Something else also rises
Author's Note
Let's not think too hard, let's just enjoy ourselves.
Something else also rises
Dillon sat and stared at a rock. He stared at it good and hard. After a good thirty seconds or so of this silent, hard staring he nodded to himself and jotted down another few lines into the book he was holding.
“Nailed it,” he said happily, nodding again, satisfied. He went back to eyeballing the stone.
Today was a good day.
Some minutes after there came a distant, faint sound. Dillon paid it no mind even as it started to grow in volume, quickly becoming discernible as a single, drawn-out word. The word was:
“Dilllllllloooooooooooooooon!”
And it was coming from Pinkie Pie, who soon hove into view, sailing through the air at a ludicrous angle that suggested a truly staggering parabola and landing softly as anything right in his lap, which cut the word off with a squeak.
He did not so much as flinch at any of this, not even looking from his notepad to pat and ruffle Pinkie’s hair. It was sort of a reflex at this point.
“Hello Pinkie. I was just penning a quick verse about this rock here, I call it ‘Ode To A Rock’. Would you-”
Pinkie fought through the relaxing and soporific effects of the pat and the ruffling and grabbed Dillon by the collar to interrupt him, her muzzle pressed to his nose, her eyes wide.
“I don’t have time to listen to your beautiful poetry! This is an emergency!”
For a second or so Dillon found himself somewhat lost in those wide, blue eyes. Then he remembered himself and thought about what she’d just said. Delicately and with Pinkie still hanging off of his shirt he set down his pad and pencil.
“Alrighty then. What seems to be the problem?” He asked.
Confident now that she had his attention Pinkie released her grip and simply flopped back into his lap, it being somewhere that she rated very highly on her list of places to flop (it was a big list, so this was quite an accomplishment).
“We need a judge!” She said.
“As in powdered wig judge or Paul Hollywood judge?” Dillon asked.
“The second one!”
Dillon mock-wiped his brow.
“Phew. Worried for a second there. Okay, sure. I can do that.”
“Great! Let’s go.”
Up she hopped and off she went, Dillon trailing behind. She led the way from where he’d been sitting - outside of town, where the rocks lived - around the periphery and out towards somewhere with a little space and a little room.
There waiting were the others (they waved at Dillon, Dillon waved back) and, more curiously, what appeared to be two slivers of kitchen just sat out in the open. On closer approach Dillon saw that these were indeed two lengths of counter, each equipped with a variety of bowls and scales and ingredients and such, and each also equipped with some manner of oven.
Magical ovens, he supposed, given that they were just sat out in the open and, he imagined, expected to work while there. Magic was the answer to most logistical problems around here, he’d found. Not that he was complaining. Made life much easier.
Once arrived Pinkie bounded further ahead and took up position next to the first, unoccupied kitchen-station-thing. Beside the second station stood Rainbow Dash, a toque incongruously rammed onto her head. Strolling to a halt some seconds later Dillon stood and regarded all of this in blank incomprehension for a moment or so.
“I feel I’m missing something obvious here,” he said.
“It’s a baking contest!” Pinkie said brightly.
“A baking contest?” Dillon asked.
“Yep!” Answered Pinkie.
Dillon waggled a finger between the two ponies.
“With just you and Rainbow Dash here?” He asked.
“Yes!”
“And I’m the judge?”
“Yessiree!”
Some seconds of silence while he ran this through his head backwards and forwards a couple of times, looking for points of weakness. He found many, but elected to ignore them.
“Alright,” he said.
His was not to question why.
That said, to him the contest seemed a little lopsided by default, what with Pinkie being, well, a baker by trade and all, and Rainbow being not a baker by trade. He felt for sure he was missing some manner of key detail.
“Any particular criteria I’ll be judging on? Or just a general range?” He asked.
“It’s whoever makes theirs first,” Rainbow said, smirking.
“Ah,” Dillon said. Now that made sense.
In his head, he imagined that some sort of light conversation betwixt Pinkie and Rainbow had wandered somewhere around the area of baking cakes and, one way or another, the subject of speed had come up and - as was often the way with these things - a thought experiment had been put forward where Rainbow Dash would have suggested (likely forcefully) that her awesome nature and blinding speed would be sufficient to overwhelm any edge in skill and experience that Pinkie might have had when it came to baking.
