Nyx's Hearts and Hooves Day: A New Heart's New Joy

"Ha ha! That's amazing!" What happened next," Nyx asked. She and Pipsqueak had by now finished their food, and Nyx was now listening to a story of Pipsqueak's life in Trottingham. The previous conversation has been all but forgotten, and right then Nyx was happy just to have a new pony who would ever talk to her.

"Well, after he spilled his drink, she..." he began, only to pause, and move his gaze to something slightly above Nyx, "Oh, hello Ms. Pinkie,"

"Hiya Pip! Hi Nyx!" Responded the pink mare. Nyx, having been to caught up in Pipsqueak's story, never even noticed her come up around her, and the surprise caused her to jump. She did not exactly notice where she ran over to, but when she had gotten over her fright, she noticed she was hiding behind Pipsqueak on his chair. The table that they're friends had sat the at had chairs that we're large enough to seat a normal grown pony, so Nyx easily fat behind him. The chair wasn't large enough, though, to give enough ground to an embarrassed filly to scoot away, and nearly fell we're it not for a quick thinking Pinkie Pie and an adjacent chair.

"Heh, sorry about that," Nyx chuckled nervously to her 'savior', however it was only met by a cocked eyebrow and a sudden gasp from the mare.

Okie dokie, then. Now she *needs** to* "No, it's OK. It was my fault. I shouldn't have snuck up on you," she said apologetically, "But now I need to ask you something. Nyx, do you want to come with me and Pipsqueak to a baseball game tomorrow?"

"Baseball?" Nyx asked, slowly articulating this new word.

Pinkie Pie gasped in utter shock, "You really didn't know. OK, this is serious. We are going to need foam hooves, shirts hats, cotton candy, and , ooh!" Her eyes lit up, "Yeah, we can have that! Alright, then. You to stay right here, and I'll be right back with Spike and a jar." She received but ignored the odd look from Nyx as she ran out the door.

"Umm, do you have any idea what she was talking about, Pip?" The colt simply shook a negative. "Well, we need to stay here for a while, apparently. So, what happened next?"

"Oh, yeah! So, after he spilled his drink..."

"What do you mean, you can help me out with Nyx? How?" Twilight asked. She was currently sitting in the middle of the boutique, Rarity was standing beside her, listening to what her orange friend had to say.

"It's really quite easy," Applejack stated, "Before my ma and pa had to move to Phillydelphia, just when Apple Bloom was still a little foal, they told me and Big Mac everything we had to know so we'd be able to raise her." She shuddered, "I tell ya, I had nightmares about some of the stuff they told us. But they also taught us how to help out Apple Bloom if she ever found a special colt."

"Oh, really now, Applejack. That is just ridiculous," Rarity said sternly, "The ways of the heart, especially of one so young as Nyx, cannot be simply told. They must be learned through experience. That was another reason I'd set up a date for Twilight." She looked over to her fellow unicorn and took her into a friendly hug, "Again, sweetie, I am so very sorry about what happened. I honestly didn't know he thought like that."

"It's fine, Rarity, really," Twilight reassured, returning the hug, "I know you were just trying to help. You don't have to apologize for that." She sighed, "I just don't know what to do about Nyx's crush on Pipsqueak. And I'm her mother, for Celestia's sake!" The bell over the door rang suddenly, and in popped Pinkie Pie, carrying a jar in her forehoof. She had begun to say something, but then looked over at Rarity and Twilight, and began to start giggling and squealing.

Twilight was the first to say anything we she finally stopped, removing herself from Rarity's friendly embrace, "Oh, hello again Pinkie Pie. Do you need something?"

Pinkie Pie took a short moment to regain herself before continuing, "Actually, I need two things. One," she motioned to her jar, "can you make this hold spells? Also, can Spike mail himself?"

"Um, no to both," Twilight said, slightly confused. "Why in Equestria would you even need to hold spells?"

"Well, duh! I need to get a spell! And Starry is the only one who can do it," she stated.

"Oh, well if it's a spell you need, I'd be more than happy to..."

"No!" Pinkie interrupted stubbornly, "It has to be from Starry, otherwise it's no good!"

"Well, I'm sorry, Pinkie, but it's not possible to contain spells in physical objects." Twilight said, slightly hurt.

"OK, then, Twilight. Ooh, and before I forget, I finally got somepony to take the ticket."

"Oh, that's great. Who?"

"Nyx! She said she's never been to a baseball game before, so of course I have to take her!"

"Wait, what?" Twilight's eyes went wide, "She's going with you? And Pip? Tomorrow?" She was about to protest about this last minute notice, but Applejack cut in.

