Lunaverse Season 1

by Sunset JJ

Set in a different universe. where Princess Luna sealed her sister Celestia who became Corona and tried to bring the eternal day.

1. Longest Night, Longest Day Part 1

Lunaverse Episode 1- Longest Night, Longest Day Part 1

"Lulamoon – " Lyra began.

The blue unicorn glared at Lyra Heartstrings. "Trixie," she ordered in a tone one normally reserved for informing ponies that their loved ones had met horrible ends and that one enjoyed relating this fact immensely.

Lyra blinked a few times at the intensity. "I'm…sorry," the mint-green unicorn apologized. "It's just that Princess Luna said that 'Trixie' was a nickname, and I didn't think I knew you well enough."

The other unicorn stared across the wagon cabin at Lyra for a few moments, before sighing. "My given name is Trixie Lulamoon. I'm from Neigh Orleans, and the tradition there is to use a pony's second name if they have one. But I hate, I hate, Lulamoon. So call me Trixie."

Lyra raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with Lulamoon?"

"I hate it."

"I gathered. But I mean, what's actually wrong with it?"

The blue unicorn turned her head down, staring at the large cabin's floor. The two had left Canterlot an half an hour ago, but the train ride still had about another hour and a half before it reached their destination of Ponyville. So far, the cabin had been just about the only enjoyable part of the train ride – it had been first-class, so the two unicorns had as much space as they wanted to themselves. The cabin was, in fact, almost as large as the apartment that Lyra had been staying in for the past several years while living in Canterlot and attending Luna's school of magic.

Lyra realized after several minutes of waiting that Trixie wasn't going to respond to her question. The unicorn let out a sigh as she looked out the train's window, as the train sped by Equestria. The entire landscape was blanketed in glistening white snow, the aftermath of a nation-wide storm that the weather ponies had insisted was necessary. It gave the land a serene, inspiring appearance, and as long as Lyra sat in the heated train car she could appreciate the winter wonderland thoroughly. It was enough to make her forget about the grumpy pony sitting across from her and hum out a nice tune…

Trixie's head shot up at the melody. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

Lyra glanced at Trixie. "Humming," she answered.

"No, that tune," Trixie clarified, one eye narrowing as she leaned forward. "That was 'Skip to My Lou' you were humming."

"No it wasn't," Lyra responded, then considered the absent-minded song. "Was it? I don't know, I wasn't thinking…" Now, however, she was, and quite suddenly a full-toothed grin split her features when enlightenment struck. "Oh, stars above, that's why you hate Lulamoon," the mint green unicorn realized.

"No it isn't!" Trixie insisted, though her widening eyes suggested the opposite.

"Lou, lou, skip to my lou," Lyra sang, leaning forward. "Lou, lou, skip to my lou, fly's in the buttermilk, shoo fly shoo – "

"I'll turn you into a newt," Trixie threatened, pointing a hoof at Lyra, even as the unicorn continued to sing. "Every school day when I was a filly I had to hear ponies singing that song whenever my name was mentioned and seriously I will turn you into a newt if you don't stop!"

Lyra did stop, but only because her laughter was interrupting the song too much. "Every time?" she asked between giggles.

"Every time," Trixie insisted. "I don't know, somepony thought it was funny and maybe it was funny, but it got old real fast." Her gaze turned to a golden object sitting next to Lyra. "Why not put that thing to use?"

Lyra's horn glowed, and a glowing aura of magic wrapped around her lyre as it levitated over to in front of her. The unicorn shifted sitting positions on the train's seat, into one that most ponies thought looked incredibly uncomfortable, but which Lyra never minded herself – back resting against the cushioned wall, hind legs hanging over the seat's edge.

One of Trixie's eyebrows rose sharply at the sight, and managed to ascend even further as Lyra placed her hooves on either side of her lyre. "You're…going to play with your hooves?" Trixie asked.

"I'm better with my hooves than with magic," Lyra responded matter-of-factly.

Trixie blinked a few times at the statement, finding it exceedingly difficult to believe. After a moment, however, she settled down onto her stomach on the seat. "Fine," the blue unicorn decided, waving a hoof imperiously. "Play on, maestro."

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony
Friendship never meant that much to me
My little pony
But you're all here and now I can see
Stormy weather; Lots to share
A musical bond; With love and care
Teaching laughter; It's an easy feat,
And magic makes it all complete!
You have my little ponies
How'd I ever make so many true friends?

"And here we are," Lyra proclaimed as the two stepped from the train and into the cool, crisp morning air, Trixie grateful for the enchantment woven into her cape that would keep her warm despite the thin material it was made from. "Ponyville."

Trixie pulled back her hat's brim, giving what she could see of the town a once-over. Unlike Canterlot, Manehattan, or most of the great cities of Equestria, Ponyville didn't appear to have a single building over five stories tall. What the settlement lacked in vertical height, however, it made up for with horizontal spread; in terms of land area, Ponyville was one of the largest communities in the realm, though its population kept it firmly in the 'large town' category and out of the 'small city' one.

Trixie broke from her reverie long enough to see to it that her luggage and Lyra's own were delivered to their respective destinations by a quartet of earth pony porters that had accompanied them from Canterlot. She took the time to pass them each a couple of silver bits apiece as a gratuity and to ensure that the best of care was given to their belongings. She quickly afterwards plunged back into her own thoughts, however, as she considered the tasks that lay before her, the responsibility that she had, through a combination of reasoning, pleading, whining, and maybe a little blackmail, finally been able to wrest from Princess Luna. No, Ponyville was not a large city like Manehattan, Stalliongrad, or her hometown of Neigh Orleans, but that was what made it ideal for her to finally put everything she was learning from Luna to practical use.

"So," Lyra interrupted after growing uncomfortable with Trixie's silence, "where to first? The Apples? The weather team? Introducing yourself to the mayor?"

Trixie glanced at her mint-colored companion, currently wearing a warm-looking, wool winter cloak and a gray Gatsby cap, somehow fitting the latter snugly over her horn without making the style look uncomfortable. "You're eager," she observed.

"No offense, but I want to get this whole 'escort' job over and done with," Lyra responded.

Trixie grimaced at Lyra's subtle, but clear, reminder that the two were not friends, merely acquaintances. "How much is Princess Luna paying you?" she asked.

Lyra named a large, round figure. Trixie's eyes widened, causing Lyra to smirk. "Yeah, that was my reaction," she said as she pulled the brim of her Gatsby cap over her eyes in a sign of mock embarrassment. Trixie looked away at that, her thoughts turning inwards to what the conversation must have been like, or at least how she saw it in her mind's eye:

"You," Princess Luna, tall and regal-looking as ever, said as she pointed to Lyra. "We are investing in our student a measure of responsibility for a change, and making her Our representative to Ponyville! And you are from Ponyville! So We ask that you serve as her escort for a few days while she settles. It's not like you'll have anything else to do since you're a musician and so don't have a real job."

"Oh no," Lyra responded. "You want me to deal with Trixie Lou-lou-skip-to-my-Lulamoon? Nopony likes her! I've never met her personally, and I would like to continue that lucky streak!"

"You're right!" Luna exclaimed. "Especially after the ice palace incident, nopony likes Trixie. But We shall pay you an exorbitant amount of bits to do so!" And then the princess named a number.

Lyra considered. "Maybe if you throw in some land," she suggested. "And a title. Vicereine Lyra has a nice ring to it…"

"Trixie," Lyra interrupted her fellow unicorn. Trixie blinked a few times, and saw that she had nearly walked face-first into a lamp post and had been stopped only by Lyra's outstretched hoof.

The blue unicorn shook her head to clear it. "Sorry," she apologized. "I was just thinking about…stuff."

"Stuff?" Lyra asked.

"Stuff," Trixie confirmed. "And junk."

Lyra was silent for several moments at the painfully obvious evasion to her concern, before letting out a sigh. "Whatever," she said. "So where to first?"

Trixie considered, looking up to the sky as she did so. From the position of the sun, it looked to be about eleven o'clock – wherever they went, they'd have to hurry if they wanted to avoid being caught outside during midday. A rumbling stomach quickly decided Trixie's first destination. "The Apple Trust," she decided with a nod.

Lyra nodded, turning towards a street and beginning to trot off, her charge in tow. As they walked, Trixie considered the ponies around her. Some gave her an odd look at her choice of clothing – a purple, star-studded cape and wizard's hat – but mostly she received only a few polite nods or the occasional greeting. It was a welcome change from the reputation she had managed to build for herself in Canterlot over the past few years, where the best she could usually hope for was an indifferent stare – and those she hadn't received at all over the past few weeks, ever since the ice palace –

No, Trixie insisted, forcing herself to forget about that night, the ice-turned-water getting everywhere and the absolutely livid look in Princess Luna's eyes. No, you're not going to think like that. Fresh start, Trixie. Fresh start.

"Lyra, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest," Trixie stated.

"Yeah?"

"Are you lost?"

Lyra's silence to Trixie's inquiry was answer enough. The blue unicorn let out a long sigh as her companion stopped at a fork in the road, considering as she rubbed the back of her head with one hoof. "I thought you grew up in Ponyville," Trixie accused.

"I did, but I never really went out to the Apples," Lyra responded as she looked around. Ponyville was to the east of them, still visible over the rolling, snow-covered hills, but the site of the Apple Trust's first and largest farm was somehow evading them. "They came into town. No need to go to the farm."

"So you're lost," Trixie surmised.

Lyra glared at her charge a moment. "No," she said firmly, pointing a hoof down the right path. "It's that way." She began trotting off, a determined spring to her steps.

With a sigh, Trixie followed, glancing nervously at the sky as she did. "It's just about midday," she noted.

"I know," Lyra responded gruffly, glancing over her shoulder a moment before returning her attention to the road ahead. "It's just a stupid superstition. It's not like Corona is going to fly on down and immolate us just for being outside."

Trixie shivered slightly nevertheless, and not from the cold, as the two trotted next to a white fence that separated the road from an empty farmer's field, a field notably lacking apples of any kind. Despite Lyra's words, she picked up the pace just as much as Trixie did, and each cast nervous glances to the sky as the sun continued its inexorable climb overhead. At a guess, they had maybe ten minutes, at most, before the sun reached its zenith.

