“Starlight? Has anyone seen Starlight Glimmer?”
Lily Valley watched with mild bemusement as the anxious princess of friendship urgently trotted past and wondered what trouble the young alicorn had gotten herself into now. She liked Twilight Sparkle well enough of course, but the earth pony gardener had observed quite a while ago that wherever Twilight or her friends went, trouble of some shape or form generally followed. Then again, she reminded herself that this was Ponyville, which some of its inhabitants had quietly and jokingly taken to referring as the trouble capital of Equestria. Trouble was par for the course, here.
So while Twilight continued on through the darkening streets as night continued to settle upon the country town, the pale raspberry-colored mare shook her head and turned away, grinning. Knowing she couldn’t help Twilight much on this particular occasion (as she hadn’t seen hide or hair of the princess’s new, and apparently wayward, student today), she was therefore ready to continue on her way. It had been an average but productive day for Lily, so she felt ready to head home and treat herself with a cup of mint tea and a hot bubble bath for a job well done.
But Lily had barely taken another step forward before her eyes fell on two other bystander mares on the other side of the street from her. Both pegasi, the two had stopped to watch Twilight head past like Lily had, but unable to help the alicorn any more than Lily, they turned back to what they were doing before…which was what caught Lily’s eye about them. One innocently stood next to a fence encircling the yard of an adjacent cottage and looked worried, but the other stood inside the yard itself…and appeared to have her head stuck between the two wooden rails making up the fence.
Lily realized she was staring at the pair, but the sight was irregular enough that she found herself drawn in. “There’s a story behind this,” she remarked aloud to herself. “I just know it.” Deciding to find out what it was, she trotted over to the pair. “Do…you two need any help?” she asked aloud, trying to keep her tone casual.
The two mares glanced at her. Lily had only met them both in passing, but she still knew them by name. The pegasus with her head stuck in the fence was named, fittingly considering her pink-colored coat and mane, Pink Cloud, and was the first to respond with a confident “No thank you; we’ve got this.”
The other pegasus, a pale opal colored pony named Sprinkle Medley, bit her lip and averted her eyes; she didn’t seem so sure of this statement, but otherwise kept quiet.
“Are you sure?” Lily persisted, tilting her head at the pair as she was unconvinced herself. Looking at Pink Cloud up close now, she wasn’t sure how the mare had fit her head between the railings of the fence in the first place; the gap didn’t seem big enough. “I really don’t mind helping.”
“Nope!” Pink Cloud assured with a grin. She had to tilt her head upwards to look at Lily because of how she was stooped down, stuck in the fence. “We’re good! Everything’s just fine!”
Lily raised a skeptical eyebrow and glanced back and forth between the two. Sprinkle Medley still avoided eye contact. “Really,” she said, the statement dripping with doubt.
“Pinks, we probably could use the extra hoof,” Sprinkle Medley intervened finally, shuffling her hooves awkwardly as she petitioned her stuck friend to relent.
“Nah, I think this is something we can just keep between you and me, Sprinkle,” Pink Cloud persisted. It was becoming apparent she was trying to downplay the situation as she gave Sprinkle Medley a knowing look. “No need to get any other ponies involved.”
Lily could only shake her head. “Can you at least tell me how you got stuck, then?” she then asked.
“Oh, I’m not stuck!” Pink Cloud said a little too quickly. “I totally planned this.”
“You planned getting your head stuck in a fence,” Lily intoned flatly.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got a much better view of the street from down here,” Pink Cloud pressed with that same confident grin that was fooling nopony. Sprinkle Medley facehoofed while the pink pegasus continued. “And again…I’m not stuck. I can get out of this any time I want.”
“Okay,” Lily sat down on her haunches and folded her forehooves. “Prove it.”
Pink Cloud’s grin suddenly became a bit more forced as the mare hesitated for a second, and then began to try to pull, tug, and jerk her head back through the gap between the rails. Unsurprisingly, she was not able to. Wincing, she glanced back up at Lily, starting to blush.
“Okay,” Pink Cloud finally admitted, “maybe, by sheer coincidence, I am just a teensy-tiny bit stuck, but I totally wasn’t just a second ago, so…”
Lily sighed and stooped down so to get a closer look. “Seriously Pink Cloud, how did you even get yourself stuck like this?”
“We were having a race,” Sprinkle Medley began to explain, joining Lily and ignoring the annoyed glare Pink Cloud gave her as she did so. “Last one to the Hay Burger was going to buy, see.”
“Uh-huh,” Lily hummed, wiggling her hooves around Pink Cloud’s head to judge just how stuck the pegasus was.
“Anyway, we both decided to cut through Mr. Crotchety’s yard as a shortcut, and…”
“Why were you going on hoof when you’re both pegasi, and could’ve just flown?”
“Why fly through the clear sky when you can take the challenge and gallop around the more crowded obstacles on the ground?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Why indeed? Anyway, you were cutting through the yard…”
“Right, and I decided to just jump over the fence, but Pink Cloud, for some reason, thought she could fit between the railings of the fence here, and tried diving through the gap.”
“I’m a thin pony,” Pink Cloud stated in her defense.
“And that was when she got stuck,” Sprinkle Medley concluded, motioning to her friend’s head jammed in the fence. “We were just starting to try and work out how to fix it when you strolled up.”
