Four tiny, pony-like creatures with dragonfly wings and butterfly antenna spiraled upward into the not-quite-summer sky. Breezy ponies normally found little to interest them high in the sky, preferring to flit through the trees and across the flowery fields, but the balloon was a cheerful beacon of bright yellow color luring them upward into the vast empty spaces of the air.
Their tiny wings shimmered in the sunlight, humming with magic as they ascended. They skimmed around a popcorn puff of cloud, sending the mist swirling and scattering with musical laughter.
Tiddly Wink called out, “Zipzee! The balloon, don’t lose sight of it!”
“Oh, right!” Zipzee stopped suddenly, and the other breezies easily fell into hovering formation on either side. It was only a moment before Zipzee grinned and pointed with a yellow hoof. “There! Let’s go!” Away they buzzed once more.
The wicker basket suspended underneath the balloon held two ponies, one entirely pink and the other mint green with a pale pink mane and tail, their faces lighting up when they spotted the little visitors circling them. “Hii!” came the chorus of greetings from the breezies as they stopped and hovered.
The pink pony bounced in place, rocking the basket slightly, her front hooves supporting her on the edge. “Breezies! Minty, look!”
The green pony grinned and said, “I see them. Hello, little breezies!”
“Hello big ponies!” answered the yellow one. “I’m Zipzee. And these are Honeydew Hum, and Tiddly Wink, and Azalea Bloom.” Each breezy did a little mid-air spin as her name was spoken.
“Hii!” the pink pony responded in kind. “I’m Pinkie Pie, and this is my bestest friend in the world, Minty!”
“Cool! What’s up?” said Zipzee, but then was thumped with a hoof. “Oww, what?” Zipzee rubbed the back of her head and glared at Azalea.
Azalea Bloom bobbed slightly, performing an aerial maneuver that could pass for a curtsy, which the other breezies mimicked, and she said, “What Zipzee meant to say is… We’re pleased to meet you. What brings you up so high in the sky on this beautiful sunny day?”
“We’re taking a trip to visit Unicornia!” Pinkie Pie answered.
Smiles faded, and the breezies looked to one another in confusion. They huddled together and discussed the matter in tiny voices that Pinkie and Minty strained to hear. After some moments they seemed to reach a conclusion, and they each hovered facing Pinkie and Minty again. Zipzee piped up, “That’s the city where all the Unicorns live, right?”
Minty laughed a bubbly laugh, while Pinkie Pie buried her face between her front hooves for a moment before wondering, “Did the name give it away?”
Meanwhile Honeydew Hum had flittered into the basket and was staring at the symbol on Pinkie Pie’s hip. “Balloons! You must be the pilot.”
Pinkie blinked. “What? Nono… Those are party balloons. My cutie mark means I like to throw parties and make ponies happy. It’s my special talent.”
Minty laughed and added, “Yeah, I’m the pilot! I love flying. It’s the only way to travel. And out of all the ponies in Ponyville, I’m the expert when it comes to balloons.” Honeydew cast a skeptical glance at the image of mint candies adorning Minty’s hip, but held her tongue.
Tiddly Wink moved forward and said, “I saw a unicorn once! But why are you going to Unicornia?“
Minty explained, “The unicorns use their magic to raise the sun in the sky every day. But tomorrow is a special day, it’s the first day of summer — and it’s the longest day of the year. They have a huge festival, they call it the Summer Sun Celebration. And we’re going to see it.”
Pinkie Pie added, “We’re gonna party all the live-long day. It’s gonna be fantabulous. Would you breezies like to come with us? There’s plenty of room in the basket — the more the merrier!”
“Yay! Let’s go!” cheered the breezies — or most of them — and they started to do a joyful aerial dance.
“No! Stop that!” cried Azalea Bloom. The other three breezies bumped into one another as they came to a confused stop. “We can’t go flying away now, there’s work to be done back home in Breezy Blossom. If we disappear, none of our friends would even know where we’ve gone.”
“Awww…” said the other breezies, plus Pinkie Pie.
Azalea Bloom fluttered forward to look at Pinkie Pie and said, “It sounds wonderful, and I wish we could come along, but we really can’t.”