"Should have gone to my new home first," Trixie muttered to herself. "I knew it was too close to midday to head out." She glared at Lyra. "Or would you have gotten lost on the way there as well?"

"I'm not lost," Lyra insisted.

"So where's Sweet Apple Acres, then?"

"There should be signs. I mean, there were signs all over the place back before I went to Canterlot. I don't know what happened to them." Lyra glared at Trixie. "But I'm not lost." She glanced ahead. "A ha. And I can prove it."

Ahead, Trixie and Lyra spotted a gold-coated, orange-maned earth pony trotting with nearly as much speed as the two unicorns were. She was wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat and saddlebags laden with groceries, and was just beginning to open a gate in the white fence they had been trotting beside when she spotted them.

"Oh my," she exclaimed on seeing the two unicorns. An odd look of hopefulness came over her features. "What are you two fillies doing out at this time of day?"

"Getting increasingly lost," Trixie answered, glancing once more at the sun. At this point, it was close enough to midday that no one would argue the point. Trixie tried to remember the last time she had been outside when the sun was at its zenith, but couldn't for the life of her remember. Nopony stayed outside during midday without an extremely good reason.

"We're not lost," Lyra insisted. She pointed down the dirt path. "It's that way to Sweet Apple Acres, right?"

The earth pony's hopefulness faded away at Lyra's question, replaced by a sort of resignation. "Um, yes," she responded. "Just keep going straight down that way about two miles. You can't miss it."

"Ha!" Lyra exclaimed, turning to Trixie and sticking out her tongue.

Trixie ignored her as she tipped her wizard's cap. "Thank-you," she responded, consciously doing nothing to hide her nervousness. She turned to Lyra. "Come on. At a full gallop we can probably be there in a few minutes…"

The orange earth pony bit her lip at Trixie's obvious distress, and didn't seem to miss Lyra's own despite the mint-green unicorn working to hide it. "Hold on," she insisted. "Is it really that important that you get where you're going quickly?"

Trixie pointed a hoof straight up. "It is if we don't want to be outside in this," she responded.

"Is that all?" she asked. At a confirming nod from Trixie, she pointed down the path that lead to her house. "You can come inside if you like. I was just about to make myself lunch."

"Oh, no. We wouldn't want to impose," Trixie lied, for herself at least.

"No. I insist," the earth pony said, trotting behind Trixie and Lyra and shooing them towards her house, a rustic cottage about a hundred feet from the fence. Trixie put up only a small show of resisting before the three of them crossed the distance from the fence to the earth pony's front door and made their way inside. Trixie did not hide her very real sigh of relief as she got out from under the sun's rays and was, instead, safely enclosed by four walls and a sturdy roof. The house inside was simple and plainly decorated, looking like it contained little more than a living room, kitchen, and a few bedrooms, without so much as a second story.

"Thank-you," Trixie said as she turned to the earth pony who had taken the two unicorns in. Yes, Trixie had subtly influenced her towards that decision with a few well-chosen words said in the right tone of voice, but that didn't mean she couldn't be grateful about it.

Her new acquaintance shook her orange tresses. "No need," she responded as she slipped her saddlebags off of her, taking them in her mouth and bringing them to her kitchen. With her bags no longer in the way, Trixie could see her cutie mark – a trio of healthy-looking, green-stalked carrots. After setting them down, she turned back to Trixie and Lyra. "My name is Carrot Top, incidentally."

"Lyra Heartstrings," the mint unicorn said as she used her magic to slide off her Gatsby cap and wool cloak. She used the levitated cap to point to Trixie. "And this is Trixie Lul – "

"Just Trixie," the other unicorn interrupted with an angry glare towards her companion, before turning back to Carrot Top. "I'm Ponyville's new representative from the Night Court of Luna."

Trixie tried to keep the pride from her voice at that statement. She tried. She did not succeed, but she didn't feel particularly bad about that, either. Carrot Top's eyes widened a little at the proclamation. "Oh my!" she exclaimed, trotting up to Trixie and giving a slight bow. "Um…so would that be Lady Trixie, or Countess, or Vicereine, or…?"

Trixie shook her head, trying to hide her enjoyment at the bow. "Just Trixie. Or Representative Trixie, I suppose. I'm not a noble."

Carrot Top seemed to be simultaneously surprised that the Princess would appoint a commoner to the position of Ponyville representative, and comforted by the thought that Ponyville's new representative would be a mare of the people. From what Trixie understood, the previous holder – Blueblood something, or something Blueblood, Trixie hadn't bothered to remember – had kept his noble person distant from the ponies of Ponyville prior to his retirement from office just a few weeks ago.

"Anyway," Lyra interrupted, "we don't want to impose. We'll just wait out midday here and be on our way."

"To the Apples," Carrot Top added, her voice once more losing a bit of joy. She looked to Trixie. "So this is probably about the Longest Night festival, isn't it?"

Trixie nodded at the mention of the celebration of the winter solstice, coming up in just two days. "Yes," she confirmed. "I've been appointed as the official overseer of the festival. The Apples are overseeing the food stalls, I'm given to understand." She looked out a window, at the empty, snow-covered fields surrounding the house. "So, you're a carrot farmer, I take it?" Given the pony's name and cutie mark, it was hardly a surprise when she nodded in affirmation. "What have you got planned?"

The farmer blinked a few times at Trixie's question. "I'm sorry?" she asked.

"For the festival," Trixie continued. "Or is it some kind of surprise?"

The golden earth pony's eyes continued to flutter in confusion for a few moments. "I…well, I don't have any plans," she said, as though the answer should have been obvious. "The Apples are overseeing the food stalls."

Now it was Trixie's turn to be confused. "Well, yes, because the Trust is experienced with coordinating large numbers of ponies," she said. "But you don't want to miss a sales opportunity like the Longest Night, do you?"

"Uh, Trixie?" Lyra asked, stepping next to the blue unicorn. "That's not how it works in Ponyville. At least not with the big-time festivals in fall and winter and spring. The Apples run all the food stalls."

"Why?"

"That's just how it is, Representative," Carrot Top said, shrugging a little. "It might have something to do with the Apples being the founding family of Ponyville. There are other farms, and we get to set up stalls during any of the minor celebrations, but not during the Longest Night, the Eventime, or the Ingathering."

Trixie considered that. More specifically, she considered the thought of having only apples to eat in two days' time. Apple fritters, apple pies, apple juice, caramel apple, candied apple, apple cider…

"That's stupid and that's not what's happening this year," Trixie proclaimed.

"Now you wait just one cotton-pickin' minute," the orange earth pony – Applejack – objected, pointing a hoof at Trixie. "Ah don't know where y'all think you can just change the way things have been for centuries, but here in Ponyville, the Longest Night is an Apple family night."

"Not this year," Trixie objected, staring at the hoof pointed at her and wondering when the last time she heard such a thick country drawl was. Less than an hour ago, she had been chatting pleasantly with Carrot Top over a simple lunch the earth pony had prepared for her and Lyra. Now, she felt like she was involved in a physical wrestling match – a wrestling match that could go south real fast, given that the entire Apple clan, it seemed, was just in the next room of the Apple's surprisingly modestly-sized estate. "I like apples as much as the next pony, but the thought of eating just apples, all day? No. I like a little variety to my festivals."

"And just what gives you the right?" Applejack demanded, leaning forward threateningly.

Trixie straightened herself. "Not what," she clarified, "who. Her Majesty, Luna Equestris, Shepherd of the Moon, Caretaker of the Sun, Mistress of the Star Beasts, Sovereign of the Three Tribes, Ruler of Equestria, my mentor, and your Princess," it was Trixie's turn to jab a hoof at the obstinate pony. "As her appointed festival overseer, I have final say as to what can go into the catering. And what I say is that there's going to be not just apples, but carrots, and grapes, and pears, and celery, and broccoli, and baked goods that don't have apples in them, and anything else anypony wants."

Applejack fumed. "Well," the pony said, tipping her Stetson hat over her eyes. "Y'all may be able to say what you want in. But the plain simple truth, consarn it, is that the other farms ain't got the stockpiles." Applejack beamed as though in victory, tapping a hoof firmly on the wooden floor of the living area they were in, probably to indicate the expansive storehouse that lay beneath their hooves. "We've been preparin' all year. Got a special horde saved since the last harvest, carefully preserved to be up to the finest Apple standards and usin' only the best apples we could buck." Applejack's smile turned back into an icy glare, significantly colder than even the weather outside. "Nopony else'll be able to match the quality. They just pile up their stock and freeze 'em and hope for the best."

"I'm sure they'll be able to dig out something," Trixie insisted.

"And you think Her Majesty, Princess Luna Equestris, Shepherd of the Moon, and so on and so forth, will be okay with just any ol' thing that's been 'dug out?'"

Trixie blinked a few times at that. The earth pony, unfortunately, had her there. For an immortal alicorn– or perhaps because she was an immortal alicorn – the Princess was an extremely picky eater. It was her one major flaw.

"Now look," Applejack said, her tone changing from anger to a more conciliatory one. "Ah'm sure y'all came here with the best of intentions. But mah family runnin' the Longest Night is just the way things've been done around here, the way things'll always get done. We need them sales to keep Sweet Apple Acres up n' runnin' smoothly. We can't have other farms just cuttin' into our profits."

Trixie's eyes widened a little at that. "The Apple Trust has a near-complete monopoly on apples in all of Equestria!" she exclaimed. She jabbed a hoof past Applejack, at the living area where the rest of the Apple clan, plus Lyra, were waiting, and probably listening in on every word. "How could you possibly – "

"It's a farm thing," Applejack interrupted. "Ah don't expect a fancy Canterlot mare – "

"I'm actually from Neigh Orleans."

"Well, Ah'm sorry for mah assumption. But Ah don't expect any city mare to understand the delicate situation the Apple clan is in. Farms are always on the edge of disaster. One blight could ruin a whole harvest season. Darn near did back when Ah was just a little filly, a blight that spread to almost every apple farm in the country. If'n it weren't for a goodly bit of foresight and savin' for that very predicament, why, the entire Apple Trust might have gone under."

Trixie found that hard to believe – not the nation-wide apple blight, as she had vague memories of that back before she had become Princess Luna's protégé; rather, that it had ever seriously cut into the Apple Trust's coffers. Even if it was true, with their near-total monopoly on apples, the Trust would have been in a better position than any other apple-farming family to recover from the blight. If anything, it had probably driven their last true competition out of business.

