Author's Note
Well, today is my birthday and I haven't done anything on this side for months (again). So I thought I'd give me a personal treat and finally use that picture, a good friend made for me all these years ago. Yes, I know, it's basically a generic HiE story, but this is one I have been planning for years. It's really a personal thing.
Anyways, read enjoy and if you didn't enjoy it, there's a dislike button for that. Now if you'll excuse me, there are more stories I got to write on (as you probably know with a quick glance on my account).
Chapter 1
Pinkie Pie happily trotted through her hometown Ponyville, while humming a happy tune to herself. All around her ponies were going after their daily activities with smiles on their faces. The flower trio was busy tending their flowers, Applejack was talking to Filthy Rich at her apple stand, the CMC were playing tag and Twilight was reading a book, while lying on a picnic blanket. Spike was there too, leaning against her side with a comic in his claws.
Pinkie waved cheerfully to each pony and they greeted her back likewise before each party went on with their activities. The party planner herself decided to enjoy the weather a little bit more and simply continued her walk in a random direction. Rainbow Dash had done a terrific job in the skies today, allowing the sun to gently warm Pinkie’s fur. She had half a mind to curl up like a cat and enjoy the warmth of Celestia’s sun while taking a nap. But the pink earth pony had way too much energy left to do that as of now and so instead she continued her walk through her hometown, the smile never leaving her face.
As she was making her way across a bridge, Pinkie heard a weird sound, which caused her to stop in her tracks for a second. Looking around, she couldn’t see anypony else. thinking it might have been just her imagination, Pinkie wanted to move on, when suddenly she heard the sound again, this time much clearer.
“Huh?”
Pinkie pressed her ear against the wood underneath her, trying to find out if there was something inside the wood making that sound. And indeed, once again the same sound could be heard from beyond the planks of the bridge. Interested and a little bit surprised, Pinkie grabbed a drill from the other side of the river and quickly made a hole in the plank. Through there she could see what was underneath the bridge. With one eye poking through the wood, Pinkie spotted the forefront of a foal sticking out of a cardboard box. The party planner gasped in surprise, jumping into the air for a short period, before taking another look. She could see that this foal had an orange coat, though it had a lot of brown spots. Those brown spots turned out to be dried up mud. The mane of the foal was two-colored in red and yellow and pretty short, but still messy. Suddenly Pinkie gasped again. She suddenly realized that she didn’t recognize this particular foal, which in return meant it must be a new pony! She needed to greet this pony with her welcome wagon!
Jumping over the railing, Pinkie landed on the soft grassy ground and turned around to see the foal still lying under the bridge. She quickly zoomed in front of him and greeted him with a cheerful: “Hey there! I’m Pinkie Pie!”
Now Pinkie was used to a lot of reactions from other ponies when she first introduces herself to them. Most of them are either startled or confused or even both. This time the reaction was completely different from what she had experienced so far. Instead of saying something in return or even screaming, the little guy just rolled to the side and let out another one of those noises, which turn out to be a groan. It wasn’t the usual one Pinkie received from her friends from time to time when she said something silly. This one reminded her more of the time when her sister Marble was bedridden because she caught the flu.
With her smile somewhat disappearing, Pinkie put her right leg against the colt’s forehead. Her eyes widened in shock when she felt the heat radiating off the forehead. The smile completely vanished from the earth pony and was replaced with a worried frown.
“Oh my gosh! You’re burning! Hey, can you hear me? Are you feeling alright? How many hooves do you see?” she asked, holding up five hooves. But as before, the only thing the foal did was to groan once again and roll on the other side. He didn’t even let up a confused gasp when Pinkie showed him five of her hooves. Granted, he had yet to open his eyes, but still, it was worrying. She knew from personal experience that sickness wasn’t something to be taken lightly. After all, it pretty much prevented you from almost having any fun whatsoever. Luckily, Pinkie knew just the pony for sick little foals: Nurse Redheart!
So without further ado, the pink earth pony put the dirty foal on her back, intending to bring him to the hospital. While adjusting him slightly, Pinkie noticed that the little guy was a pegasus, though his wings were just as small as Scootaloo’s. Another thing was that he already had his cutie mark. It was a Silver Coin, surrounded by multiple other silver coins, only smaller.
“Don’t worry, new pony. Auntie Pinkie will bring you to Nurse Redheart. She’ll make sure you’ll be all better and I’ll throw you a get well soon party as well.” With the declaration made, Pinkie Pie sped through Ponyville, startling some of the residences, as she barely missed them in her sprint. She just so might be responsible for the one or other pony dropping something easily breakable. She made a mental note to apologize to them later after she had made sure the foal would be okay. A good thing was that she was well aware of all the shortcuts around town, which in return allowed her to reach the hospital in no time.
