Speak Now, And Forever Hold Your Peace
Cheese Sandwich was somewhere between Baltimare and Dodge Junction when he started to feel the mass destruction of pony happiness, and his Cheesy Sense went haywire. He knew every other party pony in Equestria was feeling it, too. He didn’t know how many of them there were: probably four or five at most, and all the ones he had met were Earth Ponies. They wandered Equestria, throwing birthday parties, juggling, telling jokes, or playing musical instruments. What they were really doing was maintaining Joy, a powerful and underrated magical force. It was literally true: funny was serious business.
He rarely ran into any other party ponies, since there was really no need for more than one at any place at a time. There wasn’t any Party Pony Council: the idea of organizing funny would have been laughable. There certainly weren’t any instructions. They learned the rules as they lived them: never to use their abilities to profit themselves or hurt other ponies; never to accept more than they needed; to travel lightly, give freely, and to spread happiness wherever they went.
Right now, they were down in their numbers. Losing his mentor, The Great Ponyacci, had hurt him personally, but losing Ponyacci’s party pony magic was a devastating blow, and nopony had stepped up to take his place. If somepony had, Cheese would have felt it.
And then there was Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie was in a class by herself.
As happiness fell to critical levels, his Cheesy Sense began to pull him in a dozen different directions at once. Fillydelphia, Canterlot, Vanhoover: happiness was tanking in all of them, one after another. Manehattan went, and he worried about his parents in Bayroan. He felt Appleloosa go, and barely had time to think, “oh, no, Braeburn,” before Las Pegasus started to pull at him too. It got to the point where he was literally chasing his own tail.
After that, something went hideously wrong. He felt as though his insides were being sucked out, along with all his party pony magic. He crawled behind a rock, threw up, and huddled there, hiding from whatever it was that could negate all the happiness in the world.
Then, just like that, everything went right again. Every city in Equestria snapped back to normal. The thought came to him out of nowhere: She’s done it. They’ve done it. All the happiness that had been gone came rolling back, doubled and tripled. He rose: he felt the earth under his hooves bubbling and the air shining with Joy. He was already trotting briskly on his way when a rainbow brushed past him in a full six note chord, and he couldn’t help but blow his noisemaker in a return salute. They’ve done it. Whatever it is.
He couldn’t remember an afternoon more blissful than this one; at least, not an afternoon when he’d been alone. Party ponies lived for times like this, when they could ride the currents of happiness as surely as Pegasi could ride the wind. Hours and hours went by in a blur.
A Pegasus with a mail carrier bag trotted out from behind a tree. “Are you Cheese Sandwich? Letter for you.”
He already knew who it had to be from, but he was still delighted when it exploded in a burst of confetti before he could finish opening it up. He eagerly grabbed the letter inside with his teeth, and held it down with one hoof so it wouldn’t blow away while he read it.
Dear Cheesie:
I'm sorry. I lost Boneless.
He sat down suddenly and swallowed hard. Boneless, his rubber chicken, had been Pinkie’s to begin with. He’d been a gift she’d given to Cheese as freely as she gave everything, and when he gave him back to her, she was also free to do entirely as she liked with him. If Pinkie had done something with Boneless, then she must have had her reasons. Still, knowing that his only childhood friend was gone forever came as a blow. He continued to read:
I threw him at a box, and the box exploded. Don't worry, though, because now he’s part of Twilight's cool new castle, and I'll totally let you sit in my amazing new chair the next time you're in Ponyville, only you might want to bring a pillow because it gets kinda hard and cold if you sit in it too long.
Your friend,
Pinkie Pie
PS: Don’t worry. I am ok.
He glanced up. The Pegasus mailpony was still standing there.
“Boy! It has been one heck of a week, hasn’t it?”
“It sure has,” agreed Cheese. He added, “What happened, exactly?”
The Pegasus’ eyes bugged out. “You mean you don’t know?”
Cheese indicated the landscape around him, which was totally devoid of houses, shops, newsstands, and other ponies. “I’ve been out here the whole time. You mind filling me in?”
The mailpony seemed eager to talk, and talk he did. At the end of it, a lot of the details were still fuzzy, and in some ways, he didn’t learn much he didn’t already know from what his Cheesy Sense had told him. Something had been destroying happiness, and Pinkie and her friends had stopped it. It sounded as though at some point, for just a moment, everypony had caught a glimpse of Pinkie as she truly was: pure Joy, improbably and scarcely confined within the body of a small, cheerful pink mare. The inhabitants of Ponyville, he thought for the thousandth time, had no idea what they had living amongst them.
“Um,” said the mailpony, shifting from leg to leg, and pulling Cheese from his thoughts, “I’ve got to be moving along.”
“All right,” said Cheese.
“No, I mean, I don’t know how. I was trotting along in Canterlot, and all of a sudden here I am in the middle of nowhere carrying a letter with a Ponyville return address, and I have no idea where I am or how to get back.”
