Nidra, Princess of Slumber, gazed out of the train window as it rushed towards Ponyville. She’d managed to find an empty carriage, so she didn’t have to worry about getting stares. Any pony with bat wings was sure to attract curious glances, and the fact that she was a Princess didn’t help matters either. She sighed. That was one good thing about Ponyville, even if most of the ponies there weren’t particularly cool, at least they were used to such peculiarities.
The train drew to a halt, and the conductor announced that they had now arrive. Nidra got up and, levitating her bags behind her, stepped out of her carriage onto the train platform. As the train pulled off, an orange pegasus with alicorn sized wings walked up. Her short, dark blue mane, streaked with pink and light blue, blew in the wind from the train’s passing.
“Hey there Nidra,” the pegasus said. “Did the trip go well?”
“Hello Starburst. The trip was okay.” Nidra looked around at the platform. Usually Starburst’s mother would be the one to pick her up when she visited. “Where’s Twilight?”
“She’s busy organizing stuff. We’re getting the library completely re done.”
“That sounds exhausting. I hope she’s not expecting me to assist her. I have better things to do than renovate libraries.”
Starburst just rolled her eyes as the two princesses flew off to Twilight Sparkle’s peculiar castle.
When they reached the castle, Nidra wondered if she hadn’t made a mistake in choosing this week to visit. The usually quiet hallways of Twilight’s castle were full of ponies moving furniture, books, and tapestries out of the library. The Princess of Friendship stood on a chair in the hallway, making sure nothing got broken.
“Please be careful with those books! They’re first edition! Make sure that tapestry doesn’t trail on the floor. Oh my gosh, look out for Owlowiscious!”
Twilight’s owl flapped frantically across the hallway, knocking a crystal vase off it’s pedestal. Fortunately the Princess managed to catch it with her magic in time. She set the vase back where it belonged, then turned to see the two young mares standing just within the doorway.
“Oh, hello Nidra. Sorry I couldn’t come and pick you up. Things are a little hectic around here at the moment. Whoa!”
Twilight ducked as Owlowiscious II flapped frantically over her head and nearly crashed into a stained glass window.
“I don’t know what the matter with him is. He’s usually so quiet, but today he just keeps flapping around and getting in everypony’s way. Starburst, when you’re done helping Nidra unpack, could you pop down to Fluttershy’s and ask if she can come check on him? I know she doesn’t like crowds, but if he doesn’t calm down we’ll never get anything done.” She ducked again as Owlowiscious came flapping back.
“Sure mom,” said Starburst. “Come on Nidra. You’re in the same room as last time.”
About an hour later, Nidra watched as Starburst knocked on the door of Fluttershy’s cottage. Anthea, Fluttershy’s adopted daughter, opened it.
“Hello?” she said, as she peered at them. Her pale blue eyes could only make out colours and vague shapes. “Is that you, Starburst?”
“Yep,” Starburst said, “hi Annie. Is Fluttershy around? I need to ask her a favour.”
The pale pink unicorn shook her head. Her light green braid flicked back and forth as she did so. “Sorry,” she said, “Fluttershy went to see Zecora about something. She won’t be back till tonight. Can I help?”
“Uh, well I’m not sure. Something’s up with Owlowiscious, so my mom was wondering if Fluttershy could come to look at him.”
“I’ve been learning to look after animals,” Anthea pointed out. “I can take a look at him and see if it’s something I can handle. Well, not actually look at him, but you know.”
“I guess you could come instead. Owlowiscious really does need to calm down.”
“Let’s go then. If it’s calming down he needs, I’m sure I can handle it.”
As the three ponies headed back to Twilight’s castle, Starburst reintroduced Nidra to Anthea. It had been a while since Nidra’s last visit, and Starburst brought her up to date on everything that had happened. Anthea chipped in now and then, but usually she remained silent. Nidra mostly ignored her anyway.
Twilight was still overseeing the emptying of the library when they got back.
“Hi girls. Did you find Fluttershy?”
