For the most part of the next day, ponies all around Canterlot observed something pink flashing and/or flying around the city, seemingly in a great hurry. Being Canterlot ponies, they ignored it and went back to whatever they had been doing. With their noses held high, of course.
But things were happening very quickly indeed. Building-In-A-Day.Co(a new building in just a day, guaranteed!), Canterlot’s foremost construction company (which had a very successful branch in Ponyville) was engaged to construct a gazebo in less than five hours on the top of Mount Canterlot, a reservation was made to the Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra to play tonight, huge bouquets of colorful flowers were taken to the castle. She even enlisted the help of Pinkie Pie (who didn’t know what it was for, but was happy to help out anyway) to decorate the entire gazebo with rose petals and some red balloons. Cadence was determined. This night was going to be perfect!
Evening fell. Finally. As luck would have it, she had found that Luna had scheduled a meteor shower for tonight! The perfect excuse! She hurriedly found Discord, and the two of them came up with the forged messages. At the castle, she watched Luna getting up to raise the moon and decorate the night with the stars, then walk to the dining room, where she would find a note, presumably by Twilight, to meet her in the gazebo at the top of Mount Canterlot to watch the meteor shower. She had also borrowed Philomena from Aunt Celestia to send a quick message to Twilight with the same message, but in Luna’s handwriting. She was nearly ready.
She quickly teleported to the top of Mount Canterlot, where she saw the decorated gazebo at the peak, with the open roof like she had requested. Everything seemed to be in order. The food, which was takeout (much to the owner’s consternation) from the grandest restaurant in Canterlot. The soft lavender and indigo cloth she had specifically requested from the Carousel Boutique spread on the floor. Comfortable cushions piled at the corner. Fireflies buzzing around softly, shedding their soft light on the gazebo and creating a much more romantic atmosphere than candles, in her opinion. The orchestra, complete with a piano, a violin, and a cello, hidden with a simple illusion spell. She had requested some soothing love songs to set the mood,and the sweet notes hung in the air, seemingly from nowhere. The bouquets of Poison Joke waved in the breeze on all four sides. Perfect.
Wait, Poison Joke?! “DISCORD!!!!”
“Keep your hair on, Cadey! Sheesh!” Discord turned the flowers back with a snap of his fingers and hurried back to where he had been hiding.
Cadence hurried back to check her preparations. Time was going fast. Night had already fallen. They would be here any minute now. She restrained a soft squeal from escaping. She couldn’t believe Twily had already fallen in love. She was growing up so fast! Finally, she heard the soft beats of wings against the air, and retreated quickly into the rather thick bush Discord had conjured up to hide them. Soon, Aunt Luna flew over and landed lightly on the soft grass, casting a confused glance at the gazebo, with all the fireflies, the music and the decorations. Not a few minutes later, There was a purple flash, and little Twily appeared on the hillside, swaying slightly from the long-distance teleport. Cadence wasn’t very surprised to see she had brought a bunch of scrolls with her, and her portable telescope as well, though she resolved to get those scrolls away at the earliest opportunity. This was supposed to be date after all. They should have gotten enough reading yesterday already.
Twilight, too, seemed really confused by all the decorations, then her eyes landed on the blue alicorn. “Luna!”
Luna broke into a grin. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle, I am here, as you have requested. You have done an amazing job with the decorating!”
Twilight looked confused. “I requested? Decorating?”
Cadence and Discord shared a panicked look. Uh, oh…
Luna nodded. “This is a truly beautiful spot to watch the stars fall tonight. It is great to see you again, Twilight.”
Twilight giggled. “Likewise, Luna. But I certainly didn’t decorate all this.”
Luna cocked her head in confusion. “You didn’t?”
Uh, oh...Uh, oh! Cadence’s mind was whirling. She needed to come up with something quick!
Twilight shrugged. “No, I didn’t. But this place is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it truly is. Let us dine, then!” Luna agreed happily. Both mares than sat down on the cushions, admiring all the beautiful decorations, and started to eat the choice fruits and vegetables all over the gazebo.
