The streets of Canterlot were all abuzz on this cool Autumn day. Street merchants set up their stands on the pavements, hawking their wares to the dozens, no, hundreds of tourists, socialites and general regulars of the royal city. Market day was always a delight for all.
Except, unfortunately, for one Twilight Sparkle. Trotting down the street, she grumbled to herself, a sopping wet mane and tail weighing her down, and a dripping saddlebag hanging from her shoulders.
Thank Celestia there was nothing that important in the bag at the time; just some parchment scrolls and quills, as well as a packed lunch for the day. She had set out to do some studying out in the park whilst on her visit, to pass the time until her scheduled appointment with the Princesses. She had left the train station in high spirits, never even suspecting for a moment that a speeding carriage and a well-placed puddle would put a quite literal damper on her day.
Ignoring the curious and often disapproving looks of passers-by, Twilight kept her head low as she headed down a side-street, and found herself in a small courtyard. A minute smile graced her lips as memories flooded back, of her life as a little filly growing up in Canterlot. She knew this quiet area well, even though some shops and buildings were new. Heading to the far side of the square, she saw the very shop she wanted to see right about now.
The tiny bell above the door jingled as Twilight pushed open the door to Spin Cycle’s Launderette and Repairs. Her snout was assailed by that familiar smell of detergent and dyes. She had come here many times on an errand for her parents, getting a saddle or cape cleaned or repaired. Of course, back then it was a little different. Back then, the owner was an old unicorn by the name of Suds, and most of the cleaning was done by hoof with a tub of soapy water and a washboard. It was only in the last few years that the Magitech brand of machinery infused with magic had some to mainstream use.
“Hi there young miss,” came a voice from the back. Trotting over, Twilight saw a middle-aged unicorn mare sitting behind the desk, her horn aglow as she channelled magic into the dozen Magitech washer-dryers in the store. “How can I help…goodness! You jump in a lake or something miss? What happened to you?!”
Twilight quickly tried to wring the water and mud out of her mane as she replied, “Oh, it’s nothing really…I was walking down the street, a carriage came by, there was a puddle…you know how it goes.”
Spin Cycle got to her hooves and hurried into the back room as she called, “Well, you sit right on down and I’ll get you a towel.”
“Huh? Really, it’s no big deal! I just came in to get my saddlebag fixed up…” Twilight tried to say, but the old mare seemed deaf to her protests.
“No really, I insist! Can’t have word going round that I didn’t help out a customer in need.”
Twilight shook her head and smiled as she caught the towel that came hovering through the air. Really, she thought. You’re best friends with the Element of Generosity, you should be used to things like this.
As she finished drying out her hair and fur, she handed the towel back to the old unicorn and picked up her saddlebag. “Thanks very much for that towel.”
She just smiled back. “Not at all, dearie. Now, what was it you were saying? You needed some repairs for your saddlebag, was it?”
“Just a wash and dry, actually.” she replied, levitating the soaked bag into one of the washing machines.
Spin Cycle nodded “No problem. That’ll be five bits, if’n you please.”
Twilight counted out the five golden coins and placed them on the counter “Excellent. How long will it be, do you think?”
“A couple hours, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, it’s alright, I’m not really in any hurry. Just looking to pass the time until the afternoon.” Twilight said, as she wandered absent-mindedly towards the windows in the shop-front.
She gazed out through the windows at the square, largely empty except for a few ponies strolling about. She had spent many long afternoons of her childhood sitting down under the trees, reading some old book or writing down notes and formulae of magic. It was then that her eye was caught by an all-familiar street winding away to the right. She knew that street all too well.
“Hey…that’s the road down to the Aurora District, right?”
“Oh, you mean that little suburb? Yeah, it’s right down that way. Why, you live there?”
Twilight nodded. “I used to. Back when I was just a little filly. Gosh, I never really realised how long it’s been since I paid a visit.”
“You move out of your folks’ home?”
“Yeah.” Twilight continued, “When I joined the Academy. You know Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns?”
Spin Cycle was slightly taken aback. “You went to the Academy?”
“Yeah, but I’m taking a sort of…extended field-trip, I guess you could say. Anyway, the Aurora District…it’s just a quick walk’s distance down there, isn’t it?”
“Yep, about ten minutes trot,” Spin Cycle replied.
“Yeah, that’s a quick walk’s distance,” Twilight said absent-mindedly, opening the door of the shop “Hey, do you mind if I got for a look around while I wait?”
The old mare smiled. “Of course, I’ll hold onto the bag until you get back. Take all the time you need.”
“Thanks.”
Spin Cycle watched as the young violet unicorn trotted across the courtyard and down that winding street on the right, leading to the suburban Aurora District. Chuckling to herself, she channelled another pulse of magic into the washer.
