Pinkie Pie vs. The Soufflé

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Gummy, Pinkie Pie, Cranky Doodle Donkey, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Thunderlane, Main 6, Comedy
Length: 11440

The most chaotic town in Equestria. A dish which falls apart at the slightest hint of disturbance. Yeah, this is going to go well.

Pinkie's been an apprentice baker ever since she moved in with the Cakes, and part of that is because she hasn't completed her master piece: the dish which will prove she's worthy of the unamended title. For her, that's a soufflé. Something she's never been able to successfully bake.

With the Cakes out of town and the bakery closed for a day, Pinkie has a chance to spend her time in trying to take that final step. And perhaps somewhere before the end of her failures, she'll learn something about why doing so was important --

-- or if it was ever really important at all.

(This story takes place one week before the start of Triptych.)

Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.

Has a reading by KwirkyJ. Listen as desired.

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Published 2013-07-19 02:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-19 02:50:01 UTC

Rising, Falling

There were many reasons why Pinkie still thought of herself as an apprentice baker.

For starters, she had never gone to cooking school. Her early knowledge had come from a single precious baking guide which had somehow managed to work its way into the tiny mineral-obsessed library (one-fifth of a shelf) on the rock farm and for years, that was all she'd had. Upon being delivered to Ponyville and the custody of the Cakes, she'd been able to study more and, with her memorization skills, had learned fast -- but the fact remained that all of her learnings were passed along from either books or her employers. She hadn't gained the benefits from attending the most exclusive, refined classes Equestria had to offer, let alone having traveled to Prance for study at the hooves of the descendants of those who claimed to have invented the whole thing.

(Pinkie had actually been advised against that last by Mrs. Cake, who had spent two years outside the realm's borders and described it as a vital experience in learning -- if your desire was to gain a lettered degree in just how it felt to spend that many moons having every pony around you avert their eyes, sniff loudly, and pretend you didn't exist while making snide comments about your accent in a language they automatically assumed you wouldn't understand. Mrs. Cake did, having studying the native speech before traveling there, and had headed back to Equestria one day after she finally cracked and responded to a local while correcting his grammar, criticizing his originality of comment, suggesting several better ones, and -- according to Mr. Cake -- finishing up with a double-hind-kick of the offender into a tray of eclairs. Assault on one's teachers, however justified, only led to two things in that school: expulsion or promotion to the rank of instructor. Mrs. Cake had never explained which had been offered to her, but implied it was the more horrifying of the two.)

So no high-level instruction for Pinkie (even though she personally felt being taught by the Cakes more than qualified) -- and then there was a very simple fact added to that one: her mark wasn't for baking. There had been a time in her life when she'd hoped it would be, before the explosion of color ripped through grey sky, and had even very briefly seen it as the best of all possible options -- but it hadn't happened. As skilled as Pinkie might be, it was just that -- skill. It wasn't the natural magic-backed talent of an appropriate mark -- and when that kind of mark was combined with actual practice and learning, the efforts produced by the bearer outshone those of any pony who didn't have the same general type of icon on their flank. She would always be overmatched by those who had been destined for the career, and Pinkie accepted that. A high-level second place was enough. She'd had thoughts of becoming a professional party planner and allowing her own mark to finally dominate a field where she could gain bits from doing so -- but the idea of making ponies happy for profit resonated oddly. Laughter wasn't a state of being where ponies should have to pay for admission. Besides, with the twins at their current age, the Cakes needed her more than ever. Such plans (half-formed plans at best, casual daydreams occasionally jotted down into a small notebook in case she wanted to review them once Pumpkin and Pound began school) could wait for the future.

But more than anything else, there was --

-- That One Dish.

Pinkie was not a pony with a great deal of hate in her heart. There were few things she even truly disliked and most of those were food items that she would always look away from whenever possible, traditional rock farmer servings which she could create with no effort whatsoever and never did. But there was something she felt white-hot rage towards, soul-deep loathing, a thing which should have never existed under Sun and Moon. Pinkie hated that thing. She had often gone to bed while muttering foul things under her breath concerning the ponies who had created it, words she hoped reached the shadowlands to let those purveyors of waking horror know exactly what she thought of them. Given a personal use of that single-chance time travel spell and knowledge that what she did in her precious seconds would actually have any real effect, Pinkie had already made her choice: the moment of the nightmare's creation, destroying it once and for all. Civilization would thank her. Generations of bakers to come would build marzipan statues in her image. Sure, a few ponies might have been angry if they learned what she wanted to go back and stop, but for all those who had tried to face down the Tartarus-born thing and lost the battle, she would have done it anyway. The world could live without the texture and variable flavors and trotting practical joke that was the baking method for -- That One Dish.

It was mid-morning in a closed -- closed! -- Sugarcube Corner. The Cakes were on a semi-vacation, one which they had given Ponyville four moons notice of. (It had still escaped the attention of too many ponies, some of whom were planning to send protest letters to the mayor, the Princesses, and possibly even Discord since not being able to get fresh bread within twenty minutes of sunrise was clearly chaos at its worst.) They were visiting Mrs. Cake's parents, taking the twins to see their grandma and grandpa (on that side of the family) for the first time. Pinkie had thought about going along -- in a very real way, they were her grandparents too -- but the Cakes had asked her to stay behind for the duration so that the damage in bits wouldn't be too severe. She'd understood and forced herself to be patient: the elders would come to Ponyville for the second meeting and she could see them then.

But they'd also asked her to run the bakery by herself for only two of those three days. And part of that was because (Pinkie knew it, accepted as she did so much else) they were nervous about her markless ability to keep the place going for that duration -- but they were also worried about one pony, even one as energetic (hyperactive) as she, doing jobs meant for three over that duration with no break. It wasn't a good time to be trying out temporary help. They hadn't been able to arrange any interns from the nearest cooking schools: too much competition for their services. After the Day Of The Baked Bads, Applejack had remained welcome as a customer and friend -- but not an emergency assistant: it had simply taken too much time for the bakery's reputation to recover and the healed wound still ached Mr. Cake in cold weather. Pinkie had been told several times that if she let the Crusaders anywhere near an oven, the consequences would start with sending her to Prance. Two days running the place on her own. No more. One day open, a day to recover from that, and then one more solo run before the Cakes returned and took up their part of the burden again.

She'd done a good job on her first day, Pinkie felt. Happy (if surprised) customers. No real complaints about her product except from a few grumblers who only wanted what the Cakes had worked on personally. She'd taken the opportunity to attempt semolina long loaves for the first time and everypony had enjoyed the result. And yes, a single day of doing jobs meant for three had worn even her out, she'd collapsed into her bed at the end with a slightly surprised (although she was the only one who could tell) Gummy being used as a makeshift pillow -- but Luna's night had restored her. And while she felt she could have at least tried to keep things going for three days in a row and surprise the Cakes with extra bits upon their return, she had chosen to honor the instructions from the parents of her heart. Because it was what they had wanted. And besides, it gave her precious solo time in the kitchen without supervision or last-second instruction or interference, time she could use to make yet another doomed-to-fail attempt at -- That One Dish.