“Hmm,” Lily put both of her forehooves on Pink Cloud’s forehead and put her weight against it, trying to force the pink pegasus’s head back through the gap in the fence.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Pink Cloud objected when this only resulted in her head getting pinned between the fence and Lily’s hooves. “Watch it Lily, that hurts!”
Lily removed her hooves and took a step back to reassess the situation. “Sheesh, you’re really stuck, Pinks, more than I first thought.”
“I’m not that stuck!” Pink Cloud repeated, still refusing to acknowledge the magnitude of her situation.
“Yes you are Pinks, there’s no point in trying to deny it now,” Sprinkle Medley retorted before turning to Lily. “So any ideas?” she asked, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “Because I admit to not having any.”
Lily didn’t respond right away, instead surveying the fence in question, gazing up and down its length. It was a simple wooden fence, intricately carved, decorative, and was held together by a mortised split-rail design, where two wooden railings fit into slots carved into the fenceposts. Though the railings fit into these slots quite snugly, they were not actually nailed or pinned into place, and instead just popped together like puzzle pieces.
“I think the easiest thing to do is pop out one of the railings real quick and free her head,” the flower mare deduced at last, patting the upper railing with one hoof.
But Sprinkle Medley immediately shook her head at the idea. “No, we can’t, that’s Mr. Crotchety’s fence!” she said, with a note of dread. Seeing this didn’t generate an immediate reaction from Lily, she continued. “See, he used to be a professional decorative fence builder before he retired, and is extremely proud and protective of any fence he builds, especially one on his own property! If he catches us dismantling it, or damaging it in anyway…”
“Plus, he kind of, sort of, threatened to call the police on us if he caught us taking shortcuts through his yard again,” Pink Cloud added unhelpfully, also not liking the idea. “So it’d probably be better for everypony involved if we didn’t do anything to make him aware this even happened, or get anypony involved that would enable him to find out, like ponies of authority.”
“I’m guessing that’s why you two hadn’t already tried to get help yet,” Lily reasoned flatly, before glancing at the windows of the cottage the yard joined with. Lights were on inside, but the owner within didn’t appear to be near any windows. More importantly, he wasn’t likely to notice the mares gathered around his fence anytime soon. So Lily still opted for the less sympathetic solution. “Look, you should’ve thought of that before trying to dive through gaps in fences,” she told the mares as she grabbed the upper railing with both hooves and started to try and pull it free. “We’ll just pop out this piece out here real quick then pop it back in once you’re free, with no harm done. Nopony should notice a thing afterwards.”
Only the railing proved to be more secure than Lily expected, not coming free as easily as she thought it would. Frowning, she leaned her body back as she pulled on the railing, trying to yank it loose, but it wasn’t budging. Seeing the mare needed help, Sprinkle Medley wrapped her own hooves around the railing and threw her weight into pulling as well. The railing wiggled but still didn’t come free. Lily squeezed her eyes shut, started to make a high-pitched groaning noise in the back of her throat with her back hooves dug little trenches in the dirt as she tugged. Meanwhile, Sprinkle Medley took to the air so wrap her back hooves around the railing too, enabling her to tug with the full force of her body, wings flapping furiously. The railing started to make an ominous groan.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Pink Cloud hissed urgently at the sound. “Don’t break it!”
Fearing she might be right, Sprinkle Medley stopped tugging on the railing, motioning for Lily to stop as well. “She’s right,” she said. “We’ll have to try something else.”
“But what?” Lily asked as she also released the railing. “She’s seriously stuck.”
“Well…” Pink Cloud said aloud, flustered. “Think of something!”
Lily frowned, but she obeyed and started to pace back and forth. Meanwhile, Sprinkle Medley looked heavenward while tapping her chin with her hoof, lost in thought. Pink Cloud watched them for a few moments, growing more flustered the longer they took.
“Well?” she prompted finally.
“We’re thinking, don’t rush us, Pinks!” Sprinkle Medley snapped, shaking her head at the mare’s sudden loss of bravado. “Sheesh, Lily’s the one easy to panic, not you.”
“I am not,” Lily complained, shooting the opal pegasus a glare. “I panic in the face of real danger only, like all normal ponies do.”
“Oh yes, and there were certainly lots of ponies who also fainted when staring down a stampede of furry bunny rabbits,” Sprinkle Medley sarcastically teased with a smirk.
Lily scowled for a moment, avoiding the grins of the other two mares. “That was ages ago,” she grumbled.
“Still never going to live it down,” Pink Cloud pointed out. “And don’t forget how you and your coworkers at the flower shop react anytime something happens to your flowers!”
“That’s serious business!” Lily snorted, annoyed.
“Sure,” Pink Cloud pressed, her own smirk growing. “But seriously…we’re getting off topic.”
“Right, right, right.” Lily resumed pacing, trotting out a couple of paces before pausing. “Well…I guess for you to get stuck like that, you had to hit the fence with a fair bit of force…so maybe we just need to push back with similar force ourselves.”
“Wait, what?” Pink Cloud asked, eyes widening a bit.
Lily responded by suddenly spinning around and galloping back to Pink Cloud, bodily throwing herself against the stuck mare for one almighty shove. It did little though, as Lily only bounced off and fell to the ground, leaving Pink Cloud to grimace from the impact.