“Funny…Never expected a filly her age to be nostalgic! Ah well, better get back to work.”
As Twilight continued down the long, winding street, she felt a swelling of reminiscence and recognition as she was assailed once again with memory upon memory of her youth in Canterlot. Every brick, every building brought back some old story from those blissful days as a filly. As she rounded a bend, a massive smile of remembrance stretched across her face as she found herself face to face with one of her fondest memories: The old Ice Cream Parlour.
“Still here, after all these years…amazing,” Twilight mused aloud to nopony in particular. She made to just continue on by, down to the suburbs she knew so well. But try as she might, the sights, sounds and smells of the ice-cream parlour seemed to call out to her. Finally her determination broke and, grinning from ear to ear, she trotted through the doors into the parlour.
Twilight was stunned. In all the time she had been away, nothing had changed. Every single little detail was exactly as she remembered it. The rotating stools by the bar, the jukebox over in the corner, playing some chirpy be-bop number, the dozens of different ice-creams in tubs behind the counter. By the counter, dressed in a blue and white striped apron was a thin old stallion, glasses perched upon his moustachioed snout.
“Afternoon, miss. What can I getcha?” he said as Twilight slowly walked to the centre of the parlour. It was almost uncanny how…same everything was.
“Hi sir…” Twilight smiled in reply. But she paused as she got a good look at the old pony. His round glasses, his crinkled smile, his greying coat, mane and moustache that clashed brilliantly with his electric-blue eyes…
“Excuse me, but you seem really familiar…Have you ever been to Ponyville before?” she asked as she clambered up onto the high stools by the bar.
He shook his head. “Can’t say I have, miss…nice country up thataways though. No, I just got that kinda face. So, what’re you hankerin’ for?”
Twilight gazed down into the tubs of ice cream, each colour bringing back a familiar taste in her mouth. Licking her lips, her mind went back to her favourite sweet from her days in the parlour. “Do you still do soda-floats?”
“Soda-floats?” He asked, cocking an ear.
“Yeah, it’s vanilla ice-cream, floating in soda pop, with a little...”
The old pony’s wheezy chuckles cut her off. “Heheh, I know what a soda-float is, missy! I might be old and outta the way a bit, but I’m not that behind the times. So, two scoops or three?”
“Just two, thanks.”
“Chocolate syrup or caramel?”
“Chocolate, please.” Twilight rested her head in her hooves. How long had it been since she last had a soda-float? I must see if Pinkie Pie knows how to make them, she thought.
Clink!
Her mind was brought back as the old pony placed the tall glass on the counter before her. It was exactly as she remembered them: The ice-cream blobs mingling together with the soda into a creamy, bubbly mix, with chocolate-syrup dribbled liberally ontop. Bliss.
“That’ll be thirty cents, miss. Enjoy,” He said as he washed off the ice-cream scoops.
“Thirty cents?!” Twilight was amazed. That little money could barely buy you a potato in Ponyville, let alone an ice-cream!
“Well…if you say so…Gosh, it’s not easy finding low prices like that anymore.”
The waiter frowned slightly. “Really? Where do you get your ice-cream, the Palace or something?”
Twilight smiled as she levitated a spoonful into her mouth. Her eyes closed in bliss as she felt the cold, fizzy mix trickling down her throat. It had been too long. “Mmm…Actually, I used to live down in the Aurora District, just down the road. Then I went to the Academy for a few years, and now I’m living in Ponyville, just south of the city. I’m just up here to visit…Mmm, you do make a good soda-float!”
He smiled contentedly “Glad to hear it, miss.”
For a moment or two there was silence as Twilight eagerly dug into her old favourite treat, and the old stallion went back to cleaning off his scoops and checking the stocks of the sprinkles.
Twilight sighed as she gazed around the shop. How could it have changed so little in so long? “It’s funny, really, the memories you connect with a place…It’s like only yesterday I was here, sitting right in this seat, eating this same soda-float…Heh, If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I can hear old Cherry Garcia in the back room, snoozing away in his chair…”
She closed her eyes briefly in reminiscence, missing the confused look that passed the old stallion’s face. But Twilight snapped out of her reverie quick enough and got up, slurping down the last dregs of fizzy, ice-creamy mess. Her mood considerably lightened, she got up and got out her bag of money once more, leaving a couple golden coins on the counter.
“There you go. Well, so long.”
“…That’s two Bits…” The old waiter muttered, dumbstruck.
But Twilight just smiled as she left. “Yeah, it was worth it. Bye!”
The old stallion watched her leave, trotting down the road towards the suburbs. He stared back at the two Bits that sat on the counter before him. Shrugging, he grasped them with his magic and placed them into the till, muttering to himself, “Hmm…must be an uptown pony to leave a tip like that!”
