Author's Note

Just a heads up. There is a slight change in writing style this chapter as I did not spend all my time writing this trying to shorten sentences to three words. Other than that it's all about the same but with story progression.
Now go read that thing.

Three - The Cake Conversation

Chapter Three.
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The cake conversation

"Stealing cakes is a crime punishable by forced baking of more cakes." Pinkie said. Suddenly donning a judges attire. "How does the defendant plead?" I did not know how to respond. "In absence of a response I am forced to assume the defendant is guilty."

"Wait wait wait." I interrupted. "What are you on about?"

"As you have come before the court under the accusation of stealing not only cakes, but several cookies and delicious cupcakes, you, as the defendant, must state a plea in response or the jury will find you guilty and you will be prosecuted." She gestured to the counter where two ponies that weren't there before were nodding.
I was taken completely off guard by this sudden change in pace.

"Well, uh." I mumbled, trying to think. "Not guilty?" I said in that rising intonation sort of way.

"What is the evidence presented by the defendant?" Pinkie asked, holding a hammer up as if about to declare me guilty, judge style.

Swept up by her flow, I racked my mind for a way out. "The cakes." I ended up saying when I saw something strange. "They can no longer be used as evidence."

"And why is that?" Pinkie asked around a mouthful of cookie.

"The evidence has been tampered with." I pointed out, only now wondering why I was playing her game.

"How so?"

I couldn't believe she didn't realise. "Um. You're eating them." Indeed, there was only one cake and two cupcakes left. "I don't understand how you managed to eat them that fast."

"Hush." Pinkie hushed me. "This fact alone does not exempt you from all charges, as far as I am aware. Please give solid evidence."

This whole situation was ridiculous. I was stressed as hell because I knew this pony was capable of some strange stuff and I couldn't figure out why she wasn't doing anything against me. I had no idea what the court role playing thing was about.
I also had been internalising how I thought this would go. I didn't expect it to go like it was.

"Look." I tried to change the subject. "Why are you ignoring the fact that a member of a completely new race has come into your house and revealed himself? Shouldn't you be asking questions like 'who and what are you?' You're not making any sense."

"Is that information relevant to the case in session?" Pink pony asked.

"What? No." I started sounding a bit exasperated. "I'm asking you why are you ignoring the elephant in the room?"

"There's an elephant in this room?"
I was speechless. All I could think was Are you fucking serious? Sad thing is I feel she was.

She gave me a look that I couldn't quite decipher. "Lying to the judge is an offence punishable by the forced baking of one extra cake"

"You're still on about that?"

"Yes I am." She drew herself up, as if about to render judgment. "Now unless you have anything else to say. The jury will decide your fate"

"Fine. Fine." I raised my hands again. "I'll play your game. The fact that the evidence has been tampered with renders it useless in the court of justice. As all the cupcakes and cakes themselves have been eaten," By you, I would add. "Prosecuting someone under the case that they stole those cakes is questionable as it could have all been a set up. The evidence is no longer there and cannot be used in court." Pinkie seemed impressed by this. I wasn't finished. "I question whether the evidence was planted by you, your Honour."

There was a collective gasp as three ponies all turned their eyes to a certain pink pony in the room. I'm not sure how Pinkie achieved turning her eyes to herself, or how to describe it. Just know that she did.

"A new case has been raised. How does the defendant plea?"

"Innocent your honour."

"Where is your lawyer? You would need one as a defendant."

"Late your honour. But I would like to proceed without them."

"As you wish. What is your plea?"

"Innocent, your honour."

"What is your evidence to support your case?"

"Uh..."
This was all said by pinkie. She was donning and doffing the judges attire with each line and assuming the characters entirely.
It went on with Pinkie not being able to defend herself, the jury deciding that she was guilty and being charged with the forced baking of three cakes and two dozen cupcakes.
I wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into and I had a feeling it would stay that way.

When Pinkie was finally done prosecuting herself, she realised that there was, in fact, an elephant in the room.

"So who and what are you." Pinkie asked, repeating the question I had given her five minutes ago.

I sat down on a small step in front of me. "I'm Sherry, a human." The whole court thing had taken the spirit out of me, so I gave the short answers to that question.

"Where're you from?"

"Place called Earth." I answered. "Heard of it?"

"I've heard of earth. It's that stuff outside that you stand on and it gets in your shoes right?"

"Not wrong but I'm talking about a planet. What's this one called?"

"Equestria."

"Never heard of it. So what happens now?" I looked up at Pinkie.

One of the ponies from the counter walked up. It was blue with pink hair that looked like a swirly ice cream. "I'm sorry but what do you mean?" It asked.