Trixie let out a sigh. This Applejack was as stubborn as a mule. She wasn't going to change her mind anytime soon, no matter what tack she took. "Fine," Trixie conceded at length. "Fine. I'll just…pack a lunch or bring my own snacks or something to the Longest Night."

Applejack beamed at her victory. "Ah don't think we'll disappoint, Miss Trixie. Never have. This ain't the first time Princess Luna has had the Longest Night in Ponyville and she's come away smilin' like a school filly every time."

Trixie nodded. "Fine," she repeated, as the two trotted out of the room they had been in and into the living room. Trixie made a conscious effort to keep her eyes on the floor and ignore a significant number of glares she was getting from the rest of the Apple clan for what she'd said during the overheard conversation. "Thanks for the food, I guess. If you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do."

She made her way over to Lyra, who was already putting her Gatsby cap and wool cloak back on and was standing near the door. The door was blocked, however, by a small filly with a red mane and a straw-colored coat. She was glaring at Trixie, and stuck her tongue out in a very pointed and determined fashion, blowing a raspberry at the unicorn.

"Applebloom!" Applejack's voice objected.

"But sis…!" the small filly objected strongly. "We can't just let 'er go just like that after – "

"Applebloom, yes we can," the orange mare explained, trotting over to the filly and scooting her out of the way of the door. Lyra and Trixie both gave polite good-byes, and left as quickly as possible.

The two were silent for several minutes as they trudged along the snow-bordered dirt path, before Lyra looked over to Trixie. "Was that filly going to suggest getting you tarred and feathered?" she asked.

"Of course not," Trixie answered, doing nothing to keep the bitterness from her voice. "She was going to suggest I be lynched."

"Ah," Lyra said, nodding sagely. She sighed a moment later. "Look, you tried. And I'm not going to lie, I was not expecting that from you. I think it's great and all that you were trying to get that carrot farmer a place in the Longest Night, but that's just not how things happen in Ponyville."

Trixie made a face. "I wasn't doing it for her," she responded. "I mean, okay, yeah, it'd be great for her business and from the looks of things she needed it, but I wasn't doing it for her. I was doing it for me." She looked to Lyra. "I mean, try to imagine eating an apple that hasn't been chopped up, mixed with broccoli and alfalfa seeds and poppy seeds, drenched in butter – and I mean a whole stick of butter, real butter, not that fake stuff they have nowadays – and bread crumbs, and then the whole thing fried up." Trixie grinned at her own recipe. "Ooh, and with eggs. Two eggs, scrambled and mixed in."

Lyra blinked a few times at the thoroughly bizarre-sounding dish. "I'm…having an easy time imagining not eating an apple like that, actually."

"Huh," Trixie replied, honestly surprised. "That doesn't sound delicious?"

"No."

"Huh."

There was a drawn-out silence between the two, before Lyra finally broke it. "So now where?" she asked.

"Well, after that fiasco, I'm in the mood for something easy," Trixie responded. "So I guess…weather patrol? If you can find it."

Lyra mumbled something under her breath at Trixie's last comment, which Trixie chose to ignore. "Back to town…" the mint-green unicorn proclaimed, as the two began trotting back towards Ponyville proper.

"Rainbow Dash, if you don't get your polychromatic flank in here in – oh, hello there – in five minutes, then I'm going to quit and take the entire team with me!" The jasmine-coated, blue-maned pegasus with three drops of water for a cutie mark shouted at the top of her lungs after throwing open the door to the weather patrol station just as Trixie was about to knock on it. She had only barely been able to dodge out of the way of being killed by blunt force trauma from the door.

The two unicorns stared, wide-eyed, at the pegasus, frozen in place. The pegasus, for her part, had her gray-blue eyes focused intently on the winter sky, as she breathed deeply, apparently waiting for somepony named Rainbow Dash.

"Um," Lyra said at length, breaking the silence. "Hi."

"Hello," the pegasus repeated, not breaking eye contact with the sky. "What are you here for?"

Lyra turned to Trixie, who cleared her throat a little. "My name is Trixie," she said. "I'm the new representative of Luna's Night Court to Ponyville – "

"And the festival overseer?" the pegasus guessed.

"Yes," Trixie responded. "I just thought I'd stop by and see how the weather patrol is doing." She looked up at the wintery sky, which was marred by a few cirrus clouds but otherwise was a clear, perfect blue. "…and everything seems to be just fine, actually."

The pegasus blinked a few times, tearing her eyes away from the sky and glaring at Trixie. "Fine?" she demanded. "Fine?"

"Well, there's a few clouds," Trixie admitted, "but you've got two days to clear them, and I don't imagine it'll be very hard to keep new ones from forming…"

The pegasus leaned forward. "Are you serious?" she demanded, then looked to Lyra, wings fluttering in agitation. "Is she serious? Everything isn't fine! There's a storm building over the Everfree right now, probably coming this way, and our weather manager has disappeared! Again!" She paused a moment. "I'm Raindrops, by the way. Hi."

The pegasus turned around and stomped inside the tall spire near Ponyville's center that was the weather patrol station, the tallest structure in Ponyville. She didn't close the door behind her, so Trixie decided to take that as an invitation to enter, with Lyra following. Inside, the tower was mostly hollow space, with various pegasi flitting about in the upper levels, looking over charts and maps and plans that were plastered across the building's inner walls. All in all, there were maybe two dozen pegasi in the station, all of them looking extraordinarily busy and none of them looking particularly coordinated. Trixie heard several statements along the lines of 'all our plans ruined,' 'it would be just before the Longest Night that this happens,' and, most commonly, 'where in the Princess' name is Rainbow Dash?'

"So," Trixie said, as she trotted up next to Raindrops before the pegasi could fly straight up and away. "Why are you making a storm in the Everfree Forest if it's going to be such a problem?"

Raindrops' eyes widened at that. "Why are we…" she began, then shook her mane. "Right. New here. We don't make the weather in the Everfree."

"Then who does?"

"Nopony does. The Everfree just does what the Everfree wants."

Trixie blinked a few times as she tried to wrap her mind around that one. "The…weather just happens on its own?" she asked.

Raindrops whickered in annoyance. "Don't know why. Best us weather ponies can do is deal with it as it rolls over us. Good news is that once it leaves the Everfree's airspace, we can work it again. The bad news, of course, being that until it does, there isn't a thing we can do about it, meaning some very large storms can build up." Raindrops gestured half-heartedly to the Ponyvillian weather team. "You're looking at the most over-worked, under-appreciated ponies in Equestria."

Trixie couldn't help but notice a slight tug at the corner of Raindrops' lips as she said that – if forced to hazard a guess, the unicorn would have ventured that Raindrops, despite her complaining, enjoyed the job and the challenge it presented. The unicorn trotted over to one wall, where a map of the Everfree forest had been set up, and a weather diagram the likes of which Trixie had never seen before placed next to it. The diagram made mention of air pressure, humidity, average temperature, and something called "forecasts" of the Everfree Forest's upcoming weather. Their diagram also made it pretty clear that it was all just a bunch of guesswork.

"That's useless now," Raindrops answered as she came up alongside Trixie, reaching up a hoof and tearing down the weather diagram, tossing it into a nearby garbage bin. "The Everfree looked like it was going to be pretty quiet. Then this heat wave came out of nowhere a few days ago and started messing up everything. Hot air from the Everfree is mixing with the cold air from the rest of Equestria. Might be a thunderstorm, a blizzard, tornado, hurricane, I don't know what's brewing in there, but it's going to be arriving soon. If we're lucky, it won't hit until after the Longest Night has passed." She paused a moment, considering her own words. "But we're not lucky."

"And your weather manager has disappeared at a time like this?" Trixie asked incredulously.

Raindrops' almost-smile disappeared, replaced by a rather firm frown as her wings sagged. "Rainbow Dash. She just up and disappeared after her last shift."

"Disappeared?" Lyra asked. Trixie jumped, having forgotten that her fellow unicorn was nearby, but Raindrops seemed to take the mint-green pony's appearance in easy stride.

"Pop. Gone. I'm not worried, she does it all the time, but she has a real knack for picking the worst possible times." Raindrops shook her mane. "She's the fastest flier in Equestria. She brags about that a lot, but I've seen her move and it's the stars-sworn truth. When the Everfree storm hits, we'll need her." Once again, Raindrops considered her own words. "Not that she'll be there. Without her here leading us, Cloud Kicker's the one in charge, but…" she pointed a hoof upwards. Flitting about from one pony and one station to the next was a pegasus mare with a gray coat and yellow mane and tail, looking incredibly frazzled and talking incoherently to each pony she met. Raindrops watched her impassively for a few moments. "She doesn't take pressure well," the pegasus said.

Lyra and Trixie looked between each other, the latter beginning to suspect that Raindrops' name and cutie mark didn't simply represent a talent for making precipitation. "Well," Trixie said, tipping her hat a little. "You have a lot of work to do. I'll leave you to it."

"Thanks. We'll do what we can for the festival, just…" Raindrops offered a resigned shrug. "No promises."

The two unicorns made their way from the weather station, Trixie wearing a grimace that would have done Raindrops proud. "So…" she said. "Nothing but apples in a few days, plus we might all die in a blizzard or get sucked up in a tornado or struck by lightning. This is shaping up nicely."

Lyra frowned herself. "Yeah, I'm not liking this job very much," the pony said. "I think I'd rather of just had the Longest Night come and have it all collapse around me, rather than see it falling to pieces ahead of time."

Trixie glared at Lyra, but to her surprise the other unicorn offered a somewhat-playful bump with one shoulder. "Calm down," the unicorn insisted. "It's not your fault."

"No, but as the overseer I'm going to be blamed for it," Trixie pointed out, sighing. "I wonder if Luna knew that everything was going to the sun and back here and sent me here because of it."

"That seems mean," Lyra said, making a face at the thought of the Princess being so needlessly cruel. Despite the implications, however, it didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility; if anything, it fit right in with the stories of the political sniping and shadowy games that was the food and drink of the Night Court of Luna.

"She was…less than happy with me the last time we spoke." Trixie said. "After the ice palace thing we got into an argument about how I'm not taking my studies seriously anymore, and I said it's because none of it mattered." She looked to Lyra. "I mean, you've got a musical education and a direction you want your life to move in. Me? All I had to look forward to was another year of the same stuff. It was getting old."

