Pinker, Paler, Scolder....Pie

"Thanks again for helping me reshelf all these books."

"Aw, no problem," Pinkie said.

Twilight magically levitated all the books off of a shelf and into the hooves of Pinkie, who stood next to her. The pink pony beamed back, then zipped out of sight. Twilight lifted up her feather duster and dusted the shelf's recesses. When she finished, she turned to Pinkie with a peppy smile on her face. But as soon as she saw what was in the center of the library, she started blinking heavily and her jaw dropped. Pinkie reared back, spread her hooves, and gestured to the towering spires of the book city she'd built.

"Ta-dah!" she said. "I call it, uh....Booklyn! Yeah!"

Twilight slowly walked among the book-buildings. "Uh, Pinkie Pie, you do know these books have to go back on the shelves, right?"

Pinkie ducked behind a book-building with a cry of, "Wait, wait, wait!"

Twilight sighed and narrowed her eyes.

"He's fearsome," Pinkie announced in a deep voice. "He's unstoppable. He's....the Gummysaurus!"

Holding Gummy's forelegs up in the air, Pinkie waddled him out from behind the building like he was a foal just learning to walk.

"Baa-naah!" she sang. "Watch in terror as he turns this city to rubble!"

She twisted him aside, making his waving tail knock over a stack of books.

Twilight gasped. "That's a first edition!"

The unicorn trotted forward, dived to the ground, and just barely managed to catch the book that spilled off the top of the tower in her hooves. She sighed with relief. Then the rest of the books toppled over and bopped her on the head, one at a time.

"Ow ow ow ow OW!"

When it seemed like the novelanche had finally abated, she exhaled and slowly got to her hooves. She turned around and glared at Pinkie, who had waddled Gummy off and was making him knock another building over.

"Pinkie!" she shouted.

The pink pony spun around. "Yeah, Twilight?"

Twilight affected a nonchalant smile. "Pinkie. Is there a particular reason you asked if we could have a slumber party last night?"

Pinkie chuckled nervously. "Wh--well, why, um, that's just what good friends do. Have fun old slumber parties!"

"So it had nothing to do with Polly T. Burro?"

Pinkie trembled, then lifted her pet alligator up so he hung and swung from her hooves. She burst out, "Oh, alright! It's Gummy. He's mad at that fussy old meanie-pants."

Gummy blinked.

"So we needed to get out of Sugarcube Corners for a little while. And I made him a book city to stomp around in, because you know how alligators get when they can't indulge themselves."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Indulge themselves?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie said as she hugged Gummy tight. She gave him a playful growl. "Let them get in touch with their inner alligator. I even made him a swamp out behind Sugarcube Corners so he could get that visceral thrill of lazing in the brackish water and lurking among the reeds and lily pads. Though I didn't know where to get reeds and lily pads, so I made my own out of drinking straws and construction paper, but I haven't heard any complaints." She hugged Gummy again. "Bless your little heart, Gummy. You know how hard Pinkie works for you!"

Gummy blinked again.

Twilight stepped among the books strewn over the floor and crossed the book-city to Pinkie's side.

"Pinkie, you know you're always welcome here, but I don't think it does either of us any good if you're just using me as an excuse to run away from your problems."

Pinkie sighed and let Gummy droop to the floor. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Twilight started walking Pinkie towards the front door. "Here's what I want you to do: I want you to walk over to the Burros' house, knock on the front door, and ask if you can talk it over. Just give it a try, alright?"

"Alright," Pinkie said morosely. "Thanks, Twilight."

"No problem. You know I'm always here to help."

Twilight closed the bottom half of the library's front door, then trotted back across the librarywhile looking over her shoulder and waving at Pinkie. Pinkie waved back before turning to go. When Twilight put her eyes forward again, she realized the book city had slipped her mind only a split-second before she put her hoof down on an open book lying on the floor, slipped forward, and knocked all the book-buildings down like tenpins.

As Pinkie trotted through the town, she steeled herself. "Alright, Gummy," she said to the alligator bouncing up and down on her back. "You heard Twilight: we're going to march right up to Polly T. Burro and talk this over like adu--"

As she rounded a corner and came within view of Sugarcube Corners, she halted in her tracks and gasped at the sight in front of her eyes. Then she took off at a gallop.

"Just what do you think you're doing?!" she yelled as she got close.

Polly Burro stood next to the swamp Pinkie had painstakingly dug with her own two hooves. To her horror, it was now half-filled in, and the dirty shovel the donkey held made Pinkie think she wasn't about to stop anytime soon.

"I'm filling in this ghastly hole," Polly explained.

Pinkie leaned close to the donkey and stared into her eyes. "No, you most certainly are not!"

"Yes, I am," Polly said calmly.

"And just what gives you the right to do that in my backyard?!"

As Polly lifted a scroll into the air, Pinkie's eyes glanced sidelong at it.

"Why, the deed to the property does," the donkey said, planting the shovel in the ground. "For you see, this little mud puddle is on my land."

"Oh, really?!"

Pinkie swiped the scroll and unfurled it. Her eyes blazed over the dense block of text, occasionally flicking up over the top of it to glare at Polly, who smiled smugly and leaned on the planted shovel's handle. However, the deeper into the text Pinkie got, the more her head hurt and her eyes watered. After a minute, she gave it back.

