Not all roads lead to Ponyville. In fact, most of them probably don't, otherwise she would have far more "Welcome" presentations to sing. Not that she thought they would do any good.
Ponyville's star party planner and upcoming baker found herself alone on a country lane, out past the far edge of Sweet Apple Acres. Infrequent breezes ruffled the foliage and carried the sounds of the surrounding fields and woods far and wide. A pregnant sky threatened rain, as arranged by the weather control teams.
She had taken up the practice of taking walks in the last few months. They seemed to get longer and longer as the days and weeks went by, and recently Pinkie had began to familiarize herself with the farther reaches of outer Ponyville. Other ponies were a rare sight out here.
Fine by her.
No, that sounded angrier and more standoffish than she meant. If anything, Pinkie had never held a higher opinion of her friends and neighbors in Ponyville. It wasn't their fault she was out here, moping with seemingly uncharacteristic introspection.
Her effect on her friends and neighbors brought her out here each day. Specifically, her diminished effect on them.
Pinkamena Diane Pie lived to make her friends happy. To be the bright light in their dark times was her life's work and dedication. She had a hoof in countless celebrations, get-togethers, parties, and gatherings throughout Ponyville, and normally she wouldn't have it any other way.
Their smiles fed her. An empathic creature, Pinkie loved to see her friends happy and contented, partially because it made her happy. There were once times when simply being around her friends could alleviate their bad tidings and eviscerate their sorrows. Such times had gone, to where she did not know.
Oh, she still threw her parties and welcomed new visitors and sang her songs and cracked her jokes, but things were not the same anymore. Her friends and neighbors still smiled, laughed, and played along with Miss Pie, but their smiles were tinged and their laughs were subdued. Behind each smile was a problem out of Pinkie's reach, and behind each laugh was a worry she could not dismiss.
Their joys were veneers. Each laugh or smile they layered over their worries served to highlight the cracks, peels, and imperfections of their efforts to Pinky's inner eye. She would wince inwardly at each uncomfortable laugh and every insincere smile. She reacted as her old self would, to reach her next increasingly-pointless chance to make them happy. She would hide it all, as they did.
As the wind picked up, her solitude amidst the dust of the road fell before the presence of another lonesome traveller. A hat, seemingly liberated from its owner by the wind or some other circumstance, tumbled and rolled along the crest of the dirt road. She stopped it with a hoof as the first drops of rain fell from the sky. Momentarily pleased with the transparency and generosity of circumstance, she put the wide-brimmed hat on her head to shield her mane from further exposure to the rain.
The feel of straight, matted hair on her back and neck informed her the hat wouldn't do too much good at this point. The rain and wind had stripped her hair of the curling-iron masquerade she had applied to it that morning. Her trademark pink curls no longer came about of their own accord these days; a curling iron discreetly borrowed from Mrs. Cake came close to replicating them, and shielded her friends from yet another worry she would not be able to dissipate with pastries and punch.
Ah yes, her parties. She hadn't seen the end of one in a week or two. At first, she had thought her perceived increasingly-ineffectual efforts came down to a rut in her party planning, leading to experimenting with alternative choices and increasing creativity. Her heightened efforts seemed to do little to tear down the stone walls around her friends' and neighbors' inner troubles, an observation that soon spread to much of her efforts elsewhere in her daily life. Even the sales of her baked goods at Sugarcube Corner had been slack in recent times, as if their sweetness had lost its potency. The faint smiles and worn laughter became jarring to her senses; she could no longer handle them for too long.
Happy smiles, well wishes, and excuses. These were enough to see her separated from the functions she had birthed, and had been the progenitors of the walks she no longer needed prompting to undertake. Nor did they demand preparation from her, as the increasing gusts and intensifying rain reminded her of the weather announcements she had not bothered to check before coming out here. Too far out to turn tail and with no shelter in sight, Pinkie had no alternative than to soldier on in search of temporary shelter. The cruel wind mimicked the faintest of moans and cries in her ears. She could do nothing but block them out. It was all she could do nowadays.
A fluttering caught her attention from the roadside drainage ditch. Tilting the hat to block out the slanting rain from her eyes, she trotted over to what was apparently a three-yard scrap of waxed canvas. Pulling it from its resting place revealed a dry underside with no tears to foil its waxen waterproofing. Circumstance had blessed her with a hat, a makeshift cloak, a nearby tree with a dry leeward side, and a storm sans thunder and lightning.
Miss Pie was not one to turn down a gift given.
She was thankful to be out of the rain, or as much so as the situation would allow. Despite her luck, her surroundings concealed little of the storm's fury from her. Equestria's transparent disregard for Pinkie's efforts to protect herself from its onslaught gave her a perverse sort of comfort, despite her otherwise lack of it.
