Can't Invite You Anywhere
It was a perfectly normal Hearth’s Warming Day except for the parts that involved Pinkie Pie.
By the time noon appeared on the clock, the party at Golden Oaks Library was already winding down, and Twilight found herself in an introvert’s paradise. She was sat in her chair with a book on her lap, warmed by the fire crackling in the hearth, looking for all the world like she was about to regale her friends with an incredible holiday story. But her friends were not interested…
…Spike was curled up next to her like a cat, swathed in a blue cape with diamonds on the trim that Rarity had made him for Hearth’s Warming (Don’t worry, Twi. I’d never eat part of a gift from Rarity!) Two diamonds were already gone.
…Rainbow Dash was munching on caramel-marshmallow squares, taking a moment to roll her eyes inside her head and slouch further down in her beanbag chair with every square she ate. (I’m bulking right now, she had argued when Applejack suggested she slow down. And don’t judge me).
…Fluttershy was teaching Angel how to wrap a carrot as a gift for one of his bunny friends. (But why would I do that, the snowy bunny seemed to say, if I’m planning on keeping it for myself?)
…And Rarity was sprawled on the couch, wearing a red-and-white-striped Hearth’s Warming sweater that Applejack had savaged her for during the entire party from the moment she walked in. (Gee, Rarity. If you’d warned me that candy canes were in fashion, I’d’ve painted white stripes on my barn!) Applejack was now wearing a white-and-red sweater—the inverted version of Rarity’s—a gift she’d received from a ‘secret admirer’. Applejack was also asleep on the couch, wrapped in Rarity’s hooves.
Yes, it was the introvert’s paradise. Surrounded by friends, but without any of those tricky social cues to fret over. Twilight was free to read her book, or to ponder one of the problems toying with her brain today. The first was how to mathematically correlate the seemingly stochastic relationship between “friendship” and “magic”. But the second problem was even more baffling.
Pinkie Pie had cancelled at the last minute.
In fact, Twilight had been worrying about Pinkie way before she failed to arrive. It was the first party Twilight had ever thrown for her friends—her first party she’d ever thrown at all, in fact, and a Hearth’s Warming party no less—and she was desperate to know what Pinkie thought of it. Was she a good host? Was the gramophone in tune? Were there enough games? How many hooves up would Pinkie give it? Two? None? Four? Six?
And when there was a knock on the door, Twilight had sprang to her hooves to answer it, already knowing that this wasn’t Pinkie Pie at the door because Pinkie Pie never knocked.
“Mrs. Cake?” Twilight had greeted. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh, hello, Dear!” said Mrs. Cake with delight. “Yes, everything’s fine. Pinkie just wanted me to let you know that something came up this morning and she would not be able to attend your party.”
“Really?” said Twilight, deflating. “That’s… unlike her.”
“It is?”
“Yes. In fact, maybe I should go check on her.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Cake blurted. “That won’t be necessary. In fact, she instructed me to tell you to enjoy your party and not to go check on her under any circumstance. And that she would try to be around for the end of the party, should the crisis be averted.”
Twilight frowned. “That sounds like she’s in trouble.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Mrs. Cake said. “Whatever would give you that idea?”
There had been a flicker of irritation in Mrs. Cake’s eyes, like she was being held hostage by this very message. But it vanished immediately, and she got right back to smiling widely. Twilight felt her own flicker of irritation. A feeling she’d learned to dread since she’d arrived in Ponyville.
The call to adventure.
“Okay,” said Twilight. “Well, thank you for letting me know. Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
“Happy Hearth’s Warming, Dear.”
And Twilight had shut the door. Because whatever Pinkie was up to, it was just Pinkie being Pinkie, and Twilight had guests to entertain—all of whom had agreed that she would turn up sooner or later.
But now two hours had passed, and despite everything in Twilight’s robust system of heuristics telling her she should just stay home, that Pinkie was fine, and that whatever she was engaged with today would rue the day it prevented Pinkie Pie from attending a party, Twilight could not, in the end, resist adventure’s call.
“I’m going out for a bit,” she announced to the room. The response was a few mumbles, a loud snore from Applejack, and a honk-shoo-mimimi from Rarity.
