Package
With a startling thump, Twilight deposited a box roughly twice the size of Spike at the dragon's feet. Judging by her smiling, expectant face, Spike had a decent idea of what Twilight wanted from him. The only problem was, he doubted he could complete the task. So, rather than look like an idiot and fail, he ignored the box and went back to dusting the shelves, hoping Twilight would move on.
She didn't. She just smiled wider and said, "Spike, I need you to send this to Princess Celestia."
"I don't know, Twilight." He frowned at the box. "I've never sent anything this big before."
"I know, but all the books say you should be able to do it by now." She nudged it forward with a hoof. "Give it a try, Spike. What's the worst that could happen?"
"I mess up," he said nervously. He gulped. "I'm gonna mess it up."
Twilight smiled her most reassuring smile. "Then I'll just send it in the mail! Don't worry, Spike, I'm sure you can do it. Just give it a try!"
Spike groaned internally, wanting nothing more than to run away. Still, he took a deep breath, feeling heat build deep in the pit of his stomach. He held it there for a while, letting it grow much bigger than he ever needed for one of Twilight's letters, then let it out in a rush, his green fire enveloping the package. Almost immediately, smoke began to rise from them quickly burning tower of fire, leaving Twilight to give a small shriek of horror as she raced to get water.
Spike raced behind her, moaning as he went, "I told you I'd mess it up!"
Pie
"Hey, Pinkie," Apple Bloom asked, licking her frosting covered lips. "Do ya think y'could make an apple pie better than Granny's? Sweetie Belle says y'can, but I don't think-"
"That's not what I said!" the white filly squealed. "I only said that Pinkie's desserts were so good she could make a pie as good as Granny Smith's!"
"No one can make a pie as good as Granny's!"
Pinkie laughed and stood between the two, who had begun to glare and growl at one another. "Come on, girls, you don't need to fight over something so silly! I could never make a pie as good as Granny Smith's. I don't even bake pies, usually. Cakes are much more fun. You get to taste the batter and the frosting - frosting's much better than pie filling - and you get carve the cake into-"
"Pinkie!" the two shouted.
"The point is," Pinkie said, becoming very serious for a moment. "I'd rather be a Cake than a Pie."
"Don'tchya mean have a cake, Pinkie?"
She smiled.
Stall
"Um, excuse me," Fluttershy whispered, stepping in front of Rainbow Dash. "You can't go in here yet?"
"Applejack sent me a note," Rainbow Dash said. "It says I'm supposed to meet here at the barn at exactly three, and it's exactly three."
Fluttershy smiled softly. "Sorry, but we're not ready yet. I'm stalling you."
"You're what?" she asked, tilting her head confusedly.
"I'm stalling you. You see, we planned a party but it's not ready yet. Would you mind coming back later, if it's not too much trouble?"
The blue pegasus stared a while longer, then shrugged with a casual, "Cool, later," and walked away.
Curly
"Darling, you simply must tell me how you got that curl in your hair," Rarity said, fondling Pinkie Pie's mane with her hoof. "I've never seen anything like it, and the hairspray you use must be incredible, your hair is as silky smooth as my own!"
The pink pony giggled, shaking her head. "Silly! My hair just gets all poofy when I'm happy! And since I'm always happy, it just stays poofed!"
"Hair doesn't change based on your mood, dear," Rarity said, patiently wondering if this pony was a few needles short of a sewing kit. "Though having hair so curly must be such a bother to straighten. And when you go to the salon, my goodness! You must pay a fortune to get it styled."
"I don't know anything you're saying," she said cheerfully, "but my hair does change based on my mood. Watch, I'll think of something really sad like...oh! What if I threw a party and nobody came?" Her mane and tail flattened in an instant, only to poof back up a second later when she giggled, "I'd just throw a party later, of course"
Rarity spent her afternoon in front of a mirror, attempting to make her hair curl simply by smiling, before writing off the whole event as a ridiculous, silly misunderstanding.
Alike
Rainbow Dash had never been like the other ponies. Aside from the fact that she was (at least) eighty percent cooler than the average pegasus, she had often had problems fitting in. The girl pegasi always wanted to have tea parties and dress up and were barely interested in flight school. The boy pegasi always made fun of her for being a girl - and even when she had reached the point where she could fly circles around them, they still teased her and wouldn't let her sit at their lunch table.
Once she started flying better than most of the ponies in her class, they moved her into the advanced group. That was where the griffins were. They started out mean, scoffing at the pony who dared join them, but things quickly got better. A griffin named Gilda liked her sense of humor and gave her tips on how to fly, and soon enough Rainbow was topping the advanced class as well. The griffins respected her because she could fly, because she could prank, because she cared about being awesome and cool.
