"It was truly the oddest thing!" Rarity waved her horn, tucking a quick stitch into the collar of Rainbow Dash's blue satin jacket, the pegasus shifting her head back and forth to peer at herself in the full-length mirror Rarity had set up against the cabinets her unexpected visitor had taken the books from. "Why shouldn't we let ponies know we were the ones who restored Princess Luna??"

Twilight seemed a bit distracted. "Ory Stargazer," she muttered, shaking her head, the reflection from her tiara spattering shards of light over the walls of the room.

But Applejack shrugged, fiddling a bit, Rarity couldn't help noticing, with the simple gabardine collar around her Element of Harmony necklace. "Well, Princess Luna ain't done much to get on folks' good sides 'round here."

Fluttershy's sigh didn't even rustle the lace of her collar. "But Princess Luna is good! Maybe she just isn't at her best with other ponies..."

Pinkie heaved a much larger sigh. "As my uncle Arbutus would say, 'I blame a tragic lack of parties.'" She rolled over onto her back, Rarity happy to see that the skirt she'd designed followed the movement rather than snagging or tearing. "Fortunately, some of us are gonna be correcting that pretty darn quick!"

One last stitch, and Rarity snapped the thread, tied it off, stepped back. "There! That should keep it straight!"

Rainbow Dash didn't immediately sneer, something that Rarity took as a compliment, but she did keep turning her head, looking at herself in the mirror first with one eye, then with the other. "I like the gold stripes, but, I mean, this looks like a uniform jacket." She gave a grin. "Am I s'posed to be an admiral or something?"

"In a way." Rarity resisted the urge to tug the sleeves down Dash's front legs, but she'd made them specifically short so they wouldn't impede her movements. "I felt it best that we present ourselves as a cross-section of society in order to reflect Princess Luna's status as princess of all Equestria. And of the six of us, you're best-suited to represent the large contingent of soldiery here in the capital."

"Huh." Dash nodded. "I can do that."

"That--" Twilight shook herself, seemed to come out of her reverie. "That's a really good idea, Rarity."

Storing this compliment away as well, Rarity scheduled a little preening session for herself later when she had the time. For now, she just tossed her head with a smile and said, "I do have them every once in a while."

But Twilight was looking anxiously at the door. "I wish Spike would get back. I'd really like to have a better idea what we're stepping into before--" A tiny bell popped into the air beside her and started ringing, fast and tinny and making everypony in the room wince. Twilight reached a hoof out, popped the bell like a soap bubble, and stood, the blue-black drape of her cloak flowing just exactly the way Rarity had hoped it would. "That's showtime, girls." She smiled over her shoulder at Rarity. "And thank you so much, Rarity, for the outfits. It didn't even cross my mind that we'd need anything to wear here!"

Rarity added a few more minutes to her planned preening. "That, my dear Twilight Sparkle, is what friends are for."

"Ooo! Ooo!" Pinkie hopped from the floor to balance on her hind legs, her front legs waving wildly above her head. "And ribbons! We all still have our ribbons??"

Glad she'd used the good stuff to wrap those muffins, Rarity touched hers, twined about the first curl above her forehead. "I've brought several rolls," she said, "so should these need a bit of sprucing up, we can--"

"No!" Pinkie didn't seem to cross the space between them, just flashed suddenly from the door to right in front of Rarity, a ferocious grimace on her face. "These are the muffin ribbons! These are the ones we wear! These! No others!" A second, Rarity staring wide-eyed at her friend like she so often found herself doing, then Pinkie's fierce look melted into her usual grin. "Unless, y'know, you lose it or spill chocolate on it or some bird flies down to take it away and build a nest with it. There's, like, a whole section in the muffin ribbon rules about the proper way to replace them."

A chuckle from Applejack. "Well, sugar cube, reckon we'll make sure we ask you afore we do anything."

Pinkie Pie nodded. "That'd prob'bly be best, yeah."

Twilight nodded, her horn flaring and the door pulling open. "OK, then. Let's go wait for the princess."

Over and over, Applejack kept tellng herself not to stare around with her mouth open like some foal never set hoof off the farm, but so far just about everything she'd seen made her jaw want to drop and her eyes want to bug out. Even the rooms she and Fluttershy had looked at down the hallway, well, Applejack didn't know a fancy enough word to describe them: each one had a full parlor, and the bedrooms, she was sure, were bigger than the whole kitchen back home! The closets opened up enough to walk right into, and the windows looked out onto gardens that even in the darkness before dawn, she could tell were beautiful and well-tended.

