Open My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Dinru lay in her bed, thoughts of pastries and flowers running through her head. She didn't want the day to start, she really didn't, but it was either that or starving. So she opted to get up and go to the cafe.

Lili blinked her eyes open, awakening with a groan. She didn't want to get up, but she might as well get out of bed now that she was awake. The pink pony rolled out of her bed, falling onto her hooves. She stumbled a bit, though shook her head clear of her fuzzy thoughts. Let's see, what was today... oh, yes. The day dad came into town. Joy.

She passed her mother's bedroom, who was still sleeping, and went out into the living room, headed for the front door. She thought she would wander out to the bakery to see one of her friends, Pinkie Pie, as she would surely be up and hyper even at the early hour.

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"Oh my gawsh, try these! Oh no, wait, try these!"

The other pink pony was shoving different-colored cupcakes into Lili's mouth, and she felt she was going to retch.

"Pinkie," she tried to say with a full mouth, but it just came out as "Pffmm!" Celestia, save her from the other pony.

Chromian magicked the pillow over his head to attempt to drown out Ember's attempt to wake him up. It was 4 AM and he was expected to show up very early to the newly-created Ponyville Records building to organize the town's files. It was the day after Winter Wrap-Up and there were many hundreds of reports from all the ponies to digitize and put into the computer.

It didn't help that he was pretty much the only one that knew how to do it. He was the third member of the Technical Guild of Canterlot. There were only three members of the Technical Guild of Canterlot. They were a group that supported the mechanization of Equestria, but had gotten almost no support because nobody thought it was worth it- why bother when they have magic? However, the system was rather biased- only unicorns could access the files. Chrome was always bothered by this. As a unicorn himself, he saw no reason why technology and magic couldn't complement each other. This is what led him to join the Guild. The other two members, Router and Switch, were ecstatic. He was the first member to join in 5 years! He was then assigned an audience with Princess Celestia, a great honor for someone who had only just graduated school. It proved to be a very short audience, but a momentous one. He was assigned a dragon by the name of Ember and a mission in Ponyville to organize their records- a mission he happily accepted.

He rolled over and got out of bed, stumbling towards the door to leave for his work. On his way out, he tripped and landed face first in a pile of slush. There was a package on his front door! "Ember?" he said. "Did you put this package here?"

Ember frowned with frustration. She'd been trying to wake up Chromian for the past ten minutes. Tapping him on the shoulder didn't work, shoving him to and fro didn't work, so she resorted to jumping about and being loud. She knew he had to be up early today, and she knew that he knew, so she just wished he would get a real alarm clock or something. "Come on, Chrome! Don't ignore me! Get that pillow off your head."

Ember watched him finally wake up and roll out of bed and clumsily make his way for the door. "Ember, did you put this package here?" she heard him ask.

"Package?" Ember crossed her arms. "No, the mail hasn't been by yet. It's only four in the morning, lazyhooves. What would you be expecting in the mail, anyway?"

"Lazyhooves?" Chrome retorted. "I seem to remember you not packing up to leave Canterlot until 30 minutes AFTER our chariot left, icebreath." He rolled his eyes and looked back at the package. It was rectangular and very heavy. He picked it up and brought it inside, setting on the table, and debating whether or not he should open it. After all, if Ember didn't put it there- who did?

Ember watched Chrome bring in the package and set it down on the table, unphased by his counter-insult. From the way it was being carried she assumed it was quite heavy. "So it doesn't have an address on it?" she asked. "Maybe the Guild sent it."

"Maybe..." Chrome answered. He made his decision and began to tear open the wrapping paper. When it was completely unwrapped, he opened the box to find a heavy, leather-bound book. He magicked it out onto the table, and was surprised to find that it seemed to resist his attempts to manipulate it by magic. The cover was completely blank, but the book glowed with a strange green light that made his horn tingle if he got close. "I think I'm going to have to cancel the job I have today." Chrome said to Ember. "I'm going into town to see if anyone can shed some light on this book. But since I don't have to go... How about some breakfast?"

Dinru trolloped to the cafe, trying to ignore the ruckus and bustle of Ponyville life. All things considered, she wasn't in the mood to bother with- Hold on, what's this? An absolutely decadent aroma began to draw her over to the bakery, chocolate and butter cream with a hint of cinnamon. She simply needed to get over there and try whatever it was she was smelling.

Pinkie Pie looked over the the pony who was approaching the bakery, and she seemed to forget about Lili entirely.

"Ooh, hello! How may I serve you today? Wanna try a cinnamon cupcake?"