It was baking now.

Pinkie hadn't made a sound since beginning the process. The oven had been closed as quietly as she'd been able to manage. She had warned Gummy that if the little alligator made the first real noise of his life, he would get to Prance before her -- although she would have made sure the trip was first-class accommodations all the way and he'd had enough stamps to send lots of postcards back. She was legitimately scared to breathe and the ones she did risk were shallow, bringing in just enough oxygen to keep her from fainting. Anypony watching her from a distance would have concluded there was an invisible wall of paint somewhere ahead of her gaze and hurried off to check on the blockage status of all nearby mirror pools.

Her blinks seemed too loud. Her thoughts certainly were.

Oh please oh please I'm so close the last time I was this close everything was almost okay and then Scootaloo.

It occurred to Pinkie that 'And then Scootaloo' was a remarkably succinct way of summing up forty seconds of disaster produced by an out-of-control failed attempt to gain a mark and the two days of cleanup and repair which had followed it.

(Applejack had come up with a dark theory, one she'd shared with Pinkie in strict confidence: that all three Crusaders actually had their cutie marks and had since the day they'd begun their collective quest. The marks were all for the talent of causing disasters. And they were invisible -- because that was the way to keep the talent expressed. If the Crusaders never believed they'd found their marks, they would keep searching for them in only those ways guaranteed to cause massive property damage or worse, none of which would produce visible marks, and that would make the trio keep searching, leading to still more disasters... Pinkie had listened and then rather frankly told Applejack to stay out of the older cider batches. The farmer had still proclaimed she was going to present the idea to Twilight on their next encounter and at least find out if it was possible.)

She looked at Gummy and wondered if he was blinking too loudly. It was his dominant mode of expression. Surely that had to have some decibels behind it.

Back to the oven.

Almost there... almost... a few more seconds and I can try to take it out... have to open the oven so slowly, too much airflow and it's lost, if I even move it too quickly...

Pinkie tried not to hope. Wished not to dream. But she was so close...

"CLOSED?"

And all was lost.

It might have been the shout of rage. It could have just as easily been the vibrations from front hooves pounding on the door. It didn't really matter, because the result was the same. That One Dish -- remained That One Dish.

She'd failed again.

Pinkie rushed out of the kitchen, raced to the front door, undid the locks within seconds and yanked it open to find herself facing a very angry Thunderlane.

"How can you be closed?" the pegasus shouted. "This is a bakery! No bakery should ever close! When I was in Manehattan, theirs were open at every hour of every day and now this place is closed? I need to pick up some pastries this morning for a date tonight, I'm trying to get a very special somepony in my life who loves sweets and you have the sheer nerve to be --"

He stopped.

He had just seen Pinkie's face.

With the exception of the few who had risked peeking out of their floating homes on the Day (And Night And Day And Night...) Of Discord, nopony had ever seen that expression on the Element of Laughter. And those ponies hadn't been able to look at it for long.

"You," Pinkie hissed. "Go. Away."

"...Pinkie?" More of an identity check than anything else, perhaps with a silent vow to fly off and check on just where a certain boulder was currently resting attached to it. "I'm -- I'm sorry for yelling, but I was really counting on making this date work out tonight and I can't bake, I've only got until Moon comes up and --"

"Do. You. Know. What. You. Did?" Pinkie shot at him: the wings trembled with every hit, he was taking stumbling half-steps back and nearly going down in the road. "I was almost there, I was so close, and then you and your stupid -- four moons, Thunderlane! The Cakes had the notices posted for four moons! Everypony should have known we'd be closed today, and it's still That One Dish, all because you couldn't be bothered to read! I can never call myself a real and full and true baker, not until That One Dish comes out right, it didn't work because you and your stupid..."

Thunderlane collapsed onto his haunches. His body immediately decided that wasn't playing it safe enough and took it further until he was collapsed on his left side, with the few passersby staring at him in shock. After a moment of further consideration, his subconscious added a curl into a rough fetal position and a few don't-hurt-me twitches of total submission.

Pinkie slammed the door in his much-closer-to-the-ground face.

The pegasus lay in place, trying to decide if it was safe to move. Ten seconds didn't feel like enough time. Neither did forty. Okay, he could stay there twitching for half an hour before having to worry about getting to work on time, but that was it.

The door opened again.

"Is it for Firefly?"

"...yes?"

"One box of seven-layer cookies enough?"

"...yes?"

"Come back at sunset."

"...yes."

"One second earlier and I'll gift-wrap your tail."

"...yes..."

The door slammed again.

Pinkie sighed and slowly trotted back into the kitchen, a dejected Gummy clamped onto her left back heel.

"I know," she sadly told him. "I know I shouldn't have been that mad with him, but -- it's That One Dish, Gummy. Four moons of advance notice and he couldn't be bothered to read a sign which the Cakes hung in like two dozen places. Notices in here, notices at the town hall, in the market square, and he still showed up and pounded on the door and destroyed That One Dish..."

She didn't have to look in the oven. She did anyway.

It had fallen. And, thanks to the time she'd spent yelling at Thunderlane, added overcooked into the bargain.

Another ruined soufflé.

For Pinkie, it was the final barrier. There were certain food creations you had to master if you were going to call yourself a true professional in a given cooking field. Applejack's whole family had spent generations perfecting the process for manufacturing Zap Apple jelly. Mister Flankington claimed his was the service of Saddle Arabian grass and that he had it mastered: in both aspects, he was lying. Twilight, asked about the food in her own birth home, had grumpily told Pinkie about sugared hay twists, which either didn't get coated smoothly or had the hot sugar burn off instead of caramelizing, or just scorched bits of hay while making the whole thing cook unevenly. She'd asked Gustave if he'd had one of his own and been told the honest reason for the griffon having gone into baking (a very rare profession among his species): a meat dish surrounded by a pastry shell which had to have both components cook evenly at the same temperature and come out perfectly -- which, given the differing requirements of each major ingredient, was patently impossible. It had sounded horrifying, and not just because of the meat.

With Pinkie... soufflé. She couldn't call herself a professional baker until she had at least one come out just right. And more realistically, until it came out right time after time -- but even the Cakes couldn't manage a one hundred percent success rate on the tricky dish. Eighty-five, tops. Such would have been more than enough for Pinkie -- except that her own rate was zero.