The leap to having an actual contest from this was only a natural progression. How else was Rainbow to prove how right she was? What other options were available?
Yes, yes Dillion could see that this all must have happened while he was off doing his poetry. That explained all of this.
And now here he was.
“So I’m basically just here to see who gets theirs out first?” He asked.
“Basically,” Rainbow said.
‘Judge’ seemed a very grand title given his limited role, Dillon felt.
“And to make sure it’s cake!” Pinkie said, emphatically. Rainbow just rolled her eyes.
Dillon wasn’t sure why Pinkie had felt the need to specify this, but he was sure her reasons were sound. He turned to Rainbow.
“I didn’t know you baked, Rainbow,” he said and she blew a raspberry and waved a hoof.
“Pffbt, I don’t, but how hard can it be? I have instructions,” she said, brandishing a sheaf of parchment on which had been scrawled a step-by-step list of what you had to do to make a cake, a list she had clearly put together herself at great speed. “Just follow these fast, win! It’s got numbers on it and everything. Easy!”
Dillon wasn’t sure about this, and wondered if Rainbow was familiar with the concept of hubris. He looked from the radiating-confidence Rainbow to the still-grinning Pinkie and found himself frowning.
“Still seems a touch unfair if I’m being honest. I mean, you do do this for a living after all,” he said, pointing to Pinkie.
That and, having seen her at work on several occasions prior, he also knew that she herself wasn’t exactly slow either, at least when it came to this. Would Rainbow’s speed translate, given her lack of experience? He supposed this was all part of the challenge, and hence the fun.
“It’s not about winning, it’s for a good cause!” Pinkie said.
“It’s totally about winning…” Rainbow muttered, screwing the hat even tighter onto her head. This passed without comment and Pinkie continued:
“Buuuuut to keep it fair I will also be handicapped.”
A veritable Harrison Bergeron’s worth of weights and chains was produced, seemingly out of thin air, and Pinkie immediately set about applying them to herself with much gusto.
There was a lot to unpack in this, as there typically was with most things Pinkie did. Again, Dillon didn’t see much use in going into it. She did what she did and it was great, jabbing at it would only serve to diminish this, and why would he ever want to do that?
“What’s the good cause?” He asked instead, feeling that this was worthy of followup.
“There being cakes! Right now there aren’t any cakes, at least not here, and once we’re done there’ll be at least two! At least!” Pinkie said, rolling about and fastening chains, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as her concentration peaked.
“Ah, cunning. Can’t argue with that,” Dillon said.
Any situation was improved by additional cakes. Cakes were like tea in that respect, Dillon felt. Their absence was a sucking void, their presence a soothing balm. And the two together? Well! Nothing more needed to be said!
“No-one can argue with cake!” Pinkie said. She said this while facing in the opposite direction to Dillon, the last part of her handicap being a blindfold, leaving her chained, weighted and shackled, unable to see and a balancing on only a single hoof.
She had perhaps gone overboard, but Dillon was sure she knew what she was doing.
“Mah money - if we were placin’ bets, I mean - mah hy-po-thetical money would be on Rainbow. She’s got the speed, even if she knows only half the steps in the wrong order she’ll get somethin’ in to bake ‘afore Pinkie does, I reckon,” Applejack said from the sidelines, stroking her chin, eyes narrowed in deep thought.
“Yes, but the contest isn’t just to bake it first, it’s to bake it first and have it still be edible,” Twilight said.
“That’s a point,” Applejack conceded.
“And as fast as she is, Rainbow Dash cannot make an over bake any faster,” Rarity also pointed out. Applejack hadn’t even considered that, somehow.
“That’s also a point,” she said, adding: “Hmm. Maybe I’ll change my bet…”
“I just hope everyone has a good time…” Fluttershy said, waving a tiny flag on which was written ‘Yay everyone!’.
Meanwhile, back in the baking zone, Dillon was still marvelling at Pinkie’s handicap setup, and more generally at the setup at large - what with the kitchen stations and all, just out here ready and raring to go. What short notice it all must have been deployed at, he marvelled!
“Take it you got all this up and running, then?” He asked her.
“Yep!” Pinkie said, nodding. He had steered her into position at her station before wandering around the other side to talk to her. Rainbow was just waiting at hers, clearly eager to get going.
