A Brony's Guide to Equestria

I followed Pinkie as best I could, but she seemed to be faster than I thought. Then again, she did manage to catch up to Rainbow when she ran away from her in Griffon the Brush Off, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

"Pinkie, slow down!" I called out to her.

Pinkie then proceeded to trot backwards, without even looking back, as she stopped next to me. "Sorry Lukey, I'm just so excited."

"Oh god, here comes the nickname calling." I thought to myself with slight embarrassment.

"It's fine, Pinkie." I assured her, being completely used to her energetic self. "Honestly, I'm actually excited myself. I've been excited since I arrived here."

Pinkie's smile grew wider, which I didn't even think was possible, until her face suddenly had a curious expression.

"Y'know Lukas, you seem to be very interested in Equestria, why's that?" Pinkie asked as she leaned in towards me.

I thought for a moment about how to respond to that question. A part of me wanted to tell her about me being a brony, but I wasn't sure how she'd react to that, so I decided to reword my answer a bit differently.

"Well." I began. "Equestria seems like a really... nice place to live."

"You got that right." Pinkie said proudly, before she suddenly stopped in her tracks as she pointed a hoof out. "Look, we're here!"

I looked over and saw Sugarcube Corner in front of me, the smell of cotton candy and various other sweets hitting me like a bullet train.

"Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!" Pinkie announced.

"Wow." I said in awe at the sight.

Pinkie then made her way towards the building, gesturing for me to follow her. "Come on in, I'll introduce you to The Cakes."

I followed Pinkie inside, the sound of the bell above the door rang as we entered. Inside, I was met with an array of pastries all proudly displayed, some were on tables, while others were in the display case.

Pinkie then made her way to the kitchen, before looking back at me. "Wait here a sec, Lukas." She said, before she disappeared into the kitchen.

As I waited for Pinkie to return, I took a look around and saw a good number of ponies nearby helping themselves to the various treats around the bakery. It was then that I noticed a certain grey pegasus with a blonde mane and tail and a slightly cross-eyed expression, it was Derpy. She was eyeing a plate of muffins on a table, drooling a little bit, which I couldn't help but chuckle at.

Eventually, Pinkie came out of the kitchen, practically pushing Mr and Mrs Cake out as they approached me.

"Pinkie, what's the big idea?" Mrs Cake asked, clearly not appreciating Pinkie's roughness.

"Mr and Mrs Cake." Pinkie said grandly. "I'd like you to meet Lukas, he's new here in Equestria and I'm throwing him a Welcome to Ponyville party tomorrow."

"It's nice to meet you both." I said as I walked up to them.

"Oh." Mrs Cake gasped in slight surprise at the sight of me, but she quickly contained herself. "Well, the pleasure's all ours, dearie. Pinkie has spoken quite highly of you."

"Indeed." Mr Cake added in agreement. "She just kept going on and on about there being a new creature living here."

"Oh really?" I asked as I looked at Pinkie, who just gave a huge smile.

"Uh, Lukas, dearie." Mrs Cake said, getting my attention. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you?"

"Yeah, and how exactly did you end up in Equestria?" Mr Cake added while tilting his head.

"Ooh, ooh, I can answer that!" Pinkie called out eagerly as she raised her hoof up as if she was in school.

I rolled my eyes. "Go ahead, Pinkie."

"Y'see, Lukas is something called a human, tall, fleshy, two legged creatures who have no wings, no horn, or any magical abilities. As to how he got here, he said it was from a portal." Pinkie explained rather quickly, yet somehow, Mr and Mrs Cake were able to absorb the answer given to them.

"Wow." Mr Cake said in amazement. "Seems like you've had quite the adventure so far, Lukas."

"Oh you don't know the half of it, Mr Cake." I chuckled.

Just then, I heard the sound of crying coming from upstairs, it sounded like babies crying, which gave me a pretty good idea as to who it was.

"Oh no, the twins are crying!" Pinkie exclaimed as she quickly turned to me. "Come on, Lukas, baking can wait!"

With that, I followed Pinkie upstairs and into a room, which turned out to be Pound and Pumpkin Cake's room. We raced over to their crib, and there they were, crying their eyes out. I covered my ears as I turned to Pinkie.

"How do we get them to stop?" I asked, raising my voice a little.

"Don't worry, Lukas, Auntie Pinkie Pie is on it!" She proclaimed.

Pinkie tried to calm the twins down by making a bunch of funny faces and sticking her tongue out. Pound and Pumpkin paused for a moment, before going right back to crying. Pinkie then tried shaking the crib, but that didn't work in the slightest. Next, Pinkie tried playing peek-a-boo with them, hiding her face behind her hooves, before exclaiming "boo!" The twins both stayed silent again, before continuing to cry.

