Twilight finished cataloguing all the stuff she got on her birthday the next morning. She had so many friends now it was unbelievable. There was about a little less than a year or so to prepare for the coming of Nightmare Moon, it was something Twilight always kept it in mind and was counting the days away.
“So I guess its back to work for us then. I still can’t believe Fluttershy would get you a cookbook. At least she knew about your talent in cooking and that’s pudding it lightly.” Tress received a light poke to the nose from Twilight
“That was a bad pun Tress, bad best friend.” Twilight lightly bopped her friend on the nose for that.
“Since when did I become a dog?” It was silly but it made Tress smile. “Anyway, I thought it was about time I went over some of the things about the hair growth formula since you didn’t catalogue that one or even ask about it too deeply. In fact it’s kind of confusing to see you not questioning something. You didn’t seem overly excited about it.”
“Ah yes, that. I really did like it Tress.” Even now Twilight could feel her face heat up at the thought of Tress holding her mane. Even if her mane was back in its almost normal shape, the extra length really did make her feel different. She’d eventually get use to it until she needed a trim. “Can you just write it down for me? I’ve got important things to discuss with the mayor. You can take care of Pinkie Pie’s request, I’d do it but my head still feels like it still has a hoof mark from the last time I had to deal with her.”
“That was only yesterday during the party though, but yeah she did cause you to face hoof a lot.” It was still funny to Tress that Pinkie can get a lot of hoof to face action from Twilight. “Fine, what is it I’m doing with that sugar high mare today?”
“Well it was quite the party and all our friends were there; I need a quiet day to relax after all that excitement. Every pony really wore me out last night. So please, for the sake of my sanity keep Pinkie away from me Tress.” It wasn’t that Twilight hated Pinkie Pie, it was just she couldn’t handle her happy hyper routine for an extended amount of time. Pinkie was focused so intently on making sure she was having a good time that it was almost annoying she wouldn’t bother some other pony at the party to see if they were doing well. “I don’t know what you’re going to be doing honestly, take it up with Pinkie.”
“Sure thing Twilight, I can keep her entertained after I help her with whatever inane request she’s got in her top hat this time. Ugh, with so many friends it’s going to be hard to keep all their birthday’s straight, though I’m sure Pinkie could do that easily and remind us to come to them. See you later.” Tress wondered if she could avoid receiving a birthday party personally as she set off for Sugar Cube Corner.
“Hey mom, I’m setting out for the library now.” Barb was scooped into a cuddle and she hugged back before squirming out of the grasp of the comforting hooves. Smart shot by them and out the door for the library, the toy was soon to be followed by a happy dragon waving back to her mother.
“Now all I have to do is go to the mayor’s office… a little fun about how I get there couldn’t hurt.” Lighting her horn Twilight prepared to use the spell she’s been practicing in her free time and while she was teaching Barb when Smart was investigating Scootaloo. Teleporting was a useful ability to have and she only had twenty five foot range thus far, the mechanics to teleporting were complex and could get you anywhere in the blink of an eye with some minor issues. What she was about to do was something that could just as easily get a unicorn anywhere if they could work the spell to a finer degree.
Just as she was about to kick off the ground Twilight heard a shout that caused her to stop channeling magic to her horn.
“Oh I’m so glad I caught you today before you left darling, I wanted to invite you over for tea and biscuits with me today around eleven or so. Bonbon and Octavia are coming as well and I wanted to do some bonding with all of you. How does that sound Twilight?” Rarity couldn’t say she had close friends until Twilight entered her life. Fluttershy was just a delight and so were Octavia and Bonbon. Rarity couldn’t think of a mare to pair Fluttershy with, she had never thought of playing matchmaker for some pony like Fluttershy before. It would be an excellent challenge, even if Rarity had no idea how to start looking for a partner for Fluttershy as she couldn’t think like a gay mare.
“Sure thing Rarity, if you have some sweet tea or chamomile I’d very much like that when I come over. Now if you will excuse me I was about to do this!” Twilight kicked off the ground her horn lit up and she shot off in a low flying arc over all the building in Ponyville with a single leap and continued flying forward with her hoof stretched out before her.
Rarity just stood there for a moment starring in awe at the flying unicorn, a minute later her jaw finally dropped. A few minutes after that Applejack trotted up to her and slapped her jaw back into place before trotting off.
It took only twenty seconds for Twilight to fall with style on her way to city hall, now the only thing she had problems with had come up. Not once had Twilight ever figured out how to land coming out of the gravity spell quite right and only recently did she get the hang of it. Even if velocity was a cruel mistress, she was a tough little unicorn and had practiced for this. Even now falling sideways at thirty six miles per hour was a little disorienting, if she wanted to Twilight could feasibly double that. Seventy two miles per hour was her maximum limit as she didn’t want to go above double the normal gravitational pull of the planet.
Twilight reoriented the gravity in reverse until she came to stop near the town hall and before she could start falling in the opposite direction she shifted her gravitational pull to the planet. The gravity setting for her fall was at a quarter of the planets gravity and she floated down softly. As she came to a rest on all four hooves dropping the gravity spell, a bunch of ponies applauded her by stomping the ground in amazement and gathered around her saying how cool it was to see her flying.
The unicorn quickly ran indoors suddenly embarrassed by all the attention she had garnered. It looks like all that time practicing indoors for the fear of launching herself out of the atmosphere of the planet to a quick death had actually paid off. She was a mare that was no longer personally bound by the laws of gravity, but she still had to account for all the other stuff involved in the tricky spell manipulation and had to make sure not to try doing something like that while completely tired.
