, it was facing the other way. With one last groan of strain, Minuette set the mirror down, propping it against her bedside table facing it toward her window.

The moment she set it down, she staggered off to one side, her head pounding from the effort. She soon slumped against the wall, panting heavily. She placed a hoof against her temple to try and quell a newfound headache, to limited results.

“Minuette?!” Fangs’ voice called from the mirror, increasingly alarmed. “Are you alright?! What did you do?!”

Minuette took a few deep breaths before calling over to him. “I’m okay!” She called, staggering forward until she was in front of the mirror again. Fangs visibly relaxed on seeing her, his wings drooping at his sides.

“Goodness, filly, you scared me! What were you thinking?!”

Minuette flinched from the tone in his voice, reminded of scoldings she had received from her parents in the past when she had been bad. She discarded that feeling a moment later, a grin adorning her muzzle. Then, with one last flicker of her magic, she grabbed onto her window and threw it open, allowing a current of mountain air chilled by the night to drift in. She met Fangs’ gaze, her grin widening. “...Changing the world?”

Fangs stared at her for several seconds, a bewildered frown on his face. “...I hope you realize how cheesy that sounded.”

“Don’t care. Ten.”

“And that is a valid point,” Fangs conceded before turning around to stare at the window. His posture slowly changed as it dawned on him just what Minuette had done. He looked back and forth between her and the world she had just opened up to him. “Little one… I…”

“Your world is based on what’s in the mirror, right?” Minuette reminded him, nodding toward the window. “Well, what if the world was in the mirror?”

She glanced back to the window on her side, taking note of what could be seen. It was mostly the rooftops of other buildings on her street, though the open sky rested beyond, speckled with the million flickering lanterns that were the stars. She grasped the mirror in her hooves and gently pulled it closer to the window, moving slower this time, until at last, she was holding it up right to the window, allowing Fangs to look out at a very large chunk of Canterlot from a relatively good vantage point. Even the slopes of the mountain the city rested on could be seen, rising high up into the night sky and capped with snow.

“And what if, when I’m not around, like when I’m at school or with friends and stuff, I put you here so you can explore the world out there?” Minuette finally asked, looking into the mirror at Fangs.

He stared out at Canterlot, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open. In particular, his gaze was locked onto the surface of the moon. He stared at it for a long while, working his jaw. “Is that… the moon?” he asked in barely even a whisper.

“Uh-huh.”

“...What happened to it?”

Minuette frowned, looking at it herself. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary… it looked the same as it ever did, the Mare in the Moon and all. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly.

Fangs stared at it for a few moments longer before shaking his head. “N-never mind, little one. I just… it has been a very long time since I have seen the night sky… I… I had forgotten…” his words trailed off, his eyes wandering the heavens as if in a daze.

Minuette smiled softly at him. “...You wanna explore a little?”

Fangs was quiet for a short time before looking back at her, then to his wings. He gave them a few short buzzes, allowing Minuette to hear them in motion for the first time. “...I… I don’t… I…” he struggled to find his words. At last, he focused on Minuette, and his eyes lit up. “I would love to, Minuette!”

Minuette smiled and nodded. “Okay, go on then! Just make sure you’re back before I turn the mirror around! I don’t wanna do that only to find out you're gone!”

Fangs shook his head. “That won’t be a problem, little one. My whole world is what’s reflected in the mirror. If you turn it around to face your room’s interior again, all else will dissolve for me, and I will return to you as if I had never left.”

“Oh, okay!” Minuette chirped before taking a step back and gently resting the mirror against the window. “Is that good? Do you need me to adjust it at all?”

“No, no, this is perfect,” Fangs answered, though Minuette could no longer see him, as the mirror was pressed more or less flat against the wall and window. “Thank you, Minuette… truly… words cannot express how much this means to me…”

Minuette tilted her head. “...Okay? Uh, well… You’re very welcome, Fangs! Have fun!”

“I will,” Fangs answered. Minuette’s ears then caught the sound of his wings buzzing in the air. The sound slowly faded into silence, and for a moment, Minuette sat there, left all on her own in her room for the first time since she got the mirror. She was about to go and hop into bed when, to her surprise, she heard the distant echoing of Fangs’ voice, laughing loudly and ecstatically to the heavens, before that, too, faded into nothingness.

Minuette smiled, turning to head for bed. “Good night, Fangs,” she whispered.

Author's Notes:

Sorry updates in this have been slow when compared to my other stories. My editor has been very busy as of late, and my OCD forbids me from posting new chapters before he's made his passes.

Group Project

Minuette resisted the urge to sigh as she struggled to keep her attention on Princess Celestia’s lecture on the fundamental principles of the next spell they would be undertaking. It was easier said than done, though. Every few moments, Minuette’s gaze would drift over to Split and Bristle, only to find them focusing on their notes with their ears swiveled squarely at their teacher.

They hadn’t spoken much with her over the last few days. She had approached them multiple times wherever the chance presented itself, but on each occasion, she had been gently directed away or told that everything was fine before they wandered off. It was becoming increasingly disheartening. They were still clearly bummed out and working themselves to the bone to make up for the test they hadn’t done so well on.

First Aid seemed especially worried about them. Every so often, when Minuette would ask about how they were doing, or if she had any idea as to when they would be able to head over to her place for that ‘surprise’ she had kept talking about, she would either receive shrugs or noncommittal responses as her answers.

“They’ve never been this quiet before,” First had said during lunch one day. She and Minuette had been sitting alone in the courtyard, as Split and Bristle had elected to head to the library instead. “And, what’s worse… They’re quietest around you.”

