Several sweet scents wafter lazily through the air, no doubt because a certain unicorn had demanded they do something about the usual smell, and if one were of an empathic nature they would feel the warmth and togetherness and love that permeated the area. It was a very lovely evening, far too lovely to spend inside. And that suited the hosts of this particular party just fine.
Twilight Twinkle (the second) wasn't paying attention to this. She was far more interested in fiddling with a napkin. Her aunt was making some incredibly moving speech about love and inner strength and harmony and love. Twinkle could hear someone (no doubt Aunt Dash or Sonic Boom, or both) making retching noises. It wasn't the greatest speech, truth be told. But everyone listened (provided the definition of everyone no longer involved Rainbow Dash or her former pupil) to what Aunt Cadence said. She decided to listen.
"Blather, blather, love, Shining Armor, love, triumphed over evil, blather, speech." Ah. Still saying nothing important. Twinkle zoned out again.
Eventually her speech finished, and then... Oh. Apparently it was Uncle Armor's turn. Twinkle went back to fiddling with the napkin.
After her uncle finished, and then mother got her own speech, everyone was allowed to move about. Twinkle slid off her chair and wandered over to the buffet, completely ignoring all the rather delicious looking food-stuffs and heading for the desserts. As she was walking she saw the mayor of Ponyville talking with the current head of the royal guard, the two apparently recounting some escapade involving both of them nearly being eaten, while the captain's husband chowed down on several pies nearby. She also saw a large amount of pink by the band. Clearly the Pies felt the need to lead all the guests in dancing. She stopped when she saw what appeared to be Princess Luna joining in. She hadn't seen Luna earlier. Ignoring her suspicions about what seemed like the mare's sudden arrival, she continued on to the buffet. Then she saw... mother and ms. Lulamoon talking. As she detoured to avoid getting noticed by the two mares she saw Ms. Lulamoon holding a drink, though it appeared to be shaking a bit. Surely she wasn't drunk already. Unfortunately it was then that Twinkle found herself bumping into someone. Someone rather large, and scaly, and light purple...
"Twinkie?"
"Impy!" she smiled. Unicorn and not-quite-a-dragon hugged.
"You used to be taller." The unicorn laughed.
"You used to be smaller." The two laughed at their customary greeting.
"Well, you're finally catching up on me." the quillin noted. Then she looked over Twinkle's shoulder.
"Oh, hello there Twilight Twinkle." Came the voice of her 'sister in-law'.
"Hey, Rarity." The little unicorn smiled, trying not to laugh at what the older unicorn had chosen to wear that night.
"I must say, you seem to be growing at a tremendous rate."
"Hey, I said pretty much the same thing." Impossibility laughed.
"And might I add that you have a superb taste in dress-ware?" At that, Twinkle's smile vanished.
"My mom made me wear this." She said, her voice leaden. Rarity bit her lip.
"Well... it looks nice on you anyway, dear." Unicorn and quillin stood there, hoping something would distract from the akward silence.
"Hey, mom, look! Miss Pie's starting the Pony Polka." Impy cried, "Gotta stop her before there's a fire!" she whispered to Twinkle. With that quillin and mother rushed off to stop Pinkie singing what was in fact the 'Care' song. Finally free from anything blocking her path, Twinkle rushed towards the buffet. She looked up and down the table. Sitting at the head of the table was... cake. Delicious cake.
"Guess I'm not the only one admiring Pinkie Pie's contribution to this party" Twinkle turned to see Celestia levitating a rather large slice of cake.
Twinkle said something through a mouthful of cake. Celestia, to her credit, didn't even blink.
"I noticed someone looked bored during the speeches. To be fair, I've never liked them either. Short and sweet, more time for celebrating. And cake, of course." she smiled, nodding to the cake.
"Speaking of sweet, have you seen who's singing right now?"
Twinkle looked, aided by Celestia using the slice of cake as a pointer. Singing away to a rather 'suggestive' song at the mic was...
"Is that Sweet Bell?"
"Yes, it is."
"How come she's here?"
"Well, she was about your age when Cadence and Shining Armor got married." Something the little filly couldn't recongise flashed across Celestia's face. "She was a flower girl at the fake wedding." It looked a bit like Celestia was trying not to think about something.
"She and Sonic Boom used to be friends. Back when she called herself Scootaloo."
"Really?" said Twinkle, who was paying more attention to the cake than the princess.
"Her and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, they were inseperable." Twinkle's good mood evaporated insantly. She turned to see... her mother.
'Terrific' she said to herself.
"Sometimes they were a bit more literally inseperable than anyone would have liked, as I recall." Celestia smiled, "What was it they called themselves? Cutie Mark..."
"Cutie Mark Crusaders." Twilight Sparkle smiled warmly, "Oh, they used to get themselves into the worst sorts of trouble."
"I remember reading about some of those. They got incredibly strange sometimes."
Twilight Twinkle quitely slipped away from the two mares, her desire to mingle and chat now non-existant. She walked across the grounds back to to where she'd been sitting. She was surprised to see someone sitting there.
