It took a day of ruling Equestria for Twilight to appreciate the swindle Celestia had pulled and a week to grow thoroughly sick of it. A full moon after taking the throne and all rights (few if any beyond those of junior princesshood) and responsibilities (AAAAAAAH) thereof, the promise of the first Council of Friendship meeting was the only reason Twilight was even trying to cling to sanity.
Said council being absent one friend wasn’t helping.
After waiting a full minute past the meeting's scheduled starting point and checking under the throne's cushions just to be sure, Twilight had to say it. “Where’s Pinkie?”
“Well," said Rarity, "she did mention how this particular brush with death put some things in perspective for her.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah, then she put together some kinda rubber chicken-dowsing rod thing and left town, like, three weeks ago.”
Twilight frowned. “And none of you thought to tell me?”
“All due respect, sugarcube," Applejack said with a tip of the hat, "but you’ve got enough on your plate. We figured as much, but one look at you’s all I need to know for sure.”
“You have knots in places I didn’t even know ponies could have them," added Fluttershy, who'd all but ordered the ruler of Equestria on to the floor once she came in the room to give her a much-needed massage. "Rainbow Dash, could you help?”
“Uh, you wrestle bears, Shy." Dash rubbed the back of her head. "Not sure how much help I can give.”
“This is not a one-pony job." Fluttershy shook out her withers. "And Twilight’s latest growth spurt isn’t helping.”
“Yeah, that was the seventh thing Celestia ‘forgot’ to tell me after I took the throne," Twilight grumbled. "Apparently alicorns grow like dragons, except with us, it’s less how much you have and more how important ponies think you are. And after saving Equestria from another ice age and the accession and so forth, I might as well be going through a third puberty, because getting just one more after getting wings wasn’t enough. At this rate, I’ll be taller than Cadence by our next meeting.” She let out a long sigh, which turned into a gasp after both pegasi made a joint pop. “Oh, I needed that. Though I was really looking forward to a cupcake or twelve.”
A long, multilayered belch made everypony go still. That tended to be the right reaction when dragonfire painted the room green.
After the echoes died off, Twilight said, “Spike, for all our sakes, I hope that’s a letter.”
He dashed up to her carrying a massive bundle. “That and a dozen cupcakes.”
“Pinkie? How did she…" Twilight shook her head. "No, I’ve spent far too much time around her to even finish that thought. What’s it say? And what flavor’s the frosting?” A moment later, Twilight floated the cupcakes into her waiting forelegs. “Actually, I don’t care.”
Spike just smiled, unrolled the actual scroll, and cleared his throat. “‘Dear Everypony (and Spike!),
“‘I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t able to make the first Council of Friendship meeting! I lost track of time during my epic quest and the montages took a lot longer than they felt in the middle of them. Plus, trying to detect a wandering party pony isn’t easy when he’s also on an epic quest to find you.’”
Gasps and half-said exclamations filled the throne room.
“Huh." Spike blinked at the letter. "There's actually a line here that says ‘Break for audience reaction.’ Ahem: ‘That’s right! Cheese and I finally tracked each other down and exchanged engagement hoofbands! (Mine’s made of taffy. He knows me so well.) By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be going to the rock farm to consult the Choosing Stone. We’ve got the whole thing planned out after that. Next council meeting’s in Horsolulu!’ And…" Spike fanned the scroll like he was laying out a sheet, scattering smaller pieces of paper. "Yup, there go the wedding invitations.”
“My word," said Rarity. "That mare does work quickly when she’s of a mind to do so.”
"Can't rightly blame 'er. We've been in tight pinches before, but that was a whole lot of 'em one after another, and all tighter'n most. That sorta thing makes you realize you gotta make the most o' th' time you got." Applejack turned to consider Rainbow Dash.
After a few moments of silence, Dash actually noticed. "What?"
"We're gonna need t' have a talk soon."
"I didn't even do anything!"
Applejack nodded. "Yeah, that's part o' th' talk."
Fluttershy just blushed and muttered, "He doesn't really like the idea of organized ceremonies."
"Well." Rarity heaved a deep sigh. "I believe I have a date with a quart of ice cream and my cat when this meeting is over."
"Our love lives or lack thereof aside... Oof..." Twilight gingerly got to her hooves, twisting her neck from side to side. "I'm not sure if I can get the country stable enough for me to go to a wedding in Haywaii a moon from now."
Rarity scoffed. "Well, that's part of why we're here, isn't it?"
"Besides, if we don't RSVP for Pinkie's wedding, she's gonna clear your schedule one way or another." Dash shuddered. "And I'd give her way better odds of destroying Equestria than the Terrible Trio."
"I thought we were calling them the League of Enmity," said Spike.
