Chapter 4: Making New Friends, Meeting Old Ones
Soarin trotted down the central corridor and back to the main room of the Friendship Castle, where Twilight was still re-shelving books.
“Um, Princ-, er, Twilght?” he asked.
“Oh, hi, Soarin, what do you need help with?” she smiled at him..
“Well, I was going to look around Ponyville, but…”
“But?” she made hoof motions, signalling him to continue.
“I don’t know where the front door is…” his cheeks tinged red from embarrassment.
Well, things could be worse if Fleetfoot heard that. She and Spitfire would never let me hear the end of it. Oh, and losing my birth certificate.
“Oh, it’s over there,” she pointed to a hallway with a large arched doorway at the end. “I really should get, Spike to put some signs around here. Even I get lost sometimes,” she thought out loud.
“Aha. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Then he remembered something. “Oh, have you seen Fluttershys’ copy of ‘Critter Challenges’ anywhere?”
“I don’t think-“her eyes lit up briefly and she ran over to a bookshelf where she took a book in her magic,” Here it is.”
“I could give it to her,” Soarin pondered. Twilight nodded her head before placing the book inside of a saddle bag. She gave it to him.
“That’s a good idea. If she’s not in the market-place, then she’s probably at her house. It’s on the outskirts of town and there should be lots of animals about.”
“Okay then,” Soarin said in-between tightening the saddle bag straps with his teeth.
He made his way out of the room and outside, where he went to the market-place, in the centre of town.
--------
Even though it was seven thirty in the morning, the market-place was packed full of ponies, all rushing around, trying to get the best deals of fruit and vegetables as well as a few ponies buying furniture, such as sofas and lamps.
It was a fairly large market for such a small town. There were different stands with multi-coloured banners, all spread out. They were selling things such as fruit, vegetables, flowers, saddlebags, baked goods, carrot related food and apple related food. In the middle were the town hall and a few benches, where ponies were sitting down and chatting with one another.
He smelled the sweet aroma of apple fritters and cherry juice and his stomach growled.
I haven’t really had a proper breakfast have I? I guess something slightly on the unhealthy side won’t matter if I don’t do it often. It’s not like Spitfire’s here to shout at me.
His ears drooped slightly as he remembered the argument he had with her.
I need to fix that as soon as possible. I might make a visit up there sometime next week and apologise.
Soarin’s stomach growled again, reminding him that he needed to eat something.
He made his way over to a nearby stand and gazed over its contents.
It was hard not to notice that the items on the stand came from an apple farm. There were apple fritters, apple cakes, apple juice, apple pie, apple strudel, apples, apple squash, apple dumplings and apple crumble among many more products.
“Um, could I have two apple fritters please?” he asked, getting two so that Fleetfoot wouldn’t complain about not getting anything.
“Ya sure can,” the orange pony said as she tossed two apple fritters into a brown bag and passed them across to him. She looks familiar, Soarin thought. “That’ll be four bits fo’ ya fritters.”
“Thanks,” Soarin gave the bits to her. “Hey, were you at the royal wedding?” he asked.
“Ah, sure was. Hey, ain’t you one of them Wonderwings or somethin’?”
“Wonderbolt. And, yes I am.”
“I thought ya looked familiar,” she glanced behind Soarin and saw one of her best friends. “Fluttershy, there you are. I was wondering when you were gonna show up,” she smiled.
“Um, hi. I didn’t want to interrupt or anything…”
“Hi and you didn’t interrupt us. Here’s your copy of ‘Critter Challenges’ by the way, Twilight did have it,” he smiled and passed her the book, which she put underneath her wing.
“Thanks, Angel hasn’t been eating his dinner lately and I needed to check if I’m making it wrong or if he doesn’t like it,” She faced Applejack. “Can I have five apples please?”
“Here, ya go,” she passed her a bag filled with apples. Fluttershy gave Applejack a small amount of bits.
“Thank you.”
“Hey Soarin, are you goin’ to the party tonight?” Applejack asked him.
“Party?”
“Yeah, there’s a party tonight at abou’ five. It’s at the Friendship Castle as a welcome gift ta Princess Luna. Last time she visited, not everypony was too friendly ta her, so, we’re makin’ it up to her.”
“Um, I don’t know, I mean Fleetfoot and me haven’t been invited so-“
“WHAT?! You weren’t invited to the Princess’s welcome party? Well, you are now, here are your invites,” A bright pink pony appeared in front of him and passed him two blue invitations.
Soarin jumped and flapped his wings a couple of times, then landed and placed a hoof over his heart. “You scared me,” he stated.
“I didn’t mean to, sorry. Hi! My names Pinkie Pie and I throw the best parties in Equestria and work in Sugarcube Corner and-” she exaggerated a gasping sound whilst leaping in the air, “HEY! I don’t know you. Are you new? Do you have a friend? Where are you from? I’ll be your friend,” she smiled widely.
“Um, I’m Soarin,” he answered confused.
“I need to throw you a Welcome to Ponyville party!”
“Errr, I’m on holiday, and thanks but I’d rather not have a party dedicated to me. I’m trying to keep a low profile…”
“Awwww, but parties are fun! I know, since you’re staying in the Friendship Castle my friends and I can stay till after the welcome party finishes and then it can be a smaller party!”
“How did you know where I and Fleet were staying?”
“It’s Pinkie Pie, jus’ don’t question it and y’all be fine,” Applejack replied.
“So, you wanna come to the party? Do ya?”
“Sure?” Soarin answered as more of a question than anything else.