"I mean what's going to happen now that I've revealed myself to you?" I asked, trying to be more clear. It just looked back at me.
The other pony from the counter joined us. This one was a yellow ginger and a fair bit taller then the other two. I guessed he was a guy.
The blue and yellow ones looked at each other, then back at me.

"We aren't really sure of that either." The yellow one said. He as definitely a guy.

"This is the first time that we've seen a new species isn't it darling?" The blue-pink one asked the yellow guy.

"That it is." Long pause. "I'm Carrot cake and this is my wife; Cup Cake."

"And I'm Pinkie Pie!" Squealed the one introducing herself.

"Well I thank you for introducing yourself Mr Carrot." I did not get these names.

"Call me Mr cake." Carrot requested.

"Sure, sure." I waved dismissively "But seriously. What do we do now?"

There was an uncomfortable silence as they all looked at each other. They clearly didn't know.

After a while Pinkie piped up. "Hey, a new race is a pretty big thing right?"

"Yes." I snorted. Duh.

"Like, it's really really important right?"

"Yes. It's an earthshaking discovery in fact."

"Then I could go up to Canterlot and bring the matter to princess Celestia." Pinkie looked like she thought she had thought up the best idea in the world. I wasn't so sure.
'Princess'. That was a trigger word for me. I don't know why, but I've always been adverse to the idea of royalty. The whole concept of kings and queens just never appealed to me. That and there are so many ways for a fortunate individual to exploit all kinds of loopholes for their benefit and others detriment in such a system.
It's a topic I've always felt strongly about. Introducing these thoughts to the subjects of a royal ruler would have been stupid however,

Instead I just said: "No."

"No?" Pinkie asked, ears drooping at being shot down. "Why not?" She almost sniffled.

"Let's just say I know nothing about this Celestia of yours, or the queen above her."

"We don't have a queen here actually." Cup Cake informed me. "Just the princess."

"That's strange." I commented. It said a bit about their hierarchy too. It probably wasn't as expansive as I thought if it stopped at 'princess'.

"Do you have a princess in your world Sherry?" Carrot asked.
I leaned back and lay down staring up at the roof of the place. After a few seconds I huffed and sat back up. It's just the sort of thing I do when decision making.

"That's a big topic you've just asked for." I said, staring at them. "You sure you want to go there?"

"Sure!" Pinkie said immediately. "I'm interested."

"Me too." Cup joined in. Mr Cake just looked at me, waiting for me to start.

I sighed. "Your monarchy sounds quite similar to mine. We have queens, kings, princes, princesses and so on right down to the court jester." They frowned at the mention of the jester. Maybe they didn't have exactly the same hierarchy. "I expect the biggest difference is the number of all the stuff I mentioned. See, we have a lot of kings. When I left there were still at least thirty kings and queens each I think. And hundreds of princes and their female counterparts too. Then there were the dukes, the barons and the lords, we literally had tonnes of those. I could go on but I forgot the nouns. Satisfied?"
I waited for their response. They were all agape for some reason.

"What?"

"Hundreds of princesses?" Cup asked.

"Princes too." I confirmed. "Did I mention the thirty kings?" I'm pretty sure I did.

"Imagine what that would be like." Mr cake said. "A hundred princess Celestias"

"Two hundred." Pinkie corrected. "He used a plural, remember?" I suddenly got the feeling that Pinkie was one to correct grammar. Not too sure how I felt about that.

"Yeah." Cup agreed. "Equestria would be huge." I wasn't sure how that would work.

"Guys. We've gone on a massive tangent." I realised, trying to bring the conversation back. "What were we just talking about?"

"We were talking about taking the matter to the princess." Pinkie said as I remembered what we were talking about. Shit.

"Fine, you can take it to the princess." I caved. After a night like the one I just had that's perfectly understandable. "Something will happen." Not sure what though. I thought. That scares me.

"Awesome!" Pinkie jumped up and started making really fast running movements. But then Cup reached up and smashed Pinkie back down to the ground.

"Whoa!" I jumped to my feet, shocked by the sudden display of violence.

"Hold on Sugar." Cup said as if she hadn't just slammed a pony to the ground. I was slightly scared of her now. "Going to see Celestia is a great plan but you should have a nights rest first. After all, there aren't any trains until six."

"Aw." Pinkie complained.

"Besides. There are still some things I still want to ask this man before you go."

"Yeah?" I asked a bit defensively. "Like what?"

"Why are you here?"

The billion dollar question.

I sat back down before answering. Due to the height difference this meant that they were just looking down at me. "I honestly don't know." I told them. Looking Cup Cake specifically right in the eye.

"Sorry?"Mrs Cake asked.

"I honestly have no idea why, or even how, I ended up here." I explained.

"Could you explain that more?" Mr cake asked. I frowned. ^This word^ Pinkie was looking at me with what can only be described as worry.

