“… Huh.” Pinkie Pie bent her neck the right way, then the left way, and squinted into scribble scrawled on foal-scrap. She blinked. If it was a punch line, it wasn’t a very good one. Where was the gag? The mirth? The chuckles, hoots, guffaws, and sniggers?
The set-up was obvious: squeeze a rubber chicken, a note pops out, and nopony gets hurt. Classic comedy. But … maybe Cheese Sandwich mixed up his notes, because this one didn’t say 'Bu-kawk!' or 'Ow, I’m sentient!' The fortune-cookie sized note resting on her puffy pink bed sheets said:
Dear Pinkie Pie,
Stop me
Cheese Sandwich
Pinkie’s hoof twirled in the sweaty-soaked curls on the back of her head. “I don’t get it, Gummy. That doesn’t sound like Cheese one tiny bit, but it’s his mouth-writing, isn’t it?” She held it up for the baby alligator to see at her bedside. Gummy blinked in his kiddie pool under her lamp, his blue sleeping cap all askew. She fixed his for him and sighed, “I hope not. Something bad happening to Cheese would be extra bad because he’s so peppy all the time.”
Pinkie sat back and stared up, biting on her hoof absently. Of course, the second she realized what she was doing, she unlatched her grinding molars and squeaked, “Oh, sorry, number four! I didn’t mean it. I guess I’m a little worried about Cheese Sandwich now. It’s silly.” Pinkie gasped, breath rushing in and blowing up her eyes like balloons. “But, what if it’s not silly?
“What if it’s something super-duper serious and totally unsilly,” Pinkie paced the plush ring of a rug, prancing uneasily around the fringed racing track. “That wouldn’t be like him at all, and maybe I’m supposed to know that means he’s in trouble, and needs my help with whatever this is, but can’t say why!” She stopped. Perfectly still. She rewound what she said in her head again one more time and her hooves hit her cheeks. “He’s in trouble?!”
Pinkie tore across to Gummy’s pool, running straight into the table and jostling the lamp shade and the water in his pool. Her eyes burst out. “Cheese Sandwich is in trouble and I’m just standing here talking about it!”
Far away, through clouds and over many miles a tiny village squat between some trees. Today in that small, small town, a newcomer rode in through brambles and sweet berry bushes on the only path in. She came in a cloak. She had no face.
Pinkie’s hooves crunched dewy grass, and hopefully none of those loud crickets rubbing up a storm in the woods behind her. She entered town through dark-leafed shrubs, and pushed back the hood on her cloak at the top of a little slope. It’d been a long, long journey- or maybe a two hour train ride- but finally, here she was: Hollow Shades.
Big, bright mushrooms lead her on the hoof path into town. Here, the grass grew dark and the trees were wide and shady. Tiny flowers, pedals hardly the size of a thumbtack, poked through the brush. The trail into town might’ve been a bike trail, the gap between the grasses only big enough for a wheel. That was fine. Pinkie could bounce across any terrain.
The animals in the forest surrounding chirped, and the city cooed in midmorning metamorphosis as the sun started to peek between the leaves, leaving patterns on vines holding old clay bricks together. Pinkie could already see the lights hung around the balconies, running through the moss-swallowed banisters, peeking around corners like the school-age fillies and colts sprinting past her in their Sunday best, and animal masks.
Butterflies fluttered behind her, following the leader or maybe sensing the obscene amount of sugar on her. Pinkie Pie felt a giggle rising up her chest and popping out her head. “You’re right, Gummy. He’s definitely here.”
Gummy stared out her saddle bags. Even he’d been left speechless by masked marauders and the sweet baking dough carried on their air with every new dessert left out to cool. The coolness of the shade compromised with the steam of the great bonfire in town-square. Pinkie’s hooves clip-clopped their way over the stonework, taking her straight to the chef working behind another, different mask: a big ol’ smile.
Pinkie waved between hops. “Heya, Cheese!”
“Pinkie Pie?” Cheese Sandwich blinked once or twice, and grinned his fullest grin. His chef’s hat hopped on his curly head when he bounced over to meet her. “Wow! I didn’t expect you to come to out for the appeasement festival! I didn’t even know you liked sacrificing tributes to the vengeful forest gods!” He laughed at himself, shrugging and gesturing to the sky. “Oh, where are my manners, how they hay are ya, girl? It’s been practically forever and a day! Well, not literally. If it was, I don’t think either of us would be alive.”
