Disclaimer: I own nothing that is MLP. This story is simply for fun.
Chapter 2:
Sky Dancer was completely lost.
When she had left Las Pegasus earlier that week, she had thought finding Ponyville would be a simple task. It was a quaint town underneath the ever watchful eye of Canterlot. The young mare had heard much about the small town, and once she had finished the endless months of physical therapy after her accident, she had decided it would be the perfect place to spend an extended vacation. She needed time and space to clear her head and figure out what she wanted to do with her life now that…
Shaking her head furiously, Sky Dancer pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. To her credit, the pony had technically found Ponyville. All she had to do was get on the right train and she was promised to arrive in the small town. It was once she got off the train that the pony started having issues.
Ponyville was much bigger than she had thought. She had gotten off the train, nothing but a cloak strapped to her back and a pouch of money tied around her waist. Her first task was supposed to be finding herself a place to stay for the night while she figured out a more permanent situation. She figured she had plenty of time before sundown and had decided to wander for a while. Unfortunately, she had made the mistake of letting her mind wander as her hooves did and somehow ended up in the middle of an apple orchard, with nopony in sight to point her in the right direction.
"Way to go Sky," she scolded herself. "It's been less than an hour and you've already lost yourself."
There was only one thing left to do. The pony turned to face the direction she had thought she had come and began walking. Surely, if she kept going, she would run into somepony somewhere who could tell her how to reach her destination.
So, Sky continued to walk. Even when the twinging in her back left leg resurfaced, the mare kept going. She didn't have any other options. Until she spotted Ponyville, or somepony who knew where it was, she would keep walking.
"What I wouldn't give for a set of wings," she muttered, glancing up through the trees with leaves that weren't quite full.
"Then again," she noted, bright green eyes watching a blue pegasus hurtle out of the sky and toward the ground below, "maybe not." She hoped the pony was ok. But, in a way, Sky was glad she had fallen out of the sky. The other, yellow pony had quickly flown after her. Even if they weren't near Ponyville, they might be able to help her find her way.
So, with renewed purpose, Sky trotted off through the trees toward where she had last seen the two pegasi. She was able to move relatively quickly, so long as her injured leg remained off the ground. After a while of keeping it in one place, it began to cramp up and Sky was forced to let it down and slow her pace.
Though she could no longer see the two pegasi from earlier, Sky had stumbled across a path that she was sure led to the town. Glancing behind her, the mare noticed a big red barn in the distance. "It must belong to the ponies who own all the apple trees," she concluded, turning back the other way. "Which means Ponyville is this way."
Feeling slightly better about her situation, Sky headed off in the direction of the town. Still no sight of the pony that had crashed, or her companion, but that didn't bother the mare too much. She had other things to worry about.
As she limped over the next hill, Sky stopped for a moment, letting a small smile grace her face. There it was – Ponyville – nestled between the Everfree Forest and the looming mountains that were home to the royal city of Canterlot. She had finally made it.
Slowly, the pony made her way down the hill and entered the town limits. She passed several normal looking buildings as well as some not-so-normal ones. Sky's favorite so far had to be the library built within a tree. She had almost stopped by just to see it, but had been deterred by a sign that said 'out to lunch' nailed to the front door. Maybe once she had found a place to settle in, she would come back.
What she needed to find was an inn of some sort. A place where she could stay for a few days while she looked for a job and a room of her own. Sky would be remaining for quite some time and she wanted to feel at home during her stay, but as she roamed the streets, nothing popped out at her. She had expected to see some sort of neon sign pointing her in the right direction. In Las Pegasus, a pony couldn't walk one mile without seeing signs for at least four hotels. Naturally, Ponyville wouldn't have as high a demand, but surely they had somewhere for travelers to stay.
Sky had been focusing so much on the buildings around her that she almost plowed into the pony in front of her. She halted just in time to find herself practically nose to nose with a pair of wide blue eyes attached to a pony with a curly pink mane and equally pink coat.
"Hiya!" the pony said, flashing a wide smile at Sky. "My name's Pinkie Pie and I am your official 'Welcome to Ponyville' welcoming committee."
The new pony paused. "You…are?" she asked finally, taking a small step back from the overly friendly mare before her.