“Is there anything you couldn’t organise?” Dillon asked Pinkie, oblivious to Rainbow.
“Nope!” Pinkie said emphatically, continuing to maintain perfect balance on a single leg.
Dillon considered this and tapped a finger against his chin, formulating an awful joke with a long run up. These sorts of things were always worth a shot with Pinkie, who could instantly penetrate to the heart of any joke or reference, no matter how obscure and how nonsensical it might be that she understand it in the first place.
“Can you organise a birthday party?” he asked.
“In my sleep!” Pinkie scoffed, chest puffed out.
“How about a straightforward shooting party?”
Her face went flat.
“That was a poor reference choice,” she said.
“Too soon?”
“Too soon and too late! And entirely the wrong audience!”
“You liked it though, right?” Dillon asked, concerned now. Perhaps he’d gone too far? Too deep? Was this too provincial this time, too obscure? Was this the two bottles of sweet sherry that broke the axle?
Apparently not.
“Of course I liked it! I loved it!” Pinkie declared, overbalancing and falling backwards, only stopped from hitting the ground by Dillon’s swift intervention in catching her.
“What’s happenin’ here exactly?” Applejack hissed to the others who were just as baffled, though Rarity did at least manage a giggle at the sight of Dillon affectionately setting Pinkie back onto her single hoof again.
“Look, are we doing this or what? Come on! Let’s go!” Rainbow shouted.
“Right, right, sorry. First cake out the winner, understood?”
“Got it!” Rainbow said.
“Yeah!” Pinkie said, hopping in place.
“Wonderful. What a way to spend an afternoon! On your marks! Get set! Bake!” Dillon said, chuckling to himself at another reference. He needed them like most people needed air.
At once the two ponies burst into action, Rainbow with the full use of all her limbs and a printed set of instructions, Pinkie more-or-less completely hobbled and yet somehow still perfectly able to use all the tools of her trade. It kind of made the eyes water to watch, in all honesty, but was certainly impressive.
Dillon felt it best to give them some room in these early stages.
He wandered over to the others and stood next to Twilight, there to watch Pinkie and Rainbow furiously work away at their stations for a bit before glancing down at her.
“Slow day?” He asked.
“Little bit,” she said, smiling weakly.
“I’m getting that,” he said, attention returning to the contest.
Before too long he wandered back to the stations to hang around there, to be closer to the action. He felt it was behooved him as a judge to do so. He moved between the two of them, keeping an eye on progress and occasionally doling out odd bits of what the others assumed was advice, advice like:
“You have to be sure to keep it moist, moistness is vital.”
And:
“I see you take beating off very seriously.”
And:
“That’s a nice, firm wrist action there, that’s good. We don’t want anything limp around here.”
How useful this advice was remained to be seen, and only Pinkie seemed to be appreciating it, giggling wildly anytime he was over her way and having to shoo him off again to keep him from distracting her.
Not that it mattered much. Blindfolded and reduced to a single hoof, she was still pulling out ahead, Rainbow apparently having had some difficulty in following her own instructions and having had to start over at some point. The first time she’d done this she’d brushed it off, feeling that she had time enough to spare for such paltry mistakes. The second time less so, particularly as she’s looked up from triple-checking the next step to see Pinkie getting ready to maneuver something into an oven.
Upon realising with a lurch that she wasn’t enjoying as comfortable a lead as she might have liked Rainbow hurriedly unloaded as much icing as was possible in the limited timeframe available before slamming the whole affair into the oven, perhaps failing to notice that she might have muddled some of the steps in the process.
A tense period of waiting followed. Pinkie could not check the progress of her cake on account of her blindfold, while Rainbow could check on the progress of hers but had no real idea what she was looking at. Everyone else watched on, kind of baffled that this was what they were doing with their afternoon. Fluttershy waved her flag, Rarity yawned, Dillon folded his arms and tried to look judge-like.
Rainbow’s attention wandered during the waiting so she only belatedly saw that Pinkie had removed her cake and was busily decorating it. Realising that she was moments away from losing Rainbow lunged at her oven to retrieve her own, technically pre-decorated cake (she knew she’d iced it first for a reason!).
In defiance of reason Rainbow’s cake - despite having been in at the same temperature and for fractionally less time overall - had come out a blackened, carbonised hunk of matter utterly unrecognisable as a cake. Indeed, it was only knowing that it had meant to be a cake in the first place that let anyone know that’s technically what it was. Technically. All present were horrified except for Twilight, who was confused and horrified.