“Owwwww,” she groaned, still very much stuck.
Lily sat back up, tucking a loose strand of her amber mane back behind the lily that pinned it in place. She let out a huff of annoyance as Sprinkle Medley helped her back up.
“It was worth a shot,” the pegasus told the earth pony. “But since pushing hasn’t worked…maybe we should try pulling.”
“Pulling?” Lily repeated, glancing at Pink Cloud and considering the idea. “How so?”
Sprinkle Medley hummed thoughtfully for a second before she clambered over the fence to join Pink Cloud in the yard. After a moment’s consideration while Lily watched, Sprinkle Medley tentatively put her hooves on Pink Cloud’s rump, shifting them and debating where the best hoofholds might be. Because of her position, Pink Cloud couldn’t see any of this, but she could certainly feel it, and the longer Sprinkle Medley took, the more the pink pegasus’s gaze turned more and more withering.
“We enjoying the view back there or something, Sprinkle?” the perturbed mare finally blurted out, annoyed.
Sprinkle Medley’s eyes went wide, her face turning a profuse red in embarrassment as she realized what Pink Cloud was implying, so much so that Lily couldn’t help but snicker at the mare’s mortification. “I’m just trying to figure out the best way to try and pull you out of there, Pinks!” she promised, quickly removing her hooves and trying to quell the perverse suggestion as flat out false.
Lily reared her forehooves up onto the upper railing of the fence, leaning over to help. “Maybe you should try grabbing her hind hooves,” she suggested.
“Oh, good idea,” Sprinkle said, relieved, and dropped down to wrap her opal front hooves around her friend’s pink back hooves. She gave them a yank, only to pull Pink Cloud’s hooves out from under her and cause the mare to belly flop onto the ground with a thud. “Oops, sorry!”
“I swear you two are both making this far more painful than it needs to be,” Pink Cloud muttered as she moved her front hooves to heft her body back up. “Just…hurry up already, okay?” She glanced warily at the neighboring cottage. “I’m starting to worry Mr. Crotchety is going to see us at any minute, and then we’ll really be in trouble.”
Lily rolled her eyes with doubt at this claim, but Sprinkle Medley nodded and wrapped her hooves around Pink Cloud’s again. Upon insuring her footing was good, she proceeded to yank on the mare, hoping to pull her free. But as Lily watched, Pink Cloud simply jerked back on every yank, her head refusing to pull back through the gap it was stuck in.
“Keep pulling!” Lily urged to Sprinkle Medley. “I’ll trying pushing from this end!”
She then put her own forehooves on Pink Cloud’s head and, despite the stuck mare’s protests, began to push whenever Sprinkle Medley yanked, hoping the combined force would be enough to finally free the mare. After several moments though, they were still no closer to freeing the mare than before.
“Augh, stop, stop, stop,” Sprinkle Medley finally announced, letting go of Pink Cloud’s back hooves, whose owner promptly repositioned to prop up her body again. “This isn’t working. I just can’t get enough grip holding onto her hooves.” She paused to consider the predicament while Lily patiently watched and waited, before stepping closer to her pink friend. “Sorry about this, Pinks,” she apologized in advance, then quickly wrapped her hooves around Pink Cloud’s lower torso, pinning her hooves just above the mare’s hind legs.
“Whoa!” Pink Cloud immediately cried out in mild surprise, before sarcastically adding, “Yeah, this isn’t awkward in any way.”
“Oh hush, you don’t need to be making this worse than it already is,” Sprinkle Medley reprimanded and blushed again, before heaving with all her might to pull the mare backwards.
“Oof!” Pink Cloud grunted as her head was visibly yanked back against the two fence railings that pinned it between them. The fence creaked faintly.
“Hey, I think we’re getting somewhere, keep pulling!” Lily urged, hopeful, as she started pushing again on Pink Cloud’s face.
To Pink Cloud’s continued irritation. “Ow!” she griped as Lily pressed her hooves awkwardly onto her face. “Ow, ow, ow! Darn it Lily, watch those hooves!”
The other two mares ignored the complaints and continued their efforts to liberate the mare. Repeatedly, Pink Cloud’s stuck head would appear to shift slightly like it was about to pop free from the fence, but it stopped as soon as it began, sliding back in place the moment they stopped.
Finally, Pink Cloud had enough of Lily’s hooves digging into her face. Slapping the earth pony’s hooves away, she shot the mare a glare. “Why don’t you go help Sprinkle pull?” she snapped at Lily.
Lily frowned but obeyed, clambering over the fence to join Sprinkle Medley at Pink Cloud’s rear. The gardener wasn’t sure for a moment how to get ahold of Pink Cloud with the other mare already in the way, but after only a moment’s hesitation, Lily clamped her teeth onto the stuck mare’s pink tail and proceeded to join in the yanking.
Pink Cloud gasped at the jolt of pain this sent up her spine. “Ow, hey, that tail needs to last me the rest of my life, you know!” she continued to complain on deaf ears.
They continued to jointly yank on the mare, hard enough that Pink Cloud was bodily lifted off the ground. Feeling like they were getting close, Sprinkle Medley decided to add more pull by taking to the air, lifting Pink Cloud even higher into the air. Once airborne, Sprinkle Medley proceeded to try and angle the downward force from her flapping wings to add to the pull on Pink Cloud, stretching out the poor mare’s body to nearly its full length. It was finally looking like they might succeed when Pink Cloud started to cry out.
