"Hey Apple Bloom, hey Scootaloo."
"Hey Sweetie," answered both fillies.
"So," said Apple Bloom. "Are you ready for another day of crusading?"
"Actually, I convinced Rarity to go with me to the boutique today," answered Sweetie Belle a little sheepishly. "But I was wondering if you two wanted to come with us?"
"Oh," said Scootaloo. "Uhm..." She turned to look at Apple Bloom, who shrugged.
"I mean," continued Sweetie Belle, "we're just going to try sewing together, so I understand if you would rather go and do something else..."
"No, it's fine, Sweetie. We can always find something to do no matter where we are. We'll go with you."
"Alright, thanks!" answered Sweetie happily.
Twilight tried to ignore her headache as she felt herself awaken. She felt herself under a blanket. She cracked an eye open and cringed as beams of light intruded upon her eye ball.
She was in the Fort. As she looked around, she realized that most of the colts and fillies were currently absent. Spike, however, was sitting on the sofa next to her, reading one of his comic books.
He glanced away from his book and looked toward her.
"Twilight?" he said. "Are you finally awake?"
"Nuh!" huffed Twilight, forcing her eye shut and crawling deeper under the blanket.
"Twilight, it's almost noon!"
"Don't care," Twilight answered from under the sheet.
"Twilight, you never stay in this late!"
"Nopony here to stop me. No lessons, remember? I can do what I want. And I'm going back to sleep."
...
"Twilight?"
...
"So, Rarity, what do you think we should try making?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"Are you sure your friends are okay just being left on their own?" asked Rarity.
"I'm not leaving them on their own," said Sweetie. "We can still talk with them while we work."
"Alright then, I suppose. So... ah, do you actually have any... experience with this sort of thing?"
"Yep! I used to be pretty bad at sewing, but then I... Um, well I kind of destroyed one of your pieces, but then Princess Luna came along and helped me fix it. She showed me step by step exactly how to do everything!"
"Princess... Luna?" asked Rarity in confusion.
"You remember, Nightmare Moon, only as a good pony?"
"Oh. Of course... My sister learned how to sew from Nightmare Moon..."
"I am a turtle!"
Scootaloo turned her head toward Apple Bloom's voice, her face displaying bafflement at the strange statement.
"I am a turtle!" Apple Bloom repeated.
"Why are you inside an upside-down laundry basket?" asked Scootaloo.
"Because I am a turtle!" cried Apple Bloom, declaring the obvious.
"Oh. Hey, give me a ride!" Scootaloo jumped on top of Apple Bloom's basket.
"Um, okay?"
The basket shifted a few inches.
"I can't actually seem to move with you sitting on top of it," admitted Apple Bloom.
"Well, can I have a turn then?"
"No! Go find your own basket!"
"Are there any other laundry baskets?"
"Pff, yeah! There's four of them!"
"So, this is where I do my work?" asked Rarity.
"Yep. So, what do you think?"
"Has anypony been in here in the last two weeks?"
"I don't think so. It doesn't look like it, anyway."
"So, it... always looks like this?"
"Yeah."
"But... this place is a mess!"
"HA!" cried Sweetie Belle, startling Rarity. She pointed her hoof at Rarity.
"I told you so, I told you so, I told you so!" Sweetie cried, shaking her hoof with each statement.
"What?" asked Rarity in utter confusion. "Told me what?"
"You'll understand when we get back to the real world."
Twilight awoke with a start. She pulled the blanket off of her head and peered up at the reason for her sudden awaking.
"Twilight!" said Spike. "It's two o' clock now. If you don't come and get your lunch right now, you won't be getting any at all."
Twilight looked around again. There was a single plate of food on the table in front of her.
She slammed her eyes shut again.
"Did everypony else come in here and eat while I was asleep?" she asked.
"Yeah, they did. You just kinda slept through all the noise."
"Hmm."
"Twilight, are you going to get up or what?"
"No."
"Alright," declared Rarity. "Let's begin. Oh, I hate this part."
Rarity carefully attempted to slip a piece of thread through the eye of a needle.
After a moment, Sweetie Belle said, "Wait, you do?"
Rarity failed to slip the thread in. That one was Sweetie's fault, she thought.
"Yes, I do. I can never get the thread in on the first try."
She tried again and failed.
"Or the second."
She failed again.
"Or the third. Or the fourth or the fifth or sixth, seventh, eighth!"
... "Really?"
"Yes, really! Now please let me concentrate!"
The thread failed to pass through the needle once again.
"Gah! You stupid piece of string! Get- in- there!"
Rarity's now more violent approach was even less likely to succeed than before.
"Can I try, Rarity?"
"Sure! Sure," cried Rarity in frustration. "Be my guest."
Rarity watched intensely as Sweetie failed to thread the needle several times.
"Ugh, this is impossible!" complained Sweetie Belle.
"I know!" cried Rarity. "Here, let me try it again."
"Turtle race!" cried Apple Bloom.
Two laundry baskets slid across the floor.
A short time later, one of them crossed into the kitchen.
"Victory!" cried Apple Bloom.
"Aw," said Scootaloo.