“I know, right?!” She threw out her hooves, like that was exactly what she’d been thinking. Mostly because it was. The two talked it up for a good long while, catching up on all the exciting, incredible things that had happened in the span of a week and two days. Thankfully, though, before she could forget, Pinkie fished around in her saddle bags. “Oh! And, since we were talking about ancient mystical messages from unidentified sources, I was hoping you’d tell me what you wanted me to stop you from doing.”
Pinkie Pie brought out the paper slip and slipped it into Cheese Sandwich’s hooves, and told him where she found it.
“… I’m sorry, Pinkie Pie.” Cheese frowned at her, making a face. “I don’t know what it means. I didn’t write this.”
Now Pinkie frowned, slowing her bounce. “You didn’t?”
He shrugged uncomfortably, one shoulder before the other. “Not that I can remember.” Then Cheese gasped, and slapped his mouth shut. Green eyes flicked back onto Pinkie like she’d used a horrible cuss word. Cheese slowly drew his hooves from his mouth. “You can’t read my thoughts, right?”
Her brow furrowed. “Not that I know of … what’cha thinking?”
He pointed at her. “Are you thinking the exact same thing?”
“Really depends on what you’re thinking, doesn’t it?” Her head turned one way, smiling sideways.
“Well, now I’m just thinking, ‘what are you thinking?’”
Pinkie Pie gasped. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking!”
Cheese brought his hooves down. “Oh, my gosh!”
“We’re psychically connected!” Pinkie rubbed the sides of her head in frantic, manic circles. “We should start a travelling show!”
“Uh- yes, but first follow me! I might have the answer after all!”
Together, Pinkie and Cheese pranced through town singing a random assortment of ‘La, la-la, la’s on their merry way.
Cheese Sandwhich’s lanky body came closer to Pinkie’s than ever before. His orange shirt gave off heat like a fire when he spoke low. “I’ve never done this with anypony before.” A little laugh bumped his shoulders and made him smirk at the ground. “I’ve sort of been saving my first time for somepony really special, you know?”
“Oh, totally,” she giggled. She wasn’t sure if it was the candle under her chin or what, but her cheeks prickled like they were cooking. Her smile held them up like tent poles.
He leaned back, eyeing her over, and crossing his hooves. “You sure you can keep this a secret? I don’t want ponies thinking I’m that kind of stallion.”
“I super-secret Pinkie promise,” she stage-whispered. Her hooves worked in an interpretive dance, finding inventive ways to make it look like she’d actually zipped her mouth closed with a tiny zipper. Or, at least she hoped so. She couldn’t be sure with a blind-fold around her head. “Nopony will ever know in this eternity or the next.”
Cheese backed off, smiling. “Well, good! That way we can get started!”
He untied her blindfold, and Pinkie wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but she was excited.
The small room he’d brought her in had an infinite number of mirrors. Two opposite sides of the room held two differently framed mirrors, facing each other and reflecting back and forth until it seemed a green hallway formed at each end.
Only, the Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich in each new reflection weren’t exactly … reflections. In fact, every new mirror reflected back in the mirror looked like an entirely new mirror, a different frame and everything. Each time they moved the same as the originals, but were dressed in completely new clothes, with different mane-styles. New ponies, but just the same as the old.
Pinkie Pie gasped with glee, her eyes darting all over the place. “Whoa! What is all this?”
“I found this place a while back, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it until-“ Cheese blinked, smiled, and took Pinkie’s hoof. “A-doi! What am I doing? Why don’t I show you?!”
Pinkie followed Cheese straight into the wall. It was fun.
Pinkie Pie blacked out mid-hop. She woke up with the room a circling blur, face in the floor, ears packed with cotton-balls, ringing like a dinner-bell. Pinkie had to shut her eyes tight. She could hear her eyes straining with her blocked up ears. When she opened her eyes again, all she could see was a pair of sunglasses sitting low on Cheese’s snout staring out under a jerry-curled mane.
“Whoops … forgot to warn you to hold your breath.” Cheese snorted. “You look pretty funny in that costume, though!”
