A series of short stories that take place over a single 24-hour period.
1 day, a lot can happen within a single day.
A day in the life explores the life of several ponies over a single 24 hour period over a series of 17 short stories. These stories are only related to the fact they take place in the exact same day.
24 hours, 17 stories, 9 charcters, 1 day
The stories: Luna faces boredom, Pinkie Pie makes a late night snack, Applejack has trouble sleeping, a look inside one of Spike's dreams, Rarity getting an early start to her day, Celestia raising the sun to start a new day, Celestia and Luna having breakfast-dinner together, Twilight planning her day, Rainbow Dash going to work, Fluttershy having lunch with her animals, Twilight's job as a librarian, Rainbow Dash finishing work, Celestia fixing the tax code, Rarity's trip to the spa, Pinkie Pie making a large order of cakes, a dinner with the Apple family, and Celestia and Luna having dinner-breakfast together.
Midnight, the start of a new day. But for a certain alicorn princess, it is the halfway point of the day.
Princess Luna is walking down the castle hallways byherself, having just finished what little paperwork she was given. Seeing as most of Equestria's citizens are asleep during her shift, there is not that many proplems or work to do compared to her sister.
"Sometimes I wish my sister would give me some of the paperwork to relieve her of any stress, but she always insists on doing it herself." thought Luna, sighing to herself.
The castle was mostly quiet, most of the staff, except for her guards, have left for the night to get their rest. Luna is used to the eerie silence of the castle at night. After seeing a wall clock read midnight, Luna decides that it is a perfect time for lunch.
Luna walks into the kitchen to find it devoid of ponies, as usual for this hour. All the chefs have left a few hours ago to get their sleep, so for lunch, Luna usually has to settle for whatever the chefs made for her before leaving. Luna opens the refrigerator to find a plate of food covered under a cloche with her royal seal etched onto it. Luna happily picks it up and takes it to the large dinning hall.
For the sisters, lunch is the only meal of the day where they eat alone, usually because one is asleep while the other is awake. Luna lifts the cloche to reveal a dandelion sandwich, the usual meal.
"Great! Another sandwich, how did they know?" sarcastically thought Luna.
Luna then eats her sandwich in peace, byherself, in the dinning room.
Half hour later, Luna decides to find something to do for the next remaining six hours of her shift. While walking she overhears two of her guards having a conversation around the corner from her. Luna, having nothing better to do, decides to listen in on them.
Two unicorn royal guards are talking about their day, their jobs, and strangely, Princess Celestia.
"Sometimes I hate working for her!" complained a guard, he has a white coat.
"Really? Why?" asked the other guard who has a greyish coat.
"Because she sometimes likes to pull pranks on us!" continued the white-coated guard. "Just this afternoon, she made me go on a snipe hunt by making me find a ID-10-T form and ordered several of my co-workers to play along!"
"Oh yeah," said the grey-coated guard. "She made me do the same thing during my first week." he said nostalgically.
"I was searching for three hours before I realized what was going on, I told her highness about it and all she did was laugh!" continued the white-coated guard, still complaining.
"Calm down, she's the hardest working pony in Equestria, I think she does that to relieve some stress and take a break from the monotony." said the grey-coated guard, calming his friend down. "Come on, it's past midnight, out shifts are over, let's go back to the barracks and rest." he offered.
The white-coated guard agrees and the two walk off together.
Once she's sure that the guards are gone, Luna continues on her walk inside the castle, fondly remembering the countless snipe hunts Celestia got her in during her life. Her favorite one would have to be the search for the "Tartan paint".
She then ends up back in her chambers, looking for something to do. After looking around her chambers, she decides to step into the balcony that overlooks the castle grounds and across from Celestia's tower and chambers. Luna looks out to the opposing tower to see her chamber shrouded in darkness.
"I wonder what my sister is dreaming about?" wondered Luna. She would love to use her magic to enter her dreams, but is afraid of what she would encounter in there. Most of Celestia's dreams are either about her insecurities, cake, or her royal plot, mostly her insecurities.
Luna then hears the clock in her room chime 1 o'clock.
"Great! Just five more hours to go." thought Luna. Luckily, she's used to the boredom of the night shift and routine. But tonight, the boredom was even worse than usual.
