A pillow soared over Cadence’s head.
“Get down, Sparkle!” She screamed. She lunged forwards, tackling the unsuspecting filly to the ground as yet another pillow narrowly missed them, flopping into a head on the ground behind them. Unannounced to the enemy, however, he had only been giving them more ammunition for the long term.
The living room had turned into an absolute war zone. The two couches that usually sat nicely parallel from one another for social events were now turned onto their sides, creating a sort of warfare barricade that blocked the two Pegasi huddling together from the enemy. The enemy, who was currently standing on top of his own upturned couch.
“The Unicorn versus two Pegasuses!” Shining yelled. In the past few months, his magic had developed greatly, turning the previously powerless magic user into an advanced mage, capable of levitating multiple objects at once with ease. It just so happened that he was doing exactly that, and said objects were several pillows, rotating threateningly around his head.
“Did he just say Pegasuses?” Twilight asked Cadence, still hiding under the older pony’s wing for protection from the occasional pillow still being hurled.
“It’s Pegasi, you dork!” Cadence popped her head over the sofa. She immediately regretted it, however, as yet another pillow was flung towards her at mach speeds. It clipped the edge of the sofa, twirling, and landing a few feet from Cadence and Twilight.
“Pegasi doesn’t make any sense!” He yelled back. “It’s like calling a group of Unicorns Unici! Or a bunch of cactuses cacti!”
“That’s the plural of cactus.” Twilight whispered to Cadence, who once again, poked her head above the sofa.
“That’s is the plural of cactus, dork!” She yelled. This time, however, by the time her head had cleared the edge of the sofa, a pillow was already on it’s trajectory towards her. She didn’t have enough time to duck, nor properly react. Before she could even blink, the pillow plowed directly into her face. With a thunk, her head snapped backwards, and she fell flat onto her back.
“Cadence!” Twilight screamed, crawling towards the now injured pony, head held low to avoid enemy fire. She pushed the pillow off of Cadence’s face. “Are you okay?” Twilight asked, although by looking at the pony, it was easy to answer her own question. Her once pretty face was now smeared awkwardly in areas, the pillow that had hit her smeared with makeup. “C’mon, BSBFF, get up!” Twilight begged. She lifted Cadence’s head up, and went to grab the pillow that had taken her out, intent on sliding it under her head for comfort in her last moments. Instead, Cadence groaned, reaching out and grabbing Twilight’s hoof.
“N-No…” She said quietly, weak from the ‘blood’ loss. “K-Keep it, for ammunition…”
“B-But C-Cadence!” She sobbed.
“We’re Pegasi, Twily…” Cadence muttered. Twilight leaned closer, listening intently to the words of her dying sister. “We’re meant to be tough. To conquer the skies.” She coughed, her body clenching as it gave up. “You like reading books, Twily. What happened at the Siege of Cloudopolis, two-thousand years ago?”
“W-We won?”
“We won, Twilight.” Cadence closed her eyes, leaning back. “W-We fought the Unicorns before, and we won… Win for us, Twilight.” Cadence took one last breath. “Win for us…”
“Cadence?” Twilight asked, prodding her shoulder. “No, Cadence!” She shook her harder as Cadence went limp. Unfortunately, she was gone. No amount of persuasion would wake her up any longer.
“You’re all alone, Twily!” Shining shouted over the couch. “Raise the white flag while you still can!” He let out an evil laugh. An evil laugh that pierced through Twilight’s heart, burning her to her core. She felt the fire ignite inside her. She grit her teeth, and looked upon Cadence’s still face. A single tear slipped from her eye as she brushed Cadence’s mane out of the way of her face.
“Ow- don’t tug my mane!”
She looked… pretty, still like this. It was almost like she was sleeping. Twilight grit her teeth, and began gathering the many discarded pillows still laying around from Shining’s assault. If she knew anything about the siege of Cloudopolis from her history books, it was that Pegasi were good at attacking suddenly and quickly. She closed her own eyes, breathing deeply, and waited. Waited for her opportunity. Waited for the jaunt, right when the enemy thinks everything is still, and in their favor. Fortunately, it didn’t take long.
“Any moment, Twilight!” Shining yelled, laughing. “It’ll all be over any momen-”
And then Twilight jumped into the air, her wings spreading as far as they could go. All at once, Shining’s vision was nothing but pillows.
“Holy fu-”
In less than a blink of an eye, Shining felt the impact of a thousand suns. He was hurled off of the top of the sofa, being flung backwards a good few feet, and before he could ignite his horn to erect a shield, a mountain of pillows was suddenly ontop of him.
“Get him!” Cadence had miraculously recovered from being dead, and alongside Twilight, vaulted and then flew across no-mare’s-land. Cadence was the first to Shining, jumping directly on top of the mountain of pillows. There was a muffled ‘hurh!’ as Shining felt the added weight of an entire pony on top of him. Twilight also joined in, mostly for moral support, landing on top of Cadence.
“Do you surrender?” Twilight yelled into the pillows. “Do you?”
“Fine!” There was some squirming, and a few pillows fell away from the mountain to reveal Shining’s defeated face. “I give up!” He yelled. Shining smirked, looking back at the filly perched on her back.
“Good work, soldier.” She said, offering her hoof. Twilight gladly bumped it in victory. “Looks like a horn isn’t everything in war. Isn’t that right, Shiny?” Cadence asked, reaching down to Shining’s exposed head and giving his horn a flick.
“Hey- ow!” Shining wormed his arms out of the pillow mountain, grabbing his horn with a hiss. “I don’t pluck your feathers! Don’t flick my horn!”
