In Search of Lost Friends (Who Aren't Actually Lost)

by Fedora Mask

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy
Length: 20090

Realizing her friends might someday move away, Twilight resolves to have AS MUCH FUN AS POSSIBLE.

It's an offhand remark, “You're only young once,” but for Twilight Sparkle it strikes an unsettling chord. After all, everypony has to grow up; and when ponies grow up, they move away; and when they move away, they fall out of touch...

Terrified that her friends are going to drop out of her life, Twilight resolves to spend every waking moment with them. She also gives up sleeping.

This can only end well.

Dedicated to absent friends, to all our times together, and to reunions yet to come. Don't ever stop being awesome.

Published 2012-05-12 03:14:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-26 02:37:01 UTC

Chapter 1: How to Keep Friends and Alienate Ponies

Chapter 1: How to Keep Friends and Alienate Ponies
WARNING! May contain:
A Bibliophile's Panic + The Greatest Surprise of All + How Not to Sleep on a Cloud + The Pursuit of Gravity + Damp Rejection + Spike is a Genius + Twilight After Dark + A Brother's Advice + The Sweet Sound of Hearts Breaking + Storms and Conspirators + Good News/Sad News + The Laugh in the Night

“Spike! Spike!” Twilight Sparkle burst through the door of the Ponyville library, head darting in every direction. She shoved her way through a pile of half-read books, not even pausing to stop them from hitting the ground. Still no sign of him. “Spiiiiiiiike!”

A door at the top of the stairs swung open, and out stepped a purple and green dragon clad in a towel. “Geez Twilight, I don't think they heard you in Fillydelphia. What?”

Twilight raced up the stairs, practically tackling her damp assistant into the bathroom door. There was an attempted nuzzle that, had Spike's reflexes been a little slower, would have involved a bit more horn than either of them would have been comfortable with.

A moment passed in silence, as Twilight composed herself, and Spike tried not to think about what had just nearly happened to his left eye.

“Twilight?” he said.

The silence broken, she gushed like the Ponyville dam (recently repaired for the third time that month). “Spike! You know I love you right?”

Spike blinked. “Um.”

“Because I do! You have to understand that Spike, it's very important. I. Love. You,” Twilight said, leaning in very close, a desperate, almost manic look on her face.

Try as he might, Spike couldn't prevent a tiny squeak escaping his throat as he met Twilight's wild gaze. A quick glance right and left confirmed his worst fears—no way past her, even if she couldn't teleport around at will. The library was empty, too... almost nopony ever came in for anything, except Rainbow Dash, and even she only showed up after it was too dark for stunt flying (i.e. too dark for anypony to see her stunt flying). Sunset was still hours away. They were alone.

Huge, expectant eyes hovered mere inches from Spike's. He gulped. “I... I'll scream.”

Twilight blinked confusion, then skittered back in horror. “Eew, Spike! Not like... what have you been reading?!”

“I don't have to—I mean, how was I supposed to know what you meant when you're all invading my personal space?”

“I meant as a frie—wait, were you taking a bath? It's not Tuesday.”

Spike shifted nervously. “Well...”

“Is Rarity coming over?”

“Hey! Can't a dragon decide to take a bath on a cold morning without it being a huge big deal?”

Twilight stared, aghast. “Spike, do you... like taking baths?”

“Only sometimes!” But it was too late; a lavender cheek was already rubbing up against his own.

“Oh, Spike, you don't need to hide things like that from me. After all, we're best friends. Right?”

There was that look again. “Wh-whatever you say, Twilight.”

Confusion crossed Twilight's face at his discomfort. “Oh, you and your 'bubble.'” She pulled back, giving him a few inches of breathing room.

“Twilight, what in the hay is going on?”

Aaand Twilight's face was right back up against his. “I'm glad you asked, Spike. You see I was at Sweet Apple Acres helping Applejack with a few chores, and also telling her about some of those cross-breeding techniques I'd read up on for apples and Granny Smith came along and she told us to enjoy ourselves because you're only young once.”

Spike almost said “ahh, I see,” just to get her to stop making that face at him; but if years of living with Twilight had taught him one thing, it was never to pretend you knew what she was talking about when you actually didn't. Usually somepony got hurt. “And?”

“You're only young once, Spike!”

“I don't—”

“Because everypony has to grow up—me, and you, and all our friends. And what do ponies do when they grow up? They get new jobs and new lives and start families and move away, Spike!”

There was that edge of panic back again, the one that had convinced Spike to abandon the warm waters of the tub to see what was the matter. The chill air was already making him feel lethargic.

Twilight had no such problem. She turned and bolted back down the stairs, horn aglow, sending books flying around the room.

“It's just like in Fresh Prance of Bell Gardens! At the end all the kids are grown up and they move out to Manehattan and then poor Fly Smith has to stay behind in Canterlot and learn to live on his own! Or in Mathematically-Expressed Ponies, when all the fillies have to take the train home from the Mathematical World because summer vacation is over, even though they might never see their Math-E-pon partners again! Or...”

Spike, who had been cautiously oozing down the stairs and had finally hit the floor, cast his friend and boss a sympathetic look. “Twilight, this might be hard for you to hear. But those are just books.”

“But people grow up and move away in books because that's what they do in real life! Think about it. Rainbow Dash wants to become a Wonderbolt, and if she does that then she won't be in charge of Ponyville's weather anymore, and Rarity has always wanted to live in Canterlot, and—”

“You really need to calm down, Twilight.”

“No I don't! I've been too calm! That's the whole problem! I've been just wasting away the best years of my life being calm all the time!”

“Are you talking about since we moved to Ponyville? Because I'm not sure 'calm' is the word—”

“And... and studying! I've been wasting my life being calm and studying!” Twilight gasped, cupping a hoof over her mouth. Her concentration disrupted, several books which had been orbiting overhead crashed to the floor, making Spike dive for cover. “Oh my gosh I can't believe I just said that.” She turned a mournful gaze on the books she'd tossed aside in her panic. “But it's true. These books will always be there but... my friends might not be.”

When Twilight looked back up, there were tears in her eyes.

“Gosh, Twilight, this has really got you worked up, hasn't it?” Spike said. He might not have a clue why Twilight had gotten so fixated on this, but he could tell when a situation called for a hug. He walked up and wrapped his arms around her neck, and after a second she nuzzled closer to him.

“Even if some of our friends move away, you'll all make new friends, you know? And it's not like you'll never see them again. Like in that song, 'Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.'”

Twilight's neck went stiff under Spike's arms. “Twi?”

“But nothing gold can stay, Spike!”

“What?”

“Nothing gold can stay! It's in a poem.” [1] A book flew at Spike's head, which he barely ducked in time. Twilight seemed not to notice. “And poets are never wrong!”

“Even the one who wrote those limericks about the stallion from Nantucket?”

This seemed to puzzle the purple librarian. “I... well in a metaphorical sense maybe... What have you been reading?!”

“I don't have to answer that!”

“Okay, fine. I've got to go find Pinkie Pie!” Twilight stood so suddenly that Spike was hurled into a pile of Mane Austen books. When everything stopped spinning, he found himself on the ground, cursing the day that somepony had the idea of paying writers by the word. And Twilight was saying, “If anypony knows how I can have as much fun as possible with my friends as fast as possible, it's Pinkie Pie!” The door flew open and shut, and Spike was alone.

Spike groaned, shoved seventeen pounds of books (both of them) off of his stomach, and took stock of the disorganized chaos which had at least been organized chaos ten minutes ago. Twilight was definitely right about one thing: time was precious. At any moment she might recover her senses, come back, and make him clean up this mess.

So Spike dusted himself off, and, forging his way through the collapsed piles, headed back to his nice, warm, bath.

+++---+++

Twilight sprinted across Ponyville—there was no time to lose on pleasantries, or “taking it easy,” or “not almost goring the mayor.” Ignoring greetings, concerned looks, and several calls for her immediate arrest, she charged towards Sugarcube Corner. City Hall blew past, and the Ponyville Diner, but finally her destination rose in front of her like a giant cupcake (slightly gnawed-on since that whole incident with Cerberus).

She charged through the door and stopped dead.

The bakery had been darkened—lights off, shades drawn against the noon sun—until Twilight's entrance created a column of light streaming in. A sign reading “Closed For Lunch, Back at 3” floated gently to the ground, dislodged by the violence Twilight had just done the door.

In the center of all of this—defying all logic or common sense—Pinkie Pie balanced on her rear legs, standing absolutely still. Twilight hadn't believed that was possible. Normally the pink pony was in constant motion: in fact, the one time Twilight had physically restrained her as part of an experiment (pre-revelation Twilight had maintained that science must be able to learn SOMETHING by studying Pinkie Pie... she just hadn't been able to figure out what), Pinkie's tail had abruptly started twitching out a smooth jazz tempo, gaining speed until it was whipping around uncontrollably. Long story short, it turned out Pinkie could get airborne on tail power alone, and Twilight had been picking broken vacuum tubes out of her ceiling ever since.

So the sight of Pinkie standing absolutely motionless was such a shock that Twilight very nearly forgot to be upset that Pinkie could totally hold still if she wanted to.

“Pinkie!” If Twilight's voice even penetrated whatever Pinkie was doing, she showed no signs of it. Her forehooves remained pressed together, her brow scrunched in concentration, as beads of sweat curled lazily down the front of her mane.

“Uh, Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie stirred stirred, a second too late to be in response to her name. Eyes still closed, her lips parted, and she whispered, “Surprise.”

“What?” asked Twilight.

Pinkie took a deep breath. “Surprise,” she said, slowly, as though savoring the word.

Twilight blinked.

Another breath. In, out, “Surprise.”

“Pinkie what are—”

A hoof landed squarely on Twilight's shoulder. “Surprise!”

Twilight yelped and tried to bolt and leap into the air and turn around all at once, tripping spectacularly over her own hooves, and turning a perfect 180-degree flip in midair; the perfection of which was lost on her as her back slammed into the floorboards.

Twilight groaned, and opened her eyes to find two enormous blue ones staring back from a distance Spike would definitely have been uncomfortable with.

“Hi Twilight! What brings you here?”

“Pinkie? But... but you were—” Twilight glanced across the room at the spot where Pinkie had been standing and found it empty. The thought crossed her mind that, somehow, Pinkie had developed earth-pony teleportation. Her instincts kicked in, an experiment halfway formed in her head before she remembered that was old-Twilight's way of doing things. She was here for something else.

“Never mind,” she continued, accepting Pinkie's proffered hoof, and pulling herself upright. “What were you doing anyway?”

“Practicing!”

“Practicing what?”

“Throwing a surprise party, silly! The part where you jump out and say 'Surprise!' You have to get the timing juuuust right.”

Well, if there was anything related to partying that Pinkie needed to practice... “So, why were you just whispering 'surprise' over and over?” said Twilight, still missing something.

“Well, duh! You've got to get the basics down before you can do the tricky stuff.”

“Like crossing from one side of the room to the other without passing through any of the intervening space?”

“You know, throwing parties isn't all fun and games. It's just mostly fun and games,” said Pinkie, who was either ignoring her or didn't know what the word “intervening” meant. “There's also hard work! I've got to practice seventeen hours a day to stay in top form.”

“Seventeen hours?” Twilight gaped. “But when do you sleep—and... wait, I've seen you go more than seven hours without... 'practicing.'”

Pinkie blinked. “Wait—I meant half an hour a day. What did I say?”

Twilight looked at her friend carefully. The need to pursue this conversation in a logical manner was throbbing at the back of her head. She pushed it aside.

“Never mind. Pinkie!” Twilight rested her hooves on Pinkie's shoulders. “I need your help.”

“For what?”

“I need you,” she leaned in close. “To have fun with me.”

Twilight had been mentally prepared for something along the lines of Pinkie exploding in a shower of confetti. Instead she shrank back with a sorry look on her face. “Oh, gee Twilight, I'd love to but I've got my practicing, and then when that's over I'm running Sugarcube Corner for the day. And I've got to make sure Pound and Pumpkin stay asleep and fed and changed, and don't create a hurricane in their bedroom that breaks all the windows on the second floor. Again.”

Twilight gaped. Pinkie Pie was... busy? She'd always just assumed that Pinkie was so hard to schedule because she liked to set aside a few hours to randomly construct fortune-telling tents along Manestreet (or chocolate lemonade stands, or that one time, the Tiddlywinks Hall of Fame[2]). And then to argue with the sheriff when he gave her a ticket for diverting traffic flow and conducting business without a permit. Come to think of it, Twilight didn't think Pinkie had ever actually payed one of those tickets...

“Can't you just take off practice?” asked Twilight. “I mean... I was pretty darn surprised. I think you've got it.”

Pinkie frowned. “Sorry Twilight, no can do. You know what they say about practice. 'If you take one day off, you'll know. Take three days off, and the people you party with will know. Take a week off, and the whole town will know.'”

