“Hey, Twilight!”
The unicorn looked up from her book, awoken from her literary trance. “Oh. Hello, Pinkie Pie.”
Bounding along the street, the pink pony made her way towards her friend on the bench. She was smiling brightly, an action not considered odd or uncommon for her. Twilight noted that she appeared just as chipper as ever; there hardly ever seemed to be a “bad” day for that pony.
“Isn't today just super-duper?” said Pinkie Pie, hopping about from hoof to hoof as she approached Twilight. “The sun is sunny, the clouds are cloudy, the grass is grassy... and the wind, ooh, the wind is windy!”
A stray newspaper landed on the earth pony's face as she finished speaking, provoking a slight gasp followed by a giggle out of her. She blew it off, and the paper continued on its way. “See? Win-dy!”
Twilight cracked a smile. “I can see that, Pinkie,” she commented dismissively, then looked down at her book again to continue reading. Today was a nice day, even if it was windy, so Twilight had decided to read one of her books outside for a change. It had been rather quiet lately, and since no one was here to bother her—
She stopped herself and glanced up, seeing that her friend was still standing there, almost expectantly. “Um, was there something that you needed?” asked Twilight, raising a brow.
Pinkie shrugged, still grinning innocently. “Not really. Just wanted to say hi,” she admitted, giggling.
“...This was the third time today you've done just that, Pinkie,” pointed out Twilight, hardening her gaze slightly.
“Yeah, I know, but it's always fun to say “hi” to a friend!”
Twilight only stared at Pinkie for a moment, before turning back to her book again. “That's nice,” she muttered dryly.
The pink pony beamed, blissfully ignorant of the unicorn's irritation. “Oh, I know! It's GREAT!”
For the longest while, Twilight could not understand the antics of her friend. And she, like many others, did not bother even attempting to comprehend them. Doing so usually resulted in anything from a ringing headache to unbridled insanity.
But Pinkie Pie took no notice of Twilight's sudden apathy. Hearing a gust of wind pick up again, she looked up into the air, and caught sight of leaves blowing in the wind. Her smile faltered for the first time that day, and her face became one of deep concentration.
She followed the leaves with her eyes, watching them as they twisted and sashayed through the air; almost as if they were performing some unknown, exotic form of dance, just for her to witness and behold. Pinkie was utterly silent as her smile faded completely, and the leaves finally trailed out of sight over the nearby rooftops.
“Hey Twilight,” Pinkie managed to say, breathlessly. “Where does the wind blow?”
Surprised by the sudden, serious tone of her friend, the purple unicorn looked up at her. “Uh, why do you ask?” she responded, not sure what Pinkie was trying to get across.
The earth pony looked down again, still wearing a look of intense focus. “The wind blows from somewhereto go somewhere... So, where does it go?”
Twilight stared at Pinkie for a moment, reading her expression; one of genuine curiosity, and innocence. “I'm not sure what you mean, Pinkie," she said with uncertainty, glancing up at the sky for the briefest of moments. "That's kind of hard to answer.”
“Well...” Pinkie bit her lip, and looked her friend in the eye. “The wind's gotta go somewhere, right? It's all blowy and stuff, but, I dunno why it blows like that. It just does, to me. Why does it blow? Where does it go?”
Part of Twilight's inner meteorologist started to kick in, assuming that Pinkie only wondered how the wind worked in the first place. “The wind happens because of the air current, a lot of which is caused by moving air masses,” she explained, recalling the books she had studied on this matter. “Areas of high pressure conflict with those of lower pressure, and the faster those areas move or are moved by the other, the faster the general rate of airflow is. Now, there's also the factors of geography, temperature and whatnot to consider as well—”
Pinkie Pie's blank expression until this point was followed up by a swift shake of the head. “Twilight, I don't know about any of that stuff!" she cut in, frowning slightly. "It sounds all gobbledygooky to me. I just wanted to know where it blows.”
Twilight was nonplussed by the sudden interruption to her lecture—Celestia only knows that she hates having her lectures interrupted—but she stopped and thought about it. “I... I suppose it goes wherever the air masses move it to," the unicorn concluded, nodding her head with finality.
“And where's that?” inquired Pinkie Pie, her curiosity still unsatisfied.
“Well, I don't know! It's not something we can accurately predict. How could I know?”
“I don't know.”
Twilight blinked. “...So, what?”
“Does the wind ever stop?”
“I... don't know.”
“Does the wind just keep going?”
“I, er... maybe.”
“Forever?”
“Uh... sure?”
“...Are you asking me, or telling me?”
Twilight blinked again. Pinkie's antics were bizarre, but this instance in particular was bizarre for altogether different reasons. All of a sudden, she felt like she was being toyed with. But before she could voice her frustration in regards to this feeling, the pink pony continued on unabated.
“Sometimes, I think that the wind travels around a lot,” she mused, placing a hoof under her mouth in thought. “Like, a lot. It gets to go to a whole bunch of places, and do all kinds of stuff. And the wind helps us, too. It keeps us cool, makes those big windmills turn, lets us have fun with kites, helps us fly in those balloons—all kinds of things. It never gets bored, because there's so much for it to do.
“And the winds just, you know, keeps on going and going. Sometimes it slows down, and sometimes it gets really fast, but it never stops. It's kinda like life, I guess you could say. Really weird how alike we all are. And sometimes, once in a while, the wind carries us all along for the ride... in one way, or another.”
Another gust of wind picked up, and with it, another grouping of leaves. Twilight followed Pinkie's gaze this time and saw something that, admittedly, wasn't out of the ordinary at all for this time of year. It was autumn, after all. The Running of the Leaves was due very soon, come to think of it. But, something about the way the leaves danced in the sky above them seemed to entrance Pinkie in a way that Twilight could not possibly comprehend. Yet another mystery to add to the checklist, she noted.
After they passed, the pink pony's smile suddenly returned full force, and she stood up straight. “Well, wherever that wind's a-blowin', I'm hoping to be here when it visits again!” she declared proudly, beaming. “Maybe it can tell me another story, sometime!”
And with that, Pinkie bounced off down the road again as she came, happily chanting a tune of “La-lala”s down the way.
Twilight watched her go, still baffled by her mood swing. She opened her mouth, almost ready to say something, but her mind faltered and she closed it again. Silently deciding not to dwell on Pinkie Pie's antics, she resumed her reading.
Turning the page of her book, Twilight saw a passage that immediately caught her eye and interest. Her brow raised slightly as she silently mouthed the words:
In autumn's first fall
And farmer's last call
Only idle minds know
Where the winds blow