“Oh no. Do you think they’re mad at me for something?!”

“What? No, no of course not! Why on Equestria would they be mad at you? That’s silly, Minuette.”

“Heh. Yeah, I guess it is…”

First Aid had found the idea to be completely and utterly ridiculous. And, at face value, Minuette couldn’t exactly blame her. The other filly had known those two for a lot longer than her. But while First was dead-set in her belief that their silence and distance from Minuette was purely a result of stressing out over their next big test, Minuette wasn’t so sure…

“Hearing about how you were lightly picked on and teased after you failed yours, I can only imagine it might be worse for them, especially considering the fact that they are of the nobility, while you are not. The natural expectation is for them to excel where others fail, but if they come up short…”

Minuette gasped, her eyes flying wide. “Oh my gosh! Do you think they’re being bullied?!”

“I am considering it as one of many possibilities,” Fangs answered in a level tone.

It was an unpleasant possibility to consider, but if Fangs was right, then it was very much a possibility… and in some small way, Minuette couldn’t help but feel responsible for it. Celestia’s school was filled to the brim with foals from well-to-do or noble families. There was a high standard on everypony here. Minuette was among a rather small group of outliers. She was a commoner. No noble blood, no highly influential family, or family ties—she was just a normal filly.

And she, the normal commoner filly, had aced the last big test… The very same one that those two, the children of noble families, had done poorly on. And now they were being quiet and distant from her…

Of course, she was probably just being paranoid. But still… the timing was there, and Fangs hadn’t been very optimistic about pony nobility. All Minuette could really do was hope that she was wrong and try to make her friends feel better as soon as possible.

The class dragged on and on, before, eventually, Celestia set down the chalk and turned away from the board. “Alright, did everypony catch all of that?” she asked.

A wave of affirmatives came from the other foals, including Minuette. Her mind had been distracted, but she had the gist of it. It was an advanced form of the lights and illusions they had been working with so far but in a less rigid form. The spell created ‘fluid light’ that the caster could weave into any shape they so desired, lending it whatever colors they chose. However, it was significantly more complicated than the previous two spells, and Minuette had a feeling it was beyond her to tackle.

Celestia smiled and nodded. “Good. The test for this spell will be in three weeks, and it will be a little different from the last one. Instead of a paper quiz and demonstration of the spell, this time, there will only be a demonstration. However, you will not be tackling this magic alone. I want all of you to split into groups of at least three and work together to come up with the best picture you can think of. When the time comes to show your mastery of the spell, you will be expected to work together and pull your weight, presenting your work of magic art. The art itself does not need to be good, to be clear. I am not testing your artistic talents, but your magical skill. I will be grading each student based on their contribution, the stability of the creation, and the distribution of the work. However, for the creatively inclined amongst you, there may be some extra credit in it for you if you produce a particularly good image. Does everypony understand?”

As yet another wave of affirmatives ran through the classroom, Minuette’s eyes darted to her side, locking onto First’s. The other filly was grinning back at her. They both knew it, then. This was their chance to get Split and Bristle where they needed them to be!

“Very good. Take a minute and find who you want to group with,” Celestia declared, holding her head up. Already the room was breaking into a clamor as foals raced to claim their friends before anypony else, and she had to raise her voice to be heard. “Once you’ve done that, you may spend the rest of the period to begin planning!”

With the go-ahead from Celestia, Minuette leaned forward to look past First Aid at Split End and Bristlestroke. The two colts were glancing at each other with frowns on their faces. Evidently, they had already decided to team up. But they needed at least three team members. Minuette grinned and waved at them. “Hey, guys! Why don’tcha team up with First and me?” she asked eagerly.

Split and Bristle turned to look at the two of them, their eyes darting between Minuette and First. There was clear indecision in their eyes. Minuette’s earlier bead of anxiety grew just that little bit more from their expressions. They were hesitating. Why would they hesitate, unless they didn’t want to be part of this group?

“Come on, guys,” First Aid added, leaning forward and giving them puppy dog eyes. “Minnie and I can’t do this alone.”

Split winced at that, glancing to the side. “Er… well, we kinda have to have at least three team members, don’t we?” he asked quietly.

“Mhmm!” Minuette chirped in affirmation.

Bristle sighed a second later, seemingly dissatisfied. “Alright, okay. Guess we’re teammates, then,” he said.

“Sweet!” Minuette cheered, turning to First Aid and sharing a quick hoof-bump with her.

That had been relatively painless. Now all she had to do was get them back to her house after school so they could discuss what they were going to do for the picture. And so she could show them Fangs, of course, but that had been a part of the plan right out the gate.

“Any ideas about what we’re gonna make?” Split asked as if reading Minuette’s mind. He glanced back at his cutie mark and grimaced. It was a pair of scissors slicing through a mass of straight brown hairs. “Cause, uh, I’m not thinking of much… Hair’s always been my thing.”

“We know,” Bristle replied, glancing down at his own. A paintbrush upon a canvas, unsurprisingly. “I’m sure I can think of something… but I’m pretty tired today.”

“It is a group effort,” First Aid reminded him with a gentle nudge. “So we all gotta contribute.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the colt replied, lightly brushing her hoof away. “Just… I’m just really not feeling it today. I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Oh… Okay,” First Aid conceded, withdrawing a bit. “Well, uh… the rest of us can make a start, then, and you can chip in some more when you’re a little more rested. How does that sound?”

Bristle shrugged. “Sounds fine, I guess… Just gimme a time and a date.”

