> Statistically The Worst Birthday Ever
>  by Seer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Twilight's Day, or: 93 Friendship Ave. B Blues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight awoke at precisely 8:00 in the morning. She didn't wake at 7:50, she didn't wake at 8:01, she didn't wake at 8:00:01. No. Twilight woke at exactly 8:00 in the morning, because that was what the schedule dictated. She couldn't deviate from the schedule, not today. Not any day really, but especially not today. There were nine of these days that she had to prepare for, spread reasonably equally over the year. 

This day was a birthday, and it was likely to cause nothing but stress, anguish, psychotic episodes and suicidal tendencies... unless you were the one whose birthday it was. If that was the case then it was probably going to be nothing but sunshine and rainbows and that feeling you get when you find a five pound note on the floor and didn't see anyone drop it so you don't feel guilty about keeping it despite the fact that you know it was probably a pensioner's.

Today was Rarity's birthday, and she had specifically asked for a low-key get together with her closest friends. At first Twilight had been ecstatic, her fellow unicorn was usually so fussy. However this time she had forgone the usual plans to rent a hall in Canterlot and for everypony to don dresses so formal and expensive that they were all but guaranteed to get permanent cake-stains. Pinkie had needed some convincing to keep it no-fuss, but once that was sorted, it seemed all Twilight needed to do was sort out a nice present for her friend and the day would run smoothly. 

But then she started to think about it more. She'd had lots of assignments from the princess recently and there'd been a few more world-threatening crises than usual this month. Twilight was tired, and a low-key, no-stress get-together was perfect. Too perfect. It was all far too perfect. This, of course, meant that this day was bound to become the most high-key, all-the-stress day in the entire history of time. Hence the anguish, psychotic episodes, suicidal tendencies etc. 

So, with the knowledge that things were most likely to bite you on the arse when you either overstress about them, or act too laid-back, Twilight had prepared a two-pronged attack. She had decided to remain calm enough not to overstress, but had also regimented herself to a schedule as to not be too laid-back. Nothing was going to get her to deviate from this schedule. Nothing. No matter what. If she were to lose a leg at this very precise moment, she'd have a shower before contacting any medical professionals. Because right now it was 8:02, and that was shower time. Not hospital time.

The unicorn rose from her bed and stretched. She started towards her bathroom door, but, to her dismay, she noticed Spike was still asleep. Next to him was a large, blackened lump of molten plastic. Her face reddened and she stomped over to his basket. 

"Spike!" The dragon yelped and sat bolt upright, regarding the room with fearful, sleep-heavy eyes. His gaze fell on his care-taker, who was standing over him with an angry pout. 

"Urgh, what the hay Twilight? It's like five in the morning," 

"It's EIGHT, in the morning. What did I tell you about incinerating your alarm clocks?" she demanded.

"But they're loud!" he moaned in retort. 

"Spike, you need to go downstairs and get breakfast ready, OK? That is what the schedule says! You're making me stress right now! And you're not adhering to the schedule. Do you know what happens when we stress and don't adhere to the schedule?" Spike went to answer but was immediately cut off, "That's right! The days goes to ruin, Rarity stops being friends with us, thus nullifying the elements of harmony, so when the next threat to the world comes along... we all die! Is that what you want Spike? For us all to die?!"

"Okay!" He shouted, "Fine! To stop us all from dying, I'll go downstairs and make two breakfasts." Twilight immediately calmed. 

"Why thank you Spike," she trotted away from the dragon, who regarded her with a look of indignation. 

"Have you been doing those breathing exercises Dr. Mind gave you Twilight?" The unicorn wheeled round with her horn lit. Beside her, a piece of parchment phased from the aether. 

"Spike, do you see breathing exercises anywhere on the schedule? It says right here that..." Twilight stared at the paper, her look of concentration quickly became one of horror, "Oh no! I'm a minute late! Spike, go and make the breakfast!" With that she hurried into the bathroom. Thanks to a quick light of her horn, the water was already running before the door was closed. The pulled the sliding door to the side and leapt under the hot stream. 

If she cut out all of the most enjoyable parts of her shower, such as singing loudly and winning arguments that she'd had months ago, Twilight knew she could easily get back on schedule.

It was going to be a long day.





True to his word, by the time Twilight trotted down the stairs Spike had breakfast ready. He tolerated her panicking all throughout the meal without any sarcasm. He even offered to wash up all by himself to allow Twilight time to double, triple, quadruple and that word that meant fifth time that no-one knows apply the final touches to Rarity's present. 

When she had told Fluttershy what she had planned, the pegasus had offered to accompany her to Canterlot to procure the services of a professional calligrapher. Twilight would have quite liked to do it herself, but she knew that Rarity had a taste for the finer things in life. The result had been a elegant book of personalised vouchers. They were redeemable for various services the unicorn would appreciate. 'Voucher holder is entitled to a trip to the spa with Twilight', 'Voucher holder is entitled to a day of Twilight modelling dresses', 'Voucher holder is entitled to give Twilight one make-over'. While the booklet had turned out lovely, she had been determined to give it at least a small personal flair. 

Twilight wasn't the biggest fan of makeovers or modelling dresses, not one bit. But she loved spending time with Rarity. Despite their differences, or maybe even due to them, she and the other unicorn were perhaps the closest pair in the group. That was why Twilight would give her this coupon book, and hope what she working on now went down right. She admired the voucher she had spend the last half an hour making. It was aesthetically terrible in comparison to the others. While her writing was impeccable she was no artist, and so the designs were wonky and the drawings were mediocre at best. The laughable crayon depictions of the two of them could have passed for something a foal brought home from school. Twilight smiled. 

It was perfect. 

It wasn't wrapped-up yet. Everyone agreed to do that at Pinkie's while they set up. Pinkie had more than enough, and, without trying to offend, Twilight knew that some of her friends were less than satisfactory in that department. Many a time had Rainbow Dash given a gift of a bottle of expensive spirits, only to have the recipient say 'Oh wow! Is it a bike?'. Taking a steadying breath and a moment to convince herself this wasn't going to backfire spectacularly, she took the plunge and slipped the personalised voucher into the back of the book.

Twilight packed up her saddlebags and looked at the clock. It was quarter past nine. Plenty of time. She took another calming breath as reassurance. The unicorn trotted back into the living room and sat down. She had fifteen minutes before she had to leave. Twilight thought of Spike. There he was, washing up after making them a delicious meal. He hadn't whined or complained at all. She smiled, her little guy was really growing up. 

He'd been so good to her all morning, and that was what made this next part feel so questionable.

"Spike," she called through to the kitchen. The sound of the tap cut off and a Spike appeared in the doorway. 

"Yeah Twilight?" He replied. She lounged in the chair while inspecting a hoof idly. The overreaching attempt to portray nonchalance didn't even come close to fooling the dragon.

"Decorating eh? So boring..." 

"What do you want?" he jumped straight to the point.

"Me, I was simply going to offer you a way out of helping with setting up all of those fiddly party decorations," she replied with feigned innocence. 

"Oh, so this is about me?" he asked,

"Of course Spike, why don't you-"

"No thanks." Twilight's eyes snapped to meet his.

"Come again," said the unicorn, 

"It's fine," he said with a smirk, "I like setting up the decorations. But thanks for thinking of me Twilight," he turned to go back into the kitchen. But Twilight called after him.

"Spike... fine. I'm sorry, I need your help." he stopped and turned.

"Fine, what do you need?" at that moment, there was a knock on the door. Twilight felt her blood run cold, she forced a smile onto her face.

"Spike, you love me right? You'd always help me out... right?" 

"Where's this going?" he replied suspiciously. The knocking grew louder. 

"Ok, I'll level with you. That's the cutie mark crusaders at the door. We can't have them messing up all of the decorations, so Applejack and I suggested they go and pick some nice wild flowers and make Rarity a birthday bouquet. But they're going to need supervising and..." she trailed off. Spike looked at her blankly for a few seconds. 

"...Go to hell," he turned around to go back into the kitchen. Twilight launched herself to his feet. 

"Please Spike, we need this to go well!"

"So watch them yourself!" he cried.

"I can't! I need to go and set up at Sugarcube Corner!" she babbled desperately, wincing when she heard the words 'Miss Twilight?' from behind the door.  

"How about you watch them, and I go to Sugarcube Corner," he replied. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, that was until Twilight decided to do what we all do when push comes to shove. Bribe a child.

"Spike, the idea of watching them terrifies me. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, so I'll make it worth your while. Twenty five bits."

"Fifty bits," Spike replied without missing a beat. 

"Twenty five bits and ten gems." 

"Fifty bits and ten gems," he retorted calmly. 

"Hold on, you're haggling up, that's not the way this is supposed to-"

"Seventy five bits and fifteen gems, and if this escalates to anything other than simple flower picking I'm out. Deal?" Twilight was stunned silent. She quietly seethed at Spike's expression. Provocative, one brow raised, confident, knowing. 

"...Fine," she replied sulkily. Spike nodded and went to the front door. He took a deep breath before opening it. Standing before him were the cutie mark crusaders, each was grinning widely with a basket in their teeth. Applebloom placed hers on the floor to speak. 

