"This is Blue Blazer, Dasher, Stonehoof, and Bastion," Celestia said, gesturing respectively to four nearly identical brown unicorns in royal guard armor. "and these are Bristle, Brush, Cloud, and Breeze." All the mares gave a bow as their names were mentioned. They were, as the guards, all nearly identical, bearing blonde manes and white coats.
"I thought they were just for the ceremony..." Twilight looked to her mentor questioningly.
"No Twilight, they are now your royal bodyguards, heralds, and hoofmadens, and they will be accompanying you back to Ponyville. They are to serve you for anything you need. I'm sure that they will be of great help to you from now on. Speaking of your trip back to Ponyville, aren't you going to be late to Pinkie's 'alicorn party'?"
Twilight's eyes grew wide, nopony missed a pinkie party, NOPONY. Twilight had seen firsthoof what happened when the guest of honor didn't show up to a Pinkie party, and it wasn't pretty.
The shock and akwardness of having eight new retainers was dwarfed by the possibility of being late to Pinkie's latest party.
"We should go right now!" Twilight gasped as she took to the air, about to dash out the nearest window.
"Primcess!" a wavering voice called behind her. Twilight turned back and looked to the mare in question, (Breeze if she remembered correctly) and then to Celestia, who was watching with some amusement.
"Oh..." Twilight had forgotten about her entourage already, and now noticing that of the group, none had the benefit of wings. "Ah... Is the train to Ponyville running today?" Twilight asked with a embarrased chuckle.
"Princess Twilight, if you say there is, then there is. ...but yes, there is a regularly scheduled route leaving in about ten minutes." Celestia Opened the door to the small chamber they were in, "If you leave now, you may still make it."
Twilight gave her mentor one final hug before sprinting out the door and down the hall.
-------------------------------------
"Surprise!" the entire populous of Ponyville yelled as Twilight exited the train onto the cramped platform at Ponyville station.
"Were you surprised? Were ya?" Pinkie shouted as she bounded towards Twilight, "I knew you'd expect a party, so to make it more of a surprise I had everyone jump out here at the station rather than at the library! So were you supprised? Huh! Were you? Come on~! Tell me!"
Twilight was surprised alright, but not by Pinkie. Instead she was quite surprised by the reaction time of all of her new guards, actually by all eight of the ponies that jumped on her when the whole town decided to act as an ambush. Even the hoofmadens joined in on the princess-protecting pony-pile.
Everyone that was not pinkie grimaced as they watched their princess get crushed by guards, but the pink pony remained as oblivious as ever.
"Please get off me." Twilight eked out from the bottom of the pile.
Nearly as quickly as the guards covered her, they got off, and returned to surrounding her. The hoofmadens did the same, apologizing profusely the whole time.
"It's alright, I know you all were just trying to protect me."she turned from her posse to the gathered crowd and got her first good look at the ambush-welcome. It looked like the entire town was there, and above them flew the banner "Welcome Back Princess Twil" with "ight" on a picket sign being held off to the side.
The mayor came forward with a deep bow. "Thank you princess for gracing our humble town with your presence. We may not have much to offer but-"
Twilight cut her off. "Mayor, please don't. I'm still just the librarian I've always been."
"Princess, I'm sure that you-"
Twilight cut her off again, this time with a little annoyance in her voice. "Mayor, if you want to make me happy, then please just treat me the way you always have. I'm just the librarian and your all-team-organizer."
"But princess! We really can't-"
"Goodnight." Twilight stomped away from the crowd back to the library.
When she arrived at her library abode once more she let out a sigh of relief. "Finally time for bed." she began the treck up to her room before she herd a cough behind her. She wheeled to find her guards standing awkwardly standing against the wall nearest the door, hooofmadens standing in a line right in front of them.
"Oh! I didn't even think of where you all would sleep. Um... The library isn't meant for... Um..." Twilight paused a moment, cursing herself for getting rid of the spare bed for the sake of fitting another bookshelf in her room. "Gentelcolts, you'll have to take the couches down here, and um you all can have my bed."
The guards seemed to be ok with the arrangement, but the mares looked to each other awkwardly.
"Uh princess," one of the mares began in a voice sounding a lot like Fluttershy on a particularly timid day, "We couldn't take your bed, we'll just, uh, take the floor." the other three watched in awe.
"That's a nice thought, but I'm not going to have guests sleeping on the floor."
"Princess, we aren't guests, we are your servants, we should take the floor."
"How about we all share the bed?
"We couldn't impose upon you princ-"
Twilight was upset, she just wanted to get to sleep as soon as possible. "How about this then, I order you, as princess, to sleep with me on the nice comfey bed as opposed to the hard floor."
Twilight didn't bother to check their reactions before turning to the bathroom, beginning to unfasten her dress along the way.
"Let us get that for you princess!" the mares called after her. The purple princess paid them no mind, until they all jumped after her, tripping over eachother and landing, once again, ontop the positively perturbed purple pony princess.
"This is going to take some getting used to..." Twilight said with a huff.
Oh, how right she was...
Preview: Spike woke as the sun pierced the tiniest of slits between the curtains and landed right in his eyes.
"Twilight~ what time is-" he turned to see his maternal figure splayed out on the bed, a blonde mare wrapped around each of her limbs.
"You know what? I'm not waking up today."