One beautiful morning, a purple unicorn was busy reading a book about the regal rulers of Equestria aloud to herself.
‘Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.’
‘But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.’
‘She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.’
The young purple unicorn was really intrigued with the story, but she was also curious about what the eight Elements of Harmony could possibly be.
“Hmm...Elements of Harmony,” the purple unicorn spoke. “I know I’ve heard of those before...but where?”
This purple unicorn is known as Twilight Sparkle. She was known to be a bookworm at times and she always had a passion for reading and studying. She was also the number one unicorn student of Princess Celestia, the wisest and beautiful Alicorn ruler of Equestria. This specific unicorn was about to embark on an incredible journey like no other, but she isn’t the only hero in this story.
The most unusual resident in the town of Ponyville was Bob Nightwalker, the Russian blue cat. He has been known to be the wisest creature in all of Equestria, besides Princess Celestia herself. Thanks to his clever ideas and quick wits, he was always there for his friends and he never gave up on them. When he was very little, he lost his mother and father for unknown reasons.
Bob, of course, wasn’t alone because he had a faithful and slightly dimwitted cat by his side. Patrick Moonbeam was the Equestrian short-hair cat and Bob’s younger, adoptive brother. He seems to act timid at certain times, but he always conquers his fears eventually and he makes random wisecracks at times. Sadly, Patrick also lost his mother and father when he was very young, which made the friendship between he and Bob even stronger.
Bob’s father was named Julius and he was actually Princess Celestia’s good friend before his sudden death and she never forgot about him. Bob’s mother was named Elsa and she was known as the most beautiful and kind of all the female cats in Equestria. When their parents died, Bob and Patrick were raised by Celestia’s niece, until the princess of the sun arranged for them to go to Ponyville and live with another close friend of hers named Thomas, who was red fox.
Twilight Sparkle currently lived in the city of Canterlot with a purple, baby dragon named Spike. He was raised by the princess of the sun at a very young age, but she handed him over to the purple unicorn when he was able to talk and walk on his own. The princess also conjured a harmless spell on the dragon so he could send a letter to her through his green fire breath. These charming characters are soon about to meet new friends and enemies along their journey of both magic and friendship.
This is our story...
Later that morning, Twilight was walking back to her private study tower (and living residence) before she was approached by three unicorn mares exactly the same age as her. One was named Twinkleshine, who was a white unicorn with a pink mane and tail. The second one was Minuette, who was a blue unicorn with a dark blue mane and tail. The third one was Lemon Hearts, who was a yellow unicorn with a cerulean mane and tail. All three of them were carrying presents and had smiles on their faces.
“There you are, Twilight!” Twinkleshine spoke. “Moondancer is having a little get-together in the west castle courtyard. Do you wanna come? She’s really excited about it.”
“Oh, sorry, girls...I’ve got a lot of studying to catch up on” Twilight said nervously before she zipped past them.
“Does that pony do anything except study?” Twinkleshine said to Minuette and Lemon Hearts, before the three continued on their way to the castle courtyard. “I think she’s more interested in books than friends. Oh well, I guess you can’t expect anything more from the pupil of the princess.”
“I know I’ve heard of these Elements of Harmony” Twilight said as she ran towards her study tower.
Inside, Spike was holding a small present for Moondancer until the door flew open a knocked him into the wall and he slid down to the floor.
“Ow!” the baby dragon cried when Twilight ran through the door, looking around for him.
“Spike!” Twilight shouted, coming into the room. “Spike! Spike?”
Spike groaned as he got off the floor and rubbed his head. “Present...”
“There you are,” Twilight said while she trotted over to the bookshelf. “Quick, find me that old copy of ‘Predictions and Prophecies’. And what’s that for?”
Spike turned around to see the broken present on the end of his spiked tail and he gently grabbed it with his claws.
“Well, it was a gift for Moondancer, but...” Spike said as a fluffy teddy bear fell out of the box.
