Celestia’s glorious sun rose on another beautiful day in the quaint little town of Ponyville. The day was beginning as all the happy little ponies- yeah I’m gonna have to stop you right there. That ain’t how this story’s gonna be told. First off, the sun was up for about 6 hours when this tale begins, and it isn’t about any of those “happy little ponies”. This story is about me. My name is Sunny Tunes, and this is the Sunny Life.
The first thing I noticed as I opened my eyes was that I wanted to close them and go right back to sleep, but it seemed the day had other plans as the light seemed to cut through my eyelids and invade my retinas. I wasn’t about to give up that easily, though. A quick repositioning of my body and my head was safely tucked underneath a pillow, safe from the aggressive rays of the bane of my existence. At this defiance, I swear the light got angry and went straight through my pillow and the back of my head to hit my eyes. “Fine, you win, you passive-aggressive witch”, was all the insult I could muster as I pulled myself out of bed and groggily cantered out of my room and into the bathroom to try and wash away the sleepiness.
I turned on the faucet of the sink, waited a couple of seconds for the water to fill up, and dunked my head into the small pool. After a quick test to see how long I could hold my breath (1 minute and 31 seconds, by the way) I came up for air and looked at myself in the mirror. ‘Even after a night of binge drinking I am one handsome devil’, I thought to myself as I admired the stallion looking back at me. My light-brown coat perfectly accentuated my coffee colored mane, which I styled into something I can only describe as “the underdog”. The tip of my left ear is gone, which I always tell the mares I lost in a gang fight in Fillydelphia. The truth is a bit more embarrassing, but my story is solid enough that ponies don’t ask questions. My cutie mark consists of an acoustic guitar, so it isn’t very hard to figure out what my special talent is. And those eyes. Oh Celestia, those eyes. I could stare into those copper pools of beauty for hours. Probably not, because I get bored easily, but I like to compliment myself.
Satisfied with how I looked this morning, I trotted back into my room and for the first time waking up noticed the plum colored mare lying in my bed. She had a slightly darker mane and I couldn’t quite see her cutie mark as she was taking up most of my blankets. “Huh, I guess I could have done worse”, I said as I made my way to the sleeping mare to get her out of my bed. “Hey, sleepy head, time to get up”. I poked her with my hoof a few times before she stirred and startled to grumble incoherent things. “What’s your name, gal?”, I asked her, not stopping the poking for a second. “mmmm-erry-grmmm” was about all I could pick out through the groaning. “Good enough for me, you got about ten minutes to get out before I throw ya out, Jerry”, and with that I turned around, trotted out the bedroom door and down the stairs of my two story house to officially start my day.
The house looks like just about every other house in Ponyville; rustic and boring. The main room had two couches and a table, and led into the kitchen, which consists of whatever a normal kitchen consists of. I’m a musician, not a mare. “It’s about damn time you woke up, Sunny”, came a gruff voice as soon as I hit the bottom of the stairs.
“I thought I did pretty good this morning”, I grumbled back at him.
“Morning? It’s half past noon, but I suppose I should be happy you woke up at all considering how much you drank last night”, he said smugly. By this time I got around to the couch the voice was emanating from, and plopped down on it as heavily as my lean body would allow me. The unicorn on the couch making fun of me is my best friend, Buddy Backbeat. He is, to say the least, larger than me. His coat is some weird grayish-white color, and his mane and tail are a light purple. The tip of his right ear is gone, except he has no problem telling ponies what actually happened to us, to my great distress. The tip of his horn is also broken off, which may freak some ponies out, but worry not, he figured out how to channel his magic using his remaining horn. That month when he couldn’t figure it out was one of the funniest months of my life, though. His cutie mark is a simple black drum (we’re a hard pair of dudes to figure out, I know).
“Speaking of last night, there’s another one in my bed and I don’t think she’s wakin’ up for a while, I think her name is Jerry”, I said, remembering the mare in my room.
“Sunny, I’m not throwing out another one of your marefriends, and who names their filly Jerry?”, he replied.
“My name isn’t Jerry, and I can find my own way out, thanks” came his slurred answer from the stairs.
“Hey, look who’s finally awake”, I said cheerily. Getting a good look, I could see now that her cutie mark is a bunch of grapes and a strawberry. ‘What a fruity cutie mark’ I thought wittily to myself. Hey, I thought it was funny. After a couple seconds of awkward silence I decided it was time for action. “So, you said you were leaving right?”, I said as innocently as possible.
“Yeah, and thanks for the... interesting night, I guess”, she sounded almost embarrassed.
“Well, I’m glad somepony can remember it”. With that, she walked out the door and left Buddy and I to ourselves.
“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, you gotta get ready. We got a gig tonight.”
“Ugh, I forgot about that, where’s it at, again?”
“That bar down by the candy shop”, he replied nonchalantly. At that my eyes went wide and for the first time today I felt genuine fear.
“Oooooooh no, you know who lives there”, I said shakily, remembering the pink terror that resides in the gingerbread building next to our upcoming show.
“You can’t stay here just because Pi-”
“DON’T SAY HER NAME, she can sense it”, I yelled at him before he could finish that dreaded word.
“Fine, you can’t stay here just because she-who-must-not-be-named might be at the show”
“You don’t understand, that mare is loco in the coco. When I broke it off with her she went crazy with a capital C. She stole my favorite saddle, WHO STEALS A SADDLE?!”, I began raising my voice to get the point across.
“More importantly, why did you have a saddle?”, he asked, barely suppressing a snicker.
“I did some work at a club one time and Idontreallywannatalkaboutit.” I stammered out, trying to change the subject. “Anyways, I guess we should get ready for that gig, huh?”
“Oh no, it isn’t until nine o’clock, so I’d say we have plenty of time to talk about this ‘work’ you did”, he said with the widest grin I’d ever seen.
“You’re really not gonna let this go, are you?”
“Nope, and if you want brunchinner, you got a story to tell” (Brunchinner: due to my sporadic sleeping schedule, we combined breakfast, lunch, and dinner into one giant meal. Works pretty well until Buddy wants something, then I’m pretty much at his mercy).
“Fine, it all started when-”
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“-and that’s how I learned how many eggs I could fit into my mouth”, I finished with a sigh of relief. At this point Buddy had completely run out of breath for laughing and just grinned at the end of the story. He held up his end of the bargain, though, and I could smell a good brunchinner coming from the kitchen.
“So that’s what you were doing that month when we couldn’t do any gigs on account of my-”, he suddenly stopped.
“Oh yeah, that’s right, I did all of that because somepony couldn’t learn to play without their precious horn.”
“You try holding those sticks in your hooves and see how it works out.”
“You could have tried to use your teeth.”, I replied with a chuckle.
“Shut up and get in here, food’s ready.” At the sound of plates being put on the table, I bolted into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. I ain’t sure where Buddy learned to cook, but damn can he cook. “Eat fast, we gotta get the drums ready and take em down to the bar”. The second the food hit the table I dove into it. “Slow down moron, we don’t need you choking to death two hours before a show.” I slowed down until he looked away, then began piling food into my throat as soon as he wasn’t looking. “The name of the bar is Spirits and Sweets and apparently we’re opening for the night”.
“‘Spirits and Sweets’, what is that, a foal’s bar?”, I asked.
“No, it’s just named that because it’s right next to Sugarcube Corner”.
“Ugh, don’t remind me”, I muttered as I barely held down the food I just forced into my stomach. “Well, I’m done eating. Let’s get ready”.
“Alright, grab your guitar and meet me outside.”
And with that, I began what would be considered a strange night by any sane pony, but to me it was just “another one of those nights”.
