Rarity sat in a room looking out of a window, paying little heed to the nearby shelves full of rolled-up colored fabrics, pony-shaped mannequins, and the sewing table and machine. She watched the dim sky, ear twitching when a soft mew hit her ears. The unicorn glanced at her hooves and noticed a fluffy white cat with a bow on its head and an opal-studded collar around its neck sitting in front of her, its legs so small they gave the appearances of stubs.

"Opal, dear, are you worried about me?" Rarity whispered, sighing when the cat looked at her quizzically before letting off another mew. The cat stood up and waddled around the mare, pausing to crouch for a moment, eying the sewing table intently. Opal jumped up in a fluid motion, landing on the table with yet another mew.

The unicorn followed the critter with her gaze, turning her head as the ball of fluff curled up next to the sewing machine, looking back at her expectantly. "Opal, just what is so imperative that I pay some attention to it?" Rarity questioned, a brow quirking up as the cat uncurled, stood up again and jumped from the table to the top of one of the fabric shelves and tapped at a part of the wall with its paw impatiently.

Rarity sighed and stood up, trotting over to the cat. Her horn lit up a soft blue, bathing the room in a small amount of light that revealed a sketch held up to the wall by a picture frame. "Opal, it's very late. Why would I stress myself out trying to make a dress at this hour?" she asked. When the cat failed to mew back, she groaned and trotted to a heart-decorated door that had closed her off from the rest of the outside.

She opened the door and left the room with her horn still glowing, quickly finding herself in a vast space adorned with many dark pink curtains that almost looked purple in the sable. To one side, three mirrors surrounded a stand to her immediate left, and beyond that stood a clothing rack with several different dresses hanging on coat hangers. Near the mirrors, a double-handled door that had been split down a horizontal middle stood, faintly glimmering with reflected starlight.

The unicorn trotted around these things, briefly pausing to turn to an object completely concealed by curtains towering to the ceiling that stood in the middle of this room. She sighed and continued on her way, passing the mirrors and curtains and dresses before rounding a bend and noticing a flight of stairs. Rarity made her way up these steps, silent but swift as she moved, reaching a second floor with a small hall that had only three doorways.

Rarity moved to one of the doors and opened it, finding an ornately-decorated room with a bed that had curtains hanging above it thanks to an overhead frame. She trotted to it and flopped on the sheets, not bothering to cover up as she closed her eyes and lay there for a few moments.

Silence held the room as the unicorn did not move her limbs, softly breathing in and out, her thoughts wandering and wavering from one thing to the next in the span of seconds. The mare's ivory ears twitched and swiveled every so often, catching faint noises and the occasional loud mrrow from Opal that echoed into the area from outside.

Rarity's mind whirred and whirred, spurring and churning with so many ideas that, when she finally realized this was happening, she jumped out of the bed and snapped her eyes wide open after a solid half-hour of doing nothing else but lay still. The unicorn stomped her hoof onto the floor in agitation, eyes narrowing as a frown spread on her face. "Oh, phooey," she mumbled, trotting out of the room and rushing down the stairs to find herself back in the place with the plethora of curtains.

She passed by the dangling cloth fabrics briskly, and before long she was back in the room with the mannequins, rolled-up fabrics, and sewing machine. Opal still sat in front of the rough sketch, looking at the pony expectantly as another mrrow left her little mouth. "Alright, Opalescence, you have won the battle this time," she sighed, her frown thinning into a slender line as the cat grinned and started purring from across the room. "But you will get no treats tomorrow, unless you stop Sweetie Belle from destroying the Boutique," she added, donning a neutral look as Opal ceased purring on the spot.

Her magic grasped the sketch and lifted it from the wall with ease, bringing it to her face and enabling her to examine its contents. The sketch in question depicted a nondescript pony with a partially-colored dress whose few highlights were predominately black and silver in hue. Twin drills jutted out from the back of the head, tied up with dark maroon ribbons that held up a mass of uncolored mane in a ponytail. Slung around the neck and fashioned with a gold chain sat an iron cross, barely discernable as it had been held up at an angle while the nondescript pony who wore it stood with one side facing out.