Minty awwwed too, but Pinkie said, “It’s okay, I understand. Minty, why don’t you give them some candy to take home?”
Minty perked up. “That’s a great idea! You can each have a piece.” She reached down into the bottom of the wicker basket and hooked her hoof around a bag, pulling it closer. She stuck her muzzle into the opening and pulled out one piece after another of wrapped candy: a bonbon, a taffy and a couple of (her favorite) peppermints, until each breezy clutched in her hooves a candy almost as big as her head. Their wings buzzed with the effort of supporting what was, for them, a hefty load.
“Thank you! Thank you!” they chirped. Then Azalea fluttered back to Minty and said, “Hold still for a moment!”
“Huh?” said Minty, going cross-eyed as she tried to focus on the hovering breezy. Azalea darted forward and touched her antennae to Minty’s forehead, releasing a golden spark of magic. Minty blinked and laughed. “What was that?”
Azalea giggled and said, “Breezy magic! It’ll bring good luck on your journey.” The other breezies nodded and each darted forward to give a spark of their own magic: Tiddly Wink to Minty, Zipzee and Honeydew Hum to Pinkie Pie.
“Ooh… It feels tingly!” Pinkie said. “Thank you!”
“Now we’d better fly home,” said Azalea, “before we drift too far and lose sight of Breezy Blossom!” The other three breezies lined up in formation by her side. “Byee!” they called.
Pinkie Pie and Minty both waved. “It’s been fun seeing you, little breezies!” called Pinkie. “Enjoy the candy!” added Minty. They watched as the tiny ponies spiraled downward toward the earth and soon disappeared from view.
Pinkie Pie sighed contentedly. “That was so nice! It’s too bad they couldn’t come along.”
Minty nodded, smiling. “And I got to give away some candy. I love doing that, it’s even better than eating it.”
Pinkie peered over the edge of the basket at the green forest and wilderness silently sliding past. It was peaceful, relaxing. Pinkie Pie was not a pony who usually devoted much time to relaxation, but even she wasn’t immune to the spell cast by the sweet air of late spring, the morning sunlight, and the beautiful, panoramic view of the blue sky and the puffy white clouds casting shadows on the green lands below. Her eyelids drooped and she smiled softly as she gazed at the hazy blue mountains on the horizon. Surely all was right with the world.
Something nagged at her, though. A little itch right between her withers where she couldn’t scratch seemed to be telling her something wasn’t exactly right. She turned her head, eyes scanning the horizon. After a while she spoke, “Minty? Where are we?”
Minty laughed in her usual bubbly-sounding way, although Pinkie thought she heard a nervous undertone as well. “Still on course for Unicornia! Umm… Why do you ask?”
Pinkie looked around the horizon again and said, “I don’t recognize any landmarks. It shouldn’t be this far. I mean, you can see the High Castle from Ponyville on a clear day, if you know just where to look.”
Minty fidgeted. “We’re just, umm, taking the scenic route, because a longer balloon ride is more fun. You just leave the navigating to me, Pinkie Pie! I’ve got this all figured out. I even went to the library and got a map from Story Belle before we left. When it comes to ballooning, I’m as sly as a duck!”
“Minty… Foxes are sly. Ducks are all wet.” That only prompted another nervous laugh from Minty. Pinkie moved closer and said, “Can I look at the map? Pleeease?”
Minty stammered, “I… uh… I don’t have it out. I rolled it up in a sock.”
Pinkie poked around the interior of the basket, then nosed open Minty’s saddlebags to peek inside, but found them almost empty. “I don’t see any socks here,” she concluded.
“Of course not! I keep my socks at home in my sock drawer.”
Pinkie Pie facehoofed. “So… You don’t really have a map, do you?”
“I do! I looked it over before we left. It’s all up here.” Minty thumped the side of her head.
Pinkie Pie facehoofed again, and whimpered softly.
“Okay, so maaaybe we could be just an eensy-weensy bit lost. But what’s the worst that could happen? We’ll just land somewhere and ask for directions, right?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Pinkie pondered. “Well… We could drift into drizzly Dankendreer and never see the sun again. Or this balloon could drop us right into the smoldering crater of Mount Badass. Or we could land in the middle of a bunch of griffins, or troggles, or manticores, or — mph!” A green hoof pressed against her mouth.
“You worry too much! You just watch, I’m going to steer this balloon to a safe landing.” Minty took her hoof away from Pinkie’s mouth.
“…or stratodons! Or we could get caught up in a thunderstorm and our balloon ripped to shreds.”
Minty groaned, exasperated. “Why do you think of such horrible things, Pinkie Pie?”
Pinkie pointed with a hoof, and Minty turned to see what she was looking at: a towering storm cloud that had bubbled up while the ponies argued. One of the puffy clouds they’d been drifting among had transformed, its top rising high into the atmosphere and forming an anvil head. At the other end, its base was shrouded in blue-gray shadows and rain. As the two ponies stared, lightning flared through the cloud, followed moments later by thunder.
“Wow, that’s… a big one,” Minty admitted.
“Steer us away from it, Minty! Steer us away!”
“Right!” Minty grabbed the balloon’s control line in her mouth and tugged.
Pinkie Pie leaned over the edge of the basket, peering towards the ground, trying to estimate the motion of the balloon by its shadow passing across the tree tops. Soon enough it became apparent that the balloon was moving towards the storm cloud rather than away from it. She called out, “Whatever you’re doing, Minty, it’s not working!”
“I’m trying, I’m trying!” came the response. “The wind’s got us, I can’t fight it.” The balloon swayed and turned as turbulent air currents swirled around it, alternating gusts of hot and cold, and the sun was blotted out by the looming storm cloud.
Pinkie Pie whimpered and peered over the edge of the basket, then back towards the storm cloud, which by now was looking more like a dark wall in the sky. Lightning flared again, followed immediately by a clap of thunder much louder than before. Pinkie blinked, spots in her eyes. “Whuh?” She rubbed her eyes and then squinted into the roiling murk. Were those specks after-images from the lightning, or was something flying out there?
A gust of wind pitched the basket, breaking Minty’s grip on the control line, and she tumbled backward into the wicker basket. Her head thumped the bag of candies. Minty’s eye focused on a cherry sour as it bounced around the floor of the basket. Then she turned her wind-stung eyes upward towards a pink shape. A voice called down, “Minty, quit playing around and get up here! There’s pegasus ponies here, they’re fighting the storm.”
Minty flailed about with her hooves for a moment, then managed to get upright and look to where Pinkie Pie was pointing. “I… I see them! They’re trying to get the storm under control, we’re saved!”
Pinky wasn’t smiling yet. “I dunno… It doesn’t look like there’s anywhere near enough of them to control it.” Then she leaned over the edge of the basket and waved her hooves and yelled out, “HELP! OVER HERE, OVER HERE!” It wasn’t clear whether any pegasus would hear her cries over the dull roar of the storm and thunder rumbling, but she kept yelling, and Minty joined in.
Whether it was their yelling that did the trick or, more likely, the huge yellow orb of the balloon’s gas bag that caught their attention, a white pegasus soon began winging towards them. “Oh thank goodness!” Pinkie gasped. “All that yelling was making me a little hoarse.”
Minty groaned and punched Pinkie in the shoulder, lightly, but the pink pony only giggled.
The white pegasus pony came to a hover near the basket — with difficulty, furiously beating her huge wings against the turbulent wind. She was somewhat larger than a typical pegasus mare, and her wing span seemed to be about double the norm. Her mane and tail whipped about wildly. “Are you all right?” she called out with a firm and calm voice.
“No!” Pinkie yelled back. “Help us get away from the storm! Please! Pretty please with sugar on it!” Another gust of wind swung the basket wildly. Cherry sours bounced around the basket, and Minty was pelted in the face with bon-bons.
“I’ll try! Hang on tight!” yelled the pegasus, then she flew up to the side of the balloon’s airbag and put her head and fore-hooves up against it, flapped her wings hard, and tried to push the balloon away from the storm cloud. It seemed for a few moments as though she was making progress, but then a gust shifted and twisted the balloon to the side, and the pegasus was forced to back off and come at it again with a fresh purchase.
