Massage Therapy!

by B_25

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life
Length: 6291

Twilight Sparkle isn't known for randomness. Pinkie Is. But Twilight isn't being normal, so Pinkie has to be abnormal to her usual normal! To... solve the mystery... and stuff. There was also something about a backrub?

Twilight Sparkle isn't known for randomness. Pinkie Is. But Twilight isn't being normal, so Pinkie has to be abnormal to her usual normal! To... solve the mystery... and stuff.

There was also something about a backrub?

[Gift to the loveliest person of all, Zaid Valroa]

Published 2021-08-17 02:40:03 UTC
Last updated 2021-08-17 02:40:03 UTC

Being Crazy by Being Normal

Massage Therapy
B_25 for Zaid ValRoa

Pinkie Pike snuggled beneath a heavy set of blankets like a purring, slumbering kitty, though, after some shifting, discovered the ceiling to be terrible for her. The grumpy cat growled, flipping from side to side, rolling down and up on the ceiling of the room.

With a huff of smoke that sprawled into the words 'I GIVE UP!'... Pinkie clapped her forehooves, and within seconds, flipped itself back around. A pink blur crashed and clapped into the mattress below, which sunk and sprung and bounced the object of the impact.

Once the explosions of squeaks had ceased, the pink mare raised her sleepy little head, turning it to a faint, distant sound somewhere beyond her current responsibility. Her droopy ears swung with the motion, with the lobe catching inside her mouth. Pinkie nibbled on the bottom of her own ear before face greeted pillow once more.

She'd filled her quota of 'TRYING ONE UNEXPECTED THING THAT YOU MIGHT POSSIBLY END UP DOING FOR MOST—IF NOT THE REST—OF YOUR LIFE IF ALL GOES WELL '... which was sleeping on the ceiling.

The novelty was nice.

But it wasn't much better than sleeping on the floor.

HEEEEY! I HAVEN'T CROSSED THAT ONE OFF THE LIST, YET!

Sleeping on the ceiling wasn't, presumably, much better than sleeping on the floor.

Which Pinkie, for some reason, still had yet to try.

AWAAAAY! AWAY YOU GO, MISTER SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS! GIT! TOO EARLY FOR YOU!

There was knocking at the door, the door that was downstairs, and required a few doors to get to.

It went ignored—were it not for a central problem.

That door had been knocked on twice.

Which meant not only had the door gone unanswered, but somepony was still knocking despite that. Nopony knocks more than once without answer unless it's important. Pinkie was dismayed for several reasons. One, that the above was obvious, and thus, not clever as she had thought.

And two.

That she would need to answer the door.

Pinkie clapped her hooves, and gravity switched, throwing her into the ceiling, which she slammed and flattened against. Another clap, and she was against the bed. "Ahhh."

Another clap.

"AHHHHHH!"

Another clap.

"Ahhhhh."

It was crazy, in Pinkie's mind, the difference that capital letters and an exclamation mark could make.

"AAHHHH!"

"Ahh."

"AHHH!"

And then.

CLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclapCLAPclap

After a series of 'ah' put in various, uncreative ways, the pink mare was ready to face... well, not quite the day—but whatever had appeared before the day had a chance to begin. She stumbled out of the room like a boxer out of the ring, and it wasn't quite clear who, or what, had won.

Pinkie had one of those moments that, like shoes tied a million times, suddenly, in the middle of tying a pair, one forgets how to do so. She was facing a door when her mind blanked how those were to be opened.

She stalled for time.

"Who is it?!"

"...me."

"I'm out there?" Pinkie's eyes narrowed down at her four hooves. There were four of them. None had dashed out and sprouted a new body... again. "No, no, silly. I'm in here. Inside. You're outside. So you can't be me."

Something bumped into the door. It was a forehead. And the thing scratching against the wood was a horn.

"It's Twilight Sparkle."

"Hey! You didn't even give me a chance to guess! I was still in the middle of The Deductions of Detective Pinkie." Pinkie swiped the hat off her head and squashed it beneath a hoof, which she twisted... as though it were a butt of a snuffed smoke, one that brings you closer to the grave, yet you also can't resist its intoxication... and with livin' being so rough, perhaps dyin' wouldn't be so bad, and— "Can I at least guess what you're doing here?"

