I raised my claw to grasp the doorknob of the Golden Oaks library when the door bursted open on its own. Two pairs of hooves emerged from the darkness inside and dragged me in. "Quick, Pinkie, get in! She is almost here!" The door slammed shut behind me and I blinked my eyes rapidly to get them adjusted to the darkness. The only light came from a small window above a bookshelf. A pastel blue pegasus, Cloudkicker, sat on top of the shelf with binoculars pressed against the window glass.

Well then. "Who is?" Another set of hooves begun to drag me past the throng of dark silhouettes. Wow, it's packed in here.

The familiar voice of Rainbow Dash emerged from my side. "Twilight Sparkle. And Spike too. He's a dragon apparently, can you believe it. A baby one. Anyhoo, Flitter just came a minute ago and informed the two were trotting towards here along with Fluttershy just a two streets over." A fruity smelling glass was placed in my claw. "We-"

"SSSSHHHH! They're here! Mouths shut!" Cloudkicker screeched from her perch and tucked the curtains in front of the window.

…

*clop*

*clop*

*clop*

*clunk-creaaak~* A duo of one tall and one short figure were briefly seen against the light pouring from the open door before it shut in a mighty-

*SLAM!*

"Huh. Rude much?" Spike's voice was heard.

"Sorry, Spike, but I have to convince the Princess that Nightmare Moon is coming, and we're running out of time! I just need to be alone so I can study without a bunch of crazy ponies trying to make friends all the time. Now, where's the light?"

"SURPRISE!"

The house was flooded with light, streamers and incoherent cacophony. I blinked away the spots of light dancing in my vision. Rainbow was outright cackling as Strawberry Sunshine was doing her usual funky dance routine around the visibly flabbergasted dragon and mare of the hour. I raised the mystery liquid to my lips. Sip.

Hmm, punch it is. Apples, lemons and… raspberries? The alcohol though, well. I dipped a claw into the liquid for my arguably best utility trick I could do nowadays.

[̸̣͉̈͌#̶̝͈̋#̸̫̼́#̸̲̉̚#̸̗̜́#̸͍̞̓͝]̷̢̪͗

Claw off and a sip. Whee! That's a proper punch! The usual pony dosage was pretty much nothing to someone with a mass like me. I repeated the trick as Rainbow raised her cup to me with an expectant gaze.

"Hack, wheeze! Pinkie, you-" I couldn't help but laugh at the raspy wheeze coming from my friend's throat. "Haha! Aww, Dashie, little too strong for you?" I swung my hoofed foreleg around her shoulders. "Come on, I see Davenport with a deck of cards at the kitchen table. I bet ten bits I can defeat you in a game of scat."

▪︎▪︎▪︎■■■▪︎▪︎▪︎

"Trips." I dropped my triple nines on the table and groaned as Fluttershy meekly placed a Full House on her side right after. A small mound of peanuts got pushed towards the yellow pegasus which she accepted with a faint blush. At some indeterminable point of the night the stakes of real cash and scat shifted to whatever snacks were available and plain poker. I was about to round up the cards littering the table back to the deck when a certain lampshade-wearing dragon shuffled to my side.

"Hey, Pinkie wasn't it?"

I nodded.

"Say, I have never seen somepony like you before. If it isn’t too rude, could you tell me what species you are?"

Ah, of course.

I gave the card deck to Davenport who accepted it with practiced stoicism and rose up from the table. My head towered over the crowd of partygoers. "Would you believe me, if I told you I once was just a regular old earth pony filly?"

Spike looked visibly surprised. "Wha- but, you are all- you know. What happened?"

I drew a dash of water from the kitchen tap to my fairly crusty glass. The kitchenette was rather small, not much leg-room with the table 'n all. "One day I was walking along the road from my home south from here towards Ponyville, nothing interesting was happening, the sun was shining." I walked slowly towards the roomier center of the library, the baby dragon trailing behind me.

"And then! BAM!" I slammed a hoof against the floor. Spike jumped. "I tripped on a rock."

The dragon blinked slowly. "You tripped."

"Yeah, and then I fell into a ditch." The expression on the dragon got decidedly more deadpan. "A ditch." I raised a claw to sign that there was more to come.