Sometimes, Rainbow Dash thought she should have been born a griffin.
Protest
"Princess?" Twilight asked, nervously glancing at the guards on either side of her. "What's going on outside? I've never seen so many angry ponies in one place! And they're holding signs and yelling. Has something gone wrong?"
"It seems Discord had left us a small bit of chaos." The princess gave a strained smile, then nodded to her guards. The two walked out of the Great Hall, and Twilight could hear ponies screaming Celestia's name before the doors swung closed.
"I don't understand," she said, ears flat against her head. "Did we not seal Discord properly?"
"Oh, no," she said comfortingly. "You've done a wonderful job. There was a number of accidents in Equestria thanks to Discord, and I have to raise taxes this year. It's only for a decade at most." She looked sadly out the windows. "No one likes it, and least of all the ponies of Canterlot. They always yell when I do this. Usually, they calm themselves after a week or two."
Twilight pressed her mentor, "And if they don't? What happens then?"
Celestia looked out the window, expressionless. "I will do as I have always done. I will protect my kingdom."
Attached
"You can't keep him forever, Twilight," Celestia cautioned. The filly seemed to pay her no heed, simply gawking at the baby dragon. "He'll stay small enough to live with you for a while but the day will come when he grows too large, and his instincts too strong, and you will part ways."
"I know, Princess," Twilight whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from the snoring dragon.
Celestia smiled. "I would warn you not to get attached, my little pony, but it seems my warning comes too late."
Free
We lived.
Formless.
Thoughtless.
Empty.
But we lived.
Occasionally, ponies came.
They say the rhyme.
They give us form
thought
fullness.
We have lives then.
We live them as best we can.
Until we are sent back
back into the nothing.
Where we become something
just more
than nothing.
We live.
Dialect
Apple Bloom raced, sobbing, into Applejack's side after her first day of school. The older pony calmly rested her head on the filly's back in a huge and soothed, "There, there, sugarcube? What could be so wrong my brave little sis is cryin'?"
"They. Said. Ah. Talk. Fun. Ny," she hiccoughed in-between sobs. She took a shuddering breath, calming herself enough to speak. "Some fillies were sayin' th-that ah t-talk like ah'm stupid."
Applejack nuzzled her little sister, tugging her closer. "Y'just gotta...gotta deal with those kinds of people as they come. Some folks will do anything to make others feel bad, and that means makin' fun of somethin' as silly as how someone talks."
She swallowed nervously and looked at her big sister. "I bucked one of 'em in the face and the teacher gave me a note for ya t'sign."
Applejack sighed and went to fetch a pencil.
Planetary
Twilight occasionally dabbled in astronomy. Having only ready twenty-six books on the subject, she certainly couldn't be considered an expert. She could name quite a few constellations, though, and several stars within them, and, like everypony could, she could name the three other planets that revolved around Equestria's planet.
There was Hunteria, a large gas planet that floated lazily through the galaxy, swirling blue and green and purple, and so beautiful Twilight had spent more than one night simply gazing at it through her telescope. Then there was Dressagen, a tiny planet her telescope was too weak to see, and she had only glanced using the telescope at the Equestrian Royal Planetarium, which had been quite the experience.
The third planet, Radeon, was much different. It was nearly the same size as the planet Twilight stood on now, and covered with blue water. It wasn't green, but maybe...just maybe, there was something alive in those turbulent oceans. Maybe something sentient, maybe something sapient, that was just too far behind them to send or receive their messages. Such thoughts almost made Twilight wish she more than just dabbled in astronomy.
Daylight
"Why do you care about peasants, sister?" Celestia hissed scornfully. A few thousand years old, and a teenager, she stood half a head taller than her barely pubescent sister. "Let them sleep during your night! What else do you expect them to do?"
"They worship you as a god."
"We are gods. We are the last of the gods, dear sister." Celestia stalked circles around Luna, the latter of whom kept her eyes trained on the former. "The rest fell when you were barely born, and our powers make us great. We control the day and night - and in so we control the crops and the ponies. Is the power of a god not enough for you, sister? Must you be comforted by their praises? Will nothing else soothe your pride?"
Luna bared her teeth. "Says one whose pride has never been harmed. You ought to be humbled into sharing the glory." She grinned maliciously. "Dear sister."
"Do not test me," Celestia whispered. "You're a filly, yet. You've barely earned your mark. Do not think I will let you take anything that is rightfully mine."
