I-solation
Year 7
“Oof!” I say, feeling my gut press against the cook table’s edge and just barely keeping my nose back from my hours of delicate work. “Careful when you’re putting on the top layer unless you want me to ruin the whole thing.”
“Done and done!” Magic crows at me as if I hadn’t said anything at all, and she hops away from where she’d been pushing into the small of my back for support. “You wanna stop trying to lick it and actually use the icing, Diamond?” she adds with a smirk.
I turn to face her and flick some of the buttercream in her direction. The squeaky squeal that comes after is all I need for a giggle to come out of me before I resume layering the icing onto the cake. “Guilty by association,” I add after a bit.
“You wish, Half Full,” Magic teases, edging her hoof dangerously close to the bottom tier I’ve actually managed to finish.
“Enough, enough!” Bowlful lets out a sigh in his exasperated baritone. He walks over to where I’m decorating and Magic is threatening to, I guess undecorate, and starts shooing us away with his hooves. “Go, go,” he says. “I’ll finish Miss Veny’s birthday cake. You two can go endanger some other art’s existence.” He huffs through our growing giggles before shaking his head as he closes the door to the kitchen.
The dining room is scrubbed clean like always, but both Magic and I know there’s a lot more that has to be done if it’s going to actually look ready for a party. Some of Millet’s colts out in the city’s shops have already dropped by several boxes full of random streamers, bags of confetti, and party plates, but we’re still waiting for a whole lot more. But since that stuff isn’t here at the moment, we start ahead with the streamers. Magic insists on making me a scarf-like thingy with some, and after she’s done, I dump the whole box on her head. I try to hold a straight face as she picks her way out of the tangled up strands of paper, but I can’t control the bubbly feeling inside and laugh until I hiccup and choke. And even then, I have trouble stopping and getting myself together. “Just for that,” she says, her tone serious even though she’s smiling, “I’m letting you set these things up yourself.”
“Cool,” I reply. “Pass me the tape?” She chucks it through the air for me to catch, and I immediately start on making rainbow colored rings and half-circles around every possible surface. While I’m working my way around the edges of the dining room, Magic takes charge of getting the other boxes from any of the ponies that drop by. We finally get enough party table cloths for her to spread over both tables, and just as I’m finishing with the streamers, she’s starting to set out the plates, hats, and other silverware.
While she’s doing those things, I open the last box and have to gasp. “Ooo! What?! What’dwe got?”
“Somepony pulled out all the stops for us here,” I say, and I add a stuttering chuckle of surprise from pure disbelief. “How much do you think Miss Veny is gonna freak when she sees we’ve gotten ahold of a four wheeled party cannon?”
“For real?” Magic jumps over to my side, eagerly watching as I pull the ultimate party accessory out of the box. “And the colt who dropped it off said to keep it! I couldn’t figure out why he said that at first, but it sure makes sense now!”
“We’re gonna be the talk of the block for a while, sis,” I tell her, already imagining how every colt and filly within sight of home is going to want to see us use the cannon. “Wanna help me stuff it?”
“Already way ahead of you,” Magic says, and she begins ripping open the bags of confetti to hoof to me so I can dump them inside. Some sort of powerful magic must be used to make the cannons, because I can’t see any of the stuff we’ve dumped inside, and it still weighs about the same as when I first wheeled it out of the box. “We’re gonna need more puff balls,” Magic echoes my exact thoughts.
“I’ll drop by Archie’s place,” I suggest. “You think we might need any more wrapping paper?”
“Nah, we’ll be good with the paper,” Magic says with a glance to the small stack of cast-away tubes of the stuff. “But good luck convincing Millet to give you anything for more party accessories. I think he almost died when I told him what our tab would be for the cake ingredients.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I can cover it with some of my own allowance.” And before she can protest and try to push some of her own bits in, I take off out of the dining room, through the doors, and into the streets of a chilly Baltimare morning. There’s no snow or ice on the ground, but the air’s slowly dropping to the point that I won’t be surprised if we get either soon. But for now, the skies are clear and the air feels crisp and clean like it does every winter.
I set out at a light trot, giving a wave to our home’s closest neighbors and receiving one in return. Part of me is glad the party cannon is somehow defying the laws of reality, since it lets me get outside on a weekday without any emergency licking at my fetlocks. I trek through streets and down alleys I’ve found, taking the quickest, most efficient route to the center of Baltimare. The widest street in the city is filled with cab carts and ponies moving all at different paces and to different places. I remember when I first ventured down here with Magic, and the sight of a cab-pull almost trampling me still sends tingles up my spine. But after seven years, I’ve learned just how to get in and around these crammed streets.
I dart in, behind, and around the crowds until I wind up on the other side of the busy street and in front of the one shop Millet, me, and Magic try to come to at least once a week. Archie is the pony we tell all our newcomers to look up to. He left and made something of himself. Not a lot, but owning his own arts and crafts supply store is more than anypony else who’s come and gone. And on the busiest street of the city no less. Luckily, ponies are more concerned getting to work at this hour, so the shop is empty when I come inside to the jingle of a cute trio of bells.
