Prologue
“Pants, what the hay is going on here?”
Smarty Pants kept her head low in the bush beside her country cousin and motioned for silence. The two girls’ eyes were locked on the four ponies walking down the dirt road adjacent to the shrubbery they were hiding in.
Smarty Pants, the light brown earthpony filly from Farrington with a wavy red mane, was the prized pupil of one Princess Twilight Sparkle, Goddess of Magic. And she was pretty sure she was about to have a bad day. The kind of day that almost made her want to call it quits and head back home to work in mom’s shoe shop. Almost.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d seen the Princess do the same thing whenever she need calm and focus, and now Smarty Pants was hoping that it would work for her. The little filly was desperate to figure out just how the hay she and her two friends were where they were and why.
Smarty Pants knew that she was somewhere near Sweet Apple Acres. And she knew she was hiding in a bush next to her farmer cousin, the hotheaded red unicorn with blonde pigtails named Honeycrisp.
They weren't first cousins. Heck, they weren't even second cousins. But they were related, at least in the eyes of the Apple family hierarchy. The rules for being a part of the family were sort of patch-work at best. More of a set of guidelines, really.
But rule number one for the Apple family was Family looks after its own. Smarty Pants couldn't help but grin at the thought. She and Honeycrisp have had their share of differences and physical altercations in the past, but there was nopony else she’d rather have at her side when the going got weird. And this was definitely weird.
Smarty Pants chewed on her lip in silent concern, brow furrowed as she watched the three mares and a filly continue on their merry way down the road. The filly she knew well, a lime green pegasus with a nervous fidget to her wings who went by the name of Sandy. Sandy had been Smarty Pants’ best friend for the last two years.
The two friends had whiled away many an afternoon baking or exploring the castle and its gardens. Their friendship was an easy feat, what with the two of them being the only children living in Canterlot Castle. And what fun they had together.
Before Sandy showed up, living in Canterlot Castle was a bit lonely at times. Smarty Pants didn't have to live there all the time, though. She stayed for three or four months at a stretch, with her own room near the library and everything. But she always got to spend a week back home with Mom and Dad before returning to the Princess.
Sandy was the adopted daughter of the Royal Pastry Chef, so she got to live in a big fancy apartment in the castle with her 'mommy' as she liked to call her. Smarty Pants smiled when she remembered the verbal spat between the Princess and the Pastry Chef when Sandy came along. Princess Twilight wanted Powder Puff to enroll her into the Pegasi Academy in Canterlot, but Powder Puff insisted on homeschooling Sandy.
Holy horseapples, did it throw everything for a loop last week when Powder Puff revealed that she was actually the missing Sun Goddess, Celestia, in disguise! Nothing was ever going to be the same again, she was sure of it.
The sound of hooves on dirt in front of her brought her back into the now, and Smarty Pants scolded herself for losing focus. Here she was daydreaming about Sandy, when the poor girl had inadvertently found herself in an impossible conversation. Impossible because the dead can't speak. But there they were, plain as the Sun in the sky; Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.
Three of the Elements of Harmony. The Elements of Harmony. As in three of the six greatest mares ever to live in the history of ever!
Smarty Pants wracked her brain trying to come up with a reasonable answer as to why Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were walking down the dirt road on a crisp Autumn morning with Sandy in tow. The four ponies should have been separated by hundreds of years! This sort of thing should never happen. But clearly it was happening and that meant trouble. Big trouble.
Smarty Pants rubbed a hoof through her red wavy mane in bewilderment. First their reappearance last week in order to save the world, and now this.
Last week. Might as well have been a lifetime ago. Smarty Pants remembered vividly how she and her two friends accidentally awoken a forgotten weapon from a darker era, the construct known as the Beacon of Order. In less than a day, it managed to threaten all of ponykind in a misguided bid to destroy Discord once and...
“Where's Discord?” Smarty Pants asked Honeycrisp under her breath.
The not-so-little red unicorn crouching in the bush beside her shot Smarty Pants a curious look, followed by a low growling answer. "Hay, that's right. He walked us here from the train station in Canterlot, right? I bet this is his fault."
Smarty Pants nodded. There goes any hope of figuring out why we’re here, she thought.They all knew there was no sussing out why the God of Chaos did anything. No reason was just as good as any reason to do anything for that gangly pile of mismatched parts.
A wheel from the cart being pulled by Applejack passed just inches from the edge of the bush that she was hiding in and interrupted Smarty Pants’ train of thought.
“So yer from Canterlot, are ya?” asked the orange-coated farmpony.