Twilight smiled warmly at her friends, happy to have shown them a good time, and wishing she could stay. But there was a pink-shaped void in the room that needed to be filled, or else it just wasn’t going to feel like Hearth’s Warming Day at all.
So Twilight suited up in her boots, her earmuffs and her saddle-coat, and flung open the door.
“Ah!” she shouted.
“Ah!” shouted Mrs. Cake.
“Mrs. Cake?”
“Hello, Dear.”
Twilight’s tongue sputtered for purchase. “What are you doing here?”
“Pinkie sent me, don’t you remember?”
“But—”
“Also I thought it was rude of you to shut the door without waiting for me to turn and leave. That’s just common courtesy.”
“Have you been standing out here for two hours?”
“Oh, Celestia, no-ho-ho!” Mrs. Cake guffawed, and wiped a tear from her eye. Then she grew serious. “Pinkie told me to come back after two hours because she said that was when you’d get tired of waiting and go check on her.”
Twilight cocked her head. “Okay… And?”
Mrs. Cake cocked her own head, smiling and blinking innocently. “And what, Dear?”
“Did Pinkie send you back here to brag that she can predict my every move?”
“…Maybe?”
Twilight facehoofed.
“Oh! Actually, she did want me to remind you not to go see her.”
“Well, I’m afraid—”
“And that you would reject her proposal and insist on going to see what was the matter.”
“So why are you here!?”
“Because, Dear Twilight. She said that if you were going to insist…”
Mrs. Cake glanced left and right, then she crept up to Twilight’s ear and whispered:
“That you should go to her alone.”
The fire inside Golden Oaks Library was delightful, and the weather outside was so… white-full. A freak snowstorm had passed through overnight, muting the small town in mono-color. Twilight could already feel the wetness soaking the socks inside her boots before they were halfway to Ponyville Park. Mrs. Cake trudged alongside wearing nothing but her customary apron, as though she had already consulted the weather pegasi the day before, and they had called for a green Hearth’s Warming, and she wasn’t about to dirty her boots for the sake of a thick layer of snow that did not have any business showing up uninvited, thank you very much.
“It’s her tail,” the hardy Mrs. Cake explained. “It’s twitching.”
The explanation had gone on from there; but, upon hearing this, Twilight’s ears began to ring. Memories of surveillance and experimenting, of a string of injuries and a stampeding hydra, and Twilight herself bursting into flames from rage—they all flooded her nervous system with a cocktail of emotions that could have knocked out a team of local drunks.
“I see,” Twilight said when her ears stopped ringing. “Her tail is twitching. And on Hearth’s Warming Day. Wonderful.”
“I said that like ten minutes ago, but okay. Say, there she is now!”
As she came into view of Ponyville Park, Twilight saw how dire things were. Pinkie was squatting like a frog under a tree, peeking her head up at the sky, as if checking to see if it would fall on her. She looked less energetic than normal, unless you counted the shivering. And worst of all, her colors were darker, and her mane and tail had gone straight.
“You two have fun!” Mrs. Cake announced. And then she trotted off, mumbling something about how she just loved spending her Hearth’s Warming Day as a courier for Pinkie Pie’s nonsense.
Twilight took off at a run, her stomach politely reminding her how much egg nog she had drank for lunch, and then her brain reminding her how much more egg nog she could be drinking if she hadn’t left the party. Twilight ignored her body and pressed on up the hill.
“Pinkie?” she said, gasping as she came to a halt.
Pinkie turned, and Pinkie exploded. She spontaneously rose into the air and grinned, all her color returning from the tip of her mane to the bottoms of her splayed hooves, her mane and tail re-curling to the sound of fireworks. Even her eyes had faded, Twilight noticed for a split second, but they came back to their shimmering sky blue the moment she locked eyes with her.
“Twilight!” Pinkie said, landing back in the snow. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“You are? I thought you didn’t want me to come.”
“Well, I always want to see you, silly! It’s just... I thought you and the others should stay at your place… For your own safety.”
A few clumps of Pinkie’s hair fell straight around her head, as though she was halfway through a perm. Seeing Pinkie this frightened left Twilight crestfallen, and on-edge.
