A New Element of Friendship
A Wonderful Change Of Pace
Well, today’s the day. After a few months of staying practically indoors, being cooped up in small, heated rooms, today was the day that we could finally go into spring. The one day celebrated by most ponies: Winter Wrap-Up. After the three months of people complaining about *having* to keep all four seasons to maintain harmony in nature, the fashion designs made by Rarity for stallions (she can be vicious when it comes to fashion), today’s the day where it all ends… for at least 9 months. But hey, ¾ of a year isn’t bad. Especially since it was the Ponyville kind of Winter Wrap-Up, where unicorn magic wasn’t allowed to be used to clean up, since it was originally an Earth Pony settlement. Unlike Canterlot, where magic was used to just simply magic the problem away. Personally, I like Ponyville’s better, as it actually feels like you cleaned up for spring.
What wasn’t so fun, however, was an over-eager foal starting a small snowball fight with a friend of theirs, mis-aiming the snowball and managed to throw it through the open window to my bedroom… to which it hit me in the cheek, causing me to quickly wake up from the cold and the impact. I groaned as I started to get out of my warm and toasty bed and to the window, giving the two foals a look… and wouldn’t you know it, it happened to be Snips and Snails.
“S-Sorry Mr. Royalwind!” Snips called up, looking scared.
“Yeah, what he said,” Snails added.
I sighed and shook my head before grinning a bit, replying with, “It’s alright you two! Just be sure to know your duet: you’ll be the first two to perform it now!”
They then quickly took off in terror as I laughed quietly a bit, quickly getting ready for the day, grabbing the blue vest Rarity made for everypony in the weather team.
I soon joined everypony outside, standing near Twilight since I’m usually a late sleeper, unless someone or something decided to do something about it or teaching every other day. Soon, everypony was gathered and Mayor Mare started her annual speech.
“Thank you everypony, for being here bright and early! We need every single pony’s help to wrap up winter and help bring in spring,” Mayor Mare ended her usual opening to cheering as she continued on with, “Now, all of you have your vests and have been assigned to your teams. So let’s do better than last year and have the quickest Winter Wrap-Up ever!”
As the crowd cheered, I thought I could hear Twilight say something to Spike, but it was lost with the cheering going on around me. Admittedly, I was also adding to the cheering, seeing as last year it took us *days* to wrap up winter. This year however, I had high hopes, not the least thinking about the new addition to Ponyville, Twilight.
“Alright everypony, find your team leader, and let’s get galloping! Medley, if you would please help start us off with the annual song?” Mayor Mare looked at me with a small smile as I blushed a bit from all the attention I was getting.
Soon, everypony was with their groups and I started to play the notes to the song on a piano someone thoughtfully pulled out for me. Rainbow was the one to actually start the singing, as I played along. It was refreshing for once to only sing chorus lines instead of having any added lines as well.
Link to listen to song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9BAeyZhAdE
As soon as I played the last few notes, I joined the rest of my team in clearing the skies and helping gather the migrated birds. As I did, I noticed Twilight on the ground, looking a little bit lost. I couldn’t blame her, this was her first Ponyville Winter Wrap-Up, and she focuses on using magic. This was going to be especially tough for her, considering she didn’t even have a vest on to show which team she was helping. I landed softly as she looked at me with an expression that seemed to be pleading and begging for something to help on.
“Medley!” Twilight exclaimed as she came a bit closer to me.
I smiled a bit as I saw Spike looking really tired before focusing on Twilight. “Hey there Twilight. You look a bit eager to help.”
“I am eager! This is my first one away from Canterlot! So… um… what exactly does the weather team do?” Twilight asked, looking confused.
“Well, besides the obvious answer, which would be to clear the skies of winter weather, we also help bring back the birds that migrated south for the winter, making the load a bit easier on the other team that helps out the hibernating animals,” I explained as I saw Twilight quickly take some notes before putting them away.
“Could I help? Maybe help clear up the clouds or…” Twilight smiled, a bit awkwardly.
“Um… Twilight… there’s one problem with that,” I pointed at my wings and then at her horn, summarizing the obvious, “I have wings, which means Pegasus magic, which means able to interact with clouds directly. You have a magic horn, which means Unicorn magic, which means not able to use magic during Wrap-Up, as per tradition.”
Twilight blushed and nodded, probably feeling a bit stupid as I threw her a bone with, “Try seeing if you can help with the animals, either through helping wake them up or by building bird nests for the birds we bring back.”
Twilight thanked me as she went off in the direction of where Rarity was while I flew back into the sky, starting to clear the clouds away.
It was only after a little while when the weather teams stopped due to both the animal team and the earth team had polarizing requests, completely halting the clan-up all together. It was then that Mayor Mare decided to come over to figure out the problem was.