“Ow! Stop, stop, stop!” The trouble mare called out urgently. “Seriously girls, you’re only going to end up dislocating my neck if you keep that up!”
Both mares stopped, panting from the effort, and released their holds, allowing Pink Cloud to flop down onto the ground. The three then sat and worked to regain their strength while yet again reassessing the dilemma. Pink Cloud proceeded to rub at her sore neck with her forehooves, her wincing suggesting she really wasn’t exaggerating the pain she felt from the pulling.
“Horsefeathers,” Sprinkle Medley muttered finally, shaking her head as she stood back up and marched to the fence. “I thought we were really going to get her free that time. We were at least close.”
“Yeah, but Pink Cloud’s right,” Lily was forced to concede as well, following the other mare. “Freeing her isn’t going to do her much good if we only end up injuring her at the same time.”
“Yeah, I kind of want to get out of this intact still,” Pink Cloud added, watching the two mares clamber over the fence while she continued to rub at her sore neck.
“You would still only have yourself to blame though,” Lily pointed out, only so forgiving as she looked back at the mare. “It’s your own fault trying to force yourself through a gap you were never going to fit through in the first place.” She leaned her hooves on the upper railing again. “And I still say pulling out this railing would be the smartest, easiest, and safest thing to do.”
“Could you do it without damaging or breaking it, though?” Pink Cloud challenged, doubtful.
Lily was resolute of her opinion though. “We might not have any other choice, Pinks, so you’re probably just going to have to face whatever complaints you get from Mr. Crotchety.”
“Have you met Mr. Crotchety, Lily?”
“No, but he’s still just a pony. Given the circumstances, I’m sure you and him can still come to some kind of understanding.”
“Then you really don’t know Mr. Crotchety! And what’s with this “you” stuff anyway? Shouldn’t it be “we?” You’re in this mess with me and Sprinkle, too!”
“Hardly. I wasn’t the one who was disobeying the stallion’s requests in the first place, so I’m not getting blamed for you two getting yourselves into this mess. I’m just the good pony trying to help you get out of it, in case you forgot. So grow a spine and take responsibility for your own mistakes, why don’t you?”
“Hey, less arguing and more trying to figure out what to do, please,” Sprinkle Medley interrupted, frowning as she pondered. She sat and examined the gap Pink Cloud’s head was stuck in, seeing the mare’s neck beginning to turn red from where it rubbed against the fence and sighed. “Aw, if only there was some way to make her head easier to slip out.”
“Slip out…” Lily suddenly stomped her hoof decisively. “You know what we need, then?” She grinned as looked at the opal mare beside her. “Butter.”
Sprinkle Medley brightening, pointing her hoof at Lily excitedly. “Butter!”
Pink Cloud raised an eyebrow at them, puzzled. “Butter?”
“Butter!” both declared back in confirmation.
“I’ll go get some!” Sprinkle Medley said, and quickly flapped off into the evening sky.
But Pink Cloud was still confused. “Get some butter?” she asked, uncertain.
Lily nodded. “Yup. Butter.”
“Why butter?”
“You’ll see.”
They didn’t wait long, not much longer than fifteen minutes at best. But it was time enough for Lily to remark that, if this didn’t work, it might be time to get the authorities involved so they could help free Pink Cloud however necessary. However Pink Cloud was immediately against it, arguing that doing so would only guarantee that the Mr. Crotchety she feared so much would become aware of the situation. They were in the middle of arguing over how horrible Mr. Crotchety could possibly be, Pink Cloud describing him as “scary beyond all reason,” when Sprinkle Medley returned, carrying a small carton of generic brand butter.
“Butter!” she declared, holding it aloft to the other two mares as she arrived.
“Butter!” Lily also declared, accepting the proffered carton.
“Butter?” Pink Cloud repeated.
“Butter,” Lily confirmed with a nod, showing the stuck mare the carton.
Pink Cloud pushed it away with one hoof in frustration. “So why the butter?” she pressed, still not understanding.
“Butter’s slippery,” Sprinkle Medley explained as they set the carton down in front of Pink Cloud and opened it. “We’re thinking that if we put it on you and the fence, it’ll make you slippery too, and hopefully a little easier to get unstuck.”
“So wait—you’re going to put that on me?”
“Yup,” Sprinkle Medley said with a grin as both she and Lily stuck their hooves into the yellow cream. “By the way Pinks, you owe me four bits for the butter.”
“Wha—why?”
“Because that’s how much it cost me to get this just now.”
“You mean you just ran and bought this butter?”
“You’d rather I made the lengthy flight back home across town just to fetch some of my own butter to use?”
“…no.”
“Then I think four bits is a small price to pay for all this, don’t you think?”
Pink Cloud grumbled a little to herself then winced as the other two mares began to apply the greasy butter to her neck. “Ugh!” she shuddered as they smeared it into her pink fur. “That feels icky!”
Nonetheless, the two mares continued to layer it onto the mare and the fence with their hooves, applying it thickly and liberally in hopes the butter would help. Soon the smell of butter wreathed around the mares as the two got caught up in the task.