There was a sigh, one that pulled a weight from the chest, a weight created by a self-splicing mind. "Do you really need to guess?"

"Is it to see me? WAIT, DON'T ANSWER THA—"

The horn scraped up and down against the door.

"—NOOOOO! THAT WAS A QUESTION AND WASN'T A GUESS!

"Could you please let me in?"

Hesitation was for cowards as Pinkie slammed her hoof against the wall and, within the sound of the pound, the door creaked back to reveal the sad mass of purple standing on her porch. A slicked hair stallion had told her that if she pounded a hoof on the sensitive parts of the world, that great things would open.

Like doors.

Opening.

And jukeboxes sometimes working.

Enough! Enough! SHAAAAADUP! My friend is not feeling super, here! And she reminds me more of the ground than of the sky! So can you cool it? Pretty please? At least until my friend is back to a less-sad normal?

“Twiiiiii-light! You look great! And terrible! You still look great when you're horrible!" Pinkie swallowed her lips, and then did so again, stretching and pulling her cheeks into her mouth. She headbutted the door frame, causing the door to slam shut. "Mmhmm—NO! O-One sec, T-Twilight!"

The next headbutt thudded throughout the building as all the surrounding doors closed from the impact. Slamming her forehead against wood once more, there was a click of a lock latching into place.

Pinkie slunk into herself with a wiggling huff of complete and utter annoyance. Hating everyone and everything except Twilight, her friends, and all that wasn't herself, the pink mare sighed, breathed, and pounded the wood with her hoof instead.

And she leaned into it, too, standing on two hooves.

She would have been looking down at Twilight from her vantage point, but, instead, the alicorn stood at her eye level. Pinkie vomited her lips, and they wobbly stretched into a smile. She chuckled the awkwardness away. "L-Long time no see! You don't look so great. But I'm not sure exactly what you want to hear when you're... well, lookin' exactly like that."

Pinkie winced.

Twilight stood on the porch with wet bangs strewn over her face, and a coat darkened into the deepest shade of purple. Peeking her head out the door frame, Pinkie flared her snout at the tapping of rain droplets upon it.

"I didn't cause that one," Pinkie stated while pointing at the sky and looking at her friend, "right?"

Twilight's opened mouth could be sensed before it even drew breath to speak. After a moment, the soaked friend spoke. "N-No."

Pinkie pulled back into the home. "That's good, at least! Would you, uh, like to come in?"

Twilight nodded and stepped through the door, causing a puddle to grow at her hooves.

"W-Wait! The Cakes will throw a fit if I get the floor all wet again!" Pinkie shooed the mare back with a gesture of her forelegs. "Could you go back out for a moment?"

Twilight's face remained unseen behind the veil of wet mane as she stepped back into the rain. The downpour assaulted her form. Reaching a hoof inside of her mane, Pinkie withdrew a towel, laying it on the ground. "Okay! You can come back now!"

Twilight stepped back inside and onto the towel meant for hooves alone. It was called a hoof towel for a reason. Water leaked from the large hooves and soaked the towel at once, and spread beyond its reach.

Pinkie did her best to smile. "Y'know, with some friends, there are rules worth breaking!"

"You're saying that to a Princess, Pinkie."

"Exactly! You deal with following and enforcing the rules every day! I'm your excuse to not do that... as much!"

Still no expression could gleam from that mop of hair.

I'm not being a very good friend right now, am I?

"But... why are you here, Twilight?" Pinkie decided to go the honest route, after so much pretending, was the right course to get matters back on track. "Not that I'm not glad to see you! Just, y'know, would rather see you happy is all."

Twilight's muzzle tilted to the ceiling, even though it was unlikely she could see anything. She kept like a creature from a horror movie for a bit longer. Then her head dropped to below her shoulders.

"I have a problem, Pinkie."

Pinkie blinked and sat and pointed at herself. "And you came to me?"

