Pinkie Pie's Excellent Adventureby dashingrainbowsChaptersFluttershy Loses Her KeysDashie's Big ScoreDashie's Big Score, Part 2Applejack's AttemptRarity's ResponseFluttershy Loses Her KeysStep on the smooth side (not this one) and say your temporispatial destination in a clear voice. Temporispatial, that’s a word, right? You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. This was bad – no, terrible. Probably the worst thing that had happened since Pinkie Pie threw a party for that griffon. Fluttershy was trapped. She would never see the inside of her house again. The sweater she was knitting would never be finished. The dust would accumulate until it filled the interior. Fluttershy gasped. All the milk would go sour! A rational, comforting part of her mind tried to talk her through the situation. “Calm down, Fluttershy. You can handle this. This has happened before. What did you do then?” A louder, more influential voice answered the question. It was a voice that was rarely heard nowadays, but to which every mental voice gave heed. “Cry? I guess we should cry,” said Despair. If they had been actual ponies, instead of abstract mental models of various debating aspects of her personalities, Reason would have been driving her hoof into her own forehead. “I mean after that! And after begging all of your friends to help you, and after spending the night at Rarity’s house?” “I double-checked under the tenth rock from the door on the right-hoof side when facing towards the street.” Despair didn’t like where this was going. It was starting to sound like a practical solution, and after solutions, she usually had to stop talking and go hide somewhere in the folds of Fluttershy’s brain tissue until something else came along. “And what happened? “ “They were right there”. It was a solution! Despair silently cursed Reason and slunk into a cozy nook near the bottom of Fluttershy’s prefrontal cortex. Satisfied, Reason spoke to the all right figurative mental representations of the mind in the Department of Motor Skills and took the helm. It felt good to be right. Fluttershy stepped over to the rock under which she usually hid her spare keys. This was her last hope. If they weren’t there, she would be locked out of her house forever, with nothing but a set of possessions (currently stowed in her saddlebags) designed to making living outside of one’s house comfortable. Slowly and carefully, she nudged the rock out of its place with her hoof and began to roll it away. She saw the tiniest crack of dirt underneath, but no metallic gleam of her key ring. Despair looked up from her newspaper and considered going for a jog. Fluttershy couldn’t watch. She shut her eyes tight and bravely pushed the rock out of its place, crushing the nearby grass. The mare made a mental note to apologize later to the grass, but this was urgent. Hesitantly, she prepared to open her eyes to see if those lifesaving bits of metal were in their proper place. She bit her lip, drew up the resolve to go on, and- “SURPRISE!” Fluttershy fell flat on her back, making a box of matches and three first-aid kits spill out of her bags, as a familiar pink tail brushed over her. “I sure got you, didn’t I?” Panic sped down a neural pathway in her stylish figurative sports car to meet up with Despair, who literally figuratively jumped into the figurative passenger seat. But unfortunately, Trust and Relief pulled them over and inquired about their knowledge of the speed at which they had been figuratively traveling. “Y-yes, you did. And it was very nice of you to try and surprise me like that, but maybe next time you could give me a warning before you surprise me” Reason was, for the second time in the past five minutes, symbolized by a pony her hoof in her face. Fluttershy righted herself and looked at the mare who had just jumped over her head. Pinkie Pie was smiling, her eyes practically sparkling, the noon-day sun illuminating every curl of her fluffy mane. Pinkie was a smart pony, maybe she could help. Reason stomped on Politeness’ chest. “Pinkie, I really need your help. If you’re not too busy unpacking, I mean.” Reason hadn’t noticed Politeness’ hoof curl around her leg, tripping her. I’m so sorry, can you forgive me, Reason? “What’s wrong? Ants in your pants? Except you’re not wearing pants – ants in your mane?” Down at Fluttershy’s 18th Precinct, Panic’s lawyer was about to arrange for her to phone the adrenal gland for bail money, but Officer Self-Restraint isn’t known for her adherence to the rules. Or her existence, for that matter. “Um, no. See, I can’t find my house keys, and I was hoping maybe you could, um… never mind” It didn’t bother Reason to give this concession to Politeness, after all, she’d given the conceptual construct quite a symbolic beating and the two had worked together extensively in the past. Besides, she knew Pinkie Pie wouldn’t simply ‘never mind’, so no harm done. But, instead of being upset at being asking for a favor, as Politeness had worried, and instead of being concerned for her friend, like Reason had predicted, Pinkie Pie appeared positively pleased upon parsing her pal’s predicament. “I have just the thing!” Pinkie Pie reached deep into the curls of her mane, past the balloons and confetti, beyond the pieces of the disassembled party cannon, and through what she had termed the Sea of Candy, to pull out a rock. “This will fix all your troubles!” Fluttershy looked at the rock. It was octagonal in shape, about an inch thick and fifteen centimeters wide. It didn’t seem like it would fix anything. Turning it over, she saw that the reverse face was covered with tiny engravings. She leaned in to read, struggling to make out the miniscule, messy writing. You get seven turns. Probably rules for another one of Pinkie’s games? Fluttershy looked up. “Um, Pinkie Pie? This is very kind of you, but how will this help me find my keys?” “You’ll see. Lay it down on the ground, put your hoof on the flat side, say “ten minutes ago”, and let the magic do the rest!” Fluttershy did as instructed. “Ten minutes ago”. All of a sudden, Pinkie Pie disappeared. The shadows shifted slightly. Ten minutes ago Fluttershy’s wings burst out in surprise, and she recoiled from the rock she was beginning to suspect was more than it seemed. “You’re safe,” she reassured herself. “Pinkie Pie wouldn’t do anything dangerous to you. She knows about all sorts of things. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. It’s probably just a game – a game, that’s it! The rock had rules on it, didn’t it? About turns or something like that?” She held the strange artifact in her hooves and concentrated on reading the practically illegible writing. “During your turn, you will not be injured. You are not invulnerable, you just won’t be wounded. The magic of the rock will not protect you from fire, but events will be arranged so that you aren’t exposed to fire. That’s a relief.” “If you want to end your turn, place your hoof on the smooth side and say “Home”. You’ll be back wherever and whenever you are/were/will be before your turn started. Maybe I should. But the rules say that I’ll be protected, and I can go back at any time. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look around.” So the mare stopped the near-impossible task of deciphering the scribbles and took a walk around. It seemed exactly like her home, down to the detail. Fluttershy attempted to go inside, but the door was still locked. So, naturally, she checked the hiding place for her spare key – tenth rock from the door, right hoof side. There it was! “Yay,” exclaimed the delighted pony. Although she wasn’t usually the type for making a scene, nopony was around, and this was very good news, so why not? Fluttershy took a deep breath and cried out at the top of her lungs. “Woo hoo!” A nearby bird turned his head to look at the source of the almost imperceptibly faint noise. It was that pony, the one known in their tongue as Shaserah, “Sensitive To Bees” Then, in the very peak of her jubilee, Fluttershy heard hoofsteps. Panic, who had only just paid her bail money, took off to her conscious mind like a discredited doctor to Tijuana, and implemented the usual defense mechanism. Remembering to grab the key ring, Fluttershy jumped into a nearby oak. Focusing on the technique she had spent so long perfecting, the pink-maned mare held perfectly still, clutching her wings to her body and wrapping her legs tight along the branch, until she had blended in with her tree brother so much that she was undetectable. She watched another yellow mare, still laden with camp gear, search frantically around her house for the key. Was it another mare? Or was it her? But she was nestled safely in the branches of the mighty oak, how could she walk down on the ground there? Then a rose blur streaked across the down-there-mare, and suddenly Fluttershy understood. “Ten minutes ago,” she whispered so softly that even bird which had unwittingly nestled in her mane did not notice, “It’s ten minutes ago?” The rock had solved her problem! She had needed to find her keys, and it had taken her to before she had taken them, so that now she had them. She watched herself step onto the Rock (really, it deserved capital letters at this point) and vanish. Immediately, Pinkie Pie looked up, straight into Fluttershy’s eyes. “Found you! Did you find the keys?” Startled, Fluttershy twitched, redistributing her weight ever so slightly, which the oak took as a sign that she was ready to leave. He knew they could never be together, that this moment could never last, but he hadn’t expected it to end so soon. For a split second he even considered wrapping his branches around her, holding his darling pegasus forever, but it was selfish. He couldn’t. So, with a