"And then..."

I upended the glass of water into my parched maw for a dramatic pause.

"...I EXPLODED!" I flung four of my six limbs towards the ceiling to pantomime a mighty conflagration, eyes bulging. "From that day forwards I was no mere filly, but Pinkie! One of a kind wonder in this land of ponies."

"A likely story."

Tsk, a sceptic. I waved with a hoof to draw the attention of a nearby familiar face. "Hey Strawberry, remember the big hole I left on the southern road back then?" The yellow pegasus with a mane as red as her namesake hopped towards me with a grin on her face.

"Ah, yes." The pegasus twirled on one of her rear hooves and fell towards me as if fainting. She fell on my waiting arms and batted her eyelashes upwards at me. "'Twas a day when the whole Ponyville saw a great plume of smoke rise to the sky south of town. Many a pony rushed to see the cause of the commotion." Spike listened enraptured. "There they found a blackened pit where there was none before. Thirty meters wide and about five meters deep, bisecting the road in two. The ponies were baffled, what could have caused such a thing?"

Strawberry rolled back on her own hooves and wiped imaginary dust from her coat. Her voice conveyed decidedly less sense of wonder as she continued her tale. "A soot-covered mound of flesh dragged itself upwards the slope of the pit, leaving a trail of blood. The ponies carried the wounded creature back to the hospital, from where its shrieks of pain could be heard even the very next day."

I rubbed my chin. "Yeah, I remember it felt like I was hacking up a whole lung."

"It might as well been a whole lung, dear." A white earth pony interrupted from a crowd. Ah, yes nurse Redheart. "It was during my training year. Imagine an inexperienced little me carrying a vomit bin in which my patient just horked a lump of flesh. It was memorable, if anything."

I turned my head back towards the clearly revulsed Spike. "So there. Did that help with your original question?"

The dragon fidgeted. "Uhm, that still didn't quite explain why you are no longer a pony."

[□□□□□]

I grinned, showing a few of my pointier teeth. "Ah, that's a whole other tale for another day. Hmm, it is getting close to the sunrise, isn't it. Maybe you should rouse Twilight up from her nook. It wouldn't do to miss the thing you came here for in the first place, don't cha think?”

▪︎▪︎▪︎■■■▪︎▪︎▪︎

The glassware clinked against each other in the kitchen sink as I did my best to eradicate the remnants of sugary cocktails with a brush. The few novelty crazy straws in the mix were especially stubborn to clean up. I was just beginning to wonder if the crust had been in them even before the start of the party when a hoof tapped the back of my midsection.

"Hey Pinkie. Time Turner and Royal Pin volunteered to take care of the rest of the mess. Let's get home." I wiped my assorted wet limbs on a towel before turning to exhausted looking Davenport, brown fur sticking to every which way. The two other stallions were busy sweeping off a patch of glitter some dumbass had decided to spill on the library floor.

"Not interested of the Summer Sun Celebration?" I quipped.

Davenport sniffed and started walking towards the exit with an eyeroll. "Oh please, I would like to get at least a few hours of sleep before noon. Even this has made me consider skipping the whole thing altogether next year." The door opened to the cold night air, which smelled especially fresh after being suffused for hours in the musky party air inside.

"Maybe you are just getting old, 'Port."

The brown stallion sniffed again, but with a hint of smile this time. "Maybe, maybe. Now what about you, how has the self-proclaimed partymare like you decided to abstain from once a decade party? Who is the one feeling the ache of old bones, again?"

"Pshh, don't joke. I am almost half your junior." I switched to a more posh gait and to an expression of disinterest and mild constipation one can see on those with great self-importance. "And that celebration could hardly be called a party. It's just oohs and aahs and maybe a little polite clopping against the floor if they feel especially wild. Not my scene." I twirled my wrist vaguely in the air to complete the performance.

"THE HORROR! THE HORROR!" We turned as one as Lily, one of the flower sisters, popped up from somewhere screaming, barged right past us and disappeared behind the buildings right after.

