After about what seemed like a million miles on bare hoof, you finally arrived at your destination: Ponyville. It was like what you imagined a little town to be like. Just right, the atmosphere was perfect, no cars, and all the ponies were very happy to see a newcomer, especially that pink pony you just passed, she literally gasped for air and blasted off in the opposite direction. You laugh as you see the pink blur zoom off in the other direction. You make your way to the central fountain where you were supposed to meet Twilight. The sunset gave the fountain a golden hue.
Just as you rest by the fountain, a familiar voice calls out "Hey!". You and several other ponies look to the direction the voice came from, and there she is, your best friend from foalhood, comes rushing towards you. "Hey Twi! It's been a long time!" you say excitedly as she crashes into you.
"I missed you so much! I have so many things to talk about" Twilight says happily as she helps you up. "Heh, sorry! I get hyperactive when I get excited." She says, smiling at you.
Twilight guides you around the twists and turns of Ponyville and to her giant, leafy abode. "Wow." Is all you can manage to get out due to the massive size of her house. You and her enter the tree to be only greeted by silence and darkness.
"Hey Twi? Why is it so dark in here?" Is all you ask before getting the shock of your life.
SURPRISE!
There are 5 ponies, some cake, a cider barrel, and a crudely painted banner saying 'Welcome!'
"Wow, how did you all know I was coming here?" you ask in total shock.
You look at Twilight with an 'I'm expecting an answer' kind of look.
"Well, I kinda told Pinkie," You look over to a pink pony waving her hoof at you. You wave back with a smile. "Then she told Applejack and Rarity, so they made you the banner," You look over at the pony wearing a hat and the unicorn, they're both waving at you. "And then Pinkie told Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash." You look over at the pegasi who are also waving their hooves at you. "So you could say it was a chain reaction." Twilight says smiling.
"LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED! HIT IT SPIKE!" Pinkie shouts. "Pinkie, remember I told you, Spike's at a camp?" Twilight says to remind Pinkie. "Oh yeah... but who cares?!" the pink pony shouts in excitement.
You trot off to the cider barrel, well, to obviously get some cider. Rainbow Dash is also by the cider barrel, so you decide to start a conversation.
"Hey, you're Rainbow Dash right?" you say in hopes to start off a chat.
"The one and only!" she says with pride.
"Future Wonderbolt and the BEST FLIER IN EQUESTRIA!" she adds on from her previous statement.
"So you're a bolter then?" you ask.
"What's a bolter?" she asks with a curious look on her face.
"It means you're a Wonderbolt fan." you tell her.
"Any other sports you're into, besides flying?" you ask.
"Uh, well, I did watch a Fillydelphia 76ers game before, but I, personally didn't enjoy the game." she tells you.
"So, you're not really into hoofsketball then?" you ask, feeling slightly disappointed.
"Yep, never liked the sport, and plus, I was never good at it." she tells you, looking slightly embarrassed.
The chat between you and Rainbow Dash died down until...
BOOM!
A roar of thunder echoes throughout the room, with it also comes a torrent of rain.
Poof!
"Everypony! I have an announcement coming directly from Princess Celestia! Apparently there was a storm that was too powerful for the weather control to handle, so I'm thinking you guys might wanna sleep over for tonight, and this is the storm." Twilight says.
"Oh...how about my little Angel?"
"Sweet Apple Acres!"
"THE DRESSES!! THEY'LL GET ALL RUINED!"
"YAY! SLEEPOVER!!"
"Ugh...great..."
"Girls! It'll be fine! Anyways we have each other!" Twilight says to try to stop the commotion.
===
A few hours have passed since the storm announcement. Everypony seems to be in a good mood after Twilight convinces them it isn't so bad. You glance at the clock 1:27
You walk over to Twi, who seems to be a little bit worried. "Hey Twi?" you say.
"Yeah?"
"Uh, it's getting pretty late, and, uh, I don't mean to bother, but, you think we can call it a night?"
"Yeah, just thinking the same thing too." she says, giving you a relieved look.
Twilight turns away from you, "Girls we need to go to sleep now, we're probably going to have a long, stormy day ahead of us tomorrow."
"I call bed!" Pinkie Pie says as she rushes up the stairs, into Twilight's room.
"I have mattresses, so no need to worry about beds!" Twilight says.
Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash all follow the pink pony upstairs, leaving you and Twilight alone.
"Twilight, I'll sleep down here." you say.
"You sure? I mean you're gonna be down here alone, and it's raining?" Twilight says, giving you a worried look.
"I'm sure Twilight, I wouldn't wanna ruin any of Pinkie's stories." you say with a chuckle.
"If you need anything, I mean, anything at all, don't hesitate talking to me." Twilight says with a worried look.
"Promise."
Twilight tosses you a pillow and a green blanket.
"G'night Twilight."
"Night."