“How?! That shouldn’t be possible!” She sputtered, but this was ignored.
“Wow,” was Applejack’s reaction.
“Oh my,” said Rarity.
“Oh dear,” went Fluttershy.
All of these were apt responses.
None could dull Rainbow’s triumph.
“Hah, first. Told you. Nailed it!” She said, hoiking the cake off the baking tray and onto a plate and flying backwards to hover smugly.
“Aww,” Pinkie said, pouting, having placed her own cake (which looked like a cake) down mere seconds later.
“You know, I’d say this is too close to call,” Dillon said after some consideration.
“Too close to call?! I was seconds ahead! Whole seconds! Come on, man!” Rainbow protested, waving her hooves about. This did much to disturb the smoke still trailing from her cake and she coughed surreptitiously to the side.
“I feel we may have to adjudicate in more detail. A taste test. Do we have a knife?”
They did. Taking it, Dillon set about trying to cut a slice out of Rainbow’s cake, hers (perhaps) being the first and so the first one to be judged in greater depth. The knife broke and Dillon was reduced to using the snapped blade to hack off a piece small enough for him to test. This took time. Once he found one, he popped it into his mouth.
“What flavour is this cake?” He asked after some experimental mastication.
“Vanilla-cream sponge,” Rainbow spouted off, as one would having memorised something from a sheet. Which is exactly what she’d done. Dillon chewed a bit more. Or tried to.
“I’m not getting that,” he said, having to speak up over the loud crunching the blackened chunk of cake made as he gnawed through it.
“What are you getting?”
He thought of the best way to sum up the flavour of Rainbow’s cake.
“Charcoal,” he said at length.
“Hey!”
“Let’s have a look at the other cake,” he said, eyes watering as he swallowed, taking the broken knife over to Pinkie’s station and her immaculate, legitimately professional cake. It almost felt a shame to cut into it, Dillon thought, but needs must, and cut he did.
“Oh my God,” he gasped as he removed a slice, fighting the urge to moan with delight at just how smoothly it slid free. “Oh my God look at the definition of the layers, the filling. Oh I should be sitting for this. I’ll probably need a cigarette afterward. Oh my God.”
Rainbow glared. Pinkie blushed. Dillon sampled.
He was quiet as he considered what it was he’d just put in his mouth.
“I’m going to have to give this one to Pinkie. Sorry Rainbow Dash,” he said.
Rainbow gaped in abject disbelief.
“Dillon! You son of a - you’re only letting her win because you like her!” She snarled, pointing an angry hoof.
Dillon gasped, a hand clenched to his chest in shock, wounded by harsh words spoken in a moment of passion.
“Like her indeed. That’s just a baseless accusation,” he said, then frowning as something caught his eye. He then leant in close to Pinkie and with a thumb wiped off a stray bit of icing that had somehow landed on her muzzle. “Bit of icing there…” he said quietly, straightening up again only to quickly nip back in to just tickle under her chin for good measure. Pinkie beamed with a squeak.
Rainbow, splattered basically tip to tail with icing, stood there fuming.
“Besides,” Dillon continued as though nothing had happened. “I like all of you. Equally. We are all friends here, friends on exactly the same level of affection. It’s simply the case that, even with her handicaps, Pinkie pulled out ahead. Because she’s wonderful. With cakes.”
And had lovely eyes and made the best squeaking sounds, too, particularly if poked in just the right spot on her tummy. These were facts but Dillon was aware they weren’t presently relevant so he omitted them.
“We’re all winners!” Pinkie said happily, now sitting on Dillon’s head for some reason, all her handicaps having vanished. Rainbow blinked at this for a second before resuming being annoyed.
“But I finished first!” She said, brimming with fresh outrage.
Dillon could not deny this.
“True, you did, and full marks to you for doing so. Normally that would have seen you winning! But unfortunately the contest was to produce a cake first and the closest food-analogue I can think of for yours is probably a biscuit, which isn’t quite the same thing,” he said, holding the plate up. There sat Rainbow’s cake, defiant.