“Yes, Ma’am.” answered Sandy in her matter-of-factually way.
Applejack couldn't help but pale a bit at the unintentionally insulting title. “Ma’am? Shoot ya can’t be much younger’n Applebloom. What’er ya’ll about, twelve or so?”
Now it was Sandy’s turn to be chagrined, though she did well to hide the insult’s effect. “Actually, I’m fourteen. I’m just a little... little is all.” She smiled a shell of a smile and stared straight ahead down the road.
A soft voice mumbled something and pulled the pony out of her funk and she looked at the canary yellow pony who was looking back at her expectantly. Sandy’s wings fluttered and fidgeted at her side as she spoke. “I’m sorry, I didn't hear your question.”
Fluttershy repeated her question, though a little louder this time. “Are you and your two friends here for Twilight’s birthday party?”
“Oh! Good guess Fluttershy, I bet that’s it. Is that it?” giggled an inquisitive Pinkie Pie as she bounced in time with a squeaking back wheel of Applejack’s cart.
Sandy perked up at the very familiar name. “Do you mean Princess Twilight?” she said, her face scrunching up as she followed up with another question, “Is it her birthday again already?”
The pink party pony did something that sounded like a giggle but ended with a snort “Yepperooni! I’ll have to check with her to be sure, but I think she likes to have one every year.”
Applejack pushed her hat back up further on her head and wiped the sweat from her brow in one deft motion, enjoying the morning's autumn breeze. “And thank goodness for that. Ponyville’s Princess draws a right humdinger of a crowd around holidays. What with all the caterin’ business we do, I don’t think us Apples could feed ourselves through the winter if’n she had two birthdays.”
Fluttershy nodded her head, and caused her pink mane to shift and slide around. As a result, a rather grumpy looking white bunny groggily rose out of the napping nest he had so carefully burrowed into it.
“Oh yes,” said Fluttershy, ignoring the bunny’s angry chattering and occasional soft kicks against the back of her skull, “and with all the visiting ponies in Ponyville, it looks like this year's celebration will be just as big as her twenty first birthday.”
Pinkie Pie giggled at that, also ignoring the abusive rabbit on her friend’s head. “That was a real doozy of a party! Best party I've ever thrown if I do say so myself. And I do say so myself!”
Smarty Pants was distracted from the conversation momentarily when she heard a soft rustling to her side and turned in time to see Honeycrisp stick her entire face out of the bush.
“Honeycrisp!” she hissed, “What are you doing?”
“I can’t hear them anymore.”
“So! Get your head back in here, you’re going to get us caught!”
“Like fun I wi— HAY! LET GO OF ME!” she shouted absentmindedly as she struggled with her earthpony cousin.
Both girls realized their mistake at almost the exact time and, no longer struggling, pulled each other back deeper into the bush.
“Hello?” called Applejack over her shoulder from the harness of her stopped cart. “Is somepony out there?”
Chancing a peak out of the bush, Smarty Pants saw the four ponies scanning the side of the road behind them, looking for the source of the shout that stopped them.
Temporarily distracted from his assault on the back of Fluttershy’s head, the abusive bunny also looked around nervously. But, unlike the others, his keen bunny eyes absolutely did notice something. And he was looking right at the bush that Smarty Pants and Honeycrisp were hiding in.
The rabbit chirped in lago-euphoric glee as he hurried his way down his owner’s silky mane and onto the dirt road below.
“Angel, you be careful out there!” called an increasingly worried Fluttershy, “There’s no telling what that sound was. It might have been something scary. Like a monster!”
Applejack and Pinkie Pie exchanged knowing looks and the farmpony rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure it wasn't a monster, Fluttershy. Sounded more like a filly to me.” she said with a smile.
Smarty Pants watched as the little white rabbit quickly bound the few yards to their bush and then launch himself the final few feet in a single bounce. She could see that there was a hunger in the rabbit’s eyes, and in their pooled reflection, she saw the object of his desire. It was the tip of something red. Something carrot-shaped.
There was no time to think. There was little time to act. The only thing Smarty Pants managed to do before Angel bit down on his prize was hit the deck and bury her head in her hooves.
Half an instant later, Applejack’s smile melted away when the bush Angel had just leapt into erupted into a wall of fire. The conflagration was over in the blink of an eye, leaving a blast crater behind. A crater with two blackened ponies; one earth and one unicorn, and a still smoking ash-grey bunny stopped in mid bite on the unicorn’s red horn.