“Sorry mom,” Starburst said, “Fluttershy is out. Anthea says she can take a look at Owlowiscious instead, if you don’t mind.”
“That would be great. Now the only problem is catching him. Owlowiscious!” she called, and the owl came flapping out from its hiding place under a table. Twilight quickly caught him with her magic.
“Phew, that wasn’t too hard. Nidra, could you take him upstairs? I’m sure he’ll be easier to look after than down here.”
“Of course,” Nidra replied, as she levitated Owlowiscious down from where Twilight was holding him.
After a little bit of a struggle up the stairs, they got Owlowiscious into Nidra’s room. Starburst and Nidra made sure the flustered owl didn’t fly away while Anthea examined him.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with him,” she said as she felt his wings with her hooves. “I think he’s just distressed by the noise of the work. I’ll calm him down so he’ll stay still till all these ponies leave.”
Anthea lowered her head so her horn rested on top of the owl, then she released a short spurt of magic. Owlowiscious calmed down immediately and sat drowsily while Anthea stroked him.
“There. That’s much better. He should be okay now,” she told Starburst.
“Great! I’ll go tell mom she doesn’t have to worry about Owlowiscious disturbing the work now.”
Starburst left the room. Nidra heard her hooves clattering down the hallway towards the long staircase. She turned to Anthea.
“What spell was that? I’ve never known a spell that works like that so quickly before.”
“Oh, that’s just a soothing spell. It works faster for me, since it’s part of my special talent.”
Nidra considered this. “That’s a bit like my sleeping spell. I can make ponies fall asleep with hardly any effort at all.”
There was a brief silence.
“I wonder what would happen if we combined our spells?” said Anthea.
“We could give it a try. I know! We could do it on Starburst as she comes in. You know, as a joke.”
Anthea giggled. “That would be pretty funny.”
“Let’s try it.” Nidra stood up as the sound of running hooves came up the stairs. “I can hear her coming now.”
Their horns started to glow as they prepared the spell. Then, just as the door swung open, they released.
“Hey girls, mom says we can-” Starburst faceplanted, rolled on to her side and started snoring. Nidra sat down with a bump.
“That was exhausting.”
Anthea nodded. Then she giggled as she looked at the sleeping pegasus.
“It was definitely worth it though. I wonder what it was Twilight said we could—”
CRASH! Both ponies started as a loud clatter came from downstairs.
“What was that?” asked Anthea.
They both listened intently. Nothing could be heard. How strange, thought Nidra. She twitched her ears. A quiet vibrating sound could be heard from far off. The Princess doubted most ponies would even have been able to pick it up.
“Do you hear that?” Anthea said. “That vibrating noise, it sounds almost like… snoring.”
Nidra stared at the smaller pony in surprise. She supposed the pony’s blindness must have given her better hearing. She listened again. Come to think of it, the noise did sound almost like snoring. What in Equestria could this mean?
“Let’s go check it out.” She didn’t know why she whispered it. Anthea nodded.
The two crept along the hallway and down the stairs. As they went further down, the sound became louder and clearer. It really was snoring! Nidra hurried down the last few steps into the entrance hall, stopping just before she tripped over the outstretched leg of a sleeping stallion. She looked up and down the hallway in silence. Every one of the ponies working on the library redecoration had fallen asleep, and most of them were snoring. Books and furniture lay scattered around where they had been dropped as the ponies fell asleep. Even Twilight lay snoring on the floor.
Nidra burst out laughing. Anthea came hurrying up behind her.
“What’s happened?” she asked. “Why are you laughing?”
“Oh, Annie-”Nidra paused to catch her breath from laughing so much. “Everypony has fallen asleep, even Twilight!” She laughed again.
Annie was silent for a moment. Then she started giggling. Her giggling continued, and grew into a laugh. They laughed together for a minute or two before subsiding.
Nidra sat down, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
“Well, that was rather more powerful than I expected.” She giggled again.
Anthea shushed her, and sat down.
“Listen!”
