The Cakes warned her earlier today about bringing her newest friend. They told her to stay out of the way and not interfere. Pinkie didn’t want to watch from her room and not do anything, so she asked if she could be an assistant. She didn't actually want to hurt them, but she would fetch tools and talk to them. She watched the clock, waiting for them to come down. She could never tell if it was a.m. or p.m. but it said it was 2 when they came down with a stallion. She stood back as they strapped him down.

"Pinkie, can you get me a saw?" Carrot asked, "There's one in the closet."

Pinkie skipped to the closet. It was filled to the brim with useful supplies, ropes, blades, medical tools, and more. It took a second, but Pinkie found the saw and brought it to Carrot. She sat as he sawed the stallion's horn off. He woke up early in the process and was screaming in pain. Cupcake handed Pinkie the horn after Carrot severed it. She grabbed it and added it to her collection. The stallion was screaming obscenities, but Pinkie had heard it all at this point.

She picked up her camera and snapped a picture of him and herself. "Hey, what's your name?" He didn't answer because he was too busy being gutted. She placed the picture inside her album. Then went to ask the Cakes something.

They were busy dressing him and didn't catch Pinkie grabbing a scalpel. She tapped Mrs. Cake, then asked, "Can I have his cutie mark? I didn't get his name and I want to remember him."

Mrs. Cake took the scalpel out of the filly's hoof, "Didn't you take a picture? I can give them to you if you want though," she slowly cut a circle around both, and removed them. Mrs. Cake placed them on a table, mark side down. She also gave Pinkie a sizeable chunk of meat for her to eat.

Pinkie snacked while looking at her prize. She picked one up and investigated the mark's design. It was an Everfree plant. The Cakes said it caused paralysis. 'Why did he have such an awful plant as his cutie mark?' she put the mark back down, 'I guess it doesn't matter since he's dead now.'

She skipped around the carcass as the Cakes worked. "What do you guys do with the bones and that stuff?"

Mr. Cake answered, “We dump them in the Everfree, if someone finds it they'll think a monster ate it, that's also why we leave some meat on it so that the monsters take some bones to their dens to finish."

"How long have you guys been doing this?" she stopped bouncing to look in the buckets of entrails. They picked the buckets up and walked to the stairs.

"I've been doing this since I was your age. Carrot joined when he was a teen, back when we first started dating," Cupcake said before walking out.

"Oooooooh, so she's been doing this for ages. I'm gonna have to ask her about that later," Pinkie bounced to something in her pile. It was a griffon book about taxidermy. She flipped to the section about preserving skin and fur. She followed the steps to the best of her ability but needed some more supplies. She ran to the bell's rope but didn't ring it just yet. She made a list of what she wanted. The filly thoroughly flipped through her book, making a note of everything she thought would be useful. She went back to the cutie marks but saw it was shedding fur. 'So these marks are a bust, but I still want to try, maybe next time.'

Once Pinkie finished the list, she rang the bell. She couldn't hear it but assumed it worked. The door opened a minute later. Mr. Cake walked down, "Pinkie, you wanted something?"

She shoved the list in his face, "The cutie mark is already dead, I want to keep it, and one of my books said I need this stuff."

He read it, "Do you need it now, or later?"

"I want it before your next pony, so before then, I also want more toys, and can I get some snacks or something?"

Mr. Cake gave her a quick hug then walked up, "Sure Pinkie, I'll get you this stuff. Bye."

Pinkie was once again bored. The Cakes didn't bring down a new friend in weeks, so Pinkie struggled to entertain herself. Cupcake let Pinkie have a sewing kit, nothing fancy, but it did the job. She crudely stitched together a stuffed horse with an actual unicorn horn. It looked nothing like a real pony, but she liked it. She took some pictures, decorated them, then put them in her album. It was getting decently filled, about 1/8 of the way full. She never really had plushies at home. She had lots of toys, though cloth was scarce, so her parents made most of her toys out of rock. The Cakes had given her stuffed toys already, but it was nice to make one with her own hooves.

The Cakes had given her a hot plate and a pot alongside the rest of asked supplies. She took the pot of boiling water and made some tea. She waited for it to cool down, and in the meantime, Pinkie took a shower. Her mane had grown longer. She took special care to keep mats out; it was a lot easier since her hair was less poofy now. She dried herself up, then relaxed with her tea while reading a Daring Do book.

It was nice, just relaxing. She wanted them to bring down a new friend, but she could wait.

The Cakes came down a few hours later. They brought her a meal and some more film. Pinkie had been running out. She made tea for the Cakes, then started chatting.