"Hrm... why in..." Rarity stopped herself before her eyes went wide. "Oh, yes, the dress is missing something, aside from a few more colors!" she exclaimed, trotting over to one of the mannequins briskly and opening a door that stood just behind it, revealing another assortment of dresses that had collected a layer of dust and were bunched together in a tiny room. The unicorn swiftly removed the contents of the tiny room with a simple spell and turned on a light that hung overhead at the same time, further highlighting the dresses she'd just dragged into the space she stood in.

Among these dresses, a black one draped over a mannequin stood out, though it was little more than a back piece and overflowing trim that dangled past the back legs like a sort of filthy cape. Shoving the rest of the garments back where they had come from and putting this one before the sewing machine, Rarity took a moment to examine her handiwork with a small grin. "Oh, yes, once I finish you, you will be fabulous," she murmured to herself before her grin faded into a frown. "Oh, who am I gonna get to wear you once you're completed?" she asked, as though her unfinished dress could speak back to her.

A smile spread on her lips, and a rather coy one at that. "Yes... on her, you'll be simply divine."

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Applejack stood in front of a red barn overlooking a patch of land, staring vacantly at a nearby orchard that spanned at least a dozen hillsides, each with trees laden to the brim with succulent red and green apples that gleamed in the moonlight and waited to be picked. Near one end of the vast orchard stood several smaller red buildings in addition to a currently-quiet hen house. Opposite of all of this, there were several tilled fields laden with corn, carrots, grapes—you name it, this one spot was laden with fruits and vegetables galore.

She sighed to herself as the wind began blowing, catching her mane and tail to caress them, making it appear as if they had begun dancing beneath the thin veils of illuminating silver light. The orange earth pony looked at the sky, blinking when she saw a rainbow streak appear in the extensive, glittering gloom for a few seconds before it faded. The mare flinched as the sound of hooves hitting hay, then dirt reached her ears, and she turned to find a muscular stallion with a red coat and an orange mane staring at her with large green eyes as he came out of the barn.

Applejack relaxed, and turned her attention back to the starry sky. "'Ello, Big Mac," she stated in a tired voice. "What'cha doing out here?"

"Sis, I should be asking you the same thing," Big Mac responded curtly, trotting up to Applejack's side. He turned to her, noting she did not glance at him a second time, and made to speak when she failed to do so, "Are you okay?"

Applejack shook her head. "Cider season's almost here. It's practically next week," she groaned, ears flattening against her head.

Big Mac raised a brow. "Why're you fretting over cider season? There ain't much to worry about," he stated.

The orange mare turned to him, pupils briefly shrinking. "Have you heard about the fiasco in Canterlot?" she asked.

"Yeah, but what's that got to do with cider season?" Big Mac retorted, his face hardening just a smidgen as the question left his mouth.

"Celestia's sending the Fantasians here, to Ponyville, and..." Applejack trailed off, her legs starting to shake. Her rear legs buckled as if a crate had been thrust upon her backside, and she shifted them to sit down.

"Celestia's sending them? Are you pulling my tail?" Big Mac questioned, the brow that had shot up rising even higher now.

"Yes, they're coming, and no, I ain't pulling your tail!" Applejack replied, her voice rising an octave higher as she waved a front hoof towards nothing in particular. Her face set in a scowl as she went on, "The Fantasians are coming to Ponyville, and I might have to help keep their tails in line! And that means I probably won't be able to help with cider season this year!"

Big Mac blinked, his brow lowering as a heavy sigh left his muzzle. "Tell me," he began in a low tone, maintaining eye contact with Applejack the entire time he spoke, "are the Fantasians really that big a deal?"

"Yes," Applejack groaned, setting her hoof down again. "One of them... one of them's a changeling, and she's really badly messed up. I know I shouldn't judge her none, but she's..."

"How badly messed up are we talking?" the stallion asked, his brow shooting up yet again. "That changeling gal didn't seem all that bad, just from being a changeling and all."

"You have no idea," Applejack retorted, eyes narrowing.

"Then again, I'm only going by what that newspaper this morning said," Big Mac shot back in a flat tone, punctuating his response with a snort. "Just how bad off is she?"

"She's... a wraith, Big Mac. A bucking wraith. You ain't seen how bad she's got it," Applejack sighed, turning away once more. "She's about filly-sized, thin as a twig with her face torn in two, and almost no horn on her head at all. Last I seen of her, she only had about four teeth left."

Big Mac's eyes went wide. "A wraith... with no teeth? Not any bigger than Apple Bloom? A-and her horn's missing?" he asked. "That... the article didn't say anything about that! All it said was that there were two changelings in Canterlot!"

"That's about right," the mare replied, drawing a heavy sigh as she slowly nodded. "But I'm gonna guess Apple Bloom's probably bigger than she is, because like I said, Big Mac: thin as a twig. I'm surprised the other Fantasians who were with that wraith didn't just... put her out of her misery. And I don't know why the article didn't say that. I guess the changeling wanted to stay away from the press, and I don't blame her one lil' bit if she did."

Big Mac's eyes widened still, until they were the size of saucers. His face immediately set with a slant-eyed expression that betrayed a spark in his irises. He lowered his head, eyelids closing shut as he muttered, "Celestia bless her soul." He rose a leg and wrapped it around Applejack, pulling her into a hug. "Why don't we talk about it tomorrow? Maybe we'll have to re-schedule cider season, if it comes to it."

Applejack donned a soft smile, and returned the hug. "Thanks, Big Mac. I just... it's so much to think about, and—"

A new voice, one elderly and feminine, cut Applejack off before she could finish. "How about we get some of our other Apple kinfolk here while you help keep them pesky Fantasians in check?" Applejack and Big Mac broke out of their hug with a jump, turning to the barn in unison to find an elderly green-coated mare with thin legs was trotting out to them. This mare had a grey mane held up in a loose bun at the back of her head, some strands falling down to frame golden orange eyes that twinkled with some kind of emotion.

"Wait... you mean get somepony else to watch over cider season in my place?" Applejack asked, eyeing the crone with a frown framing her face. "Granny Smith, that..."

Granny cut her off again, donning a smirk of her own as she spoke, "Is a good idea?" Her grin only widened, golden eyes twinkling as she proceeded to quip, "Applejack, dear, don't be so hard on yourself. Hay, maybe you could get them Fantasians to try some cider—of course, they'd need to work for it like everypony else on this here farm does."

Applejack's frown flipped once again, only to revert back to what it was a moment later. She rose a hoof to her temples and started rubbing them. The orange mare let off a low hum, pursing her lips together as she contemplated this for a moment. "I... I guess it couldn't hurt much to try," she stated begrudgingly. "But... I can't see the bunch of Fantasians I ran into helping out with cider season much, if at all."

Granny Smith quirked a brow. "And why's that?" she asked.

"One's a general, five more serve him, another's a cat, one's a filly, and the last two... oh shoot, none of them looked the least bit—"

"Then consult the flippin' general," Granny Smith replied, once more pre-empting Applejack before she could finish. "This farm and the orchard we live off of, take a good long look at it now! Me and the rest of the Apple clan had to consult Celestia in the good ol' days before we could build it all from scratch. And if Celestia granted us this fine piece of land, then I reckon the general will lend a few of his troops to cider season."