She would have the oven slightly too hot. A little too cold. A scoop would be knocked off the counter. Too scant an amount of egg white in the mix. Overabundance of yolk. All would be perfect and in her happiness at having succeeded, she'd take the thing out of the oven too fast -- and the sudden change in airflow would cause the dome to fall. Or, at the upper range of disaster, And Then Scootaloo. The mere act of attempting a soufflé seemed to summon nightmares and one try literally had: she'd gone through a half-dozen failures on the day Twilight first came to Ponyville, wanting to impress the pony she'd been sure would be a great friend with the treat of her first-ever successes. It hadn't quite worked out and she'd been so upset after her series of dismal misses, she'd accidentally placed hot sauce among the party refreshments.

Pinkie loathed soufflé. She couldn't even bring herself to eat a perfect one provided by the Cakes -- not until she made her own. And with a day to herself and not a single birthday on the calendar, she'd decided to spend her alone time chasing That One Dish...

...And Then Thunderlane.

"What am I going to do, Gummy?" Pinkie sighed. "He won't be the only one. Lots of ponies probably ignored the signs. Dashie might be here in five minutes because nothing on the notice had pressure plate traps in it. I've only got today and then it'll be moons before I get this many hours to try again. A day without a birthday party or work... that doesn't just come along all the time! I want to keep trying... even though all I ever do is fail..."

The alligator blinked: left eye, right eye.

"There has to be something I can do," she insisted. "I just need time. And quiet. I have the first, but where can I find the second? How am I supposed to make ponies not interrupt or talk or make any noise at all?"

Right eye, right eye, left eye, and right again.

"Oh! That's a great idea!"

"...you need what?" Twilight looked confused, but that was hardly a surprise: that expression was starting to become her default state. It had been two weeks since her change and Pinkie usually found the world's newest alicorn looking confused, on the increasingly-rare occasions when she found the librarian at all.

"Your kitchen, Twilight -- please?"

A long, sleepy blink. Pinkie used the time to glance backwards, looking outside the shield spell. The library wasn't officially open just yet and ponies had been clustering around the border, waiting to get in and check out their books. Or, more realistically, to get Twilight's autograph on signed-out books which would never be returned, to ask the most junior of Princesses for advice, to try and get a picture with her... and all of those were things some ponies tried to do throughout the night as well. Thus the shield spell, and Pinkie had just barely been able to get her own voice through the sound-distorting barrier. It had taken three attempts, and Twilight had required four weary ones of her own to open the hole that allowed Pinkie access.

"Pinkie," Twilight yawned, "did something happen to the kitchen at Sugarcube Corner? Yours is a lot better than mine -- it's certainly more equipped. You know I can barely cook... I don't necessarily have the utensils or containers..."

"We're closed today, Twilight -- you saw the signs, right?" Of all the ponies not to have read something -- but Twilight had a lot on her mind right now. "I just need a quiet place, and what's more quiet than a library? I brought all my own ingredients and equipment." She nodded back to her full saddlebags: there was enough for what she was reckoning as ten tries. Gummy had been left behind to guard Sugarcube Corner and explain the closed status to notice-allergic ponies. Pinkie had faith in his ability to get the points across.

More confusion. "What does quiet have to do with baking?"

"It's a soufflé -- vibrations ruin it. And temperature changes, and airflow, and thinking too much about things which make it go wrong... please, Twilight? I won't get in your way, I promise!"

Which got her an exhausted smile. "Okay, Pinkie... if you need it. I'm sure Spike won't mind..."

He didn't. He just was freaked out.

"Soufflé, Pinkie?" he groaned. "That's worse than jewel cake! I thought heating up the opal chips without getting them to lose luster was bad... yours is a hundred times worse! Why would you ever want to try it at all? Just ask the Cakes to make one for you when they get back and if somepony placed an order, tell them you ran out of egg whites or something. I'd rather try making topaz fritters than a soufflé! And a bad topaz fritter makes me molt!"

Pinkie forced a small smile. (It wasn't that far beyond sunrise and she was already having to force her smiles. Soufflé did that.) "It's a master piece, Spike -- yes, two words. It's something you make to show your skills are at the point where you aren't an apprentice any more and won't ever be again. For Dashie, it was a personally-made small tornado." Something the weather coordinator had been reluctant to discuss with her: it wasn't the question, it was a certain memory of cymbals. "I have to make a soufflé. I'm not doing it in school and it isn't as if anypony's going to grade me, but -- I have to do it."

Spike sighed. "I understand, I guess... it's like writing your own completely original spell or burning out your own lair. Is there anything I can do?"

"Just don't make noise," she told him. Pinkie looked back at the door leading to the main library. She didn't have a lot of space to work with here. Twilight's kitchen was really more of an undergrown breakfast nook: there was just barely enough room to prepare a halfway-decent meal and ingredients to -- well, the librarian cooked badly and ate worse. Without Spike keeping an eye on her nutrition and doing nearly all of the meal creation himself, Twilight tended towards the eating model of Let Me Grab A Five-Second Snack Before I Get Back To This Scroll. Meals might have been the one factor in the librarian's life which weren't planned. In the event of dragon vacation, Pinkie's first duty was to keep the once-unicorn from collapsing into a vitamin-free stupor.

Spike, with his considerably smaller body, could use the limited space without trouble. Pinkie had a few more concerns, starting with the fact that the oven was not calibrated to the fine gradients used at Sugarcube Corner. She would be setting to her best guess of where the proper temperature would come in, and more than five degrees to either side would destroy the whole thing. But part of her worry was limited movement room, and opening the door to the library would fix some of that...

...but it was also an open avenue for vibrations to travel through. Pass.

Spike proudly nodded. "Yes Ma'am Pinkie Pie Ma'am, being quiet Ma'am!" And shut up.

All right. Begin the construction of the crème pâtissière. Beat the egg whites into a soft meringue. So much to go wrong at even this stage: the base might not work out, meringues loved nothing more than to break back into partial components and drip all over the place. But she was holding steady so far, and so were the mixtures. Oven preheating to what she dearly hoped was the right temperature. Both of the Cakes could tell exact degree of heat just by opening the oven and letting the warmth wash over them for a moment: one of the gifts granted by their respective marks. Pinkie was stuck with estimates and guessing.

This attempt would be lemon-flavored. Her luck had been just as bad with lemon as everything else, so why not?

She heard doors opening in the background, the soft tapping of hooves on wood. Lots of hooves. There had been far too many ponies waiting to use the library (or get an audience with Twilight). Maybe there was too much tapping. This might have been a really bad place to try after all. She should have asked Twilight about a soundproofing spell. Shields blocked vibrations more than a little and everything else a lot: did her friend know a way to flip that around?

