What's In A Title?

White hooves swept across the floor. A disheveled tail whipped around, knocking over a stack of books on the floor. A yellow light enveloped the books before they hit the ground, holding them in midair. Then they restacked themselves, exactly as they’d been before the small disruption.

Come on, Sunburst. You know you’ll need my help eventually. Why don’t you just admit it now instead of waiting for it to get worse?

“Maybe she was right… I’ll have to ask her for help before this place becomes an even bigger mess,” the unicorn stallion grumbled. Turning away from the book stack, he stumbled right into another three stacks of books. “Horseapples!”

The books tumbled to the ground this time, no yellow aura appearing to save them. Next to them was Sunburst, lying on the ground with a book over his nose.

“I should probably shelve these,” Sunburst muttered. “Let’s see…”

The dozen or so books lifted into the air in a straight line, covers proudly presenting their titles and authors. Sunburst listed their titles out loud before deciding where to put them.

“Hmm, Supernaturals. Sounds like it'd go right next to Ghosts, Goblins, & Ghoulish Figures in the myths section. Burnferno: Warrior From Within? Maybe Spike the Brave and Glorious would like this. I’ll just put this aside for the next time Princess Twilight’s in the empire. The Art of the To-Do List. Actually I kinda wanted to read that again,” Sunburst said, tucking books into various shelves around the room.

“History of the Wonderbolts, Bygone Griffons of Greatness, and History of the Crystal Empire are all under history. I think that those are the last ones!” Sunburst said before trotting forward and abruptly tripping over the actual last book.

Okay, if you’re sure you don't need my help. Yet. Just be careful and try not to trip over your own clutter.

“Yeah, I'll definitely need to invite her over soon,” he muttered before picking himself up. “Now, what do we have here?”

The book before him was simple. It was a plain hardcover without a title on the front, leaving the cover a plain maroon color. Opening the book to its first few pages revealed no title or author, only story.

“Strange… Where did I get this?” Sunburst wondered. “What is this even about?”

Levitating the untitled book behind him, the curious stallion trotted over to a worn armchair. Horn igniting with an illumination spell, Sunburst cracked open the book and began to read.

The book had some colorful illustrations to accompany the uniform type. Illustrations that depicted some very familiar faces.

“A book about the Elements of Harmony’s bearers? What an odd topic… Must’ve been written in the past few years. I wonder who wrote it,” Sunburst mused.

After the first decimal of pages, which seemed to be an introduction outlining the sudden reappearance of the Elements of Harmony and a description of their bearers, Sunburst finally found what he’d been looking for: a title.

I’m sure that you’ll trip over something weird someday. Just as long as it’s not a rock that can help steal cutie marks from an entire village or a soul-sucking amulet then I guess you’ll be fine. But if you find either of those things tell me immediately. That kind of stuff is important ya’know.

“How many times is she going to be right today? This is something weird. Maybe not soul-sucking weird, but weird,” Sunburst said, staring blankly at a cheery image of the Element of Laughter and the Element of Loyalty.

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash appeared to be preparing the ingredients for a recipe and having a good time together. The title of the story told him that they were making cupcakes.

Sunburst read about how they went around the tidy little kitchen and gathered the necessary baking supplies. He smiled at the thought of seeing the confident, athletic Rainbow Dash endeavoring to bake such desserts. He smiled at the ecstasy displayed by the two friends. But then he stopped smiling.

The page he had flipped to greatly alarmed Sunburst. A colorful and somehow still cheerful picture showed Pinkie Pie pulling out a hammer and bringing it down upon the pegasus’s head.

With rapt attention, Sunburst read every single detail afterward. The book described in surprisingly vivid detail the horrors of some demented pony’s mind. Who could have written such things about the Elements?

Maybe I could bring Twilight and her friends to help too! I think Twilight could help you organize the place and Rarity and Fluttershy are great at decorating. Applejack is really strong so she could help move heavy things. Rainbow Dash could help you with what she calls ‘the cool factor.’ And Pinkie Pie could bake some treats like… I don’t know, some brownies? Maybe cupcakes!

When the story was finished, Sunburst closed the book, slid it and his glasses onto a nearby table, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forehooves.

“Ohhh, I should've listened to her,” the unicorn moaned. “Why? Why didn't I listen to her?”

Glancing at the book on the table next to him, he sighed. He had only read a fraction of the entire book. It seemed to be a collection of stories about the Elements of Harmony and, though hesitant, Sunburst made up his mind and picked up the book again. Sliding his glasses back onto his muzzle Sunburst set his jaw and began to read. After all, they couldn't all be like Cupcakes, right?

Oh, absolutely! Ponyville is the best! Especially now that I have an actual friend to share it with. Friends, plural, I suppose. I didn't think I’d ever be friends with the Elements of Harmony, but I guess I was wrong. When I'm with them, I just can't help but smile!

Maybe they could all be like Cupcakes… But maybe Cupcakes and Smile were the only two?

With this hope in mind, Sunburst settled down again and began reading the next story. This one was slightly less… gorey, but certainly more random and weird.

Oh sure I have plenty of stories about them. Hmm, where to start, though. Oh! I'll tell you about this one time we were all at Sweet Apple Acres. I've never seen Applejack eat so many apples in her life! And I think that was when Rainbow invented a new word: swag.

“I think I’ll stop now,” Sunburst decided. “I don't think I want to read more of things like Cupcakes, Smile, and the PONY.MOV series. And I think I’ll invite her over and forget I ever read that now.”

“See? I knew you’d need my help!”

“Heh heh, yeah you did,” Sunburst said, scratching the back of his neck as a light blush colored his face.

“Thank goodness my schedule was clear! What would you have done without me?”

“Live in disorganized chaos without talking to anypony for days on end, probably,” he joked, eliciting a chuckle from the mare in the doorway.

“Well, stop talking about the chaos and let me in to see the damage myself.”

Sunburst shuffled to one side to let his guest through.

“Yeesh, you said it was bad but I didn't think it was this bad. You look like more of a book nerd than Twilight, Shining Armor, and Rainbow Dash combined right now.”

“Rainbow likes to read?” The idea seemed almost as foreign as Rainbow baking cupcakes. Perhaps there was more to this flyer than she let on… What was next? Her going to the spa with Rarity?

“Oh, sure! She’s a really big Daring Do fan and she wouldn't stop raving about the newest book at our weekly trip to the Ponyville Day Spa. Rainbow’s a big fan of hooficures.” He stood corrected.

“Huh. Well, just take a seat and I'll get us some tea and sandwiches. We can start cleaning after we talk a bit. It's been way too long to just spend the entire time cleaning!”

“I’ll say! I really wish I'd visited sooner, but I was just so busy practicing my magic and trying to make friends and hanging out with my bestie and everything.”

“Oh, right! How was the show? Did you two use the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive again in the apology tour you told me about?”

“Yeah, it's such a big hit! We had to use it for the rest of the tour.”

“Good to hear. Oh! I should go get those sandwiches now. Make yourself at home!” And with that, Sunburst kissed the tip of the unicorn mare’s horn and trotted into the deep recesses of his home, through the maze of bookshelves and stacks.

Trixie rolled her eyes at her coltfriend’s retreating back and glanced around, looking for a new source of entertainment.

Spying a book on the nearby table, Trixie shrugged and scooped it up in her magic. The maroon book glowed with a faint pink light as Trixie scanned the cover for a title.

“Huh, strange,” Trixie murmured when her search turned up blank. “Only one thing to do, I guess.”

Skipping the intro, the unicorn was intrigued by the cheerful depiction of Rainbow and Pinkie. This page held the answer to her question: what is the title?

“Cupcakes?” Trixie asked the air. “What kind of a title is that?”

Author's Note:

Thanks to the original creators of Cupcakes, Smile HD, and PONY.MOV for putting in all their time and effort into making their videos. If you haven't seen their videos you totally should, unless you don't like watching your fav ponies turn into violent killing machines or anything like that. Then I don't recommend it.

Still, thanks to the creators who don't know I exist and thanks to all you who actually felt compelled to read this note. Much appreciation.