Pinkie stood up. It was dark where ever she was. Dark and empty. She tried to remember how she got here, but it was to no avail. The last thing she could remember was standing on a chair reaching for some peanut butter for the cookies she was about to make.
"Rainbow Dash, Twilight, good prank you totally got me, but I really need to make those cookies for Mr. and Mrs. Cake." She looked around her into the black nothingness of the void. "Very funny you two, but I can't play today. I need to get back to work!" She called out almost certain she'd get an echo. Perked her ears up listening for the echo of her voice. None came. Pinkie Pie chuckled nervously to herself. The chuckling turned into giggling as Pinkie tried to laugh away the ghosties. A deed laughter soon filled the void.
"That's what I like about you Pinkie Pie," a voice calls from the void. "Where so many cry or scream, you laugh. I always found that interesting." A black hooded and cloaked specter appeared out of the misty darkness. "Hello Pinkie Pie, my name is Death." The grim specter of the reaper, gave a small curtesy bow.
"D-death." Pinkie's ears went flat against her head.
"The one and only. Are you scared Pinkie Pie."
"Kind of. This doesn't look or feel anything like I thought Heaven should be like. It's dark, and lonely, and spooky. Are you sure I didn't just hit my head with the peanut jar. That happens a lot you know." She chuckled a bit at all the prat falls she did for the Cake twins.
"Are you trying to make light out of death." The Reaper laughed again. "That's what I like about you elements of optimism. Always trying to make bad situations seem so much more positive than they are. You needn't worry Ms. Pie this isn't, well you know." Death gestured with a bony hoof for Pinkie Pie to follow him. She did so.
"Welcome to my office Ms. Pie." The two of them stepped into a cozy room with blue carpeting and dark paneled wood walls, which went up to a ceiling with a mahogany fan. Death took a seat behind a desk made of acacia. Pinkie Pie took her seat on the opposite side of the desk. "Now then Ms. Pinkie Pie." Death tapped his desk and in a flash of fire a pen, quill, and couple of scrolls appeared. "After looking over your file, and given your celebrity pull, you've been give a very special opportunity." Death took all the scrolls unrolled them and tapped them down on the desk. They became stiff like regular paper. "Before you go on to the after life your being allowed to go back."
"You mean I get to live." Pinkie smile increased in size ten fold.
"Yes and no." She visibly deflated. "Oh don't be like that Ms. Pinkie Pie. You're being allowed one day any day, so long as it is after the day of your death, to live. You can spend that day with whoever you like doing whatever you like. Standard fees for sinning still apply. Now I just need you to sign these forms and we can be on with it." Death pushed the papers to Pinkie and gave her the quill.
"So once I sign these forms you'll put me in any day I choose and I get to live all day long."
"From sunrise to midnight." Death pushed the ink well over to her. "And I do want you to know that I am pulling a lot of strings making it to midnight. Normally when this kind of thing is done it's only to sunset. Now then you only get one day, and you can start it off anywhere in the world that you would like." Death continued to explain as she started signing each of the pieces of paper. "So you need to think long and hard because you don't get to split your day up."
"I already know which day I want to live and where I want to live it." Pinkie said. "I made a Pinkie Pie Promise and I'm going to keep it." Death would have raised an eye brow if he had one. "The when Pound and Pumpkin's sixteenth birthday, the where. Where ever they are, I know they're still going to be together when they sixteen."
"True they are still together, but your assuming that they live that long." Pinkie's eyes went wide in horror. "My apologies it was joke, I have a very grim sense of humor, Ms. Pie. Now let's make sure your not late to the party."
***
The sun had just peeked over the eastern horizons. As Pinkie Pie woke up on the grass in the middle of Ponyville. Pinkie Pie started walking toward Sugar Cube Corner there was so much to do and only a little time to get it done in. The town sure had changed a lot in the thirteen years that she had been dead. The castle didn't stick out to badly any more as more and more buildings started to appear in the same aesthetic. Sugar Cube Corner was not one of those buildings. It seemed that the little bakery was closed for the special day. She started knocking on the door.
Mr. Cake looked out of the kitchen to the door where somepony apparently couldn't read. "We're closed today." he called as he turned his focus back to making his son and daughter's shared birthday cake. The knocking continued. "I said we're closed!"
"It's alright dad I got it." Pumpkin said walking to the door her horn glowed a gentle blue. A few seconds later there was a scream from the main sale room.
"Coming Sis." Pound bolted from the dough he was knelling and shot into the other room before his parents could react. "What!" Carrot and Cupcake ran into the front room. They froze. Pass their son, pass their daughter on the other side of the threshold stood Pinkie Pie.
"Happy Birthday!" Pinkie was all of the song that Pinkie could get out before bursting into laughter at the shocked expressions on their faces.
"Aunt Pinkie Pie?" Pound asked fear and hope on the edges of his voice.
"I was the last time I checked." She looked at the colt, no he was a young stallion now. He had grown to nearly the same size as his dad. He looked quite fit for his age. His hair was wild like Scootaloo's had been. He started to shift a little as Pinkie stared.
"How?" Pumpkin asked drawing Pinkie's attention much to the relief of her brother. She had grown it the a beautiful young mare. Her hair was pulled back into a braid. She stood just a little shorter than pound and had was nearly just as fit.
"I Pinkie Pie promised." Pinkie's smile started to return. She had missed so much: them getting their cutie marks, their first cake, their first order, and by how handsome and beautiful they looked probably dates one through ten, maybe up to twenty for Pumpkin. But this was something she wasn't going to miss.
"But your dead." Mr. Cake said, still in shock.
"Yeah but I Pinkie Pie promised that I'd be here for there sixteenth birthday no matter what, and that includes death. "Besides he was cool with it, it was actually him who brought me here." She was about to reach up and hug Pumpkin and gesture for Pound to come and get in on the hug too, but before she could both of them tackle her to the ground in the second tightest most love filled hug of her life.
"Pinkie Pie." They both lost it she wasn't just an aunt she had been like a second mom to them, and now she was back. "The one birthday wish they've made every year for the past thirteen years had finally come true. Being held there on the ground with the two crying on top of her was more than Pinkie could take she soon joined them in their sobs. Mr. and Mrs. Cake were soon joining the family hug which for the first time in so many years was complete again.
"Let's go inside," Mrs. Cake said finally letting go. "We have a lot of catching up to do." The cake was abandoned as the five off them just sat around the table and talked. Pumpkin and Pound took turns telling their stories to their second mom Pinkie Pie. They never remembered talking being so wonderful. And Pinkie's laughter was ten times better than either of them ever remembered.
"So who wants cake. You can't have a birthday without cake."
"It will take some time to get it baked, though and it's already late, we can have cake tomorrow. Pinkie."
"Pfft. Have you forgot who I am?" Pinkie asked with a smile. She walked over to the counter grabbed the cake batter but the frosting on it while it was still in the bowl and then put sixteen candles in it. Finally she put the whole thing in the over and turned it on. Their mouths hit the floor as Pinkie Pie pulled out a decently sized cake completely decorated with candles lit. On the top it said "Happy Birthday Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake"
"Admittedly I forgot you could do that," Mrs. Cake said as Pinkie Pie set the birthday cake on the table.
"I still don't know who she does it." Mr. Cake but his chin in his hoof. "But that Pinkie Pie for you."
"Now hurry up and make a wish." The twins looked at each other and nodded. They blew out the candles in one go. "Ewww, I can't take it what did you wish for, what did you wish for?"
"We wished that you could stay," they answered in unison smiling.
"Oh." Pinkie Pie's ears flopped back against her head. "Uhm, I'm sorry guys, but I can't."
"You can come back though right?"
"Right Pinkie Pie?"
"I'm sorry guys, but this was a one time deal. I could only come back for one day, and I picked today." She got up and hugged the two twins. "I'm sorry but I've only got until midnight. Then I have to go, and I can't come back." She pulled them closer as they started to cry her own tears joined theirs. "But I wouldn't trade this day for any other." She relit the candles and kissed them. "Now make another wish, so it can come true." The Cake twins nodded.
"I wish that I can stay up with Pinkie Pie until she has to go." They said in unison as they blew out the candles, as the sun started to set.