“Is that true?”

“No idea! I've never taken a day off. I'd know.” And with that, Pinkie reared back onto her hind legs, resumed her look of concentration, and inhaled deeply. The words, “Happy birthday... to you...” left her lips in a slow whisper.

Twilight could take a hint. The door to Sugarcube Corner swung closed behind her as she stepped back into the fading afternoon.

+++---+++

Twilight couldn't believe it. Pinkie Pie of all ponies, didn't want to hang out with her. Was too busy. Rarity or somepony else who acquired commitments like new hats, sure, but Pinkie Pie? She'd seen Pinkie drop what she was doing because somepony suggested it was a good day for making life-sized balloon animals. Which had been amusing until the larger ones had absconded skywards with the foals who'd been helping out. And then even after that had been straightened out, Pinkie had had to repay the Cakes for the mixing bowl she dropped when somepony suggested the idea.

But speaking of times when Rainbow Dash had to come to the rescue, Twilight began scanning the clouds overhead as she trotted through Ponyville, careful to avoid the area around town hall. Pinkie might have double-crossed the line from randomness back into order, but Rainbow Dash was always ready for excitement and adventure, and new-Twilight was a fan of both of those things.

It wasn't long before she found one little cumulus cloud that was vibrating up and down, spitting out bits of fluff. Craning her neck, she could just make out a cyan pony with a rainbow colored mane beating at the cloud with her hooves.

“Come on... why are you... so... springy?!” Rainbow Dash grunted, stomping several times. The cloud shuddered, puffs of vapor drifting away on the breeze, then lay still. Satisfied, Rainbow trotted a quick circle and settled down on the flattened cloudtop, closing her eyes with a look of bliss. This lasted approximately one second before the cloud puffed back up, catapulting her into the air.

Rainbow Dash caught herself quickly and glared back down at the offending cloud. “Okay, that's it!” Twilight shielded her eyes as the pegasus dropped into a dive—presently there was a crack of thunder, and rainwater sprayed her face.

When she looked up, Rainbow was in a damp, panting heap on the ground in front of her. A few lonely wisps of fog drifted about her zone of impact, as though trying to escape.

“Hey Rainbow. Rough, uh... 3:15?”

Rainbow Dash shook herself, casting yet more water on Twilight. “Wha? Oh, hi, Twili—” she broke off in an enormous yawn.

“Nice tonsils.”

“Sorry. I'm really overdue for my three-o'clock nap.”

“You nap on a schedule?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Okay, my 'I've been working for 2 hours since lunch' nap. But the clouds are way uncomfortable today. I bet it's that moron Perma Frost running the production line at the factory again, I oughta...”

“Or!” said Twilight. “Instead of flying all the way to Cloudsdale to take out your frustrations on somepony, since you're up anyway, you and I could hang out!” She finished with her most winning smile.

“'M too tired...” mumbled Rainbow Dash. “Sorry. I'm gonna go find a cloud that won't fight back!” she snarled, pointing a threatening hoof at the sky. Well, it was probably meant to be a snarl, at any rate.

As Rainbow flapped groggily into the air, Twilight felt in each tiny gust of wind the crushing weight of time, the heartbeat of the universe pounding on without her. She couldn't let another friend slip through her hooves.

“But—come on Rainbow!” pleaded Twilight, following as closely beneath her friend as she could while trying to keep one eye on street ahead. “There must be something you want to do, right? Oh! There's that new exhibit on the Wonderbolts in Canterlot and Fluttershy said you've only been to see it twice, and this time you could actually read the little placards!”

Rainbow Dash made no reply, picking up speed as she searched the sky for a more comfortable mattress.

“I'll pay!” offered Twilight, as her friend's form retreated further. “I've got a discount—oh, sorry,” she added as she bumped against somepony in her rush to keep up. She might as well have been standing still.

Come on Twilight—fight for your friendships! Eyes locked on Rainbow Dash, she charged forward at a full gallop and slammed straight into the fence that marked Cheerilee's garden. Through wooden slats as impenetrable of prison bars, Twilight watched her friend fly away, and reflected on what an apt visual metaphor the whole situation had become. She wasn't sure what the stars dancing in front of eyes were supposed to mean, though.

Twilight shook herself. “You can probably sleep on the train!” she called, but it was too late.

No! No no no! When life gives you friends who are too busy to hang out, make... friend... ade... Magic!

The thought may have been addled, but the sentiment was there. For an instant Twilight's horn glowed brightly, then she vanished in a burst of light.

+++---+++

Rainbow Dash heaved a tiny sigh of relief as Twilight's pleas died away. It wasn't really like her to ignore her friends, or to turn down an invitation that could be linked to the Wonderbolts in fewer than 3 steps, but last night had involved a lot of Daring Do, and she was really overdue for some sleep. So she flew on in search of an appropriate napping-cloud, confident that her good friend Twilight Sparkle would understand and forgive her. After all, she was Rainbow Dash—everypony knew that if she was occasionally less than awesome to her friends, it was only because she had used up so much awesomeness by being awesome.

Besides, everypony always forgave her sooner or later. Though Fluttershy had held a grudge for a while that one time she convinced her to go into a haunted house. Well, Fluttershy and the pony who'd tried to grab her from behind. His muzzle was almost back to normal now.

Dash couldn't suppress a giggle at the memory—which quickly became a yawn—which just as quickly turned into a gasp and uncoordinated flailing of wings as a burst of light flashed on the rooftop right next to her, throwing her off balance.

“I can't believe you're blowing me off to—whoa!” Twilight's hooves slipped on the slanted roof, and with a faint whump, she fell flat on the apex of the building. Groaning, she tried to get her legs back underneath her, but when even that slight movement sent her teetering, gave up and stayed put, despite the top of the roof digging into her ribcage. “I can't believe you're blowing me off to go sleep!”

“Twiliiight,” Rainbow whined. “Come on, I'm tired. Trust me, you don't want to hang out with me when I haven't had my napping fix.” It was true—without sleep, Dash's usual cheery, happy-go-lucky, unselfish, kind-to-everyone, and all around basically perfect demeanor tended to fall towards the mean part.

Confident that this flawless argument would end Twilght's complaints, Rainbow turned and flew on, only for another burst of light and smoke to deposit the unicorn on the roof directly in front of her. This time, Twilight had made the wise decision of trying to land sitting down, and the less-wise decision of picking a thatched roof to teleport to. Rainbow watched with the closest thing to interest she could muster as Twilgiht fell butt-first through the thatch, hit a support beam, and windmilled her forelegs wildly in an effort to not slip and fall the rest of the way into the house below.

“I told you... I don't... care...” Twilight gasped. “Besides, don't you ever think you're just sleeping your life away? You'll never get that time back, you know!”

“Hey, I don't come to your house while you're studying and tell you you read too much, do I?”

Twilight blinked. “That's exactly what you did last week when you 'needed' me for that baseball game. [3] Besides, at least reading is useful.”

The words pierced straight to the center of Rainbow's sleep-deprived brain. “Excuse me? Did you just knock napping?”

“I—”

“No! Napping is the third greatest thing in the world—after going fast and showing off how fast you can go—and I am not going to stay here and listen to you malign it!”

And with that Rainbow Dash whirled and demonstrated the top two greatest things in the world.

Twilight's mouth hung open, partly from just how badly the situation had blown up in her face, but mainly due to the fact that Rainbow Dash knew how to use the word “malign.” She tried to think if it had been in one of the Daring Do stories.

Wherever she'd picked up the word, the pegasus was flying up and away, so high that even if Twilight could keep up her with her laterally, her voice would never reach. But Twilight wasn't about to give up—she wasn't about to lose a friend, not to time, not to the stupid sky, and certainly not to that same friend's desire to be left alone and go to sleep!

Twilight concentrated on a spot just above Rainbow Dash, gathered her magic, and—

Flash!

There was nothing below her but air, and below that a blue pegasus, and way below that, a nice stand of trees that were quickly rushing towards her, as though for what Twilight imagined would be a very brief, very awkward hug.

“Wait Rainbow, I'm sorry I didn't really mean to—” Twilight gasped out as dropped past Rainbow, who stared after her with a look of utter confusion.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, and focused.

Flash! She was back above Rainbow, still plummeting just as quickly, the ground rushing up even faster. “I-just-wanted-to-say-I-mean-you're-really-important-to-and—” she yelled, as Rainbow resumed flying away.

Well, two could play that game. Twilight teleported above Rainbow's new trajectory.
“LookRainbowpleasewouldyoujustlistento—” was all she got out before shooting past her friend.

From the corner of her eye she saw the ground closing in—way too fast—she hadn't actually been thinking about momentum when she—

Twilight channeled the teleportation spell again, but it resisted her this time, she had to pull at it like a taught elastic to bring the magic where she needed it, and all the while the ground was rushing up, closer and—

Flash! She'd aimed high above Rainbow but almost immediately her friend flashed by and was gone. “RainbowHEEEEEEEEELPICAN'TSTOP!!!” Twilight screamed. She tried to pull together another teleportation spell, but her energy was gone, scattered, the wind whipping past so fast now that she knew she wouldn't have time to cast it again, and Rainbow Dash hadn't moved at all to rescue her—why was she just letting her fall? From this height she could—she could probably die! For real! And then she'd never get to tell her friends—

KER-SPLOOSH!

Water raced up Twilight's muzzle and into her mouth so fast that she tried to cough, only to release a stream of bubbles. Without missing a beat she scrambled for the surface. Twilight was not an especially strong swimmer but between panic and some natural buoyancy she managed to get her head above water, where she could sputter properly and besides which take a few deep, life-giving breaths.

She was in the middle of Ponyville lake, mercifully not that far from the shore—and more to the point she hadn't killed herself trying to cheat gravity.

She was so overjoyed that for a moment she forgot all about her quest, her need to see her friends. Almost as soon it came rushing back, and she realized she'd completely lost track of Rainbow, and now she was wet, and rapidly getting very cold, and exhausted, and her entire belly was starting to sting from the impact.

Twilight groaned and began to paddle for shore.

+++---+++

The rest of the afternoon was a complete, utter, unmitigated, unqualified, unadulterated disaster. A visit to Fluttershy's cottage produced nothing so traumatic as the shy pony turning down Twilight's offer of happy friend times—considering Fluttershy's doormat tendencies, a rejection from her might well have been too much to bear—but instead only a closed door and a note:

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry, but I'm not home right now. Barry (the Grizzly who lives the cave in the cliff next to Holly Grove) has just had a big fight with his wife Matilda and I'm off to see if I can get her to calm down and let him back in the cave. Um.

If this note is still on the door, please do not go inside, and do not wait here for me to come back. Barry is very upset right now and I kind of, um, offered to let him sleep on my couch so... please just leave quietly.

I'm really sorry you came all this way—whatever you wanted to see me for must have been very important. If you leave a note I'll try to get back to you as soon as I get back from... the Everfree forest...

-Fluttershy

Twilight read the letter several times, in awe of Fluttershy's commitment to reproducing nervous pauses in note form. She might have gone on longer, never once noticing the actual content of the note, except that a roar and the sound of breaking china from inside the house caught her attention. And suggested she should probably back away. Slowly.

She didn't get to see Rarity either—in fact she only got close enough to the Carousel Boutique to hear some very unladylike remarks about Hoity Toity and his idea of adequate notice for deadlines before giving up.

Any other day she might have gone inside and offered to help, or to give Rarity a few minutes to relax, or at least suggest she close the windows to her workshop. Any other day she'd at least have tried, but...

Twilight sighed and kept going. Beaten.

+++---+++

Spike had eventually tired of his bath and come back downstairs. When he did, and found that Twilight was still out on her friendship quest, and the library was still an unholy mess of unshelved books, he decided that he'd had quite enough idle relaxation for one afternoon. It was time to get serious about taking a nap. It was time to assemble... the ultimate napping configuration! After all, he might never get another chance.

And so it was that when Twilight shot through the door into the library a few hours later, she ran directly between two large stacks of books, caught her horn on a makeshift hammock, and dumped Spike flat on his face.

“Ugh... Twilight, I was trying to—” Spike cut himself off with a gulp, fearing a lecture about the proper use of library materials was on the horizon.

Twilight, however, seemed entirely uninterested in the twin peaks of weighty tomes and the blanket suspended between them. In fact she was plowing a trench through the scattered books on the floor without a second thought for her muddy hooves or still-damp mane, which was curling at odd angles as it dried without the benefit of a brushing. Spike couldn't help noticing that she'd acquired a bit of a twitch in her tail as well.

“Er, are you okay Twilight? You look all wet.”

“Oh, I fell in the lake chasing Rainbow Dash.” Spike blinked, opened his mouth to ask the question, but was silenced by an outburst from Twilight. “It was awful Spike! Nopony wanted to spend time together because they were too busy! We're growing apart already!”