"W-Well, with everypony else, I knew exactly what they would do." Twilight shook her head as mane lifted from her face, creating a clearing over her left eye. It peeked through to the mare. Round. Violet. Its white as deep as the sea. "And imagining how they would help me... didn't really help me. So I didn't see a point in going to anypony else."

Beating the side of her head wouldn't lead the mare to answers, but Pinkie was always driven, in serious moments, to take a good whack at herself. Slapping the side of her skull so that she spun in place did not help—but, at least, she was facing Twilight. "But that still doesn't explain me!"

Twilight smiled through her sadness like a large spoon in the middle of a waterfall. "Because when it came to you, I wasn't sure what you may do." Her shoulders shrugged against the heavy blanket of depression that clung to her aura. "And before I knew it, I was on my way here." Twilight turned her head and leaned close, causing Pinkie to lean forward and then fall from the distance still between them. Crawling afoot, she then rose up to Twilight. "And don't tell anypony—but I'm actually missing the morning court today. Just... straight up, not showing up! Isn't that crazy?”

Pinkie was careful to question anything being crazy. It's how this whole mess started. Something crazy would happen, and it would be the craziest thing, but then something crazier would happen, and that would be craziest of all, and then something CRAZIER would happen and—

SHUUUUUSH! You're falling away too much from Twilight! Twilight NEVER misses work! She is rarely late and HATES to be tardy! She needs you to focus on her now. FOCUS. Just on her. AND HER ALONE!

"You came here because you wouldn't know what I would do?"

Twilight pulled back and sat on the ground, swallowing the towel beneath her mass. She nodded and smiled like a mare that was just losin' it. Pinkie's eyes narrowed on the edge of her snout, because it wasn't often she saw her nose in her vision.

This was a great fixation to aid her thinking.

"You didn't go to any of the other girls because you knew what they would say or do."

"Yup."

"And you came to me because you were unsure what I would do."

"Thanks for the recap, Pinkie."

Pinkie clapped her hooves, and didn't fly into the ceiling. "In that case! What you need is a full-body massage!"

Twilight lifted at the beginning of the suggestion but lost her spirits near the end. Confusion infected her expression. "What now?"

"Me! Touching you! Alllll over!”

"Uh."

"Safely!"

Twilight swallowed. "You can do that unsafely?"

"That's what the Cakes told me! Maybe there's a code that I can tap across your body that causes you to self-destruct?"

Twilight's eyebrow arched. "I don't think that's what they meant by safe."

That confusion was infectious as it took to Pinkie's face. "How do ya mean, Twilight?"

Twilight said nothing.

"A little more to the left!"

Twilight stepped to the left.

"No! I mean the right—THE RIGHT!"

Twilight stepped to the right.

"MY RIGHT! So YOUR LEFT!"

Twilight stepped to the left.

And Pinkie slumped by the door. "Just lay on the bed."

Twilight's eye twitched in looking down at the mattress. "Can this thing even hold me?"

"But of course!" Pinkie stomped the ground with each hoof, then clapped her forehooves over her head. The bed groaned as it expanded, the wood and bed thinning outward. "Jackpot! Now lie like a pie!"

Twilight relented by falling forward onto the mattress. Laying forward, she groaned as the bed sunk beneath her weight. She glanced at Pinkie from over her shoulder. "What now?"

"What now? The massage, of course!" Pinkie stood on two legs and rolled up the sleeves of fur on her forearms. However, after a step, she paused, flashed by the pale pink skin of her wrists. Slowly rolling her sleeves down, she approached the bed. "Now this is the part where small ol' Pinkie Pie takes care of everything!"

"Everything?"

"Most things! Or everything within my control! Read that in a book, one time."

Pinkie rose onto the mattress like a wrestler would climb the wires of a ring... only the ring itself was composed of Twilight Sparkle. The mare was massive, vast and thick, leaving an issue on what she should do.

Twilight was a living carpet that had grown in becoming a princess in all sense.

Her spine sprawled like a bridge and curved over two mountains that weren't for public looking. The tricky part in all of this was that Pinkie had absolutely no clue on how to give massages. However. Everypony likes to touch their shoulders. So maybe that was a starting place.

Huh-hey! You're starting to be useful!

