It’d been a slow season on the Pie family homestead.
Carefully, Maud Pie sifted through the mountainous heap of pulverized stone where the near half of a quite large boulder had once been. A few carats of citrine, malachite and garnet slipping through the fine mesh of the shaker table as she poured a jug over it.
Her normally stoic expression creased ever so slightly—the corners of her mouth falling incrementally downwards—as she pressed her spectacles back up the bridge of her muzzle.
With nary a sound, she flicked off the shaker, the field falling silent save for the quiet whisper of the autumn breeze. Maud paused a moment, taking in a deep breath, the scent of rock dust and wet soil filling her nostrils. She turned to examine what remained of her sample excavation before heading in for the evening to rest up for the night.
It was quiet on a rock farm, a bit dull even, but Maud enjoyed it all the sam—
“Boo!” a blurred mass of brown and pink popped out of the pile, sending a shower of pebbles into the air.
Maud’s eyes went wide, ears standing straight up as she skipped back a step from the pile, pebbles plinking down over her flanks.
“Ha! Got you!” Pinkie cried out, the adolescent filly still half-submerged in the rock pile as she tossed off the once-white bedsheets, holding up her dusty pink hooves in triumph before promptly losing her balance and collapsing across the pebbles. “Got you good...” She coughed, choking on the sudden cloud of dust.
“Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?” Maud inquired, eyes and ears settling back into their normal, nonplussed shapes.
“Scaring you goooood,” Pinkie replied, giving a choked giggle as Maud extricated her from the pile with her work hardened hooves. and set her down.
Maud simply frowned as the younger pony skipped out of her grasp and around her, dragging what Maud suspected was most likely Limestone or Marble’s bedsheets through the dirt.
“Soooo… you know what night tonight is? Huh? Huh?” Pinkie asked, an irrepressible smile on her face as she gave her sister’s exposed ribs a punctuating jab.
“Granny Pie’s visiting,” came the droll reply.
“Nooooo… Something else…” The little filly snickered and snorted with barely contained glee. “Something that happens only once a year…”
“Did the Holstein’s lawyer already visit?”
“Hey! I have Mooriella’s full and complete confidence that they will not press charges, so, nyeh,” Pinkie stated, sticking out her tongue.
Maud tapped a hoof to her chin, studying the little filly as she seemed on the brink of rupturing, like a pocket of hydrothermal pressure buried deep in a vein of basalt, just waiting to escape.
“Oh, c’mon! It’s only the bestest, most awesomest night of the year!” Pinkie declared, zipping up to the top of the boulder her sister had gone back to studying—it seemed that a bit of amethyst had popped up with the pink filly—fixing upon it a stare that all but bored right through it. “It’s the greatest, most fantabulous time of all, it’s—” She raised up on her hindlegs.
“Nightmare Night. ”
“—Nightmare Night!” Pinkie cried out, the little filly giving a hop and a skip before having to be intercepted by her big sister’s ironlike hoof before plummeting off the boulder via misjudged skip.
“You should be careful, Pinkie.”
“Oh, Maudie Daudie, don’t be such a silly filly! Careful is my middle name!”
“Your middle name is Diane.”
“That is but one of many!” She cleared her throat. “You may call me Pinkamena Mena Bo-Bena Banana-fana-fo-fena Fee-fi-mo-mena Diane Whippersnap McGillicutty Pie Esquire the Third if you would be so kind, ma’am,” she recited calmly, eyes closed and a hoof raised with the weight of it before she quickly snapped back to her usual self. “See, I collect them! Like rocks!”
“No you don’t. Ponies don’t do that,” Maud stated simply, but her protests were hardly heard much less noted as the fuzzy bundle of pink electricity bounced around with a gleeful grin.
“Come on! Aren’t you so excited you could just implode?!”
Maud thought on that a moment. “I’m very excited for the harv—”
“I knew it!” Pinkie declared, not letting silly things like the end of sentences interrupt as she lept onto her elder sister’s back. “So, what’s your costume going to be this year? A vampire?”
