Love was in the air, and Rarity was having none of it.
Shortly after lunchtime she closed up the Boutique and, with her saddlebags packed for an afternoon out, headed down main street towards the library. As was usual for Friday afternoons, the streets were filled with chattering ponies going about their business, but today the talk, laughter, and gaiety in general was tainted with a wonderfully depressing flavor. It was Hearts and Hooves Day, and Rarity was left seeking refuge from the cloying sweetness saturating the air.
Rarity had no date today. There simply hadn’t been time enough to ask anypony out, what with business at the Boutique being so brisk lately, but she had no intention of spending the day alone, either. Rarity reasoned that Twilight’s intense studies had resulted in a similar lack of romantic engagements for the day, and therefore, there surely wouldn’t be any objections to being invited to the Day Spa for a few indulgent hours of pampering.
Fluttershy had been her first choice, obviously, since she rarely ever missed their weekly session, but today she was occupied with a family of rabbits. Annual checkups, that sort of thing. “It could take hours,” she’d said, sipping her morning tea with Rarity as they’d sat out on the front porch of her cottage. “But I could, um… make it next Tuesday, if that’s alright?” And Rarity had smiled and sipped at her tea and assured her it was.
In all fairness, Rarity would have left it at that and gone alone, but Lotus and Aloe had a couples discount on offer that day only and she intended to take full advantage of it. It wasn’t like the coupon had stated the couple’s discount was only for couples, after all. A loophole, perhaps, but as far as Rarity was concerned, all was fair in matters of health and beauty and relaxation and discounts. Especially discounts.
Arriving without incident, Rarity rapped expectantly on the door, but nopony came to answer. She knocked harder, calling first for Twilight and then for Spike, and again was answered with silence. Hmm, she thought, scratching her chin. Absorbed in study again, I see.
Rarity wasn’t to be deterred so easily, and the door was unlocked anyway. The lights were on, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Spike, oddly enough. “Twilight?” she called out, her voice ringing through the dusty air. “Spike? Spikey-Wikey? Have you seen Twilight anywhere?”
Normally this would have elicited an enthusiastic scrabbling of little claws, followed by the diminutive dragon appearing with a sacrificial cup of tea held out for his unicorn goddess, but it got Rarity nowhere. Hmm, how strange. Wouldn’t they have mentioned if they were going on a trip today?
The library basement was dark and uninhabited, so Rarity tried the kitchen next. That seemed a logical place for Twilight; a nice book, a cup of hot coffee—but the kitchen was as deserted as the rest of the house. Empty, but not nearly as tidy. Wherever Twilight and Spike were, they’d both been around to have breakfast that morning.
On the table, hidden amongst the small piles of dirty cups and jam-stained plates, Rarity spied a small notebook. Recognizing it as Spike’s day-planner, she picked it up and flipped to the latest marked page. Spike had crossed out the entire weekend and in his usual neat scrawl, written in “Royal Business in Canterlot. Important.” And then, below that entry, “Solo business in Canterlot. Speak of this to nopony.” Then, below that, “NOPONY.”
Hmm, thought Rarity, replacing the notebook. Important business in Canterlot? Very well, that explained Spike’s absence, but not Twilight’s. She was still here in Ponyville, surely, and Rarity refused to admit defeat. There was still one more room to search. She began climbing up towards Twilight’s inner sanctum.
“Twilight, dear?” she called as she neared the top of the stairs. “I don’t mean to barge in like this, but Spike wasn’t downstairs to answer the—”
Oh my word!
Rarity’s gasp of surprise echoed through the empty bedroom, all thoughts of asking Twilight to the spa suddenly and completely evaporating. Sitting on the desk by the window was the most elaborate cake she had ever seen. Accompanying it was a large, mouth-watering pecan pie.
The cake was a magnificent triple-decker with thick chocolate icing. Vines of green licorice grew up the sides and bright purple sugar flowers bloomed everywhere, the petals flecked with dewdrops of crystallized sugar. A crown of candied fruit and whipped cream graced the top layer. The cake was the very definition of decadent delight and even as she approached it, slowly, to inspect the finely crafted flowers, Rarity felt as if looking at the cake was just as fattening as eating it.
As if the cake wasn’t enough, the pie was just as tempting. It filled the room with the heavy scent of warm, spiced pecans, the glazed nuts glinting brightly in the morning sun. While not as stylish as its pastry sibling, just breathing in the aroma sent a pang of hunger through Rarity’s stomach.
As she stood there, mouth watering and heart fluttering, she finally thought to ask herself; why were these things sitting in Twilight’s bedroom?
Rarity’s assumption was the obvious, but a hurried search around the room for a card, a note, a receipt, anything that would name the sender or indicate how the cake had gotten there in the first place, turned up empty. She sat down, tapping her finely-manicured hoof against her chin.
Who could have sent Twilight such generous gifts? Again, she let her eyes wander over the things on the desk. Her eyes centered on the cake.
“Well, that cake is definitely from Sugarcube Corner,” she muttered thoughtfully. “It has to be. Nopony besides the Cakes could have baked something so extravagant, but—no, no, it can’t be the Cakes, they’re always so busy this time of year. They wouldn’t have had the time to come up with something like this, but…”
…but Pinkie would have!
** ** **
A pie and a cake, both from Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie was an employee—a valued employee—at Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie could whip up confectionery delights without breaking a sweat. Surely she’d had at least something to do with it.
