A Perfectly Ordinary Day in Ponyville
A long, shrill note pierced the veil of dreams. It arced across sunny meadows, shattered the surface of placid lakes, and tore through deep forests, leaving a trail of the rapidly-fading memories of slumber in its wake. It sought out its target with interminable precision, cutting a path through imagination and fantasy until it reached the great tree at the center of the dream realm. Inside that tree, a purple unicorn looked up from the book she had been imagining that she read, her eyes widening for the split-second it took for her to be violently catapulted out of the shattered remnants of sleep and into the waking world.
Twilight Sparkle rolled onto her side with a disgruntled "Marfargl!" and slammed a hoof down on her alarm clock. The noise ceased immediately, and she sighed happily and nested back into her covers. "Five more mrphfm," she told her pillow firmly. She was the personal protégé of the Princess of the Sun herself, who did it think it was to tell her to wake up, anyway?
"Twilight! You're not going back to sleep, are you?" called a concerned voice from outside her door. "You're going to be mad at me if I let you sleep in any more. It's already noon!"
She identified the voice as that of her beloved assistant, Spike. Without opening her eyes, she answered with the whunk of a telekinetically-thrown quill embedding its tip in the door, just two inches above where the voice had originated.
"I'll take that as a no!" the dragon responded hastily. Twilight heard the sound of clawed footsteps retreating quickly down the stairs. Satisfied that she had successfully eliminated this latest threat to her repose, she nuzzled back against her pillow to return to the extremely important task of napping.
Alas, the damage had been done, and sleep would not come. The unicorn clambered out of bed without enthusiasm, tossing the covers haphazardly across it with a flick of her magic. She stepped carefully across a wasteland of open books and scattered note paper until she reached her dresser. Another late night of studying had taken its toll on her room, not to mention her energy level. She narrowed her eyes and peered into the mirror, inspecting her horn carefully.¹ To her relief, it was as solid and as sharp as ever. Perhaps even sharper, she thought happily. All that study must have been paying off.
Satisfied that all was in order, the mare went to work with a magically held brush, smoothing her wayward bed-mane. The brush worked its way along as she blinked her eyes to rid them of the last remnants of her sleepiness. She would have to be in top shape today. She had to be in top shape every day. She was Twilight Alexandria Sparkle, Princess Celestia's prize pupil, the Element of Magic, not to mention the Most Important Librarian in Equestria. She had standards to uphold. Her brush made its way down her crest, teasing away the quandaries,² and onto her wings. She lifted them absently to reach-
Wait, wings?
Twilight stared into the mirror, her mind not entirely comprehending what she saw. She flapped the wings experimentally, scattering the papers on the floor further with the breeze. Her unattended brush, apparently realizing that her wings weren't in need of its attention, moved down to her tail. She ignored it, her eyes fixed on the mirror and her newly-formed appendages. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, licked her lips, and closed her eyes before finally speaking.
"Not again."
Obviously, it was going to be one of those days. There was only one thing for it. Twilight's horn glowed with magic, unlocking the gold-inlaid jewelry box atop her dresser with a soft click and she lifted the lid with a gentle reverence. Inside, on a bed of red velvet, there lay a single glass bottle. Its pure white label was adorned with golden filigree, and had a stylized yellow and orange sun at its center. The amber liquid within seemed to glow with an inner radiance. The young mare's eyes ran fondly over the delicate writing on the label as she lifted it.
Celestia's Best
Canterlot Special Reserve
50% alcohol by volume
¹ An odd habit which arose from great trauma. It would be difficult to explain to a non-unicorn exactly how distressing it is to wake up one morning and find your horn flopping about and covered in blue spots. The nearest analogy would be... well, best not to put that to paper in polite company. Suffice to say that, since the Poison Joke incident, it was the first thing she always checked.
² Normal ponies get snarls, snags, or tangles. Twilight Sparkle got quandaries. They could become downright maddening if left untamed.
Fifteen minutes later, a significantly happier Twilight Sparkle trotted down the stairs to meet the new day. She sniffed the air, ears lifting hopefully as she caught the unmistakable scent of breakfast. "Spike? Is that fried lemongrass I smell? Oh, I hope that's fried lemongrass. I'm so hungry I could eat a human!"