"We've been knocking for two minutes, did y'all not hear?" 

"...Something like that," Spike deadpanned. Twilight picked herself off of the floor and went to the door. 

"Okay girls, the party starts at eleven, so you need to be finished, dressed and at Sugarcube Corner by then," they each nodded, 

"Where's your basket Mr. Spike?" the dragon in question turned to his caretaker, who smiled nervously at him. 

"Well it seems you've had this planned out for a while," he muttered darkly, before turning to the three fillies, "I've already gotten Rarity a present. Speaking of which, do you have yours Twilight?"

"Already in my saddle-bag. Have fun girls, remember that Spike's in charge." Each of the foals nodded excitedly. They turned and tore down the street. Spike watched them before turning to the unicorn. 

"Remember Twilight, the minute this goes past flower picking, I'm out," 

"Oh Spike, what's the worst that could-" he slapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish. She was about to glare at him, but what she had almost said dawned on her. That was a close one. The dragon said his goodbyes and took off after the crusaders. 

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief and locked the library door. She was right on schedule. She magicked up the parchment once again and crossed 'Bribe/Blackmail Spike' off. It was time to head to Sugarcube Corner. 





When the unicorn arrived, only Pinkie and Rainbow Dash were there. The earth pony was setting up decorations, which were surprisingly and pleasantly reserved by Pinkie standards. Dash on the other hand was sitting on the settee, nervously twiddling her hooves while staring at her saddlebag like it was an active hand-grenade. 

Pinkie shouted a hello to the unicorn without looking away from her task. Dash's head snapped up and she smiled anxiously at Twilight. The librarian decided to see what was wrong with her pegasus friend before helping Pinkie with the décor.

"Hey Rainbow, is something wrong?" the speedster didn't reply. She only looked up from her lap at the saddlebag, before returning to her twiddling. 

"What's in your saddlebag? Is that what's bothering you?" 

"It's my present for Rares," Dash said quietly.

"Oh Rainbow, I'm sure she'll love your present." Twilight said reassuringly. Dash looked up at her friend, 

"No, it's not that. It's just... I can't relax until it's wrapped up." 

"Well, why don't you wrap it?" Twilight replied, only to be cut off by Rainbow's desperate reply. 

"No! You know I can't wrap stuff Twi', especially not after... I can't get her face out of my mind, you know? I've never seen disappointment like that before." Twilight grimaced. 

"Rainbow, you need to forget her, it wasn't your fault. And if it's bothering you this much, one of us will wrap it for you." Rainbow looked at Twilight and smiled, "What did you get her anyway?" 

"Oh! It's great, I know she's going to love it!" the pegasus said excitedly. She rummaged around in her saddlebag and withdrew the present, which she passed to Twilight. The unicorn eyed the gift, it was a framed headshot of Rainbow Dash, who was wearing a cocky grin. The photograph had some writing on it, which Twilight read aloud.

"Never stop dreaming. From your hero, Rainbow Dash... Let me get this straight. You're worried about the wrapping paper being the thing that disappoints Rarity?" 

"Why?" Dash asked and snatched the photo back, "Don't you think it captures my good side?" Twilight stared, dumbfounded, at her friend for a few seconds, before sighing and pinching the bridge of her snout. 

"No. It captures your good side. I'm sure she'll love it." 

"Rad!" Rainbow squealed happily. 

"Pinkie," Twilight decided to leave this conversation before the compulsion to slap the pegasus overtook her, "I've got something for you." The earth pony was down from the ladder in a second. 

"Oooh! What is it? Wait! Don't tell me! Is it an animal, mineral or vegetable... oh what am I talking about of course it's a vegeta-" Twilight lightly pressed a hoof to the excitable pony's lips. 

"It's a wand," Twilight levitated a small black stick from her saddlebag. "I know you wanted me to perform the firework charm on the birthday candles, but I figured the cake was better in your hooves, plus I probably need to get mine and Rainbow's presents wrapped up. I've enchanted this to perform the spell, all you need to do is point it at a candle with an idea of the size of the fireworks, the wand will do the rest." Twilight explained. To demonstrate, she aimed the wand at her hoof. The end of the stick lit up, creating a minature firework display on the end of her foreleg.

"You can blow them out just like a normal candle okay?," she demonstrated once again, snuffing out the fireworks out with a small breath.

"Gotcha Twilight!" Pinkie beamed.

"Now hold on, you need to remember to think small Pinkie. Don't overdo it, or it could ruin the cake." 

"Ruin the cake?! But that would spoil the party!" Pinkie gasped, "Don't worry Twilight, Pinkamena Diane Pie doesn't ruin parties," the  pink pony saluted before taking the wand from Twilight. She hurried into the kitchen in a pink blur, leaving Twilight and Dash in the living room. 

"So, how about you take over the decorating, and I'll start wrapping up the presents Rainbow?" 

"Paper's in cupboard!" Pinkie shouted through from the kitchen. Twilight nodded to herself. She clopped over to the cupboard at a leisurely pace. She opened the door, finding several rolls stacked up. They reminded her the reams of fabric at Carousel boutique, sans any elegance. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinising each different technicoloured sheet. There was paper covered in smiling suns, paper with balloon designs, paper with 'Happy Birthday!' written on it in about a hundred different fonts. It was a bit overbearing.

In the end, Twilight narrowed it down to five different rolls. A different for each of her friends to use. She had decided to leave the more garish designs in favour of designs she thought would fit Rarity better. There was a sparkling gold roll, as well as a silver. There was a roll covered in art-deco designs of dresses, as well as one covered in gem designs, and finally, a Happy Birthday roll with more elegant script than the childish status-quo.

The unicorn turned back to the settee, ready to make a start. She sat down and retrieved the spell book from her saddle bag, however her ears flicked. The tell-tale rustling of banners had stopped. Twilight turned to find Rainbow looking at her from atop the ladder. 

"Um, Twi'... would you mind maybe, wrapping mine first?" she said with uncharacteristic shyness. Twilight couldn't find it in her heart to possibly refuse her friend. 

"Sure Rainbow," the pegasus smiled thankfully and got back to her work. The two of them fell into an easy, relaxed rhythm. The only sounds to be heard were the crinkling of paper and the creaking of the ladder. 





"Howdy gals!" Twilight and Rainbow had been working in silence for the past twenty minutes. However the sound of their friends voice snapped them from their concentration, both looked up to find Applejack stood in the threshold, "The place looks great!"

She was wearing a large grin, and was dragging a wagon full of party food. In fact full was an understatement. The food was piled in a skyscraper of sugar and soon-to-be dental horror stories. Apple fritters, fairy-cakes, brownies, slices of pie. If you could name it, and it was liable to increase your chances of a horrifying heart disease related death, chances were it was somewhere in that wagon.

"Of course it looks awesome, it's only got the most awesome pony in Equestria decorating it," Rainbow Dash boasted, drawing laughs from her friends.

"Second most awesome today Dash," Twilight chided mockingly, "It's Rarity's birthday after all."  

"Hey Twi', would you mind wrapping up mah present for Rares?" Applejack asked politely,

"Sure AJ, that's fine." She replied. Applejack said a quick thanks and reached into her saddlebag. She withdrew a large leather-bound bok. Twilight smiled upon seeing it, she had helped the farmer track it down and was sure Rarity was going to love it. Though as selfish as it sounded, she really hoped it wouldn't end up being her favourite present of the day. She checked the wrapping on the book of vouchers for what felt like the tenth time. 

"Is Pinkie around? I promised I'd help her finishing off the cake," Appleack piped up through the industrious silence that had once again descended. 

"Yep, she's in the kitchen," Dash replied. The farm-pony said her thanks and trotted through. Applejack's present, being the size and shape it was, proved very easy to wrap. In under a minute the small book was encased in gleaming golden paper. 

Twilight had almost finished wrapping up the presents. Rainbow's, her's, Applejack's and Pinkie's sat in a nice, neat pile beside her. However, she had saved the biggest challenge until last. Fluttershy had decided to send her present down with Rainbow, and Twilight had almost no idea where to even start with it. The pegasus had gotten her friend an elegant looking music box, which, when opened, featured a magical apparition of a group of ballerinas dancing to a swirling, orchestral tune. 

It was no doubt it was a lovely gift, but the extravagant ornamental decor made the whole package difficult to wrap. Every time pressure was put on one of the swirling, porcelain designs, the paper would tear and Twilight would have to start again. She whined in frustration after the third unsuccessful time. Rainbow, on the other hand, kept her eyes firmly forward and pretended not to notice Twilight's frequent and increasingly strained profanity. 

After about ten minutes of this though, Twilight finally seemed to calm down. It had taken all of her knowledge of maths and physics, but the music box was finally wrapped up nicely. She set it down carefully with the other gifts and admired her work with a smile. A check of her parchment once again confirmed that she was right on schedule, and all while staying in her self-imposed sweet-spot between the carefree and the hard-working. However, something still wasn't quite right. 