"Ugh, nothing happens during the night!" complained Luna in her thoughts. "Why can't my sister give me some of her work and duties?" she thought rhetorically.
Celestia always insisted on doing everything herself or at least be informed of everything and anything that goes on within Equestria's borders. Lately, Luna has noticed the amount of paperwork that Celestia does increasing with every year. When they both started ruling, there was enough paperwork to fill up only two carts and both did an equal share, but now that number has increased 10-fold with Celestia doing almost all of it byherself.
Luna looks around her room, she can't play loud music, or else risk waking her sister up. She learned that hard way that a sleep depraived Celestia would cause as much chaos as Discord, but with more pranks and games.
Over 2,000 years, that's how long Celestia has ruled Equestria, but it can't last forever. Alicorns may be practiaclly immortal, but they can still die, although not by natural means anyways, but even unnaturally it is extremely difficult. Luna was banished to the Moon for half of those years.
Luna's thoughts continue to wander as she now lays on her bed, alone with only several of her guards protecting the castle and her sister.
Her train of thought is then derailed when somepony knocks on the door. "Enter!" said Luna to the door. A unicorn stallion walks in holding a ream of documents with his magic. "Paperwork for your highness." announced the unicorn, an advisor, as he places the documents on Luna's desk. The unicorn then softly bows and walks off.
Luna walks over to her desk to see the stack of documents to find a note on top of the stack.
In case you were board. Your sister, Celestia
Luna just smiles, Thank you sis. she says in her head. Happy that she now has someting to do for the remaning five hours of her day.
Pinkie Pie is startled awake by a strange growling noise coming from her room. She looks around her dark room for the source of the sound, until she begins to feel hunger pains. She immediatly guesses where the sound is coming from.
"Oh! Silly me, my tummy is empty!" happily said Pinkie Pie, relieved that it is just her stomach growling. "If I knew you were going to be hungry in the middle of the night, I would've requested thirds Mr. Tummy." she said to her stomach, talking to it like it was another pony.
She gets up from the bed and silently hops out of her room and down the stairs, making sure not to wake the cakes or their foals. She reaches the kitchen in no time and goes to the refrigerator. She examines the contents of the fridge for food.
"Let's see," said the pink pony, her entire body except her rump inside the fridge. "Hm, white or rye bread...or pumpernickel. I guess it depends on the cheese inside...and how well it goes with cupcakes!" her voice muffled by the walls of the fridge. The door to the fridge then closes, trapping her inside. But strangely, she pops out of the ice box on top. "I know!" exclaimed Pinkie, light bulb appearing over her head. "I'll make a batch of cupcakes!". She jumps out of the ice box and grabs a cookbook from nowhere.
She opens the book and looks over at the recipies. "Hm, this recipe sounds delicious! A 'devil square' snack cake!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie. "Appropriate because this is a snack!"
She then rockets to the kitchen cabients and pantry, throwing the book behind her, and quickly gathers all the ingrediants and tools.
The clock in the kitchen rings 2 in the morning, as Pinkie waits for her batch of snack cakes to finish baking. "This is so neat!" said Pinkie, pressing her face against the oven glass. "I wonder why the call them devil squares? They look more like 'ding-dongs' to me!"
Pinkie then sits at the kitchen counter and waits. Soon, she begins to think about what she's going to do today. She'll be too busy helping the Cakes to spend time with her friends. Also, Twilight will be busy at the library, Applejack is spending all day at the farm, Fluttershy is busy taking care of her animals, Rarity has a ton of dress orders to make and Rainbow Dash will be at work.
Pinkie doesn't mind it, as long as they stay friends and don't make a habit out of it. Suddenly, the oven's bell dings, the snack cakes are done. She quickly runs to the oven door and opens it, only for a huge amount of chocolate to shoot out and cover every single inch of the kitchen and Pinkie Pie.
"Ooopsie." nervously laughed Pinkie Pie. "Over did it with the yeast." She then uses her tougne to clean all of the chocolate off her body. "Mmm...tangy."
"PINKIEEE!" yelled a voice. Pinkie turns around to see Mr. Cake standing in the kitchen entrance, angrily tapping his hoof on the floor.
