"...and after that, the candy rain got even more intense. It was incredible! Chocolate, vanilla, meringue, apple, and strawberry sweets... so many, so many strawberry ones! It was just like a 'helicopter money' day, but with candy!"
Under Rainbow Dash's drowsy gaze, an ecstatic Pinkie Pie barely paused to breathe in the middle of her back-and-forth pacing across the narrow room.
"I really wanted to run out and catch them all, Dashi. You should have been there to help me; well... you were, but you were still unconscious. I had no choice but to catch some in my mane, though it wasn't nearly as many as the ones that landed in Rarity's when she fell off Big-Root. Ha ha ha! It was so funny — she looked like a milk-caramel lollipop. What a shame she got rid of them. They were so yummy!"
From the bed, Rainbow Dash let out a faint sigh. "Uh huh... right. Can you give me my oatmeal now?" asked the Pegasus, her eyes fixed on the bowl resting on the shelf beside the bed.
"Not yet, it's still hot...", Pinkie replied with certainty, before sitting on the headboard with the air of a personal nurse. "As I was saying... those candies were delicious. And mysterious. They're magical... in a way. Sir Lintsalot has a theory about it; we did some tests and discovered they have a hidden flavor in their center that can send you straight to the astral plane, all expenses paid. Though it's a short trip — the candies aren't as filled as they look. Hmm?" she finished, a little thoughtful, with a half-faded smile that made you think she was saying that last part to herself.
"Ok... that's very... interesting?, I suppose...", Rainbow Dash replied, tilting her head slightly. It was the third time Pinkie had told her the same story, and each retelling left her more confused than the last.
"Ehmm, by the way, Pinkie, how is Fluttershy...?"
"Ah!" The rosy pony startled, then her expression clouded over almost immediately. "Fluttershy... she's still unconscious. Applejack and Rarity checked on her before heading out; they're sure she has no wounds, so she must just be very tired."
"Uhmmm... I see..." Rainbow Dash looked away. She didn't need any further explanation to know why Fluttershy was so tired. Her friend had done everything necessary to protect them, and she had succeeded, while Rainbow herself had done nothing but waste time and fail. Once again, her greatest achievement had been doing nothing.
Nothing... absolutely nothing.
Watching her Pegasus friend sink into a dark cloud of negative thoughts, Pinkie reacted without hesitation.
"The oatmeal is ready! And it's delicious! Yum, yum, yum!" Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the bowl from the shelf and inserted a full spoonful into the mouth of her downcast friend.
At once, Rainbow Dash's expression changed. The oatmeal was soft and sweet as cotton candy, spreading through her mouth like warm milk. How on earth Pinkie had managed such a perfect cook in those circumstances was a question whose answer would have surprised nopony: friendship and a whole lot of love.
"Well... I think I'd better be off. I left the kitchen a tiny bit messy and Rarity might end up fainting if she sees it like that when she gets back. Ring the little bell beside your headboard if you need anything!" After that rush of words, Pinkie began to leave, pausing at every moment to steal glances at her friend before disappearing completely.
Behind her, Rainbow Dash was no longer paying attention. She was too busy wolfing down her second breakfast, an unthinkable luxury since their arrival in that toy world.
[---]
"Do you think it was a mistake to make Rainbow a second breakfast?"
"No. It was a very sweet gesture on your part. She needed it. She looked so happy when you left her in her room."
"Yes… yes, she did look so happy… but…"
"Are you worried your other friends will be upset with you for using the last bag of oatmeal?"
"No… well, yes. I know they'll understand if I explain it to them. It's just that… there aren't many supplies left. Applejack was very serious when she said that from now on we should ration everything as much as we can."
"That's true. And what else did she say?"
"…That we should keep it up, unless it's an emergency."
"And isn't this an emergency?"
"Yes! Yes it is! Rainbow needs to recover, Fluttershy too, and all the other ponies! But…"
"But what?"
"Ahhh… what if I'm also justifying myself by acting this way? Putting my own wishes above the safety my friends need? We're in a very serious situation. I don't want to be a secret party-pooper, cheesy…"
"You're not, candy. I'm completely sure of that. You're using the very best of yourself to help your friends, and that's what matters. Your decision was right."
"Really?"
"Yes. As sure as a candle on a birthday cake."
"Awww… thanks, cheesy…" Pinkie wiped away a few tears. "I really miss you so much."
"I miss you so much too, candy…"
"Ah! Cheesy!"
"Uwiii… excuse me, Madam and Monsieur, for interrupting your passionate conversation… but we have finished cleaning the kitchen, as we were asked…"
"Hm?" Pinkie's mouth couldn't manage a better response at the sudden interruption from Madame LeFlour. With her lips still sticky with saliva and sugar, she separated herself from the living caramel sculpture in the shape of a Cheese Sandwich bust that stood before her. Flustered, she kept wiping herself with the only thing within reach: some paper napkins.
"I see… are Madam's friends already on their way back?" asked the bust, stepping to one side of Pinkie.
"No, Monsieur. There are no signs of them outside, though it should already be time for them to arrive. Should we go outside to wait for them?"
"Yes, but it would be best if she accompanied you as well. It will take her a little while to…" the caramel Cheese Sandwich began to say. Just then, Pinkie slipped on a stray rolling pin and ended up smacking her head hard against the floor. "…be ready," the bust concluded. "Please be patient with her."
"Of course we will, don't worry, Monsieur," Madame LeFlour assured him with a bow.
"Is anypony else seeing little snowflakes falling inside the room?" asked a disoriented Pinkie, as she was helped up from the floor by her other inanimate friends.
Beyond the door of the makeshift kitchen, beside the lookout cabin, a now-awake Rainbow Dash, her empty oatmeal bowl between her hooves, quietly retreated after watching the scene with a tripled dose of worry.