The theory made sense in Rarity’s head, but confirming it would be another matter entirely. Apparently, the Cakes had had the brilliant idea of hosting a Hearts and Hooves Day super sale.
It had backfired spectacularly.
Sugarcube Corner was besieged. Mares and stallions swarmed around the front of the building, the line flowing out the door and down the street. Clamourings of “Hooves off! I saw it first!” filled the air, a small fight having broken out over the last of the strawberry croissants. Any attempt to cut the line and go in through the front door would be suicide.
Well, I’m certainly not getting in that way, thought Rarity, standing at a safe distance from the mob.
It was probably because she was standing at a safe distance that she noticed something everypony else missed. Down the narrow street that ran alongside the building, Mr. Cake was trying to slink out unnoticed through a side door, empty saddlebags on his back, dark circles under his eyes, and a list of ingredients clenched in his teeth. He was halfway through locking the door when Rarity bounded up behind him.
“Good morning, Mr. Cake!”
He jumped, thinking one of the patrons had spotted him.
“Bwuh?—oh. Erro Rrrty.” He sighed in obvious relief, his voice muffled by the list. He spat it out and tucked it in the pocket of his batter-stained apron. “Do you need something?”
It was probably best not to bother him any more than was necessary. His twitchy movements gave him the look of somepony running on caffeine fumes, and Rarity knew that look all too well.
“It’s nothing much, I was only wondering if Pinkie was around.” Bit of an obvious question, really, of course with things so busy they’d need her here to keep things running smoothly. “Has she made any deliveries today?”
“Er. If you’re expecting something, I’m sure it’ll arrive soon—”
“Oh, no, no, no, I’m not expecting anything. I just want to know if she’s around, and if she’s made any deliveries today.”
“Er,” he said again. “Mrs. Cake might know. Or you could go through and ask Pinkie, I’m sure it’s okay,” he said with the tone of somepony who didn’t really know if it was okay.
“She’s in the kitchen?” Rarity pointed at the door he’d been trying to lock a moment earlier.
“Yeah.” He glanced over down the street over at the crowds, and winced. His hooves danced in place. “If there’s nothing else I really need to run, our emergency reserves reached critical levels ten minutes ago!”
“By all means—”
Without even waiting for Rarity to finish her sentence, Mr. Cake bolted down the street towards the marketplace. Rude, to be sure, but acceptable in a crisis.
The Cakes definitely hadn’t had the time to make the creation currently sitting in the library. Pinkie, however, didn’t know the meaning of the word “overworked.” If anything, she thrived in this kind of situation. Thriving, perhaps… but thriving Pinkie was unpredictable, and unpredictable Pinkie was dangerous. There was no telling what kind of warzone Rarity was about to jump into. She needed to be ready for anything.
The blinds were pulled over the windows, hiding the madness inside from view. She crouched by the door, waiting, listening. It sounded noisy in there. Busy. Carefully, she opened the door a crack—Ah! What’s this? An empty cupcake tray, sitting discarded only a few inches away! Rarity snatched it up and hurriedly shut the door again. Deep breath. Alright. Now that I’ve acquired a shield—holding it out with her magic, she turned the doorknob a second time and jumped into the belly of the beast.
Rarity saw what was inside the kitchen.
The cupcake tray went clattering to the floor.
Pinkie Pie didn’t hear the cupcake tray drop, nor did she notice Rarity. She was so absorbed in what she was doing—What in the world is she doing?—Rarity doubted Pinkie would have noticed a herd of buffalo charging straight through the kitchen.
Pinkie Pie was swinging around the kitchen, suspended by what appeared to be… Are those…. bungee cords? Affixed to the ceiling? And she was swinging around on them, at times mere inches above the countertops, sometimes rightside up, sometimes upside down, dumping ingredients into bowls—it was too much to take in all at once. It simply couldn’t be done. Rarity moved over to a corner, where she’d be out of the way. Just, for now, she wanted to watch. This was truly a master at work.
Alright, putting aside the fact that she’s swinging around like some kind of jungle savage—Pinkie had arranged a dozen colorful mixing bowls on the center counter, a thousand ingredients arranged all… there was surely a word accurate enough for this… Widdershins? Yes, that seemed appropriate. Ingredients arranged Widdershins. Pinkie swung around the kitchen from rope to rope, dumping ingredients into bowls, dolloping out cookie dough onto platters, and shoving those platters into the ovens at the same time as she was removing finished, baked cookies from those ovens, and this was all being done with perfectly timed choreography, mind you. On the side counter there stood a row of egg timers, all of them set to different times and all of them ticking away, lending a mad rapid metronome soundtrack to the chaos.
Yes, it was chaos. Chaos and madness that only Pinkie could possibly understand. And the best part was, on top of all that… Pinkie was singing while she worked.
“The sun is up and we’re underway!
The hours are long, but that’s okay!”
She grabbed four different bowls, balancing one on her head and one on her nose, one on her hind leg, holding one with her tail, and swung over to a row of empty dishes and cupcake trays. And now she was dumping those bowls into the dishes, and swinging over to the ovens, putting the empty bowls back on the counter as she went, and—
“They’ll be out of the oven without delay!
Sugary treats to eat right away!”
