The First, Last and Only Chapter
...and that’s how I learned my newest lesson in the magic of friendship: Never assume that Applejack and Rainbow Dash are lesbians just because I came out of the closet last week.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
Twilight had just completed writing her letter to Celestia, but that didn’t mean that she was ready to send it to her mentor. This was a letter to the Princess, after all. Certain preparations had to be met.
First, the letter had to be proofread by Spike, but he didn’t really catch that many typos. (In truth, this was Twilight’s own secret way of constantly teaching him grammar.) Next, it was re-proofread and spellchecked by Cheerilee, the best speller that Twilight knew in Ponyville. Then, it was sent to Town Hall, where the Mayor herself took time out of her busy schedule in order to make sure that no false recordings of the truth, legal loopholes, copyright infringements, illegal portrayal of celebrities (living or deceased) or visible ink smudges were present in the document. After that, it was sent to the local newspaper and publisher to be copied in triplicate, just in case the original letter was lost.
Now completed, the three identical letters were sent back to Twilight Sparkle, so she could double-check them to see if the edited copies not only fit her ideals that she intended the letter to uphold, but also made a clear message that she learned an important lesson in the magic of friendship. Finally, she sent the extra copies back to Spike, so they could go through the entire process again, just to make sure that nopony missed anything. By some miracle from heaven above, the letter was always ready to be sent to Princess Celestia by the end of the day.
It was tedious process and everypony else thought it was needlessly complex and confusing, but Twilight was practically married to it. She even made her friends do it when they started writing friendship reports. To the citizens of Equestria, friendship was magic, but to Twilight Sparkle, bureaucracy was akin to enlightenment and was to worshiped as such.
She was in the middle of carefully signing her name in the most expensive permanent ink when Pinkie Pie, the constant threat to basic logic and the laws of physics, came barging in.
“HEYTWILIGHTWHATCHADOING?NEVERMINDIHAVESOMETHINGSPECIALTOTELLYOU!!!!”
Twilight was so startled, she spilled her ink bottle all over her carefully written letter, ruining the parchment. She had to grind her teeth together to keep herself from screaming a long, long string of profanities. This didn’t keep the unicorn from simply snapping at her friend, however.
“Pinkie Pie, you destroyed my letter to the Princess! You know how I feel about guest coming in uninvited, don’t you?”
“But Twiiiiliiiight~” whined Pinkie, pouting her lip, “this is super-dee-duper important! Today’s the day!”
Twilight’s ears perked up at ‘important.’ Because Ponyville was invaded every other week by anything that could possibly pose a threat to ponies, from an outbreak of Cutie Pox to cranky Ursa cubs, Twilight had learned to be prepared for anything.
“What is it, Pinkie?” said the purple egghead, listening intently. “Are we under attack again?”
“Nope!” replied Pinkie cheerfully. “Nothing bad. Today’s the day, that’s all.”
“Nothing?” parroted Twilight, her face contorting in puzzlement. “Then why are you here? I’ve got a lot of things to do today.”
“That’s just it!” said Pinkie, as if Twilight had accidentally said something profoundly brilliant. “Today’s the day! I can’t believe you don’t know! You’re just sitting around in the library, and you have no clue how important today is!”
Twilight sighed, annoyed that this interruption was taking a little longer than she hoped it to be. On the other hoof, Twilight mapped out her schedule like a cartographer maps out a new frontier; very carefully, and with lots of detail. If there was a date she missed, she must have overlooked something crucial. Twilight silently resolved that it was worth finding out why today was so important, even if it was from Pinkie Pie. Pinkie would always be Twilight’s friend, but the crazy filly tended to ramble.
“Alright Pinkie,” Twilight said sarcastically, “let’s suppose I don’t know what you’re talking about. Care to tell me what day it is, besides March 16th?”
Pinkie looked at Twilight like the horned bookworm had asked if the sky was blue. “Maybe I should spell it out for you, Twilight: T-O-D-A-Y-apostrophe-S-space-T-H-E-space-D-A-Y. What part of that don’t you get?”
Twilight facehoof’d. “I’m going to have to guess, aren’t I?”
“Oooh!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “Yeah, let’s do that! We’ll turn it into a guessing game!”
“Is it... somepony’s birthday?” guessed Twilight.
“No.”
“Is it... an anniversary of something?”
“No.”
“Is it... a Ponyville holiday that only comes twice a year?”
“You’re a really bad guesser, you know that?” said Pinkie with a cross look on her face. “I’ll give you a hint: It’s not a special occasion.”
Now, this really confused Twilight. This was Pinkie Pie that she was talking to, after all. The pony who thought every baby bird successfully going on it’s first flight deserved a party. To her, everything was a special occasion.
“Let me get this straight,” said Twilight slowly. “You’re saying it’s important enough to come bursting in without warning, but not worth throwing a party over?”
“Well, no,” said Pinkie. “If I wanted to throw a party for every good thing that happened, I would be in serious debt from buying all the balloons. But I assure you, today’s a really, really, really, really, really, really, really big day, especially for you!”
