The Night Sweep Hotel

by Sourberry

Chapter 1

The wooden wheels of the old cart creaked and groaned as they rolled over the smooth stone of the Canterlot streets. The setting sun lanced through the archways and gaps in the cityscape, illuminating a trio of ponies inside the black cabin.

“Did you read that newspaper I left on the clinic desk this morning?” The blue one asked.

“I'm afraid not, I got a little too caught up in my work. You know how things are,” the yellow one replied.

Pinkie Pie idly listened to the two chat, eyes wandering to the travelling world outside the window: hikers and foals coming home from their latest adventures, cantering through the streets, and in the distance, walking or skipping over the rugged mountainside paths. It was about as distant as it could be from a typical scene of Canterlot centre.

“They say that the diamond theft has a new pair of suspects,” The blue one flashed a grin. “You remember that duet of thieves from two seasons back? The papers reckon they've returned.”

“What a load of old tosh!” The yellow one snorted. “They're really grasping at straws now. They’ll to face the music and admit they've been outplayed. That diamond has been lost forever.”

“I don't think the royal guard plans on ever making such a statement.”

“Then maybe the papers should make it for them! They're running the show at this point anyway,” The yellow one waved his hoof dismissively. “Try any ridiculous story once, that's their game.”

The cart came to a halt and the driver hollered back, announcing their arrival. Pinkie righted herself swiftly and hopped out the back of the cart, pulled a coin out of her mane, and tossed it to the driver on her way. As the cart trundled off to greener pastures, she looked down the empty residential street and to the spire at the end now tinted a washed out yellow from the pale setting sun.

Each hoofstep she walked after the first stretched on agonizingly, each footfall washing fresh waves of nausea over her. She stopped, held a hoof to her head and closed her eyes, ceasing the spinning, but causing the throbbing headache to return. Above this bubbling haze of discomfort were the nascent stirrings of exhaustion.

Did I get to snooze in that cart, or on the train? She wondered. Have I slept at all?

The dull bodily pains rolled off her tail, drifting off into the city ambiance. She looked over to a nearby window and saw a pair of silhouettes behind the curtain, sitting down on a couch, looking enthralled by the tune crackling through their living room gramophone. Smeared across the glass was her reflection eight times over, all distorted across the pane. The reflections looked distinctly happier than she was. She took her hoof away from her head and resumed her march.

The modest spire at the end of the road was unremarkable by Canterlot standards, even if by the standards of her village it was a veritable palace. Fanciful arched windows dotted the round body of the tower, most of them unlit, and neatly coiling around the gaps between each window were majestic patterns of golden filigree. The compact gardens surrounding the tower were made up of well maintained lawns and hedgerows, with a small fountain as an entrance centrepiece, its cascading water flickering with golden glints made by the interior ground floor lights.

As she wandered through the cobblestone garden path, Pinkie could pick out the trace scent of coffee and baked goods, and could hear the clattering of crockery. She hesitated, looking back at the garden entrance, feeling the knot in her stomach tighten. Putting on her best smile and ignoring the shaking in her legs, she strode up to the front door of the building, passing by the plaque circled in ivy.

The Night Sweep Hotel

The spacious porch, coated in a dated brown-and-black patterned wallpaper, was as warm and as inviting as it looked from the outside, and gave way to a tall lobby of white stone and royal red carpet. The most striking thing she noticed about the lobby was its vast collection of paintings, scattered without rhyme or reason, taking up the greater part of the walls, stopping short of the ceiling. Each painting varied greatly from the next; some were landscapes, some were portraits, some even defied definition and were just odd shapes and splashes of colour, even incorporating these odd shapes as part of their frames. Pinkie found herself staring up at the latter the most, mentally tracing the contours of the craft and how each shape would lead to the next.

“You don't see those kinds of colours being used any more,” came a wistful voice from across the room.

A drab mare sat behind a walnut reception desk, her purple eyes set starkly against the grey tones of the rest of her body, following Pinkie as she trotted over to the desk.

“Most strangers just want to sit out and watch the moonrise on nights like this. Do you want a room?” The mare leant forward, resting both forehooves on the desk. “You look like you could use some rest too, dear.”

“I'm not peachy,” Pinkie waved a hoof and prodded her belly. “It's my tummy that hurts,” she stuck out her tongue and made a gagging sound. “I need a bed and some nap time.”