“Okie dokie lokie! I need to run girls,” she faced Applejack and Fluttershy before talking, ”I’ve got another party to plan and party planning waits for nopony!” she bounced off and waved at them. “Bye Soarin!” she shouted.
“She’s certainly…energetic,” Soarin chose his words carefully.
“Well, that’s Pinkie Pie for ya,” Applejack started to serve another customer as Soarin and Fluttershy move out of the way.
“I think I’ll be off now,” Soarin turned to look at Fluttershy.
“Oh, okay then. Bye,” she smiled at him.
“Bye, tell Applejack I said bye as well!” he added as he started trotting into the middle of the market.
Soarin had some exploring to do. He had barely seen any of the town other than the castle, train station and market-place.
------
It was certainly harder to get around on foot than he thought. There were no real designated roads, so the occasional cart or wagon would near him and he would have to move out of the way.
The ground eventually got boring for Soarin and he was pretty sure he’d been walking in circles for half an hour. Then again, the houses did look very similar in design so it could just be a mistake on his part.
Soarin decided he’d had enough of the ground and spread out his wings. He gave them a quick shake to rustle his feathers a bit, since he hadn’t flown at all in the past day, which was a lot for a pegasus like him.
He took to the sky and his wings quickly caught the wind and he started to glide around the edge of Ponyville.
It certainly has a different view from up here. I should have flown up here earlier. He sighed contently.
Soarin performed a few tricks in the sky; the odd flip and barrel roll as well as a couple of dives. He shut his eyes briefly and glided with his wings stretched wide apart.
Unfortunately, this was just enough time for him to not pay attention.
He opened his eyes just in time to see a pony in front of him. He tried to put on his air breaks, but it was too late, and he collided with her.
“Eeeeeaaah,” the pegasus briefly screamed before landing on top of a cloud, which Soarin landed on shortly after.
“Hey, watch it-errrrr…” the pegasus started to berate him, before realising something. Soarin raised an eyebrow before realising who it was.
Hey! It’s Rainbow Dash! I just happened to bump into her. Wow! She looks much cute-errr, nice-looking up close than I thought and clearly a fan of the Wonderbolts. I hope she’s as nice as I think she is and, oh she’s still staring at me…
“Are you alright?”
“Ohmigosh, ohmigos-er, I mean,” she stopped staring and shook her head, “I mean, hi, the names Rainbow Dash,” she put on a fake normal look and failed to suppress a gleeful smile from coming to her face.
“Um, the names Soarin?” he replied as more of a question.
“Yeah, um, so what brings you to, uh, Ponyville then?” she bounced slightly.
“Oh, well me and Fleetfoot are on holiday at the moment.”
“Holiday?” she raised an eyebrow, “Why come to a town like Ponyville and not somewhere like Baltimare or Manehatten?”
“Those places are nice and all, but I wanted to get away from the publicity and fan-mares for a bit…”
“Oh,” Rainbow felt a tinge of guilt rush over her and she felt bad.
Oh god, I’m a terrible pony now. Who thought that a Wonderbolt would not want to be around fan-mares and I just became one. Great way to impress the Wonderbolts, Dash…
“I’m sorry…” she apologised.
“Wait, what? You did nothing wrong,” he stated.
“But I thought, you know what, it doesn’t matter,” she waved a hoof and stood up.
“So…” Soarin tried to start a conversation.
“So…” Rainbow also tried to start a conversation, “met anypony here yet?”
“Oh,” he smiled and also stood up, “I’ve met a shy mare called Fluttershy, a bouncy one called Pinkie Pie, another farm mare called…Applejack, I think, and I met the princess, can you believe that?” he bragged slightly.
Gotta make myself look good, he thought.
“Yup, I’m one of her best friends as well,” Rainbow subtly bragged back whilst edging closer with a playful smirk plastered on her face.
“You’re best friends with Princess Twilight?!” stood back and dropped his jaw slightly.
“Yeah, I am. You seem to have met all my other friends apart from Rarity.”
“Rarity? Yeah, somepony mentioned something about her. I’d like to meet her," he shut his jaw completely.
“Well, I can help you with that. I’ll show you to where her boutique is if you’d like?”
“Yeah, sure. Its only noon anyway,” he glanced upwards at the sun.
“Race ya,” she challenged and got down in a racing stance.
“You’re on,” he challenged back.
“3, 2, 1 GO!” she shouted and fired off into the distance.
“Hey, no fair!” he shouted and sped after the prismatic maned mare, towards the boutique, which belonged to Rarity.
Hope you enjoyed! Sorry, this took a little longer, I'm a tad busy with school and stuff. The next chapter was going to be with the party, but I had to break the end few scenes off this chapter. So, what I think I might do is join those scenes with what was going to be the first scene of chapter 5. And then upload the rest of that as chapter 6.
Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to point out any mistakes or improvements! 
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8,000 words exactly? How on earth did I manage that?
Omigoshomigoshomigoshomigoshomigosh! I LOVE THIS CHAPTER! Can't wait for the next!
Btw, I think I might have found a mistake, I might be wrong but :
He made his way out of the room and outside, where he went to the market place, in the centre of town.
Is the comma needed after place? Just wondering, I'm probly wrong but...
I really like this chapter
5707548 thanks for reading!
Yeah, that comma was an iffy one. I could probably get away without it, but in the centre of town' is extra information, I think, so the comma would go there... I think it could be either way. Thanks for pointing it out!
5707556 expect more soarindash in the next chapter
Thanks for reading!
Looks like someone got a cruch on a rainbow hair mare.
Cant you get a copy or something? Im pretty sure there's a registered birth certificate