Ancient Equine Analysis 2: The Second Course

William was enjoying another fun day with his two favourite pony pals, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.

At the moment, the ponies were gaming. William spectated, deeply engrossed in the unfolding match.

Of course they were in the living room. While conventional gaming consoles had evolved and adapted substantially from their earlier primitive forms, no number of revisions seemed able to ever move them from this most popular spot. All three sat on the couch together, William in the centre, with an excited, chirping pony snuggled into him from either side.

Of course, they didn't need to be so close. The couch was more than large enough for three adult humans, but the pair of ponies had chosen to ignore that. They nuzzled into whatever crook accepted them, hooves flopped on his lap.

A pair of game controllers lay on the ground nearby, unused. Bio-droids had no need for such things, after all, and both ponies instead connected to the console by a cable running from their flanks, giving them an innate familiarity with their on-screen avatars that was hard to beat. They wrestled back and forth in a heated contest for dominion.

"Aww, yeah. Looks like some egghead's base is on fire again!" taunted Dashy, right before leaning into William's hand for another nuzzle, swiftly delivered. Rainbow closed her eyes, pushed up into his hand, and starting rapidly kicking her back leg over and over.

Twilight took advantage of the slack to prep her defenses: "Yeah, well, just you wait until my catapult comes online, Rainbow... Then we'll see who's cleaning up who... Ahh, that looks nice, me too, me too..." William’s other hand found Twilight’s mane, and she immediately started to purr. She almost missed her cue to spring her counterattack.

Today was a typical day for the trio, same as any other. The fillies had fun together while William unwound from last night’s computations.

His job kept him very busy after all. While it might be true nobody had to work to earn a living wage in this day and age, plenty of citizens still lent their energy towards bettering humanity as a whole, either by archiving ancient documents to better disseminate them through culture, or turning their efforts to the speculative sciences, theorizing about Artificial Intelligence and programming the robots that would one day take humanity further into space. If left to his own devices, William could easily let entire days slip away in this fashion, which was why it was important that today be a day of rest.

Sure, he might pitch in later, either for a game of his own or bending one of the ponies over for a long, hard rut... but for now he was content to quietly watch, making comments whenever some particularly ballsy move played out.

And dispensing many headpats to his beloved fillies, of course.

But as typical as this day was, it was soon to take a turn for the weird.

William had been slowly working away at a tall glass of apple cider for the last hour - emphasis on 'slowly' what with all the frequent demands his hands go elsewhere. Even now it sat on the edge of the couch, taunting him with its deliciousness... and it might have continued to go undrunk if not for the ponies suddenly choosing this moment to have a heated argument about some game mechanic or another. Perking up at the opportunity to free his hands from Twilight and Rainbow’s napes, William reached out for it.

Only to draw his hand back when the glass vibrated. The surface of the liquid was trembling.

Sproing.

William looked closely at the glass to reassure himself his imagination wasn't playing tricks on him. Sure enough, it soon vibrated again.

Sproing.

Sproing.

Sproing.

He raised his head, looking to the window. "What in the..."

The girls finally noticed too, pausing their game to look up and about. "What's that?"

Those initial faint tremors, barely noticeable, started to grow in intensity, turning from the littlest of baby-shakes into big daddy 'thumps' powerful enough to cause the paintings on the walls to bounce and sway. It reminded them of a minor earthquake. Or a...

Stampede.

Sproing. Sproing. Sproing. Sproing. Sproing.

Rainbow hopped off the couch. "Sounds like it's coming from outside, chief! You stay there, I'll scope the situation out." With a cocky grin and a swish of her tail, the pegasus flew to the window, lifted it up and stuck her head out into the street.

But Rainbow couldn't have been prepared for the sight waiting for her out there.

It began with a single faint, distant outline. Just one little bundle of cotton candy-coloured fluff sproinging down the main road.

But Rainbow Dash recognized it immediately. There was only one thing in the world it could possibly be, the only thing to ever be so ponkily-pink.

"It's Pinkie Pie!" she hollered back to Twilight and William. That got their attention, the pair slowly starting to make their way over to the window.

"Wait, wait... No... It's... It's a lot of Pinkie Pies!"

