Another chapter here and gone. It's tough, but I'm enjoying myself. I hope you guys are too. Thank you for all those that have taken their time to read my story. See you next chapter

Chapter Fifteen

Her Little Secret

"Alright," Apple Bloom banged the gavel on the podium, "I call this meeting of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to order."

"Not so loud…," Scootaloo rubbed her head, "It's too early… right Sweetie Belle?" she nudged her, "Sweetie Belle?"

It was too late. Sweetie Belle was already head down and snoring. It was pretty early in the morning when Apple Bloom and Babs Seed gathered the Crusaders. Scootaloo had barely finished breakfast when they came running in yelling something about an emergency meeting. Sweetie Belle had it worse. She had just put her first bite of oatmeal in her mouth when she was whisked away. Thankfully, they ran back and grabbed the bowl for her to finish.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, "Babs… if you wouldn't mind?"

"No problem," Babs Seed knew exactly what to do.

She approached Sweetie Belle quietly. Pulling out a feather, she started to tickle Sweetie Belle' nose. Her nose started to twitch and tingle with every flick of the feather. She suddenly flew up with a big achoo. Wiping her nose, she looked to see what was going on.

"Gesundheit," Babs Seed put away the feather.

"Thanks," Sweetie Belle was finally awake enough to listen.

"Alright then," Apple Bloom wanted to get the meeting on, "We have something important to discuss today. Getting something extra special for Trinny to show her thanks for all that she's done for us."

"Oh if it's for Trinny," Scootaloo straightened up and started to pay attention.

"Yeah," Sweetie Belle agreed, "She's done so much for us. We need to do something really nice for her."

"We just have to decide what to do though…," Apple Bloom started to think.

There was only a moment of silence before the ideas started to flow. The thought of a hoof made card with lots of glitter was thrown out. Getting Trinny a carrot cake was a good one, but they realized that they didn't even have enough bits for a slice. A piece of jewelry was a nice idea, but with no bits and the likelihood that Rarity would give up any of her gems was a long shot. Skywriting sounded cool, but either it would have only been a foot off the ground or they would have to spend the day looking for Rainbow Dash.

"We just can't agree on anything!" Apple Bloom let out a frustrated sigh.

"There's just too many ideas to choose from," Scootaloo did the same, "I still say that we should find Rainbow Dash and get her to make the clouds say Thank You Trinny."

"Or how about a poem instead?" Sweetie Belle suggested.

Scootaloo shook her head, "No way. If it's gonna say anything, it has to be something cool."

They started to argue back and forth on what the message should say. Scootaloo started to use every word that was associated with awesome or cool. Sweetie Belle recited a poem off the top of her head praising Trinny's good heart. Soon it just ended up being a jumble of incoherent words that twisted on one another.

"GIRLS!" Apple Bloom yelled, "GIRLS!"

"Hey," Babs Seed tried her luck, "I've got an idea."

Every pony looked to her and wondered what her idea could possibly be.

"Why not a bouquet of flowers?" she suggested, "My mom loves when I bring her some flowers. Trinny is a mom, so she'll love having some flowers."

"That's…," Apple Bloom stared at her, "THE GREATEST IDEA EVER!"

They all agreed that getting flowers for Trinny was the best way to say thank you.

"But we don't have any money," Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"Aww…," they all sighed sadly.

An idea came to Apple Bloom, "We don't need money. We'll go and pick some from the woods."

Once again there was jubilation in the club house as the Crusaders had a plan to say thanks. Sweetie Belli knew of a perfect spot that all sorts of flowers. It wasn't too far from where they were. Running down the steps, they made sure to lock up their club house good and tight so they wouldn't have any more unwanted intruders. They jumped and skipped along the path until they got to a patch of wild flowers. There was every single color of the rainbow in that patch. Golden yellows to royal purples to deep water blues to ruby reds to burnt oranges… all the colors were there. They ran up to the flowers and stood in awe of the beautiful sight.

"Wow! Look at all of 'em," Babs Seed was amazed by the variety.

"So many to choose from. What color should we get?" Apple Bloom couldn't decide.

"How about these pink ones?" Sweetie Belle held up a bunch of them.

Scootaloo snorted, "no way. Those are too girly. How about these?" she pulled some blue one.

"I like the purple ones," Babs Seed commented.

Colors were soon being thrown back and forth. Every pony thought that their color was the best.

Apple Bloom rolled eyes, "Come on guys! Why are we fighting over colors? Let's just take some of each. I'm sure the Trinny will love them."

"That could work," Scootaloo agreed.

It was agreed that they would pick six flowers of each color to make one big bouquet. They gathered them up and mixed them until it looked like a rainbow made out of flowers. Satisfied with their work, they ran as fast as their hooves could carry them into town.

They decided to check the library first because Trinny was staying with Twilight. She still might have been there. Off they went. In no time the Crusaders were walking through the door of the Golden Oak Library.

"Hey guys," Spike greeted them.

"Hey Spike," they greeted back.

"We're looking for Trinny," Apple Bloom explained, "Is she here?"

Spike shook his head, "Nope. She left early this morning… going to Sugarcube Corner… something about getting ingredients," he recalled.

"Of course!" they ran off once more without saying goodbye.