In all of her years as a librarian, student and pedant, Twilight had gotten quite the discerning eye. Not quite as scrutinising as that of the birthday girl, but it was still enough to notice the flap of paper sticking up on Applejack's gift. She breathed a sigh of relief, Twilight had been expecting it to be that infernal music box again. Luckily this was nothing a small piece of sellotape couldn't fix. 

Before she could reach for the package though, a green mist appeared. It swirled in on itself a few times, and eventually a scroll materialised from it's confines. Spike. Twilight stood and stretched. Magically summoning her schedule, she discovered they were a few minutes ahead of time. She could easily take a little break in that case.

"Rainbow, I've just got to read this letter from Spike, could you just sellotape that paper down on AJ's gift?" Dash tensed, and swirled around in the air to face her friend. 

"Um, do you really think that's a good idea Twilight?"

"Rainbow, all you need to do is sellotape that one corner down. I'm not asking you to wrap the whole present," the unicorn replied with a frown. 

"Okay fine, but if something goes wrong then-" 

"Nothing's going to go wrong Dash," Twilight said forcefully. She turned tail and trotted into the other room, satisfied to hear the sound of Rainbow touching down. She looked out of the window onto Ponyville, the day was glorious. This was all she needed to do. Stay relaxed, but keep to the schedule, then everything would go fine. 

She unfurled the parchment from Spike and began to read. 

Dear Twilight,

What did I tell you? I said that the minute this goes past picking flowers, I was done.
Well guess what happened? It went straight past that. Straight flower picking and into... I don't even know.
I'm washing my hands of this, literally. If you were here you'd know that I just literally washed my hands of this. In a stream. We're near a stream.  
I'm going to meet Rarity, see you at the party.

Spike.

Twilight's magenta magic flickered and then failed. Her hooves were shaking. It was happening, it was starting to go wrong... No! No she wouldn't panic, this was just one thing! And everypony expects the cutie mark crusaders to mess up anyway. This wasn't surprising, this was manageable. So long as Twilight, stayed totally, completely, calm. 

That was the main thing! Don't stress! Because if she did that then the party would be ruined. And if the party was ruined then, as she had told Spike earlier, there was a good chance that she and everypony in Equestria would die! Twilight steadied herself on the window ledge, while trying and failing to suppress the nervous, hot ball of stress that had materialised in her stomach. 

"Umm Twilight?" the unicorn's ear flicked at the sound of a soft voice from behind her. The librarian turned to find Fluttershy, who spoke again before Twilight could greet her. 

"Something's gone wrong," Fluttershy said, and Twilight's mouth went dry. She didn't answer. That was more than one issue now. And, as everyone knows, if more than one thing has gone wrong, then everything had gone wrong. It was happening. This was it, this was the end. Game over man! Game over! Fluttershy ran over to her friend and said something that Twilight didn't hear, everything sounded like she was underwater. The unicorn could just about make out that Fluttershy was talking about the spa. 

At no point on the schedule were problems. She had failed to make any allowances for failure, she didn't want to get too worked up! That's one of the ways it gets you! A thousand different scenarios played through the unicorns fraught mind. She needed to calm down, this could still be salvaged. 

She could send Fluttershy to find the CMC and she could fix whatever the other problem was, she just needed to calm down and listen, this could be fixed. Everything would be okay as long as she just, calmed, down!

Then the kitchen exploded.
> Applejack's Day, or: "That Sacred Night! Where We Watched the Fireworks!"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack didn't need the cockerel to wake her. Every day she was up and working long before it even started the trial runs. Much different. She'd be out in the fields bucking trees before the sun Celestia herself rose, but today was a little different than usual. She was still up early, and she was still working, but working meant something other than tending to the farm. Today she found herself at her desk, after getting out of the bath no less.

The farmer usually just had a quick run underneath the shower head before heading out onto the grounds. This day, however, required something a little more special. She'd even secretly gone to the shops to buy some product. As in, actual beauty product. She'd ran a brush through her coat and washed the whole thing from top to bottom. Her mane and tail felt softer than ever after she'd shampooed them both thoroughly. She'd used a deep pore cleaner lotion, then a water activated gel cleaner, then a honey almond body scrub. Then... some other stuff, I don't know. I don't even like films. 

Normally, the thought of applying so much noxious goop to her body would have her escaping out of the bathroom window, but today was Rarity's birthday and as such, she braved it for her friend. The unicorn was always trying to get Applejack to do this, so arriving all dolled up would almost be a gift in and of itself.

She had an hour before she was due to arrive at Sugarcube corner, and as much as she would have liked to sneak in a bit of farm work, she couldn't risk getting sweaty. She took a last look at the present for Rarity, it was a gorgeous, antique-looking tome Twilight had helped her track down. The golden text on the front read 'The Essential Clothes-Horse Spellbook: 101 Incantations to Give Any Fashion Designer an Edge!'. She slipped it into her saddlebags and took a steadying breath. 

The earth pony opened her door and decided to fix up another batch of apple-fritters. Granted, they currently had enough party-food to feed everyone in a small third-world nation to the extent of them politely refusing yet another helping. But, provided you didn't mind a little dash of type two diabetes, you really could never have enough food. Taking one glance out of the window, Applejack saw the sky. Gorgeous. Pure, deep, uninterrupted blue. Applejack wondered whether Dash had pulled some strings for that. In any case, it was shaping up to be glorious. Still, sorting a party for the fussiest mare in the whole town... it was going to be a long day. 





Dragging an absurd Eiffel Tower of food piled into a wagon, the farm-pony had departed Sweet Apple Acres. She had fixed a tarp over the food to keep it safe, however it did make her look incredibly suspicious. Lone pony, dragging a covered mass through the town, this was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

She had left early enough to take the scenic route through the park. It really was turning out to be a lovely day, even better than she had initially predicted. The earth pony shook off the wagon for a second, and allowed herself a moment's indulgence on the grass. 

The various sounds and scents of a Summer's day at the park lulled her into a relaxed stupor. So stupid of a stupor, in fact, that Applejack didn't even register Fluttershy standing about three inches away from her. The pegasus had been quietly saying Applejack's name for a good thirty seconds to no avail. In the end, it was a butter coloured hoof prodding into Applejack's back  that shook from her from her daze. Her eyes fell from the sky and she wheeled around to be met with Fluttershy's chest. 

"Oh! Um, sorry about that Fluttershy," AJ said with a slight blush, the pegasus giggled. 

"Oh don't worry about that, I can see what got you so distracted," Fluttershy took a look around the park, "Are you heading over to Sugarcube Corner?" 

"Sure am! You gonna come with?" Applejack replied, 

"Oh, not yet. I need to head over to the spa. I shouldn't be too long though,"

"Oh right." Applejack said, her slight chuckle doing nothing to mask her audible dissapointment. "Was rather hopin' you'd forgotten about that,"  

"Oh hush now, you'll probably end up loving it," Fluttershy teased back.

"Oh ah dunno. Last thing ah need after getting myself all fancy is to go and get more fancy," 

"Well, Rarity will love it," Fluttershy smiled, and Applejack agreed. The two of them said their goodbyes and departed. It only took Applejack about five minutes to get from the park to the bakery. The sign read 'Closed for Private' event, and AJ let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Ever since Rarity had asked for something low-key, Pinkie had been trying to convince everyone in their little group that this was merely a devious attempt at reverse psychology, and Rarity in fact wanted to invite quite literally everyone. In the world.

The farm-pony had almost been expecting her to have asked the whole town along, but this was good. Everything seemed to be going to plan. Finishing off Rarity's present, getting a head-start on the baking, the day being so glorious and now this. It was shaping up to be a great Birthday for Applejack's best friend, and the earth pony couldn't be happier. 

Applejack pulled her wagon up the steps and pushed the bakery door open. Inside the main room were Twilight and Rainbow, and both were far too engrossed in their respective tasks to notice her. Rainbow was blowing up balloons while Twilight wrapped a present. It was a well-intentioned but utterly obnoxious picture of Rainbow Dash, thereby eliminating all doubt about who it was from. 

The décor's theme was unashamedly Rarity. Deep, vibrant purples and pristine whites. Decorations made the room look like it was encrusted with gems. Then of course were Pinkie's master-stroke. Equinequins with various fancy looking accessories were spaced around the room, each bearing gratified messages from Rarity's friends and family. It added a modern, yet classic vibe that was entirely centred around the birthday girl. Perfect.

"Howdy gals, the place looks great!" Applejack exclaimed cheerfully. Both sets of eyes snapped up to her, and she was immediately greeted happily. 

"Well, it's only got the most awesome pony in Equestria decorating it," Rainbow replied with a puffed chest.

"Second most awesome today Dash, it's Rarity's birthday after all," Twilight interjected with a chuckle. The conversation petered off and the unicorn and pegasus started to get back to work. 

"Hey Twi'," AJ began, causing Twilight to look up from her wrapping once again, "Would you mind wrapping up mah present to Rares?" 