Spike scratched the scales at the back of his neck. “Er, are you sure you're not overreacting? Just because everypony was busy today doesn't mean they won't have time for you ever. It is pretty unlike you to drop in unannounced.”

Twilight's jaw dropped. “You... you think everypony was always this busy, and I've just been too buried in books to notice?”

“Well, I'm not sure I'd say it quite like—”

“And now we're all getting busier and we've got even less time for each other and I'll never see them again!”

“How does that—?”

“There's so many things I have to tell them still!” Twilight gasped, collapsing in a heap. “And so many things to do. We've never all sat out in a field and watched the sunset, or, or gone on a road trip just to see how far we could get before we had to turn back—”

“Wait, I thought you hated sitting in fields at sunset because of all the bugs? And... road trips for that—”

“I don't have time for your science, Spike! This is serious!” Under the circumstances, Spike decided he was going to let that one go. “We've never even just sat and talked for hours and hours until we didn't even notice how late it was getting...”

“Didn't you and Rarity stay up until like four in the morning last week?”

“Well, yes but that wasn't talking. She was just excited about her new assignment and I was talking about those star charts I found in the archives—the ones that show that the stars used to be in different places, you know, and actually the north star used to be—” for a second Spike caught a glimmer of Twilight's undying love of all things that could put anypony else to sleep. But just as quickly—as though catching herself in a lie—the joy went out of her. “Anyway, that doesn't count. Real friends don't just talk about whatever they've been doing. They talk about... important things. Feelings. Dreams. Stuff that matters.”

“They do?”

“Who's Princess Celestia's number one friendship researcher, Spike?”

“Professor Good Day, chair of the Relationship Studies department at Canterlot University?”

Twilight glared. “That contest was rigged and you know it!”

“All right, all right,” Spike grumbled. “I still say you're overreacting. I mean, if nopony has time to go hang out with you, why don't you try joining in whatever they're doing?”

“Try joining in...” Twilight stopped mid-sentence, and Spike recognized the look on her face as the one she wore for mental calculations. “Of course, that's it! Spike, you're a genius!”

“Yeah, I know,” said Spike, casting a fond glance at the book fort/hammock setup. He'd even found a use for Mane Austen.

Twilight meanwhile had dashed from the room, and a second later reappeared with a full saddlebag across her back.

“Um, but, before you go, what exactly are you—?” Spike began, suddenly concerned as to what he might just have suggested.

“Bye Spike!” said Twilight, ignoring him. “I'll just be teleporting out the back now. By the way, if anypony from the sheriff's office shows up, you haven't seen me. In fact, you're not even home. Okay?”

Spike opened his mouth to protest but there was a burst of purple light and Twilight was gone. Almost on cue the knocker beat against the door. “Miss Sparkle, are you in? I have some questions for you,” called a voice, which Spike recognized as belonging to B. T. Book, Sheriff of Ponyville.

Not here, huh? That, I can do. Spike clambered up the pile of books and crawled back into the warmth and comfort of his hammock. As fuzzy darkness drew up around him, Spike knew in his heart that this was the right decision, and that surely whatever Twilight was up to would work itself out.

+++---+++

Applejack prided herself on being a pony of simple pleasures, and coming home after a hard day's work was one of the best of them. A full day of bucking down apples and carting them into storage had left her sore and aching; but as she trudged up the stairs to her bedroom, stomach full of Granny Smith's cooking, the knowledge that she had only a little while to wait before she could finally relax made each painful step a kind of joy in its own right. No pain, no gain—it was as true of fun as of work.

She shook her head as she recalled Twilight's visit earlier that day, with her wild notions about how to make the harvesting process “more efficient” and creating new apple breeds—as if Celestia had wanted there to be more kinds of apples than were put on Equestria to begin with (though... she supposed if Celestia did Twilight would know). Silly pony. Applejack still wasn't sure why Twilight had run off, though it had been something of a relief. She kept trying to use her magic to help, and Applejack had a sneaking suspicion that it affected the apples' flavor. They were sensitive fruit, apples.

Treasuring the strain, she hauled her last leg up the last stair, pushed the door open, and trudged to her bed. She let out a content sigh as she lowered herself onto the mattress, and for a second just lay there, letting the throbbing in her muscles slowly subside.

Okay, enough fooling around. Applejack reached for the dresser drawer next to her bed, and pulled it open, reaching inside for her—

“Hi Applejack!”

Applejack shut the drawer so fast she nearly slammed it on her own hoof. Her eyes darted across the room to see a smiling purple pony standing in the doorway.

“T-Twilight?! What the hay are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Well, I was talking to Spike about how I could spend more time with my friends—because you know, everypony's getting older and busier and we should treasure the time we have together and make the most of it because one day there might not be any left—and he he said I should try joining in with what you guys were doing, only since you said you were getting up before sunrise so you could start bucking down apples as soon as the sun was up, I figured you'd probably be about to go to sleep now, so I thought maybe we could have a slumber party!”

Applejack's eyes felt like they were beginning to roll around independently of each other as she tried to follow along.

“I brought Scrabble!” Twilight said, pulling the game box from her saddle bag with magic. “Sorry, Apples to Apples got... uh... well we tried playing when Spike had a cold last week, and Princess Celestia hasn't sent it back yet.”

Applejack looked at her friend's hopeful, apologetic, slightly twitchy expression, and accepted a hard truth. She was going to have to get out of bed for this.

She rose, groaning inwardly as her muscles protested (it was supposed to be pain, release, not pain, release, pain again), and lay a hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

“Twilight, sugarcube, you know I love you right? You're about as good a friend as I've ever had, or as anypony could ever want. So I want you to know I say this with nothing but love and respect, but... GET THE BUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

“But—!” Twilight's protests were silenced as she found herself shoved back down the stairs and out the door by an advancing Applejack.

“Now I'll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“But—”

“Goodnight.”

Applejack closed the door, and turned back to the stairs, only for Twilight to appear in front of her in a flash of light.

“But Applejack! I—I'll just sleep on the floor! You won't even know I'm—”

“Twilight, sometimes a pony just wants to be left alone,” said Applejack, once again shoving her friend out the door. “Now you go home and get some sleep.”

“But...”

This time, when Applejack closed the door, there was no flash of light.

Satisfied, exhausted, and rather more sore than she had been, Applejack reclimbed the stairs, got back into bed, and once again reached for the drawer. Thinking about the smooth, plastic object inside she couldn't help but smile. A little extra delay just made it that much more relaxing, right?

Applejack opened the drawer and pulled out a hairbrush.

And Rarity thought she got her mane like this without doing any work. She didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted.

+++---+++

Outside the Apple Family house, Twilight stood staring up at the lone light that marked Applejack's room for a while. She considered teleporting back up there, trying to explain again. It would be easy enough. But...

But Applejack would rather be alone than see her.

The thought was so all-consuming that all she could do was stand and stare, and she didn't even notice the sound of hoofsteps approaching behind her.

When Big Macintosh saw Twilight staring up at his sister's room, a look on her face like she wanted to run and cry and keep looking all at once, he recognized the expression immediately as the mark of a broken heart. So he approached very carefully, announcing his presence with a gentle cough. This produced no reaction, so he tried again.

“Twilight?”

“Huh?”

He wrapped a foreleg around Twilight's shoulder. “Hush now. It's gonna be all right. There's plenty of other fish in the sea, you'll see.”

“Plenty of other... fish?” asked Twilight.

“You'll find somepony else,” Big Mac said, clarifying. Expressions could get away from you sometimes. “Somepony who makes you feel just as special as Applejack. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but trust me, someday you'll forget all about—”

As Big Mac went on talking, Twilight's eyes had grown wider, her face stretching into a look of horror, and now she tore out of his embrace and ran. Big Mac let her go. What she needed right now was time to let her heart heal. Eeyup.

In the meantime, what he needed was to have a talk with his little sis about how she went about rejecting somepony.

+++---+++

Spike marched up the stairs of the Ponyville library with a scowl on his face and purpose in his heart. It wasn't long after he finished his bath that Twilight came bursting back into the library, practically in tears, ran up to her room and locked the door, refusing explanations. Spike had tried to stop her, of course, and had pounded on her door demanding to be let in for nearly a full minute before being seized by magic and—gently—hurled back down the stairs.

He'd decided to let Twilight have her space after that.

But that was hours ago, and enough was enough. Spike knew from ice cream—you let somepony you care about overindulge at their own risk. This had to stop, before it got out of hand—and as Twilight's number one assistant, it was his responsibility.

He knocked on the door. “Twilight?”

The only response was the saccharine call of pop music:

“♫ As we go on, we remember...

All the times we had together.

And as our lives change, come whatever

We will still be friends forever...♫” [4]

Spike sighed, and knocked louder. “Twilight, I know you're depressed and all but you've been listening to that song for four hours! Don't you think you should give it a rest? Twilight?”

Spike tried the doorknob, found it unlocked. That was one good sign, at least.

He swung open the door, and gulped.

At least. Definitely at least.

The great big box that Twilight always kept in her closet, in the back, with several other boxes on top, was sitting just inside the doorway, in the open, for anypony to see. Empty.

The contents of that box were Twilight's secret shame—and right now they were arrayed in a big spiral, each lying open, a configuration that Spike had privately nicknamed the Spiral of Depression.

They were, of course, books. Dozens of them. Math-E-Pon, The Adventures of Brainy Teddy and Silly Silkworm, The Especially Magic Tree House. All with fanciful covers and many illustrations and all written at about a second-grade reading level. With them laid out and arranged like this, Twilight could sit in the center and absorb the nostalgia one line at a time, going back to the days when all a book needed to do to hold her interest—no, to earn her love—was take her anywhere but here.

Spike wasn't surprised to see the box out—though she usually didn't empty it all the way down the Monkeykaupf Monkeys books from when she was just learning to read unless it was a real happiness emergency.

No, the troubling part was that Twilight was sitting in the middle of her childhood favorites... and not reading any of them.

Spike crept the rest of the way into the room, dark with the curtains drawn against the moon and only a mostly-burned candle sitting on the floor. Twilight's mane was matted, her eyes red and swollen, staring off into space. As he entered she broke off humming along to the gramophone and turned—barely noticeably—towards him.

“Hi Spike.”

“Twilight? Maybe you should give the sappy music a rest. I think you've had enough.”

“I'm trying to convince myself it's true.”

Spike blinked. Okay. That was. Wow.

“Hey look, Twilight!” Spike said, seizing a book from the floor. “It's The Adventure of Hypotenuse Castle! Your favorite!” he held up the brightly colored paperback, the cover depicting the heroic Math-E-Pon and their partners facing off against the hooded mass of i-Pon, the negative root Math-E-Pon. [5]

“Don't make me look at it, Spike.”

He nearly dropped the book. “Twilight?” he said, scared now.

“I don't want to look at them. I used to think they could take the place of friends but... they can't Spike. They just can't.” Twilight turned, hiding her face, and the books closest to her slid away across the floor. “What's the point of being nostalgic for a time when you were all alone?”

“O...kay. I'm just gonna,” Spike reached over to the gramophone and cut the teenage singer off before she could continue to idolize her time in high school. After a moment's consideration, he also took the scissors that were on the table next to the bed. “Now why don't you tell me what happened?”

Twilight sighed. “Applejack just wanted to be left alone. I guess I should have figured—nopony wants a surprise visit when they're trying to go to sleep. But...”

“It doesn't mean she doesn't like you Twilight. Even if your friends don't want to hang out all the time, they're still your friends.”

“But they won't be forever, Spike! Someday we're all going to drift apart and...”

“That doesn't have to happen!”

“Yes it does! You remember when I tried to warn myself about the future—you can't change things, Spike. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen, so it may as well have happened already.”

“Twilight Sparkle! That's quitter talk.”

“What does it matter?” said Twilight, sinking to the floor. “Plenty of ponies quit things. The world keeps turning.”

“Well.. well, I'm not going to let you just sit around and mope for the rest of your life!”

Twilight shook her head sadly. “We're all just dust in the wind, Spike.”

Spike gave her a hard look, then started for the door.

“Boats against the current, Spike,” said Twilight, sitting up to follow his progress.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ponies in the surf, Spike!” [6]

Spike shut the door to Twilight's room, nearly collapsing against it. It took every bit of his willpower not to run back in and hug Twilight and try to convince her that things weren't as bad as she thought. But that wasn't what was going to get her better. It wasn't where she needed him right now.

And Equestria needed Twilight Sparkle—the way she was supposed to be. Celestia only knew what the consequences might be if the Element of Magic stopped believing in her friendships. Something terrible could happen.

+++---+++

Elsewhere in Ponyville, six hooded figures gathered around a small table. Shadows danced across concrete walls as the light bulb overhead swung back and forth. The lead figure, seated on a raised chair at the head of the group, waited for the others to settle themselves, then stood. When he spoke it was in the firm tones of command.

