It was a beautiful morning in Ponyville. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and the fillies and colts were getting ready for school. The ponies in Ponyville were slowly starting to stir as the dawning sun shone through their windows, signaling to them that another day had arrived. As the ponies woke up to begin doing their daily activities and chores, one pony in particular had already been up since the crack of dawn. That pony was none other than the punctual purple bookworm of the Golden Oaks Library, also known as, Twilight Sparkle.
Now, Twilight, as you might have guessed, was very adamant about her schedule for day-to-day activities. She had everything planned out from the time she woke up, to the time she went to bed. She always made sure to spot any discrepancies, snags, and unexpected outcomes that could disrupt her perfect routine. Today was no different, for she had decided that she would have toast for breakfast.
However, what good would some simple burnt bread be without some jelly to go on top of it? Not just any jelly either, but a hearty helping of strawberry jam, surely the greatest kind of jam out there. The kind of jam that would make the other fruity jellies weep in inferiority, for they could never compare to the majestic beauty that is strawberry jam. A kind of jelly that only the most prestigious of food connoisseurs would accept as their go-to for breakfast culinaries.
As Twilight made toast with her magic, she ran through her schedule once again to make sure everything was correct and in an orderly fashion. She would have to leave her number one assistant baby dragon, Spike, in charge of the library while she was gone, but Twilight figured that he could handle it. After she ate breakfast she would help Applejack with organizing the many different apples in Sweet Apple Acres, the resident apple orchard, then she would assist Rainbow Dash with her new stunts that she decided to try out to impress the Wonderbolts with and make sure she didn't get too reckless and sprain herself. Once she's finished with that, she would have tea time with Rarity on her break, afterwards, she would lend a helping hoof to Fluttershy to take care of the animals by sorting out different diets for each animal. Later, she would aid Pinkie Pie by making a smorgasbord of sweets and cakes of all varieties for a catering order, and finally, she would return to the library, close up for the night, tuck Spike into bed, and read a good book before going to sleep.
Of course, none of that was going to happen before she had her breakfast. Once she got her bread all toasted up, she brought the jar of strawberry jam so she could open it, get a butter knife, slather the jelly all over the toast, and enjoy these precious moments of sweet and tart strawberry heaven. ...At least she would if she could get the jar open, which was not opening for some unexplained reason. She used her magic to try to get the lid off, but, to no avail, she could not get the lid off.
She tried once more. No result.
She tried again. Nothing.
She tried and tried and tried. Nope.
Twilight was starting to panic now; how could she have not taken this disturbance into account? She felt like such a silly filly for missing a single mistake in her perfectly organized schedule. If she doesn't get her strawberry jam on her toast soon, her morning will be...be...un-perfect! Even thinking about this was causing her to waste precious seconds as it is! But what could she do about this strawberry jam jar kerfuffle?
...Of course! Her friends!
She yells to Spike she'll be leaving early and gallops off with the toast and jar in tow. This isn't the first time she's had to alter her routine, so she figured Spike could make do with this slight oversight. However, there was no time to worry about schedule slip-ups now; her breakfast was on the line! She made a mad dash towards Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe Applejack can help her with this little (yet, infuriatingly persistent) problem...
*****
Sweet Apple Acres, the home of everything apple-like, from the trees to the food to even the residents that live there, was the go-to place if you wanted to get apples for any reason, be it for buying or stealing. The most famous area of the orchard was the field of apple trees that carried many, many kinds of apples, from the general Red Deliciouses, Golden Deliciouses, Galas, McIntoshes and Granny Smiths, to uncommon ones like Pink Ladies, Empires, Fujis and Honeycrisps (at least in Ponyville.) This is where the farm pony, Applejack, was bucking away at the trees to make the apples fall into the baskets she set up beforehand. As she went about her day, she saw a purple figure coming closer from the tree-filled horizon. It was her good bookworm friend, Twilight, who was galloping towards her with what looked like a jar full of jelly.
