Now, where was I? Oh, yes, I remember now. I had fallen through the floor and was now falling through some form of vortex. I think it was white in colour, but it was SO BRIGHT! I literally had to shield my eyes in order to be able to see where I was going. No use being an influencer who can't see, right?
Eventually, things began to change as I dropped down through the tunnel of light. The light began to shift from white to rainbow shades as I continued to drop. I grabbed my phone and began filming.
"Check it out, guys!" I said. "This tunnel is super amazing! Cool vibes in this stream!"
Eventually, the rainbow tunnel came to an end, and it seemed as though I had landed in a bedroom. The same room we're in now, incidentally. The walls were white marble and lined with a series of golden plates and fittings, and the windows were really big and letting loads of light in. The two back walls had mirrors on them. The back wall was lined with personal items such as a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and a bookshelf (which mostly had sheet music on it- I am a singer, after all).
The next wall had a desk below it, and this desk had a screen sitting on it- a gold plated screen at that. A jumble of cables ran behind it and connected to various objects down below, so I took a look at the objects down there.
The objects in question amazed me. The primary object down there was a white games console, which closely resembled something called an XBOX 1. Two controllers sat next to it, with larger buttons than ones back in the other world. This was presumably to allow a pony to manipulate the relevant buttons whilst playing- playing games on a human controller would have been impossible!
Next to it was a set of headphones, and these again seemed to be designed to be worn by a pony. The earpieces sat higher up, and the microphone was clearly designed to fit over the muzzle of a pony. Handy, that?
Further back from that was a large desk, itself framed in white marble, and a gold plated laptop sat on it, currently not plugged in. The occupant of this room sure liked things plated in gold. How much did all of this stuff cost the taxpayer, anyway?
A large circular bed lay nearby, with white bed sheets and a pair of musical notes on the blanket that sat atop the bed. I checked my sides and saw it was my cutie mark. Which was only on one side. Curious, I thought.
So, if Pipp is still living in Zephyr Heights (and this room very much looked lived in, rather than being maintained as a room where somepony only lived every now and then), when were these events?
I glanced at my wings. Perfect! I thought. Easy way of establishing when we are. I quickly started flapping them furiously to try and get off the ground.
I gained about half an inch off the ground before landing again. Well, that was disappointing. I can't get into the air and fly! No magic then. Bummer.
I had another check to try to get a true sense of when things were, although the lack of flight was a bit of a clue. I cleared my throat and started to speak. "Hello, everypony! How is everything? Are you all vibin'? 'Cause it's a beautiful day here in Zephyr Heights!"
I stopped and quickly slipped my headphones on. I had recorded what I had just said on my phone, and so plugged the headphones into said phone and played the audio back.
The sound was an exact confirmation of what I had suspected at the time. The audio I was hearing was the voice that Sofia Carson used for Pipp Petals. So that confirmed that this was at some point before Tell your Tale or Make your Mark, which was a useful reference point for the future.
I glanced about, amazed at how fancy this place was. The Royal Family was totes LOADED. This one bedroom was bigger than most apartments where I lived! I peered out of one of the windows and saw I was inside one of the upper levels of the Palace, with an incredible view down towards the city.
I bounced across the room towards the laptop. Time to see what Pipp was up to before I arrived.
I popped the laptop open, and was immediately hit with a problem. There was a login screen. With a PIN. Obviously, I didn't know the pin, which would cause some problems if I tried to log in without knowing it.
"Think, Pipp," I thought to myself. "What would Pipp set as her password?"
That was a sentence that I actually said, by the way. Funny things, eh?
I was soon looking around the room for any clues, before I quickly hit upon a brainwave. People, or ponies in this case, often use a number of great significance to themselves as a PIN number, so I tried to think of any numbers which might have special meaning to Pipp.
I glanced about the room for any obvious numbers, before suddenly spotting something curious in the arrangements of books nearby. Some volumes were arranged to create the number 1 9 9 3.
"That's worth a try," I said, and punched that into the keypad. The system accepted the number and logged me in, soon bringing me up on the home menu. All sorts of apps were in position, such as the access pages for my DewDrop, Clip Trot, Ponygram, and YouHoof accounts. I probably had BILLIONS of notifications to deal with, so I decided to check what else was on here.
To my complete lack of surprise, there was music mixing software on there. Well, naturally. Pipp was a singer, and presumably put together and mixed her own songs.
I took a look in the files and found a couple of finished and unfinished mixes. One of them was something called 'Celebration Song'.
I gave it a listen, and heard it was an unfinished version of 'Glowin' Up'. Obviously I'd need to finish that before the Celebration, or else things might go bad! I might lose subscribers! And that is the worst! Possible! THING!
I got to work on finishing the song, looking through the various differing versions of the lyrics Pipp had penned before I had arrived. I simply got lost in the music and sounds, trying to select the words that would fit the sequence best.
I eventually got it down to the lyrics I wanted, but then a clock went off. I glanced up at a calendar, and saw it was time for a stream. I opened YouHoof to start streaming.
After that was done, there was a knock at the door. I jumped out of my seat and sped over to the door to open it. On the other side was Zipp Storm. My sister. My somewhat taller sister.
What? I totally don't have a Napoleon complex!
"Hey, Pipp," Zipp said. "You busy?"
"Yeah," I replied. I had to give a response which sounded like something Pipp would say. "I've been working super hard on the new song I'll be showcasing at the Celebration later on! I think it'll sound great!"
Zipp nodded. "OK. I got you your microphone, by the way." She handed me a golden microphone with wings on it.
"My lucky mic!" I said, recognizing it from Make your Mark. "How'd you get this?"
Zipp smiled. "I can be pretty sneaky when I wanna be. Besides, it's dinner now." She yawned. "A full day of princess things does give you an appetite."
We headed out of the door and walked down the corridors of the Palace. It was pretty stunning seeing these corridors for the first time, as the movie doesn't really elaborate on these layers of the structure much. "You might want to slow down, Zipp! You're gonna crash!"
Zipp laughed. "Come on, slowpoke! You could use the exercise!"
That was it. "I can keep up with you, Zipp!" I blasted down the corridors, having to move at quite a bit of speed to keep up. Zipp, on the other hand, was barely breaking a sweat.
"Doesn't look like it."
I pouted. "It's not fair! You have longer legs than me!"
At last, we reached our destination, the dining room. This was quite a bit larger than I'd anticipated. I thought there were only three of us, and yet for some reason there were loads of chairs and a table that felt like it was miles long.
Queen Haven looked up from her newspaper and smiled. "Evening, girls," she said. "You can sit next to me if you want."
I nodded, my mane dripping in sweat. "That... was... quite the... race!"
"We raced each other down the corridors," Zipp explained.
Queen Haven nodded. "I'd suggest being more careful in future. What if somepony had been coming the other way? It's not as if we can just float off the ground."
I nodded as I took a seat. Well, that wasn't the worst day ever.