//------------------------------//
// Friendship is Magic 
// Story: A Dream 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	The party didn’t really break up in the morning, but moved to a different location.  I’d learned that the tree was the town library.  The antisocial purple unicorn was named Twilight Sparkle, and was the new librarian or something.  Nobody really knew her that well, something that I thought was entirely her fault.
All of us went over to the town hall for the Summer Sun Celebration.  Pinkie Pie was quivering with excitement.  She said as much.
The predawn darkness seemed to charge the crowd with anticipation as we crowded into the building.  A mare at the front of the room began to speak.
She introduced herself as the Mayor of Ponyville and announced the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration.  Apparently, it was the longest day of the year.  I wasn’t really up on my world religions, but a whole festival just for the solstice sounded kind of pagan to me.
The Mayor began introducing someone else.  “The very pony that gives us the sun and the moon every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria, Princess Celestia!”
Sounded like the Princess must have had an ace PR team to get everyone thinking that she actually raised the sun and moon.  I turned my eyes to where a curtain was being drawn back.
The crowd gasped.  There was nobody there.
“This can’t be good,” said Twilight.
“She’s gone!” said someone.
“Maybe she forgot to set her alarm clock?” I asked.
Suddenly, a blue cloud formed at one end of the room and a black pony materialized.  I had seen the unicorns do magic, so I wasn’t too surprised.  It was really kind of an impressive entrance, even though she had missed her cue.
“Nightmare Moon!” cried Twilight.
“What did you do with our Princess?” shouted Rainbow. 
“That’s not the Princess?” I said.  “Is this one of those deals where she’s in another castle?”  I don’t think anyone heard me.
“Remember this day, little ponies, for it is your last.  From this moment forth, the night will last forever!”  She began laughing like a supervillan.
…and then there was a thunderstorm inside the building.
I ducked a lightning bolt.  “The bad part of the dream is actually called Nightmare?  Real subtle, subconscious!”
With one last evil laugh, the black pony transformed back into the blue cloud again and whisked out of the building.  Half a dozen ponies ran after it.
“That was weird,” I said.  “Normally bad dreams don’t just go away like that.”  Oh well.  Maybe there was still some cake left at the library.  I walked out.  The rest of the ponies stared at me.
Over at the library tree, I heard some serious discussion going on.  Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, the pegasus named Rainbow Dash, the timid yellow pony named Fluttershy and the fashionable unicorn named Rarity were all there.  They were talking about something called the Elements of Harmony.
“Hey,” I said.  “Is there any cake left?”
“Eternal night is about to fall on us, and you’re worried about food?” Twilight said.
“It was good stuff.  Besides, I’m probably about to wake up from this anyway, I don’t really mind.”
“You still think you’re dreaming?” said Rainbow, hovering close so she could get in my face.  “An old pony tale just came true.  That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
I shrugged.  “Honestly, no.”
“We don’t have time for this!” said Twilight.  “We have to get to that old castle!”  The six of them ran out.
I looked around, but was unable to find any cake or punch.  Well, I couldn’t just sit around.  Spike was asleep, so I couldn’t hang out with him.  At the party, he seemed like a pretty cool guy.
I decided to go after the ponies.  They were obviously on some kind of quest.  Maybe it would be interesting to watch.
Making my way into the forest, I realized it wouldn’t be hard to track them.  The path was little used, and their prints stood out plain as day.  Off in the distance, I heard a rumble and some screaming.
I ran in that direction.  Skidding to a stop at the top of a cliff, I looked down at a landslide that had taken several of the non-flying ponies with it.
“Are you all okay?”
“No we’re not!” shouted Twilight.  She hung from the edge of a steep dropoff.  Applejack hung from a root above her.  As I watched, she let go and slid down to where Twilight was.  It looked like fun, so I flopped on my back and slid in the newly exposed dirt down to the edge.
Applejack held Twilight to keep from going over.
“How are you doing that?” I asked.
