The morning rush hour had finally ended at Sugar Cube Corner, and Pinkie Pie had stepped outside for a bit to recharge.
Standing by the porch step in her apron, she watched with a satisfied grin as the inhabitants of Ponyville opened up their shops, walked their foals to school, or engaged in casual conversations in the middle of the street. All of them with their own happy grins upon their faces, and, Pinkie felt, all of them at least partly the result of her constant hard work to keep Ponyville the happiest town in Equestria.
But one pony, she saw, wasn’t happy. A yellow-white pegasus with a dark blue mane and a pastel painting cutie mark was moping her way from the town’s hotel to the train station, an easel and paints balanced upon her back. As Pinkie watched, the ponies that the pegasus passed made a deliberate show of showing her their backs. That one unhappy pony was enough to set Pinkie Pie on edge. She started to hyperventilate, and her hair lost about half of its poof. She had to do something, fast, if she wanted to avoid another one of her episodes.
“Good morning, Miss Palette,” Pinkie said in a too-happy tone, suddenly appearing next to the pegasus and picking the box of paints up with her mouth. “Can I help you to the station?” She was able to speak quite clearly, despite the presence of a bulky handle in her mouth.
Corrected Palette glared at her helper. “So you know why I’m leaving then, Miss Pie? Why I have been forced from this self-proclaimed town of kindness?” She had a bit of a lisp, and her “forced!” sounded a lot more like “forsthhhhed!”
Pinkie Pie scratched her head under her curls with a free hoof, somehow never breaking her stride. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Ponyville being called a ‘town of kindness’,” she said. “And I thought you were leaving because Twilight examined that painting of yours that I leant her, and she then proved that you weren’t the big famous portrait painter you said you were, and because you already spent all the bits you made under your fake name.”
“That was you?!” Miss Palette exclaimed. “I deliberately did everything in my power to keep the Princess’ student out of my little scheme. You monster, you beast! Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? You’re an awful pony! You’re dastardly, rotten to the core! You’re—!”
“Despicable?” offered Pinkie, with a mischievous smile on her face.
“Yes, that! You’re despicable!”
Pinkie Pie wanted to squeal with joy at finally finding a decent Daffy Duck impersonator among ponykind, but she repressed the urge. “But you’re only being asked to leave Ponyville,” she said. “You do know that she could have had you arrested, right?”
“And you think this is any better?” Miss Palette said bitterly as they arrived at the depot. “Word will get out—it always gets out. Just consider what happened to poor Trixie.” The pegasus sat down heavily, allowing the easel to slide down to the wooden platform. “I was a foal for thinking I could succeed where the Great and Powerful Trixie failed. And now...I’m finished.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Pinkie said, sitting down beside her and putting the paint box down. “You can always try painting under your own name.” She reached back and pulled a small cameo broach out of her voluminous mane. “I mean, this one you did of me is really good, and I never heard of Kinkarary, or whoever you said you were. I wouldn’t have any problems giving it to a special somepony someday.”
“I...why...” The pegasus was momentarily speechless. “What are you getting out of all this?” she asked, jumping to her hooves. “What’s your angle?”
“I haven’t got an angle, although I’m rather fond of 165 degrees.”
“No, no, it’s got to be something...were you afraid that I’d become more popular than you?”
“No,” said Pinkie, with an honest shake of her head. “You didn’t really have a chance there. Oh!” She sprang to her own hooves. “If all of this was about making friends, I could help you!”
“I just got kicked out of town,” Miss Palette said dryly.
“I could go with you!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I’d have to leave a note with the Cakes, but they are very forgiving. I think it would only take me a week to help you get lots of friends in any town in Equestria, as much as you could possibly want!”
As Pinkie was speaking, the train for Canterlot pulled into the station. As this was the opposite direction than Miss Palette wanted to go with her Twilight Sparkle-issued “free one-way ticket to anywhere in Equestria other than Ponyville”, she pointedly ignored it, focusing her incredulity on Pinkie Pie. “I don’t get you!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“Surely there has to be some reason why you are doing this for me?”
“Well, I just need to make everypony happy,” Pinkie Pie said with a guileless smile. Want. She had meant to say want.
“Even ponies that have hurt you?”
“Well, you didn’t hurt me, specifically, and nopony was financially ruined by you or anything. They had their feelings hurt, which is mean, but I’m sure with a patented Pinkie Party or two I can get them all back to Ponyville normal in no time. And besides! Not only did you make me that neat brooch, you also inspired me to do some painting of my own...look!”
