My Little Pony: Civil War - or - The Battle of Eight Armies

by NPP6

Prologue 3 - The Protagonists

It was a relatively peaceful day in Ponyville’s park. The current inhabitants consisted of a white unicorn filly and a brown earth pony colt. Her pink and purple tail was bouncing as she nearly pronked towards a long wooden box. The propeller of his bright red beanie spun as he relaxed slightly but still continued to sweat nervously. (Being led into the bushes by a filly hadn’t ended the way his dad had suggested, nor had he yet been eaten as his own experience would suggest… but there might be seasonings in that box.)

Other than the pair, the park was uninhabited. The park’s bushes, trees, and clouds however, now that was another matter entirely. What had happened was simple. Cheerilee had had to leave for an emergency and so let them out early. This had prompted some discussion about what should be done with this unexpected afternoon they had been given. The consensus had been reached to have a picnic in the park.

The class had scattered in search of blankets and other supplies, then reconvened at their chosen location. Shortly after the snacks had been consumed, Sweetie Bell had asked Button Mash to follow her – and rather shyly at that. Their classmates instantly reached another consensus (Silently even!), namely that the pair deserved their privacy.

Which naturally meant it was the responsibility of their friends to enforce that privacy.

“Here.”

Button blinked. Of all the things to be in a long wooden box, he hadn’t been expecting another box. Wrapped or not, it was a curious thing to… o~h… Having returned (Temporarily) to reality, Button grabbed the ribbon’s loose end and pulled. (Most considerate ponies when giving a present to an earth pony or pegasus friend would wrap it such that doing so would cause the entire thing to come undone. Unicorns tended to receive gifts with several boxes involved in the wrapping. (A young Twilight hadn’t realized she’d finally reached her present one Hearth’s Warming until she’d gotten to the fifth layer of a nesting doll.))

The gift fell apart to reveal a giant key.

“Sweetie… I...”

“Your old one breaking was… kinda my fault, so I made you a new one. Applebloom and Scootaloo helped, so it’s basically from all three of us… Oh, and Twilight, Midnight, and Zecora told us what we needed to study to learn how to do it.”

A slight jingling as he picked it up drew Button’s attention to the decorative toggle hanging from the handle. “You even got the keychain…”

“A few of them. And it opens locks, although Midnight said not to let the adults know that part for some reason.”

“Wait, so are you saying…” With awe-inspired hesitance, Button swapped out the stylized mouse head for a pumpkin. He could only gape as the blade shifted in his hoof.

His continued silence prompted the nervous question, “Did we miss something? Oh, I knew we should have paid more att–”

Button’s tackle left his beanie spinning in the air behind him. “Best! Present! Ever!”

A few minutes later saw the pair once again upright and physically separated. “So Sweetie Bell, um… you know how that new Power Ponies movie is coming out on my birthday? I was wondering if you uh… wanted to um…”

“Oh my gosh, Yes! That sounds like a perfect date, I would love to go with you!”

The logical leap required to get a train of thought to depart from the birthday celebration he had been attempting to invite her to and arrive at the end result required enough leaping of tracks that by the time he snapped back to awareness, the filly he’d known longer than anypony but his parents had already raced off.

“Girls! Girls! Guess what! He finally asked me out!”

The statement processed, but doing so required a blink. Determining a response required another. Airily, unsure whether this was a dream sequence or a straight up hallucination, he turned to the three ponies that had left the bush immediately behind him. “What just happened?”

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon just giggled, but Pipsqueak deigned to help his potentially concussed friend find his vacation home of reality once more.

“You just got a date mate.”

“I… asked Sweetie out?”

“No.” Diamond Tiara shook her head, still laughing. “Sweetie got asked on a date by you. The difference is the active party.” She preempted the question, then watched the filly in questions as she plotted conversed with the other members of the trio. “It still feels kinda weird being proud of one of them…”

Author's Note:

Yes, I know, much less than I usually publish with for a longer fic. Ultimately I just needed to get this out once I was done with it, or else it was never going ot be ready. I have seriously rehashed the particulars of this one more than any three other stories combined, and I'm still not set in stone for all of it. It has finally been driven home to me that I have no idea how to write Comedy or Romance, but this story needs to happen anyway, so hopefully I manage not to get too cringey.
Also, about the three prologues. It was largely an attempt to highlight the three main issues this story is going to be dealing with... Which I'll probably be discussing in detail in a later chapter. I will say that one of them will not be resolved here, which is going to be the premise for one of the three direct major sequels to this.
Yeah, things are going to get a little crazy from here. Three direct sequels, one tangential. None of the planned ones are oneshots. And there's a secondary timeline that'll get involved. Seriously, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My timeline looks worse than the Zelda timeline. (Now part of that is tracking the order the travelers are going through things in, but still...)
Anyway, thanks to anyone still reading, hope you enjoy the fruits of my insanity.
~NPP6

Comments

[guldringr]

Maybe you should create a group for your stories first off to organize them to some extent and second maybe it'll get more people interested in the stories I'm surprised at how few likes and dislikes are on story not to mention that you rarely have more than one comment per a chapter if that this is a pretty great story I'm surprised more people haven't found it yet

[WingKnight]

Do you need to read the other ones first?

[NPP6]

9261305
It'll help with context and "Who's this guy?" but I wouldn't exactly call it crucial on this one.