Pinkie looks around the room at the mess, "Don't worry, I'll clean it up." said a dejected Pinkie.
"Then it's off to bed, we have a long day ahead." sternly explained Mr. Cake. He then walks off. "Third time this month!" mumbled Mr. Cake under his breath as he walks up the stairs.
Mr. Cake quickly checks on the babies before finally heading up to his room. He sees Mrs. Cake awake and waiting for him, he then lays down next to her.
"Another late night snack?" said Mrs. Cake, knowing it has something to do with Pinkie. Mr. Cake finally gets comfortable as pulls the covers up to his neck.
"Sometimes I wish I knew what goes thru her mind." said Mr. Cake, sometimes annoyed by Pinkie's antics.
"I suggest you don't, I don't want my husband's head to explode, and leave a mess for me to clean." sarcastically said Mrs. Cake, cuddling her husband.
"Hahaha, very funny!" snarked Mr. Cake. Mrs. Cake just laughs and switches the subject.
"Are the babies asleep?" she asked.
"They didn't even stir."
Mr. and Mrs. Cake then kiss each other and return to their sleep, a hard day of work coming.
It is 3 o'clock, and Pinkie has finally finished cleaning the kitchen, mostly using her tounge to lick the chocolate off of anything that is not floor.
"No more late night snacks for a while Mr. Tummy." said Pinkie to her stomach. "Besides, we have a lot of orders to fill and we need our sleep!" smiled Pinkie.
Pinkie goes back upstairs and makes it back to her room, she looks out the window to see the moon and stars still up. Pinkie gets on her bed. "Good night...again." said Pinkie, before falling asleep. Stomach no longer growling.
"Why can't ah stay asleep!" quietly exclaimed Applejack, laying on her bed, starting at the ceiling. She has been awake for about 30 minutes and still couldn't get back to sleep. She just quietly sighs and looks around her dark room, only the moonlight providing the light. The clock on her wall reads 3:20.
"Great! An' ah need t'be awake at five!" complained Applejack, but quietly so as not to awake Granny Smith, Big Mac or Apple Bloom. She has a long day of chores ahead of her and can not afford to do them sleep depraived.
This is the third time this month that she has awoken in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. The last one affected her so badly that she nearly destroyed any chances of Big Mac reproducing in a farming incident that her lack of sleep caused. She was banned from operating heavy machinery until her sleeping problems are cured.
"Ah's sure Big Mac will fo'gimme, it c'd've been worse!" said Applejack to herself, Big Mac still wouldn't let her live it down.
Suddenly, Applejack hears the distant cries of Apple Bloom. Applejack knows that it means she got another nightmare and wants to be comforted. Applejack gets up from her bed, leaving her trademark hat, planning on going back to her room anyways, and walks over to Apple Bloom's room.
"Yo' alright?" said Applejack upon entering her younger sister's room. She sees Apple Bloom hiding under the bed covers.
"Oh, it was horrible! I dreamed I was being chased by an evil statue with sharp teeth!" explained a scared Apple Bloom. "It felt so real!"
Applejack grabs a chair and sits down next to the bed, "It's alright sugar, it was only a dream, ev'rythin' is fine, no evil statues hyar." assured Applejack, rubbing her sister's back thru the bed sheet using her hoof.
Apple Bloom calms down and slowly pops her head from under the covers and looks around the room.
"Can yo' tell me a story?" asked Apple Bloom, knowing that it would make her feel better.
Applejack just smiles at the request, she then starts thinking of a story to tell. "Less see, howsabout th' story about a crazy old man an' his big blue box?" offered Applejack.
"Howsabout a story about ma' and pa'?" proposed Apple Bloom. She hardly ever knew her parents and always wanted to know everything about them. "Like how they met an' fell in love."
Applejack loved that story, ever since Big Mac told her the story after coming back from Manehatten.
"Fine, ah reckon yo'll injoy this story." said Applejack, happy that she gets to tell it to Apple Bloom.
It was a bright summer day at Sweet Apple Acres, and a young red stallion wearing a stentson and yoke is leaving the farmhouse.