“Thank you for coming, everypony. I'm sure you already know why I've called you here.”

“Twilight Sparkle's movements have become erratic,” said the robed shape to his right.

The other ponies all turned to stare at the one who had spoken.

“What?”

“Pinkie, why are you talking like that?”

“Well duh, because the basement is all super-spooky and we've got these creepy black cloaks on and I didn't want to spoil the atmosphere by talking like my normal silly-willy Pinkie-winkie self!” Pinkie gave an emphatic nod, wild, pink curls breaking free from her hood.

“These cloaks really are amazing Rarity,” said Spike. “Thanks for letting us use them.”

“Think nothing of it,” said one of the ponies in the circle, without raising her head from a bit of fabric she was in the midst of sewing. “They were just lying around taking up space—somepony thought black was going to be hot last season.”

“You mean summer?” asked a pony with a stetson over her hood.

“They were certainly hot all right. Anyway they were just taking up space—no! No no no no no!” Rarity cried, furiously tearing out the last three stitches.

“Um, I haven't seen Twilight all day. Is she okay?” asked another pony, whose long pink hair formed a complete—if rather unintimidating—screen across the front of her hood, concealing her face.

“She was super weird when I was trying to nap before,” said Rainbow Dash, pulling her hood down now that the moment seemed gone anyway. “She wanted to take me to a museum. And she insulted napping.”

“She told me I should stop practicing my party moves!” Pinkie added.

“She barged into my house all of a sudden saying something about having a sleepover. I had to kick her out twice.”

“She just invited herself? That does seem rather rude, not like Twilight at all.”

“See, even you think so!” Applejack's hood slipped back as she pounded the table. “Big Macintosh kept acting like I'd done something wrong by kicking her out!”

“Did you tell him you weren't interested in having a slumber party?”

“A dozen times! He just kept saying 'I don't care what y'all call it.'”

The conversation was cut off as Spike cleared his throat loudly. He settled himself back onto the stack of Grim R. R. Swallow novels that brought him to table-height. “Look everypony, this is serious. Twilight thinks that—well she thinks you're all drifting apart, or going to drift apart, and she's really depressed.”

“Why—that's a load of horsefeathers! No offense, RD.”

“None taken. Why would Twilight think we're drifting apart?”

“Because you were all too busy for her today. Not that it's your fault,” said Spike quickly, as a series of worried ran around the room. “She's just gotten it into her head that sooner or later, you're all going to split up, so she was really trying to spend time with you all today, and when that didn't work...” Spike broke off, uncertain whether he should or even could tell the others about Twilight's state when he last saw her. “I've honestly never seen her like this. I'm really worried.”

“But surely Twilight's been lonely before,” said Rarity, her sewing project forgotten. “Before coming here she said she didn't have any friends at all. Apart from you and Shining Armor.”

“Well of course she was lonely back in Canterlot, sometimes, but... she seemed to be okay filling the gap with books. But now that she's afraid she's losing all of you the books don't seem to matter to her.”

If there were such a thing as the sound of a jaw dropping open, the room would have echoed with it.

“Twilight... not reading?” Rainbow Dash gasped.

“Oh dear...”

“This is bad.”

“Super-di-duper apocalypse-by-nutso-Unicorn bad!”

“Spike, tell me you've written to Princess Celestia,” said Rarity, ever the first to acknowledge when a problem was beyond her means.

“Ohhhh yeah.” The dragon held up his right claw, red and throbbing from overuse. “No response. She must not be checking her mail. Which is weird, because it goes right to her, wherever she is at the time.”

“Should we be worried about that?” asked Applejack.

“Probably,” said Spike. “But right now, Twilight needs us. You guys especially. She needs to feel loved and I...” he struggled for what to say. “I don't count. She's not even thinking I might leave. I think if she did, she might really... anyway, it's on you guys.”

“Of course!” said Rainbow Dash, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. The others looked at her oddly. “That means we get to say the oath right?”

“Rainbow—”

“I don't think now's the time for—”

“Hey, look, we all agreed after last time that Twilight is about one bad day from going crazy and taking the whole town with her, right?” There were reluctant nods from around the room. “And we made a promise to never let that happen, and part of that promise was an oath, and I think that oath is important. Also cool.”

The others sighed.

“I um... I agree with Dash,” said Fluttershy, and not because of the hoof jabbing her in the ribs.

“Very well,” said Rarity. “If you insist. To protect the world from devastation.”

Applejack picked it up, “In brightest day, in blackest night.”

“To save our friend from institutionalization!” added Pinkie.

“And um, to banish madness with hope's light.”

Rainbow leapt into the air and shouted, “When danger rears, to kick its butt! No—wait, I thought of a better one last week—”

Spike ignored her and went on. “To be there for Twilight no matter what.”

“Anypony'd who'd hurt her had better flee—” said Applejack.

Rainbow, recovering, yelled, “Because we are—”

“The Society for Protecting Twilight's Sanity!”

For a second the room was alive with energy—with magic—and six black cloaks billowed open, exposing the puffed out chests and resolute hearts of five brave ponies and one dragon, who would do absolutely anything for their common friend.

“Did... everypony just feel a draft?” said Fluttershy.

Pinkie's eyes grew wide. “Oh no—”

There was a roar of wind from upstairs, and a crash of shattered glass.

“POUND! PUMPKIN!” yelled Pinkie, bolting from the room.

The remaining ponies stared at each other for a moment, then looked to Spike, who nodded thoughtfully.

“All right everypony, listen up. Here's the plan...”

+++---+++

Spike bounded up the library stairs and threw open the door to Twilight's room. “Hey Twilight, guess what?” He was greeted by a sudden flurry of activity, thin paperbacks whirling through the air, borne by magic. In the center of the storm Twilight abruptly sat up, giving him a look of wide-eyed innocence. But then, as though remembering something she'd almost forgotten, her expression drooped.

“Twilight?” asked Spike, unsure what to make of this. “Is something the matter?”

“What? Oh, no.” Twilight glanced up, apparently surprised to find a cluster of books floating through the air in front of her. They shuffled slightly and drifted back to the ground. “I mean, just... the same.”

Spike beamed. “Well, I've got good news! I managed to get ahold of everypony, and they're going to spend the whole today with you tomorrow! They're all still busy with stuff, but they said they'd be glad to have you along for company. So I figured in the morning you could—”

“Oh. That's great, Spike,” said Twilight slowly.

Spike's smile faded. He'd expected her to be a bit more... cheered up. “Are you okay? Did something happen while I was gone?”

“No, no, I'm... I'm fine. I'm happy that you went to that much trouble. Really.” She shot a glance at the clock on the dresser. “And way past your bedtime, too. You should get to sleep.”

“Um... okay. Do you want me to stay in here tonight?”

“No, that's okay. I'm just gonna be up here listening to sad music and... um... reading, and you don't want me getting you all depressed too.” The gramophone kicked on, starting up “Friends Forever” again, as Twilight buried her muzzle in one of the books next to her. “Oh PowerSetPon, how could you even think that Blues Harmonica would ever forget you? He'll never say it, but you're his best friend.”

Spike was fairly certain that that book had been an Especially Magic Treehouse adventure. “Twilight, seriously, I don't mind staying,” he said, taking a few steps closer. “In fact, I think maybe I should—”

“Oh come on, Spike!” Twilight said, mustering something like a laugh. “I'm just depressed, not crazy. I don't need you watching over me like I'm gonna fly off the deep end and hurt somepony.”

Spike regarded Twlight carefully. “All—”

“Okay, so, goodnight!” Before he could reply, Spike was lifted and deposited outside the door, which promptly closed in his face.

He stood there scratching his head for a moment, then shrugged. Maybe Twilight was more resilient than he thought. Maybe all she needed was time.

“Goodnight, Twilight,” he called to the door, and then turned and walked back to his own room.

+++---+++

As she heard his footsteps fade, Twilight heaved a sigh of relief, withdrawing the large roll of parchment she'd been hiding behind her back.

Spike was right about what he said earlier. She hadn't been acting like herself. She was Twilight Sparkle. The Princess's star student. Wielder of the Element of Magic.

And if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was make a plan.

She couldn't have told Spike about it. Not yet. It wasn't ready, and it would only make him more concerned. He could be such a worrywort. And this had to be a surprise.

She opened up the parchment and beamed at the title line, written in neat cursive:

Ultimate Friendship Plan
a Friendship-Saving Operation Manual, Guaranteed to Work Every Time
by Twilight Sparkle

Already it was shaping up as her most brilliant idea yet—and her brain was still alive and buzzing with ways to improve it. But before that...

Twilight put an ear to the floorboards and listened carefully for the sound of tiny snores. Satisfied, she flipped over the record on the gramophone.

The pop-y tune cut off, and ominous organ music filled the room as Twilight Sparkle threw back her head and laughed. [7]

This was going to be perfect.

End of Chapter 1

[1] “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost.

[2] A game which, played without hands, requires a tremendous degree of skill, Tiddlywinks is a highly competitive, often brutal sport among Ponies. Sadly, in one of the last vestiges of racial segregation in Equestria, unicorns remained banned from professional play.

[3] A game which, played without hands, requires a tremendous amount of emergency dental work. In one of the many instances of blatant hypocrisy in Equestria, unicorns remain banned from professional play and highly desired for intramural games.

[4] “Graduation – Friends Forever” by Vitamin C.

[5] Who, as it turned out, was a figment of the main character's imaginations caused by exposure to poison dream-spores. Twilight liked this book the best out of the series because the brainiest of the group was able to deduce i-Pon's non-existence when he and his duplicate merged to NegadraPon, who, as everyone knows, has no square evolutionary predecessor.

[6] An actual band. I'm not joking.

[7] All Vitamin C singles have one track of ominous organ music on the B-side. It's in their contract.

Chapter 2: She's Exactly That Into You

An excellent source of:
Early Morning Blues (and Purples) + Still It Sits There, Never Stirring + A Showdown in Secret + Sooner or Later, Gonna Cut You Down + Flawed Design + Quiet Healing + Less Quiet Healing + No Healing of Any Sort + Sweet Confusion + The Floor, the Flounder, and the Fugitive From Law + Prickly Days and Brave Faces + The Tub of Despair Comes with Bath Salts and a Timer + An Assessment of the Day's Failures + The Rejection of the Sunset and a Promise of Things to Come

Rainbow Dash rolled over in bed, and pulled the covers up against the morning light. She was exhausted: the secret friendship cult meeting had run late, and she never had gotten anywhere trying to nap, for all that she'd sent several anonymous complaints to the weather factory about the quality of the clouds.

Well, okay, she'd actually sonic rainboomed past the factory a couple times. Admittedly not a complaint... and perhaps less anonymous than might be desired, but it probably made a mess for Perma Frost.

She grunted as the room grew brighter. One problem with living in a house made of clouds, they weren't much good at keeping out sunlight. That was why she always slept with... that girly blindfold thing Fluttershy gave her...

She must have forgotten to put it on.

Only—sunlight wasn't usually pink, was it?

“Morning Rainbow Dash!”

Suddenly the missing blindfold made a horrible kind of sense. The sound that came from Rainbow's mouth resembled the word, “Gggggnnneeeeegh.”

“Come on, sleepyhead.”

The covers were yanked from the bed, tumbling Rainbow out of her warm tangle and into the cold, damp reality of Monday.

This had the nasty side effect of waking her up.

And with wakefulness, came memory: the argument last night about how to enact Operation PFF; her, finally ending the argument with a brilliant and fair way to settle things; and then drawing the short straw.

“Twilight?” said Rainbow Dash, opening her eyes to find the unicorn glowing in front of her. The house was pitch dark otherwise. “What are you... how are you?”

“Cloudwalk spell,” said Twilight, a huge smile on her face. “And don't you remember? We're supposed to hang out this morning!”

Rainbow climbed sleepily to her hooves, turned, and punched a hoof through the wall. The new window showed nothing but stars, with maybe the barest hint of gray in the east.

“This is morning?”

“4am!” said Twilight brightly.

Rainbow Dash tried to pour every ounce of feeling she had for the words “4am” into one withering look. Sadly, the glare was lost—blocked by a red balloon that came floating rudely up through the floor without so much as knocking. It did pop immediately afterward, which made Rainbow feel slightly better, until she saw the note that had been attached to it.

Rainbow Dash,

Twilight's headed your way. Er, you probably already know that. Sorry, I tried to get her to wait until, you know, morning, but she teleported away on me. Don't let her see this, okay?

-Spike

Even the part of Rainbow's mind that was desperately trying to crawl back to bed, and didn't much care if her body came with it, could see the wisdom in not letting Twilight know they were talking about her like a burden to be passed around. As she stared groggily at the last line of the message, she knew what she had to do.

“Rainbow?”

“Mmmhmm?”

“You're... eating that letter.”

Rainbow Dash glanced down at the paper half in her mouth. “Yep.”