“Horn.” said the slightly trembling unicorn standing stock still at the center of the blast radius. Her right eye twitched and she opened her mouth to elaborate further. “Horn,” she added helpfully.
Fluttershy was the first of the three older mares to shake herself from the confusion of what just happened. She gambled the few yards over, flapping her wings the whole way, until she came to a skidding stop in front of the unicorn.
“Angel, you let go of that horn right this instant, mister.” she said sternly.
Blearily, he acquiesced and dropped into his owner’s waiting hooves and she hugged him tightly to her chest, nuzzling and cooing her half baked bunny.
“Oh my goodness, I am so so sorry,” she said as she inspected the young unicorn’s horn, “It doesn't looked damaged. Does it hurt? Oh, Angel, you know better. We've talked about this, haven't we? Horns aren't... carrots...”
Smarty Pants looked up from her achy pony pile and saw Fluttershy. The yellow pony was just a few feet away staring at Honeycrisp like she was a copy of a favorite book written in a foreign language. Familiar, and yet completely alien. She watched as Fluttershy’s face flickered with competing emotions.
Smarty Pants understood the feelings that Fluttershy was experiencing, because she experienced those same feeling just a few short moments before when she grabbed her cousin and rolled into the bush. It was the sensation of seeing deep into time, and finding what remains of yourself. Though Fluttershy didn't know it, she was a direct ancestor, hundreds of years removed from both Honeycrisp and Smarty Pants. Princess Twilight's protégé didn't know what was going to happen next if she didn't act, but she knew that she had to do something.
Tearing her eyes away from Fluttershy, she looked down at the ground and willed herself to stand back up, appreciating her earthpony fortitude as she did so. Once more on her hooves, she took in her surroundings, not willing to look another pony in the eyes, for fear of a chain reaction. Fluttershy and Honeycrisp were to her left. Applejack had unhooked herself from the cart and was approaching from the right. Beyond her was a sitting Pinkie Pie and beside her was her target. Her friend.
Smarty Pants ran as best as she could past Applejack, and over to Sandy. Against her better judgement, she caught Pinkie Pie's face out of the corner of her eye and saw a wave of emotions splash across her pink face. Then, without so much as a word, Smarty Pants hoisted her bewildered pegasus friend on to her shoulder and ran off in the opposite direction of the Elements of Harmony.
Sandy waved about frantically, as she was hauled off bouncing along on the other girl’s shoulders. “Smarty! Put me down! Your coat is sooty and you smell like burnt hair!”
Ignoring Sandy’s pleas, she turned her head and shouted as she ran past the still shaken Honeycrisp. “Let’s go!”
“Go on,” said Fluttershy calmly to the red unicorn, “your friends need you.”
Rubbing at her sore horn, the unicorn nodded, but couldn't look away from Fluttershy until she was more than a hooffull of yards away. The unicorn made to trot after her friends, but then she stopped. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at Applejack, who returned the filly’s carefully measured stare. “Can I help you?” the farmpony asked incredulously.
The strange filly shook her head, but smiled all the same before walking off.
“What in tarnation was that all about?”
“I have no idea,” offered Fluttershy as she fussed with Angel’s coat from her seat in the dirt. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”
Applejack heard Pinkie Pie let out a ragged sigh from her spot behind the two of them before gasping. “Oh no! I didn't get their names! That was probably the worstest ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ welcome I've ever given somepony.”
Applejack arched an eyebrow at that as she hooked herself back into her harness. “Probably?”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I met Cranky?”
“Eenope.”
“Yeah,” she said as she rose to her hooves and slumped over to her two friends. “This is probably tied for worstest.”
“Well,” started Applejack throwing a reassuring hoof over Pinkie Pie, ”They can only get better from here, right?”
“Thanks Applejack,” answered Pinkie with a small giggle and an even smaller smile.
“Now, let’s head over to the house so you can help Granny Smith with the bakin’ while Flutters’n I load up the last set of carts.”
“Um, girls... Would it be alright if we stop by my cottage first? I need to get a certain little naughty mister all cleaned up.”
Applejack and Pinkie Pie shared a look before shrugging.
“So long as we don’t take too long, that’s fine by me. Those victuals fer Twilight’s party won’t bake’n deliver themselves. Shoot, maybe we can get Big Mac to help us and we’ll make up for lost time.”
Fluttershy beamed a smile at her apple loving friend. “Oh?! Yes please! I mean. Oh, do you think he’d help us?”
“Smarty Pants?”