He is being sent into town by Mama Smith to get ingrediants for her apple pies. He leaves the farm and walks alone down a small dirt path into Ponyville, it took longer because the town was smaller during the time. He continued to walk until he heard a sweet voice singing. The stallion instantly becomes intrested in what he's hearing, and decides to follow the voice to its source. He finally comes across a very hearwarming sight; a yellow Earth pony mare singing and conducting a choir of birds.
The moment the stallion sees her, he knew he was in love. He slowly walks up to the mare and introduces himself.
"Howdy, ah c'dn't he'p but notice how right purdy yer voice was an'-" before he could finish, the mare hides her face behind her mane and runs off, birds following her. The stallion stands there in shock.
Several weeks pass, as the stallion is now in Ponyville selling some apples.
"Apples, git our wo'ld famous apples fo' a bit per apple!" the stallion announced to potentional customers.
Nopony seems intrested in the apples, until he catches sight of the yellow mare he saw earlier walking by nervously. The stallion quickly sets up an "out to lunch" sign on the cart and quickly runs after her.
"Wait!" yelled the stallion after the her. "Ah's hankerin' t'talk t'yo'!"
The mare just stops and hides her face behind her mane again. "What do you want?" said the mare in a quiet and timid voice.
"Jest wanted t'talk t'yo'!" said the stallion. "Yer thet mare sin'in' wif th' birds, it was right purdy."
"Then you must be that stallion that works on the farm I pass by every morning." nervously said the mare. They both look into each others eyes and nervously start laughing.
This is how they met.
"A year later, they got married." said Applejack, finishing her story. She looks at the clock to see that it is about to be 4 o'clock.
"I miss ma' and pa'." stated Apple Bloom. She doesn't get a response from Applejack, she then sees Applejack slumped on the chair, sleeping. "Insomnia solved!" quickly declared Apple Bloom, she then tucks herself in and goes back to bed, knowing that Granny Smith will let Applejack oversleep a few more extra hours.
An hour later, a wall clock, hanging in Big Mac's room, rings 5 o'clock. Big Mac wakes up, hides his Smarty Pants doll under the bed, gets on all fours and looks out the window to see the sky still dark.
It is 5 in the morning at Golden Oaks library, both Spike and Twilight are sleeping soundly in their room, not planning on waking up for another two hours today.
Spike, Twilight's assistant, is sleeping in his small bed next to Twilight's bed. He has a big smile on his face, apprently, having a good dream.
In a far away land, a knight is riding his horse to a large castle belonging to the king. He is let into the castle and gets off his horse, which strangely has the same colors as Twilight.
The knight, a big muscular man, marches into the castle and walks into the throne room where King Sirius is waiting for him.
"What is it that you brought me here your majesty." bowed the knight.
The king, a white unicorn with a grey mane and beard walks over to the knight. The king sees that the knight is actually a larger, taller and more muscular version of Spike.
"The wicked witch of the rocks has kidnapped my precious daughter, and I want you, being the most bravest warrior in my kingdom to save her!" announced the king, trying to keep a straight face, not wanting to show emotion for the sake of his subjects.
"And what would be my reward for saving the princess?" asked Spike.
"My daughter's hand in marriage, of course." answered the king, knowing that his daughter would be safe around the brave warrior.
"I will do my best, your majesty, I'll save Princess Rarity and defeat the witch!" announced Spike, he bows one last time and marches out of the castle.
Spike gets on his horse and rides off. "HI HO TWILIGHT, AWAY!" yelled Spike as he rides off.
An hour of riding later, and Spike comes across the old abandoned castle where the wicked witch lives in. "Don't worry princess, I'll save you!" he says to himself.
Inside, at the highest room, in the tallest tower, Princess Rarity is chained up against the wall yelling for help. "Of all the worst possible things! This is THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!" complained the princess.
"Oh, but it will get even more worse!" cackled the witch, who is played by a straight-maned Pinkie Pie. "And soon, I'll make you work the rock mines until your hooves are so damanged, that no pedicure can save them!" gloated the pink witch.
"NOOOOO!!" screamed the princess.
"Stop it right there you wicked witch!" announed a masculine voice. The witch and the princess turn to see Spike standing in the doorway.
"You may be the strongest knight in the kingdom, but you're no match for my reality warping magic!" cackled the witch.