“Betty Botter bought some butter,” Lily found herself reciting as they worked, “but she found the butter bitter. If she put it in her batter, it would make her batter bitter, so she went and bought some better butter, which made her batter better, and…” she trailed off, frowning. “…I can never remember the ending part.”
“Isn’t it something about how it was better for Betty Botter to buy the better butter?” Sprinkle Medley offered.
“Something like that. Oh well.”
“What sort of name is Betty Botter anyway?”
“I don’t know, but I suppose it doesn’t have to make sense to be a tongue twister, does it? I mean, take 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.' Who’s even heard of a peck? And what’s a pickled pepper, anyway?”
“I suppose it’s just a pepper that’s been pickled, like how a cucumber that’s been pickled makes, well, a pickle.”
“Yeah, but why pickle a pepper?”
“I don’t know…for somepony who likes things salty?”
“It’s so to make the pepper last longer!” Pink Cloud suddenly declared in frustration. “Don’t you two know anything about pickling?”
“Oh, and I suppose you do,” Lily answered, rolling her eyes as she dug her hooves back into the carton for some more butter.
“I’ll have you know that I’m the proud owner of an award-winning pickling recipe passed down through my family over the past five generations,” Pink Cloud stated proudly. “I could pickle just about anything and still have it taste good.”
“I’ll have to pass,” Sprinkle Medley stated. “You know my doctor wants me watching my salt intake.”
“There’s more to it than just salt! With the right mix of seasonings—”
“There, I think I’ve got my side about as lathered up with butter as it’s going to get,” Lily announced suddenly, cutting Pink Cloud’s imminent tirade on pickling short as she wiped off the excess butter on Pink Cloud’s face, to the mare’s annoyance. “How about you, Sprinkle?”
“Almost…there,” Sprinkle Medley concluded, removing her hooves from her side of Pink Cloud and, unlike Lily, wiped off the excess butter on the side of the now mostly empty carton.
Lily grasped Pink Cloud’s head and gently pulled it back and forth a little. Though the fence would still stop her head from going too far forwards or backwards, the flower mare quickly noted that the butter had certainly helped to create less friction against the stuck mare. “This just might work,” she said, growing optimistic.
“Okay, so how do we want to proceed?” Sprinkle Medley asked Lily.
“I think we should try pushing first,” Lily answered.
Both mares then pressed their hooves onto Pink Cloud’s head and face, to her continued annoyance. “Ow, again with the hooves in the face!” she bemoaned.
Nonetheless, the two mares kept pushing on the heftily buttered mare, and indeed could feel the mare’s head start to ever so faintly start to slip back through the gap it was stuck in. Spurred on, they began to push harder, until Pink Cloud’s declarations of pain stopped them.
“Must we push to free me?” she asked the mares as they withdrew their hooves from her head. “I’m not kidding, it really hurts with your hooves digging into my face.”
“Sheesh,” Lily meanwhile mumbled as they paused for a quick breather. “I’ll say it again, I really don’t know how you got your head to even fit into that gap in the first place!”
“So I hit it at a full run!” Pink Cloud shouted back, just as frustrated at their continued lack of success. “Clearly, it was easier to get my head into the gap than pull it back out!”
Sprinkle Medley perked up at this. “Hey, maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way!” she said, climbing over the fence to push her full weight on Pink Cloud, trying to force the mare further into the gap.
“Oof!” Pink Cloud grunted as the pushing started to press her shoulders deeper into the gap in the fence.
Lily frowned and stood in front of the stuck pegasus, watching to see if the pushing would make any progress. After a moment, her frown only deepened. “This isn’t going to work,” she announced finally. “Pink’s shoulders are just too wide to fit through that gap, and I think her legs probably aren’t helping either.”
Sprinkle Medley stopped pushing and stepped back to ponder the problem. “Well…maybe we can fix the leg problem if we got her to turn onto her side,” she thought aloud, grabbing Pink Cloud’s hind legs to try and rotate the mare sideways.
“Whoa!” Pink Cloud cried out as she felt her legs get pulled out from under her again, flustering about to keep herself standing.
But Lily shook her head at this too. “That won’t help. If her shoulders won’t fit through positioned as she is now, they certainly won’t fit through sideways. It’d be like trying to fit a long horizontal pole through a tall and vertical doorway.” She started to clamber back over the fence again. “I think we’re going to be better off with the pulling we were doing before.”
“I guess pulling it is,” Sprinkle Medley agreed with a small shrug. “Maybe that pushing loosened Pinks up enough that a good pull will do the rest.”
Pink Cloud sighed wearily at this, not eager to be put through the uncomfortable pulling once more. “Okay, let’s just get it over with,” she conceded, bracing herself.
Sprinkle Medley nodded and took position at the pegasus’s rear again. Lily decided this time to take up position by taking ahold of Pink Cloud’s shoulders to pull. Pink Cloud also realized at this point that if she pushed her forehooves against the lower railing of the fence, this gave her a means to try and pull her head out of the fence as well. Again, they felt some small give thanks to the butter removing some of the friction, but the fence otherwise kept the mare’s head pinned between it. After a few moments of pulling they were starting to think they weren’t getting much further than before. But then, the fence suddenly made a loud pop and the upper railing was seen bumping upwards ever so slightly.
“O-ow!” Pink Cloud remarked, sounding surprised.