Biscuit was being very generous. It had been difficult for Dillon not to have his tongue slip there and say ‘briquette’ instead of biscuit, but he’d managed it. It had taken intense concentration and willpower, but he’d managed it. Rainbow continued to seethe.
“It’s a cake! I did everything I was meant to! I followed those instructions! And did it first! Fastest! That was the whole contest! It’s a cake! I want a second opinion! You guys! Try my cake! Tell him how good it is!” Rainbow said, snatching the plate from Dillon’s grip and zipping over to the others with it held before her.
The others had been afraid that this was going to happen and had kind of been hoping that maybe in her fury Rainbow would have forgotten they were there. No such luck.
Luckily - for a given value of luck - Dillon’s attack on the cake had broken it into sufficient and sufficiently mouth-sized pieces for all the others to have a bit to try and try they did, watched closely by Rainbow Dash the whole time.
“See? It’s good, right?” She asked, focusing primarily on Twilight as she just-so happened to be in front of her at the time.
Maintaining a cheerful expression while attempting to chew on something you could split logs with was difficult, doubly-so with Rainbow’s intense scrutiny. Twilight did her best.
“It’s, uh, it is a bit burnt, Rainbow,” She said, tactfully and a little muffled around the bit of cake she was failing to chew through, hoping against hope that Rainbow would look away so she could spit the chunk out. Swallowing was simply not an option. Ahem.
“A bit?” Applejack asked incredulously, having decided not to even bother trying to bite into her chunk after having tapped it against a nearby rock and succeeding in taking a small chip off the rock and not the cake.
Fluttershy meanwhile was panting for air after having started choking on her piece of cake, only a swift flurry of pats on the back from Rarity having stopped her from passing out, this also having presented a fantastic excuse for Rarity herself not to try her own chunk.
Both shards of cake now lay discarded on the grass, the grass itself seeming to do its best to try and lean away from them. Which seemed a bit much, really.
Rainbow had come here looking for support, but support she had found none.
“Oh come on! It’s not that bad!” She protested, convincing no-one. Twilight floated the plate and the shattered remains of the cake back over to her.
“You try some,” Twilight said.
“I will!” She said, glaring at a world that spurned her talents and mocked her efforts, before setting about trying to find a good bit of her good cake so she could prove everyone wrong.
This turned out to be slightly more difficult than she had initially expected.
“Just need to…there’s a good bit somewhere...in here…” She muttered, pawing through the hacked-up chunks, eventually settling on a piece once the feeling of everyone staring at her got too much.
Holding the chunk aloft and putting on as determined an expression as he could muster she popped it into her mouth.
She bit down, hard, and regret was immediate.
Somewhere, a bird cried out, possibly in sympathy.
“Okay, I’ll admit that could be better,” Rainbow said, spitting the chunk of cake out and grimacing. “I was still robbed though.”
“You ask me to judge, I call it like I see it. Not a cake,” Dillon said.
“Did it first though, that was the whole thing…” Rainbow grumbled, finally removing the toque and casting it aside. It hadn’t helped as she hoped it might have.
“You’re the moral victor, darling,” Rarity said.
“I should be the actual victor! I am the actual victor! Ah, this is dumb, whose idea was this anyway?” Rainbow said, now sulking.
“Yours?” Fluttershy suggested, having been there at the time when Rainbow had said they should have had the contest in the first place. This earned Fluttershy a sharp look from Rainbow that sent her hiding behind her hair again. She should probably have seen that coming.
“Well on the plus side, as Pinkie said, we do now have cake where there was no cake before,” Dillon said, having now cut up said cake into sufficient pieces to hand out, which he was now doing. Everyone was very pleased with this development, even Rainbow Dash, who Dillon made sure to give an extra-big piece to, as a consolation prize.
“You probably would have won if it wasn’t for my immense bias,” he whispered to her, making sure her mouth was too full of cake to reply beforehand. He then stood up and stretched, again finding Pinkie atop his head somehow.
“This was a fine use of my time, Pinkie, thanks for volunteering me,” he said to her, a statement which could easily have been read as sarcasm but which he meant in complete sincerity.
Pinkie squeaked (again) and bounded down to land by his feet only to immediately hop right back up again to peck him on the cheek, leaving him just a touch dumbstruck and a lot red in the face.
“That’s okay, Dillon!” She said, then bouncing off to see how well her cake was being received by the others,
Answer? Very.