And so saying, Pinkie pulled a canvas the size of her entire head out of her mane to present to the con-artist pony.
Miss Palette decided to ignore the evidence of her senses as to where the painting came from, and simply took it. It was less a painting, and more like a sketch. After several seconds of examination, she asked, “What...what is it?”
“It’s you, silly!” Pinkie exclaimed.
Miss Palette stared at it some more, and then burst out laughing. “This...this is pathetic! I’ve seen foals that could paint better than you! I hope you don’t have any dreams of breaking out of your current baking profession to get into the art world, because only the drunk or the insane would ever think of this as anything other than garbage!” And so saying, she threw the painting to the ground and stomped on it with her hooves until it had been torn to pieces. She looked over at Pinkie, hoping that now she had finally inflicted a degree of the pain that she was feeling. She was amazed to see Pinkie calmly staring at her.
“Any tips for how I could paint more like you?” Pinkie asked sweetly.
Miss Palette screamed out in frustration. “I am finished with painting!” she cried out to the heavens.
“Oh, don’t say that!” Pinkie said, reaching forward to wrap a hoof across the pegasus’ withers. “Have you thought about trying to sell your paintings to humans?”
Miss Palette stopped mid-flinch to stare at the earth pony. “What?” she asked.
“Humans are just wild about pony art,” Pinkie exclaimed. “I make quite a shiny bit selling sheet music to them of my songs. They keep saying I should record, but I’m no professional singer, any more than I’m a professional artist. You should take that train to Canterlot, apply for a portal visa, and try your luck in the human world!”
“But!”
“No buts!” Pinkie exclaimed, pushing an unresisting Miss Palette, her easel and box of paints all together into a passenger car of the Canterlot-bound train. She then closed the door between them, leaving her standing on the platform.
“They don’t let ponies with criminal records use the Portal,” Miss Palette said weakly.
“Then it’s a good thing that Twilight didn’t press charges,” said Pinkie brightly. “I just know you’re going to make it!”
“All aboard!” cried the train conductor. A moment later, the train began to move.
“No I won’t!” cried Miss Palette in a panic, trying to open the door to jump out upon the platform.
“Yes you will!” Pinkie Pie assured her, running to keep up with her. “You were brave enough to come to Ponyville even after hearing a probably distorted story about Trixie!”
The pegasus suddenly made up her mind. “Alright, I’ll do it!”
“Yay!” cried Pinkie, coming to a stop at the end of the railway platform. “If you need a guide in the human world, be sure to look up Gilda the Griffon. And tell her that Pinkie sent you!”
“I will!” the dwindling figure of Corrected Palette cried back, tears of gratitude in her eyes. “And thank you, Pinkie!”
“You’re welcome!” Pinkie cried, standing on her rear hooves so she could offer the biggest possible wave to the retreating train.
“There!” she said with a gratified grin, falling back down to her hooves. “I got to her just in time.” Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes, as she thought of the awful possibility of her failure, that she could have left a single pony in Equestria that didn’t like her. She hugged herself tightly to hold in the shakes.
“Are...are you alright, Pinkie?”
Pinkie quickly wiped the tears and turned around to face Rainbow Dash as she descended from the skies above. “Sure I’m alright, Dashie!” she exclaimed.
“I just wanted to make sure that that no-good con artist wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“Well, she tried,” Pinkie admitted. “But I made her happy despite herself.”
Rainbow Dash shook her head incredulously. “Only you would be so worried about making even our enemies smile,” she said.
“And is that good or bad?” Pinkie asked neutrally.
“Good, very good,” said Rainbow Dash.
Better than me, was the thought that Pinkie quite clearly read across her friend’s face. She rushed forward to pull her into a hug. “Rainbow Miriam Dash, you are a good pony, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rainbow said, trying to keep a grin off of her face.
Pinkie held Rainbow at leg’s length. “Now, don’t you have work to do?”
Rainbow Dash was amazed that Pinkie Pie of all ponies would be reminding another pony about work, but a glance up at the tangled clouds above more than proved the truth of the question. “Yes,” she admitted.
“Alright, I need to think for a bit, so you go work, and I’ll see you later.” Pinkie released her hold over her friend, her eyes already wandering over to the tracks leading to Canterlot, a slight frown upon her face.
Rainbow followed Pinkie’s eyes to the track. “Are you sure you’re alright? You know you can tell me things, Pinkie. Anything.”