Minuette’s eyes practically sparkled. Here it was! “Ahem. Well, we could head over to my house tomorrow afternoon,” she said eagerly. “We can talk things out in my room, figure things out, throw some ideas at the wall to see if they stick. Maybe even get some ideas from-”

Her friends blinked as she caught herself just shy of mentioning Fangs by name. She frowned and looked down somewhat. They hadn’t met him yet, and if she went name-dropping him now, the odds of them believing her would be slim to none. And calling her sanity into question was the last thing she wanted to do.

Besides, they already went through that whole song and dance about whether or not she was crazy.

“From… your parents?” First Aid ventured a second later with a raised eyebrow.

Minuette was quick to latch onto the offered escape and gave First Aid a smile that was perhaps a bit too grateful. “Y-yeah! My parents, yeah. They might not be painters like Bristle, but they’re grown-ups, and grown-ups just have the best ideas!”

“Heh. Tell that to my alchemy teacher,” Split scoffed, a tiny smile appearing on his face. “Let’s grow pony eating plants in class, he said. It’ll be fun, he said. Oh, don’t worry. The plants won’t turn aggressive and spray you with a quart of foul-smelling green gunk, he said!”

All three pairs of eyes fell on the complaining colt. Minuette stifled a snicker at his indignant smile. “Heh. Wh-what the heck happened in your alchemy class?” she asked between her barely stifled chortles.

“Yeah, cause uh, I don’t remember anything like that in mine,” First added, also trying and failing to stifle her laughter.

Split End’s cheeks puffed up in agitation, an embarrassed flush enveloping them. “...L-lucky,” he grumbled quietly before looking straight down.

Bristle also managed to put on a small smile at that, some of the tension leaving his face. “Heh. No, Split, that one was your fault. The teacher wasn’t the one who decided it was wise to put a hoof file in the plant’s mouth.”

“Eeeeww,” First Aid said, cringing back in spite of her continuing laughter. “Dude, that is such a stupid idea! What were you thinking?!”

Split End groaned in humiliation, covering his head with his hooves. “Ugh… just drop it,” he whined pathetically, his ears folding down to rest flat against his skull. “It took all night to get the smell out… and everypony else already laughed at me for it.”

Minuette’s laughter ended immediately, guilt replacing her mirth. How could she have been so stupid? She should have figured that he would have been laughed at for something like that, and considering that he was probably already being teased and picked on for the failed test, he wouldn’t have taken it well at all.

First Aid followed close behind her, quickly sensing that the joke was over. She briefly glanced back at Minuette, her ears drooping.

Minuette swallowed heavily. Slowly, she slid out of her seat and trotted up to Split’s side. Bristle kept an eye on her as she went but otherwise did not move to stop her. With a deep breath, she placed her hoof on Split’s back and smiled. “...I’m sorry, Split,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to make you feel upset or anything. I… I wasn’t thinking.”

“No. You weren’t,”

Minuette flinches away from the sharp response. She withdrew her hoof and backed away, looking down. “...I’m sorry… I guess I was the dumb one, this time,” she apologized again.

“So am I,” First agreed, reaching over to pat Split on the shoulder. “I’m just not used to you acting like this, you know?”

Split was quiet for a moment. He took a deep breath and lifted his head. The humiliation on his face had faded at least a little bit. “...Apology accepted,” he said after a moment. He glanced at Minuette for a moment, his mouth opening as if to say something more. After a moment, he decided against it and looked back down at his hooves. “...So… o-our project?”

The attempted redirection was about as obvious as it could get. But given what had just happened, Minuette was all too happy to get back on topic. She nodded and returned to her seat, trying not to worry. She shared a glance with First Aid, though, and they both knew then and there that not worrying about their friends was strictly out of the question for now.

With that concerning thought setting up its nest in their minds, they turned their attention to their group project and spent the remainder of the period discussing various ideas for their illusionary art.

All the while, Minuette hoped that their meeting with Fangs would be the kick her friends needed to pull themselves together and get out of this rut. It was no fun when they were sad and upset like this… and she just wanted things to go back to normal.

Imaginary Friend

Were one to peer into Minuette’s room, they would find that, for the first time since she had gotten the mirror, she was using it for its intended purpose. She stood in front of it, examining her reflection with a narrow-eyed squint of scrutiny. A hairbrush floated in the air next to her, hovering just above her head, twitching every so often with anticipation at being used.

Her parents had made it clear — despite her many protests that it was unnecessary — that if she was inviting boys over, she would need to be presentable. That meant her room had to be tidied up, and her appearance had to be adjusted to. She had grumbled about how such extreme measures were what boys were supposed to do.

But, what would have otherwise been an onerous task was made almost trivial with the help of Fangs. He called out to her routinely as she set about cleaning up her room, picking up books or toys she had left lying around. And then, when that had all been done, he had done a remarkable job at helping her work out exactly what she wanted to do with her mane.

With a few final deft swishes of the brush, she beamed at her reflection. “Alright, I think that will just about do it!” she declared, casting the brush aside with nary a care in the world.

Her reflection followed it with its eyes and frowned. “Oh, great. Now you have to go pick that up. And you were doing so well,” it grumbled in mock disappointment.

Minuette rolled her eyes and rose to go after the brush. “Hardy har, Fangs. Hardy har.”

Her reflection in the mirror exploded into green flames, and Fangs smiled at her as she went. “In case you had forgotten, you enlisted my help with you and your room. You asked for this,” he pointed out.

Minuette stuck her tongue out at him as she passed, idly smacking the mirror frame with the brush. The two shared a good-natured laugh at that. She quickly deposited the brush back in the bathroom before coming back and closing the door behind her. She looked at the clock to see how much time she had left. Less than half an hour until her friends arrived.

