Twilight nudged the beach ball toward her saddle bags. "Done!" she exclaimed. "Finally ready for the beach."
"Twilight," Spike whined from behind the giant pile of toys, books, lab equipment and towels. "I really don't think you're going to need all of this.
Twilight waved her hoof in Spike's direction. "It's fine, Spike. What would we leave behind?"
"Well ..." Spike picked up a water-testing kit. "Do we really need this?"
Twilight laughed. "How would we test the water quality to make sure there are no viruses in the ocean?"
Spike opened his mouth to answer, claw extended, then he decided against it. He sighed.
"Well, now that's settled, we have to get all of this into your pack, Spike."
"Mine?" Spike spluttered. "I'm not carrying al of this, Twilight."
At that moment, the door burst open and Pinkie Pie bounded into the room. "Hi Twilight and Spike!" she yelled. "Are you excited about the beach? I'm excited, everyone should be excited because the beach will be great fun and we'll have an amazing time!"
As she took a breath, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash timidly walked in, saddlebags at the ready, Rarity holding an sun umbrella above her head.
"Are we ready to go?" Applejack gave a sideways glance to the pile of stuff Twilight had gotten ready. "Ah hope yer not bringing all that with ya, Twilight. We're not goin' on a science expedition."
"You never know what will happen in the great outdoors. We've never been to this beach before, after all, we have to be–"
"Yeah, yeah." Rainbow Dash was behind Twilight and pushing her out of the door. "If you end up needing any of this junk, I'll fly back here at rainbow speed and get it. Fluttershy, bring the beach ball and towels."
"Oh, okay," Fluttershy mumbled as she moved out of the way of the two-pony train.
"But- but- but. What about my reference books, what if I need to–"
"Spike, be a dear and pick ONE book for Twilight to bring along," Rarity said, following Rainbow Dash and Twilight of of the door.
"Yes, Sir!" Spike said, immediately rummaging through the pile for a particular book.
"Well, let's get goin'" Applejack said. "This sunny weather aint waitin' for nopony!"
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The friends piled into Twilight's royal carriage, ready to head to the sunniest part of Equestria, Sunshineville.
The carriage ride took a few hours, and the friends chatted away the whole time.
When the carriage stopped, everypony eagerly squeezed out of the doorway, onto the sand of a rainy beach."
They all looked up into the clouds, somewhat confused.
"I don't remember hearing it was supposed to rain here today," Twilight said.
"I haven't heard anything from the Sunshineville weather ponies," Rainbow Dash said. "But I'll go check."
Rainbow flew off, leaving her confused and wet friends standing in the rain. It was only a few minutes before Rainbow Dash returned.
"Bad news, guys," she said. "Because it's the coast, they sometimes have unpredictable things happen to the weather they create, and we've come right when a cyclone has started."
"What's a cyclone, can you eat it?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"No, Pinkie, a cyclone is a terrible weather condition where there are strong winds that cause buildings to break," Twilight explained.
"Then why isn't it windy now?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"They're holding it off as best they can," Rainbow Dash said. "But they can't keep away the rain."
The friends stood gloomily for a minute, then Twilight perked up. "Can we help?" she asked. "With mine and Rarity's magic, and you and Fluttershy helping the Pegasi, we should be able to clear this storm in no time."
"That's a great idea!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "I don't know why I didn't think of it!"
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The friends helped with the storm efforts, and in another hour, the storm was clear, the sun shone, and ponies flocked to the beach.
Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy stood on a cliff, the leftover wind blowing through their manes. Spike stepped up beside them.
"I think this was a job well done, now everypony can enjoy the beach together."
The others all nodded and smiled, enjoying the sun.
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Author's Note:
Some background:
This is my entry in the Ponycon AU 2015 fanfiction contest. We had 30mins to write a story based on the prompt we were given at the time, using characters from the show. The prompt was the beach.
The con was held in Seaponies Paradise (Surfers Paradise in Queensland), and just as we were about to start the con, a cyclone was going to hit the coast. Queensland is known as the sunshine state, and it rained a few days before and the entire weekend. Clearly, that was my inspiration, but not until a little over halfway through the story.
Oh, this was the winning entry, by the way. I was surprised. I'm not sure as to the calibre of the other entries, but I am proud of it as a work I did based off the prompt given in half an hour.
So yeah, this is unchanged from how I wrote it. I added a question mark in one place because it bothered me too much to type a question without one, but other than that all the spelling, punctuation and grammar is the exact same as I wrote. There are a lot of things I'd change if I was actually writing this and editing it. You'll notice a lot of this is cliche, convenient and somewhat unimaginative because it was on the fly. I had no time to think about details or decide on the best wording.
If I was to edit it, I'd shorten the extended beginning and focus more on the climax, which I had to leave as a one-line cop out because I didn't know where the story was going until I got there and had no time to plan and write a big action scene. If there's interest, I might just write that scene as a sequel/prequel/extra scene thing.
Interesting side note: I tried (and failed once) to write Rainbow Dash's whole name every time I referenced her, because I'm clearly insane (handwriting her name over and over again is a chore, try it), but I never once called Twilight Sparkle by her whole name. Oops.
Please don't quote my more lame lines back to me in the comments.
Actually, those are fair game. There's plenty of cringe in some of my sentences, go ahead.