Applejack ceased rubbing her temples, though she winced upon setting her hoof down yet again. The mare let off a few more thoughtful hums, lips pursing tightly as she turned over the option Granny had presented—the possible solution to her predicament of sorts. But, there had also been the relatively small hoofful of the troops she'd seen in the flesh, a good three of them having one reason or another to deny the orange mare and her kin their aid. That wasn't exactly counting the general himself, either, nor the demeanors of the entire bunch as a whole.

She continued to consider the option carefully, humming all the while to help keep herself focused, ever-mindful of the chance that Lance could turn down granting aid for cider season. After all, he currently and very likely still had bigger fish to fry, and that might have the chance to remain the case, no matter where he set his hooves. Eventually, after nodding to herself, she opened her mouth to speak. However, she ended up closing her jaws as a bestial howl rang out and echoed through the night, followed by another howl, and another.

The howling kept growing, as if accruing more unseen members to join in on the chorus. This went on until it reached the point to where it sounded as though several hundred beasts had come together to cry out to the crescent moon in disorganised unison. The song continued for some time, drowning out almost all else as it echoed repeatedly for minutes that felt like hours on end.

Granny Smith swiveled her ears the entire time the howls continued to ring out in a massive throng, until the very last one died down and echoed through the winds. "We might need s'more help this cider season," she mumbled. She leveled a look at Applejack before turning to glance at Big Mac. "Both of you need plenty of rest tonight. I have a feeling we're gonna need all the helping hooves we can get."

Big Mac and Applejack exchanged glances, then turned back to Granny Smith. "Will we have to re-schedule cider season, though?" the orange mare asked, eyes flickering in worry.

Granny Smith laughed. "Well, I was wanting to make a special kind of cider this season," she replied, a small smile framing her face once more. "Unless... you don't want the special cider?"

Applejack's eyes widened. "Actually..." she paused to calm herself down before donning a smile of her own. "Yer on."

"Now that's what I like to hear from my grandfoal," Granny chirped, her smile widening. She turned to Big Mac, her grin still growing.

"Eeyup," the red-coated stallion replied, now smiling himself.

Granny Smith nodded. "Now, get those young tails of yours to bed. Y'all need your rest so bad I'm starting to wonder if you two can even see straight now," she ordered, watching as Big Mac and Applejack shifted a bit before trotting briskly past her. The elderly mare turned to the sky and sighed to herself. "Applejack, dear, y'all said one of them Fantasians was a wraith?" she asked without turning around, causing the orange mare to freeze just as she set the first front hoof on the hay lining the floor of the barn.

"Yeah... both a wraith and a changeling. Why?" the blond-maned mare asked in an uneasy tone, turning to the crone with a frown on her face.

Granny turned to meet the younger mare's gaze. "I think that a wraith can lend a hoof too. When cider season rolls around, see if you can get the general to fork that changeling over for a day or two," she replied. "Or... can this wraith even help?"

"She can fly, and trot, but... that's about it, Granny. This wraith-changeling's so thin I doubt she could help at all," Applejack answered, turning away to sigh to herself.

"Maybe she could still help somehow," Granny replied with a huff. "Like looking at the apples and telling the good un's from the bad un's."

Applejack turned over Granny's words in her head, lips pursing in a tight but thin line as she pondered the possibility. "I'll give that a shot, but we'll have to figure out if she picks the apples she finds are good," the orange mare stated as she resumed trotting into the building.

"We'll figure something out," Granny called out as Applejack reached the end of the barn and pushed a door open, trotting into a small room beyond without closing it behind her.

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Pinkie Pie stood in a small room with a chest, a dresser, a window, and a crib. She peered over the edge of the crib, smiling as a cream-colored pegasus colt with a brown mane and another unicorn filly with a yellowish body and orange mane slept soundly. The pink mare leaned in, pressing soft kisses to the foals' foreheads and pulling back to watch them squirm a bit as they slumbered. "G'night Pumpkin and Pound Cake," she whispered, backing away from the crib silently before turning around and walking out of the room.