It was then that Pumpkin's horn began to glow, her magic enveloped the toy chest as toys scattered all around the floor, some were flying around the room as Pinkie and I dodged the flying trajectory. But as I walked over to the toy chest to try and clean up the toys on the floor, I suddenly tripped on a particular stuffed rabbit, which caused me to fall over and collide with the toy box, making all the toys inside spill all over me.

As I recovered from the fall, I could hear the twins stop crying. At first, I thought they would just go right back to crying again, but after a few moments, I suddenly heard them laughing. I got up off the floor and, sure enough, I saw that Pound and Pumpkin were now laughing, all matter of sadness completely dissipated.

"Well, I should've known that was gonna work." I groaned, being reminded of the episode Baby Cakes.

After dealing with the twins, Pinkie and I soon found ourselves in the kitchen, where Pinkie had prepared for us to bake the cupcakes which would be at my Welcome to Ponyville party tomorrow.

"Alright Lukas, are you ready to get your baking on?!" Pinkie exclaimed as if she was a DJ at a rave.

"I guess so." I replied a bit hesitantly.

"Don't worry, Lukas." Pinkie said, seemingly noticing the hesitation in my voice. "With my help, you'll become a baking pro in no time. I'm sure Gummy could help you out as well."

Pinkie then looked over at the counter, as if expecting to see Gummy there. However, there was no sign of a small alligator anywhere."

"Huh, where'd he go?" Pinkie asked, looking around. "He was just here a moment ago."

"Well, knowing him, he probably wouldn't have gone too far." I thought. "I'm sure we could-OW!"

Before I could finish my sentence, I suddenly felt something clamp onto my leg, making me wince in pain. I looked down and there was Gummy, his toothless jaws gripping my leg. Even though he had no teeth, his bite still kind of hurt.

"There you are!" Pinkie said as she bent down and struggled to get Gummy to let go of my leg.

I almost lost my balance as she pulled my leg up. "Careful, Pinkie!" I exclaimed, holding onto the counter for support.

"Just...hold...still...Lukas." She groaned.

Eventually, Pinkie had finally pried Gummy off of my leg, but she ended up stumbling backwards as she crashed into a nearby cabinet, pots and pans clanged on the floor as Pinkie fell on her back. I rushed over to her as she recovered from her fall.

"Pinkie, are you okay?" I asked nervously.

Suddenly, Pinkie stood right back up, as if nothing ever happened. "Oh yeah, I'm fine." She assured me with a smile as Gummy held onto her tail. "I've had worse mishaps than that. Now, let's get back to baking."

As Pinkie and I began baking, she taught me all the instructions necessary, which I couldn't help but appreciate the fact that she could make an activity I had little to no experience on seem engaging and easy to understand.

Back on Earth, the only real experience I've had with baking was my cooking class in school, and even then, I was nowhere near a baking master. However, with Pinkie's guidance, I was able to flow through the recipe with ease, we were making my favorite cupcakes, chocolate, call me unoriginal if you want, but it's a classic and something that you can't go wrong with.

"And then Trixie had the audacity to say that the cupcakes weren't good enough." She said, recalling the time Trixie had asked her to bake cupcakes for her and Starlight's picnic. "Can you believe that?"

I laughed, both at the story, and Pinkie's delivery. "No, I can't." I replied.

As we kept a good conversation going, we flied through the recipe without any major problems, but every now and then, Pinkie would tell me I wasn't doing something right, like I wasn't mixing the batter fast enough, and I wasn't adding enough flour. She was surprisingly stern, but then again, this is Pinkie, she takes baking very seriously.

Eventually, the time had come to put the cupcakes in the oven, and after I did that and set the timer, I let out a sigh of relief as I wiped some sweat from my brow.

"Man, who knew baking could be this tiring." I said jokingly.

Pinkie chuckled. "Well, you did pretty good, Lukas."

"Thanks Pinkie." I replied, feeling a bit flattered by her compliment.

"Ooh, I just can't wait for your welcome party tomorrow." Pinkie exclaimed in her usual boundless energy. "It's gonna be so fun, there's gonna be cake, games, and ice cream, and who knows, you might make some new friends." Pinkie added while giggling to herself.

"But I've already met your friends." I pointed out, earning another laugh from Pinkie.

"No, silly, I mean the ponies of Ponyville, including my sister Maud!" Pinkie replied, getting more excited when she mentioned Maud. "I just hope she isn't too busy with her rock studies."

I couldn't help but smile at this, Pinkie had always been my favourite character from the show, and now here I was, spending time with her, laughing, and I was soon about to experience one of her iconic parties.

Needless to say, my first day here in Equestria was going well so far.

To Be Continued...