Maud shook her head.
“A frankenpony?”
Another shake of her head.
“Oh, oh! I know! An aggregate of minerals or consolidated mineral and post-living matter formed into a singular mass... like a certain special somepet…" she sang out the last word, studying her older sister's unchanging expression with all the precision of one that catalogued microfractures in sedimentary stone. "That's it right? Right?”
“Are you asking if I’m going as a rock?”
Pinkie nodded feverishly, face becoming a blur that halted suddenly in her sister’s hooves moments before the pink pony’s skull could manage liftoff, body keeping up the motion for a moment before falling back to earth..
“No.”
“Darn! I was so sure about that one.” She kicked a pebble away as her features turned dour. “So what are you going as?”
“I’m not dressing up.”
“Whaaaat?!” Pinkie spat out, jumping onto her sister’s neck in a panic and jamming her blue eyes against Maud’s own turquoise.
The elder pony hardly even blinked, the tiniest downward crease of her lips going unnoticed by the younger.
“But you have to dress up! It’s Nightmare Night! If you don’t dress up then- then the ghoulies and ghosties and grambledings’ll get you!” the little filly bemoaned. “Oh my gosh! Nightmare Moon will get you! Don’t you remember the stories?!”
“Nightmare Moon is just a little filly’s sto—”
“Shhh!” Pinkie wedged a hoof in Maud’s mouth. “She might hear you!”
Maud’s eyebrow quirked ever so slightly as she slowly worked the pink hoof from her lips. “Pinkie. I’m going with you. I’m just too old for dressing up.”
“But that means you won’t get any candy!” Pinkie’s face bespoke of tragedy too horrific for anypony to bear as she flipped herself onto Maud’s back, lying across it with her body arched dramatically. “And then I won’t get your candy!”
Maud simply patted the little filly as they came upon the crux of her sorrows.
“Oh, wait! I’ve got it! A bigger bag!” Pinkie snapped up onto her hooves, dancing across Maud’s spine a moment before she zoomed away.
And so Maud watched, mane plastered back across her skull, as Pinkie carved a furrow all the way through the gem fields to the house.
Tonight, as with any Nightmare Night with the Pie family, was going to be… interesting.
~o~0~o~
"But It's just a little odd, that's all," Cloudy Quartz muttered uncertainly as she sat in the head chair across from her husband. "I really don't see the point of getting your mother involved in all this. It's our family's business. Surely we can handle it on our own."
Igneous set down his fork, giving the mashed potato a few thoughtful chews before swallowing, Cloudy's expression only growing more impatient as the stallion downed a slow gulp of milk before replying properly.
"It is family business—"
"Then you agree with me?" Cloudy interrupted, eyes glowing with hope. “She’ll just be here for a visit.”
"I agree that it's family business"—another quick swig of milk and he'd drained the glass fully—"And Nana Pie's family sure as I’m a Pie an’ you’re a Quartz. And she’s exactly the pony we need."
"We can handle it, Igneous!" Cloudy slammed a hoof down on the table, Igneous’s glass giving a jump, a skip and a thankfully liquidless tumble against his plate.
"And we will, dear, as a family," he replied calmly, tilting the glass back into its proper place before sliding out from the table, his movements all measured and precise. "Girls'll be ready soon enough. We best see ‘em off."
As if on cue, there came a rumble and a tumble down the stairs as twin blurs of slate blue and gray witches flew down from the bedrooms.
"I am so winning this year!"
"No chance! The Reign of Lady Limestone, Princess of Candy shall last forever more!"
One might've easily mistaken their brooms for the genuine witchy article the way their hooves seemed to repel the floor.
"Hi, Dad, hi, Mom! Bye, Mom, bye, Dad!" their voices chorused rapidly as they shot out the front door, carrying on their argument all the way.