“Oh, Spike, you know we don’t have time for those kinds of shenanigans” Twilight told him as she moved books around with her magic.
“But I thought we were finally taking a break from all of this work!” Spike said.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Twilight yelled as she moved books off the shelf. “Spike!”
“It’s over here!” Spike yelled from the top of a ladder, holding a book.
Twilight used her magic and brought the book over to her and began skimming through the pages. “Ah, elements, elements, E, E, E...aha! Elements of Harmony, see: Mare in the Moon?”
“Mare in the Moon? But isn’t that just an old ponies’ tale?” Spike asked.
Twilight grabbed another book from the shelf and began to skim through it, trying to find the designated selection. “Mare, mare... aha! The Mare in the Moon, myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal!”
“Whoa, I thought I heard everything” Spike muttered.
“Spike, do you know what this means?” Twilight asked.
“We can take a break for once?” Spike shrugged.
“No, it means that we must take evasive action. Take a note to the Princess, please” Twilight sighed.
“Roger that” Spike saluted, before he grabbed a scroll and feather pen.
“My dearest teacher, my continuing studies of pony magic have led me to discover that we are on the precipice of disaster!” the lavender unicorn spoke while doing her usual pace around the room.
“How do you spell ‘precipice’?” Spike asked.
“P, R, E, C, I, P, I, C, E” Twilight answered.
“So it’s like recipe with a P and an extra I in it?” the baby dragon joked.
“Just write down” she glared.
“Okay” he sighed before he continued to write.
“It’s another way of saying that something really bad is about to happen!” Twilight explained. “For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon, and she’s about to return to Equestria, and bring with her eternal night! Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your quick response. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Once she was finished talking, Spike used his fire breath to send it to the princess. Once Spike sent the letter, it wasn’t long before the princess wrote back. Spike picked up the scroll and read the written response out loud.
‘My dearest, most faithful student Twilight, you both know that I value your diligence and that I trust you both completely. But you simply must stop reading those dusty old books! My dear Twilight, there is more to a young pony’s life than studying, so I’m sending you and Spike to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year’s location: Ponyville. And I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends. While you are in overseeing the preparations, I have arranged for you to stay in the Ponyville library. Once you arrive, go to the cottage with the address number 633, and the current resident, Bob Nightwalker, will get you the list of instructions that I sent to him in the mail. I am putting all of my faith in you.
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia.’
Once Spike was finished, Twilight didn’t seem really thrilled about the “leaving Canterlot” part of the task.
“Finally, we get to go on a vacation!” the baby dragon jumped up and down like an excited child.
“How charming” Twilight groaned with sarcasm.
A while later, the unicorn and her baby dragon assistant were being flown to Ponyville in a flying carriage pulled by two Pegasi guards. Spike was happy that they could finally get out into the world that they have been missing, while Twilight was feeling under the weather at the moment. She honestly wasn’t really an outdoor pony by heart, but she knew deep down inside that this means a while lot to the princess, and she was not going to let her mentor/ruler down.
“Well, you can at least look on the bright side, Twilight. The Princess arranged for the both of us to stay in a library. Doesn’t that make you happy?” Spike asked.
Almost instantly, Twilight smiled with determination. “Yes, yes it does, and do you know why? Because I’m right! We’ll simply go to Cottage 633, get the list from Bob Nightwalker, check on the preparations as fast as we can, and then I can get to the library to find some proof of Nightmare Moon’s return.”
A few moments later, the golden carriage landed in the town square of Ponyville, and the lavender unicorn and baby dragon hopped out of it.
“But when are you going to make friends like the princess said?” Spike asked.
“She said to check on preparations,” Twilight spoke seriously. “I am her student, and I’ll do whatever she asks of me, but the fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to become acquaintances with someone at least” Spike said to himself.
“Thank you, gentlecolts” Twilight thanked them kindly.
