It was a sunny Friday afternoon in Ponyville, when Pinkie Pie felt something strange happening.

‘Left hoof twitching, gluteal muscles tensing, blood sugar dropping 5%... oh my gosh - new ponies in town! Four, five, six of them!’

Pinkie was ecstatic. Six new arrivals at once was more than Ponyville had seen for weeks - the party she was going to throw would be one for the ages.

‘I hope none of them are teetotal,’ she thought.

Flush Toilet was not having a good day. His parents had brought him from Manehattan to this backwater, on a gaming night, and were not telling him why. And worse, his cousins were here.

“Mooom,” he whined. “Why do we have to come to this crummy dump anyway? I bet it doesn’t even have a Hay Burger.”

“Now now, Flush. We’re here to see our family. Why don’t you go unpack your stuff in your room?”

“I don’t wanna!” he shouted as he stomped off.

His mother frowned. Her sister, Cistern, came and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Have you not even told him yet, Clogged?”

“I will do. It’s just… you know how he gets. Flush is very highly strung. He ruminates. You remember how he was with his goldfish. I’m worried if I tell him his grandmother is D-E-A-D, it might set him off again. I was going to talk to him later, when he's calmer.”

Cistern sighed. “Clogged, he is the heir to one of Manehattan’s largest wholesalers of bathroom fittings and plumbing supplies. If he is ever going to survive in that cut-throat world, at some point you are going to have to stop coddling him and force him to toughen up.”

“I know, I know,” said Clogged. “I will talk to him later, maybe after he’s had his V-A-L-I-U-M. I’ve just got to think about the right way to break the news to- GAH!”

Pinkie suddenly popped up in front of her. “Hi! What’s your name? I’m Pinkie Pie! Are you new in town? Oh, are you all new in town? Oh, are you related? Oh, who was that colt? Is he related to you too? What was that about plumbing supplies? Huh? Huh?”

Clogged was stunned. “Who are you?” Cistern asked.

“I’m Pinkie Pie, silly! I’m here to throw you all the superest duperest party!”

“Umm… no thanks. This isn’t a good time.”

Pinkie was dumbfounded. “No… thanks?”

“That’s right,” said Cistern. “Come on, Clogged.” The two mares turned and trotted into their accommodation, closing the door behind them. Pinkie fell to her haunches. What had just happened?

After a few minutes spent suffocating under the terrifying crushing weight of rejection, Pinkie rebounded. Her approach had been flawless, so clearly something was up with these new ponies. Nopony said no to a Pinkie Pie party without a good reason, and she intended to find out exactly what this was.

Creeping behind the house, Pinkie peered in the first window she came to.

A pair of bright blue eyes stared right back at her.

“GAAH!” she screamed. “...Oh wait, it’s my reflection. Tee hee!”

That room was empty, so Pinkie walked along to the next window. The curtains were drawn but, with her ear against the glass, she could hear two ponies inside. It sounded like a mare and a colt. The colt was talking quite loudly, but the mare’s voice was a lot softer, and Pinkie had to strain to hear it.

“What do you mean, Mom?”

“...your grandma… on a TV antenna…”

“What?! Nanna Ballcock? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I didn’t want … how you worry… before the F-U-N…”

F-U-N? Fun?! What fun? What were they talking about in there?! Pinkie needed to redouble her efforts to work out what these ponies were hiding from-

“-Can I help you?” It was the mare from earlier, Cistern. She looked angry. Pinkie thought she should beat a retreat for now.

“Umm, sorry, I was just looking for my… contact lens. I thought I left it somewhere around here. Oh, there it is! Well, I’ll just be off!”

With that, Pinkie darted away into the bushes.

Pinkie had watched as more new ponies had arrived, before the whole group had set off together. Concealed inside one of her portable bushes, Pinkie stealthily followed as they trekked slowly across Ponyville and filed into Ponyville Cemetery on the edge of the town.

What sort of fun takes place in a graveyard?

Pinkie recalled a few ‘graveyard parties’ she had thrown when she was a younger and more reckless party planner, but those had always turned out to be total downers.

At this point, Pinkie had to know what was happening. Shedding her foliage disguise, she trotted triumphantly into the cemetery.

“Aha! I caught you! You better tell me what’s going on… here.”

A dozen sombre ponies, many barely holding back tears, turned to look at Pinkie.

Hey, this doesn’t look like a party…

“What in Equestria are you doing?!” came a familiar voice.

“Oh, hi Cistern!” said Pinkie, as the mare barrelled towards her. Her sister, Clogged, followed behind, looking similarly angry.

“We are trying to bury our mother,” said Clogged. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

“Wait, bury?” asked Pinkie. “But I thought you were-”

“-Were what?” said Cistern.

“...Having a party.”

“A party?!” Clogged cried. “My mother is dead, and you thought we would be partying?”

“But I heard you talking!” Pinkie said. “You said you were planning to have some F-U-N. And I don’t know, ponies deal with grief in different ways…”

“I said we were here for a funeral. A funeral! F-U-N-E-R-A-L!”

“Yeah,” echoed Flush, having pushed his way to the front to be with his mother and aunt. “It’s for Nanna Ballcock after she was I-M-P-A-L-E-D on that A-N-T-E-N-N-A.”

“Exactly, dear,” said Clogged.

Two dozen angry pairs of eyes bore into Pinkie. “...Oh.” She looked down at her hooves, feeling very sheepish.

“...I guess this means you don’t want the party favours I prepared for everypony?”

Author's Note

I found it really hard to write this within the wordcount. Even trying to be relatively austere, I found I had to cut about a third of what I wrote from the first draft to get it down to 1000. For this reason, it feels a lot more 'rushed' than it otherwise would be. It was interesting being forced to consider what really needed to be in each scene, though. Definitely a fun challenge!