Pinkie clambered from the side onto the mare's back, scooting across her back before reaching the balls of her shoulders. Leaning from behind her friend's neck, Pinkie started to dig her hooves into the first point of attack.

"You're not doing this for some personal reason, are you, Pinkie?"

"Question!"

"Yes?"

"Is wanting to help you a personal reason?"

"I, well, y-yes and no and—"

"Bah! What's the point of a rule if you can't even keep it straight?"

"Not everything is white and black, Pinkie."

"Unless you're a dog!"

"...because of their lack of colour perception?"

"Nah! Because they can't understand complexity!"

"I, er..."

"Score one, Pinkie Pie!" Pinkie giggled a fit of laughter as her hooves pressed through the dense layer of squish to feel that something wasn't right. It wasn't an outright knowledge of something being wrong. Rather, she was led by something, a sense of sorts. "You seem tense, Twilight."

"That's because I am, Pinkie." Twilight's head turned to look at the mare hanging from her neck, which was wrapped by a couple of thighs. "Being a princess and, well, me can do that to you. Or me, rather."

"Or for ponies trying to be like you!"

"Oh, no... d-do ponies try to be like me?"

"Probably!"

"So I need to make a better impression! Or I need to be exposing more of what I really am to let the world know what it's like if they try to be me! Maybe I should—"

"Maybe you should just zip and keep still!" Pinkie barked back as her hooves trailed across the ball of purple fudge in following the line of tension. Her eyes closed and her tongue flopped out and up onto the side of her muzzle. "And I don't mean your usual kind of tense! This is a different sort.”

"You're losing me, Pinkwhahahwaha!"

Pinkie searched across the flesh until notching a subtle hump within the collection of nerves and muscles and whatever other stuff composed the body. It was a knot, one that seemed flared and swollen at the touch. Softly, carefully, her hooves graced over the thing, feeling it all over.

"You get off to stress, Twilight Sparkle." Pinkie whipped her head around, though her hooves kept steady on the knot. "It's just what you are—what you do. But this? This is something different. You're worried about something else.”

Twilight took to pain and a wince as her muzzle flicked to the air. "Y-Y-You think?"

"But of course! I live my whole life off my senses! They made me into the mare that I am today!" Pinkie paused for thought. "Which is a mare who never went to school, never moved out of someone else's home, and has no future prospects beyond this building." Now her shoulders slumped. "Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't be trusting those senses after all."

"Not at all! You should, Pinkie, you... really should!"

Pinkie smiled despite not knowing the cause this time. Instead, she focused on the surge of pain that was being cradled between her hooves. It was small, round, and thumping. Pushing on it from the sides did not help at first—the groan from the larger mare was a sign of that.

Instead, her hooves searched around the sphere, feeling for places less painful. In finding two smooth spots, her soles settled into those places, pushing and rolling into them. Wiggles came in vibrations below as the larger mare couldn't keep still.

"T-There," Twilight breathed. "Like that, Pinkie."

Pinkie smiled with a reason, now working on that knot, rubbing into the tension, puncturing it, and letting it leak out. The swell started to shrink as her hooves kneaded the flesh, the texture like fresh dough—although it was composed of candy instead.

"Is..." Pinkie twisted her head in looking up at her friend. "...was that better?"

Twilight's head lowered with half her face still covered. "Very much so."

Pinkie pulled back onto the mare's spine as her legs sunk into the sides of Twilight's barrel. She leaned forward, immersing her hooves into the purple squish, creating waves that cast forward and back.

Low moans carried in the undercurrent inside of the friendly beast.

"Why are you so tense, Twilight?"

Twilight huffed as her long neck fell forward, and her head toppled on the other side of the bed. She laid her muzzle so that the side of it faced Pinkie. Twilight's eye, however, was facing forward. "I already told you. Princess. Being Twilight. It has me on edge."

“Nooooo it doesn't!”

Anger flashed in Twilight's eye as it aimed at Pinkie. "Are you accusing me of lying, Pinkie?"

"I'm accusing you of not telling me the truth! Or the full truth." Pinkie pushed her lips aside as her hooves worked another layer into the lavender taffy. She really had to stretch her chest and roll her shoulders in paving the soft cement. "I would even take the half truth."