"Sure AJ, that's fine," Applejack smiled gratefully before retrieving the book from her saddlebag. She placed it down carefully next to the other non-wrapped present, which was a needlessly complex looking box. She was somewhat surprised she was the one giving a book this time and not the librarian. Applejack had gotten more books from birthday presents from Twilight in recent years, than in her entire life previous. Granted, a home-schooled pony whose entire educational programme was centred around apples was never going to have a lot of books in the first place but... I forgot where I was going. Twilight liked books, that's the main thing.

"Is Pinkie around? I promised I'd help her finishing off the cake?" asked the earth pony, and Rainbow replied that she was in the kitchen. Applejack said her thanks and began dragging her wagon to the door. However, less that two steps through and her breath was taken away. 

Everypony knew Pinkie was good at making cakes. She got a lot of experience with all the parties she planned. Every other day it was 'Happy Birthday', or 'Have a Great Anniversary', or 'It's the second Monday of the month', or 'Someone thought they had to sneeze, but it turned out it was that really irritating thing where you keep thinking you have to sneeze but you actually don't then it keeps happening repeatedly over the next hour, so let's celebrate'.

However, she had truly outdone herself this time. Applejack had always been a big fan of Pinkie's Nightmare Night Cake from three years ago, and had long since accepted the fact that the party-pony may never top it. However this could very well be a contender. A large, sparkling white, six tier masterpiece. Each different layer was separated with pillars, and on top of each different section was an icing mock-up of important events from the birthday-filly's life. 

There was a filly Rarity getting her cutie-mark. A diorama of the day when their little group of five friends became seven made an appearance. There was even a recreation of the first time Rarity got to design for royalty. Each was recreated in pain-staking detail and each looked fantastic. Along the sides of the cake sections was purple script. Words like 'Generosity' and 'Fabulous' popped up, each term was a different testament to the fashionista that she would no doubt love.

The door creaked shut, getting the attention of the baker. Pinkie had her back to Applejack and appeared to be working on something out of view. She turned around and gave AJ a toothy grin. 

"Hey Applejack!" She exclaimed giddily, before casting an eye to the  Wowee! That food looks great!"

"Forget the food Pinkie... how long did this take you," Applejack gasped in response. Without taking her eyes off the cake, she wheeled the wagon into a corner of the kitchen. 

"You like it?" Pinkie giggled.

"Well sure I do, it's amazing!" the farmer replied, still gaping at the artisan feat of cakitude before her. 

"Well I just hope Rarity likes it," the party-pony admitted. 

"It's covered in words and scenes all about her. That filly's gonna love it Pinkie. You need any help?" Pinkie turned around and resumed working, periodically turning to her friend with a scrunched brow. 

"Could you maybe set the fireworks?" 

"The what?" AJ replied. Pinkie didn't reply, rather she gestured for Applejack to follow and left her work station. With Pinkie out of the way Applejack was finally able to see what she had been working on. It was yet another icing sculpture, however this one was much bigger than the ones found in the Rarity dioramas. This one was a foot tall. Rarity in her gala dress, her right foreleg raised in her classic display of class. The sculpture was simply breathtaking. All proportions dead on, every curve and contour in perfect place. A dead ringer for the birthday girl. 

"Pinkie..." Applejack went to speak, but found no words. The baker giggled at her friend's awe. 

"The drooling's supposed to come later silly," Pinkie quipped. Applejack registered the comment a few seconds later and shook herself back into focus.

"Heh, sorry 'bout that. Now what was all this your were saying about fireworks?" Pinkie didn't respond, rather she grabbed a small black stick in her mouth and trotted over to the cake. She pointed said stick at a candle and her brow furrowed in concentration. After a few seconds the candle lit up with what looked like a firework display in miniature. 

"Well don't that beat all?" the farmer laughed. Pinkie spat the rod into her hoof and passed it to Applejack, who tried and failed to be discreet in wiping it.

"Twilight made it for us so we could do the spell ourselves," she began to explain, "All you need to do is point it at the candle, will it to work, then presto! You got fireworks." 

"Alright, I think I got i-"

"BUT!" Pinkie leaped up onto the counter and pressed her snout to her friend's in a completely unnecessary attention grab, "Don't will it too hard. You have to be small. Like tiny, Like really tiny. Otherwise the cake might go 'BANG'!" Pinkie slammed two pans together for effect, "...and then the party's ruined. Meaning Rarity won't be our friend anymore, causing a rift in our friendship that may lead to somepony going insane, and I don't want to point hooves because that would be mean but it would totally be Fluttershy because remember how upset she got when that beetle died? And all of this could have been avoided by the two of us not making Rarity hate us and-"

"Pinkie!" Applejack interjected, "I think yer overthinking this. I'll be careful but there ain't no need to get yourself as worked up as Twilight over one of her study deadlines. I'm not going to destroy the cake. But even if I did Rarity ain't gonna hate us. Sure, she's a fussy filly but I really don't think she's that dramatic..."

"Hey Rares! Thought I might see if you want to come out for a picnic?"

"Oh Applejack that would be divine! I've been working ever so hard throughout the morning and I could really do with a break." 

"Well ah can see that! Don't think I've ever seen this place so out of sorts, you must have been really going at it!"

"You... you think it's a mess Applejack?"

"What? No! It's just... well you can see you've been working hard?"

"So it's me who looks like a mess?"

"You know I didn't mean that-"

"Right that's it. I'm selling the boutique."

"...Applejack!" the apple farmer felt a hoof slap her across the face.

"Wha?!" 

"Sorry, you sort of zoned out there... you okay?"

"Yep. Just remembering something. You know, on second thought I'm going to be as careful as possible with this firework business." Applejack said mechanically 

"Erm... something you need to tell me?" Pinkie enquired with a raised brow, more than a little confused at the very abrupt change of heart. 

"Nope," AJ replied curtly. She didn't want to worry Pinkie further by telling her about the time she had to rip all of the estate agent numbers from Rarity's yellow pages, and so she simply elected to end any further chance of the conversation continuing by walking straight over to the cake, wand now safely perched in her mouth. Pinkie simply shrugged and went back to her icing construction, while Applejack lined up her rod.





For the second time that day, Applejack found herself being slapped alert by Pinkie's hoof.  But this time the sensation felt different, much less an action of playful force and more an action of 'You're a twat, so I'm going to strike your face with my hoof, and that's because you're a twat just in case you forgot'. The farmer came to suddenly. It didn't at all feel unlike the times that she had been awoken after a long night on the cider by Granny Smith chucking a bucket of cold water all over her. 

The farmer looked around, her movements made sluggish by tiredness and confusion. She had been helping Pinkie with the baking, hadn't she?.Something about the cake. The candles on the cake. The lovely, painstakingly crafted cake meant for Rarity's birthday celebration that would be commencing very soon. You know the one don't you? The one that was currently splattered all over the walls of Sugarcube Corner's kitchen. That cake.

Oh shit. 

All sense of fatigue was immediately vanished from Applejack, like quality from this story. She sat up in an instant and cast her eyes to a desperate looking Pinkie Pie. She had the the demeanour of someone who was suffering thirteen simultaneous heart-attacks. Sweat poured down her forehead in rivulets and her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Her chest rose and fell with each panicked, ragged breath she took. 

"Pinkie what in tarnation happened to the cake?!" Applejack yelled. Within a second the baker zoomed over to Applejack and placed a hoof over her mouth.

"Don't shout anything, we can still save this, for the party! For Rarity! I'm going to explain to everypony, you need to try and fix the cake!"

"Pinkie! What do you... I can't fix this! What happened to the-" The grip on her lips returned ten fold. Pinkie leaned into and gave AJ a dangerous and unhinged look. 

"NO TIME," She somehow screamed and whispered at the same time, "Ponies say you're the best baker in Ponyville, so bake!" With that, the crazed mare dismounted her friend's chest and bolted through the door. Applejack got up onto all four hooves. She surveyed the damage with growing dismay. Over half of the cake was still intact, it was the rest that was the problem. A good third of it had been blown from the rest of the structure

She could hear screaming from outside already. Either something else had gone wrong or Applejack had underestimated her friend's love of cake, which was entirely possible and probable. She knew she should have probably gone out to help her friend, however the earth pony had enough on her plate, or not enough anymore... you know? Her plate? Considering the cake was destroyed? Forget it.

She decided to let Pinkie deal with whatever fresh hell had spawned behind those doors. Grabbing a couple of pieces of kitchen roll, Applejack stuffed her ears, and even allowed herself a weak smile at the silence that followed. Just like her father had said when she was a foal, 'If there's no way solve a problem, try your hardest to pointedly ignore it'. 

A quick survey revealed the extent of the damage, and it wasn't a good survey. It was one of those terrible ones, like when the pony doing the survey keeps sucking air in through clenched teeth and claiming you're going have to pay to ship the parts from god-knows-where. Applejack felt like that right now, as her teeth became bone dry and she realised she'd probably need welding equipment to fix this mess. 

If she were in her right frame of mind, Pinkie would certainly have known she was infinitely better equipped to sort out this mess. But she wasn't in her right frame of mind, not even close. She had just leapt from a cake-splattered room into the hall and immediately caused some sort of screaming. Does that sound right to you? I should hope not.