“Sorry! Sorry…” Cadence smiled sheepishly, slinking off of the mountain and backing away from the pile. The pillows were levitated one by one off of Shining, and after a few moments, he emerged looking no worse for wear than he had earlier, before being immobilized by pillows.
“We rolled you!” Twilight shouted, gliding down from Cadence’s back. “You got owned!”
“Funny. I don’t remember it playing out that way.” Shining quickly grabbed Twilight and held her close to her chest, pinning her wings so she couldn’t fly away. She made an eep sound, followed by embarrassed grumblings as Shining lightly noogied her mane. “I remember you guys being pinned for the whole war!”
“And I remember putting the house’s pillows on your face!” She began to giggle.
“I guess I’ll have to play the adult.” Cadence sighed, flicking her head back and moving her erratic mane back to laying flat. “I think both teams did good.”
There was an awkward moment of silence as Twilight stopped struggling and Shining stopped his noogie. They both stared at Cadence like she had grown a second head.
“We’re obviously better, Cadence!”
“Did you see me throwing pillows? I obviously did better, doesn’t matter that you won!”
“I won the war! That means I’m the better-”
“Oh, that wasn’t the war. That was a battle. You won the battle, and I’m going to-”
“I’ll won this battle, and I’ll win the war! It is so on, BBBFF!”
“You’re going down, LSBFF!”
“I’m going to suffocate you with pillow-”
“What in the name of Faust is going on down here?!” A shrill voice shrieked. The two ponies immediately stopped their bickering, and slowly, all three turned to look at the doorway. There, with her mane done nicely and wearing expensive earrings, was Velvet. Her face was in a state of complete disbelief as her eyes scanned the living room. The upturned couches, the hundreds of pillows, and even a few pillows that had burst at their seams.
“Err… War?” Twilight offered. Velvet looked at her daughter, then back at the room. After a moment more of disbelief, she let out a sigh.
“We don’t have enough time to clean this up right now, ponies.” Velvet said, lowering her head. “Our reservation is for eight, and you guys don’t even look ready.” She trotted forwards and put her hoof on Cadence’s head. She ducked away, swatting away her hoof. “Did you even brush your mane, Cadence?”
“I…did…” Cadence warily said. Velvet moved down the line to Twilight.
“And how about you, little miss?”
“I never brush.” Twilight snarled. In defiance, she reached both of her hooves up and noogied herself, making her mane go from slightly crazy to borderline dangerous amounts of static electricity.
Then Velvet looked at Shining.
He smiled goofily.
She didn’t even bother to ask him.
There was another set of hooves entering the room, Night Light trotting down the staircase while straightening his bowtie with his magic.
“Howdy, kids. Ready to- what in the blazes happened in here?!” Night Light’s jaw almost disconnected from the rest of his body as his eyes darted quickly from corner to corner of the completely and utterly destroyed living room.
“She did it.” Shining pointed at Twilight. Twilight, without saying anything, slapped his hoof with her wing. He retracted his hoof, hissing painfully at the feeling of the whip.
“Who- what- why?” He trotted in between the two couches, into the middle of no-mare’s-land and looked around with an agape jaw. “I-I had these couches perfect, too! Mathematically in the best place to induce conversations!” His horn ignited, and both couches were turned right side up, a couple loose cushions falling to the floor in rejection. “Is this my pillow?” He asked, levitating it up. “My exactly fluffy-perfect-dense pillow with exactly one-hundred-and-four chicken feathers sourced from Yakistan?” At this, Twilight made a confused face.
“Chicken feathers?” She asked. “Why can’t you use my feathers? I shed like, two a day, anyways.”
At this, there was a moment of silence. Cadence’s pink cheeks lit up a deeper shade, Shining face-hoofed aggressively, and Velvet giggled. Night Light let his pillow fall to the ground.
“I’ll tell you when you get older, Twilight.” He sighed. “Still. This is… really annoying. And I can’t believe- will you please stop giggling like a filly, Velvet?”
“I’m sorry!” She brushed her muzzle and put her hoof onto her chest, trying to take a deep breath. “That was… painfully adorable.” She took one last deep breath. “But anyways… gang!” She pushed her two front hooves off of the ground, getting half a second of air time as her front end lifted off of the ground. She clapped both of her hooves together, making a clop sound as she did so, with more then enough time to get her hooves back under her before she landed. “We have to leave before we’re late to our reservation!”
“But… my pillows!”
“Honey, be easy on them.” Velvet said, coming to his side. “They’re just having a little… destructive fun, that’s all.” She quickly shot the three ponies a dirty look. “Although they very well should have known better… Pillows are replaceable. Memories like that are not.” Night Light sighed.
“Fine. But you three are cleaning this mess up right as we get back. Hear me?”
“Sure!” Twilight chirped, a smile splitting her face. “Don’t blame us, though! We heard the drums, and we responded!”
“Great, Twily has PTSD already.” Shining rolled his eyes.
“We all do…” Cadence said in a deep, mumbling and slightly menacing voice as her eyes unfocused somewhere in the distance.
“Alright, gang. We should really be going right now.” Velvet grabbed Night Light’s wrist, tapping the wrist watch that was attached to him.
“Oh no! We’re five minutes late!” Twilight cried. “We can’t be late! Never, ever!”
“No-” Velvet quickly ducked down to look at the watch. “No- we’re five minutes until we’re late.”
“Then we have to go!” Twilight trotted quickly out the door, her wings itching to dash away at a moment’s notice. However, she knew better than to do so, otherwise she would loose her family in the dust, and consequently, get lost.
“Alright, roll out, ponies!” Night Light shouted. The five of them walked out of the house, Velvet lingering a moment longer to grab a brush that was randomly placed on the floor from the war. Tonight was going to be great. She just knew it.