Twilight still looked at her very angrily, so Pinkie looked at her back just as angrily, and then the whole thing turned just plain ol' silly.

Both mares burst into laughter after the stare-off.

"Y'know," Twilight began, "most of the girls would have bought that."

"Are you sure about that? Cause it maybe seems like something has their head stuck between their amazing flanks!"

Twilight chuckled. "Maybe my head is getting a little bloated as of late."

"I'd massage your forehead—but then I'd be afraid of taking out your eyes!"

"Why are you giving me a massage again?"

"Because I don't have much in the way of help or advice! Much less anything of aid to a Princess of the land!" It wasn't often the girl talked foul, of either herself or others, but today was a day for strangeness. "If you can't figure out the answer to your question, or the solution to your problems—then what chance do I have in helping out! You're the first to come to all of that."

Pinkie scooted down the spine as her thighs worked into the sides of the barrel, feeling its shapes and slope, the texture and how it curved and rolled. Her legs would sink into the pudge, kneading it, seeing for sensitive places.

"EEEP!"

Jackpot!

Pinkie focused her knees into trudging against those spots, forced to wiggle through the healthy fat and to the muscles beneath, rolling in those spots and moving the pudge around. Above and leaning forward, she dug her hooves through the taffy, feeling out for the spine. On finding it, her elbow became a missile, one aimed for a precise shot.

"Just a second! Just a second! Ride it out."

Impact.

"EEEKEKEPPPPEEEE!"

"RIDE IT OUT!"

Twilight thrashed like a caught, wounded animal, fighting for escape, but a jab of knees into her side, as well as an elbow grinding forward and back between two beads of her spine... was enough to strike her into stillness. Erecting toward the ceiling, she held in pain.

Until the pleasure came.

"Mmhmm."

The giant fell and crashed forward as an explosion carried across the sheets and rocked the bed. Twilight laid demure with her face planted into a pillow, her eyes closed, and a smile etched across her muzzle.

"Mmhm... I... I think my spine has a few extra inches now."

Pinkie chuckled while sitting up. "Or I just unwound a couple of them! So how are you feelin', Twilight?"

"Lil' better now."

"Your head a little clearer now?"

"Like there's nothing in it."

Pinkie smiled while raising a leg and sliding down the battlefield. Her rump struck the mattress, though she turned to face the soft, arched, and sloped wall of purple. Planting her hooves into the canvas, she worked her way to a masterpiece.

"Do ya think it's easier to tell me what happened now?"

There was a rise of surprise in Twilight's throat. "Actually... yeah." Twilight blinked. "Now that my head's clear and it's easier to think, I think that... oh, wow... it seems rather silly now."

"Things in the moment seem explosive!" Pinkie spread her hooves and the violet pastry. "Then seem small and silly afterward." Her hooves tucked it all back in again. "But then something happens, and we blow up again!" Her hooves tapped into Twilight's side, slowly, but with a quickening pace. "Just because it seems small when we're in a better mood doesn't mean it won’t grow into a great big fire breathing monster that'll try to devour us later!"

Twilight was forced to nod on feeling the other mate latch to her again, sideways, while the steady beating of hooves pelted her coat. It carried from one side, over her spine, then down over the other, only to pick up again, doing so, over and over, inching backward in every succession. "I suppose you've got a point."

Pinkie Pie hummed while clambering onto her friend's back and scooting to Twilight's neck. Softly laying her hooves there, there was a flinch, an initial flight of resistance. Pinkie had learned that everypony had their resistance. They were built by insecurity from previous insincerity.

Pinkie rode out the flinch and moment of silence and awkwardness. Twilight glanced down at her from above with a cynical, piercing look, one that doubted one's validity. Pinkie smiled through it and beamed, deepening her hooves into the neck and rolling them across the flesh.

Surprise relief impaled Twilight as she jutted back and forth, fighting to keep afloat in the wave of the massage. She would groan and lean left, forcing Pinkie's hoof to a spot before dropping all of her weight into it.