And it didn't sound right to Applejack either, which is why instead of trying to convince Pinkie to work on the cake, she grabbed a spatula and unenthusiastically began scraping icing and ruined cake off the wall. It was hard, unpleasant, humiliating and depressing work. Gathering up destroyed birthday cake and piling it into a hideous sculpture, like some sort of violent metaphor for how we're all going to die or whatever.

After around a minute, which would henceforth be known to Applejack as 'The Dark Times', she had accumulated a unappealing mount-crumpet-esque monolith of despoiled baked-goods on the counter. She allowed herself a small-breather, and it finally dawned on her that she had no idea how this had even happened. 

One minute she was helping to finish off the cake, the next she was slapped awake by her frantic friend. What happened in those few minutes that dismantled the cake and all but ruined the entire day? She racked her brains, yet was able to recall nothing telling. She woke up, walked over with her present, helped Pinkie finish of the cake and then was being beaten back to conciousness.

But there was more, wasn't there? Something niggling and deceptively tiny. Something small and huge and guilty and oh my God. The wand. Applejack's pupils shrank to pinpricks surrounded by red spider-webs of veins. She gulped and felt her cheeks begin to burn furiously. She began scouring for the stick, desperately hoping that finding it may somehow make the obvious facts screaming at her sound a little less loud. 

Hooves were flung every which way, opening cupboards and exploring each different part of the kitchen. Her eyes scrutinised every surface to no avail, the wand had gone... but hold on. If it wasn't here, did that mean that Applejack didn't in fact destroy the cake with a polychromatic expression of wanton destruction to make Guy Fawkes proud? Maybe. 

She felt a little light-headed. The sudden burst of activity so soon after being knocked out and then waking into the most high-stress situation of her life thus far had easily taken its toll. She went to lean on the counter, but, in her haze, ended up finding the floor to be a much more enticing prospect. Applejack eased herself down to catch her breath, the cool of the tiles soothing her flushed skin, slowing her thundering heart and thankfully sapping some of the anguish from her body.

She started to formulate ideas on how the cake may be salvaged, and unfortunately found herself drawing an uninspired power-point presentation of blanks.  The earth-pony began to feel her cheeks redden again. She turned her face to the side and rested her muzzle against the cooling tiles, sighing while they worked their therapeutic magic.

Applejack rolled her head over to switch cheeks, turning the opposite way. And there it was. Under the cooker was a small, slender shape, and it would have gone totally unnoticed by anypony other than Applejack. Yet it sat there, almost mocking in its inanimate nonchalance. She reached a quivering hoof underneath the appliance to grab it.  There was some sort of noise in the distance, like a dull thump and ripple effect. Like witnessing an iceberg breaking underwater. Probably just some of the commotion outside.

Her hoof made contact, and the wand was withdrawn from the shade. One end was splayed out and broken, reminding Applejack of a blunderbuss, or maybe a dead flower. The wood was blackened and charred at the damaged end, and was still slightly warm to the touch. The jury was in, the signs all pointed to one thing. Applejack realised, in the least surprising twist in literary history, that she had damaged the cake while attempting to set the fireworks.

Her hoof trembled, and the rod fell to the ground. The earth pony, with no small measure of guilt, regarded her self made kingdom or ruin. Or, in less dramatic terms, the kitchen she'd fucked up with a cake explosion. The tight, steel ball of nervousness she'd felt before flourished and extended its tendrils, filling her with remorse. She'd done this. She'd ruined the party, and it wasn't just any party. This was Rarity's party, and Applejack was the entire reason she would hate it. 

Her lip quivered as her mind went through the images of what was soon to be. Rarity turning up, asking where Applejack was, her mascara running when Pinkie sheepishly revealed the state of the kitchen. A purple tail, and a mare turning on it to flee the bakery and, oh god, the looks Applejack would get. 

But as quick as they arose, the images were ceased by the forceful stamping of an orange hoof. Applejack's brow hardened, and she stopped her lip from quivering. She had two choices, either wait here for the next few minutes wallowing in whatever it was that ponies wallowed in. Or she could buck up, and try to salvage this cake, for Rarity. 

Only the bottom three layers had been affected, leaving three tiers perfectly edible. Whereas these were the smallest levels, the size of the cake had been for show more than anything, as six mares, one dragon and three fillies would hardly be able to finish off the gargantuan treat. Added to this, the three top layers held the large sculpture Pinkie had created, as well as the dioramas depicting Rarity and her friends. These were by far the best and most relevant, and it was some thankful good news. 

The earth pony began to formulate a checklist in her head. First off, get the top three layers off the damaged part of the cake. Lifting them from the elegant columns Pinkie had implemented would create some structural damage, so the next step was to fix that. Then, if she added the finishing touches to the top sculpture of Rarity everything would be fixed. Thankfully, they hadn't removed the tarp from Applejack's wagon, meaning the rest of the party food had been shielded from the delicious explosion. The farmer nodded to herself, this could be done, as long as nothing else went wrong.

"APPLEJACK!", the earth pony nearly had a heart attack when someone ripped the kitchen roll from her ears and screamed her name. 

It was instinct unfortunately, that made Applejack emit an embarrassingly girly shriek and immediately buck her assailant with both hindlegs. What is really important to remember though, and I really can't stress that whole 'Important' thing enough, was that happened next wasn't really anypony's fault. 

Rainbow Dash had been driven to drastic measures after shouting Applejack's name at the top of her lungs had failed to get the earth pony's attention, and Applejack had no idea the pegasus had even come into the kitchen, let alone was trying to talk to her. So when Rainbow startled the farmer, and said farmer kicked in return, it wasn't really a situation that called for blame. 

The only thing it called for was a look of hopelessness and dismay, as Rainbow's slender frame was thrown across the room... towards the cake. You know when you see a child drop an ice-cream? And you think 'there's nothing that can be done to stop it now, so I might as well just enjoy the soon-to-be-revealed misery like the sad, hollow individual I am'? Well for Applejack, this was pretty much the opposite of that. 

Rather than slipping into that most dreamy of nirvanas that is 'No Longer Giving a Shit', she instead felt her stomach plummet down... down... down. Out of her body, down through the ground and finally in the deep end of Satan's swimming pool. Rainbow just sort of sailed confusedly. Not even the pain of being bucked was able to overpower the sheer disorientation she was currently going through. 

However Rainbow was nothing if not fast, and there was just this beautiful moment of pure comprehension in record time. As she span, she saw the cake oscillating with Applejack's expression of dismay, and she recognised just where she was going. She snapped out a wing to adjust her course. But she was moving with such momentum, and in such a small space. There was only the option of reducing the damage, not avoiding it. 

At the last second the element of loyalty was able to stop her body from pulverising the cake, but she was unable to stop her outstreched wing from slicing through the middle-layer. Applejack saw the tower lose it's centre structural integrity, and she leapt. The top layer buckled with the sudden loss of its foothold. And it swayed. And it wobbled. And it eventually fell from its perch. 

Applejack was in the air before Rainbow even made contact with the wall. Her frame thrown by legs of steel, her forelegs ready to catch the cake-tower's penthouse. Her belly hit the ground with a light slap, but this was nothing compared to the sickening whack of Rainbow against the side of kitchen. The pegasus reverberated from the wall, and was subsequently winded as her midriff was slammed into an adjacent counter-top. The earth pony was much more fortunate in her landing. The momentum slid her along the tiles, just far enough to catch the falling baked-good. 

She didn't rest though, within a second she was up, the cake was on the counter and Rainbow was being tended to.

"Rainbow! Are you okay?! Ah'm so sorry!" AJ hoisted her friend off the counter, and was relieved to hear a breathless laugh.

"My God AJ, you kick hard," the familiar raspy voice chuckled. Rainbow gently pushed the earth pony away and stood up. Her legs were still a bit shaky and she had ruffled more than a few feathers, but Rainbow had survived much worse than that. Aside from the bruises she could already feel coming on, she was fine. 

Which was more than could said about the cake. The middle section of the already-downgraded three-tier treat had been sliced open and was spilling its contents for the world to see. Any relief Applejack felt for Rainbow quickly devolved into a sinking feeling of dread upon seeing the further damage to the cake. 

Both took a long hard look at its current state, and it wasn't pretty. Each element gulped and the scent of perspiration became more defined. Finally, Rainbow was the one to vocalise what was going through both mare's head. 

"So, what the hell are we gonna do now?"
> Rainbow Dash's Day, or: Twisted Firestarter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wow, the one and only Rainbow Dash, with presents too?!" screamed a scruffy looking foal. Rainbow looked at him, clearly endeared by his flatcap and chimney sweeping brush and adorable English accent which was really just an American doing an offensive approximation of working class cockney à la Dick Van Dyke after a non-negligible amount of crack cocaine. He wasn't the only one either, there were many children around. All dressed and speaking like the small amount of Charles Dickens characters Rainbow was able to recall. 

"You know it guys, 20% cooler! Totally tubular! Bungakowa!" Everyone in earshot clapped at her repertoire of awesome phrases, and the headmaster of the orphanage she was visiting came up and stuffed a bunch of tenners into her hooves while repeatedly telling her how fast she was. 