That all these rooms were completely empty bothered Applejack more than a little--she could still smell the lavender soap and floral perfumes of the previous tenants, like they'd pulled out in one mighty quick hurry--but she and Fluttershy had picked a couple rooms right across from each other, and Applejack had unpacked her boots, her kerchiefs and bolo ties, and the Honesty necklace she'd kept in the bureau drawer at home the past year or so since--

It still almost seemed like a dream, all the goings on around the Summer Sun Celebration the year before last. But every time she started thinking maybe she'd imagined it, a quick look at that necklace, gold and shiny, the ruby-red apple in the center the spitting image of her cutie mark, that always brought it home: real, honest-to-goodness magic that she was somehow right in the middle of.

Her kit unpacked, she'd slipped the necklace on, collected Fluttershy, and they'd headed back to the room with Rarity's cart full of luggage parked out front. Then after waiting what seemed like five hours for the white unicorn to get them all duded up, Applejack was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, step out into the hall beside Twilight, and start toward the throne room of Canterlot's Night Palace.

Oh, if her momma could see her now...

But looking through the archway ahead, Applejack thought she noticed more of a shimmer to the walls of the main hall then she'd seen earlier. Of course, it was getting on toward sunrise; did the Night Palace brighten up at dawn? She couldn't remember from her schooldays whether--

She stepped out onto the black marble, the foot of the throne just ahead, and stopped, Twilight and the others all gasping same as she did: Princess Luna, dark and sweet and perfect as a fresh ripe plum, standing next to Princess Celestia, the light dappling off her like a lazy summer afternoon out in the orchard when the breeze rustled the leaves of the apple trees all around.

Applejack's knees bent without her even having to think, bowed her to the ground, her heart hammering inside her. "Your Majesties!" Twilight was saying. "I'm so sorry! I thought we were running early!"

"You are." Princess Celestia's voice made Applejack think of pie and ice cream. "But so are we."

A nickering laugh from Princess Luna. "Sister thought we might like a pep talk before the main event." Applejack straightened, looked up at the two immortal rulers of Equestria in time to see Princess Luna touch a hoof to the red ribbon still tied around the base of her horn. "I told her we were ready for anything, but, well, once she gets an idea into her head,--"

"Quite so." Princess Celestia gave a crisp nod and turned her gaze toward Twilight, the warmth of her eyes washing over Applejack as well. "Still, I can almost believe it when I see the friends my little sister has gathered to assist her." Princess Celestia's smile just about scattered the butterflies in Applejack's stomach, but nothing could stop them wiggling entirely, not when she thought that she was expected to somehow help run Equestria for the next week...

Still, if Applejack felt tongue-tied as a filly at her first barn dance, well, nothing ever seemed to phase Twilight. "We're just glad we can help," the purple unicorn said.

Another nod from Princess Celestia. "I also wanted to say that I won't expect your usual reports, my faithful student, while you're involved in this assignment. But don't be surprised if you get a postcard or two via young Spike here." The princess moved slightly, and Applejack saw the little dragon for the first time standing in the shadow with the two winged unicorns. He had a look on his face like a sparrow with crows crowding her nest, more worried and tense than she'd ever seen him. She glanced at Twilight, saw a little worry come into her face as well, and had to wonder what Spike had learned out in the city this morning.

"So!" Princess Luna tapped a shoe at the floor. "Shall we go?"

"We shall." Princess Celestia turned the light of her horn onto the door, and the big mahogany panels swung open without a sound, a large, dark, empty vaulted corridor stretching out on the other side, another archway at the end framing what Applejack recognized as the gray of a pre-dawn sky.

The two princesses started forward in prefect step, Twilight moving to follow, so Applejack did, too, kept pace with her friend, heard the shuffle of the others behind them, Pinkie Pie whispering in a voice that seemed to echo from every wall in the building: "Are we heading for the buffet?"

The only other sound Applejack could hear in that whole corridor was the tippety-tap of their hoofs on the marble, but halfway along, her ears perked to a low sort of rumble from the grayness ahead. Closer to the archway, she recognized it: muttering voices, hundreds of 'em, she figured.

Then the princesses were stepping out through the arch, the black marble under their hoofs changing to black and white granite flagstones, and Applejack saw a courtyard opening up on either side, pine trees and mulberry bushes framing a long slash of a space wide-open to the sky and filled with unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, every color and size imaginable and more of them than even showed up for the big Apple family reunions every summer.

