Frosty awoke late in the morning the next day, with a feeling of empowering heat in his chest. Even though he had barely the amount of energy stored that he would get from a single Manticore, he felt like that day when he had killed half the Everfree.

He went into the bathroom to freshen up a bit and take a shower, but on the way there, he noticed something strange. He could see the souls of Applejack, Apple Bloom and Big Mac not in their rooms or out in the orchard, but down in the main room, together with at least twenty other ponies.

He went out of the shower and down the stairs to investigate, but found the entire room devoid of any light. Of course, that didn’t mean that he could no longer see the souls, but it gave him an eerie feeling, as if something—

“SURPRISE!!!” Suddenly the lights went on and everypony in the room jumped up. Though the twenty-four others did it to surprise him, while Frosty did it because he was surprised, which in turn means that their surprise had worked.

“YEP, Pinkie-surprises ALWAYS work!” Pinkie Pie suddenly argued with the wall, as she popped up before Frosty.

“I- You- What?” Frosty stammered. “What in the world is going on?”

“It’s a surprise party fer ya, ‘cause you’ve saved Rainbow.” Applejack clarified, walking up beside Pinkie.

“Yeppers! We’re reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyREAAAALLLY Thankful that you saved her! Dashie even said tha- hnngfhnngfhuffhmm” Pinkie blabbered, before getting shut up by Applejack’s hoof.

“Don’t ya spill the surprise, Pinkie! Rainbow oughta do that herself!” Applejack chided her with an almost devilish look.

“O-kay?” Frosty acknowledged insecurely. “So, where is she then?”

Applejack motioned to the far corner of the room with the hoof she had just taken from Pinkie’s muzzle and Frosty followed the point after a short exchange of looks with both mares.

In the corner that Applejack had pointed at stood all the remaining Elements, as well as the CMC, who tackled him the moment he came into view.

“Woah there, you three, no need to get greedy.” He said jokingly.

“Hey, we saw you fall to your death back there, so we’ve got to make sure that we aren’t dreaming.” Scootaloo said back.

“Didn’t y’all do that already back then?” Applejack chuckled, to which the three fillies suddenly and inexplicably sported very heavy blushes.

“Euh, y-yeah… that…” Scootaloo trailed off, which seemed to confuse Applejack a little.

“Aaaaanyways” Frosty quickly interjected. “Rainbow, Pinkie said… something? She didn’t really get to say anything, ‘cause Applejack stopped her, but at least she said your name, so what’s up?”

Rainbow shuffled nervously in place, looking first at Rarity and then at Twilight, who stood beside her. “Ah geez, do I really have to, Twilight? N-Now that I think about it, it’s kinda… not awesome.”

“Come on, you promised yesterday and—“

“You PINKIE-Promised!” Pinkie quickly interjected.

“…Yeah, as I said, you PINKIE-Promised that you’d do that, so now I guess, you’ll have to.” Twilight said with a giggle.

Looking back and forth between her friends, Rainbow then slowly walked towards Frosty. The CMC let go of him and let him stand up again before Rainbow got there and gave them a little space.

“Euh, h-hey, Frosty.” She said nervously.

“Hey, Rainbow. So, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Frosty greeted back.

“I, uh… you know I… UGH, oh, buck it!”

Frosty was about to ask ‘buck what?’, when Rainbow suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him into a rib-crushing hug.

“Thanks for saving me, Frosty. Really, that was totally awesome of you.” She said, while still holding him tight against her chest fluff.

Now that he found himself in close contact with an older mare, Frosty couldn’t help to think that, from the outside, this might look like Rainbow was cuddling with some kind of a plushy, given the size difference between them.

“You’re—huff – you’re welcome!” Frosty croaked out, his oxygen-supply running lower by the second, although he was not feeling as if he was suffocating, strangely enough.

“Oh, oh, sorry, I uh… I just… wanted to say thank you ‘n stuff, so, uhh…” Rainbow quickly pulled back after realizing Frosty’s predicament and looked to the floor, while stroking her leg with a hoof.