[---]
Relentless, the candy rain continued to fall over the shadowed toy world. Although its intensity had diminished throughout the day, it still offered little comfort to Applejack and Rarity, who, aboard Big-Root, were slowly approaching an elevated point on the terrain: the lookout cabin.
At this very spot, a cheerful Pinkie Pie waited at the entrance, greeting them with a radiant smile and an effusive wave.
"It'll go over better if you're the one to tell her," Rarity insisted with a strained smile, waving from a distance as the mini tractor advanced.
"It would go over even better if you backed me up when I tell her," Applejack muttered, waving with the same stiffness.
They were only a few meters from their destination — an irrelevant distance for Pinkie Pie's impatience — who, with a nimble trot, closed the gap until she was standing right in front of them.
"Applejack! Rarity! Are you all right? How did it go?! Did you have any trouble? Did you bring more supplies? Did you find the candies I asked for?" she said, nearly leaping on top of them as she drew near.
Applejack, closest to the enthusiastic Pinkie Pie — who was wagging her tail like an eager puppy hungry for her owners' attention — replied with a tight smile.
"Easy, Pinkie. We're fine. We didn't have any trouble… though we didn't find the candies you asked for either. And about the supplies… well… we…"
The farmer's words got stuck in her throat. Looking into those innocent eyes, so full of hope, a weight like lead settled in her chest, cutting off her voice.
A moment of doubt wrapped around her, brief, but long enough for her other friend to step in.
"We found quite a lot of them!" exclaimed the unicorn. "It was a colossal task getting all the way out there, darling, but what we found will be more than enough to keep us going for another week," she added, patting the bulky sack in the back of the vehicle.
"Yesss! Yippee!" Pinkie shouted, overflowing with happiness as she bounced. Then, all at once, she adopted a more serious expression. "Though there was no need for a dramatic pause to tell me that, Rarity. Setting that aside… Yesss! Yippee!" she concluded, cheerful as always.
"Ha ha ha, yes… you're right, Pinkie. This is no time for games," Rarity laughed nervously, avoiding the stone-faced look Applejack was sending her way.
"Nope-y, no-pey, nope. The time for games will be after breakfast. Rainbow Dash is already feeling better, and solitaire is boring her to tears. Maybe we should give her a good round of Old West Faro. What do you say, Applejack?"
"Ahhh… yes, that sounds great, Pinkie," said the farm pony, awkwardly redirecting her thoughts. "Could you go inside and warm up breakfast while Rarity and I… have a chat? I mean… park for a moment."
"No need, Applejack. I put it on to warm up as soon as I spotted you on the horizon."
"Ah! Very good. Then… could you go serve it and arrange the seats in the meantime?"
"Ehmm… Applejack, we don't have any chairs in the new kitchen."
"Ahh… right, that's true. What if—?" the farm pony cleared her throat, trying to find another excuse to send her cheerful friend away.
"What if you gave us a moment to have a little chat with Big-Root? He's behaved like a real champion machine today," Rarity stepped in, with a tone that betrayed her exhaustion with the situation.
"Ah! Of course, Rarity. Although Big-Root is a tractor. He doesn't have a voice of his own."
"True, but he has a great deal of personality in his chassis. Would you do us the favor, darling?"
"Right away! Should I bring him a little oil after?"
"We'll take care of it."
"Okie-Dokie!"
With a spring, Pinkie left the vehicle and, with the same agility with which she had arrived, disappeared inside the shelter.
Now alone, without exchanging another word, Applejack sighed as she switched off the engine in front of the lookout cabin.
"Thanks for that last bit, Rarity…," she admitted with a grimace of exhaustion.
"You're welcome, darling."
"And about the first bit… what in tarnation were you thinking, feeding her a whopper like that?!"
"Weren't you going to?"
"No, of course not!"
"Really?" Rarity replied, turning to look at her friend.
"No… I mean…"
"I don't think you're being very honest right now, darling." Rarity's gaze sharpened, almost piercing Applejack's inside, making her take a step back.
"No… I… I think… uhm…"
Applejack stumbled through a few more words until, at last, she gave up, letting her head drop against the steering wheel. The mini tractor's horn let out a short honk.
They stayed like that for a few moments, until Applejack spoke again.
"She'll have to know at some point, Rarity."
"I know… but not now."
"And when 'now' arrives, what do you expect to happen?"
"I'm not sure… I just hope our Pinkie keeps smiling with us until then."
Applejack fell silent, taking in the bitterness of the situation.
"I hope so too, Rarity. I do too."
Behind them, the mouth of the sack was slightly open. Peeking through the gap were a pair of dented pans and worn clothing, part of the pile of materials they had recovered from the wreckage of Twilight's fake treehouse. All useful, yes, but none of it was the food they would so desperately need in the days to come.
[---]
"Straight... again," Rainbow Dash yawned lazily.
Around her, Applejack and Rarity rolled their eyes at such a predictable play. It wasn't that they were playing badly to make their friend feel better; in fact, even Rarity was putting in effort to improve her game over the last six rounds. It seemed rather that the order of the universe — or whatever equivalent concept might apply within that world — was trying somehow to make up for the Pegasus's previous losses.
The one actively trying to make it up to Rainbow Dash, in a far more obvious way, was the rosy pony at the other end of the new kitchen.
"Done! One extra-crispy blackberry pie for our best flier!" exclaimed Pinkie, slamming the oven door shut with a kick, a steaming tray balanced on her head.
"Pie? For real?" Rainbow frowned, nearly leaping to her feet.
"Just kidding, silly. We have no blackberries. Not enough cake flour either, but we do have plenty of mushrooms and pickled chard — all you need to make a delicious mushroom-and-chard roll, old Pie-family style," replied Pinkie proudly as she set the mentioned rolls on the table.
The strong aroma of the food was apparent on the faces of the ponies present, especially Rainbow's.