"Here are the presents everyone, enjoy!" Rainbow yelled, opening a sack next to her from which multiple wrapped parcels spilled. All the foals excitedly swarmed them like maggots on a festering wound or I don't know something like that but cuter. She laughed loudly, Applejack appeared out of nowhere, told he she was the strongest out of the two of them and then immediately fell through the Cloudsdale ground.

But wait, something wasn't right. All the foals had stopped and were staring at her. 

"I thought this was a motorbike!" one unicorn filly rattled accusingly "But it turns out it's just a bag of turnips wrapped poorly!" 

"Yeah," another child agreed, "I thought my present was the intangible concept of lifetime happiness, but actually it's just a book wrapped in a way that made it look like the intangible concept of lifetime happiness!"

"Well that does it!" screamed the headmaster, "Disappointed orphans don't raise any money. This lot is being shipped off the army first thing, hopefully to become soldiers that they might contribute to another of Equestria's various militarily achieved imperialist atrocities." Everyone saluted in tandem, then a corny studio audience said 'woah uh oh' before creasing into laughter.

Rainbow backed away until she hit a nearby wall, trying to shield her eyes from the chaos she'd wrought...

The pegasus woke up in cold sweats. She fumbled for the switch on her bedside lamp, and upon finding it was relieved to see her own illuminated room with no disappointed foals. It always got like this before one of her friend's birthdays. It didn't matter how often someone told her 'Oh Rainbow you're blaming yourself too much' or 'You need to move on' or 'Oh my god it was just one kid who was a little let down by the wrapping and they weren't even an orphan now shut your trap about it', she just couldn't shake the guilt. 

It had been a play put on by the local school to raise money for charity, and all the foals that had participated were given presents for their efforts. Rainbow had been more than happy to chip in, picking up a beautiful cuddly dragon for her gift. However, no matter how many times she wrapped it, it always looked... funny. After the fifth time, she had just decided that the present itself was the important thing, and left it. The day of the performance had arrived, and Dash couldn't wait to make some little kid's day. When she came to give the present over to the filly who Cheerilee had pointed out to her, it all went wrong.

"Oh my gosh missus Dash, a penguin?!" the foal had babbled excitedly, and from a certain angle Rainbow realised it did look strikingly penguin-like. She had tried to warn her but it was futile, the filly jumped around talking about all the fun things she was going to do with her brand new penguin teddy, all while the gift was still wrapped. When she finally tore into it, and saw the extravagant red dragon's eyes staring back at her, the tears were immediate. 

Cheerilee had looked over and given Dash a sympathetic smile, but all Rainbow could focus on was the foal's weeping. Ever since that day, the very idea of having to wrap another present inspired in her the kind of dread that was normally reserved for phrases like 'Tory supermajority'.

Resigning herself to the fact that no sleeping would get done now, she rose and looked at the clock. Mercifully, it was only a couple of hours until she was supposed to get up anyway. She walked over to her desk and assessed her present again. Now let's be real, there's no way Rarity wasn't going to like the present. Who in their right mind wouldn't like, on their special day, to receive a picture of their friend who they see all the time anyway sporting a full Dreamworks face? The autograph element was just the cherry on top of this enormous, not at all a massive insulting disappointment so don't even imply it, cake.

However, if Rainbow was the one to wrap it... she could just see it now. Rarity would assume she was about to receive a lovely model of Rainbow Dash or a Rainbow Dash body-pillow or one of those commemorative Rainbow Dash bobble heads the pegasus had bulk ordered in a display of catastrophic overestimation of market demand, only to find that it was a simple picture. The disappointment would crush her like a badger under the wheels of a formidable articulated lorry.

She tried to banish the thoughts from her mind. An early morning fly around Ponyville before she got ready for the party would be sure to do the trick. She took a final glance in the mirror before heading out and sighed, it was going to be a long day. 





Spoiler alert here, but Rainbow's early morning fly had actually not done the trick at all, and she had worried all the way to Sugarcube corner. She pushed open the door, and found a decent bulk of the decorations had already been done. Presumably Pinkie had awoken at an ungodly hour as usual. 

"Hey Pinkie, is anyone else here yet?" Dash yelled into the apparently empty restaurant.

"Erm yeah! I'll be out in a minute okaycoolthanksrainbow!" Pinkie replied very hastily

"Is... is everything okay back there?" the pegasus called back, slightly concerned with how out of breath the party-pony sounded. 

"Yeah it's fine don't come back here!" the response sounded more desperate than before, making Rainbow even more suspicious. She flapped her wings and gently glided over the the door to the kitchen. 

"Didn't quite here you Pinkie," she lied, "Can I come in?"

"NO!" was the screeched reply, which immediately sealed the deal in Dash's mind. She was the element of loyalty, not the element of obeying sincere requests by close friends, and as such she burst through the doors with all the subtlety and grace of an eight kilo lump hammer to the face. She gasped, Pinkie gasped, that creepy lizard Pinkie owned didn't gasp but if it possessed the slightest level of emotion or sentient thought it probably would have.. 

"Don't look at me!" screamed the earth pony, but it was futile for Rainbow had already seen. On the worktop was an enormous pile of party invitations all bearing Pinkie's erratic hoofwriting. The feeling of betrayal was instant and cutting, like the sort of feeling you get waking up in a bath of ice next to your cousin Dave despite him assuring you he was going stop attempting to harvest your organs for cash. 

Her wings pumped and she was pinning Pinkie to the ground in a millisecond. 

"Wrap my present for me! No wait, I mean what do you think your doing?!" she shouted down at her tearful friend. 

"Ten party guests including the birthday girl?!" She bit back through tears, "That's not a party, that's barely even a work outing!"

"She said 'low-key' and 'intimate' with her 'closest friends', who could we invite that we haven't already?" Rainbow demanded.

"Well I thought Princess Celestia and Luna and that guy from the donut shop from after the ball and all those pegasi from that time you had to make a tornado even though magic would have probably been a better way to transport the water and -" Rainbow clamped a hoof over Pinkie's mouth, then grimaced when the distinct feeling of Pinkie's tongue told her the baker still hadn't stopped talking. 

"Look Pinkie, I know you think that Rarity was trying to send you some coded message by explicitly forbidding you from inviting the whole town and making each of the rest of us swear to stop you if you ever tried to," she paused to shoot the pile of invites an unimpressed look, "But she really wasn't." Pinkie babbled some pitiful excuses for a second before bursting into full blown sobs. She buried her face in Rainbow's chest and wrapped her hooves around her in a hug which instantly crushed the breath from Dash's lungs and presumably caused irreparable spinal damage.

"IT'S JUST SO HARD!" she screamed in anguish. For her part, Rainbow tried to seem outwardly sympathetic which internally considering that this might the stupidest thing that had happened to her all week. She couldn't understand why someone would work themselves into such a frenzy over something so utterly trivial. Plus this was cutting into the time she could be spending convincing someone to wrap her present for her!

Pinkie's crying didn't seem like it would stop anytime soon, and so Rainbow simply accepted her fate. A long day indeed. 





Fifteen minutes later, with the help of consolation from Rainbow, Pinkie's habit of wildly unpredictable mood swings and the Cake's garden incinerator in which they disposed of all their old plastic packaging despite several warnings from the council, all the invites had been burned and Pinkie was cheerfully setting up more decorations. Rainbow trotted over to a nearby settee and allowed her aching back a moment's respite. 

"Hehe thanks for talking me out of that one Dashie!" she trilled, the speed of her recovery was slightly disconcerting to Rainbow, not to mention it was another piece of evidence to add to the case against this story being very good. "It's lucky you got here when you did, one of those invites was for Prince Blueblood!" 

"Why?!" Rainbow asked, thoroughly disquieted by the whole situation.

"Well, I didn't know whether a disastrous romantic faux pas from the past qualifies you as a family friend. Then again he's a prince, it's hardly like he'd have the time!" she giggled. Rainbow thought back to Blueblood's recent ill-fated foray into the world of reality television with that show where he interviewed poor ponies and berated them for being victims of circumstance in front of a cackling studio audience. 

"Nah, he'd probably have time." 

"Hey Dashie?" Pinkie called over, her tone sounding noticeably less jokey this time, "Do me a favour and don't let the others know about this... hiccup?" she blushed and didn't fully meet Rainbow's gaze. 

"Haha, sure think Pinks," the weather pony replied, considerably relieved the whole situation was said and done with. 
Shortly after the bell above the door rang as Twilight entered, apparently not a moment too early. Pinkie called out in greeting while Dash's anxiety came back full-force. Okay here it was, all she needed to do was get Twilight to wrap the damn picture and she could relax. She stared at the her saddlebags on her lap for a second and apparently this was enough to alert the unicorn that something was wrong.

"Hey Rainbow, is something wrong?" Rainbow tried to formulate a response that wouldn't sound too desperate. "What's in your saddlebag? Is that what's bothering you?" Twilight pressed on.

"It's my present for Rares," Dash said quietly.

"Oh Rainbow, I'm sure she'll love your present." Twilight said soothingly, and Dash's anxiety ebbed a little. She'd understand, Rainbow knew she would.