Pinkie smiled warmly at her friend, and shoved her upwards, forcing the pegasus to take flight. “I’m fine!” she exclaimed with a laugh, but then her expression straightened out. “You know I like to be serious sometimes,” she said quietly. “And that doesn’t mean that I’m in trouble or that I need help. Because if I did, I’d come straight to you.”
“Yeah, yeah I know that,” Rainbow said, relieved. “I’ll go to work then. But I’ll be looking for you as soon as I’m done!”
“You do that,” Pinkie said with a slight smile. She waved goodbye to Rainbow Dash until the later was out of sight, then turned around and retrieved the torn remains of her painting. She stared at it for a few seconds in contemplation, and then carried it over to the garbage.
“Doot do-da-doo! Doot do-da-doo! Doot-do-da-doot-doo, doot-doo-da-doo! Doot, doot, doo, da doot, doot, doo! Doot-doo-da-dit-dit doot! Doot!” Pinkie was scat-singing an odd little song as she pronked her way down the main street of Ponyville, one that the residents hearing it were unable to place. On her back was an easel and a new canvas, the same size as the one that Miss Palette had destroyed. Atop the canvas was Pinkie Pie’s own box of paints. Nothing was tied down, and yet they all managed to land back on her back with each bounce.
It was late afternoon, and Sugar Cube Corner had closed for the day. Pinkie Pie made sure to greet everypony she passed, no matter if they were happy or sad, and she was sure in every case that they were just a smidgen happier after her greeting than before. They had to be, at least at this point of Pinkie’s life. But maybe that wouldn’t be quite so vitally necessary for her soon.
After a half hour of solid bouncing, Pinkie Pie arrived at the Apple family farmhouse. She knocked on the door and when Granny Smith answered it, politely explained the purpose of her visit, getting permission to carry on with her plans. With a grateful shake of the Apple matriarch’s hoof, Pinkie turned and bounced her way to the edge of a particular grove of trees, where she set up her easel and canvas, and set to work.
It was another hour before a curious Rainbow Dash finally caught up with her. “Hi, Pinkie,” she said, hovering before her.
“Hi, Dashie!” Pinkie exclaimed, her attention focused on the canvas, and the green-tipped paintbrush she held in her lips.
“So,” asked Rainbow, “what’cha doing in front of my favorite napping tree?”
“I’m painting, silly! What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Well,” Rainbow said awkwardly, “after I saw you have that fight with Corrected Palette—”
“We didn’t have a fight,” Pinkie said insistently, her eyes still focused on her painting as she started adding some browns. “Although...maybe she thought it was a fight. I didn’t.”
“Right,” said Rainbow. “But she tried to get into a fight.”
“I helped her out!” Pinkie exclaimed.
Rainbow sighed. “Do you really think she deserved—”
“I sent her to Earth!” Pinkie said. “It’s really tough there, so she won’t be able to cheat anybody. If she wants to be an artist, if she really, really wants it, then she’ll get what she deserves! And then she’ll be rich enough to pay back everypony she cheated.”
“And if she’s still a con artist, she’ll still get what she deserves?” Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Sure!”
Rainbow scratched the side of her head as she tried to figure out Pinkie’s motivation. “She tore up your painting.”
“Oh,” said Pinkie Pie, letting her paintbrush droop. “You saw that.”
“Yes,” said Rainbow, “I did.”
“Well, that was the thing,” Pinkie said, dipping the brush into a bottle of turpentine and then rubbing it off on a rag.
“What thing?”
“I didn’t get mad,” Pinkie said. “After all those awful things she said, I didn’t get mad, or sad, like I would if she was talking about one of my friends.” She raised her head, giving Rainbow an uncomfortably intense stare, coupled with a friendly grin that just didn’t go together. “And do you know why?”
“W...why, Pinkie?”
“Because I don’t care!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I found something I can do, where I’m awful and I don’t care what other ponies think!”
“But...but you’re a good painter!” Rainbow retorted. “Don’t you remember that big picture you put on the side of Applejack’s barn?”
“Oh Dashie!” Pinkie exclaimed. “That was during a musical number! Pinkie Rule #5!”
“Oh...right,” Rainbow said. Twilight had recently attempted to resume her research into Pinkie’s abilities. She hadn’t gotten further than a list of about a dozen different rules. Rule #1 was the Rule of Funny. And Rule #5 was the Rule of Musical Numbers. “But...not caring is a good thing?” she asked Pinkie hesitantly.