Pinkie retrieved a tiny wrapped up blue parcel from her poofy mane and tossed it onto the counter, where it exploded into a cloud of confetti and mini fireworks. Out from this racket rolled five coins, tumbling along the wooden top.

“How many nights can I get for that?” She asked, her voice uncertain.

“For five bits? Two and a half nights,” with a chuckle the mare swept the coins off the table, “But for that little performance? Keep it up and you can stay here a lot longer.”

Pinkie gasped, her forehooves flailing about in the air, as she reared back on her hind legs. In all this flailing she produced a wizard’s hat, and with a flourish she planted it on her head at a crooked angle.

“Then the Great and Powerful Pinkie shall give you a show like none other!” Pinkie was seized by a pain, and doubled over, grimacing and groaning loudly.

“Let's just get you to your room for now,” the mare stepped out from behind the desk, hooking a key off one of the racks behind her with her tail as she left. “We wouldn't want out lead performer to fall before the show begins, would we?”

Pinkie nodded weakly and accepted the mare's assistance up the flight of steps at the back of the reception.

The pair silently made their way up the spiral staircase, passing by numerous dorms, one on each floor. Under the silver light of the rising moon Pinkie was shown to her spacious room. The open-plan apartment housed a bed, a dining room, a kitchen, and a pillow and a dresser pair with a mirror inset. The large windows at the far end of the room granted a great vista over the Canterlot sprawl and the distant rolling fields towards Ponyville, all painted in the deep blue of night.

“Hey, I'm not that sick,” Pinkie reluctantly plodded into the room. “I can do some more tricks for you right now! Watch what I can do with this pineapple,” she gingerly picked up the pineapple from the kitchen fruit bowl. “Miss... Um, what's your name?”

“Octavia,” the mare smiled. “You don't remember the Gala, do you?”

Pinkie furrowed her brow, rolling the pineapple about in her hoof.

“It's quite all right. You were the life of a party, just not that one.”

“But I love making parties,” Pinkie slumped and let the pineapple fall onto the floor; her mood crumbling with it. “It's what I'm best at.”

“They don't want us to win all the time,” Octavia deftly swept the pineapple back up and placed it back into the bowl. “I'll see you tomorrow morning, Pinkie. Rest well, and Ppleasant dreams.” Octavia stepped back out onto the stairwell and closed the door, leaving the keys on the kitchen counter behind her.

The bed was warm and inviting, and Pinkie squirmed in pleasure as its soft fabrics swallowed her whole, soothing her aches and pains. With each moment passing her thoughts became slower and slower, like the dripping of a tap; the basin catching the last of the drops, and the feeling of their coolness trickling off her brow.

Pinkie awoke suddenly, the water still running over her face. Her bedsheets were soaked, and she could see a heavy damp patch in the ceiling above, from where water was dropping through at a steady rate. Scrunching her face up in frustration she pulled herself forward and out of bed. It was still night outside, and to her it felt like no time at all had passed. She set her hooves on the carpet, and felt it squelch underhoof, water rising around her hooves.

From across the room she could hear the heavy running of water, as from nowhere the kitchen tap opened and started gushing a stream out into the sink as fast as it could. In her sleepy daze, she stumbled over to the sink and knocked the tap down to stop the flow. Turning about, she saw lines of water now seeping in through cracks in the walls.

“Why is this happening here?” She whispered, her breath coming out in icy clouds.

The tap behind her burst, sending the warped piece of metal flying under a heavy spray of water. Pinkie leapt onto it and tried to stop the stream, desperately yelling for help. The room shuddered once, heavily, and the groans of the stonework could be heard all up and down the tower. The cracks in the walls split and more water cascaded in, torrents of it pooling on the floor, knocking over tables, chairs and her dresser.

Pinkie charged towards her bedroom door, pounding and pulling it. She stepped back and gave it a charge, bashing right into the solid, unmoving wood, staggering back, slipping, and falling back into the water. Splashing and floundering about, she dragged herself up onto the kitchen counter, reaching for the keys that Octavia had left her there.

Her world started to tip back, and with a cough and a heave, she fell. There came a thunderous crash of glass, and a roar of splitting earth as the floor gave way, plunging Pinkie and the debris of the room into a deep expanse of water.

