One year. It has been one year since you first saw her, since she came to Ponyville; the mare of your dreams. You were tired of admiring her from afar, and you decided today was the day. Today, she would know how you feel.
----One Year Ago----
It was a normal day, as normal as a day can be in Ponyville that is. The whole town was hard at work, helping set up for the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration that was being held tomorrow. Although you didn’t have any of the big jobs like Rarity, Applejack or Rainbow Dash did, you wanted to help out in any way you could. You had already helped clean the square, and later you were going to help Applejack with some applebucking. It was funny, the whole town was in a huge rush to complete preparations and you were bored out of your ever loving mind, passing time by sitting in the town square waiting to go do something. You had to admit though, there wasn’t much a simple earth pony like yourself could do. At least what they required wasn’t your special talent. You glance back at your flank, your writing cutie mark seeming to stare back at you. If it had a face, it would definitely be smirking at your frustration. Although you relished in the fact you could create magnificent stories and put them to paper, you still couldn’t help but feel a little useless at times like these.
You sat in the square, the day passing like any other would for you; relatively peacefully and calmly. You didn’t think anything special would happen today. No, all of the fun would be had tomorrow, when the Princess herself would raise the sun in Ponyville instead of Canterlot. That day would be one big party, although you weren’t sure if it could hold a candle to one of Pinkie Pie’s parties. She did throw some pretty awesome parties after all. That was until you heard the clopping of hooves on cobblestone and the unfamiliar sound of a carriage as well. You turned to see what the commotion was about only to have your jaw drop. A ROYAL carriage was what made the commotion. Panicking, you prepared to bow to who you could only assume was the Princess before seeing who stepped off of the carriage.
Stepping off of the carriage was a unicorn, but you didn’t see her that way. To you, what stepped off the carriage was the image of perfection. Your heart soared as your eyes drank in everything they could about her; her lavender coat, her delicate form, and her distinctive cutie mark. You rushed your eyes away from that last one, no need to go creeping out somepony so beautiful if you were caught admiring her. Her mane fascinated you, the dark color only broken by the pink and purple stripes that ran through it, parting where it met her horn. She looked beautiful. She looked professional. She looked…really annoyed for some reason.
You were so busy admiring her, you didn’t see her companion jump off of the carriage with her; a little purple and green dragon. When you did notice however, you had to suppress a yelp of surprise. The carriage had taken off by now, leaving the unicorn and dragon alone. They seemed to be talking, although you were too far away to hear anything. As frustrated as you were that you couldn’t hear them, you did notice Pinkie Pie walking up to the unicorn. For half a second that is, then the strange pink pony did an aerial gasp before dashing away. You smirked, knowing Pinkie she was already throwing together a party for the new pony. Glancing at the clock tower nearby, you yourself almost did the same gasp Pinkie just did. You were late to help Applejack with applebucking. Regretfully you tore your gaze away from the unicorn and bolted over to Sweet Apple Acres.
Upon arriving to said apple farm, you were relieved to find Applejack was not mad at you. But she did tell you she was sorry that there wasn’t much you could do to help. She did offer to let you buck a few trees while she talked to some important pony who was coming soon to check on their preparations for the celebration. Of course you agreed to this proposal; anything was better than sitting around the square all day. Trotting over to your first tree, you watched Applejack buck a few more trees near the farm entrance, obviously passing time until the important pony arrived.
With a sigh you braced your body for the first kick on the tree. Your hooves landed with a satisfying thump, but since you were no Apple family pony, only a few apples decided to heed your meager strength. Your second buck proved a little more powerful, as half of the apples in the tree fell into the baskets laid around it. As you wound up for what was going to be your last buck, your eyes caught sight of the guest Applejack had been expecting. What you didn’t expect though was it to be the same unicorn you saw in the square. You froze mid buck, your jaw dropping as far as physically possible. You couldn’t believe it, not only was she beautiful, but apparently she was very important to be sent by the Princess herself. Your thoughts were interrupted however by your face meeting the ground. In your love struck stupor, you forgot to either stop or finish your buck and instead opted to stand on your not-so-strong forelegs only.
By the time you picked yourself up from the ground, the unicorn seemed to be surrounded by the entire Apple family, where all you could see was the very tip of her horn. With a sigh, you managed to get back to work, getting three more trees bucked before Applejack came to relieve you. Not wanting to see you so downhearted, she mentioned that Rarity could use some help carrying some supplies from her shop to the Town Hall. This news did cheer you up some, as you thanked the orange mare and cantered over to the Carousel Boutique quickly, only pausing to note a peculiar (but nonetheless familiar) rainbow-colored tornado on your way. Rainbow Dash’s antics aside, you arrived at the shop and found the box Rarity wanted near the door. It seemed to be full of ribbons and other lacy decorations; just the kind of thing Rarity would be using of course.
Making your way back to town hall was uneventful, and for once you weren’t going slack jawed because of a certain unicorn showing up. And a bittersweet victory that was; sure you looked like an idiot when she was around, but at least you were a happy idiot. Daydreaming aside, you finally made it to your destination. Walking inside, with box in tow, you were greeted then unceremoniously shooed out by Rarity, her going on about it needing to be perfect and her having to be “in the zone, as it were.” She slammed the door behind you without as much as a thank you being thrown your way. You were a little put off by her rudeness, but you actually understood that she of all ponies would feel the stress of such a high class guest coming. You were walking away from town hall when your wandering eyes caught sight of the unicorn again, this time heading to Town Hall. Your legs locked, but thankfully you stopped moving so you didn’t end up meeting the ground again. You were still awestruck at her beauty, but you had to try your hardest not to laugh at her mane, which was now comparable to a bird nest. Obviously Rainbow Dash’s famous “Rain-blow Dry” had gotten to her.
