"Pinkie Pie, of course!" Twilight Sparkle responded, rolling her eyes as if the answer was supposed to be an obvious one.

"An' ya never told us somethin' this important until now?" Applejack fumed, eyes narrowed to slits.

Twilight shrugged. "You never asked, Applejack, which is an important part of actually getting an answer from somepony. It's been proven scientifically impossible for somepony to know what somepony else is thinking, so if they wanted to ask that pony a question, they wouldn't know the answer to it unless they personally asked."

Everypony else facehoofed.

"Twi, please, now really isn't the time for yer scientific stuff," Applejack grumbled, placing a hoof to her forehead in irritation.

The alicorn sighed in exasperation. "Okay, fine. What I was trying to say was that I apparently saw Pinkie Pie, but she was going too fast for me to catch up with her, so I cut through a nearby alley."

"You do realize that you're an alicorn, right?" Rainbow Dash stated flatly. "Apparently, an alicorn princess that can do magic-y stuff with your horn. Couldn't you just teleport or something?"

Twilight shot an irked glare at the rainbow-maned pegasus, huffing in frustration. "If you were in my hooves at the moment, and you were trying to catch up with a friend who apparently's gone crazy, would the thought of using magic to teleport actually cross your mind, Rainbow? Would it?"

"I guess you do have a point," Rainbow finally spoke after a long moment of consideration. "Still, you can do magic, y'know? It's not like you don't have a horn or anything."

"Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that," Twilight muttered under her breath, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Fortunately, the pegasus didn't do anything that indicated that she'd heard her.

"Anyways, Twilight," Applejack coughed loudly, once again becoming the center of attention, "ya said ya saw Pinkie of all ponies?"

"Mhm," Twilight grumbled half-heartedly before waving a hoof in dismissal. "For Celestia's sake, ponies, all of these questions aren't relevant to the situation at all!"

"Um... actually, I think they are," Fluttershy said sheepishly, recoiling as the others turned to look at her, "if y-you think s-so too, of course."

Rainbow sighed. "Let's just cut to the chase already, can't we? All of these distractions are just so boring!"

"That's for you to say," Twilight remarked icily. "Apparently Applejack here has problems with trusting me, her best friend! Doesn't that just sound ridiculous?"

"Ain't ridiculous when yer hidin' somethin' from us, Twi," Applejack growled.

Said mare turned to face her, eyes narrowed. "Hiding something?" she spat. "You actually think I'm hiding something from you? If you really believe in that theory, Applejack, give me one reason that proves it."

A devious smirk crept onto Applejack's face as she heard those words. "Gladly, Yer Majesty."

Author's Note

To begin with, I apologize for the short chapter and long delay. I've been experiencing a major case of writer's block these days, and it's apparently crippled my writing abilities (temporarily, of course) to the degree where I can't even think of anything. Since the layout of this chapter was already planned out, and most of it had already been written before I got hit with this "illness", I just added some finishing touches and released it.