Up. "Chimmycherry?“ Down. "Cherrychanga?” Up. "Chimmycherry?“ Down. "Cherrychanga?”
Up. “I am going to kill Rainbow Dash.” Down. “I am going to kill Rainbow Dash.” Up. “I am going to kill Rainbow Dash." Down. "I am going to kill Rainbow Dash.”
A lone hoofcar made its way along the rails of the wide open desert, its journey from Dodge Junction to Ponyville having carried well into the night. As far as Rarity was concerned, it was a night that simply would not end; she had been listening to Pinkie Pie’s endless looping question for what felt like an eternity, and at this point the unicorn was willing to bet Princess Luna herself was watching from the moon above and laughing at her misfortune. "Honestly,“ she hissed under her breath as she continued her thankless pumping to the rhythmic thought of her planned vengeance against Rainbow Dash for having landed her in this mess (a scheme that was going to involve polka-dotted gowns, ribbons of a most garish color, and layers upon layers of oppressive make-up), "this is the thanks I get for coming out to help Applejack? Mane a mess, dirt all over me, and stuck in a stupid…‘Chonga Line?”
And suddenly, Pinkie Pie’s incessant Chimmy/cherrychanga-ing stopped.
It took a moment for that miraculous fact to sink in for Rarity, and another for her to look at her Earth Pony friend to see why it had finally come about. When she did, the unicorn saw Pinkie staring at her with a wide-open smile, her eyes practically glimmering like the stars that hung in the sky above them. Part of Rarity’s mind was tempted to simply let it be and instead enjoy the merciful silence, but in the end curiosity and concern were able to win out. "Um…Pinkie, dear?“ she said warily, "Are you quite alright…?”
“Do another one,” Pinkie whispered with breathless excitement.
Rarity blinked in confusion. "Another what…?“
"Another pun!” Pinkie answered immediately, now bouncing up and down in sync with the pumps of the car’s bar. "I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do a pun before! Or tell a joke at all, in fact.“
The unicorn scoffed. "Nonsense! Perhaps you simply have not been paying enough attention when I choose to exercise my exceptionally-refined wit!”
Pinkie giggled, her smile and starry-eyed gaze unwavering. "Maaaaaaaaaybe,“ she all but sang, "but I still wanna hear you do another pun!”
Rarity rolled her eyes, at first prepared to rebuff the request; she was far too sophisticated to wallow in such low-brow humor! Well, except for when she had done so just a moment ago to relieve her growing frustration. But that was a special case! As she opened her mouth ready to say as much to Pinkie, however, a thought crossed her mind: puns had saved her from the Chimmy-Cherry loop, and abandoning them now meant risking a return to that nightmarish place. So instead, when the unicorn did finally speak, it was to say, “Oh…very well. How do you build a mansion on the Moon?”
“How?” Pinkie asked eagerly.
“With Moonbeams.”
The Earth Pony snort-laughed giddily. "Another, another!“
"Um…what do you call it when you hit a Diamond Dog on the head?”
“I don’t know!” Pinkie said as if finding out were of paramount importance (and Rarity rather guessed it was for her).
“A bump on a Dog,” she answered.
Pinkie laughed aloud, tapping her hind-legs on the car in a quick dance of joy. "You're good at this, Rarity!“ she said happily.
To her surprise, Rarity found that happiness quite…infectious. A smile soon found itself spreading across her face before the unicorn could stop it, and she could not resist asking, "Would you…like to hear another?”
Unsurprisingly, Pinkie nodded vigorously. "What do you get when you scare Opalescence?“
And when the answer proved to be, "A Cat-astrophe,” the night sky was filled with Pinkie’s overjoyed laughter. Soon, a new rhythm established itself on the little hoofcart, as the two Ponies riding it began taking turns dreaming up increasingly-ridiculous puns.
Where once Rarity had dreaded the night’s seeming inability to end, she slowly but surely came to welcome it.