"So you think that Princess Luna set you up to fail?" Lyra asked.

"Wouldn't put it past her." Trixie mulled this thought over for a few minutes, then shook her mane. "Whatever. Let's just move on to decorations. It's supposed to be overseen by some unicorn pony named Rarity."

Lyra's trotting faltered a moment at that. "Ugh," she groaned, turning down a path with Trixie in tow. She began chanting a number to herself, a large, round number that was, coincidentally, the payment she was receiving from Luna to serve as Trixie's escort.

"So you know her," Trixie guessed.

Lyra ground her teeth together. "Yes," she declared.

"No," the white unicorn said in a firm voice, "no, no, no! You simply cannot wear that ensemble around town anymore!"

Trixie's eyes were wide as she reared up on her hind legs, using a hoof to try and fend off her attacker. "I like my hat and cape!"

"Yes, I'm sure they're fine if you want to cry out circus attraction," Rarity proclaimed as she closed in, horn glowing as she levitated measuring tape, scissors and fabric. "But if you're to be our new noble representative of the Night Court – "

"Princess Luna didn't ennoble me!"

"I mean noble as a metaphor, darling. Gallant, upright, dignified, all these things and more which you most certainly are not while wearing those rags!"

Trixie leapt backwards – no easy feat when standing on only two legs – and let her own horn glow beneath her hat, calling up a solid blue bubble of arcane energy around herself just as the measuring tape held by Rarity lunged. It smacked harmlessly against Trixie's impromptu shield.

"These aren't rags!" Trixie proclaimed. "And they match my coat and eyes perfectly! And they're both enchanted several times over making them worth more than their weight in gold!" Trixie paused, then let out a long sigh as she remembered a few details about the shield spell she had cast. "And you can't hear me because this bubble is airtight. Great."

Rarity was still poised on the other side of the shield, talking fervently to Lyra as the musician tried to calm down the fashion designer, but the white unicorn's eyes hadn't left their death-lock on Trixie's own. At a guess, Trixie supposed that she had about five minutes of air inside the bubble, and briefly entertained the idea of letting herself suffocate before remembering that wouldn't work: as soon as she lost consciousness, the spell would fail, and she would be helpless while Rarity would be free to do things to her – horrible, unspeakable things. Like try and put her in something frilly – or, Luna forbid, a dress.

Trixie still waited until the air began to get stale before letting her shield spell fade away. Rarity didn't lunge immediately, which Trixie took as a good sign. "I'm. Not here. For a makeover," the blue unicorn said, slowly and determinedly. "I'm here. To see. How the decorations. Are coming."

Rarity pouted. "Well, of course they're coming along just magnificently, darling," the pony said. Her horn glowed once more, and Trixie flinched, but the other unicorn had merely grabbed an overly large sketchbook, which she opened to a page and presented to Trixie. Inside of it, she had used pencils of various colors to sketch out a remarkably detailed picture of Ponyville's town hall, the large auditorium of which would be hosting the opening ceremonies of the Longest Night. The auditorium had been bedecked in various banners, curtains, tassels, and other fineries, with stalls set up along the edges to provide food and drinks for the ponies. The stage, meanwhile, was dominated by the flag of Equestria hanging down from its center: a stylized, eight-armed blue sun, with a darker crescent moon inside of it with horns pointing downwards, and tucked between the horns of the moon a single white star.

It was a beautiful drawing. It was, however, just a drawing. Trixie looked to Rarity, eyebrow raised. "That's nice," she said. "But how far along with this are you?"

"Oh, just about finished of course!" Rarity said, floating the sketch away. "In fact I shall be putting the finishing touches on it later tonight. You could stop by then, if you like, say around sundown? Or you could come by tomorrow, perhaps, and we could spend the midday together?"

Trixie debated whether she'd rather be trapped outside or trapped with Rarity during the midday, and found both thoughts equally unpleasant. "Tomorrow," she said, "but probably after midday. Say around two o'clock."

The white unicorn pouted a little. "Very well, Miss Trixie," she said. "I'll see you then."

Trixie turned to leave, but stopped when she heard Rarity add, "and I'll be sure to bring some…emergency fashion supplies with me. You can keep the clown suit if you really want, but eyes, a mane, and a coat like yours really shouldn't be wasted by someone in your position!"

Trixie's eyes were slightly larger than dinner plates as she fled the Carousel Boutique, Rarity's home and store, at a full gallop. Lyra caught up only with some effort as Trixie stopped at a tree outside that she had ducked and hid behind, albeit not very well.

"And now you know," Lyra said with a laugh.

Trixie glared at Lyra. "You…" she hissed. "You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little," Lyra laughed, pulling down the brim of her Gatsby. While Rarity had made a few comments about her own choice of dress, she had been entirely focused on Trixie when she had learned who the blue unicorn was and what she was doing in Ponyville. "Lighten up, Trixie. Rarity at least seems to have all decorations in perfect – oh, hi Cheerilee!"

Lyra's gaze had turned to a magenta earth pony with pink hair, wearing a warm-looking wool cloak and cap ensemble. The pony paused at the sight of Lyra, before a wide grin split her features. "Lyra!" she exclaimed, trotting up to the unicorn as Lyra did likewise. "When did you get back in Ponyville?"

"A few hours ago," Lyra admitted as the two nuzzled affectionately, clearly old friends. "I'm showing Trixie here around town. Oh," Lyra took a step away from Cheerilee, pointing to Trixie. "Cheerilee, this is Trixie. She's going to be the representative of Luna's Night Court to Ponyville." She held out a hoof when Cheerilee started to bow respectfully. "Don't do that, she isn't a noble and enjoys seeing ponies do that way too much."

Trixie pouted slightly, but found herself doing it mostly for show rather than putting any actual feeling behind it. "Trixie," Lyra continued, "this is Cheerilee. She's my second-oldest friend here in Ponyville and she's studying to be a school teacher."

Cheerilee's smile dropped at that, and she looked down. "Oh," she said in a low voice. "I guess you didn't hear I'm not studying for that anymore."

Lyra blinked a few times. "I – I'm sorry," she said, looking mortified. "I didn't – "

"Because I graduated and run Ponyville's elementary school now!" Cheerilee exclaimed, smile returning with full force, beaming like the stars.

Lyra and Cheerilee both made sounds at that which were just inside Trixie's range of hearing but well inside her audio pain threshold. She put her hooves to her ears as she waited for the two friends to stop squealing with joy and prancing around each other. "Congratulations," Trixie ventured at the first opportunity.

Cheerilee offered a polite nod at that, but turned back to Lyra, clearly intent on catching up with her old friend. "So have you seen BonBon yet?"

Lyra shook her head, and one of Trixie's eyebrows raised as she noticed Lyra's smile shifted from 'joy at seeing an old friend' to 'embarrassed yet wistful,' and also began to blush a color that matched Cheerilee's coat. Trixie decided to mentally file that away as 'interesting' as she watched the two.

"I've been dragging Trixie around town," Lyra said, gesturing to her companion. "And it's been three years since I saw her, I mean really had a chance to see her, not just a quick weekend visit, and I don't want to just show up and – "

Lyra was interrupted by Cheerilee putting a hoof on her shoulder. Her own smile had shifted to be warm and caring. "Stop avoiding her," she advised. "She's been waiting long enough."

Lyra blinked at that, before nodding fervently. "Right," she said. "No problem."

"Anyway," Cheerilee said, pointing a hoof past Lyra and at the Carousel Boutique. "I've got an appointment to keep about the decorations." Her voice betrayed no love lost for Rarity, something else which Trixie decided to file away as 'interesting.' "I'll see you around, Lyra. But not before you've seen BonBon!" She turned to Trixie. "And you too, Representative," she said, offering a deep, overtly formal bow before taking off.

Trixie blinked a few times. "Ha," she said, turning around to get ready to trot to her next destination. "I got my bow in spite of your best – stars above!" The exclamation came as she found herself face-to-face – noses touching, even – with a blue-eyed, pink-coated pony who seemed to be staring into her soul. Trixie stumbled backwards, and thankfully the pink pony didn't move.

Trixie stared at the pony. "Um – " she began. The pink pony let out a gigantic gasp, then suddenly sped off, running away at speeds Trixie thought only pegasi were capable of pulling and quickly disappearing into Ponyville.

The blue unicorn blinked, trying to force her heart to stop attempting to burst from her chest at the shock she had just received. She noticed Lyra was staring at her, her own eyes wide but with a look of bitter defeat on her face.

"I'm sorry," the unicorn apologized as though telling Trixie that her aunt and uncle had died. "I'm so, so sorry."

"What was that?" Trixie demanded as she got to her hooves, wondering if it was possible to overdose on adrenaline. She certainly felt like it after the shock she'd just received.

Lyra bit her lip. "That was Pinkie Pie," she explained, scuffing a hoof on the cobblestone street beneath her. "She moved here a little bit before I went to Canterlot. She's probably run off to throw you a party."

Trixie blinked as she took in Lyra's words verses the tone of her voice. "Why are you saying that like it's synonymous with 'she's going to drag me into a basement and torture me?'"

"She gives off that vibe, doesn't she?" Lyra asked, stepping forward and putting a hoof on Trixie's shoulder as though bracing the other unicorn for bad news. "It'll be a surprise party. Probably when you least expect it. If you do see it coming, though, don't run. She'll just follow you and drag you there."

Trixie was beginning to grow seriously concerned. "What?" she asked.

"Just enjoy her party." Lyra said. "They are enjoyable. And this is your first so you'll get to have a lot of fun. Eat, drink, and be happy, but for the love of Luna do not mention any reason for her to throw you another party. Because she will. And then another. And another. And another. And…you see where this is going."

The new representative of the Night Court raised an eyebrow. "That's it?" she asked. "Just more parties?"

"An infinite loop of parties." Lyra said. "Her special talent is making ponies smile, and she's good at it, I guess, but it is way too easy for her to go completely overboard."

Trixie did not like the sound of that. "Okay…so go to the party and enjoy myself but don't look like I'm enjoying myself too much." As she thought about that, she smiled a little. "So basically like the Grand Galloping Gala, then. Easy."