Her lungs were burning, half filled with water, and the currents she fought against were merciless in their efforts to drag her down. Above her she could see the outline of a pony looking down through the surface of the water at her. Bashing splintered wood and ragged rock out of her way, she paddled through the screen of bubbles and thrashed against the downward spiral of water. As the shafts of light from above began to dim, she recognised her own face staring down at her. She felt something tug on her hind legs.

She awoke to a clock tower chime the next morning. A brilliant gold light pouring in through her thin curtains, purging the discordant echoes of last night’s dream. Pinkie lay and watched the countless motes of dust waltzing through the morning light, letting their gentle and graceful drifting wash calmness over her.

“I don't want to go back,” she exhaled, holding the back of her hoof to her forehead “And you're not going to scare me into going back.”

There came no response.

Pinkie smugly leapt out of bed and gave a mighty yawn and a stretch. Briskly she trotted up to the mirror and gave herself a look over: firstly bearing all her teeth in a massive grin, then scrunching her nose and mouth up, then waggling her tongue about, before finishing by blowing hard into her hoof and springing her hair out.

“Yup, still looking great!”

Fifteen minutes of cardio workout later, she trotted out the room, snatching her key along the way, and bounced down the stairs, humming loudly as she went.

The front doors to the hotel were wide open, and she could see a couple of ponies outside in the gardens, all sitting around white painted iron garden tables laid with breakfasts and coffee. Octavia was here, sitting by herself at one of the tables, munching on a salad wrap.

“Feeling better today?” Octavia asked as Pinkie sat down at the table

“Mmhm!” Pinkie nodded emphatically

“You missed the early morning serve,” Octavia pushed her plate over to Pinkie with a tiny smile, “I don’t usually eat much in the mornings, now-a-days.”

Pinkie dove into the wrap as fast as she could, sucking in the last loose ribbons of lettuce in through her lips.

“I can be up earlier tomorrow; I can help you bake!” Pinkie said, wiping her mouth. Octavia laughed.

“How long are you planning on staying here for?” Octavia asked

“Until I make some new friends, I guess.”

Octavia looked about at the group gathered for breakfast.

“There's only five guests at the hotel,” Octavia began, surreptitiously pointing her hoof at the first of the ponies; a mint green unicorn. “Room six has been here the longest of them all, I think she checked in about a week ago now.”

Pinkie recognised the unicorn from Ponyville. Pinkie believed her name was 'Lyra'.,

“Room three,” Octavia pointed to two unicorns sitting around a table with lots of paperwork strewn about on it. They both looked incredibly bored and tired. “Checked in two days back, they're a pair of wandering merchants of the snake-oil trade.”

Though they weren't wearing their hats, the identical twin brothers Flim and Flam were still very distinct in her memory.

“Then lastly is a mysterious stranger,” Octavia looked to a lithe looking stallion, reading over a newspaper, with worry weighing heavily upon his brow. “He checked into room two an hour after you showed up, just before I was about to go to bed, and just wanted to stay until this morning.”

“So here those are your options,” Octavia reclined back in the garden chair, an eager smirk ready to greet Pinkie's answer. “Which one suits you?”

“Absolutely not the mysterious stranger-” Pinkie began.

“Wait, what?” Octavia sat up, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow. “But he's mysterious and he moved in just an hour before you did; there's got to be a connection!”

“But if I got to know him, he wouldn't be a mysterious stranger, and would lose all of his mystique. I'd be erasing his identity.”

“But he doesn't have one-”

“Ah-bup-bup-bup,” Pinkie swished her hoof up and down. “The Council of Pinkie has spoken.”

Pinkie pushed away from the table and merrily bounced her way across the garden. Springing over one hedgerow planted her right before a startled pair of salesponies.

“Hi!” she chirped, “My name's Pinkie Pie! And I'm certain I've met you two gentlecolts before!”

Flim and Flam looked at each other, fumbling with their words- quick to dismiss her.

“If it's about that dragon pesticide,” said one.

“Or the water breathing potion,” said the other.

“Nope! Neither! I'm just happy to see you both again!” Pinkie looked over their table, all strewn with notes and number tables, but noted above all else that their pastries had no drink accompaniment. “How come you don't have a coffee? Do you want me to get you some?”

“Is she losing her mind, o' brother of mine?”

“I believe she's lost her mind.”

