The bright sun shone over the bright, green fields of Equestria, while a calm breeze blew through the grass. The blooming flowers and fluttering butterflies painted the whole land with beautiful arrays of different colors while birdsong filled the air. The light yellow mare let out a soft sigh as she took in all the sights and sounds.

“Fluttershy?” a voice asked.

Fluttershy’s ears pricked and she whipped around to see Twilight, sitting on the picnic blanket beside her.

“Oh sorry Twilight,” Fluttershy whispered, “I was just taking in all the sights.”

“Ah yes, it is lovely out here,” Rarity added.

Fluttershy turned to look at the white unicorn. She wore a pair of giant sunglasses and a flowery hat, both green, to keep the sun out of her face. Rainbow Dash was sitting beside Rarity, reading the latest Daring Do book as she tried to eat a muffin. Applejack sat nearby with a whole basket of muffins, giving them to anypony who asked for one. Rarity glanced down at Spike.

“Spike, can you pass me a chocolate muffin?” Rarity asked.

Spike looked up at Rarity, his cheeks instantly turning a deep shade of red.

“Of course!” he replied, standing up and grabbing a muffin from the nearby basket. He carefully placed the chocolate muffin on Rarity’s plate.

“Thank you, Spikey Wikey,” Rarity replied gratefully before carefully taking a bite of her muffin. Spike only replied with an embarrassed stutter. Starlight Glimmer levitated a random muffin from the basket and took a bite of it. She nearly dropped it as she did.

“Wow Applejack, these apple spice muffins are amazing!” she exclaimed.

“Thanks sugarcube but it was actually Granny Smith who made ‘em,” Applejack replied.

“Mmm, tell her I think they're amazing,” Starlight took another bit of muffin.

“Sure thing.”

Pinkie Pie grabbed three chocolate muffins from the basket and messily gobbled them down. Frosting and crumbs went flying all over the blanket and everypony else. Rarity backed up slightly and tried to avoid the flying food.

“Pinkie Pie! Can’t you be a little less messy?!” Rarity exclaimed, despite her obvious amusement. Twilight looked up from her book at Pinkie Pie with a giggle. She levitated a nearby napkin towards the pink pony and magically wiped all the frosting off Pinkie Pie's face.

“Thanks Twi,” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Wait, I missed a spot!” Twilight exclaimed, dropping her book.

“Where?”

Twilight stood up and tapped Pinkie Pie's nose, “There!” Pinkie Pie and Twilight both abruptly bursted out into a fit of giggles.

“This has been fun, but maybe next time we can invite Starlight AND Discord?” Fluttershy suggested.

“Uh...I don't know Fluttershy…” Twilight replied.

“Oh come on Twilight,” Fluttershy reasoned, “I promise you won't even notice he's there.”

“I agree with Fluttershy,” Starlight agreed, “Discord is our friend, yet we never seem to invite him to anything.”

“You know what?” Rarity butted in, “The more the merrier! Shall we invite Capper next time as well?”

“Ooh ooh! And Skystar?!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“And Celaeno and her crew?” Fluttershy suggested.

“Nah, they’ve been really busy lately,” Rainbow Dash sighed, “Pirate stuff.”

“Well I suppose we can invite Starlight, Discord, Capper, and Skystar,” Twilight still sounded unsure, “I guess I’ll just clone more chairs if there aren’t enough in my dining room.”

“Hey, what about Fizzlepop Berrytwist?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Tempest?” Twilight asked. She still wasn’t used to using the mare’s real name, “Well, I can invite her too but she might not come. It’ll probably be overwhelming for her to be around so many ponies all at once.”

“Especially since she and Capper are...not really the friendliest,” Rarity added.

“Exactly,” Twilight nodded, “But I’ll invite them all to the next get together and we’ll see how it goes and who shows up.”
Suddenly, Pinkie Pie let out a huge gasp.

“That's the late lunch get together at the castle on Friday!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Starlight shot a confused glance at Rarity.

“Why are we having lunch late that day?” Starlight asked.

“It worked better with all of our schedules,” Rarity answered.