Spike takes out his trusty sword and charges at the witch, while the witch takes out her wand and uses it to blast a beam of magic to turn the sword into a swordfish, causing the witch to laugh uncontrollably. Spike is stunned, but quicly takes the large swordfish and chucks it at the witch. The witch catches it but the force of the throw causes her to loose her balance and walk backwards towards and out the only window in the room, causing her to fall a great height.
Down below, Big Mac is pulling a cart of manure to be used on his farm, when the witch suddenly falls from the sky and lands into the cart. The witch sticks her head out of the manure pile, angry and defeated. "I HATE MANURE!" she exclaimes.
"Eeyup." says Big Mac, agreeing with her, with a smile on his face.
Back at the tower, Spike manages to free Rarity from the chains and they embrace.
"My hero!" lovingly announces Rarity, hearts in her eyes. They then proceed to kiss passionately and get down to the floor.
Back in the real world, Spike now has an even bigger smile on his face. "Oh...Rarity..." mumbles Spike in his sleep.
Carousel Boutique is quiet, dark and empty, except for the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Inside, Rarity is finishing up her early morning hot shower, she would normally wake up at about 7, but decided to wake up two hours early to get an early start to her busy day. Today, in about 10 hours, a famous fashion designer from Canterlot will visit the boutique to critique her dress designs, and Rarity wants to give herself plenty of time to put the finishing touches to the dresses.
She steps out of the shower and checks herself out in the mirror. "Gorgeous as always, I say." said Rarity to herself, winking at her reflection. She proceeds to dry herself off and begin the long process of styling her hair and putting on her makeup.
After making sure her hair was perfect and ready for the long day, she puts on her robe and slippers and proceeds downstairs to the kitchen to drink her morning coffee.
Normally, she would be reading the newspaper while drinking her coffee, but since today's paper hasn't been delivered yet, she settles for one of her many romance novels.
Her parents are off on vacation for the week, leaving her to take care of her little sister Sweetie Belle for the time being. Rarity makes a mental note to wake her up at 7 to get her ready for school.
While reading her romance novel, she begins to think about the love lives of her friends, hoping to one day play matchmaker for one of them.
Pinkie Pie is too random to find a match for, Rainbow Dash is to proud to accept her help, Fluttershy loves romance, but she almost breaks into nervous hives from just the thought of dating somepony and Applejack will always put the farm and family first. Leaving only Twilight. Rarity makes another mental note to find a match for Twilight soon.
She finishes her coffee and novel just as the clock in the kitchen strikes 6. It is still dark, but sunrise should come about any minute. The only one of her friends awake at this time is Applejack, they always wake up early.
She goes to the refrigerator door to check her schedule for today.
05:00 Wake up 06:00 Begin work on dresses 07:00 Wake up Sweetie Belle, get her ready for school 08:00 Breakfast 08:30 Take Sweetie Belle to school 09:00 Re-start work on dresses 12:00 Break for lunch 15:00 FASHION DESIGNER!!! 17:00 SPA! (with Fluttershy) 19:00 Dinner 20:00 Night out
A busy day ahead.
She immediatly starts thinking of Fluttershy, the only friend of hers that goes to the spa regularly with her. After meeting her for the first time, Rarity made it her life's goal to find a romantic match for the timid and shy pegasus, Rarity loves a challenge. She makes a third mental note to talk to Fluttershy about her love life when they're at the spa together. Although Rarity suspects that she may have a secret crush on a certain red farmer stallion, they do make a great pair, in fact, Big Mac can be matched well not only with Fluttershy, but Twilight and maybe Rainbow Dash.
Rarity goes to the front door to retrieve her paper, it is usually delivered at around this time. She walks outside into the slowly brightening day to find several citizens slowly getting up to get ready for the day. She picks up the paper and reads the headline. "Search for two Ponyville citizens called off!" read the headline.
The article is about the dissapearance of Lyra and Bon Bon about a month ago and how investigators were unable to find any evidence or leads.
Rarity is too shocked to form a response and goes back inside to focus on her busy day. She then turns the "closed" sign to "open", to symbolize the official start of the day.
She takes off her robe and slippers, and puts on her work glasses and sits in front of her sewing machine and begins to work as much as she can before she has to wake her sister up for school.