Applejack shrugged. "Papers called 'em th' Elements o' Disharmony."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Right now, they're a statue in the castle garden, my plans for reforming them are years away from implementation at the earliest, and we have much more pressing concerns to address. Especially if we're going to make that wedding. Rainbow Dash is right; failing to do so could have dire consequences for the planet as a whole."
"Darn good thing Pinkie's on our side," said Applejack.
Twilight nodded. "Let's keep her that way."
The work that went into getting Equestria to the point where the princess and her most trusted advisors could spend a weekend in a tropical paradise was exhausting, seemingly endless, and far more than can be properly captured here. So was the wedding itself, if for much happier reasons.
By the time the party wound down, Twilight just wrenched the sun over Canterlot's horizon, figuring that the time zone differential meant it was more or less time. Then she stumbled her way into one of the beachside cabins rented for all the guests, banged her horn on yet another doorframe, and tucked herself under unfamiliar covers.
Then a rumble shook the cabin.
Twilight's eyes snapped back open. "No," she said. "Not here. Not now."
Another rumble presented an insistent counterargument.
Twilight dug deep into what little she knew about earth pony magic. She opened herself to the flow of the leylines, the rhythm of the earth-currents.
It was a bit like sticking her muzzle in front of an open fire hydrant. If it had been a storm system, she might have been able to stabilize herself long enough to think. If it had been a form of unicorn magic, she could've wrapped it around her hoof and written a paper on the phenomenon. But to her, this was a deep mystery in every sense. All her probing did was leave her wide awake with aching hooves and the vague sense of being sent to her room while the adults talked.
Then, with another rumble, Kilauini erupted.
Twilight ran to the nearest window facing the volcano. Smoke poured from the peak as a fiery red streak raced across the sky. It might have seemed like a meteor if it weren't going up.
Well, it went up for a while. Then gravity kicked in.
Also, it was definitely getting closer.
"No, no, no, not now!" Twilight shouted as she raced outside.
Spike had slept through it; any dragon who couldn’t sleep through an eruption would be a chronic insomniac. But her friends emerged from their nearby cabins, looking as bleary as she felt. "Wuz hap'nin', Twi?" Rainbow Dash slurred.
"Oh, nothing." Twilight could feel her eye start to twitch. "One of the most active volcanoes in the world just decided to start spewing lava again." She frowned as she dredged up half-forgotten volcanology research. "Though Kilauini is a shield volcano, so sending up a volcanic bomb like that is very unusual behavior for i—"
Said bomb made impact not far from them, cutting off the thought. Tall as one of the cabins, its outer layers crumbled away like old parchment, revealing an incandescent interior still dripping liquid rock.
And then something stepped out of that interior. A boar larger than a full-grown yak, with bristles of flame and tusks of white-hot iron, puffs of fire bursting out of its snout with every breath, shook itself. Lava sprayed everywhere.
Twilight looked into the creature's eyes and saw only rage and the desire to destroy.
"Of course," she muttered. "Of course we couldn't just have a peaceful, uneventful wedding."
"This is Pinkie and Cheese we're talking about, Twilight,” Rarity said as she worked the curlers out of her mane. “This was never going to be peaceful or uneventful."
"You know what I mean."
Applejack cracked her neck. “So we're gonna keep this mean ol' mother-hubbard from spoilin' Pinkie an' Cheese's first night t'gether, right?"
Twilight nodded. “Of course."
The boar got its bearings at that point, charging towards the mares and forcing them all to jump out of the way. Then it kept going, making a beeline for the newlywed’s cabin.
"Uh, how do we do that?" said Dash.
Twilight thought as quickly as she could after enough mai tais to challenge an alicorn’s metabolism. “Fluttershy? Do you think you can do something?"
Fluttershy shook her head. ”I can barely understand timberwolves. I can't imagine I'll make any more sense to that creature."
"Applejack?"
"Sugarcube, I can wrangle anything this side o' Appleoosa, but rope and somethin' what lives in volcanoes just don't mix."
"I don't think I'll be of much help either.” Rarity looked down, rolling a pebble back and forth with a forehoof. “This seems like more of a Starlight situation."
"And she's on the other side of the campground because Pinkie didn’t want Trixie and me to be too close to one another.” Twilight facehoofed. “Fantastic.”
"Uh, Twi?” said Dash. “Don't know if you've noticed, but Porkroast has been leaving a lot of little fires behind him." Indeed, the beach grass and more than a few palm fronds were smoldering or worse.
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Well then. Girls, make sure none of this spreads. I'll take care of the uninvited guest."
