It was finally the day of the Summer Sun Celebration set up, a day in which Trims, Tresses and Trouble Takers businesses were all closed. Twilight, Tress and quite a few ponies were sleeping in today; they were sleeping during some of the best sunlight hours to be best rested for facing Nightmare Moon during the coming night.
Fluttershy had come to their home for a sleep over and to show the giant monarch butterfly that Chrysalis was okay. She woke up early to feed a sleeping Chrysalis some of her raw passion by hugging the jiggling green mass that encased the changeling, not caring one bit about how gross it was.
Zecora was sleeping in the library nearby and would help prepare for Nightmare Moon; Cheerilee would meet up with her later to help the zebra in her preparations. They had a special surprise in store for the alicorn should things start heading south.
Twilight twitched slightly in her sleeping and snuggled against the large warm pillow that her head was resting on. She felt something soft touch her horn and she reacted by opening her bleary eyes, it took a few moments for her to realize what was going on. She was quite sure still in her own bed, but why was Tress also in her bed with her? It was to be noted her pink coated friend was nosing her horn slightly while snuggling her. She was busy trying not to freak out knowing that if she did she could hurt Tress. Being her friends snuggle toy didn’t really bother her that much; it was the principle of the matter that her bed had been infiltrated at some point and she hadn’t noticed.
“Tress, could you please wake up and maybe let go of me?” It was a bit embarrassing for Twilight to even be in this situation, for her effort to wiggle out of Tress’s grip she was clutched tighter making it impossible for her to move. She struggled to shake Tress awake and the mare resisted her efforts with a slight frown on her face.
“No… my unicorn, you can’t have her you stupid aliens.” Tress mumbled as she wrapped her body around Twilight getting them all tangled up in the sheets.
The blush on Twilight’s face might have set fire to the whole house at this point with how bright red she was getting.
“Smart, I need some help here!” Despite yelling for help Twilight hadn’t woken up Tress who continued to snuggle her.
The door opened to Twilight’s room and in flew the tiny pixie pony who took in the situation for a moment before a wide smile started to spread across her face. Maybe Twilight had been a bit hasty in calling for help; she might have been better off calling for Barb or teleporting.
“As your creation I’m obliged to help you. However being based on the personality you gave your toy from childhood, you do realize that I will go get a camera and take a picture of this moment to make it last forever.” Smart just smiled at Twilight’s glare, which promised pain and suffering, as she flittered out of the room. “Hey Barb, do you know where a camera is?”
Twilight managed to get her leg free to face hoof, Tress quickly resituated her so that her leg was no longer free. She sighed; today was just going to be one of those days even if she did like the feel of Tress’s mane blanketing her.
An hour later it was around lunch time and Tress didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she had crawled into Twilight’s bed and used her as a plush toy. Twilight on the other hoof was thoroughly embarrassed; eventually all of them, with the exception of Smart, went out to eat at the Savor café. They were welcomed warmly by the two brothers Savoir and Savor.
“So we’re doing the Summer Sun Celebration thing, chances of Celestia making an appearance before Nightmare Moon is nil considering she knows what day this is.” Looking to the partly cloudy sky Tress shook her head; Rainbow was goofing off again even when she knew this evening was going to be hectic. “Heck every pony in Ponyville knows what’s going to happen, especially since the mayor pointed out the clear evidence of the stars moving to aid in her escape. Why are the stars releasing or even helping her after a thousand years anyway? Why didn’t they try to do anything sooner and what are we going to be doing until Pinkie’s Summer Sun party this evening?”
“I think good preparations are a must, if Nightmare Moon’s plans we are to bust.” Zecora calmly sipped some tea from her glass.
“We already did a lot of work in making sure Luna knows she wasn’t forgotten, I think all she needs now is a little kindness and things will be okay.” Fluttershy was actually being optimistic and outspoken for once; her friends knew this wouldn’t last long when her mind stopped being occupied by thoughts of sweet little singing birds. “It must have been so lonely sitting up there for a thousand years, I wonder if she was awake or asleep for most of it? I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be forced to stay awake for a thousand years.”