Twilight cocked her head sideways. “Is it... good?”

“Not really.” She gave a couple more chews for good measure. Yeah, she definitely wasn't swallowing this. Pawing a hole in the floor, Rainbow stuck her head out into the dark, opened her mouth, and let the paper become somepony else's problem.

“Do you maybe want some coffee?”

Rainbow nodded, rubbing her hooves against her eyes. “Uh, I'll just—”

“I'll get it. I'm not sure you should handle hot liquids right now.”

+++---+++

With half a cup of coffee in her, Rainbow Dash was nearly convinced that she was, in fact, alive. Which meant that the purple unicorn sitting across from her was probably real, and not a spirit or a figment of her imagination. Which meant she'd have to run out of breath eventually.

“—So even though coffee became associated with the educated upper class, when it was first introduced in Equestria, the aristocracy hated it because it was an import from the Griffoman empire. Sandy Trails—the travel writer—even called it, 'As black as soote, and tasting not much unlike it.'”

Rainbow could feel the silent e on the end of “soote,” sitting there, leering at her.

“How about breakfast?” she offered, in a desperate bid to change the topic. She wasn't hungry in the least herself, seeing as she wouldn't usually be up for another three hours.

“Oh, no thanks. I'll just have some more of this 'Drink of Nightmare Moon,' as it was once called,” said Twilight, lifting her cup.

It took every bit of willpower Rainbow had to not start pounding her head against the table. Come to think of it, that might knock her out. Which was almost like sleep.

No. Better not.

“So,” said Twilght, returning her empty mug to the table. “This is my big chance to learn about what you do every day. I've always wanted to know how weather control worked. What time do you usually start?”

“Oh about. Eight. Nine.”

“Really? But isn't the sun usually up by then?”

That's the idea. She managed to nod without grimacing too hard.

“So then, don't some ponies end up walking around without the weather being whatever it's supposed to be?”

“I guess.” Rainbow Dash decided not to add that anypony up that early deserved whatever they got. Considering how things were going, she didn't want to set the precedent.

“Oh. Well, hey, today we can watch the sun rise too! And if you start early, then you'll have the whole day free.”

Rainbow grunted. The whole point of learning to clear the skies in 10 seconds was that you stopped having to wake up early to get the job done—

She shook herself. When you started growling in your own thoughts it was time to take a step back.

“Plus, maybe I can help out. I am a pretty fast learner.”

Rainbow Dash yawned for about the seventeeth time that morning, shooting Twilight a meaningful look. Twilight kept right on beaming at her. She sighed.

Well, weather control was a pretty solitary job. It might be nice to have some company for a change.

+++---+++

Applejack glanced up from her work as a blue and purple streak shot past overhead. It looped around the barn, shot up into the house through her bedroom window, tore out the front door—now trailing a checkered tablecloth—and plowed into the ground in front of her, coughing up a very dizzy Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight simply lay where she fell, dazed, but Rainbow was back on her feet almost immediately, crash and recovery reduced to one smooth motion by years of nearly braining herself against every hard surface in town.

“Heheh, sorry abound the landing there Twilight,” she said, then, whipping around to face Applejack, “AJ you've got to take her I'm gonna go crazy.”

Applejack blinked, then glanced skywards. “I reckon I got at least an hour before it's supposed to be my turn.”

“She showed up four hours early.”

“I hardly see how that's my fault.”

“Well it's not mine, and I'm the one who's had to put up with her since 4am. Which, by the way, is a real time,”said Rainbow Dash, her tone making it quite clear that this state of affairs was a crime against nature.

Applejack shot a look at the still-collapsed Twilight, then pulled Rainbow Dash a little father away. “You wanna say that bit about 'putting up with her' a little louder?”

“You gonna keep arguing with me?”

“It's not. My. Turn. Yet.”

“Applejack, she's been trying to make me learn the names of clouds.”

Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “You don't know the names of clouds? You work with clouds every day.”

“What's to know? There's the puffy ones, the wispy ones, the big thick ones...” said Rainbow Dash. Applejack snorted. “Well, do you know the scientific names for all the kinds of apples? Because you're about to find out.”

“No need to rush it then.”

“Oh come on Applejack! I've done more than my share. Anyway what've you got going on that Twilight can't hang around for?”

Applejack jerked her head towards the applecart hitched to her back.

“Twilight's helped you harvest plenty of times.”

Rainbow Dash took a couple of steps back as Applejack's eyes twitched. “With magic!”

“What's wrong with—”

“T'aint natural, using fancy unicorn magic on perfectly good apples! Apples and magic don't mix.”

“What about zap apples?”

“That's fancy nature magic. Completely different.”

“How?”

“Well, obviously,” Applejack stopped, thought for a second. “Uh...”

“Girls, girls!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack turned as Twilight approached, shaking herself. “This fighting over me has got to stop. I'm flattered, but, well, Rainbow, we are late for Applejack's turn.”

Applejack shot Rainbow a glare which read you told her it was already my turn? Rainbow Dash smiled innocently.

“Oh, too bad—well, I guess all good things must come to an e—ahahah!” Rainbow cut herself off. She shot a glance at Twilight to see if the ill-advised cliché had had any effect on her—but she seemed not to have noticed. “Well uh, have fun guys,” she said, giving Applejack a thud on the shoulder.

Applejack returned the gesture—plus interest. “You couldn't just have asked her to stop talking about clouds?” she whispered.

“Tried. She started talking about our feelings.”

“So...”

“I'd let her rant.”

+++---+++

“--It's actually a very simple spell, and it would make different sections of the orchard come ripe at different times. That way it'd be easier to manage with just you and Big Mac.”

She means well, Applejack thought. The phrase had become an internal mantra over the past hour, repeated as loud and as frequently as necessary to drown out whatever blasphemous suggestion had just passed Twilight's lips.

But... using magic? To make things easier? That was practically cheating!

She. Means. Well.

Applejack sighed. That tone of thought would brook no argument. She could be more than a mite stubborn, and there was just no arguing with herself when she got like this.

“You do have to be a little careful when you cross from one area to another—if you're carrying apples they might suddenly age or de-age. And there's always rumors about ponies who step across zones and come out two weeks later, but I've never read a report of it actually happening. Besides, you always get rumors when you make a spell that plays around with—Applejack? Are you okay?”

“Fine.” The word hissed out, as if leaked from a pressure tank.

“It's just, you've been grinding your teeth for a while now. Is the cart too heavy? Because I can—”

“No!” The stunned look on Twilight's face suggested that might have been a little too forceful. “Er, no thanks Twilight. Why don't you just go on telling me all about your idea to farm apples by using reality warping magic.”

“Oh, well that's the interesting part! The spell doesn't actually warp reality so much as—”

Twilight stopped talking.

For the love of all things holy please don't let this be a dream. A second's thought, and Applejack appended, Actually, I don't care if it is, just don't go waking me up.

“Is that Sheriff Book?”

Yep. Not a dream.

Applejack glanced back over her shoulder and saw a tiny, sepia-colored figure, dwarfed by a ten-gallon hat large enough to live up to its name. A golden star blazed from just above the hat's mighty brim.

Applejack adjusted her stetson, struck by a sudden feeling of inadequacy. “Looks like.”

“Hide me!”

Applejack blinked. There was a faint rustle, and when she turned back, Twilight's tail was sticking out of a quivering hedge.

“Uh, Twilight? There something you wanna tell me about why you're hiding from the law?”

After some faint and vaguely painful-sounding shuffling, Twilight's face took the place of her tail, poking out between the branches.

“Well, you remember yesterday when I panicked and ran all over town looking for everypony to spend time with them before our time together ran out because we only have so long before our lives are all going to take us in different directions forever and we never see each other again?”

“I... remember you leaving the farm. And coming back in the middle of the night.”

“Oh. Well, yesterday I panicked and—”

“I got it. Why're you hiding from the sheriff?”

Twilight shifted uncomfortably. Given the hedge it looked especially uncomfortable. In fact, Applejack seemed to recall that hedge having thorns.

“I may have... in my haste to protect our friendship... taken a run at the mayor and almost stabbed her with my horn.” Applejack didn't even have time to pull out a stern gaze before Twilight broke, adding desperately, “It was an accident! I wasn't looking where I was going.”

“But you... told her that and got the whole mess cleared up, right?”

“Um. I might have done that. However, it is equally possible that I ran away in an extremely suspicious fashion.”

Applejack opened her mouth to say something and realized almost immediately that that was as far as her plan went. The supply line of useful words from brain to tongue had been cut, and she was left there, exposed, like Ponaparte in the Unicornian Winter.

“This bush giving you any trouble, ma'am?” asked a voice from behind her.

“'s a hedge,” Applejack replied without thinking. Turning, she came face to felt with Sheriff B. T. Book, lawman and owner of the only hat in Ponyville that could actually shade other ponies from a comfortable speaking distance. Up close he cut an impressive figure, being about the same size as Big Macintosh; it would have been more impressive had his hat not cut a larger one. Fortunately he was used to the pause as ponies tried to take him in, which gave Applejack a couple of seconds to collect her thoughts. They amounted to: “And, uh, come again?”

“Well, you were staring awful hard at that bush there with your mouth hanging open, so I was thinking maybe you were trying to find the right comeback, like maybe it was giving you lip. Branch, I mean,” offered the sheriff. “For the record, I find 'brush off,' usually does the trick.”

Applejack's eyes narrowed. “Are you making fun of me?”

Sheriff Book gazed back at her with a look of the utmost severity. “Ma'am. I would never joke about the Tauntberry bushes of the Jerkwood forest. Never.” He averted his head, wrestling with some painful memory. It was nearly Applejack's painful memory as well, but she saw the signs and ducked before the great brim came swinging around.

“Anyway, I'm here on account of Twilight Sparkle. Got some witnesses said they saw her flying this way with Rainbow Dash earlier on.”

“Can't see her. I mean haven't! Aint'! Seen her,” said Applejack, fighting very, very hard to not look at the bushes.

“Funny, because I've also got witnesses that Rainbow Dash came back alone not long after.”

“Well, shoot, Sheriff, 'this way' is a pretty big place.” Applejack's eyes were practically watering with the effort of not glancing over her shoulder.

“Fair enough. Though I'm surprised you don't ask why I'm looking for her. Seems natural for a friend to be concerned.”

“A-huh...” said Applejack. “Well, this is Twilight we're talking about—I'm sure you're just looking for her help on something, or maybe she double-parked her balloon someplace, you know Twilight when she's in a hurry, she just doesn't... anyway, it's not like she would have tried to assassinate anypony!”

She cast the sheriff a hopeful look, which he returned blankly. Not a trace of suspicion. She had him. Score one for the element of honesty!

“Miss Applejack.”

“Yes, Sheriff?”

“It may interest you to know that in ten years in law enforcement, you are the single worst liar I have ever met. Let's see that bush.”

Applejack gulped, and stepped aside. Against a hat that size, there was nothing she could do. Twilight was on her own.

Moving with the utmost caution, the Sheriff approached the hedge, bending his head up at an extreme angle to avoid disturbing the bushes with his hat. Then he sprang. There was a faint bamf, a burst of pink, and a cracking noise—and when the light faded and Book had worked his hat free of what remained of the hedge, there was nothing there but snapped branches.

“Horsefeathers!” he swore, in the exact manner that some ponies say “Oh boy, oh boy!” Without missing a beat he whirled and set off at a quick trot in the direction of Ponyville.

Applejack let out the breath she'd been holding in a huge sigh, which, in retrospect, was not the most nonchalant reaction in the world.

Sheriff Book stopped dead. “Miss Applejack. You understand that your friend is wanted for the attempted murder of our beloved Mayor Mare, don't you? And the longer it takes me to find her, the more time I have to spend chasing her all over town, the angrier I'll be when I finally bring those charges to bear.”

Applejack snorted. “Now which one of us is the bad liar, Sheriff?”

B. T. Book said nothing, but as she watched him go, Applejack swore she saw him run an foreleg across his face several times, as though trying to wipe away a smirk.

+++---+++

The bell above the door to Carousel Boutique tinkled.

Rarity started up from her sewing. She was closed, right? She'd put the sign out saying the store was closed. And it wasn't as though there were frothing demand for her dresses in Ponyville. What on Equestria could drive somepony to ignore the unambiguous message that the store was not open for business? To risk the ire of Rarity, Ponyville's resident expert at ire?

Only an emergency, surely.

A fashion emergency.

Rarity bit her lip, needle still shooting back and forth through the bolt of cloth laid out before her. Fashion emergencies were so rare these days. Well, unless you counted Applejack. And now one came up when she was in crunch time on an enormous order! That was simply rude.

Oh, but—she had so few opportunities to practice battlefield design. Time to be creative was a wonderful luxury, but there was something about the pressure...