creaking sigh, he let fall the lucky limb she had graced with her delicate presence, and Fluttershy descended safely to the ground, shrieking with joy. All of a sudden, the branch she was clutching began to creak, and before she could react, Fluttershy’s weight had snapped the wood right off of the tree. Shrieking in terror, she hit the ground before she could even spread her wings. For a moment, on the ground, Fluttershy feared she had been paralyzed; she couldn’t feel the pain. Then she realized it was because there was no pain – she had been less than half a cubit off the ground. Standing up, Fluttershy flicked her head so that her mane covered even more of her face, so that Pinkie Pie would not see just how red she had turned. “Yes, they’re right – “ Where were they? She had been holding them in her mouth when she had fallen, they must have been lost when she opened her mouth to shriek, meaning that she was right back where she started. Fluttershy was so frustrated she could just – right on the ground in front of her, of course. “Right here.” “Was it fun? How did it feel? Did you go on an adventure!?” Even though she loved Pinkie Pie, and had just finished a fun camping trip mostly organized by her, Fluttershy was too exhausted by the events of the past ten minutes (or was it twenty minutes?) to encourage her curiosity, so she merely crawled to the door of her house and unlocked the door. “Did you say anything to yourself?” Fluttershy dragged herself weakly into the front room, to her favorite sofa, just perfect for resting from overly exciting events on. “Did you see something beautiful? Were there aliens? Zombies?” Shedding her gear, she pulled herself up onto her beloved sofa, and was about to take a well-deserved nap. “Read your letter first!” Fluttershy turned to see her friend holding a scroll in her mouth, clearly addressed To Fluttershy. Breaking the seal, she unrolled the scroll and began to read. Dear Dweeb I can’t believe you went crying to Dash just because I yelled at you. You’re hopeless, you cost me the best friend I’ve ever had, just by standing in the wrong place. This is all your fault, loser. I just want you to know, since Dash is gonna be pretty depressed about it for a while, that it’s all your fault, your fault, your fault! You told her something that was none of her business, and now we all have to suffer because you couldn’t take it. Probably your pony friends are going to tell you that you’re okay, that you did the right thing, that it’s all my fault. But they’re lying to you. They all know what I know, and what you better figure out, which is that YOU are the reason Dash lost a friend, YOU are the reason she betrayed me, and YOU YOU YOU are the reason that she will never be able to think of you as anything but a whining little baby ever again!!! Go die, Gilda Dashie's Big ScoreDon’t worry about paradoxes. They’ll be taken care of. I have no idea how, though. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. It is a fact universally acknowledged that anypony in possession of two tired wings must be in search of a nap. Twilight thought that was really funny, but I don’t get it. Whatever. Anyways, after the long trip home from Mount Neighverest, I was ready for a rest myself. It was bad enough that I had to carry my own stuff and the tent, let alone Rarity’s extra saddle bags. What does a pony need two sets of saddlebags for? It was only like, a week in the woods. Probably extra makeup or something. Plus, halfway through the trip, some crazy pegasus flew into my tent and started yelling, asking where “she” was. Eventually I convinced her I was the only one here. I wasn’t scared, I just had a lot of trouble going to sleep after that. Anyways, as I was saying, I was lying on a cloud over Ponyville, trying to get some well-deserved rest, when I heard something that sounded like crying, and I can’t sleep with loud weeping noises in my ears. So I did what anypony would have done, I rolled off the cloud and started flying through town to find the inconsiderate pony who was interrupting my all-important nap. ‘Course, it wasn’t some inconsiderate pony, it was one of my friends. Fluttershy, to be exact. And annoying or not, I’d never leave a friend crying, especially not Fluttershy. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Hopefully something simple, something I could take care of right away, making Fluttershy happy and leaving myself free to sleep. But she didn’t even tell me what happened, she just shook her head “no” and ran into Carousel Boutique. She obviously didn’t want to talk to me about it, so I took that as my cue to watch her and eavesdrop on her conversations, so that she didn’t have to. Anyways, so there I was, hiding upstairs in Carousel Boutique, listening to Fluttershy talk to Rarity. I missed the first part, cause they started talking before I could open up the upstairs window. “And then – and then I found this mean note, right in my house!” Mean note? Well, the best athlete in Ponyville wasn’t gonna let somepony get away with writing a mean note! The first step was to get Pinkie Pie off my back, and second, figure out who wrote it. Oh yeah, by this point, Pinkie Pie had snuck up on me and jumped on my back. Don’t ask me why, she’s just Pinkie Pie. “What are you doing, Dashie?” “I’m – none of your business! Get out of here!” Pinkie Pie is great, but she can be a real pain sometimes. She really doesn’t know when to shut up. Which, in her case, is almost all the time. Especially now. “Ohhhhhhhh, I get it” Suddenly she started whispering. “They don’t know you’re here, do they? You’re…” Pinkie breathed in deep, like she was about to shout. I did what anypony would’ve done, I shoved my hoof into her mouth to stop her from blowing my cover. Her face seemed to inflate for a bit, as the air she had sucked in struggled to get out, but soon enough, she relaxed. I know Pinkie well enough to know when she’s about to yell – actually that’s most of the time. I know Pinkie well enough to know when she isn’t going to yell, you can just tell by the look on her pink face, and the look on her face was proof enough for me that it was safe to take my hoof out. Wiping Pinkie’s weirdly sticky spit off my hoof and onto the carpet, I listened to Pinkie Pie, who’d gone back to whispering. Most ponies have a hard time understanding Pinkie when she talks fast, but not me. There’s nopony I can’t keep up with, not even in conversation. “…spying! I didn’t know we were playing the spying game tonight, I thought we were playing –“ well, actually you don’t need to know what she said here. Just, Pinkie says the weirdest things sometimes. Anyways, after a while and way too much description, she finally got to the good part. “So then Fluttershy jumped out of the tree holding her keys, and opened up her house and we went in and she found a mean old note!” I guess even I can’t keep up with Pinkie all the time, cause I was pretty sure Pinkie never described Fluttershy getting into a tree. “And it was from – well, it doesn’t matter who it was from, you just nee-“ “Of course it matters who it was from!” Of all the things to not go into way too much detail about, she had to pick the name of the pony I had to give a hoof sandwich to? Actually, more like a hoof meal, if they were lucky. A full on hoof buffet, if they weren’t. But she totally wouldn’t tell me. Not cool. “ –but maybe you could stop her from seeing it in the first place!” Now I knew I wasn’t keeping up. “Uh, Pinkie, how can I stop her if she’s already seen it?” “Hmm, good question, maybe it is impossible, but there’s no harm trying, is there?” Actually, there was lots of harm in a lot of Pinkie’s schemes. I didn’t see how this one would get me covered in strawberry pie filling, though, so I decided to go along with her. So she told me her plan, which made about as much sense as her plan to bake Ponyville into a giant cupcake. She had some rock, she had me put my hoof on it and say “Fluttershy’s cottage, two days ago”. She also told me what to do afterwards, but I’m getting to that. But – here’s the crazy part – as soon as I did, I was in Fluttershy’s house! Nopony was there, of course, since Fluttershy was still at Rarity’s boutique and I guess she hadn’t picked up Angel from the bunnysitter’s. So, like Pinkie Pie told me, I looked around her house a bit, till I found the note lying on the table. I didn’t bother unrolling it to read it, because it didn’t matter what it said. This was no time for questions. It made Fluttershy cry, and so I picked it up, shoved it in my mouth and swallowed the dumb scroll. Anyways, then I said “Home”, just like she said, and I was back, facing an over-eager Pinkie Pie. By her standards, I mean. “How was it? I bet it was super-duper-totally tummy tingling, right?” Now it was time for questions. “Would you mind telling me what the hay just happened?” “Time travel!” “Time travel?” “Time travel.” “Time- what? You mean like in that movie?” Pinkie Pie nodded. I don’t actually know any movies with time-travel in them, but I was pretty sure there’s got to be at least one, and I must have been right, since Pinkie acted like she understood. Actually, that’s not exactly the most reliable way to find out. Whatever, there’s definitely a time travel movie. Then I realized what she meant. That rock – that was no ordinary magic rock! It didn’t move me to Fluttershy’s cottage now; it moved me there, then! But, also now, since it’s now right now. But no, because even though it was now when I stepped on the rock, it’s then now. So it moved me there, then, then. “Is that even possible?” “I guess so, ‘cause you just did it!” Coming from anypony else, I would have assumed she was lying, or playing a prank, or just wrong, but I’ve known Pinkie Pie long enough to know where that would go. I’d spend half an hour (with approximately seven minutes in nap breaks, of course) ignoring her explanations, getting hurt repeatedly – possibly sing a song – and in the end, just wind up believing her crazy story anyways. So I did the smart thing, and assumed that the pink pony who was now trying to see how many balloons she could blow up at once was in every way correct. “So, uh, did it work?” A sob from downstairs answered my question. Horseapples. Dashie's Big Score, Part 2Try not to destroy the universe. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. So I did the only thing a good friend could do. I grabbed the rock again, stomped on it and shouted “Fluttershy’s house, five days ago!” I figured I’d have a better chance of fixing things the farther back I went I was back in her house, and there on the table was the note, just like before. I picked it up and decided to be more careful this time. Dear Dweeb Seriously, Gilda? I was about to destroy this one too, but the wax seal on the other note was already making my belly hurt. Like, a lot. So I decided tearing it in half and throwing it in the garbage would be good enough. While I was in the past, I suddenly had a thought. Halfway through the camping trip, some crazy pegasus had burst into my tent. It was five days ago, specifically, meaning it was now. So I took off towards Mount Neighverest, and by the time I got there, it was already dark. I hid stealthily in a tree and watched the six of them – well, us – sitting around the campfire, and watched Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack as they wandered one by one back into their tents, so it was just me and Pinkie. I remembered Pinkie was laughing so hard at some joke I couldn’t get her to explain to me, and watched myself get more and more irritated at being left out. I noticed how awesome I look when I’m irritated. Anyways, then nothing at all happened, and we each went back to our tents: Pinkie Pie to her massive pink fortress and me to my awesome rainbow-striped tent. I could see my lantern through the tent wall, so I was still reading Daring Do. The intruder came just a moment after I blew the fireflies out, so I waited till the little flying specks of light left the tent. I clung to the tree in the darkness and watched nothing happen. Nopony came. Not a sound was heard other than from Rarity’s tent. It was time, so where was she? Then I had a terrible idea – what if she was already in the tent? I had to act quickly, that creep could be brushing my hair or something by now! So I dashed straight into the tent to confront her. “Where is she?!” I demanded. “Where is who?” I asked. “Not you! Her! Where is she, I know she’s somewhere around here!” I looked at my extremely hot body lying in the sleeping bag, eyes wide with totally-not-fear, and it all made sense. “There’s nopony else here, just me! Get out of my tent!” I shot back, looking up at myself. “Go away!” “Oh. Right. It’s me.” I zipped out of the tent and whispered home. Well, that was a failure. But I was sure getting rid of the letter would work this time. How could it not? So when I got back, the fact that Fluttershy was still bawling made it pretty obvious that I had missed something. “What happened now?” “I threw the letter out and, guess who the pony who burst into my tent was!” “You from the future,” she answered, surprisingly calmly “Duh.” “How – how did you know that?” “Same voice. Both pegasi. Plus, I saw you hiding up in the tree, I just didn’t tell you ‘cause I didn't want to ruin the surprise.” She lowered her voice. “Dashie, I don’t think this is going to work” Pinkie Pie was surprisingly mellow, probably because I wasn’t able to help Fluttershy. It actually made a lot of sense, for a normal filly. For Pinkie Pie to act like that was just weird. “I can try again!” I stepped on the rock again, but now Pinkie pushed her hoof into my mouth. “I don’t think we can change the past. See, if you got rid of the note, I would never have brought you the rock so you’d never be able to rid of the note in the first place. It already happened. Just like you sneaking into your own tent. We only have four turns left” Turns? She never said anything about turns. “Let’s not waste them trying to change what already happened” she added. I nodded and she pulled her hoof out of my mouth. Then I remembered something. “What about the note I destroyed?” Pinkie tilted her head in her thought. She rubbed her chin for a minute and finally spoke. “I have no idea what you’re talking about” From downstairs, I heard Fluttershy wailing even louder and Rarity promising to take her to the spa. “The first time I went back, I destroyed a note that I thought was the one that made Fluttershy cry! I need to read it, it might have been important!” I started to step on the rock again, but she pulled it away with her mouth. “Dashie, you’ve already had two turns! That means one of us won’t get any at all if you play again. That’s just not fair. Maybe let Applejack have a turn” Applejack's AttemptFixing problems doesn’t usually work out. You’re better off going back in time to visit a party and just have fun. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. I was just finishing unpacking and giving my little sister a hug when a certain blue pegasus decided to show up. Now, Rainbow Dash is good for a lot of things. She’s fun to hang around, she sticks with you when the going gets rough, and she’s the second-best athlete in Ponyville. Second best. One thing she’s no good for is knowing when to shut her trap. “Woah there, Rainbow!” I said. “We just spent a whole week together. What could possibly be so important that ya can’t wait, but not so important ya couldn’ta said it then?” “I’ve made a huge mistake! I destroyed something!” she answered in her ridiculous Cloudsdale accent. An Apple knows better’n to judge a mare by the way she talks, and I don’t hold it against her, but sometimes she can be a little hard to understand. She says her "I"s all weird. “Now hold on just an apple-picking minute. In the fifteen minutes since we split up, ya managed to destroy something?” Honestly, it wasn’t much of a surprise. “I tried destroying a mean letter some jerky-jerk-face wrote to Fluttershy, but I accidentally got the wrong one. I’ve tried like, twice now, I’m just not good at this time-travel stuff. But you can go back in time to before I destroyed the note, and read it and tell me what it said” Before I had a chance to reply, she pulled some rock out of a saddlebag and threw it on the ground. “Step on the rock. Say ‘Fluttershy’s house, three days ago.’” With my famous good manners, I politely rolled my eyes at her and groaned. “Look, I’ve really gotta get some work done here. I’ve left the farm for a whole week, and my kin’s been struggling to cover my chores on top of their own. And what’s all this about time travel, anyways?” “It won’t take any time at all, I think. Maybe your time, but not your farm’s time. I promise. Just do it and say ‘home’ when you’re ready to go back.” Y’ever hear a word so many times it don’t sound like a word no more? That time, with her saying time all the time, it happened to me. With the word time. I rolled my eyes, a little more pointedly this time, and stepped onto the piece of rock. “Fluttershy’s house, three days ago.” Then all of a sudden I was in Fluttershy’s cottage. I didn’t know that at the time, though. A lesser pony would’a been afraid. Not this cowpony. Instead, I instantly got ready to defend myself from whatever dangers were in this new, unfamiliar place. I started shaking to keep myself warm, just on principle, while I looked around the little house for any sort of clue as to where I was. Little homes for critters lined the walls, but were suspiciously empty. I ran around in circles for a bit, trying to get a better view of the surroundings. I noticed a flash of movement and reared up on my hind legs, just in case, but it was nothing, just my own shadow. Still, better safe than sorry, so I ran to the nearest door – a pantry – and waited in there for a few moments. Eventually, I realized I must be in Fluttershy’s cottage. The first clue was the animal houses – probably nobody in all of Equestria had half so many pets as her. Looking through the glass door of the pantry and out the house’s window, I thought I recognized a particular stand of trees from the Everfree forest. And the fact that all her aprons had the name Fluttershy embroidered onto them was also a clue. Finally, I found the note on her table and started reading aloud. While quite naturally, force is often necessary to accomplish the ends one seeks, and in no situation is this more true than that which is time-sensitive, such as the one in which you find yourself presently engaged, tact and diplomacy are equally essential. In attempting to convey the threat posed by the fragility of the Hoofer Dam, and the disastrous consequences of its imminent collapse, it is therefore imperative that one seeks to balance the security of house and home And then all of a sudden I was back in the farmhouse. Rainbow Dash hadn’t flinched from the position she was in when I vanished. “What did the note say?” Anyway, I struggled to remember the words I had just read, the sudden disappearing had thrown them out of my head. “Uh… something about force… somepony getting engaged… and the fragility of something. Hoo-something. Hoop. Hoot. Hoof. Hoofer – the Hoofer Dam!” I looked her straight in the eye. “The Hoofer Dam’s disastrous imminent collapse - Rainbow Dash, I think the Hoofer Dam is gonna collapse!” We raced to Twilight’s library faster’n a green snake up an apple tree, and told her the news. She told us we needed to talk to Dam Straight, the princess’s civil engineer. He’d personally overseen the construction. That was the part where things started getting bad. See, all six of us took the next train to Canterlot, and using the fact that Twilight’s the personal student of the princess, got ourselves an interview with the pony. He was big and tough-looking, even bigger’n my brother. An’ it turns out he takes offense a lot more easily than my brother, too. “Unstable? MY DAMS ARE THE PINNACLE OF EQUESTRIAN CIVIL ENGINEERING!” “Your dams ain’t worth a –“ “Silence, ignorant farmer!” That knocked the wind out of my sails like a pegasus from a tree. “You- you- you know nothing! I am an ENGINEER! BASK IN MY GLORY!” We were all pretty stunned there. I was pretty sure this was the time to shut my trap. “When I was a foal, a pair of serpents crawled into my crib. I crushed their heads and used them to build a bridge! THUS DID I RECEIVE MY CUTIE MARK!” Straight turned, showing off an image of some sorta suspension bridge, with snakes for cables. "You think the truth is your friend, but you merely adopted it. I was born in it!" Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, did not agree. About the shutting and the traps. "You think you're so great? Well Twilight Sparkle here," she gestured to the unicorn, who backed away, "is a genius and an egghead and a personal student to Princess Celestia!" “By the age of seven, I had bested all teachers. Even Celestia herself, it is said, feared my mathematical prowess. From then on, my only teachers were Pain and Experience. “For countless years, I trained my body and my mind in the middle of the Hellsdeath Volcano! For each theorem, a hundred sit-ups; for each proof, a thousand push ups!" He reared up on his hind legs and showed us his abs. I was ready to believe him. Rainbow Dash's confidence was beginning to falter. "Yeah, well, I did a Sonic Rainboom when I was just a filly!" With a voice like thunder, the pony roared. “It was I who tore the forbidden theorem of Gödel from the mind of the great dragon Anataxaris! I consumed the Seaponies’ Pie of Knowledge! I defeated the Demons of Discontinuity at Khurad-Mor!" "YOUR INFERIOR EDUCATION CAN NOT COMPARE TO MINE! BEGONE! PERHAPS YOU ARE THE CHOSEN OF CELESTIA - BUT NO MATTER! IF SHE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE MY SUPREMACY, I WILL BRING EQUESTRIA'S INFRASTRUCTURE TO A HALT!" Rarity's ResponseIf you run out of turns, you can start over. Carve some instructions into a new rock. Put the rocks together. Then break the old rock and the new one will work just fine. At least I hope so, or else I’m hooped. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. There we were, in Canterlot. Canterlot! The architecture never ceases to amaze me! And the fashion, oh, the fashion! Stallions standing in stoic silence with suits! Mares moving majestically, each more magnificent than the next! I couldn’t hold it in, I had to sing. Elegant grace, flying fast before my face, traveling at a Manehatten pace! Ponies unafraid, fashion all displayed, the loveliest buildings ever made! Darling, join me! Darling, come see! Darling- and then I was quite rudely interrupted by Applejack. “Rarity, we ain’t here to sightsee.” “It doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it while we’re here.” Really, that mare could stand to learn a lesson in manners. One does not simply interru- “Here’s the place, the office of Dam Straight!” The nerve! The very story I’m telling, interrupting me! But that’s no matter. I’ll get back to the narration. “The nerve!” I said. “Who would give their child such an appalling name?” The other five looked at me curiously. “Dam… Straight…” I said. Could they honestly not see the problem here? The other five looked at me, confused. There was a long awkward silence, which Fluttershy broke rather gently. “Um… He makes dams. Straight.” “No, he makes straight dams! What kind of a first name is Dam?” It was less than tactful, but it needed to be said. “Why, it’s like naming your foal Apple!” Applejack glared at me between eyelashes which were in definite need of mascara. But I ignored her unprovoked slight, and we proceeded to Mr. Straight’s office. There, Applejack’s lack of proper manners was revealed painfully, as I’m sure she has already recounted for you. After the whole ordeal was finished, a question arose in my mind. It was question for Applejack, who was humming something, her face practically covered by her trademark accessory. I tapped her shoulder, to get her attention, but she gave no notice. The nerve! So I tapped her again, harder. She continued to ignore me. I decided to be blunt about it. “Applejack, how did you know about the dam?” At that point, she pulled back her hat and I realized what an error I had made. In the place of her cocky grin, I found a frown – no, not a demure and coy pout, but a true frown. Around her brilliant green eyes were red puffy rings, which, though they contrasted quite nicely with her irises, were not becoming of any mare, let alone one so noble – if hard-headed and rude – as Applejack. And running straight past her freckles were several streaming tears. “Ah ruined everything. It’s all mah fault” And all at once, I understood how dreadful my behavior had been. Something was wrong, very wrong with my friend. And as much as I would have liked to cheer her up, I was not the pony for the job. You see, I simply do not understand Applejack. Her mind is absolutely alien to my own. One fateful sleepover I mistook our differences for malice, but something else was at play. I just can’t comprehend the workings of her brain. So I could be of little comfort. No, I required a pony with a cunning understanding of the pony mind. One whose knowledge of pony psychology allowed her to effortlessly manipulate the emotions of others. A pony who regularly practiced these skills to further her goals. Questionable goals, perhaps, but there was no questioning her skills. “Pinkie Pie, would you be a dear and speak to me for a moment?” At this point, she brought me up to speed on the various time hijinks at work. I knew what I had to do. Despite her protestations, I immediately used Pinkie’s strange rock to travel to Fluttershy’s home and leave Applejack a note. When there, I noticed another note in the trash. I pulled it out, in case it had been knockeed there accidentally, leaving it safely on the sofa, and then I wrote a note of my own. While quite naturally, force is often necessary to accomplish the ends one seeks, and in no situation is this more true than that which is time-sensitive, such as the one in which you find yourself presently engaged, tact and diplomacy are equally essential. In attempting to convey the threat posed by the fragility of the Hoofer Dam, and the disastrous consequences of its imminent collapse, it is therefore imperative that one seeks to balance the security of house and home with what one might call the finer things of life. It’s most understandable that you care for your family, your friends and your property. But please, use tact, use grace, use charm! A direct approach conflicts with your ends! Your Loving Friend, Rarity After I returned, Pinkie rolled her eyes at me. In other circumstances, I would have responded in kind, but I needed to know something. “Did it work?” She rolled her eyes harder, apparently searching her eye sockets for any trace of decency. Finding none, she proceeded to rant on topics which were pure Pinkie Pie patent nonsense. I don’t remember much of what she said, but I do recall her going on about “idiots who think chronology is just a wibbly-wobbly ball of timey-wimey stuff” and the “causality continuum being twisted in the cosmic playground known as Ponyville”. Like I said, nonsense. I concluded I had failed. So there was really only one thing left to do. “Can you tell me how to make Applejack feel better?” So she explained, in great detail, what Applejack was thinking and feeling. Naturally, I’d never betray her secrets, so suffice it to say I was prepared to comfort my dear friend. She even provided me with lines to say, preposterous lines, but she assured me they would work. Twilight insisted on taking us to see the princess, in the hopes she could remedy the situation. As we were entering the castle, I tried to mend my relationship with Applejack. “Darling, you know how simply unbearable some ponies can be. Remember that Trixie?” Applejack shuddered at the memory, but Pinkie, standing behind the farm pony, gave me an encouraging nod. “Do you really think a pony like her could have been reasoned with?” As we passed through the magnificent Antechamber of Friendship, Applejack shook her head, and I continued the – frankly absurd – line of reasoning Pinkie had supplied me with. “It hasn’t got anything to do with your manners,” I lied, “it was his own failing. We will just have to solve it without his help, and all the better, not having to deal with that ruffian.” As we passed into the Central Petitioner’s Holding Cell, Applejack’s eyes showed a glistening of hope mixed in with the tears. So I pressed on. “Or Discord! We couldn’t have reasoned with him! It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference how we treated him.” Pinkie gave me two hooves up, so I decided to finish my little rousing speech. “And that nasty griffon, Gilda!” Pinkie started making some sort of incomprehensible gesture, apparently trying to be encouraging. It was a sort of drawing her hoof across her neck, while making a wide-eyed face. “Just think, if she was mean to our Fluttershy, why, she would have been mean to anyone! It’s exactly the same as that.” I decided to throw in one last lie to seal the deal. “Applejack, I don’t think there’s a single thing wrong with your manners” At that point, a griffon wearing a crown spoke up. “Oh, have you made my daughter’s acquaintance?” Oops.