“Doin’ what?”
“Well, you’ve both got hooves.  How are you holding on to each other?”
They both gave me blank looks.
“Never mind, dream physics.”
“You gotta let go,” said Applejack, turning back to Twilight.
“Are you crazy?”shouted Twilight.  I would have thought so too, but I noted that the two pegasi were coming to her rescue.  Applejack convinced her to let go, and they caught her.
When Twilight was safe, I said, “Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg.”  I went over the side.
Applejack beat me.  By quite a lot, actually.  Once the seven of us were at the bottom, Twilight turned to me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.  Why didn’t you pick a safer route?”
“Nopony has been to the castle in a thousand years.  There are no routes.”
“Okay, blazing our own trail.  I’m down with that.”
“Who says you’re coming along?”  I was beginning to dislike Rainbow’s attitude.
“Now hang on,” said Applejack.  “We could use all the help we can get.”
“But we don’t even know him!” said Rarity.
“Didn’t Twilight only get to town yesterday, too?  That’s kind of playing favorites, if you ask me.”
None of them said anything for a moment.  “He’s right,” said Twilight.  “If he wants to help, we can’t say no.”
There was a roar from nearby as an ugly animal charged out of the trees.  It looked like lion, but had wings and a scorpion tail.
“A manticore!” exclaimed Twilight.  The ponies arranged themselves for an attack.  I didn’t know how I was going to fight without weapons, but got into a battle stance.
“Wait!” shouted Fluttershy, suddenly not so timid.  She walked up to the creature.
“Well, there goes Fluttershy,” I muttered.
Surprisingly, she didn’t get splattered into a bloody mess.  The manticore showed her a thorn in one of its paws.
“Oh you poor baby.  This is going to hurt for just a second.”  She plucked the thorn out.  The manticore picked her up, licking her face and purring happily.
“How did you know about the thorn?” asked Twilight as we walked away.
“I didn’t,” replied Fluttershy.  “Sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness.”
We walked on, the forest getting darker and darker.  Suddenly, the trees around us sprouted faces and arms.
All the ponies screamed.  I don’t think I did.  I couldn’t have heard myself over them anyway.  Something that did carry over the sound, though, was laughing.  All of us looked at Pinkie.
She was making faces at the trees and giggling.
“Pinkie, what are you doing?  Run!”
Instead of doing something rational, Pinkie launched into a musical number.
I’ll admit, she could carry a tune, but somewhere about the second verse, all the other ponies fell down laughing with her.
Looking around, I noticed that the trees weren’t so menacing anymore.  I’d heard about the power of laughter, but this was ridiculous.
“So…what was that?”
“Silly, you have to giggle at the ghosties!” said Pinkie.
“Ah…I’ll keep that in mind.”
After a little more walking, we came to a river that was boiling with turbulence.  A huge purple serpent was writhing and sobbing about something.
“How are we going to cross this?” asked Pinkie.
“Can’t you swim?  This guy clearly has something else on his mind right now, so I doubt he’ll be a problem.”  I jumped in the river.
It was a little deeper than I had originally thought, and the current was much stronger.  I fought hard and managed to drive myself through the raging water to the opposite bank.  I crawled out panting.
A few minutes passed.  The serpent or whatever he was seemed to be complaining about his mustache.  Somehow, the problem was resolved and the ponies hopped across the river on his back.  They must have gotten splashed or something because they showed up just as wet as I was.
“He was really quite fabulous,” said Rarity.
“So is every man in San Francisco.  Can we get moving now?”
We trotted a short distance and came to an overlook.  The castle, a somewhat overgrown ruin, was across a short canyon.  Twilight dashed for the bridge, eager for the journey to be over.  She nearly fell.  The bridge was broken.
“Now what?” said Pinkie.
“Duh,” answered Rainbow, flexing her wings.  She flew down to get the loose end of the bridge and pulled it back over to where it used to be anchored on the other side.  A sudden cloud of fog obscured her.