Her smile faded, and Fangs was quick on the uptake. He frowned at her. “Ah, and there it is again.”

Minuette frowned back at him in confusion. “Huh? What? There’s what?” she asked, marching up to the mirror.

Fangs gestured at her face. “The frown. You’re worried. Anxious.”

Minuette paused. “I’m anxious?” she asked, having completely missed that fact herself.

Fangs nodded. “Subtly so, but yes.”

Minuette squinted her eyes at him, her ears folding back as doubt and skepticism came over her. “How do you know that? What, are you a mind reader or something?” she asked slowly.

Fangs chuckled and shook his head. “Ha! Nothing quite so fanciful. No, little one, I am not a mind reader. I am, however, an empath, after a fashion,” he corrected.

Minuette stared at him. Her muzzle scrunched up as she racked her brain for any knowledge she had on that word. Alas, she came up with nothing, and she huffed at him. “Wassat?”

Fangs snorted in amusement at her blunt request. He leaned back somewhat, his eyes drifting upwards. “It means, Minuette, that I can tell exactly what others around me are feeling. I can see their emotions in the air, radiating off of them like steam from a plate of hot food. Every emotion comes with its own unique color, and from those, I can discern a rough idea of what a pony is feeling. Although the reasons behind their emotions elude me.”

Minuette’s eyes widened. “Woah… you can see emotions?!”

Fangs blinked. “That is what I just said, yes.”

Minuette’s grin grew. “Oh, wow! That’s so cool! They all have different colors?! What color are mine right now?!” she asked, bouncing up and down in place with excitement.

Fangs leaned forward, squinting through the glass. He stared at her for several seconds before smiling and nodding. “Yellow and gold. You are excited, presumably by the revelation that I can see what you are feeling at any given time. There are trace amounts of pale blue, not unlike the edge of the horizon at noon. Contentment perhaps, or appreciation. I am assuming that is because you enjoy my company. And there, hugging close to your body, obscured by the others, is a thin film of dull purple. Anxiety, a more subtle form of fear. Something is gnawing at you. It has been since you woke up this morning.”

Minuette frowned at that, her excitement briefly abating. There was the mentioning of anxiety again. But what did she have to be anxious or afraid of? She had her friends coming over so they could work on the spell Celestia had assigned them to study, and she planned on introducing them to Fangs so they could have another friend, and so he could meet more ponies that could see him. They would all stop being so sad and upset all the time, Split and Bristle would ace their upcoming test, and everything would be just fine.

...Right?

Fangs’ expression softened somewhat. “The anxiety is growing.”

Minuette fidgeted in place, her ears drooping. “Er, yeah… I think I know what it is.”

Fangs sat back and gestured for her to speak. “Go on, then. Tell me. Perhaps I can help?”

Minuette took a deep breath and trotted closer to the mirror. “Well, it’s just that… I really, really want this to go well, you know?” she asked, sitting down in front of him. “But my friends have never seen you before, and I’ve never even talked about you to them. They’ve all seen a vague resemblance of you once in class when I made an illusion of you as part of that test I was so scared of, but they have no idea you’re here. And Split and Bristle have been really sad and mopey lately and I don’t wanna scare them or make them upset. And you are kinda scary looking.”

Fangs raised an eyebrow. “My feelings have been harmed.”

Minuette’s eyes sprang wide open, and she quickly put her hooves out in front of her. “I m-mean, you look scary at first, but then when I got to know you, I saw that you’re really nice and actually really cool looking! I mean, look at those teeth! They’re so long and- why are you laughing?”

Halfway through her panicked spiel, Fangs had begun laughing. He took a few deep breaths to compose himself when she stopped and soon smiled warmly at her. “Little one… these are your friends we are speaking of, are they not?” he asked slowly.

Minuette tilted her head at him. “Well, yeah… and I don’t wanna upset them or anything.”

“But they are your friends,” Fangs insisted, leaning forward slightly. “And good friends at that, from how much you have been worrying for them. Especially First Aid. Is that correct?”

Minuette nodded at him. “Uh-huh! She’s my oldest and best friend! Why?”

Fangs nodded at Minuette. “Because, if they are your friends, then I see no reason for this meeting to go poorly. They trust and respect you, they appreciate you, and they enjoy your company. You have told me your fair share of stories about times you made them laugh or smile at your… comedic antics.”

Minuette puffed up her chest. She had made them smile and laugh a lot, hadn’t she? Especially that time when she turned the tables right around on Split after she failed her test.

“At the end of the day, they are your friends,” Fangs went on. “And no matter what, I am positive things will be totally fine.”

As if on cue, the sound of a hoof knocking on a door resonated from downstairs. Pearly’s voice came up a second later, shouting to be heard through the walls. “Minuette! Your friends are here!”

“Ah, what perfect timing,” Fangs noted with a satisfied smile.

Minuette glanced back at her door, then turned to him again. They made eye contact for several seconds. She stared deep into those glowing orbs, taking what strength and comfort she could from not only his grounded gaze but also his words of assurance. Her heart swelled with confidence and resolve. He was right. They were her friends, and she was worrying for nothing. This was going to go great!

A grin split her muzzle. “Alrighty! Thanks, Fangs! I’ll bring them right up! Strike a pose, ‘cause we wanna make a good first impression!” she said before turning and scampering for the door.

“I think I’ll just hide out of sight until you call on me!” Fangs called after her. “That way they’ll expect something odd!”