The bubblegum bouncer was soon joined by another Pinkie Pie, then another, then another, all springing high into the air as gaily as she. Every hop seemed greater than the one before it, staggering amounts of happiness-powered energy packed into each of those four short, stubby little legs. Rainbow nearly lost her grip on the window frame when it rattled again, but she clung even tighter to watch as events unfolded.

Pink mane, pink tail, bright blue eyes, charming, infectious grin... Yup, it was Pinkie Pie. They were all Pinkie Pie.

And there were more of them coming! The smattering of Pinkies soon became a gathering, which soon became a horde.

Then it became a tide. A joyous, raucous, jubilantly-swarming tide of Pinkie Pies, all hooting and cheering and giddily squealing as they hopped down the road, over mailboxes, onto and off of parked cars.

“Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!”

And no matter how many they saw, there were always yet more arriving off in the distance: in no time at all this had become a heroic procession.

“Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!”

Even when Pinkies at the front of the pack had passed, disappearing down the other end of the quiet roadway, countless more continued to pull up behind them, arriving in an exodus of biblical proportions.

“Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!” “Fun!”

Who knew how long this would go on for?

"Okay... This has got to be the... third-strangest thing I've ever seen. Does anypony wanna tell me what the hay is going on?" asked a befuddled Rainbow Dash.

William came and looked out the window. "Yeah... This must be your first time seeing this, I forgot...”

"I've seen this before, but it's been years since the last time... It's... It's..."

"The Running of the Ponks."

Rainbow cocked her head. "Okaaay? And that is...?"

William glanced down to Twilight, as if giving her the floor. She returned the look, around 20 degrees chillier. "Oh, sure, just ask Bookhorse. She knows eeeeverything, right?"

"Well, you do know about this, right?"

Twilight exhaled in defeat. "... Well... Yes. But it's not because I was researching it! It’s just something I happened to stumble upon it one day."

She cleared her throat, coughing politely. “Alright, I suppose I can provide this episode’s dreary, dry exposition like always... right, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow laughed. “It is kinda your thing!”

"Ehem. Well, what my cartoon counterpart does is up to the whims of her script writers, that’s neither here not there. But I suppose I can take a moment to elucidate all present.”

Rainbow hopped back onto the couch, curling up. "Told you it was her thing.”

‘Alright, well... As I understand it, the Running is infrequent, biennial at most. Nobody knows how it began exactly, but it's just as you see: whenever the mood comes right, all the Pinkie Pie bio-droids in the nation gather together for a great pilgrimage.”

“Don’t you mean a... pinkgr - ” Rainbow Dash began to snort, but Twilight sharply shot straight ahead. “Ahem. As I was saying, the Pinkie Pies start from the east coast and go all the way to the west, passing through most major towns on their way. Some peel off here and there, but the majority make the trip all the way."

Rainbow nodded, looking towards the window. “Yeah, I can see that much... But what're they doin’?"

Twilight rested a hoof on her chin, looking quite the thoughtful little pony. "Well... As a matter of fact, I don’t think anyone really knows. I think they’re just having fun.” She smirked, casting her eyes Rainbow-wards. “You know, like your little curfew-breaking night flights around town?”

Rainbow grimaced, slicing her hoof horizontally along her throat. “Anyway, enough about thaaat!” She was soon hustling Twilight towards the door, away from their caretaker. “Hey, why don’t we go outside and ask them, huh? You stay here, William!”

The second they were outside, Rainbow directed a glower towards Twilight. “Geez, Twi, you’re gonna get me in trouble!”

“Well...” laughed Twilight, those curfews are in place for a reason! We don’t want you getting sucked into a jet engine, now do we?”

“Sounds like something only a fat head would need to worry about!” shot back Dashy, drawing a gasp of mock surprise from Twilight. “Anyway... Which Pinkie should we ask?”

After all, when both ponies turned their attention back to the road, it was still clogged end-to-end with what must be thousands of sproinging Pinkie Pies, each as bubbly and cheerful as the one before her. Salmon swimming upstream had nothing on them: in numerosity, tirelessness or their rosy shade.

