//------------------------------//
// 3-  In which Rarity succumbs to pastry because of Pinkie Pie’s doing 
// Story: That Shrinking Feeling 
// by Professor_Blue 
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~3~

In which Rarity succumbs to pastry because of Pinkie Pie’s doing


Birds called out into the calm quiet after the rain and the season seemed to shine vindictively from the out-of-place downpour. The dew still festooned on the blades of grass began to disappear with the warmth of the restoring sunny day, and the four ponies headed out of the tall plants into the small shortly-cut lawn of the hill that marked the verge of the meadow. Rainbow Dash landed near her friends, having completed her task of guiding them through the forest of the pasture.

“Here we are, gang.” said Rainbow.

“Finally, out of the meadow-” Rarity said, and they stopped at the view. From the mound beyond the town, it was an odd perspective to see the expanse of Ponyville like an enormous thatched-roof and tiled mountain range. Colorful and welcoming as the constructions were, Twilight still didn’t like the appearance of the community from their level. Windows should’ve been at eye-level, not towering over them. 

“Okay, we’re that much closer to the Library,” said Twilight. She furrowed her brow as she planned their course. Her friends looked on, at the almost mystically alien perspective of the end of town. “But once we get onto the streets, we should stick to the edges and corners of buildings so we don’t get stepped on.”

“Oh my.” said Fluttershy. “I don’t like Ponyville like this. I think it’s too big even when I’m normal sized, let alone being small…”

“I think it’s fabulous!” said Rarity with an interested smile. “It makes me think about how I could do my dresses on a different kind of scale. Like if it was a miniature dress but made normal size, with extra large buttons and thick thread…” she was eying the passing of a stallion on a laneway nearby, wearing a cream-colored vest. Rainbow Dash suddenly leapt up, looking quite mixed and concerned.

“Wait- why are we just walking? Can’t we just ask somepony to help us?”

“Rainbow?” replied Twilight, incomplete in her grasp of Dash’s suggestion.

“Stay here,” Dash sped off towards the stallion with an exclamation. “Hey! Wait up!”

As Dash shrank into the appearance of a tiny blue dot in comparison to the dark brown stallion, she hovered next to his ear for a moment and the stallion stopped mid-step. He looked around, trying to spot Rainbow Dash, until she landed on his nose. Neither of them moved for a moment, until the stallion spoke aloud.

“Aw, she’s so cute.” which suddenly was followed by a rather odd reaction to his words. His legs flung upwards with a yelp and kick, and ran off down the path leaving Dash hovering in the air. “It’s the parasprites! They’ve returned! AAAH!!” he screamed. The three friends watched the scene with a hope that became quite thoroughly smashed as the stallion disappeared around the corner of a smaller house. Rainbow Dash flew back and landed in front of her friends, kicking a pebble as she did. She looked back up with a frown at where the stallion ran.

“Big dummy!” she yelled.

“What did you say?” asked Twilight.

“Not much, I said we needed help and that we’re tiny.”

“Months past and those awful, awful parasprites are still doing damage.” said Rarity sarcastically.

“It’ll be okay. I’m sure there’s somepony in Ponyville that can help us.” replied Twilight, sighing with resignation to the challenge of their adventure.

Another few minutes’ walk brought them closer, but a previously unnoticeable stick lying in hiding in the grass stopped them like a chest-high wall. Easily enough they navigated around it, seeing the building-tops through the grass stalks that stood just a tiny bit above head-height. As they rounded the edge of the stick, they saw a wall. Their view obscured earlier prevented them from noticing it in the first place, but there it was. A sturdy-looking, partly rusted grayish black wall that stood a good four times their height, resting on a patch of gravel. They looked left and saw the wall went on as far as the horizon, and equally far to the right as well.

“What’s a wall doing in Ponyville?” said Twilight. Dash flew higher and looked at what they were seeing from above. About three feet farther was another identical wall, and between them sat thick tarred segments of heavy wood. Down the way of the wall a field’s length sat the Ponyville Train Station, and a locomotive standing idle.

“They’re railroad tracks!” she surmised. “Looks’ safe to cross. C’mon, let’s keep going.” She encouraged, hovering lower.

