The Sun was glowing brighter over Golden Oaks Library once again, Celestia's signal for a great day ahead of her student, Twilight. She slowly opened her eyes and adjusted to the sunlight that had entered her room while she was sleeping and saw that Spike was still asleep. Poor Spike, his crush, as well as one of Twilight's best friends, Rarity, was out of town for the week due to commitments with a fashion show in Canterlot. Thankfully, she was the only one of her little group of friends, the Mane 6, to be out of town at that point.

As she was getting out of bed, she decided to take advantage of this and visit all of her friends for the rest of the morning. After all, it was her job/assignment to help them out with any friendship problems. Before she exited the library however, she quickly wrote a note for Spike saying that she'd be out of the library for a while, and placed it next to his bedside. She knew that it would be much to Spike's chargin, but she didn't want to have to wait for the lazy dragon to wake up and come with her. She didn't have the patience.

Twilight headed out the door and greeted the new day with a feeling of determination. Nothing could ruin her mood as she trotted her way towards Sugarcube Corner, where Pinkie Pie lived. To her misfortune, this determination was replaced with confusion as she heard the sound of laughter behind her. She tried to find where it was coming from, and finally found her answer tucked away in an alleyway between two cottages.

She found three earth ponies who were laughing hysterically. Two of them wore pearl necklaces and had white highlights in their otherwise purple manes, while the one closest to Twilight had those features, as well as some particuarly odd-looking bright yellow horseshoes on her hooves and a large red beanie worn forwards. Something rather irritating to Twilight is that they seemed to be laughing at her. Twilight didn't have time to mess around, but at the same time, their bizzare fashion sense intrigued her. She walked up to them and politely struck up a conversation.

"Hello there. What are you girls laughing about?", Twilight asked nicely.

They stopped laughing and the one in front walked up to her.

"Oh you see, we couldn't help but lose ourselves over your appearance", she replied.

Twilight was somewhat baffled. She was the one that looked wierd?

The mare continued, "I mean, who goes walking around the streets naked?", and they burst into laughter again.

Twilight couldn't help but blush with embarrasment. It was generally customary for ponies to only wear clothing on special occasions. Then again, Twilight didn't even know these ponies' names.

"Who are you?", she replied with a noticeably stern voice.

"Oh my name is Filly Billy, and these two mares are my friends, Sal and Lee", she said as she pointed to the red and orange ponies respectively. Filly Billy herself was bright blue and they all had yellow eyes.

"Well my name is Twili-", Twilight was cut off as Sal spoke up.

"You honestly can't head into town without those babies", she said as she pointed to Filly Billy's hooves, "those babies" referring to the horseshoes she was wearing.

Twilight, without much thinking, was quick to succumb to peer pressure. She really wanted to wear those horseshoes, no matter what the cost, which reminded her-

"Uh, how much to they cost? And what store can I get them from?", she eagerly asked.

"Oh they're custom-made", Filly Billy replied, "but do you want this pair? I can easily get myself another."

"Sure thing!", Twilight said as Filly Billy popped out of her pair of horseshoes and let Twilight into them. Unfortunately for Twilight, she wasn't thinking about horseshoe size for a split second, and found them to not be as roomy as she imagined them to be. In fact, they were kinda tight on her, but she didn't want to dissapoint Filly Billy and pretended they were good.

"Gee thanks", she said and walked back out of the alleyway. Each new step she made was rather agonising, but for some odd reason, she didn't regret buying the horseshoes for one second. No no, Filly Billy was a friend of her's, and friends do things for one another. She reminded herself that as she trudged onwards to Sugarcube Corner.

When she went inside, she saw Pinkie Pie busy at the kitchen counting small dots.

"353, 354, 355…", Pinkie Pie counted to herself. Twilight found this typical of Pinkie Pie, finding something foolish to do and sticking with it. She went inside to ask her about it.

"Hey Pinkie, watch'a doing?", she asked.

Pinkie Pie responded, "Oh hey Twilight. Major Sugarcube Corner emergency!"

Twilight immediately felt shocked. "Really? What happened?", she asked.

"Well, just this morning we were shipped this new ingredient called a "Hundreds and Thousands". Unfortunately, these dots, which I guess are supposed to be the hundreds and thousands of "Hundreds and Thousands", don't have individual labels on them for me to tell if they're really hundreds and thousands of "Hundreds and Thousands" or not! Thankfully, the Cakes let me tip the packet out so I can truly determine if there are hundreds and thousands of these "Hundreds and Thousands"!", Pinkie blurted out rapidly.

Twilight was shocked, but at the same time dissapointed that it wasn't a legitimate emergency.

"You're getting worked up over sprinkles?", she asked with a hint of agitation in her voice.

"Well yeah!", Pinkie Pie rebutted. "Would I ever want to lie to my customers!? I don't want anything Sugarcube Corner sells to be a big, fat, stinky lie".

Twilight knew that Pinkie Pie was passionate about her work at Sugarcube Corner, much like she was passionate about her duties with Princess Celestia. She knew that she could at least do something with her friend before she headed out. After all, that's why she even woke up in the first place. She thought that she could help Pinkie Pie out by counting the "Hundreds and Thousands" with her, so she put her hooves on the table an-

"Wow, those are some nice horseshoes!", Pinkie Pie exclaimed, startling Twilight and even sending a few of the sprinkles onto the ground. "Though they seem a little small on you".

Twilight wasn't happy hearing a criticism about her fashion.

"It doesn't matter, they fit me fine", she replied. "Now tell me, how many do we have to count?"

"2,200", Pinkie Pie answered, meaning that there would be at least two sets of 100 sprinkles and two sets of 1,000 sprinkles. Twilight knew that it was going to be a long morning.

Author's Note

I don't exactly know how many chapters there's gonna be, but I've got the whole story planned out and ready to post bit by bit. Generally a pity on this site is getting into a story, only for an author's note in the last chapter to say that they couldn't complete it because they hadn't planned it all through. I don't want this to happen to any of my stories, which is why I write them the way I do. I will only write a story with a good idea if I can think of an ending to wrap everything up.