A shower of peculiar hailstones pelted the balloon; large but fluffy they were, half ice and half cloudstuff. A bolt of lightning exploded close by the balloon, nearly deafening the ponies and scaring them witless. “My candy!” yelled Minty as she tried to gather up some spearmint swirls with her hooves.
The balloon twisted around again and was grabbed by a strong updraft, giving the pegasus a hard shove back. She snorted in frustration and flapped hard to match its rate of ascent, but a strong gust at the wrong moment flung her into the rigging between the air bag and the basket. She struggled to untangle herself.
Then it hit. A blue aura began to glow around the entire balloon, along with a sizzling sound, and all three ponies felt the tingle of electricity. A gigantic lightning bolt exploded. The blinding light faded into a snaking line of fireballs in the sky, like a string of beads. Then everything faded to black for the three ponies.
Minty woke first, finding herself slumped against Pinkie Pie in the bottom of the basket. Her head hurt, and she had a funny tingly feeling like parts of her body still wanted to stay asleep. She tried moving her legs. Then she nudged Pinkie Pie with a hoof.
Pinkie moaned softly and muttered, “rainbow dash always dresses in style”
Minty growled and gave her a harder shake. “Pinkie Pie, wake up!”
Pinkie muttered, “nnn… birthday present for kimono”
Minty bit down on Pinkie’s ear and pulled.
“Aaah! Minty, no! Not the ear! I’m awake.”
Minty said, “Great! Let’s see where we are.” She got herself upright in the basket and looked around. She looked over the edge of the basket and said, “Hey, at least we didn’t crash; we’re still up in the air.” Then she looked up and gasped. “Oh my!”
Pinkie didn’t like the sound of that. Still feeling dazed, she clambered to her feet and found the white pegasus mare still tangled precariously from the balloon’s rigging lines, unconscious, her body slumped onto the shelf that served as the balloon’s rigging deck.
Minty gawped and then said, “Pinkie, we caught a pegasus! How cool is that? Can I keep her?”
Pinkie facehoofed. “No, Minty! We need to get her down from there. If she falls without waking up, she could die. Careful, careful!”
Working with their mouths and hooves, it took a while to get the pegasus pony’s legs and wings unhooked from the cords and drop her into the basket — which had already been cozy for two ponies.
It didn’t help that their guest was rather large, seemingly built more like an earth pony than a typical pegasus. Her wings were particularly oversized, the largest either of them had seen on a pegasus mare. Her coat was white, her mane unusually streaked with different colors: silver, blue and pink. Her cutie mark looked like a heart with blue sparkles swirling around it, and she also had an elaborate lavender squiggle, vaguely heart-shaped, dyed into the fur of her forehead about where a unicorn’s horn would be.
“I think I recognize her,” said Pinkie Pie. “This is Star Catcher! She’s the leader of Butterfly Island; she’s like their mayor or something. She brought a bunch of her pegasus friends to a party in Ponyville that one time, remember?”
“I remember! Yay! We caught a VIP!”
Pinkie put a hoof on Star Catcher’s shoulder and shook her gently. “Wake up, Star Catcher!” There was no response. Pinkie gave her a harder shake and said, “Please be okay!”
After watching for a few moments, Minty leaned toward Star Catcher’s ear, clamped her jaws on it and pulled. The pegasus jerked awake. “Aaah! What what?” Then she started flailing her limbs trying to get upright. At the same time Minty and Pinkie Pie shuffled around, trying to keep from getting kicked or smacked in the face by an oversized wing.
After some moments of thrashing about, Star Catcher managed to get upright on her hooves with her wings furled, and the three ponies caught their breath, with only a few bruises to go around.
“Hii!” said Pinkie. “I’m Pinkie Pie, and this is Minty, and I think you’re Star Catcher aren’t you? We’re on a trip to Unicornia but we don’t really know which way it is, and we got caught in the storm, and we’re really grateful that you helped us — I mean tried to anyhow.”
