My (Brave) Little Toaster

Hoof-falls could be heard on the stairs, as Rarity and Fluttershy made their way back down to the downstairs portion of Applejack’s house. They were both quiet as they walked; Fluttershy was deep in thought about how the talking toaster would react to her, and Rarity was being silent simply out of respect for her friend.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Fluttershy suddenly stopped and reversed course, heading back up to the room.

“Fluttershy?” Rarity asked questioningly. “What’s the matter? Are you really that afraid of the toaster?”

“What?” Fluttershy asked in response. “Oh, no, that’s not it at all… I’m just going up to get that electric blanket. They don’t know I got it for them, and I want to surprise them with it at dinner.”

“Ah.” Rarity stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Then I will wait for you here.” As Fluttershy ascended the stairs, a bit of a commotion could be heard from the kitchen. Rarity immediately recognized the source of the raised voice, what with it belonging to her sister and all.

“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity hollered, “What on earth is going on in there?”

“Nothing, sis!” came Sweetie’s response. “Scootaloo just wants to play the PonyStation, and-“

“Let me guess: you don’t want to give it up…”

“I didn’t at first, but I changed my mind. She’s playing it now.” Rarity smiled; they were both such good friends, much how she and Rainbow Dash were.

“Is everyone in there ready for dinner?” Rarity asked, as Fluttershy came down the stairs, balancing the blanket on her back. “Oh, here, let me get that.” Rarity levitated the blanket, still wrapped up, over to her using her magic.

“Oh… thank you…” Fluttershy said in her usual soft tone. “Though I think I could have gotten it myself… It really isn’t that heavy…”

“I didn’t think it was, darling. I just wanted to help, is all.” Fluttershy looked into Rarity’s eyes and got lost in them for a moment. She could tell that her friend was telling the truth, but more than that… to her, Rarity had the most beautiful eyes ever. She could never tell her that, though. What on earth would she say? They’d been friends for so long that-

Fluttershy barely noticed when something landed on her forehead with a soft “pomf”. What she did notice, though, was Rarity’s slightly odd expression.

“Are you alright?” she asked softly.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. It’s just that…”

“Just that what?”

Rarity was about to respond to that, when she saw Pinkie Pie at the top of the stairs. She had a coy smile crossing her face.  What in Equestria is she smiling about? Rarity thought to herself. When she finally figured it out, though, she had to resist the urge to face-hoof. It’s probably Pinkie’s fault that it’s on Fluttershy’s head to begin with… She probably put it there somehow.

“Um, Rarity…”

Rarity snapped back to the present. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just thought I saw Pinkie Pie upstairs.” Fluttershy looked back towards the stairs, then returned her gaze to Rarity.

“She isn’t up there now… I thought she was in the kitchen anyways. Shouldn’t we have seen her if she’d have walked past us to get up there?”

Rarity had to admit, her friend had a point. Then again, though, there were quite a few things that Pinkie had done over the years, that no sane pony would even come close to calling normal. There was the incident where a million Pinkies were running around everywhere (though, granted, that was more the fault of the wishing pond than anything else), the time when Pinkie was zooming through the air then simply stopped on a dime and floated there for quite a good bit of time…

Nopony could say what the forces were that occupied the driver’s seat of Pinkie’s mind, so anything really could happen.

“Come now,” Rarity said finally, “there’s really nothing to worry about, anyways. It was probably just me seeing things.” Fluttershy nodded tentatively, and the two continued their trek into the kitchen.

When they entered into the kitchen, Fluttershy turned her head towards Applejack and was about to say something to her, when a lithe pink-furred form streaked across the kitchen and tackled Fluttershy to the floor in a giant hug.

“Eep!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she found Pinkie on top of her. “What…? What was that for…”

“Oh, it was so awful! You and Rarity were gone for so long, I thought you were never coming back! I mean, yeah, I saw you two when I went upstairs to get one of Scootaloo’s PSP games-“

“So you were up there?!” Rarity asked in disbelief.

“-But still, I missed you so much!” She turned to Rarity. “Oh, and you too!” She acted like she was about to go and do the same thing to Rarity that she did to Fluttershy, but Rarity stopped her with the raise of a hoof.

“That’s quite alright, Pinkie. There’s no need to-“ At that point, Pinkie- totally not heeding Rarity’s advice- leaped off of Fluttershy’s chest and tackle-hugged Rarity to the ground as well.

“I thought I told you not to do that!” Rarity sputtered as she tried to get the pink pony off of her chest.

“Well, technically, you never told me not to do anything. So, I figured it was ok!”

“Of course, I never told you anything. You never- oof!- gave me the chance to! You just tackled me to the ground before I even had the chance to finish my sentence!”

Pinkie giggled. “Rarity, you’re so silly!”

Amidst all the ruckus, nopony could have heard an upstairs door open, nor the hoofsteps that had subsequently echoed from the pony walking down the stairs. Everypony heard, though, the thing that came next.

“Could somepony please tell me what in tarnation is goin’ on here…? Y’all are makin’ more noise than a rusty locomotive…”

Pinkie looked up and squee’d in delight. “Apple bun! You’re awake!” She got off of Rarity’s chest with a quickness and ran over to her marefriend, hugging her tightly around the neck.

Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other, trying their absolute hardest not to laugh hysterically as they both picked themselves up off the floor. “Apple bun…?” Rarity mouthed as she steadied herself. Fluttershy simply shrugged in response.

“Ah thought Ah told you not to use our pet names for each other around the others…” Applejack murmured, plainly trying to say it without Rarity and Fluttershy hearing her. It didn’t work.

“You totally did, didn’t you?” Pinkie asked in shock, as though she had forgotten completely and totally about Applejack ever telling her that in the first place. “I’m sorry…!”

“It’s fine,” Applejack replied with a wave of her hoof. As she did so, she grimaced in pain and raised the same hoof to the side of her head. “Oh man… My head is killin’ me… What happened?”

“You hit your head pretty hard…” Fluttershy replied softly, having recovered her composure. “You fainted when that toaster started talking.”

An odd look came over Applejack’s face. “So… you mean to tell me that wasn’t a dream?”

“Nope!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s very real! In fact, the toaster is on Fluttershy’s head right now! I put it there earlier!” She beamed brightly, as though she considered this to be a high accomplishment.

“Oh, so that’s what was on my head earlier?” Fluttershy asked, looking at Rarity. “Wait…” Her face paled a bit. “It was… on my head… And nopony told me about it?”

“Well, I was going to…” Rarity said a bit sheepishly, “but-“

“Wait a second,” Applejack interrupted. “You said you put it on her head earlier, right?” Pinkie nodded. “Meaning, before you tackled her to the ground like I assume you did to Rarity, too?” She nodded again.

“So then… how is it still on her head? Shouldn’t it have flown off when she got tackled?”

The toaster spoke at that point: “I have really good balance!” Applejack visibly cringed when she heard the toaster’s voice, but to her credit she didn’t faint again.

Just then, another voice could be heard from somewhere in the room: “Um, Toaster…? Is that you…?” The voice was very child-like, which caused the other ponies to think it was Fluttershy who’d said it. When they looked to her, though, she indicated that it wasn’t her who had said it.

Just then, the electric blanket rose up into the air, revealing that it too had a face. It was smiling.

“Blanky!” Toaster said, grinning widely.

Applejack let a very un-fillylike word escape her lips. “You have got to be kiddin’ me…”