"Wait! Wait for me!" Pinkie half-skipped, half-tripped, half-glided down the stairs, a frankensteined mish-mash of bedsheets and pillowcases serving as a makedo parachute for the descending slice of cherry pie.
It seemed that Igneous would be making a run to the seamstress on the morrow, but for now he smiled as the little filly skipped and floated her way out the door.
"Oh wait!" The pink filly zipped back in, planting a kiss first on her mother's cheek and then her father's before zooming away, her parents' eyes following her out into the wide, wide world beyond. "Lime! Marble! Wait up!"
"Dad."
Igneous turned to find his eldest making her way down, always at her quiet, steady clip.
"Maud."
The pair embraced curtly, the ritual repeating in due time with her mother as well before the quietest of the Pie siblings trotted out the door after them.
"Do you think they'll be quite alright?"
"I'm certain nothing will happen on Maud's watch. They're just going to Ponyville for the evening after all. It’s a straight shot along the old farm roads. No funny business."
~o~0~o~
Hours later, as the harvest moon rose high in the sky, the Pie sisters’ quartet gathered outside the gates of Sweet Apple Acres, their agreed upon meeting spot for their treat-gathering expedition.
"Oh yeah! Oh yeah!” Pinkie cried out, strutting around her gotten gains for the evening. “Who's the filly?! Who's the filly?!"
The pair of witches simply grumbled at Pinkie's triumph, complete with a pie based dance she'd taken to calling the “fresh slice of cher’ air.”
But, indeed, though their candy satchel's bulged with goodies, they were no match for the veritable mountain from a molehill of fabric that Pinkie Pie had somehow collected.
The reign of Lady Limestone had been cut short, tragically so.
“We should be getting back to see Granny Pie," Maud stated dutifully.
"Oh my gosh! And Granny Pie too!" The pink filly squeaked loudly, cinching up her sack before she bounced atop it for a moment. "This really is the BEST! NIGHT! EVER! Let's go! Woo!"
"Fine," the twins replied, gathering up their candy and trudging forward towards the edge of town, the unencumbered Maud leading the way as a light fog coasted across the farm path.
Grinning ear to ear, Pinkie hopped on down from her candy filled mole hill, grabbing the thick ropes that bound it closed and giving them a mighty tug.
It didn't even move an inch.
"Oh, come on!" She yanked it as hard as she could, rewarded only by the creak and pop of fabric stretching to its absolute limit.
Quickly, she ran back down the road a bit and, getting a galloping start, slammed her whole body into the side of the bag.
“Yes! Yes!”
The bag rippled and wobbled before her, seeming for the moment to tilt away from her.
“No! No!”
She tried to run away, but made it nary a hoofstep before the bag a slammed down upon her, the ground quaking beneath them.
Everything was silent a moment before the top of the bag loosened slightly, a gasping filly bursting from it to suck in as much blessed oxygen as she could.
“Stupid bag!” she cried out, sliding down to face the bag face to fabric.
She growled, she grimaced, she made all manner of ill-tempered expression, but the bag didn't move, the sheets groaning in protest as the candy payload wore away at them.
"Um..." Pinkie mewled timidly, ears flat against her skull as she glanced up at the monstrous bag, realizing for the first time just how much of a burden the crown of Princess of Candy could be. "Maud…do you mind um...Maud?"
She turned to find them but there was nothing but swirling fog. Maud was gone, Limestone and Marble had long since disappeared and she couldn't even hear their usual bickers echoing from up the road.
With a grimace worn with worry, Pinkie ran after them a ways, keeping her horde ever in sight, but still she could see neither hide nor hair of her sisters.
She could run up the road a bit more, but she found her hooves grinding to a halt subconsciously as she crested a gentle slope, the tippy-tippy top of the bag falling just within her sight, and she could manage no further.
They'd come back in a little while, right?
All she had to do was settle down, watch the stars and they'd be back in two shakes of lamb's—
She gasped as she heard a mighty tear, her scrabbling hooves carrying her all the way back in half a—no, a quarter-shake.