"Ugh… chard…!" the Pegasus let out in the middle of exaggerated distaste, which was cut short by Applejack's withering gaze beside her. "I mean… yummy, yummy, chard! Delicious!"
At the same time, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie exchanged smiles loaded with intent. No less indifferent, Rarity was carefully examining the dish in front of her.
"I see you followed your family's recipe to the letter, Pinkie. You even added a little… rock?" she said in surprise, finding with her fork a solid, crystalline mass peeking out from inside the roll.
"Ehmm… I'm very sorry, Rarity, but it's not a rock, it's candy," Pinkie replied with a smile.
"Candy? Like the ones outside?" Rarity exclaimed, beginning to alarm.
"No, no, no, of course not, Rarity. These are nothing like those disagreeable candies with sour mint or charcoal flavor that are raining outside," she tried to reassure her. "These are real candies, from the first minutes of the rain, truly sweet and with all the fruit flavors. Very delicious," she finished, chewing a little of them.
"Oh… I see," Rarity replied, no less uncertain, as she began with her characteristic subtlety to separate the candies from the rest of the roll.
Seated on the other side of the table, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were doing the same, though with considerably less tact.
"Hey, Pinkie... it's not that I dislike candy, but... don't you think you're overdoing it a bit with them?" Applejack commented.
"Hm? What do you mean, Applejack?" asked Pinkie, setting aside the large bucket of candy she had been gorging herself from.
"Well, you used candy in the morning oatmeal and also to make last night's dinner…"
"Emergency-dinner-inside-the-lookout-cabin-refuge-for-friends-desperately-in-need-of-a-good-lunch!" Pinkie exclaimed, correcting her with the official name of the operation by which she had managed to put up the improvised camp they were now in.
"Yes, emergency dinner from… what I mean is, there are still other supplies you could use. It'd be nice to use them, to have a bit more variety, don't you think?"
"Uhmmm… you're right. But I'm not sure how to properly combine soy canned goods with peanut butter," replied Pinkie, pensively. "Better to check the supplies you and Rarity brought today to keep my meal schedule up to date."
"Nooooo!" yelled Applejack, watching Pinkie head swiftly toward the kitchen door.
Surprised, the gazes of the other ponies landed on her at once.
"No… you shouldn't be in such a rush with that. I… just remembered that Rarity said she wanted to take charge of the food from now on. If that's honestly what you said, right, Rarity?" she finished with a nervous smile and an unusual sweat on her brow.
Once again, the gazes shifted focus, this time toward the unicorn of the group.
"I said that?" asked Rarity, with an expression that betrayed her bewilderment.
"Yes, you said it… just when we started talking to Big-Root… remember? The food…" Applejack insisted, trying to help her remember, though the nervous tic in her left eyelid implied something else.
After a brief silence, Rarity opened her eyes wide and finally understood.
"Ah… of course, yes, yes, indeed I said that. I'll be in charge of the food from now on. I hope it doesn't cause you any trouble, dear Pinkie."
"Ehmm… no… although I'd already prepared a whole chard meal schedule for this week. Plus… I remember you said this morning that you never wanted to go near the kitchen again after the disaster yesterday…"
"I said that too? Well, the fresh air outside changed my mind. We shouldn't cling too much to our bad experiences, friend."
"That's true… but the schedule…"
"I'll look at it later. I might make some changes to your ideas, but I'll handle it gladly. This time it'll be different. I promise," Rarity concluded with a certainty that put the matter to rest.
"Ok… doki?" replied Pinkie, though she didn't look entirely convinced.
On the other side of the table, the pony who had stayed out of the conversation until then decided to speak.
"Ohhh… wow, that roll was really delicious! I don't know if it was the candies you put in it, Pinkie, but now I'm feeling very sleepy. Did you make something to drink too?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Ah, yes!" replied Pinkie after an initial moment of awkwardness. "I also made a delicious olive juice! Courtesy of Madame LeFlour!"
In the blink of an eye, Pinkie went and came back from the kitchen, returning with a semi-transparent pitcher that showed off the dark, thick brew it contained.
Rainbow Dash gulped just looking at it. "Mmm… it looks yummy!" she exclaimed, keeping her emotions in check. "I think I'll have two cups of this… ugh. Could you serve it in my special cup?"
"Your special cup?" Pinkie said, freezing midway through pouring the drink into a plastic glass.
"Yes, my special cup. It's in one of my boxes up on the roof, the prank box. Can you go get it, please, Pinkie?"
"Of course I will! How could I not? Anything for my best friend. I mean, one of my best friends. Yippee!" she replied cheerfully, thrilled by the friendship mission she had been entrusted with.
Pinkie left quickly, convinced of her friends' trust and certain she wouldn't take long to find the heretofore unknown Rainbow Dash special cup.
With the kitchen calmer in the absence of the rosy pony, the gazes of those present soon shifted to anything but calm.
"Would somepony mind telling me what in the world you two are up to?" asked Rainbow Dash, fixing a penetrating look on Applejack and Rarity.
"It's not what it looks like," Applejack replied nervously.
"Oh? You're a terrible liar, Applejack, so you'd better explain fast or I'm going to get upset."
"Applejack isn't up to anything, Rainbow Dash," Rarity stepped in, trying to calm the situation. "It's just that between us we made some decisions about the food after coming back from our search this morning."
"Ah… you did. And what does that have to do with lying to Pinkie's face? Because that's what you're doing, isn't it?"
"Well… yes," Rarity replied, guilt clouding her face.
Rainbow Dash's gaze hardened.
"We were going to tell you after dinner…" Applejack finally said, lowering her gaze. "Don't be mad at us yet. Can you at least let us explain?"
"I'm listening," replied Rainbow Dash, none too pleased, crossing her forelegs.
The story Applejack told was brief and to the point, just as the fruitless supply search of the morning had been, and the subsequent encounter with Pinkie, with brief contributions from Rarity. Throughout the explanation, Rainbow Dash barely showed surprise, though she rolled her eyes when they reached the moment when they had decided to keep the food shortage a secret.