...and she swooped down and yanked the oven doors open, and pulled out six different trays of various pastries, cupcakes, brownies, red velvet cakes—When did she put on those oven mitts?—and, balancing all of them, somehow, she kicked off the floor with her hooves and soared back over to the batter she’d just poured out and swapped the baked things for the freshly poured batter-y things, then bounced off the wall and shoved six trays and dishes and everything into the oven and slammed the door shut.
“Ooooooh, what a wonderful wonderful fabulous waaaaay~”
She drew out the waaaaay in time with her swing back to the baked things, which, Rarity had just now noticed, were grouped into piles near what appeared to be a conveyor belt leading into the shop. The cookies went on straightaway, but the things that needed icing, like the cupcakes and actual cakes, Pinkie pushed into the strangest of contraptions sitting nearby, where a series of nozzles sprayed icing of all different flavors onto the baked goods in exactly the desired quantity, finishing by tipping them onto the conveyer belt with the rest of everything.
“...To spend your Hearts and Hooves Day!” cried Pinkie, belting out the last line with a flourish. And as Day! left her lips, she flipped over the counter and landed in front of the egg timers, and Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! she hit five of them in quick succession—while upside down, naturally—and threw her hooves in the air.
“Wooooo! New best time! —Oh, hey Rarity! What’s up?”
Rarity stepped out from the corner. “Nothing, dear… but what on earth is all this?”
As usual, Pinkie was quick on the uptake. “It’s my make-everything-as-fast-as-possible baking system!”
“Yes, I see that, but how does it… how can it work?” she said, holding her hooves out helplessly.
“It just does!” Pinkie chirped. “I set it up every year for Hearts and Hooves Day! Didja come to watch me try and break my records?”
For an instant, Rarity was strongly tempted to say yes. But— “No. I came to ask you some questions about, umm… something. Something delicate. I don’t suppose you’ve any time to spare?”
“Sure, I’ve got exactly three minutes and forty two seconds ‘til the next batch has to go in.” Her eyes went wide. “Omigosh! I’ve only got three minutes and thirty eight seconds ‘til the next batch has to go in!”
“Oh, don’t let me get in the way,” said Rarity, as Pinkie swung over to the counter and started cracking eggs into the colored bowls. “I wouldn’t want to break your concentration.”
“Nah, it’s fine! G’head and talk, I’m listening.” She scooped out cupfuls of chocolate powder with one hoof, while stirring together mashed fruit in a brown bowl with the other.
If only such multitasking talent could be taught and applied to dressmaking, Rarity thought wistfully.
“Very well. Since I respect your time, I’ll get straight to the point. Have you made a very large cake somewhat recently?”
“Not for the store, no.”
“Not for the store?” said Rarity, raising an eyebrow. “Than for what? A special occasion? A party? ...A secret party?”
Where did that last one come from? Nevermind, it seemed the right thing to ask—
“Yep, yep, and yeppers! How’d you guess?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
Rarity gulped. This was going much more smoothly than she’d imagined, but where exactly was this train of thought taking her? Not to where it seemed to be taking her, surely! But… no, a few coincidences were just coincidences. Nothing to get excited over.
...Unless they weren’t actually coincidences; they could be the start of a pattern instead. She had to be sure.
“It was a big cake, yes?”
“How big are we talking?”
Rarity glanced around for something innocuous, but still visual. “About the size of your icing machine?”
Pinkie’s left ear twitched.
“Maaaaaaybe. It was a pretty big cake.”
Rarity could scarcely believe what the conversation was leading her to believe, but when presented with statements like that, what else could she do but press on?
“When did you make it?”
“I finished it last night. Hang on a sec, I’m out of oil.”
Pinkie hopped over to the door, swung it open, ran out into the street, and hollered “CANOLA OIL!” in the direction of the marketplace. After a second or two, a bottle of canola oil came zipping over the rooftops. Pinkie jumped up and snatched it out of the air. “Thanks, Mr. Cake!” she yelled, then ran back and shut the door again behind her.
“Right on time!” she said, pouring the stuff out into another measuring cup. “Mr. Cake’s getting really good at synchronizing with the system! He’s such a champ!”
And Sweetie Belle calls me unreasonable when I’m in the midst of being creative?—but no, if Pinkie’s system worked—I’m not here to comment on her baking system! Stay focused!
“Nutmeg, nutmeg,” muttered Pinkie. “Where’s the nutmeg?”
“Over there, dear. Getting back to the cake, though, would you say it was a very special cake?”
Almost imperceptibly, Pinkie’s stirring motions slowed a bit. “Yep.”
“For somepony very special to you?”
“Yeah.”
“For somepony you, ah... you love?”
There was a near imperceptible jerk of her hooves, and for the first time in perhaps forever, she made a mistake. Instead of putting the nutmeg into the green bowl, in went a big scoop of cream cheese. Pinkie stopped stirring altogether, her error going unnoticed.
“Why do you wanna know?”
“N-No reason!” said Rarity, lying badly. “I was only curious—”
“You’re being weird.” Pinkie frowned. “I mean, I can talk about cakes all day ‘cause cakes are awesome, but you’re kiiiinda acting all like ‘I wanna know something that isn’t really about cakes, but I’m gonna be all subtle about asking it, so I’ll ask about cakes’.”
You know what subtlety is?
“Hang on, lemme me be serious for a sec,” said Pinkie, putting her hooves out on Rarity’s shoulders. “Or, no wait—I’ll be Pinkie, you can be serious! But that’s not important. What is important is you being all snoopy about asking stuff when it’d really be easier to just ask. It must be a secret. Is it a secret? If it is, I understand. Unless...” She scrunched up her nose. “Is it a bad secret? Bad secrets are bad. You shouldn’t keep those.”
There was a truth to her words, a clarity not usually heard from Pinkie. And yes, they were words that spoke deeply to Rarity’s inner gossip, and therein lay the problem; was this something she should even be investigating? The cake, the pie, they could both have been placed in the library for perfectly reasonable, not-suspicious reasons at all! By doing this—by coming here and talking to Pinkie, wasn’t Rarity invading Twilight’s privacy in unacceptable ways? If things were happening in the way she now thought they were, and were being kept secret for good reasons, wouldn’t prying make things worse in the long-run?
But then again, if Pinkie is practically asking me to ask her—
And before she could have second thoughts, she blurted it out.
“AreyouandTwilightdating?”
There. The words were out, unbidden, unrehearsed. Rarity jumped at her own forwardness and her hooves flew up to her mouth.
“Uh,” said Pinkie. “Rarity, are you okay? Where’d you get an idea like that?”
“Oh, Pinkie, do forgive me. I might have been a little overzealous in identifying the signs for what they were, nothing more. My imagination simply ran away with me.” She heaved a great sigh. “Me, assuming such scandalous things between you and Twilight!”
To think that I could imagine you and Twilight fillyfooling—
“Sure, I can totally imagine that too,” said Pinkie, her face brightening considerably. “But I’m not dating Twilight.”
“You can too? …W-Wait, you’re not?”
A treacherous blush crept across her cheeks as she asked herself how Pinkie could have possibly came to the same conclusion—No! Focus!
“But you just said you’d made a cake for somepony special—somepony you loved, and…”
“Ohhh,” went Pinkie. “No, you silly-willy! I made that cake for Gummy!”
“But—but you said you loved…?”
“Of course I love him! Don’t you love Opalescence?”
“Well yes, but—context! What was I supposed to think without context?”
“That making Gummy’s favorite cake and throwing him a Hearts and Hooves Day party was a super awesome idea?”
“I meant the cake in the library!” huffed Rarity, now thoroughly red in the face.
“There’s a cake in the library?”
“Yes!”
Hurriedly Rarity explained the situation, while Pinkie went back to stirring in the last of the ingredients, albeit slower, more thoughtful. It was easy for her to see where Rarity was coming from. The cake sure sounded like something only she could have made. As for the pie, well! Pie was her name, after all.
“But I haven’t made any cakes for Twilight. Or any pies. And I haven’t delivered anything to the library either, so if there’s a cake and stuff there, it didn’t come from here. Who sent them?”
“That’s exactly what I’d like to know.” Rarity dug into her saddlebags and removed a scroll of parchment, unfurling it in the air. “This is only a rough sketch—I do dresses better than cakes, naturally—but the shape should be right.”
Pinkie whistled. “And it’s as big as the Super Frost-o-Thon 8000?”
“What’s the… yes. Yes, it is. And I came to you because you’re the only pony in Ponyville who
could possibly make such a thing.”
But to Rarity’s surprise, Pinkie shook her head vigorously. “Nuh-uh! Applejack could make a cake like that!”
“She can? Since when?”
“Since I taught her how, silly! And I’ll bet anything she could’ve made a pie like that way before she met me. It’s a pecan pie, right? She’d be even better than me at whipping that up!”
While Rarity was busy digesting that notion—and all the impossible possibilities it opened up—Mrs. Cake poked her head through the door that led to the main store. The sounds of chaos rumbled from behind her, ponies clamoring at the register. Her smile was tired, but happy.
“Pinkie, you’ve been a blessing. The sale’s almost over.”
“Already?”
“We’ve worked you too hard as is, dear. After you get this last batch out, go and take the rest of the day off—Yes, I’m coming! Hold your hippos!” The door swung shut behind her again.
“Woooee!” cheered Pinkie, dancing around. “Didja hear that, Rarity? I get to come along and help you talk to Applejack!”
“There’s no need to trouble yourself,” Rarity assured Pinkie, a worried edge creeping into her voice. “I’m sure I can handle this on my own.”
Pinkie, however, grinned with anticipation. “I’m sure you can! But I wanna see that cake and pie, too! We’ll figure out who sent them to Twilight, together!”
Oh dear. This won’t end well…
“Just let me finish my song and I’ll be right with you!”
As before, she gathered up all her bowls of ingredients and hopped on the nearest rope and swung over to the next line of waiting trays and molds and poured out all the contents of the bowls, including the green bowl, which apparently had been a batch of brownies—
“The life of a baker’s a passion play!
We can’t get hung up on our woes!”
Neither Rarity or Pinkie had noticed anything amiss. Maybe if Pinkie hadn’t been singing so passionately, she’d have noticed the strange white streaks in the batter. On the way back to the ovens, she dumped all the dirty bowls in the sink. The oven doors swung open—
“Don’t even think about tooth decay!
Would you like that for here or to go?”
I really must ask sometime where she practiced her coordination—Baked things were removed, and Pinkie vaulted over the counter and shoved them into the Super Frost-o-Thon 8000—
“Ooooooh, what a wonderful wonderful fabulous waaaaay~”
—vaulting back over the counter and new things shoved in to bake, dials set on low, and—
“To spend your Hearts and Hooves Day!”
Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap!
“Wooooo! Even better time! Okay, I’m ready to go now!”
** ** **
While the two of them were sneaking off down the side streets, Mrs. Cake pushed through the crowds onto the front porch and swung a covered wooden tub off her back, setting it down before her. The customers milled around, restless. The ones still inside clustered around the windows and watched.
“Everypony! Sugarcube Corner would like to thank you for your patronage, but due to unexpected demand, the destruction of several chairs, and the mysterious disappearance of our kitchen staff, the sale is over for today!”
A collective groan went up from the crowd. “No fair, I want in! I’m hungry!” came the whiny voice of a mare from somewhere in the back rows. There was a rumbling of assent, and with it Mrs. Cake smelled the danger, and the impending mutiny of her customers. She’d prepared for this.
“We’re not closing! All we’re doing is going back to our normal prices. Well,” she added, mopping her forehead, “we’ll reopen. After I’ve had a moment to collect myself. For now, will everypony please step forward and take one of these?” She whipped the cover off the wooden tub; it was filled to the brim with little packets of chocolate powder. “Come back later and show yours at the register. Each one is good for one free cupcake!”
The crowd raised a cheer and everypony surged forwards. Mrs. Cake worked her way back into Sugarcube Corner, stepping around the last of the ponies rushing out to claim a packet, and complimented herself on a good job well done—
“Oh! Hello, Macintosh. Cheerilee. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”
“Eenope!”
Hmm. Odd. Not only were they sitting at a table together, but they were unmistakably holding hooves… holding hooves quite fondly. Cheerilee had a sort of wide-eyed glee in her eyes she’d never had before. Macintosh too.
It reminded Mrs. Cake of herself and Mr. Cake, but… different somehow. Well, nevermind, it wasn’t her place to judge love. These two could be served, she had time enough for that.
“Can I get you two dears anything? Hayshake?”
Cheerilee gazed lovingly into Macintosh’s big, green eyes. “Hayshake, Schnookims?”
“Eeyup!”
** ** **
Unsurprisingly, the market was packed, too.
A traveling amusement troupe had taken advantage of all the bored couples wandering around by setting up a midway arcade among all the usual asparagus sellers and party supply providers. All the classics were present and accounted for: water cannons and ring tosses, milk-bottle tosses, horseshoe tosses, cabbage tosses, pop the balloon—“What a waste of good balloons!” whined Pinkie—a few classic arcade games—Changeling Invaders! Luna Lander! Dragon’s Lair!—and an especially complicated machine where participants bet on which cardboard cutout Wonderbolt would race to the end of the circuit first. Pinkie lost a few bits on that one.
Between all the games and the jam tasting contest, and Pinkie’s insistence they find Mr. Cake and inform him of the sale’s cancellation, it took ages for them to finally find Applejack. She was slouching behind the counter of her stall with her chin resting on her hoof, idly working on a crossword puzzle. Ponies passed her by, but none of them even glanced at the half-full basket of apples set in front of her.
One booth over, Rarity pulled Pinkie aside behind a basket of cabbages.
“Now remember, we’re not going to assume anything. We’re just here to chat with her.”
“Alrighty!”
“Here’s what we’ll do.” Rarity chose her words carefully. “Instead of what I did last time, this time there will be no dancing around the issue. I’ll come right out and ask her about the cake.
“Okie-Doki!”
“But!” Rarity emphasized, “we will try to avoid accusing her of anything. Not until we have heard it from her own mouth, okay?”
“And Applejack’s word is the best of anypony!” answered Pinkie, completely missing the point. Rarity cast her eyes skyward, hoping again this would go without a hitch.
“Just let me do the talking, alright?”
“Okay!”
The pep talk over, Rarity and Pinkie approached the Applecart. Sensing hoofsteps nearing her, Applejack glanced up in expectation of customers. Her pencil hung limply from her lips, scarred and pockmarked from where she’d been nibbling on it.
“Howdy, girls! Just in time, too.” She frowned down at her crossword. “I need a ten letter word for, uh… ‘The general director of an opera company.’ Third letter’s a ‘p’, eighth letter’s—”
“Impresario.”
“Thanks.” Applejack chuckled brightly. “So how’s your day been?”
“Uneventful, so far.” Rarity looked around. “Your stall seems awfully quiet, considering all the commotion today.”
“That’s just the thing, they ain’t after the regular ol’ stuff today. What I got’s apples. What they want’s a frilly box’a sugar-coated flowers an’ a card written up by some fifth-rate poet who don’t know reality from his own backside.”
“Have you managed to sell anything?”
“I had a few bushels of candy apples. Sold out ages ago.”
“Aww,” moaned Pinkie.
“Don’t look at me, it took all day to sell ‘em last year. Carnival’s got everypony in the wrong mood for grocery shoppin’—least it gives me somethin’ else to watch.”
She threw a glance over to a milk-bottle-toss game a few stalls away from hers. A determined, gangly pegasus wiped the sweat from his brow and wound up for another toss, while his unicorn coltfriend looked on in wide-eyed admiration. The prize was an enormous Luna plushie.
“Poor sucker. He’s thrown fifteen games in a row fer that thing.” She turned back to her friends. “Anyways, what can I getcha? Gold Delicious? Honeycrisp?”
“Actually dear, we’re here because we were hoping you could help clear something up.”
“I’m all ears.”
Rarity opened her mouth to start explaining, but Pinkie, being Pinkie, got there first.
“Rarity says there’s a mysterious cake in the library and she doesn’t know who left it there and Twilight’s gone so we can’t ask her and I don’t remember making a cake for her so we thought maybe you made it instead. And there’s a pie, too,” she added as an afterthought. Didn’t even need to breathe.
Instead of attempting to comprehend what Pinkie was describing, Applejack turned to Rarity and waited expectantly.
“It’s quite the cake,” Rarity commented, digging out the same sketch she’d shown Pinkie. Applejack spread it out on the countertop and examined the drawing while Rarity filled her in on the fine details.
“Well it sounds right impressive, but how d’you know it’s a gift for Twilight? Ain’t this exactly the sorta thing Spike might do for you?”
“Ooooh!” went Pinkie. “That makes sense!”
“It would, but Spike’s day planner said he was to be gone all weekend starting today. If he went through all that effort to give me such a grandiose present—well, surely he would have found a way to deliver it to the Boutique before he caught his train?”
“That’s a fair point,” Applejack conceded. “But if Spike didn’t make it, who did?”
“Did you make it?” said Pinkie. “I already said I didn’t make the cake or pie, so that just leaves you!”
“Sorry, but I don’t remember takin’ an order for a cake that size—”
“I didn’t say anything about an order!” squealed Pinkie. “Why did you say order, huh? Or are you saying it wasn’t an order because you wanted to make it forrmmph!”
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” asked Rarity, her hoof clamped down over Pinkie’s mouth. She dragged her struggling pink friend over behind the cabbages while Applejack watched, bewildered.
Rarity pulled her hoof away and Pinkie gasped for air. “What was that for? Am I doing it wrong?”
“Yes,” said Rarity, firm but patient.
“...Oh. I’m sorry.” Pinkie’s ears drooped a bit. Rarity put her hoof out and raised Pinkie’s chin.
“Pinkie, we’ve already talked about this, remember? You need to let me lead with the questions.”
“But it’s no fun if I don’t get to say anything!” She stuck out her lower lip and pouted. “Why can’t I ask the questions too?”
“Because you tend to be tangential, and we can’t be tangential about this. We’re treading on delicate ground. It requires finesse.”
Pinkie stared blankly at her.
Hmm. How can I phrase this in a way she’ll understand?
“Try to see it this way.” Rarity paused, once again considering her word choice carefully. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened in the bakery. If I ask the questions in the right way, and if we’re wrong, I should still be able to make it sound like a misunderstanding. But if we’re right, then they must be keeping it a secret because they’re unsure of how we’d react. If that’s the case, then I can at least hint to Applejack that we approve, and she should feel confident telling us.”
“So if I’m subtle, I can ask questions too?”
“Umm—” But before she could formulate an answer, Pinkie proceeded on her own tangent.
“If it’s such an important secret to them, shouldn’t we let them keep it?”
“Not if they’re keeping it because they think we might be ashamed of their relationship,” Rarity answered. “They shouldn’t feel like they have to hide it in front of us. We’re their friends!
Pinkie’s eyes practically lit up with sudden understanding. “Ohhhh! I get it!” She giggled. “You’ve sure thought about this a lot!”
“I consider myself well-versed in the romantic ways of thinking.” Rarity gave her mane a little self-satisfied toss. “In any case, the happiness of our friends is what’s most important.”
Of course, whispered a little voice of reason in the back of Rarity’s head, I’m not one-hundred percent sure they are dating yet. One minor slip-up about cake orders does not a confession make… another reason why I should ask the questions and not Pinkie.
Applejack eyed the two ponies curiously as they reappeared. “What was that all about?”
“Oh, nothing important. I was just wondering—”
“I think we all know what’s going on, Applejack,” said Pinkie, slyly sidling up besides Rarity and leaning waaaay over the counter. “It’s alright, you can tell us!”
“Pinkie!” Rarity snapped, “I thought I just told you—”
“Relax, I’ve got this!” In what she thought was a coy gesture, she raised an eyebrow. “C’mon AJ, we’re all friends here. Has it been going on for a long time? Are you still just holding hooves with Twilight, or is it already like one of Rarity’s trashy romance novels?”
Rarity facehoofed as hard as she could.
I give up.
“My… my novels are not trashy,” she growled between clenched teeth. “They are descriptive.”
“What in the hay are you two on about?”
“You know what I mean!” said Pinkie. “Holding hooves! Where you… you know, where you take Twilight to somewhere private, and you’ve brought lunch, and you sit down together and eat, just the two of you. And you just, you know, you hold hooves. And talk. For hours—”
“That’s not what happens in those kinds of stories.”
“Really?” said Pinkie. “Then what does?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Pinkie nodded furiously.
“Well! If you must know…” Rarity took a deep breath. “They would lay down in the grass after that big meal and snuggle together under the sunlight. And then one of them, it doesn’t matter who, looks into the others eyes and realizes—guess what!—it’s the perfect moment! There’s never going to be a more perfect moment, because love isn’t about waiting for the right moment, it’s about learning to live in the moment!”