And besides which, if somepony came to her in dire straits, how could the element of generosity turn them away? This went beyond mere work. It was a sacred duty!

Yes, that sounded convincing.

“Rarity? Are you home?”

Or it could just be Twilight.

“Up in my room, darling!” she called, masking disappointment. “You're here early, aren't you?”

Hoofsteps clicked up the stairs and into the room. “Yeah, I was with Applejack, but I had to leave or I probably would have been arrested for trying to kill the mayor.”

Under normal circumstances, Rarity would have been bothered by at least three things in that sentence, to say nothing of the prickly state of Twilight's mane. But she had seven dresses to finish in as many hours, and, frankly—just this once—listening to Twilight was not a high priority.

“That's lovely, dear. Make yourself at home. I'm afraid I'm not going to be very good company, but I've just been up to my horn in work for this latest order—”

“Oh, don't worry about it. Anything I can do to help?

Rarity was nothing if not a lady. The lessons of Madame Valentine's School of Ettiquette were as much a part of her as a smoker's lighter or an alcoholic's flask. So, with her higher functions otherwise occupied, she reached for a bottle of politeness and popped a few without even looking at the dosing instructions.

“Twilight, dear, your company and conversation is already more than I could ask for.”

Rarity's ears perked up at her own voice. She felt a sharp tug and looked down to see that she'd stabbed the needle clear through her hoof, and was now stitched to the dress.

Nevermind! her mind shouted over the twinge of pain. She only had a few seconds to fix this! There was a polite way to say “On second thought, just sit down and shut up,” wasn't there?

Surely—

“That's great, Rarity! I've actually been thinking about things I wanted to ask you—I was too excited to get very much sleep last night—and I was wondering, why a carousel? You don't really have a carnival motif or anything. It doesn't seem very... you.”

The room fell silent.

“Rari—?”

“What have you heard? Who told you? Was it Pinkie Pie?!”

“Nopony—Rarity I was just—careful, your dress!”

Rarity's eyes shifted from the hoof she had shoved in Twilight's face to the little red string dangling from it. With a shriek she whirled around to face her workbench. The hem of the dress was torn out. Twenty minutes' work, destroyed by a single gesture.

“No no no!” Rarity cried, too late. She tried furiously to force the thread back along its destroyed pathway, shoving with both hooves.

Unfortunately in the process she forgot all about the needle. And while the vigorous effort at re-threading did nothing at all for the dress, slamming her hooves on the table in frustration did ram the needle fully into the ball of nerve endings it had grazed on its way in.

“Ow ow ow!” Rarity leapt back. This was all it took to rip the thread the rest of the way out, violently freeing the large sapphire on the dress's neckline and sending it into the air.

“Rarity, are you okay?”

“The gem!” she gasped.

But once again it was too little, too late, and behind her she heard a faint clik.

Not a clak. A clak would have been okay. It had cliked. Rarity swallowed against the lump building in her throat before turning around.

Sure enough, the gemstone was chipped.

“No! Oh no no no no!” Rarity wailed. “This is absolutely—do you know how long it took to find a gem just that size, without any fracture lines? The trip to the hunting grounds alone is three hours there and back!” The dressmaker had started racing about the room, throwing belongings into a saddlebag, but now she pulled up short. “And then there's all that digging! Oh, I'll never get them all done in time—I... I'll miss the last shipment!”

Twilight, meanwhile, had been studying the crystal and its several chips. “Rarity?”

“I'll have to take them up to Canterlot on the train...”

“Rarity.”

“And the fee for that much luggage! Plus of course I'll need my own outfits, and I suppose I shall have to stay overnight, that's another three cases of—well I'll just have to do it! I've never missed a deadline, and I'm not about to start—”

A flicker of pink and purple brightened the room.

“Twilight?” Rarity stopped. “What did you—?” She gasped. “Twilight! It's—it's—”

The gem was completely restored, hovering in the air in front of her, a beaming Twilight standing behind.

“Twilight, you are an absolute life saver!” Rarity exclaimed, yanking her friend into a tight embrace.

Twilight ducked her head, blushing. “Really, it was nothing. Just a simple 'come-together' spell. I'm just glad I could help.”

“You've done more than that, darling—you've just saved me—well, I suppose I should get back to it.” With an air of triumph, Rarity took the floating sapphire from Twilight and returned it to its rightful place in the center of the dress's bejeweled neckline. It gleamed in the light, the whole dress sparkling.

Then the gemstone twitched, and the other sapphires affixed along the neck leapt from their places and latched onto it, fusing seamlessly together.

The unicorns blinked.

“Twilight what—”

“It was just a simple spell!” Twilight gasped, as the dress convulsed, the gems all trying to wad together in the center. Fabric tore. “Which I—may—have—mixed up the delimiters... for...”

“Fix it!”

“I'm trying!” Twilight's horn lit up, focusing pinkish rays of light on the twitching mass of fabric and gemstones. All she had to do was integrate the proper end on the spell, and—

Twilight winced as something crashed against her horn, sending a sharp vibration into her skull. Her focus snapped, and the magic glow went out as an emerald flew at the dress-slash-geode.

The next instant the room was a vortex of flying gemstones. The two unicorns tumbled to the floor, taking cover as precious stones whipped by overhead, shredding garments, curtains, and anything else foolish enough to extend more than a foot above the floor.

Rarity didn't raise her head until the wind had died down. In fact she kept her head down for an extra couple of seconds just to be safe. And to prolong the hope that maybe, just maybe, she might look up and see everything just as she left it.

There was an enormous crunch.

Rarity started up just in time to see four multi-jointed, crystaline legs disappear through a ten-foot hole in the wall. The room itself looked like it had been through a very stylish war—shreds of fabric lying everywhere, punctuated here and there by overturned tools or ruined decorations.

She turned on Twilight, slowly. “Twilight...?”

“That's never happened before!” Twilight said hastily. There were screams from outside.

“Get out!”

“But—”

“Out!”

Twilight looked from her friend's enraged expression to the trail of destruction that ran across the boutique's roof and down into Ponyville.

“Uh, so I'll send Spike along later after I recover the gems shall I? Yeah, that sounds—”

Twilight disappeared in a flash.

+++---+++

Fluttershy tapped a quill miserably against her clipboard, before finally doodling a couple of squiggly lines. Earthworms, she decided, her mood lifting at once. After a moment's consideration she also gave them a beach ball, so it was clear they were having a good time.

Normally a wellspring of patience, it wasn't often that Fluttershy had to tune out and collect herself like this; but these were desperate times, and there were certain trials that even a lifetime of being pushed around didn't prepare you to endure.

“Now Matilda,” she said, addressing the grizzly bear on the left side of what could generously still be called a couch. “Name-calling isn't going to get us anywhere. It's good that you can freely express how your husband makes you feel, but we have to remember—”

The bear on the right growled deeply, folding his paws into his armpits.

“Barry! You really shouldn't interrupt. I mean, unless it's important, of course—”

Matilda snarled at her husband, then, turning up her nose with an air of indifference, set about adjusting the ribbon on her head.

Barry threw a paw in her direction, as if to say, “See! See!”

“Oh dear... um, let's just all calm down. We're here to help each other, and help you two get back to living together as a happy couple. I know when you're upset it can seem like everypony is going out of their way to be cruel, but believe me, nopony is out to get you.”

The two grizzlies appeared to consider this, and as they did the anger left their faces, and they shifted slightly, so they were no longer turned away from each other. Fluttershy heaved an inward sigh of relief. Progress!

Then the window on the far wall exploded, and a smoking projectile came shooting into the center of the room and smashed into Fluttershy's (formerly unscathed) table.

+++---+++

Twilight Sparkle lay in a dark, splintery haze, head spinning wildly off-kilter. Thoughts, half-formed and in no mood to be told to sit down and finish thinking themselves, drifted through her mind. And if there was one thing she couldn't stand it was a messy thoughtspace. This called for a checklist.

Start with the essentials: Head—responsible for creating the checklist, so check. Legs—she counted one, two, three, four wobbly bits that vaguely responded to her efforts to move. Check. Back—well, something was behind those cracking noises. Check. Stomach? Somehow caught up to her. Check, and that meant she'd probably stopped hurtling through the air.

So why was the wind still roaring in her ears?

Twilight opened her eyes (check) on a set of massive, drooling jaws, lined with teeth that, in a pinch, could serve as golf tees. Or rend to pieces whatever they were pinching.

A large claw reached up and dabbed at the drool with a napkin.

Twilight shrugged as best she could with forelegs made of tapioca, and sat up. The jaws moved obediently aside, as though not certain how to respond to a creature that willingly approached them.

A quick self-exam told Twilight that her ironskin spell was holding up. There were some bent splinters stuck to her fur, but no cuts or bruises to speak of—though she was likely to be very sore tomorrow. And attract magnets for a few days after that. She'd have to remember to warn Spike not to let her near the fridge.

But there were more pressing concerns, like the two grizzly bears trying very hard to press her back down onto the floor, and not having much luck with it. Twilight decided that one could wait until she figured out where she was. From the looks of things, her attempt at steering had paid off, and she was in Fluttershy's cottage sometime after a minor hurricane had passed through (or another visit from the Cutie Mark Crusaders Home Decorating Agency).

“Fluttershy?” Twilight called. The two bears gave up trying to push her down and resorted to angry glares instead. Suddenly everything clicked. “Oh, were you having a session? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“Oh, it's no trouble, really,” replied a tiny voice.

“It's... just me Fluttershy. You can come out.”

There was a squeak.

“Come again?”

“I think I'm stuck.”

“Hmmm...” With a gentle, telekinetic tug, Twilight tore her friend free from the ceiling, where she had left a clean, Fluttershy-shaped indent, and restored her to the ground. “I'm sure that'll buff right out.”

Fluttershy simply nodded, bending to pick up a fragment of table leg.

“Oh, um... I'm sorry about the table too. I could fix it for you! But I already cast that spell once today and... well I just got back from destroying a giant crystalline spider. I... may have overdone it a little.”

There was only silence, as Fluttershy stared deeply into the wood grain. Matilda removed her ribbon and clutched it to her chest.

“Let me make it up to you!” said Twilight. “I'm sure I can help out with your session, let me see—you must be Matilda, right? And you're Barry?” she added, pointing to where Barry had been cowering in horror since the mention of the word “spider.”

Matilda threw her paws up in the universal gesture for “Oh, look, here he is: Mr. Man. Mr. Tough guy. Afraid of a little spider.”

“Twilight, I really couldn't ask you to—”

“It's no trouble,” said Twilight, beaming. Finally a friend who was willing to accept her help! “I always carry my pocket-sized copy of The Mind: Explained. In case I need to save the day with a lecture on psychology.” Twilight unzipped a saddlebag and withdrew a book that was no more than two inches across, and about a foot and a half thick.

“Now, why don't you both explain what exactly—”

At once both bears began jabbering at each other with extremely emphatic, and—from the looks of the pottery on the tables behind them—expensive gestures.

“I see,” said Twilight, quill scribbling furiously across a small notepad. “And so—and then—with the salmon—” She broke off and turned to Fluttershy. “This might go faster if I could see your notes. Are these...”

“Oh, no, that wouldn't—” Fluttershy began, but Twilight was already flipping through the clipboard at great speed.

“Fluttershy, there's nothing here but doodles. And empty Tic-Tac-Toe grids, like both sides surrendered without playing.”

“I was trying to tell you, I didn't take any notes,” Fluttershy whispered.

“Why not?”

“Well, what if somepony found them? That would be a horrible invasion of privacy! Besides, I'm sure if I forget anything about the case Barry or Matilda will remind me.”

Twilight cast a glance at Barry and Matilda, who were presently limbering up their jaws for what she could only hope was going to be a roaring contest.

“Well, I suppose I can manage without...”

+++---+++

“Barry! Wait, no, you're—Matilda! Stop that right—now I mean Barry! I think. Ugh, could you go back to wearing the ribbon?!” Twilight demanded, holding up the shredded remains of the the accessory. The bears—rolling on the floor in a confusion of snarls and claws—paid her no mind.

“Wha—what?” squeaked a voice from the doorway.

Twilight twisted to see Fluttershy, a steaming tray laid across her back. “Um, I can fix this!”

“I... only went to get tea.”

“There's tea!” Twilight tried. The bears continued their duel. “No luck—good idea, though, Fluttershy. Uh...” pages flew as Twilight stared down at her book. “There's nothing in this stupid chapter on couples therapy about if they start trying to bite each other! Maybe it's a bear thing.”

Her saddlebag flew open and 1001 Things You Wanted to Know About Bears (But Didn't Know Enough Bearmese to Ask) flew out. “Ahah! Bears often wrestle harmlessly to establish dominance! See, Fluttershy—it's perfectly harmless.”

The grizzlies rolled past Fluttershy and into the kitchen with a distinct crash.

And all the while Fluttershy stood, unmoving, mouth agape, staring at her living room.