“Oh, that’s easy! Just go back the way you came.” The mailpony gave him a dubious look, and he realized that he was going to have to explain. “Trot back exactly in the direction you came from and you’ll be exactly where you were. Just don’t think about it too hard. Trust me.”
The mailpony shook his head, but turned around and began to trot away. Cheese barely noticed the sound of reality opening, folding, reshaping itself, and then snapping back the way it was before. Pinkie always sent mail that way.
Boneless was gone. That was hard to take in.
It was too late in the day to go much further. The sun would be down soon. It was time to make camp, build a fire, and then have a tough conversation.
“Boneless 2? You’d better sit down.”
~~~
“Pinkie sent a letter this afternoon. She says he’s part of a building.”
Cheese leaned against a log and watched sparks fly up from the fire. He always had the makings of a fire with him. He’d just pull out the busted stuff from the last couple of parties and explode a cigar on top of it. He opened two bottles of cider, one for Boneless 2, and one for himself. They had dinner: party dip, half a bag of chips, and stale cake. He hauled out his accordion. He played some polkas to cheer up Boneless 2, a touch of classical to remember Boneless 1 by, some tangos, because why not, and a few sentimental things, because he couldn’t help himself. Then he put the accordion away.
He knew he shouldn’t start talking about how he felt. Once he started, it was going to be impossible to stop. On the other hand, here he was, and Boneless was gone. Boneless had listened to much tougher stuff during his early years with Cheese. There was nopony around for miles and miles, except for Boneless 2. Talking was a way of honoring Boneless, and if he were ever going to do it, tonight would be the night. He took a deep breath.
“Did I ever tell you how I met Boneless? Well . . .”
~~~
He’d gone into Ponyville the first time as a miserable runaway colt, and he’d left with powerful magic, his cutie mark, and Boneless. Pinkie Pie had made him, really. In the moment when he’d pushed up that jester’s cap, before he became a party pony himself, his eyes focused on Pinkie and his jaw dropped as he recognized Her, the radiant Bringer of Joy, the Laughter-Bearer, the Great She. She was also the cutest filly Cheese had ever seen: pink, with messy pink curls, and certainly not one he would ever have had the courage to talk to at school. She was a confusing, contradictory, and impossibly adorable package.
Then a great surge of pure happiness had hit him, and turned him into somepony and something completely different: a super duper party pony with some bizarre magical abilities, an insatiable drive to make other ponies laugh, and Cheesy Sense, an irresistible force that pulled him wherever he was needed. It just confirmed his mother’s opinion that he was a freak, but she’d never liked him much anyway. One good thing about being a party pony was that little things like that didn’t bother you, because you were exploding with Joy you wanted to share.
He didn’t expect to see that pink filly again, but if he ever did, he wanted to thank her. All he’d intended to do was someday to show her everything he’d learned: to say somehow, “here’s the gift you gave me. I’ve tried my best to make good use of it.” Of course, he’d screwed it up, but it had come out all right in the end. Giving Boneless to her seemed fitting, although he’d tried to make it seem as though it was no big deal. As he’d slid the box with Boneless in it over to her, he’d felt a sharp, emphatic “ksss-shk,” and deep inside him, a snap, as though something had locked shut. And that was it—a magical connection tying him and Pinkie together. Now he had two irresistible magical forces pulling at him: Cheesy Sense sending him wherever he was needed to plan a party and spread happiness, and a second, unnamable force pulling him back to Pinkie Pie. It was the second time she’d changed his life forever.
He wasn’t obsessed with the why and the how of things, like Pinkie’s friend Twilight Sparkle. Twilight had done a lot of reading and had tried to explain everything, talking about harmonic resonances and thaumaturgical anomalies and closed circuits until he had a splitting headache. Finally he’d massaged his temples with his hooves, sighed, and said, “Explaining the joke just kills it.”
~~~
“She’s the Living Spirit of Laughter,” murmured Cheese, and turned to Boneless 2. “I know, right? This is why I don’t talk to anypony about this stuff. They’d think I was a raving, screaming lunatic. I don’t know why I can see her as she is and nopony else does. Just seeing her once would have been enough for anypony.” He pushed a tub of dip over to the rubber chicken. “You want some more dip? You sure? ‘Cause I think we should finish this off.”
“My magic comes from hers,” he said through a mouthful of party dip. “It’s born from hers, and it fires from hers, and when Boneless went back to her, it started pulling me back to her and filling me with so much Joy that I can barely hold it all. I don’t think I’d admit this to a living pony, but just between you and me, it feels incredible.”
“So now,” he said, “wherever I go, I’m carrying my magic and some of hers, too. I do my best to pass it along the way she'd want me to, and I’m sure it’s made a lot of ponies a lot happier than if all her magic stayed in Ponyville. It’s an honor, and I’m lucky I met her. But it was a dumb move to fall in love with her.”