"Sure is, Twi!" her scaly assistant piped up from the kitchen's doorway as he made his way toward the table, a plate balanced on each clawed hand and (with dexterity born of long days carrying sewing supplies around for Rarity) two wobbling glasses of orange juice stacked atop his head. "From how long it took you to get down here this morning, I figured you'd be starving, so I made a double batch. You don't usually take that much time unless Trixie sneaks into your room at night to challenge you to... whatever it is you two do in there... or-" Spike finally got a good look at Twilight as the plates and glasses were lifted from him by her magic, and nodded. "Ah. Wings."
Twilight smiled and brushed her cheek against Spike's affectionately. "You're the best assistant ever," she said as she settled down to dig into her first heaping plateful. "Thank you."
The baby dragon puffed up with pride. "Hey, that's why I'm here! It's funny you should mention humans, though."
"Mmmf?" Twilight swallowed her mouthful without looking up from her plate.
"Yeah, apparently Fluttershy found one stumbling around the edge of the Everfree Forest this morning. She managed to get him to follow her to her cottage, but he fainted as soon as she started talking." Spike started on his own meal, an onyx omelette on beryl bread, his teeth crunching noisily on the semiprecious sandwich. "It's like they've never seen a talking pony before," he snorted between bites.
"They haven't, Spike," Twilight explained patiently. "At least, most of them haven't. The ones who have are even worse. Remember the one Applejack found at her farm? It took her three weeks to get him to stop coming around and asking to braid her hair for her."
Spike nodded, remembering the incident clearly. He just didn't understand how someone could be that obsessed with one pony. "Well, I don't think you have to worry about that with this one. He seemed pretty lost."
"Alright, well I guess I'd better get over there." Twilight levitated a sheet of paper and a quill onto the table, murmuring to herself as she wrote. "Let's see. I'm definitely going to need 'Things To Do as an Alicorn' and 'A Human Arrived in Equestria and Probably Awakened an Ancient Evil'. It's Tuesday, so I'd probably better add 'In Case of a Dramatic Confession of Love'. And, of course, the shopping list."
Spike coughed and looked up at the purple unicorn-turned-alicorn across from him. "Is that...?"
Twilight nodded smugly. "A checklist of checklists. Twilight Sparkle is nothing if not organized. Now... hmm. I'm going to need more paper."
"Okay! Item one, go to Fluttershy's cottage to meet the new arrival. Sub-item A, meet Lyra on the way and enlist her help. Optional, but her experience with the subject always comes in handy. Estimated time, one hour and thirty minutes." Twilight chatted happily to her stack of checklists as she stepped out into the bright noon-day sun. Spike watched her go with a bemused expression.
The first thing that greeted the purple mare, however, was not on any of her checklists. (At least, none of the ones she had brought with her.) Not a hundred feet from the door of her library lay a forlorn-looking heap of cerulean blue. A six-colored mane was matted damply against its coat with what might have been blood, and a wing jutted unnaturally from the pile like a tattered flag.
"Rainbow Dash!" Paper scattered as Twilight's telekinetic grasp faltered and she galloped to her stricken friend.
"Nahso loud..." the fallen pegasus mumbled. "Head hurts..."
Twilight skidded to a stop and bent down to inspect the damage. Rainbow Dash winced at the attention, letting out pained noises of complaint as purple magic jabbed and prodded her with all the gentleness of a medical intern having a bad day. After what seemed to Dash like an eternity of discomfort and indignation, her purple torturer finally gave her verdict.
"Two broken wings, three severe lacerations on the right side of your barrel, and if I'm not mistaken," and here, purple magic lifted Dash's head so that the winged unicorn could inspect her pupils, "a concussion. I believe that's a new record." Twilight's horn glowed again, and her friend was lifted unceremoniously into the air as she started twisting things back into their proper alignment. Checklists swirled in the air as she gathered them back up, absently adjusting her itinerary for the lost time while she worked. "I really don't know how you manage this, Rainbow Dash. I've seen your wings bend around like rubber without even spraining, and yet here you are breaking them again. So what happened this time?"
"Head-on collision with - (snap) ack! - reinforced glass at - (crack) nrrrgh - mach 3 - hey that's not broken! When did you start locking your windows at n- (pop) oooh that wasn't so ba- (crunch) AUGH!!" Dash's legs wavered under her as she was set down, and she met the eyes of the winged unicorns who had healed her. "Whoa Twilight, when did Twilight get here...?"
"Shh," the alicorn said gently, laying her forehead lightly against her friend's. The glow from her horn gradually spread across the gash on the cyan mare's forehead, soothing the pain and lifting the fog that had settled on her mind. "And to answer your question, ever since the library started getting broken into at night. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Gorgeous purple eyes met Dash's, and a deep blush blossomed on her cheeks.
