It isn't like Fluttershy to miss anything, but when she is unexpectedly absent from school her friends worry about her; in a world as crazy as the one in which they live, it doesn't take them long to imagine all sorts of horrible scenarios. Even after they assure themselves that she's probably fine and is just ill, one of their number continues to worry all the same.

“I don't know why we even bother trying any more.”

Rainbow Dash is known by all to be a rather simple girl; when faced with any kind of problem, she invariably resorts to the same tried and true method of dealing with it: running. Very soon, however, she will learn that some things cannot be escaped.

Like losing a friend.

Princess Celestia is a being committed to doing her duty, but that doesn't always mean that she enjoys it; faced with yet another long, lonely night in the castle filling out paperwork about this and that, she longs for a distraction. And soon enough, it comes in the form of a most unexpected visitor arriving via a rather unorthodox method. Straight through her rather expensive windows, in fact.

Over a thousand years of imprisonment in a stone statue have worn on Discord's sanity, and some would argue that it had never been in tremendous shape to begin with; a little bit of mischief is required, and the annual Grand Galloping Gala may just provide some amusement in the form of a little yellow pony.

Trixie has been from one side of Equestria to the other; once upon a time, something bright and bold inspired her to become a wandering magician, but now - out in the darkness, on the way to somewhere new - she finds herself questioning the life that she leads and its purpose.

Spitfire has been the captain of the Wonderbolts for a long time, and she has seen many a swaggering pegasus - so convinced that they are the Next Big Thing - come ... and more importantly she has seen them go. Usually in a mangled heap of torn feathers and broken bones. Today, however, she is convinced that this latest candidate is the real deal.