Closing the door after taking a glance at the foals to confirm they were still sleeping, she sighed softly as a hallway with but two doors greeted her. Looking around, her eyes fell on two sets of stairs that divided the hall in half, with one going up and the other going down. She trotted over to the flight leading up and found a small green alligator looking up at her with big purple eyes, tilting its head as if that alone conveyed what was on its mind.

Pinkie beamed and scooped up the little reptile with a front leg. "You were waiting for me, Gummy?" she asked, grinning. Gummy stuck out a slender forked tongue, just prior to opening his maw and clamping down on Pinkie's front leg with it. The mare giggled and shifted to sit on her haunches, stroking the little gator with her other hoof.

Which promptly got clamped on by the maw. Pinkie angled her hoof just right to peek between the jaws, giggling as she saw a distinct lack of teeth in the croc's muzzle. "That tickles," she cooed, even as the toothless gator continued to try to chew like it's life depended on it. The mare stood on her back legs and crept up the stairs, going as silently as she could and struggling to hold back a few giggles as Gummy continued to gnaw on her to no avail.

She found a small room, with a chest, some floating balloons, a bed, and a window next to said bed that lead to the outside. The mare set Gummy on the bed and, after prying her hoof out of his mouth, she looked around and spotted the almost-invisible strings that had been tied around the balloons. She lowered into a pouncing position before bounding up, using her mouth to grab a bundle of the strings prior to making a landing whose thud was muffled as her hooves connected with the sheets on the mattress.

The little crocodile bit down on the tip of Pinkie's tail as she landed, earning a giggle that came through clenched teeth. The mare stood on her back legs again, taking the bundle of strings out of her mouth with a front hoof before pulling the balloons to eye level, whereupon her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized each and every colorful air-filled bit of latex. She noticed two deflating balloons that were on their last vestiges of borrowed air right off the bat, and carefully separated them from the rest of the bundle with a pluck of her free hoof.

She let the deflating balloons go, and they weakly wobbled up to the air and hugged the ceiling when they couldn't go any higher. Pinkie didn't notice that; rather, she took to examining the rest of the bunch for any flaws, down to the tiniest possible hole she could see in the bleak room almost as if she had been a general glaring coldly at each of his troops.

The mare giggled as, for a moment, Lance came to the forefront of her mind. "I wonder if he does smile like he enjoys himself without that boring bout of anger going on," she mused aloud, before resuming her scrutinizing of the balloons and smiling when she found no further flaws in the rest of the bunch she held.

She hopped off the bed and landed on two legs, still clutching the bundle of inflated latex like a kid at a carnival. Gummy held onto her tail with his jaws, opting to crawl up it a quarter of the way after she jumped a second time.

Pinkie strode up to the chest in an upright stance and used her free hoof to open it, revealing a mass of deflated but fresh balloons and a plethora of string, haphazardly thrown in and tangled around itself at some point. Amidst all of this, laying on its side and barely noticeable since the rest of the chest's contents were heaped onto it, a large metal cylinder with a bright red valve lay on its side.

Her grin widened as she plucked a few more balloons out, setting them and the tangled bundle of string aside before lifting out the object obscured by splotches of rainbow vulcanized rubber. Lifting it onto one end so it could stand, she spotted a pressure gauge and an almost pencil-thin mouth nestled very close to the valve. The mare tied the bundle of balloons she still held around her waist, and once this was done, she set to grab the tangle of threads with both front hooves and started tugging the mass apart bit by bit.

Plucking out long-enough strands proved to be an easy task. They slipped out of their confines like inanimate snakes, whereupon Pinkie set them next to the balloons she pulled out of the chest earlier. This took a few moments, largely because after the strings were untangled, Pinkie continued by way of aligning the balloons so they were put lip-first on the mouth of the cylindrical object and filled with gas.