"You bet! And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. I saw you earlier over by Sweet Apple Acres and I was going to welcome you then, but I realized I didn't have everything I needed so I went on this huge quest that took me all over town, well actually mostly just to Twilight and Rarity's house, but I found everything and now I found you, so I'm ready to welcome you!"
Sky opened her mouth to thank the pony, and explain that a welcome wasn't necessary. All she wanted was a nice bed to sleep in for the night when out of nowhere, a large pink cannon appeared with balloons and streamers attached to every empty space on it.
"Welcome welcome welcome
A fine welcome to you
Welcome welcome welcome
I say how do you do?
Welcome welcome welcome
I say hip hip hurray
Welcome welcome welcome
To Ponyville today!"
At the end of the pink pony's song, the contraption erupted with confetti and streamers that landed all over Sky's cloak and in her mane. Shaking her head, she attempted to loosen the colorful bits of paper, but it was no use. They were stuck to her ink black mane.
"I made you a cake too!" the pony exclaimed as the cannon exploded once more and a light blue frosted cake with rainbow sprinkles on top flew up into the air, then landed in the pony's outstretched hooves. "I even iced it to match your coat."
She had to hand it to the pony. The cake looked delicious, and the sky blue color matched her coat perfectly. "Thank you…" she trailed off, forgetting what the pony had said her name was.
"Pinkie Pie," she supplied passing Sky the cake. "What's your name?"
"Sky," the light coated pony replied, attempting to balance the cake in her hooves.
"Huh," Pinkie mused. "That's a funny name. I like it! Hey!" she started before Sky could get a word in otherwise. "My friends and I are all having lunch at Rarity's boutique. You wanna come eat with us? I'm sure they'd love love love to meet you!"
"Sure," Sky responded, hoping she wouldn't regret her decision. Surely Pinkie's friends couldn't all be as….eccentric as her, right? She would go have lunch and meet the other ponies, and maybe then she could find a place to stay so she could begin the next part of her journey.
Sky hobbled along the road at a leisurely pace as Pinkie Pie bounced in circles around her. She was currently chatting on about the friends they were about to go meet. "One year," she was saying, eyes shut tight, a smile plastered to her face. It was a wonder she didn't run into anything. "Rarity made gowns for all six of us for the Grand Galloping Gala. Mine was poufy and pink and had candy on it! I love candy, almost as much as I like parties. That's my special talent you know, throwing parties and making ponies laugh. Oh! And Fluttershy's dress was green and had these adorable little butterflies on in. She's really good with animals. This one time, beavers were blocking up the river and flooded part of Sweet Apple Acres, AJ was furious, but she couldn't get them to move. Fluttershy came on over and talked to them, and poof! They moved their home, just like that."
"That sounds great, Pinkie Pie," Sky spoke up. "Are we getting close? I think I've been walking around too much. I need to rest."
"Yup!" Pinkie cheered, gesturing with her hoof to a rather unique looking building. It was two stories tall, with the appearance of a carousal mixed with a small castle. "They're right there!"
Still not understanding how Pinkie could possibly know they were here with her eyes still shut tightly, Sky shook her head. Perhaps it was better not to ask. She turned her attention to the ponies sitting in the yard outside the carousal castle. They were busy chatting away with each other, all but the orange one. That pony was currently looking in her direction, a hoof pointed straight at the pair making their way down the street.
Heat flooded Sky's cheeks as she noticed all the other ponies turn to look in her direction. She gave them a hesitant smile as, finally, she and Pinkie Pie entered the yard.
"You guys, this is my new friend Sky. Sky, this is Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Princess Twilight Sparkle."
Sky's ears perked up at that. "Princess?" Of course, she had heard about the new edition to Canterlot Royalty. But she never would have believed a princess would live here in Ponyville.
"Pinkie…" the purple alicorn scolded. Sighing, she turned toward Sky. "Just plain Twilight is fine."
"Nice to meet you all," Sky responded, glancing down at the table. She wasn't sure exactly what to do as Pinkie Pie took a seat at the head of the table. It was then that the pony noticed a small scaly purple creature sitting on the grass besides the yellow Pegasus.
"Pinkie," Sky began, "You didn't tell me you were friends with a dragon."
At this, the dragon's head perked up. "Aww, Pinkie Pie, you forgot about me?"