"Why that sounds like just a great idea Pinkie Pie. I'm sure she'll have a great time. You should really also tell Twilight everything that goes on with Nyx while she's there. I'm sure she'd love to hear about her own daughter's first baseball game."

Pinkie Pie’s eyes lit up, “Ooh yeah, AJ, that sounds like an awesome idea! OK, Twilight, I’ll be at your house at 9:30 to pick up Nyx, because it would be silly if I picked her up at 10, ‘cause that’s when the game starts, and..."

"We get it, Pinkie Pie. Don't worry. Twilight will have her ready."

"Oh, yay! OK, I need to get back to Sugarcube Corner. Sorry I interrupted you two. Oh, and Applejack," Pinkie Pie concluded with a giggle, "you look very lovely."  Applejack looked down at the white dress she was wearing, and grunted angrily at the absent Pinkie.

"What was that about," Rarity asked angrily, "Nyx, last time I checked, was Twilight's daughter, not yours. That wasn't your call to make."

"Relax, Rarity, it'll be fine," the light orange mare stated. "We need to know just how it is that Nyx feel's about Pip, so we can know how to go about this. And what better way than to learn it from the one mare that we can be sure she won't be nervous around?"

"Great. So now I have to put all my faith about being able to help my daughter into somepony else?"

"Um, well, I..." Applejack stuttered.

"Ugh, no, your right, I knew it. I can't even help her out with something as little as this. I'm a terrible mother," she sighed as she slumped to the ground in defeat.

"Oh, now don't say that, Twi," Applejack left the pedestal she stood on while Rarity worked on the dress, and went to stand in front of Twilight, kneeling so to be at eye level. "You've been a great mother to her, Twi, and you've done a great job raising her."

"You mean that?"

"Would I lie?" she joked. "Yes, I do mean that. It's proven by the fact that you're not trying to do this alone. That just shows how much you care about her well being. Even if this is all just pointless worrying, you want to help her no matter what. That's more than enough proof I need to see how much of a great parent you are." She snickered, "In fact, the way it is this probably is just worried nonsense. Nyx is one of the smartest little fillies I know, thanks to you, and she probably doesn't even need help."

A tear ran down Twilight's cheek, "Thanks, AJ. I think I needed that."

"You betcha. Now, come on," Applejack exclaimed, hopping up from her crouch to go to the boutique's door, "We need to find a certain somepony that will be at the game tomorrow."

"But I thought that we..."

"Pinkie Pie means well and all," Applejack interrupted, "but I'm not gonna be countin' on anything. Last time we were at a game with her, she was way to wrapped up in the game. She didn't notice that a foal had spilt it's apple juice all over her mane until after we left." Twilight giggled at what it must've been like.

"Wait a moment, Applejack."

"Ugh, what is it this time?"

"Well," the alabaster unicorn said sternly, "If you're looking for whom I think you are, please return my dress before it gets... a stain."

Applejack looked down to realize she had completely forgotten, yet again, she had been helping Rarity with the dress and was still wearing it. "Heh, sorry 'bout that," she chuckled nervously as Rarity removed and hung the dress, horn aglow.

With that out of the way, Twilight and Applejack went in search of who they needed to find.

"What? No, that doesn't even make sense!" Nyx laughed at Pipsqueak's conclusion of his story.

"I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't been there. But It was true." he said between giggles. When giggling, they noticed Pinkie Pie walking up calmly to their table, unlike last time.

"Hey, you two. Come on, I've got something I need to give to Nyx, but I also want Pipsqueak to be there to see it."

"Oh," Nyx said, "Did you get what you needed?"

"I got the jar," Pinkie Pie said with a frown, "but Twilight said they can't hold spells. But don't worry. We can have fun at baseball even without changing cotton candy." She recieved but ignored the confused look from Nyx, and instead motioned for the two to go upstairs, warning them to be quiet. When they arrived up, Nyx saw a long hallway with three rooms on the left and  two on the right, where they were, and parallel of them was the Cake twins bedrooms, where they were sound asleep. Nyx was guessing that was why Pinkie asked them to be quiet.

While they walked down the hallway, Nyx noticed a strange room. It wasn't exactly the kind of room that she thought that she'd see in the cake shop. It seemed more like the room Spike would joke, or at least she was sure he was joking, about Twilight's room when they lived in Canterlot being like. There was a window perfectly parallel to the door, standing in front of it was a telescope. This wasn't however, nearly as eye-catching as what else was in the room. There were notes, everywhere. Some on little sticky pads, some scribbled over posters of various musicians on the wall, some on the very wall itself! All of the ones Nyx could see appeared to be tracking movements or patterns of what she guessed to be planets. "Hey, um, Pinkie?" she whispered, "what's that room with telescope in it?"