Fluttershy Loses Her KeysStep on the smooth side (not this one) and say your temporispatial destination in a clear voice. Temporispatial, that’s a word, right? You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. This was bad – no, terrible. Probably the worst thing that had happened since Pinkie Pie threw a party for that griffon. Fluttershy was trapped. She would never see the inside of her house again. The sweater she was knitting would never be finished. The dust would accumulate until it filled the interior. Fluttershy gasped. All the milk would go sour! A rational, comforting part of her mind tried to talk her through the situation. “Calm down, Fluttershy. You can handle this. This has happened before. What did you do then?” A louder, more influential voice answered the question. It was a voice that was rarely heard nowadays, but to which every mental voice gave heed. “Cry? I guess we should cry,” said Despair. If they had been actual ponies, instead of abstract mental models of various debating aspects of her personalities, Reason would have been driving her hoof into her own forehead. “I mean after that! And after begging all of your friends to help you, and after spending the night at Rarity’s house?” “I double-checked under the tenth rock from the door on the right-hoof side when facing towards the street.” Despair didn’t like where this was going. It was starting to sound like a practical solution, and after solutions, she usually had to stop talking and go hide somewhere in the folds of Fluttershy’s brain tissue until something else came along. “And what happened? “ “They were right there”. It was a solution! Despair silently cursed Reason and slunk into a cozy nook near the bottom of Fluttershy’s prefrontal cortex. Satisfied, Reason spoke to the all right figurative mental representations of the mind in the Department of Motor Skills and took the helm. It felt good to be right. Fluttershy stepped over to the rock under which she usually hid her spare keys. This was her last hope. If they weren’t there, she would be locked out of her house forever, with nothing but a set of possessions (currently stowed in her saddlebags) designed to making living outside of one’s house comfortable. Slowly and carefully, she nudged the rock out of its place with her hoof and began to roll it away. She saw the tiniest crack of dirt underneath, but no metallic gleam of her key ring. Despair looked up from her newspaper and considered going for a jog. Fluttershy couldn’t watch. She shut her eyes tight and bravely pushed the rock out of its place, crushing the nearby grass. The mare made a mental note to apologize later to the grass, but this was urgent. Hesitantly, she prepared to open her eyes to see if those lifesaving bits of metal were in their proper place. She bit her lip, drew up the resolve to go on, and- “SURPRISE!” Fluttershy fell flat on her back, making a box of matches and three first-aid kits spill out of her bags, as a familiar pink tail brushed over her. “I sure got you, didn’t I?” Panic sped down a neural pathway in her stylish figurative sports car to meet up with Despair, who literally figuratively jumped into the figurative passenger seat. But unfortunately, Trust and Relief pulled them over and inquired about their knowledge of the speed at which they had been figuratively traveling. “Y-yes, you did. And it was very nice of you to try and surprise me like that, but maybe next time you could give me a warning before you surprise me” Reason was, for the second time in the past five minutes, symbolized by a pony her hoof in her face. Fluttershy righted herself and looked at the mare who had just jumped over her head. Pinkie Pie was smiling, her eyes practically sparkling, the noon-day sun illuminating every curl of her fluffy mane. Pinkie was a smart pony, maybe she could help. Reason stomped on Politeness’ chest. “Pinkie, I really need your help. If you’re not too busy unpacking, I mean.” Reason hadn’t noticed Politeness’ hoof curl around her leg, tripping her. I’m so sorry, can you forgive me, Reason? “What’s wrong? Ants in your pants? Except you’re not wearing pants – ants in your mane?” Down at Fluttershy’s 18th Precinct, Panic’s lawyer was about to arrange for her to phone the adrenal gland for bail money, but Officer Self-Restraint isn’t known for her adherence to the rules. Or her existence, for that matter. “Um, no. See, I can’t find my house keys, and I was hoping maybe you could, um… never mind” It didn’t bother Reason to give this concession to Politeness, after all, she’d given the conceptual construct quite a symbolic beating and the two had worked together extensively in the past. Besides, she knew Pinkie Pie wouldn’t simply ‘never mind’, so no harm done. But, instead of being upset at being asking for a favor, as Politeness had worried, and instead of being concerned for her friend, like Reason had predicted, Pinkie Pie appeared positively pleased upon parsing her pal’s predicament. “I have just the thing!” Pinkie Pie reached deep into the curls of her mane, past the balloons and confetti, beyond the pieces of the disassembled party cannon, and through what she had termed the Sea of Candy, to pull out a rock. “This will fix all your troubles!” Fluttershy looked at the rock. It was octagonal in shape, about an inch thick and fifteen centimeters wide. It didn’t seem like it would fix anything. Turning it over, she saw that the reverse face was covered with tiny engravings. She leaned in to read, struggling to make out the miniscule, messy writing. You get seven turns. Probably rules for another one of Pinkie’s games? Fluttershy looked up. “Um, Pinkie Pie? This is very kind of you, but how will this help me find my keys?” “You’ll see. Lay it down on the ground, put your hoof on the flat side, say “ten minutes ago”, and let the magic do the rest!” Fluttershy did as instructed. “Ten minutes ago”. All of a sudden, Pinkie Pie disappeared. The shadows shifted slightly. Ten minutes ago Fluttershy’s wings burst out in surprise, and she recoiled from the rock she was beginning to suspect was more than it seemed. “You’re safe,” she reassured herself. “Pinkie Pie wouldn’t do anything dangerous to you. She knows about all sorts of things. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. It’s probably just a game – a game, that’s it! The rock had rules on it, didn’t it? About turns or something like that?” She held the strange artifact in her hooves and concentrated on reading the practically illegible writing. “During your turn, you will not be injured. You are not invulnerable, you just won’t be wounded. The magic of the rock will not protect you from fire, but events will be arranged so that you aren’t exposed to fire. That’s a relief.” “If you want to end your turn, place your hoof on the smooth side and say “Home”. You’ll be back wherever and whenever you are/were/will be before your turn started. Maybe I should. But the rules say that I’ll be protected, and I can go back at any time. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look around.” So the mare stopped the near-impossible task of deciphering the scribbles and took a walk around. It seemed exactly like her home, down to the detail. Fluttershy attempted to go inside, but the door was still locked. So, naturally, she checked the hiding place for her spare key – tenth rock from the door, right hoof side. There it was! “Yay,” exclaimed the delighted pony. Although she wasn’t usually the type for making a scene, nopony was around, and this was very good news, so why not? Fluttershy took a deep breath and cried out at the top of her lungs. “Woo hoo!” A nearby bird turned his head to look at the source of the almost imperceptibly faint noise. It was that pony, the one known in their tongue as Shaserah, “Sensitive To Bees” Then, in the very peak of her jubilee, Fluttershy heard hoofsteps. Panic, who had only just paid her bail money, took off to her conscious mind like a discredited doctor to Tijuana, and implemented the usual defense mechanism. Remembering to grab the key ring, Fluttershy jumped into a nearby oak. Focusing on the technique she had spent so long perfecting, the pink-maned mare held perfectly still, clutching her wings to her body and wrapping her legs tight along the branch, until she had blended in with her tree brother so much that she was undetectable. She watched another yellow mare, still laden with camp gear, search frantically around her house for the key. Was it another mare? Or was it her? But she was nestled safely in the branches of the mighty oak, how could she walk down on the ground there? Then a rose blur streaked across the down-there-mare, and suddenly Fluttershy understood. “Ten minutes ago,” she whispered so softly that even bird which had unwittingly nestled in her mane did not notice, “It’s ten minutes ago?” The rock had solved her problem! She had needed to find her keys, and it had taken her to before she had taken them, so that now she had them. She watched herself step onto the Rock (really, it deserved capital letters at this point) and vanish. Immediately, Pinkie Pie looked up, straight into Fluttershy’s eyes. “Found you! Did you find the keys?” Startled, Fluttershy twitched, redistributing her weight ever so slightly, which the oak took as a sign that she was ready to leave. He knew they could never be together, that this moment could never last, but he hadn’t expected it to end so soon. For a split second he even considered wrapping his branches around her, holding his darling pegasus forever, but it was selfish. He couldn’t. So, with a creaking sigh, he let fall the lucky limb she had graced with her delicate presence, and