Twilight the Puppy! You willy-silly! You don't even need Auntie Pinkie Pie to be massaging you—NOT TRUE! There's that spot on my lower back that I can't reach that I need Gummy to—WAIT, NOT TRUE AGAIN! Twilight has magic! So she could reach that spot—and then any other spot on her body.

Pinkie then shook her head as she instead focused her efforts on that spot, stroking in slow, small circles, with her hoof on the other side doing the same. She felt the breath passing through Twilight's throat. How much she pushed, how much she squeezed, it could soften all that wheezing.

So Pinkie slowed her rolls and timed it with the princess's breathing. Rolling up with the breath, waiting a moment without movement before rolling back downward. She caught the pace and, now controlling it, started to slow it.

Her hooves pushed deeper into the coat and worked into the muscles. Easing them, relaxing them, while keeping the tempo of breath in check. Pinkie's eyes closed as her own breathing followed the melody. Working her whole body against Twilight's back, trying to bring the two of them into sync.

Her eyes closed for a moment, not needing to see, letting her actions simply do.

Around her was an energy, a cloud of grey with red lightning. It was generated from Twilight, who had let her come into the center of it all. Although it should have scared her, Pinkie's eyes opened with a new calm—a serenity not usual to her.

"Are you going to tell me what happened now, Twilight?" Pinkie's voice was fragile and frail for her voice bore absolute sincerity. "I might not be able to help you... but I may be able to help you help you."

Twilight looked away without words, and her expression unknown.

Pinkie smiled as she scooted down the mare's back, rolling her hooves across the coat, searching for places that could shake the beast a little. Whenever there was a flick or a tick, that's where she would focus.

Her hooves wouldn't tear into the area. But they would flatten the garden of lavender and caress the smooth skin beneath. The sound of brushed furs lightly echoed off the wood. In feeling beneath the surface, it would become clear the kind of treatment that Twilight needed.

Some places needed a gentle rub with consistent pressure to set things back to normal. Twilight would grunt throughout it all, but come to exhale in release at the tightness in that area becoming free.

Other places, like just above her right flank, would require the care of an elbow to be placed. Pinkie twisted into the precise inch, digging to the itch beneath, knowing she'd breached the surface when there was a distant yelp that vibrated through the larger mare.

Pinkie would focus everything into there, delicately, not thinking of anything beyond the job. It was when her focus was narrowed that the insanity went away. That the silliness of her daily existence faded. The world became real.

She was more grounded with others, and would float away if she were the last mare alive.

Twilight winced, and Pinkie stopped. Inhaling and exhaling, clearing and sweeping the mind, Pinkie dug her elbow, listening to Twilight's breathing, the sounds she made, and the way wind carried throughout her form. She was lightly squealing beneath her breath, and that's when Pinkie had found the perfect pressure.

Pinkie gently rolled her shoulder around, working out that layer of muscle, thinning out the tension that had thickened there. She chipped a little at the swell, helping to alleviate it, shrink it, allowing the power to course throughout the muscle from there.

"Mmhm-mhmmm!" Twilight's eyes shut, as did her mouth, vibrating the sound within her closed mouth. She tensed before breaking into stillness. Her right leg twitched back and forth, sliding across the bed, returning, then limply sliding again. "Nnn-nnnh! Aha-ha! Ah-ooooh..."

Pinkie smiled before sliding down the mare and coming to her back leg. She watched how the thigh would drag across the sheets before flicking back into its resting place. Then it would slide and the process repeated.

"Whoa-ooh! Someone's inner wiring is all mixed up!"

The leg swung back, though it was caught in Pinkie's forelegs this time, the dense softness smacking into her chest. Sitting like she'd caught a big bass fish, Pinkie stroked a foreleg over the Twilight's thigh, searching across its bulbous shape. Near the top, through the softness, there was a thick, dense line buried beneath the flesh.

It throbbed. Bloated, and on its way toward an explosion.

If Pinkie didn't defuse this bomb quickly, then—

Someone's talking. Listen. Play some games another time.

Pinkie finally heard Twilight's words.

"Have you been listening to me?"

Pinkie shook her head as her hoof curved into Twi's inner thigh. "Naaah! I should have been listening, though." She smiled and turned the thigh a little. "Maybe you should double the size of my ears! That'll teach my selective hearing a lesson!"