Lyra's eyes widened a little at the casual mention of the most prestigious social event in all of Equestrian society. "You've been to the Gala?"

"Five times," Trixie responded with a nod, then grinned and pointed a hoof at her chest. "Luna's protégé, remember? Of course I've been."

Lyra pouted a little. "Lucky…"

Trixie shrugged. "Anyway," Trixie said, stepping away from Lyra and consulting her mental list of destinations and ponies to see. "Last stop is music. Somepony named Fluttershy volunteered to – "

Lyra looked surprised once more. "Fluttershy?" she interrupted. "She volunteered? You sure you're remembering right?"

Trixie's eyes narrowed slightly. "Completely. I have a photographic memory."

"Really?"

"Well, no. But there's a spell that lets you perfectly remember something for twenty-four hours, and I used it on my list of ponies I needed to see."

"Useful…" Lyra said, tapping one hoof to her mouth as she thought. "Fluttershy is…well, shy. Incredibly shy. I don't know her very well…which means that if you and me show up at her cottage she'll probably just hide under her bed and wait for us to go away."

Trixie's eyebrow arched at that. "Then…why did she volunteer to do music?"

"I don't know, it's not very in-character for her…" Lyra said as she continued to consider. "She barely even comes into town, usually just mail-orders stuff straight to her home – ha! Got it." Lyra looked around a moment, getting her bearings, before pointing down one of Ponyville's streets. "Okay, this way. We'll probably have to recruit some help on this one."

Trixie blinked. "Help?"

"Help!" a panicked voice came from inside of Ponyville's post office. The unicorns spared each other a glance before dashing inside, horns glowing and ready to face just about any problem that might confront them.

Except this one, "this one" being an impossibly large pile of envelopes, boxes, loose paper, stamps, mail bags, mail carts, at least one overturned shelf, and, for some bizarre reason, a half-eaten tray of muffins. Just barely poking out from the pile was a single hoof, waving frantically.

The two unicorns once again paused, this time in utter confusion as to how such a gigantic mess could have been caused. They quickly went to work, however, magically hefting and lifting the piles of assorted mail and mail-related things off of the pony who was trapped beneath it all. After several moments of working together, they finally pushed aside enough for the trapped pony – a gray pegasus with a yellow mane and tail, wearing the navy uniform and cap of a mail mare – to break free from her papery prison and get her hooves on a solid wooden floor again.

"Ugh," the pony groaned, rubbing her head a few moments. She opened her eyes and looked to Trixie and Lyra. "I just don't know what went wrong…"

Trixie realized she was staring, tried to stop, and failed miserably. The pegasus pony had yellow eyes, quite vibrant ones at that, but the two of them refused to focus, with her left eye focused mostly on Trixie, while the right one was pointed out and upwards, towards the ceiling. "Um," Trixie said, extending a hoof mechanically, "hi."

The pegasus took it with both hooves, fumbling slightly as she did, and shook it. "Thank-you!" she said. "I don't know how I would have gotten out of there without you two." As she said this, she released Trixie's captured hoof and turned to Lyra, shaking hers as well. "I was climbing a shelf to get to my muffins but then everything just started falling…"

Trixie blinked a few times. "Climbing?" she asked, looking to the pegasus' wings. "Why didn't you just fly?"

"Oh," the pegasus said, grinning as she scratched the back of her head with one hoof. "I…forgot. Yeah."

"You forgot you could fly?" Lyra asked incredulously, though obviously believing the pegasus despite the question. Trixie, on the other hand, was fairly adept at recognizing lies when she heard them.

"Yeah," the pegasus said sheepishly. "Forgot I could fly." She turned to look at the mess she had made. "Uh…I think the post office is going to close early today, so if you were hoping to get something mailed you'll have to wait, um…?" She turned to look at the two mares.

"Lyra Heartstrings," the mint-green unicorn introduced herself. "And this is Trixie. And no, we weren't here to have anything mailed. We were actually hoping to speak with the mail pony who makes deliveries to a cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest – "

"Fluttershy's?" the pegasus asked. At a confirming nod, she tapped her chest. "That would be me. Oh, I'm Ditzy Doo."

"Great!" Lyra exclaimed, turning to Trixie. "Like I said, Fluttershy would probably hide under a bed if too many ponies showed up at her doorstep, so it should just be you and Ditzy Doo here who go and see her."

Trixie raised an eyebrow at that. "Are you ditching me?" she asked.

Lyra opened her mouth to object, thought better of it, and instead nodded. "Yes," she confirmed. "I have some things I need to do. I'll meet you at your place later."

Lyra didn't wait for confirmation before leaving the post office, a noticeable spring to her step and swing to her haunches as she did. Trixie wasn't certain how she felt about the mint green unicorn leaving, but her contemplations on the matter were interrupted as she noticed a pair of yellow eyes focused on her. She turned, surprised to see that Ditzy Doo, apparently, could lock both eyes onto a subject if she wanted.

"Hmm," Ditzy Doo thought. "Don't think I've seen you around town before, and I thought I knew everypony."

"You didn't know Lyra," Trixie pointed out.

"I didn't know her face," the pegasus corrected, turning around – one eye lingering on Trixie for slightly longer than the other one as they became walled once more – and beginning to dig through the pile of letters she had previously been trapped underneath, searching unerringly despite the utter chaos. After a few moments, she held up an envelope, stamped with the magic academy's sigil. "Lyra Heartstrings, 12 Hayseed Lane. Moved away three years ago to attend Luna's school of magic on a music scholarship, just before I started my job here. I've been delivering her mail to her parent's house because she never got a new mailing address." Ditzy Doo's eyes both narrowed at that. "I hate it when ponies do that."

Trixie blinked a few times. "You know all that?" She asked. "How?"

"I read her mail."

Trixie stared.

"Kidding!" Ditzy Doo said with a laugh as she used her head as a plow to begin shoving all the fallen letters away from the post office's door. "I talk to her parents when I'm on my route sometimes."

"Oh," the blue unicorn said, chuckling slightly in relief. "Well, yes. I'm new. I've been appointed as the new representative – "

" – of Luna's Night Court and official festival overseer," Ditzy Doo interrupted, pausing a moment with her tongue clenched in her teeth in concentration as her eyes wandered – independently – over the pile of mail before her, before diving once more into it and coming out with a trio of envelopes in her mouth, one midnight blue, one white, and one plain brown. She trotted over to the surprised-looking Trixie. "Feef ah fah yoo," the mail mare said, as best she could with a mouthful of mail.

Trixie paused a moment before grasping the envelopes with her magic and looking them over. The midnight blue envelope was from Princess Luna, and bore the royal seal proudly on its back. The brown envelope also bore the royal seal and claimed to be from Luna, but given the color of the envelope it was more likely that it was from somepony who had been delegated the task of sending it in Luna's name. The final envelope bore no seal at all, instead simply being addressed to her in elegant, flowing script – most likely a unicorn's writing, as earth ponies and pegasi, lacking telekinetic magic, rarely had the mouth-and-tongue dexterity necessarily to write Equestrian with such elegance.

"How did you…?" Trixie began, looking back to Ditzy Doo.

The pegasus shrugged, pointing at the two from Canterlot. "Those two arrived just a few hours ago," her hoof moved to the white envelope, "and that one's been sitting here for weeks waiting for you. It's from the last representative."

Trixie had actually meant how did you find these in all of that, and by the way how did you know unless you really do read ponies' mail, but decided to let that slide. Instead, she turned her attention back to an earlier point of interest while tucking the envelopes away into her cape for now. "You can remember all of that," she accused, "but you forgot that you could fly?"

"Yes," Ditzy Doo responded evenly. Her tone changed just slightly, however, to be noticeably defensive, as her eyes managed to come into focus on Trixie once more.

Trixie stared, gaze switching from one of Ditzy Doo's no-longer-wandering-eyes to the other. She put two and two together pretty quickly: wandering eyes would make even walking around a chore, never mind attempting to move in three dimensions, even just to get muffins on top of a shelf. After a few moments, Trixie nodded. "Okay," she said.

Ditzy Doo's smile returned at that, this time looking grateful. "Okay," she echoed. "Just give me a few minutes to clean this place up and then we'll go to Fluttershy's."

"I think it's going to take more than a few minutes," Trixie observed – although even as she did, she found herself stepping forward a few paces, horn glowing and lifting up a large pile of letters and separating them out for Ditzy Doo to look over.

"Maybe a little," the gray-coated pegasus conceded, as she used a hoof to slide her tray of muffins along the floor and over to in front of Trixie. "Muffin?"

"Not unless you've got one with peanut butter, hay, and – "

"Pumpernickel seeds?" Ditzy Doo asked, pointing to one with a hoof absent-mindedly as she collected the levitated letters and began sorting them. Trixie nearly dropped them all on the pegasus as she stared at a muffin that she had thought any other pony would consider absolutely inedible. She'd had to practically threaten the chef's family back in Canterlot to get him to make them for her, and yet…here one was, sitting next to an otherwise normal blueberry muffin.

Trixie decided that she and Ditzy Doo were going to be best friends. At least until she found out where Ditzy got her muffins from.

Lyra could not, for the life of her, understand why she was so nervous as she sat outside of the candy store, staring at its door as though it was holding her family hostage.

This is stupid, the unicorn thought. I should just go in there. Right now! Get in gear! Pony up! Move, you silly filly!

Lyra stood still.

It's not like I haven't seen her. I saw her plenty over the last three years. Yeah, it was just for a few hours whenever she came to visit Canterlot or I went to visit her on the weekends…but come on, I saw her last – no, wait, that was finals week. Okay, but I saw her…no, I had an audition. Didn't get it. Then there was…no…but…no, not then either…Holy hay, how long has it been since I've seen her?

Lyra's eyes widened as she realized. Oh…it's been, like, a semester. A semester and a half. Eight months easy. I guess I got so busy that…aw, she probably hates me…

The mint-green unicorn turned and walked away, dejected.

The mint-green unicorn turned and walked back, determined.

BonBon could never hate me. She's the one who said I should take advantage of that scholarship! I wasn't going to, but she convinced me! And…well, and then I haven't seen her for eight months.