Fluttershy descended safely to the ground, shrieking with joy. All of a sudden, the branch she was clutching began to creak, and before she could react, Fluttershy’s weight had snapped the wood right off of the tree. Shrieking in terror, she hit the ground before she could even spread her wings. For a moment, on the ground, Fluttershy feared she had been paralyzed; she couldn’t feel the pain. Then she realized it was because there was no pain – she had been less than half a cubit off the ground. Standing up, Fluttershy flicked her head so that her mane covered even more of her face, so that Pinkie Pie would not see just how red she had turned. “Yes, they’re right – “ Where were they? She had been holding them in her mouth when she had fallen, they must have been lost when she opened her mouth to shriek, meaning that she was right back where she started. Fluttershy was so frustrated she could just – right on the ground in front of her, of course. “Right here.” “Was it fun? How did it feel? Did you go on an adventure!?” Even though she loved Pinkie Pie, and had just finished a fun camping trip mostly organized by her, Fluttershy was too exhausted by the events of the past ten minutes (or was it twenty minutes?) to encourage her curiosity, so she merely crawled to the door of her house and unlocked the door. “Did you say anything to yourself?” Fluttershy dragged herself weakly into the front room, to her favorite sofa, just perfect for resting from overly exciting events on. “Did you see something beautiful? Were there aliens? Zombies?” Shedding her gear, she pulled herself up onto her beloved sofa, and was about to take a well-deserved nap. “Read your letter first!” Fluttershy turned to see her friend holding a scroll in her mouth, clearly addressed To Fluttershy. Breaking the seal, she unrolled the scroll and began to read. Dear Dweeb I can’t believe you went crying to Dash just because I yelled at you. You’re hopeless, you cost me the best friend I’ve ever had, just by standing in the wrong place. This is all your fault, loser. I just want you to know, since Dash is gonna be pretty depressed about it for a while, that it’s all your fault, your fault, your fault! You told her something that was none of her business, and now we all have to suffer because you couldn’t take it. Probably your pony friends are going to tell you that you’re okay, that you did the right thing, that it’s all my fault. But they’re lying to you. They all know what I know, and what you better figure out, which is that YOU are the reason Dash lost a friend, YOU are the reason she betrayed me, and YOU YOU YOU are the reason that she will never be able to think of you as anything but a whining little baby ever again!!! Go die, Gilda
Dashie's Big ScoreDon’t worry about paradoxes. They’ll be taken care of. I have no idea how, though. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. It is a fact universally acknowledged that anypony in possession of two tired wings must be in search of a nap. Twilight thought that was really funny, but I don’t get it. Whatever. Anyways, after the long trip home from Mount Neighverest, I was ready for a rest myself. It was bad enough that I had to carry my own stuff and the tent, let alone Rarity’s extra saddle bags. What does a pony need two sets of saddlebags for? It was only like, a week in the woods. Probably extra makeup or something. Plus, halfway through the trip, some crazy pegasus flew into my tent and started yelling, asking where “she” was. Eventually I convinced her I was the only one here. I wasn’t scared, I just had a lot of trouble going to sleep after that. Anyways, as I was saying, I was lying on a cloud over Ponyville, trying to get some well-deserved rest, when I heard something that sounded like crying, and I can’t sleep with loud weeping noises in my ears. So I did what anypony would have done, I rolled off the cloud and started flying through town to find the inconsiderate pony who was interrupting my all-important nap. ‘Course, it wasn’t some inconsiderate pony, it was one of my friends. Fluttershy, to be exact. And annoying or not, I’d never leave a friend crying, especially not Fluttershy. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Hopefully something simple, something I could take care of right away, making Fluttershy happy and leaving myself free to sleep. But she didn’t even tell me what happened, she just shook her head “no” and ran into Carousel Boutique. She obviously didn’t want to talk to me about it, so I took that as my cue to watch her and eavesdrop on her conversations, so that she didn’t have to. Anyways, so there I was, hiding upstairs in Carousel Boutique, listening to Fluttershy talk to Rarity. I missed the first part, cause they started talking before I could open up the upstairs window. “And then – and then I found this mean note, right in my house!” Mean note? Well, the best athlete in Ponyville wasn’t gonna let somepony get away with writing a mean note! The first step was to get Pinkie Pie off my back, and second, figure out who wrote it. Oh yeah, by this point, Pinkie Pie had snuck up on me and jumped on my back. Don’t ask me why, she’s just Pinkie Pie. “What are you doing, Dashie?” “I’m – none of your business! Get out of here!” Pinkie Pie is great, but she can be a real pain sometimes. She really doesn’t know when to shut up. Which, in her case, is almost all the time. Especially now. “Ohhhhhhhh, I get it” Suddenly she started whispering. “They don’t know you’re here, do they? You’re…” Pinkie breathed in deep, like she was about to shout. I did what anypony would’ve done, I shoved my hoof into her mouth to stop her from blowing my cover. Her face seemed to inflate for a bit, as the air she had sucked in struggled to get out, but soon enough, she relaxed. I know Pinkie well enough to know when she’s about to yell – actually that’s most of the time. I know Pinkie well enough to know when she isn’t going to yell, you can just tell by the look on her pink face, and the look on her face was proof enough for me that it was safe to take my hoof out. Wiping Pinkie’s weirdly sticky spit off my hoof and onto the carpet, I listened to Pinkie Pie, who’d gone back to whispering. Most ponies have a hard time understanding Pinkie when she talks fast, but not me. There’s nopony I can’t keep up with, not even in conversation. “…spying! I didn’t know we were playing the spying game tonight, I thought we were playing –“ well, actually you don’t need to know what she said here. Just, Pinkie says the weirdest things sometimes. Anyways, after a while and way too much description, she finally got to the good part. “So then Fluttershy jumped out of the tree holding her keys, and opened up her house and we went in and she found a mean old note!” I guess even I can’t keep up with Pinkie all the time, cause I was pretty sure Pinkie never described Fluttershy getting into a tree. “And it was from – well, it doesn’t matter who it was from, you just nee-“ “Of course it matters who it was from!” Of all the things to not go into way too much detail about, she had to pick the name of the pony I had to give a hoof sandwich to? Actually, more like a hoof meal, if they were lucky. A full on hoof buffet, if they weren’t. But she totally wouldn’t tell me. Not cool. “ –but maybe you could stop her from seeing it in the first place!” Now I knew I wasn’t keeping up. “Uh, Pinkie, how can I stop her if she’s already seen it?” “Hmm, good question, maybe it is impossible, but there’s no harm trying, is there?” Actually, there was lots of harm in a lot of Pinkie’s schemes. I didn’t see how this one would get me covered in strawberry pie filling, though, so I decided to go along with her. So she told me her plan, which made about as much sense as her plan to bake Ponyville into a giant cupcake. She had some rock, she had me put my hoof on it and say “Fluttershy’s cottage, two days ago”. She also told me what to do afterwards, but I’m getting to that. But – here’s the crazy part – as soon as I did, I was in Fluttershy’s house! Nopony was there, of course, since Fluttershy was still at Rarity’s boutique and I guess she hadn’t picked up Angel from the bunnysitter’s. So, like Pinkie Pie told me, I looked around her house a bit, till I found the note lying on the table. I didn’t bother unrolling it to read it, because it didn’t matter what it said. This was no time for questions. It made Fluttershy cry, and so I picked it up, shoved it in my mouth and swallowed the dumb scroll. Anyways, then I said “Home”, just like she said, and I was back, facing an over-eager Pinkie Pie. By her standards, I mean. “How was it? I bet it was super-duper-totally tummy tingling, right?” Now it was time for questions. “Would you mind telling me what the hay just happened?” “Time travel!” “Time travel?” “Time travel.” “Time- what? You mean like in that movie?” Pinkie Pie nodded. I don’t actually know any movies with time-travel in them, but I was pretty sure there’s got to be at least one, and I must have been right, since Pinkie acted like she understood. Actually, that’s not exactly the most reliable way to find out. Whatever, there’s definitely a time travel movie. Then I realized what she meant. That rock – that was no ordinary magic rock! It didn’t move me to Fluttershy’s cottage now; it moved me there, then! But, also now, since it’s now right now. But no, because even though it was now when I stepped on the rock, it’s then now. So it moved me there, then, then. “Is that even possible?” “I guess so, ‘cause you just did it!” Coming from anypony else, I would have assumed she was lying, or playing a prank, or just wrong, but I’ve known Pinkie Pie long enough to know where that would go. I’d spend half an hour (with approximately seven minutes in nap breaks, of course) ignoring her explanations, getting hurt repeatedly – possibly sing a song – and in the end, just wind up believing her crazy story anyways. So I did the smart thing, and assumed that the pink pony who was now trying to see how many balloons she could blow up at once was in every way correct. “So, uh, did it work?” A sob from downstairs answered my question. Horseapples.
