House Calls
A small yawn escaped from Spike's mouth, despite his efforts to suppress it. He shook his head, trying to keep himself awake.
"You can go on to sleep if you want to, Spike," Twilight whispered from her desk. "I'll be up late tonight."
"Aren't you tired, darling?" Rarity asked from her plush bean bag. "I'm so exhausted from putting up with that Blueblood," she spat, "that I could sleep for a year and a half."
Twilight magically snapped the book that she was reading with a small thud. "I'm sorry—am I keeping you up?"
Rarity smiled. "Not at all, dear. Fluttershy, on the other hand…" She trailed off, glancing beside her at the yellow pony.
Fluttershy lay on her own bean bag, her face lying on her front legs dejectedly. Her eyes were bloodshot and she kept sighing tiredly. "I'm fine. I doubt I'll sleep much tonight anyway," she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Princess Celestia, after feeling guilty for making their night miserable for her entertainment, offered to teleport the ponies back to their home, since Twilight's magic carriage had turned back into an onion and the purple pony was too exhausted from the long night of greeting people to turn it into a carriage again. Unfortunately, Celestia was quite tired from the night's festivities ("Some festivities they were, even with you all helping them," the princess had said disdainfully. "I remember when the Gala used to be fun."), and she was only able to send three of them back to Ponyville. The remaining three ponies, with Spike in tow, headed back to Twilight's old home, the library. They had managed to cram all four of them in the small bedroom, which was no more than twenty feet square.
There was only one bed, so Fluttershy, Rarity, and Spike were lying on plush bean bags, which they had arranged in a loose circle, that had been stored in the top levels of the library, the storage section. Twilight had almost forgotten that they were there. Unfortunately for Rarity—but fortunately for Spike—there were only two extra bean bags, so Spike and Rarity took to sharing one. Spike's ears kept twitching nervously.
"Oh, Fluttershy," sighed Twilight. "Those animals aren't used to having anypony interact with them. They're scared of everypony, not just you."
Fluttershy didn't say anything.
"Not to mention, there was quite a lot of noise coming from the ballroom, with Pinkie making so much noise trying to get everypony else to dance," Rarity offered.
Fluttershy was still silent.
"Fluttershy, for the love of Equestria, you can't always have your cake and eat it, too," Spike said at a near-shout. "Animals love you, and just because a few of them at the Gala are scared of you doesn't mean that you're scary, or bad, or even relatively negative in any way. So, please, stop crying and sulking about it, and most of all, get some sleep. You'll need it for tomorrow." Spike grumbled slightly and then rolled over away from the ponies and feigned sleep.
"What's tomorrow?" Fluttershy asked shakily after a long, empty silence.
"I…" Rarity trailed off. "I don't know. However, he is right; we need to go to sleep. We're all tired enough as it is."
"Agreed," said Twilight, a little rattled by Spike's outburst. She disapproved of his methods, but there was no denying that his words were true.
"Goodnight," Rarity said, resting her head on her forelegs. She quickly fell asleep, her side brushing up against Spike's spines. The little dragon stiffened, blushing furiously. He doubted that he was going to sleep tonight.
Fluttershy, shaken but oddly calmed by Spike's outburst, quickly drifted off into sleep as well, leaving only Twilight and Spike awake. She bit her lip, trying not to giggle, as she saw Rarity's side brush up against Spike's back again, making the baby dragon squirm in both excitement and fear.
~…~
Applejack grumbled as she slammed the door to the barn open, a gust of wind threatening to force it shut again. She went to the back and clomped up the stairs and to her 'room', which was simply a part of the hay loft with a straw bed, a nightstand, some shelves with a few trinkets on them, and a hook for her hat. She quickly shed her dress, arranged it as neatly as she could, folded it up, and put it in one of the drawers in her nightstand.
Applejack practically fell over onto her bed and onto her back, too tired to even cover herself with the sheets. She stared up and out of the skylight that Big Macintosh had installed for her on her birthday, sighing as she spotted the center star of Orion's belt in the direct middle of the skylight. She sighed, the tension from the night evaporating from her shoulders. She was asleep in mere seconds afterwards.
The star flashed briefly, and a distorted whooshing sound was faintly heard in the distance.
~…~
Rainbow Dash kneaded a small cloud with her hooves and lay down, yawning and stretching her tired wing muscles. She rested her head on her forelegs and closed her eyes, yawning again. She didn't bother changing out of her dress, since it was already wrinkled and dirty from a long night of doing her best to impress the Wonderbolts.
Dash sighed. She hoped that they had at least been impressed with her speed and flying skills, and her night's efforts weren't in vain. She had tried her best to impress them, but they didn't notice her at all…
She sank down further into the cloud, its fluffy surface conforming to her shape. She smiled slightly, despite being so tired; no bed in the world could compare to sleeping on a cloud.
Suddenly, a distorted whooshing sound came from below, and a pulsating light illuminated the ground in a ten foot wide spot almost directly below Dash's cloud. Dash hung over her cloud, trying to get a better look. Soon, curiosity got the best of her, and she jumped off of the cloud, gliding down slowly to the spot where the light had been flashing; it had since stopped.
~…~
"Pinkie, will you be a dear and take out this bag of trash?" Mrs. Cake asked, dropping the bag in front of Pinkie as she tried to walk up the stairs to her room. Pinkie groaned and grabbed the bag with her teeth, doing her best to keep her tongue from touching the plastic of the bag. She nudged open the back door and slung the bag into the trash can, which was nearly twice as high as her shoulder.
As she nosed the door open again, she thought that she heard a whooshing sound coming from somewhere in the distance. She was about to trot over and investigate, but Mr. Cake called her back in. Do those two ever sleep? She thought to herself, sighing as she walked back inside.