CHAPTER 1 – The Invite
Sunlight spilled across the page she was drawing one, but she didn’t mind. Class had started well over an hour ago, and Soft Pencil was already finished with the assignment on the board. It was going to be a slow day in class, made worse by the fact that tomorrow started the extra-long weekend. Something about an impending holiday just makes the days leading up to it drag on. At this point, most of the class was babbling away with the other foals nearby, or catching up on homework that would be due by the end of the day. The teacher sat behind his desk, looking over the sports section of the Canterlot Press.
Pencil was doodling away, a simple yet detailed drawing of an old maple tree, one that she could see outside the window next to her. The wind was making the leaves move around a little, making the light on her picture dance, almost as if there were real fireflies with her. Smiling at her work, she set her number two pencil down in front of her. The drawing was mainly showing the upper half of the tree, due to her limited view from the window. She turned around in her chair, reaching into her saddlebags to dig out her coloring pencils, when she suddenly heard a throat being cleared loudly. Turning around, she found none other than Bronze Ribbon and her best friend Bow Trim. Bronze was holding a large stack of pink envelopes. She cleared her throat one more time.
“As you all may already know, Bow Trim’s 11th Birthday party is on Monday. As her best friend is my job to throw the biggest and most extravagant party in the history of partying. With that said,” Bronze Ribbon looked over the envelopes, “a party such as the one that I’m going to throw needs a large amount of guests. All the other classes, including the upper grades,” Bronze’s voice began to get unnecessarily loud, “have already been invited.” Gasps ran around the other foals in the room.
Bronze walked over the front row before continuing, “This is the last of the invites that are going out, and they are all for you!” She smiled triumphantly as each foal smiled and cheered in delight.
Soft pencil’s face dropped a little, and she looked down at her drawing. Soft pencil didn’t have very good luck at making friends. It was just so hard. The idea of even speaking to somepony for any reason that didn’t involve school work made her stomach churn a little. So the idea of going to a large and extravagant party like the one that Bronze Ribbon just described just made her stomach do flip flops. Yet, even if she wasn’t so shy, she really didn’t have the money right now to spend on birthday present good enough to make an impression. Her dad was having trouble at work; his store was suffering from a lack of ponies showing interest. It was a fairly simple small shop after all. Most Canterlot’s citizens would rather shop in larger, more well-known stores; at least that’s what her dad told her.
She was snapped out of her deep thoughts when she saw a pink envelope adorned with a yellow heart sticker was set on top of her drawing. She picked it up. There was no name on the front, so she opened it.
You are cordially invited to the 11th Birthday party of Miss. Bow Trim.
The social gathering of the season shall take place on the 11th of April at 1pm sharp, located at the Trim family Manor.
Our magnanimous host, Miss. Ribbon, would like to inform you that the theme of this social affair will be the Equestrian's Royalty, mostly concerned with the popular Princess Twilight Sparkle, whom will be in attendance.
Soft Pencil looked over the invite one more time before looking around the class; other ponies were gasping and gushing over the theme. They started to aimlessly chat about the party, what they would wear, and other trivial things. Pencil looked to the front of class to see Bow Trim. She was looking around, her face set in a small smile, casting glance at her friend who had finally finished passing out the invitations.
Soft Pencil returned to staring at her invite, before losing focus and slipping her eyes back down at her sketchpad. She swallowed, making a big gulp.
When she finally arrived home at a quarter past three, her black school saddlebags were weighing her down; full of Tuesday’s assigned homework. She walked up to her room and shut the door, taking her saddlebags off and setting them down at the end of her bed. She trotted over to her desk, took out a blank sheet of note book paper, and sat down. She grabbed a pencil with her mouth and began to think.
Unlike most of the guests that were going to Bow Trim’s party, she didn’t know what to get Bow Trim. All of the other fillies and colts were likely to have similar ideas, probably something Princess Twilight related based on the theme of the party. She knew this because she had overheard at least three groups of pupils in the hallways, each one talking about the Trim party that Bronze Ribbon was hosting. She really looked at the paper in front of her. She was really drawing to a blank…
Drawing….
At that moment, it began to click. A drawing for a present may seem cheap to some, but Soft Pencil just knew that getting a personal art piece was not only something she loved, but something that wealthy ponies loved as well. The art museums at Canterlot held the strangest pieces that she ever seen. Some of them were even really simple; like a small child drew them. She went there when she was little, having been taking by her grandpa, and she had seen a lot of wealthy ponies just eating it up.
She looked down at the page once more with a much more positive outlook. Inspired, she started to draft up some ideas.
Late that very evening, on the opposite side of the district, a young filly was outside, sitting on her balcony and looking up at the night sky. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, feeling the wind move around her, ruffling her mane and tail. For just the briefest of moments, the filly could almost feel her hooves around her once again. But then the sensation past; and she opened her eyes. Still looking up into the night sky, clouds had begun to obscure the stars. Then, with a small sad smile, she got up and walked back inside.