Walking into the office Twilight had the mayors’ immediately attention and she looked particularly amused about something.
“So are you trying out for Ponyville’s weather team soon? Amazing what unicorn magic can do besides making you capable of standing on clouds.” The mayor was of course referencing Twilight’s flying entrance, not something a normal everyday unicorn was capable of. Mayor knew Twilight wasn’t your average unicorn once you got to know her, but even flight was a new one for the magical mare.
“No, you’d have to pay me much more to take a job like that especially if you want me to work with Rainbow Dash. The time and energy would be more costly to employ me than a natural pegasus to do anything with the weather.” Who knew repurposing a gravity flipping spell originally meant for cleaning ceilings could get a pony so much attention? Twilight certainly didn’t when she took a short straightforward flight to meet the mayor. It was going to be much harder to do once she started learning to change directions mid-flight later on.
“I’m surprised you took my query seriously.” The mayor chuckled happily; it was always nice to see that Twilight was as silly as ever. “So what can I do for you or is it what can you do for me?”
“It’s about time I came to talk about an important issue with you; it could even be a matter of dire importance. It’s about how Ponyville is going to be chosen by Celestia to hold the Summer Sun Celebration in about a year.” The mayor sat up at her words and took what Twilight was saying with every bit of seriousness.
“How did you find out about this? Celestia usually picks places at random and it’s never the same place within three picks of each other. Answering that, why is it so important this time around and what happens to be the problem? Celestia choosing Ponyville for the celebration sounds like a joyous occasion.” The Mayor knew Twilight wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important and it had to do with foreknowledge that the mayor wasn’t aware of. It was a good thing Twilight was giving her this information a year ahead of time to prepare for whatever this coming news was.
“Okay it’s like this; you know the legends of Nightmare Moon and Nightmare Night?” If the mayor didn’t Twilight would need to give the mayor the long version of what she wanted to get around to saying.
“Of course I do, now if you could tell me why this is important?” This was a curiosity that the mayor wasn’t about to let slide by her.
“It all has to do with what’s going to happen at the Summer Sun Celebration that day. It marks the return of Celestia’s sister Luna as Nightmare Moon. Do you want me to tell you what I suspect is going to happen that night?” The nod Twilight received was enough for her to go into a hypothetical situation. “Okay the facts are that the mare in the moon will disappear and Luna the lunar princess will be set free from being sealed away by Celestia and will once again take charge of her celestial object. She will make an appearance and threaten to make the night last forever as she did a thousand years ago before she was sealed. Do you understand this and do you want me to explain what I think is going to exactly happen leading up to her appearance?”
“You might as well, I’m very much interested in hearing what you think will happen, especially how we are supposed to deal with an all powerful alicorn that controls the moon.” The mayor planted her chin in her hooves as she leaned forward on her desk completely.
“You’re not going to question this at all?” Twilight was a little surprised at the willingness of the mayor to hear her out.
“Why of course I am, but I’d like to know everything before making a judgment call. Besides, it is becoming a notable occurrence that weird things happen around you. Just about anything is possible, especially when you’re involved with it.” It was true, especially the fudge brownie incident last week. The mayor actually enjoyed that one personally and it was a favorite of hers in the story that was Twilight Sparkle’s life of constant misadventures.
“Okay I’m just guessing here, but what I think will happen is this. First Celestia will send an important pony to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration; it’ll most likely be a pony named Sunset Shimmer. Celestia won’t actually appear at the celebration and will go into hiding without telling her guards where she is going. As such Nightmare Moon AKA Luna, her sister, makes an appearance in some flashy manner and she’ll monologue before starting her destructive plans to make the night last forever. Which if it does last for too long, well all life as we know it generally ends except for those of us who are lucky enough to be like the princesses. Celestia will be banking on her personal student freeing her sister from her madness, but I’m doubtful that will happen since I know Sunset Shimmer is more likely to get on every ponies nerve instead of doing something constructive.” If Twilight wanted to sell her idea, she figured now would be a good time to do so. “What I want to do is to try and have all of Ponyville acknowledge Luna the second she appears, then we’ll confuse her to the point where we slowly talk her down from her plans. We’ll need a lot of ponies that truly appreciate the night though, as Luna went mad because every pony slept through her beautiful nights leading to her feeling underappreciated. So I want to welcome her with a warm heart after a millennium has passed her by in the blink of an eye, she’s already done her time and we don’t need to make it worse for her. So we’ll alter the decorations to reflect a lunar theme and prepare for her arrival that day.”
“Well… how do we go about raising awareness of this forgotten princess? Do you have evidence of her existence other then foal hood tales? It would go a long way to setting up for her arrival if what you say is true. We’ll be the first place to welcome a princess back after being gone a thousand years, but if that plan of yours falls through I hope you will have a few backup plans in place. Goodness knows I don’t want any pony to get dragged into a fight with a legend like Nightmare Moon.” The mayor truly believed Twilight and was willing to aid her, which is if she could convince many other ponies who lived here to go along with it. The threat sounded like it encompassed the entire planet of Equus and not just her small town.
“We’ll start with changing a few things about Nightmare Night. Nightmare Moon hasn’t been off the moon in the last nine hundred years so I doubt she has truly been gobbling up ponies.” Twilight couldn’t wait for the candy gathering holiday in a few months as she already had her costume planned out, now if only she could talk Rarity into making it.