Once Twilight arrived and explained the situation to Applejack, Applejack figured she could take some time out of her busy apple tree-bucking to help Twilight out. She was a bit disappointed that Twilight wasn't using apple jam, but who was she to turn down a friend who needed help? Being an Earth Pony had its perks as, while they couldn't fly or control the weather like the pegasus, or use magic like the unicorns, they were stronger and more durable, and had exceptional strength, especially the Apple family. However, in spite the farm pony's amazing strength, the jar lid was not budging an inch for some unknown reason. No matter how hard Applejack tried to pry it off with her hooves, and then her mouth, the lid was persistently staying closed.
It was then that Applejack decided to use her tried-and-true method of simply bucking the jar to break it open, much to Twilight's dismay. She tossed it up into the air, turned around, her rear end facing where the jar was falling, reared her back hooves and gave the jar one hard buck. Against all logic, the jar didn't break on impact, but instead went ricocheting off her hooves and into the trees. The strawberry jam jar bounced off of tree after tree, with the force of a farm pony buck, causing apples to fall from the trees and into the baskets. This had happened to all of the trees in the orchard and, somehow, sorted all of the different apples in the process.
The jar then fell on the ground and rolled towards Twilight and Applejack. Neither of them could find the logic in any of what just happened, least of all Twilight. Applejack felt ashamed that she couldn't get the jar open for Twilight, but Twilight reassured her that she did her best, even though, internally, she was pulling her mane from the absurdity of the situation. She left Sweet Apple Acres and decided to look for Rainbow Dash for a solution, leaving Applejack to take a look at her handiwork. Whatever that jar was made of, it wouldn't break no matter how many trees it had hit along the way... Of course, she wasn't complaining in the least, considering that all of the apples had been sorted anyway and now she would have some free time before deciding to sell them (and maybe make her own apple jam while she was at it.)
*****
High above the skies, but not too high as to lack oxygen, was the floating city of Cloudsdale, a city made by Pegasi for Pegasi (mainly because they were the only ones that could walk on the cloud-like landscape.) The most famous of all the attractions in Cloudsdale (and Ponyville and Canterlot (barring the Grand Galloping Gala)) were the Wonderbolt shows, where they put on spectacular performances and gain fame and inspire ponies far and wide. One of these fans was the self-titled "fastest flier in all of Equestria," Rainbow Dash. As she lazed about on a cloud, waiting to show her new stunts to her "egghead" friend Twilight, she spotted a purple pony dashing towards her, calling her name in a plea for help. While Rainbow Dash thought it was a bit earlier than expected, she was never one to turn down a call for help from anypony, let alone her friends (not to mention she could show off her tricks earlier as well.)
Once Twilight caught Rainbow up to speed, Rainbow couldn't help but laugh at Twilight's hilarious predicament. After all, what kind of pony has that much trouble opening up a jar of strawberry jam? Still, she was willing to help Twilight with her issue when all was said and done. After calming down, she took the jar from Twilight and tried to open it. Unfortunately, just like with Twilight and Applejack earlier, Rainbow couldn't make any progress on even loosening the lid to the jar.
Rainbow Dash figured that the jar just needed a good whacking, and flew high into the sky before Twilight could tell her that Applejack had already tried a similar attempt to no avail. Once she figured she was high enough, Rainbow started pummeling the jar into oblivion, but the jar still wasn't breaking. She punted it across Ponyville and back and kept walloping the jar across the skies with many loop-de-loops, somersaults, and ups and downs and all-arounds, essentially playing volleyball with herself. Getting frustrated, she grabbed the jar, rocketed up to the heavens, pressed all of her hooves together and spiked it down to the earth with a speed equal to terminal velocity. The Jar crashed on the earth, creating a medium-sized crater in its wake (away from Ponyville, thankfully,) but the jar still remained intact, not even showing a tiny crack.
Neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash could believe what they had witnessed. These weren't the moves that Rainbow had practiced, nor wanted to show of to Twilight, but the more pressing matter at hoof was that the stupid strawberry jam jar still wasn't open, and Twilight's eye was starting to twitch while her perfectly combed mane had strands of hair sticking out from the ridiculousness of the jar defying all laws of physical force. Rainbow felt guilty that she couldn't get the jar open, but Twilight told her not to worry about it and promptly left to get help from Rarity. Once Rainbow got back to the cloud she was napping on, she was approached by a team of Wonderbolts saying how amazing her stunts were and that it had inspired them to do something similar to what she had done, even offering her a chance to be recruited as a trainee. Rainbow Dash may not have gotten the strawberry jam jar open, but she got the admiration of her biggest idols from foalhood, and for that, she would definitely call this an awesome win.
