Big Mac trotted at a light jog down the road with a little smile on his face. It was a fine day, and he was feeling it.

"What has you all smilin'?" asked his sister as she slid in next to him, moving at the same light trot. "Somethin' good?"

"'Course." Would a pony smile at something bad? "Um." Though the specifics... "How ya doin', sis?"

"Ready to tackle the day." She punched the air to keep it in line. Couldn't let the zephyrs get airs about things. "So what has ya smilin' like that? Must be somethin' nice."

"It's, uh..."

Applejack could easily see the cagey look in her brother's eyes. "What're you lookin' so bashful 'bout? Ya didn't visit yer ladyfriend the last day er two. Oh, how's she doin', since she came up. All good?"

"All good." That felt easy enough to agree with. "It ain't that mare."

Applejack cocked a brow. "Wait, ya got another?!" It clicked. "Oh, right. You are another. She get up ta somethin' worth talkin' 'bout?"

Big Mac darkened as it was homed in on. "She's... livin' a good life fer herself. Um... Right good relationship with her special somepony."

"Aw." She thumped in from the side against Big Mac. "Awful nice to hear, though the way you're goin' on makes me think it ain't just goin' out tah nice places." She chuckled, drawing down her hat. "Ah won't pry into that. Ain't polite. So long as everypony involved's happy 'bout it, that's good news! Now, what about you?"

"Me?" He looked aside at Applejack, smiling just as happily as he had been. "What 'bout me?"

"Well! Hearin' my sister's doing so good makes me a little jealous, ain't gonna deny. Ya feelin' the same?" She swerved in front of Big Mac, swapping what side she was on. "Not like yer the only one that knows what that's like."

This caught Big Mac by surprise, his steps becoming uneven a moment. "W-wait. What are you jealous of?"

"Oh, a heap'ah things! Ya done saw it before." She swatted at him lightly. "Like that time I tried to be as fancy as Rarity." She chuckled at the memory of it. "That was somethin'..."

"You were twice as fancy as she was," he assured with a matching chuckle. "What else? If ya don't mind my askin'."

Applejack waved up at the towering castle-tower. "There's her, right there. Little bookworm unicorn rolls into town, not knowin' a thin' 'bout gettin' 'long with other ponies, and what's she get? Princess of friendship! Ain't hardly fair, or so ah feel sometimes. Jealous, won't even argue it none, but ah feel it sometimes."

Big Mac curled a hoof to his chin. "Huh... Ah get that actually."

"Ya do?" She leaned in, squinting. "Well, not no more ya don't. Ya got it! Um, at least sorta? It's confusin'... But ya got the princess life, even if yer keepin' it separate from the rest." She coughed into one of her hooves. "Shoot... now ah'm a little jealous ah my brother. Ya got a good thin' going!"

"Um..." He was quiet, just the two jogging side by side. "Well... suppose ya ain't wrong entirely... Will ya get mad if ah say I'm still kinda jealous?"

"Mad? No. Confused? Yeah, kinda?" She looped in front of him, cutting off his progress. "Whattaya got left to be jealous of?"

"Well... Ya see..." Big Mac waved over himself. "Ah'm still me. Ah ain't a princess. Orchard Blossom is. Sure, ah get to live those parts... but that's like a... Um... It's like havin' a really good, um..." He struggled to describe it. Would that televisions were a common device to use as an analogy. "Ah know it all, but it ain't me. Big Mac ain't a princess. Big Mac ain't all that important. Big Mac ain't livin' the high life."

"Now that's a lie..." Applejack let the air free in a wooshing breath. "But... ah think ah get it, 'least a little. The pony in the mirror's the one judgin' ya, an' having a second life ain't makin' them shut up any. Fer what it's worth..." She circled to his side, allowing them to resume their journey at a walk. "Yer mighty important. Yer the only brother ah got! And a mighty good one, if ya ask me."

"Thanks." But the word felt a bit flat. "Ah mean it... Right 'ppreciate ya, Applejack. Ya been nothin' but supportive through all this. Shoot, an' here ah am makin' you jealous. Ain't meant to do that!"

She patted his shoulder. "Ain't takin' no offense. Where are we goin' anyway?"

Big Mac slowed to a stop. "Huh..."

"Ya ain't got a clue, do ya?" teased Applejack with a smirk. "We're just walkin' to walk? Well, heard worse reasons ta walk afore in mah life. Lead the way."

Big Mac circled though, heading back towards the farm. "As fun as strollin' is, we should get some work done. Farm won't be runnin' itself."

"That's true, but it ain't the whole truth of it." She accelerated a little ahead of him. "We gotta take care of ourselves, or who'll be runnin' that farm? Who'll keep an eye on Apple Bloom?"

He cringed at the idea. "Alright... alright... So, what're you suggestin' then?"

"Ah say we need some fun!" She hopped ahead. "An' ah know the right pony to handle that."

"Me?"

Applejack jumped, fur going up. "Pinkie! Ah swear." There was the pink mare, walking with them as if she had been there the entire time. "Ah ain't got a clue how you pull that off... Still, since yer here, yes, you." She reached to boop Pinkie on the snoot. "Havin' fun's yer specialty, last ah checked. Ah'd like to order exactly one party."

Pinkie smiled so wide her cheeks squeaked in the effort. "With pleasure! What kinda party? Is it a birthday party?" She looked between Applejack and Big Mac. "Nope, neither of your birthdays are that close. Oh! Is it some other pony? I need details!"

