You're gonna rattle, shake and bring the heat!

You'll show the haters when you sweep em right off their feet!

You're gonna cast out your light and cover them in your glow

The world is now your garden; Give em love to grow

You're Mother Nature; they hate ya. Nailed ya on the cross

It's all lost to me; the cost to be a beacon in the dark ya see

Is your life; But you know inside though they're your blight,

They're never ever gonna manage to put out your light

So Carrot Top; Spread your wings and take to the sky

You're gonna rise in time; They hurtcha but you'll never die

Like a phoenix; Rise again when they strike you down

You'll change their frown; Turn all their worlds upside down

The second coming has begun; the deed is done

The haters lookin' atcha; Shakin' cause they're all about to run

But then you hold out a hoof and show em gentle smiles

It's worthwhile; They feel they hatred leave; You banished the vile…

Golden Harvest lazily opened her eyes and stared at her dresser before slowly pushing herself up into sitting position. Her sheet slid down her back as she looked around drowsily. She turned to look out of her window. She could not see the sun, but she could tell that it was low in the sky just by how much darker the gloom had become. She sighed.

She stretched her forelegs high above her head, feeling her ribcage stretch downwards. She then hopped out of her bed and began to make her way over to the stairs.

A pounding came from her front door down stairs, and she looked down towards the first floor with confusion. Who could be coming for a visit so late? She wondered. She thought for a moment, trying to push past the cloud of sleep that encased her mind. As the pounding grew louder, she suddenly remembered the events that had transpired earlier: her visit to the cloud mansion of a deranged weatherpony, the matter-of-fact explanation provided by the brilliant unicorn scientist, the insanely hyper welcome from the pink party pony, and, perhaps worst of all, the image of transformation brought on by some unknown traumatic memory of the same baker who eccentrically welcomed her into the town.

"Lakesong?" she called towards the door. There was no answer, but after a couple more knocks the door caved in and a grey coated Pegasus tumbled through the now opened doorway.

"Derpy!" Golden, now wide awake, ran down the stairs as fast as she could, skidding to a halt beside her mailmare friend. "Derpy, are you alright?"

The mailmare sat up and looked at her friend with kooky amber eyes and a lop-sided grin. "I accidentallied your door…My bad…"

Golden Harvest sighed with relief. "It's okay. It'll be easy to fix. But what was with the urgency? Is everything okay?"

"Uhh…" Derpy stared at the ceiling, her expression blank. Golden Harvest was about to place her hoof on the Pegasus's shoulder to shake her out of her daze when she suddenly launched herself into flight. "I remember now! You gotta come quick, Carrot Top! Doctor says it's a miracle!"

"What is—"

But she was cut off as the grey Pegasus suddenly scooped her up under her arms and flew off through the open doorway, dangling a shrieking carrot farmer beneath her.

Although the trip to the Hooves's house had only lasted about eight minutes, Golden Harvest needed another twenty minutes before she was able to function well enough to comprehend anything any pony said to her. By then her trembles had subsided to very light shivers as she tried to regain her sense of security on the ground.

"You okay now?" asked a worried Doctor Hooves. He patted her back gently.

"Y-yes… sorry…"

"Sorry, Carrot Top… I didn't mean to scare you…"

"It's…it's fine, Derpy… Umm, wh-what was it you wanted to show me?"

"Oh!" The Pegasus took the carrot farmer by the hoof and dragged her over to the side of the house. "Look!"

"I don't see—" But she wasn't able to finish her sentence. Even through the gloom, she could see the lush carpet of grass that was growing in patches across the ground. She walked over to it and carefully placed her hoof in it. It was soft and cool.

"This is amazing!" She cried. "But… why is it only on this side?"

"You don't remember?" Doctor said. "That was the side you stayed on when you crashed at our house."

"And now it's BOOTIFUL!" shouted Derpy as she flipped backwards midflight. She flopped down on her hindquarters, her head swaying with dizziness.

Mr. Hooves walked over to a bewildered Golden Harvest and placed a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. "It seems like you're one magical earth pony," he said with a smile.

"But I… I didn't do anything… I thought my garden was doing well because of all the hard work I put into it, but all I did here was sleep!" She sat down as her thoughts started spinning in her mind.

"Well, some pony is bound to start noticing. We'll try to keep it quiet so you don't get bombarded with requests from every pony, but at this rate, we might not be able to keep it hushed for long."

Golden vividly remembered the time she had brought a cake over to Applejack, and how badly she had reacted to the knowledge of her mysterious ability. She shuddered. "Thank you. I'd really appreciate it."

"Good luck to you." The brown stallion returned to the house.

"You want a lift back home?" Derpy asked as she took flight.

"NO!" the earth pony shouted. Seeing the hurt expression growing on her friend's face, she hastily added, "I mean, no, thank you. I really just want some alone time, to work all this out in my head. It's a bit overwhelming."

"Okoliy-Doke," responded the mailmare, who crashed to the ground. "Get home safe 'k?"

"You got it."