“WE’RE IN TROUBLE, WE’RE IN TROUBLE, WE’RE IN TRO—“
“Smarty Pants. Are you—“
“E’RE IN TROUBLE, WE’RE IN—“
Sandy closed her eyes and sighed. Then she flexed and flapped her green wings in that special way that only she seemed able to do, and a tiny twister engulfed her and her kidnapper/best friend. The world spun around and around as the twister pulled Sandy out of the earthpony’s grip.
She stopped flapping her wings and locked them out in their full extension, causing the small though surprisingly vicious dust devil to dissipate into nothingness. Then the pegasus sailed back down to the ground beside her dizzy friend.
“Smarty Pants, why are we in trouble?”
“Because... Because... Actually, I’m not sure. Maybe we’re not?” Smarty Pants asked as she shook the spinning magenta stars from her eyes.
“Maybe we’re not?” Sandy blinked at her with a furrowed brow. “How could can we maybe be in trouble? Either we’re in trouble, or we’re not, right?”
Smarty Pants sat there and played with her wind poofed red mane. When she managed to get it back down to just wavy, she continued. “Well, the way I see it, there’s three options here.”
Sandy nodded, and Smarty Pants began counting out on her forehooves. “Option the first: We’re not in trouble because we are actually dead.”
“Dead?!” squeaked Sandy. “I don’t want to be dead!”
“Who’s dead?” asked Honeycrisp, trotting down from up the road.
“We’re dead,” said Sandy with watery eyes and trembling lips.
This bit of news stopped the red unicorn in her tracks. “We’re dead?”
“Maybe,” said Smarty Pants holding up a foreleg.
Honeycrisp looked at Sandy and saw the I’m ready to sob at a moment’s notice look on her face. Then she looked over at her earthpony cousin with her tenuous-at-best grasp on reality.
Her right eye twitched. “Alright. I’ll bite,” she said with a wince at the unintended use of the word ‘bite.’ Rubbing her horn she asked, “What exactly are we talking about?”
“Smarty Pants told me that we’re in trouble.”
“Or dead!” the aforementioned filly chimed in helpfully. “Look, it’s like this. Those three mares back there? Three of the four dead Elements of Harmony. But they were alive and kicking right? Okay, so. Three options.”
“I knew there was something funny about those mares!” interrupted Honeycrisp, “I felt it inside. Like... There was some sorta connection.”
Smarty Pants nodded, “I felt it too.”
Sandy sat up and rubbed her left foreleg with her right hoof. “I didn’t feel anything specia—”
“Okay, so like I said, Three options.” Continued Smarty Pants. “Option one: We’re dead, so we’re not in trouble, because dead. Option two: we’re alive, and we've done something to bring the dead back to life, in which case, we are definitely in trouble, since Necromancy is crazy illegal. Option thre—”
“Option three,” butted in a new voice. “You've been whisked away on a fantastical journey through both time and space, but mostly time, by everypony’s favorite God of Chaos—“
“Discord!” shouted all three girls at once, as the grinning draconequus swam in lazy circles through the air above them.
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Whoo! I've been waiting for this one!
In the tradition of my getting FIRST COMMENT, a short review shall be appended to this at a later date, after reading the beginning.
AND NOW THE REVIEW!
:whoohoo: 
I only started reading this series in the past month or so, and I'm hooked. Everything is balanced just right. Adventure, comedy, a fair bit of darkness... And I can kind of see that starting to surface here.
*minor spoilers, major if you've not read 505*
First of all,
The story opens up where we left off. Smarty Pants and Co. are in Ponyville almost 480 years in the past, and the author opens with a bit of a recap, reintroducing our main trio and a few things that happened. This was actually kind of good, it having been a little while since 505. It doesn't last very long, so readers coming off of 505 won't be in for a long boring recapitulation of old facts, but it's packed with enough info for people right now.
As always, the characterization is spot-on, and getting to see some of the Mane 5 in a slice-of-life setting was pretty awesome. I especially liked Pinkie. Just cuz.
Something I have to mention: everybody look at the Fic Pic really closely. Right now, I'm calling there's going to be Back to the Future time-shenanigans going on before the gig is up. In the past stories we've had some sort of despicable horror. It's going to come back, and this time it's going to be the threat of the main trio never having been born. The prologue seems to hint at this, and between the two, well, that's my call.
The only thing I'm gonna ding you on is that it wasn't clear who was where and why at first. Since it has been a while, it was hard to remember that Sandy had already been discovered, while Smarty and Honeycrisp were still hidden. The positioning was kind of confusing until I went back and reread the end of 505's epilogue. Luckily, this didn't impact the story much, and it's the only thing that holds it back at ALL!
