Epilogue
Twilight Sparkle awoke just after dawn, the sun reaching through her window to caress her cheek warmly. She lifted from a pleasant dream, at a moment when she had seen all she needed to know that it would end well, and stretched, yawning. Her eyes snapped open fully and she took in the morning exuberantly.
"It's a wonderful day!" she exclaimed with the certainty of a scientist shouting "Eureka!"
She threw her covers off and hopped out of bed, hooves clopping lightly on the floor. In moments, she was trotting down the steps, ignoring the moaning of a groggy Spike, and making for the front door. This was a morning for meeting the day head-on. It was a day to sit outside and have coffee and croissants and watch the birds fly in the early light. It was the perfect time...
For a song.
Twilight lifted her head as she trotted towards the café, opening her mouth and singing forth in a clear voice.
"Oh, what a beautiful morning! Everything here is just fine! My heart seems light and the world feels right, and life here in Ponyville shines!"
As she entered the downtown district, she trotted past a pair of ponies washing windows, who waved to her. They seemed to uplift visibly as her song filled them with optimism and joy for the new day.
"See how the ponies are happy! Gleeful and filled up with pride! The birds, how they tweet as they fly down the street! What a perfect day to be outside!"
Two mares watering flowers along a store front waved at Twilight as she passed, then went back to their task with large smiles. A stallion with a briefcase added a small hop-skip to his trot as he wended his way to work.
"All my friends, they start the day!"
Rarity poked her head out the top window of Carousel Boutique, blowing a kiss and letting a long roll of cloth wave in the morning breeze.
"All the fillies, they laugh and play!"
A gaggle of schoolfillies laughed and shouted as they ran past Twilight, the one in the lead dragging a kite behind her that the others tried unsuccessfully to jump up and grab.
"Ponyville wakes as the sun arrives!"
Ponies down the lane threw open windows and doors to greet the day, some of them taking up the tune as Twilight reached a high note.
"What a wonderful day to be aliiiiiii--"
Her singing was cut short by a surreptitious and extremely localized deluge of water to her person. The street was silent for a moment. Then somepony coughed. Most of the bystanders went back to their days as Twilight Sparkle, damp and shivering, looked around to find the source of her sudden and unwanted downtown bath.
It didn't take long for her to locate a blue pegasus hovering above her, holding a metal pail. From its rim a small water droplet loosed.
"Rainbow Dash!" The anger toying at the edge of her voice colored her words with frost. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had this abrupt an emotional turnaround. Twilight scrabbled for words to express the rage now seething in her heart. "What is your freakin’ problem?"
Rainbow Dash's face was a rictus of impassivity. She hovered with her back to the sun, so that her features were shadowed to Twilight. The handle of the pail creaked slowly as it rocked in time with her motions.
"Stop," she said, in a voice as hard as the cobbles beneath Twilight's hooves.
In the blink of an eye, Rainbow had placed her nose directly in front of Twilight's.
"Singing."
There was a clang. For the second time in a year, Twilight found herself viewing the world from the inside of a cold and wet metal bucket. She released a screech of frustration that echoed in her own ears. Rainbow's next words were slightly muffled, but not enough that Twilight missed them.
"I don't like it when ponies in the morning."
Twilight lifted the bucket to see a rainbow contrail streaking away from her. In a fit of rage, she threw the pail onto the pavement, only for it to bounce up and smack her under the chin. With a cry of pain -- "Zeykamiff!" -- she lost her footing and tumbled to the street.
"Stupid Rainbow Dash," she mumbled, and blacked out.