*crickets*

I alternated a look between the direction the mare came from and where she went, seeing nothing. "I know it's Lily, but do you think we should be worried?" I barely managed to finish the sentence when Bon Bon, the local candymaker trotted forth, looking spooked.

"Hey, you!" she practically hissed. "Everypony get back to your homes, lock the doors and windows, grab a bat or something. We got a real situation here!"

Well then. Davenport nodded at me and promptly started powerwalking towards his home nearby. It isn't the first time some never before seen monstrosity decided to wade into the town from the forest. Better not stay and dawdle. Wow, that's a big knife Bon Bon's got between her teeth. Serrated and all. Somehow things start to look way more worrying when a candymaker looks ready to go to a war and gut somepony. Maybe some more info would be necessary.

"What's the threat?"

Bon Bon squinted at me. "Celestia has disappeared. Some black alicorn attacked the party, blasted the royal guards unconscious and threatened to plunge the world into eternal night. Now SCRAM!" I yelped at the force of her growl and started moving as fast as could with my mismatched feet.

I weaved through the mostly empty streets, illuminated by the light of the stars and moon alone. I saw a few individual silhouettes of ponies quickly rushing somewhere, likely to their homes. A feeling of dread grew ever greater in my gut. Finally I turned a corner and saw the hardware store and the apartment I lived in on its second floor. The key slotted to its keyhole on the first try and in a moment I was inside. Now what.

"Hey." A voice emanated from behind the counter where a silhouette of a stocky figure sat.

"SWEET CEL-" Hey, i knew that voice. "-Estia… Lugnut, is that you?"

"Yep," Lugnut, the elderly stallion and the only employee I got helping at the store, answered. His form shifted and a lumberjack axe was lowered on a patch of moon-illuminated surface on the counter. Geez, I was quickly getting tired of all these tools of murder. I stroked the fur covering my shoulders repeatedly, willing the goosebumps to settle.

Lugnut started to rumble again. "It's end of the world, I heard. Nightmare Moon has come to turn us all into shish kabob."

I sighed and circled around the counter. Lugnut's scraggly face grew in definition as I got closer. "You were at the party that got attacked?" I asked as Lugnut gave way for me by shifting from the Pink-Throne to a more uncomfortable wooden stool next to it.

"Nah, but my bedroom window points right towards the town hall. The blasts of blue lightning seemed rather intimidating. The chorus of fright from the ponies running away told the rest." We turned to stare over the low shop racks and out of the twin big store windows at the front. Nothing seemed to be moving in the street. Creepy. I didn't like the silence either.

"Nightmare Moon, you said? The old boogie-mare they tell to frighten little fillies?" The balding stallion nodded in affirmation. "And doesn't the end of the world sound a little bit like exaggeration? And what are you doing here anyway, you got your own house, ya old lump."

Lugnut took the axe back to his grip and patted its head affectionately. "I live alone in my home and I remembered you do the same. More the merrier and all that jazz. The end of the world? Hrmm. We shall see, won't we?" How reassuring.

I didn't come up with anything else to say and Lugnut was, well, Lugnut. Instead we just kept looking out of the windows. In the past I liked watching the night sky from time to time.

The twinkle of the stars.

The shining moon.

Now, I found out it all didn't look quite so comforting anymore.

▪︎▪︎▪︎■■■▪︎▪︎▪︎

I startled awake and felt something wet and heavy pressing on my chest.

"Nyeergh," it said.

Oh, it's just Lugnut. We must have fell asleep while still sitting behind the counter. I guess he leaned over towards me in his sleep, spreading his old stallion drool on me in the process, eww. And he was still hugging his axe. I picked it from his slackened grip with one claw and was about to shake him awake with another when I realized how bright it was in the shop.

The sun.

The day has come.

Author's Note

I have read a lot of fanfics on different sites and saw many readers needling the authors about detailed descriptions of what one particular thing means, what happens next and countless other questions that just make me baffled. It will all be told in time and if not, it is just intentional fuel for imagination.

Now I have found myself deriving plenty of amusement of providing no accurate description of what Pinkie actually looks like. To the potential impatient I say:

It will all come in due time. Maybe in bits and pieces, but come it will nevertheless.