But there were still letters! We wrote each other all the time. So there. We'd write about…

…oh, Luna, I don't know. I can't remember what was on BonBon's last letter to me! What was on mine to her? Stars above, what if it was something major? Lyra hit herself in the head a few times. Think, Lyra, think! This is important! This is –

Lyra felt hooves on her back, shoving her forward. She stumbled and ended up with her face planted firmly against the candy shop's door.

"Ow…"

"Oops," a magenta voice said. Lyra wasn't certain how voices could be magenta, but this one was. "I thought it opened inwards…" the unicorn felt herself being picked up and brushed off, and realized she was staring at Cheerilee.

"Wha…?" Lyra asked blearily as she struggled to clear her head. "When did you – gah!" The exclamation came as Cheerilee opened the door and shoved Lyra inside of BonBon's Confectionarium. By the time she got her hooves under her, she was aware of a half-dozen sets of eyes on her. Two pairs belonged to a pair of fillies, an orange pegasus and a white unicorn who were standing by the rock candies; one of a brown-coated stallion with an hourglass cutie mark who had been on his way out with a bag of jelly babies; a blue unicorn stallion with a long horn and a safety pin cutie mark; a fifth set were claimed by an earth pony with a dark blue coat and blue eyes and a star cutie mark…

…and the final, dark teal set belonged to BonBon, a cream-colored earth pony with a mane and tail striped in navy and bright pink, and who was the most beautiful creature that Lyra had ever laid eyes upon. She was standing behind the counter, mouth hanging open.

"Uh – " Lyra began, before being thrown a third time; in this instance, it was as a cream-navy-and-pink blur moved with speed that would have impressed the Wonderbolts from behind the counter, past the customers, and straight into Lyra, throwing her to the ground and knocking her Gatsby cap off, with the blur landing on top of her and revealing itself to be – unsurprisingly – BonBon.

Lyra was frozen for a moment, before her body moved of its own accord, wrapping BonBon in as tight an embrace as the earth pony was currently giving her, burying her muzzle in BonBon's mane and breathing in deeply. She smelled of sugar. She always smelled of sugar – she was a candy maker, after all. The smell was subtle, not overpowering, a faint background scent that brought with it thousands of memories of the two growing up together in Ponyville, best friends as fillies, something so much more than that as they grew older. It was the sweetest smell in Equestria.

"Hi," Lyra finally managed to say as she opened her eyes, and found herself staring into BonBon's. "I'm back."

"I noticed," BonBon responded, before leaning up and pressing her lips firmly to Lyra's own. The unicorn's heart stopped beating for a few moments before plunging into overdrive, and she sank into BonBon's kiss. She was vaguely aware of the dark blue mare and brown stallion ushering the fillies and other customers out of the shop, knowing smiles on their faces and switching the sign on the shop's front window from 'open' to 'closed.'

Like all things, the kiss had to end eventually. In Lyra's case, it ended with BonBon pulling away, offering a smile, and then hitting the unicorn rather firmly on top of the head.

"Ow! What was that for?" Lyra demanded, rubbing the spot where BonBon had hit her.

"Because," BonBon explained as she put her hooves on Lyra's barrel and forced her firmly to the floor, leaning down and touching muzzles, "you haven't written me in more than six weeks!"

"Oh," Lyra said, and looked away. "I'm sorry, I lost track of time, these last few weeks have been – "

"You're not sorry," BonBon accused, before a grin split her features and she gave Lyra a peck on the nose. "Not yet, anyway." With that, she got off of the unicorn and began trotting towards the stairs that would take her to her apartment on the second story of the candy store. She paused only to glance at Lyra, eyes half-lidded, and nodded her head upstairs. Lyra blinked a few times before offering a full-toothed smile of her own, getting up quickly and prancing after the love of her life.

Fluttershy's cottage was about as far away from Ponyville as Sweet Apple Acres, but in a different direction, a route across the unclaimed, snow-covered fields that almost seemed to serve as a kind of buffer between Ponyville and the dangerous Everfree Forest. As Trixie followed Ditzy Doo, the blue unicorn noted that the skies over the forest were noticeably darker than over the rest of Ponyville. In the far distance, she could even see large thunderhead clouds forming.

"Yikes," Ditzy Doo said as she noticed the storm clouds herself, though she had to bend her head at an odd angle to get one eye to focus on them. "The weather ponies are going to have their hooves full…"

"So I hear…" Trixie intoned. She realized after a moment that she was staring, once more, at Ditzy Doo's eyes – and that the pegasus was staring back. Caught in the act, Trixie felt her face heating up in embarrassment as she quickly looked away. "I'm sorry – " she began.

"Just go on and say it," the mare interrupted, her tone insistent and surprisingly patient, rather than bitter.

"Your eyes are crooked and I don't know which one to be looking at when talking to you which is really awkward because you seem nice and there is definitely nothing wrong with you but it's just awkward for me but it has to be worse for you but I don't mean mean anything by that I'm sure you're a perfectly normal member of Equestrian society I mean you do have a government job and all plus you gave me that muffin and…" Trixie trailed off there, catching her breath and looking more away, focusing very intently on the dirt path beneath her hooves.

Ditzy Doo blinked a few times at the rapid pace of Trixie's exclamation. "Feel better?" she asked.

Trixie didn't want to answer. She used her magic to turn up the collar on her cape, hiding her face from Ditzy Doo's. Frankly, she was surprised at her own actions. Back in Canterlot she would have had no problem keeping her thoughts on Ditzy Doo's wandering eyes in check. She chalked it up to the day not going so well – the conflict at the Apple's, the oncoming storm from the Everfree, being assaulted by Rarity, being scared witless by Pinkie Pie and threatened to be put in a perpetual party loop, and with a very distinct feeling that somewhere in Canterlot right now was a certain midnight blue alicorn princess with a knowing grin on her face as she watched Trixie suffer using a crystal ball or mirror or pool of water or telescope or something.

For her part, Ditzy Doo let Trixie stew, which was exactly what the unicorn wanted to do. She only broke her out of it about half an hour later, tapping Trixie on the shoulder to indicate that they had arrived at a thatch-roofed, picturesque cottage near the Everfree forest, surrounded by small, hoof-crafted animal homes and even a chicken coup.

"Fluttershy's," Ditzy Doo said, as the two trotted up to the front door. "We'll have to go easy on her," the pegasus explained in a soft voice. "Let me do the talking. And if she hides under something, just let her stay there until she wants to come out on her own."

Trixie blinked. "If she hides under something?" she echoed.

Ditzy Doo nodded as they reached the door. Taking in a deep breath, the pegasus knocked softly on it three times. From inside, Trixie heard a high-pitched, panicked eep, then the sound of several things being knocked over and hooves pounding on wood, retreating from the door. To her surprise, she also heard another voice, this one somewhat scratchy.

"Aw, no! Fluttershy, it's probably just – agh," the voice said with surprising intensity, at least compared to the volume that Trixie had been expecting. The sound of angry hoof-stomps began approaching the door.

"Oh," Ditzy Doo said. "I guess that Fluttershy has – "

The door flew open, and Trixie found herself staring at a cyan-coated pegasus with the most vibrant mane she had ever seen on a pony – it was literally all the colors of the rainbow, the 'hot' ones on the top of her head and the 'cooler' ones running down her neck. Her tail was similarly polychromatic, and on either flank was a cutie mark of a white, fluffy cloud with a rainbow-hued lightning bolt arcing from it.

"Okay, what gives?" the pegasus pony demanded.

Ditzy Doo pointed at Trixie. "Rainbow Dash, this is Trixie." She turned to Trixie. "Trixie, this is Rainbow Dash."

"Rainbow Dash?" Trixie asked, looking the pegasus mare over. Rainbow Dash's own eyes copied the movements as she took in Trixie's appearance.

"Yeah," the pegasus answered. "Who are you supposed to be?" she looked between Trixie and Ditzy Doo. "Oh, and which one of you scared Fluttershy?"

Ditzy Doo waved her hoof a little. "Didn't mean to," the gray-coated pegasus apologized. "Is she okay?"

Rainbow Dash stepped to one side, pointing into Fluttershy's home. It was decorated beautifully, adorned with all sorts of odds and ends that gave it a very homely, cozy appearance. However, a table and everything that had been on it were knocked over, along with a vase of flowers sitting near the stairs to the cottage's second floor. "Does it look like she's okay?" Rainbow Dash demanded. "Way to go, Derpy."

Ditzy Doo grimaced slightly at Rainbow Dash's accusation and name-calling. Trixie felt a surprising amount of furor rising in her chest over that. "Hey!" she exclaimed, stepping forward and placing her face right up to the pegasus' own. "Leave Ditzy Doo alone!"

The cyan pegasus' eyes widened a little at Trixie's words, as though they had jogged a memory for her. After several moments of staring, she shook her head, clearing it. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Trixie," the unicorn introduced herself. "Representative Trixie of the Night Court of Luna. I'm also here as the Longest Night festival overseer, so I need to speak with Fluttershy about the music she volunteered to handle."

Rainbow Dash bristled a little at that, in a mixture of defensiveness and embarrassment. "She's doing just fine," the pony proclaimed.

"Alright, but I need to talk to her."

"No."

"No?"

"No," Rainbow Dash repeated firmly. "Not now. Come back later." The pegasus made to close the door, but Trixie blinked, and each of its hinges were wrapped in a blue magical aura, holding the door firmly open.

"Why?" Trixie demanded.

Rainbow Dash stared. "What?"

"Why should I come back later?" Trixie clarified. "I'm here now, Fluttershy is here now, provided she hasn't run out a back door or something – "

"Hey! Lay off of Fluttershy! You don't even know her!"

"True enough," Trixie admitted, as she grinned. "But I do know that of the four ponies at this house, you're the only one who isn't supposed to be here." She jabbed a hoof back at Ponyville. "You're the weather patrol manager, right? Your team is wondering where you've gone. They're practically threatening to quit."

Rainbow Dash grunted, pointing up to the sky. "If those lazy bums can't even handle a few cirrus clouds, then they shouldn't be calling themselves pegasi."

"Not those," Trixie continued, pointing past Fluttershy's house and into the darkening skies over the Everfree. "That. There's a huge storm brewing over the Everfree and Raindrops said that – "

"Raindrops?" Rainbow Dash asked, then threw her head back and laughed. "Raindrops worries about every little stray cumulus 'cause of how slow a flier she is. And nopony should be worrying about that Everfree storm, it's nothin' I can't handle."