“I and Twilight are already expecting a fight. Not to say we won’t try diplomacy first, but as you said Luna is going to be exceptionally cranky at being put in time out for a millennium.” Tress snickered; Luna was truly a little sister in that respect. “She kind of deserves it given an eternal night would end all life on the planet except for god like beings like Discord, Celestia and Cadence. Trying to kill everyone is a pretty bad way of garnering attention. She could have just tried communing with ponies when they were awake instead of immediately resorting to threatening everything. It still seems kind of like a disproportionate reaction to being ignored to jump immediately to harming the entire world.”
They finished lunch simply enough and set off about their separate ways. Twilight, Tress and Barb were going home to relax for the confrontation. Fluttershy set off to work with her bird choir, one of the most adorable things she’s done to date. Zecora went to meet up with Cheerilee to continue preparing for the coming of Nightmare Moon.
Twilight and family were going to continue reading Daring Do where they left off when Pinkie popped up out of nowhere in their home.
“Hey guys, guess what? There’s a new pony in Ponyville and...” Pinkie started off only to have Tress's immediately in her mouth.
“Sorry Pinkie but we’re going to have to cut you short here…” Twilight started only for Pinkie to dart off and come back with a stool, scissors and a cape. She immediately took a seat and caped herself sniffling a bit.
“Well alright then, I didn’t even know I needed a haircut! Do I have to get it cut short here? What’s wrong with the length of my mane as it is now; I thought it was perfectly fine and what about my tail? I really like that the way it is too. Also why couldn’t we do it there instead of here?” Pinkie looked sad and was running a hoof through her puffy curls. Twilight’s reaction was her now somewhat trademarked face hoof.
“Don’t ever change Pinkie. I meant stop talking, since we already know the pony you saw. At a guess the pony has a yellow and red mane with a really light shade of orange for a coat, her cutie mark is a two colored sun, she has a downright dark demeanor about her and she’s a unicorn.” Twilight rolled her eyes at the sight of Pinkie’s bright smile and nodding head.
“Yeah, exactly… wait, how did you know that? Are you psychic! And to think every pony is always telling me I’m not.” Pinkie was hopping in place excitedly; she wanted this new pony to come to her party tonight. She hadn’t forgotten that it was the night Black Snooty was coming into the story at all, but who cares? It just meant more partying for the party pony!
“Call it me getting a good hunch.” Twilight said dryly.
“Why would you get a hunch and why would it be good unless… oh, you do secretly want to be camel!” Now Pinkie was full on scatterbrained and angry at being called as such by the text being written after her verbal statement. “Can we also stop stalling the plot please?”
“Say what?” Tress asked rubbing the side of her head.
Before Pinkie could try and fail to explain the infeasibility of the fact that the fourth wall was still standing, Applejack made an entrance into the house looking really miffed.
“I guess a unicorn dropped by the farm with a list and was checking on your catering services and then did something needlessly cruel?” It was Barb who was picking up on the following line of logic that said all of her mother’s other friends were going to ask her to figure out a way to kick Sunset Shimmer out of town.
“Now how in the world did you know that?” Applejack was honestly surprised that Barb knew about it already and she hadn’t met the unicorn more than thirty minutes ago. Never had Applejack met a pony she could possibly outright hate before that. Besmirching her livelihood and calling her family a bunch of hicks was grounds for a feud.
“An old acquaintance of mine is in town and she’s currently acting like a migrating thorn in the flank on Celestia’s orders. I’m already expecting her to go after Rarity, Rainbow and Fluttershy. Speaking of, Tress you might want to go find Fluttershy real quick and make sure Sunset doesn’t do anything to upset her.” She may not be psychic, but Twilight had already seen all this coming. Celestia was expecting Sunset to find the elements of harmony and then use them to return her sister to normal. Seriously, why use something so stupidly powerful when there were always other solutions to the problem? It was never a good idea to rely on such power alone to solve all your problems and sometimes doing things the hard way was more often rewarding than not.