Nidra listened.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” Anthea said. “Usually there are all sorts of noises coming from Ponyville.”
Nidra’s eyes widened as she realised the unicorn was right.
“You don’t think we…”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
The two ponies stood up and maneuvered their way towards the front door. Anthea tripped a few times before they made it out of the castle. Then the two headed down to Ponyville.
Sleeping ponies of all races lay snoring in the streets of Ponyville. Stalls stood guarded by sleeping stallions, products scattered by the shoppers who snoozed where they stood. Several pegasi seemed to have crash-landed as they fell asleep in mid-flight, but luckily none of them appeared to have gained serious injuries. Some even slept in the clouds.
Anthea and Nidra picked their way through the town. Nidra described the peculiar spectacle, and made sure she warned her companion of any obstacles in her path.
“Oh my gosh, we really need to wake them up!” said Anthea. “We can’t let them sleep through the day. It would be a disaster!”
“I guess so,” said Nidra. She started laughing again. “It’s so funny though. Watch out for Candy!” she warned as Anthea was about to step on their friend.
Anthea stopped abruptly. Nidra giggled as she spotted another of their friends, Prism Bolt, lying nearby. The two of them – a light blue earth pony with a pink and white mane and a dark blue Pegasus with a tricoloured mane – were lying suspiciously behind a stall, with a small storm cloud hanging just over the head of a nearby pony.
“Prism Bolt’s here too,” Nidra said. “It looks like they were planning on pranking somepony.”
Anthea poked Candy with one hoof. Then she looked up with a mischievous grin.
“Speaking of pranks… Could you find me a pen?”
Nidra raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”
She slipped into the nearby stationary shop and borrowed a thick black marker. It would be easy to return it before they woke up the owner and the other ponies. Annie took the marker and scribbled moustaches and fake glasses onto the faces of the two ponies.
“Now they’ll just have to prank me!” she grinned.
“Wait, so you actually want them to prank you?”
“Yep! They never do, because I’m blind and all. It’s kind of annoying though. I can handle being pranked just as well as anypony else.”
“You know, you’re actually pretty cool.” Nidra smiled. She got the feeling the two of them would be much better friends now. “We should probably wake them all up now though. Do you have any idea how to do that?”
“Hmm… Well, I have a spell that wakes ponies up, but it isn’t nearly widespread enough to wake up everypony. I guess we could wake them all up individually, but that would take ages.”
Nidra thought for a moment.
“If we woke up Twilight first, maybe she could help us wake everypony up. She knows nearly every spell there is!”
Anthea agreed, and the two went back to the castle and woke up Twilight. She sat up abruptly and looked around.
“What in Equestria? Why is everypony asleep?”
“Umm, we accidentally made them all fall asleep.” Nidra explained. “Could you help us wake them up again?”
“How did you… Never mind. You can tell me all about it later. Now, I think I know just the spell to wake them up.”
With the help of the two younger ponies, Twilight cast a spell that woke everypony up. Nidra and Anthea had to spend the rest of the day helping tidy up the mess they’d made. Nidra, not being used to manual labour of any kind, was exhausted by the time they were finished. She still laughed every time she thought of the looks on Candy and Prism’s faces when they realized what had happened. They never did prank her new friend, but Anthea didn’t seem to mind.
Author's Note
This was written for a fanfic competition hosted by kilala97, where we had to pick one selected Fun Fact and write a story about it. The Fun Fact I chose was:
Nidra started opening up to Anthea and becoming friends with her after they accidentally combined their spells (Nidra's sleeping spell and Annie's calming spell) and knocked out all of Ponyville. Nidra thought Annie would be a worrywart about the whole ordeal and just try to wake up everypony right away. And she did, but not before she could scribble on Prism and Candy's face as payback for never pranking her. It was then Nidra realized Annie was a pretty cool pony.
This is the first fan fic I ever wrote, and I unfortunately have no proofreader at the moment, so forgive any mistakes. Constructive criticism is most appreciated. 