Ponyville General was hard to miss, to begin with. It was one of the tallest buildings in town and pretty much stood out due to it’s more modern design than the traditional design of the other buildings. The earth pony practically slammed the doors open, almost unhinging them in fact. Every single pony in the lobby, be it patient, visitor or doctor turned their heads towards the heavily breathing pink pony.
By pure coincidence, Nurse Redheart happened to be in the lobby, talking to one of her colleagues. Confused and a tad worried, because Pinkie wasn’t scheduled to cheer up anypony today, the nurse approached Ponyville’s very own party planner, her hooves’ clopping echoing through the normally not so silent lobby.
“Pinkie Pie dear, is something the matter?”
Pinkie for her part was still out of breath. Instead of answering with words, she gestured widely on her back with one of her legs. Confused, Nurse Redheart walked around and gasped in shock, when she saw the ragged foal on her back. He looked like a complete mess: the coat was dirty, the feathers on his wings in disarray and you could barely make out the red and yellow lines in his short mane, he was that dirty.
“Oh my gosh. What happened to the poor dear?” Redheart asked Pinkie, as she did a quick inspection of the colt.
“Don’t know…” Pinkie said between breaths. “Found him….like this….high fever….party…”
But Redheart stopped listening as soon as she heard the word fever. She did the same check up on the temperature earlier as Pinkie did and came to the same conclusion. His fever was seriously high.
“Quick.” The nurse took the liberty to put the colt on her own back, relieving Pinkie from her burden. The pink mare took in a deep breath, while Redheart was already on her way to the hallways. “We need to treat this colt immediately.” And without further ado, Redheart disappeared behind a pair of double doors, leaving Pinkie Pie alone in the lobby.
Twenty minutes later Pinkie found herself waiting in the lobby with some of the local townsfolk. Naturally, they had been more than a little curious about the behavior of the pink pony, not to mention the orange colt she had been carrying on her back. So she told them where she found the small pony and why she brought him to the hospital.
“My goodness.” Berry Frost put a hoof in front of her muzzle in shock. “I hope the poor dear will be alright.”
“You said you never saw him before, right?” Bottlecap asked, to which Pinkie nodded.
“Uh huh.”
“So, what about his parents?” the blue earth pony asked. “I mean if he’s here and you have never seen him before, then that means his parents must be new here too. Where are they though? Are they looking for him right now?”
The information got everypony around to pause for a couple of seconds. Afterward, everypony started murmuring nervously with each other.
“Where are his parents?”
“Maybe they’re in the town hall, asking for help?”
“What irresponsible parents would leave their child alone?”
“Did he get lost somehow?”
While the surrounding ponies talked among each other, Pinkie went over her mental list of ponies she knew, trying to see if she wasn’t mistaken and did know the colt’s parents. She was only halfway through when she was approached by Nurse Redheart again.
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Oh! Nurse! Is he alright? Can I throw him a party? What’s his favorite color?” Pinkie zoomed into the nurse’s face with each question. Redheart for her part took a few tentative steps back, getting some distance between her face and Pinkie’s.
“Please calm down, Pinkie Pie. Can you please come with me for a little? I need to ask you some questions.”
“Okie, dokey, lokey!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed and hopped after the white mare. The nurse led the party planner to a separate office. Inside the white mare gestured for her fellow earth pony to take a seat on one of the two chairs in front of the big desk. Pinkie did just that, jumping into the air, doing a front flip and landing comfortably in the chair. The nurse just rolled her eyes in slight amusement and trotted over to the other side of the desk, where she took a seat.
“Okay Pinkie, because I know you want to throw this colt a get well soon party, but not as of now.”
“Aww.” Pinkie let her head hang low for a second before it came back up with her usual smile plastered on her face. “Oh well, I’ll just schedule it for another time.”
“Yes, that would be for the best.” Redheart nodded, glad this issue was out of the way. “Now then” the white mare opened a drawer and took a clipboard out with her mouth and closed the drawer with a free hoof. Placing the clipboard on the desk, there was already a paper stuck on it, the nurse picked up a pencil and got ready to write.
“So before we go to the boring paperwork, the colt is currently asleep. We gave him some strong medicine due to the high fever.”
“So...he’s going to be alright?” Pinkie Pie asked, just a tad worried.
“Yes, he will be fine.”
“Phew.”
Redheart continued explaining. “The colt simply came down with a bad case of the flu. He’ll be bedridden for a couple of days and probably won’t feel too well for the next couple of days. But I’m positive he’ll recover in time.”
“That’s good! I knew you were the right pony for the job.” Pinkie grinned.