“Hey Half Full,” he says after glancing up from his bookwork behind the counter. “Party prep goin’ alright still? None of the youngin’s ruin the surprise yet?”
“Magic’s got them all bribed with cookies,” I say with a smile. “But somepony donated a four wheel party cannon out of the blue. Aaand we…”
“... don’t have enough stuff to jam in there,” Archie says with a knowing nod. “Got anything in mind?”
“You still have any of those rainbow puff balls from last week?” I ask hopefully.
“Five packs left in back,” he says, and a flash of teleportation magic later, they’re on the counter waiting for me.
“You’re getting really good at that, you know,” I tell him, pulling off my little satchel necklace where I keep my few bits. “What’s the damage?”
“Ah, c’mon Half Full,” Archie lilts and leans one elbow on the counter. “It’s for Miss Veny’s birthday party! I think I can take the loss for her.”
“You’re the best, Archie,” I say sweetly before leaning over to give him a hug and peck on the cheek. I laugh at the way he blushes and mutters under his breath and wave him goodbye. He returns it with a sheepish grin on his face, and I feel in an even better mood than when I left home. So it stands to reason that I’m not paying attention when I step outside Archie’s place.
I whirl around to start my way back, packs of puff balls swinging from my mouth, and I crash into somepony. Hard. Both of us end up falling back on our butts, and we both cry out having knocked our heads together. “Sorry, sorry!” I recover first and apologize as profusely as I can. I sweep up the packs of puff balls, hoping whoever it was won’t be too upset. When I look up, my heart stops. Three mares in full, all black business suits (even if one of them is wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat) are not likely going to be the type of ponies that take being run into very well. What’s worse, they’re all wearing matching black shades, so I can’t tell from a glance whether they’re peeved or not.
“Don’t worry… about… it,” one of them, a pegasus, answers, but in a trailing, awed voice. She lowers her shades down to the tip of her nose, and bows her head to look over them. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she goes on, and I notice that her voice is scratchy in an almost familiar way. “Hey, AB, you wanna stop dustin’ off our resident clutz and take a look at the pony we ran into?”
The one with the cowcolt hat lets go of the third mare, who seems to have been leaning on her the way she falls back on the ground so suddenly. Like the pegasus, the second mare lowers her sunglasses, and this time, I can see her eyes widen. When the pony I ran into finally gets up of her own accord, she looks at me, but doesn’t even bother trying to look professional. “Aw c’mon!” she yells, whipping off her shades to reveal vibrant green eyes. “You know, Scoots, I’d like one of our cases, just one, to not be solved with blind luck.”
“Whatever,” the pegasus laughs, and the pieces are slowly clicking into place in my brain. And they’re fitting together, which is almost enough to shatter the whole puzzle all over again. “That’d mean we aren’t lucky anymore.” She turns to me. “Are you Diamond Tiara?” she asks in as straight and serious a voice as a Gurad.
“That ain’t Diamond Tiara,” the covered mare says. “That ain’t even a mare. Look at ‘is mane.”
“No, no, no, wait!” the words finally spill out of my mouth. “Scootaloo? Applebloom? Sweetie Belle? What? What are you all doing here?!”
“Ha! I knew it! Mission accomplished,” Scootaloo crows and fully removes her sunglasses too before offering me a hoof. I take it, and she hauls me up to my hooves. “Don’t listen to AB. The manestyle looks rad.”
“We’ve been looking for you for five years!” Sweetie tells me. “I was beginning to think we’d never find you.”
“Why?” I blurt. “Why would you waste so much time looking for the pony I was back then?”
“Nopony else had tha guts ta go ‘gainst yer dad ‘cept us an’ Princess Twilight,” Applebloom says. “But she couldn’ ‘cause she didn’ have nuff evidence. So, that’s what we decided ta go out an’ get.”
“We’re a PI team now,” Scootaloo says proudly. “And now we’ve just closed our oldest case.”
“How did you make it here?” Sweetie asks. “We’ve been in some really dirty places in Baltimare.”
“I…” I start, but I can’t go any further until I do one, very important thing. I drop the packs of rainbow puffs and rush forward to grab both Sweetie and Scootaloo around the neck in the biggest hug I’ve ever given anypony. Applebloom joins in without me even having to ask. “I never thought I’d see anypony from Ponyville ever again,” I say. I can’t believe it. It’s almost like a dream. “The idea that somepony would come looking for me… I never thought anypony cared that much.”
“So…” Sweetie says with a bounce of good cheer when when disentangle from the hug. “Stories. I know you’ve got to have some.” I just laugh at first, still just a little chest-shocked at the reality of who’s standing in front of me with open forelegs.
“Why… Why don’t you three come back to where I’m staying,” I say, breathless from my laugh. “I wanna know what’s going on back home as much as I wanna introduce you to all my sisters and brothers.” Their confused stares are priceless, and I walk off toward home with a hearty giggle in the air knowing that Miss Veny’s party is going to be much more interesting than Magic and I ever thought.