“Boring, but okay!” Minuette agreed before throwing open her door and scampering down the steps. Her eyes flew to the door the moment she reached the bottom, landing on the sight of her three friends already stepping inside and wiping their hooves on the doormat.

First Aid saw her coming first, and her face lit up with a smile. “Minnie!” she called, galloping forward and throwing her forelegs around Minuette in a hug. “It’s good to see you!”

Minuette gave off a grunt from the sudden contact, but all the same, she returned the hug with gusto. “You, too!” she said before leaning back and waving enthusiastically at Split and Bristle as they closed the door behind them. “Hey, guys! Welcome to my house!”

Split looked it over, a thoughtful look on his face. “Hm… Kind of basic, but I like it.”

Bristle nodded in agreement as he took it in. “Yeah, it’s nice. Little small, though.”

First Aid rolled her eyes at them. “You guys are just used to big family estates,” she pointed out playfully.

Bristle shrugged his shoulders. “Eh. Fair enough.”

“You kids want anything before you get to work?” Pearly asked from the side, as the one who had opened the door. “Snacks? Water?”

Bristle turned to her with a simple shake of his head. “No, thanks. Maybe later, though,” he said respectfully.

Neither Split nor First Aid made any effort to disagree with that assessment. The filly between them turned back to Minuette and grinned. “So, where we going?” she asked eagerly.

Minuette turned and gestured up the stairs that she had just come barreling down. “Right upstairs in my room! Come on, lemme show ya!” she said, flashing her friends a wink before turning and running back up. Her legs were starting to complain a little by the time she reached the top, but at the moment, she could not really find it in herself to care. With her anxieties squashed by Fangs’ assurance, she was beyond eager to get this party started.

She burst into her room a moment later, her eyes flying to her mirror. Fangs poked his head out to confirm it was her. She made eye contact and waved at him. He nodded in turn before ducking back and out of sight. Minuette’s grin grew, and she had to actively stop herself from scampering excitedly in place. All was where it needed to be! Now, all that needed to be done was to get the introductions out of the way!

The others came filing in a few moments later. First Aid came first, bounding in with a big smile. She took in the room as she entered, slowly spinning in place. “Wow. You’ve got a nice room, Minnie!” she said.

“You haven’t been here before?” Split asked as he followed her in, eyeing the room in a more controlled fashion. His eyes found the small bookcase Minuette kept tucked against the wall at the foot of her bed and raised an eyebrow. Minuette didn’t know what the problem was. Most of the books were storybooks from when she was younger and one or two books on animals and teeth. Nothing odd about that, right?

“Nope,” First replied, turning back to Split and shaking her head. “Never really had a chance.”

“Odd for you,” Bristle nodded as he entered. He closed the door behind him and took a second to look around. “Hm. Small, but it works.”

“Heh. Glad you like it!” Minuette chirped before jumping back a little, careful to ensure she was close to the mirror. “So, you guys ready to get a start on this project?!”

“As ready as I am going to be,” Split added with a noncommittal shrug.

Bristle hummed, stepping forward until the group formed something of a loose circle. “I suppose so. Does anyone have any ideas to start with? I was thinking a landscape would be simple enough, but loose enough for plenty of creativity.”

“Sounds about as good as anything I came up with,” Split replied.

First Aid cut in before those two could get too far lost in their deliberations, lifting her hoof to get their attention. Once they were focused on her, she cleared her throat and pointed at Minuette. “So… Minuette? Before we get into this, didn’t you, ya know, have a surprise for us?”

Minuette’s heart skipped a beat. She had not expected First to jump on the subject like that. But she was quick to adapt and roll with the punches. She had invited her friends here for more than just their school project, after all, and this seemed as good a time as any to put the Fangs part of her plan into motion.

With a nod, she turned to Split and Bristle. “Yep! So, Split, Bristle. First and I have been noticing that you two have been kinda down in the dumps, lately,” she began, measuring her words carefully.

Bristle grimaced, glancing off to one side. “I… suppose you could put it that way, sure. I’d rather not think about it while we’re here, though.”

Minuette hesitated for a second, glancing over at First Aid for support. The other filly smiled and nodded for her to continue, though there was something in her gaze, warning Minuette to tread lightly.

Doubling down on her gentle tone, Minuette pressed on. “Well, I dunno what made you two get all sad and stuff, but I didn’t like it. So… I didn’t just ask you guys to come here so we could work on this group project and pass the big test together, but because there’s someone I want you to meet!”

That got everyone’s undivided attention. Split raised an eyebrow. “Someone you want us to meet? Who? I didn’t see anypony else coming in. Just your mom and your dad…”

Minuette shook her head. “You wouldn’t have seen him coming up, ‘cause he lives in my room!” she said before turning to the mirror. “He’s kinda spooky looking, but he’s really nice and smart! When I failed that first test, he helped give me the confidence I needed to ace the next one with flying colors!”

“The same one the two of us stumbled on,” Bristle noted with a hint of bitterness. “Okay… who is this mystery friend of yours, then?”

Minuette marched up to the mirror and turned to face the others. They were all watching her with curiosity and interest. She took a deep breath—moment of truth.

“I’d like you all to meet him so he can help all of us with this project, and so you can all have a new friend, and so he can have three new friends! So, allow me to introduce…”

She turned and threw her forelegs wide over the mirror as if to present something. “Fangs, the mirror bug!”

On cue, Fangs stepped into view, a hopeful smile on his face. He nodded his head at the trio as he came into sight. “Hello, little ones. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Minuette grinned, winking at Fangs before turning back to her friends, expecting them to give off exclamations of surprise and awe and wonder any second now.