“How are we to cross over a wall like this?” said Rarity, looking at the side of the rusty track with disdain. Twilight gave a little considerate grin at the track and looked at Fluttershy. Twilight smiled and said,

“I have an idea!”

Far less than comfortably but more than adequately, Rarity stood on top of Twilight, who stood on top of Fluttershy, who stood on top of Rainbow Dash. Their tower-like form was precarious but served well enough, standing next to the track.

“Hghh! Hurry up!” grunted Rainbow, bearing the weight of her friends.

Rarity was able to step onto the metal, and reached out to Twilight, who took her hoof and helped her on the top of the beam.

“We’re up.” said Rarity. Fluttershy was quick to jump off Rainbow as her knees wobbled. Dash gasped with a smile as the weight of her back vanished, and she took a step in relief.

“Phew! Great! Now me and Fluttershy will just fly over.” Dash leapt up the height to the top of the smoothed weight-bearing surface of the track, alongside Twilight and Rarity. “C’mon, Fluttershy.”

“Oh… but it’s so high.” she said hesitantly.

“It’s not all that high, Fluttershy.” said Twilight happily. She turned and jumped into the track bed between the rails, on the other side of the track from Fluttershy.

“Come now dear, think about it!” said Rarity. “This isn’t even as tall as your bunny Angel. Surely you can fly up here?”

“…Alright.” Fluttershy’s resistant neutral expression formed into a mirror of Rarity’s encouraging smile. Dash and Rarity jumped into the track bed as Fluttershy flew up and landed perched on the top of the rail delicately, so she wouldn’t slip. She looked down at her three friends, who returned warm grins. As she tensed herself to jump forwards again, a loud screech emanated to her right. She turned to see the locomotive suddenly burst forth with an enormous white plume of steam out of the funnel. Its whistle blared loudly and Fluttershy seized with surprise.

“Fluttershy, c’mon!” exclaimed Twilight, looking at the train.

The cough of the pistons pumping sounded menacing to Fluttershy, and she froze solid in trembling as the adamant noise accelerated and became louder. The train was approaching down the track, and the speed with which it approached also accelerated. The yellow pegasus whimpered softly.

“Hurry up!” exclaimed Dash. She leapt up in instinctive fearful reaction as the locomotive came nearer and nearer, sounding all the more brutish and unyielding the closer it came. She flew forwards to grab Fluttershy and push her off the rail, but Fluttershy seemed to faint, falling sideways and collapsing down the near side of the track as the first set of wheels sped by nearly at the same time. Rainbow kicked off the rail just below the passing wheel’s flange and caught Fluttershy as she fell before hitting the ground. The train thundered overhead covering their world in a wash of mechanical noise and the huffing racket of steam and fire. The locomotive passed and was followed by the slightly less loud tackatack-tackatack of coaches behind it.

“Fluttershy!” shouted Rarity. The two unicorns ran nearer.

“Are you alight?”

Fluttershy looked quite woozy as the intermittent light passed over them, the gaps between the coaches being their main source of illumination. Her sight was confused as she saw the dizzying movement of the almost formless parts of the carriage undersides pass above. She focused on the unmoving things: the faces of her three friends and their concern. 

“…I don’t like being small.” said Fluttershy weakly, almost inaudible against the sound of the train. Rainbow Dash helped her stand and hugged her firmly, her expression tightened. The day’s lightness returned as the last coach rolled by, and Dash slowly let go of her friend.

“Fluttershy, I-” Dash choked. “I was... I’d never forgive myself if-” she pulled Fluttershy close again, her eyes pressed shut, trying to hold something in.

“The train’s gone now.” said Twilight.

“I’m sorry.” said Fluttershy, tearing up from the reflection of her fear. Rainbow Dash only murmured,

“You don’t have to be sorry, just…”

“We’re here for you,” said Rarity, and joined their hug. “It’s alright, we’re all safe.”
Twilight joined as well and they stayed there for a calming moment. 

Fluttershy calmed with a few deep breaths and the four relinquished their union. Twilight was the first to break away from their restoring solace and looked around at the track bed.  She looked at the opposite track, using the landmarks of a nearby building to conclude where they were.

