Late afternoons in Maretime Bay were something special. The beautiful sun painted the sky in shades of orange and red, and the salty breeze from the ocean brought some refreshment from the day's heat. Ponies opened their nighttime shops, and the promenade filled with ponies looking for some relaxation after a day's worth of work. Young couples would meet and maybe drink a smoothie too, admiring the beautiful sunset.
Not so that day. For some reason nopony understood the sun was stuck in the sky and wouldn't move for what seemed as days already. To make things worse, the clouds stopped rolling in and the sky was as clear as it could be. Some appreciated the beauty, but most complained that something was wrong.
Well, Sunny was sure that the smart ponies at Canterlogic would figure out what was wrong eventually. Her mind was clear such troublesome things. She had a nice tutti-frutti smoothie to enjoy along with the company of her friends. Each one of them had a smoothie and a happy grin while they talked. They had been talking, all day long already.
They had come early that evening (the clocks said it was evening) and they had secured her favorite table for them. Right by the cliffside and it was perfect after a whole day of running around. If only the breeze would come already.
It had became quite the ritual every time they visited, but they all had something exciting to tell about their homes and the present problems with the dumb weather and the sun seemed distant.
The pegasus sisters and their mother had been acquitted of any criminal charges as the judges understood that they did not act in ill faith. And that was great! Sunny couldn't bear the thought that her new airborne friends might suddenly be taken away from her. Worse: that they would be denied their freedom after such a great and momentous event as what had happened a couple of months ago.
Izzy usually babbled on excitedly for hours on end about all the great and marvelous spells unicorns started figuring out. Just that day she had showed them her very own and patented crystal color-changing spell. Yes, patented. It seemed that unicorns had started wakening to amazing new talents, such as compulsive bureaucracy. It seemed that spells needed to be properly named, categorized, recorded and given a serial number.
Full of her usual excitement, Izzy recounted all the exciting adventures that entailed. Filling out forms and waiting in lines to register her new spell she had named 'Izzy's Crystal Rainbow Mix-Up. She even gave each one of them a nice bracelet with crystals she had enchanted herself to each represent the color of their friend's sparkles!
Zipp vibrantly explained the great thrills of flight and her plans to revive the fabled Wonderbolts, even if she knew next to nothing about them. She didn't even complain that she had lost all the privileges she previously had. She thought that they were boring and just annoying.
Now that she wasn't a princess anymore she had the time to go out and just be by herself in peace! Sure, her rank as princess would certainly have helped in her goal of reviving the Wonderbolts, but that didn't worry her! She just used her free time from her new job. She had become a clerk at the flight license registry office that the unicorns had installed in Zephyr Heights.
Such a spirited pony, with a wonderful can-do attitude!
Pipp had her phone on her hoof and spent more time talking to the camera in it than to her new friends; although she explained the importance of livestreaming every single one of their meetings. Especially since they weren't royals anymore now that everypony could fly.
Now, Sunny had read on the newspaper (pegasus-mail from Pipp's home town) that she had lost all her followers due that whole scandal, but Pipp assured her those were lies and that everypony still watched her livestreams. She was sure of it because statistics often got messed up.
The only one missing was Hitch, and Sunny didn't know why he wasn't there. Usually so timely Pipp adjusted the clock in her phone by his arrival (since 'the signal' didn't reach all the way from Zephyr Heights... Whatever that meant.) The always good natured and helpful stallion would even bring them something extra to eat.
Well, Sunny was sure he would make it there eventually. Probably something that required his attention had cropped up. But she didn't have a lot of time to think about it anyways. In that fine evening, she was the one talking. More importantly, she had her father's journal and a map Zipp had drawn from her bird's eye in the sky.
She even had a photo of that giant rosy tree they had found in their mission. The location matched with the map and the image. It was a close-enough approximation of something that looked like a tree house from a very old photograph. And that was mind-blowingly exciting! Even if she didn't know what that was. It was a new mystery to pursue and unravel!
"Oh, hi Hitch!" Izzy stopped slurping from her smoothie and waved a hoof at the approaching pony.
Scratch that, it wasn't only Hitch. It was him, Deputy Sprout and Miss Phyllis!
"Hi!" The happy group of pony friends waved their hooves collectively while Pipp turned their back to them and raised her phone to get a better view of all of them.
"Sunny, we need to talk." Phyllis adjusted her glasses and gave the group a concerned stare.
"Oh! Sure!" Sunny giggled nervously, clopping her hooves together. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Well, no..." Miss Cloverleaf showed a concerned frown while the two stallions remained by her sides. "It's just that... Uh..."
