Pinkie, Maud and Icy Iceland

by Elkia Deerling

Chapter seven

Slowly, careful enough not to drop it, Pinkie Pie moved through the hotel café, balancing a steaming cup of coffee on her nose like it was nothing. There was extra sugar, extra milk and even extra caffeine in it, as Pinkie hoped it would help her whisk away her lingering numbness. Maud was skipping cheerfully beside her, talking nonstop about the many activities they could do on this next day of their Pie Sisters Surprise Swap Day (which was beginning to look like a Pie Sisters Surprise Swap Week). But Pinkie wasn’t really listening, as she was too busy waking up.

As they reached the hotel lobby, a familiar voice greeted them. “Hey Pies, how are you doing?”

“Hello there, Air Miles,” Maud said back at the pilot, “we’re doing fine. How’s your balloon doing?”

The pilot smiled broadly. “I fixed it, all by myself.” But then he realized who he was talking to: the mare who had said next to nothing on the long flight to Iceland. Air Miles looked over the rim of his new sunglasses to Maud and noticed the change in her tone and posture. Then he looked over to Pinkie Pie, who clumsily put her cup of coffee on a nearby table and looked at him with hazy eyes. “Hey, is she alright?”

As Pinkie Pie felt the gazes of her friends on her, she quickly jumped up and stood as straight as she could. “Yup, I’m fine, frivol, funny, fantastic and fit as a fiddling filly,” she said, shaking her head wildly with every word she uttered, “and of course many more words which begin with an f.” She picked up her cup of caffeine and emptied it in one big gulp. “Yup, yup, yup, all ready for a new PSSSD and a new… adventure,” she continued, although that last word came out a bit timid. Then Pinkie scooted closer to Air Miles until their noses bumped together. “Why did you ask, Miles?”

Air Miles pushed the weird pink mare slowly away from him. “Well… you just look different—the both of you, actually.”

“Different, hahaha, different,” Pinkie said with a frantic giggle; her pupils grew tiny. “We’re not different at all, I’m just the same old, cheerful, funny, happy Pinkie Pie and”—she paused—“Maud Pie, hihihi.”

“Alright… I guess,” Air Miles said, a bit unsettled by that last squeaky giggle of her. ”I guess you just got a new mane-style.”

Pinkie looked up and to her left, where her mane still hung over the side of her face. “YES, that’s it! A new mane-style! Do you like it?” she asked the pilot quickly.

“Eh… it’s nice.”

“Oh thank you!”

An awkward silence followed, but an escape popped up in Pinkie’s head. “Maud, why don’t you tell Air Miles about our amazing adventures so far, while I go and get another coffee. Would you guys like some too? It’s good stuff!”

But Pinkie didn’t wait for an answer and she zipped through the lobby towards the hotel café.

Air Miles and Maud looked at each other for a second or two. “She’s acting weird, don’t you think?” Air Miles said.

“No, she’s just Pinkie Pie,” Maud answered, “just the way she always is.”

**

Phew, Pinkie thought, that almost went wrong. She rubbed her temples with her hooves. That pilot needs to know when to stop talking. Maud is so cheerful now, and I don’t want anypony to ruin that. The barmare came and placed a cup of coffee on the bar. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks,” Pinkie said, although she knew she didn’t even like coffee.

But had she enjoyed this PSSSD in icy Iceland? That was the question she asked herself as she gazed through the window—outside, it was raining again.

Well, she had given Maud a good time, wasn’t that what she liked to do: giving other ponies a good time with parties and such? Yes, Pinkie concluded, making Maud happy makes me happy. She thought about all the crazy stuff she had done with Maud: visiting a volcano, attending a rock lecture, visiting a rock museum… Not as crazy as she had expected, actually.

So Air Miles has repaired his balloon, Pinkie thought, that means we can go home whenever we want. She took a sip of her coffee and frowned. I wonder what’s gonna happen once we get back to Ponyville. Would Maud become silent again when we reach home? Pinkie sighed. I hope not.

Then she thought about the things she wanted to do at first: a comedy show, a crazy sleigh ride, and Canterklúbb; they had missed out on all of those things. Pinkie sighed again and looked down, she actually didn’t even care anymore.

Suddenly, a terrifying roar cut through the air—it came from outside. The glass in the windows shook and Pinkie Pie fell off her barstool. However, she quickly stood up and scooted on top of it again, pretending as if nothing happened. The other ponies in the café got up with fear on their faces and gathered at the window with a loud hubbub. Moments later, Maud and Air Miles came galloping inside the café. “Pinkie!” Maud called, “there’s a troll raging through Reinkjavík!”

“Oh.”

“We have to do something, or he’ll sack the whole city,” Maud said.

“Can’t think of anything.”

“Me neither,” Air Miles added with a shaky voice, “let’s get out of town and to my balloon, quickly!”