“It’ll be safe to cross the other rail,” said Twilight. The others stood and gathered their position between the tracks. “There, look.” She pointed to a small gap between the wooden boards under the track, about the height of a small piece of fruit. “We don’t have to go over the rails if we head under there.”

“Uhh!” said Rarity in protest. “You mean crawling through a dirty little hole in the ground?” Rarity looked disgusted by the load-bearing stones that sat directly underneath the beam of the rail.

“It’s not dirt Rarity, it’s gravel.” said Dash. She jumped up and hovered over to the rail and Fluttershy followed. “Can’t really get stuck to you, so what’s the problem?”

“Technically this isn’t gravel, it’s ballast.” said Twilight. The stones right near the gap were almost the same size as they were.

“What’s the difference!” said Dash rhetorically, pressing her hoof on one of the chunky rocks. “‘Can’t get stuck in your mane either way.”

“…Fine.” said Rarity. Twilight snuck under the gap first, ducking her head low, and Rarity watched carefully, noticing the space under the rail and where she’d have to move to avoid actually touching any part of the slab of the rails’ gritty underside with her hair or head. On the other side of the rail, Twilight and Rarity looked at the small open space as they stood next to a small plant. The stalk of timothy wheat seemed to mock their stance like an improperly juxtaposed lamppost. Dash and Fluttershy flew over the rail and landed and they took stock of their next obstacle to tackle: a street.

The street was an average sort of width and edged by two two-storied houses that sat next to one another with a thin alleyway between them. Twilight thought and realized that the day being late-morning now, would likely usher in more traffic come lunch time. She ran across the empty lane into the alleyway, and her friends followed, and they slowed to a walk as they entered the shadowed space. The alleyway had a few small wicker baskets and a left-out pogo stick sitting idly on the ground. At the edges where the foundations of the buildings met the ground, overgrown grass and small weeds poked out of the seams. Twilight lead them to the corner of the building and poked her head around the edge to spot the village square in front of them. Rarity and Rainbow Dash popped their heads out as well, above and below Twilight, and Fluttershy snuck a look out as well, below Rainbow. The first thing they spotted was a delight in heart, mind and stomach.

“Sugarcube Corner!”

“Pinkie Pie’s probably inside!” said Rarity. “She’ll be able to get us back to the library.”

The pink and brown gingerbread building of Sugarcube Corner was a welcome sight, and the four ran onto the roadway. There were other ponies in the square but too distant to be of any danger to them, and they went to the small flower garden beside the front steps of the bakery. They approached the small complex of pink flowers that smelled quite fresh, still relishing the rain they received. 

“Hmm. This could be a problem.” said Twilight, looking at the stone steps up to the door. They were each at least twice the height of the railroad track. “How are we going to get inside?”

Rainbow Dash flew up and Fluttershy followed her. Fluttershy landed on the window sill and peered in while Dash hovered farther back, taking in an overview look of the front of the building.

“…I see ponies inside, but no Pinkie Pie.” said Fluttershy. She turned around and looked down at her friends waiting expectantly on the ground.

“I think I’ve got an idea,” said Rainbow, and flew back down to the ground. Fluttershy came back down as well, and Dash stood near to one of the flower’s stems. “Can you stand here, Twilight?”

“Okay,” she agreed, and replaced her position. “What are we gonna do?”

“Push on the flower here.” directed Rainbow, pointing at the stem just below the trunk of one of its leaves. Twilight did so and the flower bent over easily, bringing the bloom to near ground level. Rainbow walked and stood in front of the petals. From where Rarity stood, the stem looked like one smooth semicircular arc from its root to the top.

“Are you planning on using that flower as a catapult?” said Rarity, confused by the impropriety of her induction.

“What? No,” retorted Dash playfully, with a tiny chuckle. She grabbed the bottom edge petals of the bloom and pulled one off. “Twilight you can let it go now.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Dash’s idea but released and let the stem return upright.

“Dash, what are those supposed to-” 

Rainbow held one of the petals down against the ground and tore off a patch with a bite. She looked up at her friends as she began to chew, and her friends returned her look with confusion.

