“And how is standing on Yona’s head supposed to teach us about friendship again?”

The whole class nodded in agreement as Smolder flapped her wings to lift herself into the air, pulling her weight off of the yak’s head and giving her some room to breathe, literally.

“That’s an easy one!” Pinkie Pie answered. “Because you obviously don’t want Yona standing on top of your head!”

“That’s not what I mean!”

Pinkie tilted her head, her smile still stretching across her face. “It isn’t?”

Smolden slapped her claw to her face, running down her snout and stretching her eyelids with it before her features snapped back into place. “What I’m trying to ask is, if the point of the assignment is to pick cherries, then why don’t I just fly up to get them? It’s not like I need Yona to give me a boost when I have wings on my back.”

It was true. Pinkie Pie had given the class the assignment of picking cherries by giving each other a boost, hoping to teach each of them how to use teamwork to reach a shared goal, but this was not the kind of assignments they were hoping for when taking a field trip to Cherry Hill Ranch.

“The point isn’t picking the cherries, silly!”

Smolder scratched her head. “Then… what is it?”

“It’s to do things together! What would happen if your wings got hurt in a terrifying tornado accident, but you reeeeally wanted to eat some cherries? Plot twist! The only cherries in the whole world are on top of a giant tree, and the only way you could possibly get them is by standing on Yona’s head! You may not want to stand on her head, and the last thing she wants is a dragon stepping all over her hair, especially when she just cleaned it yesterday!”

“Alright, Professor Pinkie Pie. I think I--”

“BUT! Yona has just been diagnosed with Cherrimyalgia, and now cherries are the only things her body will digest! Why didn’t you just stand on Yona’s head? You could have saved her!” At this point, Pinkie fell down to her knees, bawling into her hooves as her eyes poured out like a fountain, and to make matters worse, all the students were now glaring judgementally at Smolder, who was now doing her best just to calm down the hysterical earth pony.

“OK! OK! I won’t use my wings!”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie’s crying stopped and a smile formed on her face once again, causing Smolder to roll her eyes as she lifted herself back onto Yona’s head. Finally, with a large reach, she managed to grab hold one of the branches of the neighboring cherry tree, pulling it down gently and delicately picking off all of the ripened cherries. The entire class was now cheering, and as silly as she thought this exercise was, she had to admit that she at least felt a deeper connection with Yona now that the two of them were probably going to become the new class celebrities after this.

“You see, class?” Pinkie Pie asked as she made her way over to a log where she could sit down. “Friendship isn’t about the end goal. It’s about the journey! Now, which lucky creature would like to go ne--”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened in shock. The moment she sat down, her usually uncontrollable jaw had frozen in time, making the other students turn towards each other in confusion. For several moments, nobody said a word, glancing back at Pinkie Pie to see if her batteries ran down and turning back towards their neighbor, but no matter how much time passed, nobody had any answers.

“Class dismissed.” The creatures then all turned their attention towards their professor, no doubt mishearing what she said, but once again, after another few moments of silence, Pinkie Pie shouted with urgency, “Class dismissed everycreature!”

“But… Professor Pinkie Pie…” one of the students began, “...you have our train tickets!”

“Tell them to put it on my tab!”

Again, all of the creatures turned to each other in confusion, but with several of them shrugging their shoulders, the class gradually began to funnel out of the ranch and make their way towards the train tracks. Just as soon as Pinkie began to lift herself off of the log, however, thinking that she was in the clear, one of her students descended from the sky in front of her, making her quickly sit back down with tears threatening to slide down her cheeks.

“Hey, Professor Pinkie Pie,” said the blue gryphon, seemingly oblivious to his mentor’s obvious pain. “I just had a question about the last lecture.”

“Love to talk. Can’t right now. Train is that way! See you tomorrow!”

Pinkie was now biting down on her bottom lip, but rather than leaving, Gallus was still standing there, pressing the matter further. “We have a test tomorrow, don’t we? I just wanted to make sure I have everything memorized before--”

“Test is cancelled. See you at school!”

Gallus pumped his fist with excitement, but after suddenly realizing something else, he bonked himself on the forehead, causing Pinkie Pie to rock back and forth with a half-smile, half-grimace. “Oh, that’s right! It might be on the final! So, you know how the other day you were telling us how zebras rhyme when they talk?”

“Yup! That’s right! 100 points for you, Gallus! Hehehehe…”

“Really?! Thanks a bunch, Professor Pinkie Pie! Although, now that I think about it, I am still a little curious.” By this point, Pinkie was biting down on her hooves, an act that was seemingly oblivious to the rambling gryphon, and the more he continued to talk, the more the pressure inside her was threatening to explode. “So… if a zebra and a pony had a foal together, would the foal speak in half-rhymes? Would it only rhyme every other sentence? Wait! If a gryphon and a hippogriff had an egg together, do you think it would be a griffon who could turn into a seapony? Wait… can gryphons and hippogriffs even make an egg togeth--”

“YEEOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

Without any explanation or forewarning, Pinkie’s entire body catapulted into the air, sending her above all the cherry trees in the orchard before she came tumbling back down, rubbing her posterior as soon as she landed. In that moment, though, she quickly looked back at Gallus to see his reaction, which, as she had guessed, was full of confusion.

“Uh… Professor? You feeling alright?”

“Gallus! I have a secret, but you have to promise not to tell anycreature!”

