If Pinkie Pie heard the other pony's cry of alarm, she gave no indication. Spike raised a foreclaw as if he were going to make a sardonic observation about her, but what he said instead was, "Oof," as he found himself flung unceremoniously onto the unicorn's back as she broke into a gallop toward the earth pony.
“Pinkie, what are you doing? Don't you understand that thing is dangerous!” called Twilight Sparkle as they neared.
"Oh, hi Twilight," said Pinkie brightly. She was holding a cake balanced on one upturned hoof, but she waved cheerily with the other. "Dangerous?" The pink pony scrunched up her muzzle in confusion for a moment, then grinned again. "Oh, do you mean Mr. Stompy? That's what I've named him because he stomps on things. I asked him his name, but then I was all like, 'Silly Pinkie Pie, golems don't have mouths.' Then I realized that without a mouth, he probably hasn't eaten anything, and I know if I hadn't eaten anything in my whole existence that I'd get really hangry too, so I baked him a cake."
The golem seemed to be slightly perplexed by the pink pony who was not running away. It balled its tremendous jewelled fist and drew it back for a killing blow. As Pinkie Pie continued talking, it seemed to reconsider, and lowered its fist again. Instead, it slowly raised its enormous leg and moved its foot over the pony's head for a good solid stomp. The earth pony seemed oblivious to the enormous foot poised to squash her like a bug, even though she had to bob her head left and right to see around it.
“Hi there Mr. Stompy, I couldn't help but notice you were ravaging Ponyville, and I realized I've never seen you ravaging Ponyville before, so that must mean you're new here. We don't see many golems around town - especially not big stompy ones - and I thought this calls for a cake!" The pink pony reared up on her hind legs and peered up at the golem around the side of his enormous foot. What she did not apparently do was stop for breath while speaking. "I made this cake for you. Sorry that there's a dent in it because a piece of the ceiling came down while I was baking it but I tried to fill it in with icing and I put a sugar flower there to hide it. It says Happy Animate Existence Day but I might have misspelled animate - or maybe existence." Her radiant smile flickered slightly as she added, "Mister Cake usually doesn't let me do the lettering, so I'm a bit out of practise."
The golem paused, and its glaring red eyes flicked on and off several times in what the ponies interpreted to be confused blinking. Finally it lowered its foot, and its body cracked and groaned as it leaned forward, cocking its head in puzzlement as it eyed the pink pony, then the cake in its hooves, then the pony again.
“Go ahead, it's for you," burbled Pinkie Pie. She hiked herself up a bit taller, bobbing the cake meaningfully toward the golem. "I baked some pie weights into it because I thought Pinkie Pie, here's a guy who needs his minerals!" The golem made an abortive reach for the cake, and then hesitated again. “It’s okay, Missus Cake wasn't watching when I used the good chocolate in this one," said Pinkie Pie in a stage whisper, giving the golem a conspiratorial wink. "It's a friendship cake. Oh, right, you just came into existence, so I'll explain it. I baked a friendship cake for you. You eat the friendship cake that I give you, and then we’re friends.”
Endus Maximus
Slowly, as if the concept of obedience were alien to it, the golem slowly reached out an enormous hand and gingerly gripped the cake between two fingers. It looked more like a muffin in its gigantic hand.
The moment it took the cake, the world turned to gold.
At first Twilight Sparkle was confused, then she realized that it had not literally turned to gold, but rather it was bathed in a golden light. She noticed that the ponies around her had stopped moving, not as if they were frozen in awe, but as if time had stopped for them. Her throat closed up slightly as she understood what was coming next.
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE, EXPLAIN YOURSELF!” boomed a regal voice from above them.
“Princess Celestia,” said Twilight Sparkle, grovelling furiously. Spike dutifully bowed next to her. “I'm so sorry about that letter. I told Spike that the word Princess was supposed to be capitalized in that context, but he’s at that rebellious age. Also, I may have animated a golem and it went ... a tiny bit berserk.” She forced what she hoped were sufficient tears of regret to her face and looked up to meet the eyes of the princess. Celestia had alighted daintily in between her student and the golem, and was meeting the other pony's look with a stern, judging gaze. The golem, meanwhile - who did not appear to have been affected by the time stoppage - was puzzling over the cake in its hand. It held the cake tentatively up to its face, and then tapped the spot above the chin where a mouth would normally be.