“Whah? Ah wath hnngry.” said Rainbow, part of the torn petal still stuck out of her mouth.

“Couldn’t it wait until we’re inside?” said Rarity.

“We could go inside on this.” said Fluttershy, motioning towards one of the doorposts. The candy-cane beveled edge was wide enough to walk on, which lead like a spiral stair up to the overhang and eaves-trough above the front entrance.

“Great idea Fluttershy.” said Twilight, turning to approach. “C’mon, girls. We get Pinkie Pie on board-”

“More like, we get a ride on Pinkie Pie!” interrupted Dash, finishing off one of the petals. Twilight gave Rainbow an irked look. She continued with a returning hope,

“And then we’ll be back to the library and back to normal!”

They went up the sharp turn of the climb, rounding the same view of the door, street, shops across the way, the alley they came from, the near side of Sugarcube Corner, the wall fixture and the door again and again, each time slightly higher than the last, until the spiral intersected the frame and they stepped out onto the small edge of wood under the overhang. Rarity’s curiosity got the better of her and she leaned, looking down at the perilous distance from the wood crossbar balcony they stood upon, to the stone pad on the ground with a welcome mat on it. The door was naught much taller than the tallest pony in Ponyville, which made it as though it were ten stories high for the miniaturized friends.

“My my my, what a drop.” commented Rarity. Fluttershy avoided looking down and leaned to the inside edge of the wooden structure.

The crossbar lead to angled siding panels beside the front door light, which were wide enough for them to squeeze through, and they found themselves in the cavernous space of the few inches’ height of rafters between the floor of the second storey and the ceiling of the first. They walked in single file along a broader board that seemed to go the length of the room. In a few moments their eyes adjusted to the light and they saw that the rafters were the same brown-stained wood as the inside of the parlour, and fluffy cherry-colored fiber insulation padded the spaces between the joists. Apparently the candy-and-chocolate motif that was present in the design of the building permeated every nook and cranny of its construction. Rainbow leaned over to the side of the rafter, getting a look through a small knot-hole in the ceiling board.

“What do you see?” asked Twilight.

“We’re still over the tables,” Rainbow shifted, walking in a small circle with her head still centered at the aperture. “If we keep heading this way, we’ll end up in the kitchen… and..” At the far end of the room, behind the register counter and a round stand covered in jars of jelly beans, she saw an open door to a room with several baking sheets sitting on a counter. A pinkie-pink blur darted from one side to the other. “Pinkie Pie’s there!” Dash leapt up in excitement, nearly hitting her head on the floorboards above. “C’mon!”
They kept at a regular pace, Twilight choosing to walk at a slow-ish speed so there was no risk of slipping on the dusty beams of timber, and Rainbow hovered alongside them. Eventually the joist ended where it met the wall.  Twilight noticed what appeared to be a mouse hole a small distance off to one side and her friends followed, jumping down from the joist onto the ceiling boards, until they went to the hole. Rainbow was the first to head through and she stopped just on the other side. Twilight and Rarity followed, finding a place to stand on a narrow precipice that joined with the rafter that spanned over the kitchen. Fluttershy decided to stand in the space of the hole, not even approaching the edge of the precipice. As they looked down into the room, they all went agape at what they saw.

Pinkie Pie was busily moving this way and that around the room, fiddling with an inordinately complicated contraption that seemed to span the entire kitchen, every once and a while coming back to a thick book that was resting partly upright on a bag of flour. Narrow wiry tracks, marble conveyers, tiny toy carts and trains, a bowling ball, pool balls, beach balls, an accordion, a crate of eggs, roller skates and building blocks seemed to be but a small hoof-full of the implements in the strange machine. The rough tracks of the machine led from the sink to the island counter, past the pantry, up the wall, down the wall, across the floor, in a helical arrangement around a motorized mortar-mixer, overlapping over the island again and then attached to the front of the oven.

“…which will turn on the mixer, spooling the thread, which pushes the bowling ball into the rod, gently nudging the pan into the oven!” Pinkie said to nopony in particular in her normal ecstatic mood. “The rod hits the wire, triggers the wibbly-wobbly marbley dohicky,” she motioned to a framed cradle of several metal spheres suspended by wire. “Which hits the start and turns on the timer!” She leapt up and stood on the island counter. “Making the Auto-Matic Marvelous Muffin-Maker Machine completely complete!”