The two Pegasi stallions both smiled and nodded before they took off and headed back to Canterlot. Once the carriage was out of sight, a pink earth pony with a pink and poofy mane and tail bounced over to them with a beaming smile. Her cutie mark was composed of three balloons; one of which was yellow and the other two were more of a light cobalt color.
“Maybe the ponies in Ponyville have interesting things to talk about,” Spike tried to persuade the lavender unicorn into making friends.
“Come on, Twilight, the least you can do is give it a try!”
Twilight gulped nervously and struggled to keep a smile on her face. “Uh, hi, I’m Twilight—”
However, before Twilight could say another word, the pink pony jumped into the air and gave a loud, deep gasp before she zipped away in a split second.
“Well, that was interesting” Twilight said flatly.
After a few minutes of searching, they found the address of Cottage 633. The cottage was overall very beautiful. The main exterior of the cottage was coated in a light, cream color, while the roof was painted light brown. The front door was teal green and the two main window frames were colored white. The address numbers were painted in a gold font and hung next to the front door.
“Now this looks like a nice place,” Spike smiled at the design of the house.
“Let’s get this over with,” Twilight grumbled, as she walked up to the front door and knocked on it with her hoof. “Hello?”
After a few seconds there was no answer from the door. Before she could knock again, she felt something softly nudge against her legs. She looked down and saw a gray Russian blue cat sitting next to her forelegs.
“Aww, hi there little guy~” Twilight cooed, as she held up one of her hooves to his face, making the cat look at it with confusion.
“Well I’m not going to smell your hoof, if that’s what you want,” the cat suddenly spoke.
“GAHHH!!!!!” the purple unicorn jumped back in surprise.
“Whoa! You can talk?!” Spike asked with enthusiasm.
The gray cat stood up onto his hind legs until he was face to face with Twilight. “Of course I can talk, which is more than I can say for this purple unicorn right here.”
“Um, not to be rude or anything, but who are you?” Spike asked the cat.
“I’m Bob Nightwalker,” the gray cat replied.
“YOU’RE Bob Nightwalker?” the dragon asked in shock.
“Yeah and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he held out his paw to them.
The lavender unicorn was still frozen in fear at the unexpected turn of events. She honestly expected him to be a stallion of some kind, but definitely not a cat. Not wanting to make a bad first impression, Spike took his paw with his claw and shook it.
“It’s nice to meet you too. I’m Spike and this is Twilight Sparkle,” Spike said on behalf of Twilight and himself. “Are we supposed to be getting some instructions from you regarding the preparations of the Summer Sun Celebration?”
“Sure, but maybe you should meet my family first, mostly my little brother,” Bob said.
“You have a little brother?” Spike asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure that my brother’s moping around here somewhere,” Bob smiled.
At that moment, they all heard a faint singing voice coming from the right. When they turned to their heads to the right, Patrick Moonbeam, the Equestrian short-hair walked out from the side of the cottage, humming a cheerful tune to himself.
Patrick stopped walking and smiled when he saw that they had visitors. “Well now, what have we here?”
The striped cat walked over to Spike and began sniffing the dragon’s little head.
The striped cat walked over to Spike and began sniffing the dragon’s little head. “Hey, watch the scales on my head, man!” Spike covered his head with caution.
“Now I’ve seen a lot of things here in Ponyville, but I’ve never run into a funny little thing like this” Patrick chuckled.
“Twilight, Spike, I would like to meet my little adoptive brother, Patrick Moonbeam,” Bob introduced the two newbies to his brother. “Patrick, these two are Twilight Sparkle and Spike.”
“Nice to meet you guys,” the striped cat smiled.
“Back at you,” Spike replied, eventually warming up to him.
Twilight still said nothing, but when Spike began to nudge her, she began to shake her head violently from side to side while babbling in a panicking tone. “No...No...No, no, no, no, no, NO! This...this...this can’t be happening to me! I’m...I’m seeing things! I must be dreaming! Wake me up! Wake me UP!”