The other mares immediately stopped pulling, afraid they had injured their stuck friend. “You okay, Pinks?” Sprinkle Medley inquired cautiously.
But then Lily saw what had happened and, eyes wide and excited, she sprung forward. “No, look! Her head moved!”
Indeed it had. Pink Cloud’s head had shifted partway back through the gap in the fence, far enough that now the pegasus’s head was pinned between the two railings of the fence at its thickest point, right about the middle of her head.
Pink Cloud was finding it hard to be excited about the progress though. “Ow, it’s pinching my ear!” she complained, reaching one hoof up to her left ear, which had gotten partly pinned between the fence and her head in the movement.
The other two mares gathered back in front of the mare to eagerly reassess the situation. “Well, this is great then!” Sprinkle Medley declared. “Just a few more pulls and we should have you free completely, Pinks!”
Lily, however, saw a possible problem. Sitting herself down in front of Pink Cloud’s head, she pushed against it with her hooves and was dismayed to note that, unlike before, the stuck mare’s head didn’t budge in the slightest. It wedged so firmly between the two railings it was not inclined to move further. “Actually, I think we might have made her more stuck,” she admitted, biting her lip.
“What?” Pink Cloud exclaimed, alarmed by this.
Sprinkle Medley groaned herself and spun away from the fence to fume for a moment. “Augh, if only we had a bit more help!” she said aloud.
Lily looked up and glanced up and down the empty street they were on. “Hey, where is everypony anyway?” she asked, realizing how odd it was that no other ponies had passed by for some time now. “I mean sure, it’s getting late, but there’s usually still some ponies out and about at this hour.”
“Now that you mention it, I think there was some magic show that was being performed down at the park this evening,” Pink Cloud offered. “I’ll bet you everypony is down there.” She shifted uncomfortably, finding the new position her head was stuck in far more uncomfortable than where it was before. “But never mind that, it kinda hurts to have my head pinned like this, so can we keep trying to get my head free, please?”
Sprinkle Medley clambered back over the fence to give Pink Cloud a few more tugs from the rear, but quickly saw it was a futile endeavor. “Sorry Pinks, but I think Lily’s right. We got you closer, but now your head’s stuck even tighter than it was before. I’m not sure we can get you free fully from just tugging without risking hurting you, potentially badly, and I’m not doing that to you.”
Lily put her weight on the upper railing for a moment. “I think your head has also gotten this upper railing lodged into its slot tighter than before too and won’t pop out, so looks like that’s out.” She sighed and sat down again, bringing her head down to Pink Cloud’s eye level. “Sorry Pinks, but I’ve officially have run out of ideas now. I think you’ve got no option left now but to get the authorities, somepony who’d have the right tools to get you free a little more safely.”
“Noooooo,” Pink Cloud whined in dismay. “That’ll get me and Sprinkle in trouble with Mr. Crotchety, and he’s scary!”
“Sorry Pinks, but I’m going to have to agree with Lily,” Sprinkle Medley said, coming to sit beside Lily. “I’m out of ideas too.” She sighed before continuing. “So I think we’re just going to have to pony up and face Mr. Crotchety before we make things worse still trying to free you on our own.”
“No!” Pink Cloud whined again. “And you can’t make me!”
“Oh, so what are you going to do instead then, hmm?” Lily snapped. “Just stay there?”
“Well…” Pink Cloud hesitated for a moment. “…sure, I guess so.”
“What?” Sprinkle Medley declared, stunned.
“Well, how bad could it be?” Pink Cloud reasoned weakly.
“You can’t move, for starters!” Lily pointed out.
“Yeah, but at least the view’s not too bad,” Pink Cloud answered, motioning at the street in front of her, which happened to have another street intersecting with it just to the left of her view, enabling her to see down it and deeper into town.
“What about when it rains?” Lily challenged.
“Pfft,” Pink Cloud shrugged this off with the wave of one hoof. “I’m a pegasus, it’s not like I haven’t gotten caught in a rainstorm before.”
“So how will you eat?”
“You or Sprinkle could bring me food. Or I could just munch on the grass and stuff growing here along the fence.”
“And what about when you need to use the restroom?”
Pink Cloud froze at this realization. “Um…”
“Don’t say you’ll just go where you’re standing,” Lily interrupted quickly.
“What? No, ew!” Pink Cloud said, pulling a face.
“Look, it doesn’t matter, Pinks, because you can’t just stay there either,” Sprinkle Medley pointed out. “Mr. Crotchety’s still going to notice you out here eventually, probably when he comes out to check his mail in the morning if not sooner.”
“Oh right,” Pink Cloud said, frowning. “Darn.”
“C’mon Pinks, you’re being unreasonable,” Sprinkle Medley continued, gently rubbing her friend’s cheek with one hoof. “I don’t like Mr. Crotchety either, but Lily was right from the start…we’ve got nopony but ourselves to blame. We were the ones who were cutting through his yard even though he’d told us not to before.”
“No, no, it’s my fault, really,” Pink Cloud confessed, turning sorrowful suddenly as her resolve crumbled. “None of us would even be in this mess if I hadn’t been stupid and thought it’d be clever trying to dive through a gap in a fence too small for my body to fit through. I should’ve known better, but I did it anyway. I…I was being reckless when I should’ve been smart about it. So I guess if anypony has to face the music over this…it probably should be me.”