"The daylight cannot last forever, Celestia." Luna spun from her sister, unfurling her wings to fly to her castle. "beware, you prideful mare. The night is rising."
Flirty
Spike snickered, walking by Twilight with a stack of books in hand. "Hey, Twilight, you special somepony is here. Want me to leave you two alone?"
The purple unicorn flushed, glaring at him. "I do not have a special somepony! I now you mean him, and I don't like him! He's just a nice stallion who sometimes-"
"Hello, Miss Sparkle," said the stallion in question. He was a Ponyville local unicorn who had been coming to the library on a weekly basis, and often left with a copy of whatever book Twilight was reading at the moment. Rarity said he was plain, but his thoughts of Starswirl the Bearded's final thesis made Twilight's heart flutter. "You're looking nice today. Did you do something with your mane?"
She giggled like a schoolfilly. "Really? I haven't done anything. Same as always."
He grinned. "I guess you just look this nice every day."
She blushed, ducking her head. "Cut it out."
"Well, it's true!"
And, from upstairs, Spike groaned, "For the love of Celestia! Will you two just date already?"
Memories
For the longest time, Spike considered his memory a gift.
Spike's favorite memories were of him and Twilight, soon after the dragon had hatched. Although the first week was blurry, and he remembered only the scent of Twilight's family and Princess Celestia, and Twilight's warm body next to his whenever he slept. As time went on, he remembered Twilight singing him to sleep, something she did even as he got older and the occasional nightmare haunted him. He remembered his awkward, stumbling steps as he tried to walk, and Twilight's giggles at how strange it was to find a creature who took weeks to learn to stand.
Languages, though. That he impressed her with. It was a dragon gift to learn tongues quickly. he was playing with words at two weeks old, rolling the sounds over his tongue, marveling at how these noises could be matched to tangible things. At three weeks, he was making sentences, and Twilight was teaching him to write. He loved how proud she had looked as he wrote in neat, almost printing press perfect handwriting.
After that, Spike remembered nearly everything, everything he paid attention to. It was another one of the dragon's gifts, to remember how perfect Rarity looked in the moonlight, how applejack's muscles rippled as she bucked trees, Pinkie's laugh, Fluttershy's gentle touch, Dash's sonic rainboom and...Twilight. His dear adoptive sister Twilight. He remembered every last thing about her. All of it stayed with picture perfect clarity in his mind.
When the last of his dear pony friends died, his memory became a curse.
Art
Rarity was quite delighted to have Twilight as a friend. After all thse years in uncultured Ponyville, she finally had someone who she could go to an art gallery with. She had hoped that Twilight, being from Canterlot, would appreciate fine dining and dancing and fashion, but that hadn't been the case. Still, she was more than happy to attend the Houvre with someone other than a paid tourguide to keep her company.
Funnily enough, Twilight seemed to know more about the art than the tourguides had. Rarity learned things about the artists and their motivations that captivated hr and left her staring at intricate swirls of paint far longer than she ever had before. it made her feel so wonderfully cultured.
"Don't you just love the art museum?" Twilight would ask at the end of each trip.
Rarity always did.
Guilty
Celestia woke to a young Luna in her doorway, her first full night after the Elements of Harmony ha saved her from hr own greed and hate. Her mane and tail still a soft blue, her magic not yet so strong that it leaked out to turn her hair into the night sky. She was so small, so fragile so...not the sister she remembered.
"Tia," she whispered, her voice even and controlled. "I murdered."
The elder alicorn stiffened.
"Not now. I mean when I was her, Tia." She swallowed. "I killed stallions and mares and foals. I tortured them. I...I...oh, Tia, the things I've done."
They raced to one another, clinging desperately to each other. No tears fell, but their voices cracked and shook as they gasped out confessions on tortures and murders, of war and sickness, of droughts and tsunami's. They comforted one another over the atrocities they had caused in the name of pride and selfishness.
They shared their guilt.
Expansion
Chrysalis snarled, lashing out with her magic. She grabbed the nearest of the sixteen drones that harassed her, and flung the disgusting male into the wall. It felt food, so she grabbed another, snapping his leg and grinning at the frightened buzz from the rest of the group. They were afraid she would ruin them for mating, their sole purpose, the thing they had come from miles around to do.
"We are not expanding," she hissed.
The males buzzed. "Exand?"
"No!" she screamed. Her body quivered at the thought of carrying children again, of spending another five years with a swollen belly and pushing eggs from her womb. "We are done. There is not enough to eat. Leave."
