//------------------------------// // 25 An unexpected celebration // Story: Crushed: The Beginnings // by Silent Wing //------------------------------// “Do you have any idea why they want us to go there?” I ask confused, wondering why almost everypony, except Rumble, had been avoiding me for the entire day while making our way to Sweet Apple Acres. When I think about it, it almost feels like they wanted me to stay away for some reason. “No, they didn’t tell me anything.” Rumble replies and from the sounds of it, he is really as clueless as I. “Any idea what they are up to?” I take some time to ponder about all the things they could have done while the two of us had been away, but none of my ideas makes any sense. “Not in the slightest.” I reply clueless while thinking back on our day. True, we don’t spend much time with the crusaders, but almost every time has been fun so far. Who could ever have thought that trying for our librarian cutie mark could end in such a disaster. I am almost certain that Twilight will ban all of us from the library for some time after we finished “organizing” her books. But that wasn’t too bad. The real disaster happened when we visited Pinkie Pie and asked her if we could try for our baker cutie mark. Let’s just say, cake shouldn’t be able to do that! “So, want to spend more time with those three?” He asks me, totally breaking my train of thoughts and pulling me back to reality. “As long as we save the cooking, baking, and everything else that involves food for when Sweetie Belle isn’t around, then yes.” I reply, unable to hide a smile at the prospect of some more adventures with them. When we reach the top of the hill and the farm comes in sight, I spot something unusual. At first it isn’t clear for me to make out, but this changes as the distance lowers. To me it almost looks like somepony set things up for a large celebration.  I also notice a very weird lack of ponies. We walk down to all the neatly set up tables and once we reach them I just can’t hold in my curiosity. “Any idea what all of this means Rumble?” “SURPRISE.” Hundreds of ponies appear out of nowhere and scream directly at me. “GAAAAAAH!” I scream in shock, clinging tightly to my cloud. After a moment’s thought I change my mind and bury myself deep into the cloud. Whatever monster that was, it can’t get what it can’t see.  Everything is silent for quite some time before I begin to hear the first pony voices, coming from the ground.  “What just happened?” one pony asks, which is quickly followed by another asking “Where did she go?” and many other voices asking similar questions. But one pony sticks out from the mass of voices since she doesn’t sound confused like all of them. No, she sounds clearly upset. “I told you this was a horrible idea!” “I can see her tail.” One pony suddenly says and I quickly pull it in, mad at myself for not thinking about that earlier. “Just how did she get up there so fast?” The same voice asks, making everypony fall silent, probably wondering the same.  “I'll talk with her.” one of the ponies says and it doesn’t take long until I hear the sound of wingbeats, warning me that the pony in question is already close. Curious who is approaching me, I lift my head and take a look into the direction the flying pony is coming from. I sigh in relief when I spot the greyish blue pegasus mare I care so much about. I would probably have tried to run, if it had been anypony else, instead I choose to wait and at least hear her out. “I am sorry Wingy, we never wanted to scare you.” She apologizes as soon as she sees more from me, then just my tail. I stay quiet and just wait until she lands on the cloud in front of me before I rush the few hoofsteps over to her and bury my face in her chest fluff. It doesn’t take long until I feel her wings around me, sharing the comfort I need so much right now. I begin to cry openly, letting out all the suppressed fear, sorrow, and pain, I had been holding back for so long. Ever since Discord came back and was petrified again, I was scared beyond belief that he would break free once more. I feared and still do what he could do to me, should he ever break free again.  I used to be a master in hiding my emotions from others, but I don’t think that I am as good as I used to be and that mommy saw through my mask. Maybe dad and mama D too. It is that moment something becomes clear to me. Why the buck do I still keep that up? It never did much to help me and in the end, it only made things worse. So why? Here is no one I have to look stronger than I actually am out of fear to get beaten up or maybe worse. When I begin to calm down and only the occasional sniff is heard from me, I decide that it’s time to stop with that crap. “Better now?” Mommy asks me soon and I can only nod. “That  wasn’t only about the surprise, right?” “No mommy,” I reply after a moment of hesitation before I tell her how I truly felt in the past few weeks. She listens attentively, never interrupting me once. “You know that you can always come to Dashie, Mango, or me if something is bothering you? No matter what we are doing, we always have time for you.” She says, reminding me of something, I should already know. We sit there in silence for a while and when she wipes a lonely tear from my face, she faces and asks me. “Now shall we head down to the party? Everypony is waiting for you.” “Party, what Party?” I ask confused before the really weird part of her last question sinks in, only to confuse me even more. “And why are they waiting for me?” “Well, how should they celebrate a birthday without the pony whose birthday is celebrated?” “B - bu - but we don’t know my birthday.” I stumble out in shock, never having expected this answer. “No, we do.” She replies much to my confusion, only to clear it up moments later. “Remember when you told us about your past?” I shake my head, having no idea where she is going with that. “I said we just use the day we adopted you. You didn’t say anything back then, so I thought it is okay for you.” “Yeah, it is,” I reply after some thought. Considering this the best of all the possible options. “But why are there so many ponies?” I wonder out loud, after remembering just how many ponies I saw earlier before I somehow ended up on this cloud.  “Pinky got a bit carried away, when I asked her, to help me with the preparations. That mare just doesn’t know what a “Small celebration” is.”  “Now, how about we go down there and get the party started?” I look up to her with pleading eyes, unsure if this is such a good idea, but there is one thing that would make it easier for me. “Only if you stay close mommy.” When she let’s go of the embrace and pulls her wings back, I step to the edge of the cloud and look down, wondering how the buck I managed to get up here on such short notice. Suddenly an idea pops into my head and I quickly tell her to “follow me in 10 seconds”.  “No, we are not doing that now, Wingy.” She replies immediately, but it’s already too late. I jumped over the edge of the cloud and into an almost vertical dive to the ground. One wing pulled in to send me into a spirale and making it look like I lost control over my flight. My gaze is fixed onto the ground, patiently waiting for the right distance. When I am only 100 meters away from the ground, I stretch out both of my wings to stabilize my flight, before I pull up and let the momentum of the dive carry me straight up again. Just as expected, mommy is heading to me on a collision course. Time slows down to a crawl for me as both of us adjust our flight and pass each other only centimeters apart. I do a loop and a few barrel rolls, before landing directly next to mommy, looking at the mostly stunned ponies in front of me. Only one pony is rushing towards me and scooping me up in a hug. “That was amazing Wingy, but was it really necessary to scare all of us like that?” “Hey, if they scare me half to death, it’s only fair if I return the favor.” I reply with an evil grin on my face, 100% aware that not every pony will agree with that sentiment, but honestly, that’s something I don’t care about. “Now, what was that about a party I heard about?” I add hastily, hoping that this would somehow turn everyponies attention from me and to more pleasant things. However, this doesn’t work out as I expected when I am suddenly swarmed by ponies, who all want to congratulate me, instead of enjoying all the food, drink and games, prepared by Pinkie Pie. Surprisingly, quite a few of the ponies have presents for me, sadly I don't even know half of them. The even bigger surprise comes when suddenly a pony, I never imagined to being here, steps in front of me. “Princess Celestia, what are you doing here?” “I thought it would be a good idea to stop by after I received a panicked letter from Twilight about a rampaging cake at Sugar Cube Corner.” She replies calmly like this would be something she has to deal with on a daily basis. “You don’t happen to know anything about that?” I tell her exactly what happened and when she asks at the end, if I had learned anything from it, only one thing that comes to mind. “Yes. Cake made with liquid rainbow may taste awesome, but can be really cranky.” “Is there a slice or two left for me to try?” She barely finishes her sentence when Pinkie Pie shows up and pulls a small cage out of her mane, with a piece of cake in it. Surprisingly the cake is still growling slightly, but I am sure he won’t do it for long. “So that is what you meant by cranky.” I wait a few moments for her to open the cage and just as expected, the piece of cake jumps right at princes Celestia’s muzzle to bite her. “That’s what I mean with cranky.” “I see why ponies would panic at this.” She replies calmly after she grabbed the cake with her magic. Her smile brightens, once she takes the first bite out of it. “I definitely need the recipe for this one.” As if she had already known this, Pinkie Pie just hoofs a piece of parchment to the sun princess, who happily begins to read it. Pinkie Pie on the other hoof turns her attention to me, pulling a large stack of gift-wrapped boxes out of her mane. I stare in confusion at the stack of boxes she is holding which results in me asking her, “Pinkie, what is all this?”  “Your presents, silly.” She blurts out the obvious, not really answering my question. “Yeah, I get that, but why are there so many?” “One for this birthday and the six others are for those I missed.” She clarifies and after a look at the presents, I see that each of them has a number between one and seven on them, probably standing for the age the present was meant to be given. I open them one after another and it turns out to be just as I thought, every present matches the age it was meant to be given. I already know that the pacifier, which was the first, will come to good use in a few months. Two to four are similar things, while five and six contain dolls, a small brush, and dresses for said dolls. They are all nice, but once I open number seven, I know that none of the others can compare to this one. I look in disbelief at what I am holding, carefully placing it on a nearby table, before I tackle her in a hug. “Thank you Pinkie. You have no idea how much those mean to me.” I don’t even try to understand how she got her hooves on those vinyl records and just focus on what even Twilight had to learn: It’s Pinkie Pie, don’t question it. “Record player is over there.” She says after a moment, pointing with a hoof towards the food table. I look at mommy and she picks up everything and we both walk over to where the record player is. I look through all of them and three of those records stick out. Two of them because they are live recordings and the third because it’s a collection of top metal songs. I turn it around and have a look at the track-list only to squeal in joy, at the first song, since it’s one of my absolute favorites. Soon the voices of Joacim and Noora are heard all over Sweet Apple Acres. From there on the party begins in full swing, with everypony enjoying this unknown music. A few may have gasped in shock at the sound of “Army of the Night” and I decided to avoid Powerwolf in public for the foreseeable future, but it seems like quite a few ponies took a liking to this kind of music Much later that same night: “You two know that her birthday is actually almost two weeks away?” I ask those two lovely mares with which I am currently sharing a bed. Curious why they decided to have the celebration earlier and on such short notice. “You know how tense and jumpy she’s been in the past few weeks?” Flitter replies almost immediately, painfully reminding me of something everypony noticed and that is constantly worrying us. “Yes, she just hasn’t been the same since her encounter with Discord” I reply already having a good guess for the motive behind this early celebration, only to have it proved a few moments later. “So we thought a small celebration would be a good opportunity to distract her from her worries and maybe help her to relax a bit.” Hearing her words, a meeting with the Princesses and high ranking members of the Guards comes to mind and a glorious plan begins to form. “Girls, how do you think about a vacation?”  Silence dominates the room for quite some time, both mares thinking carefully about it and much to my surprise, Dashie is the first to answer. “I would need some time to clear that with the weather management in Cloudsdale and to decide on a good replacement for my time away. Shouldn’t take longer than a week.” “I am sure my boss won’t mind if I take off for a while.” “Oh, I am not sure about that Flitter, why don’t you try to make sure your boss agrees to this?” The cyan mare in question answers with a seductive grin. The look she receives in return is enough for me to know that none of us will get any sleep tonight.