Rainbow Dash hopped into the air, flitting down the driveway and alighting on the sidewalk a few feet from the main concourse of ponies. Pinkies were less plentiful here than in the middle of the road, but Dash still found herself constantly buffeted about, either by ponies hopping over her or around her. She hopped back and forth, shouting to be heard over the crowd: "Hey! Pinkie! Stop for a sec! I wanna ask you something! You, Pinkie! You! No, you!"

Dash was beginning to get a pain in her neck from craning it around so much trying to follow the flow of cotton-candy manes. Eager to cut the confusion short, she hopped into the air again, hovering over the chaos and sucked in a great bellyful of air, ready to really shout her lungs out... which might have worked if not for a particularly absent-minded Pinkie Pie taking that moment to barrel straight into her.

Pinkamena Diane Pie considered herself a fairly ordinary Pinkie Pie bio-droid: she worked hard, she played hard, she partied hard. She loved to laugh and sing and dance.

She also loved to eat, if her excessively-proportioned rear-end was anything to go by. But who didn't need a little extra fuel to keep the excitement going every now and then, whether it was a whole chocolate cake or an entire bottle of apple cider? Besides, ask any Pinkie around and they'd tell you it was just more cushion for the pushin'!

But it was possible that this Pinkie could be a tiny bit inattentive at times. Just a smidge, you understand! So while she was hopping down the road with all the other Miss Pies, leaping a dozen feet into the air with each spring-loaded kick of her little leggies, she found her eyes wandering as they often did, taking in little flitty birdies, plump doggy-woggies, a little purple pudgy pony on the side of the road, and...

... A second pony! Right in front of her! Right in the trajectory of her biggest leap yet! Pinkie's eyes nearly shot out of her head as she started doing the backstroke in mid-air to fight the oncoming collision... but it was too late! Too late for Rainbow, and too late for her! There was a devastating impact that sounded like a pair of cymbals going off in Pinkie's ears, and both ponies toppled to the ground, rolling end over end. They ended up rather gracelessly heaped together in a tangle of pony limbs, all laid over by that familiar rainbow-coloured mane.

"Oooh... Did anyone get the number of that truck? I think it might've been @*$#..." groaned Pinkie, right before everything turned a proverbial black.

Pinkie's eyes shot open like a pair of window blinds following a firm tug to the cord. When she didn’t recognize her surroundings - William’s living room - one bit, the pink pony shot bolt upright.

"Wha - ! Where am I? Where did you take me? Are you after the old sandwich in my pocket?! Take it, I don't want it!!" Pinkie rolled around on the couch shouting at the ceiling, hooves flailing in the air.

This went on for some time. Eventually she rolled over and rested her forelegs on the couch’s arm nonchalantly, giving Rainbow, Twilight and William her most cas’ easygoing smile. “‘Sup. So you must be the guys who abducted me.”

“... Wait! You guys abducted me! Aaaaaah!" She flipped back onto her belly and went straight back to squealing.

"Pinkie!" Twilight did her best to raise her voice over the other mare's. "Pinkie, we haven't abducted you!"

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "What, am I not worth abducting now?”

“Anyway!” she continued, perking up immediately so fast it damn near gave the others whiplash, “Did you help me off the side of the road? That’s so super-duper thoughtful!"

Twilight glanced to William as if expecting him to take over the discussion, but he was still staring at Ponkers. She made a clucking sound with her tongue and picked up the slack. "Yes, that's right. Rainbow leapt into the crowd and you ran right into her. We didn't think it was a good idea to just leave you on the side of the road where you might get ponked on."

Pinkie nodded agreeably, putting her whole back into it. "Yeah! Normally I'd love that but I was out like a light! Thanks for pulling me outta there!"

"My magic isn't quite that strong, unfortunately," she responded. "Actually, it was William. When he saw what had happened he dove into the stampede to pull you both out."

Pinkie clopped her hooves together. "Ooooh! Then I owe you a big thankyou, mister! Another second and I’d have been a Crêpe de la Ponque!"

Rainbow smiled, dismissively blowing her mane up. "Well obviously! There's no way William's gonna let me come to any harm. He's got dibs on this ass like you wouldn't believe."

"Oooh! Ass-dibs!" giggled Pinkie.