Concentrate on the soufflé... This was not the day for an earth pony to become involved in spell research, or at least not the next six minutes. Maybe she could ask after, but this attempt was already in the oven and going. Might as well see it through. Besides, her opening the door to go check would probably be the act that wrecked this one.

Spike, Celestia bless him, wasn't even moving.

Time passing...

Come on... once, just once, please, just so I know I can do it...

Afterwards, she would go back to the library and personally weigh the book which the offending pony had slammed down on the checkout desk. Eighteen pounds.

"And why can't I check this out?"

"Because it's an atlas!" Twilight protested. "It's a reference text! They stay in the library just in case anypony needs to refer to them!"

"Like anypony's going to need air paths and current maps... come on, just let me take it!"

"No! It's against the rules! And even if it was allowed, I wouldn't sign it out the way you're asking me to!"

Affronted and completely uncomprehending at the same time: a dangerous combination. "Why not?"

"Because you're asking me to sign it in multiple places -- on top of everywhere I've ever been to! You're not trying to check out a book, you're trying to get a -- a collector's item! I know you're never going to bring this back!"

"So?" Which was really one of the worst possible things he could have said. "Maybe you're a Princess, but you're still a librarian! If I want a book, you have to give it to me, and it's your job to give me things the way I want them! So either you sign this out the way I told you to right now, or --"

The unseen pony stopped. The sudden silence was more than enough for Pinkie to pick up something which wasn't even a sound at all. Twilight's field was up. She knew it. Something in the air was telling her...

"Or...?" Twilight slowly asked. "That is a very interesting word, sir. I would very much like to have a more exact definition of that word. 'Or'... what?"

"Or..." The pony's voice was shaky, and that audible tension was very familiar to Pinkie. She briefly wondered if he would benefit from being introduced to Thunderlane. "Or -- I'll --" a desperate attempt to recover into full huff without benefit of actual power, authority, or steady knees "-- just have to leave without it and bring my patronage to another library!"

With Twilight approaching that critical level of too-calm, "So do that."

"I will!"

"Good."

"And I'll -- tell other ponies about it, too! I'll write letters!"

"As you like."

"To newspapers! And -- and Canterlot! And Princess Celestia!"

"Post office is out the door, turn left, six blocks, a right, and it's the red building with all the pegasi going in and out. If you get lost, look for the grey pegasus with seven bubbles on her flank and she'll give you additional directions. Which I'm presuming you'll need, as you'll be traveling without benefit of atlas."

"...and -- and maybe Princess Luna too!"

Still far too calm, "Ask them about their commemorative Return stamps. We're one of the last towns to still have any. Which is kind of funny, really..."

And the sound of a slamming door.

A few seconds later, the kitchen door opened and a purple horn peeked through, shortly followed by a blushing face. "Um... you said quiet, right?"

"It's okay, Twilight," Pinkie lied. But her problems suddenly seemed minimal. "Has that been happening a lot?"

"Enough," Twilight sighed. "Did your --"

"-- don't worry about it. Do you want to talk --"

The librarian cut her off. "-- I've got an idea! You have your own bowls and everything, right? You said so! All you really need is an oven, and it has to be somewhere with a lot less noise!"

Pinkie would have rather discussed the atlas and everything that came with it -- but it was clear Twilight didn't want to, and this wasn't the time to push her friend. "As long as my supplies hold out, sure... why? Do you have someplace in mind?"

Twilight grinned. "I still have a lab, remember?"

And the basement oven was calibrated and labeled to the hundredth of a degree.

Admittedly, it smelled -- funny. Not funny ha-ha. Funny Luna's-mane-something-died-here-and-I-think-it-raised-a-family-first. A family which hadn't been all that particular about taking out the trash.

The laboratory wasn't Pinkie's favorite place to be. The tests done on her Pinkie Sense hadn't all been fun, and she'd left with the distinct feeling that only the potential of a very long letter from the Princess had prevented Twilight from doing things more intensive, possibly slightly invasive, and ultimately kept the librarian from camping out in Pinkie's attic bedroom to see if she twitched in her sleep. Plus there were bubbling concoctions which seemed to have been bubbling for a little too long judging by the amount of dust accumulated on the vials, burners running low (and feeding off the dust), things -- um... things... okay, just go with things -- which seemed to be sparking more than they should -- and the oven was right in the middle of the whole array.

Still, it was shielded from the too-heavy babble upstairs, and there was privacy -- lots of it, as Spike had refused to follow her down -- plus she could hardly ask for a more exact oven calibration or a better kind of timer to measure the length of the next failure with...

...I can't think that way! If I bring my own doubts into it like that every time... the best way to make a mistake is to be waiting for one because it makes me so nervous that of course I'm going to make a mistake! I just have to do my job!

A job I don't have a mark for.

Does the soufflé know I don't have that mark?

I'm being silly. I know it. A soufflé is just a bunch of ingredients and can't know anything. And even if it could, all its friends died before they had the chance to tell it and pass on the conspiracy. All I have to do is -- make That One Dish the right way. I can do that. I believe in me.

Pinkie wondered if she was lying to herself.

Still -- couldn't ask for a better oven or timer, and it only took an hour to clean the former until she was remotely comfortable working with it. All she had to really do was follow the steps and everything would work out. Baking was chemistry and this was a place where chemistry happened. Maybe the laboratory itself would recognize that and support her efforts.

She took out the sugar.

"...and which mixture did that one stray grain hit?"

"The sort of purplish-green one."

"Okay... so I guess... we've learned an important scientific lesson here."

"And what's that?"

"A single stray grain of sugar makes that stuff explode. Somepony can get a paper out of that... probably not me... Pinkie, are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine, Twilight. It took a few seconds before it went off and I got down low in your pacing groove when I saw the steam billowing up."

"Pinkie Sense?"

"Common sense."

"Your tail is a little --"

"-- I'm fine, I promise! Don't worry about me, Twilight -- I'd tell you if anything was wrong, you know that..."

"I could go down there and clean things up a bit for you to try again --"

"-- no, that's okay. I think that little section might need -- more than a little cleaning. The boom didn't go very far, but... the oven... I think the calibration's off now. And the dials. Most of the door, but I think that'll snap right back on. I'm so sorry, Twilight..."

"It's not your fault, Pinkie. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You're so busy... unless you want to just talk about --"

"-- not right now. Too many patrons. Are you sure I can't do anything, though?"

"Well -- actually..."

"Yes?"

"You remember that cloudwalking spell?"

Dashie looked -- uncomfortable. It wasn't a normal state for the pegasus. Confident, yes, overconfident, most of the time, so full of herself that the excess streamed out of mane and tail to form a rainbow, a private joke passed between the other Element-Bearers. But uncomfortable? Seldom. "Pinkie, it's nice to have you up here... I know you don't get to visit much, not with -- you know, falling through the floor -- but you want to use my what?"

