It was a busy day in Canterlot.

Ordinarily this wasn’t something that would draw attention, as every day was a busy one for Equestria’s capital, but on this particular day it was practically vibrating with activity. It was one of the last days of fall, and ponies throughout the city were on the move. They were in the stores, finishing up shopping for the latest in winter fashions. They were working around their homes, making sure they were fully prepared for the cold months ahead. They were in the streets, getting one last look at the city at large before it was buried under the first sheet of white. In short, everypony was out and about, getting things done.

The city's government was no different. In a conference room of one of the highest towers of the castle that dominated the center of the city, a frenzied meeting was taking place. The large, circular room seated dozens and dozens of official-looking pegasi, all of them talking at once. Several maps of Equestria lay out on the tables, covered in lines, diagrams, calculations, and doodles. The voices weren’t in agreement with one another, and the volume of the room began to rise. Suddenly, at the center of the room, a hoof hit a table with a loud crack in an attempt to bring order. The room went silent. Princess Celestia, presiding as she always did, gathered herself up and began to speak.

“Everypony, please. We’ve had a long day today, and I would like to wrap things up. We need to get our plan in order, so that we can deliver it to the regional teams and get things moving. You’ve all been in the discussion, you all know the merits and dangers of what we have in store for the kingdom–”

“Yeah, bringing down eighteen inches a day for a week straight. We can all plan how well that’s going to turn out.” The remark from the back of the room gathered a few murmurs of agreement.

The Princess ignored them and continued. “We’ve said all that needs to be said. All that remains now is the vote. So, without further delay, all in favor?”

Slowly but surely, a large collection of hooves rose into the air.

“All opposed?”

Another set of hooves went up. This batch was much smaller and more scattered.

Celestia smiled and nodded. “Then it is settled. Castle scribes will get to work writing up individual instruction sets for each of you to give out to your working parties. Those of you returning directly to Cloudsdale should leave at once to make sure the production departments know what they’re in for. I hereby bring this meeting to a close, and wish you all a safe and productive winter.”

With the meeting over, Celestia turned and headed out of the room. A few attempted to follow her to engage in more discussion, but she wasn’t feeling up for any more talk at the moment. A quick motion of her wings had aides scurrying over to run interception while a set of guards cast out some very intimidating looks. The remaining stragglers of the meeting suddenly found themselves needing to be somewhere else and made a swift exit from the area. Celestia trotted into her throne room. A guard quickly shut the doors behind her, leaving her all alone.

Celestia paced back and forth in the vast ceremonial chamber, lost in her thoughts. She frowned as she circled her throne. Stopping abruptly, she shook her head in mild frustration. The exact reason for her stress was eluding her, which was just irritating her all the more.

There were many things that could be bothering her at the moment. At the top of the list was the meeting with the weather council that she had just left. It had been a long meeting filled with seemingly endless debate. Eventually, it had been decided that the upcoming winter, due to begin in three days' time, would be particularly harsh to make up for the series of weaker ones over these past few years. It was something a number of ponies didn’t support, but Celestia had eventually driven home the need for an overall balance in the long-term weather planning.

Now that a plan had been settled upon, there was still the matter of getting everypony on the same page in terms of how winter would open up. This meant getting the regional teams organized and all of their seasonal supplies ready. It meant informing the rest of the population as to what was headed their way. And it meant aligning the whole process so that it synced up with the natural cycles in the few parts of Equestria where the weather didn’t fall under pony control. This last part in particular was something that was subject to numerous delays every year, since no matter how many times it was performed, many ponies simply couldn’t deal with trying to handle weather they couldn’t totally tame.

None of this made for easy work even on a light year. On a strong year like this, it could be nothing short of chaos without the proper amount of control and management. There was still much more work to be done.

Then there was Luna. Her sister’s thousand year banishment and possession by Nightmare Moon had taken quite a toll on her mental and social well-being. Over time, Celestia had been counseling her and attempting to bring her back to a more normal state of mind. Recently, she had taken several steps back into the public eye in an effort to once again become part of society proper.

The results had been mixed.

Still, progress was definitely being made, and Celestia was confident that Luna would be completely in sync with the world at large very soon. Her recovery also brought Celestia somepony she could truly confide in, which was a great relief after centuries of being alone.

Lately, however, Luna had been keeping to herself in her side of the castle, not really talking to anypony. She didn’t seem to be feeling angry or depressed, she just seemed… distant. She just spent all day alone in her chambers, reading her books. That her choice of reading material during this period of isolation consisted entirely of pulpy horror novels just added to the mystery, along with Celestia’s worry.

