The pale-skinned girl stared intensely at the pink pony who gazed back with wide blue eyes and a carefree smile across her muzzle. Finally, the woman let out a snort through her nose, shaking her head.
"I should be able to quite easily be able to quantify you, but I can't," she told the pink equestrian with a frown. "What are you?" she wondered, her tone making its bewilderment audible.
Pinkie Pie blinked at the dark haired female, and then flashed a bright grin that extended just the slightest bit too far and revealed a few too many teeth than was anatomically impossibly--Mir felt the corner of her eye twitch at the observation.
"Silly filly!" Pinkie Pie chirped. "I'm Pinkie Pie!" she exclaimed, as if it should be obvious.
"Indeed," Mir said thoughtfully--for the mare's answer seemed to be the only correct one that existed for the mystery that was she.
Nothing was said for several minutes, both staring at each other in thought (though Mir dared not even contemplate what might be going through the four-legged baker's mind--she had been driven to the depths of insanity once in her lifetime was quite enough, thank you!)
"So . . ." Mir began, catching Pinkie's attention. "I understand you do parties..." she said, trailing off and somewhat regretted raising the topic as the excitable creature before her suddenly invaded her personal space without proceeding through the aforementioned space between them needed to invade her personal space.
"I know she isn't a manifestation of some kind of Song," Mir considered, "but the closet answer that I can think of is that her ability is akin to CosmoFlip; she seems to be enacting her own worldview upon the immediate reality around her--but she lacks any kind of Cosmosphere to manifest, to say nothing of not being a reyvateil."
"--Number 1 party pony in all of Ponyville!" Pinkie said, drawing Mir from her thoughts as she watched the party pony vibrate from sheer enthusiasm. "Do you like parties too, Mir?" she asked, her head bending at an angle that the reyvateil was quite certain was anatomically impossible for her species.
Mir blinked her red eyes at the question. "I wouldn't know," she answered truthfully. "I've never had occasion to attend one."
Pinkie's jaw seemed to unhinge itself and spontaneously manifest several feet of extra jaw muscle and bone for the express purpose of comically falling agape in shock. Reaching down with a hoof, she manually slammed her muzzle shut with an audible clack of molars and proceeded to stare at the Beta-type reyvateil, her blue eyes watering.
Mir knew then that she had made a previous error in judgment.
In fact, she considered that it might have been the worst decision she had ever made in her many years--including her whole genocidal rampage period.
"Your parents never threw you a birthaversary!" she said in a quite tone that was not too dissimilar from what Mir had heard come from the lips of shell-shocked veterans of war. Mir quirked an eyebrow at the earth pony.
"MY 'parents'--" and even the ever-happy Pinkie Pie winced at the sheer amount of contempt and venom that Mir laced the word with--"created me without emotion for the express purpose of murder and proceeded to inflict untold agonies and torture on me when I started becoming a real girl," she said dryly. Pinkie Pie visibly squirmed from the sheer awkwardness of the situation and for once not knowing what to say to such a proclamation. "So--no," Mir answered, casually flapping a hand in the air as if to shoo the issue away, "birthdays parties weren't a big priority for me," she explained.
Then stopped, her eyes widening. A smile curled its way across her pale face, and Pinkie found herself slightly unnerved by what seemed to be a genuinely happy expression.
"Actually," Mir began, staring direct at Pinkie now, "I have a favor to ask you, Pinkie Pie," she said, causing the baker to be intrigued. "I think you are just the right--no! the only party pony in all of Equestria who could do this!" she declared, raising a fist emphatically.
"What! What what what what!" Pinkie asked, bouncing in place.
"My oldest and most dearest of friends Shurelia, you know of her, right?" Mir asked, knowing full well that the Origin was acquainted with all of the Element Bearers. Pinkie rapidly nodded her head up and down. "She says that she's only sixteen, but really she's over 700 years old!" Mir said, leaning in and confessing this truth in a mock stage whisper that Pinkie nonetheless gasped dramatically, covering muzzle with a hoof. "It's true," Mir assured the pony, "and quite sad. I think she doesn't like admitting her age because she missed out on all of her parties!"
"Say no more!" Pinkie cried, reaching into her mane and somehow pulling forth a cannon bigger than the entirety of her mass from it. Mir, to her credit, only barely twitched when she witnessed the pony's newest casual disregard for the laws of reality. "I'm on it!" but before she could dash off for Canterlot, Mir grabbed her by the tail, a fistful of cotton candy hairs wrapped tightly in her fist.
"I applaud your enthusiasm, my professional party planner," Mir said with an amused grin on her lips. "But 700 hundred parties is a bit much even for you, I think," she said, only to have Pinkie turn a most foul look to her at her skills as a party planner being doubted. "At least, with what little time is available!" MIr quickly amended--and steadfast ignored that Pinkie seemed to be ready to argue the fact that she could quite easily fit 700 full-length parties into the span of a few days through some unknown method that Mir didn't even want to begin to contemplate. "No, what she needs is a cake!' Mir said. "A cake with all 700-plus candles on it!"
Pinkies eyes got wide as she envisioned such a sight. It was so beautiful!
Croix stood back in the gardens of the Canterlot Palace, his glasses in one hand as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. His wife had a wide, almost demonic grin threatening to split her face in twain as she cackled in a manner he was quite certain was reminiscent of the time she had dropped half of the first Tower's inhabitable land and killed tens of the thousands of humans and reyvatiels alike.
In front of him, looking more like a bonfire than any kind of confection, was a giant cake lit ablaze by over seven hundred separate flames. Honestly, Croix was uncertain how the cake was even supporting the weight of all the candles without turning into a pile of sugary mush.
"Go on, Shurelia!" Mir purred, and besides her Pinkie beamed widely nodding her head eagerly in encouragement. "Make a wish!"
Shurelia stared at the cake and multitude of candles with wavering lips. the self-proclaimed eternal sixteen-year-old turned to her oldest friend-cum-sister.
"You're so mean!" she cried, stamping her feet, trampling many blades of emerald grass beneath her feet in the throes of her tantrum.
Mir's laughter rang out through the garden while the gathered princesses and other Element Bearers watched on unsure of how to act in the situation.
Twilight Sparkle, however, was only staring at Pinkie Pie and wondering why she appeared to be a wearing some kind of garment made of alternating dark strips of bread around her hind legs.
What she did know was that she had a very bad feeling that interesting times were soon about to be on them, as she switched her gaze from Pinkie to Mir.
She already felt the tension headache coming on.