Later that evening at Pinkie’s summer sun party, things started out well and Fluttershy had arrived dressed in her maid outfit looking particularly self-conscious about it. Twilight said there was a reason she was wearing this outfit and it had her shyly shuffling hooves adorably at the stares she was getting. Things stopped going so well when Sunset Shimmer soon arrived at the town hall having gotten an invite via Pinkie.
“Well if it isn’t the hapless dork, with her oversized iguana and pet dog. It’s no wonder you have friends like that simple hick, the parroting pegasus and the gaudy dress maker. Where’s that hobo you’re always hanging out with? Did she finally starve to death because no pony gave her hoof outs?” As far as ponies go, the bad ones were a minority and Sunset Shimmer was just one of those ponies. She wasn’t of noble blood or anything; she just had a superiority complex which is why she had just insulted Twilight’s family and friends without remorse.
“I can see you’re still as tactful as ever Sunset. In town for the celebration I take it?” It surprised quite a few ponies that Twilight wasn’t getting mad at the insults; just about every pony in the room had backed away from Sunset expecting some form of retaliation. She just saw Sunset as the sad petty mare that she was.
“Yeah, like there’s anything here that’s of real interest. I’m about to set out soon anyway, apparently there are some magic artifacts of great power at some castle in the Ever Free Forest. I’m not about to stick around at some boring party for little foals when I’ve got better things to be doing.” Sunset had said the wrong words now.
Trixie stepped up to Sunset with a cool expression on her face. It wasn’t so much the ‘for foals’ part that annoyed Trixie as Pinkie was a foal at heart and it was a completely endearing quality that she loved about the puffy haired angel. It was the fact that Sunset called the party boring that made her mad, even Gummy the baby pygmy alligator with his relatively limited understanding of his surroundings was glaring at Sunset instinctively.
“Trixie thinks that being the worst student Celestia has ever had is nothing to be proud of.” The gauntlet was thrown by Trixie, after at least a year or so a pony under Celestia’s tutelage would have done something truly impressive by now.
“Like a third rate party magician like you knows what it means to be the princess’s student.” These were the counter and very much offensive words said by Sunset.
“True, but at least Trixie isn’t a complete failure by comparison by having gotten somewhere then going nowhere at all.” Trixie kept an even look on her face when Sunset flinched and snorted angrily. Every pony watched as Sunset took a moment to drink some punch before hastily leaving the party. Turning to the crowd with a glare when it looked like they were about to start cheering, they stopped at her sharp look and after a moment Trixie sighed. “Trixie would prefer you don’t cheer for the suffering of another even if it was warranted.”
“Who wants cake?” Pinkie said trying to raise the mood back to party levels, ponies quickly forgot the short altercation and went about snacking.
Twilight had stood there watching Sunset leave the party; she turned to Tress with a look of consternation on her face.
“Well that happened.” Tress said pleasantly, she had been busy keeping Barb from setting fire to town hall. The rest of their friends were resisting the idea of forming an angry mob, even Fluttershy looked tempted.
“Small change of plan ponies, we need a pony or two to follow Sunset and make sure she doesn’t get hurt. No matter how much of a stubborn donkey she can be, if she died when we could have helped her it will be on all of our consciences forever.” Twilight turned to a donkey that was currently standing at a table enjoying some cheesecake hoping she didn’t anger him too much. “No offense meant George.”
“Oh, no offense taken. I understand completely.” The donkey continued eating without a fuss.
Nightmare Moon came in a cloud of dark smoke a few hours later and Twilight was down three friends who followed Sunset to make sure she didn’t get too badly roughed up by the Ever Free Forest.