Chapter 1—At First Glance?
It was a typically average day in Ponyville—the sky was clear with a hint of clouds coming in later on in the day, birds were flying about, doing their usual bird things, and the townsponies were going about their daily routines.
Two such ponies, a steel blue coated pegasus stallion with slightly darker than blue mane and tail and an earth pony stallion with a grey coat and mane and tail that were black with streaks of grey, were walking aimlessly around town, the pegasus helping his friend catch up on recent events.
“And that’s what happened while you were away Grey.”
“Seriously? I just had to be out of town when all of the cool things happened, huh.” I said as I let out a sigh.
“Hey, hey. That’s not entir....yeah, yeah you did.”
I looked at my friend’s blue eyes. “Eh, oh well. Not like I can go back and be here when it happened, huh Icy. Well, at least not yet.”
He let out a small chuckle and shook his head. “Still trying to figure that out, aren’t you. I keep telling you that it’s an impossible feat you got there.”
“And I keep telling you that I’m sure I can find a spell that will allow me to do that.”
“And I keep telling you that even if there was, you can’t do it. You don’t have the horn needed for it.”
The two of us stared each other down, not once stopping or looking around for any possible obstacles that could get in our way. The stare down lasted for a minute before the both of us stopped and laughed our flanks off. I’m sure that any of the immediate surrounding ponies might have thought of us mad, but it didn’t bother us.
“Oh, I needed that,” Icy said as he wiped away a tear with his wing, the laugh still present in his voice.
“That’s why I’m here, buddy boy.” I told him with a grin, putting one of my hooves around his neck. “Forget about what I do to make sure I'm not homeless; I'm here for your daily dose of stupidity.”
He rolled his eyes and removed my hoof. “Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”
I was going to say something, but my stomach interrupted me. I looked at Icy and saw his smug little grin. “I swear, dude. If you even go there, I’m going to hit you.”
His grin just seemed to get a little smugger. “Oh, I would never say anything about your rumbling tummy.”
“I mean it. I don’t care if we are buds, I’ll hurt you.”
“I’m not going to say anything about your stomach, scouts honor.”
“You promise?”
He nodded his head, a sigh of relieve escaping me. “Though, if I did have to say anything right now,” - he started, completely ignoring me staring him down - “it would have to be how much you look like a cheery, which is a pretty impressive thing for y-“
He dodged the punch I aimed for him and started to trot away, laughing as he went.
“You’re dead!” I yelled as I raced after him.
The race, as wonderfully intense as it was, didn’t last longer than what was probably two minutes before a loud “QUIET!” stopped him in his tracks and caused me to collide into him (for a guy who looks like mostly sticks, fur, and feathers, it felt like I ran into a rock). The both of us hit the ground hard and couldn’t get up for a bit, neither of us moving because of the pain.
I slowly got to my shaky feet and shook my head. “Well, that hurt.”
“Y-yeah,” Icy said as he tried to get up.
“You need any-“
“No, I got it.”
I looked at him for a bit then looked around us. “Who you think yelled that out? It didn’t sound like anypony that I kn-“
I couldn’t help but stare at her. Her light purple coat that seemed to brighten up the area; the way her dark indigo hair flowed with the wind; her purple eyes that were filled with knowledge, excitement, wonder, and love for the world.
I wasn’t sure what she was saying to her friends-she probably had an incredibly cute voice-or for how long I was staring, but I did come out of it with a hard smack to the back of my head. I turned around and saw that Icy was the one who hit me. “Hey! What was tha-“
“Can you stop drooling and pick up your jaw already?”
I was taken back a little bit by what he said, so much so that I actually checked if I was drooling. “I’m not drooling.”
“You could have fooled me. You’re just lucky she didn’t notice you were ogling her like that.”
“I w-wasn’t....”
He rolled his eyes. “Really? Then how do you explain that your face is an apple now.”
I went to say something but shut my mouth right away, kicking a bit at the dirt beneath me.
Icy let out a sigh as he placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry for saying that okay. I didn’t mean anything against you when I said it.” He removed his hoof. “If I knew you were going to act like that, I wouldn’t have said anything.”
After a slight awkward silence, I looked back to where she was, but she was long gone by now. “Icy...”
“Yeah?”
“Who...who was that?”
“Huh? You mean you didn’t notice Pinkie?”
“No, not Pinkie; or Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, or Rainbow. That unicorn mare that was with them.”
“Oh, that’s right. You haven’t met her yet. She’s the new mare in town. Moved here a little bit before the whole Nightmare Moon thing went down. Heard Pinkie say that she is from Canterlot. I think she said her name is Twilight...something.”
Icy kept on talking for a while, but none of it registered as I kept looking at where she was. “Twilight........” That’s a pretty name.