As the others nodded, Twilight teleported in front of the immense beast. It actually stopped when she manifested in front of it; she hadn’t been sure if it would. A flash of surprise in its glowing red eyes gave her a bit of hope. "Okay! I'm giving you one chance to peacefully surrender and go back home."
Those eyes narrowed. It snorted out another gout of flame and scraped the ground with a hoof.
Twilight sighed. “Of course not. Well, I tried.”
The boar charged. Twilight cast a concave shield like a bulldozer blade. One slammed into the other with an impact that made her teeth shake, but the shield held. “If you won’t go home yourself, I’ll escort you.” Granted, she’d need to get a lot closer before she felt confident about teleporting it into Kilauini. So she started shoving.
The boar gave a startled squeal as Twilight began pushing it back, then started smashing its head into the barrier like the human Fluttershy listening to her records.
She told herself it would get tired soon.
It didn’t.
She told herself it wasn’t so bad.
It wasn’t… the first few dozen times. Then the strain of holding up a shield against repeated physical trauma combined with the non-negligible heat from being that close to something that had just come out of a volcano and reminded Twilight that she should really be in bed right now.
Twilight wasn’t sure how much of the burning sensation in her horn was thaumic strain and how much was actual heat. The boar kept beating against the shield with an almost mechanical rhythm. Cracks started to form.
And then a whistle made both pause and turn to see a figure standing on the shore’s edge.
"Hi, Twilight!“
Twilight blinked. It felt like she’d forgotten to do that for a while. “Pinkie?"
"Over here!"
The boar snorted again and kicked off the shield, reducing it to powder and sending Twilight tumbling. By the time she stood up, it was already running pell-mell down the beach, leaving a trail of glassy hoofsteps as it charged straight at Pinkie.
At least, it was until she said, “So, how you doing?” from right next to Twilight.
Twilight couldn’t be sure what the boar thought of that, but she could see it stumble and try to turn before reaching the waves. It tilted forward enough for its hooves to touch the surf, triggering a pair of steam explosions that catapulted it into the deeper waters.
That burst of steam formed a mushroom cloud.
"You okay?” Pinkie got Twilight’s attention again, looking her over with as much of a frown as the party pony ever had. “You’re looking a little red. And you scorched off your eyelashes again.“
Twilight couldn’t help but smile. Oh, for the simple days in Ponyville when the worst thing she had to worry about were alchemical accidents. “I’ll be fine. I'm sorry."
That got Pinkie grinning again. ”Why, because you did the whole 'Princess of Friendship has to do everything by herself' thing again?"
The princess regnant of Equestria did not pout. But Twilight wasn’t wearing her crown at the moment, so she supposed she could get away with it. “Hey, that was a case of logical deduction."
"Uh huh."
"I'm apologizing because I was trying to give you and Cheese some, well…” Twilight blushed from more than the heat. “Privacy."
"Oh. Oh!” Pinkie shook her head. “That’s really nice of you, but we were way too tired from everything earlier. Cheese never even woke up; there’s no way we’d do any personal pan parties tonight.”
"I'm going to need you to never use that term again."
"No promises!” Pinkie said with a wide smile. “Still, why'd you do everything the hard way with Pele?"
Twilight said nothing for a few moments, just looking back and forth between Pinkie and the beach. “Pele?"
An equine figure emerged from the surf, an earth pony as tall as Cadence and as built as Big Macintosh. Her long, golden mane and tail offset an obsidian-black coat, a cutie mark of Kilauini itself, and eyes the same fiery red as the boar. She stalked towards the pair with the same single-minded determination. "Pinkie! What's the big idea, having your wedding at my home and not inviting me?"
"I tried, Pele, honest! I just couldn't think of a way to get it to you without it burning up!"
Twilight boggled vacantly at the shenanigans. "I have several questions."
“Come on, Twilight,” said Pinkie, “every rock farmer knows about Pele. My dad's even named Igneous Rock."
Twilight gave her the best Celestia-esque disappointed look she could muster. ”I’m not a rock farmer, Pinkie."
"Oh.” Pinkie’s weak chuckle trailed off after a few moments. “This is the parasprites all over again, isn't it?"
“So were you expecting an angry volcano spirit—"
"Goddess.” said Pele.
"An angry volcano goddess to crash your wedding after you snubbed her?"
Pinkie waggled a hoof. “Eh, I gave it fifty-fifty odds."
Twilight took a deep breath and counted to one hundred and one in primes. ”I’m going to go see if there's anything left in the bar. Congratulations again, Pinkie.”
"I'll join you,” Pele said with a smile. She shoulder-bumped Twilight. “Not every day I meet someone who can shove me back."
"See, Twilight? You made a new friend!"
"Go to sleep, Pinkie,” said Twilight. Even if she was smiling as she said it.