She stared wide-eyed and soon teary eyed at her fallen kingdom of candy. The bag had been slit from stem to stern, what remained of its innards lying scattered across the path.
"But…my candy!" she moaned, tears flowing freely from her eyes before she wiped them quickly. "No! No, Pinkamena! No tears for you until we get them back!"
She planted her face in the dirt, taking a deep whiff as she rooted around the ex-sack until she found it. She raised a foreleg and pointed at the clue, mane and tail standing stock straight back from her arrow-like body.
"Aha!" She grinned as she watched the trail of candies leading off into the forest, bluish-looking fireflies dancing across a forest path she hadn't spotted before.
"Hey!" she cried out as a giggle echoed back, a bit of reflected wrapper glinting in their light as she got a better look at them
They weren't fireflies at all!
There, down the path, a quintet of thin, pony-like sprites danced, engulfed in blue flame as their yellow eyes looked back at the subject of their ridicule.
She wasn't sure what they were, but they had her candy!
And that would simply not be stood for!
Without a second thought, she galloped after them, the sprites dancing and skipping away between the trees as she followed, eager to reclaim her usurped candies.
~o~0~o~
"Pinkie Pie?" Maud's voice echoed seconds later as she made her way down the hill, noticing out of the corner of her eye an odd, bluish glow before it was swallowed by the encroaching forest.
Then her hoof hit the bag.
"Do you see her?" Marble asked as she crested the hill peak, the fog having thickened considerably.
"Brr…it's getting cold,” Limestone said, shivering as she peered around for their youngest sister. “Come on, Pinkie, where are you?"
Maud’s eyes found the jagged slice that had torn it apart...
"Is that her bag down there?"
...then the trail of candy so obvious that even the most scatterbrained little filly couldn’t help but follow it...
“She has to be here somewhere. There’s no way Pinkie would leave candy behind.”
...into the deep and dark forest.
"Stay right here," Maud ordered Marble and Limestone as they came upon the remains.
And then she ran.
She ran as hard and as fast as her legs would carry her home.
~o~0~o~
"Hey! Listen!” Pinkie implored as strongly as she could with her voice ragged with want for air. “Wait up! Please!"
The strange, skipping equines always seemed to be only a few hoofsteps from her and far away at the same time as they twirled and danced through the forest, leaving a sweet trail in their wake. It made them easy to follow, but Pinkie couldn't help but feel her cheeks burning and her stomach twisting.
"Stop laughing, you—you—you meanie pants!"
Their giggles only grew louder and more numerous as the forest dimmed around them, hidden in shadows save for the path they carved.
Pinkie could only grimace and drive even harder on, hooves sloshing through the damp earth as her spritely guides danced circles about her, leading her left, then right, to and fro and every which way until the filly hadn't a clue where their start nor their stop lay.
She could have been running in circles for all she knew.
"Can't we talk about this?" she asked, voice more exhalations than words as her legs began to seize.
A snap echoed.
The sprites halted their dance, giggles falling silent as Pinkie skid to an undignified halt flat on her belly.
Eyes wide, her ears twitched wildly on the hunt for the source of the sound, hind hoof giving an unnoticed spasm as the whole of the forest seemed to hold its breath.
"Yes, let us talk little one," a gentlecoltly voice echoed in the sudden quiet. “What has such a little pony so deep in my woods?”
A long, lank creature stepped from the shadows on its hindlegs, standing at least thrice her height. Far taller than even the tallest stallions she knew at the very least. It could have been quite intimidating.
However, he was rather well-dressed however.
Even more fancily dressed than the gowns and suits her family had squeezed into for the Summer Sun Festival Banquet when Princess Celestia herself had been in attendance!
He wore a long tuxedo tightly fit to his lithe body, a deep maroon shirt poking out from between the lapels as a bush of a tail swayed behind with each step on his black-socked hindpaws.
