A Crack in the Glass

Prologue: The Anxiety of a Pink Pony

The hands of the clock seemed to be moving faster with every time Pinkie Pie glanced at the vibrantly colored time teller. Her eyes rapidly switched back and forth between the entrance of Sugar Cube Corner on the other side of the room and the indicator of time, her patience dwindling as her worry inclined to a simmer. The breeze of the cool autumn wind blowing through the open windows of the store, which Pinkie could have swore she had opened entirely instead of cracking them a bit, released some of the nervous heat building up in the pink pony anxiously standing behind the shop’s cashier stand. The cold air had been the only thing from keeping Pinkie Pie calm and collected while she progressively became more and more nervous, and she could start to feel her jaw become sore from clenching her teeth as tight as she had been for the past ten minutes. The vibrant colors of the pastry store only pushed Pinkie further into wanting to burst into a nervous break down, all of the hues of pink and blue and green and red reminding her of the decorations set up at Applejack’s farm.

It was Apple Bloom’s birthday today, and Pinkie Pie had no intentions of missing the look on the young filly’s face at her surprise party. That is, if the Cakes returned back on the time they had said they were going to, despite already being a little over half an hour behind schedule. It was ten minutes past six o’ clock by now, forty minutes beyond the Cake’s established time of coming back, and Apple Bloom’s party was starting not only twenty minutes from the second. Pinkie Pie had told herself time and time again that the Cakes would only be a little late after the first few minutes of their delayed return, but her attempts to try and calm herself were negated within the next half hour. Six o’ clock had been the beginning of Pinkie’s mental breakdown, and it didn’t seem as if it were going to stop. The fact that Pinkie Pie had almost no customers within the time that she had been tending the shop made her feel as if she was only wasting time which she could be using to help with Apple Bloom’s party, but she knew that she had a strong, strong Pinkie promise latched onto her. It was bad enough that she had almost forgotten her arrangements with the Cakes about watching over the shop while they were off to Canterlot to deliver a cake with the foals, but the thought that she almost forgot about her own Pinkie promise pushed the pink pony to keep to her word and not run for Sweet Apple Acres in a split second.

A drop of sweat ran down the side of Pinkie Pie’s face. Her mind filled itself with the thoughts of missing Apple Bloom’s birthday party. She thought of all the fun she would miss out on, all of the smiles and cheers of joy as Apple Bloom’s friends and family rejoiced at her side. Nothing in the world made Pinkie happier than the enjoyment others had, and not being there to attend the party she had helped plan would surely crush her heart. The more time passed as she pink pony waited, the more she felt herself shaking with anxiety and fear that she would miss the party. She could feel her heart pounding away in her chest, and she could have swore she heard her heartbeat add an extra bump with how fast it was pumping. A strong gust of wind blew through the windows of Sugar Cube Corner. A few leaves twirling around in the wind floated into the shop as the single burst of air blew wicked and feral. The orange, yellow, and red crispy sheets of sharp and dry leaves fell flat on the floor as the gust of wind halted in its tracks as if it were just a single breath outwards. Something seemed unusual about the autumn breeze now that Pinkie noticed it had suddenly stopped, though the weather patterns outside were the least of Pinkie Pie’s concerns. Unless they would ruin the plans of Apple Bloom’s birthday party, which at the thought of it, Pinkie just about lost consciousness for a split second.

A pair of hoofsteps from outside intercepted Pinkie Pie’s thoughts. Were the Cakes finally home? Or were the hoofsteps owned by a passing couple out for an early evening walk? The wind had picked up again after taking a small break, cooling the pink pony’s heated little body before she got dehydrated from over-sweating. Pinkie stepped sideways after feeling a dampness on her hooves, thinking to herself if she had really sweat that much. The hoofsteps that she had heard had only passed by the front of the pastry shop, leaving with only a few chatters of laughter and bantering from their owners. The loneliness of the inside of Sugar Cube Corner was starting to get to Pinkie Pie, and not talking for so long was starting to make her consider talking to herself, though that would probably only drive the few customers that would enter the shop away. Figuring she would take a small break from standing behind the display case of the shop’s pastries, Pinkie Pie wiped away the sweat collected on her forehead and trotted around the cashier stand. She glanced at the clock as she walked over to one of the windows near the shop’s entrance. Six fifteen.

Pinkie Pie sighed to herself as she lifted her hooves up to the window. She pushed the wooden frame up to the very top of her mental escape, locking it in place with a small flick of a switch on the interior of the frame. The pink pony let out a longer, more exhausted sigh as she rested her head on her hooves in the window sill, tilting her head onto its side. The rest of Ponyville seemed to be at rest early for the time of day, almost no one walking around. Pinkie Pie found herself slightly shocked that there was no one outside jumping in piles of leaves or getting themselves ready for The Running of the Leaves, though the beginning of cold weather coming in for the season suggested that they were inside warming themselves up. Pinkie’s eyes came across Applejack’s kiosk, which usually had the orange mare standing right next to the apple stand, but she was more than likely setting up the finishing touches of Apple Bloom’s birthday party at the moment. Applejack was lucky enough to be able to take a break off of work to help with the tidings of the party, and Pinkie would too, if she hadn’t have made her Pinkie promise with the Cakes.