I look forward to reading the rest, so far it's pretty awesome!
Always glad to FIRST!
conanthedelorean
Yaay! I've been waiting for like.... forever
So, is this +505 Discord who's come back with them, or Current Discord who somehow knows what's going on? I've got five bits on the latter.
Loved it!! Can't wait for next chapter...
I imagine anyone who hasn't read the first two stories won't be asking questions given how much was explained in the beginning. Just saying.
Sure were a lot of uses of the word 'dead' there at the end, not that I'm complaining.
All in all, MOAR!
If you don't mind that is . . .
Victuals.
4111269
I do like victuals, but I think I will stick with vittles, as it's one of my favorite 14th century words for grub. But thanks so much for your comment and suggestion!
4111563
Victuals - Look at the pronunciation and the definition.
4111563
Still working on FS's 750th B-day. Imma send some of it later tonight.
YES YES YES FINALLY!
The mosr awaited by me story is here!
Instant like+fav, I don't even need to read it to be sure it's a masterpiece.
4111642
Ah. You raise an excellent point, that compliments the original commenter's point. I shall change it in the morning. Thanks to both of you for helping me make the story better.
4110875
Excellent point on the who was where flub. I tried to keep it clear, but I will be sure to avoid situations where the positioning of folks is circumspect.
And thanks for the review
IT'S OUT!!!
This makes me happy.
Yet we see the rather successful beginning of another great story in the Birthdayverse.
100th like.
i.imgur.com/EZna8G9.png
4117898
Hey thanks!
It has arrived!
I saw this coming even though I knew it was coming anyways because it was this story that made me read the others. With the whole Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie knowing them in the tides of magic and all that... I really with you would update this again every minute until it is finished....
Haha. Dude, can't wait to see where this goes.
I just noticed that all three PTS Birthdayverse stories are now in the Popular stories box. Wonder why?
4120611
OK we have started it! Good Timing on my part to finish the 505th B-day story a day before this one started.
4120775 you said it! I finished about an hour ago. Didn't see this coming.
I've put this on my read-later list to keep an eye on it.
Any idea how frequently new chapters will be finished?
need...moar!
4123123
Once a week on average.
4111642
4112082
Vittles - Look at the pronunciation and the definition. There is absolutely no way that Applejack would spell it "victuals".
oh good!
I've been waiting for this since the 505 ended
"Hello Smartyosnts. You're dead."
Totally appropriate Q quote there.
Made an account just to post. Sigh... I had so much to do today. Somewhere I saw a link for Princess Twilight Sparkle's 500th birthday. Read the description. "Oh hey that sounds different. Maybe I'll read it when I have time." I found a few minutes, skipped through a few paragraphs, went back and read from the beginning. And now here I am, 6ish hours later. I read the whole thing. And I loved it. It is brilliantly executed with believeable characters and simply fun to read and get into. I can't recommend your work enough. I loved watching your universe expand and develop as the story went on. Thank you for letting me have a few great hours. I can't wait for this series.
4131827
I made an account the same way! I finished a story and just had to comment on it. I think it was something by SS&E. Thanks so much for the kind words, hope I didn't keep you from too much today!
I loved this conversation.
4110875
Good spot on the Back to the Future thing. We can also guess that it is on the Pinkie side because it's only happening to Smarty.
Well, I just marathoned both 500th and 505th. Both were a lot of fun and held fascinating headcannon and were exceptionally well written. I now find myself here, eagerly awaiting seeing how things all got started... As well as some adorable FlutterMac. Any chance we can hint or peek at who the other girls end up with, if anyone at all?
Heh, sorry. I'm a shipper.
4133403
Sorry no hints at this time. But I am glad to hear you had fun reading up until now. More will be revealed as the chapters go on.
4133440
Is there any kind of update schedule? Of is it the time-honored system of "whenever the hell I can find time?"
4133471
Every Thursday, baring interuptions. I've got a two chapter buffer
Alright, having read the first two in this series, I can safety say, you've got my fav and follow.
Another great story!
Is this the story that will reveal WHY Celestia and Luna went into hiding?
4138373
maaaaybe
Ohpleaseyesmore
Looks like someone's been watching Pirates of the Caribbean.
Looks like someone's been watching Pirates of the Caribbean.
have to live
________________
Thank you 4115816 for telling me there was another fic out
. So far this story is looking pretty cool. I can't wait to catch up.
They sure sussed him out fast considering they haven't known him long or spent a lot of time around him, being mostly busy with adventures. Still, I suppose he isn't subtle.