Twilight Sparkle tossed her mane back. The tiniest layer of sweat clung to her silken lavender coat, glistening in the golden afternoon glow. Her curves undulated and her tail hairs flounced lithely from the brisk trot she was making across the heart of Ponyville. As the air brimmed with the fragrance of flowers and summer moisture, she squinted lusciously towards her side and licked her smiling lips.
"Sometimes I would just snuggle with my BBBFF, and that would cure his insomnia." She giggled breathily, her voice resembling the sound of ringing bells in the humid wind. "But that's not so easy to do these days, besides, Shining Armor now has a much larger pillow... with wings... and a goofily spelled name. They seem so happy together—Cadance and Shining—I just wish there was a way I could make their lives so amorous by fixing my brother's sleeping problem. Do you have any ideas for a solution?"
Lyra sighed dreamily, her eyes nearly tearing in adoration. "Your mouth."
Twilight sneezed. She waved off a few mosquitoes and squinted at her trotting buddy. "Buh?"
"D'erm..." Lyra winced, nearly tripping over her own hooves before they were even halfway to the library. "Your mouth... is... uhm... s-so full of kind and poetic words, indicative of a younger sibling who truly, faithfully cares for her brother's well-being!" A dagger of a sweatdrop formed along her mint-green cheek. "You are the quintessential... nnngh... most... c-c-c-cunning lavender linguist." She immediately wheezed and went cross-eyed. "Hckkkt... It's really darn hot out here."
"Summer will do that."
"Summer is evil. Summer makes the rest of its sibling seasons lick packaged envelopes for it. I hate summer."
"Heeheehee..." Twilight smiled as they approached the door to her treehouse home. "Well, it's a good thing I have some magical unicorn air conditioning."
"Hey! That sounds like just what the order doctored... er... I-I mean—"
"And if that doesn't work, we can blow on each other all afternoon! Teeheehee!"
Lyra walked smack-dab into the doorframe. She stood back, shifting the weight of her bookbags as she rubbed her bruised cheek. "Uhhhhhhhh..."
"Just a joke, Lyra," Twilight remarked. "Spike made it up, though he only says it whenever Rarity's around. Meh." She shrugged. "You think I should experiment on humor someday?"
"Fuuuuuuu-nahhhh," Lyra chuckled, her voice reaching a high-pitch before she gulped and nervously stammered, "Your funny bones stick out in all the right places. Uhm... What I mean is..."
"Absolutely! We must get to work! My brother's bones must be put to sleep!" Twilight smiled with her eyes happily shut as she galloped briskly into the library. "Onward to books!"
Lyra let out a heavy sigh. Straightening her bags, she stood up with courageous posture and muttered to the sunny air, "Stay calm. You can do this. There's nothing even remotely happy, bouncy, or moist about this situation. Pretend you're visiting Mom to talk about your career, only there are far less judgmental glares... or blood stains on the guest bathroom toilet seat..."
With a cold shudder, Lyra put on a brave smile and trotted into the library. When the door closed behind her, the sound of it shutting was drowned out by a cold rattle of otherworldly noise. A huge black orb of undulating obsidian barreled down the nearby street. As it devoured an entire picket fence—post by post—it crossed shadows with that of a darting pegasus.
Rainbow Dash swiftly shoved an alabaster white fluff of clouds in her forelimbs across the ceiling of Ponyville. With a teeth-gritting hiss, she made straight for the entrance of the Carousel Boutique, kicked the door open with one swift buck of her hooves, and dove upon Rarity as she was halfway through tapering a length of turquoise fabric over Fluttershy's forelimbs.
"Hey! Vampire voice! It's your lucky, friggin' day!" Rainbow Dash bellowed as she plopped the tiny ball of mist into Rarity's bosom. "Ta-daaa! Snowflakes! Just like you ordered!"
"I beg your pardon?" Rarity's eyes bulged behind her bifocals. She dropped several levitating bits of sewing material and grasped the clump of loose snowflakes before her with an incredulous glare. "Rainbow Dash, what in the name of Zebraharan apartheid am I to do with an innocuous cloud of wayward sleet?!"
