Twilight woke to the sounds of birds singing their morning songs outside her her library window. With a stretch she attempted to rid herself of the terrible stiffness she felt in her back. On the ground the book appeared to have fallen off her sometime during the night. Twilight lifted it, luckily it had landed on the page she had been reading when she woke up. She hadn't even realized she was falling asleep. Slowly she made her way to the castle kitchen. To her delight she saw that Spike and Starlight were making breakfast together.

"Are you sure those cinnamon rolls are supposed to stay in this long?" Starlight was saying.

"Hey who is the head chef here?" Spike said threatening with a spoon still covered in batter and a chef hat of impressive size.

"You are."

"That's right! They get five more minutes and then.. oh hey Twilight. I went to get you but you weren't in your room." Spike said.

"I fell asleep in the Library last night." Twilight responded rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"Hmm, some things never change." Spike said and continued mixing.

Starlight looked at the time. "Its almost ten, I should probably check on Pinkie Pie." She said ditching her less impressive chef hat. She smiled at Twilight "Save me a roll." And then disappeared into the hallway. Twilight sat down at the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. And began to read a copy of the Foalfree press that spike must have picked up this morning. She was reading a very interesting article about Filthy Rich's alleged collusion with Yakyakistan, when spike broke the silence.

"You know when she first came here, I didn't know what to think. But now, I sometimes remember that she might not be here permanently and it makes me sad." He said staring into the muddy batter "She's been here so long its almost like having another sister. And even though she was only gone a week I missed her."

"Starlight? Oh Spike, I know what you mean. I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. When she's ready she might leave, but we will always be able to see her I promise." Twilight said.

Spike looked up from his bowl. "Yeah. Sometimes I miss the old days, when it was just you and me living in a tree. Then I start to feel bad about thinking like that." Twilight got up from the counter and hugged Spike making his over sized chef hat fall to the floor. "Spike you should never feel bad about thinking that. Those times were great, not a day goes by that I don't think about Golden Oaks. I even have doubts about these." She said folding out her wings. "Sometimes I think life would be easier or better if I had stayed a unicorn, but it didn't work out like that and I have no regrets about any of it."

Spike looked into her eyes and smiled. "You always know what to say Twilight. I... Hey do you smell something burning?" A wall of smoke started to fill the kitchen coming from the oven where freshly baked treats were being seared to crispy black nuggets of disappointment. "MY CINNAMON ROLLS NOOOOO!"

Ponyville began to stir with commotion as the day began in earnest. Starlight stopped at a stand on her way to Sugercube Corner. Picking up ingredients for a Scrying potion she was making. Her kite had been taken by strong winds and without wings to fly after it she had lost it to the elements. It wasn't the best kite in the world, but it was to her. Outside Sugercube, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were enjoying their summer vacation. They waved to her as they ran past on some sort of childhood adventure. She smiled and waved back wondering what they were up to as she approached the door. Before she could reach out to grab it, the door suddenly slammed her in the face. She fell on her back a giant blob of what appeared to be spongecake and icing had knocked the door off its hinges.

"Everypony Run!" She heard Pinkie call from the balcony of Sugercube. "It's Cakezilla!"

Starlight's eyes went wide as she watched Pinkie dive headfirst into a cart full of hay. She realized that the door was not the only thing that was coming lose. The whole support structure and walls creaked and groaned as if something were pushing it from inside. When the side she was on began to fall Starlight teleported to a safe distance and watched the cakestrophic scene. The roof of Sugercube corner shot up into the sky as if shot from a cannon and the walls came tumbling down on all sides. In its place was the biggest cake the world had ever seen, If the Corner had still been standing it would have dwarfed it. Perhaps the only thing bigger then it in the Ponyville skyline was Twilight's castle itself. Ponies who had seconds ago run away in fear now stood with open jaws. Some were salivating at the sight of such a treat. Starlight herself was trying to comprehend how a cake this size would even be baked when she heard the screaming of an older mare. She turned and saw Mr.s Cake galloping through the ground with her husband carrying their two foals close behind.

"PINKIE PIE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE." Mr.s Cake yelled.
Starlight saw a square of hay with goofy glasses and a treachcoat try to sneak off but Mr.s Cake wasn't having any of it.
"Pinkie I know that is you! We told you we were gonna be gone for fifteen minutes! How in Tartarus did you manage to do... this?" She pointed with both hooves at the remains of their home and business. As Pinkie began to apologize and sob, Starlight kept her eyes up on the sky where the roof had been launched. She couldn't make it out anywhere and wondered where in Equestria it had gone. And for some reason that really bothered her.

