The mid- summer morning over the land of Equestria is a good way to wake up everypony in Ponyville, and this day would prove to be no different. As always, Twilight woke up at the first sign of dawn to begin her day.
“Spike, time to get up, it’s already dawn and we need to see how much time is on my schedule to do everything I need to do. We have a long day!”
“No way, Twilight. You kept me up all night to help you to decide which ink color would help you keep your calendar organized; you can go on your own.”
“Fine, if you want to be that slow, I can go alone and take this ice cream with me so I can eat when I am in the middle of my many errands.”
“I’m awake and ready to go. I’ll hold that ice cream.”
Spike and Twilight quickly went out to do their errands. Twilight, as always was carrying a list that stretched a city block. They had just finished half their list when both of them became hungry.
“Spike,” said Twilight, “can you check the time while I order some lunch?”
“Of course I will Twilight.”
Spike looked around for somepony to ask for the time, when he spots a pegasus carrying many cases and bags.
“Excuse me sir, can you tell me what time it is?”
The pony turned to him immediately.
“Yes, sure I can. It looks like about high noon. I have to guess by looking at the sun, I am moving here today.”
“Thanks. I will see you around.”
The brown pony then took off to town hall. He was just taller than Twilight, large eyes, a long aqua mane, and a tie-dyed peace sign. He is lugging a cart of boxes and cases, and on his back is a backpack and sitar.
When he arrived at town hall, he knocked at the door and Mayor Mare answered.
“Oh, you must be Peacemaker. Princess Celestia told me that she sent you here to learn about Ponyville. We are certainly glad to greet you. Where are you from exactly?”
Peacemaker answered, “I am actually from San Anponio, a town down south of Appleloosa.”
“It sure is nice to see you. I need a few minutes to get you house key and all that stuff in order, but you can stay out here.”
“Thank you Mayor. You don’t mind if I play sitar while I wait, do you?”
“Not at all, Peacemaker. Our town is your town.”
Peacemaker puts his things down and sits to play.
Pinkie Pie is walking by and starts skipping to the rhythm of the song and follows it to the source. She gets to town hall and sees Peacemaker playing sitar. She glances to him and gasps loudly followed by a sigh. She then runs into town.
Pinkie is running so fast she can’t see where she is going, and runs into Twilight, knocking her, Spike, and her stuff all over the ground.
“Ow! Pinkie Pie, why did …”
“Twilight, Spike come with me!”
Pinkie grabs them and runs toward Rarity’s boutique and runs through the door and drags Rarity with her. Pinkie then goes back and forth across town grabbing Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. When Pinkie says, “come, I need to show you something.” The five others yell, “Wait!”
Pinkie responds, “What is it.”
Rarity then answers, “You dragged us out of our work,”
“Our naps.” Rainbow dash interjected
“To take us somewhere you never told us about.”
Pinkie responds, “Just come.”
The six friends go up to town hall with Pinkie rambling on about not asking questions about coming. Finally when they arrive Twilight interrupts.
“What is it Pinkie?!”
“Him.”
Pinkie parts to reveal peacemaker sitting on the porch. Immediately, all six of them sense a love at first sight feeling. They all are speechless.
“I told you to come, we need to greet the new stallion into town, but I wanted all my best friends to meet him, so, I dragged you all here.”
Twilight says dreamily, “He’s so handsome and cute. He even looks like our age.”
Fluttershy then says, “He looks so peaceful and kind.”
Rarity then exclaims, “His looks are like something out of my dreams.”
Applejack then hollers, “He’s a mighty strong stallion.”
Finally, Rainbow says, “This guy looks So Awesome.”
They all rush up to his face and say: Hi, simultaneously.
“Oh, hello everypony.” in a shy voice, “Nice to meet ya’ll. I’m Peacemaker and I am here for studying Ponyville and all the ponies in it. I guess I might as well start with meeting ya’ll.”
Applejack is the first to speak and greets him with a mighty hoof shake saying, “Howdy Peacemaker, I’m Applejack and it is a mighty nice pleasure meeting you. I’ve never seen a pony come into town so nice and friendly in all my life. Tell me, Where are you from? Is your accent a southern one? Do you want to know my friends?”
Peacemaker then says, “Well, it is nice to meet you, but I need to get going. I think you are all nice, but I would rather talk tomorrow. It was a long fly from San Anponio. Tell you what, why don’t ya’ll come to my house in a couple of hours, and I will answer all those questions. I think I will enjoy getting to know each and every one of you.” He then flies off but first turns around to speak one more time. “Oh, I would also like to say that ya’ll are the prettiest girls I’ve seen in all my life, all six of you. Bye.”
All of the ponies then say, “He’s going to be the best pony in town.”