An instant of silence, then all the ponies burst out cheering, Applejack almost stumbling, the sheer force of the sound nearly as strong as a wind. The princesses dipped their heads first to one side, then the other, chants of "Celestia! Equestria! Celestia! Equestria" rising from the crowd and echoing equally from the dark towers of the Night Palace rising up behind them and from the crystal walls of what had to be the Day Palace ahead, all whites and golds to the Night Palace's blacks and silvers.

No chants for Princess Luna, though, she noticed...

The flagstone path led straight across the courtyard, wider, she thought, than the whole town square back in Ponyville, and when they reached the center, the sky still growing lighter, Applejack suddenly got her bearings, realized the Night Palace made up the north wall of the courtyard, the Day Palace the south. And the courtyard itself seemed to stretch east and west farther than she could even see: folks out here would sure get a great view of the sunrise.

She started wondering if this sort of gathering was an everyday thing in Canterlot or if today's special occasion had brought 'em all out, but by then they'd crossed the courtyard and were entering the archway of the Day Palace, an exact duplicate of the archway they'd walked out of a few moments ago but built of white marble instead of black.

Also, Applejack couldn't help noticing, this corridor had stallions and mares in golden armor standing at attention along both sides, light glowing from the walls and up along the corbeled ceiling like the first touch of dawn. Banners more varied than any rainbow streamed overhead, soft voices singing wordlessly in the distance somewhere, and when they stepped through the tall oaken doors at the end of the corridor, the ponies crowded around the desks and workstations that filled this whole end of the throne room all began clapping, a thunder of applause that almost took Applejack's breath away after the silence of the Night Palace.

And if it was bothering her-- She chanced a quick glance over her shoulder, saw Fluttershy cowering against Rainbow Dash, Rarity close along her other side, Pinkie Pie right behind, the three of them pretty much herding their timid friend along, her eyes clenched. Applejack gave them a nod--not much else she could do--and faced forward again, the whole throne room of the Day Palace a riot of stomping, whistling, cheering, the air alive with scents of cedar and sandalwood.

The princesses had reached the red carpet that rose up the tiers to the Day Throne itself, little waterfalls trickling down either side past the two guards standing at the base. They turned in unison, their manes flowing even though Applejack barely felt a breeze, and a hush fell over the crowd as soft and sudden as a little spring rain shower. "My dear friends," Princess Celestia said, her voice no louder than before, but Applejack was sure it rang more clearly in her ears, so clearly, she guessed, that the words would likely be audible all the way out in the courtyard.

"I thank you all for your presence on this momentous day," the princess continued. "Five seasons ago, a sad, dark era came to an end, and a new, wondrous age began for all Equestria when my dear sister Luna returned to us after so many trials and tribulations. I've therefore decided to take advantage of the situation in a way I've been unable to dream of for more than a thousand years." She smiled. "I shall take a week's vacation."

The crowd got even quieter, and Applejack couldn't help glancing sideways, a little touch of something in the air that could almost have been fear. "Luna and I have shared so much with each other this last year," Princess Celestia was going on, "I know I'm leaving you in the best of hoofs. So, until next Monday at 6:53AM, I shall bid you all a fond farewell." She swiveled her head to Princess Luna. "Sister?"

Princess Luna looked up at her. "Yes, sister?"

"The dawn in yours." Princess Celestia bent down and touched her horn to Princess Luna's, and while the younger princess didn't really change, something about her definitely became different to Applejack's eyes, an authority resting on her somehow that hadn't been there before.

"Thank you, sister," Princess Luna said quietly. Raising her head, she looked east, her horn glowing, and at that moment, sunlight began trickling into the hall, a muffled cheer bursting from the crowd outside. Those inside sent up a cheer of their own as the light strengthened, and Applejack felt a lot of the tension disperse like dew at dawn.

Movement back at the foot of the throne, Princess Celestia spreading her wings into the light. "Have fun, everypony!" she called, then she shot upwards. The streaming dawn wrapped around her, and she vanished.

Applejack heard more than a few cries among the cheers, a lot of faces with expressions on them like a foal on the first day of school watching her momma trot away. So when Princess Luna spread her own wings and rose up the steps to settle on the carpet before the Day Throne, Applejack wasn't sure how many were really watching her and how many were still trying to catch some glimpse of Princess Celestia.

"Ponies of Canterlot," Princess Luna said, that same deep quality to her voice. "I cannot thank you enough for your trust and for the trust my sister has placed upon me. It is my dearest hope that--"

A flash caught Applejack's eye, made her turn her face back and up to the ceiling above the ponies filling the hall behind her. Something moved among the girders there holding up the roof, and as Applejack stared in horror, one of the massive solid metal fixtures began to bend. A ringing snap, and it broke away completely, started to tumble downwards toward the crowd.