A moment later Twilight landed next to her. "What happened I heard something that sounded like an exsplosion." Twilight said.

Starlight didn't take her eyes off of the sky. "No It was just Pinkie Pie."

Twilight seemed to just then notice the giant cake standing where the Corner used to be. "Oh."

Twilight and Starlight had spent almost the entire day slowly moving the giant cake to a new location. Eventually Mr.s Cake had calmed down when she realized what Pinkie was trying to do and with the promise that Twilight would let them stay in the castle, rebuild their house, and reimburse them for the lose of business. Pinkie had been hysterical apologizing and crying. Even now that things were settled her hair didn't quite have its usual bounciness. Starlight had commented that they couldn't reform the building without the roof, but nopony seemed to know where it was. Ponies from all over town stared at the cake, a few tried to touch it to get a bit of frosting. They discovered that was impossible as Twilight had cast an invisible wall around it.

"What do you think is gonna happen to Pinkie?" Starlight asked.

"How do you mean?" Twilight said.

"I mean she took out their house and workplace. Are they still going to let her live their after its fixed?" Starlight said.

"I would hope so, but if they don't she can always stay with me." Twilight responded.

"You do so much for your friends Twilight. Sometimes I feel like I have everything figured out, and then a giant cake destroys a house and I realize there is still so much to learn."

Twilight never thought she would hear that sentence, but given the nature of Pinkie Pie and Ponyville in general perhaps she should have. "Sometimes I wonder if other ponies have to deal with this sort of stuff." Twilight said jokingly. Starlight and Twilight shared a laugh when Twilight felt something cold and wet land on her nose. Her eyes focused inward and she stared confused, Starlight appeared to share the same confusion and both of them looked up to the sky. Without warning a storm was forming above them and from it, tiny speckles of snow. Starlight held out a hoof and caught one. "That's really strange, it's summer."

"Maybe Rainbowdash messed up the weather schedule." Twilight offered. As if summoned by her name. RainbowDash flashed overhead with a team of weather ponies following her lead. They flew into the storm and disappeared from ground view. Twilight flapped her wings to catch up but before she could reach the cloud cover the pagasi were flung back down before catching themselves again. Twilight had to avoid being hit by Cloudchaser and moved beside Rainbowdash who looked absolutely enraged. "Whats going on Rainbow?" Twilight asked.

"Its these clouds! They are too thick to get rid of normally, every time we try to kick or bat them away them just push back! I've been tracking this storm system for miles and it doesn't get any easier." Rainbow said.

Twilight approached the cloud ceiling and gave it a firm push, unsurprisingly the indent she had made quickly reformed and pushed back against her hoof. "Well this is a problem." Twilight mused.

"Ill say, do you know how long it takes to remove snow every winter wrap up? And it looks like we are going to have two this year." Rainbow said as she rubbed her head in frustration. "I've never seen the weather get like this before. I sent a runner to Cloudsdale to figure out what is going on."

Rainbowdash called off the weather team and floated down with Twilight. Starlight was talking to Fluttershy about something that she couldn't quite make out as they approached the ground. "And you're sure he's not responsible?" Starlight asked. "I've never known him to do something so average." Fluttershy said. "Snowfall in Summer is average?" Starlight replied.

"For him.. Yes." Fluttershy said "Besides I haven't seen him in a while. I'm starting to get worried." she said. Twilight surmised she was talking about Discord. It was true. Discord had a habit of not being around when you needed him, and showing up at the worst possible moments. Being a creature of pure chaos, he was at times completely predictable. Stralight looked worried. "Twilight maybe you should ask the other Princesses if they know whats going on." she said.
"I was thinking the same thing, but right now we need to hide this cake." Twilight said gesturing at the huge problem. "It wont be much of a surprise party if Princess Celestia can see her cake all the way from Canterlot."

After a quick trip to her Library Twilight had found an partial invisibility spell which she and Starlight had preformed on the cake. Pinkie had also set up a tent around it so that it wasn't exposed to the elements. She seemed to be in better spirits then earlier when Mrs. Cake had yelled at her. Twilight sat outside the tent and watched the strange snowflakes fall and pile on the ground. A group of foals was building a snowpony. Twilight was glad that somepony could enjoy it. She personally hated the cold. But the scientist inside of her was curious about the snowfall. When the pony rainbowdash had sent to Cloudsdale returned she reported that they were not making it snow. And more importantly it didn't seem to be isolated to Ponyville. News was coming in from all over Equestria about strange weather. If it persisted soon something would have to be done. But for now everypony seemed to be anticipating the arrival of Celestia tomorrow. She had no-idea that her party was being planned in Ponyville this year.