His shop once again empty, the old stallion returned to checking the stocks and supplies. Knocking gently on the door to the back room, he opened the door to the familiar sight of his boss, Cherry Garcia, fast asleep in his big comfy chair. He nudged him into wakefulness.
“Ahem…Mr Garcia?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re almost out of chocolate sprinkles, sir.”
He grunted and sat up in his chair. “Righto…I’ll place an order for another bag this afternoon.”
“Very good, sir.”
As she continued into the Aurora District, Twilight found endless streams of days gone by flooding her brain. Her wide eyes took in every single detail of the suburban neighbourhood. The trees, the buildings, the sights and sounds. Every single one as if preserved from days gone by.
“Hey! Watch it miss!”
A young voice brought her back to reality as she stumbled to a halt before a young colt, seated on the ground. All around him were dozens of tiny tin figurines of all manner of creatures. Ponies and griffons decked out in armour, dragons, cockatrices, chimeras and endless other monsters
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry! I-I guess I wasn’t really paying attention to the road.”
But the colt waved a hoof “Aww, it’s alright miss. My big brother gets like that sometimes when he thinks about his…” The colt paused a moment to stifle a snicker “…His marefriend. Erm, don’t tell him I talked about that to you, please. He always gets a bit mad when I do.”
Twilight smiled at the young colt. “My lips are sealed… So, what’s going on here?” she added, waving a forehoof over the mass of tin figures.
“Commander Hurricane here is leading the charge against a gang of griffon bandits! But the griffons have a dragon on their side, so it’s not gonna be easy,” the colt said enthusiastically, holding up a tiny figure of an armoured Pegasus rearing up, one foreleg curled around the shaft of a war-standard (Complete with a tiny paper flag), the other pointed forwards, as if silently signalling the charge. Twilight examined it and assumed it was meant to be Commander Hurricane.
“Neat,” she chuckled, “My big brother was obsessed with these figures, as I recall. He had hundreds of them once, and we’d play against eachother in these huge battlegames that went on for days! A pity he had to sell them when he moved out to join the Guard.”
“Your brother’s a royal guard?!” The colt asked, eyes wide with wonder.
Twilight nodded. “Yep. My whole family lives here in Canterlot. Well, except me that is. I’m just visiting from Ponyville. We used to live around here, in this very street…In fact, hold on…”
She got up a moment and peered down the street, carefully looking over each house. A smile slowly grew on her face as she saw it “Right there. That’s where I used to live.” She said, pointing with a hoof to a house about five doors down.
“Oh, the Sparkle Place?” The colt asked, following Twilight’s pointed hoof. The unicorn laughed a moment
“Do they still call it that? Heh, yeah, I used to live there. I’m a Sparkle myself, Twilight Sparkle.”
Suddenly the colt stood up, glaring at Twilight. “What are you talking about? I know Twily Sparkle! You can’t be her, she’s younger than me!”
Twilight stepped back, surprised by the colt’s sudden outburst. “Really? Well, that can’t be right…I mean, my name’s from my mother, but she’s a Velvet, not a Sparkle…You sure her name is…”
But as she looked up, she saw the little pony hurrying into his house, but not before shooting a nervous glare at the lavender unicorn. Or was it a look of accusation? Twilight stared a moment at the closed door, ears cocked in confusion, before shrugging and carrying on down the sidewalk.
“Huh… What was that about?” she asked aloud as she strolled on. “Is there another pony around here with the same name as me? Is it just a coincidence, or… maybe she’s named after me?”
She thought about this for a moment, and then she chuckled. “Well if so, I suppose I should take that as a compliment!”
As she half-seriously dwelt upon the idea of possibly being famous enough to be named after, Twilight continued through the suburb, taking in all the sights and sounds, and the memories as they flooded back.
In minutes, she gazed upon a familiar, and long-missed, sight. On one side of the street, instead of another row of terraced houses, there was a large expanse of green grass, dotted with tall oak trees where she could see dozens of young fillies and colts scampering around the trunks, some of the braver earth ponies and unicorns attempting to clamber their way up to the branches, where young pegasi perched waiting for them. A nostalgic smile on her face, Twilight wandered down the gravel pathways that criss-crossed the park, passing trees, lamp-posts, and the occasional bench where parents sat, watching their foals playing.
“Rosey! Oh Rosey, come down from there! You’ll hurt yourself!”
Her attention was caught as she passed a particularly large tree, with many dense branches high up. Near its trunk stood a middle-aged earth-pony mare, who was gazing up at the tree with a nervous frown. “Would you just come down Rosey?!”
Up above her, Twilight could see a pony up among the dense branches, almost ten feet off the ground. It was an earth-pony too, with a messy white mane and bright pink coat. As she clung to a branch, she gazed down at the ground, looking just as nervous as her mother. “I’m stuck, mommy!” she shouted.