"I, ah, heh, about that..." the pegasus stammered. "You see, well, your kitchen sink and I... you know how things are. One day it's just another piece of plumbing, the next day you're-"
Twilight put a halt to her friend's explanation with a hoof against her muzzle. "Stop right there. Just... stop. I don't even want to know." A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "Although I guess that explains why Spike found your tail hairs clogging up the drain... ew. I don't want to know." She shook her head firmly, as if to dispel the mental images that were clawing their way through her consciousness. Dash just smirked.
"Fine. It's none of your business anyway." Her eyes widened suddenly. "Aw, crap, I'm late for my date! Thanks Twi catch you later!" Before Twilight could so much as blink, she was left alone but for a rainbow trail leading through one of her now-open front windows.
"I have a door...! Ah forget it." Twilight sighed and returned her focus to her checklists, her troubles quickly disappearing into the blissful serenity of organization. "Right, I'll just add 'disinfectant' to the shopping list. Now, back to item one." The alicorn started toward Fluttershy's cottage at an easy trot.
Despite its length, about an hour walk, the trip was an enjoyable one. The bright sun shone down, warming Twilight's lavender coat pleasantly. The usual bustle of the Ponyville Market hummed in her ears as she passed through, and she gave Applejack a familiar wave as she passed her friend's apple stand, which the orange mare returned warmly. Then, as the gentle white noise of the marketplace faded behind her, the relative silence of the town's residential areas wrapped around her like a blanket. So quilted in quietude, her thoughts began to drift to such diverse subjects as astronomy, local politics, the upcoming meeting with the new human, and (equally important) what she might be having for lunch.
"Tulips," she decided to herself. "On rye bread. With just a little bit of mayonnaise... oh!" The violet alicorn's thoughts returned to the present as she found herself in front of her shy friend's cottage. She raised a hoof to knock politely. With all of the power at her disposal, it seemed silly to lift a hoof (figuratively or literally) to do anything, but in this case, it seemed more polite than using telekinetic force. Besides, if she underestimated how quickly her power had grown to fill its new receptacle since she woke up, she might knock the door right down. Again.
"Fluttershy? Are you in here?" Twilight tilted her head, then pushed the door, which swung open. That was strange. The pegasus usually locked her door when she left the house. Twilight ducked inside, and her extra-long horn grazed the top of the doorway uncomfortably as she entered, making her wince. That was the absolute worst part of being an alicorn, as far as she was concerned. Having to duck through doors. "Fluttershy?" she tried again.
"O-oh my. P-please be gentle." Twilight's ears pricked up as she heard her friend's voice coming from the upper floor.
"Shh, I promise I won't hurt you." Fluttershy's voice was joined by another, a male, murmuring comfortingly to her. That would probably be the human.
"But it's... I've never... let a human do this to me before." Twilight's curiosity was piqued by this point, and she trotted stealthily to the stairs to hear better.
"Don't tell me this is your first time. You're so pretty, there must be someone else..."
"W-well usually I just, um, I just handle it myself. Although sometimes, Rarity helps me. We- we hang out a lot. Oh dear, th-that feels like it might hurt. Are you sure this won't hurt?" Downstairs, the alicorn's cheeks had been getting redder and redder, to the point where it was quite visible even under her dark coat.
"Just for a moment... this is pretty tight. Just try to relax. It'll be over in a second."
It was too much. They had just met, and this... this... human! This human was upstairs with her kind, gentle, innocent friend, about to... to... Twilight's ears flattened back against her head. She wasn't going to stand by and let this happen. Her horn flared with light, and she was in Fluttershy's bedroom before the intervening distance could even formulate an objection to the instantaneous travel.
"Oh no you don't!" Twilight's magically-enhanced voice echoed deafeningly off the walls of the tiny room. A fearful "eep" vanished under the bed, taking a yellow pegasus with it, but the sound was drowned out by the alicorn's tirade. "Fluttershy is the kindest, most innocent pony I know, and more importantly, she's my friend! And I'm not going to let some human she just met sweet-talk his way into her bedroom just so he can... so he can..."