"So we have to keep up the act that everything's fine for the next three days?" she said with a grimace of displeasure as soon as Applejack finished.
"The way things are, it might be only a day and a half," Rarity corrected, desolate.
"Ughhh…" the Pegasus grunted. Nearly slumped over the table, she poured herself a full glass of olive juice, which she downed in one go. Seconds later, her hardened expression softened.
"Mmm… it's not bad," she remarked, looking back at the pitcher.
"So… do you agree?" Rarity asked with a hopeful smile.
"No, not at all," replied Rainbow Dash as she poured herself another cup. "You're making way too much drama. If it's true that the food Twilight left is almost gone, she must have found it somewhere, right? We just have to find that place and the problem will be solved."
"Rainbow… I don't know if you've looked outside, but almost everything is covered in candy now. There's nowhere left to look," said Applejack, trying to impress on her the gravity of the situation.
"That's the other solution! Look, I know Pinkie has her methods and we almost never manage to understand her, but I think this time she actually has a point. Are we short on food? We can eat the candy outside, can't you see?"
"Really?" Rarity questioned, surprised by the Pegasus's nonchalance.
"Of course! It'll be our extreme emergency plan. Pinkie will be in charge of finding the zones where the candy is safest and we'll be in charge of collecting it. Easy as pie."
"Maybe… but will it be safe? She said not all the candy was good. She mentioned some of it was very dangerous…"
"See what I'm saying? Pinkie knows more about candy than any of us, Applejack. All the more reason to trust her. Besides, I've watched her eat buckets of that candy and she's perfectly fine."
The sound of quick hoofsteps reached the ponies' ears, causing all of them to resume their positions around the table. It was obvious who it was.
From the entrance, with a grin from ear to ear, a sweaty and excited Pinkie leapt inside with a pirouette, drawing everyone's attention.
"I'm back, ponies! I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long, but at last I present to you the most amazing special cup in the whole wide world belonging to Rainbow Dash," she proclaimed at the top of her lungs, holding up high on a golden tray a mysterious covered object, which she set in the middle of the table with utmost care.
When the cover was removed, before their expectant gazes, a white cup appeared before them. It was anticlimactic at first sight. It seemed to have nothing special about its shape, its handle, or even its average size. Calling it a "special cup" seemed more like an exaggeration typical of the rosy pony in the moment. Or, at worst, a mistake.
However, the next voice that rose at the table revealed that the latter was not the case.
"Yep, that's my cup," Rainbow Dash confirmed with pride.
"It's quite humble of you, darling Rainbow," Rarity observed, still trying to find something special about the utensil.
"Elementary, Rarity!" exclaimed Pinkie, leaping forward and bringing one eye close to the cup. "When I saw it, I said to myself: 'Wow! Rainbow Dash's special cup is so Rainbow Dash that it can't be that something like this could just exist anywhere in the whole world for Rainbow Dash.' And then, when I thought it couldn't surprise me any more… I saw this!"
Pinkie grabbed the cup quickly and, standing on her hind legs on the table, held the bottom of the glass out in front of the others.
A figure occupied the circular center of the base, painted with crisp clarity: a tortoise on a skateboard.
Applejack blinked a couple of times in the middle of a memory refreshing itself. "Is that… Tank?" she said, referring to her friend's pet.
At her side, Rainbow Dash nodded without emotion, though an almost imperceptible smile was traced on her face.
More murmurs went around the table as the cup passed from hoof to hoof until it arrived back at Rainbow Dash.
"Thanks for finding my special cup, Pinkie. It makes me feel more at home when I use it," she said with a sincere smile.
"Don't mention it, Dashi," Pinkie replied as she drank a large glass of her juice.
"Oh, come on, don't be so modest."
"I'm not being. I didn't find your cup. The one who found it was Rocky the rock — isn't that right, buddy?"
In a bizarre turn of the moment, Pinkie produced a can of rocks and, working it like a ventriloquist, began to animate it with its own voice and movements.
"Yeah, I found it. Your boxes are super heavy, pal!" growled Rocky the rock in a gruff tone.
The other ponies laughed, not so much out of amusement, but rather from that reflex of camaraderie that friends have — who, so as not to make one of them uncomfortable when she acts eccentrically, feign normalcy, as though everything is fine.
Still with a forced smile from the scene, Applejack turned to Rainbow Dash, who was giving her light taps on the side to get her attention.
"About this… there's something I need to tell you all later…" Rainbow Dash whispered in a serious tone, without altering the smile she wore or the gaze she kept fixed on Pinkie.
At the same time, on the table, Rocky the rock had begun to flirt with Rarity, who, somewhat interested, responded to its advances with her characteristic evasions.
[---]
Wrapped in vivid yellow plastic, a figure raised her gaze toward the sky…
Inside the toy world, the dwindling light of day was finally going out. The already dominant darkness of that enclosed world gained even more dominion over the shapes still standing above the candy-covered ground. There was no more trace of rain, nor of the thick sweet clouds that had ended up flooding the land; now only a flat and ghostly sky was visible over a desolate landscape, painted in cool tones, without a trace of brightness.
It was a silent world, devoid of charm and life, even more alien than it had been when the ponies first woke up and came to know it.
A finger snap echoed in the air...
So it seemed to the entity observing the surroundings, as she resumed her advance from the crater where the beast had exploded, heading toward the lookout cabin where the ponies took shelter.
[---]
"I have no ideas..."
"What?! Come on, Rarity, don't give up. You can do it!"
"No, no, I mean it. I have no creative ideas right now... I'm sorry, darling. I'm very tired. I think the best thing will be to leave this game of charades for today," Rarity finished with a polite yawn.
"Awww..." Pinkie Pie moaned, deflating somewhat where she stood.