Gummy climbed higher, bypassing the strings of the balloons the mare tied around her own waist. After firmly clutching her withers with its claws, the gator proceeded to bite on the end of the mane and began tugging just as she finished filling up another balloon and tying it with a string. Pinkie giggled and secured the fresh balloons she filled around her waist with no more than a meager ounce of hesitation, her laughter only growing as the combined pull lifted her off of the floor and caused her back legs to dangle.

She opened the window with her front hooves, tenderly floating out of it almost as if a unicorn had been using simple levitation on her. She stopped and turned around, taking her sweet time to pry out all of the individual balloons one by one—the amount adding up to a dozen or so—being careful to avoid popping them on accident. As soon as the balloons were liberated, she shut the window and used her back legs to push herself onward from the near-top of a building, turning around yet again to marvel at the structure—which looked like a gingerbread house with a cupcake plastered on top—from above.

Pinkie drifted, using her hooves to kick and paddle with a grace that gave the impression of her swimming in the air, humming merrily to herself and enjoying the lift the balloons provided her. She stopped her reverie to giggle as Gummy shifted positions again, this time scaling to the top of her head and nestling comfortably between her ears.

She started up once more, continuing to glide over the town, passing a clock tower and catching sight of the library before pausing at a windmill in the span of moments. She looked around, briefly wincing as Gummy shifted his claws and scratched at her cranium a tad too hard, before shrugging her shoulders and pushing onward.

The floating mare started humming a new tune, looking up at the sky and seeing nothing but the dark expanse that gleamed with countless stellar configurations as limitless as the bounds of a child's imagination. The crescent moon hung lazily to one side, its soft glow reflecting off of a creek that the mare drifted past.

It wasn't until she merrily wafted above another house that doubled as a tree did her song take on a note of uncertainty as thunder boomed in the air around her. The clap came packing enough strength to briefly distort the very space surrounding her, almost like she had been directly under its source. This, and what happened immediately after, caused a feeling of unease to spring up in her gut.

A wind blew, soft and almost undetectable, but present nonetheless. The fleeting zephyr pushed Pinkie onward by a few inches, propelling her towards the Everfree Forest. She stopped kicking the air and ceased her humming, looking at the patch of wood as roiling, ominous storm clouds shifted and churned over its canopy. A few wicked bolts of lightning arced violently between the two entities, at first white as the sclera of her eyes before changing to a deep, unnatural green in hue.

Immediately after seeing the arcs of raw electricity, Pinkie's tail began violently twitching. She glanced around, her whole body starting to vibrate like she was a living jackhammer. "O-oh no, I... I feel a doozy coming!" she cried, gulping loudly as she started looking around, scanning earth and sky for anything else that even seemed remotely off. At first, she saw nothing else out of the ordinary, but upon looking down to monitor the edge of the wood, she spotted a writhing form not unlike that of a serpent. From what she could make of it, it had eyes gleaming a wicked gold and bits of bark making up crude overlapping scales, but it moved too fast for her to effectively make out any other features it might've had.

A bestial cry rang out from the woods as the creature vanished, more akin to a roar, and the airborne mare immediately turned around with wide eyes and began kicking at the air with renewed vigor. "If that's the doozy, then I'm going home!" she exclaimed, still twitching even as her legs flailed about like fish out of water.

Being careful to not go sporadic enough to send Gummy plummeting below as she propelled herself with all her might, she inched her way back to the gingerbread house and eventually found herself in the room she left with hitched breathing and ears flat on her head. She made to close the window she first re-opened as she got in, but she did not close it fast enough to block out another unearthly shriek that echoed in a manner that made it feel as if the very winds carried the noise straight to her.

Slowly, and with a trembling sort of delicate consideration, she untied the balloons around her waist one by one. Each time a balloon had been released from her body and then her hoof, it floated to the ceiling, making the overall pull on her body grow weaker and weaker until just one inflated bit of latex held onto her before its knot was undone. Now standing on the floor, she took a few deep breaths to force herself to stop shaking, collected her nerves, and deposited Gummy on the bed prior to treading lightly out of the room and down the stairs.