"Ahh… Bye…," Spike called after them.

They were too excited to call back. The thought of giving Trinny the big, beautiful bouquet of flowers just filled them with glee. It wasn't too long before they were at the steps of the Sugarcube Corner. They hadn't open yet, so they had to ring the bell. The top half of the door opened to reveal Mr. Cake.

"Well hello there girls," he smiled, "What can I do for you so early?"

"We were looking for Trinny," they answered.

"You just missed her," Mr. Cake laughed, "She was heading to the woods… something about pure spring water… not exactly sure where though… there's plenty of natural springs around here… girls…?" he noticed that they had already had gone off.

They were just too impatient to hear everything that Mr. Cake had to say. All they needed to know was that Trinny was heading to the woods and in search of a spring. How hard could that be?

Three hours later…

"We checked everywhere for Trinny and can't find a trace of her," Sweetie Belle sighed.

"Yeah…," Scootaloo looked to the bouquet of flowers, "and I think that our gift is starting to wilt."

"Aww…," they all sighed.

"They just need some water," Apple Bloom knew what to do, "I get some water from the last pond we checked," she took the flowers, "I'll be right back."

"Alright," Sweetie Belle looked to the others, "Let's figure out where there are more springs and if we missed any along the way."

Apple Bloom left them to ponder where else they could check. She was pretty sure that they hit all the ponds and lakes in the area. There weren't too many other places they could look. Water was plentiful in Ponyville, but Apple Bloom was sure that they got to most of them.

She knew that eventually they would run into Trinny. They would have to patient and keep looking. If course she wasn't sure if the flowers woul make it. She was just about to the pond when she started to hear humming.

Recognizing it belonging to Trinny, Apple Bloom ran through the underbrush. She was just about to make it through when her mane got caught up in a bush. She tried to pull and tug to free herself, but she was stuck fast. The humming suddenly got louder and she knew Trinny was close. She would be able to help her out. Looking past the bushes, Apple Bloom could see Trinny standing by the pond. She wrapping a wet towel around her mid section. She let out a sigh of relief as it laid on her backside. She must have been treating her sunburn from what Apple Bloom could figure.

She was just about to call out to Trinny, but something inside of her told to wait. A little image popped into her mind... when she saw nothing on Trinny's flank. She knew it was impossible, but she was sure that her eyes weren't lying to her. Keeping quiet, Apple Bloom looked for something that should have been there.

Trinny's flank, which was usually hidden underneath her old blanket, was in full view. Apple Bloom did everything in her power not make a peep. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Upon Trinny's greying flank there was nothing. It was as blank as a newborn foal's flank.

It had to be impossible. Every single pony got their Cutie Mark. Every pony that she knew had one. The only ones that didn't were young fillies and colts. But Trinny was an adult mare and should gotten it a long time ago. Apple Bloom started to back away, but had forgotten that she was stuck. As quietly as she could, Apple Bloom untangled herself from the bush. She looked over to make sure that Trinny had heard her, but she seemed to be enjoying the relief from her sunburn. Somehow she managed to pull herself free without drawing attention. She started to back away slowly.

SNAP!

Her hoof stepped on a fallen branch.

Trinny sat up and looked around, "Hello? Hello? Is there some pony there?" she pulled her blanket over her.

Apple Bloom stayed as still as possible so she wouldn't be notice. Trinny scanned the scene, but didn't see anything that alarmed her. She went back to tending to her sunburn. She pulled the towel from under her blanket and made it disappear with a pop. Cheerfully she place her saddle bag on her back and trotted out of sight. Apple Bloom waited a few minutes to make sure that Trinny wasn't around or would come back. Carefully, she emerged from the bushes.

It was like her mind and body was numb. She wasn't sure if she was dreaming or not. It wasn't possible what she saw. She had to keep saying that. It had to be a trick of the light or maybe there was just a large glob of homemade lotion over Trinny's Cutie Mark. That had to be it… just a big glob of lotion. That had to be true.

"Hey Cuz?" Babs Seed suddenly appeared next to her.

"WHOA!" Apple Bloom jumped up into the air.

"Sorry," she apologized, "We were just worried about you."

"Yeah," Scootaloo pushed through the bushes, "You hadn't come back and it doesn't take that long to get water."

"What was taking so long?" Sweetie Belle appeared.

"I ah… I was just…," Apple Bloom started to scratch the back of her head, "I was caught in the bush…," she wasn't sure if she should say what she saw.

Babs Seed could tell that something was wrong, "You okay Cuz? You seemed to be a bit… rattled."

"Um…," she really didn't want to say it.

"Come on Apple Bloom," Sweetie Belle encouraged, "You tell us."

"We're fellow Crusaders and Crusaders can say anything to one another," Scootaloo agreed.

They all looked at Apple Bloom with big eyes.

She felt like shrinking away, but there was nowhere to sneak away too. She bit her lip and tried so hard to keep the secret inside. It wouldn't stay in though. It was coming out and there was nothing that she could do about it.

"TRINNY DOESN'T HAVE A CUTIE MARK!" Apple Bloom exploded, "That's better…," she was relieved to have it come out.

"WHAT!?" they couldn't believe what she just said.