And so the two mares went their separate ways, the Pegasus into her home and the earth pony in the exact opposite direction of her own. Golden Harvest trotted towards the edge of town, not quite wanting to go home yet. Everything was indeed overwhelming to her. She had always been a modest carrot farmer, and had been happy with such a simple life. She had never asked for anything extraordinary to happen to her, nor had she ever wished to change the world. All she had ever wanted was to grow her carrots and make delicious goods from them to share with her friends.

And where had that brought her? Her journey from Seaddle to a quaint little town named Ponyville, a place that seemed perfect for farming carrots, filled with wonderfully nice ponies for her to befriend, and here she was trying to pretend she wasn't the environmental savior of Equestria, a fact that she had been unaware of until her arrival in Ponyville.

She kicked up her hoof. "It's just not fair."

She had finally reached the edge of town. She stared into the black void that was the road leading out of Ponyville, debating whether she should continue forward or turn back home. She was about to act on the later idea when an eerily sweet whistle reached her ears. She froze and stared off into the darkness, not seeing anything. But the whistle continued, and she realized all too late that she was galloping at full speed towards it. With no moon or starlight to illuminate her surroundings, she was blind to the petrified sticks and shriveled leaves that snapped and crunched beneath her pounding hooves. Looming silhouettes approached her, and she dodged in and out of their creaking grasp. Her eyes were slowly adjusting, and she was starting to see that they were trees. Her galloping slowed to a canter, and eventually subsided to a trot. Panting, she tried to remember why she had been running. Had she really been chasing after that sound? She shook her head. Surely she was going crazy. For all she knew, she was being lead into a trap!

She snorted softly to herself and was about to turn back to town when she noticed that the sound was in fact music. She cocked her ear and listened; the melody was sweet, and yet somewhat sad. And so nearby… She stood with her legs spread apart, torn between going home and investigating the source of the sound. If she went home, she would be safe: most likely nothing would attack her on her way into town, and she would be guaranteed to farm carrots another day. If she continued forward to satisfy her curiosity, there would be no certainty for her future. The dilemma raged inside her for what seemed like eternity until she finally took a deep breath and, having been won over by her curiosity, took a step forward and poked her head through the bushes.

Golden Harvest's eyes had not quite adjusted yet, but she was still able to make out the light frame of a pony, its head and part of its rump obscured by some substance darker than the night around them. The music was clear as day now, but she still could see no source. The more her eyes adjusted, the more she began to recognize two limbs protruding from the back of the pony, two limbs that became more and more wing-like with each passing moment. When her eyes were finally acclimated, she saw that they were indeed wings, and the figure before her was indeed a pony. The wings were extended straight in the air and turning ever so slightly with every note change. Golden finally concluded that the music was coming from the pony, more importantly, from the pony's wings. The carrot farmer surveyed the area. It was the end of the woods as far as she could tell; the land before her was relatively flat and covered in gravel. At the musical Pegasus's feet was what appeared to be a mass of green cloth.

"Lakesong?"

The cream colored pony's wings quickly retracted as she cringed, putting an abrupt end to the ballad she had been creating. She turned slowly, her head ducking to peer from beneath a partially extended wing.

"Hey," Golden whispered as she climbed over a shrub and took a step towards her Pegasus friend. She was still a bit startled that it was actually her making the music.

Lakesong grinned awkwardly. "Hey…" she whispered hoarsely. Her wings folded tightly against her body and she turned away from her earth pony friend.

Golden walked over to her, placing her hooves as softly against the ground as possible. "So…" She stopped and sat beside the cream colored pony, looking at her questioningly. "How long have you been a Pegasus?"

Lakesong scoffed, her wings falling limp. "Mostly since birth, I think. Though I'm not much of a Pegasus anymore…" Her shoulders slumped forward, and her head hung in shame.

Golden Harvest looked down at Lakesong's wings. Now that she was closer, she was able to tell that they were much different than any other pegasi's, at least any that she had seen. While most pegasi's wings held sleek, streamline feathers that increased in length as they grew closer to the alula, the waitress's wings were made of jagged, split-ended feathers that did not grow flush to one another. In some places, her feathers were too short or too thin to be useful, while in others they had not grown in at all. As Lakesong noticed Golden Harvest observing her, she quickly tucked her wings back. The feathers rustled in an abnormal way.

"What happened, if I may ask?" Golden peered up at her friend, her brow twisted with concern.

Lakesong sighed. "I don't really like to talk about it. It happened when I was really young, and there was this bright light… My wings caught on fire and I fell. Luckily I landed in a pond and the fire went out. But ever since then, my feathers never grew back the same…" She glared off in the distance for a while, but her expression eventually softened into sorrow. "I have to wear the sweater around. My boss said he'd fire me if I didn't, cuz I was grossing out the customers…" She sniffed back her tears, shaking her head. "I was never the best flyer, anyway. I could never keep up with the other foals in flight school. I would always get too dizzy if I flew too fast, and then I would drop out of the sky." She shivered. "I usually would catch myself, but a couple a times somepony had to go get me before I hit the ground…"

"That's…"Golden was at a loss of words. A Pegasus that couldn't fly? She had heard of some Pegasi that had chosen not to fly, but never of one that simply could not….