“OK. What’s the secr--”

“And you have to be extra sure you’ll be able to keep it too, because breaking a promise is the fastest way to lose a friend forever!”

“Uhh… OK. What’s the--”

“FORRRREEEEVERRRR!!!!”

This time, instead of answering, Gallus gave Pinkie a dull look, even looking down at his claw like he was pretending to wear a watch just to make sure Pinkie didn’t interrupt again. “You finished?”

“Yeah,” Pinkie replied, seemingly more at ease now. “I’m good.”

“OK. What is this super important secret that you can only tell me any nobody else?”

“Come closer!” With an eyebrow raised, Gallus leaned his ear in towards Pinkie. “Closer!!” Again, Gallus rolled his eyes, but continued to move his head nearer to Pinkie Pie’s mouth. “I have… I have…”

“What? You have a what?”

“I have a splinter.”

As Gallus pulled his head away, his face was now glaring daggers at Pinkie Pie, who looked back at him with the most urgency she could possibly communicate without speaking. “That’s it?!” he shouted. “Then pull it out!”

“I can’t. It’s reeeeeally deep.”

“Then I’ll get it out for you. Where is it? Lemme see.”

“NO!” Pinkie then backed away several feet, doing her best to keep her whole body as far away from Gallus as she could. “Gallus, I’m your teacher, for heaven’s sake! Do you have no shame?!”

“What? Where is it? I can get it for you. It’s one of the perks of having claws.”

“It’s… It’s… I’d much rather not talk about it.”

With a large breath through his beak, the gryphon let out a long sigh, doing his best to recompose himself as he tried his best to figure out how to handle the awkward situation. “Listen, Professor. If there’s one thing that you’ve taught me about friendship, it’s that we always need to be there for a pony who needs us, and you know what? Maybe by the end of this, we’ll both end up laughing about this whole thing. Now can you tell me where the splinter is so I can get it out?”

“It’s… in mybupprhhrh…”

Gallus scratched his head in confusion. “Sorry, Professor. I didn’t catch that.”

“It’s himmaburm!”

“...OK. One more time.”

“It’s in my butt!”

“EW!” Now Gallus was the one taking several steps back, flinching away from Pinkie as if she had some kind of booty disease that would infect him if he got too close. “Why would you tell me that?! I’m your student for heaven’s sake!”

“But it hurrrrrtttttss! Can you please just get it out for me with those claws of yours?”

By this point, Gallus was holding his claw up to his beak, squeezing his eyes closed while making gagging noises. “Couldn’t you ask one of the girls to do that for you?”

“Gallus! Boys have butts too! EVERYONE HAS A BUTT!”

“OK! OK! Fine! Just… ugh… Stay right there and I’ll… uh… get that for you.”

Pinkie’s face was full of discomfort, but the way Gallus was looking seemed to be almost an exact mirror image. While he approached as hesitantly as he could, Pinkie trotted in place, doing her best not to move as the splinter seemed to slip deeper into her muscles. Finally, Gallus made his way to examine Pinkie’s posterior, but when he did, his jaw dropped, causing him to place his claw over his beak before Pinkie accidentally noticed the surprise on his face.

“What is it, Gallus? Is it in too deep?”

“I… wouldn’t say that that’s the problem.”

It wasn’t a splinter. It was an entire branch. Gallus had to do a doubletake to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but once he looked back over towards the log that Pinkie Pie had been sitting on, he saw an area where a branch had been torn off. He thought that it would be an easy removal, but how was Pinkie going to react if he had to pull half of a log out of her keister?

“Is it serious, doc?” Pinkie asked. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely am I to die?”

“Uhh… seven? Honestly I’m surprised you’re still alive after this.”

“I KNEW IT!” Pinkie then fell back on her haunches, causing the tree branch to tilt up, pulling some of Pinkie’s fur with it. As Gallus looked closer, though, he noticed that the branch wasn’t actually piercing through her skin; it had just gotten caught in her fur with the occasional poke to her backside.

“Wait, wait, wait! I can fix this!”

“Hurry, doc! I don’t have long to live!!”

With his tongue sliding up against his cheek and total determination on his face, Gallus then grabbed hold of the branch, trying to untangle the wood as much as he could without accidentally ripping off Pinkie Pie’s hair. Carefully, gently, discreetly, he pulled the log out like a game of operation, making methodical movements to unhinge the wood without accidentally pricking Pie Pie any further. The earth pony, however, was busy cowering in fear, holding her hooves up to her eyes like she couldn’t bear to see the borderline surgery taking place.

“Almost… there…!” With one final pull, Gallus yanked the branch away, somehow miraculously getting everything out without removing any of Pinkie Pie’s hair or skin. “Got it! How are you feeling, Pinkie?”

“Um… Gallus?”

“Yeah?”

“I can still feel it.”

With total disbelief on his face, Gallus looked back down at where he had pulled the tree branch, but as he stared uncomfortably as Pinkie Pie’s posterior, he couldn’t see any twigs that had been left behind. “I don’t get it!” he exclaimed, but soon after saying those words, he found a small piece of wood just above Pinkie Pie’s right leg.

He had missed the original splinter.

“I’m going to have to do this again, aren’t I?” he asked himself, to which Pinkie Pie nodded with urgency. Then, with another dreadful sigh, Gallus slumped his shoulders, rubbing his face with aggravation. “Why did I have to ask the stupid zebra question?”

Author's Note

Submission for the May Pairing Contest! You should check it out!