“That’s creepy,” I said.  I cocked my ear.  “Do you guys hear her speaking to someone?”
“Rainbow!  What’s taking so long?” called Twilight.
After a moment, the bridge went tight and the pegasus returned.  “See?  I’d never leave my friends hanging!”
“Who were you talking to?” I asked.
“Uh…”
“Look!  We’re here!” said Pinkie.
We walked into the old castle.  Right next to the front door was a shrine with a bunch of stone discs with symbols on them.  That was easy.
“The Elements of Harmony!  We found them!”
“One, two, three, four…there’s only five!” said Pinkie.
“The book said that when the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed,” said Twilight.  “Stand back, I don’t know what will happen.”
“Come on now, y’all.  She needs to concentrate,” said Applejack.  She started back outside.
“We just got here,” I complained.
“Just come on,” said Rainbow.  I followed them, but paused at the door.  Twilight’s horn began to glow as she started to do something.  A familiar blue cloud crept into the room.
The elements were picked up in a spinning vortex that was part Twilight’s magic and part Nightmare Moon.  Twilight shrieked as the whole thing sucked her in and then vanished into thin air.
“That was kind of messed up.”
“Look!” cried Rarity, pointing to a light show emanating from the top of a nearby tower.
“Strange place for a disco.”  I was really hot with the one-liners tonight.  Or was it morning?  I think it was supposed to be morning, but that whole "night that will last forever" thing happened.
The rest of the ponies ran towards the tower.  They were leaving me behind as we entered the place and dashed up the stairs.
The room at the top of the tower contained Twilight Sparkle and Nightmare Moon.  The dark pony stood among what appeared to be shards of the stone discs.  
The other five ponies finished climbing the stairs and crowded in behind Twilight.  “You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that?” she said.  “Well you’re wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here!”
“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of Honesty!  Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of Kindness!  Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of Laughter!  Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of Generosity!  Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart’s desire, represents the spirit of Loyalty!”
I had been keeping track, and realized she had only named the five ponies.  There were six Elements, so that meant…
“And I’m the spirit of Magic!” said Twilight.
Wait, what?  Then what the hell was I?
There was a blinding flash of multicolored light and I was knocked off my feet.  It took a couple of seconds to get my bearings and sit up. 
“Gee Twilight, I thought you were just spoutin’ a lot of hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the Elements of friendship,” said Applejack.
“Indeed you do,” said a mysterious disembodied voice.  The sun instantly zipped into the sky, and a tall white pony appeared in the room with a flash.
The ponies bowed.  “Princess Celestia!” said Twilight.
“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student, I knew you could do it!”
“But you told me it was all a little pony tale.”
“I told you that you needed to make some friends.”
I thought it was awfully hard to confuse two different statements like that.
“I hope my sister Luna can accept friendship,” said Celestia.  She walked over to the pony who had until recently been called Nightmare Moon, and had at some point in the past few minutes turned blue and stopped looking so evil.
“I’m so sorry!” she said.  “It’s been a thousand years.  I missed you so much big sister!”
“I missed you too, Luna.”
Pinkie cried for a few seconds at the emotion of the moment, and then abruptly said, “Hey, you know what this calls for?  A party!”
So we all went back to Ponyville.  The decorations from the Summer Sun Celebration were reused.
“So let me get this straight.  Princess Luna turned evil a thousand years ago, went to the moon, came back, got blasted with friendship, and now everything’s good?”
“Ah guess so,” said Applejack.
“Princess Celestia knew what was going on the whole time.”
“Right,” said Rainbow Dash.
“So she sends an antisocial bookworm to make friends with five strangers for unclear reasons.”
“Dear, what are you getting at?” asked Rarity.
“I just think your country would function a lot better with more transparency, rather than being micromanaged by a deity-ruler.  You need to stand up for yourselves and demand truth in government.”
“At least we made friends,” said Fluttershy.
“And we’ve got cake!” added Pinkie.
"I guess I can settle for that."