At the End of the Tunnel

Summer in Equestria soon turned to fall. This excited me very much, not so much because I loved fall, but because I had told Pinkie Pie that my birthday was in early fall, and I was dying to know what she planned to do for it.

In Equestria, time-telling doesn't exactly work the same way. Sure, they still have a concept of a day, and a work week. But since they don't have moon cycles, they don't have months, just seasons, and their calendar revolves around certain holidays and celebrations, such that there are 360 days between Summer Sun Celebrations, their equivalent of a summer solstice.

Anyway, it was early fall, most easily noticeable by the leaves on the trees changing color and the weather becoming cooler. The pegasi, who took care of the weather, had a very complicated system for making sure that the weather was just as it should be all over Equestria. Rainbow Dash had tried to explain it to me multiple times and all it did was make my head spin, although I had to admit that knowing what the weather was going to be like a week or two in advance was always a nice thing.

As the days of fall marched on, the pink party pony wouldn't let slip anything about my party, no matter how many of her freshly-baked treats I ate. She was quite adamant that it was going to be a surprise, and that I would just have to be a patient pony, er, person. However, she did Pinkie Promise that I would not regret anything about the party and that it would be well worth the wait. Since I knew full well that nopony but nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise, I knew there was going to be a great pay-off to all of this.

And boy, did Pinkie Pie out-do herself. It all started on one of my off days, and I was working at Sweet Apple Acres like I normally would. I don't know why I insisted on doing physical labor on my days off. Perhaps it was just because I liked helping Applejack. Maybe it was because of all the free apples I got to eat. Or it was simply the fact that it was different than the usual business of timepiece making and fixing that made it enjoyable.

"We're almost done out here Ah suppose," Applejack said not just to me, but to her brother who was working with us. Today we were starting the final apple harvest of the year, before winter set in and the trees would go into a sort of hibernation.

"Eeyup," Big Mac responded. It really was difficult to get more than one or two words out of that stallion, but he made up for it by working as hard as he possibly could and being generally very easy to get along with.

"Sun's going to go down soon," I noted, picking up a basket of freshly-bucked apples and moving it onto a cart. It was standard for the Apples to work from sunrise to sunset most days, unless Applejack had something going on with her friends. But when I was there, it was always work until sunset, then supper at the house compliments of the Apple Family matriarch, Granny Smith. Another great thing about living in a land where the solar and lunar cycles were magically created was that the sun went down and came up around the same time all season, so it was very easy to know when it would set and when it would rise.

"'Ey Guy," AJ called to me, "why don't you try your hooves at apple-bucking?" This request was very surprising to me, as it had never been discussed before.

"I don't know, AJ," I responded, "my legs aren't exactly as strong as yours."

"That's just stinkin' thinkin'," the farm pony was quick to retort, "Come on over 'ere and take the apples down from this here tree."

I walked over to the tree that she had in mind. It was a young tree, given the diameter of its trunk. A part of me wondered if Applejack had asked me to take care of it just in case she accidentally splintered it in half with her bucking power.

"You sure about this, AJ," I asked, still not convinced that I could even shake one apple off the tree.

"Sure Ah'm sure," the farm pony responded, completely confident, "now let's see ya give that tree a swift buck and see what falls."

I took a step back from my target and turned sideways so that my right leg was closer to the tree. I could tell that Applejack and Big Mac weren't exactly sure what I was doing. Swiftly, I took a shuffle step toward the tree, planted my left leg, and gave a side kick with my right foot which shook the entire tree. After a moment or two, a few apples fell off the tree and into their respective baskets.

"Yeehaw!" AJ cried, kicking her forehooves into the air, "That was great for a first try," she complimented, "one more like that should shake the rest of them apples loose."

Repeating my previous steps, I succeeded in bucking all the apples off the tree. If I had been wearing a hat, I would have certainly thrown it up in the air in celebration. It may have hurt my leg a bit, but I was sure that if Applejack asked me to do that on other trees, I could buck all the apples off in two or three shots.

AJ and I moved the baskets from my tree onto the cart, which Big Mac began hauling toward the barn, the first time I would have been in the barn all day.

"Ya did great today, sugarcube," AJ complimented again as we made our way back to the storage barn, "Ah'll admit, Ah wasn't sure if ya could do it or not."

"Guess I've got more power in these legs than I thought," I reacted modestly.

When we finally made it to the barn, I did the honors of opening the double doors to the building and walking in first.

"SURPRISE!" Multiple ponies, big and small, yelled out as I stepped inside, various party poppers going off on both sides of me. I about jumped out of my skin at the greeting.

All my friends were there in the barn, Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Granny Smith, Time Turner, Ditzy, Dinky, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Golden Harvest, Lyra, and Bon-Bon.

"You-you guys almost gave me a heart attack," I said, trying to take in decent breaths.

"You don't like the surprise birthday party," Pinkie said in the saddest tone I had ever heard her speak.

"No, no, of course not, I love it. You just scared me, that's all."

"Who are you," Rainbow said mockingly, "Guy or Fluttershy?"

Everypony except Fluttershy and myself laughed at this joke.

"Well," I said, picking the cyan pegasus out of the air with my two hands, "if this is a birthday party, where are my presents?"

"They're over here, darling," Rarity said, standing next to a table stacked high with boxes of various sizes.

I let go of Rainbow and began to make my way over to the present table when something else caught my eye. A three-layer tall, chocolate cake sat on another table.

"I see you've found the Chocolate-Covered Craziness Cake," Pinkie said, "or in other words, the 'C' Cubed Cake."

"I don't know what to do first," I admitted, "presents, cake, music, I just can't decide."

"How bout we start with this," Time Turner said, bringing over a small black box tied with golden ribbon, "I think I owe you this."

I quickly untied the gold ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a golden wristwatch with twelve diamonds sitting where the twelve hour marks would be. The very watch that Turner had promised me for setting up him and Dinky. Without hesitation, I took it out of the box and latched it to my right wrist, a perfect fit. I was almost overcome with emotion for owning a watch that would stand out in a Canterlot boutique, let alone on the wrist of a regular guy like me.

"Thank you Time Turner," I said, pulling my boss into a full hug, "it's beautiful. I think I know exactly how I want to start this party." I proceeded to go around and hug each one of my friends and thank them for coming, hugging the CMC and Dinky all at once.

"Now let's party," Pinkie Pie cheered after my round of hugging was completed.

And party we did, late into the night, long after the younger ponies had fallen asleep. I ate way too many slices of Chocolate-Covered Craziness Cake, drank way too much apple cider, and danced until my legs and arms were equally sore. I couldn't remember the last time I had had so much fun. It was even better than my "Welcome to Ponyville" party. It was everything I wanted out of life, good friends, and good times.