"Your kitchen, silly!" Pinkie beamed. "I'm trying to make -- well, something." Maybe just using the name was jinxing it. "And I can't do it at Sugarcube Corner because there's too many ponies who don't know we're closed today, or the library because it's too noisy. And too scary. And kind of about ten percent exploded, but that's just the basement and nopony got hurt. I remembered you've got a shift starting soon, so you won't need your kitchen at all for an hour or more! And I thought I'd ask if I could borrow it. So -- may I?"

The discomfort had been joined by a light state of daze. "Sugarcube Corner is closed?"

Pinkie tried not to sigh and just barely made it. "Yes. Can I just use your kitchen, please?"

"Um... is your tail supposed to be glowing like that?"

"Twilight said it'll wear off by sunset. Please?"

The pegasus' face twitched, with her lips -- left side of her mouth only -- parting for a moment before she noticed and got them under control: an isolated, rapidly-quarantined wince. "I don't... have much, Pinkie..."

"I brought my own ingredients! And bowls and everything! I just really need an oven and a timer. I can use your alarm clock for the timer, if you haven't broken it again. But you usually have about twenty extras -- did you run out of extra alarm clocks?"

"No, I've still got five from that last shipment left..." The wince nearly escaped, was shoved back into solitary confinement. "I think -- maybe you'd better just see for yourself."

Pinkie had never been in Dashie's kitchen before. As the pegasus had said, visits to the weather coordinator's home were a rare thing: even when Pinkie was able to reach that level on her own, she couldn’t step off whatever she'd been using to ascend. If Twilight didn't help, visits didn't happen -- and since Dashie didn't mind coming down... well, put it together and this was only the third time Pinkie had gotten inside the vaporous home during a visit: she usually wound up waiting for the pegasus while staying in the balloon's basket somewhere in the vicinity of the porch, trying not to drift through any fountains. Living room, yes, bedroom, pillow fight, kitchen, never.

Which was part of why it took her a few seconds to realize she'd reached the thing.

A small part.

"Dashie... where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"Everything."

There were two cabinets filled with disposable snacks. A large bowl of fruit which ranged from fresh to fossil. One pull-out tray covered in -- well, for some ponies, that kind of fungus counted as an ingredient, but it really wasn't appropriate for baking. Pinkie was guessing that the dishes were piled up in something and therefore decided there was probably a sink somewhere at the bottom of the mass. A single burner, although Pinkie couldn't tell what it was supposed to be running on. (Channeled lightning? That just sounded weird...) A popcorn bowl half-full of --

-- Pinkie decided it was best if she didn't figure that one out. Or whether it had originally started as popcorn at all.

But overall, there was no way to prepare a hygienic meal in that -- no, she would not dignify it by calling the corner a kitchen. Pinkie had no word for this level of not-kitchen. She had seen the undersides of beds which were better suited for food service. She had used the topside of her own as a more effective salad assembly zone.

"I... eat out a lot?" the pegasus slowly proposed.

"All the time? Dashie, nopony could eat half of this and most of the rest would make The Day Of The Baked Bads into a good memory! Even those snacks --"

"-- hey, they're for energy boosts, okay?" Dashie protested. "I'm an athlete, Pinkie! I know about nutrition and I make sure I eat the right things! I just -- get other ponies to make them for me. I heat some stuff, but... I can't cook, okay? So I use trail rations or stuff I can just heat and eat or leftovers from eating out or snacks -- or I just -- eat out. A lot."

Pinkie closed her eyes. It wasn't emotional exhaustion: it was trying to spare herself a few seconds of the visual horror. Also, the stuff on the pull-out tray had just moved. She didn't have to worry about it sneaking up on her in a moment of self-imposed darkness: it hadn't been going that fast. "You eat twenty-one meals a week, right?"

"Plus snacks. And smaller meals when I get hungry. And -- you know -- noshing."

"How many of those are eating out?"

"Um..." The pegasus scraped her hooves across the cloud floor. Vapor shifted. "...lots?"

Applejack groaned. "Well, now Ah know why she's always managin' t' drop by exactly when the dinner bell's about t' go off. Got t' the point where half the time, Ah was automatically settin' the table for five... How mad was she when y'told her the cookin' lessons were mandatory?"

Pinkie finally allowed herself to indulge in a sigh. "More frustrated than anything. You know... cooking is so lame, only lame ponies cook for themselves most of the time, then ten minutes flying verbally backwards on herself so she could apologize to me for that without feeling like she was apologizing at all... the usual, Applejack."

"Yeah, she dropped y'off in a bit of a huff. How long did y'give her t' clean up her act an' pretend she didn't study nothin' before y'start?"

"Two weeks. I'm sure she'll at least try to spend ten seconds with a book before then -- or not. I just bet if we compare notes with the others, we're going to find out that she's having about three meals a week at the restaurants and every other piece of 'eating out' is with us. I had her over eight times last moon!" Another sigh. Teaching Dashie was not an experience for the fainthearted. Or the weak. Or pretty much anypony who wasn't willing to race all over the full extent of Ponyville's settled zone in order to find the pegasus and drag her to the class by her tail -- and that was assuming she stayed within the settled zone.

"Yer havin' a hard day, Pinkie: Ah don't doubt that. And yer tail..."

"It'll wear off by sunset." She was starting to get a little tired of repeating that. "So can I please use your kitchen, Applejack?"

The farmer smiled. "Anythin' for family, Pinkie -- y'know that. Come on... Ah'll mix you some lemonade while y'get set up. Ah think y'could use a drink..."

Pinkie gratefully followed Applejack into the family home, passing Granny Smith (napping on the couch) and Apple Bloom (sitting in a corner, facing the wall, carefully mouthwriting 'There Is No Cutie Mark In Nearly Burning Down Barns' onto a scroll one hundred times and almost at the end) before moving into the roomy Sun-lit kitchen. "I owe you one, Applejack. I owe you lots."

"Ain't nothin'," Applejack beamed, still clearly proud to have been thanked. "Ah know what a pain in the flank soufflés are. Why, Ah didn't get one t' come out right mahself for nearly two years."

Pinkie stopped. Blinked. "You -- you've made them?"

"Sure have!" The happy expression was getting more intense. "Fussiest thing imaginable. Ah swear, it's like Zap Apple jelly without the rules matterin'. At least if Ah yell at the jars all proper, Ah know they're gonna hold. Do everythin' right with a soufflé an' it don't care."