“I've got it right here,” Pinkie vigorously rapped her head with her hoof and then planted both hooves down on their table, jolting some of their paperwork. “You two don't, though. I remember you two were once singing and dancing! You even had a big fancy machine; it was so super duper stupendous! Is that what you're working on now!?” She brought her face right up to the strewn notes, reading the details of an assortment of sales pitches surrounding a tonic.

“Our engineering skills, as stupendous as they may be,”

“Are not being put to use today,”

“For these boring charts and notes you see before you,”

“Are the summary of last evenings efforts.”

“You're trying to make a cure-all?” Pinkie asked, holding up a scrawled up advert featuring a youthful filly uncorking a bottle, from which a fountain of vibrant colours rains from. “But she's not even laughing,” Pinkie scrutinized the filly sketch. “Everypony knows laughter is the best cure for all ills.”

The two brothers levitated the proto-poster up and looked it over.

“It's true; she doesn't look as jovial as she could be.”

“I imagine one would look happier if they'd just cured their rheumatoid arthritis.”

“You're getting it!” Pinkie swung both her hooves over their necks, pulling their heads together. “Now we just have to hitch a plan to work in a machine that does it all for you! Just like the Super Sleazy Lemon Squeezy Eight-thousand!”

“Mechanising it would be an even greater problem than the one around my neck right now.”

“Though brother, the benefits we would reap would be sweeter than this problem's mane.”

“Aw, thanks!” Pinkie let go of the brothers and prodded her squishy mane. “If you believe in something, you can make it happen. Now how about those coffees?”

“That would be absolutely fantastic,” one brother said, as the other rolled his eyes and swept a lot of paperwork out of the way with a groan.

“Coming right up!” Pinkie bounced over to Octavia, who had been watching the charade from afar.

“So how has your foray into the craft of friendship gone?” Octavia asked, forehooves rested upon the table, and her chin rested upon them.

“They want a coffee each.”

Octavia laughed softly and shuffled from the table. “Right, I'll go get them then.”

“Let me come!” Pinkie effervesced, prancing on the spot.

“Not for a moment did I think you were going to let me leave you behind,” Octavia smiled.

The pair departed from the sunny garden and the outside air, to the cramped, detached bakery at the back of the property. To the immediate right as they entered was the coffee machine, and as Octavia began to vend two mugs of coffee, Pinkie gave the cupboards and brick baking ovens a poke around. They were quite old; older than the tower suggested they ought to be, it seemed as if this small bakery had been here before the tower, or even some of the surrounding homes.

There came a sharp whistle from the front gates of the garden, causing Octavia’s ears to perk up.

“Ah! That will be the mail, could you-” Octavia turned about to find Pinkie already halfway out the door, hollering back that she'd get it. Octavia looked over to where Pinkie had been rummaging around, to find one of the ovens lit, and a tray of cupcake mixes slowly cooking away in there. Octavia failed to suppress a smile, in spite of the prodding irritation that she'd planned on saving those ingredients.

The gardens were now abandoned; only traces left behind that ponies had once been here were the empty cups and crumb flecked plates. Flim and Flam had even left before getting their coffees, and had taken all of their papers with them. Pinkie tried to figure how much time she'd spent in the kitchen, it surely couldn't have been long, but it was evidently enough time for the guests to clear off. By the gates, a tall pony in an orange shirt waited with a mailbag on the floor beside him.

“Hi! I'm here for the mail,” she opened the gates for him, but he stayed outside, giving the street behind him a worrisome glance.

“Sure, here you go,” his voice itched with agitation. He held out a tiny stack of four envelopes to Pinkie. No sooner has she taken them he was off, briskly trotting back down the road without a single look back.

Returning inside she scattered the envelopes across the reception desk, still looking for a more proper place to sort them. As she did she spied one of the envelopes was addressed to her bedroom. She ceased her search for an interior mailbox and gave the envelope a stern looking over. The address had been printed onto it, and at the bottom right corner it had a return address of some place in Canterlot named 'The Brightstone Group Building'

Pinkie, having never heard of such a group, nor expecting any letters any time soon, mulled over the notion of opening it.

It's addressed to you, so it's yours. That's how the mail works. The first Pinkie in her head said, sprouting a pair of horns, in lieu of ears.

But nopony even knows you're here. It's probably for the last lodger, ya' dingus. The second Pinkie said, donning a white ring tethered to a shoddy metal wire.

