Fluttershy's eyes scanned every last inch of the mostly open field, occasional trees dotting out across the sides of the horizon with the afternoon sun shining brightly through their branches. Her half-way suppressed frown started to pop up in earnest as she stopped in place, her hooves braced against a patch of mossy rocks. Shaking her head, she flicked her ears to try and pick up any sign of the lost foxes scampering around.
"Bless their fuzzy little hearts," Twilight remarked, hopping over a small river and thinking about the long path backwards into Ponyville. Not quite dangerous as the Everfree but not quite as safe as home either, the area around them seemed full of surprises, some of those surprises big enough to gobble wayward animals in a matter of seconds. "If they knew what they were getting into, they wouldn't have gnawed right through those crate ropes."
"Oh, gosh, this is not good," Fluttershy murmured. She glanced backwards and saw Twilight right behind her, the other mare smiling in emotional support like usual. "I wonder if they've scampered all the way into the Everfree itself by now." Fluttershy nudged at her saddlebag, feeling glad that she at least had more than enough food for the foxes if she ever did find them.
"It's alright," Twilight replied, standing right besides her friend. "I mean-- it will be alright, soon." She could hardly even see the wind blowing through the leaves and bushes, let any any confused little foxes running about. She thought back to how her detection spells had failed, something about the fur of those exotic foxes emitting some odd something, and felt a shade embarrassed that it had already taken so long to find them. Derpy had left them in the library, on route from some distant parts through Ponyville over back to their actual owner, and Twilight simply should have watched them more closely in the first place. Yet they looked too cute to be so mischievous.
"It's... not quite alright..." Fluttershy immediately blushed a bit, not wanting to start any kind of argument. "It's just that there so exotic, you know... being native to Hoofington and all. And some of them even from farther. They might not even know where there's water... let alone the kind of pony-made food that they eat..." She sniffed, knowing that she shouldn't cry. "We have to find them..."
"Yeah," Twilight remarked. She glanced straight upwards, seeing some kind of pink dot appear in the sky off to the right. She muttered something under her breath about maybe a foal losing their balloon. Fluttershy just stared eye to eye with her. "But then we--"
A sharp, happy noise-- sounding like a distant giggle-- made both mares freeze. Twilight looked up, nudging a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder. The pink dot flew into a spiral off to the left before growing bigger and bigger in the distance.
"Is that," Fluttershy began, but she didn't have to say another word. She didn't have time to say another word, either, as the pink object inflated into a giant blur going straight for the two mares. Twilight just blinked.
"Heeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" cried out Pinkie Pie, riding atop some kind of odd object that looked like the offspring of a large purple broom and an even larger bright pink kite. She seemed to slash through the air straight towards her friends.
"Eeep," Twilight remarked as she bounced several inches to the right, magically carrying Fluttershy with her.
Pinkie threw out a torrent of giggles into the air once more as her mutant kite skidded against the green grass, popping her up and down like a rock skipping against a pond. Blobs of dirt and grass tossed out around her as Twilight and Fluttershy trotted right behind, their mouths open wide. The nose of Pinkie's aircraft suddenly smacked upon a small rock and flung her off to the side.
Pinkie, kicking into the air with sheer enjoyment, watched as the mutant kite flipped around and crumpled into a mess before a gigantic pile of moss. Twilight and Fluttershy forced themselves into a stop, staring blankly. Pinkie fell backwards into the moss with her hooves all pointing upwards and her mane cushioning her back before chuckling. Green dirty goop swirled around her body.
"Ah... Pinkie..." Fluttershy muttered. She joined Twilight right besides Pinkie's crash site.
"I'm here!" Pinkie called out, leaping up on all fours. She smiled her infectious smile before shaking the mud off of herself, looking a bit like a playful puppy.
Twilight muttered a quick magical shield spell as messy clumps flung all about her. Fluttershy, for her part, managed to duck in right time. "Greeeaaaat," Twilight sarcastically commented. That display had to have scared away any of the already skittish foxes-- or so Twilight thought.
Fluttershy began, "How did--"
"I judge this as a successful landing!" Pinkie suddenly hollered, jumping in between her two confused friends. "I walked away from it, after all." She gazed at her spot in the moss. "And, look, I even made a perfect mare-sized crater in the mud! Just look at that hoofspan!" She traced the indentation of her limbs for a second. Her increased smile made it clear that she felt pretty proud.
"But what the hay is that thing?" Twilight gestured over at the once airborne papery and woody mess lying before the mossy patch.
"Oh, you silly-illy-too-worried-very-hurried-filly," Pinkie replied, brushing Twilight's back and standing up straight, "that's just the two household items that poor Courtney Curls turned alive and then magic-ed together. Remember? She let us use it to find those foxie-woxies."
"Ahhhhhhhh," Twilight murmured, racking her brain. 'Courtney Curls' sounded to her like some kind of musician mare that would hang around DJ Pon-3 in some dingy, neon-covered Canterlot nightclub. It also sounded like nopony that she had ever met-- nopony that she had even read about. "When was that?"
"You know," Pinkie remarked, "way back at eleven o'clock today when we fell into that dangerous bee monster trap but when a fuzzy purple mare rescued us with her living umbrella friendy-wendy."
"Bee monsters?" Twilight whispered. She already had a whole blasted list of Everfree creepy-crawlies to worry about.
"Uh, Pinkie," Fluttershy muttered, trying her best to sound supportive and unquestioning, "it's only ten o'clock right now."
"Oh!" Pinkie blushed, hopping out from between her friends and resting on a bunch of rocks nearby. "That means I accidentally flew into Act I of the story instead of Act II."
"Act I," Twilight meekly repeated. She ran a hoof through her mane, sitting down upon the grass.
"Yeppers! And, oh my goody-foody-goodness, I'll bet you haven't even got the foxes back yet." Pinkie squeezed her cheeks with both front hooves. "Oh, and I won't be there for the special climax with the big green fluffy tentacle thingies as Act II concludes!"
"Pinkie..." Fluttershy muttered.
"Oh," Pinkie went on, looking straight up into the sky. "I must have taken a wrong turn through the main Ponyville jet stream across to the Hoofington cumulonimbus patch." She ran her two front hooves back and forth. "And then I mistakenly connected into the alternative Coltsville jet stream during a period of exception magitron activity that interfered with the general tachyon flow besides the stratosphere." Three other front hooves suddenly appeared, one of them waggling beneath the other two like a snake as the other two rubbed together. "Thus, the jet stream reduced my hyperspace lag time by around three hours instead of the expected one!"
"Pinkie!" Twilight cried out in frustration, blowing her mane out of her face and leaning over at her friend.
"Gosh, the author has to be just peeved at me!" Pinkie realized, waggling all five of her front limbs in the air like a jellyfish in a riptide. "I might have subverted the whole plotline!"
"Pinkie," Twilight murmured, stepping right in front of her friend's face and glaring at Pinkie's oddly distant facial expression. Odd grey and black shapes seemed to pop up on Pinkie's eyes beneath her pupils, flashing like warning lights. "Snap out of it!"
"He had better not include me in that long rumored Scootaloo and Derpy clopfic as revenge," Pinkie muttered in a low voice, a flash of fear rippling across her face. "That would just-- just-- ruin my whole week!"
Twilight, feeling exasperated, magically grabbed Fluttershy's saddlebag and pulled over an apple fritter. She held it up beneath Pinkie's lost-looking face and magically blew into it, sweet vapors dousing Pinkie's sensations.
"I don't see why Scootaloo has to be gay anyways," Pinkie muttered, her voice getting even lower, "just because the fans always want it, and-- and--" She stopped, inhaling deeply. "Ahhhh..." She closed her eyes and gobbled up the fritter, making a happy giggle as sugary bits clumped around her lips. Her expression flickered back to normal in a second.
"So..."
"Oh, hi Twilight!" Pinkie hollered. "What's going on?" She blinked once again before looking down, feeling a bit surprised at her extra limbs. Blushing, she span around in place, her mane and tail wiggling into a wall of solid pink, and she appeared perfectly normal once more.
Twilight had a lot of questions bubbling up through her mind, but-- seeing Fluttershy already walking over to the various trees nearby while still calling in a sweet voice for the foxes to come home-- Twilight tried to nail things down to just two. "Why are you here?"
"I'm helping you find the lost foxes," Pinkie replied, looking very surprised with her ears flicking forwards, "why else would I have been flying reconnaissance?" She made as if to bop Twilight in the mare's twitching nose. "You silly pickle!"
"Ah, but Fluttershy could fly, and I could too if I magically gave myself wings," Twilight commented, trying to make as much sense out of things as possible as she led Pinkie towards the trees. "The foxes seem to have this fundamental distrust of flying things. It just makes them even more scared than usual, which means that we have to be careful. The original owner back in Hoofington said to make sure to use motherly, caring voices with them especially." She felt glad, in a way, that Rainbow Dash had gone off to spend time with Soarin'-- a relationship that had blossomed fast-- and Applejack had gone off to help Braeburn with building his new house. Both of them seemed to react to the foxes almost as just large rats without much empathy, not being able to help it. "Keep your eyes open and your, ah, voice and moves calm."
"Oh," Pinkie commented, wiggling her tail. "I totally forgot about that."
"That's okay," Twilight replied, stepping under a huge maple. She mulled over the fact that she had actually just asked Pinkie to be 'calm' and chuckled at herself. "Just follow us and hang on for a moment." Twilight looked out and saw the Everfree Forest proper beginning just under a small but suddenly appearing cliff. She felt a deep, sinking feeling as Fluttershy leaned down and inspected what had to be a fox print in the grass. The foxes had scampered inside after all.
"Hey," Pinkie remarked, brushing against Twilight's tail.
"What?"
"You forgot the last lampshade."
"What?" Twilight's eyes darted about to see anything lamp-related in what looked like normal forest.
"I mean," Pinkie said, "you explained why Rainbow and Applejack aren't here. But you didn't mention Rarity."
"Mention... ah..." Twilight muttered. She glanced over to where the trees grew more thick, the light looking far more dim. Fluttershy had already gotten way ahead of them. "What about Rarity?"
"Come on, give the reader his or her lampshade," Pinkie began, holding up a hoof atop Twilight's head like a conductor trying to lead a clueless violinist. She's..."
"She's not anywhere near here. She's with Sweetie Belle and their parents over at the dedication and assembly ceremony over at that Avalon club place thing, that place in Canterlot where Derpy met her coltfriend and stuff. Right?" Twilight hardly thought Rarity would have felt interested in wading through the Everfree looking for lost fuzzy creatures in the first place.
"Lamp!" Pinkie screamed out, flipping her body upwards and kicking against a nearby tree. "Consider yourself-- shaded!" She struck a victory pose in the air that almost seemed to radiate pink sparkly energy from her hooves.
Twilight shrugged, more than used to Pinkie's silliness. She sat down for a moment and drank in her surroundings. Peaceful looking maple trees arranged in clockwork like spacing turned in a matter of meters into a gnarly mess of gigantic bushes, sickly looking black splotches in the ground, and thick mats of branches sticking every which way.
"Oh, gosh, come here, please!" Fluttershy suddenly burst out in the distance, somehow sounding both quiet and loud at the same time.
Twilight and Pinkie popped over a clump of fungus-coated rocks and ducked to the right, trying their best not to make too much noise. They almost ran right into Fluttershy, screeching to a halt as the ground seemed to turn a black-ish green. Twilight looked down, marveling at seeing about a lake's worth of moss in one spot.
"This is something I've never seen before," Fluttershy commented, swishing her hair to the side. Twilight carefully stepped over to her side and looked forwards as well. Their eyes both locked on a sudden yellow circle, about the side of a pony spread out upon the ground, sitting in the middle moss. It had jagged stripes and tiny stylized icons across a metal seal-- something almost like an oversize bottle-cap, only in the middle of the ground.
Twilight felt as if she'd spotted a diamond in the middle of her morning cornflakes. "So, it's," Twilight began, "a something."
"Oh, thank goodness!" Pinkie called out, hopping right over the other mare's heads and landing on top of the circle. She leaned her whole body down and clopped her hooves against it for a split-second. A bunch of metallic chirps popped through the air. "It's one of my emergency musical safe-zones!"