"Well, you're making winter wear in summer, so I thought 'what the hay?!'" Rainbow Dash stammered, rubbing her forelimbs together and twitching with a crooked smile. "Merry Hearth's Warming, Rarity! I know it's six months early and all—"
"But I didn't even order a snow cloud!" Rarity made a grimacing face as she shook a slick trickle of water off her left hoof while balancing the shrinking cloud in her right. "Besides, over half of these snowflakes have melted already and—"
"Yeah. Uh huh. That's nice, Rarity. You know where to stick it. Ahem." Without looking, Rainbow Dash reached into the cloud, produced an angry dragon mask, stuck it over her muzzle, and then flung herself—gyrating—in front of Fluttershy's unsuspecting face. "Raaaaaugh! Booga-Booga-Booga!"
"Oh." Fluttershy blinked calmly. "Good afternoon, Rainbow Dash." She smiled with a slight twitch of her wings. "You smell nice today."
"Mmmf-mmmf?!" Rainbow pulled the mask up, her eyes wide as she squeaked, "Nice?! I 'smell nice?!' That's all you got?!"
"Uhm... Should I have something else?"
"You're not even giving me a shriek or a whimper or an anguished cry of urinating distress?!" Rainbow Dash frowned viciously. "What gives?! I thought you hated dragons!"
"Yes, but I feel differently about pegasus friends wearing dragon masks and making loud noises."
"What gives?!" Rainbow Dash fell to the stage beside Fluttershy with a pair of drooping wings. "I thought you'd implode like a dried-up peach from horror!"
"As much as I admittedly love peaches, I'm sorry to say that you didn't scare me, Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy squirmed underneath the loose veil of turquoise fluff. "Please forgive me. I'll try to be filled with mortifying terror more often."
"Is there something wrong with me?!" Rainbow's voice cracked, and again she frowned at herself. "Do I no longer carry any menace whatsoever?!"
"You carry something, alright," Rarity grumbled. "And I daresay it rhymes with 'pulpit.'" She placed the tiny snow-cloud on a shelf, only for it to explode with a splash of droplets, forming a puddle on the tile floor. She sighed and mopped it up with a rag under blue telekinesis. "Do tell us that there was something far more pressing that brought you here in such an enraged state of prismatic ennui."
"You girls don't understand!" Rainbow Dash pulled at her spectral mane, her ruby eyes bugging as she teetered on the brink of hyperventilation. "My reputation's been reduced to a starving puppy with its mouth on the street curb, waiting for the galoshes of fate!" She blinked, then squinted pointedly at Rarity. "And I don't get it... 'Culprit?' 'Mule pit?'"
"Would it help, Rainbow, if my soul was suspended in a subtle state of existential fear and trembling?
"Tartarus, no!" Rainbow hissed, tossing the dragon mask so hard onto the floor that it burst into flames. "You're supposed to be freaked out at me! Angry, even! I was hoping you'd shriek in terror and vomit out a miscarriage of indecipherable phrases, as if you gathered them all in your feeble lungs after glancing at the South Pole's Horrifying Fields of Un-Neighing!"
"Awwwwwww..." Fluttershy smiled and leaned over to nuzzle Rainbow Dash, cheek to cheek. "But how can I be terrified by a friend as kind, loyal, and adorable as you?"
"Eeeek!" Rainbow flinched from Fluttershy, then flinched from herself as her hooves covered her mouth to cover such an unwarranted utterance. She hovered close to the ceiling, shaking all over. "That is not the word you use to describe me!" she hissingly stammered. "That is the word you use to describe a pink duffel bag full of kittens rolling downhill! I deserve another 'A'-word, darn it! Like 'Awesome' or 'Awesometastical' or 'Awesomegasmic!'"
"'Audacious' appears to be most fitting at this moment," Rarity murmured, calmly trotting over and wringing the wet rag of melted snowflakes over the burning mask. Once it was extinguished in a puff of smoke, she tilted her pale chin up and smiled thinly at Rainbow Dash. "Seriously, darling, I have no doubt that you are capable of performing sonic rainbooms while in labor, but there's no altitude to which you can ascend beyond the engrossing heights of this noble truth."
"Don't say it..."
"A lady is never dishonest.... unless she's sort on bits." Rarity cleared her throat and fluttered her eyelashes. "You are quite simply, divinely, adorably devourable, Rainbow Dash. Don't frown on fair fate's feminine grace, as it has been bestowed upon you."
"No! This is all some big, jerkly joke!" Rainbow Dash panted, clamping her hooves over her ears and squealing. "Nnnnngh—It's gotta be some horrible black magic! Discord's back! King Sombra's been farted back into existence! Thunderlane's paid the mafia in stud dollars!"
"Oh please..." Rarity rolled her eyes. "Thunderlane never pays for anything. He earns it through plowing the fertile fields of Ponyville. Hmmmm..." Smirking, she reached over and nudged Fluttershy. "If everypony catches my drift."
Fluttershy squinted back. "What's a 'stud dollar?'"
"Ahem. I'll tell you someday when you're dirtier, darling."
"That's it! I gotta go fly someplace and clear my head! Someplace that has less feather brains and vampires and—" Rainbow Dash flew skull-first into the wall just above the Boutique's exit. "Owie!" she whimpered, clutching her head. It took her a few seconds to register the nature of her outcry, and she gasped. "Erm... I mean... buck it all! Buck it all to the yellow-stained loins of Beelzebuck!"
Rarity found the breath to speak between airy laughs. "And just from what sordid dictionary of giggles did you salvage that foalish expression, dear?"
"All I can think about are Buck Frasier's hooves," Fluttershy added.
"Yaaa-aaa-aaa!" With a warbling cry, Rainbow Dash blurred out of the place. Her voice echoed throughout the golden lengths of Ponyville outside. There was the brief sound of rattling gravel, and then the Boutique's door shut closed behind her.
"Well, in spite of random little interruptions of the winged kind," Rarity said, trotting back towards Fluttershy with needle and thread, "I must say that we are making some smashing progress."
"I feel bad for Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy cooed with sad eyes cast towards the window. "Her face is going to end up on belt buckles and clutch purses at this rate."
"Horses for courses, love," Rarity said, giggling at herself. "You must admit that she's made her own bed in this regard."
"Must I?"
"And I have to say that I share part of the tipsy boat with her," Rarity murmured, her brow furrowed as she trotted to the other side of the pegasus and sewed the left sleeve of the evolving hoodie tight. "I could have sworn you had the most disagreeable phobia of dragons, do you not?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose I do," Fluttershy said with a sigh. "Though it's not nearly as bad as a certain color that I will not speak of without the urge to lose this morning's breakfast oats through my esophagus." She shuddered, then continued. "Rainbow only wants to give my life some dash of thrill, I suppose. She used to prank me all the time when were younger. I only screamed because I knew it would make her feel good, and myself too, I suppose."
"Yes. I believe Sweetie Belle experienced the same sensation once at a Jonoats Brothers concert."
"Dragons are a different matter altogether," Fluttershy droned, her eyes swimming loops around the black and white pattern of the tile floor. "My father used to buy me draconian nightlights for my bedroom."
"Merciful heavens!" Rarity paused to glance crookedly at her friend. "That sounds most distressing!"
"Only when it distressed me."
"Couldn't you have unplugged the dreadful things?"
"Mmmm-mmm." Fluttershy shook her head, gulped, and uttered, "He super-glued them to the sockets."
"What in Equestria for?"
"Father used to tell me that fear was healthy for the soul, in that it cleansed the heart and lungs of all the invisible were-ghosts of school-filly apathy." Fluttershy gulped. "I didn't think he was serious until he wired four more dragon nightlights onto the ceiling fan above my bed."
"That... sounds rather cold and calculated," Rarity remarked in a dry tone. She leaned in to adjust the sleeve as she said, "I don't believe I've met your father. What does he do these days?"
"About ten to eleven per day."
"What, as in bits?"
"No, license plates."
"Oh?" Rarity blinked, then winced. "Ohhhhh." She gulped. "Oh."
"I visit him every now and then, only not on holidays," Fluttershy said with a shrug. "The last time I visited during Hearth's Warming, the room two cells down from him was decked in holly, only the holly had been in one inmate's abdominal cavity the day before."
"Er..."