Inside Starlight was carefully levitating unlit candles onto the top of the cake. Pinkie was looking through a pair of binoculars, which Twilight found strange because she was mere inches from the frosting. "A little to the left... No no no! Go back about an inch! No! Not that far!" She was saying. "Pinkie Pie, I cant do this forever! You have to pick a spot." Starlight said. "Okay Okay, rotate point fourteen by eighty eight degrees." Pinkie responded. "What?" Starlight asked confused. Pinkie sighed and waved her hoof "Just bring it this way until I say stop."

Twilight watched as they positioned the candles and they sank into the frosting. "Wow, I've never seen anypony levitate that many separate items at once." She said Impressed. Starlight whipped sweat from her brow and surveyed her work. "They weren't too heavy, but all together it was hard to concentrate." She said nonchalantly. Twilight suspected that Starlight wasn't brushing off her praise lightly, since coming to Ponyville her student's talent for magic had been increasing steadily. Not that it wasn't anything to shake a ponyfeather at before, she recalled a particularly horrible future that Starlight had helped create when she interfered with the past. She loved Starlight as a dear friend, but sometimes her raw talent... scared her? No she trusted her, there was no reason to afraid she told herself.

Pinkie said goodbye in a hurry. Celestia's party was only a day away and she still had many things to take care of. Starlight and Twilight walked side by side back to her castle. "So I'm not the only one who is still freaked out by this snow right?" Starlight was saying. When Twilight continued to stare off into the distance and not answer she waved a hoof in front of her teacher. "Twilight? Did you hear me?". Twilight came out of her trance. "What? Oh.. uh yeah. It bothers me too. I may have to research what Unicordian weather mages used to do for bad storms if the pegasi in Cloudsdale cant get it under control." She said. Starlight beamed, she was well versed in Unicordian lore. "Maybe I could help. I used to read lots of books about the ancient Unicordians! You know.. when I was enslaving a whole village.." She laughed awkwardly. "Its surprising how much time you have to study when you are the boss." Twilight looked back at her with an expression she couldn't quite read as she opened the castle door with magic. "I'll be sure to let you know. Buuut I think I can handle it. Why don't you take tomorrow off. I know you must be tired from helping me move that giant cake and all those candles." Twilight said with a nervous smile. "Actually I feel okay, might be a little sore tomorrow but I could help you if you need it." She offered. Twilight shook her head. "That's okay, I need a personal project. I've just been reading for fun! Time I did something useful." She grumbled more to herself then Starlight. Twiligh took off with her wings and disappeared down a bend in the hallway leaving Starlight alone in the desolate castle. "Oh-kay." She said outloud. "Guess I'll just head to bed."

Starlight opened the door to her room and sat by her mirror. Adorning it was pictures of her friends and adventures she had been on. In one, her friends from The village were posing in silly ways with her, as if nothing had happened between them. In another her and Twilight were practicing a spell together and smiling. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and sighed. Sometimes she hated the pony staring back at her. Even with her mane styled differently, it didn't change who she was. What she had done. As if to banish the thought she started brushing her mane compulsively when she noticed something else in the mirror. A book sitting on her nightstand.

Curious, she went over to her bed and retrieved it. Levitating it up in her magic. When she did something fell out of it, a bookmark. Starlight turned it over to see the cover. "Lost Colony" She read outloud. She was puzzled when she remembered the night before she had seen Twilight reading this in the Library. How had it ended up here she wondered. Perhaps Twilight had finished it and liked it so much she had set it here for her to read. But Twilight had been with her most of the day. She looked at the bookmark on the floor. She hoped Twilight wasn't mad that she had unintentionally lost her spot. The thought crossed her mind that she should return it, but Twilight had seemed to have been insistent on being alone. Instead she flipped the cover open and began to read.

Author's Note

Okay, so I wanted to get this out on the weekend but oh well. The next chapter will be all about the past. Continuing from where Twilight left off. Thanks for reading this far! I really appreciate it! If you have any comments, issues, or helpful criticism I would love to hear it. Lastly, if you are a proof-reader and would like to help me that would be great. Cheers