Twilight tried to unpack those words in her head, knowing that somehow, someway, Pinkie had to make at least some sense. She silently stepped closer to her pink friend while Fluttershy remained in place, just making a slight frown. "Hey," Twilight murmured. "I think we should get going. The foxes could be close by."
"Yes, we should!" Pinkie replied, nodding her head so vigorously that her pupils seemed to jiggle across her eyes. She clutched her head with both front hooves and let them bounce back into place. "And--" She slid her body to the right while biting down against the side of the round metal object. "We should bring this along with us!"
Fluttershy and Twilight both blinked. In what felt like watching a movie with a scene missing, a large black piano materialized on top of the moss besides Pinkie in a split-second. The pink mare simply grinned, gesturing at the instrument with eyebrows curling. Fluttershy felt a bit stunned and barely breathed. Twilight inspected the instrument, her eyes going from the normal looking keys to the normal looking stool to the very abnormal looking pink aura that flickered around the bottom of it.
"Are you sure about this?" Twilight asked. She detected some kind of strange magic. It didn't feel snister or creepy at all-- nothing like the counterfeit Princess Cadence or anypony like that-- but instead it felt more like a 'butterflies in the stomach' sensation as when a cute stallion would wink at her.
"You said that we needed to call out for the foxes, but do it in a caring and quiet-ish way, right?" Pinkie asked back, plopping her body upon the stool. The magical piano floated along the moss, lifted up a few inches in the air, over towards Fluttershy. "And, by the way, I've been just dying to give our slice-of-life adventures some musical accompaniment." She melodramatically leaned back and rubbed a hoof across her cheek. "Dying, I tell you!"
"Alright," Twilight replied. She had to admit to herself that Pinkie at least made some sense, playing and singing for the foxes made about as much sense as calling "come here, foxie", "we love you, foxies", and the like in tender voices. She still had to wonder exactly what the hay the whole yellow hole in the ground thing was about.
"Oh, it's very simple," Pinkie said, starting up some simple chords on the piano, "using my 'pinkie sense', I've planted magical pianos in strategic locations all across Ponyville and the related outskirts in order to provide necessary musical accompaniment for dramatic moments. Such moments happen all the time."
Twilight thought about how badly she wished Pinkie would stop reading her thoughts; it always gave her a bit of the creeps.
"Oh, you're such a worrier!" Pinkie remarked.
"Sure, sure," Fluttershy commented. She spied a set of paw marks upon the nearby tree at the edge of the moss pile, and she stepped on over.
"It's a crime, almost," Pinkie went on, gazing over at Fluttershy's intensely concentrated expression as the yellow mare sniffed the paw marks. "Every single day, there are moments of life passing by that would have been better had they have had proper musical accompaniment." Fluttershy ignored her friends completely, following the scent along a small, mostly dried up river along into what looked like a mountain of bushes.
"Ah, I guess that could be true," Twilight commented. She already had a bad feeling about where this could lead.
"Why," Pinkie said, turning to her piano. The three mares stepped through the bushes, trying their best not to get scratched by the jutting points all around their heads. "Just this morning! Snails was brushing his teeth, humming a tune that he had heard last night. I jumped out of his closet and grabbed the strategically located false ceiling tile above his head and grabbed my mini piano right out of it. He made a cute, feminine sort of surprised whine when I locked the bathroom door behind us, but that turned into a smile as soon as he heard--"
"Oh, the scent is so strong," Fluttershy muttered, seeing the mass of bushes open up into a small, oddly clear looking lake with plain, flat fields in the distance. "They should be so very close."
"TOOTHPASTE!" Pinkie sang out, and she banged through a catchy little piano riff.
As Performed By Pinkie Pie
Produced By Tommy Wiseau Productions
Now Available on iTunes
Twilight blinked, and what looked like a random set of purple and pink glowing words floating in the air above Pinkie's head-- almost like one of those silly optical illusion books for foals-- disappeared as soon as it had appeared. She shook her head and took a deep breath. Fluttershy had already walked way ahead of them, tracing the edge of the lake's calm, shimmering water and inspecting the various splotches of high grass.