Discord and Cadence exchanged an extremely relieved look. Unseen by the two mares eating, she quickly signaled the orchestra to stop playing for the moment. It would be better to wait til they were both too distracted by the meteors to question where the music came from. She quickly cast a glance down the mountain to see if anypony else was there. Apparently, several more couples had the same idea of watching the meteors on the mountain, albeit at a lower altitude. Now she needed something to prevent them from interrupting the couple on the top of the hill just in case they got curious. “Did you find the security like I asked?” She poked Discord lightly.
Discord blinked. “Oh, right. sure.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly Shining Armor appeared on the scene in a tuxedo. After getting over her initial shock, she glared at Discord, who shrugged nonchalantly. Oh well. Shiny would actually do quite well.
“Oookay...why am I here again?” Shining Armor asked, slightly confused.
His wife used her magic to quickly straighten his bow. “Shh, stay quiet! They can’t know we’re here! We need your help!” She hissed.
Shining took a quick glance out of the bush and his eyebrows flew at the sight of princess Luna and Twily, who were apparently on a romantic dinner date together. Currently, they were giggling at some joke Twilight had told. He turned back to Cadence with a nonplussed expression. “I don’t get why we’re spying on Princess Luna and my sister together…” He muttered.
“You’re not spying dear, I am. You’re supposed to make sure no one disturbs their little ‘date’.”
“Wait a sec, date? Twily and princess Luna? What?”
“Trust me, Shiny, you just have to sit at here, out of sight of the gazebo and stop anyone who might have a chance of interrupting the two of them.” Cadence whispered into his ear. “Please?” she pleaded with her eyes.
Shining heaved out a sigh. “Okay…”
Cadence kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Shiny!” Shining smiled stupidly for a moment before shaking himself and turning to watch the going ons downhill, though he still cast the occasional confused glance at the two alicorns up the hill.
Cadence and Discord watched eagerly as the two alicorns talked and laughed together. They just seemed to relax under each other’s company. How sweet! If only they would just realize they were perfect for each other, then it would be even better! She just needed one of them to confess, and she was sure the other would follow. Nothing could go wrong with this night.
Finally, the main event of the night started, and the stars fell. Hundreds of bright lights streaked across the sky, illuminating the dark night sky. Even the moon seemed to have dimmed in favour of allowing the shooting stars their time to shine. It was a beautiful sight. She saw a couple of the stars starting to jump around erratically and generally act chaotic, and had to punch Discord before the other couple noticed.
Twilight had managed to set up her telescope in less than five minutes, and now Luna was looking through it at her own creations. Cadence noticed that Twilight did have one eye on the stars, but the other eye, to her immense amusement, was fixed on the alicorn next to her.
“Beautiful…” Twilight murmured.
“Hmm? Oh indeed, Twilight, the stars are magnificent tonight, are they not?” Luna replied, her eye still gazing into the telescope.
“The stars? Oh, yes! the stars. they are beautiful!” Twilight hastily replied, not noticing the bush nearby shake with muffled giggles and laughter.
Inside the bush, Cadence was peering eagerly outside, hoping for more conversation, while Shining and Discord ate popcorn and cotton candy for dinner. And played cards. Males… At any rate, the situation outside was definitely getting better! She signalled to the orchestra members, who had also been enjoying the view a little way off, causing them to pull out their instruments and start playing the soothing, soulful notes of a love song. If the two mares noticed, they gave no sign.
“Your nights are always so beautiful, Luna.” Twilight sighed happily, taking another sip of her hay smoothie while her head rested on Luna’s side. Apparently none of them had really noticed the contact yet.
Luna giggled. “Thank you, Twilight.”
“No problem, Luna. This is great! I wish this night could last forever.” Twilight smiled. Suddenly realizing what she had said, she froze, as did Luna. The two alicorns exchanged a look, then burst into giggles.
“I believe thou hast stolen my line, Twilight!” Luna joked, causing both mares to collapse in laughter.
This was Perfect! They were already letting down their guard around each other! Soon, very soon! Cadence was close to squealing out loud. Suddenly, Discord’s head shot up with a worried expression. “Uh oh…”
Her head whirled back to stare at him, horrified. “What uh oh?” Nothing could ruin this night, could it?