“Aww, that’s really sweet of you to say, Pinks,” Sprinkle Medley remarked, touched.
“Doesn’t help us any with our present situation, though,” Lily pointed out. She sighed. “Look, I’ll just run down the police department real quick, tell them the situation.” She started to walk up the street towards the intended destination. “We can work out what we need to do from there.”
Pink Cloud hesitated for a moment, wincing. “No, wait, hold on, I’m not ready!”
“Oh c’mon, Pinks!” Lily exclaimed, kicking a clump of flowering weeds growing next to fence in Pink Cloud’s direction before trotting back to the stuck pegasus. “You’re just stalling now!”
“I know, I know, just…give me a second, okay?” Pink Cloud pleaded. “If we have to do it this way, I want it to be at least on my terms, so—” she suddenly cut herself short, wrinkling her snout for a spilt second before sneezing. “Aptchoo!”
Sprinkle Medley blinked and pulled back a little bit. “Bless you!”
“Thanks,” Pink Cloud sniffled, before sneezing again. “Aptchoo! Ah, my nose is suddenly feeling all itchy.”
“What brought that on?” Lily asked, raising one eyebrow in puzzlement.
“It was probably you kicking those weeds over there, and it caused my allergies to flare up suddenly,” Pink Cloud reasoned, pointing her hoof up at the clump of growth Lily had kicked.
Lily glanced at the weeds, sitting only about a meter up the fence from where Pink Cloud stood, stuck. “That’s thistle,” she observed before glancing back at Pink Cloud. “You’re allergic to thistle?”
“Yeah,” Pink Cloud answered, wiping her nose with her hoof. “I’m usually pretty good if I keep my distance from it, but if any of the pollen gets in my nose…aptchoo!” she sneezed again suddenly. “…it’s not too pretty.”
Lily furrowed her brow as she glanced back and forth from Pink Cloud and the clump of weeds. “But you’ve been standing near those things this whole time, why is it only bugging you now?”
“Look, it’s a calm night, with no wind to blow the pollen in my direction until you kicked it!” Pink Cloud said, before sneezing yet again. “Aptchoo!”
This time she jerked her head back a little for the sneeze, bumping the wooden fence railing directly above it, making it creak.
Lily’s eyebrows suddenly went up and she was quiet for a moment. “I just got a really crazy idea,” she said aloud.
Sprinkle Medley was starting to look concerned, watching as Lily trotted off. “Yeah, I think I know what your idea is too,” she said slowly, “but I think I’m going to have voice my disapproval of it.”
“Too late, I’m already doing it,” Lily announced with finality as she bent over the clump of the thistle and picking several of the blossoms with her mouth, bringing them back over to Pink Cloud. “Okay Pinks, take a deep breath and get a good sniff of these,” she said through a mouthful of thistle stems.
Pink Cloud, however, catching on to Lily’s plan, immediately shook her head, or at least tried to as much as the fence pinning her head would permit. “Aptchoo! Nuh-uh, you keep those away from me! Trust me, this is a really bad—”
“Smell the flowers, Pinks,” Lily interrupted, stuffing the bundle of thistle into Pink Cloud’s snout.
The effect was almost immediate as the thistle had barely contacted the pink pegasus’s nose before her eyes went wide. “Ah…ah…AH…”
“Brace yourself!” Sprinkle Medley urged, pulling Lily back from Pink Cloud.
“APTCHOOHOOHOO!”
The sneeze was truly immense, knocking Lily and Sprinkle Medley off their hooves. In the same moment, Pink Cloud’s head jerked back hard from the recoil of the sneeze, and with an almighty crack, the upper railing of the fence popped free of its slots keeping it in place and was thrown into the air. Pink Cloud herself, now suddenly free, was thrown backward and toppled onto the ground, flat on her back. The fence railing spun in the air for a sliver of second over her, then landed with a thud on top of the liberated pegasus. Lily and Sprinkle Medley picked themselves off the ground and for a long moment could only stare, stunned.
“Bless you,” Sprinkle Medley remarked finally.
Pink Cloud raised one hoof into the air and snuffled. “Thanks.” She started to sit up, wrinkling her now very itchy nose and shot a glare in Lily’s direction.
Lily stood up and shrugged. “Hey, look on the bright side,” she pointed out and threw her hooves into the air. “You’re free now!”
Rubbing her snout with one hoof, Pink Cloud stood up, examining the railing that had fallen on top of her. “Yeah, but we damaged this,” she noted, observing the large crack in the knob that slipped into the fencepost slot and what had finally enabled the railing to come free. “Mr. Crotchety is going to throw a fit. Aptchoo!” She wiped her nose again after her sneeze but immediately brightened. “But now that I’m free, maybe we can just quickly slip away before he notices, and that way he won’t have to know it was—”
“WHO’S OUT THERE?”
All three mares spun around to look at the adjacent cottage and saw the shape of a pony moving in the windows, heading quickly for the side door.
“It’s Mr. Crotchety, he’s seen us!” Sprinkle Medley declared in a yelp.
