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// A Rant and A Half 
// Story: A Pie's Mind's Eye 
// by DroshinNote 
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Twilight hadn’t lied when she wrote that her Dusk guard would be in a rush to pick Pinkie up. Almost as soon as pinkie left the train she was surrounded by a group of similar looking ponies. All of which had matching light purple coats with pale light blue armor. For a moment pinkie wondered what was under the illusion spell that made all these guards look so similar. Was the pony directly in front of her a shade of yellow, maybe green, or maybe she was also bright pink... If she was a she of course. Lost in her own thoughts Pinkie barely noticed the guard speaking to her.

“Miss Pie, We must hurry. The princess needs you and she seems to be in somewhat of a strange mood.” The guard said, their voice distinctly feminine. Pinkie always found it a little amusing to hear a female voice come from what appeared to be a large male stallion. “Miss Pie? Are you ok? You seem to just be, well, staring at me?” The guard asked when pinkie started to stifle a round of giggles

Pinkie cleared her throat and quickly shook the distracting thoughts from her head. “Oh don’t worry, I’m fine. Just had some stuff in my head that I needed to shake out. Though sometimes it’s just nice to give your head a nice shake, you know?  Anyway, let’s go! I don’t want to keep Twi waiting, especially if It’s super important. That would just be rude you know!” With that Pinkie gave her best bounce and started forward in little hops. The mixture of the cooped up train ride and her new found excitement to help Twilight had made Pinkie antsy. As usual she decided to fix that with a few good hops to get the energy out.

The guards marching beside her would occasionally glance at her, watching her bounce her energy away before turning their attention to navigating Canterlot. Normally Pinkie would try and talk up the guards but to be honest she thought they looked quite distracted for some reason. Though it was hard for her to tell through the illusion magic that kept them all looking so identical. 

One march up to the castle later and Pinkie was escorted directly to Twilight's chambers. Strolling through the castle was always nice. From the upper floors she could look on the beauty known as Canterlot. If one went high enough in the palace they could even look out and see Ponyville in the distance. A good 25 minute walk and about 3 large staircases that went up multiple floors later Pinkie and the guards finally arrived at Twilight's door.Knocking softly PInkie waited for an answer from the other side. After a moment or two she cocked her head to the side a bit before shrugging and pushing the door open. As she entered the room she noticed her purple friend leaning over a few scattered papers littering a table in the middle of the room. Twilight sat on a rather comfy looking pillow next to said table, her face somewhere between confused and worried. Pinkie got the feeling that this was going to be a long day.

“Soooooooooooooo-” Pinkie said with somewhat of a curious tone as she shut the door with her back left hoof and trotted over to the table, taking a seat across the table from Twilight. Outside the door she could hear the guards taking up position outside the door. “You look a lil grumpy. Or maybe flumpy? Huh, I wonder what flumpy even m-”

“Most creatures use flumpy as a term for some creature that looks tired or saggy, and the first pony to call me saggy is getting a one way teleport into the nearest body of water! So am I flumpy? No. Distracted? Possibly. Flustered? Maybe. In either case if I was tired or saggy then I wouldn't be able to deal with this right now! Which I am, and I am doing  great!” Twilight said as she cut Pinkie's train of thought off with her venting. Pinkie resisted the urge to sigh as she sat there to let Twilight continue, now knowing that she just had to let Twilight's thoughts run their course. “I mean, I just don’t understand why this is happening! Does she not trust me? Did I enact a bad policy? First the moon and now this...” 

Pinkie nodded, taking educated guesses and compiling questions about the current situation. Obviously this was something concerning Luna, something that made Twilight think that she wasn’t doing a good job. Something that required some kind of party?

“Not that I mind this, It’s quite lonely in the castle at times but... What if Princess Celestia thinks that I’m doing a bad job too? And NOW- now I’m just rambling about everything going on without actually telling you what I’m yelling about.” Twilight let her head slam to the table with a groan.

