The Assistant

Fifteen minutes... It had been fifteen minutes since Cherilee had seen Pinkie Pie, taken her groceries home, and put them away before she was the able to head to the address listed on the paper Ponyville's local party pony had left for her. Yet, in those fifteen minutes, Pinkie had, of course, managed to exceed her own reputation... In regards to party planning, that is.

This was easily visible by Cherilee as she stood in the middle of, what she assumed to be, William's home, strewn with several streamers, balloons, party favors, and a large banner that read "Welcome to Ponyville!".

The usual Pinkie Pie welcome wagon, as years of experience had shown Cherilee.

Of course, by Pinkie standards, no party would be complete without ponies to enjoy it... Which she had gotten in surplus...

From what she could tell, there was a little more than a third of Ponyville stuffed into the house, some helping to set up decorations alongside the pink-furred party host, others making idle conversation with each other as they waited.

It never ceased to amaze the cerise school teacher how Pinkie would be able to do all this in such a short time--if not only how she would place most of the decorations before even the first guest arrived, but how she knew exactly how many ponies she should invite. For example, the house they were in itself wasn't particularly large; it was just about the size of her own, really.

Yet, it was mostly unfurnished, likely because of William's more recent move in, leaving a good bit of it empty and spacious. Cherilee could only guess that this was what Pinkie took into account, allowing her to be able to invite just the right amount of ponies to not only make a lively party, but to also make sure that it wouldn't be too cramped.

"That, or she just took a wild guess." Cherilee thought to herself, much more willing to lean towards this reason than the other.

Were she anywhere else, Cherilee would've taken a moment or two to glance around the pre-party ready home, taking a short tour so as to see what Ponyville's newest human had chosen as his new abode. But, unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to even take a single step before she was given a swift 'glad you could make it' from Pinkie Pie.

She barely even lifted a hoof once the door had closed behind her before, within a millisecond, a party hat was placed upon her head, somewhat flattening her mane; there was a sudden intrusion in her mouth in the shape of a party blower; a small spray of confetti and streamers rained upon her, and a familiar and smiling pink pony suddenly stood before her.

"Hiya again, Cherilee! I'm super duper glad you could make it!" She said cheerily.

Upon looking her over--that is, after recovering from her moment of shock--Cherilee took note of the fact that Pinkie just as well sported similar party favors as she had given to her, including the small bits of confetti in her mane, and of course the party hat.

A small part of her psyche flinched as she saw the string that held the party hat upon her head was stretched beyond belief, straining to keep the common party hat upon the impossible to keep down curly mane that was Pinkie Pie's.

Grabbing the party blower from her mouth using the fetlock of one of her forelegs, Cherilee freed her mouth up of tasks to talk.

"Oh, it's, um, no problem, Pinkie." She returned, her tone still in a slight aftershock. It was odd, really. She thought for sure that, by now, she would be used to Pinkie's actions.

Then again, was it really possible for anypony to be?

"Great! After all, this party wouldn't be nearly as fun if one of the first ponies to meet Willy wasn't here!"

'Willy?'

Cherilee decided to simply put this aside. Pinkie had a tendency for nicknaming, so this wasn't really much of a notable occurrence to account.

Then again, Pinkie hadn't even met the human yet, so one could say that this was also rather... preemptive.

"Well, he seems like a nice enough pon- oh, excuse me, person. It would just be rude for me not to help give him a proper welcome." Cherilee spoke with a smile, remembering the pleasant conversation and walk she had with the human not too long ago.

Pinkie nodded furiously at this, and just before she spoke up once more, her eyes widened, followed by a few twitches of her ear, and a slight kick of her left hind leg.

At first, Cherilee was willing to call this a sudden surge of the sugar that always held high power in Pinkie's systems... But then she remembered it was Pinkie Pie she was talking about, alongside a certain feature of hers that most ponies in Ponyville are careful to take heed of.

"Pinkie sense..." Cherilee realized within seconds, her nerves already beginning to grow tense at the thought of something, whatever it may be, occurring.

It's odd, but she could vaguely remember a time in which she had thought of the concept of 'Pinkie Sense' to be nothing more than a fabricated amalgamation of Pinkie's hyperactivity. Five potted plants falling near where she walked and a few doors opened into her face later, however, she was just as much a believer as anypony else.

"Ooh, yay! Something's coming here for the party!"

Cherilee hazarded a guess, already slightly more calm as she took note of the fact that Pinkie seemed more excited about the fact than worried.

"Oh? Is it William? Did your Pinkie sense tell you that?" Pinkie gave a short laugh at this, lightly shaking her head.

"No silly! Wide eyes, twitchy ears and right back leg kick means the party pony--or person--is on the way! Wide eyes, twitchy ears and left back leg kick just means that something else is coming! And I think I know who!" Cherilee rose a confused brow at Pinkie's statement, watching as she moved passed her and, without so much as losing a centimeter off of her smile, grabbed hold of the front door and opened it wide behind Cherilee.

She stood like this for several moments simply humming to herself while Cherilee, alongside several other ponies in the party, watched her.