They buzzed and continued to approach her regardless, and Chrysalis screamed. She fought them, her daughters dragging away the fallen drones to keep their hive clean. The drones attacked desperately, the need to mat thrumming through their blood. Chrysalis killed them all and stood, unfertilized, in her chamber.
Increase
Celestia sighed. "This isn't...it's not easy to say, Twilight. The fact is, your ability to channel magic has been escalating since I met you. At this point, it has gone so high that any normal unicorn would have perished, and the above average unicorn would have gone mad."
Twilight stared at her mentor, dumbstruck. "So, I'm...'m going to die?"
"No. Quite the opposite." Every so often, in the general population of ponies, an alicorn is born. They start fairly simple, as an earth pony or pegasus, or a unicorn. They begin to excel in the attributes of the race they were born into, then surpass them." Celestia smiled weakly. "You, Twilight, are showing the signs."
"This isn't possible," she whispered, her voice so quiet Celestia strained to hear it.
"In the next twenty or so years, you'll begin acquiring traits from another race. In the twenty after that you'll acquire the final traits. We won't know what order these will come, so it's quite possible you'l have twenty years or so as a talented unicorn, with your earth pony traits going unnoticed."
"Twenty years?"
"That's...a generous estimate," Celestia admitted. "Cadence underwent her changes in twelve."
Silence stretched between them.
"Princess, I would like to be alone," Twilight said quietly.
She waited patiently for her mentor to leave before she dropped her head and began to cry.
Sticking
Pinkie was shaking, feeling cold sweat seep into her coat, her muscles twitching as they set off every warning they could. That had only happened once, when Discord was around. But he wasn't there. Pinkie spun, alone in the dark of her room, desperate to find the source of her twitching.
Pinkamena Diane Pie, you seem nervous.
Discord's voice. She couldn't breathe.
Pinkie is best pony, best for chaos for sure. You don't mind if I hide out in your mind, do you? It's just my way of sticking around.
"You're not real," she squeaked.
Oh, good, you don't mind! Don't worry, dear, you're just a handhold I'll use to climb out of this prison. You won't even know I'm here. Not until I'm back, at least.
"You not real," she said, desperate this time, and Discord did not reply. Her twitching slowed, and Pinkie stood alone in her room, lights turned on, until the morning came.
Leg
The worst three weeks of Big Mac's life was when he banged up his leg. He didn't remember what he had done to it. He hadn't been paying attention until the doctor had said three weeks. That had hit him like an Applejack buck to the chest. He remembered stuttering out an argument, but his parents and the doctor had hushed him, and sentenced him to three weeks of no weight on his right bucking hoof.
Applejack hadn't even ha her cutie mark yet. She was at the age where she was desperate to earn it, and Big Mac jealously watched on as she ran home from school each afternoon to practice bucking saplings. He headed into the house with Granny and Apple Bloom, the latter of whom spent her day sobbing so loud there was nowhere in the house to hide from it. He tried making faces at the filly, and singing, and even rocking her, all to no success.
For three weeks he tried desperately to busy himself, doing household chores and trying to knock down apples y balancing on one back hoof and hitting the tree with his forelegs. He wasn't good at either of them. Big Mac learned fairly quickly that he was a working pony through and though, and that his legs were the most valuable thing he had (aside from his family, of course).
He was never off his hooves for more than a week after that.
Loophole
"But you see, the contract clearly states-"
Oh, sun in the sky, Celestia hated lawyers, especially rich pony lawyers. They spent most of their time looking for ways to give them and their clients tax breaks. It wasn't as if her taxes were excessive, and as far as she could tell, her ponies could see that she put the money to god use. She stared at the lawyer pony and wondered how in Equestria one thousand years of peace hadn't been enough for him to think, "Maybe I should just pay the tax that has kept my fellow ponies happy and healthy for generations. Celestia could use a break. Maybe I should send her a lovely fruit basket and a week off to spend with her recently returned sister."
Thinking of sisters, Celestia looked over at Luna. Ah, yes, she remembered that look. Luna was alternating closing each eye to make the lawyer's image shift left to right. That was one of Luna's tricks to make court pass more quickly. Celestia often wondered if ponies didn't notice, or were simply afraid to bring it up in case they insulted the princess.
"...meaning that my client should only pay thirteen bits of taxes, your majesty. You thoughts?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but Luna was quicker. "We must decline. He will pay the tax as everyone else has done. We do not care what he had invested in."
The lawyer pony scowled. "But-"
The Royal Canterlot Voice boomed, "NEXT."