"It wasn't so bad, aside from the smell... and the blood. Really, though, I was fine until I saw their jumpsuits, and then the whole visit smelled even worse. Just why would Equestrian Federal Law force stallions into wearing that color? It's not like ponies go hunting in prison, not yet, anyways. After all, we did vote a bunch of Republicanter equines into the legislature this year." Fluttershy gazed off, her eyebrow twitching. After half a minute of silence, she eventually added, "And then there was the tinsel. Who knew that gallstones could get so large?"
"Surely you... uhm... have some pleasant memories of having spent time with your father?"
"Oh, but of course!" Fluttershy's eyes glistened. "There was that one summer when we went on our annual trip to the beach to dig up whale bones!" She smiled, her cheeks rosy. "I was allowed to bring a shovel that year. Heeeeee..."
"I see... uhm..."
"Did you know that corsets are sold at half the Canterlot vendor price on the black market?"
"Have you ever told Twilight about your youth?"
"What's to tell?"
"I mean it all sounds so... so..."
"Boring?" Fluttershy's face hung as her rear limbs squirmed. "I'm sorry. I wish I could tell my stories in 3D."
"I can think of many other adjectives, Fluttershy, and all of them painted black."
"It wasn't so bad," Fluttershy remarked with a shrug. "Nothing that a regular schedule of fuzzy bunny rabbit cuddling doesn't fix. After grooming angel's fluffy ears for an afternoon, I can forget that I wasn't allowed to use the bathroom sitting down until age six." Fluttershy blinked. "Oh. Oh dear, well, so much for that." Her eyebrow twitched again, and she smiled at Rarity. "Did you know it was possible to stain rainclouds?"
"Uhm..."
"Most ponies don't realize it, because they forget that rain comes out of the bottom of the cloud without rinsing the top part where foalish siblings stand in line to do their business in order to exorcise the were-spirits."
"I think I am going to... uhm..." Rarity gave a nervous laugh as she trotted to the far side of the Boutique. "Open a window! Yes! Eh heh heh heh..." She slid the pane open. A warm breeze fluttered in, just as a black mass surged outside.
The huge orb of darkness rolled across the street, plowing through a general store and exploding it in a shower of jagged splinters and screaming equines. Pieces of balsa wood littered the market place.
Applejack grumbled, brushing sawdust off her shoulders as she muttered into the humid air, "This is getting ridiculous! It's a beautiful day, and hardly anypony wants to buy fruit!"
"I know!" Pinkie Pie straddled the apple stand in a slump. With a yawn, she leaned back and adjusted the borrowed cowfilly hat atop her fluffy head. "It must be the end times! The apple end times!"
Blinking, Applejack glared up at her. "Say what, now?"
"You ever listen to John Haygee?" Pinkie's blue eyes widened like saucers. "First, there'll be three and a half years of peace! But then there'll be three and a half years of tribulation! The sky's gonna rain fire and frogs, and then the apples will all dry up all across Equestria because nopony sent in their donations on time!"
Applejack's freckles paled. "Uhhh..."
"And don't even get me started on the rise of the Anticlop! He'll assume the throne in the Vaticanter and pretend to be the Second Clopping! But not after he's forced everypony to bear the Mark of the Buck and—"
"That's nice, Pinkie. I'm going to..." Applejack squirmed and smiled nervously. "G-go use the little cowfilly's room." She waved as she trotted off. "Try to sell some apples to the recession-stricken populace while I’m gone! Reckon y'all can do that?"
"You can count on me!" Pinkie saluted. "And you try not to gallop straight into any roaming signs of the Aponycalypse on the way there!"
"And you better take care of my hat too!" Applejack shouted threateningly from a distance.
"Hey!" Pinkie gymnastically dismounted the apple stand and smiled proudly. "Consider it as safe as a devout believer making her yearly pilgrimage to Meccolt!"
Just then, under a rattling cadence, the family heirloom was sucked off Pinkie's head and absorbed right into the black body of a horrible object rolling past her.
She stood there, frozen, staring blankly into space. "Huh..." She tongued the insides of her mouth as her sweaty ears flicked, free of obstruction. "That's funny..." Pinkie squinted. "How could you make a pilgrimage to Meccolt if you didn't trust wheels? Oh well. Apples! Get your apples here—Oh! Hey! A squirrel! Come suck on my fruit, you!"