William finally seemed to remember his role as host enough to speak. That, or his interest in the bubblegum-candy pony finally overwhelmed him and drove him forwards. "Ah, anyway... I've already run a medical scan on both of you. Nothing serious, just a few aches and bruises here and there. You should be feeling fine in the morning, Pinkie Pie."

Pinkie grinned. "Just call me Pinkie, Mister! And more importantly..." She waggled a hoof in his direction, "I think I can already put names to these two ponies, but you, sir, are a mystery... Care to introduce yourself, since you obviously know who I am?"

"Of course, you're right. I'm William. And as you obviously guessed, these two are Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle."

"Great! Now we're all friends, and you can't abduct friends!"

William nodded. "That's right!”

Following her declaration, Pinkie leaned back on her haunches looking at him a little more closely. It seemed like the name ‘William’ had stirred some dormant memory deep inside her mind. “Waaaiiit a minute...” she murmured.

She looked over to Rainbow and Twilight. “You mean he’s that Willia - ”

But before she could finish the thought, William interrupted her: “So... Would you like us to contact your owner for you, let them know you're alright?"

Pinkie cocked her head. "Well that might be kinda suuuuper difficult, I haven't had one of those in forever and ever!"

It was Dash's turn to look surprised. She hopped up onto the couch, clasping Pinkie's face with her hooves. "No owner?! Then who the hay feeds you? Bathes you? Tucks you into bed?"

"Me! Me! And... hmm. Can a pony tuck themselves into bed? I'm not so sure..."

"That's right, Dash," said Twilight, picking up the thread of the conversation. "Not all bio-droids are so lucky as to have an arrangement with a human as kind as understanding as ours. And even if they do, sometimes circumstances conspire to separate them. But, Pinkie, if you don't have an owner, shouldn't you be at the Phobos Port Halfway House For Disenfranchised Bio-droids?"

Pinkie nodded respectfully. "Oh, I might head there sooner or later... But I've still got plenty of business to take care of here on Earth first before I can do something nutso like heading into space!"

"Space? Ohmigosh," gushed RBD. "William hasn't even taken us to space, like, even one time. If anyone's disenfranchised here it's me!"

"Relax, Dash," lectured Twilight, immediately taking to her typical big sister routine around the excitable younger pony. "You've done plenty fine so far just living on Earth... Space is a whole other thing to bite off entirely. Right, William?"

"I'm... kind of losing track of the conversation here a little," laughed William. "Tell you what... Pinkie, why don't you at least stay the night? It must have been a while since you last had authentic pony food, and I've gotten pretty good at making oat burgers."

Pinkie looked taken aback. "You hand-make your food, mister?"

"Well... I only started learning how when these two settled in here and the subject came up. I had to go and teach myself all the basics, heh."

"Wowie! Sign me up!" giggled Pinkie. "I like mine a little burnt!"

"Well, what a coincidence," he laughed, "That's how most of my cooking comes out anyway.”

True to William's word, the oat burgers did indeed come up a teensy widdle bit burnt, and they simply couldn't have been happier about it. The three ponies all worked to climb up into the dining room table's chairs, from where they cheered as William brought their plates in. The sounds of voraciously-monching ponies soon overwhelmed any attempts at sedate conversation.

"Theshe are fantashtic!" Rainbow Dash lettuce’d.

"Absolutely!" agreed Twilight through a mouthful.

"Absolutely-posutootly!" came from the pile of burgers down Pinkie's end of the table, followed by a sound like a circular saw as she got to work slaveringly suckin' 'em all down.

After dinner, William and Pinkie got to loading the plates and pans away in the washer while Rainbow and Twilight handled their digestion in the living room. They lay on their sides and let their engorged bellies growl out the merits of a dinner well-served and well-deserved.

William looked over to Pinkie as she carefully crossed her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and nosed the dishwasher carefully shut. She hopped up onto her hindlegs and began turning the cycle knob. When she saw him staring, she grinned so engagingly and earnestly his heart couldn't help but melt. Goodness but she looked even more vibrantly pink up-close... like she was practically glowing. Little movements of her head made her whole mane wobble and bobble like it was delayed in catching up with the rest of her.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" she asked suddenly.

