Friendship Still is Magic

by ultronquake

Escape

Inside the building dozens of the towns ponies gathered, flocking around the tables full of apple based food. All the excess ribbons and lights were now decorating the supply closet once more. The hall now had a subdued look with blue sashes hanging between the box seats, there were also tall banners each representing something. The apple tree meaning Ponyville's roots as a farming community, a gold banner with stars showing the transition from night to day and the plain magenta banner meaning, i don't know the decorator likes magenta.

The air was filled with the familiar clumsy twangs of the harp, Lyra was sitting up in the balcony to the side of the stage doing her level best. Among the pegasi were Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the two engaged in conversation away from the crowd.

"You see Fluttershy it isn't so bad here, i bet your even having a good time," said Rainbow Dash to her timid friend.

"I guess i'm having fun, plus I've gotten to talk with some ponies i haven't seen in a while. I'm just thankful i'm not the center of attention," she flashed a look up at Lyra who had just finished a song.

"I still can't believe that dirty cheat tricked you into quitting. She better pray i don't finder her alone in any alleys," Rainbow muttered and was angrily shaking a hoof in her direction.

"Don't say things like that Rainbow Dash, Lyra Heartstrings is a good pony! She'd never do anything back handed like that, in fact she was just as nervous about performing as i was," Said Fluttershy without a hint of doubt.

"I'm not so sure, she was pretty bitter when they announced you would be the one performing," said Rainbow.

"Well she was nice and took over for me so i'm going to thank her properly." With that Fluttershy flew off to the balcony and landed beside the instrumentalist.

Putting down her lyre Lyra addressed Fluttershy. "Hello Fluttershy, i'm glad you came tonight," Lyra said avoiding eye contact.

"I'm glad as well, in fact i'm really enjoying your music it sounds so-" she was searching for a descriptor, "-lovely."

Lyra cringed a bit, "Fluttershy i have something important to tell you. I need to apologize for what i did today, I thought i was trying to help you but i just ended up hurting you in more ways than one."

"No you didn't Lyra, you saved me from having to perform on stage," said Fluttershy

Lyra shook her head, "I didn't save you from anything! All i did was steal your chance to shine, to have the spotlight and everypony to see how great you are."

"You think i'm great?" Fluttershy was a bit surprised.

"You are great, your'e just too afraid to find out." Lyra cast her gaze back to her discarded instrument, tears started to well in her eyes.

Fluttershy saw this and was touched, she wrapped her hoof around the mopey unicorn. "Why are you hugging me? I was a total jerk to you, I made you cry," said Lyra.

"Sometimes we all need to be shown a little kindness." Fluttershy said with a smile.

An idea popped into Lyra's head. "Um Fluttershy would you be willing maybe to accompany me tonight? You deserve to be onstage allot more than i do right now,"said Lyra.

"I'd love too." With that Fluttershy opened a window and called to her feathered band. "Ah a ah a ah." She sang out into the night.
Throughout the night the two ponies played many songs, the harmony between the strings and avian voices brought many smiles to attendees.

*****

Earlier that night, in a small hovel in town two sisters call home. One intently stares out of her telescope, the other impatiently taps her hoof.

"Come on sis I wanna go to the celebration, not be stuck in this stuffy place," said Cloudchaser's twin Flitter. She had the same fur color, eyes, and height as her sister. One easy way to differentiate her from Cloudchaser aside from their cutie marks is the way she keeps her mane, simple with a pink ribbon.

Of course all the complements go to Cloudchaser with her feathering and white dyed tips. What most ponies don't realize is that not being able to style your own mane you have to rely on somepony else do it for you, in the sisters case it's each other. So when Flitter hears enthusiastic praise for her sister's hair she's filled with pride.

Not wanting to look away from the magnified stars above Cloudchaser replied, "You know we don't need to go everywhere together."

"Yeah i know but it's no fun without you around plus i don't want to explain to everypony why my sister decided it was more important to be charting stars than to hang out with our friends," said Flitter.

"Oh good i wont have to explain to you why it's important, your the best sis!" She kept her eye glued to the scope but held out a hoof for a bump.

Not wishing to be rude Flitter reciprocated the gesture, "Ugh, fine i'l go by myself, just make sure you eat something tonight." She waived goodnight to her sister and shut the door, bound for the celebration.

"Heh i'm not missing this for anything," she said while reaching down for a bag of candied oat snacks. "*Munch munch* only a few more hours until complete alignment. *Munch*" She happily stuffed her mouth with the junk food.

The hours past uneventfully, all was quiet with no-pony to keep her company, only the Mare On The Moon staring back down at her. "I know it's just a pattern created from meteorite collisions but that doesn't change how creepy it looks." Cloudchaser gave a little shiver.

Only a minute left, at this point the movement was visible with the naked eye, the four stars continued their march across the heavens until they came to a stop. The stars formed a line in between the the earth below and the moon above, "Finally! Man this sure is beautiful, i wish Flitter or that Twilight girl were here. I know they'd appreciate this view," said Cloudchaser.

"That's odd, i could swear the Mare on the Moon is shrinking," said Cloudchaser in a ponderous tone.

Far away on the cold surface of the moon, the dark mists that covered roughly a quarter of the rock began to retreat and gather back into a singular form. The mists swirled creating a tempest the friction let wild bolts of lightning fly. From this darkness emerged an intimidating figure, clad in blue armor the creature let out a wicked laugh. It gazed down at the jewel in the void suspended on nothing, a primal thought raced through it's mind, "Home."

Back in her small house in Ponyville the view was disturbing, the thousand year old image resting on the lunar surface vanished. Through the telescope Cloudchaser could discern a minute black speck at the center of where the Mare on the Moon once lay. Said spec was rapidly moving through space rushing to the closest of the aligned stars, the black object rounded the star and jumped to it's next target. "Whatever this thing is it must be incredibly strong to jump that far, it's miles between the stars," said Cloudchaser.

Now at the third object linking moon and terra firma she could observe the creature seemed to be a pony like no other, gigantic in size with a wingspan to match. Cloudchaser tracked the anomaly through the sky to the nearest star, it waited there for some time intently observing the ground bellow. When it found what it was looking for it leaped off it's perch, soaring strait for Ponyville.

"There's no way that thing can make through the atmosphere! It'll burn up for sure," said Cloudchaser.

Contrary to her expectations the creature did not burst into flames instead it was wrapped in an ethereal mist emanating from it's tail. As it entered the lower atmosphere it slowed it's decent and landed atop the town hall. Not that Cloudchaser saw that of course, she was well on her way to the town hall already, "Yeah i think this counts as something strange happening in the sky alright. I wonder if i'll get my name in any astronomy books for documenting this!" She excitedly flew to the first step in her destiny.

Author's Note:

I based them styling each others manes on the car talk puzzler "A Haircut in Horse Town"

If Nightmare Moon escaping by jumping from star to star seems stupid, keep in mind in the IDW comics the Mane 6 were going to tightrope walk to the moon. The point of that scene was to give some meaning to the line "The stars shall aide in her escape." In the pilot it's just alignment, Mare on the Moon is gone, missing princess and BAM! eternal night in the span of a few minuets, we've yet to get a show cannon explanation of how she escaped.

Comments

[Wysteria]

Interesting tale so far...

In this story, is Dinky Derpy's daughter or not?

[ultronquake]

5494815 Dinky is gonna be her little sister, i already have Berry Punch and her daughter, plus I've set up Twilight as Spike's mother figure so having a third character with kids would kind of be unnecessary. But i'm not apposed to the fannon of Derpy being Dinky and Amethyst's mom