Pinkie sprang up into a sitting position. “Costume!?” She giggled at the denim jacket on her front hooves and the funky bracelets. A bandanna held back her jungle or a mane. Her shirt had all sorts of crazy neon colours, which were totally neat. Pinkie grabbed Cheese by his black leather jacket cuffs, and smiled like a mad pony. “This is the best dress-up game I’ve ever seen!” She threw her hooves out. “It does all the dressing for you!”
Cheese shook his head, and his one ear piecing jangled. “Oh, contraire. This isn’t just a super fun dressing room. We’re not even in the same universe right now!” He pushed up his glasses so they sat on his head. “As far as I can tell, in this reality we’re rebellious teens with ‘tudes from the 1890s who don’t take no biz-nass.” His hoof moved in a z-formation, his head bobbing behind it. “Pretty nifty, huh?! Let’s check out the next one!”
“Reality?” Pinkie looked down to the floor, and her bracelets jingled like tinsel. “You mean … you just found this place that takes you to different worlds in the woods and never told anypony?”
Cheese stepped through the next mirror, and another stepped in the other end looking exactly the same, but with his head turned back to look at the mirror he just came from. “Yepper peppers!”
Pinkie sucked in a breath and climbed through the mirror her Cheese left through, kicking her back hooves out behind her for leverage.
Here, she wore a toga and leather braided belt, but still the same troubled gaze. Cheese had a laurel around his curly mess, and smiled just the same as the one before. She said, “But, don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?”
“Not-“ He gasped, holding in his breath as he stepped through the next one. Another Cheese came in, the same gladiator sword glittering in its holster. He exhaled. “-at all. As long as we remember how many mirrors we’ve gone through, we can get back home no problem-o.” He laughed.
Pinkie frowned back at him, then jumped forward, becoming a queen, as easy as that. King Cheese Sandwich shrugged in his big, orange cape, lined with the finest faux-fur. “And as long as nopony decides to leave the room in a different reality-“ A different Cheese reached through the mirror behind, pointing to the door available in every room, as this Cheese stepped through the mirror ahead.
“-we’re not really disturbing the precarious order of any universes-“ Pinkie bounced through to the next, a reality where Cheese was Santa Hooves. “-and we get to wear funny clothes and see what it’d be like if we always wore them! Besides, even if one of us did get out, what’s the worst a Cheese or a Pinkie could do?”
Pinkie looked down at herself. It took a second for her to smile. “I guess it would be pretty fun to be Mrs. Hooves.” Cheese smiled and leapt through the next mirror, Pinkie following behind. “But … how do you know nopony else-“ They bounced through the knight and princess universe, transforming into cave ponies. “- came here? What if somepony really bad found this place?”
Cheese bounced on the spot. “Huh. That’s a good question. But it’s so totally fine because-“ He brought her into a scuba-diver’s universe, and they swam through. “-Blurb-bloobie-blurgh-gur-bliddy-bloo-“ They swam into the next universe, completely dry in tribal paint and grass skirts. “-and so I say, ‘Chowder? What’s that got to do with anything?'”
He laughed and ran into the next mirror, but Pinkie frowned at the floor. She walked after the Cheese now wearing lieder-hoisin, and admiring the shiny buttons, and stretching out his hooves. “Oo, I like this one!”
“As long as you’re sure as sugar,” she said, trying to get a laugh unclogged in her throat. “Hey, wait! If you don’t remember writing that note-“
Cheese plugged up her mouth. She made a little questioning noise and he pointed ahead to the next version of themselves. Another Cheese plugged up the mouth of another Pinkie, but they wore a tuxedo and a wedding dress.
Pinkie Pie blinked. For the first time, it occurred to her: each new reflection held two entirely different ponies than themselves. When they weren’t looking in the mirror, they couldn’t have all had the same lives if they all lived in different places … so outside of being here, taking the place of ponies sort of like them, but not at all, that Pinkie and Cheese were in love. They were getting married.
She couldn’t be sure Cheese was thinking the same thing, but he looked pretty stunned, chewing into his cheek. She turned to him (and in the corner of her eye, she saw the bride Pinkie do the same), and coaxed the words from her swelling chest. “Which you wrote it to me?”
He turned to her, eyes wide, shaking his head. “I have no idea! I only left out the wrong door by accident, and came right back in. I left a note saying I was sorry for ruining the natural order, and an apology cheddar block, but I didn’t write it specifically for you. I lost track of how many mirrors I went through that day.”