"Hum... How do I say it?" The mare's frown deepened and her head tilted to the side with apprehensive glances to the side.
"Where's MY magic?!" Sprout just blurted out.
To what Sunny blinked twice. "What do you mean?"
"Hum... Well... You see..." Hitch started, hoofing anxiously at the cobblestone. "Unicorns can do magic. And pegasi can fly."
"Yes! Isn't it great?!" Sunny nodded with a huge grin.
"What about us?" Her friend concluded with a confused frown.
"What about us, what?" She mimicked his confused frown.
"We don't fly." Miss Cloverleaf offered a hoof she then bent to the other side. "And we can't do magic."
Yes! Sunny's frown tuned to an amused expression with her left eyebrow cocked and a confused grin to herself. That was right. Unicorns had horns, so they could do magic. Pegasi had wings, so they could fly. Yes. What was the problem?
Oh! Yes! She understood! "Wait! I get it!"
She grinned and quickly shuffled through the pages of her father's journal. "I understand! Just a second!"
Then she shuffled some more until she finally found the page she was looking for. She read straight from it. "Aha! The pegasi could fly and the unicorns could do magic, but the earth pony magic was more subtle. Pegasi made it rain and generally took care of the weather, and unicorns used their magic to control seasons and the movement of the sun and moon. All the while, the earth ponies' great contribution was their ingenuity! They were the ones responsible for the great inventions in the fields of industry. All the fields of industry! From farming to great manufactories! Isn't that cool?!"
She stared at them with her chin hanging in a giant and happy smile, but it slowly faded away back into her confused frown. "Hum... What's wrong? Don't you think that's cool?!"
Meanwhile Izzy had grown bored of the conversation and the only ones paying attention were Sunny and Zipp, because Pipp had resumed her routine of vicariously checking her phone for notifications while the unicorn noisily minded her smoothie.
"We were already like that, Sunny..." Hitch told her patiently. So ostensibly patently she could feel the urge to slap his own face with a hoof radiating from him.
"Ah... Yes." Her face contorted into understanding, but she still didn't quite grasp what was their problem with that. "Yes?"
Phyllis inhaled profoundly and then let out a long and drawn out breath. "Let me see if I understood this correctly."
The pink and blond earth pony sat and calmly joined her hooves, closing her eyes, inhaling again before speaking. "You mean to tell me that, before recent events, unicorns could not use their magic. Also that pegasi couldn't fly. Therefore, unicorns could not zap our brains and pegasi could not swoop in and drag us away."
Izzy's slurping on her smoothie suddenly stopped.
Miss Cloverleaf's patient and professorial stare contorted to an angry scowl as her voice rose with every word. "And now, thanks to you, unicorns can use magic, while pegasi can fly!"
Sunny did her best impression of a turtle, trying to vanish behind the table under the older mare's fiery glare.
"While we, earth ponies, have not changed at all?!" Phyllis' voice broke into a screech.
"Well... Uh... I am sure that... Uh..." Sunny rose a fearful hoof from behind the table.
"Now, now..." Pipp broke away from her phone for a second. "Just because we can fly, it doesn't mean that.-"
She couldn't finish whatever it was she meant to say. Sprout scared all the present with a panicked wail. "Oh my gosh! Does that mean that now the unicorns can melt our brains and the pegasi can fly away with us?!"
"Actually..." Izzy started with a raised hoof, but to no avail.
"Everypony panic!" Sprouted shouted at the top of his lungs, running down the promenade with a tirade of rambling screeches about being carried into the clouds and being poked in the eye.
"No! No no no no! Don't worry!" Sunny dropped the journal in her panic, but quickly scooped it up again. At the same time careful not to ruin it and desperately looking for some answer. "I'm sure there's an answer to that! Just don't panic!"
But her pleas went unheard. A horde of earth ponies galloped every which way in the middle of flying tables, smoothies and anti-mindreading hats.
"Girls! Help me out!" She turned to her new pegasus friends, but Pipp went down cold with a face full of green slime.
"Gee... I'd like to help, but I gotta go home. I can't miss my shift at the flight registry tomorrow!" The other pegasus hoofed at her own nape with a embarrassed grimace. "So... Uh... Later!"
She just flew away. But Izzy was still there! "Please say that you can do something about the sun!"
Izzy, with her lips around the straw, simply shrugged. "I dunno... All I can do is change the colors of crystals."
"Hitch!" Sunny turned to him. Trembling lips and glazy eyes. Hooves joined in pleading. "We gotta do something!"
"I'm doing something, Sunny." He pouted at her and slapped hoofcuffs on her legs. "You're under arrest."