She was met with confused stares and total silence.

Bristlestroke frowned. “Minuette… what are you talking about?”

Minuette’s grin shattered. She turned to Fangs for some sort of explanation. Had she positioned the mirror wrong? He stared back at her, the hope in his eyes bleeding away to be replaced with little more than disappointment.

Minuette turned back to her friends, forcing her smile to return. “Um… the bug pony in my mirror? The one standing right there?” she asked insistently, jabbing her hoof at Fangs repeatedly for emphasis.

Split and Bristle shared a look of confusion, while First never took her eyes off of Minuette. There was something in those eyes. A question, a plead. It was as if she was silently asking Minuette if she was being serious.

“Er… it’s a mirror,” Split pointed out a second later. “There’s nothing there.”

“But… But…”

“Little one,” Fangs muttered to her in defeat. “They can’t see me… They must be too old.”

“No,” Minuette denied, turning to him with her ears folding back in dismay. “No, that doesn’t make any sense! I can see you just fine, and they aren’t much older than I am! It… it must be some mistake-”

“Are you SERIOUS?!”

The entire room went quiet. Minuette jumped in her skin and spun around to face the one who had shouted, her heart skipping a beat. Bristlestroke was staring back at her with barely contained outrage.

First shrank back, her ears folding down. “Bristle… p-please-”

“No no, SHUT up, First Aid!” he snapped, stomping past her until he was looming threateningly over Minuette. “I can’t believe this! You dragged us all the way here when we didn’t want to come just to show us your mirror and show us you’re completely and utterly insane?! Have you gone insane, or did you ever even have a mind to lose?!”

Minuette cowered away from him, her belly pressing itself to the floor. “I… I… But he’s… he’s right there...” she whimpered, her eyes starting to water. She glanced at the mirror, to Fangs, her eyes pleading with him to do something. She lifted a hoof and pointed. “Right there. Please, look.”

Bristle snarled and shot a spiteful glance at the mirror. For several seconds he looked before growling and stepping back from Minuette. “I can’t believe this… I can not believe I got showed up by a common twerp with an imaginary friend!”

Minuette shriveled on the floor, tears breaching her eyes. Her heart felt as if it had just been shattered in her chest. “But… he’s real!” she protested in vain.

“Is he, now?!” Bristle snapped, turning to the mirror with a scowl of disgust. He scoffed at it before grabbing onto the frame. “Bah! This thing’s too nice for you!”

Minuette’s heart froze when Bristle turned and threw the mirror down to the ground. Her eyes landed on Fangs’, which had flown wide in fear and shock. The mirror slammed down on the ground with an echoing thud and crack, and for one heart-stopping instant, Minuette feared that the glass would shatter, and her friend would be gone.

Thankfully, that did not happen, and Split went into motion. He grabbed onto Bristle’s foreleg and yanked him away. “Bristle! Stop it, that’s enough!” he shouted.

Bristle tore his hoof away from Split’s and stepped back, glaring at him as if he had just been stabbed in the back. “Really, Split?! You’re not angry about this?!”

Split hesitated, glancing back at Minuette with an uncertain frown. “I mean… a little, but… you’re taking it too far!”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Bristle snorted sarcastically, his tail lashing behind him. “I’m taking it too far. She’s just the little kid whose sudden one-eighty performance in class made everyone else bully us and our parents get on our backs all the time!”

Minuette screwed her eyes shut as the shouting continued. “Please… s-stop…”

“Do you have any idea what your little light show has put me through?!” Bristle went on, stomping toward her again. “Do you have any idea how much the other foals keep ganging up on me and Split?! Or how my parents yelled at me when we got my test results back?! Why oh why, they asked, did I let some commoner do better than me in the most prestigious school in the entire kingdom that I worked my tail off to get into?!”

“I… I didn't…” Minuette whimpered. The shouting, the angry glares, the mirror on the ground… it all became too much. She covered her head with her hooves, screwed her eyes shut, and began to cry.

A heavy silence fell over the room, the only sound being Minuette’s pathetic wails. Several seconds passed before Bristle snorted, his coat bristling. “And now you’re crying?! Oh, this just gets better and better! Insane and a crybaby! How did you ever make it into Celestia’s school?!”

“BRISTLE!” First Aid finally cut in, moving to put herself between Bristle and Minuette. She glared up into his eyes with tears escaping her own. “That’s enough! Please, just stop yelling!”

Bristle stared her down for several long seconds.

Before anypony could say anything else, the door to the room suddenly slammed open, and two very angry parents stormed in.

“Leave my baby alone!” Pearly shouted, her horn lighting up with magic and grasping Bristle in a firm grip. He barely had time to give off a squawk of alarm before he was forcefully hauled from his hooves and jettisoned out the door. He landed on his rump in the hall with a grunt before glaring up at Pearly and Sunspot.

“Hey! You can’t just-”

“Shut up and get out of our home,” Sunspot cut him off, his own horn lighting up. “Nopony makes my daughter cry. Nopony.”

Bristle glared back at them for several seconds. Then, with a snort and a flick of his tail, he rose to his hooves and began to march for the stairs. “Tch. Fine. Whatever. Waste of my freaking Sunday,” he grumbled before fading from view.

Once the sound of the door opening and closing resonated through the home, Pearly turned and cantered into the room, her eyes glued on Minuette. “Minnie? Minnie, it’s okay. He’s gone,” she said.

