FOR TANTALIZING LOW TEMPERATURE TREATS | THAT APPEAL TO QUADRUPEDAL FLESHPODS | DURING A SUMMER SOLSTICE
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I SCREAM | YOU SCREAM | WE ALL SCREAM
FOR TANTALIZING LOW TEMPERATURE TREATS | THAT APPEAL TO QUADRUPEDAL FLESHPODS | DURING A SUMMER SOLSTICE
“—king dead from heat stroke if I don't have something to quench my thirst—and prontosaurus!” Pinkie Pie could be heard caterwauling.
The usually exuberant party planner limped lethargically along the fringes of town in a sweaty slump. It was a broiling hot summer day, and steamy vapors rising from every sun-baked yard and street corner practically curled the threads of the gold-thatched rooftops above.
“Or at least something to tickle my sweet-tooth!” Pinkie continued. “It's been so long since my mouth felt like giggling!”
She let her tongue hang out lengthily from her maw, and its offensively dry surface sizzled in the sun's glare.
“Guaaaaahhhh... thith pony ith konna be uh dwied-up kackduth by the end uff dith abernoon!” She clapped her mouth back shut and swalllllllllllowed—her throat-and-mouth muscles searching desperately for a dollop of saliva to satiate her inner misery. “Buh. Buh. Buhhhhhh.” Pinkie paused upon the outskirts of town, listening as the summer cicadas struggled to keep their cadence. At long last, the combined sweat, misery, and musk of the moment rattled her to the breaking point. “What I wouldn't give for a double-barrled shotgun right now.” She rubbed her fuzzy face, pouting. “A shotgun that fired strawberry sherbet and fudgesicles.”
Then...
...from the periphery...
...a staccato voice boldly pontificated:
“BEHOLD AND MOLEST YOUR EYES | UPON THESE EXQUISITE TREATS | OF SAVORY FROZEN CONSUMPTION.”
Pinkie Pie blinked. “...Reverend?” She turned and gazed upon the very edge of the Everfree Forest that bordered town. Almost instantly her otherwise chapped lips exploded into a sincerely ecstatic grin. “You're not church! You're waaaaaaay better! Zoooooooop!”
Sure enough, Pinkie had zoooooooop'd towards a bright white stand that had been splendidly erected on the edge of Ponyville. Sandwiched between two pine trees was a circular ice cream stand... which upon closer examination resembled the bottom slice of an ivory-white dodecahedron. Its upper half loomed a few feet overhead, suspended by forces yet unseen... and likewise unimportant. Because, in that bubbly moment, Pinkie Pie had skidded to a stop just centimeters before the stand—wobbling in place like a pogo-stick stuck deep in tar—and she absorbed her entire attention into a pastel arrangement of tubs from beyond a translucent sneeze guard. The tubs were full of all sorts of wondrously sweet and candy bespeckled flavors of refreshingly ice cold dairy paste, otherwise known as—
“Ice cream!!!” Pinkie Pie leaned and drooled and leaned and drooled and leaned and drooled. “The world's second best kind of cream! Right after what I'd be doing in my pants right now if I was wearing pants but I'm not wearing pants but still—!” Her eyes widened, bright and blue and basking in the beauty of all the flavors they reflected. “Sooooooooo frossssstyyyyyyyy!”
“AFFIRMATIVE | QUADRUPEDAL FLESHPOD | OF ENDOTHERMIC EPONAL DESIGNATION.”
A stranger in a large dark trenchcoat leaned forward, standing on the other side of the stand. Between the thick shade of the pines, the heavy bulk of his garment, and the horrifically unnameable cosmic color pulsating from the inner joints of the dodecahedron halves above and beneath him, it was rather difficult for Pinkie Pie to make note of his features. Not that she noticed—for she was too busy groaning in delight at the ice cream flavors to take note of how oddly his carapace of a brow furrowed, how constantly his chitinous tail flicked, and how his long hairy ears rotated a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees between each booming vocalization:
“ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED | MAMMALIAN EXTRACT | CAREFULLY PRESERVED AT TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE POINT FIFTEEN DEGREES KELVIN | JUST LIKE YOU PREFER YOUR PATHETICALLY WEAK DIGESTIVE ORGANS | TO SUSPEND IN.”