"Hmm? Oh, that? That's just the room of Mr. and Mrs. Cake's nephew when he was living here lived in." When they finally got to Pinkie Pie's room they went up to a treasure chest-esque box, a sleeping Gummy next to it. "OK, Nyxie. I've got some stuff that I have been saving for a while now, and I have decided that you should be able to get them. First up;" she paused before dramatically whipping something out from the box, "The shirt!" She instantly slipped Nyx into the shirt. It was a strange shade of green, and had a white one on the front.

"And of course, we can't forget the Foamy hoof!" she exclaimed as she pulled out another green object. Like the name suggested, Nyx saw it was a a large hoof-shaped object, and it had a little slit on the end, which with Pinkie Pie's help, she learned was to be put on the hoof.

"Thanks Pinkie, but uh," she paused, drooping her head, "should I even be going? I don't even know how to play baseball. What if I mess up and we lose? Ponies might get angry or laugh at me."

Pinkie Pie just laughed, "Oh, don't worry about it, silly filly. You don't have to play the game, you get to watch it!"

"Really!?"

"Yeah!" Pipsqueak answered, "Going to a baseball game just means that we are watching two teams who work hard at playing this. We're supposed to be watching and having fun, and nopony can get angry at you for that."

"OK, that's good. But, I still don't know how they play."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, silly," Pinkie giggled, "Baseballs a super-easy game to learn. I'm sure a smart filly like you can figure it out in no time!"

"Well, if your sure..."

"I am very sure." she said with a happy grin, "Now then, you two should be getting home soon. I really hate to have us stop having fun, but your parents might start getting worried soon. I'll be at both of your houses to get you before ten."

"OK. See ya later, Pipsqueak. Thank you for the shirt and hoof, Pinkie!" Nyx called to the two, a little too loudly. A faint crying noise became audible from the other side of the hallway.

That took way too long Nyx thought worried. Her loud farewell had accidentally woken the Cake foals, who went into a bawling frenzy from the unwanted wake-up call. Pinkie had tried to calm them down by making funny faces, but in the panic Nyx accidentally tried to join in, causing the twins to cry even harder. After a long time of faces and a strange dance involving a pig snout and tail, Pinkie Pie told she and Pipsqueak to get a flour bag. The two had brought the bag up as fast as possible, and to their surprise Pinkie opened it up and dumped it on herself. To even further surprise, the foals finally stopped crying after that and calmed down enough to go back to sleep. Pinkie had told the two to get home and she would take care of the rest. This walk wasn't going to take a little bit longer than normal, though.

Even with Pipsqueak's help, the flour bag had been far from light, and the stairs also weren't exactly helpful either. By the time they had gotten it upstairs, her hooves were extremely sore, and she couldn't run very fast. She knew, however, that she needed to get to home quick, the sun was setting, and she needed to get home before Twilight got into one of her all out panics. She feared greatly that Twilight wouldn't allow her to even go, and she knew being late wasn't going to help.

Fortunately, the library was coming into sight. With a final burst of energy, she ran over to the door. When she got in she was breathing heavily and saw her mother sitting on cushion, holding a book in her aura. She could plainly see the clock, yet what seemed strange to Nyx was that she wasn't very angry or worried. At all. "Um, hey Mom." she said warily.

"Oh, hello, Nyx. Welcome home," the mare answered, releasing her book, "How was the lunch?"

"It was nice. Um, listen, I needed to know if it'd be OK if I were to go to a baseball game with Pinkie Pie and Pipsqueak tomorrow.  I know this is short notice, but..."

"Of course you can go." Twilight said with a chuckle.

Nyx's face lit up, "I can!?"

"Well of course you can. In fact, If it's a baseball game you're going to ..." she led Nyx up to the main bedroom upstairs, magically opening her treasure chest. "Need something form in here."

"Haven't you already shown me the stuff in this?"

"Not this, I haven't." She pulled out a cap that had two capital C's on the front, one in blue and the other in red. "This was my brother's when he was playing baseball at his middle school. He gave it to me when I left to remember him, but I think you'd probably like to have it at your very first ever game."

"Oh, really? Thanks, Mom," she beamed as she went to hug the mare's foreleg.

Twilight laughed, "You're very welcome. Now then, I'm gonna go downstairs to help Spike out with finishing dinner. You stay here and finish your homework, that way you won't have to worry about it tomorrow."

