Twilight once again woke up to the sun barely cresting over the horizon.  Today was a beautiful day in Ponyville, just like any other.  The pegasi had already cleared the sky of clouds from yesterday, which allowed the entire town to bask in warm sunlight.  Some ponies were already awake and roaming the streets of Ponyville, buying the groceries for the day or meeting with friends.  Since it was well into spring, the entire town was also covered in flowers and other greenery; be it earth pones with their gardens of tomatoes and carrots, or the Sower Smith memorial garden over the bridge.  Twilight couldn’t have asked for a better day than today.  She bolted into the back room and closed the door.

In the past few weeks, she had been a little more restless than usual.  She had been studying a new spell from an ancient scroll she found in the Starswirl the Bearded section of the ancient Canterlot archives.  It was by far one of the most complex and energy-consuming spell she had ever seen, but she knew that being Celestia’s prized student meant that she needed to push her limits from time to time. She hoped that the princess would be immensely impressed with this particular spell, though.  She had spent weeks reading it and the last few days practicing it by herself.  Now that she felt ready to test it, she would need a victim…

“Spike?  Can you come up here?  I need help with something!”

“Coming Twilight…” called out Spike from downstairs.   ‘He must have been eating breakfast,’ thought Twilight.  ‘Oops!’

Twilight continued to read the scroll until she heard footstep coming up the stairs.  Spike came through the door looking more tired than usual.  He had had a late night with one of Pinkie Pie’s parties, and he fell asleep before the party was over.  Twilight had to carry him back, and in the process he “accidentally” threw up on her back.  He had eaten way too many sweets, and it took the poor unicorn two hours to wash the stink off.  Now she wanted payback.

Twilight closed her eyes.  Her horn sparked.

“Twilight, I was just barely making breakfast, what do you need?”

Her horn grew brighter.

“Hey, Twi… what are you—“

When Twilight opened her eyes again, everything looked the same as it did before; none of the books had moved, Spike looked as tired as ever as he stared at her…but everything was so still.  She walked over to Spike.  Not a single part of him was moving.  This could only mean one thing.

“YES!  My time-stop spell worked!  I knew I could do it!”  Twilight squealed in joy as she hopped around the room singing “I did it, I did it, I did it!” in a style not unlike Pinkie Pie.  “Okay, now I only have a few minutes before the spell wears off, gotta act fast!”  She reached behind the desk in the study and pulled out a quill and some ink.  She walked over to her frozen assistant, dipped the quill in the ink, and started to draw a fake mustache on his lip.  She made sure to draw it as big and swirly as she could, so that Spike would walk around town looking like a very fancy baby dragon, even if he wasn’t a baby anymore.

It had been about 7 years since the two moved into the library here in Ponyville.  That would put Spike at about 15, even though looking at him you couldn’t tell.  He had barely grown over the years, but to the trained eye of his unofficial big sister, she could see that he had grown about 2 inches and was starting to lose some of his baby fat.  He was still the same Spike she had always known, though.

She had barely put the finishing touches on his mustache when the spell began to wear off, and the world returned to normal.  Spike saw that Twilight was inches from his face.  “What happened?”

“Oh, I…uh…teleported over to you. This is really important!”  Twilight tried to act serious, but could not contain the enormous smile on her face.  

“Okay?  What is it?”

Twilight didn’t think her plan this far.  “Well, I… you see, it’s kinda… PICTURE!  That’s it!  I need to take a picture of you!”  She ran over to her desk and grabbed the small camera in the drawer.  “Okay Spike, Hold still!”

“Are you sure you’re okay Twilight?”

CLICK

“All finished!” Twilight informed him with a grin, “That’s all I needed help with Spike.  Thanks!”

Spike still had an incredulous look on his face, so Twilight tried smiling even brighter.  Spike just decided to ignore the weirdness of his friend.  

“O…kay then Twilight…Hey, I was wondering, if you don’t need my help today, can I go over to Rarity’s boutique and see if I can help out?”

‘This is perfect!’ Twilight thought.  “Of course you can Spike.  Are you ever going to tell her about how you lo—“

“What?  Love?  No, I don’t LOVE her Twilight, that’s crazy!  Where did you ever get that idea?”

“You told me.  And I take that as a no?”

Spike blushed.  “I’ll tell her when I’m ready, don’t push me Twilight, GEEZ!”  

Teenagers.

Spike left the room, and Twilight knew that he would rush to Rarity’s store as fast as he could.  He didn’t even notice the mustache!  This was priceless!  Twilight put the scroll with the time-stop spell back onto the shelves until she could return it to the archives the next time she was in Canterlot.  Next, she pulled out her checklist for the day and checked off “Prank Spike”.  Next on the list was to go buy some food for a dinner she would throw tomorrow night.  

She had invited all of her friends over to commemorate this day, which had the anniversary of the defeat of Discord.  But for them, it was more than that; because of the Elements of Harmony, they have been closer than friends to each other, closer than they had ever been to anypony (except Applejack, who had been dating Doctor Whooves for a while).  They felt more like sisters, and ever since they came together to defeat Discord, all six of them realized this.

Twilight levitated her saddle bags onto her back and walked out the door.  It was still just as beautiful as it had been this morning, except with maybe a few more ponies hustling and bustling down the street.  One such pony bounced her way through the crowd towards Twilight.

“Hello there, Twilight!”

“Hi Pinkie Pie!” Twilight called out waving her hoof towards her jubilant and bouncy friend.  “Isn’t today just lovely?”

“Oh my gosh, it is!  I can’t remember there being a day any more beautiful than this one, although there are a LOT of beautiful days here in Ponyville.  But the best thing about a good day is that there’s bound to be a good night following it!”  Pinkie Pie finally took a breath.  “Which reminds me; I’m throwing a slumber party tonight, and I wanted to invite all of my friends, which includes you and I REEEEALLY hope that you can come, so can you come?”

Twilight looked at her long list of things to do to prepare for the dinner tomorrow.  “I’m sorry Pinky, but I still have a lot to do to prepare for the dinner tomorrow.”

“Oh no, that means that you can’t make it too!  Rarity and Fluttershy already said they were too busy… but I guess it will still be a party even with just Applejack and Rainbow Dash!  Oh, and I am most definitolutely going to be there tomorrow!”

Twilight pulled out her list and made a quick note.  “Thanks for letting me know Pinky!”

“Sure thing Twilight!  I gotta go get some chips for tonight, see you later!”  Pinkie bounced off and disappeared into the crowd.

Twilight watched Pinkie Pie as far as she could see.  She looked at all the ponies that were cantering up and down the streets.  Seven years ago she didn’t know what friendship was, and now she wouldn’t give it up for all the books in Equestria.  She loved her friends.