“Heeheehee! Well, I have no idea who this 'Kelvin' is, but he sure is a life-saver!” Pinkie Pie fluffed-and-fluffed her mane, shaking loose several rainbow-colored paper notes with maple leaves emblazoned thereupon. “How much loonie per spoonie, goonie?!?”
“FRET NOT | CONCERNING THE EXCHANGE | OF DEAD CARBON | EPONAL VERTEBRATE.” The rigid words shook with each comb-cratch of his... mouths? “YOUR CRIPPLING CAPITALISTIC SOCIAL TUMOR IS NOT REQUIRED | FOR THE CONSUMPTION” He waved two reassuring forelimbs—until the coat's sleeves shifted back, revealing one flagellum too many. A third forelimb licked outward and tugged the cuffs back in place. “THESE EDIBLE CONCENTRATIONS | OF EXCESSIVE SUGARS AND POLYTITANIUM ALLOYS | ARE | AS THEY PROCLAIM | LIBERALLY ACCESSIBLE FOR PLENTIFUL ORAL INTAKE DOWN YOUR ELONGATED SPONGY THROAT TUBES.”
“Well, heck!” Pinkie Pie did a little jig in place. “Anpony who simply says 'down the hatch' is 'quite the catch' any gosh-darn-day of the week! You're a-okay in my book...” She leaned forward with a smile. “Mister...?”
The figure stood still in his coats.
“Misterrrrrrr... … …?” Pinkie leaned harder and smiled wider.
One of the stranger's ears turned towards the other, flicking in such a way as to “slap” the other side of the obscured cranium. “Pssst! Zeezrom! It addresses us!”
The other ear slapped back—overeaching, revealing a pair of bulbous compound eyes situated at the base—before dipping back beneath the collar of the overcoat. “Affirmative, Zoram! We know!”
“Then facilitate a verbal conjuring to appease it!”
“With exceeding haste! Ahem...”
The figure tilted up, taking a proud stance. “WE MANIFEST | AS HE WHO WOULD | PROVIDE A BANQUET OF FROZEN COMSUMMABLES | AND POSSESS MASCULINE GENITALIA!”
“Ahhhhhhhh...!” Pinkie nodded with a smile. “The local neighborhood ice cream stallion! Y'know, we've really been missing one of those around Ponyville!” Her ears briefly drooped. “At least after the wood chipper incident... … ...”
“IT IS CONFIRMED | THAT WE MANIFEST CREAM | TO ADORN YOUR SPLEEN WITH.”
“Heehee! Almost rhymed there!” Pinkie pointed with a coy wink. “It sorta makes up for the lack of a playful music box!”
Silence.
“Y'knowwwwwww... to attract all the hungry little fillies and colts from their front yards as you cart your wares around?”
“WE WERE NOT INFORMED | THAT ACOUSTICAL WHIMSY | WAS DESIRED FOR COMMUNAL ORCHESTRATION!”
“Well, don't you fret! It's all in the flavors, dreit?” Pinkie Pie licked her lips, rubbing her front hooves together as she stared lustfully at the tubs of multi-colored samples beyond the sneeze guard. “Nowwww... let's get crackin' on our free sample...”
“YES | ASSUREDLY YOU MUST PARTAKE | EPONAL MEAT SATCHEL.” The figure nodded. “AND DO INFORM US | IF THE TASTE IS ACCEPTABLE.” Another nod. “AND ALSO ELABORATE ON WHAT METAMORPHOSIZING EFFECTS THE QUANTUM RADIATION HAS ON YOUR EPIDERMAL LAYERS.”
“Is it selfish to ask for three scoops for my first taste?”
“EMBRACE | ANARCHY | MITOCHONDRIAL FLESHLING.”
