Respondez Everypony, Sil Vous Plait
Party of Two
Cheese Sandwich had the definite sense that he was being followed. Scratch that—they were being followed. Half a dozen ponies were tracking him and Pinkie Pie, right down the center street of Ponyville, and it was making him nervous.
“Not that I know a lot about it, Pinkie,” said Cheese, dropping his head so it was on a level with hers and speaking under his breath, “but I thought that Hearts and Hooves Day was something you did with a special somepony and not with a crowd.”
A pair of big blue eyes –so very big, and so very blue—met his, wide with surprise. “Really? Because there was the year I started out spending it just with Gummy, because everypony else had something else to do, and that wasn’t so fun,” she said, as they trotted past Sofas N Quills. “I guess Big Mac and Cheerilee did sorta spend it mostly with a special somepony once, and they wouldn’t stop talking about it, and Mrs. Cake said they wouldn’t even order, but eventually the love poison wore off, only it took Big Mac a long time to pay for all the repairs. And I had fun too that time with Gummy once he decided we should throw a big party and everypony in town decided to come.” She glanced behind her and squeaked, “Oo! Look, Cheesie!”
Half a dozen ponies had become a dozen, and more were gathering behind them as they trotted down the street. Now that she’d noticed them, it was a lost cause. It was going to be a party, whether he liked it or not. The super-duper-iest, pinkest, most perfect party pony of them all was trotting beside him, and he was going to have to share her, because literally everypony in town was her best friend.
It was their own unique kind of magic: a pair of party ponies were always going to have waves of happiness rolling off them, reaching out to everypony they passed, through doors and windows and even through the walls, beckoning them to drop what they were doing and join in the fun. The happier they were, the stronger the magic, and he didn’t know about Pinkie, but he’d been exceptionally happy, right before his plans for the day were scuttled.
Cheese mentally kicked himself. It was his own fault. He’d dropped by Sugarcube Corner very casually, as though he just happened to be passing through, as though he hadn’t made a special trip from Canterlot just to be there. He’d waited around until there were absolutely no customers, scrutinizing every jar of candy in the place as though it were fascinating, and asked if she happened to be doing anything for Hearts and Hooves Day, and if not, did she want to spend it with him, and she’d squeaked and said yes, grabbed a box of cupcakes, and off they went. At the time, he’d congratulated himself on how easy it all was, but now he realized that he should have asked her to be his very special somepony and said that it was, well, a date. He should have spat it out! Something about her turned him back into the tongue-tied colt he’d been so long ago, and he’d rubber-chickened out.
As they rounded Town Hall, Cheese noticed more ponies joining them, and realized that they were all joining two by two. Something about their party pony magic was combining with the magic of Hearts and Hooves Day, making sure everypony had a special somepony and that nopony was alone today. He could tell from the delighted expression on her face and the bounciness of her gait that Pinkie had noticed this, too. Old married couples and young ones; mares, stallions, or both; couples who had been together since forever, couples who hadn’t been couples before Pinkie and Cheese trotted by a few minutes ago, and even a few who were already part of other couples and who had to do a lot of explaining later on were inviting themselves along.
Well, if it was going to be a party after all, he was in the best company for it, wasn’t he? He looked over at Pinkie, her fuchsia mane looking particularly puffy, and if she wasn’t exactly his Pinkie, she was the filly who had made him the party pony he was. She was already wearing a one-pony band suit and beginning the first few bars of a march, and now he was wearing one too, happily trying to outdo her as they oompahed everypony out of town along with them and up a hill to a Hearts and Hooves Day party everypony later agreed was epic. The fondue, punch and cake materialized in a seemingly never ending flow and disappeared almost as quickly; couples danced fast, danced slow, danced until they simply couldn’t dance any more. As the evening wore on, more and more of them made their way off down the hill, smiling and leaning on each other as though in a daze.
Night had fallen long ago, the moon had risen, the party was over, and it was time to put everything away. There was no doubt that he and Pinkie had made so many other ponies happy. It truly had been the best Hearts and Hooves Day ever, thought Cheese, only—if only—
“Pinkie,” he said hesitantly, “is it always going to be like this?”
Pinkie paused midway through making an entire table of goodies go away in the way only he and Pinkie knew how to do, and sat back on her haunches. “Like what?”
“Like this,” Cheese said, waving his hoof around at streamers, balloons, trombones, party hats and the soap bubble maker. “Parties. All the time.”
Pinkie drooped, poking at the ground with one hoof. “Aw,” she said, disappointment crammed into one syllable. “I thought you were enjoying throwing parties with me. I thought you were happy.”
Great. Now I’ve made everything worse. Good job, Cheese. “I did!” he reassured her hastily, dropping a bundle of streamers. “I was! I am! But—but—I wanted to be happy just with you and nopony else.” Hearts and Hooves Day, he thought, and it’s nearly over. Oh, well. It was probably too much to expect.
She trotted over and said shyly, in a quiet voice her friends would barely have recognized, “you mean like this?” She rose up on the very tipmost part of her hooves and kissed him on the cheek.
The very last party guest, on his way down the hill, briefly wondered why there were two pink ponies in the moonlight.
Author's Note
Evidently, I am not all CheesePie'd out. This was written for a Hearts and Hooves Day contest on DeviantArt, but there can never be too much CheesePie.