Rarity went on, throwing in more and more dramatic flair with each sentence. “You’d start out small, little kisses here and there, sometimes along the neck, sometimes not, and she’s already wearing your hat too, by the way. You gave it to her to calm her down, because let’s face it, she’s going to be nervous during her first time, and you wouldn’t want her to be nervous, would you? You’d sit there gently kissing her, easing her along, whispering I love you, and all those other things she’d need to hear—and then she’d take the initiative! She’d lunge up and bite your ear, and you’d squeal with delight, and you’d both tumble in the grass, and nature would take its course.”
“Oh,” said Pinkie. She turned to Applejack. “So yeah, are you doing that?”
Before either Rarity or Pinkie could go any further with their elaborate fantasies, Applejack slammed her hooves down on the countertop. Her face was as red as the Red Delicious apples in her basket. She attempted to compose a polite way of saying what needed to be said. She failed. She tried again.
“You two,” she said with deadly calm. “Would one of you kindly explain why you’ve both got cud drippin’ outta your mouths?”
“I will try. But before I do—” Rarity whipped around at Pinkie. “I asked—no, begged you to be subtle! Why did you ask her that?”
“I only asked if they were holding hooves. You asked me if I was dating her!”
Feeling ignored again, Applejack spoke up.
“Will somepony pleeeease tell me what the heck’s goin’ on?”
“Sure!” chirped Pinkie. “All we’re doing is asking if you’re dating Twilight! And why you made that cake so big, but now I actually know why. You wanted to share it with her. It was gonna improve her stamina for tonight.”
Applejack’s eye twitched.
“Let me make this very clear for the both of y’all. I. Did. NOT. Make Twilight. A cake.”
“Or a pie?”
“Or a pie. Why in the heck would you think...?—look, I ain’t. That’s all there is to it.” She crossed her heart and stuck an imaginary cupcake in her eye.
Pinkie lunged over the counter and smothered Applejack in a hug.
“I’m sooorreee!” she wailed. “We didn’t mean to make you ma-ha-haaad!”
Applejack reached up and awkwardly patted Pinkie on the back, not sure how to respond. She gave Rarity a strained smile. “What kinda books have you been readin’, anyway?”
A few minutes later, after everypony had calmed down a bit and Pinkie’s tears had long-since dried, they all gathered around the sketch of the cake.
“So it appears outta nowhere in Twilight’s room. No card, no nothin’, but it’s definitely a gift for her.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, yes.”
“Why do you need to know who made her the cake?”
“Oooh, I know this one!” said Pinkie, waving her hoof in the air. “‘Cause if she’s having a secret relationship, she shouldn’t have to be keeping it a secret!”
Applejack turned that thought over in her head.
“...Huh. That’s pretty deep stuff, Pinkie. Not bad.”
Rarity coughed. “We’ve reached a dead end, though. You and Pinkie were the only ponies capable of making such a cake, and since neither of you did—”
“Brick wall, nothin’. I wanna look at this cake.”
Applejack stuffed the half-full basket of apples under the counter, hung a CLOSED sign over the top of her stall, then went trotting briskly down the thoroughfare. Pinkie and Rarity hurried to keep up.
“You’re just going to leave?”
“Well if you two’ve got so much free time, then I sure ain’t gonna waste the rest’ve the day sittin’ around doing crosswords. ‘Sides,” she added, “If y’all are gonna keep up this whole ‘interrogation’ thing, somepony’s gotta be there to rein you in.”
“Woooo!” cheered Pinkie, bouncing along in step. “I get to see the cake! I get to see the cake!”
“And I get to have a headache,” moaned Rarity.
Meanwhile, amidst all the laughing and merrymaking of all the ponies enjoying the pleasures of the day, a gangly pegasus colt shyly hoofed over a giant stuffed Luna plushie to his blushing coltfriend. They shared a brief, public kiss, and happily trotted off together.
** ** **
“—swear, of course I don’t really imagine you and Twilight doing those things—”
“I already told ya, relax. I’m over it. D’you really think I didn’t get through school without bein’ accused of that stuff a few times?”
“Well…” Rarity stared down at her hooves. “I didn’t want to say anything, but you and Rainbow both… you know?”
Applejack shrugged. “If we were, would it change who we are?”
“Of course not! And if I happened to be so inclined, it wouldn’t change who I am, either.”
“It wouldn’t, but it’d surprise me a fair bit,” she muttered under her breath. “And Pinkie?”
Rarity spared a glance over at Pinkie, bouncing along and humming a tune, oblivious to their conversation. “Somehow, I don’t think she really cares about trifles like gender.”
As it had been before, the door was unlocked. That wasn’t a great surprise—it was a public library, after all—but as they all learned when Applejack called out for Twilight, nopony was home, and yet the lamps were still lit. It felt odd, being in an empty library with the lamps still lit.
“Should we be doin’ this?” asked Applejack as they stepped over the threshold. “It can’t be right to snoop around while she’s out.”
“We’re not snooping!” said Pinkie, already bounding up the stairs to Twilight’s room. “It’s not snooping if what we’re snooping for doesn’t need to be snooped out! Right?”
“I suppose so,” Rarity murmured, thinking.
“Somethin’ on your mind?”
Rarity stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Yes. I’m finding it hard to believe that we’ve exhausted all the possibilities for who could have made Twilight that cake.”
“Well, we kinda have,” Applejack explained. “Bon-Bon could’ve, but she’s best at hard candy and I don’t think she an’ Twilight get along. Golden Harvest could’ve done the pie, but cakes aren’t her thing… an’ I’d rule out Lilly, ‘cause she only loves fruitcakes.”