“Oh,” Star Catcher sighed, then paused a moment to gather her wits. When she next spoke, her voice and manner of speech were kindly and soothing, as reassuring as a mother comforting her foals. “You’re quite welcome, dears. Where is the storm cloud, I wonder? I don’t see it.”
They looked around. “I don’t see it either,” said Minty. “I wonder how long we were asleep?”
“I’ve never seen a lightning discharge before like the one that hit us,” Star Catcher admitted. “But it seems to have caused no permanent damage to speak of. I suppose I should return to my duties and let the weather crew know that I’m all right.”
“Oh no no!” cried Pinkie. “Please help us figure out where we are, at least!”
Star Catcher closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, “Of course, dears. I can hardly leave you adrift, can I? Let us take a look around and get our bearings, shall we?” She scanned the horizon, then spotted a glint of water in the distance. “There! That must be Eagle Claw Lake. And that means… Hm. There, I can see the Fairy Hills to the north of it. And judging by the position of the sun… Aha! Unicornia should be that way, to our northwest!” She nodded to emphasize the direction.
The two earth ponies marveled at Star Catcher’s knowledge of geography. However, Minty objected, “The balloon is going the wrong way. We’ll have to try and fight the wind.”
“Oh no, dear!” said Star Catcher. “You’ll exhaust the balloon’s magical enchantments doing that. Let’s gain some altitude! Wind blows in other directions at different altitudes. We need only climb until we find a current going the way we want, and use the balloon’s magic merely to fine-tune the direction.”
Minty gasped. “But that’s brilliant! Why didn’t I ever think of that?”
Pinkie Pie laughed! “Maybe it takes a pegasus to think of things like that.”
Star Catcher nodded and agreed. “We do know the ways of the air. Would you let me travel with you to your destination and make sure you arrive safely?”
“Yes, yes!” said the earth ponies.
Minty and Pinkie Pie seemed almost giddy — which is to say, more than usual — at having Star Catcher along to guide them. Her mere presence brought forth feelings of safety and reassurance. For her own part, the pegasus kept peering over the side of the basket towards the ground passing below.
Pinkie eventually noticed and asked, “Star Catcher, what do you see?”
She replied, “I had no idea there were so many roads and farms in this countryside. It almost seems as though they’ve sprung up overnight from the wilderness.”
The other two ponies stretched their heads over the side of the basket, following her gaze. Minty said, “That’s great, isn’t it? Ponyland is growing. umm… I mean Equestria, even!”
Star Catcher giggled softly. “Still getting used to saying that, are we?”
Minty and Pinkie both laughed, nodding. Then Pinkie said, “That’s sorta why we’re going to the Summer Sun Celebration this year. We don’t have to get permission from the unicorns to go to their city anymore. They can be all like, ‘What are you mud ponies doing here?’, and then we can be like, ‘Hey it’s all one country now, and we have as much right to be here as anypony. You can’t keep the big party all to yourselves anymore.’”
“I love crashing parties!” chimed Minty with another bubbly laugh.
“You’re always invited to my parties, Minty,” Pinkie said.
“I’m sure you two will make quite an impression on them,” Star Catcher opined. Then she looked up, smiled and pointed. “Girls, look at that mountain! That’s the Canterhorn. We just need to steer around it, and the High Castle of Unicornia should come into view on the other side.”
“Yaaay!” cheered the earth ponies, and Minty started tugging on the balloon’s control lines with her teeth.
As the balloon drifted, white spires and towers came into view perched on the side of the mountain. Pinkie Pie bounced with excitement. “That’s the High Castle!” she squealed. “Isn’t it amazing? I had no idea it was so amazing.”
Star Catcher stared. She’d never been to Unicornia before, but she’d seen other unicorn-built castles, and none of them had looked like this. They usually were blocky rectangular constructs with heavy round towers at each corner, and everything painted in garish rainbow colors. This soaring, gleaming white, architectural fantasy of delicate spires, arches and minarets was utterly unlike what she’d expected. More than anything else in her experience it resembled Commander Hurricane’s cloud castle.