Maud shot him a glance. “What?! We can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Miles said.

“Because he’s looking for us.”

“How do you know that?”

Right at that moment, a lamppost flew through the window of the café; everypony ducked just in time.

“I WILL AVENGE MY BROTHER! WHERE ARE THOSE PONIES!” a booming voice echoed through the shattered window, together with the streaming rain.

“WHAT?! That troll had a brother?” Air Miles asked in shock.

“So it seems,” Maud said, getting up and shaking the dust out of her mane. “Trolls will hold grudges forever. And I’m sure this one won’t stop wrecking the place until he finds us.”

Miles’ panicky eyes shot from side to side. “B-b-but how does he know that we are the ones who petrified his brother?”

“Trolls have a very good sense of smell,” Maud explained. “We lingered at that spot for too long.”

“But—”

“No more buts,” Maud interrupted. “Let’s go!” She grabbed Air Miles and Pinkie by their fore hooves and jumped through the shattered window.

**

“WHERE ARE THOSE PONIES!” the troll boomed at the top of his lungs. He snatched a wooden bench and threw it towards a souvenir shop in blind rage. Downtown Reinkjavík was filled with ponies screaming in panic and running to cover; trying their best to get out of the troll’s way and out of his throwing range. The troll flailed his arms, knocking holes into small buildings and ruining gardens with his big footsteps. “WHY DID THEY TURN MY BROTHER INTO STONE?” he yelled, scooping up a wagon full of dirt and throwing it at a small stallion. “MY BROTHER NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG!” The stallion dodged the clump of earth only barely and ran to cover. “HE JUST DID WHAT TROLLS ALWAYS DO,” he said as he ran straight into a wall, scattering bricks all over the place. “EATING MEAT AND SCARING OTHERS THINGS!” He picked up big pieces of the wall and threw them into various buildings, the sheer force of the projectiles shredding the metal plates. “COME OUT, PONIES, OR I’LL WRECK ALL OF REINKJAVÍK SINGLE-HANDEDLY.”

Then he saw three little horses fly from one of the buildings and land on the road: a grey mare with spirit sparkling in her eyes, a pink mare with her head low to the ground and a terrified orange stallion, wobbling on his knees. The troll dropped his bricks and narrowed his eyes. He sniffed the air three times and grinned darkly, rage priming in his eyes. “THERE you are!”

“So… what’s the plan?” Maud said, looking left and right.

“Eh… I thought you had a plan,” Miles answered with a quavering voice.

“Actually not, I kinda… jumped right in.”

“Why is there no army or something?” Miles asked desperately. “Where are the authorities?”

“Iceland doesn’t have an army, Miles,” Maud answered.

Pinkie said nothing and blinked slowly.

The troll stopped grinning and ducked low to the ground. He grabbed the concrete road, braced himself, and with all his might pulled a big chunk from it. Then he spun around and hurled the heavy projectile at the three ponies in a terrifying display of strength.

“WATCH OUT!” Maud yelled, and rolled quickly to the side. Air Miles did the same, but Pinkie just kept standing in place. “Pinkie! duck!”

But it was too late, and the concrete chunk landed right on top of the pink pony.

“NO!”

“HAHA!” the troll laughed between heavy breaths.

Maud ran back to the chunk that had squashed her sister. Fueled by sorrow and anger, she started using her hooves to drill through it. In the back of her head, she knew it would be in vain; nopony could survive a hit from such a big chunk of concrete. Nevertheless, she kept drilling, pounding at the stone with her bare hooves, sweat mingled with rainwater dripping from her forehead.

“Pinkie?!”

There she was, sitting in a hole in the middle of the chunk.

Maud hugged her quickly, but then looked her in the eyes, “Why didn’t you run?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Dunno. Not in the mood.”

“What?!”

But Maud didn’t have any opportunity to talk, as a rapid barrage of smaller rocks and fragments of concrete rained down on her and Pinkie. Luckily they all missed or shattered on the concrete chunk, which gave them some cover. Maud crouched and bowed over her sister—she flinched as a few fragments of rock scraped her hide. When the violent barrage ended suddenly, Maud heard the galloping of hooves and saw Air Miles running towards them and joining their fortress. “We gotta do something! He has gone to gather more rocks,” he said, breathing heavily in the dusty air. Then he closed his eyes in panicked concentration, digging through his stressed out mind for a strategy.

“Can’t we blow away the clouds, as we did with the other troll?” Maud asked.

Air Miles flinched. “No! I left the balloon at the crash site; the wind was in the wrong direction to fly it here. Besides”—he looked up at the sky—“those heavy rainclouds would have been too big to blow away; even with my super powerful motor.”

Suddenly another rock shattered on their hideout; dust sprinkled down on the ponies.