"No way, Spike!" the pink pony protested. "I would never ever ever forget a friend like you. I just ran out of time to tell her about all our fun adventures. I really only mentioned Rarity and Fluttershy on the way here."
"What?" Sky turned to see the blue Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane leap up into the air. "You didn't tell her about me? Rainbow Dash? The greatest flier in all of Equestria!"
Sky tilted her head to one side, finally realizing that she had seen this pony somewhere before. "Weren't you the one who fell out of the sky this morning?"
At this, Rainbow Dash slowly sank back to her seat. "That was a one-time thing. You'll see. I'm actually a pro flyer."
"So tell us, Sky," Twilight began as the young dragon, Spike, began passing out plates of sandwiches. "What brings you to Ponyville?"
The mare's green eyes fell to the ground. "Ah." She knew the question would come up eventually. Still, it brought unpleasant thoughts to the front of her mind. "My doctors back home thought Ponyville would be a good place for me to stay while I waited for my leg to heal," she shifted her cloak slightly to reveal the black brace surrounding the entirety of her back left leg.
"Goodness," the yellow pony spoke, her voice hardly more than a whisper. "What happened?"
"An onstage accident, unfortunately, tale for another time," was Sky's response. She didn't feel quite comfortable telling these ponies her life story yet. "Needless to say, I'm in search of a more permanent place to stay while my leg heals."
"Where onstage were you performing?" the white pony asked, her proper accent catching Sky off guard.
"I was a, uh, dancer. In the Las Pegasus dance company."
The pony's mouth hung open in a very unladylike fashion, showing her true Ponyville roots. Sky couldn't help but smile. "The Las Pegasus dance company? Oh, I've read all about them. All the ponies I've ever spoken to in my time in Canterlot said they were the best. And Gossamer Slippers. Well, she is the best of the best." She gasped as if the most exciting thing had just happened to her. "You don't happen to know Gossamer Slippers, do you?"
Sky Dancer did in fact know Gossamer. Though, she'd rather not think of that particular pony ever again. "Not really," she responded, watching as the white pony's face fell. "I mean, I do know her. But I doubt she would know me. I was just one of the chorus dancers. No one special."
"That's too bad, darling," the pony sighed, flipping her perfectly styled mane to one side of her face. "I would have loved to have met her. Once you were better, naturally. I wouldn't dream of doing anything to hinder your recovery process."
"Speaking of recovery," Twilight interrupted. Sky turned to look at the princess as she spoke. "Sky, you said you were looking for a more permanent place to stay? I'm certain we could help you find somewhere if we put our heads together."
Sky opened her mouth to thank the royal, grateful to have met such kind ponies on her first day in Ponyville, but was cut off by Rainbow Dash before she could utter a single word.
"You don't happen to have a pair of wings under that cloak, do you?" The tomboyish pony asked, flapping her own in demonstration. "'cause if you do, you can totally stay with me."
"Sorry," the pony murmured apologetically. "Just a simple earth pony here."
"Oh horseshoes," Applejack protested. "There a'int nothing simple about us earth ponies. We're a hardworking, dedicated breed. Why, if you stay with me, I could show ya around the farm. Then you'll see what us earth ponies can really do."
"Nonsense," the fancy white pony cut in. "In case you've forgotten, Applejack, our new friend here has an injury. The last thing she needs is to be put to work on that farm of yours." The pony turned toward Sky, who was currently waiting for the conversation to die down. "You'll be staying with me, darling. I have an extra bedroom upstairs where my younger sister Sweetie Belle sleeps during her stays here. I'm sure that if she needed to stay here, she'd be more than happy to spend the night with me. As long as that's alright with you. It is alright, isn't it?"
Sky was taken aback by the pony's generosity. "Y-yes." She stammered. "That would be wonderful. Thank you."
"Don't think another thing of it, darling," the white pony responded, giving Sky a smile. "Now Spike, where are those sandwiches? I'm famished."
The new pony couldn't help but laugh along with the others. This day had turned out much better than she had hoped. She had found a place to stay, and had been so quickly accepted into Princess Twilight's circle of friends. Things were starting to look up.
A/N: Hello All! So I've had this idea for a while now and decided to give it a go. For now, I have the first handful of chapters already written, but will be spacing out their postings to give myself time to write some more. In the meantime, feel free to review what I have up here and let me know what you think! Please and thank you :)