“Er, well, at least you didn't—”

“Eeeeeee!” Fluttershy yelped, ducking out of the way rather late, and throwing the delicate china tea set on her back against the wall.

Twilight, to her credit, did manage to save one of the saucers.

“I'm sure this really isn't as bad as it seems,” said Twilight, as she helped Fluttershy out of the cabinet. The yellow pegasus was trembling, and Twilight lay a comforting hoof on her shoulder. Fluttershy twitched.

“You... you!” She stammered, almost as loud as an ordinary speaking voice. “I've been trying to save this marriage for weeks and you—”

Suddenly Twilight got the impression that Fluttershy might not be shaking with fear for once. “Um...” The Mind: Explained flew up on and open. “Well... oh, see, sometimes it's helpful for couples to have a fight and just get everything out of their system.”

“GROAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”

“And on a related note, Fluttershy, I think it's good that you feel comfortable expressing your anger with me for coming and completely—Fluttershy? Flutter—”

+++---+++

Twilight Sparkle stood at the door to Sugarcube Corner. She had no memory of how she had gotten there—no memory of anything, in fact, after seeing Fluttershy's eyes narrow, and then grow very, very wide.

And then everything had gone green.

Well, nothing for it but to keep forging ahead. If Fluttershy was—understandably—a little upset with her then she'd go bother somepony else, like Pinkie Pie, but—oh—just leave and let me try to fix this!

That was strange. Twilight gave herself a little shake and raised a hoof to knock.

The door tore open before she even touched it. “Twilight! Oh, thank goodness!” gasped Pinkie Pie. “I need your help!”

Twilight was fairly certain she was grinning like an idiot, but she tried her best to keep her voice even as she said, “Oh? That sounds serious. What's wrong?”

“It's Pumpkin Cake!” said Pinkie. “She's having one of those crazy magic sugar cookies!”

Twilight blinked. “Magic surges?”

For a second Pinkie regarded Twilight with a puzzled look. Abruptly, her shoulder twitched, her left eye winked three times in quick succession, and her hair stood up on end.

“Incoming!” she shrieked, dragging Twilight to the ground, a split second before an impact rocked the house.

As the dust cleared, Twilight finally got a look at the enormous disk wedged in the doorway, which had so nearly—not decapitated, decapitated was a strong word—but clotheslined the both of them in approximately the neck region. She blinked again. “Th—that's... a... Pinkie, I think I owe you an apology.”

“Don't mention it! C'mon!”

+++---+++

“Oh so that's what surge means. Yep she's definitely having those too,” said Pinkie Pie. The door to the nursery swung open on a scene that would have done Discord proud. Animate toys floated in midair, circling like vultures; the floorboards had been repainted to look storm-tossed sea, except for in a few places, where they had become a storm-tossed sea; and hovering over it all, throwing off lightning bolts, was the crib.

“This is—” Twilight was cut off as a wave rolled over her and carried on down the hall. “Bad,” she finished, spitting out a rather shocked flounder.

“You're telling me,” said Pinkie Pie. She paused to bash a swarm of Linkin' Logs with a wok she'd picked up downstairs. The notched bits of wood fell to the floor and cartwheeled away. A scant few seconds later they were sullenly restacking themselves into a tower. “Do you have any idea what ponies will say about a bakery that smells like fish?”

“No, actual—”

“Horrible things! Like 'that bakery smells like fish!' No offense,” Pinkie added to the flounder, who was, frankly, more concerned about his present inability to breathe than Pinkie's remark. She gave him a shove back into the water.

Twilight scanned the room for a few seconds, then nodded. “Well, this all seems simple enough. Here, let me just...” Her horn glowed bright pink for a brief instant before two hooves clamped down on either side of her face, jerking her head around into sigh of two large, anxious blue eyes.

“Wait! What are you going to do?”

“Muff wuff wuff flarfle wuff,” said Twilight, through smooshed up cheeks.

“I see. And then?”

“Wuff muffle.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

With a sigh, Twilight pried herself free from Pinkie. “I said I was going to put Pumpkin in an anti-magic bubble and counterspell everything.”

“Oooh, that's a good idea. You should do that.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, set about the mental equivalent of rolling up her sleeves, and got down to work. Banish all distractions. Just pretend Pinkie isn't using a wok to shield you from a Linkin' Log siege tower. Think of the room as it should be, and then—

A cone of bright pink shot from Twilight's horn, sending waves of normality over the entire room, restoring the flying toys to lifeless fabric, looping around the crib and gently pulling it down to the floor. At last the waves of magic converged on the tiny floating unicorn in the crib and solidified into a neat pink bubble.

For a moment Pumpkin Cake stared, puzzled, through her rose-colored prison. Lightning flickered from her horn, struck the confines of the sphere, and dissipated.

It was at this point that Pound Cake, who had somehow slept through the entire previous ordeal, stirred, and—on seeing his sister in a glowing pink bubble, floating several inches off the crib's mattress—turned on the universe with the pouty look of one who arrives at a party just after all the cool kids have passed out. Sure, the tavern downtown is still open, and the second-tier guests are mostly sober enough to walk, but the magic has gone right out of the evening.

Twilight took a few steps into the room to survey her handiwork, and pitched forward as one hoof dropped into freezing water. She yanked her leg free an instant later. There was a disquieting snap somewhere under the waves.

“Well that's not—”

A cone-shaped nose shot up through the floorboard-shaped pool. A great, gray and white body twisted and contorted to allow it through—bringing rows of snapping razor-teeth far too close to Twilight's face.

Onto it, in fact.

The shark whimpered, gums bleeding, and slid back into its hole in space.

“Oh. Right. Ironskin spell,” said Twilight. She laughed a little three-syllable laugh that suggested there had been nothing funny about the shark's tonsils.

“Ohmigosh, Twilight! Are you okay?”

“Yeah I'm—”

“Then what was that? I thought you fixed it!”

Twilight blinked. “Um, well, it's a little trickier than I thought. Obviously Pumpkin's done something to the laws of physics, what with a shark squeezing through a gap three inches across.”

“Pumpkin broke the law?!” Pinkie gasped. “But Twilight—they wouldn't send a little foal to jail, would they?”

Twilight almost laughed at the worry in her friend's voice. “No, Pinkie, it's not that sort of—”

“She won't last two seconds in jail! She'll have to go on the lamb! Oh gosh, I hope Lisa won't mind, her back's not what it used to be y'know,” Pinkie darted around the room, snatching together diapers, toys, unopened food containers, and tossing them quickly on top of handkerchief she'd produced from somewhere.

“Pinkie—Pinkie stop!” said Twilight. “It's fine. It's perfectly normal for unicorn foals. She probably just mussed up a few rules of quantum mechanics—and I can fix that. Nopony will even miss them.”

“Oh,” said Pinkie, who had tied the handkerchief into a bindle and was attempting to pass the end of it through Twilight's bubble. Relief crossed her face, but kept right on going when she took a closer look at Pumpkin.

“Twilight!”

“Hmm?” Twilight was lost in concentration, magic runes blazing to life in the air around her, then marching off in neat columns. Quantum mechanics were always a little tricky—you had to fix them without ever knowing for sure what was wrong, for one. Fortunately there were some all purpose spells—

“Twilight—PUMPKIN!” The runes burst in shards of light as Pinkie grabbed Twilight about the shoulders and jerked her in the direction of the crib. “Why is she turning blue?!”

“Um... I have no—”

“Did you put airholes in?!”

“Pinkie, that spell doesn't block—”

“I don't see any airholes, Twilight!”

“It must just be a spell she—”

“You've got to get her out of there!”

“Pinkie—if—I—do—that—” Twilight tried to explain, the words coming in gasps as Pinkie shook her back and forth.

Sadly, Twilight's protests were rendered moot by the fact that it is nearly impossible to keep up a spell when a friend is trying to turn one's brain into scrambled eggs.

And so as Pinkie began rambling off statistics about oxygen deprivation and brain damage, and nearly inflicted the latter on Twilight, the bubble around Pumpkin burst. Lightning flashed across the room, and a second later, Twilight was no longer being shaken by a manic pony, but instead bobbing on momentum in front of a concerned-looking cactus.

Twilight shook her head to clear it, and immediately hated herself for doing so. “What happen—Pinkie?” she gasped, seeing the cactus, and her pinkest friend nowhere to be found.

“Um... don't worry Pinkie Pie! I've seen this before—actually I did the same thing to my Dad once—it's a really easy spell to reverse. I just have to—”

Twilight stopped.

No. No that couldn't be right.

It was the second spell she'd ever goofed up. Obviously Princess Celestia had taught her the counterspell. She had been there, for Pete’s sake!

And yet, in her great mental index of spells, there was nothing under the word “decatify.” Nor even the incorrect, but easily mistaken, “Un-cactus.”

That seemed like a significant oversight in her education.

“Well this is embarrassing. I'll have to get some books from the library before I can fix this, Pinkie. And, well, I should really see about that floor first in case any creatures from between dimensions start poking around. I don't think even you could make friends with them...”

Twilight couldn't shake the feeling that the cactus was glaring at her. For one, its needles seemed to be straining in her direction.

She dealt with this unease by turning her attention back to the room at large.

A stuffed moth tried to cram itself between her teeth, before giving up and heading for the crib. In the corner she could hear the clak-clak of a rallying detachment of Linkin' Logs.

“Ugh.”

+++---+++

“Okay Pinkie, I think I've got this... Insert tab a into slot b...” Twilight's mental image of the flow of magic shifted slightly, bringing together two disparate energies she'd formed. She folded the little globule of energy marked “tab A” over, and gave a quick tug to show that the whole thing held together. She then tossed aside the four leftover bits of energy she'd somehow acquired through the process.

“Aaaand, there!” Twilight let go of the magic, and it shot like an arrow for the cactus in the center of the room.

“Ohmygoshwhat'sthattasteohIcantastethingsagainthatwasterriblejustterribleIcouldn'ttalkorbreatheormoveoreatordrinkandletmetellyouphotsynthesistastesworsethanrainbowsbelievemeandthatwholestoringwaterthing?StalejusttotallystaleandohmygoshIwantedtosaysomanytimeswhenyouweremakingthosefunnyfacesthatyoulookedjustlike—YOOOOUUUU!”

Twilight hadn't seen Pinkie's eyes burst into flames like that since the Dodge Junction incident.

“Um... sorry it took so long Pinkie, but I really had to make sure that the dimensions didn't... cross... or... anything...” she said, backing out of the room as Pinkie steadily advanced on her. “On the bright side, I fixed the floor! Just don't fire lasers at any gold foil for a week or so and it should be fine.” The nice thing about localized problems with physics was that if you didn't observe them directly, they tended to even themselves out. “And um, Pound and Pumpkin fell asleep when you were—”

The front door, which Twilight had just backed through, slammed in her face. Inside, hooves stomped back upstairs.

“You're welcome!” Twilight yelled, trying her best to sound indignant.

Her best was not very good.

She managed to get about a block away from Sugarcube Corner before ducking into a little out of the way alley and collapsing in a heap.

This was awful. She hadn't left a single friend happier than when she'd arrived. She'd been trying her best but she'd just... made everything worse, somehow. She'd barely even managed to keep positive through it all.

Twilight sniffled, sharply aware that for all she might have a little privacy, she was by no means out of earshot of anypony passing along the street.

“Come on, Twilight, keep it together,” she said as softly as she could, digging her hooves into her eyes and rubbing at the dull ache around them. She was just tired, was all.

Things had been a disaster so far, sure, but The Plan had allowances for this sort of thing built in. Just stick to The Plan.

Things would be fine.

+++---+++

“Twilight?” Spike eased the door to the bathroom open cautiously.

The water around Twilight's muzzle bubbled faintly.

“Twilight!” Spike yelled.

“Bwah?” Twilight sat bolt upright in the tub, spilling water over the sides. “Spike! I'm in the bath!”

“You don't wear clothes anyway.”

“Not the point!”

“Well you'd been in here for a really long time and there was water coming under the door,” Spike said, pointing at the inch of water the bathroom was currently under. “And you fell asleep in the tub! You're always telling me how dangerous that is and I'm cold-blooded!”

Twilight looked down at the floor like a puppy with its nose forced to a carpet stain. “Sorry Spike.” A burst of light from her horn and the floor dried out. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

“Did everything go okay today? You came in all sooty and covered with splinters and... metal shavings, and then just ran up here.”

“Oh fine. Just sort of a busy day, you know, with the spider and all.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

Twilight said nothing more, but sank back down to her nose in the soapy water.

“Okay, fine. Just don't fall asleep again.”

Twilight mumbled something, and let her eyelids drift together.

BRRRRRRRRRING!

Twilight started up, only to find herself already half out of the water, and a tiny note dangling from her horn by a string:

Twilight,

You were totally falling asleep again! I set your alarm clocks to go off at 3-minute intervals for the next hour. Please don't drown.