“Why, thank you Pinkie.” Redheart nodded in appreciation. “Now then, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Not at all.” Pinkie shook her head.
“Okay then, do you know the colt’s name?” Redheart asked.
“Nope.”
“What?”
“Nope,” Pinkie repeated.
“Well, why not?” the nurse asked.
“Because he’s a new pony.” Pinkie explained as if it was obvious.
“A new pony? Well, this certainly complicates things. Wait a minute, if he’s new here, then what about his parents? Aren’t they somewhere around?”
“I don’t know.” Pinkie Pie replied a little dejected. “He’s the only new pony I saw today. My Pinkie Sense doesn’t tell me if there’s a new pony around, sadly.”
Redheart sighed. “Yes, it’s really an inconvenience. Anyways, I’m sure his parents must be worried sick about him.” Redheart put the pencil down and jumped off her chair. She walked around the table until she was right next to Pinkie Pie.
“This is serious my dear. I’ll need to head to the town hall immediately and inform the mayor about this, so she can organize a few posters to be hung up. Pinkie” the pink mare jumped down “could you in the meantime search for his parents? You know everypony in town, so you’ll be able to spot them immediately. Maybe ask some of your friends for help.”
“Don’t worry, Nurse Redheart. I’ll find them in a jiffy!” Pinkie saluted, ran past Redheart, opened a window and jumped right out of it.
“Well, at least she didn’t break the window this time.” The nurse spoke to herself, before heading out as well, only she used the regular way.
As quickly as she could, Pinkie Pie gathered all of her friends (no, not the entire town, just the Elements of Harmony) in front of Sugarcube Corner and explained the situation to them.
“Wait, wait, hold up!” Rainbow Dash waved her hooves frantically while hovering in the air. “Are you telling me, this pony lived inside a cardboard box and nopony else noticed?!”
“Well, I wouldn’t say lived.” Pinkie replied with a thoughtful expression. “I just found him sleeping there. Maybe he tried to build some kind of secret fort!” she exclaimed in an exciting manner.
“I highly doubt this is the case,” Twilight spoke up. “No, from what Pinkie Pie told us, I think Rainbow Dash has the right idea.”
“Oh, the poor, poor dear.” A tear trickled down Fluttershy’s cheek. “I can’t imagine how awful that must have been. All alone in the cold night with nowhere to go…”
Rarity put a sympathetic hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “I know my dear. Just thinking about all of the dirt and the rain and a filthy cardboard box,” the fashionista shuddered “of all the possible things, why a cardboard box?!”
“Ah guess the fella just looked fer someplace ta sleep.” Applejack commented.
“Still, why didn’t he just ask anypony for help to find his parents? Or shelter?” Rainbow asked.
“Maybe he’s shy?” Twilight offered uneasily.
“Oh, I know how that feels,” Fluttershy commented in a dejected matter.
“In any event, talkin’ ain’t gettin’ us anywhere.” the farmer of the group spoke up. “We should look fer tha fellas parents and not wonder ‘bout stuff we don’t have an answer.”
“I agree with AJ here,” Rainbow told the rest. “I’ll check for anypony new from the skies. See ya around.” And with that, Rainbow Dash took off, leaving her signature rainbow trail behind. The others looked after her for a couple of seconds, until she was out of their view.
“We should go as well,” Twilight told the others. “We’ll split up and meet back at Sugarcube Corner in three hours. All right?”
The rest of Twilight’s friends mutually agreed to this decision.
“I just got an idea!” Pinkie suddenly exclaimed, causing the others to stop from going away. “Why don’t we ask the colt how his parents look? He may even know where they are!” She jumped in excitement.
“Uh...Pinkie Pie, dear. Didn’t you tell us that he’s currently sleeping?” Rarity asked.
“Well, maybe he woke up!”
The others gave each other a look and shrugged. “All right, as long as you make sure to tone it down a bit. I’ll imagine he’ll be pretty exhausted.”
“Don’t worry.” Pinkie smiled. “I know how to take care of sick foals. I do it all the time with my get well soon parties!”
“But this isn’t-!”
But Pinkie Pie was already gone.
“-a party.” Twilight finished lamely. She sighed and turned back to the other three ponies.
“Dun’ worry nothin’ hun.” Applejack waved dismissively with her hoof. “She may not look like it, but Pinkie Pie knows when to hold back with her excitement. The foals really love her ah’m sure this’ll be no different.”
“Right.” Twilight nodded, though she didn’t sound convinced. “Anyway, we should get going. There’s a good chance the parents of the colt are already looking for him.”
“And when ah find them, ah’ll give them one stern talking,” Applejack promised.