Minuette looked up into her mother’s eyes. “Mom…” she whimpered in a broken croak of a voice. She allowed herself to be pulled up into a tight hug, burying her face into her mother’s chest and openly crying all over again. “He… h-he…”

“Sssh,” Pearly shushed her, patting her repeatedly on the back of the head to silence her miserable cries. “It’s okay, sweetie. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you. You’re okay. It’s all gonna be okay. Mommy’s got you.”

As Pearly did all she could to comfort her daughter, Minuette could hear Sunspot turning to the two other foals who remained in the room. There were several seconds where he did not say a word before he spoke in a low, commanding voice.

“You two have some explaining to do.”

Author's Notes:

So... that coulda gone better.

Aftermath

The next hour passed by in a slow, dreadful blur for Minuette. Her mind couldn’t stop racing as a storm of emotions assaulted her poor, little heart. Sadness because of Bristle’s outburst, fear for Fangs, and whether or not he was okay after falling like that, and confusion about why her friends hadn’t been able to see him. But through it all, she at least had the comforting presence of her mother’s embrace to soothe her thoughts and quell the storm.

Now, Minuette was seated with her parents in the living room. They had adjourned to there shortly after Bristle’s departure, where Sunspot began to mercilessly grill First Aid and Split End for Answers about what had happened with Bristle and why. Minuette did her best to listen, but some of the discussion was lost on her as her emotions pulled her away again. Every time, Pearly was there to shush her whimpers and guide her gently back to an attentive state.

Eventually, Sunspot heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of his snout with a hoof. “Okay… so let me see if I have this straight,” he said slowly, his tone leaving no room for interruption. “Split, you and Bristle have been getting picked on by other kids at school over a test you didn’t do too well on, in part because Minuette aced it when you didn’t. Is that right?”

Split looked down shamefully. “Er… yes, sir,” he answered in a meek, pitiful voice. “And Bristle’s parents have been pretty hard on him, too…”

“What about yours?” Sunspot asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re from a noble family, too. Don’t they have high expectations of you?”

Split flinched as if struck. A moment later, though, he sighed and nodded. “Yeah… a little. But not as bad was Bristle’s. Mine don’t yell at me for bad grades. They just kinda’ chastise me a bit. It’s not fun, but they don’t yell at me.”

Pearly hummed quietly. “And so Bristle lashed out… He thought my little girl was the catalyst for all his problems and took the first chance he saw to take it out on her?”

“I guess…”

Sunspot groaned in frustration, burying his face in his hooves. A few moments later, he lifted his eyes to glare at Split. “And what about you, then?” he asked slowly.

First Aid was quick to leap to her friend’s defense. “H-hey, he tried to stop Bristle when things got bad!” she said.

Sunspot shook his head. “Yeah, and that’s the only reason I haven’t thrown him out of the house yet. But I want to hear it from him. Split, is this going to be a problem? Are you at all angry at my daughter for what’s been happening to you?”

Split looked down, mouthing uselessly like a fish for several seconds. Minuette observed him, every fiber of her being hoping and praying that he would say no and that this could all be over and done with.

“...A little, yeah,” Split admitted, shame evident in his voice. “But I wasn’t gonna bring it up. Minnie’s a good filly if a little dense and silly sometimes… she didn’t deserve this.”

Minuette whimpered, clutching closer to Pearly’s chest. “S-s-split… I’m sorry,” she managed to choke out. “I’m so sorry…”

Split looked up at her in surprise. “What? But, Minnie-”

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong, Minnuette,” Sunspot gently interrupted with a shake of his head. He focused back on Split and gave him a long, meaningful stare. “...Split, I appreciate your candor here. It says a lot about you that you were willing to admit this to me. But for now, I think it’d be for the best if you go back home… and for a little while, at least, I want you to stay away from my daughter.”

Split’s eyes widened. “Huh? B-but-”

“I’m not asking you to stop being her friend,” Sunspot gently assured him. “But you have to understand… even after what you said, and how you conducted yourself when Bristle was acting out… after what happened upstairs, I can’t really say I trust you. And I need to make sure my daughter is going to be okay, and for that, I wanna make sure we can all leave this incident behind us. So please… give her some time and space. Can you do that for me?”

Split was quiet for a minute before nodding his head. “I can, sir. Thank you… and, uh, Minnie? I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said, turning to Minuette and making her heart skip a beat. “I should’ve known bringing Bristle here was a bad idea… he… he liked to rant at me when you weren’t around. I should’ve known that he wouldn’t be good for this… so… I’m sorry.”

Minuette stared at him for a moment, her brain taking a second to catch up. She put on a small, gentle smile, and nodded her head at him. “It’s… it’s okay, Split. Thanks for coming, anyway… and thanks for standing up for me…”

Split put on a small smile and nodded at her.

First Aid frowned in confusion. “He ranted at you? But he never did that with me.”

“I think it’s because of how close you and Minuette are,” Split guessed with a noncommittal shrug. “He didn’t want you to get on his case… since, you know, you’re his friend, too. Or, well…”

Split sighed and looked off to one side. “...You were his friend. Dunno if that’s gonna stick after this…”

First Aid opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. A few seconds passed in solemn silence before she looked down and closed her eyes. “Right...”

Minuette looked between them for a few seconds. She sniffled quietly before gently pulling herself out of her mother’s embrace. She slowly trotted forward, drawing the attention of both First Aid and Split. She paused when their eyes were on her, and for a moment, she felt the desire to rush back to Pearly’s hooves. She shoved the feeling down, though, and soon fell against First Aid, giving the other filly a warm hug.

First Aid blinked in surprise, but after a moment, she hummed and returned the embrace, burying her face into Minuette’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Minuette whispered to her.