===
The lights flicker off as you feel your way to the couch, occasionally bumping into a mound of loose books or the table. You somehow manage to trip on a loose book. Great. You can barely make out a silhouette of the couch as you get back on your hooves. You feel your way around loose books and the table. Even the journey was just a few steps, it felt like forever, you couldn't see anything so you had to rely on your senses to get back. When you finally plonk back on the couch, you close your eyes and try to take a well deserved rest until...
"Hey?" a voice calls out to you.
"Ugh..." you sigh in annoyance.
"What?" you say.
For a split second, you open your eyes to see a pegasus with a cyan blanket over her head like a cloak and a mattress on her back.
"C'mon, I saw you open your eyes." the pegasus says with a slightly annoyed tone.
"Fine..." you sigh angrily.
"Well, uh, I kinda tried to sleep, but then the whole room got noisy, can I sleep down here?" she asks.
"I'm not stopping you." you say to her.
"Thanks." she whispers.
She sets down her mattress by the couch.
"Can we talk more?" she asks.
"I think you're pretty interesting, even though we just talked for a little." she adds.
"Of course we will, we'll talk tomorrow." you answer.
"Good night Dash." you whisper.
"Night."
===
The sound of the rain soothes you to sleep. You feel the spell of slumber drape over your body like a blanket. Slowly, you start to lose your consciousness, fading in and out of reality. The hands of sleep gently close your eyelids and relaxation closes in on you. Second by second you can feel your muscles getting more tired. The rumbles of thunder manage to keep you up for a little longer, but the hand of sleep regains control and soothes you back into the realm of slumber. Finally, you black out.
You open your eyes, just to see darkness. You call out into the seemingly endless void. No one answers back, You call out again. Again, no answer. You take a cautious step forward, and surprisingly you don't fall, you then take another step. Something drags you downwards! The force of the pulling is so powerful, you feel like one of your legs will be torn off. You come to a sudden halt. You look, there's nothing. You beg for an answer in panic. Nothing answers. The ominous ambiance sends shudders up your pony spine.
A piece of paper materializes infront of you. 'No escape' is all the note has written on it. When you look back up, trees sprout from the ground. Now you hear something, a simple command. Run. In panic you start running around the maze of trees aimlessly, occasionally bumping into a few smaller trees. You look behind you, a faceless pony with a body as black as night is standing right behind you, perfectly still. You stare back in terror. You start running faster than before, as you run, you feel an invisible force nudging you. 'Run' is the only thing in your mind. No 'I'm tired' or 'Fight back'. Just run. The nudging becomes pushing. You look back, the faceless monster is nowhere to be seen, Still 'Run' is all you can think of. Looking back as you run, you hit something big. You look up to see that the monster is right infront of you. Silence. Deafening silence.
You burst awake, breathing heavily to see Rainbow Dash.
"You ok?" she asks with a worried look on her face.
You swallow the lump in your throat. "Yeah... just had the worst nightmare," you answer.
"Well, um, I was gonna ask if I could, you know, sleep beside you." she asks softly.
"Sure, just let me make some space." you whisper.
"Thanks." she whispers with a little bit of happiness.
She crawls onto the couch, gingerly placing herself close to you.
"Just asking, but why do you want to sleep beside me?" you ask quietly.
"Well, I also had a pretty bad nightmare, and then I couldn't go back to sleep...so yeah..." she says.
"Ok, night Dash." you say as you prepare to sleep.
"Wait, can I ask you to do something?" she asks.
"Yep?"
"I know this is might be kinda strange, but, um... can you hug me? It helps me go to sleep, so, yeah..." she says sounding slightly embarrassed.
"No problem," you say, feeling sorry for her.
"Thanks, I really appreciate it." she whispers.
You slowly move your hooves over her side. Rainbow Dash guides you hooves over to her stomach and holds them there. "Right there, keep 'em right there." she whispers to you. You marvel at how soft her fur is. "Well is this all?" you ask. "Yup, thanks a lot." she coos softly. Both of you say good night, and slowly close your eyes. Both of your breaths are in perfect harmony, and both of you fall to sleep.
Chapter 2: Protein Pancakes
You slowly wake up from your sleep after you feel a slight nudge to your side, "Morning sleepyhead." Rainbow Dash says. "Morning Dash," you say with a yawn. You rub your eyes, "Is anypony else awake?" you ask as you get up from the couch to meet Rainbow Dash. "Uh, I think not. I haven't seen anypony yet." she answers. "Is it still stormy?" you ask groggily. "Yup, there's still some rain." she replies softly.
You hear her stomach grumble a little, "Whoops... Looks like I'm a little hungry." she says with a little chuckle. "Well, I don't know how to cook." you say with a stretch. "So what now?" she asks looking at you with a slightly worried look on her face.
"I'm pretty sure Twilight has a cookbook here," you answer her as you look around the giant library. "I'll go look for one then," she says before she trots off to a bookshelf.
You trot to a wall of books, you slowly skim through the shelves, like a predator stalking it's prey, you slowly prowl around the shelves passing through each section of books, fiction...sci-fi...fantasy...non-fiction...biographies...spells...you feel like you're about to give up until you find that darned book. Just as you reach to grab it, a cyan blue hoof snatches it!
"Heh, gotcha!" the cyan mare exclaims. You give her a dead stare. "Calm down, I didn't know you were that hungry..." she says with emphasis on the 'that'. "Gimme that." you say flatly as you grab the book from her. "Yeesh...calm down will ya?" she grunts loudly.
"So, what do you want for breakfast?" you ask her. "Does the recipe book have any type of protein shakes?" she asks as she pulls a chair to the counter top. You chuckle slightly at the question. "What's so funny huh?" she asks. "Well, you're a mare?" you ask her. "Yeah?" she answers with a slightly annoyed tone and a stare that looks like she's about to slap you. "Uh...on the second thought... I might as well not say it then." you say, sensing the anger coming off of her.
You try to quickly shift the conversation by asking, "I can make some pancakes." you tell her. "How about protein pancakes?" she asks. You give her one of those 'really?' looks. "Why?" she asks.
"Well, hate to burst your bubble...but 'protein pancakes' aren't even real, I wouldn't think that Twi would even have some protein shake mixes in her pantry seeing how she isn't you know... athletic?" you say as you look over to the the cyan mare's cheeks turn red with embarrassment.
"It's fine, we all think about things that don't exist sometimes, like I thought humans were real until I was like, 13." you say chuckling.
Still no reply comes from the cyan pegasus.
"Don't be so down on yourself. Championship flyers are never down on themselves." you tell her, trying to lift her from her state of embarrassment.
"Can you grab me so flour?" you ask Rainbow Dash as you open some drawers, scavenging for the items you need.
"Okay..." she says as she flies upwards into the pantry closet.
She comes back down with a bag of flour.
"Thanks Dash." you reply.
"Ok, now we need uh... eggs? Right?" Rainbow Dash asks.
"Um... I think so, what does it say on the cookbook?" you ask.
"Well, yeah, eggs, butter... sugar..." she says as she slowly trails off.
"Ok... now, we have everything we need, we have some eggs, butter, sugar, flour, milk, and baking powder right?" you ask the cyan pegasus.
"Yup, you ready to get down and dirty?" she asks with a little peppiness.
"Let's do this." you solidly reply back.
After your cooking session with Rainbow Dash, the kitchen looks like a war zone, except the dead soldiers are cracked eggshells. Somehow, the pancake batter exploded when you were mixing it, so there are some globs of batter on the wall too. "Wow, we should've waited for Pinkie." Rainbow Dash says.
"You try it first." you say as you hide behind the table.
"You want me to try the horrible lab experiment that YOU made?" She asks with a grimace on her face.
"Don't forget my dearest friend, you're the one who helped me make this monstrosity that we decided was a pancake." you call from your hiding place.
"Why don't we try it together?" she asks.
"Why don't you guys try what together?" a voice calls from behind you and the pegasus.
You and Rainbow Dash exchange 'we're screwed' looks to each other before finally turning around, to see a shocked purple unicorn and her equally shocked little dragon helper. The looks from Twilight and Spike give you the thought that you're probably gonna live on the streets within the next few hours. "What happened here?!" Spike asks in shock. "Pancakes happened, Spikester." Rainbow Dash says patting Spike on the head. "Here's what happened, mad scientist and I tried to make pancakes, it ended up being looking like my place." she says with a giggle.
"Well...aren't you gonna clean it Dash?" you call out from your hiding spot.
"You also made it you tard!" she grunts in annoyance.
"Here... we'll let the rest of the girls try the pancake, monster thing and if they like it, Spike and I will clean up the mess, if they think it tastes worse than my previous attempts at pancakes, You and Dash will have to clean it up. Deal?" Twilight says trying to calm the tension between you and Rainbow Dash.
The rest of the group is finally awake, and seated at the dining table.
"So we're supposed to eat these... pancakes?" Rarity asks, looking disgusted.
"I don't think that they'll taste that bad!" Pinkie says.
"Um...oh...I'm not really sure if I can eat these..." Fluttershy whispers.
"Eh...maybe I can...uh...skip? I don't feel as hungry as awhile ago..." Applejack says sounding worried.
"Well... who's gonna start?" Twilight asks.
"Applejack should go first! She's the element of honesty!" Rainbow Dash shouts.
"Well I suppose..."
Applejack carefully inspects the very burnt piece of pancake, slowly, she raises the pancake to her mouth and finally takes a bite...
Author's Note
I'M SOSOSOSOSO SORRY FOR THE DELAY!! I DIDN'T EXPECT TO HAVE SO MUCH SCHOOLWORK!
It was actually planned for release a month after I published the first chapter, but then sadly, my work got in the way, and that work that I put so much effort into turned into a subpar report card! 
I'll start on Chapter 3 next week so stay tuned! (Hopefully...)
The end result of the taste test will be revealed next chapter!
Thanks for reading and see you later!
