Into the Twilight

Twilight groggily woke up in her castle only after a meager amount of rest. She remained sore and exhausted, but at least the ringing in her ears had finally ceased. Twilight felt a hard punch to her shoulder from Rainbow Dash, who was looking rather annoyed at her.

"What the hay do you think you were doing Twilight!?"

Twilight levitated the covers off herself and gently sat up, Spike and her five friends were crowded around her. Fluttershy was asleep, and Rarity looked significantly cleaner.

"Uh, sleeping?"

Rainbow Dash gave her a huff of annoyance, "You know what I mean, egghead. Why did you just up and vanish on us? Right after you left, it was pitch black outside and these, things started coming after us."

Twilight sighed, "Princess Luna needed me in Canterlot. If I wasn't there to evacuate every pony, well, let's just say the body count would be a lot higher than it is now."

Spike tilted his head in confusion, "Why would Princess Luna need you in Canterlot? And what do you mean by 'body count'?"

Twilight's head stooped low, "Princess Celestia is dead."

The room was was completely quiet, until Pinkie Pie broke the silence.

"That's not a funny joke Twilight."

Twilight was afraid this would happen, that they'd be in denial. She almost didn't want to believe it herself, but it was true, a revered goddess had died.

"You know that I wouldn't joke like that, Pinkie Pie."

There were no cries of sorrow, just plain confusion. Applejack was the first to speak up, "B-but how Twilight? How can a Princess just die? What happened in Canterlot? W-what's gonna happen to us?"

Twilight sat up from her bed, a blank stare etched across her face. "I don't know."

She heaved another, heavier sigh. "All I know is, that it's going to get even colder than it is now, Applejack. We aren't going to be seeing daylight anytime soon, so I don't know how we're going to get our food," Twilight rubbed her temples in frustration, "Rarity, we are going to need warmer clothing for all of us, and maybe even more for the town. Do you think you can do that?"

Rarity's eyes were fixated on Fluttershy's sleeping form, who was still heavily bandaged, "You need not to ask, darling. Unfortunately, I'm running low on supplies, but I'll work with what I have."

Applejack looked at Twilight's horn for a few seconds, before gasping from a sudden thought, "Twilight, ah think I have an idea."

Twilight glanced at her, beckoning her to continue.

"Do ya think that ya might be able to make an artificial sun? Somethin' that the crops could use to grow?" Applejack suggested with a small smile on her face.

Twilight pursed her lips together in thought, a small smirk appearing on her face as well, "You know what Applejack? That just might work! Granted, it might be straining to pull off an illusion of that scale, but I don't see why I couldn't do it."

Twilight's smile faded as soon as it came, "But, those monsters, they're going to come back. We haven't even begun reconstructing damaged buildings."

"W-What if we build a wall?" Fluttershy timidly suggested.

The five of them all glanced over at her, causing her to squeak at the sudden amount of eyes looking at her. She continued, "If we build a wall around Ponyville, that might buy us enough time to think of a plan. O-or at least do whatever we need to do," she muttered quietly.

Twilight felt the whole plan coming together, all she needed to do was cast a complex illusion spell that simulated a proper day-night cycle, rally enough ponies to build a wall around Ponyville in under a day, give out enough coats to keep all of Ponyville warm and rebuild all damages that had occurred prior to her arrival.

Simple, right?

Clang!

Twilight's thoughts were interrupted as she heard the front doors to the castle open. Shortly after, Starlight Glimmer ran into the room, panting and gasping for breath. "Twilight! Thank Celestia you're safe! I-I'm sorry that I wasn't helping the others, Spike and I were holed up in the library and ponies went to the castle as a haven and I-"

"Starlight," Twilight interrupted, "I'm not going to blame you for not being with them when Ponyville was attacked. Not be be rude, but in that moment, you were the last thing on my mind."

Starlight grimaced, "I-I understand. Still, I feel like I should have been there, you know?"

Twilight nodded, "Yeah, I think I'm having similar thoughts. Listen, I'll talk more about where I went and what happened later, but for now I'm going to need your help, Trixie's too, if she's up for it."

Starlight gave her a confused look, "Why do you need our help?"

"We're going to make a sun."

...

"What?!"

Ponyville spent the next day and a half undergoing major reconstruction. Twilight, Starlight, Trixie and several other unicorns spent their time researching and adding on to the illusion spell that would be cast across Ponyville's sky. It was difficult to cast, for sure, but hardly impossible. The tricky part wasn't making it look convincing, the difficulty came in making it generate enough warmth to make it feel genuine. It would have to be maintained on a daily basis, and, just like before, the sun and the moon would have to be manually raised.

Meanwhile, Applejack and the rest of the Earth ponies spent their day doing maintenance work, repairing any damaged buildings and quickly getting to work on the wall being built around the town. Even Filthy Rich partook in manual labor, much to Applejack's pleasure and amusement.

Rainbow Dash and the other pegasi spent their day doing reconnaissance and defending the town from the monsters still trying to invade the town, it was a tiring job, luckily there were few injuries on their part.

Rarity and Fluttershy began to sew the clothes needed to overcome the chilling cold that seeped into Ponyville, working with as little material as possible to produce the most effective clothing.

All Pinkie Pie did was prepare. Twilight gave her, Starlight, and Rainbow Dash a job. The four of them were going to travel to the base of Canterlot Mountain to find the outpost that had supposedly been set up by Canterlot's guards. Twilight needed to make sure Princess Luna was alright. Starlight had suggested using dragon fire to send her a message, but Twilight pointed out that it wouldn't work, seeing as they didn't know where the outpost was, if it existed at all.

As much as Pinkie Pie wanted to make every pony smile, she couldn't. If she couldn't make herself smile, how could she make anypony else smile?

So Pinkie Pie sat in solitude and packed their bags.

It was going to be an arduous journey from Ponyville to New Canterlot, after all.