Dashie's Big Score, Part 2Try not to destroy the universe. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. So I did the only thing a good friend could do. I grabbed the rock again, stomped on it and shouted “Fluttershy’s house, five days ago!” I figured I’d have a better chance of fixing things the farther back I went I was back in her house, and there on the table was the note, just like before. I picked it up and decided to be more careful this time. Dear Dweeb Seriously, Gilda? I was about to destroy this one too, but the wax seal on the other note was already making my belly hurt. Like, a lot. So I decided tearing it in half and throwing it in the garbage would be good enough. While I was in the past, I suddenly had a thought. Halfway through the camping trip, some crazy pegasus had burst into my tent. It was five days ago, specifically, meaning it was now. So I took off towards Mount Neighverest, and by the time I got there, it was already dark. I hid stealthily in a tree and watched the six of them – well, us – sitting around the campfire, and watched Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack as they wandered one by one back into their tents, so it was just me and Pinkie. I remembered Pinkie was laughing so hard at some joke I couldn’t get her to explain to me, and watched myself get more and more irritated at being left out. I noticed how awesome I look when I’m irritated. Anyways, then nothing at all happened, and we each went back to our tents: Pinkie Pie to her massive pink fortress and me to my awesome rainbow-striped tent. I could see my lantern through the tent wall, so I was still reading Daring Do. The intruder came just a moment after I blew the fireflies out, so I waited till the little flying specks of light left the tent. I clung to the tree in the darkness and watched nothing happen. Nopony came. Not a sound was heard other than from Rarity’s tent. It was time, so where was she? Then I had a terrible idea – what if she was already in the tent? I had to act quickly, that creep could be brushing my hair or something by now! So I dashed straight into the tent to confront her. “Where is she?!” I demanded. “Where is who?” I asked. “Not you! Her! Where is she, I know she’s somewhere around here!” I looked at my extremely hot body lying in the sleeping bag, eyes wide with totally-not-fear, and it all made sense. “There’s nopony else here, just me! Get out of my tent!” I shot back, looking up at myself. “Go away!” “Oh. Right. It’s me.” I zipped out of the tent and whispered home. Well, that was a failure. But I was sure getting rid of the letter would work this time. How could it not? So when I got back, the fact that Fluttershy was still bawling made it pretty obvious that I had missed something. “What happened now?” “I threw the letter out and, guess who the pony who burst into my tent was!” “You from the future,” she answered, surprisingly calmly “Duh.” “How – how did you know that?” “Same voice. Both pegasi. Plus, I saw you hiding up in the tree, I just didn’t tell you ‘cause I didn't want to ruin the surprise.” She lowered her voice. “Dashie, I don’t think this is going to work” Pinkie Pie was surprisingly mellow, probably because I wasn’t able to help Fluttershy. It actually made a lot of sense, for a normal filly. For Pinkie Pie to act like that was just weird. “I can try again!” I stepped on the rock again, but now Pinkie pushed her hoof into my mouth. “I don’t think we can change the past. See, if you got rid of the note, I would never have brought you the rock so you’d never be able to rid of the note in the first place. It already happened. Just like you sneaking into your own tent. We only have four turns left” Turns? She never said anything about turns. “Let’s not waste them trying to change what already happened” she added. I nodded and she pulled her hoof out of my mouth. Then I remembered something. “What about the note I destroyed?” Pinkie tilted her head in her thought. She rubbed her chin for a minute and finally spoke. “I have no idea what you’re talking about” From downstairs, I heard Fluttershy wailing even louder and Rarity promising to take her to the spa. “The first time I went back, I destroyed a note that I thought was the one that made Fluttershy cry! I need to read it, it might have been important!” I started to step on the rock again, but she pulled it away with her mouth. “Dashie, you’ve already had two turns! That means one of us won’t get any at all if you play again. That’s just not fair. Maybe let Applejack have a turn”
Applejack's AttemptFixing problems doesn’t usually work out. You’re better off going back in time to visit a party and just have fun. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. I was just finishing unpacking and giving my little sister a hug when a certain blue pegasus decided to show up. Now, Rainbow Dash is good for a lot of things. She’s fun to hang around, she sticks with you when the going gets rough, and she’s the second-best athlete in Ponyville. Second best. One thing she’s no good for is knowing when to shut her trap. “Woah there, Rainbow!” I said. “We just spent a whole week together. What could possibly be so important that ya can’t wait, but not so important ya couldn’ta said it then?” “I’ve made a huge mistake! I destroyed something!” she answered in her ridiculous Cloudsdale accent. An Apple knows better’n to judge a mare by the way she talks, and I don’t hold it against her, but sometimes she can be a little hard to understand. She says her "I"s all weird. “Now hold on just an apple-picking minute. In the fifteen minutes since we split up, ya managed to destroy something?” Honestly, it wasn’t much of a surprise. “I tried destroying a mean letter some jerky-jerk-face wrote to Fluttershy, but I accidentally got the wrong one. I’ve tried like, twice now, I’m just not good at this time-travel stuff. But you can go back in time to before I destroyed the note, and read it and tell me what it said” Before I had a chance to reply, she pulled some rock out of a saddlebag and threw it on the ground. “Step on the rock. Say ‘Fluttershy’s house, three days ago.’” With my famous good manners, I politely rolled my eyes at her and groaned. “Look, I’ve really gotta get some work done here. I’ve left the farm for a whole week, and my kin’s been struggling to cover my chores on top of their own. And what’s all this about time travel, anyways?” “It won’t take any time at all, I think. Maybe your time, but not your farm’s time. I promise. Just do it and say ‘home’ when you’re ready to go back.” Y’ever hear a word so many times it don’t sound like a word no more? That time, with her saying time all the time, it happened to me. With the word time. I rolled my eyes, a little more pointedly this time, and stepped onto the piece of rock. “Fluttershy’s house, three days ago.” Then all of a sudden I was in Fluttershy’s cottage. I didn’t know that at the time, though. A lesser pony would’a been afraid. Not this cowpony. Instead, I instantly got ready to defend myself from whatever dangers were in this new, unfamiliar place. I started shaking to keep myself warm, just on principle, while I looked around the little house for any sort of clue as to where I was. Little homes for critters lined the walls, but were suspiciously empty. I ran around in circles for a bit, trying to get a better view of the surroundings. I noticed a flash of movement and reared up on my hind legs, just in case, but it was nothing, just my own shadow. Still, better safe than sorry, so I ran to the nearest door – a pantry – and waited in there for a few moments. Eventually, I realized I must be in Fluttershy’s cottage. The first clue was the animal houses – probably nobody in all of Equestria had half so many pets as her. Looking through the glass door of the pantry and out the house’s window, I thought I recognized a particular stand of trees from the Everfree forest. And the fact that all her aprons had the name Fluttershy embroidered onto them was also a clue. Finally, I found the note on her table and started reading aloud. While quite naturally, force is often necessary to accomplish the ends one seeks, and in no situation is this more true than that which is time-sensitive, such as the one in which you find yourself presently engaged, tact and diplomacy are equally essential. In attempting to convey the threat posed by the fragility of the Hoofer Dam, and the disastrous consequences of its imminent collapse, it is therefore imperative that one seeks to balance the security of house and home And then all of a sudden I was back in the farmhouse. Rainbow Dash hadn’t flinched from the position she was in when I vanished. “What did the note say?” Anyway, I struggled to remember the words I had just read, the sudden disappearing had thrown them out of my head. “Uh… something about force… somepony getting engaged… and the fragility of something. Hoo-something. Hoop. Hoot. Hoof. Hoofer – the Hoofer Dam!” I looked her straight in the eye. “The Hoofer Dam’s disastrous imminent collapse - Rainbow Dash, I think the Hoofer Dam is gonna collapse!” We raced to Twilight’s library faster’n a green snake up an apple tree, and told her the news. She told us we needed to talk to Dam Straight, the princess’s civil engineer. He’d personally overseen the construction. That was the part where things started getting bad. See, all six of us took the next train to Canterlot, and using the fact that Twilight’s the personal student of the princess, got ourselves an interview with the pony. He was big and tough-looking, even bigger’n my brother. An’ it turns out he takes offense a lot more easily than my brother, too. “Unstable? MY DAMS ARE THE PINNACLE OF EQUESTRIAN CIVIL ENGINEERING!” “Your dams ain’t worth a –“ “Silence, ignorant farmer!” That knocked the wind out of my sails like a pegasus from a tree. “You- you- you know nothing! I am an ENGINEER! BASK IN MY GLORY!” We were all pretty stunned there. I was pretty sure this was the time to shut my trap. “When I was a foal, a pair of serpents crawled into my crib. I crushed their heads and used them to build a bridge! THUS DID I RECEIVE MY CUTIE MARK!” Straight turned, showing off an image of some sorta suspension bridge, with snakes for cables. "You think the truth is your friend, but you merely adopted it. I was born in it!" Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, did not agree. About the shutting and the traps. "You think you're so great? Well Twilight Sparkle here," she gestured to the unicorn, who backed away, "is a genius and an egghead and a personal student to Princess Celestia!" “By the age of seven, I had bested all teachers. Even Celestia herself, it is said, feared my mathematical prowess. From then on, my only teachers were Pain and Experience. “For countless years, I trained my body and my mind in the middle of the Hellsdeath Volcano! For each theorem, a hundred sit-ups; for each proof, a thousand push ups!" He reared up on his hind legs and showed us his abs. I was ready to believe him. Rainbow Dash's confidence was beginning to falter. "Yeah, well, I did a Sonic Rainboom when I was just a filly!" With a voice like thunder, the pony roared. “It was I who tore the forbidden theorem of Gödel from the mind of the great dragon Anataxaris! I consumed the Seaponies’ Pie of Knowledge! I defeated the Demons of Discontinuity at Khurad-Mor!" "YOUR INFERIOR EDUCATION CAN NOT COMPARE TO MINE! BEGONE! PERHAPS YOU ARE THE CHOSEN OF CELESTIA - BUT NO MATTER! IF SHE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE MY SUPREMACY, I WILL BRING EQUESTRIA'S INFRASTRUCTURE TO A HALT!"
Rarity's ResponseIf you run out of turns, you can start over. Carve some instructions into a new rock. Put the rocks together. Then break the old rock and the new one will work just fine. At least I hope so, or else I’m hooped. You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful. There we were, in Canterlot. Canterlot! The architecture never ceases to amaze me! And the fashion, oh, the fashion! Stallions standing in stoic silence with suits! Mares moving majestically, each more magnificent than the next! I couldn’t hold it in, I had to sing. Elegant grace, flying fast before my face, traveling at a Manehatten pace! Ponies unafraid, fashion all displayed, the loveliest buildings ever made! Darling, join me! Darling, come see! Darling- and then I was quite rudely interrupted by Applejack. “Rarity, we ain’t here to sightsee.” “It doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it while we’re here.” Really, that mare could stand to learn a lesson in manners. One does not simply interru- “Here’s the place, the office of Dam Straight!” The nerve! The very story I’m telling, interrupting me! But that’s no matter. I’ll get back to the narration. “The nerve!” I said. “Who would give their child such an appalling name?” The other five looked at me curiously. “Dam… Straight…” I said. Could they honestly not see the problem here? The other five looked at me, confused. There was a long awkward silence, which Fluttershy broke rather gently. “Um… He makes dams. Straight.” “No, he makes straight dams! What kind of a first name is Dam?” It was less than tactful, but it needed to be said. “Why, it’s like naming your foal Apple!” Applejack glared at me between eyelashes which were in definite need of mascara. But I ignored her unprovoked slight, and we proceeded to Mr. Straight’s office. There, Applejack’s lack of proper manners was revealed painfully, as I’m sure she has already recounted for you. After the whole ordeal was finished, a question arose in my mind. It was question for Applejack, who was humming something, her face practically covered by her trademark accessory. I tapped her shoulder, to get her attention, but she gave no notice. The nerve! So I tapped her again, harder. She continued to ignore me. I decided to be blunt about it. “Applejack, how did you know about the dam?” At that point, she pulled back her hat and I realized what an error I had made. In the place of her cocky grin, I found a frown – no, not a demure and coy pout, but a true frown. Around her brilliant green eyes were red puffy rings, which, though they contrasted quite nicely with her irises, were not becoming of any mare, let alone one so noble – if hard-headed and rude – as Applejack. And running straight past her freckles were several streaming tears. “Ah ruined everything. It’s all mah fault” And all at once, I understood how dreadful my behavior had been. Something was wrong, very wrong with my friend. And as much as I would have liked to cheer her up, I was not the pony for the job. You see, I simply do not understand Applejack. Her mind is absolutely alien to my own. One fateful sleepover I mistook our differences for malice, but something else was at play. I just can’t comprehend the workings of her brain. So I could be of little comfort. No, I required a pony with a cunning understanding of the pony mind. One whose knowledge of pony psychology allowed her to effortlessly manipulate the emotions of others. A pony who regularly practiced these skills to further her goals. Questionable goals, perhaps, but there was no questioning her skills. “Pinkie Pie, would you be a dear and speak to me for a moment?” At this point, she brought me up to speed on the various time hijinks at work. I knew what I had to do. Despite her protestations, I immediately used Pinkie’s strange rock to travel to Fluttershy’s home and leave Applejack a note. When there, I noticed another note in the trash. I pulled it out, in case it had been knockeed there accidentally, leaving it safely on the sofa, and then I wrote a note of my own. While quite naturally, force is often necessary to accomplish the ends one seeks, and in no situation is this more true than that which is time-sensitive, such as the one in which you find yourself presently engaged, tact and diplomacy are equally essential. In attempting to convey the threat posed by the fragility of the Hoofer Dam, and the disastrous consequences of its imminent collapse, it is therefore imperative that one seeks to balance the security of house and home with what one might call the finer things of life. It’s most understandable that you care for your family, your friends and your property. But please, use tact, use grace, use charm! A direct approach conflicts with your ends! Your Loving Friend, Rarity After I returned, Pinkie rolled her eyes at me. In other circumstances, I would have responded in kind, but I needed to know something. “Did it work?” She rolled her eyes harder, apparently searching her eye sockets for any trace of decency. Finding none, she proceeded to rant on topics which were pure Pinkie Pie patent nonsense. I don’t remember much of what she said, but I do recall her going on about “idiots who think chronology is just a wibbly-wobbly ball of timey-wimey stuff” and the “causality continuum being twisted in the cosmic playground known as Ponyville”. Like I said, nonsense. I concluded I had failed. So there was really only one thing left to do. “Can you tell me how to make Applejack feel better?” So she explained, in great detail, what Applejack was thinking and feeling. Naturally, I’d never betray her secrets, so suffice it to say I was prepared to comfort my dear friend. She even provided me with lines to say, preposterous lines, but she assured me they would work. Twilight insisted on taking us to see the princess, in the hopes she could remedy the situation. As we were entering the castle, I tried to mend my relationship with Applejack. “Darling, you know how simply unbearable some ponies can be. Remember that Trixie?” Applejack shuddered at the memory, but Pinkie, standing behind the farm pony, gave me an encouraging nod. “Do you really think a pony like her could have been reasoned with?” As we passed through the magnificent Antechamber of Friendship, Applejack shook her head, and I continued the – frankly absurd – line of reasoning Pinkie had supplied me with. “It hasn’t got anything to do with your manners,” I lied, “it was his own failing. We will just have to solve it without his help, and all the better, not having to deal with that ruffian.” As we passed into the Central Petitioner’s Holding Cell, Applejack’s eyes showed a glistening of hope mixed in with the tears. So I pressed on. “Or Discord! We couldn’t have reasoned with him! It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference how we treated him.” Pinkie gave me two hooves up, so I decided to finish my little rousing speech. “And that nasty griffon, Gilda!” Pinkie started making some sort of incomprehensible gesture, apparently trying to be encouraging. It was a sort of drawing her hoof across her neck, while making a wide-eyed face. “Just think, if she was mean to our Fluttershy, why, she would have been mean to anyone! It’s exactly the same as that.” I decided to throw in one last lie to seal the deal. “Applejack, I don’t think there’s a single thing wrong with your manners” At that point, a griffon wearing a crown spoke up. “Oh, have you made my daughter’s acquaintance?” Oops.