“Okay, now I kinda feel bad about what I did back in Cloudsdale…”

“Oh, there’s no need to thank me, really. It’s probably what everypony would’ve done.” Frosty shrugged off, but Rarity was having none of it.

“Oh, but it’s not, Darling. In fact, I have spent the whole night thinking about a way to properly reward you and I have come up with a few good pieces. Come on, I want to give them to you right away.” Rarity said, as she walked out of the Apple Homestead, pulling Frosty along.

“Uh, but Miss Rarity, that’s… really not necessary and—“

“Oh, pish-posh, Darling. Something as brave as jumping from such a height to save somepony else most definitely deserves a reward.” She interrupted him, as they left the farm. Frosty gave a last pleading look at the CMC, who could only shrug helplessly in return.

“… and this here I came up with a while ago for the summer collection. A simple white dress coat with a yellow bow-tie.”

This had been going on for HOURS by now. One after another, Rarity fitted him with the most absurd of garments, only for him to politely decline every single one of them. Though, even as he declined one after another, it didn’t seem like she would let up until she either ran out of clothes to show or he had finally taken one of them… and seeing her strangely gigantic basement with all those clothes made him realize that the latter was more likely to be the case.

“And this here is from the winter collection of the year prior. It’s a bit thick for summer, sure, but I can remove the excess stuffing when I fit it to your size.” She offered and truly, the clothes she had were magnificent, if only these ponies wouldn’t be too affixed with their concept of ‘Harmony’ to know ‘Contrast’. Up until that point, every single piece of clothing had been as bright as Frosty’s coat, if not even brighter and definitely more colourful.

“I don’t know, Rarity… don’t you have something that’s a little… darker?” He asked her, causing the mare to stop and think for a moment.

“Well yes, I do have something darker, but I don’t believe that it would go well with your mane and coat. I can get it if you want to, though.”

“That would be nice of you, Miss Rarity.”

Rarity vanished into the vastness of her basement for a few minutes, before a triumphant ‘Ha-haaa!’ could be heard, followed by closing hoofsteps.

“Here you go! It’s an old costume I made for a movie, consisting of a light brown fedora and a matching black tuxedo with bowtie and—“

“TAKEN!” Frosty quickly grabbed his chance at the first sensible piece of clothing he got offered.

“Oh, really? But isn’t it…?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Miss Rarity. I think it looks amazing. The Fedora is good to have at any time and the tuxedo will be a very nice piece of clothing for special events.” Frosty quickly cut her off, eager to finally end this fashion-induced torment.

“Well… if you are sure then it’s okay, I guess? Oh, what am I saying, of course it’s ‘Okay’. Come here, Frosty, let me just quickly get your measurements and then you can come back tomorrow to pick it up.”

With that, Rarity quickly whipped up a few measuring tapes and whirled them around Frosty in a seemingly chaotic manner, though she seemed to be getting the results she needed. Afterward, Frosty stepped out of the boutique to at least get something done today… only to realize that there wasn’t much ‘day’ left anymore.

The sun was nearing the end of its path in the sky, already touching the horizon with its outer edge. Frosty gave a short glance behind him toward the boutique, where he had been trapped for the last 10 hours at least and somehow, a small smile made its way onto his lips.

“Well… I guess my plans are postponed until tomorrow…” He chuckled, before making his way back towards the Apple Homestead to get some rest after a rather peculiar day.

Author's Note

Bad news folks: no new chapter next week :c
I've got some stuff to do regarding the Army 'n stuff and won't be able to write the new chapter until the week after.

Speaking of next chapter, a little warning on my part: as per the current plan, the next chapter will contain depictions of events that may cause flashbacks 'n such for those who have undergone... certain unpleasant events. Hard to describe without spoiling too much...
There will be a seperate warning in the next chapter, but I wanted to give you a heads-up beforehand, just in case.

Until next chapter, have a wonderful weekend, everyone!