Chapter 1
Rainbow Dash lazed on a cloud, foreleg hanging in the open air, a cool summer breeze filtering through her mane and coat while the sun beat down on her back, its warmth seemingly trying to bring cheer to the miserable pony. It wasn’t unusual to find the pegasus in such a position, but today she wasn’t putting off her work. She had been given a leave of absence for an indeterminate period of time.
She rolled onto her back, sighing as she stared into the blue expanse of sky. Today of all days, she would have liked to have work to distract her. Having so much free time would normally be exciting. It would be a time to practice her moves to show the Wonderbolts, but she didn’t have the heart to zip through the air doing tricks, it would only remind her of all the times she had shown them to her friends.
Rainbow didn’t know what to do with her sadness and her boredom except to lie there and feel sorry for herself, so that was what she was going to do. All day and every day until Celestia called to say she'd found a way to get her friend back.
“Um … excuse me?”
Rainbow hadn’t expected to be disturbed, and she turned her face listlessly to the owner of the voice. Derpy hovered in the air, her wings beating rhythmically as she bobbed around, but kept herself at Rainbow’s eye level. She waited a moment for a reply, but Rainbow Dash said nothing.
“Uh … Rainbow Dash. I’m sorry to bother you on your day off and all, but …”
Rainbow lifted herself up slightly, glad of something to take her mind off her friends. It seemed the weather team just couldn’t do without her. She waited for the end of the question, the beginnings of a confident grin creeping onto her face.
“… The schedule is for clear skies, and we’re gonna need to move that cloud you’re resting on.”
“Oh.” Rainbow’s ears drooped in disappointment. She beat her wings slowly to descend to the ground, leaving Derpy blinking in confusion. As soon as her hooves hit the earth, Rainbow started walking. Now that she’d started moving, she didn’t want to be still. She kept her head down, inspecting the blades of grass before her hooves smashed them flat. When she felt another pony’s presence beside her, she didn’t look up.
***
Pinkie Pie’s mane hung limply around her face. She didn’t want to be out of bed, but the Cakes had insisted that she do something to keep herself busy. After a few hours of distressing the customers with her infectious depression, the Cakes thought it best that she work on baking, not out in the front of the store.
Pinkie pawed at the floor, the idea of baking not enticing to her at all. Nevertheless, she staggered over to the shelves to collect the ingredients. Nothing seemed to have the gleam and shine it usually had, her senses dulled by a heavy heart. The normally intoxicating smell of freshly-baked baked goods didn't even register in her brain, and that made the idea of creating anything new pointless to her as well.
“I don’t think it is right to bake when Twilight could be anywhere,” she told the flour bag, dragging it across the floor and hefting it up onto the bench. She shook her head sadly and turned away.
“What would you do in my situation?” she addressed the sugar. She waited a moment for an answer, then turned to the cocoa. “I know you’d go running after that pony who attacked her, but I’m wondering what a sensible pony would do.”
“Pinkie Pie?” Mrs Cake stood in the doorway, frowning at the dejected pony who turned slowly to face her. “Mr Cake and I have realised it was a mistake to try to distract you with work.” She entered the room hesitantly.
“Oh,” Pinkie Pie winced and hung her head. “I’m not doing a very good job, am I? I’ll work harder, Mrs Cake. If the milk and eggs agree to help me, then–”
“Pinkie Pie, you always do a marvellous job.” Mrs Cake sounded nervous. “But you need your friends right now. Fluttershy is here with Rainbow Dash. She says you should go get Applejack and that you should all be together. I agree with her. It’ll be … like a party?”
Pinkie Pie flinched. A party. Without Twilight Sparkle. Her head dropped, a tear falling to splash on the floor.
Mrs Cake knew she’d said the wrong thing. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but was saved from trying to salvage the situation as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy entered the kitchen. Rainbow Dash shifted uncomfortably in the doorway as Fluttershy approached and nuzzled her friend’s face back up.
“It’ll be … an anti-party,” she said softly. “Where we can all be sad together. It’ll be good for us, Pinkie Pie.” Fluttershy reached out tentatively with her wing, but took it back before it could touch the other pony. “That is, if you think it’s a good idea?”
Pinkie nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. If she couldn't be happy, the next best thing was to be in a place she was allowed to be sad.
***
Applejack bucked a tree.
No, that didn’t make her feelings go away. She bucked another. Harder this time.
Apples rained around her and a familiar comforting tingle buzzed up her hooves, but there was no lasting relief from the swirling emotions that burned inside.
She bucked a third tree and then let out a frustrated cry to the heavens.
“No! No, no, no! This ain’t s’posed to happen. Not ta Twilight!” She bucked the same tree again. She closed her eyes. Again. Work always made the rest of the world drop away, and she would continue until it made both her body and her mind numb.
A hoof on her shoulder made her stop. She re-opened her eyes to see that she had splintered the poor apple tree.
The hoof belonged to Big Macintosh, his sympathetic gaze meeting Applejack’s glare and dissolving some of her anger. Applejack could feel the sting behind her eyes, but she wouldn't let herself cry. That would be giving in.
“T’aint fair, Big Mac.”
“Nope,” the stallion answered sadly.
“Twilight, she never hurt nopony. She never would. She didn’t deserve …”
“Nope.”
“We couldn’t protect her. Our friend. And now we just have ta wait around for Princess Celestia to find a solution.” Applejack slumped into the dirt. “We just have ta wait.”
“Eeyup.” Big Macintosh joined her on the ground, the warmth of his body pressed against hers giving her that little bit of comfort she couldn't get from working.
The siblings were startled apart when a pink earth pony was suddenly standing before them.
Applejack was on her hooves in a flash, ready to defend herself. It took a moment for her to recognise the droopy-maned, sad-eyed pony as Pinkie Pie.
She looked even worse than Applejack felt, and Applejack instinctively placed a hoof around her friend’s shoulder. A moment later, Rainbow Dash alighted next to them and the three friends huddled together.
It was a few minutes before they parted. “Not that I ain’t glad to see ya,” Applejack said. “But what brings the two of you here today?”
“Fluttershy said we should all be together,” Rainbow Dash told her. “She insisted.”
“Well, that’d be mighty nice, but I have work ta do here on the farm.” She readied herself to buck another tree, but found her hooves blocked by Big Macintosh.
“Nope,” he said. “Yer goin’ with yer friends.”
Applejack sighed in resignation and faced the others. “Fluttershy ain’t the only one insisting on it.”
***
Rarity busied herself with hoof-stitching, mending one of Sweetie Belle’s less fortunate ensembles. She’d tried working on designs, but found that anything which involved thinking always ended in tears. There was nothing quite like repetitive tasks to take one’s mind off their current predicament, and it had been working quite well for Rarity for a few hours.
The bell on the door of her boutique tinkled and Rarity spent a few moments in stillness, wondering why she hadn’t closed her store. After mentally berating herself, she pulled herself sluggishly to her hooves. She forced as much of a smile onto her face as she possibly could and took a deep breath as she stepped onto her shop floor.
Fluttershy patiently waited, feigning interest in designs in the front window she had doubtless seen many times before, and Rarity let out a loud sigh of relief to find it wasn’t a customer. Fluttershy’s ears pricked and she turned.
“Oh Rarity!” she exclaimed with a sob, rushing forward to place a foreleg over her friend’s shoulder. “I can’t do it. I can’t just go on with life and pretend that everything’s okay until the princess calls for us. I keep thinking about … about …” She buried her face in Rarity’s coat.
Rarity gave her friend a comforting pat on the back. In a way, it was reassuring to be dealing with someone else’s distress. It was a welcome distraction from her own painful thoughts. And the smell of wildflowers and oats that only left the other mare immediately after a spa visit reminded Rarity that companionship was the best remedy for sadness.
“It’s okay, Fluttershy dear. I don’t enjoy being alone at this time, either.”
Fluttershy sniffled as Rarity detached herself and led her friend into the back room.
The two ponies nursed a cup of tea each, lost in companionable silence. It was a long while before Fluttershy finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Rarity. I was trying to be strong for all of us, but it’s all just too much.”
Rarity reached a hoof across the table. “Nopony said you needed to be strong, Fluttershy. We’ll all be each other’s strength until we find a way to fix this.”
“Oh!” Fluttershy stood up suddenly.
“What is it, dear?” Rarity joined her, tea forgotten at the table.
“We have to go to the library.”
Rarity recoiled. “The library, Fluttershy. Why?” She tried to keep the shake out of her voice.
“I told the others to meet us there.” She paused thoughtfully. “And because of Spike. He needs us to be his strength, too.”
“Oh, you’re right!” Rarity exclaimed “I can’t believe I forgot about Spike. He has to be worse than any of us.”
“Yes, which is why we’re all going to be with him now and until Celestia calls on us.”
“Do you think she will, Fluttershy?” Rarity was no longer being the strength for her friend. She felt tears behind her eyes. “Do you think there’s really a way for us to fix this, or is Twilight–”
“Don’t even say it, Rarity.” Fluttershy’s voice had her rarely-heard forcefulness behind it. “We’re the Elements of Harmony. Nothing can keep us apart.”
***
When Fluttershy and Rarity turned up at the library, the others were waiting on the grass out the front, shuffling nervously. No one made any comment as Fluttershy pushed open the door.
“Spike?” she called out into the silent room.
There was a small bang from upstairs and Spike appeared, almost falling down the stairs in his haste to greet them.
The door closed behind Pinkie Pie, and all five mares stood in the entranceway as Spike hurried over. There was silence for a while as they all stared at one another, wondering what to say.
"Thanks for coming, guys. I really needed someone around." He gestured for them to move further into the library, but the small group only made it to the middle of the room full of books. They waited for someone to speak again.
This time, it was Rainbow Dash who broke their silence. "Yeah, anytime Spike …” She rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “Uh … what are we gonna do while we wait?"
"I have to clean up the library, ready for when Twilight gets back." Spike said, a little too cheerfully.
Rarity looked around herself. "Uh, Spike. I'm all for keeping things tidy, but it looks as though the library doesn't need cleaning right at this moment."
"It doesn't?" Spike approached a shelf thoughtfully and ran his claw along one of the book spines, looking for dust. When he saw it was clean, he sighed and leaned his head on the bookshelf.
The five ponies could only stand still and watch with aching hearts as Spike froze there.
After a few minutes, Applejack shifted uncomfortably. "Spike?" she ventured.
At the sound of his name, the small dragon stirred. He pulled himself upright, still staring at the shelves. Then he thrust his hand forward and tipped some of the books onto the floor. "There!" he declared, turning to his friends. "Now there's something to clean." He stared dejectedly at the scattered books in front of him.
Spike, dear …" Rarity approached him. She lifted a hoof to place on his shoulder, but Spike just pulled away.
He turned back to the shelf and began to pull more books off, one at a time.
Rarity stepped back into the middle of the room, at a loss for what to do. She looked pleadingly at the others.
Rainbow Dash nodded. She pushed off into the air and flew over, hovering above him. “Spike …”
Spike looked up at her, his expression unreadable.
Rainbow placed a hoof on one of the books in front of her. It was Daring Do. She glared at it, and within moments it joined the pile of books on the floor. This book was followed by another, and another. And soon both Rainbow Dash and Spike were throwing books off the shelves.
The others just looked on in shock as their two friends assaulted the books in Twilight Sparkle’s library, the thumping sound of falling texts filling the room.
Fluttershy moved away from the group and reached out tentatively. She gently pushed one of the books off a shelf, cringing as it hit the floor. It drew the attention of Rarity and Applejack away from the furiously flying books on the other side of the room.
“Does it help, dear?” Rarity asked softly.
Fluttershy hardened her features and tipped another book onto the floor. She waited a moment and pushed another, and another. Her concentration was soon completely on delicately knocking books off the shelves.
Applejack shrugged and trotted over to join her, leaving Rarity standing alone in the middle of four grief-fuelled mess makers. She approached a shelf and tapped one of the books, her expression unsure. She looked back to the others who were furiously (and, in the case of Fluttershy, not so furiously) flinging books around the once-peaceful library.
“I’ll go make us some tea and sandwiches for when you’re finished,” she called out cheerfully, knowing that none of them would hear her over their venting.
In the doorway heading to the kitchen, she realised somepony was missing. There were only three mares and a little dragon creating a scene, but where was the scene-making queen? Rarity peered through raining books for a glimpse of Pinkie Pie. Whatever damage the others were doing, Pinkie could definitely be doing worse.
“Pinkie Pie?” Rarity called hesitantly into the room of flying books. None of the others paused in their movements or otherwise acknowledged the sound. Rarity cleared her throat. “Do any of you know where Pinkie Pie got to?” she asked sternly, stamping a hoof on the floor. The cascade of books finally ceased, and all eyes looked first to Rarity, then around the room in search of their missing friend. Nopony actually moved to find her, though, and so an awkward silence descended upon the library.
One of the piles of books shifted a little, causing Fluttershy to squeak and launch herself into the air. A few poofs of pink mane could be seen in the space the book had vacated.
“Pinkie?” Rarity ventured in a soothing tone. “What are you doing under there?”
Pinkie Pie raised herself out of a pile of books that seemed entirely too small to have hidden the pink mare from view. She lowered her head to look at the floor. “I thought … we could …”
Everypony waited silently for Pinkie to finish her thought.
“Twilight always finds the answers in her books,” Pinkie Pie sobbed out finally. “And sometimes I’d help her. I just wish Twilight was here so she could tell me what to look for to solve this problem.” She sniffed loudly, but didn’t cry.
The silence continued as five mares and a baby dragon moved together and engaged in a group hug amidst the mess they had made.