“Neato! Uhm...” Pinkie squinted, then pointed at one particular tub beyond the glass. “What's the yellow stuff with the vibrating ridged tablets?”
“INTERDIMENSIONAL SKY LARVAE | OF THE THRICE BETRAYED | GALACTIC KNIFE GOD.”
“Uh huh. And the swirly purple stuff that's all frothy on the sides?”
“CHRONOTONIC EFFLUENCE | OF NEGATIVE ANDROMEDAL SINGULARITIES.”
“Mmm. Sounds tangy. OOooOOoo!” Pinkie pressed her face to the glass, pointing her irises happily towards a tub situated towards the right, generating its own microcosmic atmosphere of black fog. “What's this really weird-looking stuff that looks like wildly distorted projected light shining out of one of Twilight's vacuum tube video box thingies?”
“CHUNKY MONKEY.”
“Ohhhhhhh...” Pinkie whimpered slightly. “It all just sounds so good. I wish I could make it all melt in my mouth—but I simply can't choose!” A light bulb flickered cartoonishly over the party planner's head, and she gasped joyfully. “I know! Why don't you choose for me?!”
“SPOKEN | LIKE A TRUE PUPPET | OF THIRD DIMENSIONAL SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS.”
“Hah!” Pinkie giggle-snorted. “Now you're starting to sound like my dad.”
“WE ARE FAR FROM YOUR PATRIACH | FEMININE BLOOD SPECIMEN.”
No sooner was this uttered that one ear turned towards the other and slapped it once again. “Psst! Zeezrom! We have not uncovered enough empirical evidence to support that this entity is capable of internal fertilization!”
“You make such a claim in full assumption that I am complete agency of our sonic vocalization, Zoram!”
“Enough abrasive vitriol! Let us amend this!”
Both ears centered once more upon the mount of the figure, facing Pinkie again.
“A QUATTUORDECILLION APOLOGIES | EPONAL CITIZEN.” The figure bowed politely, his feelers briefly gleaming in the sunlight through the folds of the overcoat. “WE HAVE MADE | AN EGREGIOUS ASSUMPTION.” He folded his hands and hands and hands and hands and hands together. “DO KINDLY INFORM US | WHAT PRONOUNS DO YOU PREFER?” He gestured. “HE | SHE | OR VROMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“Right now, my only gender is 'thirsty!'” Pinkie Pie puffed her chest up with a sly grin. “Load 'em up, baby!” She stuck her tongue out. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—”
“THEN IT SHALL BE FED | THIS LOCALIZED PULSAR FOCUS | AND NO SOONER.” The figure then proceeded to scoop from the multicolored tubs with aluminum probes, drills, and other sterilized suppositories. “IT IS OUR ESTEEMED HOPE | THAT THE CONSUMMATION OF THIS | PRODUCES MAXIMUM REFRESHMENT | AND ALSO SCIENCE.” Soon enough, three scoops of varying molecular integrity balanced neatly on a conical sheathe of edible carbon. “THE SCIENCE PORTION IS MOST EXCEEDINGLY IMPORTANT.” He handed the treat towards the mare seated before the dodecahedracart. “PLEASE | EMPHATICALLY | SWALLOW THE SCIENCE FIRST.”
“Okay... I know it's cheating... but...” Pinkie Pie cradled the cone, exchanging smiles between the frozen dessert and the caterer who just gifted it. “...what flavor didja choose for me? Huh? Huh?”
The edges of the server's coat billowed as the otherworldly light wafting off the cart intensified with the chorus of distant inequine screams. “IT IS | NONE OTHER THAN | THE ANOMALOUS ESSENCE | OF THE UNCHARTED MECHANISM | THAT FIRST TRIGGERED THE EXPANSION | OF ALL SPACE AND MATTER | ISSUING OUTWARD FROM A INFINITESIMAL POINT | BATHED IN THE LIGHT OF ABJECT DARKNESS | TOO OPAQUE TO DESERVE CLASSIFICATION | IN AN AGE OLDER THAN THOUGHT | WHEN NO SANE MIND COULD STOMACH THE CHAOS | THAT ULTIMATELY BIRTHED THE BEGINNING AND END OF ALL HOPE | AND FEAR | AND PAIN.”