By that evening, Peacemaker had organized all of his things and set up for his guests. One thing he hoped was to make a good impression, because he wanted to impress one pony in particular. As he finished this thought, a knock at the door interrupted him.
“Peacemaker, it’s me, Twilight.”
Peacemaker opened the door to find the lone mare standing at his door levitating a bottle with her magic.
“Glad to see you, but you’re early. Nopony else has come yet.”
“I know I’m early, but I am very punctual. Everypony in this town knows that I am the most organized, punctual, and smartest pony in town. And being the librarian lets me do all of those things.”
“Don’t say you’re the smartest pony. I’ve been known to be a bookworm.”
Twilight starts thinking to herself: What are the chances that the cutest stallion in town is smart and proud of it.
Peacemaker continuers, “Well why don’t you come in. I can stay and talk until the others arrive. What’s in the bottle?
“This is just apple cider. Applejack’s family grows apples and makes this. It is delicious and I wanted to make sure you had a taste. We could talk while you drink.”
“You make it sound like you want to get me drunk.”
“Oh. Well… I …just want to welcome you to the neighborhood.”
“So this isn’t an attempt to get me drunk.”
“No… of course not. I just thought it would be nice to be the first pony to greet you.”
Twilight could hardly keep a straight face. Even though the cider wasn’t alcoholic, she did not want to make him jump to conclusions on how she felt.
Twilight then says, “Well, how about I tell you about myself. I’m sure as another royal student I will prove I’m a perfect girlfriend… that is a girl. I mean a friend.” I cannot be so stupid. What if he thinks I’m some weird librarian who has no stallions in her life? What will I do to make this a special date? What should I do to fix this?
Peacemaker interrupts, “I know what you mean. Don’t get so nervous, I want to make a good impression on everypony, and since you’re here right now, I suppose that I should make an excellent impression on you.”
He’s so sweet, thought Twilight, I wish he could just talk and talk until…
The knocking at the door makes Twilight lose her train of thought. Peacemaker goes to open the door and is in for a big surprise. As he opens the door, as blast of confetti shoots out, knocking him on his back. Pinkie Pie comes in with Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Originally, Peacemaker is shocked, but when he sees the good intentions, he regains his cheerful attitude.
“I didn’t realize that the way to welcome a new pony was to literally blow them away.”
Pinkie Pie is the first one to speak.
“We just want to welcome you as a friend. I know everypony in Ponyville because they are all my friends, and since you’re in Ponyville, I want us to be friends.”
“This is our friend Pinkie Pie,” Applejack explained, “I suppose we should have introduced ourselves when we saw you first. This isn’t how we normally greet someone.”
“Well I think that this is a great opportunity. Twilight was about to introduce herself to me, and by the looks of that bottle I think she wanted me to say EVERYTHING about myself.”
Twilight turned red as he said that, but when she looked at her friends, there seemed to be a glare towards her. She decided to act quickly.
“Well I only know of one way to have fun,” Twilight said nervously and quickly, “and that is to party and talk with your new friends.”
The smile on Twilight’s face was being forced as she tried to hide her embarrassment.
“You have never said that.” responded Pinkie Pie.
Peacemaker already knew that he wanted to know certain pony, so he was the first one to break the silence.
“I can see that the impatience is growing, so let’s get this party started.”
He flew to the back of the room to find some music, but realized that the tension was very high. Of all the things he hates to do, the worst thing to him is disappointing a friend, so he goes back and tells them with a calm voice,
“I think I know how to make this party great. I will show you one of my talents.”
Peacemaker picks up a sitar from his luggage. As he tries to tune it, all six of the guests ask him simultaneously what the instrument is.
“This is a sitar. I got this on my travels. I travel a lot because Princess Celestia…”
“You know Princess Celestia?!” screamed the six girls.
“Yes. I am actually her diplomat. I travel around the country and the world as a negotiator. That is what my peace sign cutie mark is for. I have helped to create peace in this world. Now I’m here in Ponyville because I can get to other places in the country very quickly from here.”
“I wish you were around when we went on this one trip to Appleoosa.” said Twilight.
“Oh yeah, I remember that trip,” added Applejack, “Ya’ see, the six of us went to Appleoosa to help my family settle in. While we were there, a herd of buffalo raided our train and the town. We were able to reach an agreement but only after they toppled half the town.”
“I’ll bet I could have fixed up that problem before it started, but I think that y’all handled it pretty well.”
“I still would have been happy to see you if you were there helping us.” responded Twilight in a soft voice.
“From the looks of it I think you’re just happy to be seeing me right now.” responded Peacemaker in a very sly voice.
Twilight, again embarrassed, tries to respond but can find no words as everypony else is laughing.
“He got you good Twilight.” said Rainbow Dash.
“Aren’t we all just happy to see a new pony in our town?” responded Twilight.
“I think the truth of the matter is,” interrupted Peacemaker, “that everypony in this town is eager to share friendship. Y’all asked about my sitar. Well, I’ve always thought that music is a good way to bring ponies together. I know a little piece about friendship. When I left my friends in San Anponio, I worried about who I would meet in Ponyville. They told me something that I found true when I befriended everypony in this room.”
“How can friendship work so quickly? We just met.”, asked Fluttershy very quietly.
Peacemaker slowly walked over to Fluttershy with a smile in his face and tenderness in his eyes and said to her, “Because y’all possess the magic of friendship. Your kindness, for example, is the element that is most welcoming. It is through everypony in this room, that I can finally realize that I will get by with a little help from my friends that I will try to be a good friend to my friends…”
Fluttershy is the first to realize the beginning of his piece. In her melodic voice she joins in, as do the other ponies at the party. Peacemaker begins to play his sitar in the rhythm of the song and finishes the song in a voice that echoes brilliantly throughout the neighborhood and the hearts of the young mares.
The seven ponies continue talking throughout the night about his life in his hometown, his cutie mark, and his thoughts on Ponyville. When the clock strikes 1:00, the girls tell him they are ready to leave.
As the girls leave, they each say their thanks and depart with a feeling of happiness and love for Peacemaker; however, the one pony whom Peacemaker was anxious to see did not yet receive her gift.
It was as the six guests left that Peacemaker decided to give his gift to the young mare.
The six guests were departing out the door to hear Peacemaker say goodnight. The last one to leave was the young mare who received a gift beyond her wildest dreams.
“Fluttershy,” Peacemaker whispered to her, “from the moment I say you, I knew that this would be the start of a beautiful friendship, my love.” He then gave her a gentle kiss then closed the door.
Fluttershy stood right outside the door for a few seconds, not moving, not speaking, not blinking, and trying to process what had just happened. It was when she realized that for the first time in her life that somepony had loved her as much as she loved him, did she take flight in joy. She spun through the air in delight all the way back to her cottage, in a state of infinite happiness.
Her heart was lifted and her thoughts were only about love. She did not realize where she was until she dove straight into a bush. This did not hurt her though, as the ecstasy of love was far greater than any pain she could have possibly felt at that moment.
What she did not realize was the partial heartbreak of the other five girls who still remained her best friends. Each one of them saw the kiss and was deeply saddened at the sight. Each of them slowly went back home trying to hold back tears of sadness.
Rarity walked home trying to hide her face in her mane, Applejack mumbled to herself and sat down in the apple fields when she got home, Twilight teleported herself to her room and tried to fall asleep with little success, Rainbow Dash tried to fly straight home, but the idea of lying in her bed wallowing in despair did not seem fit for her so she flew around Ponyville for the night, and Pinkie Pie paced back and forth trying to come up with a solution to her problem.
The night was long and hard for each of the heartbroken ponies. Each one of them tried to comfort themselves but could not. The entire night was dark and seemingly endless. The question remained: why does peacemaker love Fluttershy more than me? What is my flaw that prevents my desired two way love?
The weeping of the five ponies continued through the night, until something truly amazing happened. That night, a gentle force swept through each of the saddened ponies. Their emotion was as confusing as their questions, but more uplifting than the moment each of them laid eyes on their love. The feeling was that of perseverance, strength, and happiness. Each of the ponies realized that just because a friend may not be what she wants him to be, he is a friend, and that friendship is just as important as love. The love each of the girls feel for Peacemaker is not finished, but beginning.
I must begin to change his heart. His love for me is existing. It is up to me to make him realize it. This thought crossed each of the ponies’ minds that night, as did the will power for the young mares to make it into reality.
All the young mares felt satisfaction from the almost magical feeling that swept through Ponyville that night, but when the happiness that came from the realization of their challenge had passed, a feeling of emptiness came, one that could only be filled with triumph. Each of the young mares knew that the only path to their triumph was through perseverance, luck, and planning.
The thought of achieving their heart’s desire carried with them throughout the night as each of them tried to think of a way to triumph. Each of them knew that they wanted his heart, and friendship would be the key to being let in.
“This time,” whispered Twilight to herself, “love will win.”
“This time,” whispered Applejack to herself, “the prize will be mine.”
“This time,” whispered Rarity to herself, “my heart will be satisfied.”
“This time,” whispered Rainbow Dash to herself, “my awesomeness will win him over.”
“This time,” whispered Pinkie Pie to herself, “my smile will be as big as my heart.”
“It is my job,” they all said that night, “to make love real.”