It was phrased so disarmingly he found himself momentarily lost for words. "Ah... Well, you said you still had business keeping you on Earth, right? Of course I'd be curious about something like that, right?"

She dropped back down onto all fours with a pair of satisfying clops on the checkerboard linoleum. She turned to face him. "Mmhm, of course! I can tell you all about it, William."

They moved back to the table, where Pinkie Pie busied herself downing some water. "Well... Where to begin? I suppose it all started back when they built the first bio-droids... but I don't wanna keep you here all night! Heehee. So I'll skip ahead a few decades or so... to where we are now!"

"Yeah. You said you lost your owner, right? So what's keeping you here without them?"

"Oh, I didn't lose-lose them! Not quite, anyway. Let's start by talking about the Friendship Network. TWIIIILIIIIGHT!"

"YEAH?" called Twilight from the other room.

"TELL WILLIAM ABOUT THE FRIENDSHIP NETWORK!"

"OH, YOU MEAN THE WORLDWIDE INTERCONNECTED SUPPORT HUB OF PONY BIO-DROIDS?" shouted Twilight at the top of her lungs.

"That's the one! Well, you heard her. Bio-droids are a big drain on society at the moment, with loads of super-duper serious discussion about how we should be treated and stuff... That's all Twilight's biz, it's all wayover my head!"

"But the Twilights working on it said they'd like a wealth of knowledge about human-slash-bio-droid interactions to draw on... how bio-droids are treated by their owners, whether they're happy, all sortsa stuff like that! And she couldn't think of anyone better to bridge the gap between our species than me! So we Pinkie Pies made ourselves into a living, breathing storehouse of all the data they could ever need!"

William thumped his fist into his other hand. "Oh, that's what this morning's parade was about! You were observing other bio-droids, right?”

Pinkie swiveled her eyes. "Mmmnah~ Well. I was, but the rest of them were definitely just having fun. You know how Pinkie Pies get when they get really started in on something! They won’t stop for anypony!"

William laughed. "You sound so serious about all this stuff. It's hard to believe it's all coming from a Pinkie Pie."

Pinkie giggle-snorted. "Oh, Silly Billy, you're so funny~ Someone like you should know I take everypony's smiles very seriously. Bio-droids are just as much living, thinking beings as humans, so they deserve proper treatment too, ya'know?”

“We all want a good owner... and not everyone has as sweet a deal as your Rainbow and Twilight."

Pinkie's voice hit a weird note there, her mane sagging ever so slightly. William felt a little twinge in his heart, and suddenly wanted to give her a hug. But just as he began to reach out... "But that's neither here nor there! I'm just happy for the hospitality, buckaroo... and getting to stay with The William. You're all that and a bag of potato chips!"

Her comment was so weird it made William forget about wanting to hug her for the moment."Oh, come on, I'm nothing special... How would you know, anyway?"

Pinkie sniggered behind a hoof. "Whuh-oh."

"Whuh-oh-what?" he said back.

"I mean... You did say you'd never heard of the Friendship Network, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised... Double whuh-oh."

The gears turned behind William's eyes. Pinkies and Twilights working together to catalogue everything they knew about human and bio-droid relations. That meant...

Oh no.

William placed a hand on the table like he was about to march right into the living room right that moment. But he resisted, remaining seated. "Ah... Umm... Those two..."

"Yeeesssss?" Pinkie said, suddenly invested, leaning forwards with her head on her hooves.

"Just what have they been saying about me?"

"Well... I didn’t recognize you immediately, but I’m sure of it now! You’re the guy with the serious sickness for pony booty! You oughta see a doctor with how much you love butts!"

"Oh God..." William groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"Oh, pshaw! Twilight admitted it all under confidence, nobody's ever gonna know but us ponies."

"Yeah, all 8 million of you."

Pinkie shrugged a full-shouldered Pinkie shrug. "It's more like 4 million when you consider half of us don't even have the bandwidth to download the super high-quality videos she uploaded!"

"Oh my goooood..."

"Hey, not everyone can say they did so much to advance understanding about human and bio-droid bonding! You’re famous for bridging the gap between our species!”

Pinkie started bobbing her head in time with her words: “Bridging it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!"

William finally stood up, turning to the living room. "Twiliiiiight!"