She looked up to find a pair of triangular ears swiveled towards her, the creature smiling down with its strange pony-like face. It seemed to be made of malleable porcelain, shimmering in the soft blue emanating from the sprites, a pair of golden rimmed slits looking down.
“I do apologize for my compatriots. They get a bit overzealous in their search for guests,” the creature explained, offering a large, clawed paw to the little filly. As she looked over, its off-paw was occupied by an ebony cane that glinted, its wooden, gnarled top serving as pawhold.
“Guests?” Pinkie echoed, unconsciously taking the strange beast’s paw in hoof.
“Indeed.” He nodded curtly. “Honored guests for the Harvest Feast.” The creature lifted her to her hooves, drawing a kerchief from its breast pocket to dust the edges of her costume with dainty swipes of the fabric. The cherries in her pie had been looking a bit more like dark rum rather than the napoleon cherries she’d begun with. “Surely you’ve heard of it, yes?”
“Nope.”
“Really?” he asked, aghast and clearly scandalized by the revelation. “I had known that we’d fallen on hard times, but when a filly knows not the feast of feasts in all this domain… What has this world come to?” He shook his head, tsk-tsking quietly as his ears drooped in sorrow. “Ah, but I have misplaced my manners, its seems.” The creature brightened considerably, bowing with a flourish. “Milady, I am known as Lord Holloa of Edenvale, master of ceremonies for the Harvest Feast and dutiful ruler of this domain. I do hope that my friend's have not been a bother for you."
"Oh, no…no bother," Pinkie replied quietly, more than a little awestruck as her eyes reflected the soft gold of Lord Holloa’s. "I'm Pinkamena Diane Pie, but everypony calls me Pinkie Pie."
"Charmed, milady." He bent to plant a kiss on the little filly's forehoof, looking her over in a glance. "I must say, your dress is in rather strange taste for a feast. Albeit quite befitting of one if I may be so bold," he observed with a smirk, gesturing to the flaky-crusted outfit.
"This isn't a dress, silly! It's a pie!" Pinkie stated, perking up and out of her seeming trance as she gave Holloa a playful jab in the shoulder.
His grimace went unseen as he dusted off said shoulder before returning the filly's smile. "Well, I do hope that you will be joining us for the feast this evening."
"Well, I’m really only here to get my candy back," Pinkie explained simply, motioning to trails of gumballs, suckers and individually wrapped chocolates surrounding them.
“I daresay any candy could not compare in the slightest to what the feast entails, my dear little pony,” he argued with a wide, hopeful grin.
“I don’t kn—”
"It has just been far too long since we've had an honored guest such as yourself grace our halls." His lip quavered ever so slightly, tears rimming his closed eyes as he stepped back.
"It has?" Pinkie asked, ego more than a little inflated in spite of shiver gnawing at the nape of her neck.
Her? An honored guest?
"Indeed. I fear our parties have so little life left in them that they might well fall away into nothingness." He knelt down, taking up her hooves in his paws as he looked her directly in the eyes. "But you, dear Lady Pinkamena Diane, seem so full of life that…perhaps…just perhaps you might be able to save the feast."
"Well... I can't really say no to that, can I?" Pinkie reasoned quietly, biting her lip as she watched a tear course its way down the porcelain face. "And someponies do say I'm the life of the party."
She considered the offer a moment, glancing from her candy not so easily forgotten to the sullen creature before her.
"I'll do it!"
"Excellent! We shall begin at once!"
Pinkie gasped as the creature waved a paw over the black woods, the spritely ponies coming to life once more and spreading through it to reveal something she could not have expected.
There, just beyond the rapidly receding trees, rested a long, wide valley along which a dozen cottages ran on either side. It was nearly as bright as day beneath the light of a hundred sprites of a hundred different colors dancing and twirling as they wove their way through the faraway tree tops. Each home had a cheery look to it, clean and warm to the eye, each with a thatched roof and a flower box filled with every color of bloom she could imagine, smoke curling lazily from their many chimneys.