A pink brush clattered to the floor in the sudden silence, dropped by the numb fingers of the brown-maned human who sat, dressed in traditional jeans and t-shirt, on Fluttershy's bed. For a few moments, the human stared, slack-jawed, at the terrifying purple apparition before him. The apparition, in turn, stared down at the brush. She blinked several times as a series of gears in her mind skidded to a halt, adjusted their positions slightly, and slowly ground back into motion. Then she looked back up at the human, her cheeks stained a deep maroon by the blood rushing to them.
"...so he can brush her mane," the alicorn muttered. "You were brushing her mane. Ha ha. I get it. You were brushing her mane, and there was a tangle in it."
"T-Twilight?" a timid voice spoke up from under the bed, and Fluttershy's head peeked out. "What are you doing here? What did you think we were... oh my." The pegasus's face quickly grew a blush to match Twilight's own, and she disappeared back into the darkness under the bed with a squeak. Twilight briefly covered her face with her hoof.
"I'll just be going. Out of this room, I mean. And, uh, you two can... have fun. Brushing." A bright flash lit the room, and Twilight was gone.
In the alicorn's wake, the human leaned over the side of the bed to try to coax out a furiously blushing yellow mare.
"You have some very... interesting friends, Miss Fluttershy."
"Next time," a red-faced Twilight Sparkle muttered to herself, "I'll just knock louder." She galloped away from her friend's cottage, hoping that the wind would help to soothe the burning in her face, or at least that signs of exertion would help to mask its source if she encountered another pony. Tulips on rye bread were right out at this point. There was only one cure for this situation, and that cure was sweets.
So it was that, in defiance of every checklist in her possession, Twilight's next destination was Sugarcube Corner. The mouth-watering scent of baking pastries tickled her nose as she entered, and she closed her eyes for a moment to just enjoy the ambiance of the familiar bakery. Sadly, her reverie was cut short by a muffled string of confectionery expletives coming from the direction of the kitchen. She reopened her eyes to see an alarmingly pink rump backing out of the kitchen's doorway, followed by the rest of the pony it was attached to, and then an overloaded cart of baked goods, which appeared to have lost a good part of its contents on the way out.
"-with the frosting spreader, and then- oh hey Twilight!" The bright pink pony perked up as she saw her friend in the shop. "I didn't hear you come in! You did come in, didn't you? I mean, you can never be too sure with alicorns, sometimes they travel like normal ponies, and sometimes they just fly into the sun or something and suddenly pow! They're gone! Actually, are you really here at all, or am I hallucinating you? It's just, I've been being soooo good and not eating almost any of the delicious goodies we're baking because it's a huge order the Cakes have to fill and I had to bring in some help, and they're not allowed to eat almost any of it either, and we're all so hungry that we just might start hallucinating, and I'm sure that if I was, I might totally hallucinate my bestest friend Twilight! Oh well, c'mon hallucination of my bestest friend Twilight, I have to get back to work, but you can come too if you want! Ooh, I wonder if hallucinations like sweets... that's a silly question, of course they do! Everypony likes sweets!"
Twilight waited with a patient smile for her exuberant friend's stream of consciousness to thin to its usual trickle. Pinkie Pie was always like this when she had been cooped up for a while, and the alicorn had learned that it was best to just let her vent it naturally. Her pink friend bounced back through the doorway she had come from, still chattering to herself, and Twilight trotted after her.
The kitchen was alive with the smells of baked goods and the sounds of industry. Ovens occasionally dinged, electric mixers whirred, conveyor belts hummed as they carried unfinished donuts to their deep-fried fates, and a huge machine in the corner (whose purpose Twilight could not even begin to fathom, particularly since Pinkie appeared to be deliberately ignoring it) periodically went toink. All of this was normal. What was not normal were the mirrors which were stationed at regular intervals around her friend's workspace. Every one of them reflected the pink baker as she returned to her task, but her visitor only had a brief moment to wonder at their purpose before it was made horrifyingly clear.
"Up and at 'em, girls!" Pinkie bellowed over the noise. "We've got goods to bake! Confections to confect! Pastries to paste!" With a slam of her hoof, a tray of rolled-up croissant dough was upended, its contents sent flying. The unbaked pastries arced up, over the head of the shocked alicorn, toward the mirror behind her... and into an empty cookie sheet held by Pinkie's reflection therein. As Twilight struggled to process what had just happened, the reflection turned to a nearby oven, slid the cookie sheet in, and pushed the door closed. She jumped at the sound of an oven door closing behind her, and turned to look at Pinkie, but the pink mare was already deeply concentrating on rolling up the next batch of croissants.
