Ah, Ponyville. Your home. It feels like only yesterday you were greeted by a crazy pink pony and be thrown a party by her in celebration of your arrival the next moment. It feels like yesterday you met the other 5 ponies who saved Equestria from certain calamities, big or small, time and time again. That was all a year ago. Since then, you have found a nice home near Sugarcube Corner, you landed a job working as a farmhand at Sweet Apple Acres helping Big Macintosh with certain jobs that required strength, and you help around Ponyville, period.
Today was the day two of your stallion friends promised you that you would have your first drink at the bar. You never saw how people could be all gung-ho about drinking such bitter liquids. You would much rather your friends did not promise you this, but you saw how much it meant to them and you went anyway.

The drinks themselves weren't bad. It was the fact that apple cider could be turned into a hard beverage that you questioned. You guess you will never know. After the drinks, it was time for work at Sweet Apple Acres. You loved working there, it was a dream come true. You were in the company of a sweet, old pony, though you wouldn't dare say the word "old" in her face, a very pretty mare, and 2 dependable friends. Working with Big Macintosh and Applejack proved not to be sissy work. You had to have strong legs because those trees won't budge with just an ordinary buck. Applejack taught you to buck it in a certain way.

"Ya gotta put yer whole hips into it. Don't be afraid of that there tree, it won't bite ya." Easy for her to say. The first few times, you could swear your legs were going to break like twigs but eventually all that training with Applejack paid off. "See? There ya are. Weren't nothing too hard fer ya, now was it?"

"Nope. Wasn't hard. But damn, my legs hurt." You said.

"Ah, walk it off, sugarcube. Ah was like that mah first few times." She said tilting her hat back and walked it off you did.

You walked for a minute or two before getting back to work helping Big Mac wheel the west orchards fields apples back to the barn. You will admit, working with Big Mac is not really a party. He is a stallion of few words. Almost all the time he says "Eeyup", "Yup", or "Nope." You once heard him say more than 1 word to Apple Bloom and you could've sworen you were dreaming and Princess Luna was playing tricks on you.
After wheeling all the apples back to the barn, Big Mac told you he could do the rest on his own and to help Applejack with bucking the east orchard and even these words from his mouth baffled you, but you did as you what you were asked to do. Walking up to Applejack, you assisted her with bucking the east orchard apples and after what seemed like forever, work was done. Granny Smith was napping so Applejack took it upon herself to pay you herself.

"It's okay, AJ. No need to pay me." You said. Though you don't want to admit it, you love working at the Farm and would still work even if there was no pay. " Working here is pay enough." Well, there you admitted it. Idiot.

"Ya sure? Not even fer today? Ya sure did a whole bunch of work today." She said with a sort of anxious look.

"Yeah, I'm sure. No pay for today." You said resting a hoof on Applejacks shoulder.

"Well, alright, ah s'pose. Thanks fer today." She said with a wink. "See ya'll tomorrow, Anon."

"Yeah, will do." Waving at her as you left the premises.

The night was still young and you had some time to kill before you go to bed. The bar had those apple cider drinks that you tolerated. Might as well punish yourself, you must have done something wrong today. As you drank your apple cider, you couldn't help but see a familiar purple pony. You almost spit out your drink when you saw Twilight. What was she doing in a place like this? You've never seen her anywhere that didn't have books. "Twilight?" You couldn't help but ask if that was her.

"Oh. Anon... Nice to meet you here." There was something wrong, you could tell. She didn't seem upbeat like she usually was.

"Something wrong?" You looked at her as she hung her head down.

"Well, Spike is off in Canterlot on royal duties as always but he hasn't written to me to keep me up to date on what's happening for a while." She said, still hanging her head down.

"Uh-huh... I'm sure Spike is fine. He's probably too quote-unquote "grown-up" to write to you all the time. At least that's what I think. Have you tried writing to him?" You asked

Her eyes widened then she facehoofed herself. "How could I forget that?! That must be why he isn't writing back! I feel like such a mule. No offense." She said to a donkey sitting right next to her.

"None taken." He replied.

"It's alright. It happens to the best of us. We can't all remember everything." You can't help but chuckle at her forgetting.

"I must get to that right away! Thank you for reminding me to write him, Anon." Twilight waved as she exited the bar. You finished your apple cider shot and did the same.

As you returned home, you couldn't help but see something dark in the corner of your eye. Oh no. Not again. But it happened right before you had time to even react.

KACHOW!!!!!

"WOAH!" You exclaimed as a bolt of lightning struck the ground right next to you. "Rainbow Dash? Wha?"

" Oh man, you should'v-" She was cut off by a high pitched chuckle of hers. "You should've seen your face. Priceless!"

"Oh, haha. Very funny. You do realize this means war, right?" You said shaking a hoof playfully. "I'd watch myself if I were you, Dash." You went and turned your back on her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She called out.

"It means what it means. Watch yourself" You couldn't help but grin at the though of how you were going to prank her back.

"Yeah, sure. All talk and no action." She said blowing a raspberry as she dashed off clutching the dark cloud.

"All talk, no action, huh..? Okay. We'll see." You said to yourself.

As you rested on your bed, you thought it was days like this that made life worth living. You have a lot of friends, good job, and everypony likes you. You didn't want to go back to Baltimare. Life in Ponyville was the best and there was nothing that could make this any different. Ever.

Author's Note

So, yeah... I'm gonna start off short and sweet and slow and work my way up. I got the storyline finished and... well, let's see how it pans out.