A Place To Lay My Head

"Nnn...cookies are burning...." The shape tossed and turned under the brightly colored sheets, in the brightly colored room, which was on the top floor of the brightly colored building. the shape then threw the covers off and sat up. A frazzled pink mane was the most noticeable feature, it was poofed out on one side while the other was stuck to her face. In other words, it was a very bad case of bedmane.

The mare looked around the room through sleep-laden blue eyes. At first, she thought that she still had sleep in her eyes because the world was so foggy. So she brought a weak hooves up to her eyes and rubbed them, letting out a small yawn as she did so. But, even as she opened her eyes from the good wake up, she still say the world as a foggy mess.

At that point she realized something, she wasn't seeing fog. She sniffed the air, an acrid scent assaulted her sense and started to burn her eyes. This wasn't fog, or sleep. It was smoke! She bolted upright, her eyes popping open to their usual size.

"Smoke!" In an instant, she was out of bed and on the move. First things first, well at least in her room. Gummy. She quickly found her little reptile in his pet pink and green pet bed in the corner of the room, picked him up and firmly placed him in her mane. It was the safest place for the little alligator at the moment, and she didn't want him getting hurt.

She knew she couldn't grab anything else without severely slowing herself down, so she thought it best to hightail it out of the burning building. She went to the door and grabbed the handle, as it turned out Pinkie didn't remember the lessons they were taught in school about fire safety whenever the situation called for such recollection. The handle was red hot as Pinkie found out. the pony quickly withdrew her hoof and blew on it, she could already feel it blistering from the extreme heat.

"Owowowowow!" She wanted to put her hoof down, but doing so caused immense amounts of pain in her hoof. So she hobbled over to the window, her injured hoof safely off of the ground. The smoke was getting thicker and it was become more laborious to breathe. She needed to get out, now.

She gazed out the window, she could barely see the crowd gathering around outside through the smoke laden atmosphere. Knowing that she couldn't use her good hoof without losing her balance and faceplanting on the floor below. So with great care and precision she opened the window with her teeth and pushed it up with her muzzle. Thankfully there was no screen on the outside of her window, she had gotten rid of that a long time ago during her more adventurous days.

Though back in those days it was easier to climb out because she didn't have a burned hoof and smoke inhalation. The mare stepped out of the window, putting her left hooves out first, her good side, then her back right, then finally her burned hoof. As she took great care with her hoof, she didn't feel the fire weakened roof below her crack. By the time she did realize that something was about to happen, it happened. The roof gave and Pinkie plummeted into the fiery bakery below.

--

"Will she be alright, Doctor?" Twilight stood to speak for all of her friends. They had all been waiting in the waiting room all night. Well, all except Fluttershy. She was busy watching over Sweetiebelle and Applebloom for the night while their big sisters were away.

The doctor, Doctor Stable, looked through a chart he had. He was the same doctor that took care of Dash's broken wing. "Well, your friend is relatively fine. Just some moderate smoke inhalation and a cracked and broken hoof. A day or two to recover and she will be fine." He was always so professional about giving news, he wasnt sympathetic and he wasn't mean. He simply did his job.

"Can we see her...?" All of Pinkie's friend stood up when the question was asked, eager to see their friend on a moment's notice.

"Yes, just don't let her stand. We don't want her hoof getting worse." The mares all gave nods, then followed the Doctor down the hall and to a room with a simple slide next to it that said 'Pinkamena D. Pie' on it. "You may go in, but remember what I said." Once again the mares all nodded, then silently went inside.

There on the bed was Pinkie Pie. The usually bubbly mare was laying down, a transparent mask over her mouth. She looked so weak and fragile compared to her normal self. She was asleep, so maybe that was the reason why, she always did looked peaceful when she calmed down and truly rested.

"Celestia, she looks so...so..." Twilight couldn't find the right words, so Rainbow Dash helped her along.

"Un-Pinkie Pie." Dash, always hovering, floats over to the bed and gives her pink friend an experimental poke. "Helloooo?" Another poke, then another, and once again. "Huh...never realized how soft she is. She's like my stuffed an-I mean...a stuffed animal." The pegasus may have thought that she covered up her mistake, but the others gave a small giggle at the cover up. "Seriously, come feel this."

The girls all circled the bed and gave their sick friend a poke. Sure, they had given the pink mare hugs before, but those were brief or group hugs. They'd never actually felt Pinkie before. Her coat was plush, so very much so that one might call her a stuffed animal if she could not think and speak. It was quite the thing to experience.

The four ponies were so busy feeling their plush friend that they did not see her eyes flutter open. A groan echoed over the sound of the giggles. All of the ponies stopped with their poking.

"Ugh...why do I feel like a pin cushion...?" That got a laugh from everyone in the room.