"No, it's not that. It's just... I can't relax until it's wrapped up."

"Well, why don't you wrap it?" Twilight replied, only to be cut off by Rainbow's desperate reply.

"No! You know I can't wrap stuff Twi', especially not after... I can't get her face out of my mind, you know? I've never seen disappointment like that before." Twilight grimaced.

"Rainbow, you need to forget her, it wasn't your fault. And if it's bothering you this much, one of us will wrap it for you." Just like that, several thousand knots in Rainbow's back untied at once and the worry left her. Twilight smiled, showing just how clear her relief must have been. "What did you get her anyway?"

"Oh! It's great, I know she's going to love it!" the pegasus said excitedly. She rummaged around in her saddlebag for the party's inevitable pièce de résistance. She passed the picture to Twilight who stared at the gift in what one could only assume was awe. Her pose was perfect, as was the message to Rarity. Even down to the frame the picture was stunning, it was cyan blue with little pegasi carved into the wood. 

"Never stop dreaming. From your hero, Rainbow Dash," Twilight read out loud, "Let me get this straight. You're worried about the wrapping paper being the thing that disappoints Rarity?"

"Why?" Dash asked and snatched the photo back, "Don't you think it captures my good side?" 

"No. It captures your good side. I'm sure she'll love it," the unicorn responded, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Rad!" Rainbow squealed happily. She set the picture delicately on a nearby table while Twilight went off to talk to Pinkie about something. It felt like a ten tonne weight had been lifted off her back and she could properly breathe again. Twilight could wrap up the present, it would look great and Rarity wouldn't be disappointed. She hopped up onto the ladder Pinkie had just been on and set to working on the decorations. Maybe this party wouldn't be so bad after all.





It had been going very well, very well indeed. Applejack had already arrived and set to helping Pinkie in the kitchen. Twilight was wrapping everyone's gifts and making all the fiddly small decorations while Dash busied herself with applying the finishing touches to the room. Admittedly, Rainbow had felt a little tense while Twilight turned the air blue as she wrapped whatever the hell Fluttershy's present was supposed to be, but other than that preparations were going very smoothly. Right up until...

"Rainbow," the unicorn called over, "I've just got to read this letter from Spike, could you just sellotape that paper down on AJ's gift?" Dash tensed, every muscle in her body seizing up at once. She turned to see Twilight getting up off the settee, her magic grasping a parchment scroll. 

"Um, do you really think that's a good idea Twilight?"

"Rainbow, all you need to do is sellotape that one corner down. I'm not asking you to wrap the whole present," the unicorn replied with a frown.

"Okay fine, but if something goes wrong then-"

"Nothing's going to go wrong Dash," she said forcefully. effectively ending all argument about the idea. With that, Twilight turned and trotted away to the other room. Rainbow descended the ladder and tip-toed over to the table, regarding the present with the kind of wariness and primal fear usually inspired by someone approaching you in a busy public retail area brandishing a petition to sign. She sat at the table and looked over the setup. Okay, all she had to do was sellotape a corner of paper, no problem, none at all. Bloody hell was it hot in here?

Rainbow wiped some sweat from her brow and shakily reached for the roll of tape. However, it occurred to her that she couldn't possibly be expected to wrap with such little light! Of course not! This was definitely reasonable and not simply stalling until Twilight got back! She stood up and went behind the counter. After a short while's rummaging, she managed to procure a candle and some matches. There we go, some light finally! 

A quick glance revealed Twilight hadn't returned yet. Rainbow sat and struck the match. Carefully, she moved the flame closer to the candle's wick, being very careful not to put it anywhere near the presents or the wrapping paper... 

What sounded like an explosion sent Rainbow flying behind the settee in shock. She shook the match out and stood to check the presents were okay before wheeling around to find the noise's source. Fluttershy had kicked the front doors of Sugarcube Corner so hard Dash was genuinely surprised they were still on their hinges. Before Rainbow could scold the normally demure pegasus crossed the distance between them and grabbed onto both sides of Dash's head in a decidedly non-demure fashion. 

"Where's Twilight?!" she demanded.

"Woah, woah tone it down Shy! She's in the next room!" with that, Fluttershy sped off in that direction leaving a thoroughly confused Rainbow to collect her thoughts. She stalked back to the wrapping station, thoroughly upset about having been interrupted and also the fact that it was now very unlikely Twilight was going to be coming back into the room anytime soon. She sat and struck another match, and this time was able to actually light her candle. It provided about a hundredth of a percent more light than she'd had previous but Rainbow was far to committed to the whole thing to stop now.

"Okay, wrapping. Piece of cake, right? All I need to do is just sellotape that corner down, no biggie at all." Her pep talk did absolutely nothing to assuage her doubts, but Rainbow was not a quitter. She slapped herself twice in an attempt to perk up and concentrate like all the cool ponies on telly do except this was real life and not telly so all it did was hurt her cheek and upset her more. 

Dash decided to finally stop messing about and get on with it, and this time wasn't like the previous five times she promised. She manoeuvred AJ's present into a manageable position near her candle, pulled off a piece of sellotape, flattened the corner down and then the kitchen exploded. The force toppled the settee over backwards and the candle was knocked over, igniting the nearby rolls of wrapping paper. 

"Oh god oh man oh god oh man," Rainbow spluttered as she climbed back to her hooves. She zoomed over to the table and managed to swipe up all of the presents away from the growing inferno. However, there was now another issue to contend with.

You know those Rube Goldberg machines? Those things designed to do something really simple in an amusingly convoluted way? Imagine one of those, except instead of finishing with boiling a kettle or knocking over some dominoes, it burned everything important to you. That was how Rainbow felt as she watched the table wobble with the sudden force of her grabbing the gifts. The candle rolled and its lit end came to settle on the box of matches, whose card architecture was no match for the flame and was ignited in seconds. 

She backed away slowly as one, then two, then a hundred telltale sizzles of lighting matches sounded from the burning box. The pressure became too much, and in an instant it exploded sending burning matches everywhere. They struck balloons, banners and confetti and lit up everything in their wake. Twilight and Fluttershy came in from the other room just in time to see the fire begin in earnest. 

If they had had more time, this may had provoked a serious discussion about just how flammable everything from the local party supply shop was. Especially considering their clientele was near 100% parents buying things for young children. However this was neither the time or the place. Instead, Twilight fell to her haunches and watched the blaze despondently and Fluttershy began to run around in circles panicking. 

For her part Rainbow flew around trying to blow out the flames by beating her wings furiously. Now, if she'd paid attention in school or ever heard the incredibly common phrase 'Fan the flames', she might have been aware that her attempts to put out the blaze simply blew them higher and stronger. However, the intention was there which could on some level count for something. This carried on for a time sufficient to become a comment on the intelligence and emotional maturity of everyone present.

As she flew around, her grip on the presents loosened and finally she dropped the small rectangular parcel which was Twilight's gift to the ground, where it landed dangerously close to some burning streamers. In an instant Twilight snapped out of her catatonia and leapt over to grab it. There was a second of relief while she clutched it to her chest, but it was short lived when Rainbow informed, although shrieked at may be a more apt term, the unicorn that her tail was on fire. Fluttershy galloped over and began trying to stamp out the tail-blaze which only served to hurt Twilight a lot.

"Enough!" the librarian shouted, her horn glowing. A large ball of water was conjured above her head and it began to spin rapidly. Once it had gained enough momentum the magic holding it was released and a torrential blast hit coated the entire room. 

The assessment was poor to say the least. All the decorations were destroyed by fire or water damage or a terrible combination of both. Thankfully the building itself was relatively fine, but scorch marks and damp wallpaper sloughing off the walls had done enough to rule it out as a party venue. One of worst casualties had been the gifts, a particularly significant blast of water had hit Rainbow and sent her careening into a wall. What presents had survived the impact had been utterly and completely soaked.

Also, to make matters worse, it was then that Pinkie decided to storm in from the kitchen, whereupon she was met with the site of carnage and began to emit a series of deafening screams. Fortunately, the ponies present didn't immediately begin to blame one another for the wreckage, because the word immediately implies there was no delay. Unfortunately, after a short delay to survey the damage, the ponies present began to blame each other for the wreckage.

Raised voices began to chorus with one another in a discordant symphony of outrage. 'Rainbow why were you fanning the flames...', '...yeah well I never would have if you hadn't asked me...', '...do you even know what happened in the kitchen...'. This carried on for quite a few minutes more than it should have.

"Okay QUIET!" Twilight yelled loudly enough to silence everyone, "What's done is done, this should be about damage control! Pinkie, what happened in the kitchen?" 

"That wand was cursed I tell ya, cursed! It blew up half the cake!" 

"Did you follow my instructions with it?" Twilight demanded. 

"It was Applejack that was using it!" Pinkie spluttered indignantly.

"Okay, how much of the cake was damaged?"

"The bottom," she replied breathlessly, the last few minute's excitement clearly starting to take their toll. 

"If the top is still okay, we can just eat that right?" Twilight asked. Pinkie thought for a minute before nodding, "Okay, if all we need to do is just clean up the mess, Rainbow you should go and help. You're the fastest out of all of us." 

