Early Morning, May 4th, YOH 1507: A Hotel Room
She awoke before dawn, as was her customary habit unless she'd been working after midnight. Usually when she did that,it was because she'd been running a party, and the Joy she got back from that recharged her to the point that she needed only a few hours' sleep anyway.
Time to make the cupcakes, she automatically thought, and started to move, and then a certain soreness -- slightly painful but which brought back incredibly Joyful memories, reminded her that she did not, in fact, need to make any cupcakes today. A smile began to grow on her face, developing into a huge grin, as she turned toward the one with whom she was sharing the bed.
He lay on his side, snoring, dimly visible in the faint light from the city outside, filtering through the gap in the curtains. Those curtains had been drawn tight at the start of the night, but at some point during the proceedings had become disarranged. Thinking about it in passing produced only confused happy memories that made her blush (slightly) and giggle (softly, so as to not awaken him). They'd at points literally bounced all over the room. There were acts possible between two sufficiently-friendly Party Ponies that were undreamt of even in her Granny's thickest tomes on equine sexuality.
He looked so sweet lying there, curled up on his side toward her, face mostly covered by his adorably huge thick curly mane, which reminded her of the Fluffy Ponies around Dunnich who were her paternal half-sisters. Like herself and them, he could convert Joy into psychic energy and back again. Unlike herself and the Fluffy Ponies, he was male, and not sired by Paradise.
Both of which, she especially thought now, are really super-duper good things! 'Cause if he wasn't male, well last night wouldn't have been as much fun; and if he was my half-brother, that would have been just wrong.
She leaned over and kissed him gently, on the cheek, right through his curly mane. The hair tickled her nose as she did this, which made her giggle a little more, putting her in an even better mood. Any better, and she'd start bouncing up and down on top of him in his sleep, which would be a very mean way to wake somepony, as her parents had explained to her more than once when she was small. Now that she was big, it would be even meaner!
And she didn't want to be mean to her husband.
Husband. She savored the word in her mind, and wriggled in delight at the reality of it, in the absolutely irresistible though currently-somnolent stallion beside her. Her husband. Her husband. She chortled with joy at the numerous implications of the fact, ranging from the wonderful things they'd done last night to the way in which he made a great bed-warmer.
Of course, this was not the first time that Pinkie Pie had slept with Cheese Sandwich. She'd slept with him after they'd made up after their fight the very first time they'd met as grown-ups, in the very literal sense that -- after what had been the most amazingly-fascinating conversation of her whole life to that point, they had fallen asleep together by the side of a road on the outskirts of Ponyville, and woken cuddled together.
They'd known they were in love from the first long look that had led to that conversation, but it had been a long time before they'd done much more than cuddle. For a while they only got to see each other occasionally after that, between his responsibilities as a wandering Party Pony and hers to Minty ... she meant, Princess Twilight, and her other friends in Ponyville. Cheese was not at all pushy -- he was a romantic idealist who practically-worshipped her; and in this worldline she was one of the Pinkies who stuck by her family's rather strict morals where sex was concerned. Over three years of courtship they'd eventually fooled around a little; but last night --their wedding night -- had been the first time she'd ever actually had sex -- with Cheese or anyone else.
It had been well worth the wait.
She knew -- both from Granny Pie and from Paradise's tremendous files of the Age of Wonders, that some virgin mares had unpleasant first times, especially if they were small, delicate or unfortunate. Pinkie Pie was stocky, tough and able to make her own luck with a mere effort of will.
So it had been perfect.
If a bit messy, Pinkie realized. There was confetti, streamers and balloons all over the room, and bits of cake frosting on the floors, walls and ceiling. Now, how'd that piece get over there? ... oh, Pinkie blushed more deeply and giggled some more. That had been weird, but nice. Very nice.
She could see now why Ponies wanted so much to get married. It allows for some really super-duper party games. Messy -- but fun.
She wondered what she could do for an encore.
Well, that -- but poor Cheesie was sleepy, she'd worn him out! She had to let him recover his strength, for next time.
She grinned widely at the thought of "next time."
She should do something nice for Cheese, because he'd done some really nice things for her last night. She'd done really nice things for him too, but the great thing about loving somepony was that you could always find more nice things to do for them, when you wanted to be nice to them. Which, when Pinkie loved somepony, was pretty often.