Standing on her head, with pots on her hind hooves and an eye patch over one eye, the disappointed pony almost seemed to crumble like a rosy building in the center of the room.
On the upper bunk, Rarity barely paid attention to the light commotion her friend was making below her. Blinking, she adjusted the pillow under her head and, with her magic, gently nudged the rest of the scattered objects to one side.
"I know!" Pinkie exclaimed, jumping up from the floor. "We can play who falls asleep fastest!"
"Now there's a game I'm interested in," Rarity said with a smile, putting on her sleep mask. "I'll start."
"No! Wait! Let's make it harder. We tell horror stories while we try to fall asleep… da da daaaa."
"We can skip the difficulty… how about something just nostalgic?"
"Nostalgic? Hm… I don't know, though it could work… do you have a topic in mind?"
"Well…" Already lying on her bed, the unicorn made a face of mild displeasure. Her delicate brain wanted no more work that day; almost automatically, she reached for the first idea that came to her. "A sleepover?"
"A sleepover! That sounds fun. Do you mean the first one Twilight organized at her treehouse, where you and Applejack went during a thunderstorm? You ended up arguing and a tree came through a window, but in the end you made up and learned a friendship lesson?"
"Ehmm… no, not that sleepover…", replied Rarity, a little flushed, wondering who had told Pinkie that story. Below, her friend had already settled into her bed and was now listening attentively to her voice.
"Ok… then, which sleepover?" Pinkie urged, wagging her tail.
"So… the sleepover… the... our sleepover! That one!"
"A sleepover between you and me?" asked Pinkie, confused.
"No, our first sleepover — the sleepover you organized for all of us when we were so young. I still remember it… it was so much fun," Rarity finished with a smile.
"Haaa… that sleepover… yes, very fun," replied Pinkie Pie with her ears down and her tail still, her expression changing for the first time from cheerful to one of distaste.
"Yes… during those days I had accepted my first job as a designer for one of Ponyville's tourism agencies, and I was just as stressed and out of ideas as I am now… and just then you came with the wonderful idea of having a sleepover at Fluttershy's newly moved-in home. True, my first reaction was to reject it… but you convinced me, as you always do. If I had rejected it, it would have been the worst mistake of my life, considering everything that happened afterwards! Haa… seriously, Pinkie, you were like an inspiring muse to me throughout that whole evening… ouhh…" Rarity finished with a longer yawn.
Pinkie, very put out, rolled her eyes.
"Evening? You mean torture…"
"Pardon, did you say something, darling?"
"No, no, nothing… I was just thinking about the many things that happened that night. Maybe not all of us remember it in the same way…"
"That's true… I can't imagine Rainbow Dash keeping such a fond memory of that day… maybe Applejack would… and Fluttershy too… Fluttershy… hat… bear…"
Rarity's voice faded little by little into a murmur, broken up by her soft breathing.
Below, a cold Pinkie Pie didn't move from her spot. With a neutral expression, quite unlike her active personality, she kept her gaze fixed on the ceiling of the first bunk level, on which her already-sleeping friend lay.
After a few more minutes, with only soft snores filling the room, Pinkie broke the silence with a sigh accompanied by a muffled whisper:
"Good night, Rarity… you won… I lost…"
With that, with the same fluidity of a slime sliding silently across the floor, Pinkie left the bunk and headed toward the other end of the room, where another bed, much more neatly made, was set up with a sleeping pony inside.
It was Fluttershy, in her very well-cared-for colors, resting in a quiet sleep, still unconscious since her friends had rescued her after her fight with the beast.
Pinkie, with her joints now in the right order, approached the headboard, from where she watched her friend with concern.
After inwardly confirming that everything was all right, she nodded.
"Good night, Fluttershy…," Pinkie Pie whispered with a sisterly expression on her face. Then she adjusted the pillow beneath her head. "Sleep well and don't sleepwalk… Seriously, don't!" she repeated more firmly before giving her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
After that, and following a few glances back, the rosy pony trotted toward the other corner of the room, where an enormous cardboard box stood. She opened it and took out a notepad, a pencil, and a handful of candies, which she tucked into her mane.
Seconds later, now in the dark after snuffing out herself the room's only candle, Pinkie returned to her bed and, chewing in the light of a faint torch, began to write in her personal notebook.
"Dear diary... seventh night since we boarded the train from Ponyville to Canterlot. We still have no trace of Twilight. Outside the weather has barely improved, the toilet paper is running out, and the terrible quality of the artificial light outside has started to worry me a lot, that and something else... but there's good news! Today I made something delicious and my friends loved it!…"
Inside the room, the faint light of the torch continued to glow for several minutes more, until at last it went out.
[---]
"Hey..."
"Uhmmm..."
"Hey, wake up..."
"Uhmmm..."
"Applejack!" The intense shout hit the pony squarely in the ear, jolting her wide awake. "Ekkkkkkkkk...! Hm? What? What's happening?"
"You're supposed to be on watch..." said Rainbow Dash, right beside her with a look of displeasure.
"Ahh... yes, yes... that's right, but I'm awake... what's happening?" she asked again, disoriented. Her Pegasus friend rolled her eyes while the Earth pony still looked at her with sleepiness.
"Yeah... Applejack, I think the best thing would be for you to go inside and rest like the others..." she pointed out, making clear how dark and late it was.
"Rest? Sleep! Not a chance! I'm keeping watch!" she interrupted firmly. "If anypony should be resting inside, it's you... you're not fully recovered yet... you're hurt... and besides... you're very tired..."
Applejack's words had barely finished leaving her mouth. Like a toy running out of batteries, the energetic farm pony began to nod off in the middle of her own complaint. In a matter of seconds she was already reclining in the Pegasus's lap, on the doorstep of a deep sleep.
Unsurprised, Rainbow Dash simply watched her. Only when she was convinced she had really fallen asleep did she let out a sigh.