After screaming in fright long enough, she ran over to a nearby duck pond and jumped into it, startling some wandering ducks. The blast of cold water caused the pony to shriek and she bounced back out of it. She shook the water from her body and marched back over to the baby dragon and perplexed felines.
“Now we’ll see who’s seeing things,” she looked at the two cats sternly in their eyes. “Go on, say something.”
Bob and Patrick only looked at her with blank expressions for a few seconds before they both lost it and started to laugh in amusement.
“Gee, you’re funny! Do that again!” Patrick chuckled.
“You can actually talk?!” Twilight’s eyes widened again.
“Yeah, I already said that,” Bob said.
“What do you think we are; dummies?” Patrick asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Twilight shook her head.
“You were thinking it,” the striped cat narrowed his eyes.
“I was not!” the unicorn further denied.
“But we don’t just talk,” Bob cut in, succeeding in preventing an argument. “We can also read and write just like any other pony in this town. I also tend to the library in my spare time, mainly because I’m the only librarian in Ponyville.”
“Reading and writing is more of Bob’s persona,” Patrick brushed it off playfully. “I’m fonder of being a happy, go-lucky kind of guy. Whenever there’s a problem, I take things one day at a time. I’m also fond of singing all kinds of music, mostly jazz.”
‘Wow, I didn’t know that cats could actually do things like ponies can,’ Twilight said in her mind, slightly interested. ‘Hmm, maybe I can look further into this when I get to the library later.
“Maybe they could be the first friends you can make while we stay here, Twilight,” Spike whispered to her.
“So...now that introductions are taken care of, can we get to overlooking the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration?” Twilight asked with hope in her eyes.
“Of course. Helping out with some important events is another one of our special traits,” Bob nodded.
“Just out of curiosity, isn't it kind of nerve-racking to be the only talking cats around here?” Twilight questioned.
“Yeah, when we first moved here, it was a little challenging, but we managed to make the best out of it,” Bob nodded.
“How exactly do cats like you manage to live out here in Ponyville? Can you tell us how you do it?” Spike asked.
Twilight was starting to get a little agitated by the delay. “Uh, shouldn’t we be more focused on—?”
“Yeah, we’ll tell what we do here in Ponyville,” Patrick beamed with pride.
“Oh, joy” the purple unicorn sat down in boredom as the two cats began to sing.
At that moment, Patrick’s stomach began to growl from hunger.
“Man, I’m getting hungry,” the striped cat announced.
“Hey, that reminds me, what do you eat out here?” Spike asked.
“I’m glad you asked, kid. Should we tell them, Patrick?” Bob spoke to his brother.
“Yep,” Patrick nodded.
“Alright, now listen to this, this is the important part,” Bob told them before singing again.
While this was happening, the two cats walked over to the nearby stream while Twilight and Spike followed. One by one, the two cats started swatting different kinds of fish out of the flowing water and began to munch down on them. Bob even stacked some of the fish onto a silver platter, while Patrick simply stuffed his face at one point.
“Come on, Pat! It’s now or never! Let’s take it home, big guy!” Bob shouted happily as they started to dance on a short but wide tree stump and sang the last of the part of the song.
Once the two cats were finished, they both got an ecstatic applause from Spike and an uninterested clap from Twilight.
“Great job, you guys!” Spike whooped.
“Well, there’s three minutes and six seconds of my life I’ll never get back,” Twilight commented dryly.
“I know, it’s great, isn’t it?” Patrick chuckled, not noticing the sarcasm.
“Well, it was really nice getting to know you two, but Spike and I should really get a start on the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. You wouldn’t by any chance have the list of instructions for me, do you?” Twilight asked with a forced smile.
Bob’s eyes widened with nervousness. “I...didn’t really get the instructions for you yet.”
“WHAT?!” the lavender unicorn practically shouted.
“It’s still at the Ponyville Post Office, but we can all go get the instructions together,” Bob offered.
“Alright, just as long as you both don’t break into another song,” Twilight requested.
“Bummer,” Patrick groaned.