“Well, I'll see you girls on Friday at two thirty,” Twilight said, as the ponies began to clean up.

Sitting alone as usual in the cafeteria, Jade plugged in her headphones and turned her music on. She looked around at all the groups of people in the cafeteria, talking, laughing, or looking at their phones together. Jade wondered what that was like: having friends who cared about you and wanted to spend time with you. Unexpected jealousy pricked at Jade like a needle and it was impossible to push away. Why didn’t anyone ever want to be friends with her? Am I not good enough for the people here? Jade looked down at her bag of pretzels with a sigh. Her only friend throughout all of middle school and so far all of high school was music. However, not a lot of the modern songs her peers would listen to, Jade usually found those obnoxious or repetitive, but just whatever jived with her. That could range from broadway music to classical to even some pop or rap. Jade closed her eyes and tried to just focus on her music.

After while, the bell rang, signifying it was time to go to the last class of the day. Jade shut off her music and quickly packed up her stuff. Her last class of the day was chemistry, one of her most difficult classes. She walked through the halls silently, without anyone even acknowledging her presence. Throughout her chemistry class, it was the exact same. She didn’t raise her hand to answer any questions, didn’t talk to anyone and had no one talk to her. Jade felt like nothing more than a shadow, something that has a presence and is seen but never acknowledged as anything more than part of a background. Yet honestly, she didn’t really want it any other way.

“What is the metal that is used to recover copper from a solution of copper sulfate?” the teacher looked around the room before focusing his gaze, “Jade?”

Jade’s eyes widened and she froze on the spot as everyone’s eyes focused on her. Struggling to remember, Jade silently sat shaking in her seat.

“I-i-i-i-iron…” Jade finally answered.

“Yes!” the teacher replied, proudly.

Jade let out a relieved sigh and tried to calm herself down with slow breathing techniques. After what felt like thousands of years of more lecturing, the dismissal bell finally rang. Everyone immediately stood up and rushed towards the door, pushing and shoving each other to try to escape the classroom. Jade backed away from all the chaos, all the way against a wall. Once everyone was gone and the room fell silent, Jade quietly walked out the door and into the chaotic hallway. She allowed the stream of students to lead her out the door and she diverged from the path to walk to her own house. She walked the same path she had every day since her first day of Freshman year at Canterlot High. Nothing had really changed now that she was in her Sophomore year. It was a lot of the same people and the classes weren’t much different just harder. The only things that seemed to have changed were the teachers and classroom numbers but Jade hardly noticed that. Many of the teachers were the same to her, as were her peers. Once she reached her house, Jade unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“I’m home!” she called out, shutting the door behind her.

Her mother emerged from her room upstairs and looked down the balcony at Jade.

“Hey! How was school!” Her mother greeted.

“The same,” Jade answered, “Nothing exciting happened.”

“Do you have homework?” her mom asked.

“No,” Jade responded.

“That’s good,” Jade’s mom walked back in her room and shut the door.

Jade grabbed her laptop out of her backpack and sat down on the couch in the living room. She opened to her writing and began typing away whatever came to mind. Aside from music, writing was her other escape. It was an outlet for her emotions, a way for her to express her creativity and what felt like a gateway to freedom. While Jade wrote, she was in her own world and followed her own rules. It was the only time Jade felt like she could be herself. Jade continued writing for the rest of the day only taking one break to eat a dinner she cooked for herself in the microwave.

Once she noticed it was getting late, Jade plugged in her laptop and went up to her room. Tomorrow was Friday which meant only one more day until the weekend where she could write for as long as she wanted. However, tomorrow would be just the same as every other day. She would go to the same classes, see the same people, learn the same subjects and do the same things. Jade took off her glasses and laid them down on her nightstand with a sigh. Laying down, Jade found herself struggling to fall asleep. She tossed and turned for hours in the darkness of her room for what seemed like hours until finally passing out.

Author's Note

It's finally out! The whole reason I made an account on here was to post this story (and other MLP stories but this one is the first real one I've written.) After about two years of struggling in development, this story was completely rewritten. The original drafts were very different and honestly worse. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story!