For a short time, the rest of the world faded out, and Minuette was able to finally calm herself down and relax her thoughts. She took a series of deep breaths, savoring the warmth of the embrace of her oldest friend. There was still the matter of Fangs she had to see to, and she would, but for the moment, she just couldn’t find the strength to pull away.

After what felt like an eternity of sharing a hug with First Aid, Minuette had to be pulled from the moment when Sunspot cleared his throat. “Pearl, look after Minnue, would you? I’m going to see the others home.”

Minuette winced, instinctively tightening her hold on First. She knew they had to go home, especially after what just happened upstairs, but she didn’t want First to go just yet.

“Alright,” Pearly replied, rendering Minuette’s thoughts on the matter meaningless for now. “Minnie, honey? Come on, they need to go home.”

A few moments passed before First Aid withdrew from the hug of her own accord. She gave Minuette a weak, reassuring smile, easing her anxiety and disappointment somewhat. “It’s okay, Minnie. I’ll see if I can talk to Bristle when I get a chance. He’s not a bad pony, I know he isn’t.”

Minuette sniffled and nodded. “Okay… thanks. Bye, First.”

With that, Minuette backed off, allowing her father to guide the visitors out of the room. Split sent her one last apologetic frown before vanishing out the front door, plunging the home into silence.

“Okay, let’s go,” Pearly urged gently, resting one hoof on Minuette’s back. “How about I get you some sweets? To take your mind off all this?”

Minuette managed to perk up at that, though not nearly as much as she usually would have. She looked up to her mother and gave a small smile of her own. “Sure… I’d like that a lot,” she said.

The candy did wonders to ease Minuette’s mind, though only for a little while. Her mind still routinely wandered back to Bristle’s outburst, making it difficult to keep her spirits up. Pearly left her in the kitchen for a short time once she was sure Minuette would be fine, presumably to go upstairs and tidy up anything that had been knocked over during Bristle’s outburst.

Minuette couldn’t help but shudder every time her mind wandered back to it, even with the help of the candy. The rage in his eyes, the volume of his voice… she had never seen that kind of look from him, never heard him yell like that before. It had disturbed her deep down for one of her friends to treat her like that… and somehow, she couldn’t help but feel like it was her fault.

The logical side of her brain knew that was a load of hot garbage, but that didn’t stop her from thinking it. Bristle and even Split had both said that the treatment they’d been receiving came about due to her doing better than them on that test with the illusion. She had ‘showed them up.’ And because of that, the other foals, and even their own families, began to beat up on them…

Maybe she should throw the next test? Take some of the pressure off them? She shook her head, banishing that idea. She couldn’t do that. She and First were still supposed to be a group for this project, even if Split and Bristle were probably not a part of theirs anymore. If she deliberately did poorly, that would hurt First, too, and then she’d really have done something wrong.

“Ugh… this all sucks,” she grumbled in her mind.

She was pulled from her depressing thoughts by the sound of Pearly stepping back into the room. Minuette looked up to find her mother smiling back at her. “Looks like your room didn’t get all that tousled, thankfully. Only thing out of place was the mirror.”

Minuette’s eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat. She still didn’t know if Fangs was alright! She leaned forward, placing her hooves on the table and all but standing up in her seat. “Is he okay?!” she asked emphatically.

Pearly frowned at her for a moment. “Do you… mean Fangs?” she asked after a moment.

Minuette nodded, inwardly remembering that Fangs was just her imaginary friend to her family. “Y-yeah. The mirror isn’t damaged is it?” she asked hopefully.

Pearly smiled and shook her head. “No. It’s not even scratched, actually. Color me surprised, it doesn’t look that durable.”

Minuette sighed heavily in relief, flopping back into her chair. “Oh, thank goodness… I was so worried when it fell over…”

Pearly’s smile faded. She looked away for a second before closing her eyes and nodding. “Right…”

A few seconds passed, and a sudden feeling of raw tiredness came over Minuette. The last couple of hours had been beyond exhausting, now that she thought about it. A long, unattractive yawn worked its way out of her before she finished off her candy and hopped down from the chair. “Well… I think I’m gonna go to my room for a while,” she said quietly.

Pearly stepped back to let her pass. “Okay, honey… do you want or need anything else? Anything at all?” she asked quietly.

Minuette paused in the door frame. She shook her head and looked up at her mother. “No. I think I’ll be okay, mom. I just wanna lay down and get some rest. I’m kinda tired…” she said.

Pearly nodded. She leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on Minuette’s forehead. “I’m not surprised… it’s been a hectic couple hours. Go get some rest, sweetie. I’ll come check on you a little later, okay?”

“Kay. Thanks, mom,” Minuette said, giving her mother a quick hug and nuzzle. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Minnie,” Pearly replied in a gentle whisper.

The two parted shortly after, and Minuette continued on her way for her room. Her hooves felt heavy as she trudged up the stairs, but the promise of talking to Fangs was enough to keep her moving. She still didn’t understand why her friends hadn’t been able to see him, and she meant to see if he had any answers for her.

She stepped through the door to her room and closed it behind her. She took in a deep breath before turning her eyes to the mirror. Sure enough, just as her mother said, there wasn’t even a scratch on the reflective surface. Minuette couldn’t help but give another quiet sigh of relief at seeing it unharmed. She trusted her mother’s word, but to see it safe and intact with her own two eyes was calming in its own right.

She marched up to the mirror and sat down in front of it. Fangs wasn’t currently in her line of sight. So, after a moment, she cleared her throat. “Fangs? You in there?”

A few seconds passed. Then, sure enough, with his head held low and his ears drooping, Fangs stepped into view.