The ponies woke up to clear skies and beautiful scenery. The rain had watered the plants beautifully and all the plants were lavish.
Applejack galloped home to Sweet Apple Acres, where Big Macintosh and Granny Smith greeted her happily. Rarity moved as quickly as she could in her new shoes to the Carousel Boutique, where she saw in horror how Sweetie Belle had torn through her metal fabrics to make more capes for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Fluttershy zipped around Ponyville checking up on all the little animals and how they had made through the storm. Rainbow Dash flew hazily to a cloud and fell asleep, yet again. Pinkie Pie began to plan another party. And, last but not least, Twilight dashed home with Spike on her back, ready to write Princess Celestia another letter on friendship.
"That might be your best one yet!" Spike raved, his purple scales shining. Her blew out a little green fire, and the letter shattered. The two decided that, since the day was still young, and she still had time to learn another friendship lesson, to go visit her friends on the field.
She traveled to Sweet Apple Acres first to see if Applejack or Big Macintosh needed any help harvesting apples. Though she was worse than Rarity at apple bucking, she could still read to them.
But Big Macintosh and Applejack were running around faster than they had before. The rain had left the apples fresh and ready to harvest, and they need they had to harvest now before the apples got stole right off the tree. Twilight Sparkle sighed, and left to see Fluttershy.
She passed Rainbow Dash on the way, and called up to her. But Rainbow Dash just ignored her, purposely snoring louder to show she was sleeping. Twilight continued on, but even from a distance, she could see Fluttershy was too busy coaxing animals from out of their homes showing them it was okay.
As much as she loved Pinkie Pie, she was in the mood for that much partying and randomness. She wanted to talk, and she decided Rarity was the only one who could talk at the moment.
But she was wrong, for Rarity was running around, almost throwing jewels and ribbons on dresses. Twilight looked at her as she tried to talk, but Rarity suddenly stopped and interrupted her.
"Has the princess sent the invitations yet?" she demanded. Twilight looked at the menacing-looking fabric shears floating above her and gulped.
"N-Not yet, but she sends them the day of the gala so I don't lose them beforehand," she smiled nervously, adding a fearful chuckle. Rarity sighed and continued to fix the seventeen dresses she was working on. Twilight decided to leave, as she wasn't needed here.
"Maybe we can do something together!" pike happily said as Twilight returned to the library. She sighed and nodded with a hopeful smile. She and Spike began to partake in trivial board games and laughed together.
Later that night, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity all showed up at the library with apologetic smiles. Twilight Sparkle welcomed them in; happy they made time for heard.
The ponies just gabbed and talked about everything, but Spike began to burp.
"Spike!" they laughed, but Spike had burped up a letter from Celestia herself! Spike began to read it to Twilight.
"My faithful student, Twilight," he read, "I'm sending you the tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala one week in advance for one reason only. Last year's gala was a semi-formal formal, but this year gala is a formal-formal formal. And there is really only one thing for a formal-formal formal…"
The ponies looked around, wondering whether the other knew what those words meant. Semi-formal formal? Formal-formal formal! The word was beginning to loose its meaning as Spike continued, bringing every pony out of their own thoughts.
"For this formal, all ponies will need to have an escort."
All the ponies yelled at once, "We need dates?"