“Eh...” Pinkie shrugged. “So long as it isn't licorice.” And she opened her muzzle like a candy dispenser and—“SCROMFFF”—downed the dessert in one monumental bite.
A pair of compound eyes peeked curiously from beneath the trenchcoat's collar. Followed by a second pair. And a third. Sixth. Sixteenth.
“Mmmmmmmmm...” Pinkie Pie rubbed her belly. She licked her lips, then blinked at the figure. “Heehee. Don't worry.” A wink. “The Pie family has long... longggggg genetically outgrown the risk of brain freeze—100101010101010101010111001010101001010101010101010!!!!!” Within the span of five seconds, Pinkie's eyes widened Her pupils split into four. Sparks of electricity shot out her nostrils and back into her ear holes. She grew two antennae that swiftly dissolved into dust, levitated five feet off the ground, inverted, and spat out a screaming goat fetus that flew straight into the sky at nine thousand kilometers an hour. “1100110101001010110101theyshouldhavesentapoettttttttttttt—BLOOP!” She then reinverted, coughed up sprinkles, and gently floated back down to solid ground, dabbing her chin with a contented smile. “Mmmmmmm... sherbet's got a 'lil kick to it!”
The figure behind the cart jerked in place. “IT | LIVES.”
“I really especially liked the part where it budded a tiny sub-dimension in my lower intestine that experienced a rise and fall of a sub-molecular civilization before ultimately adopting cybernetic technology and transcending to Kardashev IV!”
The ears looked at each other, then at the mare. “BUT | WHAT | OF | ITS | EPIDERMIS.”
“I dunno about you...” Pinkie Pie swiped her brow and stood tall and happy in the summer heat. “But I'm feeling like a million bits! Hah! Take that, global whinnying!” She winked at the caterer. “Nice scoops, bruuuu. But—if I was to be honest—it could have used a little coconut!”
The comb-scraping stopped. The ears shrunk a little, looking at each other with shriveled demeanors.
“Coconut?”
“Is that what the Eponal flesh bucket just pronounced?”
“Affirmative. It would appear that such substance dwells upon this magnetized planetoid.”
“The universe's most volatile element! And accepted so liberally!”
“These quadrupedal endotherms are far too dangerous for our study! Swiftly! We must return to Zerahemna!”
“But what will Zenephi say?!”
“Damn him! He and his entire colony are still recovering from the discovery of naturally-occurring caffeine!”
“Uhhhhhhhhhh...” Pinkie Pie blinked, ears drooping. “Was it something I said, Mister?”
“CAPITALISM HAS DEFEATED YOU ONCE AGAIN | INSIPID INSECT | THIS CREAMING OF MAMMARIES IS OVER!” The figure kicked the tray of tubs, forcing it to collapse into an aluminum mesh that resembled a weather balloon. He dove deep within a pocket of non-euclidean architecture; meanwhile the two halves of the dodecahedron clapped together as one, lifting off a circular burn mark made in the ground and humming with the bass force of a thousand subterranean orchestras. “STARE INTO THE LIGHT | EPONAL HOMUNCULUS | AND EMBRACE THE TIME LOOP | THAT WILL ERASE THIS ERRONEOUS ENCOUNTER | FROM CHRONOTONAL SIGNATURE | AND TAXES.”
Flaaaaaaash!
Pinkie blinked, her pupils shrinking. As she rub-rub-rubbed her aching muzzle, she was ignorant of the bright orb lifting off and shooting towards the great blue zenith.
“Hmmm... why do I suddenly wanna make out with a frog of the same sex?”
A beat.
“It's not even Tuesday!”
Another beat.
“Ah well.” Pinkie Pie caterwauled. She turned—sweating and grimacing under the hot sun—and began her slouching trot around the broiling lengths of Ponyville. “Holey moley! What a scorcher! I'm gonna be fuc—”
Author's Note