“How bad?” Twilight asked.
“My whole body vibrated like a jackhammer for ten whole minutes when I woke up. Mr. and Mrs. Cake thought the bakery was going to collapse. Or explode. Or both, one after the other. Or both at the same time.”
Twilight gulped. “That’s bad.”
“I know. And it keeps happening. It’s like the stars are gonna fall or something.”
Twilight had a vision — the stars of her cutie mark, and then the memory of falling in a ditch. And that had only happened after a little twitch.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said carefully. “But… wait. If you’re shuddering, I thought that meant that a ‘doozy’ was coming.”
“But it’s starting in my tail, see?”
And then Pinkie’s tail twitched—a strong and violent rattle that made it seem like it was infested by a family of invisble, rabid squirrels. And then it continued up her body like, well, a jackhammer.
It stopped, and Pinkie shook her head clear. Twilight resisted the logical urge in her brain to ask Pinkie why her Pinkie Sense had triggered right when Pinkie wanted to demonstrate it. But she ignored the suspicion. She’d been over this. Pinkie Sense was real.
For certain definitions of ‘real’.
“So something’s going to fall,” Twilight agreed. “Then where’s your umbrella hat?”
Pinkie shook her head. “Whatever this doozy is, my hat’s not gonna be much help. And I need to keep my eyes on the skies.”
Twilight squinted up at the empty blue sky. “So it is a doozy.”
“No, because it starts in my tail and—”
“Nevermind.”
Another episode started immediately. This one seemed longer, or maybe the fear it inspired in Pinkie Pie was making it tougher for Twilight to watch. When it was over, Pinkie crouched in the snow, more of her hair falling slack. “Twilight?” she muttered, her eyes twinkling with tears. “Would you… stay with me…”
Twilight’s breath caught, and she held her friend’s hoof. “Of course, Pinkie.”
“…up there?” Pinkie finished, pointing up to a mountain in the distance.
“Wait, wha—?”
Pinkie brightened once more. “Thanks, Twilight! I knew I could count on you.”
With a laugh that would have turned no heads in a school for clowns, Pinkie reached into the snow and pulled a mass of fabric and ropes out, as well as two pairs of saddlebags.
“Welp! Better get a move on! Tiiiiiime iiiiis aaaaaaa-wastin’ down here.”
Twilight stood speechless as Pinkie began dressing herself in what she’d pulled out of the snow. She only found her voice when Pinkie slapped one of the saddlebags across her back.
“Wait, what are we doing?” she managed.
“We’re going up the mountain!” Pinkie shouted with glee. “That way we can get a bird’s-eye view of Ponyville and see if we can find out what’s going to fall.”
“That’s not what bird’s-eye view means.”
“It is if the bird is perched on top of a mountain.”
Twilight shook her head “It doesn’t matter! Pinkie!”
Pinkie froze, her foreleg halfway into a snowsuit.
“I thought you wanted company. I didn’t agree to go mountaineering with you.”
“Actually you diiiii-iiiiid!”
Pinkie’s mouth fell open, and a tiny, tinny version of Twilight’s voice came out of it.
“Of course, Pinkie Pie.”
Pinkie shut her mouth. “See? I’ve got it on record.”
Twilight gaped. “How did you…? Wait, I didn’t use your full name.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll play you the whole clip.”
Her mouth fell open again, and this time an eerie replica of Pinkie’s voice came out, though her lips and throat were not moving:
“Really, Twilight? Even if it meant climbing up the tallest mountain in the Greater Ponyville Area?”
The Twilight in Pinkie’s mouth chuckled mirthfully.
“I would go the ends of Equestria to find out why your tail is twitching, Pinkie Pie. I would lay down my life for you.”
“Kiss me, Twilight.”
“Oh, Pinkie.”
“Gah—!”
Twilight closed Pinkie’s mouth with her magic. “I think I would remember that conversation!” she said, blushing furiously.
Pinkie shrugged. But, infuriatingly, she didn’t reply.
“Ready to go?” she said instead, and, infuriatingly, didn’t wait for a reply, instead bouncing away in the direction of the mountain, her ropes, ice picks and camping gear jostling loudly every time she hit the ground.
And Twilight didn’t have to follow. She was a grown mare. She was in charge of her own destiny. It would be so easy to return home and let Pinkie Pie tell her all about the crazy shenanigans she had on her daring trip up the mountain when she actually came to Twilight’s party.
“I’m not going,” Twilight said. She stamped a hoof to show just how serious she was.
Pinkie stopped bouncing. Her tail twitched slightly. She whirled around, her hair swirling in a sparkling breeze of freshly tossed snow.
“…Please?”
Twilight sat on her rump and spun away, crossing her hooves.
“No.”
Twilight huffed, her answer final. She hated to break Pinkie’s heart, but an impromptu hike up a three-kilometer mountain was not her idea of holiday fun, and nothing Pinkie could say—
“What if we treat it like a science experiment?”
“Hypothesis!” Pinkie Pie shouted, bouncing on ahead. “We’re going to have a super fun time up this mountain!”
“Hypothesis,” Twilight muttered, barely keeping purchase on the gravelly slope. “Nothing bad is going to happen up this mountain.”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
“No, Pinkie. I mean… your Pinkie Sense hasn’t actually predicted anything terrible. Only minor stuff like doors opening quickly and frogs falling on faces. Even for the ‘doozy’, the hydra didn’t end up being the real prediction. The doozy was nothing more than personal growth. If anything world-ending was about to happen, then… I don’t think your Pinkie Sense would predict it.”
“Huh.” Pinkie stopped bouncing, mercifully, and Twilight had a chance to catch up and rest. “I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Because,” Twilight went on, “think about when Nightmare Moon returned, or even Discord turning Equestria upside down! Lots of stuff must have fallen back then, and did your Pinkie Sense predict any ‘doozies?’”
“So what you’re saying is,” said Pinkie. “that we’re going to have a super-duper-mega-awesome time up this mountain!”
“I’m saying we can go back to Ponyv—oh, nevermind.”
“And that’s when I realized I was gay!”
Twilight lashed the mountain with her ice-pick, pulling herself up and tugging the slack out of the rope. The way she hung there reminded her of childhood swings. As she waited for Pinkie to move further up, she oscillated left and right, lightly tapping the rocky wall with her hind-hoofs to increase her amplitude.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s… a really fascinating story.”
“I know!” Pinkie blurted. “Much blood was shed that day.”
“Yeah.”
Twilight glanced up as Pinkie’s ice pick struck the mountain. With a grunt of effort, she pulled herself further up, and Twilight felt the rope go taut, and even pull her up a few inches. Watching Pinkie Pie dominate this mountain was making Twilight feel… things. Twilight was convinced Pinkie could find a way to float herself up the mountain. Gravity didn’t seem to have the best grip on her. But in any case, she was clearly relishing every hoist of her body, every pull of the rope, every crack of her pick against the rocks. She was stronger than she looked. Twilight wondered if processed sugar had the same affect on Pinkie Pie that protein had on everypony else.
“How about you?” Pinkie called down.
“Hm?”
“When did you realize you were gay?”
Twilight felt her cheeks flame, the first time she had felt her cheeks at all in this numbing mountain wind.
“You ever heard of a loaded question?” she replied.
“No. Loaded like a pastry?”
“Huh?
“With sprinkles and cream filling and those little heart-shaped candies that taste like flavored chalk?”
Twilight smiled. “No. It’s a question that can only be asked by assuming another question has already been answered.”
“Sounds complicated.” But Twilight caught the hint of a smile up above.
“Well, I don’t consider myself as gay.”
“Oh! That’s neat!”
“Truth be told, of all the different categories of… romantic attraction”—Twilight’s cheeks were only getting hotter—“I’ve never really resonated with any of them.”
“Well, maybe you haven’t heard the right one yet.”
“Yeah.”
Twilight struck the rock again. Why wasn’t she getting tired? The beginning of the trek had boded poorly for her keeping up with the perpetual motion machine that was Pinkie Pie, but, as the hike had gone on, Twilight had only felt stronger, more focused and clear-headed. Pinkie hadn’t seemed to slow down, either.