“Pinkie Pie!” a mare’s voice breached through the silence. “Thank Celestia you’re still here!”

The pink pony pricked up her head along with her ears. The voices were familiar, and the incomprehensible babbles of two babies brought a joy so intense to Pinkie’s heart that she almost fell over in relief. She leaned her head out the window and turned to the direction the voices had come from, and sure enough, off to the right of Sugar Cube Corner, Mr. and Mrs. Cake were walking along Ponyville’s streets with a foal on each of their backs. An empty cart followed behind them, the metal wheels squeaking with every turn and the frame of the cart rattling along the uneven dirt paths. A large smile found its way onto Pinkie Pie’s face and she waved at the Cakes, receiving two small waggles of foal hooves in her direction along with more babbling from the Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re finally back!” Pinkie Pie said as the Cakes drew closer to the pastry shop. “How’d the trip go?”

“Well, we had some issues coming back, as you might have noticed,” Mr. Cake admitted sheepishly as he walked up to the entrance of his home and pushed the door open, trotting inside afterwards followed by the rest of the family. “We missed the train coming back to Ponyville a little late, so we had to take a carriage back.” He motioned his head to the cart behind him, which was attached to a rope tied around his hind leg. “Which isn’t exactly built to carry carts for the cake we brought to Canterlot.”

Mrs. Cake set the foal on her back down on the cashier stand and glanced up at the clock. “We’re terribly sorry for not being on time, Pinkie Pie. I hope we didn’t make you late for anything,” she apologized.

Pinkie’s eyes snapped wide open. In the excitement of the Cakes coming back from Canterlot, she had forgotten what she was excited about. The pink pony took a brief look at the clock on the wall to her left. Six twenty. “Oh, horse apples!” Pinkie Pie whispered to herself. She turned to Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who were settling back into their home at the display cases for their pastries. “I’d love to stay and talk but I have to go now I’ll catch you later bye!” And with that, Pinkie Pie didn’t even wait a second for the Cakes to wave goodbye back, as she was already out of the window and half way down the block. The Cakes exchanged a brief look of confusion, though they brushed it off as Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie and went back to tending to their home.

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The outskirts of Ponyville ran with the cool breeze of autumn. Along with the winds in their path, a pink pony sprinted across the dirt roads and tracks leading to the apple orchards near the borders of Ponyville. Clouds had begun to move their way into the tilting azure of the early evening sky over the town of ponies, bringing with them a small drizzle, though barely enough to be noticed so far. Pinkie Pie watched the sky as she set on the path that lead to Sweet Apple Acres, feeling a small raindrop on her head. Ponyville hadn’t have been scheduled for a drizzle, and the forecast was supposed to be clear and calm for the entire day and night. The winds, which seemed fine earlier in the day, had begun to pick up along with the weather gathering over Ponyville, scattering the settled leaves that were laying on the ground. The pink pony shook her head and continued running along the dirt road, quickly taking a glance at the watch around her right foreleg. Six twenty eight.

Pinkie slid to a stop as she felt another drop of rain land on her head, then another, and another. She stared up at the sky again, shutting her right eye tightly as a raindrop fell into it. The fluffy blanket settling over Ponyville slowly yielded more rain with every second, and soon enough, Pinkie Pie had found herself in a small downpour. The apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres were in sight, and Pinkie Pie, her mane starting to weigh her down as water collected within it, made a swift dash towards the closest tree. She backed up against the trunk of her shield against the rain and wrung her mane of water.

“That’s weird...” Pinkie Pie thought to herself. “I don’t remember there being any sort of cloud coverage planned for Ponyville today.”

She leaned around the trunk of the tree, peeking out at Sweet Apple Acres in the distance. She could see a number of ponies running inside to the Apple Family’s barn, carrying with them as much of the decorations that had been set up for Apple Bloom’s birthday party as they could. Pinkie Pie’s ears dropped and she sank her head down. She felt as if she had jinxed the horrible weather that had started up, even if she was completely sure that the entire day was supposed to be clear. Though, something seemed strange to Pinkie Pie. She leaned out from under the trunk of the tree and looked up at the sky, keeping a hoof over her eyes to protect them from the rain. She hadn’t noticed any pegasi moving the clouds into place, and the calm wind that had been blowing through Ponyville didn’t seem like it would be strong enough to move them on its own.