Twilight chuckled. "That's okay, Pinkie." She didn't know if Twilight was looking at her. "And you're doing a good job on the massage. I had my doubts at first. But you've really shown me all the places I've been sore."

Pinkie giggled. "When you're always carrying on... sometimes you forget what you're carrying along!"

Twilight laughed in response to that. Pinkie, however, had found a place on the inner slope of Twi's thigh that didn't feel right. Everywhere else was soft and lax and squishy. Here though. The surface was more rigid, and there wasn't much give when it came to squishiness.

Both of her hooves settled on either side of that space, scrunching and working it together like dough. Letting it rest for no longer than a second, she resumed, with a little bit more force in each succession.

"Pinkie?"

"Yeah?"

"Doesn't it ever... bother you, maybe, that... you'll be working here for the rest of your life?"

Don't give a playful answer.

"Sometimes." Pinkie shrugged like a pit of sand rising and dropping, and her focus remained on the area of her work. "I doubt I'll ever leave this town. Maybe my life will stay exactly the same! I can't really see myself ever changing that."

"So what—nn-hmmm—do you do?" Twilight asked while enduring the periodic pressure on her soreness, sharply inhaling at the apex. Slowly, though, the batter of her legs morphed to their usual shape. "Just deal with it?"

The purple matter jiggled in returning to its looseness, and, much like a spread of jam across bread, Pinkie's hoof did the save over the layer of returned squish. Wobbling it, little by little, to its normal, bouncy state. "I decided that, when I was an itty-bitty-filly, that a lot of things weren't going to make sense, and no amount of blowing into my ears was going to change that."

Pinkie giggled while quickly wobbling that section of thigh and watching how much it jiggled. "I could have spent my whole life fighting it. But I wasn't like you, Twilight. I didn't have whatever it was that ponies like you seem to have. I was different. And the world worked differently for me."

Drinking the air as though it were the first time she was conscious of her breathing, Pinkie Pie took a moment to look around at her room. It was the first time she saw it still. Without movement blurring the walls or absurdity bashing her into the ceiling. Everything was still. Calm, and normal.

"So I decided to just go with it," Pinkie continued as her attention returned to the backside of her friend. "That I would just let this force take me, and I would ride it the best I can. I don't think that would have worked out as well for you. It wouldn't either for the rest of the girls."

Then her eyes locked onto Twilight, who looked at Pinkie from over her shoulder. "I can't handle normal. The same is a shame to me! Even though many ponies could work my job—none could work it like me!"

Twilight swallowed. "Is... that how you're okay with being here? With knowing that today will be the same as tomorrow?"

"Pfft! Are you CRAZY?! Even I'm not that loco in the coco for that!" Pinkie strode to the side of the titanic barrel, rolling her forelegs in the air. "If my life was just working this job, I would have gone bonkers on bonkers a long time ago! Now roll onto your back!"

"W-Wha... but I thought you—"

"ON YOUR BACKIE WACKIE BEFORE I PULL OUT THE KILLER DUCKIES!"

It would appear that the idea of blood-soaked rubber duckies—marching in line with each holding an inflatable knife—was enough to cause the beast of a girl to roll on her back. Pinkie rode the waves and wobbles of the bed as the colossus settled onto her back.

Twilight's head rested on the pillow as she looked at Pinkie. "Like this?"

Pinkie nodded. "Exactly like that."

The smaller mare approached the side of the sloped, violet barrel, as though it were a hill with a steep rise. Throwing her forelegs over the top, she hopped against it—mindful of the wings below. However, there was a bit more pudge here, which made clambering on top of it more difficult.

"Here."

Something swept and rose against Pinkie's backside as she glanced down to see a wing lifting her from the bed. It helped her clamber onto Twilight's tummy. It deflated a little beneath Pinkie's weight. Twilight, however, breathed undisturbed.

Pinkie adjusted to being a tad higher than usual. That, and riding the stomach of her friend. She gazed across a patch of tuft to the face of Twilight over it. She laid against the pillow still—looking at her friend. "What do you have planned next, Pinkie?"

Pinkie shrugged and settled her hooves on the belly below and before her. "Tummy rubs! A classic!"

Twilight giggled, and the laughter quaked across her stomach. But she wasn't quick to let things return to silence. "Back to what you were talking about... y'know, not going crazy with life as it is and all that."

"Ppp-fft! Easy! It's my friends that make everything worthwhile!" Pinkie said as though it required no thought at all. And it didn't. She went off feelings—intelligence was buried inside of that anyway. "Insanity keeps me company! But even the craziness isn't amusing when it's just you and it. That's why I like you so much!"

"You do?"

"Yup! Things are never as they seem with you, Twilight Sparkle!" Pinkie giggled on scooting lower on the tummy, searching through the fluffy coat for a spot of gold. It was getting close. Those coughed chuckles from Twilight weren't hiding anything. "Sometimes we have a picnic, and we break out into a whole buncha of topics! Other times, you've had a super-nasty book stolen, and we have beat it across the world to get it back! You never know what's gonna happen next, and it makes you excited to wake up every day!"

Twilight blinked as her head sank more into the pillow. She looked into the ceiling as she spoke. "Wait. So you hang out with me... for the unexpected?"

"There's more reasons than that, you silly goose, but that's one of them!" Pinkie found a patch of feminine land that was different from the rest. Softer, squishier, and more sensitive too. "No day is the same with my friends around! So I don't mind where I am or where I'm going—so long as our adventures keep close!"

Twilight exhaled heavily. "But we haven't been having too many of those lately, have we?"

"NOPE!"

Pinkie dug her hooves into that spot and rubbed, locking her legs into the curves of the barrel, coming to be rocked back and forth, up and down, as Twilight thrashed in place. She barked in laughter at being unable to buck herself free.

"PINKIE! PINKIE! STOP! AHAHAH! STOP STOP! PLEASE STOP. OH, STOP, STOP!"

Pinkie finished with a nudge before releasing her hooves of that spot. Twilight arched into the air before dropping altogether. Heaving, a wave carried across her coat, lifting and lowering Pinkie by an inch.

"That's why you have to leave yourself open for the unexpected!" Pinkie went on in a cheer. "Or else you'll be locked and tight and not having fun, no-sir-eeeeeeeeeeee!"

Twilight was panting with a loose bang cast over one of her eyes. She stared at Pinkie with an expressionless eye. And then... she started to speak. "Y'know... before I came here... I couldn't get my head to think straight. I knew what I needed to do and what had to be done. But I just couldn't will myself to go to court today."

"Mmmhmm."

"And out of all of my friends, I went to you because I knew you would do something unexpected," Twilight rattled on. "Every day has been about working and keeping to the schedule and ensuring I'm reading and practising my magic enough. But in improving, I think... I forgot to live a little bit."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Duh!"

"I think... I think I need to focus on my work and life balance." Twilight nodded with a sinister smirk. Two shadows rose into the air over Pinkie. "Then I'll see if I can set something up with the girls every week. Anything to remind me what it means to be... me, again.”

"All-right! I missed us being us!'" Pinkie rattled in her laughter. "The Pinkie around friends is my favourite kind of Pinkie to be!"

"And one more thing."

"Huh?'

Two forelegs descended from above and struck over Pinkie's back, crashing her into the fluffy expanse of chest, which she was clung to. Looking over the tuft, she saw Twilight smiling down at her. "You and I are going to spend the day snuggling!"

"YAY! HURR-RAY!"

And that was how the rest of the afternoon was spent by the duo, set to each other in a bed retained to its normalcy. Pinkie hated normal. She would twist it however much she could in order to keep things interesting.

Being close to Twilight, and being around her friends, however, never ceased to be entertaining. She craved madness when they were away to fill the void of their absence. Yet when they were around... gravity worked as it was supposed to.

And Twilight couldn't come to the answer to her problem in her current state. It was only in being eased, in finding peace, that the solution was achieved. In working to have a better life, she forgot to even have a life, causing the days to become dull and colourless.

Without the unexpected, regardless of how it comes, the same continues being the same, and it's a crying shame.