“Really you two, what’s the big deal about this guy anyway?” Lily asked, turning to get her first good look at the old stallion as he opened the door and stepped out onto the step. Her eyes went very wide at the startling sight of him. “OH MY—”
Sprinkle Medley quickly silenced Lily by hurriedly stuffing her hoof into the gardener’s mouth, turning somewhat pale at the frightful spectacle before them. Pink Cloud sneezed again.
“WHAT ARE YOU THREE DOING OUT HERE?” the stallion bellowed with a voice the defied his size. “IS THAT MY FENCE YOU’VE DAMAGED? I’LL CALL THE COPS ON THE LOT OF YOU!”
The three mares immediately pulled back at the threat, cowering at the rage of Mr. Crotchety. Lily felt a shudder run down her spine, spooked by the unexpectedly fearsome appearance of the stallion.
“Oh the horror, the horror,” she murmured.
Lily and Sprinkle Medley waited until Pink Cloud emerged from the cottage again. When she finally did so, she stepped out looking sullen, calm and collected, and most importantly, alone, which meant the two did not have to face Mr. Crotchety again. They stood up anxiously as Pink Cloud trotted up to them.
“So?” Lily prompted, biting her lip. “How did it go?”
“Well, I managed to convince Mr. Crotchety to not press any charges once I had explained the whole story, so we’re off the hook for that,” Pink Cloud explained. “As for the rest, I personally took the blame for it all, seeing it was me who got her head stuck, so we managed to agree that he wouldn’t hold either of you accountable if I repaid him for the damages.”
“Damages?” Sprinkle Medley repeated.
Pink Cloud nodded. “So apparently the damage on that railing we broke is bad enough that he’ll have to replace it entirely, and apparently it was made out of this exotic wood that he had to import all the way from Griffonstone, so it’s no little thing either.”
Lily bit her lip. “So how much is this going to cost you?”
Pink Cloud avoided eye contact, looking mildly embarrassed. “A hundred bits,” she mumbled almost under her breath.
Lily winced. “Ooh,” she said in sympathy.
Sprinkle Medley also winced at this proclamation. “You know Pink Cloud, I’d be happy to pitch in some of my own bits to pay that off,” she offered.
But Pink Cloud shook her head. “No, I said I took the blame for all of this, and I mean it too.” She turned to Lily. “You said it yourself Lily, I really had no one to blame for this but myself. And you were right about that.”
“Well, I have been known to be right from time to time,” Lily quipped, casually making light of the matter but still couldn’t help but make a smug grin.
Pink Cloud chuckled before sighing. “Look, the long and short of it is that it was my fault and my fault alone for getting stuck in that fence and causing all of this, so I needed to stand up and be accountable for it.” She shrugged, and added, “Sure, it’ll come at a price. But I don’t think I’d really be fully satisfied if I didn’t do this.”
Sprinkle Medley grinned a little. “You know, you didn’t have to do that and take all the blame. Lily and I aren’t entirely blameless from this mess either.”
“Yeah, but not enough to deserve facing the full wrath of Mr. Crotchety, and besides, you were both trying to help me get out of my own mess, so…” Pink Cloud shrugged again and managed a small grin. “…I guess this is my way of saying thank you.”
“Well then, I guess the appropriate thing for us to say back is ‘you’re welcome,’” Lily replied warmly. She then turned somber. “But seriously, Pink Cloud, thank you for sparing us having to deal with Mr. Crotchety ourselves. I know I wasn’t taking your stories about him seriously before, but I take it all back now!” The raspberry-colored gardener shuddered. “He was terrifying.”
Pink Cloud just shook her head, amused, and started to walk off. The other two joined her, and together they headed on down the street and away from the fence that had caused them so much trouble.
“Hey Pinks, do you still want to head to the Hay Burger?” Sprinkle Medley asked, suddenly remembering where the two mares had been heading before the fence had gotten in the way. “Lily, you can come too if you’d like. Tell you what, it’ll be my treat.”
“Tempting,” Pink Cloud responded with a grin. “But to be honest, after all that’s happened, I think I’d rather just head home, climb into bed, and call it an early night. I’m feeling beat.” She rubbed at her neck with one hoof before pulling it away to find it was now smeared with butter. “Plus, I probably ought to clean this butter out of my fur.” She sniffled then glanced in Lily’s direction. “And my nose is still feeling itchy anyway.”
“Hey, it got you out of that fence, didn’t it?” Lily pointed out, unrepentant.
They all laughed, unable to argue that point.
Author's Note
So after watching "No Second Prances," I had this idea for a fanfic for a sort of epilogue to the episode. Ironically, it ended up not panning out, but while skimming through the episode to double check a couple finer details, I noticed a spot where one of the background ponies looked for all the world that she had her head stuck in a fence, and I thought to myself "there's a story behind that, I just know it" (hence the title). When I got the idea for sneezing her way back out, I decided "yep, I'm writing this."
Hardest part of this was actually identifying the background ponies pictured. Lily Valley is obviously a fairly common background pony, and Sprinkle Medley is a little more obscure but recorded as well. Pink Cloud, however, was another story, as she's super obscure and appearances uncommon. In fact, I'm still not sure if that's really Pink Cloud, as the mane styles don't quite match, but I wasn't finding a pony who matched better, and what sources I could find suggested that it was, so that's who I identified her as.
But I guess in the end it doesn't really matter, so long as I made an enjoyable story with these characters still, and hopefully I've done that much. 