“Why’s that?”
“Because today’s the day! Didn’t I tell you that already?”
Again, Twilight was back to square one. For the second time, she facehoof’d. At first, she wasn’t particularly interested in what Pinkie had to say, but now the unicorn was dying to know why today was so exceptional. Luckily, she had been practicing methods to communicate with Pinkie, so that the party animal made sense more often.
“Pinkie,” Twilight said with a deep breath, “we’ve talked about this, remember?”
Pinkie let out a big gasp of enthusiasm. “You mean you know about today? About today being the day?!”
“No,” said Twilight sternly. “I’m talking about the lecture we had two weeks ago on elaborating.”
“That one slide how you showed me?” said Pinkie Pie questioningly. “What about it?”
“When Ponyville was overrun by parasprites, you were the one that drove them out,” Twilight began.
“Yeah! It was pretty fun, wasn’t it?”
“Well...” said Twilight, trying to find the right words, “up until that point, we had no idea what you were doing mostly because you didn’t take two seconds of your time to actually tell us why you were gathering all those instruments.”
“So? You were being a meanie-weenie-pants about it,” said Pinkie, as if being a ‘meanie-weenie-pants’ was a surefire way to lose an argument.
“My point is,” said Twilight, “that the whole situation could be avoided if you elaborated. So, if you would ever so kindly elaborated about today, I would be very happy.”
“Ohhhhh,” said Pinkie, drawing out her ‘ohh’ with realization. “Okie-dokie-lokie, I’ll tell you about today: First, I woke up and got out of bed. Then, I fed Gummy his oatmeal and ate my breakfast of milk & Sugar Highs, the most bestest breakfast cereal of the whole wide UNIVERSE! Next, I fed the Cake twins their baby food, which isn’t really all that tasty, to be honest. Why do they call it baby food, anyway? Babies hate the stuff! Silly baby food makers. After that, I washed the-” Pinkie was cut short by Twilight’s hoof over her pink muzzle.
“Pinkie, when I said to elaborate about today,” Twilight said, exasperated, “I didn’t mean to explain your whole day up until now!”
Pinkie’s pupils became wide as saucers and began to water up. “But why?” she said, sniffing a bit. “Aren’t all my days important enough for you? Am I not an interesting pony?”
Twilight was taken back, seeing Pinkie was about to cry. “Well, I never meant it that way, I just don’t want every little detail about-”
“So you’re saying that I’m... not good enough to be your friend?” Pinkie said, her lip quivering like a big baby’s.
“Pinkie, I..”
“It’s okay, Twilight,” said Pinkie solemnly, walking away while dragging her hooves, “I understand if.. *sniff* ... if you’re getting sick of meeeeeeeeee!” She burst out into a hammy wail, her eyes turning into a fountain of tears. Seriously, her eyes were a cartoonish waterfall of salty tears. It absolutely ruined the carpet.
“No, don’t cry!” Twilight apologized. “I’m sorry if offended you. Please, I just want to know what’s so important about today.”
Pinkie immediately perked up from sobbing her eyes out to hugging her friend as tightly as physically possible, maybe even more so. “Yippee! I’m friends with Twilight again! You know what this calls for?”
“Pinkie... I can’t breathe,” Twilight choked, struggling to get free from Pinkie’s supernatural earth pony strength. “And this isn’t really the appropriate time for you to throw-”
“A PARTY!”
One humungous and completely unnecessary party later...
“Wasn’t that fun, Twilight?” Pinkie asked. “That was the greatest party I’ve ever thrown! I mean, I put it together, invited everypony we’ve ever met, and got four guests hospitalised all in FIFTEEN MINUTES!”
“Still... can’t... breathe...”
“And you’ve never stopped hugging me the whole time! That’s really sweet of you, you know that?”
Twilight said nothing; she only made a guttural gagging noise as another one of her ribs cracked.
“Oh, I should probably let go of you now, shouldn’t I?” Pinkie realised. She released her iron grip, leaving Twilight Sparkle collapsed on the ground and wheezing for air.
“Please... get... out...” Twilight pleaded.
Pinkie cocked her head in childlike curiosity. “Well, why would I do that? Today’s the day, ya silly goose!” She patted the top Twilight’s head as the pink explosion of fun gave a knowing smile. “Today’s the day, and I’m not leaving until you understand why.”
Twilight finally caught her breath as she stood up. “Alright,” she agreed. She wasn’t pleased by the hard time Pinkie had given her, but the egghead was made somewhat happy by the fact that they both were on the same page. “Why is ‘today the day,’ exactly?”
“On this day...” Pinkie began, savoring the moment.
“Yes?”
“...on this morning...”
“Yes?”
“...on this hour...”
“Yes?”
“...while we’re having this very conversation...”
“YES??”
“...on the specific second that’s gonna happen very soon...”
“PINKIE PIE, JUST TELL ME!”
“...is when I tell you, Twilight Sparkle of Canterlot...” Pinkie continued coyly, ignoring Twilight’s pleas.
“TELL ME WHAT?”
“...that you just lost the game!”