So I sucked it up and explained it more. "There's not much to it. I just woke up here a few days ago. No idea how, or why. Hell, I don't even remember what my last memory was before coming here."

"Really?" Mrs Cake seemed worried for me. It seemed I had a knack for making these ponies sympathetic to me if these three's faces were any measurement. "What's that like?"

"Strange." I said. "I can remember my life, my friends, my family, the jerks. I remember meeting my younger brother for the first time. I even remember the fights we had. But when I try to remember what happened before coming here. Nothing."

"Oh, you poor thing."

"Yeah, it kept me up late a few times." Or all of the times. "So the plan is this. You guys head off to your, I assume, benevolent ruler and say things about me. Correct?"

"I'd think so." Mr Cake responded.

"What should I do until then?" They looked at each other. I gave hard questions. "If it's all the same to you I'd like to just head back to where I was. With my head still attached that is."

"Silly Sherry." Pinkie said. "Why would I take your head?" Oh, several reasons that I'm not going to give you ideas about.

"Where have you been sleeping? By the way." Mrs Cake asked.

"Big tree place." I told her. "Lots of books inside." Then something occurred to me. "Say, that big witch hunt you had going on outside. Was that to find me?" That was a natural assumption to make I felt.

"Nope!" Pinkie jumped a bit as she said that. "That stuff has absolutely zero things to do with you. Unless you can turn into an evil monster that lives only to give ponies nightmares, is really gross and doesn't like it when you try to throw a party." Well I'm one of those things.

"Doesn't sound like me. So that was all to find the 'monster'." I did the 'quote thing' as I said monster. I hadn't personally seen anything worthy of being called monster.

"I saw the monster." Mr Cake said. "It was three nights ago. I saw it standing outside a house with its lights on. I could hear noises from the house, it sounded like screaming." Creepy. "Then it suddenly ran away and I checked inside the house. Apparently the family's foal had been having a nightmare and wouldn't wake up. He had only just woken up when I knocked on the door."

"That sounds real creepy and stuff." I commented.

"Yes it was. The monster has come around several times since. Tonight was the first real hunt for it."

"Aside from the fact that you ponies are hunting a monster, that sounds reasonable."

"If you're done talking about the monster." Mrs Cake interjected. "We should head to sleep. It is a rather late hour after all."

"I second that." I seconded.

"But where will you sleep?"

"I'll just head back to the tree library and sleep there. It's what I've been doing for the past... I dunno, a week?"

"I'm not sure you should go outside." Mr Cake mentioned. "The ponies outside are still looking for the monster."

"I can get away from them." I responded. "I did so on the way here and I can do so again. The last time I was carrying this heavy pack you see."

"I see." No you don't. I can see it in your face.

"I'm not sure that's the best move." Mrs Cake said.

"Sure. But do you have an extra bed for me to sleep in?" I asked.

"We do but..." She looked at pinkie. "Somepony is using it."

"Huh." I 'huh'ed. Then I stood up and made my way to the door. "Well. Since you have no beds for me to use, I'll take my leave. If you're looking for me remember: Big tree with books inside."

"We know the Golden Oak Library, silly." So that's what it's called.

"Whichever one of you doesn't go to the princess come update me on things tomorrow. There are some things I want to talk about."

"I can do that." Mr Cake said. "But it'll have to wait until after I've closed up the shop."

"Will do." I replied as I opened the door. "Oh, and also, to whoever goes to see the princess, you should tell them about the monster too."

As I closed the door I heard Mrs Cake say, "That's actually a good idea." I was surprised that the pony race hadn't already been overrun by literally anything else. The way they went around with things.

I had gleaned a few bits of information from that conversation. The first being that these ponies were nothing like I first thought they were. Second, they were actually quite easy to get along with. Well, I probably hadn't interacted with them enough to make that assumption yet. Time will tell.
Third, they are terrible problem solvers. Sure, Pinkie had come up with the idea to go see Celestia and Mrs Cake had realised that there were no trains at this hour. But I got the feeling that if they were to experience a massive crisis they would just band together and use the power of friendship to save the day. Like that would solve anything.
Fourth, don't underestimate the ponies, they are capable of some pretty crazy stuff. Of course, I was already well aware of that, but one can't be blamed for reinforcing what they already know.

On the way back to the library tree ,which shall henceforth be entitled the Golden Oak Library, I stuck to the alleys and shadows much like I had previously during my excursions into town. That was nothing new. But what was new was the dark figure I saw lurking outside one of the houses.
It's silhouette was like nothing I've ever seen. But I suppose my best method of description is a hunchbacked human but longer on the horizontal plane by about a meter. Then add a faint miasma drifting up off the thing and some free moving tentacles near the front end. Long and short, the thing was creepy.
So of course I got closer.