Outside, Celestia's sun slowly rises as the night becomes day and many of the Ponyville citizens wake up to get started and ready for another work day.
It is a quiet morning in Canterlot as the ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia has just finished her most sacred of duties; raising the sun each morning. She smiles with acomplishment as the sun is now up in the sky, signalling the start of the morning and a new day. She then walks back into her chambers to begin her morning routine.
Celestia goes over to her desk to see another stack of paperwork in the "in" box and a smaller stack in the "out" box. She decides to wait until after breakfast-dinner with her sister Luna before starting on the paperwork.
The princess enters her bathroom and gets the large bathtub ready for her warm twice daily bath. It is very unbecoming of a princess to smell, especially when holding court to her subjects.
After about 10 minutes of batheing, Celestia gets out, uses her magic to dry herself off and begins to brush her teeth, fix her mane and make herself look presentable for her subjects. After checking herself in the mirror to see everything is perfect, she walks out of the bathroom and back into her chambers only to see her secretary, a brown unicorn mare named Penny Wise, waiting for her. Most likely to go over today's schedule.
"Good morning your highness, how did you sleep?" asked Penny Wise.
Celestia just answers her usuall response. "I slept well," she then goes to the subject at hoof. "How's my schedule looking today?"
"Well," responded the secretary, looking through her planner. "After breakfast-dinner with your sister, you have the weekly meeting with your advisors, followed by lunch reception with centanarian subjects, and then in the afternoon, and meeting with your financial advisors about reforming the tax code."
The last response grabs Celestia's attention. "TAX CODE?" exclaims the princess. She hates having meeting about taxes, they're boring and last for hours.
"You've been putting this off for months already, and with tax day coming in several months, they need to meet with you now in order to implement any reforms before then." explained Penny Wise.
Celestia was in for a long, and boring day, so she gets an idea to make the day interesting. "Maybe we should a drill today, to make my impending boredom more worth it." said Celestia to the secretary. Penny Wise knows exactly what she is talking about, and she takes out a folder and gives it to the princess.
Celestia opens the folder to find a paper with a list of drills that the royal guards can do:
Fire, Tornado, Changeling, Dragon, Griffin, Discord, Deranged Subject, Rebellion, Coup d'Etat, Apocalypse, Royal Madness, Twilight's Magic, Fluttershy's Estrus and "Caught the wrong end of the scale".
The princess looks over the list and thinks. "Hm, I think we'll go for the good old fashioned fire drill today at noon." She closes the folder and gives it back to the secretary. "You may go know." ordered Celestia.
Penny Wise just bows and walks off, leaving Celestia alone.
7 o'clock.
Shining Armor is leading the guards through their daily morning drills. A messager comes up to him to give him a letter for Celestia. Shining Armor salutes the messager and the messager gallops off. Shining Armor then opens the letter and silently reads it. After reading it, he puts the letter into his uniform pocket.
"Okay men," announed Shining Armor. "We have a fire drill today, so you know the procedure, assemble here at 1200 hours for further orders, dissmissed!"
The guards salute and walk off to their barracks for breakfast.
"At least it's not the 'Wrong end of the scale' drill." said Shining Armor to himself before leaving to have some breakfast.
Celestia is on her way to her sister's chambers, to spend some time with her, she is then joined by one of her senior financial advisors Money Bags, a light-green stallion pony with a monocle and a white handlebar mustache.
"What it is Mister Bags?" said Celestia, not in the mood with dealing with her advisors.
"It's about the proposed changes to the tax code you wanted." answered Money Bags, unable to 'read the air', as Celestia would say. Best financial advisor she had in decades though.
"What about them?" asked a calm Celestia, trying to hold on to her royal poker face.
"Several rich and powerful ponies in Equestria are worried that you'll increase their taxes, and demand that you focus on spending, especialy the amount of money spent on you, your sister, castles and land." explained Money Bags.
"Tell them that it takes more than cutting spending to keep the economy at a surplus and that I also do my taxes, and once Luna masters the tax code, her as well." announed Celestia. "Besides, I make sure the economy of Equestria is at a surplus, and I kept it that way for over a millenium."
Money Bags just nods in agreement and walks off.
"This is going to be a long day!" exclaimed Celestia to herself, she hates dealing with her advisors.