"Toothpaste!" Pinkie went on. She clapped her hooves together and smiled, and her piano lifted even higher into the air.
"Uhh, Pinkie..."
"You're trying to make it, little by little /
The days are long, getting played like a fiddle /
But you're gonna fight! Yeah, you know you're the best!
Cuz', every day, when you finish your reeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast!"
A white light burst out, thrusting the piano right over Twilight's head, and Pinkie threw her body against the keys. She opened up her mouth wide and flopped her mane back, emotions surging through her sides. Twilight just stared at Pinkie for a moment before glancing off into the end of the lake in the distance.
"It's a t-hyme for your-- TOOTH! PASTE!
He's the one!
Your funky little-- TOOTH! PASTE!
He's gettin' it done!"
Pinkie smashed through the keys and flopped her body backwards. Sweat poured from her mane as she sang out loud, her backside wiggling to the deeply catchy beat. Twilight took in a deep breath.
"He's there, every day /
In his own special way /
With the tingles in your mouth!
You know your never gonna pout!
Ooooooooooh, oooooooh, oh ohhhh... yeah!"
Both Twilight and Fluttershy gave up looking for the foxes for a moment, eyes locked on Pinkie as her piano careened over the lake. Water splashed all around the pink mare as she bounced through her riff, looking more intense than ever.
"He leaves your mouth, all clean and fresh /
Comin' in, puttin' your teeth to the test /
And then your facin' the world /
And your eyein'-- your favorite girl /
You've got nothing to fear /
All the cavities disappear /
Oh, oh, ohhh!
Ain't it time-- time-- time for givin' thanks to him!
All refreshed, all time all day, he's helpin' you win!
And with your new confidence /
There's no emotional fence /
You'll end up with that girl /
Just cuz' you gave him a whiiiirrrrrllllllllllllllll!"
Pinkie's piano blasted upwards into the air, pink and purple glitter raining all through the lake clearing. Fluttershy and Twilight's opened up wide. Fireworks seemed to go up out of nowhere.
"It's a t-hyme for your-- TOOTH! PASTE!
He's the one!
Your funky little-- TOOTH! PASTE!
He's gettin' it done! Done! Doooooooone! OH! YEAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
And Pinkie finally finished the tune, her body half-collapsing upon the keys as the piano floated back to earth. It came to rest in a patch of tall grass far up ahead of the other mares, and they sped right over. Pinkie pulled herself off of the keys and made a happy sigh. In just a spit-second, Pinkie blinking furiously, she turned over upon the stool and looked over at her two friends. Her eyebrows curled up in amusement, her cheeks blushing brightly.
"Pinkie, that was... ah..." Twilight began, trying to get her thoughts together. "Amazing." She glanced over at Fluttershy, who merely stared at the ground and muttered something quieter than a mouse. "And unnecessary." She contemplated adding how that performance "could have scared the foxes all the way to the other side of the planet for crying out loud", the words already at the tip of her tongue.
"There is no such thing as unnecessary musical accompaniment!" Pinkie interjected, idly pinking a few of the keys. "And, by the way,Snips for one sure enjoyed it." Pinkie folded her hooves while making a smug expression. "It's just too bad that--"
"Oh, I see another pawprint over there," Fluttershy suddenly muttered, heading off into a path of weeping willows off to their left.
Twilight made a few steps over in that direction before pausing and glancing back at Pinkie. "Too bad that what?"
"Oh, Snails' antsy-not-wearing-pantsy mother of his threw me out of the house," Pinkie remarked, chuckling to herself. "Turns out that an adult mare sneaking into a young colt's bedroom while he's sleeping through the clearly and obviously ajar window before waiting for him to shower and then locking yourself in the bathroom with him is, like, illegal or something."
"Ahhh..."
"I know!" Pinkie gave Twilight a pretend punch to the shoulder. "Who knew!"
"At least we're still hot on the trail of the foxes," Twilight remarked, trying not to slip on the wet rocks below as she made her way under the weeping willows. Fluttershy traced along the ground just a few steps ahead of them.