"Wisp?" The golden-brown pony just glanced up at her. From the looks of it the colt hadn't moved since the speeches.
"You okay?" She asked. He looked at her, his bright blue eyes utterly impassive.
"Just feeling a bit full." He grumbled. And then Twinkle said the worst possible thing she could say.
"I suppose you would." She said, too quickly to stop herself. She yelped.
"Sorry! Damn, damn, sorry!" Were it not that she was at a party, and only ten years old, she'd have said worse.
"It's okay, Twilight. I know you didn't mean it." He smiled gently. Then as soon as it appeared, it was gone. His eyes seemed to be scanning the crowd. The lull in the conversation allowed her to hear Pinkie discussing an incident with an exploding cupcake.
"I didn't think you'd show up to this thing." She muttered. Wisp wasn't exactly the most social pony who ever existed.
"Princess Cadance herself invited me."
"She did?!" She slumped onto the ground.
"My mom just told me the other night."
The two young ponies sat there for a time.
"I notice... certain ponies aren't here." Twinkle said, cautiously.
"She's... otherwise occupied."
"Shame. She's probably helping open a shopping mall or something." She muttered, nudging a fork slightly.
Wisp said nothing.
"We could dance." She offered after a while. He didn't reply.
"Actually, I'm not much of a dancer. Four left hooves." She smiled weakly.
"Can't sing much either." She added when the colt proved unforthcoming.
"Well, I'm just going... see if there's... anypony to talk to." she said, sliding off the chair.
"You going to be okay?"
"Don't worry about me, Twilight Twinkle. I'll be fine." He sighed. She smiled, which got a slight smirk out of him.
She turned, bumping into a pony.
"Sorry, didn't see you there" she muttered. Then she saw the blue fur. And then she looked up to see a stallion with orange eyes smiling at her.
"Dad?" she said. Then her smile collapsed.
"But... if you're here..." Realisation sunk in, and the music stopped. The sounds of partying stopped. All she could hear was distant birdsong.
"This is a dream."
*****
To her credit, she didn't leap upright. Instead, she jolted sideways and fell off the bed, taking a lot of the cover with her.
For a second she wondered when she'd gone to sleep. She remembered wandering around the castle, always escorted by a guard, doing some light reading in the library, grabbing some food from the kitchens, and then.... Well, she must have found something to do. She lay there for a while, thinking of her aunt and uncle's wedding aniversary.
She remembered not being happy about having to wear a dress, though not because her mother had told her to.
She remembered the awkward conversation with Whisper Wind, though not because of any emnity with.... 'her', more because the young stallion had been nervous around her aunt and uncle.
There had been a strange conversation with Princess Luna, joking about with Rainbow Dash, and that chat with Cadance.
"Best aunt in the history of aunts" she said to herself. She looked at the curtains. She opened them. The view would probably have been more impressive if she weren't upside-down and it wasn't still dark. And raining. She glanced over to the clock on the bedside table.
"Five in the morning." She sighed.
She suddenly felt like going for a walk.
*****
Slipping past the guard in front of her door in fact turned out to be easy. The poor young stallion had clearly not felt enervated by standing in front of a door for several hours, and fallen asleep. Standing up.
"What the heck is Shiny teaching you guys?" Midday smirked as she walked past him.
She set out with no given destination in mind, though she took care to avoid going near the throne room. Every now and then she wandered past a guard on patrol, none of whom seemed that bothered to see a young mare wandering the castle before sunrise. Strangely enough, even though there was barely any light, it was still easy enough to see. Although it was remarkably chilly, although that might have had something to do with it being the beginning of winter.
Midday was actually enjoying it a bit. Perhaps because for the first time in quite a while she had nowhere to be and nothing to do. And the complete absence of noise was... oddly relaxing.
"Nice and quiet." She said, stopping by a window to look at Canterlot again.
Then she found herself thinking of Wisp.
She suddenly felt like going back to sleep.
Returning to her room proved easy enough, once she figured out what floor of the castle she'd been on, where she found the guard still standing to an approximation of rapt attention, and gently snoring. She strongly resisted a strange urge to get a marker pen and draw over his face.
*****
Fluttershy found herself woken by a strange cacophony of noises coming from outside which she instantly recognised as alarmed chickens. Blearily she rushed down the stairs, completely missing the floor on the way without realising it. She hurtled towards the chicken-coop...
and politely knocked on the roof.
"Is everyone okay in there?" she said. There was an assortment of disoriented clucks. She looked inside.
"Don't mind me, just go back to sleep, nothing to..." then she saw something that horrified her to the bottom of her soul.
There, just next to Edith and Edna's coops was... an empty nest.
"Where's Edwina?" she asked. More confused clucks. Fluttershy rushed back outside, and began desperately looking for any sign of where Edwina had gone.
There were none.
She screamed.
Inside her house, Angel the probably demonic rabbit put some ear muffs on. It was going to be a long day.
*****
Midday awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the door.
"Hold on." she said, trying to remove herself from the tangle of bedsheets she'd made. After a Hurricanian effort, she suceeded. More or less. She opened the door to find Shining Armor, and the young guard assigned to her door (looking rather sheepish).