“Hmm. I suppose that would rule out a few options.” Rarity shook off those thoughts and motioned for Applejack to follow. “I don’t like the idea of Pinkie being alone with that cake. Come along.”
As they stepped into Twilight’s room, Rarity heard Applejack gasp beside her.
“Holy horseapples, I even knew about the cake an’ I weren’t expectin’ it to look like that—uh, what’s Pinkie...?”
Contrary to Rarity’s fears, Pinkie was being very professional about “seeing the cake.” She’d produced a pencil and pad of paper, and was busy scribbling down a series of calculations. Rarity peeked over her shoulder, but couldn’t make heads or tails of the mess of numbers and letters. She opened her mouth to ask what she was doing; Pinkie hissed for quiet.
“I’ve taken down the diameter of the cake’s bottom layer and I’m using that to calculate the density of the batter.”
Rarity blinked. “What would that tell you?”
“The baking time. But I don’t need to know the baking time to know this thing was made by a genius.” She pointed at the cake with her pencil. “It’s real thick. Too long in the oven and it’ll burn. Too short and it’ll be raw in the middle, and it would’ve fallen apart.” Pinkie glanced back at the cake and licked her lips. “What I’d really like to do is take a core sample, buuuut…”
“I’m sure Twilight appreciates your restraint.”
“It’s okay, I’m almost done!” Pinkie jumped up the steps and onto the landing where Twilight’s bed was. “All I’ve gotta do now is get a good look at it from above and—”
Rarity and Applejack heard Pinkie let out the same kind of exaggerated, elongated gasp she usually saved for meeting new ponies and other such special occasions.
“What is it? What did you find?”
Her head popped over the edge of the landing. “Guys, guys, get up here and lookit this!”
Sitting in the center of Twilight’s bed, where Rarity was sure there had been nothing earlier, lay a book and a bouquet of lavenders. The lavenders were very fresh, the little petals still damp with dew. Rarity brushed the flowers off the book and read the title aloud.
“Daring Do and the Indigo Prophecy.”
“Fancy,” said Applejack.
An understatement. It ticked all the boxes for ‘fancy.’ Velvet-bound, hardcover, printed on thick, high-quality paper. Rarity flipped open the cover. On the very first page, A. K. Yearling was scrawled in blue ink. Below that, in the corner, there was a stamp in tiny print. Rarity leaned in and squinted.
No. 12 of 100
“Well.”
“Well,” said Applejack.
“Well, what?” demanded Pinkie. “We all know what this means, right?”
Rarity and Applejack shared a glance of equal cluelessness.
“What’s it mean, sugarcube?”
“Rainbow Dash gave Twilight everything!”
Another glance. “What, just ‘cause she likes these books?”
“Yeah!”
Rarity sank down onto the other bed—the one meant for guests—and massaged her aching head. “I really must give you a lesson in logical reasoning sometime, Pinkie.”
“I’m with Rare on this one,” said Applejack. “Yeah, Rainbow likes Darin’ Do an’ all, but that’s no reason to think she gave that thing to Twilight.”
“It’s a perfect reason! Only an obsessed fan like Rainbow would know how to get her hooves on something like this! I can see it now—she came back from the hospital and borrowed all of Twilight’s Daring Do books and started reading them, one after another, and they were so good she wanted to read them again right away! So she came to the library on a rainy day and sat down and started reading, and Twilight was there too, and…”
Applejack and Rarity watched in horrified fascination as Pinkie started laying the foundation of a complicated and epic tale that, in practically no time at all, shamed Rarity’s own misguided attempt at pairing Applejack with Twilight. All over a mutual love of books.
“She’s lost to us,” Applejack deadpanned.
“She’s a quick study, even if I’m not completely sure she knows what she’s talking about,” said Rarity, ears burning from the descriptions Pinkie was offering up in the background. “At least, I hope not. She raises an interesting point, though. Rainbow might not have sent the book or any of these other things to Twilight, but she might know how one might go about getting a book like this.”
Applejack nodded slowly. “I think I see where you’re goin’ with this. Cake, pie, you can order those. Flowers, anypony can get anypony flowers. But since the book’s special, maybe Rainbow can help narrow down who sent it.”
“We’re in agreement, then? Flowers, cake, romantic gestures of any color, they don’t fit Rainbow’s style.”
“Nope. I’d imagine a Hearts an’ Hooves gift from her bein’ slightly more… Physical.”
Applejack’s cheeks had turned an uncommon maidenly pink. Rarity smirked and bopped her lightly on the nose.
“You naughty girl. I see Pinkie and I aren’t the only ones with overactive imaginations.”
Applejack’s blush deepened. “S-So, we’re lookin’ for Rainbow now, right?”
“Of course,” Rarity crooned sweetly.
“W-Well then what’re we waitin’ for? Time’s a-wastin’!”
Applejack snatched Pinkie around the waist—“Hey! I was just getting to the good part!”—raced down the steps and bolted out the front door.
Rarity, chuckling quietly to herself, smoothed over the sheets, put the book and lavenders back in their original places, and followed.
** ** **
Somewhere in Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle looked up from her book and felt a cold shiver of unbidden, unexpected dread.
“I must be imagining things,” she muttered, shaking her head.
She turned to the next page and quickly forgot all about the odd feeling and all the troubles it foreshadowed.
