//------------------------------// // II February // Story: Twilight's Blog // by Frith //------------------------------// Friendship Feb 1: It's funny that although I'm the Princess of Friendship, I'd say that Applejack and Pinkie Pie are much quicker to make friends than I am, at least most of the time. Sure, I'm slower to make judgements about ponies, but they're quicker to befriend ponies that they've judged in a positive light. There's magic in friendship and that's what I've been studying ever since I moved to Ponyville. The magic of Friendship is my greatest strength and it has come to define me. Thus, I'm not the best at friendship, and yet I'm the Princess of Friendship. Maybe I could get rebranded... as the princess of studying. Or the princess of books. As long as I get to keep my friends. Early tomorrow morning I am going to catch the train to Canterlot for on an overnight trip with Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike. Rarity needs to replenish her supplies and we're there to help carry and to have fun! °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Feb 2: (no post, overnight stay in Canterlot) °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Royal Lipizzaner Ballet Feb 3: I'm back from Canterlot where I had a great time shopping for cloth, thread and wool with Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike. It felt good to prance through the cobbled streets again, sample the old specialty treats and share in the delights with friends with an eye for design. On our way back from acquiring the very best that Canterlot had to offer on Silk Row, we dropped into Hoity Toity's Best of the Best Boutique where some of Rarity's dresses are on display. I'd say that her dresses are a cut above the other garments picked out by Hoity Toity. Rarity was particularly excited about a dress that sparkled with tiny flowers picked out in gemstones. Fluttershy noted that legwarmers were making a comeback. I sure hope not. Soon after, while walking down the Esplanade, we bumped into Fancy Pants. Not literally bumped into him, but it was a close call, Spike had trouble seeing where he was going under all those boxes and bags. Fancy Pants is fun to talk to, and as he had a few minutes, we stopped at a café for café au lait and éclairs to chat. We sat at a table outside in the sunlight, conversation wafting lazily over steaming cups of coffee brewed to perfection. Spike sitting on our mound of parcels and stuffing himself on éclairs. In passing, Fancy Pants mentioned Rarity's friend, Rainbow Dash, the Trainer of the Wonderbolts. I tried not to choke with laughter on my café au lait while Rarity carefully steered the conversation away to less perilous grounds. Fluttershy was blushing like a beet. Spike looked puzzled for a moment but he caught on. I think his huge grin cancelled out any points his silence may have won him in Rarity's esteem. Before leaving us, Fancy Pants invited us to the Royal Lipizzaner Ballet, to four seats in his box that evening. We accepted and it was wonderful! Muscular stallions stomping, spinning and doing caprioles! What's not to love! We retired to our rooms at Canterlot Castle late that night, visions of Lipizzaners dancing in our heads. Except maybe Spike. He fell asleep at some point in the third act. I lifted him gently off my back and tucked him into his cot, still fast asleep. It was fun, but now it feels good to be back home, to my own bed and to my books. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Tree Library Picture Feb 4th: I'm getting better at getting my graphical display grid spell to get a clear connection via the castle wall to this Earth journal. I have a nice fall picture of the Golden Oak Library that Pinkie found somewhere, I'll try and send that now. It would make a pretty "icon" for my journal. I need an icon, right? All the cool fillies have one. First, for a warm-up, I'll send it full size to the print archive, like I did with Spike's picture. ........ Visual data transferred and encoded, check! It worked! Better than last time, I think. At least it felt like the spell was smoother. "Large thumbnail" copied and pasted, check! Pressing "save"! ........ Check, check! ...Come to think of it, that must be a really large thumb, to be that much bigger than the text. Earth people must have incredible eyesight to read text that small. Oh, I know! They must hold their fingers in front of their eyes while they read. That would make a thumbnail appear huge. Cultural relativity! Thumb size is relative to where you hold it, culturally! (That was supposed to be funny but I think it fell flat.) Next, "save" again, then transfer spell again, this time to "Upload a userpic"! I can do this! This was a bit trickier that I thought. Let's see if that worked. ........ Yes! I'd better get a move on. Pinkie Pie and Applejack have been hard at work putting together the Ponyville Mid-Winter Fun Feast. Rarity and Fluttershy are helping with the decorations and I'm going to trot on down to see how I can help. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Mid Winter Party Feb 4: While the four of us were in Canterlot the day before yesterday, Applejack and Pinkie were hard at work putting together a Mid-Way Through Winter party. Our hay stores are robust, as reported at the Hay Board meeting a few days ago, and the carrots and corn stores are well stocked as well. The last apple crop was a bit lean due to the jump in the vampire fruit bat population last year. I should ask Fluttershy if she found out the whys and wherefores of the bat population boom from the Biodiversity and Ecology board. So we have food and time on our hooves, it's a good time to throw a party. Fluttershy helped Rarity hang banners and streamers, Applejack saw to it that the tables and bins were supplied with food, punch and treats, Pinkie helped the DJ set up and sound-check her sound system, I double checked to make sure everypony had all the supplies they needed and all the invoices were in order, and Rainbow Dash flew around town distributing flyers and pulling a banner inviting all the townsponies. By two in the afternoon ponies were lined up at the door to the Town Hall and we were ready. First event, Rainbow Dash and a few of her fellow Wonderbolt reservists wowed us with a show. With practiced, precision flying, they performed aerial stunts, skywriting and cloud sculpting. Great teamwork! Then Mayor Mare made a (mercifully short) speech and we threw open the doors to the Town Hall. There was food, music, dancing, games, confetti and streamers everywhere. Everything a pony could want for a good party. Pinkie stuck a crown on my head and had me waving from the balcony. I'm going to get Pinkie for that! I should have a new copy of that book on practical jokes in my library. But on the other hoof, I'd better not start a gag war that I'm sure to lose. I'll just glower at her for a bit. The party still going strong, but I'm all partied out. And stuffed too. I don't think I'll need to eat for a week. Now I'm going to enjoy a bit of light reading before turning in. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me Feb 5: A cutie mark is a pair of images that appear on the hindquarters of a pony, situated between the point of the hip and the dock, on the skin and hair above the gluteus superficialis muscle. There is one on each side and a cutie mark on one side is the mirror image of the cutie mark on the other side. These marks are a manifestation of a pony's special talent or affinity. Just like a unicorn has a horn, a pegasus has wings and an earth pony has neither, a cutie mark dictates to some extent what you are going to do in your life. How much a cutie mark shapes your life depends a lot on how powerful you are at what you do. A unicorn need not excel at magic, a pegasus need not fly and an earth pony need not be outstanding at agriculture and strength. There are many tasks a pony can adapt to, neigh, has to adapt to and master, despite not being born with specialist affinities for that task. Naturally, the same holds true for cutie marks. A pony whose special talent is being grumpy or popping balloons is going to have to develop other talents to get by. There is a caveat -- the more powerful the magic in a pony, the stronger the bond between their special talents, as described by their cutie mark, and their identity. I learned this the hard way when I cast Star Swirl the Bearded's unfinished spell in the presence of the Elements of Harmony. The Magic of Friendship has transformed me and my friends. With every lesson we've learned about friendship, with every battle we have won, with every adventure, sorrow, laugh, hope, fear... we have shared, we've grown more powerful. Each and every one of us. Dash flies faster, I teleport further, Applejack is a rock of dependability, Fluttershy tamed Discord (!), Pinkie and Rarity keep making each of their projects better and more refined every time. And that magic feeds back into their special talents to the point that if somehow you remove that special talent and replace it, it's like you've yanked out and transplanted their raison d'être, their reason for existence. And with them it's not a small raison d'être that can be ignored as they get on with their lives, but a huge, central to their existence raison d'être, a primal urge that resonates with them, body and mind. When I accidentally switched their cutie marks, I replaced one motivator with an equally powerful motivator. My friends got saddled with powerful talents that their minds and bodies couldn't mesh with. I suppose it would be like feeling like a flying ace pegasus without wings. Good thing everything snapped back into place with a judicious combination of the Elements and going through the motions of what my friends are talented at. And then I got vaporized. And winged. My wings were not something I'd been born with. They were not part of me as I grew in power through Friendship. So my wings were not well meshed with my mind and body, but unlike my friends'... experience with swapped cutie marks, since my wings were somewhat underpowered relative to their appearance, they were catching up to me instead of the other way around. Good thing too. Those things are huge. And they keep getting in the way. Well, less now. Hmph. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Librarian Spiders Feb 6: After nearly a month of playing with this journal in another universe, I think I can say with some certainty that there are no spiders maintaining this "web". I'm halfway between relieved and disappointed. Relieved that should this window to the "web" become a door (it won't, that's not how this spell works) no spiders will come through. Disappointed because really, librarian spiders? That would be really really neat! Well, if Fluttershy decides to hook up to an E-journal here with me, I won't be asking if she's met a spider yet. I mean an E-spider, not the local ones that catch flies and offer you flowers. I told her a bit about inter-universe journaling over hot cacao at her house the other day. I emphasized that it's a safe way to go exploring, like having quill-pals you'll never meet and who write footnotes in your journal. If they find your journal. And if you let them. I told her she can be both adventurous and be brave at home! Fluttershy didn't look too convinced. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Crystal Ponies Feb 7: I met a few Crystal Empire ponies in town today. They were in town to deliver an order of naturally pastel hued lambs' felt to Rarity. They were taking advantage of the trip to do some sight-seeing, taking in the local flavor and shopping at the bazaar. They were hard to miss, I could see them sparkling in the crowd a field away. In a way, Crystal Ponies are living relics from the distant past. It says something about pony society that even after being outside of the passage of time for a thousand years (and thus in a state of complete suspended entropy ... that was one impressive spell cast by Sombra!) the crystal ponies still fit in quite well, once they had broken Sombra's hold and shaken off the emotional scars of years of harsh slavery. The Equestria Games helped a lot in that regard I'm sure, even if my friends and I had to play the role of guides to sway the opinion of Ms. Harshwhinny to make it happen. But in the Crystal Empire, the crops must grow, the seasons must be changed, and good will to others must be maintained, as it has been as far back as anyone can remember. This takes ponies. In the frozen north, it's the Crystal Ponies that are the best suited for the task. And the books donated to me by their library are still pertinent to my studies, a thousand years later! °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Horseshoe Fries and Hay Burgers Feb 8: I felt like eating horseshoe fries and hay burgers today so I headed over to the Hay Burger, where Pinkie works. She was on her lunch break (an hour after the noon day rush) and we ate together. Now that the mid-winter food fest is over, she's working on her set design ideas for the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant. The old stage is in need of extensive repairs and the mayor would like to have it renovated or replaced. The set is in a similar state. Pinkie is redesigning much of it and she asked Rarity to redesign the wardrobe. Applejack is on board for the construction job. Hearth's Warming Day happens three weeks before Winter Wrap Up. It's a way to bring ponies out of their homes and to come together during the coldest part of the winter. It's also a reminder that spring is on its way. Pinkie and Rarity have been working together so that the sets and the costumes complement each other, all the while respecting the time period and the light but serious nature of this morality play. Pinkie is very excited but planning out all the tasks is starting to get complicated. That's now my job. We have two and a half weeks, we'll make it. I asked for news of Maud's rocktoral studies. We ended up chatting about rock farming in winter. Rocks never sleep, so the Pies sweep away the snow to keep up production. Pinkie was over to visit the farm a few weeks ago. They spent the evening in warm and fuzzy silence by the fire, watching the hearth stones glow and feeling the pulse of the bedrock through the ground. Lunch break over, Pinkie broke off and quick as a flash, she was back to serving. I returned home to my studies. I sure like horseshoe fries and hay burgers, but I don't think they like me. I'll go make a mint tea to calm my stomach. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Stagecraft Feb 9: Today I met with the mayor to talk about Pinkie's Hearth's Warming stage, set and wardrobe renovation. She agreed I could have the job of organizing the ponies and keeping everything on time and within the budget. I've already begun to schedule meetings for the entire crew. I've put Fluttershy and Dash in charge of making sure Pinkie's new set elements respect the logistics and ergonomics of moving them quickly and safely during the show. Our first meeting is tomorrow. I can't wait! °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Stagecraft Meeting Feb 10: We had our first technical crew meeting this morning for the Hearth's Warming production. It went well. Present were Rarity and Pinkie Pie (direction and design team), Applejack (construction), Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash (quality control, lighting and ergonomics) and Toe-Tapper and Torch Song of the Pony Tones. Toe-Tapper and Torch Song are the stage managers and they are in charge of the actors. I was there too. We met on the second floor of the Town Hall, in a room just off from one of the balconies. It has a low table, blackboards and cushions to rest on and it is ours to use as our headquarters. Pinkie arrived with a mock-up of the stage that she had built as well as concept art for the scenery. Rarity brought a portfolio of costume designs she had made and she explained how they complemented and fit in with Pinkie's vision in both color and style. Applejack's crew has almost finished tearing down the old venue and she's about ready to build. Using Pinkie's mock up, Applejack immediately started to sketch out blueprints for the new stage and to calculate the supplies she'd need. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy copied down Pinkie's concept art and took notes on the mobile elements and the systems of pulleys, rails and lights they would require. After we had concluded our meeting, they met with the running crew to work out the practicalities of making Pinkie's concept a reality. The stage managers are tasked with meeting with the actors this evening, getting them up to speed with the new scenery and scheduling them to meet Rarity to get fitted for the new wardrobe. Tomorrow morning I should have lists of all the materials needed by the three production teams and the estimated cost. With that I can formulate a budget and get it approved by the mayor. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Budget Approved Feb 11: I presented the numbers to Mayor Mare around mid-morning today and the budget for the Hearth's Warming stage, costumes and props renovation has been approved. We'll be recycling a lot of the old props, of course, but some items will be refurbished to fit in with the design team's vision. I gave the good news to Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Applejack and they sent out their orders right away. They're all old hands at this and they'll get good prices. Rarity has started to measure the first actors and Applejack's crew are making frames and spreading the canvasses so Pinkie can paint her scenes. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Framing the Stage Feb 12: The local supplies for the Hearth's Warming play project have been acquired and are already getting put to use. Applejack is building the framework for stage, following the shape of the old structure with a few improvements to aid cast and crew movements behind the scene. It will be in interconnected modular parts for easy break up and storage. Rarity has measured all the actors and Pinkie will start painting her scenes tomorrow. Thirteen days to go. The snowflakes this morning were really big and fluffy stellar dendrites, with a few flat and reflective stellar dendrites mixed in. Very neat! °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Weather Feb 13: It was sunny but really cold today and the wind made it a biting cold. It was really starting to nip at my hocks on my trot down to the Town Hall to see how Applejack's crew was getting along. Toe-Tapper and Torch Song were upstairs going over the props and making sure we had enough make-up. It's going well. Even bundled up in my red and gold horse blanket I was cold cantering back home. Ponies have started to put up festive garlands, candy canes and decorated trees but I didn't stop to admire them. I could practically feel Windigos blowing down my neck. Well not really. It takes a lot of hard feelings and bickering to summon Windigos. So much of Equestria's ecology is chained to the combined mood and will of all ponies and so much can go so very wrong. That's why we have the Hearth's Warming holiday, to bring cheer to ponies when winter would have us stable ourselves away. Ponies change the seasons but ponies can also bring the Windigos. We can be our own worst enemies sometimes. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Piaffle Feb 14: After checking in on the stage construction today, I dropped by Rarity's Boutique. Inside was a flurry of activity. There was cloth flying everywhere, scissors snipping off pieces, ribbons and buttons scurrying about like live things, pins chasing down hems, and in the eye of this storm, Rarity. She was in perfect focus, "in the zone" as she likes to say. It was beautiful to see. After supper this evening I challenged Spike to a game of Piaffle. Piaffle is a word game where you select seven letters at random and you use those letters, plus a letter on the board to spell out the longest word you can. It is a really fun game! For extra excitement we play the Olden Pony Runes version. I have a copy of Samule Lawnson's Whinnypiafficon of the Equestrian Language, the first lexicon to be organized by letter, not subject. It was commissioned by Princess Celestia centuries ago as a means to standardize spelling. It was a revolutionary idea! It must have been so exciting, fitting ancient runes to sounds in a logical, organized way! Olden Pony Runes eventually went the way of the Royal Canterlot Voice. Inking notes in griffin-style scratches, called griffonage, is much faster than stamping out runes. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Just Horsing Around Feb 15: Some days you just don't feel like writing anything at all. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Chocolate Peppermint Tea Feb 16: Today the wind died down a bit and it wasn't quite so cold so I paid Zecora a visit. I meant to only take a quick trip, but the sun peeked out through the Everfree gloom and the walk improved my mood. There were interesting tracks in the snow on the way, it looked like a manticore had felt like waltzing. Or chasing its tail. That must have been a sight to see. I wonder if Fluttershy would be up for manticore watching... in the Everfree. Maybe that's not a good idea. Zecora is an expert with herbs and she makes one of my favorite teas. It's a soothing, hot and spicy drink that tastes like chocolate and peppermint, perfect for those long cold winter nights of studying. I was all out and I could really do with some this week. I only meant to be a few minutes, but we got to chatting and I learned a new breathing exercise to help calm my nerves. It was late afternoon before I was trotting back home, centered, focused and with a fresh pack of chocolate peppermint tea packed in my bag. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° To the Spa Feb 17: I joined Fluttershy and Rarity at the spa today. For Rarity and Fluttershy this is a regular event. I just felt the need for some soothing mud, a hoof trim and a long hot soak. Rarity has been hard at work. She's pinned all the patterns, recalled the entire cast one by one to make adjustments to the fitting, and now she's sewing it all together. Zecora teaches me breathing exercises and Rarity teaches pacing. Taking break at spa does a lot to refresh a pony. That sauna was so hot I feel like I'm going to radiate heat and sunshine for a week. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Cruel Sparkly Windigos Feb 18: Rarity has finished the costumes! That mare is efficient. Pinkie Pie's Hearth's Warming Eve concept calls for flying Windigos above the stage, and not on poles carried by cloaked stagehoof ponies. Pinkie's Windigos will be suspended, giving the actors a lot more room on stage. These puppets have to be airy and light and so Rarity is again putting her couture skills to the task. Pinkie's plan is for three gossamer Windigos to circle menacingly above the actors, going lower and faster as the players bicker and fight. Following Pinkie's rough concept art, Rarity is putting together ghostly white horse shapes that are both glittery and cruel. Rainbow Dash has designed airfoils and ballast to get the Windigos to float through the air on an even keel. What Pinkie lacks in carpentry and structural design she makes up for in building contraptions of strings, gears and pulleys. Pinkie built a pedal powered crank up on a catwalk to spin a hoop from which the Windigos will dangle on strings. Gears and pulleys make the big hoop go round and another fly pony is in charge of raising and lowering it into view. The running crew is mostly satisfied with the layout of the catwalks, projectors, changing room, storage spaces and the access corridors below and behind the stage. Toe-Tapper and Torch Song are handling the acoustics. The stage shape amplifies the sound and the pleated curtains lining the walls of the Hall dampen the echoes and crowd noises. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° First Dress Rehearsal on the New Stage Feb 19: Less than one week to go before Pinkie Pie's Hearth Warming Eve production goes live! She's nervicited, which isn't really a word, more of a pinkicism. Pinkicism isn't a word either, but it should be. The stage structure is finished. Pinkie is hard at work repainting the old hanging elements as well as the new ones being built by the construction crew. The crew is now focused on the details, like hanging the projectors and pulleys, building mobile platforms and staircases, installing rails for the sliding panels, and stringing up the hoop for the windigos that Rarity is sewing. There is a bit of a delay, Rarity ran out of white sequins, but they should arrive tomorrow. Now that most of the paint has dried, Toe-Tapper and Torch Song have called in the mane cast for a dress rehearsal tonight. Everything is still on time and on budget! °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Jack Foallack Style Feb 20: Pinkie is busy painting all the scenes and panels for the Hearth's Warming Eve play. She paints fast but there is a downside. This afternoon she was looking like she had dumped all her buckets of paint on the stage and then rolled in it. Pinkie hadn't noticed until Applejack pointed out that she was starting to leave paint splatters everywhere. Rainbow Dash suggested she could go on display at the Manehattan Museum of Modern Art as a living Jack Foallack painting. Pinkie thought that was hilarious and rolled on the ground laughing. Leaving a pony-sized Jack Foallack print on the floor. Rarity was appalled. It took an hour to wash all that paint out of her hair. Now Pinkie paints in a full body cloak that Rarity made for her. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Party Cannons Feb 21: Pinkie Pie gave me this snapshot of me that she'd taken in the "Red Room". Amazingly, there are no paint splatters on it. The illumination/image transfer spell is still a bear, I hope the granular matrix is well regimented and not too runny or merged. The sliding panels Pinkie was working on are nearly all painted. Most will hang from the catwalks mid-stage, changing the look of the scene and giving it an illusion of greater depth. Pinkie has also set up a pair of "party cannons" behind the scene. They're there to fire confetti and streamers at the very end of the play to punctuate the celebration of harmony between the three pony races. She would have liked to fire cupcakes into the crowd but that was beyond our budget. And Applejack pointed out that getting a cupcake in the eye might put a damper on the fire of friendship for most ponies. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Choral Instruction Feb 22: Three days to go before this Hearth's Warming play goes live! Toe-Tapper and Torch Song had another dress rehearsal scheduled for this evening. This one included the bit players and was followed by choral instruction. The full cast will sing the Heart Carol together at the end and their voices have to be clear, harmonious, synchronized and the sound has to carry. Every pony in the entire Hall will join in (it's pony tradition), following the lead of the ponies on stage. It's the peak of every Hearth's Warming Eve. With the entire Hall singing on beat you can feel the power of the herd vibrate to your very core. It's a magical moment. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Dry Tech Rehearsal Feb 23: The scenery elements are all ready and the paint is dry. Most of the day was dedicated to a dry tech rehearsal in which set pieces were moved on and off scene and the costumes and scenery were evaluated in a costume parade under the lights and filters. The fly ponies tested the cables and Pinkie's Windigo spinner and I had a close look at Rarity's Windigos. They're gigantic figures of gossamer, sequins, lace and felted wool and when they're pulled they look like they're really flying. Toe-Tapper and Torch Song are satisfied with the acoustics and they're having another choral practice this evening. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Full Dress Rehearsal Feb 24: This evening we had a full dress rehearsal. All the roles are being played by Ponyville ponies, as usual, and Mayor Mare is the narrator. Most of them have done this before and all of them have watched the play every year since they were fillies. Every pony knows the Hearth's Warming play by heart, all the more motivation to get every line perfectly! They did not disappoint. Everything is ready, on schedule and within the budget. Tomorrow is Hearth's Warming Eve. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Eve Feb 25: Today is Hearth's Warming Eve! It is now the depth of winter, almost three whole weeks before Winter Wrap Up. This is a time when the bounty of our autumn stores are thinning out, cabin fever is setting in and the deep cold reminds us of the time when Windigos nearly froze pony society. It is time to relive the Hearth's Warming, and tomorrow, all across Equestria, ponies will be doing exactly that. To light that spark in pony hearts, we have the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant. It brings everypony into one room, like the cave that sheltered the three pony races who founded Equestria. Together we relearn the lesson of harmony. Together we relearn the importance of friendship and cooperation. And together we share the Hearth's Warming tale, we laugh at our mistakes and we raise our voices as one and we sing. The fire of Friendship lives in our hearts As long as it burns we cannot drift apart Though quarrels arise, their numbers are few Laughter and singing will see us through (Will see us through) We are a circle of pony friends A circle of friends we'll be to the very end! I'd best trot off to Town Hall to oversee the final preparations, it's showtime in just a few hours. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Eve Venue Renovation, Check Feb 25 (Evening:): The pageant was a success! Pinkie's set design was dazzling, Rarity's hoofwork sparkled and the actors were inspired! The poise and clarity as they delivered their lines, larger than life, giants on stage... it was like we were there, a thousand years ago, reliving a time before Equestria. The Windigos were terrifying, Chancelor Puddinghead was hilarious, and the division between the tribes was heart wrenching. It was an emotional seesaw ride to end all emotional seesaw rides. We sang! We in the audience and the cast and crew were one being. The thunderous pounding of our hooves made the actors bounce on stage as they took their bows. I was so drained. Rarity's mascara traced grey rivers down her white cheeks but she did not care. The audience burst out the doors, like the Hall was just too small to hold the joy that they felt. We joined the cast and crew party upstairs. Everypony was so excited, talking all at once, I couldn't make out what anypony was saying but it didn't matter, I could read the joy in everypony's eyes. And Pinkie was just walking on air. I am still drained. I am going now to sleep the sleep of foals, washed clean of all my cares. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Hearth's Warming Day Feb 26: It's Hearth's Warming Day, a day for traveling house to house, singing on doorsteps, sometimes in costume, and getting invited inside for snacks and stories. Each household prepares a small story of something fun or happy that happened to them in the last year and the stories get collected and printed the next day in a special holiday edition of the Ponyville Express. I left Spike in charge of the TreeCastle to go caroling with Rainbow Dash, Scootlaloo, Fluttershy, Rarity and Sweetie Belle. Spike is great at whipping up snacks and he loves to talk, so he got a lot of attention. Applejack and Pinkie, along with Granny Smith, Big McIntosh and Apple Bloom, were also out caroling for most of the afternoon and we met up with them a few times, but we didn't combine groups. Some ponies are nervous, and we would have been a herd of eleven. That's a lot of neighbors all at once in a small house. We managed the carols quite well, with Rarity, Fluttershy and Big McIntosh doing harmonies, Sweetie Belle singing enthusiastically on key, Scootaloo singing enthusiastically off key, and the rest of us somewhere in between. To feel comfortable, Fluttershy wore a deep cape with the hood all the way up and she kept to the back. Houses with only one pony often had a "gone caroling" sign on their door as they can't be both places at once. Or if they're shy. Like Fluttershy, shy ponies may prefer to blend in with their friends and family going door to door, especially if everpony is going in costume. We visited quite a few houses over the course of the afternoon. Sweetie Belle liked caroling so much we didn't always stop inside for sharing stories. That suited Fluttershy, she didn't have to take off her cape. Our last stop was Sweet Apple Acres and after a hot cup of apple cinnamon tea I headed back home. Night was falling and groups of carolers were knocking on doors and laughing in the streets. Spike was waiting for me, grinning ear to ear. Now that I think of it, leaving him alone to weave funny stories for the guests may not have been a great idea. I have a feeling that what I'll find printed tomorrow in the Ponyville Express may have been embellished. I hear more carolers singing at the door! I'd better trot on down there and lend a hoof and an ear. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° A Visitor Comes Knocking Feb 27: I've received my first comments in this journal, a Hearth's Warming Day visitor from another universe. In the conversation, they asked me about how much I know of this E-universe. Well, not much. There are so many differences in how Equestria and Earth work that there is little that is practical in Earth science for me. The flood of information is a little overwhelming as well. Seven and a half billion of you in a wild system with no magic and no controls. From my small window on the Earth, the view is quite alien. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`° Tree of Harmony and Kindness Feb 28: I'm working on the hypothesis that the action of the Elements of Harmony was an extension of the 'spark' that activated them. In the case of The Six, the spark is Friendship and the action was to reverse the madness of Nightmare Moon and make her friendly. The same applies to Sunset Shimmer. Discord is a harder nut to crack and it took two more blows from the Elements to soften him up enough for Fluttershy to tame him, perhaps because he is only part pony. With Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the spark probably has to do with devotion and duty. Thus, with them, the action was harsher. Now that the Elements have been returned to the Tree, how they act would be a reflection of the nature of the Tree. The actions of Tree and the Elements have, as far as I know, always been a function of merit as well as bond and need. They didn't work with Spike standing in for Rainbow Dash and the sixth Element only appeared when I had both earned it and needed it. After I had returned the Elements to the Tree, the Tree anticipated our need for magic of the highest order but still made us work for it. We had to reassert our core identities and our common bond, working together to literally unlock the power lent to us by the Tree. So the Tree honors valor and unity and granted us the ability to re-establish order in Equestria our way. But had the Tree imposed order, it might have been different. The Tree built the TreeCastle. It's about as close to a pony-designed residence as a pony-built birdhouse is to a woodpecker hole in a tree. It has to say something about the builder and I think it says that if the Tree re-established Harmony in Equestria, Pony society would wind up about as regimented and structured as the rows of corn in Applejack's fields. A place for everypony and every pony in their place. On the other hoof, if the Everfree is what I think it is, and if Equestria is the Tree's garden, I think the Tree likes to give its garden a lot of free rein. The Tree is Fluttershy. °Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°Øo.¸¸.•*´¯`°