I've been trying for... No, she couldn't think about that right now. Her tail might still be glowing, but the rest of her body felt as if it was on the verge of dimming and that just never worked out for her or anypony else. But still -- Applejack didn't have a baker's mark, and she could do it. Applejack had pulled off the master piece where Pinkie couldn't.

Maybe it was an apple soufflé. Pinkie glanced at her right front hoof. Still bright pink.

The farmer seemed to realize that her enthusiasm wasn't having quite the desired effect. "Pinkie?"

"Just getting ready, Applejack..."

Another smile, this one much gentler. "Ah'll be quiet an' all, Pinkie -- an' Ah know y'don't want any help. Gotta be all you for this, right?"

Pinkie managed a nod, then began the process again. One of the bowls had been lightly cracked in the explosion, but she'd gotten all the residue off and it wasn't actually leaking. The soufflé cup was intact: that was the most important thing. Chocolate this time: the chemical fussiness of apple was -- something her friend could deal with, but Pinkie wasn't about to tackle that level of challenge just yet. A basic soufflé was --

impossible

-- hard enough.

Still, it seemed to be going well. Maybe it was the reassurance of Applejack's silent presence, knowing how much confidence her friend had in her. Pinkie knew Applejack believed in her, had been one of the first to do so when few other ponies -- and at a certain point in her past, only one -- had. It was why she kept coming back to the farm when she had a problem to solve (although she hadn't come here first this time because Gummy's idea had seemed so good), why she kept returning for the company of family. Applejack had believed in her on days when Pinkie didn't believe in herself. It was the oldest of her friendships among the Element-Bearers, and there were many ways where it was the dearest.

It was also possible that the soufflé was just afraid to act up in front of Applejack. After all, the farmer had beaten it before.

The oven was old, but serviceable: it held the temperature. Both earth ponies kept the silence. Waiting.

The soufflé was rising. Steadily. Almost close to -- evenly. It didn't have to be a perfect dome, it just had to rise and come out of the oven and be set in front of the consumer without collapsing, but the dome was coming up so beautifully, Pinkie had hardly ever seen one from Mrs. Cake rise that way, all she had to do was wait a little longer and then get the door open slowly, take it out...

From what Pinkie could make out of Apple Bloom's protests over the older sister's yelling and Granny Smith's demands to know just "whut was goin' on with all that consarned racket", the youngest member of the family had found the pair of cymbals half-embedded in trees some distance away and had, after whatever the near barn-burning was supposed to produce ultimately failed, decided it was a good time to see if she could get a cutie mark in banging two pieces of metal together in order to create the loudest non-musical noise imaginable. Or if that hadn't been exactly what Apple Bloom was going for, it was certainly the way things had worked out -- except, of course, for the continuing lack of cutie mark.

After everything had calmed down again and the junior Apple had been banished to a different corner for a five hundred line repeat of 'I Will Tell Somepony Before I Try To Throw Discord A Personal One-Pony Parade', the farmer returned to Pinkie, who had watched the whole thing from the kitchen doorway without saying a word. She hadn't had the strength to say a word --

-- and part of her had feared that if the energy to do so had been found, the words would have just kept coming. And possibly become screams.

She could swear her curls felt less bouncy.

"Y'know, Pinkie," Applejack sighed, "Ah think the biggest blessin' in mah life might have been me an' Big Mac findin' our cutie marks normally an' naturally an' -- not stupidly." Her sister, now scribbling lines in another room, was well out of earshot. "Ah keep tellin' her she's doin' it wrong an' she's gotta be patient, but --" The farmer's teeth momentarily ground, which Pinkie knew was code for 'Scootaloo'. "Ah pray for the day they all figure it out. Not get their marks, necessarily, although 'course Ah want that t' happen -- jus' t' realize how wrong they are. An' what Ah've mostly learned is that prayer don't do much..."

Pinkie didn't have a real contribution. There were days when she still didn't understand how her own mark had truly appeared, how a single (first) moment of delight had eventually led to three balloons on her flank and all which had come after. It felt as if she hadn't sought her mark out so much as it had found her -- something she truly couldn't get through to the Crusaders, who kept hearing everything as a boring lesson on how Equestria was made or worse, about why they might want to try thinking for five seconds in a row before running off to make something else explode. She understood Applejack's frustrations and worries, knew the farmer kept thinking Apple Bloom was one heroically idiotic stunt away from getting herself killed. But the combined resources of the Element-Bearers hadn't been able to solve the problem, and the group believed bringing the Princesses in would just give the trio two more voices to ignore.

"Ah'm sorry," Applejack said after several long, slow breaths. "Truly, Ah am. Ah didn't have any way t' know that was gonna happen, but -- lately, any moment, Ah've gotta know somethin' could. Ah told her -- well, y'heard: any more noise like that an' Ah will ground her. Should be pretty peaceful iffin y'want t' try again, Pinkie. No blame if y'don't want t' try here, though. Ah'd be pretty skittish mahself. Ah know what Ah told her --" a long sigh "-- an' Ah know how little good it'll do."

"I appreciate the offer, but -- I think I'll move on, Applejack," Pinkie told her. The thanks were sincere, as was the worry. "She's in a Crusading mood and she's frustrated because she's being punished... let her off the lines a little early for me? Please? She didn't know what I was doing and we didn't tell her to stay quiet on the way in."

"Ah thought she'd take longer," Applejack grumped. "Gettin' too fast with her mouthwritin' -- too much practice... okay, Pinkie, Ah'll let her off the hook -- but she's gettin' at least two hundred in. Where y'headin' next? Fluttershy?"

That made Pinkie laugh -- and while the humor was as sincere as the thanks, it was considerably darker. "I can try, Applejack, and I think I'm going to because if she heard that I went around to everypony trying to do this and left her out, she'd be hurt a little and I don't want that ever... but my tail isn't twitching, my ears aren't moving at all, my hooves are just staying on the floor, and I can still see this one coming..."

"...I'm so sorry, Pinkie..."

"It's okay."

"...I didn't think the chipmunks were going to run through your batter..."

"I know."

"...and the birds trying to dip their beaks in the second batch, that couldn't have been good for keeping it clean..."

"You don't get pigeons that often."

"...and then after I cleared every other animal out so you could have some peace and quiet... you know, he's my pet, I don't always think of him as being part of the flock, so I let him stay. And when Angel Bunny started stamping his foot against the floor like that..."

"Rabbits do that, Fluttershy. Even I know that."

"...but if he did it on purpose..."

"No cherries for him tonight, that's all. Or anything that isn't lettuce. Iceberg lettuce."

"...okay... I know it doesn't mean much, but your tail looks kind of nice..."

"Thanks."

"...it kind of makes your coat look darker, though..."