"Give me the gist of it," she demanded.

"The gist is, I own the land you are now standing on. And since I own the land, I am filling in a hole on my property."

"I don't believe you!"

"It doesn't matter what you believe," Polly said sweetly, "only what the deed says."

"Oh, really?" Pinkie gritted her teeth and pointedly stepped over the swamp. "I'd like to see you try, because I'm not moving."

As the afternoon wore on, rumors of Pinkie Pie's last stand had spread among the Ponyvillians and drawn a sizable crowd.

"Oh, I don't know how much longer I can watch this," Fluttershy murmured, turning her head away.

Applejack whistled. "Pink's got grit, I'll give her that."

In the brouhaha's epicenter Pinkie stood adamant over her hoofmade swamp, although her resolve was starting to flag. Her legs ached from standing in one place for so long and her stomach rumbled from not eating.

The Mayor watched on in worried anticipation.

As the deed levitated in front of Twilight, the unicorn furrowed her brow in concentration and poured over the legalese until she sighed and magically rolled the scroll back up. After shrugging at the Mayor, she approached Pinkie Pie.

"I'm really sorry, Pinkie, but the deed says the land for Sugarcube Corners stops there," she said gently, pointing at a spot about three feet behind Pinkie. "This part of the ground really does belong to the Burros."

Pinkie looked on the verge of tears. "But-but--!"

The Mayor turned to the two donkeys standing in front of their back door and asked, "Mister and Missus Burro--"

"Ah, ah, ah," Polly said. "It's pronounced....Beu-rau."

"Yes, of course, Missus Beu-rau. Are you sure you won't reconsider selling this portion of the property?"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I must insist," Polly said.

"But why?!" Pinkie cried.

"I plan on building a fence, and there's no sense not building it right on the edge of my property."

Although she kept up her wide grin, comprised of purest disdain masked by simpering politeness, her husband Trifle Burro shuffled his hooves and looked distinctly embarrassed at his wife's behavior.

"Polly, dear," he asked, turning to her, "must you insist on this? They seem like perfectly nice--"

"But Trifle, you do know how much I love my garden parties, and tell me, how can I have a garden party if I don't have a garden? Now that's enough from you. Miss Mayor, you may proceed when ready."

The Mayor sighed and nodded to Bacton Stable, the town's keeper of the peace.

The buff stallion adjusted his peaked cap, put on a tough expression, and stepped forward. "Alright Pinkie Pie, let's go."

"I made that swamp with my own two hooves," she cried. "It's mine!"

Stable sighed, grabbed her by the tail, and dragged her away. She dug her hooves into the dirt, but the stallion's strength was too much for her. She left long tracks gouged into the dirt as he dragged her behind the property line.

"It's not fair!" Pinkie yelled as she stalked back and forth through the confectionary shop's back room. "It's just not fair!"

"We're awfully sorry, Pinkie," Cup Cake said. "Oh, so sorry."

Carrot Cake added, "We honestly thought the property line went that far back."

"But just look at Gummy!" Pinkie cried. "He's heartbroken!"

The Cakes turned and looked at the table, where Gummy stood and swished his tail back and forth.

"Oh, Gummy!" Pinkie said with a pained smile, as if finding the silver lining in the storm cloud. She wiped away the tears welling in her eyes. "Look at you acting so brave and stoic. But you don't have to hide your true feelings from us!"

As Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, she said, "You can just make another one, you know. I mean, it's just a hole in the ground--"

In a flash, Pinkie Pie was in Rainbow's face, making the pegasus yelp and draw back.

"How dare you say that," Pinkie growled. She turned away from Rainbow and looked to the distance wistfully. "It wasn't just a hole in the ground, it was....it was a little piece of Gummy's home! It was a special place I gave him so he could return to the wild he can never know." She sniffled.

"Real wildernesses....ses....doesn't have drinking straws," Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

Pinkie glared daggers at her.

Applejack got between the two and eased them apart. "What Rainbow's trying to say is, I don't think Gummy's gonna mind much if you dug another one, so long as it's made with the same care as the first one."

"And we'd all be happy to help," Fluttershy said. "It's no problem at all. I could even get some of my little mole friends to help dig it."

Rarity added, "Yes, and I could dig....oh, no, I can't do that....well, I could get water....oh, no, what if it splashes?....Aha! I could be in charge of making it look fabulous! A little feng shui would be just what Gummy needs, wouldn't it?"

Pinkie sat on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. "It just won't be the same."

Twilight ambled over to Pinkie's side. "Pinkie, ask yourself this: is that swamp really so irreplaceable? Or is the real reason you're so upset because of your little feud with Polly T. Burro?"

As Pinkie sniffled, her eyes fell to the floor. She mumbled, "Well, maybe I am a little angry...."

Twilight a put a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder and smiled. "There, you see? The swamp's not important, you're just fixating on it so you can hate her."

"But still!" Pinkie shouting, shrugging the caring hoof off. "She had no right to do that!"

"I'm sorry, but she did," Twilight said.

Fluttershy walked over and added, "Technically it was on her property."

Pinkie jumped to her hooves, trotted to the back door, and stared out the open top half. Across the yard, Polly T. Burro was directing her husband where to plant stakes to mark the new fence. Polly glanced up, saw Pinkie and waved. Pinkie waved back, but everypony in the shop could hear her teeth grinding.