-Spike.

Twilight sighed, lowering herself back into the tub. She never should have told him about the emergency alarm clock stash.

+++---+++

The bare lightbulb in the Cakes' basement swayed back and forth miserably. It was casting long, shifting shadows all right, but its heart was simply not in it.

So too, were the members of The Society for Protecting Twilight's Sanity, whose black cloaks had been left at home (with the exception of Rainbow Dash; but even she had taken hers off when she saw nopony else was wearing one). Beleaguered and not really in the mood for secret meetings, since it wasn't even dinnertime yet, they tapped their hooves and shifted in the grimy light, waiting for the meeting to begin.

They did not have to wait long. “What the hay did you all do?!” Spike yelled before even reaching the table. “Twilight comes home, a complete mess, immediately locks herself in the bathroom, and then lies to me about having a good time—”

“She was lying about having a good time!” gasped Rarity. “I have had to appeal to Hoity Toity for... an extension! To say nothing of the damage that... thing she created caused to my house. I can barely work in my own room for all the debris!”

“You think she damaged your house?” said Fluttershy darkly. “I—”

“She turned me into a cactus!” burst Pinkie Pie.

“Oh, never mind. I'm sure that's much more—”

“And she just left me there while she 'took care of the laws of physics!' For like, forever! Well it may have been twenty four minutes and three point five-four-oh-six seconds, but it might as well be forever because it's super no fun at all being a cactus! Do you know what cactuses do for fun? They sit around being pointy! At least trees have arbor day to look forward to!”

“Yeah, well I—”

“Girls!” Spike snapped. “Can we not argue about who had a worse time trying to cheer Twilight up from her terrible depression?”

Silence fell across the room.

“Oh no... we were so caught up in our own problems, we completely forgot that this was about making Twilight feel loved...” said Fluttershy.

“Hey, I was—oof!” Rainbow Dash grunted as Applejack elbowed her.

“When you put it like that, I feel right ashamed.”

“We'll find some way to make it up to the poor dear,” said Rarity.

“Something super duper amazingly—”

“Hi Pinkie Pie!” said the floating, disembodied head of Twilight Sparkle, appearing in the center of the room.

A collective gasp filled the air. Twilight looked down, puzzled, at the space where her body usually was.

“Oh, this. Sorry, new spell for talking over distances. Seems to be working pretty well. And—hey, what are you all doing over at Pinkie's anyway?”

Looks were exchanged. Six voices rose in a collective “Uh...” and then Pinkie Pie said, “Planning your surprise birthday party,” at the same instant Rarity threw out, “Modeling my new outfits,” and Rainbow Dash tried, “Re-forming the Ponyville baseball league!”

The six conspirators glanced at each other once again.

“Rainbow, why on earth would we—”

“Hey, the ban got lifted...”

“Um, Twilight we really were—”

“Modeling Rarity's new outfits!”

“Planning your surprise birthday party, darli—oh, really, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie shrugged. “I calls 'em as I sees 'em.”

“Well, those are all good ideas?” Twilight offered in the awkward pause that followed. “Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for before.”

“Oh, darling, you have nothing to apologize for!” said Rarity, as, across the room, Rainbow Dash was hurriedly shoved under the table.

“Well, I did wreck your boutique. And Fluttershy's counseling session—”

“Oh, pish-posh. It's nothing. Don't mention it. Really,” said Rarity.

“Anyway, I just wanted to invite you all to come watch the sunset with me. I thought, maybe we could all hang out. I'm bringing snacks!”

More glances. Weary, strained glances. The kind of glances that would really like to go home, and stop glancing for a little while, preferably with the aide of a warm glass of milk and a pillow.

“Sure, sounds good,” chorused the room.

+++---+++

Twilight Sparkle led her five best friends and number one assistant up the shadowed side of a hill just outside Ponyville, twitching, on occasion, as she stopped herself from double checking that they were still following her. Of course they were following her. They were there at her invitation. Stop worrying so much.

As she crested the hill, the sun came blazing into view as only a giant, flaming ball of gas can.

“This seems like a good spot,” she said, discreetly using her magic to smooth over the grass she'd trampled while location scouting.

There was a pause, during which time Spike shot a glare at the others behind her back.

“It's Great!” said Applejack.

“Idyllic, even,” added Rarity.

“It's... nice.”

Twilight floated the picnic basket down from her back and spread a blanket across the grass, inviting the others to plop down—which they did gratefully, nursing a series of minor, mostly stress-inflicted injuries (including, in Pinkie Pie's case, a couple of spines that still hadn't quite got the memo to turn back).

“So, everypony—now that we're here, I give you... the sunset!” Twilight made a grand gesture towards the sinking sun, before bursting into giggles.

A polite chuckle passed through the assembled ponies like a donation tin. In the distance, the sun kissed the top of the Everfree Forest.

“So now what?” said Rainbow Dash, earning a glare from Applejack.

“Oh, well, I hope you're all hungry. I made all your favorites!” said Twilight, levitating a sandwich to each of her friends, and a brilliant amethyst to Spike, whose tongue hang out of his mouth at the sight of it.

“Gosh, Twilight, where'd you get this?”

“Oh, I was saving it for a special occasion, but I thought, what's more special than just a normal day with all of us together?”

“Meeting the Wonderbolts? No, wait, meeting the Wonderbolts and hearing that they think you're cool! Or, no, winning first prize in—actually, are you sure you know what special means Twilight? I can think of a whole lot of—”

It had taken some maneuvering but Applejack and Rarity had managed to each get a hoof on Rainbow's snout and force it shut. They beamed helpfully at Twilight.

“Oh you,” was all she said.

Rainbow Dash pulled herself free. “See, she wasn't even upset.”

“That don't make it a nice thing to say.”

“Really, Rainbow. You should learn a little tact.”

“Look, everypony!”

As the sun dipped lower, the sky turned gold and purple and pink, and the mist that rose up about the forest shone with amber light.

For a moment, all was quiet. And Twilight thought to herself, This is perfect. This right here. Just sitting here like this.

Everything felt right, and dear and close.

No one said anything. There was no need.

“Psst. Hey, Fluttershy?” whispered Pinkie Pie. “Twilight put tomatoes on my sandwich, do you want them?”

“Well, if you don't want them I guess I could—”

“Mind trading for your celery?”

“I um... okay.”

“Hey, is Fluttershy eating ponies' tomatoes? Great! Give me that daffodil would you?”

“Rainbow, I don't need that many—”

“Shoot, Fluttershy, you like tomatoes? I thought it was just Twilight. Swap for pickles okay?”

“I...”

“Not to be a bother, darling, but...”

“...Go ahead Rarity.”

Spike continued to aim shushing gestures at the group, until they finally settled down to eat four tomato-free sandwiches and one bun with tomatoes on it. Fortunately Twilight seemed to still be enraptured by the sunset and hadn't noticed any of it, taking the occasional nibble on her own sandwich.

Even the flies weren't that bad, Twilight thought, as a small, sharp pain stung her flank, tail swishing to drive off the offender. They were really nothing at all, compared to the knowledge that her best friends in the whole world were sitting right behind her, seeing this same sunset, thinking the same slow, peaceful—

“Welp, I'm bored.” Rainbow Dash swooped up next to Twilight, settling on the grass beside her. “Hey Twi, wanna play a game or something?”

“Rainbow, we're here to watch the sunset.”

“Yeah, and we've seen it! Come on, let's do something fun now.”

Twilight blinked. “This is—”

Before she could finish Rainbow Dash darted off. From somewhere behind her Twilight heard, “Tag, you're It!”

“Rainbow, we're not playing a—hey, get back here and watch the sunset like Twi said!”

“Only if you catch me!” Twilight twisted around just in time to see Rainbow stick her tongue out at Applejack and take off running, the farm pony chasing after her.

“Oh, that Rainbow Dash, she is just so—!” Rarity gave a rather unladylike snarl before joining in.

“No, wait, Rarity, it's fine, let AJ—” called Twilight, to no avail.

Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be found, apparently having taken off as soon as the first tag had been called. Which left only Fluttershy, glancing uneasily between Twilight and the chase going on behind her.

“Um... Um... I should make sure that everypony... doesn't... um... fly after eating!” Fluttershy said, running off after the others.

A rainbow-colored streak looped around from the next hill over and settled next to Twilight. “That's an old pony's tale!” Rainbow Dash called. “Come on, Twilight, join in.”

Twilight glared at her.

“Okay, suit yourself.”

“No, Rainbow, wait—” But Rainbow Dash was already racing away, Applejack hot on her heels.

“Rarity's It now, everypony!”

“What? I didn't think we were actually playing! Applejack! Applejack come back here! Oh, it is on!”

“Girls, don't you think we should go back to watching the sunset?” Twilight offered, as her friends ran back past her in the opposite direction, showing no sign of slowing down.

Pinkie Pie cartwheeled out of nowhere, landing practically on top of Rarity. “Tag!” she cried.

Rarity sighed. “Pinkie Pie, I'm It.”

“Oooooh. Does that mean I'm It now?”

“I suppose—”

“Tag!” Pinkie bopped Rarity on the nose before peeling off again.

“Seriously everypony,” said Twilight. “You're missing some great sunset over here.”

But still they were running back and forth, rolling and dodging—

“Girls—”

—and laughing—

“GIRLS!” she shouted. The others froze where they were. “We are supposed to be watching the sunset!”

“But Twilight—”

“This was supposed to be a... a moment! For all of us! As friends! And it was going perfectly, but you all just had to ruin it by goofing off!”

“But—”

“No buts, Fluttershy! Now we are going to sit here and watch the rest of the sunset and not mess it up!”

Twilight turned around.

No. No, that wasn't... it had only been a couple of seconds, surely... It couldn't have...

“Um... we're real sorry, Twilight,” said Applejack. “We didn't mean to.”

“There'll be other sunsets, dear.”

“Psht, not that I'm hanging around for.”

“Dashie! That's mean!”

Twilight stared blankly at the horizon. It was gone. The sun was gone. She'd missed it.

“Um, Twilight, if you want to yell at us some more, that'd be okay.”

She shook her head. It was over. It was all...

No. She wouldn't give up. She couldn't give up! Not after coming so close! So what if the sun had gone down? She and her friends were going to sit and enjoy the sunset and it was going to be magical and a treasured memory that they could cling to in years to come when they were apart—proof that they had been the best friends in all of Equestria.

“Twilight, are you okay?” asked Spike. “You're not saying anything...”

“I can still fix this...” she said, her voice completely level, though fraying at the edges.

And she could. It was totally possible. If Princess Celestia could do it, then by pony, so could she!

Or not.

Twilight tried to spit out the dirt in her mouth, but when she opened her lips there was only more dirt. It was dark, and cold, and for a horrifying second she wondered if the princess had felt what she had just tried to do—but she wouldn't—surely—even if she was angry...

She'd know if she'd been banished to the moon. Right?

Something grabbed her hindquarters, and tugged, and with a pop and shower of soil Twilight was back on the hillside.

“Twilight? What was that? You just sort of... face-planted.”

“So hard you buried yourself! It was epic!” added Rainbow. The others glared. “Well, it was.”

“Oh... I was just trying to re-raise the sun.”

The others blinked.

“Come again?”

“The sun. You know,” Twilight made a big circular gesture with her forehooves, and added a sort of exploding sound effect which somehow felt right. “Big, burny... glowy... thing. It was really heavy—”

There was a sharp slap. “Don't ever do that again!” Spike yelled.

Twilight shook herself. “Thanks, Spike, I think I needed...” she trailed off, seeing the concerned, nearly horrified looks on her friends' faces. “Did I get a little crazy just there?”

“Ya tried to raise the sun, Twi.”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Now that you mention it, that does sound a little bit...”

She was cut off as Fluttershy darted forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace, muzzle pressed to her mane. This lasted just long enough for Fluttershy to be sure there was no sign of concussion, at which point she flashed the others a reassuring smile, and they raced forward to join the hug.

“I'm sorry everypony,” said Twilight. “I just really... really wanted things to be perfect. I'll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”

“Oh Twilight, you don't have to do that,” said Fluttershy.

“I want to, though. Starting tomorrow.”

The hug loosened.

“Tomorrow?” they said together.

“Oh, sorry, what I am I thinking?” said Twilight. “You guys probably already had stuff planned for us to do tomorrow.” A series of befuddled looks passed between the other five ponies. “That would have been a little ambitious anyway, to finish everything by tomorrow—but don't worry, everypony, I'll make it up to you soon. Come on, Spike!” she said, pulling away.

Given the slightly murderous edge to the looks he was getting from the others, Spike hurried to follow.

“Um, Twilight, a moment?” said Rarity. “Make it up to us... how, exactly?”

Twilight Sparkle grinned in the fading light. “Sorry, girls, can't tell you. It's a surprise.”