The stop at Rarity's had been brief. It couldn't have been anything else: at most, Pinkie would have had time to get through one of the designer's formal greetings and make a single attempt at the soufflé before returning to Sugarcube Corner and preparing Thunderlane's seven-layer cookies, along with another apology for having been so harsh with him earlier. He should have known the bakery would be closed: he'd had no way of knowing what Pinkie had been doing inside. So she owed him a sorry, and a little more. The seven-layer cookies were going to be as spectacular as she could make them. At least she could make them.

So she'd tried to get right to the point as soon as she'd entered the Boutique. And as usual, it hadn't been easy. There had been a little verbal dance from Rarity because Pinkie had caught her doing something shameful which the unicorn had to cover up at top speed. They'd wasted an easy three minutes while Rarity assured her that Pinkie had in no way walked in on her reading that kind of thing, that just because she kept it in the shop for the benefit of bored stallions waiting for mares to make a selection didn't mean she did anything more with the hoofball magazines than glance at the cover and check out the standings so she'd be able to make casual conversation with those patrons (or those waiting for same) who cared and yes, when she was exceptionally bored on the continent's slowest day for non-sales, she might read an article or two just in the name of trying to keep herself awake and surely Pinkie could understand that. But she had not in any way been caught filling out the forms to submit her best concept of a fantasy team, not for any contest in the confident knowledge that she would score more virtual points than any other pony involved. No, the forms had just been out because -- she was going to sketch on them. Yes, that was right. Sketching. Assuredly. Because Rarity was not a pony who did anything even remotely involving fantasy hoofball teams, and she most certainly did not need Pinkie to wrap up whatever it was Pinkie needed from her before the post office closed because there was in no way any form of deadline approaching before which Rarity absolutely needed to get those forms in. Since Rarity did not have anything to do with fantasy hoofball. At all. So there.

Now -- what were they going to talk about?

And of course Rarity had wanted to help, she'd had darling soufflés in Canterlot and of course she of all ponies understood the concept of a master piece, there were times when she personally felt she was still laboring at her own or at least one that all other ponies would recognize as such and Pinkie should be happy that her attempts only took so much time each and that a fairly measured constant, normally Rarity would be thrilled to give her kitchen over, but...

Sweetie Belle.

Toast: The Second Attempt.

Co-Starring Some Kind Of Gunk As 'Juice'.

Rarity had been cleaning for two days. The tiny patch of identifiable countertop served as proof.

And then there had been apologies, and still more apologies, and Pinkie had thrown some musclepower into the scrubbing because she could get more raw effort in than Rarity's field, limbs, or mouth could manage, they'd gotten a few more bits of countertop cleaned off and managed to verify that the mixture had not worked as acid on the cabinets before it was time for Pinkie to go, with still more apologies following her out the door along with thanks for help, extra apologies that there had been anything to help with at all, and a hurried final query on her tail plus a request that Pinkie come back tomorrow. Not for more cleaning. So that Rarity could design something for her.

Rarity thought Pinkie was especially interesting to outfit when her mane and tail were straight like that. And the slight rotation of the color wheel just opened up so many possibilities...

Her friend was trying to get Pinkie to recognize that state. The baker knew it.

The apprentice baker.

Moon had risen and proven Twilight's estimate off. Pinkie's tail was still glowing, and it was the brightest thing about her.

Thunderlane had accepted her apologies and the cookies. Pinkie had cleaned a dozen angry notes off the bakery's doors left behind by ponies who could write a lot better than they could read or speak Basic Alligator. But there had been no more pounding of hooves, and it had given her what she'd needed: peace, quiet, solitude. All of the other ingredients she needed for a few more attempts at the soufflé.

Vanilla this time, because Pinkie hated too much vanilla in anything and thought combining something she disliked with something she loathed might somehow cancel out any lingering bad luck. (She wasn't sure how: at that point, she was just throwing theories at the wall to see what stuck -- or rose.) Lemon again, chocolate again. Strawberry, since it was in season. Banana, because she needed the laugh and didn't get it. Over and over, for hours.

And they fell. The ones which rose at all collapsed before leaving the oven. Most of them just sat there in the heat and mocked her. She made up voices for them.

Gummy, who was generally content to clamp onto some part of her, just quietly followed her about the kitchen. Moved when she did, sat when she sat, staying close. There were those who told her she had the least responsive of all pets, a mindless animal who didn't care about her at all and was only waiting for the arrival of teeth so he could start doing some real damage. She always told them they didn't know Gummy. Unless they were with him all the time, they wouldn't see his attempts to communicate. The silent ways he had of expressing himself, of showing that he cared as much as any companion did. Gummy loved her. Pinkie knew that, even in her darkest moments. He just had the most subtle ways of showing it -- and even when that affection was most overt, all the little alligator could do to fix things was be with her. Sometimes it was enough. Other times it wasn't.

Pinkie loved the Cakes. They loved her: she knew that too. They had taken her in after she'd been brought to Ponyville, treated her as their first daughter. That was why she stayed. She lived with the family of her heart -- the ones who loved her despite her abilities not being on their level. Regardless of her having the wrong mark for the job, relying on skill instead of talent. She would never be able to bake the way they could: she knew and accepted that.

But Applejack could make a soufflé. It wasn't all about the mark. The creation could be done without it. Pinkie couldn't make it work. There was no curse. No jinx. No conspiracy of ingredients and short-lived concoctions. It just -- didn't -- work.

And when Pinkie tried her hardest, knew she was giving it her all, everything she had to give, and things still didn't work...

She had made up voices for the soufflés.

Most of them wound up sounding like her father.

"Kid?"

"Go away."

She hadn't been able to stay in the bakery any longer. With Moon long-since risen and her mind too full of turmoil for an easy transition into Luna's lands, she'd gone for a walk. And somepony else had been up and about, somepony whose hours weren't all that regular, whose joints sometimes ached too badly for ready sleep.

"Is your tail supposed to be --"

"-- I don't want to talk about it."

The donkey sighed. "Kid, remember when you told me how you felt when I pulled my cart into town for the first time? Like you'd just seen someone -- yeah, someone, got my own language, thanks -- who needed a friend more than anything in the world and you couldn't let me get one more hoofstep down that street without letting me know I was going to have at least one here?"

"So?"

"Whatever look I had on my face that day -- I'm pretty sure it's the same as the one you've got right now." Cranky moved in front of her, made Pinkie stop advancing before they collided. She'd been moving with her head dipped and eyes on the ground: it had let her catch sight of his hooves just in time. "And you remember what you did?"

She didn't answer.