Between them stretched a long table, running the full length of the valley, with dozens upon dozens of ponies drinking and eating and laughing below. At the head of the table sat a chair adorned in brilliant pinks, blues and yellows, a golden glow about it beckoning the filly.
And that wasn’t even to mention what was on the table itself.
She could hardly keep the saliva from cascading down her jaw as she stared at the spread of desserts that stretched from end to far off end. Cakes both cupped and whole, pies, tarts and flans, puddings and custards and doughnuts, oh my! Delectables of all names and description danced before her eyes.
She could hardly contain her excitement, legs carrying her down the hill before her mind could even process what was happening.
Of course, she couldn't have torn her eyes from the sweets that called her by name to note the strange look on the creature's face, his mask tilting momentarily that its long tongue might lick the saliva collecting on his long, sharp canines. Her scent lingered in his sensitive nostrils before he firmly lowered the mask back down.
After all, it simply would not do to spook the guest of honor.
~o~0~o~
A fire roared in the Pie family’s hearth, comforting to all manner of mouse and sparrow that had stepped in from the cold, but certainly not for the trio of ponies before it. Two sat in a silent misery as the third paced endlessly.
"I just don't see why it has to be her," Quartz said with a stomp, knocking her eyeglasses askew as her voice trembled. "I..." She took the moment to calmly readjust her spectacles. "It just seems so dangerous…and we're not even certain yet."
"Dear. I think we're quite certain," Igneous stated calmly, sliding a stalk of hay from one corner of his mouth to the other as he tipped back his hat. "After what happened on the Holstein's stead… I knew she were a special sort of filly, but that..."
"That is why I'm here," an older, soft-pink coated pony reassured, rubbing a hoof down her son's back. "This ol' Granny's seen plenty in her years, and that's a familiar ol' tune you two are singin'."
Quartz paced a few more times before she was calm enough to sit beside the elder pony on the couch.
"I…I just want my baby to be safe... and healthy, Granny Pie…that isn't wrong of me, is it?"
"No, dear, of course not. Gon’ be every momma’s wish to keep her young’uns safe," Granny Pie said, bright smile further creasing her wrinkled face. "An' we're gonna keep her good and safe, but she's gotta be prepared for what she's going to b—"
"Mom! Dad!"
Igneous and Quartz could only gasp in surprise as Maud collapsed through the front door, huffing and puffing.
"Pinkie Pie! Everfree! Lights! Gone!" she cried out between stuttered breaths as Quartz and Igneous rushed to her side. Maud glanced past the pair to the mare sitting wide-eyed in her seat. "Granny Pie! Help!"
"Maud, take a breath," Igneous said calmly, cradling her in his hooves.
"I'll get her some water! Granny Pie, you..."
The words died on Quartz's tongue.
The elder mare was already gone, the door clacking loudly against the side of the house.
~o~0~o~
"Ohmergersh!" Pinkie cried out happily through a mouthful of cake as she stuffed herself with as much angel's food as she could, soft white frosting flicking from the edges of her mouth as she sang wordless praises to the baker.
"I am quite glad that you are enjoying yourself, milady," Holloa stated from his place by her side.
He hadn't moved a step since she'd taken up her place of honor, but Pinkie didn't think much of it.
In fact, her thoughts dallied little from the various tastes of sweet and tart and sour and savory, the nerves in tongue nearly shorting her brain with the overload of information.
"How is everything so gooood?!" she moaned, falling back into her seat as she rubbed her forehooves in slow circles over her swollen belly, a sweet-tasting belch rising from her as she blushed furiously.
"Your compliments mean everything to us, I assure you. Involuntary gaseous emissions inclusive," Holloa stated with a smile, the rest of the ponies nodding in perfect unison.
"How have you not had anypony coming to this? It's amazing!"
"Oh, the years have not been kind to be fair. Edenvale is not quite the destination locale it was once."