Her mother looked around in desperation. “Well, you know you shouldn’t climb trees like that if you can’t get back down! If you were meant to be off the ground, you’d have been born a pegasus!”
Twilight watched the exchange, as the mother milled about below the tree, eyes riveted on her daughter, who kept a firm grip on the thick branch. With all the other ponies up in the trees, nopony seemed to notice the dilemma, so the unicorn left the path and trotted on over.
“Excuse me, ma’am? What seems to be the problem?” she asked the mother.
She looked at Twilight, and then pointed up to the filly in the tree. “My little Rosey had the bright idea of climbing up into that tree, and now she can’t get back down! Please, if there’s anything you can do…”
“Don’t sorry ma’am,” Twilight replied. “As a matter of fact, I think there is something I can do.”
Closing her eyes, she began powering up her horn, channelling all her energy into a single focused point. Her horn began to glow with a magenta aura, the same aura that now surrounded the little filly in the tree. She started to struggle a moment, but Twilight called out to her, “Try not to move. It’s okay, I’m just getting you down.”
Finally, the magic surrounding the little pony was enough to lift her right off the branch and into the air. With skill born of experience, Twilight slowly let the filly down until her hooves touched the grass.
“Oh thank you, thank you!” The filly’s mother cried as she rushed to comfort her. “You had me worried sick, you did!”
“Aww, c’mon mom, it was just a tree!”
But the pony was having none of it. “Well, I don’t want you up in the trees anymore, or we’re going home. Now run along and find your friends, they’re probably looking for you.”
Rosey nodded, letting go and heading back into the park. Her mother called, “And don’t let me catch you in any more trees, you hear?”
“I won’t,” the filly replied. As she passed Twilight, the unicorn could just hear her add, “Let you see.”
Twilight chuckled. The mare smiled at her gratefully. “Oh thanks again for getting her down. Honestly, little Rosey just gets me so frazzled sometimes, I don’t know what I’ll do with her!”
“Well, don’t be too hard on her,” Twilight replied. “It’s just what little fillies and colts do, be adventurous, take risks. And if they get hurt, heaven forbid, they’re young enough to just pick themselves up and carry on. I guess that to her, that sense of adventure means clambering about in the trees.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” the mare replied.
Twilight smiled. “Well, kinda. I studied a lot of magic when I was little, and I admit, a few of those spells were a bit… shall we say, above me? But I guess it’s just part of growing up. I’m Twilight, by the way. Twilight Sparkle.”
The unicorn raised a forehoof, which was met by the mare’s. “I’m Melody. You live around here?”
Twilight nodded. “Well, I used to, back when I was young. My family’s house was just a few blocks back down that road… It’s remarkable though, it’s been almost a decade since I was here last. I guess after I got into the magic school, I didn’t really have much time to spend in the park.”
“I guess I can understand that. From what my friends say, those unicorn magic schools are pretty heavy with their workloads.”
“You got that right!” Twilight laughed. “I was so set on studying and learning as much as I could, I didn't have time for much else; playing, hanging out with friends..."
Her smile fell a tiny amount for a moment, as she mused on all those bright, sunny days she would spend cooped up in her bedroom or the library, while all the other little fillies were out enjoying themselves. "...Gosh, I missed out on alot when I was that age," she muttered. She quickly pushd te thoght from her mind and continued walking. "Still, the familiarity of it all… it’s almost uncanny. I still remember so much of it. That swing set over there, my mom used to push me on that all the time!”
"Oh yes, Rosey loves those swings too," replied Melody.
Her eye was caught then by a small pavilion near the centre of the park. “Oh, and the bandstand! Boy, that brings back memories. My family and I, we’d sit out on the green and listen to band concerts in the evening.”
She and Melody strolled down the path together, heading towards that very bandstand.
“I remember, one day I was out here studying some new spells I’d learnt,” Twilight continued. “Nopony was around, so I decided to be a bit daring with one spell I’d just learnt. I cut my name into the side of the bandstand, just below the…”
But as they came to the bandstand, Twilight felt her words die in her mouth. She saw, seated by the side of the pavilion a little unicorn filly, surrounded by a small sack of books. Twilight’s eyes grew wide as she took more and more of the filly in. The lavender fur, the dark purple hair with violet and pink streaks, even the way the filly sat was similar! Size and age-difference aside, the little unicorn filly was a perfect copy.
Twilight stood frozen to the spot, shocked at the impossible little pony she saw. As her mind frantically tried to rationalise what she saw as some sort of bizarre coincidence, her pupils became pinpricks as she read aloud the name that the little filly had magically carved into the side of the bandstand:
“Twilight...Sparkle."