He let that thought hang in the air. “Yeah,” he said slowly, pushing back his hat. “I am. I really, really am.”
He fixed Boneless 2 with a sharp glare. “Don’t give me that look. I didn’t mean to do it. I tried my hardest not to. Why do you think I kept running away? The more time I spend with her, the more I like her. She’s sensible. I don’t have to hide things from her. I don’t have to explain things all the time. She’s the smartest pony I’ve ever met. She’s really sweet. We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve been there for her when she cried. Pinks is my best friend.”
“Ok,” he admitted, hoping that if nopony saw you blush, it didn’t count, “she’s really pink and cute and squeezable, and I could listen to her voice forever, and she smells amazing, like cotton candy or bubble gum. So by now, I can’t really blow it off as ‘oh, just a childhood crush,’ or ‘oh, it’s that Spirit of Laughter thing, and by the way, Cheese, you’re nuts.’ Because maybe I am, but I’m still sure I love her.”
He stretched out, looking up at the stars. “I don’t know why I’m unloading all this stuff on you tonight. But the great thing about rubber chickens is, you guys don’t judge.”
“It’s not getting better, either. The last time I saw her, I actually tried to kiss her, for pony’s sake! I don’t know what got into me. I wanted to so badly, but she’s Joy. She’s everypony’s. I should understand that better than anypony. Back on Hearts and Hooves Day, I tried to take her somewhere and the whole town invited itself along. It’s not right for her to be mine alone. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to wish, though, is it?”
He sighed, sat up, and stared into the fire for a long time.
“Boneless came to me, went back to her, and now he’s gone. He started it, he finished it, and so,” he lifted the bottle, “that connection with Pinkie comes to an end. Probably just as well. Can you imagine what would happen if she did get married and I was still carrying her magic? ‘Excuse me, honey, Cheese just got here and I have to charge him up. Back in a sec!’ Pssht. Yeah. That’d go over well. Couldn’t blame him, really.” He considered this. “Actually, yes, I could. Any stallion who didn’t trust Pinkie would have to be a total idiot.”
“Equestria’s about as full up on happiness tonight as it’s ever gonna be. I think I can have an hour or two to feel sorry for myself, don’t you?” He paused, then added, “yeah. You’re right. Big colts don’t cry, and party stallions don’t feel sorry for themselves.”
He yawned. “I’m turning in. Tomorrow, we didn’t have this conversation, ok? I’m an incredibly lucky pony. I like remembering the way she was the day she gave me Boneless: the day I first saw her. You know, that was the first time in my life I ever was really happy? Cross my heart and hope to fly.”
He took off his hat, puffed up his tail, and curled himself up on top of it, nose to tail. It wasn’t the way he normally slept when he was really comfortable. In fact, he usually only slept like that if he was cold or unhappy, but, he thought, it had been a stressful day. He was just drifting off when he heard Boneless 2 fall over with a squeak.
“What?” he muttered. His eye fell on the open letter, which he’d tucked under the log. “Hey, you’re right. There is some writing on the other side.”
He leaned over, squinting at it so he didn’t have to unpuff his tail and get up. He read:
PPS: I hope you're not too mad about Boneless.
“Of course I’m not mad about Boneless. She knows that.”
PPPS: The dip you've been eating has gone off and I wish you would throw it away.
“Huh.” He got up, picked up the container of dip, and sniffed at it. “Seems ok to me, Boneless 2. I think it’s got a couple of days still left in it, but if she says toss it, I’ll toss it.” He literally tossed it, straight up into the air, and it winked out of sight. Then he picked up the letter, puffed out his tail, and curled up on it again.
PPPPS: I do too.
He frowned. “I do too. I do, too? What’s that mean?” He thought for a moment, and then said, “Huh. Huh. You think?—nah. What does she say next?”
PPPPPS: Visit soon, 'k?
“Huh. Huh.” He rolled onto his back, sprawling, with all four legs in the air. It was actually a very warm night, wasn’t it? “Y’know, Boneless 2, tomorrow there are going to be parties all over Equestria. We’re going to be really busy. But,” he said, waving Pinkie’s letter, “orders are orders.”
He tucked the letter under his serape, and went to sleep.
Author's Note
Any Cheese Sandwich fan has to have been wondering how he’d feel when he learned about Boneless. As a bonus, you get a little bit more about party pony magic and Cheese’s in particular.
I was reading Jordan179’s Pinkie Sense and Sensibility, and I was stunned at how similar his thinking was on what is going on in the background with Pinkie—which I’d extend to Cheese. (See especially Chapter 2, and hang tight through the whole thing.) His story owes a lot more to HP Lovecraft than mine, i.e., his is like HP Lovecraft, and mine isn’t at all, but the esoteric underpinnings are surprisingly alike.
You didn’t know Cheese was such a mystic, did you? And just in case you're still in doubt: no, he's not nuts. He sees Pinkie for who she truly is.