Rainbow didn't wait for anyone to protest before tearing off towards the kitchen. The second she could get out of that room the better. The normally pristine kitchen wasn't doing particularly well itself though. It looked at if someone had put explosives inside a cake and detonated them. There was sponge and icing everywhere, mashed together in a sweet-smelling but unappetising gloop that had been catapulted against many of the available surfaces in the room. Stood in the middle of this ruin was Applejack, who was faced away from Rainbow while staring off into the distance and mouthing something. 

"Hey Applejack, what help do you need with?" She received no reply, "Hey AJ, I can help you with the cleanup here,"

Still nothing, the farmer simply kept up what she was doing without turning around or even acknowledging Rainbow's presence. The pegasus felt the blood rise to her cheeks.

"Hey, I know this isn't ideal but why are you just ignoring me? Oh what you think this is my fault or something?!" she trotted up closer prepared to give AJ an earful, until she saw she had an earful of something else. There were wadded up balls of tissue stuck in her ears, and she still hadn't noticed Dash. Curiously this annoyed Rainbow even more, they had all been out there panicking while Applejack was just hanging out in here, calm as a cucumber and blocking them all out! She grabbed onto one of the balls of tissue and yanked it out of the farmer's ear and shouted her name.

Once she got two hindlegs to the midriff for her trouble, Rainbow couldn't help but wonder whether she had shouted AJ's name a trifle too loud. First though, god damn it all those years of applebucking had really been working, second thought, where the hell was she? Her natural instincts kicked in as she looked around to see what she was headed for and realised with dismay that it was the cake. Rainbow was a pegasus and a faster than average one at that, so she was able to manoeuvre her body that it could avoid destroying the dessert, but it was the lesser of two evils as opposed to an outright save.

Her wing sliced through something decidedly cake like before she slapped against the wall and collapsed to a counter-top in a ball of pain. It wasn't long before Rainbow heard some desperate hoofsteps in her direction.

"Rainbow! Are you okay?! Ah'm so sorry!" AJ hoisted her friend off the counter, and was rewarded with a pained laugh confirming the pegasus wasn't quite dead yet. 

"My God AJ, you kick hard," Rainbow chuckled. She was helped to her hooves and was able to see the cake's latest downgrade. Her wing had slit open the middle tier and ripped up the pillars upon which it sat from the lower cake, leaving ugly marks in the icing. Worst of all however was that the large icing sculpture had hit the ground when AJ saved the top cake. Now it wasn't destroyed, that's important to note. However what had happened was that little Rarity had taken the blow totally to the face, squashing it and giving her weird flat head with all her features pushed in. 

It would have been funny if not for the... actually scratch that it was funny just generally. However it would have been a lot more funny if it weren't for the fact that Rarity was set to arrive very soon and cake's beautiful centrepiece and sole saving grace now looked like a model spitefully constructed with the sole intention of insulting the birthday girl's appearance. Worse still, the top and bottom cake were hardly unscathed. Applejack's hooves and Rainbow's collision had marked them with countless holes, bumps and imperfections. 

"Right," Rainbow broke the despondent silence that had fallen, "Considering the decorations are all burned and the presents are destroyed, I'd say all we need is the cake to be non-poisonous and we're home free." 

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN THERE?" Applejack bellowed, reminding Rainbow that she hadn't actually seem the main room yet. 

"There was a fire and the presents unfortunately were... shall we say 'victims of the counter-attack'?" 

"Do you know how much that book was Rainbow?" The farmer snarled.

"Do you know how unpleasant broken ribs are AJ?" Dash retorted coolly, gesturing to the angry bruises already appearing on her midriff

"... Ah retract my statement. Okay, who's the least non-artistic out of us?" she began.

"Well not to toot my own horn but occasionally ponies can actually tell what my drawings are of," Rainbow replied smugly, provoking an impressed look from her friend.

"Well missy it looks like we have a volunteer. I'm gonna try and make these cakes semi-presentable, you need to try your best to redo the face on that there mini-Rarity." Rainbow turned to said mini-Rarity which was giving the two of them a flat-faced look of disapproval... and then she laughed. Applejack went to scold her, caught sight of the model and also laughed. As was made clear, despite the circumstances, it did look really funny. 

But then both snapped into action. Rainbow first tried to unflatten the face by pressing both sides of it in the hopes that it would simply pop back out in perfect form. Unfortunately this wasn't a cartoon so all that happened was that she squashed Rarity's head into a bizarre ovoid-prism. She could see the look on the model's face and for a second it looked almost as if she was in pain. It made Rainbow sad. Then again it still did look funny, so she laughed sadly which was weird and made Applejack uncomfortable. 

When it became clear this wouldn't work she set to trying to re-sculpt. Luckily the mane hadn't been too adversely affected and the body and dress were still pristine. With a great deal of care she took the head off and peeled the mane away. Applejack wasn't having a lot of luck with her task, finding that every time she tried to fix one issue she created another, which was understandable considering having a pony mush their hooves up against a cake has never really been known to improve it. For this reason she decided that ragged but tasty, the kind of assessment one would never like to be on the receiving end of, would just have to do for this party.

"Okay Rainbow there as good as they're gonna get, do you need any help?"

"Nah we might be okay, all we need is a new head. If you start rolling up a ball for it, I'll go and get Pinkie. I'm sure she can sort one in, like, no time at all." Rainbow replied, finally allowing herself a smile. 

"We're in the home stretch now," AJ looked relieved to have the first good news in a while. Dash turned to the doors and poked her head out to find Fluttershy pulling down damaged decorations in one hoof and blowing Applejack's gift with a hairdryer in the other. Twilight was scrubbing scorch-marks off the walls with various telekinetically controlled scouring pads while looking over Fluttershy's water-damaged gift intensely. 

"Um..." both turned and fixed her with intense bloodshot stares, looking not unlike owls fresh off the maddest sesh of their lives, "Is Pinkie here?" 

"No, she had to go and get the fillies, Spike said something weird happened... why do you need her?" Twilight eyes narrowed suspiciously. At that moment, faced with the choice of doing the adult thing, admitting what had just happened and taking responsibility, or risking the entire cake on her and Applejack's sculpting ability, a skill neither had ever once attempted or been the least bit interested in, Dash knew what her response had to be. 

"Oh nothing, don't worry about it." She walked back into the kitchen prepared to tell AJ the news, but was surprised to find out they had a visitor. Behind Applejack, who was concentrating on her first venture into the wacky world of 3D art, was a very happy looking dog with a considerable amount of icing slathered on its face. 

"What the hell is that thing doing here?!" the pegasus yelled, startling her friend into turning around. Farmer looked at dog, dog looked at pegasus, pegasus looked at farmer who looked back at pegasus. The dog barked happily and turned to walk out of the kitchen, however it found its way barred when Rainbow dove in front of it.

"Are you out of yer mind? We can't have some dog walking about in here, let it go!" 

"Which cake did it eat?" Rainbow rasped breathlessly and was met with a look of sudden and horrified comprehension.

"Ah... ah didn't even know it had come in here!" Applejack babbled remorsefully. They both looked at the animal, it seemed friendly enough, but it wasn't very clean and it didn't have a collar on. 

"We can't serve cake this thing might have touched! I mean, sure I've been known to extend it to the two minute rule when I need to but... I mean just look at it!" Rainbow exclaimed desperately, "It looks like half its weight is fleas!" 

Applejack nervously cantered over and shooed the dog to a corner of the kitchen away from the mess. She then retrieved both of the baked good and showed them to their visitor.

"Hehe, now puppy," she began, trying and utterly failing to sound gentle, "Which of these did you eat?"

"It can't answer you AJ!" 

"Wait I've got an idea," Applejack put one of the cakes closer to the dog and held the other away, and in response the dog barked and wagged its tail. She then reversed the cakes, holding the other one closer to the dog, who in response barked and wagged its tail.

"Ah see you don't wanna cooperate," Applejack growled. 

"Do we have enough time to make another cake?" Rainbow said as she ran her hooves through her mane in desperation.

"Rarity could be here any moment! We need to serve one of these cakes which means that this feller needs to talk," she glared at the dog, who panted and looked around excitedly, "Rainbow, get me my rope," she muttered darkly.





"AJ are you sure this is okay?" Rainbow asked for the fifth time in a minute. 

"God damn it Rainbow of course it is," Applejack snapped while gesturing to the dog. In order to best recreate an interrogation, they, or rather Applejack while Rainbow stood in the corner sniffling pathetically, had lightly tied the dog to a chair and put a lamp shining at it . However, at Rainbow's insistence and to prevent Applejack finding herself in hot water for animal cruelty, the 'tying' had consisted of simply draping the rope around the dog's shoulders and fixing a very loose knot. So the animal wasn't so much held captive as it was sat on a chair with a rope placed onto it.  It sat there staring happily at both of them and looking like it was quite enjoying its new seat.

"Okay, go and get her." Applejack said to Rainbow, who sullenly went back to the kitchen doors and poked her head through.

"Hey, could we maybe borrow Fluttershy?"