An envelope floated towards her. She took it with her own magic, and Shining Armor took off without a word.
"Thanks." she said as she closed the door.
She wandered back over to the bed and opened the envelope. Inside were falsified details of one Midday Eclipse, minor servant working for Their Majesties government, who had according to the file done something rather heinous on Nightmare Night which had eventually required the attention of Princess Celestia herself, who had declared the young pony... she put the paper down when she saw the age it gave her.
"Twenty-three? TWENTY-THREE?!!" She then proceeded to return to reading the piece of paper.
Celestia, in her infinite wisdom, had declared the young pony be placed on paid vacation for an 'indefinite' period of time. In Ponyville, of course.
She stared at the paper, re-reading it for a time, until she saw an attachment. Which was a letter from the Princess herself.
"As requested, one falsified identity and history, along with records should any pony attempt to investigate.
Twilight Sparkle has been informed about your arrival in Ponyville, so you needn't worry about where to stay.
However, I feel compelled to warn you now:
If you are a trickster, or a con-artist attempting to use Twilight Sparkle for some sordid purpose, you should understand I would feel strongly motivated to act in her defense.
H.R.H Princess Celestia, Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria.
P.S. Enjoy your time in Ponyville."
She set the letter down. She wasn't which thing to be more alarmed by, that Celestia wrote in italics, or that bit about time.
She looked over to the clock again. It proclaimed the time to be that of nine in the morning. Feeling oddly willing to skip breakfast, she rushed out of the room.
Then she rushed back into to tidy up the bed and documents.
Fortunately it wasn't that far between the castle and the train station. She did feel a bit nervous any time she saw a guard, and they seemed somewhat suspicious of her, but fortunately not of them seemed troubled. And even better, a train was waiting. She quickly zoomed into the nearest carriage.
She was surprised to see that the train had beds, and not chairs as she was used to. She briefly wondered if she was on the wrong train, but then dismissed these thoughts.
A mint green unicorn sat on the bunk next to hers.
"Hi." the unicorn said.
"Hey." Midday wasn't looking at her.
"You alright? You look kinda jittery." Well, Midday said to herself, might as well test her acting abilities.
"Just on vacation, is all. I thought it would never come." She turned to smile at the stranger. It was only because of remarkable training she didn't just let her jaw drop.
It was Lyra. As in Lyra. As in THE Lyra. She tried not to stare.
"Excuse me, but you are Lyra, right? Lyra Heartstrings?"
The unicorn blinked.
"Yeah, I am. Why?"
"I am a huge fan of your stuff, your music. It's awesome."
Lyra just blinked.
"That's nice, always nice to meet a fan."
"Thanks."
"Because, you know, I just play a lyre. Most ponies can't hear me over the whole orchestra playing."
Midday laughed nervously.
"Well, I... have good hearing."
Lyra just smirked.
"Clearly."
At that point, they heard the sound of a whistle, and the train started moving
"So what are you going to Ponyville for?"
"Going back to see my girlfriend."
"Your girlfriend lives in Ponyville and you work in Canterlot? Bit of a commute, isn't it?"
"Worth the cost of travel. I owe Cady a massive amount for that." Midday nearly jumped.
"Wait... by Cady, do you mean Cadance?"
"Perhaps. Which Cadance are we talking about?" Lyra smirked.
"Tall, pink, purple, wings" Midday said, making an odd chicken shape at 'wings'.
"Oh, yeah, that's her all right."
"How come you owe her?"
Lyra leaned in, beckoning with her hoof.
"She's the one who told me to get together with Bon-Bon. She said: "It doesn't matter how far apart you are, your love will keep you together."" The two mares stared at each other for a second before giggling.
"She was always saying things like that." Midday simply nodded.
"And she was completely right. If I didn't have Bon-Bon..." she sighed, "My life would be really boring."
*****
Back in Celestia's private throne room, a storm was brewing.
"Luna, calm down." Celestia sighed, as the dark blue alicorn paced about the room, minature storm clouds following behind her.
"We still don't understand it. A young mare manages to breach the defenses of this castle, a feat you claim only Discord has accomplished. This mare demands to talk to you, and you AGREE. You followed up to this by listening to her spin some... complete fabrication about being the child of Twilight Sparkle, your own pupil no less!" She glanced at the rain-clouds dripping water everywhere. She jabbed them with her hoof, causing them to disappear with a comical 'puff'. She turned back to Celestia, who was going over what appeared to be some form of tax report and paying Luna absolutely no heed.
"Claiming to be from some twenty years hence, having accidentaly used a time travel spell, and you ask for no verification, and then, THEN you allow her to stay in this castle for the night! And then you let her travel to Ponyville, to inflict who-knows-what sort of chaos!"
"Inside voice, Luna."
"Sorry." Luna stared at her older sister, still calmly reading the report, occasionaly stopping to drink from her early morning tea. Remembering what her sister had told her of Discord's last rampage, she frowned.
"You have sent someone to watch her, didn't you?" she said, realization dawning.
"Oh, yes." Celestia said, turning the page of her report.