She only really spoke after glancing to and back from outside and Cherilee, and what she said only served to add to the situation's overall confusion.

"Oh, Cherilee, you should probably take a teensy-weensy step backwards."

The school teacher's brow only rise even higher at this, but she complied nonetheless.

Sure enough, mere seconds afterwards, a sudden blur blasted its way past the door, bringing up a strong breeze along with it.

Within an instant, the large bundle of ponies that were in the house managed to separate just enough to allow the unknown blur passage, giving it a chance to go down an open doorway into what presumably was the house kitchen. Or, at least, it was assumed by the sudden sounds of different silver and metal objects of varying sizes hitting the floor, following shortly after the large thud that had likely caused it.

For a moment, the party patrons simply stayed where they were, not so much as glancing towards where the apparent blur had crashed. Pinkie Pie, on the other hoof, simply gave out a light giggle, mentally remarking as to how even she was relatively surprised as to this disturbance's speed; she, unlike the others, was well aware of what, or rather whom, had been the cause of this.

It wasn't until the other partially unnerved ponies began to get over their initial shocks and look into the kitchen that they were able to gain similar knowledge as to what had caused the issue. And upon doing so, several found themselves losing most control of their jaws, allowing them to plummet as far down as they could before being held from collapse by their own anatomy.

There, amongst a pile of fallen pots and pans, an upside down earth mare laid, one of these such pots covering her face and causing the pained groan she seemed to give out become muffled. Though the hiding of her face certainly provided a slight moment of unsureness, the ponies that were inside the home were easily able to identify the pony by her other features, including her fur color, her mane, and, more notably, the cutie mark on her flanks.

Barely anypony noticed as Pinkie Pie bounced her way over to the mare, Cherilee following shortly her after upon realizing who the mare was.

No sooner than the two had entered the room in which the newly acquainted mess laid in did the mare attempt to wriggle herself right side up once more, the pot on her head falling off--whereas those that laid by her sides gave off various clangs and clinks against the floors and one another--confirming the guess that most ponies had made as to the identity of the mare.

"Oof... Celestia be darned if I didn't have enough aches as is." Mayor Mare groaned as she sat herself up, rubbing one of her forehooves against a newly forming pain in her neck from the unexpected impact.

Then again, she could only blame herself. It had been quite some time since she's had any sort of exercise of that extreme, and, suffice to say, while she had managed to recall how it began, she was just short of remembering how it ended...

In this case, it would seem that it ended in a pile of kitchenware.

"Hopefully nopony saw tha-"

"Hi Mayor Mare!" She suddenly heard, causing her mental train of thought to sufficiently crash, and her entirety to thoroughly groan.

Opening her previously closed eyes, Mayor Mare withheld a sigh as she saw, not one, not two, but several ponies looking in her direction, most with looks of shock and surprise about them.

The two that stood directly before her in particular, though, were most notable in that, one, they were among the more familiar, and two, they were among the most unique in terms of their given expressions: one held a face of flat out amusement, this of course being Pinkie Pie, and the other held one of what looked like exasperation, Cherilee.

"Oh, uh... Hello, Pinkie Pie..." Mayor Mare didn't even begin to question as to how Pinkie Pie had managed to arrive here before her, knowing that it would do nothing more than to provide her with a logistical migraine, and instead turned her attention slightly more to the side, towards Cherilee and the crowd.

"... Everypony." She greeted with a sheepish smile and wave.

"Glad you could make it! Ooh, and only a minute or two after I gave you the invitation too!" Pinkie Pie welcomed with her usual smile. The words she spoke, however, only ended up bringing a raised brow from Cherilee, who looked between both Pinkie Pie and Mayor Mare in confusion.

"Wait, 'a minute or two'?" She questioned.

"Ivor- Er, Mayor Mare, your office is halfway across Ponyville. H-how did you get here so...?" At the question, Mayor Mare simply shrugged.

"Oh, I was... In a rush to meet our newest member of Ponyville... is all." Cherilee was not particularly satisfied with this answer, especially since it didn't really give her an answer, but she decided not to point this out.

After all, doing so would likely lead to her having to question how Pinkie Pie had gotten here before Mayor Mare had, and, much like Mayor Mare, Cherilee knew better than to make her way down that path.

"It's a good thing too! He probably isn't going to take too much longer to get here. In fact..." Putting a hoof to her chin as she momentarily glanced to the ceiling, almost as if she expected some sort of question or answer to come her way from above, she didn't say another word as she dashed out of the room, disappearing out of both Cherilee and Mayor Mare's sight to do... Whatever it was she was doing.

"... Um, Ms. Cherilee?" The school teacher was quick to turn her attention to her companion, whom was now using the same professionalism to address her as she had to her.

"Would you mind helping me with... Well..." The elected pony official gestured around her towards the kitchen, which was well messed and untidied by her unmeaning hooves.

"... This..." Cherilee barely withheld a lighthearted chuckle, nodding at her friend.

She wasn't too keen on cleaning, but, it gave Cherilee the chance to talk to her friend about Ponyville's newest resident, her friend's new assistant.