Pinkie swallowed what remained of the cake and tipped herself up to take a look around. It was beautiful in a strange sort of way with the lack of sunlight and the odd glow of the sprites above.
It was certainly cozy, albeit perhaps not as large as even a town like Ponyville—and certainly anywhere near Manehattan or Canterlot—but certainly it seemed to be a lively place with the scores of ponies lining the table.
"What do you mean? It looks great to me." Pinkie smiled brightly, her stomach rumbling lightly. "And anyponies that can can put on a feast like this is okie dokie in my book!"
"That is quite kind of you, milady. It's just that so many have departed over the many years." His shoulders sagged with the admission, claws twisting as the ponyfolk bowed sadly.
Pinkie glanced around, her hoof giving a little twitch as her eyes hovered over each, identically sad face. The hairs at the back of her neck stood on end as her right ear gave a little twitch.
“Ours was once a thriving place,” Holloa began as a hush flowed over them all. “A town where ponies could be free from the cold and dark of the far north. Free to live and breathe and flourish under our careful stewardship. We would never grow too big or too small. Surely, sacrifices were made, but in the name of a great good. In the name of balance.”
Pinkie’s ankle began to ache strangely as she pushed herself up in her chair.
“But some could not handle the sacrifice symbolized by this, the Harvest Feast. A feast, the end of the old and the birth of life anew. And they left. Slipping away one by one until we were all that was left,” the creature mused, wiping a tear from his eyes, the ponyfolk all following suit.
As her stomach gave a little pirouette, Pinkie glanced back up at her host. "Well, I do hope that I can come again next year… but I think my family might be worried about me. I've been here an awful long time."
"Oh, of course, dear Pinkamena Diane, we would love to have you back again and again and again!" Lord Holloa stated happily, mouth snapping from its bitter frown into a wide grin the ponies all reflected in their odd wooden faces. "But please, before you go, we have a final dessert for you. As a thank you... for all your kindness."
He snapped his clawed fingers and down from the trees floated a dozen sprites around a shimmering silver platter.
“Consider it a parting gift,” Holloa said, bowing deeply as the platter lowered into a suddenly clear portion of the table nearest the filly, the gathered ponies all leaning forward in anticipation with their blank smiles as there was a little pang in Pinkie’s elbow.
“I don’t know… I’m pretty full,” Pinkie stated as she stared at the platter, the lid lifting up into the air, vanishing into the aether as the valley fell into shadows beyond. “But it… does look good.”
“Just a bite, if you will. It would make us… eternally grateful…” His words came with a rumble as they lifted into the air, the ground fading away as his claws worked the strings, drawing the crowd of ponies close around Pinkie with their smiling, hoping faces locked in wood over gaping bone and fur.
But her eyes were ever on their offering: a tiny pink cupcake with a trio of balloons layered atop it.
Her mouth opened unconsciously in anticipation, its sweetness already upon her tongue as it reached within her. Above, the creature's maw opened wide in unison, mask tilting up to reveal the thin, vulpine muzzle full of ripping teeth ready to tear into its prey, golden eyes aglow as the rest of its form faded into wisps of blue shadow that curled about the filly’s body.
Just as she bit down, she felt something cut through the air above her, an echoing thock of metal embedding in wood echoing before suddenly the dark was lit by lantern light.
"Pinkamena!"
Pinkie nearly lost her dinner and desserts as she was squeezed in a tight embrace, a odd taste burbling up from her stomach.
"Granny Pie?" she mumbled confusedly before she coughed, choking for a moment before a hard hoof smacked her back, sending a cascade of half chewed sticks and leaves heaving from her onto the forest floor.
"Thatta, girl. Gon’ be alright…gon’ be alright..." Granny Pie cooed, rubbing her back gently as the filly expelled the last of the false feast.
"Granny…what's going on?" Pinkie asked as soon as she could, leaving a deep sick feeling in the pit of her emptied stomach.
"Shush, dear. We've got lots to talk about…but first thing, we're gon' git you home."