Trixie blinked. "By yourself?"

"Uh, yeah," Rainbow Dash proclaimed, as though the answer should have been obvious.

"I'd love to see you try and back that up."

The pegasus opened her mouth as though to claim that she would, and right now at that, but stopped halfway and grimaced. "Look, I'm weather manager and I know what I'm doing. If that storm becomes a problem, I'll deal with it. But right now I can't leave Fluttershy hangin', so if you'll just go away and take Derpy here with you – "

Trixie's eyes narrowed, and her horn glowed dangerously. "Don't say that again," she threatened.

Rainbow Dash grinned at how Trixie seemed to be taking the name worse than the pony it was directed at. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Ditzy Doo interposed herself between the weather manager and the Night Court representative, taking turns to glare at each of them, eyes focused and wings spread wide.

"Stop," she said, her voice firm, like a mother scolding children who were misbehaving themselves. "Now."

Trixie glared past Ditzy Doo, at Rainbow Dash, who matched her stare unflinchingly. Neither of them, however, made any move to continue their argument. After a few moments, the gray pegasus turned to Rainbow Dash. "I've known Fluttershy since she moved here," she said. "Nearly as long as you. So I'm going to go see my friend."

Rainbow Dash shook her head, appearing to have genuine concern for the pony who was even now cowering upstairs somewhere. "No, not right now. She's really nervous and – "

"Rainbow Dash, get out of my way."

The other pegasus didn't move for several moments, but the unflinching, unblinking stare of Ditzy Doo eventually wore her down. She backed away from the door, making enough room for the gray pegasus to step into the cottage. Once inside, she folded her wings back against her sides and turned around to look at Trixie. "What did you want to ask Fluttershy?" She asked.

"Just how the music preparations were coming along," Trixie answered, making a point of not looking at Rainbow Dash, even peripherally. "Although now I'm kind of curious about how she could be friends with a stuck-up – "

"No," Ditzy Doo ordered with surprising firmness, jabbing a hoof at Trixie, suddenly enough to make the unicorn stumble backwards a few steps. After a few moments, she turned around and trotted away, heading upstairs, although she spared a final glance at the two other ponies. She didn't speak, but the glare's meaning was obvious: play nice or I will ground you for a month. Trixie wasn't certain why such a look had an effect on her, but it did.

Silence lingered between the pegasus and the unicorn that Ditzy Doo left behind for some time. Eventually, however, Rainbow Dash glanced to Trixie, looking her over again. "Nice hat," she intoned, smirking.

"Nice dye job," Trixie countered without hesitation.

The pegasus' grin widened as she ran a hoof through her mane. "It's not dyed," she proclaimed proudly. "I'm all-natural."

Trixie seethed, but didn't rise to the bait as she chose to focus on the ground under her hooves and not the grin of triumph she knew was on Rainbow Dash's face. Instead, she ran through her mental list of Things She Hated About Today. Previously, the Apple clan had been topping that list, but Rainbow Dash had managed to shoot past all competition and settle into an easy first place. Yay.

After an eternity of silence, the sound of hoof-steps from the floor above them signaled Ditzy Doo's return. The gray pegasus trotted down the cottage's stairs and up to Trixie, a sad look on her face, eyes once again having wandered apart.

"Fluttershy isn't going to be able to do the music this year," she said sadly. "Rainbow Dash here talked her into volunteering but now she's too frightened of being in front of so many ponies. Rainbow has been trying to convince her not to be worried, but Fluttershy's mind seems made up."

Rainbow Dash grumbled under her breath as she sat back on her haunches, crossing her front hooves in front of her. "I bet I would've been able to if you hadn't frightened her."

"She seemed pretty determined," Ditzy Doo said, then considered her words. "Relatively, anyway."

Trixie was wide-eyed, mouth hanging open slightly and blinking only slowly as she took in what Ditzy Doo had said. "What?" she asked. "No. No, it's only two days to the festival. She said she'd handle the music, volunteered, filled out the paperwork – "

"…actually, that was mostly me," Rainbow Dash admitted sheepishly. Trixie's eyes somehow managed to open even wider as she turned her gaze slowly onto the cyan pegasus, who's expression had changed to one of embarrassment. "I mean, you should hear her sing, and she's really good with animals and I've even seen her arrange a bird chorus, and I suggested that she should volunteer and get her birds to help, and she said she'd love to, and I thought it was maybe a chance to get her to open up…but then she got cold hooves a few days ago."

Trixie's mouth opened and shut of its own accord a few times before words managed to come out. "I'm going upstairs," she said, taking a step forward. Instantly, her path was blocked by a pair of pegasi, wings spread defensively.

"No," Ditzy Doo said.

"I don't think so," Rainbow Dash added.

Trixie looked between the two. "But…but…it's the Longest Night!" Trixie exclaimed. "The halfway point of winter! And we don't have music arranged for when the Princess raises the moon, and the catering is gonna be awful, and there's that storm coming – "

"Are you still on about that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

" – and I'm gonna get blamed for this!" Trixie exclaimed, stepping forward again, but only to get close to the two pegasi as she looked between the two. "This was my big chance to show Luna that I can handle responsibility and everything is heading straight into the sun!"

"Well, deal," Rainbow Dash said.

Ditzy Doo rolled her eyes at Rainbow Dash's advice, before turning back to Trixie. "I'm sorry," she said. "I really am. But Fluttershy is just too delicate. Even if you convinced her somehow, she'd probably freeze on stage on the Longest Night anyway." Rainbow Dash shot Ditzy Doo a glare at that, but the gray pegasus only shrugged, and after a moment Rainbow Dash sighed and nodded in confirmation.

Trixie's head snapped between the two a few more times, before she let out a low groan of frustration. "Fine," she spat, turning around and stomping out the door, making a point of letting the anger she felt rise visibly to the surface, projecting the perfect image of a pony that nopony would want to be within a hundred feet of if they could help it.

As expected, Ditzy Doo didn't follow her; indeed, the two pegasi soon closed the door to Fluttershy's cottage. Once it was shut, Trixie stopped her angry pace, eyes narrow as her horn glowed beneath her hat, casting a spell that was almost as familiar to her as basic unicorn telekinesis. Her color and form seemed to simply bleed out of reality, becoming nothing more than an odd smudge on the air, and soon afterwards not even that as her invisibility spell wrapped itself firmly around her body, hat, and cape. A second, similarly familiar spell encircled each of her hooves; she pranced in place on the dirt path beneath her a few times to confirm that her silencing spell had taken effect, before making a beeline straight for Fluttershy's cottage.

The closed door presented little deterrent, as it hadn't been locked by either pegasus, and Trixie opened, passed through, and closed it before anypony inside the house could notice. She saw Rainbow Dash in Fluttershy's kitchen, brewing up tea – and helping herself to a rather ample cookie supply – while Ditzy Doo wasn't in sight, probably having gone up to the second floor. Trixie grimaced as she began to climb the stairs, slowly and carefully despite the sound-dampening spell that extended in a six inch radius around each hoof. In just a few moments, she was upstairs, and making her way down a hall and into a room with its door wide open, in which soft voices could be heard conversing.

"…okay, Fluttershy," Ditzy Doo said, as Trixie entered the room. Fluttershy's bedroom was decorated much like the rest of her house; dominated by a bed with a green, thick comforter. laying on top of the bed was a yellow pegasus with a pink, thick, long mane, staring intently at her own front hooves and seemingly like she was trying to hide her face in it. Her cutie mark was a trio of pink butterflies. Sitting opposite her on the bed was Ditzy Doo, both eyes focused forward.

"O-okay…?" Fluttershy stuttered. Her voice was amazingly soft; Trixie had to lean in to hear it.

"Yeah," Ditzy said, leaning forward cautiously and gently nuzzling the yellow pegasus. She flinched initially, but after a moment leaned in to the friendly sign of affection. "It was really brave of you even to volunteer."

"Oh, I don't know…" Fluttershy intoned. "It was Rainbow Dash's idea, I never would have been brave enough to even try without her, and I only did it because I never thought I'd ever actually get the position…"

"Well, you did," Ditzy Doo said as she pulled away. "It was a big step forward."

Fluttershy looked up at Ditzy Doo, and Trixie took a step back. Her eyes…Fluttershy's large, teal eyes were stained red from tears. "I-it doesn't feel like one…" she said. "Oh, and that Trixie sounded so mad…I've made such a mess of things, I never should have let Rainbow Dash talk me into even trying, but she seemed so sure that I could do it that I didn't want to let her down, but now I have…"

Trixie did not, by any stretch of the imagination, consider herself an affectionate pony. It nevertheless took every ounce of willpower she had to not leap atop the bed and give Fluttershy a warm, tight hug. She looked like she needed one; then again, if she had flinched from even a gentle nuzzle, she wasn't certain Fluttershy would be able to survive such an outright show of affection.

The unicorn pony also wanted to let out an annoyed sigh, but practice at sneaking around held that in check, as well. She had come up here with the intention of de-cloaking herself where there was nothing Ditzy Doo or Rainbow Dash could do to stop her from seeing Fluttershy and demanding the pony perform in the Longest Night festival, but what she'd seen in just a few seconds of observing Fluttershy made it painfully obvious that the she was never going to be able to perform on stage, no matter what Trixie either threatened to do to her or offered to bribe her with. The blue unicorn instead turned around and made her way from Fluttershy's cottage, back out into the waning winter day.

"Trixie, I'm sick of apples," Luna said.

"Me too, princess."

"Yes, but you see, Trixie, it was your job to make sure that catering went smoothly. Now, because of you, I'm going to destroy the Apple Trust and outlaw apples across Equestria. Anypony caught eating one will be hanged, drawn, and quartered."

"I'm cool with that," Trixie said, beginning to seek out an apple, "but do you really want to go outside in this?"

Luna looked outside, at the massive snow-rain-wind-thunder-lightning-ice-and-acid storm that was even now destroying Ponyville. "I'm an alicorn, I can deal," Luna remarked, opening the door to the town hall and trotting outside. Immediately, she began melting, and freezing, and being flayed. Dramatic music probably should have been playing, but it was completely, notably absent.

"Great," Luna objected as her body was destroyed. "This is the last time I invest any responsibility in you, Trixie."

"I know."

