The sun rises in the golden city of Canterlot,as the shadow are chassed away by the very first rays of light lifes seems to beggin as if someone has started some sort of engine in a giant clockwork. One of this early risers is no other than Twilight Sparkle: Headmistress of Celestia's school for gifted unicorns and chief advisor on magic, as soon as she is out of the bed she beggins with the daily preparations brushing her teeths and other mundane chores that she does mostly without thinking, " in times like this I wish I had an assistan of my own" ; she thinks as she readys a rather plain breakfast of oatmeal and toast,for all her magical prowess Twilight is an average cooker who prefers practical and funcional over elaborated works of cuisine but even her wish that she could indulge herself in some fancy breakfast from time to time.
After she had checked and double checked her list for the day Twilight finally leaves her house in the upper district of Canterlot and starts trotting toward the school,in her path she sees all kind of decorations and panplets anouncing the 100th summer sun celebration,even when this year the host is a little town known as ponyville nothing seems to stop the canterlotians from expressing their pride of living in the same city as their beloved ruler, Twilight can't stop herself from grinning in the festive atmosfere of the city as she waves a couple of konwn faces on her way. Once in her office Twlight takes a minute to linger in the memory of her very first summer sun celebration as a filly before sumerging herself in her work,after all with the princess out of town theres a lot of job to do so this day could be extra especial.
On the other side of equestria in the bustling metropolis of Manehattan a certain orange earth pony is battling a thoug fight against the most dreaded foe any artist can have, a complete an uther lack of ideas. As Manehatan most refined brewer of cider and three times winner of the 'Celestia's award for cidder excelence' Applejack couldn't let an oportunity like the 100th summer sun celebration simply pass her by without some new cider to conmemmorate it,of course they had the usual ''especialy aged'' reserve they launched with every summer sun celebration but something so pedesttrian and dull won't cut it for such an important time as this,"it's a disaster I tell you a complete and utter disaster" ; she said in her city accent as she put her old stentson hat as she always did when faccing a thoug mental task. Impatients steps resound trough the otherwise calm interior of the house as she walks downstairs to the cellar triyng to get the juices pumping in her head, the familiar sound of the woodfloor under her hooves and the bitter taste of old oak barrels always put applejack in a good mood but this time even the confort of her own private haven it's not enough to chase away the mental clog that has taken a hold on her.
"It's everything all right in there sis?" A timid voice asks as a dark orange filly with tomatoe red hair peaks her nose hessitantly trough the door,she knows that Applejack has been stressed out for the last couple of days and doesn't want to be a bother to her.
"Everything is all right babs just a bit tired with the whole celebration rush"; she answers with a smile as she turns around to face her cousin. Sinse she beggun living on Manehattan she had treaded Babs almost like a surrogate sister beeing a role model and trying to help her uncles rise her while learning the ropes of the bussines,it hadn't been easy since the little filly could be quite a handfull sometimes an had a bit of a rebel streak but it always helped Applejack to remember that family had to stick together trough tick and thin.
As she embarqued on a train of memories both sweet and sour she couldn't aboid a sting of guilt remembering that it had been a long time since she had visitted sweet apple acress back in ponyville,she always said that she would but it always ended up postponed by some new work, "anyway what brings you here sugarcube?" She asked as she notted that Babs was fiddleling unconfortably with her tail hidding her flank, a nervous habbit of the filly when she was self consious.
"I just wanted to tell you that mom had prepared her orange and apple cake last night and that there was a piece left for you" ;Babs said in a tone that became lower every time to the point that Applejack had to strain her ears to catch the last part. She was going to thanks her cousin for her toughtfoulness when sudenly all the cogs in her head came to a screeching halt.
"Apple and orange cake...apple and orange cake thats it"-Applejack shouted as her head fired up like the sky on warming hooves eve, "Babs you are a genius"; she said as she beggun kissing the dumbfounded filly before rushing franatically to the deep part of the cellar where she prepared all her cidders, after a quick test her suspects where confirmed the sweetness of 80 years cidder blended perfectly with the sourness of orange licor and the color pallete blended into a lovely sunrise color, ''the 100th sunrise'' was going to be a masive hit she could feel it.
While Applejack toiled away in her new creation a certain cyan pegaus was havinng a very different battle with her own responsabiltys but unlike a new flavor this job wasn't going to go away in a flash of inspiration. One could argue that the section manager of Cloudsdale would't be the kind of mare to left everything to the last minute but that pony would be death wrong; Rainbow dash was by no means a fool or a slacker, the problem was that she really liked to take naps and that tended to cause a kind of ciclical problem in wich she worked over hours to compensate for a couple of days and then napped trough the morning every other week like she was unaware of the correlation between the two facts.
She had been chewwed up by the general manager in more than one occasion because of that but she always mannaged to pull it off somehow thanks in no small part to the the Cloudsdale managment team that knew her boss to much for her own good. Right now Rainbow was checking all the reports comming from ponyville to be sure that not a single cloud was going to ruin that day, normally that would had been a problem for the local weather team but the proximity of the Everfree forest introduced a rouge element that couldn't be left only to the locals, that place had a mind of his own as storm clouds and other meteorological fenomenons seemed to happen on it's own occur many times threatening the small village with wild and unexpected downpours- "come on people this is a special day and we can't allow that forest to ruin this" ,she said as her team was flying from one side to the other takking the issued orders and delivering new ones to be filled; in this tipe of fast action escenarios Rainbow dash usually relaxed actitud transformed in one of pure determination an alert with a magenta fire glowing in her eyes. Althoug when she had left behind her dream of becoming a wonderbolt long ago in favor of a more realistic dream the cyan pegasus still strived for excelence in everything she did and not only demanded excelent from her underlyngs but was not shy to do the work herself and set the example for others, even when generally she seemed to not give a feather about her work.
"Ok people this is what we are going to do"; she said when the last stack of paper was neetly in the "done pile" and she was sure that everybody knew exactly what they had to do and where
"Lighting dust you are in charge now,I'm going to go there personally and make sure that nopony has any funny ideas" ,she issued while signaling an aquamarine pegasus with a hoof before leaving her desk and putting way to ponyville in a multicolored blur.
All of her problems seemed to desapear as Rainbow raced trough the sky inmersing herself in the pure happines of flight, even when she was quite proud of all the way she had climbed since her start in the weather factory the desk job simply didn't have that much appeal to her, hell she had only steeped up for the job because the old chief easy glider had said that she couldn't trust anypony else to get the job done and beeing the mare that she was Rainbow dash couldn't left the old man hanging after all that he had done for her, she knew where her loyalties standed and wasn't going to let anybody down as long as she could avoid it, but yet a part of her still missed the more outdorsy and hands on job of a simple cloud pusher. She raced trough the bast mining fields in the outskirts of the calm rural town untill she finaly descended in front of the local vet clinic to say hello to an old friend.