She briefly paused to glance at both ends of the hall, noting singular windows framing either side. The curtains were drawn tightly closed, but that did little to ease Pinkie as lengthy shadows darted past them outside, forming hellish silhouettes that seemingly came and went with the wind. The mare trotted down the second flight of stairs, finding herself in a relatively empty room with a counter that had a cash register and glass display case, and another partially-open door just feet away that creaked back and forth. Yet another door stood well away from the cash register, one fully closed and placed near a window that sported a criss-cross pattern.

The shadow came again, darting outside like a bullet, passing the window quick as a whip. Pinkie stood stone-still for a moment, eyes widening as though she gazed into the face of death itself. Then she rushed right over to the door and tried pushing outward, placing one hoof on the top and the other on the bottom.

It did not budge. "Well, at least it's locked," she murmured, turning away from the door and trotting to the room opposite of the stairs behind the counter. She stopped mid-trot to shoot another glance at the accursed window.

Nothing. Nothing shot past the glass pane from outside. Pinkie resumed trotting to the other room, finding herself in a well-kept kitchen with already-made products stored in glass-door cabinets, a giant electric taffy machine with three prongs, an oven, and a counter laden with some loose bowls. Unlike the other rooms, this kitchen had no windows. The mare took a moment or so to relax and stare at the stored sweets before trotting out of the kitchen and making her way back upstairs into the the hallway.

That was when she heard it—echoing into the halls were two distinct sounds. One had been a roar similar to the one she heard from the Everfree, except much louder yet more brief. The other sent her heart racing and her body into another shuddering frenzy, one the very bane of every pony with a caring heart and a desire to keep others safe and sound; the wailing of two little infants that screeched in unison. She jumped into a gallop without a second thought, flinging a door open and finding the babies crying in their crib in addition to a shadow with glimmering eyes outside the window, growling before vanishing out of sight.

The mare did not care about the shadow, however. Instead, she turned on the lights and raced to the crib, scooping up Pumpkin and Pound with her front hooves and cradling them tightly to the barrel of her chest. "Shhh, Pinkie's here. Pinkie will protect you," she cooed, gently rocking them back and forth as they continued to wail.

She barely noticed the sound of hooves hitting the floor outside before two more ponies burst into the room, one with a dull yellow coat, a curled but thin orange mane, and green eyes. This pony, a stallion with a pronounced chin, rushed to Pinkie and hovered over her, sighing as the babies slowed their bout of crying. Pinkie turned to him and muttered, "Something was outside the window, Mr. Cake. It ran off before I could look at it."

The second pony, a mare with a pale blue coat, two-toned pink mane looking like a wad of cake frosting sitting atop her head, and eyes trotted forward, softly smiling when the babies finally stopped crying and burbled as she approached. "Pinkie, dear, if there was something outside the window, could you stay up the night and watch the foals?" she asked. "Me and Carrot... oh stars, we heard an awful noise outside. It sounded like a gryphon's claws on a chalkboard..."

"I heard it too. I'll stay up for the rest of the night, but that means I'll probably drop tomorrow," Pinkie answered in a serious tone of voice, turning to the foals in her forelegs and sending them a sweet smile as they giggled in glee.

The blue-coated mare smiled, and turned to the yellow-pelted stallion. "Carrot, maybe we should stay up a bit too. I want to make sure the twins are absolutely okay before heading back to bed," she chirped.

Carrot donned a grin of his own and nodded in understanding. "Well, the twins are giggling. Maybe the whatever that made the noise earlier didn't get in, Dazzle," he replied, turning to Pinkie as she checked the foals for any sign of injury or the like. "Anything?"

"Nope. They're alright," Pinkie answered in a chipper tone, her smile widening. The babies fidgeted in her grasp, with the little pegasus flapping his wings madly and the unicorn starting to channel some magic into her small, underdeveloped horn. "Oh, it seems they want to play."