Finally, there was the general stress of going through life in charge of the whole Kingdom of Equestria, along with the sun that lit and warmed it. She had, of course, grown accustomed to this task over her millennia of performing it, but it still had the power to wear her down. There was always just so much that needed to be done and rarely enough time to do it. She could delegate as much as she could to the various magistrates and local city officials, but a little bit of everything always found its way up to her in the end. It was a trying position to say the least, though she ultimately accepted that it was her job to do. She was the Princess, after all, and she would have to act like it.

Yet it was none of these things that were really nagging at her right now. It was something else, something that she couldn’t quite put her hoof on.

Frowning, Celestia moved towards a large set of double doors on the opposite side of the room. Quickly unlocking them, she pushed them open to reveal a long hallway. One wall was made up of an enormous, floor-to-ceiling window. It granted the Princess a perfect view of a large chunk of the kingdom, from Ponyville directly below, to the mountains off in the east, and the deserts off to the west, with a great multitude of land features in between. Along the opposite wall hung a mirror, one that was perhaps the largest in the land (to say nothing of its beautiful gilded frame), and roughly the same size as the window it faced. It granted another perfect look at the same view as the window, albeit reversed, with the added benefit of Celestia being able to see herself as well. Celestia had both features installed ages ago, early in her reign. The mirror allowed her to gain a sense of perspective looking out over the kingdom, and the Princess often did her deep thinking in front of it.

She trotted to the center of the hall, underneath one of several large chandeliers spaced along the ceiling, and turned to face herself. Glancing over her weary expression, she let her eyes wander around the backdrop. It was a pleasant day at the moment, though it looked to be the last for some time. Pegasus ponies flew around as tiny specks in the distance, dragging clouds and snow material out of Cloudsdale and off to their designated home zones. Looking closely at the reflection, she could also see that a few of those dreaded natural clouds had begun to form. Their random and largely unpredictable nature was always a challenge to the fliers. In the coming days, Celestia would be flying out to personally meet with the local leaders to figure out how best to coordinate things.

She could see a particularly strong patch of natural clouds begin to form up in the Northern Wastes. It had always been a bit of a mess up there, though recently things seemed to be getting even worse. Celestia wasn’t entirely sure why this was. She had been too busy as of late to check into it, and the very low population kept it from becoming a large issue. Regardless, degrading conditions were not a good thing in any part of the kingdom. She knew she should get somepony out there, if only to–

Copper Star! The name hit her in a flash. Celestia whirled around and stared out the window at the Wastes. Her old student! How could she have forgotten? She had been a research expedition in the Wastes for more than a year now, following whatever tidbit of information buried deep in the castle archives had sent her out there in the first place. Thinking hard, Celestia realized that she hadn’t received any sort of letter from Copper in well over two months.

This in and of itself wasn’t too worrisome. Copper had always been a somewhat absent-minded student, particularly when she really got into a topic, and trekking to an isolated spot far out in the Wastes meant she was especially into this one. Celestia had long ago learned that sending her a letter never got much by way of an immediate response, unless it contained some sort of critical question. And even then it was up in the air as to how fast a reply would come. Copper would send a letter along whenever she had something substantial to say, and her last note found her doing well. Celestia imagined she was still in such a state, if also buried in work. On top of studying the strange weather patterns, she was also looking into some old ruins of pony villages from eons past. These ruins seemed to be so old that Celestia herself could scarcely remember them, so, naturally, she too was very curious about them.

At this point, Celestia’s main concern was Copper spending another winter all alone, far from any sort of pony contact or companionship. It probably wasn’t very safe either, as anything could happen out there in weather like that. Celestia wondered if she could visit herself, but the notion was squashed before it got very far. The Princess had a considerable number of duties and obligations to attend to. Time off for a social call simply couldn’t be worked into the schedule.

Still, somepony would have to go out there and check up on Copper, as at the very least Celestia imagined that she was feeling quite lonely. That was no condition for any pony to be in at this time of year. Copper was one who really enjoyed company, even if her work-comes-first self would never openly admit it.

She reminds me of another student of mine, Celestia thought, grinning. Say, there’s an idea! She would be the perfect pony to send out to visit Copper. The two should hit it off nicely, and she could even bring the rest of her friends along. It would give Copper some much needed socialization and give the rest of them a nice little vacation after all the end-of-the-season work they’ve been doing lately.

Celestia didn’t think they would be able to stay too long, but a week or so of relaxation and exploration should do the trick. They might even be able to convince Copper to take the rest of the winter off and spend some time back here in Canterlot. She could present her findings and catch up on the world she’d left behind so long ago. In fact, that would be preferable. Better to have her here in civilization than stuck going through a strong winter out in the middle of nowhere. That was simply no place for a pony to be alone. Yes, sending the group out there seemed like just the thing to do.

Celestia headed back to her throne room, where some royal parchment floated over to her. Summoning a quill to go with it, Celestia dipped it in ink and began to compose her letter.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle…”