She wondered what she could do this morning for Cheese that would be nice and which she could do while he was sleeping. She sat up and thought about it for a while, while the susurrus of the great waterfall near the city almost sent her slipping back off to sleep. She even considered doing a squink to help her visualize, even though in her current life the little ritual wasn't really necessary any more -- just for old time's sake.
Then, she had a really great idea. She knew exactly what she could do for Cheese which would be really, really nice! She smiled happily at the thought.
Then she snort-laughed, turned and smiled directly at you -- the reader.
No, silly, she thought quietly, because she didn't want to wake up Cheese. I'm not going to do that. Remember, Cheesie needs to get his sleepies, and I'm pretty sure that that would wake him up! She waved a hoof mock-scoldingly at you. And shame on you for thinking that! You have a really dirty mind!
She looked at me, the writer, and said: And you have a really dirty mind for realizing that your readers might think that. You're all very naughty Humans and should have your brains washed out with soap! She folded her forelegs, frowned and attempted to look seriously-disapproving.
The effect was spoiled by the manner in which her frown gradually turned into a smile, which spread across her face.
Besides, she said, I already did that TWICE last night. She smiled happily. And I'm gonna do it some more tonight too, hee hee hee!
Then she turned back to her husband. Her smile grew deeply adoring, and she focused.
She reached out to him through the bond that she had formed with him three years ago, a bond that had only grown stronger during their long courtship. She was not entirely surprised, but was very pleased, to discover that it had grown much stronger over the last day.
I guess wedding and bedding somepony will do that! Pinkie thought happily. Our fates are even more strongly tied together now!
She caressed Cheese's soul. He wriggled a little and made a happy sound, such as might have come from a contented little colt, in his sleep. Then he sank into deeper slumber.
Pinkie smiled. "Keep resting, my sweetie-Cheesie," she said very softly. "Your Aunt Pinkie's gonna make your whole world a bit brighter."
She climbed out of bed. She looked fondly down at her husband one more time. Then she closed her outer eyes, opened her inner eyes, and saw spread out before her the whole complex webwork of the worldlines -- herself and Cheese's, which were now mostly joined together, a vision which made her extremely happy.
She cast her mind forward along the worldlines. She explored those in which Cheese was badly hurt, or even killed. She did not like looking at the horribly-sad futures beyond those points, but she did so in order to find the ones in which Cheese's maiming or death was necessary to forestall some other evil. She found a few like that, and she marked them down for special attention.
Then, looking at each line, she mapped out the minimal change; the one that with the least psychic effort and production of Paradox, would enable Cheese Sandwich to avoid disaster, and logged the required change onto her mental notepad. After those easy ones, she examined the more difficult worldlines -- one in which disaster for Cheese staved off worse disasters for others. In those, she worked out the Third Option. She assembled the list of all required changes, both for the simple and the easy changes, in the form of a huge batch job, did a sim run and debugged it in her head. Paradox production -- acceptable and correctable. Then, she compiled and ran, loading the spell instructions into her active buffer.
And then, Pinkie began to Dance.
She had an immense charge of Joy accumulated -- the wedding, the reception, and the wedding night, all filling her to the brim with psychic energy. She was prepared to spend it all, if such proved needful, to protect Cheese Sandwich.
But such shouldn't be needful. She was skilled enough that she could probably do what she wanted with less than half of her full power.
Pinkie started her Dance almost imperceptibly, by rocking up and down on her hooves. Her lips were moving as if she were singing a song, but in deference to Cheese's need to sleep, she was acoustically silent, though in her mind she was singing loud and clear. A very faint radiance -- almost invisible even in the faint glow from the city seeping through the window -- began to emnate from the bottom of her hooves.
She began stotting.
This too, in defiance of ordinary physical law, was also silent. Right now, Pinkie Pie wished for silence, and when Pinkie had this much Joy backing her up in a confrontation between Pinkie Pie and Natural Law, it was generally Natural Law that blinked first and folded.
So Pinkie stotted silently, and began to circle, clockwise, around the sleeping stallion whose good fortune figured so prominently in Pinkie's own bright hopes for her future. WIth each pronk, she bounded ever higher; and her hooves glowed ever brighter.