*****
In the central area of Ponyville stands the most eloquent building of them all, Carousel Boutique, a clothing shop made by a pony for many other ponies. The shop contains attire for many occasions, be it for work, home, parties, casual, business, business-casual, and casual-business, to special occasions such as the Gala, shows, weddings, and so on and so forth. The one responsible for such meticulous clothing is none other than Rarity, the most sophisticated lady of Ponyville, a master of her craft, and Spike's puppy-love crush. She looked at her clock as it was almost time for tea with Twilight when she heard the bell ring for the door to be open. She went downstairs to see a disheveled Twilight a few minutes early...with a jar of strawberry jam.
After Twilight told Rarity about the events that had transpired between this morning and arriving to Rarity's shop (and Rarity cleaning up Twilight and calming her down), Rarity immediately decided to take the time out of her break and help Twilight with this annoying strawberry jam jar problem. She placed the jar on her kitchen table and worked her magic. Sadly, Twilight wasn't bluffing when she said that not even Applejack or Rainbow Dash could break it open. Of course, brute force certainly wasn't doing the trick, so a more sophisticated method had to be used, Rarity thought.
She brought the jar to the sink, turned the sink on hot and poured the water on the lid to loosen it, but no dice; the lid was not moving an inch. She brought a knife to pry the lid open, only for the knife to snap and break. Now it was getting on Rarity's nerves, so she took it to a lamp on her desk to find out what was keeping the lid on tight. Unfortunately, every attempt she made at trying to get the jar open was met with roadblock after roadblock until, as she made her way back to her desk with supplies in hoof, she tripped on one of the legs to her chair and knocked both the jar and lamp off the desk. The room lit a bright red color from the light of the lamp shining through the strawberry jam jar.
Twilight bemoaned the jar being stubborn, but at least in Rarity's case it was understandable that the jar wouldn't open, though her mane was getting untidy again from the stress. Rarity looked apologetic for being unable to help Twilight, but Twilight comforted her with a friendly hug. Twilight then left Carousel Boutique to get help from Fluttershy. As Twilight left, Rarity pondered about what she had witnessed in her room with the beautiful red light from the jam. She looked outside and saw a pony wearing a sunflower hat, the latest trend in fashion from Canterlot, and inspiration suddenly struck her; she got an idea.
*****
Far in the outskirts of Ponyville lies a cottage home to animals of all kinds from birds and chickens to bunnies and a goat to even a bear. Thanks to the pony that lived there, the animals lived together peacefully without quarrel (most of the time, at least). The pony in question was Fluttershy, the meek animal whisperer (meek to other ponies, anyway). She was startled from her taking care of the animals by a knock on the door. Gathering up the courage to open the door, she saw Twilight looking like she had a run-in with a scary monster...with a jar of strawberry jam.
After Twilight explained her increasingly aggravating problem to her, Fluttershy chose to soothe her worries by offering to open it for her. The thing was, Fluttershy wasn't anywhere near as strong as Applejack or Rainbow Dash, nor was she as thorough as Rarity, so if they couldn't get the jar open, what chance does Fluttershy have? Of course, Twilight was too polite to point this out to her as she tried (very softly) to get the lid loose, so she just elected to watch. As usual, the jar wasn't opening no matter how hard Fluttershy was trying to pry the lid open (but not too hard, lest she accidentally break it).
She decided to get her animal friends to help her out. The woodpeckers pecked away at the lid, the bunnies rolled the jar all around the room, the goat bit the lid to try and get it off, and even the bear swiped at the jar to try and break it, but, alas, the jar remained pristine in its condition. Fluttershy decided to take drastic measures by gathering help from an Everfree creature called the Cockatrice. It used its stone staring powers to turn the jar to stone while Angel, Fluttershy's pet rabbit, kicked the jar into the wall to break it. Unfortunately, all that happened was the stone of the jar breaking to reveal the glass still hadn't been shattered, and all of the food fell from cupboard on the wall and into the plates of the animals.