They didn't talk about anything deep or important, but hanging out with them was her favorite part of the day. "Pinkie, do you want to help us next time?" Mrs. Cake asked, "I can tell you about how I first started."

Pinkie shrugged. Mrs. Cake started her story, "I first found a pony corpse in the Everfree. There are normal plants in the Everfree that we get for baking and one plant I needed had grown in their corpse. It was getting dark, and the Everfree is much deadlier at night, it was the only herb I had found so I picked some and went back home," she was looking at Mr. Cake with a satisfied look, "Those were the greatest baked goods I had ever made at that point. They had an exceptional taste that no other shop could replicate. Of course, I now know that the pony was making the plant taste much better. Eventually, the corpse decomposed to where the herbs went back to tasting normal."

The story had grabbed Pinkie's full attention, "Didn't you have parents that were afraid of you going into the Everfree?"

Cupcake glanced at Carrot, "Not really, I had parents, but they were so busy doing their own things, they didn't really care where I went. They didn't even say anything when I moved out with Carrot to start our bakery. Back when the story started I sold my treats at bake sales and fairs, not an entire shop," she cleared her throat, "Anyway, my treats had tasted 'normal' again, which I didn't want. It was pretty easy to get someone to follow me into the forest. Lots of foals wanted to prove how brave they were by going into it. I don't remember the name of the filly, but we went at night to the patch of plants. I had previously set up some weapons that I used to kill her. She was an earth pony, which made it easier. I was covered in her blood, but there was a nearby stream that I washed up in. Before I did that, I licked some of her blood off my hoof."

Mrs. Cake walked to the back and took out a preserved red herb. Pinkie didn't know what it was, but it looked similar to some in her books. The ones about normal pony cooking and not meat, Mrs. Cake went back to her story, "I thought this plant was the main ingredient, but it was, in fact, the pony. It had been the first time I had tasted fresh blood, and I was hooked. Carrot helped with our primitive method of getting ponies when we started dating. When we bought our bakery, we got a building with a basement specifically with this in mind. It took a lot of work to set it up, but eventually, it was ready we could get meat not diluted by the taste of plants, which as you know, is the best. It's also very fun killing them."

Carrot looked slightly off-put by the last sentence, "Cupcake finds it fun, I think it's okay."

"What would I do if I helped?" Pinkie asked. She was intrigued and wanted to help the Cakes.

They explained the process of murder and harvesting, though Pinkie knew most of it from watching so many times. She was excited to try, but her mane deflated a slight amount. She brushed it off, too invested in the thought of playing with new friends.

"I think that'll be fun, I want to help!"

The next day the Cakes brought a blue pegasus stallion down. Pinkie looked at his cutie mark. It was a computer mouse. It wasn't very fancy, so the risk of failure wasn't very high. She still wanted to take it, but there wasn't much pressure. They strapped him on the table, then looked to Pinkie.

"What do you want to do first?" Carrot asked.

The filly took a scalpel, then carved around his marks. He woke up at the first incision, which scared Pinkie, but Cupcake persuaded her to keep going.

It was harder than Pinkie thought it would be, but the marks were off. They were not neat and one mark had a large part missing, but she had done it. The stallion was screaming and cursing, but it did not faze her. Screams were a common part of her world now. Pinkie grabbed his removed hide and hung it up to dry.

Carrot and Cupcake instructed her on how to disembowel him. She wanted to have more fun with him before he died but Carrot convinced her to hold off until she was more experienced. Pinkie needed help, but in the end, he was dead and she had fun. Blood completely covered her small frame. She had a hunk of meat in her mouth and a smile on her face. They took the stallion down and taught Pinkie how to skin him and harvest his meat. It took hours, but she had done a decent job on him. Pinkie asked Mr. Cake to take a picture of herself and the cadaver. She was unrecognizable; she was so red.

The Cakes loaded the meat into buckets and went up. So Pinkie took a shower. She watched as the gore mixed with the water as it went down the drain. Her fur turned from a maroon back to her iconic pink. Pinkie's mane was soaked from blood, so it needed more care than normal to wash. It was growing longer, though it may just seem that way because it deflated.

She finished washing up, then started cleaning up the work area. She used a hose to wash the blood off the table and floor to a drain. It was fast and not very messy. She bounced to the cutie marks, then took them down to preserve them. Pinkie brought out her taxidermy book and followed the instructions. The Cakes tried their best to get the materials she wanted, so she was decently prepared. The directions were easy to follow so far. Right now she just covered them in salt. She would work on the marks more later.

It took a few days, but it was a success! The cutie marks were now leather. She would make it soft later. She had some hide from another recent victim that she wanted to preserve first.

Author's Note

Thanks for all the recent support, it really means a lot!