"Thinking about it more... stay. After all, somepony here has to stay on watch... Ouhhhh..." she murmured with a yawn, at the same time as she listlessly scratched the bandages on her head.
Wrapped in a single blanket, both ponies remained seated on a pile of cardboard boxes. Behind them, beneath curtains of melted candy hanging everywhere, the lookout cabin and other structures — which stood out as colorful and fake as they were — rose in silence amid a deep darkness.
Rainbow Dash, who had tilted her head to look once more at the shelter, felt no emotion whatsoever contemplating those makeshift buildings that barely a day before her friends had built with such effort. Despite Pinkie Pie's constant explanations, she still had no clear idea of how they had managed to put all of it up in so little time.
But that was a doubt that didn't matter. What really mattered was that it was a safe place. And, for now, that was enough.
Taking care not to wake Applejack, she settled into her spot and, with a movement of her wing, adjusted the torch at her side. At a better angle, the light revealed a scene even more bizarre than the one behind her.
Breathtaking, a landscape utterly unlike anything earthly stretched before her before vanishing into an abyss of darkness.
"Uhmmm…" she murmured from her spot.
The image of a raging frozen sea came to mind…
Gradating through every color of the spectrum, it was an unlikely ocean of candy, with fierce waves and foamy crests: an unleashed fury that would have frozen thought had it not been for the unnatural state in which it lay.
It did not move... the entire ocean remained stopped in a baffling paralysis, as though some unknown force had frozen it in a single instant. The resulting final image matched that of a modern work of art, whose intention seemed to be to transmit unease through its contained violent beauty.
Watching all of this with ordinary calm, Rainbow Dash had no sense of art to appreciate the latter. Besides, she was too sunk in her own worries.
Just twenty-four hours ago, the advance of that sweet sea had caused widespread panic among all the ponies, who no longer believed in any possible salvation against the unstoppable tide that was reaching them without a check (more or less). Perhaps it was a stroke of luck, or the fundamental dynamic of that world, but without warning the flowing tide had frozen solid, less than a meter from the level of the shelter.
Was it her fault that this sea of candy existed and had nearly drowned them all?
No, was the answer. And that scared her. Although she knew she was responsible for what had happened, she felt not the slightest guilt over it. Who could have imagined that something like this could be unleashed from a simple broken magical candy-spitting mailbox in the middle of a meadow? Could Twilight have? Rarity? Pinkie?... Twilight wasn't here... Rarity wasn't magical enough to know about those things... Maybe Pinkie, thanks to her strange sense of things.
"Uhmmm... Pinkie... mailbox... bear with a hat?" she recalled suddenly, playing with Applejack's mane. How long had it been since Applejack had gone such a stretch without her hat? She was handling it pretty well. She still remembered the first time she lost it and how hysterical she got back then.
"Fluttershy's sleepover... we had barely just met and we were already in a life-or-death situation... at a sleepover! By Celestia! Why does this kind of thing always happen to us?" she complained aloud with a pout.
After that question born of her wandering thoughts, there was no more answer than a faint echo. From the immense darkness before her, no sound arose. At her side, Applejack — sleeping deeply in her lap — also showed no signs of waking to answer her.
"Oh well..." she murmured after a few seconds of silence.
Realizing she had nopony to complain to, she yawned again while trying to settle in better. More bored than before, she started humming an improvised song.
The seconds passed. The minutes too.
The stillness of the night was absolute.
"Uhhh…" she grunted from her spot.
Thinking about her friends wasn't helping her stay awake, but, if she couldn't think about them... what else could she think about?
The day had passed too quietly. She hadn't done anything relevant, beyond becoming a burden to the others. Maybe that's why she had gotten a little excited — or rather, quite excited — when the opportunity to join Applejack on watch arose, though now she was starting to regret her companionship.
Why worry about keeping watch in a situation like this?
It wasn't that she was ignoring the danger. She was fairly certain another threat wouldn't be long in coming. But, considering the flimsy walls of the new base, the terrible state of the terrain, and the condition her friends were in...
Could they really handle "something" at this point?
That thought had nothing positive about it, and it wasn't a passing whim either. In fact, she had already shared it with her friends during the meeting after dinner. And, as expected, the response had been their typical one.
"We have to stick together and not give up! That's how we're strongest!" they had said almost in unison.
They were right, though it was a little hypocritical, given that the meeting had taken place behind Pinkie Pie's back and without Fluttershy present.
"Uhhh…" she grunted again.
Even with the friend she cared about most deeply curled up at her side, she didn't feel any stronger. On the contrary, her thoughts couldn't help growing ever deeper and more depressing, just as they had for much of the day, to her own torment.
The lack of food, the unknown whereabouts of Twilight, the liminal toy prison they were trapped in, what had happened with the beast, Fluttershy... Her mind was as exhausted as her companion's muscles.
What could a Pegasus as incompetent as herself do in a situation like this?
Lead? Not a chance.
Her moment had already passed and she hadn't managed to do a thing.
Nothing... absolutely nothing.
With a knot choking her throat and the longing for a better day, Rainbow Dash's humming grew softer and more broken, gradually keeping pace with the slow breathing of Applejack.
Imperceptibly, time continued to pass.
Six minutes later, nearly absent, she began to nestle against her friend's mane, pressing her muzzle into her hair much as she would into a cloud, in an unconscious attempt to hide from the harsh reality weighing so heavily on her.
At twelve minutes, sleep had already carried both ponies away.
At minute thirteen, making not the slightest sound as she advanced, a figure wrapped in yellow plastic walked past them without paying them the least attention.
[---]
Trembling, an ethereal light lit up in the center of the bedroom, and from it arose a voice full of authority.
"Pinkie..."
"Uhmmm... blackberry marshmallows..." mumbled the pony, sprawled on her bed.
"Pinkie..."
"...warm milk pool..." she continued speaking between snores.
"Pinkie... wake up..."
"...and Cheese Sandwich as a lifeguard..." she added excitedly, drooling.
"Hm? Pinkie, wake up! I don't have time for this...!"
"Not now, Twilight! Shoo! Shoo!" she interrupted the ethereal light, lifting only one hoof from the bed. "Can't you see I'm having a fantasy with my boyfriend made of... chocolate? Oh, what a lovely chest mane you have, cheesy…" she finished saying, sleepwalking, giving her already very battered pillow a passionate bite.
If the ethereal light could blink (and it could), it would be doing so right now, watching with stupor as the rose-colored prank-loving pony turned her back to lavish all her love on a pillow already in quite a sorry state.
"No! Pinkie, wake up! You have to warn the others! They're in danger!" the voice reacted with irritation. "They have to get out of… Ahhhh!"
Suddenly, a sharp scream split the air, silencing the ethereal voice. The next instant, darkness flooded back into the room.
Pinkie's ears twitched.
"Hm?" she murmured, cracking her eyes open, finally waking.
Had she heard...?
It took her quite a while to react. Her placid sleep was still clinging to her body when she pushed the blanket aside to sit up. Her gaze remained confused, but inside her head the question was growing at an accelerating pace.
"Twilight? At… a private milk-and-chocolate party? No... Twilight?" she murmured, surprised at her own words. She immediately tried to put her thoughts in order, but the effort was as complicated as combing her own mane.
At the same time, hidden by the darkness of the room, the tip of her tail twitched on its own, giving small taps without her noticing.
Her Pinkie Sense was warning her that something more was going on.
Uncomfortable from the strange sensations her own body was sending her, and still half-asleep, she reached into her mane for the torch.
"Bip... bip..."
Pinkie's ears twitched again, stopping her movements all at once.
"Hm...?" she said, not knowing exactly what to say. "Hello? Rarity, is that you?"
There was no answer. Only silence.
Had she... heard wrong?
No.
"Bip... bip..."
Distant and muffled at first, but growing clearer, a mysterious noise seemed to emerge from the ground itself.
"Bip... bip... bip..."
Still lying down, surprised and growing more puzzled, Pinkie sharpened her senses. The new sound fed her curiosity. Carefully, she began to peer out from the bed.
Everything was dark. Her pony eyes couldn't see anything, but her ears worked very well. Focusing them as best she could, it didn't take her long to find the source of the sound in the darkness.
"Hm?" came out of her mouth. She rubbed her eyes.
When her eyes refocused, the image before her was the same.
Her vision wasn't playing tricks on her.
It was a... flying saucer?
"Ok..." she murmured, blinking before pinching her own cheek. "Ouch! This is definitely not a dream..." she told herself, setting the hamster inside her head working at full speed as she began to analyze the situation.
At a certain distance — perhaps near the center of the room — an unidentified object was floating, swaying from side to side.
Thinking it wasn't a flying saucer was difficult. Although it didn't look exactly like the alien ships she usually saw in old animated movies, it had everything needed to be recognized as one in the dark: blinking neon lights inside, flashes at its periphery, the clear shape of a spinning disc... a disconcerting ghostly glow in its wake... and...
A size small enough to navigate without trouble within the limited space of the room?
Pinkie tilted her head.
Upon noticing the reduced size of the supposed ship, she was filled with even more questions.
Was it really a flying saucer or a toy?
Could it be an inhabitant of this world?
Was this her first close encounter of the third kind?
Or better yet...
Would Cheese Sandwich agree to become an astronaut for a honeymoon on the Moon?
That was it.
That was as far as the exhausted hamster of reason inside her head got.
"Focus, Pinkie! Now is not the time to think about that. This is serious!" she scolded herself, annoyed at her own mind sabotaging her.
But it was a complaint in vain.
The hamster of reason, now very relaxed in an armchair, was busy reading a geopolitics magazine.
Distracted by her scattered thoughts, Pinkie didn't notice that the flying saucer had changed course.
It was now slowly approaching her.
"Wow!"
She recoiled in a flash of light upon discovering the object was already floating right in front of her nose.
"Bip... bip... bip..." emitted the flying saucer, suspended in the darkness.
"Hel... lo?" Pinkie replied, cornered at the edge of her bunk floor.
There was no response. Only more beeping.
The torch, which she had accidentally switched on and dropped at the moment of the encounter, rested between them. Its light, which should have brought reassurance with its glow, projected eerie shadows all around, making the atmosphere worse.
Pinkie gulped.
Things weren't supposed to go like this.
Normally she was the one to take the initiative in an encounter, making use of her so-called "friendly approach" — which her friends usually called, erroneously, "an invasion of personal space" — and ending up making herself known in an effective way.
Being treated in the opposite manner had rarely felt comfortable to her in the past.
In the present, even less could be expected from the approach of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
"Bip... bip..."
The beeping grew slower. Similar to the rhythm of the breathing of somepony observing their... target?
Pinkie gulped harder.
She was only a little startled by what had happened before. She mustn't think badly. Being analyzed in that spine-chilling way was a positive sign... wasn't it? Wasn't it?!
"Ahem... I know this is rather sudden, but... my name is Pinkie Pie. My friends and I are a bit lost... are you from around here?" said the party pony, offering her best improvised smile as she tried to feel around for the torch.
As soon as she reached it, the response came without delay.
"Bip."
The ship emitted in a cold, sharp tone before falling completely silent.
Pinkie's smile faded.
That was not a good sign.
On the contrary.
It was a very bad sign!
With a primal fear seizing her hooves, the pony quickly scanned the surroundings with the torch in search of a way out. She had no particular phobia of extraterrestrials — in fact she found them very funny even when they appeared in horror films — but the current situation was starting to feel more like a suspense-and-chase short film than science fiction.
And she knew very well how those stories ended.
Without realizing it, she was already mapping out an escape route; the flying saucer that had been hounding her emitted a "Bip" much louder than the previous ones.
What happened next was exactly what she feared.
Without further warning, the unidentified object accelerated toward the rosy pony.
Straight for her head.
There was no longer any doubt...
This was not a friendly contact at all!
It was an encounter between predator and prey!
With no way to get far enough away — not even to scream for help — Pinkie only had time to deflect the glow of the torch toward the flying saucer before squeezing her eyes shut, bracing for the impact.
"Hyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" she squealed throughout those seconds of high tension.
However… nothing happened.
"yyyyy… and y?" she finished, almost out of breath.
Should she keep waiting?
At last she opened one eye.
What she saw — or rather, what she didn't see — baffled her completely.
There was nopony there.
Perfectly lit by the torch, the rosy pony found herself alone among tangled blankets, still cornered at the edge of her cramped bunk space.
There was no trace of the flying saucer. Not a bip. Not a light. Nothing.
Several seconds passed while Pinkie processed the situation. She was still very tense, cold-sweating, and breathing hard. She waited for the flying saucer to appear again: perhaps from the side, above her… or even emerging from the mattress as in a slasher horror film.
But none of that happened.
"That's not funny! I don't like this kind of game! It's a very worn-out and unoriginal narrative device!" she complained aloud.
Nopony answered.
Trembling, she took the torch and, tying it to her mane, examined her surroundings more carefully.
She found no sign of the flying saucer either… or of whatever it had been.
With time accumulating — as did the tension in her body from staying still so long — the idea of getting out of there and checking the rest of the room was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
After several minutes of unbearable waiting, Pinkie Pie steeled herself and finally decided to act on her idea.
Carefully, she climbed out of the bed. Her nerves were frayed, and the sensation the floor transmitted to her was icy, similar to walking on a cold and dark planet where unknown threats lurked from the shadows, ready to pounce on her at any moment.
With this thought — and worse ones — swirling in her head, she finally managed to put all four hooves on the ground.
And she didn't get to do anything else…
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, smacking her face against the floor.
Motionless in an embarrassing position, Pinkie — eyes darting from side to side following the torchlight — remained alert, braced for the worst.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It took many more minutes of "nothing" in that position for Pinkie Pie to start thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, there was no longer any flying saucer lurking after her… was there?
"Impossible!" she screamed internally.
There was no way it had all been a dream! Because she never woke up from it!
Nor that it was a product of her imagination! She had had a flying saucer right in her face!
She was not crazy!
But… if the flying saucer wasn't there, what explanation remained?
Pinkie frowned.
The saucer had cornered her, had scared her (which was quite an achievement considering how averse she was to being frightened) and then had vanished without a trace just when she expected to be attacked. What kind of real threat did that? None! Rather, everything pointed more toward the behavior of somepony who wanted to play a prank on her.
A cruel prank… to laugh at her?
Her fears began to give way, replaced by a bitter feeling of anger.
"Oh really?" she exclaimed as she rose from the floor, convinced of the revelation she had reached.
The image of tiny extraterrestrials laughing their heads off at her flooded her mind.
Oh no! She would not give them the satisfaction of laughing at her! She had had quite enough of those intergalactic pranksters!
"Aha!" she aimed the torchlight sharply at one end of the room, determined. "Found you!"
But she found nothing there. Only the supply sack that Applejack and Rarity had brought in with Big-Root.
"Ok…" she murmured, still suspicious. "Then over there!"
She pointed toward another side.
Again, the light revealed nothing. Sleeping deeply, Fluttershy hadn't moved an inch in her bed.
"Uhmmm… Rarity?" she wondered aloud.
With a spring she climbed up on a box to see the upper bunk better, where her friend should be.
The unicorn slept in her bed with her sleep mask firmly in place, oblivious to everything that had happened until that moment.
Unsatisfied with the situation, Pinkie sank into the horizon of her thoughts.
"So that's how it is, is it?" she murmured, genuinely annoyed, now sitting on the floor. "I bet this is the scene where the audience expects innocent Pinkie Pie to think it was all a bad dream, go to bed to rest… and just when she's about to fall asleep, wham!, get attacked with her guard down. That's what everypony expects to happen. That's what you expect to happen… isn't it? Isn't it?!"
She shouted at the plastic wall, but it gave no reply.
"Hmpf… nope. Pinkie Pie is no fool. She's not a cheap narrative device and she's not about to be part of one. Pinkie is a responsible adult, capable of handling serious situations, and she doesn't get fooled so easily."
With her pride inflated, the party pony stood firm, waiting for the unknown.
She would not sleep for the rest of the night. She would not give the danger the satisfaction of catching her off guard. She could be attacked in many ways, but she would not accept being treated in such a contemptible manner.
She only had to concentrate and watch her surroundings, without distractions of any kind. No matter what happened.
Three seconds passed.
"Candy?" Pinkie let out, aiming the torchlight abruptly at the floor.
One step in front of her, a colorful and perfectly ordinary red candy sat forgotten on the floor.
Had she missed it before?
It didn't matter. It was just what she needed.
Without even thinking about it, she picked it up and put it in her mouth. The sweet flavor immediately smothered all the bitterness burning inside her. Her tongue traced her lips, savoring the treat, drawing out of her at last a smile.
"Mm-hmm… Yummy Yummy," she murmured as she chewed happily. "So good!"
Submerged in her own world, she did not notice that danger was looming over her.
Out of reach of the torchlight, watching her from behind, the figure wrapped in yellow plastic — who had entered the room just moments before — did not let the opportunity pass.
A claw emerged from the yellow suit and extended silently until it came to rest on Pinkie's left shoulder.
The torch she was holding fell to the floor, rolling across it until it went out.
Pinkie Pie never managed to keep a memory of what happened in that instant… save for the magnificent flavor of strawberry and chocolate in her mouth.