Big Mac circled around, placing Pinkie between himself and Applejack. "Ah think she wants a party fer... us?"

"Us," agreed Applejack, pointing at herself. "An Apple party. Invite all the Apples ya can, and some friends of the family while yer at it. Ah want a mighty fine time! Can ya make that happen?"

"I'm a friend of the family," boasted Pinkie, chest puffed and a proud smile worn.

"Pinkie, you are an Apple, 'member?" A fine time for a boop. "'Course yer invited! 'sides, yer the one plannin' the party, would be kinda awkward not to invite ya. Now, ya up to it?"

"You got it." Pinkie saluted sharply. "One old country hootenanny!" She bounced, with joy, or maybe because pronking was her preferred mode of travel. "Ooo, I can't even wait! When do you want it? Today?! Tomorrow? A week from now? Yesterday?"

Big Mac rubbed behind his head. "Can't be yesterday, or we'd already did it. Ah don't remember no party yesterday."

Pinkie hummed with thought. "Well, I guess that's true enough..." As if it could be wrong with the right perspective. "So when's it gonna be?!"

Applejack caught Pinkie, arm blocking her bounce to hold her to the ground. "It ain't no emergency. Let's say... start of the new moon?"

"I'm on the case!" Even with Applejack's holding arm, Pinkie was gone, leaving Applejack holding a Pinkie-shaped cloud of smoke.

Applejack lowered her arm, dispersing the cloud on the way. "She's a mysterious mare. Now, of all the super powered mares ah know of? Ain't jealous of that. It's a mighty potent power she has, but ain't worth the price, ta me. Ah'd rather make sense."

"Makin' sense is a fine thing to do." Big Mac pointed out into the fields. "Ah'll take the east side."

"Then I'll tackle the west," agreed Applejack, the two separating to take care of their share of the apple duties.

"I've been studying this." Twilight pointed to a hovering book, glowing with her magic. "It happened once before."

"It did?!" Big Mac leaned forward, eyes wide. "When? Who?!"

"Long ago... A thousand years ago--"

Big Mac cut right in with a scowl. "Nope. No way it happened just as all them other thin's were goin' on."

Twilight stopped, confused a moment. "Oh! A thousand years ago is short-hoof for 'a long time ago'. Once you're past a thousand, the precise number of years isn't important. And we're not so far we're going to another aeon." She wobbled her hooves closer and further as she tried to explain the timeline. "So sometime between a six hundred and ten thousand? 'A thousand years ago.' It's not precise, but it gets you to the right place, broadly speaking."

"Oh..." One mystery, explained. Big Mac nodded with understanding. "Alright, so, way back when... What happened?"

"As I was saying." Twilight smiled, not looking upset at the interruption. "There was a pony, a mare. A fancy mare, noble, descendant of Princess Platinum. Her lineage still held importance, back then. She was doing her royal part to keep Equestria running. It kept her quite busy. She would, according to the stories I read--" She pointed at that floating book. "She would stare longingly from her window at times, musing that the commoners were so much more free to do as they pleased than ever she would be, shackled by the demands of her position."

Big Mac, one of those commoners, rubbed his cheek awkwardly. "Huh..." An odd thought and feeling, having a pony gazing right back at him and feeling just as jealous. "But she was rich, weren't she? Couldn't she do whatever she wanted? Rich an' powerful at that."

"She was both of those things." She lowered the book to the table, flipping to an illustration of ponies looking up at this noble mare. "But that made a lot of ponies expect things of her, and she was unwilling to let them down. Now... Both you, the other you, and I, have felt this. We are princesses! Ponies expect things of us... and letting them down feels pretty bad, doesn't it?"

Big Mac hummed softly. "Yeah, ya got a point..."

Twilight smiled gently. "She was a good princess, and so too do we try to be. So, she did her part, but she wondered about those common ponies, looking so free, at least from her perspective. She mused, but she kept at her task, unable, unwilling, to let that go."

"Right, so... How did she get involved in this?" He waved at himself.

"Getting to that." She flipped a few pages forward. "They say it was Starswirl's fault, but there's little evidence of that. He was a famed unicorn. A lot of things old powerful unicorns did a thousand years ago got assigned to him by default. It'd be nice to know the truth, but it may be a lost fact at this point."

"Huh..." Big Mac rubbed his chin thoughtfully, considering the picture on the page of Starswirl glowing with power. "So what'd they do? The mare or maybe Starswirl?"

Twilight turned a hoof flatside up, her frog on display. "She was feeling overwhelmed and consulted a powerful sorcerer to help address that. 'I feel, at times, there's so much to be done I wish there were two of me,' she is quoted as saying. She asked the sorcerer to banish sleep from her, so she had a full day to get her duties completed, instead of sleeping through so many hours."

Big Mac perked in place. "Uh oh..."

"You can see this coming," joked Twilight gently with a smile to match. "But she didn't know better, and she had the bits to try. The wizard weaved a spell, banishing sleep from her entirely. Never again would she know the rest of the night. Never again would she dream. In trying to make time, she removed the one time she had to herself. A lamentable curse she brought on herself... Still, she gained a second life that stirred at night. I imagine you know precisely how that worked."

Author's Note

Mistakes were made. Let's not get caught up on the details!

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