“Sure! It’s like...” Pinkie stopped for a few seconds, her head down, as she tried to think. The words, when they finally did come out, were so fast that Rainbow Dash was almost unable to follow them: “It’s like, suppose you had an accident where you couldn’t fly for a couple of weeks, or worse, you could fly, but every time you did, anytime you tried to do anything, you kept screwing up! You wouldn’t want to fly if you kept screwing up, but you live for flying! What can you do, but something else! Something you know you’re gonna screw up, but since you don’t care about this thing, you do it anyway?” She smiled brightly at Rainbow. “You understand?”
Rainbow Dash sighed, set down next to Pinkie Pie, and pulled her into a big hug. “Been feeling down?” she asked quietly.
“It...comes and goes,” Pinkie said, passively accepting the hug while her eyes searched the palette on the ground for the next color to use. “There’ve been so many humans coming through Ponyville, and so many ponies up to no good, trying to take advantage of the Portal, and thinking us easier marks than the ponies in Canterlot. And...I know I’m don’t have to make all of them happy, but...I need to, Dashie, I need to!”
Dashie squeezed Pinkie tight, running a hoof along the contours of her friend’s mane. “And we’re here for you, Pinkie, just like you’re here for us.”
“Yes,” Pinkie said with a sigh. “And that’s important. But I’ve got to do the hard part myself. Twilight told me that I need to find a way to be happy in just myself, so I can be strong for the times when nopony is able to share their happiness with me.” Only then did she reach up to return Rainbow Dash’s hug.
“Yeah,” said the pegasus as she let go and took once more to the air. “I can see what she means. So, whatcha painting?”
“I’m going to call it Dash Nap. Because that’s a fun title to say out loud.”
Rainbow Dash flew over to get a good look at the painting. There were a bunch of brown lines crossing this way and that on the canvas, with some green scribbles and red blobs between them. If they weren’t in the middle of an apple orchard, the pegasus would be hard pressed to identify the subject of the painting. One thing she absolutely could not see, however, was anything that by any stretch of the imagination could be called a portrait of herself. “And where am I in this painting?” she demanded.
“You need to pose for it, silly!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“You started the painting without me?” Rainbow asked with a somewhat mocking pout.
“I was saving you time!” Pinkie explained. “Because I’m no good at painting, I knew that it would take me awhile before I was ready for you. I didn’t want you getting bored or anything.”
“And are you ready now?”
Pinkie put on a white painter’s smock and beret from somewhere, already pre-splotched with primary color paint splotches, and applied a critical eye to her creation. “Oui!” she exclaimed in Human French. “That means ‘yes’ in snooty painter talk. Go over there and take a nap!”
Rainbow snapped a salute. “Yes, Madame Snooty Painter Ma’am!” She settled into position, and cracked open an eye.
“Ooh!” exclaimed Pinkie. “Blue-blue-blue-blue-blue!” The first few minutes were spent removing the green and brown paints from the palette and replacing them with several shades of sky and cerulean blue. She looked back and forth between her chosen colors and the still pony before her, before carefully mixing them together, and then attacking the canvas with abandon.
“Doot do-da-doo! Doot do-da-doo! Doot-do-da-doot-doo, doot-doo-da-doo!” she scatted happily.
“What’s the song, Pinkie?” Rainbow asked, trying to keep her body unmoving for Pinkie. Despite the fact that she used this spot for napping all the time, the fact that she actually had to stay still was making her really antsy.
Pinkie suddenly stopped. “Oh, that? That’s nothing, just some...” She stopped herself to laugh out loud. “I forgot that I don’t need to lie about that anymore. It’s a human song.”
Painting or no painting, Rainbow Dash simply had to sit up on hearing that. “Something you saw in your human dreams as a filly?” she asked.
Pinkie nodded, continuing to paint her friend’s form from memory. “There was this one cartoon called Popeye,” she explained. “Some of the cartoons had talking animals in them, and the rest had funny-looking humans. Popeye was one of the funny-looking humans. He didn’t have most of the teeth in his mouth, so his face was all squished in.” She popped her head over the top of the canvas and puckered up her mouth. “Sorta like this,” she said.
Rainbow Dash laughed, relieved that Pinkie hadn’t tried to make her face really look like this Popeye character, since she was well aware that her friend was perfectly capable of that disturbing feat.
“All the Popeye cartoons are the same, or at least the dozen or so that were repeated over and over again,” Pinkie said. “A bad human named Bluto tries to steal away Popeye’s special somehuman Olive Oyl, so Popeye eats some spinach to give him super strength, he beats up Bluto, and he and Olive Oyl live happily ever after. Until the next cartoon. They don’t really have continuity in the Popeye universe.”
“Alright,” Rainbow said with another laugh. “So what about this song?”