Minty seemed surprised too. She turned loose the controls for a moment and said, “It looks so different up close. I could see the castle way off in the distance when I climbed the windmill tower back in Ponyville, but it wasn’t anything like this.”
Below the castle spread the city. Star Catcher noticed colorful specks flitting above the rooftops. “I’m surprised to see so many pegasus ponies are here,” she said. Then she pointed. “Look over there! Balloons! That must be the landing field. Minty, steer us towards it!”
“Mmphl mrph!” replied Minty through a mouthful of control handle. She tugged and the balloon started to turn and descend.
“I’ll fly ahead and alert the ground crews — and give you some room to work,” Star Catcher said. Then she leapt out of the wicker basket and spread her wings, gliding easily to the balloon landing field. She alighted in an open space, stretched her legs and wings for a moment, then turned and looked upward to see how the others were doing.
Pinkie Pie was trying to offer advice. “Steer us further left. Not that left, Minty! Your other left!”
“Mrrrphle!” growled Minty.
Star Catcher sighed as she saw the balloon was about to completely miss the airfield. She spread her wings and took flight again, and went to head-butt the side of the air bag just as she’d done during the storm. This time, in the calm air over the city, it worked. She nudged the balloon back on course and brought it to a gentle landing where it belonged. A pair of unicorn stallions trotted up and tethered the basket so the balloon couldn’t get away.
Once it was secure, one of the unicorns spoke up briskly, saying, “You may disembark, ladies.” Minty and Pinkie Pie grabbed their saddlebags and hopped out of the basket just as Star Catcher touched down by their side. “Welcome to Canterlot!” the stallion added.
The three mares all blinked. “Welcome to what?” Star Catcher asked.
The stallion blinked, surprised by their surprise. “The city of Canterlot, of course,” he said.
Pinkie Pie eyed him suspiciously. “Canter Lot? Canter-a-lot? It’s… It’s like some horrible pun! Canter-canter! It sounds fast. It must be a fast-paced city. I wonder if…”
Minty whined, “Isn’t this Unicornia? We were trying to land in Unicornia! We’re going to miss the Summer Sun Celebration, aren’t we?”
“No, not at all!” the stallion assured her, although he still wore confusion on his face. “The festival is already underway, and the Sun Raising Ceremony is tomorrow morning. There is plenty of time for you lovely ladies to enjoy it.”
“Yaaay!” cried the two earth ponies, and they started prancing around one another and laughing without a care in the world. Like happy little mud-pony idiots, Star Catcher thought to herself, although their enthusiasm was endearing.
Turning to more practical thoughts, Star Catcher asked the stallion, “Could you please have the balloon recharged with magic so it will be ready for the return trip?”
“Recharged?” He glanced up at the balloon dubiously. “Why, this balloon doesn’t even have a thaumic energy receiver. It’s archaic. Where did you ever find it?”
Star Catcher shrugged her wings. “It’s not mine, so I can’t really say. Just be a good lad and see to it, would you please?”
The stallion nudged his silent companion and said, “Let’s find Tinker. She’s got to see this! She’ll want to put it in a museum, I’ll bet.” Then the two trotted off, although Star Catcher’s gaze lingered on their departing forms. This city has much to offer, she thought.
Minty nosed at Pinkie Pie. “Hey, did you hear what he called us? We’re ladies now!”
“Oooh! I feel so frilly!” Then Pinkie pantomimed an elaborate curtsy, bringing forth a bubbly laugh from Minty.
Pinkie then looked to the pegasus and asked, “I guess you’ll be flying back home now, Star Catcher?”
“Oh. It’s been a trying day. I should probably stay overnight in the city and fly back home tomorrow. I’ve got to admit I’d like to see the Sun Raising Ceremony too.”
Minty asked, “Won’t your pegasus friends wonder if you’re okay? Will they be looking for you?”
Star Catcher shook her head. “I’m sure some of them must have seen your balloon and guessed that I went with you. They won’t panic for a while yet.” Besides which, she thought to herself, these two are clearly in need of adult supervision. Mentally adult, that is.
“Awesome!” cried Minty.
“We made a friend!” cried Pinkie Pie. “We’ll take in the festival together. The more the merrier.”