“Great

Taking his sweet time to lay down his book and walk over their, the unsuspecting colt asked as he arrived,
“what is it, Champ?”

Putting a hoof on Lokie’s shoulder, Champ said, “Lokie, my friend, Harmony and I are in a bit of a predacoment.”

“I think you mean predicament,” Lokie corrected.
“That’s what I said. The thing is, we really need your help. You see, I’m supposed to ward off this terrifying dragon as my last test to get the treasure from Harmony. Since you know, every knight has to defeat a dragon, otherwise, they wouldn’t be a true knight! But I can’t play the part of a true knight if there’s no dragon for me to kick butt at. That’s where you come in! We want you to play the part of the ferocious dragon for me to defeat. What do you say to that?” He finished, giving him a convincing smile.
But the Lokie was not convinced. Gazing down he said softly, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m . . . not very good at these sort of things.”

“You don’t have to be good at it. All we need is for you stand here and guard Harmony. Then I’ll come and attack you, but don’t worry, I won’t hurt you and in fact, I’ll barely touch you. After I give a few slashes here and there in the air, you pretend to be defeated and run away. That’s not so hard, is it?” Champ coaxed.
“Um, well…” Lokie hesitated.
“Come on, Bro bro,” Harmony suddenly interjected light-heartedly. “It’ll be easy, I promise! And it’s not dangerous or anything, just some harmless fun. And without you, well, we can’t finish our game. All our hard work would be for nothing! It would ruin our whole day of fun not to do it, and you don’t want to ruin our game, now do you?” She said, giving him subtle puppy eyes. Champ joined in and mirrored her expression.

Lokie looked back and forth from each of them, struggling with conflicting for a few seconds. Finally, he sighed, saying as he hung his head, “Fine….I’ll do it.”
Harmony and Champ both started cheering excitedly with a few “thanks, you won’t regret this” mixed in. This made Lokie smile a bit, but it was quickly replaced by a confused expression.

“What do I do now?” He asked.

Champ took this as his cue and said,“You just stand right here, while I head over near that bush over there. When I start charging towards you, you go into defensive mode. Got it?”
Lokie nodded.
“Alright then stay right here,” Champ said, before trotting over to the bush, his armor clanking as he ran.
After arriving, he waited for a second or two before yelling,” Okay, ready!”

As Champ started to charge towards his playmates, Lokie stood stock still in an upright position with the blankest expression on his face.

Harmony noticed and tapped him on the head before exclaiming, “Come on, you can do better than that!”

“Huh?” Lokie said, looking up at her.
“Yeah, try spreading your wings and claws out!” Champ offered as he neared the colt.

“Oh! And slunk down like you do when your about to pounce on one of Mama’s yarn balls!” Harmony added.

“He-ey” Lokie stammered, blushing. But he did as they suggested and, with his wings flared and tail slashing, he crouched down low like he was ready to punce.

Champ picked up speed and readied his sword in his mouth, gazing at his ‘foe’ determinedly. When Lokie was but a yard away, he garbled out, “Pwerfect, Noe Roerrr!”

“Ro-Ar?” the dragon’s voice cracked in disbelief.
Harmony let out an excited gasp. “Yeah, roar! All dragons roar when approaching when their fighting somepony. So give us a good one!” she cheered.

“I’~~I’m not sure I can,” he said anxiously as his pupils dilated a bit.

“RoAR! RoAR!” the not-so-regal princess chanted. Champ only gave him a daring look, as he stood crouched in front of Lokie, waiting for the cue to fight.

Gulping, Lokie said, “Alright….here goes.”
Lokie stuck out his chest, closed his eyes, and inhaled as much air as he could.

“mmmmerrRRRRRAOWWWWwwwwww!”

Out of breath and with his head hung forward, Lokie opened his eyes to see their reaction.

Stunned was a fitting word.

Champ’s jaw fell open and the sword fell to the ground. Both gaped at him for what seemed like forever.

“Too loud?” he asked, meekly.

“BWAAHAHAHAHAH!”
Harmony’s boisterous laughter broke the silence. She laughed so hard, that she leaned back and fell over in her ‘castle’ to the ground. But she didn’t seem to mind, she kept right on laughing with tears streaming on her face.

Lokie hung his crimson face in embarrassment. Champ placed his hoof on the sagging shoulder as if to comfort him, but he was having a hard time holding back a laugh himself.

“H-hey, now, that . . . that wasn’t too bad for a first time, right? Right, Harmony?” Champ snickered.

Harmony stopped laughing and said in between gasps, “ Are . . . you. . kidding…me? Ha…that..that sounded more like a ferocious kitten than a dragon, hahaha!”
Lokie’s head sunk a bit lower as a small whimper escaped his flushed cheeks.
Champ looked at Lokie, feeling bad for his friend and a twinge of guilt for having put him up to this. He could tell Lokie wasn’t up to playing an embarrassing dragon anymore, so he said sympathetically, “I… guess we’ve played enough of this game. You know, since it’s been over an hour that we started it. Maybe we should take a break and play more of it later, okay buddy?”

Lokie gazed up at Champ and said somewhat gratefully, “It’s okay, Champ, I’m…fine. I’ll keep playing if you want me too.”
“Nah, It’s cool. It’s getting too hot to be outside anyway,” he replied, shrugging it off casually.
Harmony spoke up, “Well, what are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m dying of thirst. Anypony up for some lemonade?” Champ asked.
“Oh! Me, me, me, me, me, me! I’m so ready to get out of this thing anyway,” she said crawling out of her fallen tower and pulling at her grass-stained dress.

“You’re coming too, right Lokie?” said Champ.

He nodded.
Suddenly, Harmony leaped over the box and dashed between the two colts, tossing her pink dressing behind her and right into Champ’s face. As she bounded for the house, she playfully yelled behind her, “Come on then, slowpokes! Last one to the kitchen is a ferocious dragon!”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––~~
Just kids being kids.

This is probably my longest and hardest dialogue yet. I think I spent four hours on it? I don’t know, time becomes relative when your stuck staring at a screen. But in the end, it was worth it. I’ve had this idea for a really long time and I’m really excited to share it with you all. This here is but a peek into the everyday lives of these three as they were growing up. I also tried to show a bit of the group’s dynamics and character relations too. Don’t expect me to spell them all out in black and white here. I’m too tired to write much more. But who knows, you might see some posts devoted to explaining it, father into the future.
For now, I hope you enjoyed my babies and their little summer shenanigans. :3