“Or you can also choose none.”
Twilight looked up to see Pinkie peeking at her from under her left foreleg.
Her tail twitched violently, but Pinkie ignored it.
Twilight smiled back at her.
“Let’s keep moving before your tail falls off.”
“Oooo! Maybe that’s what the prediction is! Wouldn’t that be ironic.”
“Less chatting, more climbing!”
“Okie-dokie-lokie~!”
Twilight was one last pull-up from the summit when her muscles gave up on her. She’d been breathing hard—the air so thin and sharp all the way up here—but just as she was about to slip on the upper lip of the mountain, Pinkie’s hoof shot out and grabbed her.
“Uuuuuuup you come!”
Twilight flew up in Pinkie’s super-pony grip, landing on her hooves, and though everything in her body begged her to collapse and rest, she had decided an hour ago that she wouldn’t do that. She would bask in that post-workout glow that Rainbow Dash was always going on about. She would get to the top, and stand tall. Proud. Immovable.
That was, until she saw the picnic set out on the plateau. A red-and-white checkered blanket, a basket that had an accumulated slope of snow on one side, a mostly-buried bottle of wine with two glasses, and a pristinely wrapped gift the size of a pony sitting in the center of it all.
Twilight’s hooves gave way, splaying out in either direction until her stomach slapped against the snow.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she breathed.
“Wow, lookie here! I wonder who set all this up.”
Twilight dug her face in the snow, laughing, and upset at herself for expecting anything else. But the feeling faded fast. Who could ever expect anything from Pinkie Pie? Wasn’t part of the fun watching what she would do next?
Twilight got up, aware of how heavy her body felt, and shed her bags on the floor. She trotted over to the blanket, where a squatting Pinkie Pie rocked side-to-side in anticipation. She was all too pleased with how the day was progressing.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming, Twilight.”
Twilight walked up to the gift, basking in that youthful joy of wondering what your present could be.
“You know you could have given this to me somewhere more reasonable? Like maybe, I dunno… sea level?”
Pinkie only smiled wider. “We’ll see about that,” she said.
Twilight squinted. Carefully, all the while hardly believing where the day had taken her, she unwrapped her gift.
“P-P-Pinkie.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Pinkie.”
“Uh-huh? Uh-huh?”
She kissed her.
Growing up, Twilight had often dreamed about her first kiss — what little filly hadn’t? — she pictured it as a culmination of the perfect first date—a seven-hour study session at the library, a walk through an art history gallery, and rounding it off by making an itemized list of how the next date would go, down to the minute. It was going to be so romantic. She never expected her first kiss would be in the cold, dry summit of Ponyville’s tallest mountain, shared with a pony as ridiculous as Pinkie Pie, the mare who had only known her for a few months and yet had gifted her the absolute finest in stargazing telescopes.
Twilight broke from the kiss, only then realizing that she had fallen on top of Pinkie at some point. She regarded the half-unwrapped box again. The Stargazer XL Swivel-Shot MK III. It was shaped like a barrel that could spin and tilt on a rotating platform, with a little view finder halfway up its length. The body had been printed with Luna’s colors and cutie mark—a special feature they added last-minute to celebrate the Princess of Night’s return.
“This only came out like…”
“Two months ago! I got the laaaaaast one!”
“How did you…? I wasn’t even—”
“Able to get one? I know.” Pinkie smiled. “You told me they sold out before your letter arrived.”
“I did?”
“Uh-huh! You weren’t sure when they were going to make something so powerful ever again. That they did it for—”
“—Next year’s meteor shower.”
“Yep! But I went to the factory and made them make another one.” Pinkie smiled innocently. “I can be very convincing.”
And Twilight took a few moments to really, truly internalize what had happened. That Pinkie Pie—the most easily distracted and hyperactive pony there was—had been paying Twilight her full attention since the moment they met.
Twilight kissed her again, felt the gentle rest of Pinkie’s hooves on the back of her neck. She was three kilometers in the air, the occasional frigid breeze passing over the bare parts of her body, but she had never felt so warm.
Pinkie broke from the kiss and gasped a five-second gasp.