Opacity defined her recent life. The way to the heart of her friends and neighbors remained black as night to her once-blinding lantern of cheer, and as the path forward became concealed so too did the way back. Her once-vibrant complexion had slowly dimmed; today it found a kindred shade in the pegasi's grand work above. Pinkie no longer knew where or when this path her life had embarked upon began, and could not see its end. She did not want to think about it any longer. She did not want to think.
She did not.
...
...
...
Mint.
Her eyes lazily opened halfway. A cool sensation roused her attention.
Hunkered down with the canvas pulled round her shoulders, a single hoof remained exposed. Water had begun to pool in the brim of her hat, dripping down from its edge onto her hoof. Each drip evoked peppermints in her mind. She watched the proceedings with a note of interest.
Each drop upon the skin of her hoof reawakened her cognizance of the storm's breeze. The cool air rushing over her coat turned each drop into a penetrating menthol pinprick. She enjoyed the sensation.
Her discomfort forgotten, she loosened her grasp on the waxed cloth to extend her foreleg out into the open air. A flash of pinpricks washed over her leg for a single moment, before the rain completely doused her coat. What had once been a conflagration of individual nerves became a unified whole beneath the storm's deluge. She could feel the cold wind flowing around her foreleg like river water, splitting around the leading edge and rejoining on the leeward side. Her slackened hold of the cloth allowed the frigid breeze inside, cloaking her in a fresh chill.
Pinkie Pie savoured the feeling. She stood, legs slightly askew to beckon the breeze. The wind seemed to coil around her, blowing in and curling around her form before flowing back out towards the open road again. She took it as an invitation, and followed. The canvas billowed out behind her as she stepped forward into the gale.
A fresh breeze raised the hair on her neck, and played with the fluttering canvas that no longer afforded shielding from the elements. She no longer cared for such protection. Her grip on her makeshift cloak loosened, and the wind carried it away. Rain water soaked her form and livened her sensation of the wind's cool caress. A hoof pinned the hat to her head; the storm would not claim it as easily as the cloak. The wind ceased to buffet the hat, and her hoof ceased to shield it so.
Pinkie stood on her hind legs, and stretched her forelegs outward from her sides. The rain soon coated them, as did the cooling breezes. Droplets formed at her hooftips before being carried off by the wind.
She began to dance.
The elements, formerly her assailant, proved a willing dance partner. Each motion revealed a bit of elbow here, a bit of flank there, and the wind and the rain never failed to send a chill through the exposed nerves. As she settled into a smooth dance rhythm, so too did the storm lessen from an open aggressor to a softened participant. She took pleasure from the feelings, took joy from the circumstances. The world flooded her mind, quickened her pace, raced her heart, opened her eyes. A grin, spreading wide, held up the thinning sky.
The deluge lessened, the wind slacked. The heavens had spent their fury and now did recede before Celestia's rays. Pinkie's dance had ended, herself panting to feed oxygen to her burning muscles and a heart set aflame. The heat of the sun made manifest on her bright pink coat began to carry the remains of her ecstasy off into the humid air around her. All was calm, for a moment.
The laments of the wind could be heard once again, this time clear as daylight. A flash of blonde further up the road and off to the left drew Pinky's gaze.
"Where'd it go? Ah'll raze the forest if ah haveta!"
It was Applejack. It IS Applejack. Why is Applejack here? How much did she see?
Hoofbeats followed a flash of green eyes as Applejack ran towards Pinkie Pie.
"Mah hat! Sweet Celestia, ya found mah hat!"
The orchardist wrapped her forelegs around the baker's neck. Pinkie's reawakened sensations felt hot tears pierce her coat down to her skin.
"Applebloom and her friends wanted to try and get their cutie marks in nomadin', and took my hat along with them when I was bathin'. They lost it when the storm hit." Applejack's hug tightened slightly.
"They lost Papa's hat when the storm hit."
Pinkie felt her release the hug and step backward, as if a touch embarrassed by her initial reaction. She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat.
"Thank ya kindly, Pinkie Pie. You've really made mah day." She beamed as she spoke to Pinkie.
She smiled. It was a genuine smile, the sort only six inches removed from the soul. Nothing polluted it, nothing hid behind it, nothing cheapened it. True to Applejack, her smile was honest and wide as a mile.
The flame in Pinkie's heart became white-hot, a beacon sending sweet light through every atom of her being. Pinkie grasped the hat in a hoof and placed it on Applejack's head, revealing a shock of curly pink mane.
Applejack's eyes flicked up, her grin perceptibly widening.
"Shoot, Pinkie! Yer mane hasn't been this curly in weeks!"
Applejack adjusted the hat on her head. It now sat at just the right angle, exactly where it should be.
"It's a good look fer ya, Pinkie. Ah'm glad to see it back." She wiped her brow with the back of a hoof, taking a look at their surroundings. "Sun after a hollerin' storm always makes it humid, even Rarity's mane can't help but get all out of sorts."
Pinkie Pie smiled at Applejack, and responded with a trademark hop.
"Yeah, it must be the humidity."
Pinkie Pie smiled.