Before she had stotted halfway around the bed, she was already no longer bouncing off the actual floor, but on some invisible higher surface existing apparently only in Pinkie's own fertile imagination. This surface seemed horizontal, for Pinkie's hooves remained level as she landed; and it rose step-fashion, for with each forward bounce Pinkie landed on a higher surface, and she bounded ever higher. A sort of dew of little glimmering drops of light began to rain down from her now-brilliant hooves, drifting toward Cheese.
She should have soon encountered a problem, in that their hotel room, while large, was not large enough to contain the Dance. The ceiling was only so high, and the head of the bed was hard up against the wall. Physical dimensions threatened to thwart Pinkie's purpose. Physical dimensions felt the force of Pinkie's will, as expressed through her Dance, and wisely got out of her way. So she bounded higher than the ceiling, and circled behind the bed, and there was room for the Dance.
Within her the power and pressure mounted, building toward completion. Pinkie's plush little pink body was the vessel, Pinkie's brilliant but almost alien mind the focus, and Pinkie's intense love for Cheese the drive for the spell. Pinkie held it in until she judged the moment perfect -- then released it all in one tremendous flare of magic from the bottoms of her hooves.
A swarm of fireflies flew into the sleeping form of Cheese Sandwich, and vanished into various dimensions beyond the normal four, invisible to normal Ponies, barely visible to even the most talented normal Pony mages. Cheese Sandwich, who was himself not entirely blind to those dimensions -- though he lacked both Pinkie's clarity of perception and ability to conduct fine manipulation through them -- sneezed violently, spraying confetti all over the bed. He started to wake up ...
... Pinkie gasped in dismay, and quickly made a minor retcon to her own worldline, then almost reflexively snuffed out the tiny flare of Paradox this produced ...
... and Cheese mumbled "no more sauerkraut," turned over and went back to sleep ...
... Phew! thought Pinkie, then immediately puffed away the pieces of confetti that would otherwise have drifted into her own nose and made her sneeze, thus completing the gag. It hurt almost physically to choke the funny like that -- the funny wanted her to sneeze and wake up Cheese after all the trouble she'd gone to keep him sleeping -- but she had a larger purpose. Still, it peeved the pink Party Pony's perceptions of propriety to do this, and she only partially compensated by thinking the tongue-twister.
She had only a little work left to do now. Slowly sinking to the floor with the completion of her Dance, she looked into the worldlines again, scanning each one she had altered for Paradox. She found a few loose threads and tied them off, then expunged all their manifestations. This was routine work for her.
Finally, she sighed with relief, and relaxed in pride at a job well done. In every remotely-probable future she could see, Cheese Sandwich would live out his natural lifespan without suffering severe injuries. She'd have to maintain the blessing every now and then, as other events shifted formerly very-low-probability futures into higher levels of probability, and all her happy worldlines depended on winning the Shadow Wars, something Pinkie could not determine by herself -- Pinkie was neither omniscient nor omnipotent -- but for now, Cheese Sandwich was mostly likely to live for another century or so. If anypony was.
Pinkie Pie climbed back into bed with her husband.
At that he stirred slightly, coming half-awake.
"Mrfl-umphl-Pinkie?" he asked, sounding as if he had a mouthful of marbles.
"Everything's super-okay, Cheesie," Pinkie said, smiling. "Just coming back to bed. We should both get more sleep so we can wake up bright-eyed and fluffy-tailed! Love you!"
"Okay-mph-loveya-Pinkie-mph," was Cheese's cogent answer, trailing off into snoring.
Pinkie was really tired now again, but she didn't regret it. Cheese Sandwich deserved her special gift, because he was such a good husband and a very special Pony. And now she knew almost for sure she'd have lots and lots and lots of time to keep being with him. For the rest of his natural lifespan, and as for beyond -- her sire Paradise had proposed a whole list of solutions, at least one of which seemed probable, though her own ability to see the future didn't extend that far.
As she drifted off to sleep beside her husband, she was cheered by the realization that this would be the start of a very long marriage.
Author's Note
My concept of Pinkie and Cheese's courtship is inspired by the works of Scoots2 and Sketcha-holic.
You are all free to imagine whatever you like the "that" it is which Pinkie keeps thinking about having done with Cheese is in truth. Pinkie thinks most of you have dirty minds. That's all right, Pinkie in certain moods has a pretty dirty mind herself -- in a fundamentally-clean sort of way. She must have, to have figured out what we were all thinking! 
Pinkie's gift was very special,wasn't it?
She means the fluffy-tailed part literally.