This time, Twilight didn't even react to the jar not breaking, and instead just settled for screaming internally. Fluttershy apologized for not getting the jar opened, and Twilight soothed her to not worry about it. She would have to use Pinkie Pie's help; her last resort. Once Twilight left, Fluttershy looked around her room to see the animals munching away at their desired diets. Well, the strawberry jam jar did get the food onto the animals' plates, and was mealtime for them anyway, so she chose to silently thank Twilight for her much-preferred help and just let this occasional hiccup happen.
*****
Across from Carousel Boutique lies a building that looked like it was made entirely out of sweets, Sugarcube Corner, a bakery and confectionary store with a huge variety of snacks from cupcakes and éclairs to cakes and macarons and other such snacks. The owners of the store were in charge of taking catering orders while the baker went to work on said orders. The baker in question was none other than Ponyville's resident pink party pony, Pinkie Pie, rememberer of birthdays, bringer of joy and smiles, and mortal enemy to physics scientists everywhere. As she pronked about the town of Ponyville, she found one of her bestest best friends in the whole wide world heading to Sugarcube Corner in a frazzled state. Once Twilight got there, Pinkie suddenly showed up behind the counter to listen to Twilight's strawberry jam jar troubles.
But before Twilight could explain everything, Pinkie told Twilight that she already knew about her jam with the jam jar and how she went to Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and even Fluttershy to help with the issue with different methods, but similar results, before finally turning to Pinkie for help. When asked how she knew, she simply stated she "read the story" beforehand, much to poor Twilight's confusion. Nonetheless, good ol' Pinkie was here to help and reassured her bookworm friend that she and her jar were in good hooves. Once Pinkie took the jar from Twilight, she went right to the kitchen and got to work on it immediately. In the meantime, Twilight ordered a cupcake to munch on while she mulled her head over the stupid strawberry jam jar kerfuffle.
Pinkie Pie's methods to get the jar open were quite unconventional, combining the issue at hoof with her catering order to see if all the baking dough and cream filling could somehow get the lid loose. She stirred and mixed the ingredients together, baked the dough, filled the pastries, and put the frosting on each and every sweet she made, but the jar was still shut tight. When it came time for her to use jam she used the tip of her mane to flip the lid off of the jar. She had done it; she was the one to finally get the strawberry jam jar open after so long! ...Only to find out that it was her jar of strawberry jam and not Twilight's.
After Pinkie finished up in the kitchen she, sadly, gave Twilight the bad news and sheepishly handed her back the unopened jar. Twilight stayed silent for a bit, thanked Pinkie Pie for her trying, and trudged outside while mumbling her "everything's fine" mantra. As Twilight left, Pinkie looked back at her work and grinned from ear to ear to herself. Despite not getting the jar open, she did far exceed her expectations of the order for the catering event which just so happened to involve a birthday party. And in record time too!
...I'm now being told she's trying to enter my house without my permission.
You can't come in here! You don't have a warrant!
*****
Everything was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was fine...
That was what Twilight kept mumbling to herself as she held the jar of strawberry jam in front of her with her magic. She was so engrossed with the jar that she didn't see the sun set in the horizon, nor Applejack selling her many kinds of apples with her own jars of apple jam, nor Rainbow Dash impressing the Wonderbolts with her new tricks, nor the majority of ponies now wearing Rarity's new trendy bright red sunflower hats, nor Pinkie Pie delivering the huge amount of sweets on her back without any logical explanation. The only pony who wasn't there was Fluttershy, which was par for the course as she didn't like crowds anyway. The more Twilight stared at her jar of jam, the more frustrated she got with this stupid gosh darn jar and her day being ruined by it. The frustration then turned into boiling anger as she kept repeating the same words in her mind.
Everything was fine.
Everything was fine.
Everything was fine.
Everything.
Was.
Not.
FINE.