“Look at all that junk!” said Rainbow Dash, marvelling at all the implements.

“It’s a Rube Goldberg Machine.” commented Twilight.

“Goodness...” said Rarity, leaning closer to get a better look over the edge. Pinkie Pie cartwheeled to the far corner of the room and carefully placed a feather on the bridge of Gummy’s nose, then placed the alligator –holding perfectly still- onto a stool near a small roller-paintbrush pan suspended by a length of yarn. Pinkie Pie stood back and watched, excited as ever. She counted down, her anticipation redoubling with every word.

“Three… two… one…!”

Gummy blinked. The air movement pushed the feather off his nose and gently began descending, flittering sideways and rolling, until it landed on the paintbrush pan. The pan began very, very, very slowly descending, pulling on the yarn. The yarn tightened and pulled a pencil with a wire through it, making the writing utensil rotate partly. It was enough to nudge a marble into motion that quickly accelerated down a small track, spinning and looping and then striking a set of dominos, which went off in three directions, assembled all over the floor near the kitchen back door (where they likely could have been screwed up by anypony entering through there). One set of the dominos fell onto a small light switch which activated a small toy train along a track, another set of dominos flicked the starter of an egg timer, and the last fell on the trigger of a mousetrap, which flung a knitting needle forwards like a projectile, popping a nearby balloon.

“We can’t just watch her set all this stuff off!” exclaimed Rainbow. She began flying towards Pinkie. “Pinkie Pie!-”

Far from being close enough to be heard, the train drove straight into a brick mounted on the track, which pushed on two ice cream cones into a button marked “START” and another marked “HI CHURN” on the side of the mortar-mixer. The noise of the rotating concrete barrel and its motor was incredibly loud and it let out a small puff of brownish black smoke. The barrel of the mixer began slowly turning, tumbling around some golf balls but Rainbow Dash continued flying towards Pinkie, shouting her name. Dash was suddenly hit flat in the flank by a suction-cupped dart that was just as big as she was, fired from a toy gun mounted in the corner of the room with a bit of string attached to it. The dart’s interception shot her all the way down to the bulls-eye mounted on the sink faucet handle, and she fell into the bowl of the sink entirely stupefied and the wind knocked out of her.

“Rainbow Dash!”

Rarity suddenly slipped on the dust of the rafter and fell with a shriek. Before Twilight or Fluttershy could even respond, the white unicorn landed in a muffin tin with a splut! as the pan turned around and around, held on a broomstick and suspended by what appeared to be an enormous slinky mounted vertically.

“Rarity!”

“Are you all right?”

“…I’m fine!...” said Rarity as she spun around, iteratively passing in and out of sight from the rafter as the broom turned. “…I’ll get out… …what about Rainbow?... …is she all right?…”

Twilight squinted towards the sink and saw Rainbow Dash standing upright, obviously trying to regain her bearings and still stuck with the dart on her rear-end.

“I think she’s okay.”

“…that’s good… I-”

Suddenly the pan stopped and slid off the broom onto a bit of parchment paper that let it slide to a small wired track. Rarity yelped as the pan lurched into position, her sound muffled by the creamy brown batter. Some other device of the contraption started an egg-beater which quickly wound up a length of red thread on one of the beater’s rotating bits. As the thread became taught, as delicately as a whisper, it nudged a large blue bowling ball, mounted on a track aligned with the muffin pan. The ball rolled a tiny distance as Rarity watched it approach in fear. It was stopped by a tiny copper rod that put the teensiest bit of pressure against the pan, which set it in motion along its track. Rarity turned around to see that the pan was on the verge of the edge of the counter directly facing the oven. Its large windowed mouth dropped open with the violent tightening of a cable below, and the pan continued to slide forwards, slowly gaining speed. Rarity struggled in the batter but found herself partly sinking in the small cavity of the tin.

“Rarity!”


Impending upon Chapter 4: There are insects that are very very interested in Rainbow Dash