“Your capitalization was correct, and grammar was acceptable,” said the princess, whose stern visage momentarily softened into a warm smile of approval. “I am proud of your use of three exclamation points. I felt it adequately expressed the gravity of the situation without belabouring the point.”
Spike didn't have to see it to know that the unicorn gifted him with an insufferably smug sidelong glance.
“On the other hoof, I am slightly less pleased with a golem demolishing much of Ponyville," said Celestia, adopting a more disapproving and regal tone again.
“I’m sorry princess,” said Twilight Sparkle, lowering her gaze in abasement and shame. “I did it for Spike. The poor little guy does all of the cooking, cleaning and cataloguing. I thought that by creating a mindless slave to take care of the mundane duties around the library, it would free up some of his time to deliver threatening overdue notices to delinquent borrowers.” In the background, the golem had latched a hand onto its chin and was apparently trying to pry open its nonexistent mouth while its eyes remained focused on the cake.
“Where did you learn to animate a golem?” asked the princess. To Twilight Sparkle’s relief, some of the sharpness had gone out of her voice again.
“My Fyrste Golem: Ye Darke Arte of Abominable Anymation,” she answered honestly.
“The abridged copy, or did you steal the forbidden one from the reference section of the Canterlot library?” said Celestia, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“I didn’t steal it, Your Highness,” said Twilight Sparkle indignantly, forgetting for a moment to grovel. “I went through all of the proper channels. I had it rightly reclassified from forbidden magics to inadvisable magics, and then I did a proper intra-library transfer.”
The princess continued to glower, but the corner of her mouth twitched a couple of times before she gave up all pretenses of anger and burst out laughing. Before Twilight Sparkle could react, Celestia pulled her in close and gave her a hoof noogie on the forehead below her horn. “There’s my favourite student, showing some admirable initiative. You're right, that book should have been reclassified centuries ago.” The unicorn struggled and giggled nervously under her teacher's ministrations. Forgotten behind her the golem had finally managed to wrench open the lower part of its face into a facsimile of a mouth.
The princess put the chuckling pony back on the ground again while Spike breathed out an audible sigh of relief. “I know you did a proper transfer, I was just teasing,” said the princess. “Ruling can get dreary at times; indulge a princess some fun now and then.” She turned to leave, and paused to say over her shoulder, “just be sure to return the book in good condition when you are done with it.”
"Princess, wait!" called Twilight Sparkle before Celestia could fly off. She bit her lip and pranced nervously, motioning meaningfully toward the wreckage of the town with her horn. Front and centre among that ruin was the golem, who was still holding the cake in one hand, and poking experimentally around in its new "mouth" with its other hand.
"Oh, don't you worry my little pony," said the princess, with a warm, melodious laugh. "The other ponies will be fine. Their memories of this day will be erased when the time spell lifts."
"B-but the golem, your highness…" prompted the unicorn again, grimacing and making exaggerated motions in its general direction with her horn.
The smile on the princess's face slowly melted to something a bit more morose. "Oh, Twilight Sparkle," she said with a weighty sigh. "When you were animating your golem, did you not wonder why we do not have golem servants in the castle?" She gave her student a wan grin. "That spell never worked properly, and we lost the heart to keep working on it. I don't know why I keep that dusty old book around since it's just a recipe for heartache." She pranced around and stood shoulder to shoulder with the younger mare. "Watch with me," she commanded, "and let this be your lesson for today."
They sat together and looked on in silence as the golem finally figured out the relationship between the cake and its mouth. It tossed the confection down whole. There was a dry, crunching sound as it swallowed, and seconds later a change came over the golem. Its glowing red eyes flickered and suddenly shifted colour to a rich, sapphire blue. It held up its massive hands before its face and stared at them with a newfound wonder.
"Friendship," it said aloud in a deep, gravelly voice, eliciting gasps of surprise from Twilight Sparkle and Spike. "So delicious."
"You can talk?" asked Twilight Sparkle incredulously. She took a tentative step toward the golem, then froze when it turned and faced her.
"I know your voice. You are the Creator." It strode toward her on creaky, crackly legs. Twilight Sparkle would have back-pedalled away if the princess had not stuck out a leg to block her escape. The golem stopped and knelt before her, gazing down at the purple unicorn. Where its gaze had radiated death and hatred before, now she felt an azure wave of adoration and awe sweep over her. "Mistress, I am called ... Mr. .... Stompy?"