Before she could voice a question, a circular object that may have been a pie sailed over the alicorn, and she turned just in time to see another reflection pulling a fresh pie tin to herself and beginning the crafting process anew. A steady stream of ballistic baked goods began to fill the air, and the pony in the center of it all started to hum to herself. Twilight watched with a growing mixture of horror and fascination as, one by one, the reflections joined in with their own tunes. Soon, the room was filled with the joyous sounds of a Pinkie Pie musical number, starring Pinkie Pie, with Pinkie Pie providing the background vocals.
It went a little something like this:
Now lend an ear and listen to your good friend Pinkie Pie.
To bake a cake is easy if you sit right down and try,
But to bake another twenty, you might want a little help.
That type of task seems far too vast to tackle by yourself.
By now you might be thinking that you need another mare,
But look into the mirror, you'll find all you need is there.
I know it might sound crazy, but I'm telling you the truth.
Don't sit and pout, just reach right out, and give yourself a hoof!
I know there can be times you start to doubt your competence,
But all you really need is just a bit of confidence!
So smile for the mirror, put your trust in Number One,
Once you learn to help yourself, the job's as good as done!
The song came to a close with a chorus of cheers, and a grinning Pinkie high-hoofed the nearest mirror with the sound of a hoof tapping glass. Twilight realized that she was gaping and snapped her mouth shut as her friend turned to smile brightly at her before returning to her work. The lavender alicorn's mind, which had just finished rearranging its internal workings into something vaguely resembling a confused pretzel, slowly worked its way toward a single, indescribably comforting thought.
This is normal for Pinkie Pie. She's acting normal. Everything is normal.
It was true. Relief washed over the beleaguered mare as the realization set in, soothing her frazzled nerves with a sense of serene and all-encompassing calm. Her newfound serenity might even have lasted her long enough to make a purchase and get safely away from the bakery, if not for what happened next.
Pinkie Pie twitched. More accurately, all of the Pinkie Pies twitched. Every one of them simultaneously stopped what she was doing with a startled expression. Then, in perfect unison, every left ear flicked, every right eye twitched, and every poofy cotton candy tail shot straight out behind every stock-still pony.
Pinkie Pie, the real one, turned to her violet friend and announced, "That one means that today's about to get more interesting!"
Twilight Sparkle felt her veil of sweet serenity vanish as quickly as it had come. "More... interesting," she repeated flatly. "I've already achieved ascension to alicornhood, patched up a pulverized pegasus, incorrectly interpreted innocent interactions (with comically chaotic consequences), and been serenaded by a squad of symphonious simulacrums of a particular pink party pony. How much more interesting could today possibly get?"
"I dunno! Maybe Rarity can tell us."
"Rarity?"
"Twilight!" The aforementioned white unicorn burst into the kitchen with more grace and elegance than her panicked state should have afforded, raising a hoof to brush dust off of herself as her other three hooves skidded against the floor to bring her to a halt. "Oh thank Celestia you're here! Or, er, maybe that's a bad choice of words right now, I'm not sure. The important thing is, you have to do something!"
"Okay, Rarity, calm down. What's wrong?" The alicorn tried to reassure her friend, who pointed out one of the windows of Sugarcube Corner to the street outside.
"That! Oh, darling, it's terrible!"
Twilight peered out the window, squinting through the glaze of flour and sugar that had built up from Pinkie Pie's frequently-messy antics in the area. The street, illuminated in the bright sunlight of high noon, was filled with the usual array of colorful ponies going about their daily business. The alicorn glanced back to her unicorn friend with a frown. "Er, I don't see anything. This isn't another one of your weird overreactions, is it?"
Rarity shook her head vehemently. "Haven't you noticed? The sun! Darling, it's been noon for three hours now!"
Twilight blinked, looked out the window again, and up at the sky. "...oh, frosting."
"Rejoice, citizens of Ponyville, for the time of darkness has passed! From this moment forward, the daylight will be eternal! Rejoice and give praise to your goddess, Queen Inferno Blaze!"
"Argh. I'll be back in an hour or two, girls, keep some cupcakes warm for me." With that, Twilight Sparkle dashed for the door of Sugarcube Corner, taking to the air to do battle with her beloved Princess and mentor. Behind her, Pinkie Pie was already planning the details of her next "Twilight Saved the World" party, and Rarity was unsuccessfully attempting to brush a new layer of dust off of her coat.
It was just another normal day in Ponyville.