Pinkie's mind started racing, picking up on context clues as her overly stressed friend spoke. Twilight had said that she wouldn’t mind the castle not being lonely so that means something was going to happen that would bring more company to the castle. Considering how hung up on Luna she currently is, that probably means that Luna was coming to the castle for a  long enough time to make it less lonely. That meant it would not be a short stay. Furthermore Pinkie knew Twilight would not throw a party for a simple visit. Combine that with the fact that Luna had taken her responsibility over the moon back, and Twilight's concerns over her own rule gave Pinkie a pretty good guess on what was going on. It seemed their alicorn of the night wanted to take back her throne.

Pinkie took a deep breath to get her friends attention. “When is Luna gonna get here? How big does she want her welcome back party? I’m guessing Princess Celestia isn’t coming out of retirement but is she going to attend the party? I’m not throwing a re-coronation am i? Because while i would love to, I don’t think I have enough Balloons hidden in Canterlot... yet. I mean one short trip to Sugarcube corner and a few party shops here in Canterlot and I might have enough. Let’s see, 59 bags of 500 balloons times a courtyard and three castle dining halls... carry the 5 and- Nope I’d need to stop  by Cloudsdale too. Go figure. Either way I’m sure she’s just bored! Plus having two Princesses is a lot more fun than one right? Plus I think you’ve been doing great!” Pinkie decided to slip in a few encouraging comments at the end of her questioning. She found that changing the subject in the middle of a rant could really grab a ponies attention in that ‘Hey, what did they just say?’ kind of way.

Twilight blinked a few times, lifting her head and let out a small huff of amusement, letting a small grin slip onto her face. She had long come to accept that sometimes Pinkie just figured these things out. “Two days. The party is my idea to welcome her back, so let’s keep it small. Just a gathering of friends really. As for the re-coronation, I’ll have the castle party planners handle that after her return has been announced to the press.” Twilight then slid the mass of papers Pinkie. “Those are some of my plans. Seems she is bringing  two ponies with her to see the castle. One is a pony who she grew close to while she was retired. The other she has taken on as a student of some kind. Kind of surprised who it is though. I wonder how the two of them met?”

Pinkie glanced at papers and nodded. Of course Pinkie knew exactly how the two of them had met, in fact she had already planned Luna’s new student’s next few birthday parties and had hoof made special invitations to send to the Lunar mare. Diamond Tiara was a resident of ponyville after all. It was Pinkie’s job to know such things. 

“Hey Pinkie.” Twilight started, hesitating for a moment. “Back on the topic of Luna. I’m still pretty sure that-”

“That she’s disappointed in you for some reason? That Luna thinks you're doing a bad job?” Twilight cringed at the questions as Pinkie rolled her eyes at her friend's silliness. “Nope, not at all. But if you're really that worried about this then just ask her at the party. Hm.... So do I have free reign with this party planning? I can do anything as long as I am sure Luna will like it?”

Twilight sighed. “I trust you with the party Pinkie. The only reason I’m not asking you to plan the re-coronation is because of how much work is involved to make it go right. Remember my coronation? And I think you're right, I’ll just ask Luna at the party and, I don’t know, maybe I’m freaking out over nothing?”

Pinkie gave a quick nod before shuffling all the papers together and shoving them in her mane for later. “Don’t worry this will be one of the best parties I have planned all year! I wouldn’t leave a friend hanging. Though I do want to ask something once the party is finished if you don’t mind.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the open ended request. “Ok? What do you wa-” She was quickly silenced by a shush from Pinkie. A shush which ended with Pinkie's hoof almost crammed into Twilight's mouth.

“That is something I get to know and you get to find out later, and is my only condition! Do we have a deal?”

Twilight carefully moved Pinkies hoof from her mouth, looking a little concerned at the request. Usually Pinkie was straight forward with her questions and what she wanted so this was a little more then out of the ordinary. “As long as It’s a reasonable question, then I don’t see why not.”

“Yay! Then we have a deal. I’m going to head to the kitchen and my secret castle party room!” Pinkie cheered as she got up and bounded for the door, as Twilight sat confused and concerned about the fact that Pinkie had somehow set up a secret party room without anyone in the castle knowing.