"Wait for it..." said the princess in a singsong stage whisper. She was holding up one of her hoofs as if critically analyzing her latest hooficure.
"Please," said the golem, holding out its massive hand toward its creator imploringly. "I exist only to serve you. Say a word and it shall be done, beloved master! Order a mountain brought to your home, and I shall bring it. I implore you, give me purpose... uh..." As it spoke, the hand it was holding out began to crumble away and cascade to the ground in a shower of gems.
"Golem...?" said Twilight Sparkle in alarm. "Princess, what's happening to him?"
"Well, this was disappointing," said the golem, right before its entire body sloughed away into a jagged pile of cracked gems. A single spatter of icing landed in the centre of the pile like a ghoulish adornment.
"That part gets me every time," said Celestia sadly. "Not enough agates, or maybe too may rubies. I consulted with Marelin the magician, but she refused to dabble in golems." The princess sighed. "As soon as they become self-aware, they go to pieces. Literally."
"I – I'm sorry," sobbed Twilight Sparkle, pawing a sad furrow through the golem rubble. "I didn't mean to give you such a short existence. I had plans for you."
Princess Celestia pulled her student close for a reassuring hug. "There now, dear, that's why this was supposed to be filed under inadvisable magic." She kissed Twilight Sparkle gently on the forehead. "At least you've learned a valuable and traumatizing lesson from it. Now you had best work on a plan to deal with the mess your golem made here. I must fly; I promised my royal sister a few rounds of royal mumblety-peg before she goes on duty this evening."
"Yes, a plan! I do plans. Spike, get the plan scroll ready," said Twilight Sparkle, with a purposeful gleam in her eye. Behind her the princess reared up, spread her pretty wings and soared away into the sky.
Spike had wandered over to Pinkie Pie, and was waving a claw back and forth in front of her unresponsive face. “I don’t think I will ever get used to this,” he said, frowning. “Why do we have to wipe their memories all the time? You told me this drives them insane.” He readied the scroll and quill as he'd been instructed, but his eyes never left the motionless pony.
“If they remembered every disaster, and realized how often their town is nearly destroyed, they would be afraid to come out of their homes,” explained Twilight Sparkle. “There are ... preferable types of insane - please don’t do that, Spike,” she added sharply in a matronly tone.
“I don’t get it,” said the dragon, who obediently stopped poking Pinkie Pie with an extended foreclaw. “It’s not like disasters happen all the time; there hasn’t been a disaster in weeks.”
“Right,” said Twilight Sparkle cagily, “it has been weeks.”
“Wait a minute,” said Spike indignantly. “You haven’t been erasing my…” Wherever the thought had been leading him, the train derailed when Pinkie Pie sneezed.
"Hi!" she said brightly to Twilight Sparkle. "You look awful, and I have no idea how I got here, but that kind of describes my whole life." She blinked up at City Hall which, for all its abuse, was still mostly standing. "Wow, what a mess; it looks like something big came rampaging through here." The earth pony did not miss a beat. "Hey, as long as you're here, did you want to hang out for the day? I've got this weird craving for cake. Well, not that weird because I'm always craving cake."
"I… yes," said Twilight Sparkle firmly after a second of waffling. "Yes, Pinkie Pie, I would like to hang out today."
"Hi Miss Twilight and Pinkie Pie," said Apple Bloom, walking slowly up behind them. "I don't rightly know what I'm doin' here neither, but I feel strangely empty and unfulfilled today for some reason." She frowned slightly as if trying to conjure up a memory that no longer existed. "Oh well, I'm gonna head on home and draw a sad cutie mark on mah flank to make up for the lack of a father figure in mah life."
"Big Mac is kind of like a father figure to you," said Twilight Sparkle patronizingly.
Apple Bloom shrugged. "Might even be my father for all I know," she said over her shoulder as she turned to head for home. "They say the Apples don't fall far from the tree."
"Oh. Oh! I remember drawing my first cutie mark. It was a rock," said Pinkie Pie. A moment later she apparently forgot the existence of the filly. "Come on Twilight, let's get some cake," she said, bouncing a circle around the other pony. "I can't put my hoof on it, but I feel like I've had an exciting day that deserves cake!"
As the ponies turned to leave, they distinctly heard a pony in the distance say, "Hey, is anyone else's shop on fire?"
Endus Maximus