"For me, that's like... 'a Tuesday'," Pinkie went on for a moment.
"Oh," Fluttershy murmured, looking out into a very dark and thickly packed set of gangling trees ahead of them. "Oh, dear. They're made it to the area where the honeyvappers are. Poor things must be so hungry, attracted by the sugary scents. But they don't know the danger that could be ahead."
"Danger!" Pinkie suddenly sang, tapping out another catchy piano riff. Her tail swung around like a metronome.
"Uh, Pinkie... please," Fluttershy commented, looking backwards and almost biting her lip, "I don't think... that's... a good idea. If you don't mind, could you please... uh..."
"Danger!
Ohhhh yeaaaaaaah!
It's danger we're talkin' 'bout /
Knowin' that we can't mess 'bout /
Weird creatures that just wanna fight /
And I'm tellin' you that somethin' ain't right!"
"Pinkie," Twilight groaned once again, although she knew it hardly did much good. Pinkie looked lost in her own little world, albeit sounding a lot quieter and more than a lot calmer than just one song ago.
Danger, oh, yes, danger all around those foxes /
Poor things, oh, shoulda never left their boxes /
It's time that we go /
And-a show what we know /
You'll use your magical might /
Flutt-er-shy holdin' you tight /
"At least, she's quieter," Fluttershy whispered, "so we should be fine."
"Honeyvappers to the left of me /
Jokers to the right /
Here I am!"
"Stuck in the middle with you?" Twilight muttered back, causing Fluttershy to freeze with her hooves dangling above the keys.
"Yes," Pinkie said, losing her train of thought. "That sounds perfect. Way better than what I had come up with." She glanced about haphazardly. "Does anypony have a pen so that I can write that lyric down?"
Fluttershy had already slid herself through a bunch of branches into the thick part of the forest. Twilight simply shook her head at Pinkie and poised herself. Muttering a quick spell, she felt a comfortable aura enveloping her so that no prickly piece of something would be able to scrape her.
"Oh, I can't believe it fits," Pinkie remarked, flying her piano in between two gigantic trees. "But how in the hay do I steer this again?"
Fluttershy paused, looking bewildered by the almost identical trees stretching from left to right in front of her. Twilight reached into Fluttershy's saddlebag and pulled out a magically charged candlestick, holding it up and bathing the area in light. The two of them made a frustrated sigh.
"Oh, please foxes," Fluttershy called out in a delicate voice, sitting down and letting her hair flutter across her shoulders. "We're right here. We'll help you get back home to Hoofington."
"Foxes," Pinkie sang out in a smooth, soft tone.
Fluttershy's eyes scanned the whole area with machine-like intensity. Twilight simply held still right behind her yellow friend's shoulder. Pinkie's piano swung about directly above of them.
"Foxes, we carry their food in our bag /
And if they come on back, tails will wag /
You come on back to Pinkie now."
Twilight's ears perked to the right, seeing fluttering beneath a small, grey bush off directly ahead of them. Fluttershy smiled brightly, putting on her best caring expression. Her features seemed to shine, her cheeks pushing out. Twilight rarely saw her look so adorable.
"Foxes, yeah, they're animals /
Foxes, they're never cannibals. /
Oh, yeah, they have pointy noses. /
Oh, but, they don't drink from hoses. /
Pinkie doesn't know what to rhyme now."
Pinkie stuck out her jaw, taking a deep breath as she played through a smooth, light arpeggio. "Come on, there, we won't even dream of hurting you," Fluttershy murmured over in front of her, "we're taking you home." The tiny orange balls of fuzz stepped out of the bush ever so slowly. "Oh, don't worry, we'll just take you in your arms."
"Don't worry, foxies," Twilight said in a similar sort of voice, watching as the cute animals pawed underneath the trees over to the mare's spot. She felt very glad that Pinkie's playing seemed to ease them along rather than scare them.
Fluttershy's smile grew even wider as she nudged over at her saddlebag, moving carefully slow. "Food is ready for you."
"As for me too," growled a very deep, very large sounding voice from directly behind the three mares. They all heard the loud, nasty-sounding slurping of lips.
To Be Continued...