"Yes, Mom," she said, eagerly plopping into her bed basket and pulling out a quill and piece of parchment.

"Wow, so Nyx has a crush already?" Spike asked in amazement from atop the ladder he needed to reach the pots.

"It's amazing, but yes."

"Ha! It's not nearly as amazing as that Clear guy you were set up with. I still can't believe he seriously didn't know that you were Nyx's parent. That guy must be really out of the loop."

"Well, that's all in the past now, Spike, so let's just forget that he ever existed. Let's especially not bring him up in front of Nyx."

"Yeah, that sounds like a goo-" he was uninterrupted by a sudden strange feeling in his stomach. His face warped strangely, and a green fiery burp gave way to a parchment scroll. Twilight caught it with her magic, narrowly keeping it from dropping into the soup.

"Hello, what's this?" She opened up the scroll and began to read it in her head. For a good long part of the reading, a look of worry appeared on her face, and she looked like she was going to faint if she didn't breathe soon. It was only at the end of the document did she exhale in relief and smile.

"Well, what did it say?" Spike asked, sweating from either the suspense or the steam rising from the pan.

"It's nothing," she said rolling up the letter and beginning to exit, "You stay here and finish cooking. I need to go and get the guest bedroom ready."

"We have a guest bedroom?"

That night, in Canterlot...

"And then she yelled at me for calling it an it! I mean can you belie..."

"Oh, for Celestia's sake, Clear. Will just shut up about this? I'm surprised you're still able to find stuff to complain about," groaned an annoyed star-white stallion unicorn as he sipped his apple cider. The unicorn was sitting in the seat adjacent to Clear Crystal, hind legs set up on the bar, similar to Clear. What wasn't similar, though, was the way they talked. The white stallion hadn't a Canterlot accent, and instead was slightly southern.

"I seriously don't understand how you can defend that thing, Stardust. It's Nightmare Moon, for crying out loud!" Clear said, cheeks overly reddened.

"So what? Have you actually met her?" The stallion apparently named Stardust asked.

Clear began to stutter, "W-well, no, but..."

"But nothing!" Stardust interrupted. "Unless you've actually met somepony, you can't properly judge their psyche and thoughts. You'd think somepony who had graduated at the top of their psychology class at Canterlot University would be able to know that much."

"But don't you see? I don't need to understand her to know she's going to do something bad, someday! Trust me on this, I know these things."

"You also 'knew' that we would never again see the light of day, and we saw it four hours ago. You 'knew' that we'd never see either of the princesses again, just yesterday they were in charge of holding an event to raise money for the old orphanage downtown." Stardust snorted, "Face it, Clear, so far all your 'knowledge' of 'Nightmare Moon' -whom, just so you know, is called Nyx according to Princess Celestia- has been dead wrong. Why can't you just let go of the past and leave the topic of the little filly alone?"

"Because, your so called filly is secretly plotting to kill us all!" He exclaimed in rage.

"Why do I even try to reason with you when you when you're drunk? Why do I even talk to you period? Look, can we just change the subject?"

"Fine," Clear said with a grumble, "So, I hear you're gonna be goin' back to your hometown for a few days. Bet your missin' that mare of yours, huh?"

"Oh, for the love of," the star-white stallion said with a grunt, "How many times have I told you that it just isn't like that? She's just a friend. Calling her anything else other than maybe a sister would feel just wrong."

Clear rolled his eyes, "Uh-huh, sure. So, how long are you going to be gone?"

"Truthfully? I was planning on moving back permanently. I've finished all of my studies at the university, so I don't really have any more reason to stay here in Canterlot."

"Huh, well that's a shame. It's gonna be quiet here without you."

"I know. Promise me you'll try to stop being such a pain in the plot about this little Nyx thing to Fancy?"

"Fine," Clear grumbled, "but don't forget to tell him your leaving as well. Bet he'd just hate to hear his sweetheart is leaving so soon." He nudged Stardust's ribs.

"You just love turning my friendships into the exact thing they aren't, don't you?"

"It's become a hobby," Clear laughed drunkly.

Stardust sighed, sliding off his chair and taking his saddle bag from beside it,  "Well, I need to get back to my apartment and finish packing. See ya never." He walked out of the bar and off to his apartment, grateful he wasn't much of a drinker given the distance. Along the route, he picked out a piece of from his bag, horn aglow. It was a picture of him at what appeared to be a party. He appeared much younger, was wearing glasses, and was surrounded by three other ponies under a banner that said Happy Graduation Day! Enjoy Canterlot!. He smiled at the picture and the memories it brought. "It has been a while, now, hasn't it?"