She threw the jar to the ground with an enraged yell and thought of an idea: if this jar wasn't going to play fair, why should she? Digging deep into herself, she decided to completely obliterate the jar with all of her magic. As the skies darkened and the ground rumbled, everypony immediately knew what was happening: Ponyville was in danger again. In times like this, the usual, tried-and-true solution was to hide inside their homes until the danger passed, and this situation was no different. Only, instead of an invasion of any kind, it was a very angry unicorn who can't get her jar of strawberry jam open.
Twilight enveloped herself in a magical aura and floated up into the sky. While that was happening, she suddenly burst into flames from all the boiling rage pent up inside her. Her horn crackled with intense magic as she laughed maniacally, reared back and aimed her horn at the culprit that had giving her so much grief for the entire day: the strawberry jam jar. She released her magic in a condensed laser beam and hit the jar with one big purple...
KA-BOOOOM!!
As the smoke cleared, Twilight fell down to the ground, exhausted, in the crater she had made from that magical temper tantrum. She opened her eyes to find the most unbelievable and illogical sight ever.
The jar.
Was still.
Intact.
...It was no use. Twilight was never going to get the jar open. She was never going to slather that delectable strawberry jam all over her toast. She was never going to enjoy her breakfast. She laid in the crater and stared at the jar, her lower lip quivering with tears forming in her eyes.
As she contemplated what she was going to do now, a familiar, bipedal, scaly face appeared in front of her: Spike, her number one assistant. When asked what happened, Twilight explained everything to Spike from the day she left to the moment she lost her cool, to which Spike gave her a look that said '...Really?' He walked over the jar, picked it up, twisted the lid to the left, opened it and gave it to Twilight. Twilight just stared at what Spike had just done.
The jar was open.
Spike had opened it.
He had opened the jar of strawberry jam for her.
Twilight went from depressed to absolutely ecstatic. She hugged Spike with all her might and peppered him with many 'thank you's. Not wanting this chance to go to waste, she immediately toasted an extra slice of bread she had for such an occasion, got a butter knife from somewhere, dipped it into the jar and spread the jam all over her toast and took a hearty bite. Her mouth exploded with the sweet and tart flavor of the strawberry jam; the treat that was like a gift straight from the gods themselves, and she was in absolute bliss. Satisfied with her breakfast, she pulled out her quill and clipboard with a checklist detailing all the things she has to do today and was finally ready to start her- ...day?
When she looked around, she recoiled in embarrassment at how much damage she had caused. In hindsight, she probably should've just gotten a different jar of jam. Well, at least the ponies simply blissfully resumed about their day once they knew the danger was over. Maybe Princess Celestia wouldn't know about this little mishap? As she thought this, Twilight and Spike both felt a radiant glow behind them.
She knew.
In hindsight, Twilight really should've just gotten a different jar of jam.
Twilight slowly turned around to find a concerned Princess Celestia looking down at her. She gave a nervous, sheepish grin and explained her situation, to which Celestia listened very intently. While she appreciated Twilight for being honest about her troubles and going to her friends for help, Twilight still caused a lot of damage to Ponyville from that magical explosion, though nopony seemed to be hurt from the process, so Twilight still had to be punished. Celestia figured a night on the moon, which she worded as 'time-out', would suffice, and sent Twilight up there with the jar of strawberry jam in tow.
Once Twilight arrived on the moon, with a blank look on her face, she couldn't help but notice just how beautiful the planet looked, with a lot of blues and greens being the oceans and lands respectively that she forgot all about being punished. As she gazed towards the planet, she never felt so small in all her life. There might even be other undiscovered planets with hospitable life as far as she knew. Maybe one day, Equestria could start a space program to go where nopony had ever gone before. As she pondered about the possibility of space travel, she found a dark blue pony with wings and a horn, Princess Luna, staring at her with a bored expression before finally speaking to Twilight.
"Thou art here as well, hmm?"
Author's Note
I'll be honest with you, I've only seen up to halfway through Season 3 of the show, and then I just kinda...stopped. I think I got lazy in some parts like Rarity and Fluttershy's segments, but hey, this is my first fanfiction on FimFiction, so it's not perfect.
I don't think it's really that good, but let me know what you think of it.