But if it is for the last lodger, and you open it up, you'll know who to send it to! The horned Pinkie smiled smugly, crossing her forehooves over her chest.

Dang, good call. You best open it, sis'. Both Pinkies vanished in a puff of black and white smoke, and Pinkie tore open the envelope.

Inside was nothing.

Well that's a bust. A pair of voices echoed in the caverns of her head.

Pinkie tossed the empty envelope into the rubbish bin behind the reception desk, and on her way out to Octavia in the bakery she spotted a mailbox by the rear of the tower, so she stuffed the remaining three letters in there. Lingering, she stole a glance towards the steps up to the other floors. She still hadn't spoken to Lyra at all, and she knew her room number. Without a second thought Pinkie began her long ascent up to room six, situated just above her own room.

Just as she reached the final steps before room six she fancied she heard strange sounds coming from within the dormitory, like there were a device inside mimicing the sounds of the ocean rolling onto the beach, in a tone too hollow to be real. The slow, rhythmic pulse of the noise was hard to place, it certainly wasn't near the front door, but could have been anywhere beyond. The more her brain ticked over the possibilities of what the source of the sound be, the less interested she became in speaking with Lyra to be explicitly told.

Pinkie returned to her room just below Lyra’s, and craned her neck upwards, straining her ears to pick up just where the, now quietened, sound was coming from. She slowly paced down the length of the room, ears twitching and turning about.

“About,” she spoke to herself, drawing the word out, “here,” she came to a stop just where her dresser and chair were.

The construction work began immediately; with Pinkie hauling over chopping boards, a couple of boxes and piling the lot onto the dresser, before carefully mounting the chair on top of it all. With the utmost of grace she hopped up the tiny platform and onto the chair, where she held a drinking glass up to the ceiling and put her ear to it.

Pinkie’s persistence was rewarded, as alongside the clear pulse of the synthetic ocean, she could also make out occasional rustling of paper. Pinkie continued to listen until she lost track of time and got bored, for Lyra had moved exactly once during however long Pinkie had spent listening in on her.

She hopped down from the tower of furnishings with a huff. Spying was a lot more boring than she remembered it being, and it also left her very hungry. With little gained - other than the belief that her neighbour is up to something - Pinkie abandoned her room and headed back downstairs.

Pinkie found Octavia outside, watering the plants around the front garden, with the table and chairs all stacked away neatly at the side of the tower.

“Wow, you even do the gardens out here as well?” Pinkie trotted over, looking at the wet plants dazzle in the midday sun.

“Yes, I'm the gardener here,” Octavia pushed her green cap back and wiped the sweat off her brow.

“So, what's the deal with Lyra?”

“Who?”

“The pony in room six!”

“Oh, the thaumaturgist? I don't know what force guided her here, but I'm happy she's here; these roses have never looked so radiant before.” Octavia knelt down beside the bush and gingerly lifted a white rose up for Pinkie to marvel at.

“You think she did this?”

“A thaumaturge will often spend whole days in meditation, isolated away from the world,” Octavia looked about at the serene garden and then gestured to the wide breadth of space between the garden grounds and the surrounding Canterlot buildings, all of which seemed to be currently vacant. “It frames the painting well, does it not?”

“But she's not meditating,” Pinkie insisted, stamping her hoof down on the cobblestone for emphasis. “She's working upon something; I heard it through her door and through my ceiling. She's got a plan! Nopony shuffles that much paper without plotting something”

“Hm,” Octavia tapped her hoof on her chin. “That may explain the cumbersomely large suitcase she dragged up to her room when she checked in.”

“Ah-hah!” Pinkie threw her hoof up. “So that's where the alien computer came from!”

“You think your neighbour is an extraterrestrial?” Octavia calmly set down her hose.

“You should have heard the noises,” Pinkie paused, scrunching up her nose, “Wait, you really should have heard them. Don't you live above her?”

“A cello is not the quietest of instruments,” Octavia gave the pressure lever a push to cut off the water, and then began to roll up the hosepipe. “What noises were they?”

Pinkie attempted to mimic the sounds she'd heard earlier, complete with the swaying of forehooves in the air.

“With the departure of our mysterious stranger earlier this morning, I suppose we ought to pass his mantle onto Lyra then?” Octavia smiled and cast her gaze upwards, to the top of the hotel. “I heard these grounds have always attracted strange folk. Now I'm beginning to think I'm just holding the candle for these moths.”