“Something really unexpected is going to happen! I can feel it!” Discord remarked, watching his chaotic-o-meter (A statue of him with numbers on it, with its hand pointing to his head, where there was a number 9) he held in his hand vibrate crazily. The two ponies and one draconequus looked around as fast as they could to spot the potential chaos before it could disrupt this perfect night, but they were a little too late.
A sparkling purple hot air balloon suddenly rose up the side of the mountain. As soon as the basket touched the ground, a pink blur shot out and tackled Twilight to the ground, followed by Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike, albeit at a much slower pace.
Twilight managed to remove Pinkie off her face. “Pinkie Pie? How did you…where did you… huh?”
“Oh, hello Twilight! You see Rainbow Dash told us tonight we were going to have a meteor shower, and I knew how much you liked those, so i immediately went to find everypony to make a ‘meteor shower night party’ like the one we had the night Spike spiked the punch, but then when we couldn’t find you anywhere so I moved all my party supplies into your balloon and we had a ‘Find Twilight so we can have a meteor shower night party party’ on the Balloon! So we started searching for you but couldnt find you anywhere but then Spike remembered you went to Canterlot in the evening so we flew all over here to Canterlot and then we saw you so we flew over here to have our ‘meteor shower night party’ with you so you could watch the meteor shower with your friends! Were you surprised? Were you? Huh huh huh?” The energetic pink pony said the last word and sucked in a deeeep breath, watching Twilight happily.
Cadence, Discord and Shining’s jaws dropped open. ‘Information overload!’, their eyes spoke
“Very surprised, Pinkie!” Twilight smiled and threw her arms around her friend. “I didn’t know you were looking for me!”
“Oh dear, we’re not interrupting anything, are we, darling?” Rarity asked as she took in all the romantic decorations and the obviously ‘dating atmosphere’.
YES! YES YOU ARE! NOW GO AWAY AND LEAVE TWILIGHT AND LUNA IN PEACE!!!! Unfortunately, Cadence had never learnt if telepathy was possible, and she couldn’t beam the thought into their minds. She had to settle for trying to burn a message with her eyes from the bush.
“Oh, of course not Rarity! you’re welcome to join us, right Luna?” Twilight asked.
SAY NO! SAY NO!
“Of course! You are welcome to join our little party! If we knew you wanted to come, we would have invited you sooner!” Luna beamed.
The sound of a hoof hitting a forehead is quite loud, but nopony quite heard it from the bush a little way off. The sound of a spirit of disharmony giving up and just laughing at the chaos is also quite loud, but nopony really heard it because of the loud cheer that Pinkie gave. "LET'S GET THIS PARTY STAAARTED!!!"
In short order, Pinkie found the musicians (how she broke the illusion spell, Cadence would never know) and got them to play some more upbeat music, and the rest of the night was spent laughing, singing and dancing.
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=
In the council room of Canterlot Castle, one pure white alicorn and a draconequus watched with mild amusement as a pink alicorn slammed her head against the table repeatedly. “I cannot believe it! I just cannot believe it! What were the odds? And they were both sooo close then! AAARGH!! Fate hates me!”
Discord shrugged. “Well, you did say-” He summoned a screen and played a scene. It showed the council room of yesterday, with Cadence confidently saying ‘What could possibly go wrong?’. He smirked. “You’d think ponies everywhere would have learnt by now that saying that is just begging fate to do something to mess it up. Readers love that gag.”
Cadence groaned and buried her head in a cushion. “It was going so perfectly too…”
Celestia cast a quizzical glance at Discord. “Readers? gag?”
Discord quickly waved his talon dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Well, both of you have tried and failed, no? So tomorrow is my turn!” He gave a full-blown, perfect villain laugh, with the slow dramatic cackling, getting louder and louder, until he was laughing at the sky with his arms outstretched. The cotton candy clouds around the room dumped their chocolate cargo on the two alicorns beneath with a flash of lightning. Abruptly, he stopped laughing and grinned. “I shall have to begin planning! This is going to be fun!!!” He teleported off in a loud flash.
Celestia and Cadence exchanged an extremely worried look.