“What in Equestria are all of you arguing about? This sort of silliness is why we were late last year! And the year before that! And the year before that!” Mayor Mare reprimanded the three ponies, continuing on in the same thread, “I was hoping my amazingly inspirational speech and Medley’s cheerful song would urge everypony to do better than last year. But now it looks like we’re going to be later than ever! I mean, just look at this catastrophe!”
I looked out and saw the same problems that plagued us the many years since I was here: the ice was too big for us to really melt down, the nest building wasn’t even really started, as Rarity was completely focused on a really bad nest, us not getting the clouds off in time, the icicles still around all over the place, the snow that still stood in the way of planting the crops, and all the animals who still had to finish hibernating. Not to mention Caramel losing the grass seeds… again… as Derpy went north to go get the southern birds… also again. Frankly, it was getting frustrating that we had a lack of good planning and coordination, but this was the best we’ve had to work with, looking back on the one when I first got here. That one took nearly a *month* to finish everything. Soon, everypony started to bicker and argue about who should do what and faster, with me admittedly adding onto the problem.
Eventually, the Mayor interrupted us, “Stop this at once! We don’t have time to argue!”
This caused us to settle down as we listened to her. “It’s almost sundown, which means Spring is going to be late again. Another year of scandal and shame for Ponyville. If only we could be more organized…”
As if expecting this to be her cue to pull the answer from out of her back, Twilight jumped out of a nearby bush, crying out, much to our surprise at her doing a near Pinkie Pie routine, “Spike! Get my checklist and clipboard! Stat!”
For once, we seemed to ignore her and go right back into arguing. This time though, I didn’t get involved and tried to get everyone to quiet down. However, it proved to be ineffective and I wasn’t in a mood to do a song to try and get their attention. Soon though, Twilight used a nearby bird as a whistle of some kind, grabbing everypony’s attention as she quickly apologized to it, going into her speech.
“Look, I know you all want to do this as quick as you can to finish up in time. But you don’t even know how to go about doing that! Luckily, the answer is simple. All you need is…” Spike zoomed in right on time, holding a clipboard and a writing quill as Twilight finished, “Organization! And I’m just the pony for the job!”
I blanked out for a moment before face-hoofing myself. I had completely forgotten about Twilight and her near OCD levels of organization. Heck, I didn’t realize that the problem was so easy to fix with just a better organizer. Though admittedly, I had just gone on with the flow of Ponyville, not really contributing much other than my work for cleaning up. Soon though, the whole town agreed and let Twilight quickly make a list of things needed to be done before we all spread out for our jobs.
Ours was the most simple, yet the most difficult to pull off: As soon as the critters were all awake and out of their hidey-holes for hibernation, we would form a controlled sideways tornado that would send off all the snow, thick clouds and icicles, which would let the ice blocks that were much easier to melt do just that.
It took us altogether the whole night and morning to finish Winter Wrap-Up, ending in the middle of the afternoon. But soon, the whole town looked ready for spring as we all gathered by a tree on a hill overlooking the town, in front of Twilight as Mayor Mare walked up to congratulate her.
“I can’t believe it… Spring is here. On time! And we have you to thank for it, Twilight Sparkle,” Mayor Mare smiled as she continued on, “If it weren’t for your organizational skills, we would’ve been arguing all over again.”
“Eyep,” Big Mac agreed as we all laughed at that, knowing it was true.
“It was a team effort,” Twilight happily replied.
“Well then, here’s a gift from all the teams,” Mayor Mare started as Rarity came up to Twilight with a new vest, “For leading all the teams, we give you the title… The All Team Organizer!”
Rarity quickly flashed the vest onto Twilight, who looked a bit happier at seemingly finding her place in this mess.
“Goddess… I don’t even know what to say… Thank you everypony!” Twilight blushed a tiny bit as she thanked us.
Mayor Mare looked proud as she addressed us for the final time for Winter Wrap-Up. “I hereby declare that winter is… wrapped-up on time!”
We all cheered for that, as I noticed Spike floating in the water on the last unmelted ice cube. “Heh, I think Spike’s in for a surprising wake up call from his nap once that ice has melted away.”
We all chuckled at that as Twilight smiled wide, levitating Spike onto her back just as the ice melted, which at first she got a glare, then a sheepish apology for when he woke up. We all soon retired to our homes, putting away our winter equipment into our storage rooms for next winter.
It soon became Luna’s time as I finished writing in my journal. I’ve always wondered if Twilight did the same sort of thing after all our hectic adventures that we’ve been having. Then I vaguely remembered something about ‘friendship reports’, which sounded so much like a summarization of a message after an episode of a show. I chuckled a bit at that comparison as I wrapped up my notes for the day. I was proud to have finally been a part of an on-time Winter Wrap-Up and hoped that next year, we could finish earlier than before. Hey, everypony can dream, am I right?
End of Chapter 13