"Well," Lakesong continued with a sigh, "After that, I couldn't go back to Cloudsdale, obviously. So, I traveled for a bit. Ended up staying in Hoofington for a while. But once the plague started up, I high-tailed it out of there. I came upon Ponyville just before the plague reached here. I was lucky enough to find a nice unicorn family to take me in." She smiled nostalgically. "They were the weirdest bunch of ponies I have ever seen. Still are, really. I used to joke that the cough steered clear of them because they were just too damn wacky for it to deal with."

Golden smiled as well. She imagined that these unicorns must have been strange to concern Lakesong.

"Actually, they were the ones that helped me get my cutie mark," she started, but fell quiet again. "But…that's a different story."

There was silence for a while, save for the soft breeze that rustled the decaying leaves on the ground. Golden cleared her throat quietly. "So how is Pinkie Pie?"

Lakesong turned to her carrot farmer friend. "She's ok, you know? I guess she really doesn't like remembering her friend Fluttershy."

"Wait a minute!" Golden threw the Pegasus a puzzled look. "I thought you didn't know what had happened to her."

The Pegasus shrugged. "I didn't. But Pinkie tends to mumble in her sleep after her little panic attacks…"

"You watched her sleep?"

Lakesong looked embarrassed. "I wanted to be sure she was ok…"

Golden Harvest stared at her for a while. "You really care about her, don't you?"

The cream colored pony sighed and with a smile said, "Yeah…I do…" It took a moment for her to realize what she had just confessed, which she, flustered, immediately tried to hide by denying the fact. But Golden Harvest was no foal, and with a joyful surprise leapt to her hooves. "You do like her, don't you?"

Lakesong was suddenly millimeters from her face, and before she could back away the Pegasus growled, "You cannot tell anypony, understand? Not a single pony can know about this." She fell back on her haunches and hunched over. "I mean, if Pinkie found out, she'd HATE me. She'd never want to see me again."

Golden blinked in surprise, but finally was able to place a hoof on her distressed friend's shoulder. "I don't think Pinkie Pie, is capable of hating anypony. You least of all." Lakesong smiled. "Thanks, Carrot Top." The golden mare returned the smile. "It's getting really late. We should go to head home soon."

Lakesong frowned. "I'd offer you a lift home, but…" she flapped her wings, which merely made an unnatural whistling sound. "These old wings aren't good for much more than making music."

"Ehh, that's really ok," Golden said, nervously. "I tried flying earlier today. It was horrifying. To be honest, I never want to do it again."

"Well that makes one of us," Lakesong chuckled. "How about this? I'll walk you home instead."

Golden frowned. "But I live on the opposite end of town from you."

"Actually, I don't even live in town. Too noisy."

"But you said—"

"Listen, you want to walk home in the pitch black alone, or do you want a super butch body guard to escort you safely?"

Golden busted into laughter at her friend's proposition. "Just because you like mares does NOT make you super butch," she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

The cream colored pony leaned down to scoop her sweater up and toss it over her back. When she stood facing her friend again she shrugged. "I'm not THAT girly."

"Oh please!" Golden laughed again as they entered the woods together. "You work at a coffee shop, you have the daintiest skip to your step, and you wear a lime green sweater."

"Well, maybe I'm just a very feminine butch Pegasus. And the skip is solely due to me being a Pegasus." She raised her head proud. "We pegasi are really light on our feet. I can't help that, can I?"

"No, I suppose not." The golden mare smiled. "So you do still believe you are a Pegasus?"

"I can't really change the way I was born, even if I can't fly."

Golden mused to herself for a bit. "Can't you have some sort of corrective surgery done?"

Lakesong rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I GUESS I could do that. But then I wouldn't have my cutie mark."

Golden turned to look at the Pegasus's flank. It was difficult to tell in the gloom of night, but there appeared to be the image of a stick and a squiggle. "I'm sorry; I can't tell what it's supposed to be."

The waitress sighed. "It's a cat-tail and an eighth note. I make music. That's my special talent."

"Huh. I'm surprised that it has nothing to do with coffee."

"I only work there!"

They both broke out into laughter as they emerged on the other end of the forest and trotted towards town. "Hey, Lakesong?"

The cream colored pony looked down at her golden friend. "Yeah, what's up?"

"I don't think you're wings are disgusting. They're weird, but, they make you unique."

The Pegasus smiled. "Thanks, Carrot Top. And I don't think your ability to bring life to a dead world is weird. It makes you unique."

"But we're still going to keep that a secret."

"Right."

As they entered town, Golden turned to her friend and said, "You know, you shouldn't worry too much about Pinkie finding out that you like her."

"Why's that?"

With a laugh, the carrot farmer said, "With how obvious you make it, she probably already knows."