Once she disappeared into the building you turned to head back to the square, only to have your vision full of pink. Or more specifically, full of Pinkie Pie. She presented you with a sealed envelope (no doubt a party invitation) and zipped away before you could say anything. Sure enough, the envelope did in fact contain a party invitation for the new unicorn in town. It was a surprise party to be held at the library of all places. So with a smile you galloped the distance to the library to help set up, or just sit there and wait. You know, whichever was needed the most.
It was late into the night now. The unicorn (whose name you just found out was Twilight Sparkle) was indeed surprised by the party, but she didn’t seem too thrilled about it. All she had done was get verbally mobbed by Pinkie Pie, drink a glass of hot sauce (ok, you had to admit that one was funny) and then storm upstairs. The only new pony in town seeming to have fun wasn’t even a pony. The baby dragon (whose name you also found out; Spike) was dancing the night away and ogling at Rarity. Poor little guy, he probably thinks his crush is some big secret from everypony. You found yourself playing the role of a wallflower the whole night, mainly observing the rest of the ponies with your punch glass nearby. The only interruptions were Berry Punch, who had brought her own “special” punch and was now stumbling around like she had no bones, and Pinkie Pie, who was going about making sure everypony was happy. As much as you tried to enjoy the party, your eyes were always being drawn to the set of stairs Twilight Sparkle ascended a while ago, wondering if she was ok. But you being the cowardly romantic you are, you never bothered once to go see if she was alright. Instead you tortured yourself with all the worst case scenarios you could think of before somepony announced it was time for Celestia to raise the sun.
You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Nightmare Moon, a mare that was only supposed to exist in legends and ghost stories, was standing before the entire populace of Ponyville. As if things couldn’t get any worse, she had marenapped Princess Celestia and Twilight had gone after her, only being pursued by five other mares. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie; friends in a loose definition of the word, but all seemed determined to get to the bottom of this. Well except Pinkie Pie, she seemed determined and…whatever else she normally is. Bouncy? Anyway, you were left in Town Hall, where Mayor Mare was trying to keep everypony calm. That was a losing battle, especially since all of them seemed to be reacting the same way you were; completely and totally panicked. I mean, NIGHTMARE MOON was back!
You should have gone after her, you really should have. How can you have let the mare of your dreams chase a creature of nightmare? You should have gone and done something, or at least stopped her from leaving. But no, you were a cowardly and foalish colt too wrapped up in what he was feeling to care about anypony else at the time. You still kick yourself for that to this day. All you could do was wait and pray to Celestia that everything would be ok.
Your wish came true soon afterwards, as the sun rose above the mountains and not long after, Princess Celestia, Twilight, and the other ponies were riding into town on a carriage. There was even another pony you did not recognize, and she was an alicorn! Her name was Princess Luna, Nightmare Moon no longer, and she was welcomed into Ponyville the only way anypony is; a Pinkie Pie party. Finding out the details from the Princess’ account, it was Twilight (her faithful student!?) and her new friends (they were all true friends now) had used the Elements of Harmony (whatever those were) to cleanse Luna from the evil of Nightmare Moon. Long story short, Twilight was the savior of Equestria, the personal protégé of Princess Celestia, and completely out of your league. Perfect. The only good news coming out of this was that she would be living in Ponyville from now on and take on the role of the town’s librarian. A welcome bit of news, not only because the mare of your dreams would be living in town, but it also mean you and Cheerilee would have somepony else to talk about literature with. Ok, lame reason to be happy but whatever works for you right?
As time passed, Ponyville became more and more interesting with Twilight and her friends around. Parasprite infestations, dragons threatening to suffocate everypony, a very disastrous Winter Wrap Up, and an appalling fashion show. All caused and/or taken care of by the six pony friends. All made you realize just how amazing Twilight was. All making you frustrated that you couldn’t tell her how you felt. Oh you tried, you definitely tried, but each time you had psyched yourself up to go talk to her at the library all that happened was you checked out a book and bolted without saying more than the title of the stupid thing.
And so you vented your feelings and desires the one way you knew how. You began to write, it was your special talent after all. You wrote stories of romance, loss, death, adventure, humor. Anything and everything became a subject, although some of your favorite works were events that happened in Ponyville. Events involving a certain lavender unicorn that worked at the library. You know, Twilight Sparkle? As the year went by, you wrote more and more stories but you dared not publish them for anypony to see. These were personal, special, almost like a diary but not nearly as feminine. And so the year went by, until the light bulb in your head clicked; you knew exactly how to tell her. That was one week ago.
-----Present Day-----
Confident; that’s how you felt as you approached the library that day. In your saddlebag was something you deemed so important, so personal that you vowed never to let anypony else see it as long as you lived, maybe even longer. But you decided that it was the only way, and not even the Princess herself could talk you out of it, however foalish or insane it may be. Trotting up to the familiar door of the library, you knock and are greeted by the lovely unicorn. Thankfully, time has granted you the ability to look calm around her now rather than lock up like an idiot. You greet her, present her a book. Not just any book, but a book filled with the stories you had written in the past year; a book where nopony but you could really appreciate the emotional strain that you went through to write it. A book that you are now nearing the end of, Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle, you no doubt have figured out what inspired the story you are now reading, and being the smart mare you are, you no doubt know where I may be going with this. This is the only way I could ever let you know how much you mean to me, even though I had only been able to admire you from afar without looking like a complete foal. You have always been a source of inspiration for me and my stories ever since you came to live in Ponyville, and your beauty has never ceased to amaze me in the year that I have known you. I am not the best pony with words, so I guess what I’m asking is, Twilight Sparkle, will you do me the honor of letting me take you out on a date?
Signed,
--Arthur Novella—