A crack of lightning snapped Pinkie Pie’s thoughts in half. The pink pony jumped and backed up into the tree she was under, letting out a frightened squeak. She quickly realized that being under a tree in a thunder storm probably wasn’t the best idea as another, louder strike of lightning burst into her ears. Hoping the party wasn’t ruined, Pinkie pushed herself off of the tree and continued on towards Sweet Apple Acres, her hooves splashing in the water collecting on the ground. The rain had picked up dramatically, pelting the pink mare running along the path leading up to the barn, now in which Apple Bloom’s party was being held. Lightning flashed and thunder roared what seemed like every second as Pinkie Pie ran in fright, trying to keep the thought of a lightning strike hitting her out of her mind.

Something compelled Pinkie to slide to a stop, however. As the pink pony saw a strange movement out of the corner of her eye, she got a foreboding feeling that there was a different reason for the sudden rainfall. Pinkie Pie scanned her eyes across the mountain tops overlooking Ponyville, searching for what she had saw. It was distant, and if anything probably just Pinkie’s own mind playing tricks on her, but she knew she had saw something. A large pair of wings, black, though the pair of eyes that caught them wasn’t quite sure if they were as dark as they were because of the lack of sunlight or because they were actually black. They didn’t appear to be the size of a normal pegasi’s wings, almost two or three times as large, but what haunted Pinkie Pie’s mind wasn’t the wings; it was their owner. The rainfall had obscured the image to the point of the pink pony wondering if she had just mistaken the creature she thought she saw as a crow or raven, but the sight of what seemed to be the limbs of a griffon itched at Pinkie Pie’s head. At the same time, though, the creature didn’t seem like a griffon, or a pegasus, or any type of bird Pinkie had ever seen. The instant that the wings had flashed into the pink pony’s peripheral vision had passed as quickly as it had come, the pair of wings seeming to dive back into the trees from where they had come from. Pinkie Pie stared unsurely at the mountains for a moment before she glanced down at her watch. Six thirty two. She was already late, and she didn’t want to be any more so.

Trying her best to get the strange sight out of her head, Pinkie raced down the dirt road leading to Sweet Apple Acres. She wasn’t far from the farm, and as she grew closer, she could see a certain orange mare outside collecting the decorations that were still standing. Her mane was as soaked as Pinkie Pie’s and the ribbons keeping her mane and tail collected were beginning to untie themselves. Her hat drooped over her face, Applejack trying her best not to drop it in the mud, or drop herself in the mud while she was at it.

“Applejack!” Pinkie Pie called as she drew close enough for her friend to hear her over the rain.

The orange mare looked up from the ground over to Pinkie, a smile forming on her face as the pink pony arrived at her side. “Well howdy Pinkie!” she greeted. “Weird weather, huh? I could’a swore that Rainbow Dash said the skies would be clear today.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie agreed. She looked past Applejack at the red wooden structure behind her. “Where’s Apple Bloom?”

Applejack motioned her head back to the barn. “She’s sitting inside with the rest of the party goers and getting things set back up again. Don’t you worry; she’s just as happy as she was when she first saw our little surprise for her. I’m sure we can still have the party even with this stinkin’ weather.” She looked up at the sky and sighed. “It is a shame, though. I was hopin’ we could’a done some thing outside. Oh well, hopefully the pegasi can clear out the sky soon.” She looked back down at Pinkie. “You didn’t see any pegasi movin’ the clouds around on your way over here, did you?”

Pinkie shook her head. “I didn’t notice any.” A quick thought jumped into her head. The black wings on the mountain side. Pinkie turned her head to the mountains where she saw the wings, though she looked back at Applejack and only shrugged.

The orange mare squinted at her friend. “Are you alright, sugar cube? You seem a bit distant. Something wrong?”

Pinkie Pie opened her mouth to speak, but she quickly shut it and smiled. “No. Everything’s fine! Come on, let’s go inside. We still have a party to throw!”

Applejack grinned and kicked in the direction of the barn. “Well why don’t you head inside. I’ll be there in a bit. Here, take these while you’re at it.” She handed Pinkie a couple packages of balloons and a party hat, though the colorful head ornament was soaked to the point of toppling over on itself. Nevertheless, Pinkie Pie strapped the party hat onto her head and carried the balloons in her mouth, bouncing her way to the barn’s entrance and heading inside.

Hearing the barn door close, Applejack’s smile faded away and she looked up at the sky. The lightning had slowed down quite a bit, though the rainfall stayed as heavy as it had been for the past few minutes. Applejack set her eyes on the mountain range standing in the path of the horizon, running her gaze across the tops of the trees. She wondered if Pinkie had seen the pair of wings as well, though she only brushed off the pink pony’s glance at the mountains as taking a second look at the clouds. Something wasn’t right, but for now, Apple Bloom’s birthday party was top priority. A sigh escaping from her mouth, Applejack turned around and headed for the barn.