Cranky sighed again. "Followed me around forever until I had a friend, no matter how I originally felt about getting you as one. And it's worked out. Even without Matilda, it probably would have worked out. So here's my ultimatum, and I'm saving you some time by giving it to you early. If you don't talk to me, I'm going to follow you around forever. I'll pop out of places I never should have fit in: don't ask me how and I'll probably hurt my back a thousand times, but I'll do it. I'll get to places before you do and insist you talk, and I'll do it for hours and days and weeks and moons and years, until the Princesses switch shifts and maybe beyond. I will annoy the Tartarus out of you until you give in and let the words out. And you will have all of it coming, with no complaint, because it is what you do to everyone -- live with it, kid -- else. So are you going to talk, or am I going to start on the endless 'Pleeeeease talk to me?' routine?"

She walked away.

Cranky's word turned out to be good and his technique, having been learned from the continent's foremost expert, was impeccable.

She broke a mere thirty minutes in.

They were sitting by the town's central fountain. Cranky liked the fountain. He'd said it reminded him of a beautiful waterfall in a town far to the East, a few days gallop from Baltimare. He also said it was the only thing he'd liked about that nameless town at all.

"I get it," he told her. "Seriously, kid -- I do."

She looked up at him. "You do?"

"Me? Understand the idea of spending your life chasing a single thing? Yeah, that's a really hard concept for me to get my bald head around." A soft bray: Cranky's idea of a restrained laugh. "You're obsessing, kid. I'm slightly overqualified to know. But I was chasing love, and that's a pretty good excuse for a lot of things. You're going after a soufflé."

"It's my master piece," she softly protested. "I have to do it if I'm going to stop being an apprentice. I know I'm young, Cranky -- but for an apprentice baker? One who hasn't gone and isn't going to the schools? For that, I think I'm getting a little old. I keep trying this and I can't do it, I don't have the mark for it --"

He raised his right front hoof. "-- okay, kid, don't take this personally, but you? Need to shut up now."

She blinked.

She shut up.

Cranky sighed, adjusted his position, stretched out old joints. "Marks... you know, I'm glad donkeys don't have them? I've been all over this continent, kid, and more than a little beyond. I've seen a lot of the pony kind of magic and I know what the marks can do. But I've got an advantage when I look at them -- the edge of not having one. It makes me a little more objective. The marks give you magic, and help with talents, and everything else. But you know what else they do? They limit."

The shutting up didn't last. "I don't understand --"

"-- because you're too close to it," Cranky cut her off. It wasn't unkind. "You get a mark for baking -- so you bake. And that's pretty much all you do. You don't try anything else. Now baking is what you're best at, and in that sense, it's what you should be doing for a living... but where's your other interests? Do you take an interest in travel? No, you're baking. How about hobbies? Nah, you'll just bake. Going to pick up any skills outside the mark's set through study? Why bother -- you're a baker. That's what the mark tells you to do and for some ponies, it's all they ever do. Instead of letting the mark guide them, it defines them -- and they never figure out what else they could be. I've been a lot of places, kid, met a lot of ponies -- and the ones who let their marks take over their whole lives are the majority. Think about it for a second: you won't need more than that for examples. A minute will depress you. An hour... don't go that far, ever."

And now she couldn't speak.

"You know one of the reasons I like you and can stand your friends most of the time?" Cranky asked. "Because you're not letting that happen. Your mark says you're a party planner. But you bake, because you want to -- and now I know you feel like you need to on top of it, but in the beginning, I'm guessing it was because you enjoyed it. Your insufferable braggart of a cyan blur is writing now: I caught her trying to do some editing -- badly -- while trying to keep everyone else from catching on. The designer knows more hoofball stats than I do. And so on down the line. Maybe that's those Elements at work, or maybe it's just that you're all ponies who won't let one icon tell you who and what to be for your entire lives. You're a party planner -- and it's not the whole of you. Neither is baking or race announcing or ice skating or raising that alligator or any of the other things you do. We've got to put all of it together before we get to you. To go with something your wing-sprouting friend might say, I'd rather know a hundred-item checklist than a single-listing one -- and you're writing down new stuff all the time. It makes you fun, kid -- in more ways than that mark and Element do. It makes you a good pony to be a friend to."

She thought about it -- then sighed. "I understand, Cranky... I've seen too many ponies like that, you're right, and some of them just let their marks -- lock them. But -- if it's a checklist -- then as Twilight still might say, then the soufflé is an item I keep thinking I have to check off before I can move on to the next."

"And what's the next?"

She blinked. "I --" Make a soufflé, stop being an apprentice, and then --

-- what?

She didn't know.

And Cranky could see it. "You're not going to stop working for the Cakes just yet: I know you feel you still owe them too much and your labor is part of how you're paying that off. You're not going to open your own bakery -- you won't be competition for them in this town because that would hurt your family. You're not moving away from Ponyville: you have to stay close to the other Bearers and I don't think you could stand to leave this place even if that wasn't the case -- not permanently. You'll travel. But you'll always come home. And the professional party planning for pay... you're not ready. Kid, I'm not saying you're putting yourself in situations where you know you're going to fail, or where failure is more possible, in order to not go forward. I sure won't say you're sabotaging yourself so you can stay in one place. And I won't say you're doing both those things on purpose -- deliberately. But on some level -- is part of you happy to not make it work, so you can stay and don't have to think about what the next step is?"

She took a slow breath.

"I -- want to be with the Cakes for a while longer," she admitted, "and I don't know if they're really ready to lose me. I want to see Pumpkin and Pound grow up a little more before I move out too. I don't want to leave Ponyville: this is home -- the home of my heart. And if I became a full baker, if I completed my master piece -- I don't know what I would do after that. Just that things would change -- and... I'm not ready for it -- am I?"

"It's your head," Cranky shrugged. "I don't know what's in it. You do. But let me ask you a question, kid -- one you should have asked yourself a long time ago. If you make the soufflé, one thing definitely changes: you drop the word 'apprentice' in your head and never pick it up again. That's mandatory just from pulling it off. Does anything else have to change? Immediately?"

She thought about that. Cranky watched her.

They both sat in silence for a while. The fountain splashed behind them, the glow from Pinkie's tail creating interesting reflections in the water.

"Good talking to you, kid." Cranky slowly got up, worked stiffness out of sore joints. "And by the way, those curls look good tonight. You can take my word for that: it's coming from someone who thinks about hair a little more than he should. I'm gonna get home before the temperature drops too much. You should do the same. And maybe eat something warm before you sleep."

"Good night, Cranky -- and -- thanks."

"Good night, Pinkie. Any time."

Pinkie went home and as Cranky had advised, made something warm to eat before she went into her attic to sleep.

The soufflé -- the one she wouldn't tell the Cakes about, not until she was sure she had a true next step, not until she knew they were all ready -- came out perfectly.

Unfortunately, it also came out vanilla.