“What?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight. The twitching stopped!”
“Oh?” Twilight looked around. Had something fallen?
“Don’t you realize?” Pinkie said in awe. “The stars really did fall. They fell for me.”
Twilight nuzzled her face in Pinkie’s chest. “Oh, Pinkie,” she muttered.
“Yeah?”
“That’s one of the gooiest things I’ve ever heard.”
Pinkie started giggling.
“Like, could you be any more saccharine?”
“No, wait!” Pinkie looked down at her tail. “It’s still twitching, that wasn’t it!”
Twilight scrutinized Pinkie’s tail. It was swishing back and forth.
“Okay, now you’re faking it!”
“Am not!”
“That’s a swish, not a twitch!”
“Twitch-a-twitch!” Pinkie screamed, running away. “Twitch-a-twiiiitch!”
“And if my adjustments are correct... Then this should be the Horsehead Nebula,” Twilight said, peering inside the eyepiece. The beauty of it pushed the breath right out of her lungs. The detail of it all. The detail. She didn't want to look away, but she craned her head back to give Pinkie a turn.
Pinkie giggled her trademark giggle. “That looks like my mom!”
Twilight laughed too, though it came out as more of a shiver. It was well into the night now, and though Pinkie and Twilight had kept each other warm under the picnic blanket, the sun had been doing most of the work. But the arc of the night sky was too beautiful too pass up, especially with an XL Swivel-Shot MK III to fiddle with.
“Okay, okay! I’m finding the next thing!” Pinkie placed her hooves on the telescope, then frowned at Twilight. “No peeking,” she said.
Twilight rolled her eyes and then covered them with her foreleg. When Pinkie said it was ready, she looked again. The telescope was pointed down the slope towards Ponyville.
“Uh,” said Twilight.
“Have a look!”
Twilight peered inside.
“Hah,” she breathed. “I should have known.”
It was the library, where all their friends were gathered on the balcony, wrapped up in their warmest clothes. Rarity, peering up through Twilight's old telescope, gestured excitedly, and all of them began to smile and wave up towards the mountaintop. Even Mrs. Cake was there, hers the biggest smile of all
“In on it the whole time,” Twilight said. She pulled her head away from the telescope, then realized she was sad.
“What’s wrong?” Pinkie asked.
“I didn’t get you anything,” said Twilight. “My gift to you, to all my friends, was the party.”
“You’ve given me lots today, Twilight.”
“But all this… I mean, it’s selfish, but… I wanted to know what you thought of my party. I wanted to throw a party that you’d never forget. And because you did all this for me… you missed it.”
“Oh… Did I, though?”
Twilight did not like Pinkie’s mischievous tone. But before she could question her, Pinkie threw off the picnic blanket to reveal a sudden wardrobe change—she was wearing a jacket, snow pants, goggles over her big blue eyes, and a pair of skis attached to her hooves. Twilight looked down to see herself wearing a matching outfit, right down to the skis. She gasped and tensed her legs, barely keeping upright.
“When did you—?”
Twilight’s words caught in her throat when she turned back to the plateau. The picnic basket, the bags of hiking equipment, even the picnic blanket—now somehow rolled up—all of their belongings were wearing skis. Bespoke skis. Even the telescope was wearing a custom-designed ski that was shaped like Twilight’s cutie mark.
And then she noticed the rope tied around each item, one after the other, before ending in a tight cinch around Twilight’s stomach.
No. That was wrong. The rope didn’t stop at her. It continued on behind her, towards the beginning of the slope, where it terminated… at…
“Pinkie Pie.”
“Yeah, Twilight?”
Pinkie began to slide away.
“Pinkie Pie…”
“You might want to brace yourself,” Pinkie suggested.
“PINKIE PIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
And so it was that Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle sped down the tallest mountain in the Greater Ponyville Area, a conga line of their belongings following them down the slope. They laughed, at least for now, until they would realize that neither of them knew how to stop. They flew towards friends, towards home, and, as the clock in the library showed midnight, they ended their Hearth’s Warming day the same way Pinkie and Twilight would end most of their days from then on—holding onto each other for dear life.
Author's Note
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