Pinkie’s face screwed up. Her forehead pocked between her brows. “But …” She let out a stacked breath. She looked up at him. “Pinkie promise?”
Cheese blinked, and Pinkie giggled. She taught him her motions, and assumedly, so did every other Pinkie. They smiled at each other, and Cheese rubbed the back of his mane. “Let’s keep going.”
Pinkie watched behind him as the other Cheese did the same, smiling the same sweet smile. She hardly even noticed her Cheese move toward the mirror behind them, but when she did, she put out her hoof. “There’s still one thing I don’t get-”
“Just one? Wow, you’re pretty smart!”
“-Why are we matching in most of the universes and not in ours?” Her heart pitter-pattered like the Cake Twins’ hooves when she put it together after it came out. “I mean … that’s not what I’m supposed to stop, right?”
Cheese already jumped through to the next version, the next universe, the next life. She sighed, and became Cheese Sandwich’s bride for a brief moment, then a cowpony, then a mad scientist, and yeah, the longer things went on, the easier it was to smile and laugh about all the funny different costumes and ponysonas, but … her chest stayed tight, and her tummy wouldn’t settle.
In the universe with abnormally large ears, Pinkie’s finally couldn’t hold their own weight anymore. She kept her smile the best she could. “Maybe we should get back home soon, don’t ya think?”
“Why?! We’re having a blast!” Cheese danced around in a monkey suit in the next reality.
She jumped in after. And again, trying to keep up. He started jumping straight through each universe, laughing as his clothes flashed from one to the next in under a second. She jumped. She bounced. She did all but run through to the next after him, barely keeping pace.
“Wait-“ Her space-suit turned to a cloak. “-up!”
Cheese looked back, hitting the mirrors blindly as he bounced. He lagged back beside her and they leapt together. “Whoops! Sorry ‘bout that! Got a little ahead-“ He put his neck forward so that his head went through the mirrors before anything else. “of myself!”
“Ha, ha,” Pinkie panted, leaping next to him. “Funny. Hey, Cheese?”
“What’s up?” He smiled, turning from a pharaoh to a beggar.
“I think I just figured out what your note meant.” They punctuated every third syllable with a bounce. She smiled back at him.
“Oh, yeah?” His smiled pulled up higher. “What’s that, Pinkie Pi-“
An old mare kissed an old stallion’s cheek. They landed there, and Pinkie’s heart dropped out of her chest. Poor Cheese … Wrinkles set into his like the crevices of Canterlot Mountain. Smile marks rose around his eyes. His curly mane now pure white, his knees protruding more. He looked at her, aghast.
“You don’t have to leave town all the time.” Her voice sounded grating to her own ears, now tenuous, even squeaking a little less. “I know it’s fun to travel and all, but doesn’t it get kind of lonely out there on your own?”
“Aw, shucks, you’re never lonely when you’re meeting new friends!” It tickled her eyes to see him move slower like that. “Besides, I always have Boneless 2.”
“That’s just the thing!” She patted his shoulder. “You make all sorts of new friends all the time, but you hardly ever see them again.” Pinkie blinked hard, and looked to the floor space between them. “… Do you ever worry they’ll forget you?”
When Pinkie peeked up at his face, she was sorry she’d said it. “… You didn’t forget me.”
“Well, yeah, but you only left two weeks ago, silly.” She couldn’t stand the hurt in his face anymore. She wrapped her hooves around him. “All I mean to say is, they’ll always be a place you can stop in to rest. There’s tons of parties in Ponyville, and I’d love to invite you to one.” Her smile sunk into neutrality, and her voice grew small. “And even if you don’t want to live there, that’s fine. I can be happy just knowing you’re happy. Just ... visit soon.”
They pulled back. Cheese tittered. Pinkie felt a snicker rise up and out. They giggled together, and realized how silly they both looked. Maybe it was a silly thing to want. Maybe forgetting each other was just a silly thing to be afraid of. But, maybe it wasn't, and at first, sure, he'd come to visit more often, but over time, maybe he'd forget, too, just like she did, and by the time she thought to actually visit her family back home, they acted like completely different ponies and didn't want her there.
Cheese pulled up her chin, looking so worried. "Don't cry! Maybe next time I come we can have a private party, just the two of us." His eyes hit the floor hard. "I usually say 'the more the merrier,' but-"
She giggled, sniffled, and wiped her eyes. "That'd be super fun."