There was a pause. As Luna was reduced to nothing more than a head, she raised one eyebrow and appraised the interior of the town hall with her one remaining eye before it was destroyed. "The decorations are quite lovely, though. Good job."

Trixie snickered at her own morbid fantasy as she made her way through Ponyville's streets, looking for the building that would be serving as her home while she was living in the town. It wasn't particularly hard to find, being located near the center and bordering the cobblestone plaza that surrounded the town hall. It was a two-story, thatch-roofed house, distinguishable from the other residencies in Ponyville only because it was surrounded by a short iron fence – only about chest-high – and a small garden, currently buried under snow, as well as a hanging sign outside of its front gate that read "Residency of the Representative of the Night Court of Luna," the words printed over the Equestrian coat of arms.

After the hectic day of disappointment, shocks, and nearly being trapped outside at noon, she was severely hoping that the pantry of her new home was fully stocked, or at least contained a decent supply of potent potables. She trotted inside with eyes half-lidded, finding the door unlocked and the house inside dark. She hung her hat on a stand just inside the door, but kept her cape on – the house was probably cold, and she wanted to continue benefitting from the warming enchantment woven into her cape until she could get a fire going.

"Ugh," the unicorn groaned as she made her way towards the door that, if she were designing this house, would contain the living room. "Where's the light – gah!"

Quite suddenly, someone had turned on the gas lights in the room she had wandered into – and Trixie found herself surrounded by ponies of every shape, hue, and tribe, all of whom took the opportunity to shout surprise! at the top of their lungs. Trixie all but leapt from her coat at the sight, and nearly stumbled to the floor as a certain vibrantly pink pony was suddenly standing right in front of her.

"Surprise!" The pony exclaimed. "I'm Pinkie Pie and I threw this party just for you. Were you surprised? Were you? Were you? Huh?"

Trixie stared at the wide-grin, the manic look. It was, for some reason, far too easy to imagine this pony doing horrible things to her.

"You see, I saw you outside of Rarity's, remember? You were all 'stars above!' and I was all gasp, remember? You see I never saw you before, and if I never saw you before that means you're new, 'cause I know everypony, and I mean every pony in Ponyville, and if you're new, that meant you hadn't met anypony yet – "

"I'd met a few ponies, actually…" Trixie interrupted as she picked herself up and started looking for something that would destroy her liver in short order.

Pinkie Pie didn't slow down or acknowledge the interruption, and followed Trixie as she walked. " – and if you haven't met anypony yet, you must not have any friends, and if you don't have any friends then you must be lonely, and that made me so sad, and I had an idea, and that's why I went gasp, I'll just throw a great big ginormous super-duper spectacular welcome party and invite everypony in Ponyville! See? And now you have lots and lots of friends!"

Trixie had found a table laden with glasses and bottles that contained vibrant warnings about their contents. Checking a few labels, she chose one with the largest number on it and began pouring it into a glass, while turning to regard Pinkie Pie and the party. "Everypony in Ponyville?" Pinkie Pie's head bobbed up and down rapidly as Trixie finished pouring and took a swig of what she'd poured for herself. It burned pleasantly on the way down her throat. "There's maybe two dozen ponies here."

Pinkie Pie didn't deflate at all from Trixie's remark. "A party is still a party even if everypony doesn't show up!" She exclaimed, bouncing happily in circles around Trixie. "Besides I don't think your house could fit everypony, not that I wouldn't mind trying! And there's still plenty of ponies here!" She smiled as she dragged several into a group-hug, which they went along with surprisingly easily. The mugs of something foaming held in their hooves may have had something to do with it.

Trixie blinked a few times, remembering Lyra's advice about Pinkie Pie's parties. The pink pony was genuinely enthused and seemed intent on making this Trixie's best night ever. And she'd just had an awful day and could use any excuse to just forget it. Tomorrow might be worse, after all, what with having to find a new music venue on such short notice, not to mention that meeting with Rarity –

Ugh.

The blue unicorn drained what remained of her drink in one fell swoop, and then began pouring herself a new glass. As she did, an old earth pony salute came to mind: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!

Lyra and BonBon passed through the front gate of the residency of the Night Court Representative with trepidation, especially giving the volume of music that was coming out of it – and above that, on occasion, the voice of Pinkie Pie.

"Do we have to?" Lyra asked as they stood outside of the door. Lyra was once more in her wool cloak and Gatsby, while BonBon was bedecked in a cloak and wide-brimmed hat of her own. With the sun having settled beyond the horizon, the night's temperature was plunging rapidly. A chill wind answered her question as it cut through their garments, driving both of the ponies inside quickly to get out of the cold.

"So what's Trixie like?" BonBon asked.

"Kind of a jerk." Lyra admitted. "But I think she's under a lot of stress."

"Hmm. Maybe this party will do her good, then," BonBon observed as the two shucked their hats and cloaks, leaving them in a pile that had been formed near the front door. Several ponies had escaped from where the main party seemed to be going on, standing in the hallway; they politely greeted BonBon and welcomed Lyra back from Canterlot.

"But we have to be in the same house as Pinkie Pie…" Lyra objected.

"Hush, she's easily my best customer," BonBon responded, gently knocking her flank against Lyra's own. The unicorn put on a suitably mollified-looking face as the two ponies approached the main room. Before they could enter, however, a certain blue unicorn in a purple cape came stumbling out, no fewer than three different glasses, each containing liquids of different color, grasped in her telekinetic aura.

Lyra and BonBon froze as Trixie's violet eyes looked in their direction. They were glazed over, at first, but came swiftly into focus as she saw Lyra. "Heartstrings!" She exclaimed. Something seemed…off…about her voice, and not simply the slur it had picked up from the concoctions held in each vessel she carried. "Y'all made it!"

"Y'all?" Lyra echoed, as Trixie stumbled forward and gave Lyra a tight hug, which the mint green unicorn returned if only to increase her chances of it ending quickly. As it did, Trixie turned to regard BonBon.

"You!" Trixie exclaimed, then paused, eyes squinting a little as she stared at BonBon. "Ah'm afraid ah have not yet had the pleasure."

Lyra blinked a few times, realizing the problem with Trixie's voice – her accent had changed, not quite to the country drawl that was common to the rural parts of Equestria, but similar. The Canterlot lilt to her accent had completely disappeared, however. "Uh," Lyra said. "Trixie – "

"Trixie?" The unicorn asked incredulously, looking insulted. She put a hoof to her chest. "Ah'm wounded! Ah thought we were on better terms, mon amie Heartstrings! Je m'appelle Lulamoon!"

Lyra's eyes grew larger than any plate found outside of the Griffin Kingdoms at that demand. "Lulamoon?" she asked.

"Oui!" Trixie drew Lyra into a deep hug, again, as BonBon stared with a mixture of confusion and mirth. "Ah'm so glad you're here, Heartstrings! Come on, come on, come on, y'all have to see this!" She stumbled away and back into the main party room.

BonBon blinked a few times, then looked back to Lyra. "She seems very friendly," the earth pony remarked. "I don't know what you were worried about."

Lyra was actually growing quite a bit beyond "worry" as she and BonBon made their way into the living room, where the music was loud and the ponies were dancing, or recovering from long dancing sections, or just talking to each other. A pink blur moved between them all, making sure that neither glass nor mug remained empty for very long. Once inside, Trixie took them both by the hoof and dragged them over to a wall, on which a beautiful, stylized mural had been painted.

"Regardez! Look!" Trixie said, jabbing a hoof at the painting. "It's the story of – of – well, Ah don't want to say her name in polite company, Heartstrings, but you know."

Lyra blinked, inspecting the mural. While done in gentle, story-book quality – and ending with Luna standing triumphant, sun and moon balanced on either wing – the mural clearly depicted the story of the fall of Celestia, the former alicorn princess and Luna's elder sister, and her transformation into the fiery, wrathful, and greedy mare known as Corona, followed by the epic battle between Luna and Corona for the fate of Equestria. It featured Luna's victory prominently, but Lyra nevertheless felt a shiver go down her spine at the sight, even in storybook fashion, of the alicorn that to this day was trapped inside the sun.

Trixie nodded as Lyra looked over the mural, a wide-grin on her features. "Story of Corona," she said, apparently forgetting her earlier concern. "Oui. Somethin' like this is in every royal appointment in Equestria, mon amie. Reminds us to do our jobs n' such." Trixie drained one of the glasses she held, then turned to Lyra and BonBon. "Do you know what Corona said, just before Princess Luna trapped her in the sun?" She put a hoof to her chest as though stabbed. "Ahh!"

The unicorn laughed at her joke and drained her second glass, but quickly noticed the mortified looks on the faces of Lyra and BonBon. "Ne me regardez pas comme ça!" She exclaimed, stomping forward and jabbing a hoof slightly to Lyra's left. "C'est un boum! Y'all are supposed to enjoy yourselves!"

Lyra stared, having a very, very difficult time reconciling the pony in front of her – who was draining her final glass – with the pony she had left earlier in the day. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Trixie glared at Lyra, before her gaze softened noticeably and she stumbled forward, tapping Lyra on the nose. "You know," she said, "you are very cute for a musician. Or because y'all are a musician. Whatever."

"Uh," Lyra responded.

"She's taken," BonBon said quickly, stepping forward defensively between Trixie and Lyra.

Trixie regarded her, and beamed. "Ne vous inquiétez pas! You're very cute too!" She stumbled backwards a little, as Pinkie Pie arrived and re-filled her drinks. Trixie looked to the pink earth pony and smiled widely. "And Pinkie Pie, you're cute too, in an annoying sort of way…"

"Thanks!" The earth pony exclaimed.

Trixie laughed. "Everypony's cute!" she exclaimed as she began walking/stumbling towards the nearest table and climbing it. "Everypony's cute! Even I'm cute, non?" Trixie stood atop the table, rearing up on her hind legs and throwing her forelegs wide, telekinesis seizing her cape and causing it to billow as though in a strong wind. "But in purple? Ah'm stunning!"

With that, the unicorn collapsed, falling from the table and onto the floor, grin never leaving her face. Her eyes were closed, but she was still breathing, so Lyra assumed she was alive and mostly unharmed. Pinkie Pie smiled widely at the sight. "She's become one with her inner self!" the party pony exclaimed.

"She passed out," BonBon remarked.

Pinkie Pie nodded at her fellow earth pony. "That too."