I didn't sleep well that night. I was so glad it wasn't Dashie, though. All that time in bed did give me on thing to think about: the mortgage.

    Dashie had told me the price of the mortgage once. If my weekly paycheck was 125 bits, and the monthly mortgage was 450 bits, I had just enough to pay that off for the next two months.

    With only 50 bits a month for food.

    Damn. But, I thought, I am a responsible adult... pony... mixture. I can do this. But, how will I pay for the date with Ditzy? I sighed and rolled over. I would have to call it off. I was so disappointed.

    I awoke Thursday morning, though, and the first thing I see as I go for a morning fly (fly?) is a red basket of food with eight balloons on it. It was floating in such a way that I almost walked into it. I read the tag. "Just some help! We all pitched in. <3 Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie)."

    I was touched. I brought the basket into my house, and saw it was filled with different foods from all the different ponies. There was some kind of flat wheat noodle from Twilight, a wrapped apple pie from Pinkie Pie, six red apples and three green apples from Applejack, lemons and oranges from Rarity (???) and a head of lettuce and twelve brown eggs from Fluttershy.

    Aww! I was really touched by this. I set the foods down in the fridge and went to the reading room, supercharged for a new day, and bent on getting a promotion by Saturday. I would pay this mortgage (and repay the other ponies) for this, or my pony name wasn't Falling Star!

    I wrote the story thoroughly, and it felt really natural. It just came to me step by step. This would be a friggin' NOVEL by the time I was through with it. Heheheheh. Next Chapter: Chapter Thirteen - That Time Again Estimated time remaining: 60 Minutes