"What next?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Let's try something... cool!"
"Like what?" asked Apple Bloom. "How can we make turtles cool? Ya know, without putting propellers on them."
"I have an idea," declared Scootaloo. "You want to scare Sweetie Belle?"
"Maybe..."
"Follow my lead!"
"Let me have another turn Rarity," said Sweetie Belle.
Rarity looked up at her sister. Suddenly, the frustration in her face vanished. A moment later, a subtle grin crept into her expression.
"Um... Rarity?" asked Sweetie, taken aback by Rarity's unusual behavior.
"Hiayaaa!" screamed a voice as a screaming Sweetie Belle suddenly felt herself being pulled backwards by her hind legs.
A moment later it became much darker.
Sweetie Belle abruptly stopped screaming when she realized that she was sitting next to Scootaloo. Rarity was also laughing uncontrollably.
"Scoot!" cried Sweetie angrily. "What- are you doing...?" she finished, her tone shifting to confusion.
"I am a ninja!" declared Scootaloo, waving her hooves in mock scare.
"I thought we were turtles!" said the voice of Apple Bloom.
"We are!" answered Scootaloo. "We're turtle ninjas!"
"You should have seen it from where I was!" added Rarity, still laughing. "Thank you, I needed that."
This caused Sweetie Belle's brain to blank out.
"Sweetie, let's just forget about this whole sewing thing. It's causing us nothing but grief. We should do something fun instead."
"Twilight..." said Spike.
"Go away!"
"Twilight, you might want to-"
"Don't care!"
...
"Hiayaaa!"
Twilight screamed as she felt her blanket be thrown off and something jumped on her.
As she tried frantically to figure out what was going on, she suddenly realized that there was a pony sitting on top of her.
"... Rarity?"
"Oh dear!" declared Rarity casually. "It would appear that I am caught. Ninjas, retreat!"
Rarity jumped off of Twilight, flooding her with light. Twilight scrambled to upright herself and then saw four laundry baskets sliding away on the floor.
"Spike?" asked Twilight, now clearly fully awake.
"Yes?" he responded with a smirk.
"What just happened to me?"
"I have no idea."
Twilight stared as she watched the baskets escape.
"But, it is evening," continued Spike. "And you said that you wanted to write a letter to the princess every week, and today is that day..."
Twilight's pupils shrunk.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today is the fifteenth day in Discord's recreation of Ponyville. I am pleased to report that my letter is one hundred percent on time despite the crazy week I have had, because I am a responsible pony. Even though I did have a brief episode in which I over-indulged on cupcakes and gave myself a terrible headache the next day, the experience has only served to reinforce my decision to keep myself under control. I must admit that I did very briefly consider putting off my letter until the next day. After all, I told myself, you would never know that I didn't really write it on the fifteenth day. But that would be highly irresponsible of me. Thankfully my headache is finally gone and I can carry out my duty unhindered.
This week was, to put it simply, crazy. It started out with nearly everypony in town pranking each other, and unfortunately some ponies were caught in the crossfire. However, together we put a stop to it once it became apparent that some ponies were suffering because of their antics.
After that, I learned a very valuable lesson. Attempting to understand chaos magic can result in monstrous books causing chaos throughout the whole town, as well as bell towers being screwed into the ground, in a completely literal sense. I will not be attempting it again any time soon. Do not worry, the monstrous Thesaurus in question is now completely docile.
I believe things are back to normal, however. After all, crazy disasters can't possibly strike every single week. Even though I sometimes struggle to understand the ponies around me, I believe that we are functioning as an effective team.
This is the fifteenth day out of thirty, which means that we have passed the half-way point. This feels like quite a milestone for everypony. We have lasted for this long, so all we have to do now is last as long again!
Today I received an unexpected request from some of the others. Apparently a few of these colts and fillies are finally beginning to miss their regularly scheduled classes! They are quite surprised at this turn of events, but they miss school all the same. Of course, most of the other colts and fillies think that they are crazy. In any case, a few of them were practically begging me to give them any kind of lecture!
I have never done anything like this before! Of course I know material, but I am less confident in my ability to actually teach! All the same, I have agreed. I feel that this is something that I simply must do. I don't plan on lecturing for hours like what these colts and fillies are used to in school, but I think that a short lesson every now and then might be fun for them.
I wish I could tell you that everypony is happy and doing well, but unfortunately I received news today that two fillies have decided to leave. Their names are Sunny Days and Peachy Pie. I am trying to decide whether I am partially to blame for this. I didn't speak to them very much, and neither did many of the others. At the same time, they appeared to be content with staying together by themselves. I am not sure whether somepony offended them in some way, or if they became homesick, or if they left for their own reasons.
Of course, I wouldn't have stopped them from leaving even if I had known, even though I really, really wish that they hadn't. Nopony should be pressured into staying. However, even though many of us didn't know them very well, we miss them all the same. But what is done is done, and the rest of us are happy to stay put for now. Is it strange that am missing a couple of ponies that I barely got to know? It doesn't seem logical, but it is evidently true never the less. As for the rest of us, I hope we manage to stay together until the very end.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle