Pony Fails

Starlight Glimmer returned from a weekend retreat with Trixie, all smiles and good cheer...

...which evaporated into confusion as soon as she crossed the threshold of Twilight's castle.

Her eyes went wide and her jaw fell slack as she took in the scene before her.

The entire floor of the castle was covered in bird crap. And tiny skeletons. Bird crap and tiny skeletons.

A frantic Twilight Sparkle was flying around, a nauseated grimace on her face, firing magic at...something. Spike hung from a complicated harness fastened around her barrel; he was breathing huge gouts of fire at the piles of bird crap, incinerating it. From higher up in the castle, she heard Fluttershy faintly pleading, and an owl furiously hooting. Pinkie Pie, in a full hazmat suit, was skating around the floor on soapy scrubbers tied to all four hooves, casually weaving around dragon fire as she scrubbed furiously at the filthy floor.

Starlight shook her head to clear the stupor. "WHAT is going ON here?!" she bellowed.

Everything stopped. Except the hooting.

"Oh! Starlight! Welcome back!" Twilight said with false cheer. "Sorry about the mess. We're, umm...we're dealing with..." She winced as a tiny skeleton bounced off her head and smashed on the floor at Starlight's hooves; Starlight numbly identified it as some sort of rodent.

Fluttershy let out a shriek and dove into view in a blur, being chased by a furious brown ball of feathers and fluff. "This is not okay, this is not okay, this is not okay," she whimpered.

A magenta aura wrapped itself around the featherball, halting it in mid-flight. It hooted angrily and struggled against Twilight's magical grip.

"Sorry," Twilight said again, her face twisted up in a grimace. "I've got a bad case of Irritable Owl Syndrome..."

A huge dollop of owl shit splattered against Pinkie's head.