Lili trotted over to a nearby trash can and spat the strange concoction that Pinkie had made, a cupcake with the flavoring of both cinnamon and raspberries. Though the two appealed to the fuschia pony hybrid completely on their on, the mixing of the two made her almost retch in her mouth. She looked over to the new pony that had walked over to the bakery and, making sure Pinkie didn't see, shook her head vigorously.

"Is that what I smelled? I'll take two to try!" She nodded at the pony who was shaking her head, but she was too hungry to care what it tasted like, and so sat down to eat. It wasn't great, and she was glad she had heeded the pony's warning, but it wasn't half bad anyway. But it wasn't quite enough. "Mmm, thank you muchly! That was delicious! May I have two more?"

The little red dragon frowned again and put her paws on her hips, looking down at the floor. "Breakfast? Um... I was counting on you eating out this morning. We kind of don't have enough cereal for both of us. Or milk. Or eggs. Or bacon..." Ember's expression grew more and more comically serious as she counted off the food items on which they were low. "I was planning on getting some more stuff today while you were gone."

Chrome rolled his eyes as ember continued counting off food items they were missing. He walked into his room and put on his saddlebags, then carefully put the book into the left pocket. "I'm going to the bakery to get some food. Come along if you like." Ember continued listing but followed him out the door, making his way towards the bakery. As he got close, he smelled a delicious cinnamon aroma and made his around to the pink pony where the smell seemed to be coming from.

"Ooh, the bakery?" That was all Ember needed to hear, and she was at Chrome's heels as he left the house. "I guess we can have breakfast there, and then I can go get some more food." She trailed off, continuing to apparently think out loud. "Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. What's that smell? Cinnamon rolls?" she asked hopefully.

Pinkie Pie looked back to see what the new pony had nodded her head at. Lili stopped shaking her head and pathetically smiled at her friend. Pinkie, not understanding what had just happened, turned back to the potential customer.

"Of course you can!" She giggled, grabbing a fresh tray that had just popped out of the oven with her mouth. "Careful. They're hot," she said in a singsong voice. Lili rolled her eyes. Typical Pinkie Pie. "Um, shouldn't she pay for those?" she asked, wondering what was going through the pink pony's mind. "Oh, yeah, that. Well, these are just samples."

Pinkie tilted her head to the side to see two others headed her way; another pony and a dragon. As she tilted her head, the muffins started to fall off the tray, so she quickly snapped her head back up so they wouldn't collide with the tiled floor.

A small, silver dragon began to wander on all fours into the big, strange-looking town of Ponyville, silently during the early morning hours. With her, a little glow seemed to emanate, like a beacon of light in the otherwise mostly-dark pre-dawn. Most of the town was quiet and peaceful, as the bulk of the populace hadn't even awakened yet. Still, as the young dragon walked aimlessly until she noticed something peculiar compared to the rest of the quiet town... one place was already bustling with at least some activity, some sounds of chatter and some lights. She began to be drawn to the bakery, slowly and carefully at first until she noticed something even more important... food! The chemicals of the smell of food wafted along the morning breeze over to her, and this was something her little body couldn't resist. The young dragon began to prance over more quickly until she found her head poking into the bakery door, just ahead of another couple of people who were also headed there, another dragon and a pony.

"Oh! I didn't know these were samples! I had actually intended to pay... um, do you want the money anyway?" She felt kinda silly for not checking. She didn't want to make a lunch out of samples. It just felt wrong.

Ember was rubbing her paws together eagerly as she approached the bakery, her excitement building to sink her teeth into those baked goods she smelled. She then noticed a striped gray reptile roughly her size halfway in and out of the bakery door. "Oh! Hey, uh..." She poked the other creature's tail. "You're in the door?" Ember wasn't really sure what to say to it.

Chrome noticed Ember walk up to the strange metallic dragon in the doorway, but was too distracted to stop. The smell of cinnamon was overwhelming. He entered the bakery and walked up to Pinkie Pie and said "Can I have two of those? They smell delicious!"

The silver dragon turned around for a moment to look at the other, red dragon, her big, curious-looking red eyes gleaming in the dark, but without a word she walked inside and sat up before Pinkie, staring up at the muffins and letting her jaws open, her tongue slipping out to the side of her mouth, dripping with a little saliva. She gave a little high-pitched croak, perhaps not even yet having learned to speak?

Lili saw yet another dragon wander over. But this one was different. It looked nothing like Spike or Ember or any other dragon she'd seen. It was kinda creepy looking. But still kinda cute. She gave it a tiny bite of cupcake, setting it down on the floor in front of it.

"Oh, yes please! I mean, we still need money if we want to keep the bakery running." Pinkie smiled, somewhat pleased. Meanwhile, Lili put on her apron, as she worked part-time at the bakery herself.

Then, turning to the male pony, said, "Sure," and offered him two cupcakes.