Coaxing the ailing filly to her hooves, Granny Pie led them over to a crumbling wall to rest a moment. Pinkie looked up to find a tree growing through it, a bit of rotten thatch stretched across snapped trusses that’s been carried up the trunk.
Above, fading lights danced through the trees, echoes of giggles and laughs descending down upon them. And then she saw it, embedded in a tree just beside the stump that had served as her place of honor...
"What was it, Granny Pie?"
"Just a ghost of a time long since passed."
Hanging from the tree was the mask of a pony, a smile frozen on its porcelain face, the top split where an axe had pinned it to the tree. As she watched, the crack grew and grew, a wafting trail of blue smoke smouldering from a dying blue light as it crumbles into dust.
"We've a great deal to discuss, Pinkamena."
~o~0~o~
~Years Later~
~o~0~o~
"What the hay was that?!" Apple Bloom yelled as the clubhouse gave a jolt and shudder, sending the filly crashing along with her pegasus friend on to the floor.
"I don't know! Now get off me!" Scootaloo demanded from beneath the earth pony, hoof still tangled in their makeshift hammock.
"It came from right outside!" Bloom declared, mind still alight with flights of Nightmare Night fancy.
A night of scary stories about the campfire—well, actually just a flashlight with the cap removed beneath an orange pillowcase since Applejack would've thrown a hissy at such blatant disregard for fire safety—did little for logic and reason in the face of noises in the dark after all.
"Then get off me and check!" Scootaloo shoved against Apple Bloom, pushing her off towards the window.
Nervously, Bloom hooked her hooves under the window and heaved it up to pop her head out.
What the?
"Pinkie Pie?!" Apple Bloom yelled down.
"Yessiree!" the pink pony replied, hind hoof pushing something back and behind a nearby treetrunk.
Had that tree always been that close?
Apple Bloom shook her head, trying to focus. "Pinkie Pie, what're you doing to our clubhouse?!"
"Nothing, it was the shambling trees of Agta Kapre come to steal your sooooouls!" Pinkie called back out in her best spooky voice, waggling her hooves in mock fright.
"Well, y'all tell them to quit it!” she yelled in reply. “We was tryin' to get some shut eye now that Nightmare Night's over!"
"Okie dokie lokie!"
Apple Bloom turned from the window in a huff before clambering back into the hammock across from Scootaloo so that they were hindhoof to hindhoof again.
"What was she doing out there?"
"Being all Pinkieish, what else?"
Scootaloo simply nodded.
Life was full of constants: the sun rose, grass grew and Pinkie was always Pinkie.
Meanwhile, just below the crusader clubhouse Pinkie waved goodnight while her hindhoof ground itself into the thrashing, living wood of the infected apple tree’s half-extricated core, roots still tying to the tree.
"Good night, Apple Bloom! Good night, Scootaloo!"
"Go home, Pinkie!" came the call back.
"Wait, how'd she know I'm here?"
"Lucky guess. Just go to sleep. I'm tired."
Pinkie paid them no mind however as she cast her eyes about the thrashing bit of wood, its spindly roots slapping and clawing at her leg.
"Ah, there we go."
In a single deft moment, she stepped off her target, snagging the family axe from the trunk and bringing it down in a wide arc into the roots, severing it from its lifeblood.
It thrashed a moment longer, sap-like blood spewing from it before it went limp, the animate flesh of the apple tree returning to its normal hue as the spirit disintegrated before Pinkie in a crackle of blue light.
With a grin, Pinkie strapped the family axe across her back and hopped away happily. The night was a wonderful thing and Nightmare Night doubly so always and forever. Those were just the constants in life.
The moon rises, spirits come...
And Pinkie Pie is always waiting.
Author's Note
(LookseyOverings and Wardrobe provided by Denim_Blue Pants and Accessories, Five-Time Recipient of Eternal Gratitude™ Award for Being A Pretty Alright Dude)