“Right! So, in this one cartoon, Bluto is playing Pierre Bluto, King of the Lumberjacks. Only he’s really mean to the other lumberjacks that have to work for him. Olive Oyl goes to his camp to give Bluto some of her homemade spinach, which he hates, so he throws her into the river, and Popeye has to fish her out.”
“And that’s when Popeye beats Bluto up, right?”
“No!”
Rainbow took a moment to try to think “Pinkie style”. “That’s when Popeye beats Pierre Bluto up, right?” she ventured.
“No!” Pinkie giggled. “He goes up to Pierre, points to a sign that says that Pierre’s the best lumberjack ever, and challenges him to a lumberjack’s duel.”
“A lumberjack’s duel?” Rainbow asked, a big smile on her face just trying to imagine such a thing.
“Yes!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Pierre Bluto throws a big axe a dozen ponylengths through the air, and it sticks in the middle of a tree. Popeye throws a tiny little axe even further using just his mouth, and it not only sticks, but splits the whole tree in half. And then he taunts Bluto by singing, ‘I’ll do anything that you do!’ Except Popeye’s got a really funny voice, so it’s more like ‘I’ll do anything that you do!’”
Rainbow laughed so hard at Pinkie’s absurd Popeye voice that she nearly fell out of the tree.
“Oh! Oh! And he had a dance when he sang it, like this!” And she reared up on her hind hooves, swung her forelegs like they were attached to her barrel with hinges, shuffled her hindlegs, and stomped them. All while in the painter’s smock and beret.
This time Rainbow laughed so hard that she did fall out of the tree.
“After Popeye beat Bluto at lumberjack games about four times, he went nuts and tried to kill Popeye. And that’s when the spinach came out and Bluto got beat up, just like in every other Popeye cartoon. But that part with the song really stuck with me.”
Rainbow Dash flew up and resumed her sleeping pose. “And why’s that?” she asked.
“Because this was a series about beating people up to get what you want, and for once, he tried to be funny instead, even when he’s right next to the big scary guy with the axe,” Pinkie said. She was finished painting the main part of Rainbow, and was now getting out the colors for her mane. “And I thought, ‘I can do that. I can’t fight, but I can sing.’ So that’s one of the songs that runs through my head sometimes, when I’m trying to do something that I don’t think I’m good at, but I have to be good at, because maybe because my best friend Dashie’s in the picture, and I don’t want to screw it up, although I’ll probably end up getting tossed into the river like Olive Oyl. It’s done, by the way.”
“It’s done? Let me see!” Rainbow flew over quickly and landed beside a nervous Pinkie Pie, who had her hooves over her eyes. She looked at the Rainbow Dash in the painting. She looked like a plate that had fallen onto a lumpy pillow. “It’s...pretty good,” she said after a moment.
Pinkie uncovered her eyes. “Don’t lie,” she warned her friend.
Rainbow sighed. “Alright, it’s pretty terrible.”
Pinkie looked at the painting for a few moments, and then took the trouble of taking off her smock and beret instead of disappearing them like she normally would. “Yeah, it’s pretty terrible,” she said quietly.
“And you don’t care?” Rainbow asked with concern.
“Nope!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I had fun doing it, and even more fun having you here with me while I did it, and that’s all that matters.”
“Good!” Rainbow exclaimed. “And...the colors are good.” She looked between the painting and the tree a couple of times. “Really good.”
Pinkie looked between the painting and Rainbow Dash. “No, I made you too dark.”
“No you didn’t,” Rainbow replied. “I’m in the sunlight now. It’s always shady in my favorite spot.”
“Oh yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed and then beamed. “You know what? I just figured something new out.”
“What’s that?”
“Not only do I not care about painting criticism, but I really like honest painting complements! It’s like...I did this, and it’s good no matter what anypony else thinks!”
“Congratulations!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. She was pleased to see a whole new type of happiness on her friend’s face.
“Only...I’m going to have to keep this painting,” Pinkie said, suddenly serious. “I was going to give it to you when I was done, but I think I’m going to need it now, to look at any time I need a reminder.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You know, Pinkie,” she said, “I could put it in my place and you’d still be able to see it anytime you wanted to. Because you’re Pinkie Pie, which seriously should be ‘Rule #0’ or something.”
“Heh, that’s right,” Pinkie said with a little laugh.
Author's Note
The Popeye cartoon that Pinkie's thinking of is "Axe Me Another", from 1934. A YouTube user called Poopdeck Pappy posted the singing bit by itself:
