Pinkie Pie gets taken by Surprise

Exiting the throng of pegasi leaving the weather factory for the evening, the white mare let out the despairing sigh she had been holding in the entire day. If you had asked her five years ago where she saw herself in the near future, cutting snowflakes would not have been her answer. Taking a side street she soon found herself in a more secluded area of Cloudsdale, walking along the all too familiar route to the Feather Duster Inn, which in recent months, she was ashamed to admit had become as homely to her as her actual apartment on the other side of town.

Sure it was tedious making the long journey back and forth each day, but at least she was assured not to be recognised by anypony, not that anypony who actually knew her paid much attention to her anyway. The mare sighed again; the small act of sadness had become as natural to her as breathing, when she found herself at the puffy cloud door of the inn. Walking in without hesitation she wasn’t surprised to see it was scarcely occupied, it served more as a student bar, and this late in the term very few students had the bits to be spending on nights out.

She made her way up to the bar, the stallion recognising her immediately and serving up her usual cider. She nodded her appreciation and took it without so much as a hello exchanged between the two. With the glass grasped in her forehoof she turned from the bar, not seeing the mare standing directly behind her. She retained her grip on the drink, but a large portion managed to slosh out over the rim and over the other mare.

“I’m so sorry…” she began panicking, but the other mare’s response was not what she was expecting.

“Surprise? is that you?” Surprise looked up in… well, surprise at the mare who spoke, and it was only now she properly took in her appearance, the cyan coat, the multi-coloured mane, the rose coloured eyes. Surprise recognised her even without the lightning bolt cutie mark.

“Rainbow Dash?” she exclaimed, her eyes widening to the sizes of dinner plates. The blue Pegasus grinned back at her, clearly unphased by the cider dripping off her coat.

“Long time no see,” Dash said still flashing her toothy grin, Surprise didn’t respond.

Long-time indeed…

“Rainbow Dash…” the flight instructor waited a second before repeating herself, but still there was no response, “where is Rainbow Dash today?”

Surprise looked up and down the line; it wasn’t unlike Dash to bunk off class, but Fluttershy as well. Her eyes met those of Derpy’s who gave her a confused shrug in response. Surprise looked back at the teacher who had continued on with the register. Dash was probably camping outside the ticket office intending to be first to buy tickets to the Wonderbolts’ tour, Surprise would find her and Fluttershy after class.

Surprise jumped back to the present where Dash was no longer smiling but looking rather confused. How long was I standing zoned out for? I’d better respond.

“Yeah it has, what are you doing here?” she said at last, Dash visibly relaxed at the awkward moment passing.

“We’re just here for a little break and thought we’d stop by the old hangout spot, I see you had the same idea,” Dash explained. We?

And sure enough standing just behind Dash was a butter yellow Pegasus with a long pink mane and another Pegasus Surprise was sure she recognised but couldn’t quite put her hoof on.

“You remember Fluttershy?” Dash asked nodding over her shoulder, “and this is our friend Twili…”

The purple Pegasus quickly shoved a hoof in Dash’s mouth silencing her, but the damage was done. Surprise wasn’t sure how she hadn’t seen it before, the coat was a lighter shade of lilac, the streaked mane was tied back in an elegant ponytail, the purple wings were the same size and shape as the average Pegasus, but most of all there was no horn. This was unmistakably Twilight Sparkle, the newest princess of Equestria, but why did she look so… ordinary?

“Princess?” Surprise exclaimed as soon as all the connections were made in her head. It wasn’t a smart move, as she was immediately swept off her hooves by the three figures and carried over to a secluded booth in the corner, out of earshot of the other patrons who had been looking up curiously at the scene taking place in the middle of the bar.

“Sorry ‘bout that Surprise,” Dash said hurriedly as they all got comfortable around the table, “I didn’t think that through.”

Surprise was sitting speechless, waiting for somepony to offer an explanation; Fluttershy was the first to do so.

“Hello again Surprise, it is good to see you,” she began, “we’re sorry about the confusion but Twilight is in disguise.”

“you see it’s almost impossible for me to go anywhere without being swarmed,” Twilight chipped in a whisper, “so I just used an illusion spell to make myself appear more…”

“Normal,” Surprise finished, Twilight nodded and the group settled back into an awkward silence.

Rainbow Dash decided to break this, “should probably explain, Surprise here went to flight school with Fluttershy and me,” she explained to Twilight.

“Oh you were all friends?” Twilight asked now looking more at ease now that Surprise wasn’t a complete stranger.

“That’s an understatement, we were inseparable,” Dash boasted proudly throwing a hoof over Surprise’s shoulder, clearly not noticing how uncomfortable she was, “we practically defined BFF.”

Again Surprise didn’t respond, Friends… forever?

“Hey Dash,” Surprise exclaimed jumping out of nowhere and leaning invasively close to Rainbow Dash, “we missed you in class today, did you get the tickets.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t reply, she didn’t even look up. Surprise nudged her in the ribs, “has something got you down? You know what always cheers me up, having a nice long la…”

“I’m leaving Cloudsdale,” Dash cut in simply, still not looking up. Surprise froze in mid-air, she was sure she had misheard her friend, it sounded for a second like she was planning to drop her education and move away.

Surprise began laughing, expecting Rainbow Dash to join in in any second, but she didn’t. At last she looked up and Surprise stopped laughing when she saw Dash’s bloodshot eyes. Dash told Surprise about Fluttershy’s plans to move to Ponyville, and her request that Dash go with her, Surprise remained utterly silent throughout.

“But if you drop out now, you’ll never graduate, and if you don’t graduate you’ll never get into the Won…”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Dash yelled back, “yeah it’s gonna be hard, yeah it might never happen, but… forget it, you wouldn’t understand.”

She began to storm off but Surprise took chase, “I understand,” she said in a deadpan voice, “you and Fluttershy have been together since you were foals, you’re too loyal to leave her now.”

Dash stopped and let out a sigh, “but I’m still leaving you, I’m still leaving Derpy , I’m still… leaving everything else behind.”

“Dash,” Surprise said nuzzling her gently, this was easily the longest she had gone being serious; it was starting to make her head spin, “even if you leave, we’ll always be friends. Just you wait, one day we’re gonna graduate and we’ll come down to Ponyville and we can all be together again.”

Dash looked up, smiling for the first time since Surprise had found her that day, “thanks Surprise, I don’t think that day will come fast enough.”

“Friends forever?” Surprise asked raising a hoof out, Dash wiped any leftover tears away and grinned.

“Yeah, friends forever,” and reaching out her own hoof they briefly made contact.

“Uh Surprise, you in there?” Dash asked waving a hoof in front of Surprises vacant expression. For the second time she came screeching back to reality.

“Oh yeah sorry, don’t know what’s up with me today,” she quickly said, hoping they wouldn’t pry any further.

“Well it’s always good to meet new faces,” Twilight said, “especially ones tied to my friends’ pasts.”

Fluttershy sat back down, Surprise didn’t even know she had left the table, but she returned with a tray of four tall glasses of cider. They chatted among themselves for several minutes; mostly the other three just listening to Dash’s many stories. The whole time Surprise noticed Fluttershy glancing up at her, a concerned look on her face, Surprise knew what was bothering her, Dash should have noticed it as well, but she was never as empathetic as Fluttershy.

All in all the evening progressed quite merrily, Surprise was easily a lot happier than she had been in a long time, she had forgotten just how much she missed this. Sadly however, all good things must come to an end, and this one ended quite suddenly as Twilight spoke up after a long lecture from dash on why Spitfire was a better Wonderbolt captain than Zeppelin.

“You know Surprise, there’s something I haven’t been able to shake since we met,” Surprise looked up while taking a sip of her cider.

“Your puffy mane and tail,” she began, Surprise looked down at her vibrant yellow tail, “even your cutie mark…”

Surprise’s eyes moved from her tail to her flank where three balloons stood out. “The resemblance is uncanny; you look a lot like our friend Pinkie Pie.”

the effect was instantaneous, the glass that had been held between Surprise’s forehooves shattered, sending glass fragments and drops of cider all over the table. The already quiet bar fell deathly silent as everypony stared over at their table.

Surprise’s voice caught in her throat, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and indignation. Taking one last furious look at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy who looked just as freaked out as everybody else, Surprise leapt off her seat and sped out of the inn. As soon as she was outside she spread her wings and took off, flying as fast and as far from the inn as she could. Her breathing was heavy and her eyes shone with tears threatening to give way.

Surprise saw them, but they didn’t see her, Rainbow Dash lay sprawled out over the grass, an unfamiliar pair of sunglasses covering most of her face. Fluttershy lay on her stomach feeding the leftovers of her sandwich to a white baby rabbit. And there, bouncing around them without a care in the world, the pink party pony she had heard so much about. She didn’t want to believe it, she had refused to believe it, it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t. Surprise sped away from the clearing, she didn’t stop flying until she was back in Cloudsdale, somewhere along the way she had dropped the deed to her new house in Ponyville, she didn’t plan on going back for it.