“Oh! Oh! Can I be the wic?” Pinkie asked.

“No need to chain yourself to my metaphor,” Octavia tossed her green cap onto the hosepipe coil, “You'd shine brighter on your own”

“Are you planning on spying on the brothers in room three?” Octavia asked as the pair strode into the main lobby. “It would save me having to invent some story to tell other guests.” Pinkie and Octavia snickered.

“They're building a machine, I hope, unless they give that up as well. I really don't want them to, because they're good at that stuff, and could make loads of ponies really happy with it. That's always something worthwhile.”

“Quite so,” Octavia nodded. “Why, even I could use their engineering skills; as the boiler downstairs has been out of commission for months now. I've had to rely on those instant hot water tabs from the magic shops.”

“You can go lower than we are now?” Pinkie looked at the stone floor of the lobby, rapping it with her hoof and putting her ear to the ground.

“Of course,” Octavia pointed at the reception desk, “Just behind there is the hatch down to the boiler room,” Octavia took a navy blue scarf from behind the desk, twirled it around her neck and strapped on a while saddlebag. “I had it fitted a couple of years ago, when I first moved in, to replace the one that had been there even longer. It's a real maze down there.”

“Going somewhere?” Pinkie inquired, closing the distance between the two, and walking beside her.

“Out shopping,” she grumbled, her shoulders slumping. “Talking about it reminded me I need more heat tabs, not to mention a whole heap of other junk, also some more cake cups for baking. Those cupcakes you baked earlier smell wonderful. I left them to cool off on the windowsill, we'll share them later,” Octavia passed her by and tugged the front door open. “Sorry I have to be a bore, but I've put this off as long as I could. I'll be back later.”

“Don't worry,” Pinkie waved to Octavia. “I won't be going out anywhere.” Octavia returned the wave and trotted on out of the hotel.

You didn't even thank her for the cupcake compliment, was her first thought as the hotel door swung shut. Pinkie scuffed her hoof on the ground. She didn't look happy. Maybe I should go after her?

Pinkie approached the front door, hesitating with her hoof held above the handle. She gently slid her hoof down the warm metal, shook her head, and stepped away from the door.

I’m just over thinking it, she reasoned, I'll make it up to her when she gets back. Pinkie stepped around the reception desk and stared at the closed hatch, a smile creeping across her lips. But before she does...

The hatch creaked open with the usual screech one would expect from a door hardly used, revealing below a dark stairwell. At the bottom of the steps she found a lantern hung up on a rack of metal piping, and with a little effort she lit the thing up. With the lantern strung around her neck she boldly strode off into the depths of the boiler room.

She found the corridor to be unexpectedly long and at times it felt as if it were growing narrower by the minute. Copper piping riddled the walls and occasionally crossed in front of her, so some degree of flexibility was required to manoeuvre through them. Upon reflection, Pinkie took great appreciation in the token exercises that she performed every morning.

As she crossed under the second thicket of pipes she spotted a dusty old plaque mounted up on the wall. She gave it a wipe with her hoof to reveal the text:

Emergency pressure release valves are numbers 21 and 37
Wandering eyes spy light cast out by mighty furnaces
Annual servicing required

Pinkie scratched at the lettering to make sure none of it had been just etched on over the previous writing, but couldn't see anything under it. Shaking her head at the errant sign she pressed on, and found a second set of steps heading down. Surrounding her was a dense network of pipes, all sprawling out in different directions, and she noticed some even had numbers stamped on them, which rose to the thousands.

She stood before an iron gate, beyond which she could make out a metal room filled with valves and yet more piping, all lit up by hanging lanterns. An uncomfortable prickling of heat ran down Pinkies back, trickling out over her body, and covering her in itches. Ignoring the itching feeling she pushed the gate open, finding it sweep a broken chain and lock away on the other side. No sooner had she entered the chamber she heard the footfalls of hooves on metal above her.

Amidst the golden haze of light above, two luminous blue orbs blinked unevenly at her. The stranger, clad in a thick black carapace, crept out into the light, its pale insectoid wings quivering with each step.

“Hello,” the changeling spoke slowly and cautiously, its voice reverberating in its throat.

“Hi,” Pinkie tried to hold her friendly demeanour as best she could, “My name is Pinkie Pie, what's yours?”