“Can’t you just knock the bastard out cold?” Air Miles grumbled. “I saw what you did with that rock we’re in.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Troll skulls are extremely hard; much harder than I can punch. Don’t you ever read fantasy books?”

Miles frowned. “Of course I never read fantasy books! I don’t even read. Well… maybe Mechanic Monthly, but that doesn’t have any trolls in it!”

They could hear a metallic clang in the distance. Quickly the ponies hugged the ground and closed their eyes. A split-second later, the top half of a heavy lamppost ricocheted off their hideout and bounced away.

Suddenly Air Miles’ eyes shot open. “That’s it! The streetlights!”

“What do you mean?”

“Reinkjavík’s streetlights are designed to burn extra bright at night, because it gets super dark here or something—I forgot the reason. Maybe the light is strong enough to chase off the troll or at least daze it.”

“But it isn’t night, Air Miles.”

“That’s why you have to distract that troll, so I can rig the streetlights.” Air Miles stood up and grinned. “I can manipulate everything technical. Ha, I’m so—” but then a chip of rock hit him in the face and stopped his bragging; the troll had continued the assault.

Maud’s eyes became wide with fear. “B-but I can’t.. not now… I feel—”

“No time for feelings, Maud!” Air Miles growled with a pain-stricken face. “Go!”

Maud Pie slowly sidled out of the cover and started walking towards the troll. As she came in closer and closer, a thousand options ran through her mind. “Let’s try to reason with him, just as I did with his brother,” Maud said to herself softly, “now how did I do that again? Eh… hello there, mister troll,” she began, doing her best to sound cheerful instead of terrified.

But the troll didn’t even listen and threw a rock the size of large desk at her.

Maud quickly ducked, and the rock flew over her head, scraping her forelock. But she continued walking. “N-nice day today, isn’t it?”

“IT’S BLOODY RAINING!” the troll yelled as he pulled a young tree out of the ground and hurled it at Maud.

She jumped over the trunk, but caught herself in the leaf-crown and slammed to the ground. Slowly she got up, her mane full of leaves and her head spinning at the impact. Maud tried her best to remember her approach with the first troll, but found it hard to concentrate through the dizziness. Just when the troll started to grab a chunk of sheet metal from one of the houses, something came back to her. “So… why are you doing this, scaring us like that?”

With an ear-wrecking screech, the metal ripped loose. “BECAUSE YOU PETRIFIED MY BROTHER!” the troll screamed over the sound.

“Eh… fair point,” Maud said. Then the troll threw the metal plate at her like a discus. It whizzed through the air. She had barely enough time to see it coming.

“What are you doing! Distract him!” Air Miles yelled from the other side of the street.

Maud lost concentration, slid over a pool of rainwater, and made an awkward jump over the projectile. The razor-sharp metal flashed underneath her. Maud could see her own reflection for a split-second, then winched at a sharp cutting sound behind her. She landed and turned around—luckily, only her tail was severed.

“ENOUGH!” The troll yelled, as he dropped his projectiles. “It was a fun little game, but now it’s OVER!” He walked towards Maud with big, thundering steps and grabbed her in his hand. With his other hand, he reached all the way to the other side of the street to snatch Air Miles. Finally, he cracked open the concrete chunk a little further ahead and lifted Pinkie Pie in the air too. The troll brought both his hands close to his face and sniffed loudly. Pinkie and Air Miles were dangling by their tails in his left hand, while the troll almost squeezed Maud’s belly in his right—she didn’t have much of a tail anymore. “HAH!” the troll boomed, why didn’t I just grab you first? Would’ve saved me a lot of energy! And now I can finish what my brother started, but it’s a shame I can’t tell him how TASTY you will be!”

The ponies looked at the troll’s face, deformed with rage. It looked even bigger and angrier than his brother’s, as Pinkie and Miles could tell from experience. Two sharp, gnarly horns stuck out of his balding head, casting a two long shadows across his face.

The troll blinked his dirty yellow eyes. “Now I’ll get my REVENGE!”

Air Miles started crying. “Why! WHY! I was almost done! Just two more wires! Two more!”

“I-I’m sorry Miles, I just couldn’t make it work,” Maud said softly. “I don’t know why. I felt different than during the first encounter with that troll.”

“Well, not for the best,” Air Miles sneered, then continued crying, “and now we’re all gonna die!”

Maud started sobbing slowly. “I’m sorry… to all of you.”

Pinkie said nothing but blinked.

Suddenly the troll’s eyes shot at his left hand and his pupils narrowed. “WAIT a minute! Why aren’t YOU crying?” he yelled at Pinkie Pie.

“Dunno. Not in the mood,” Pinkie answered.

“WHAT?! But I’m going to eat YOU! Do you think I’m joking?”

“I don’t joke. Not anymore”

“GOOD! Because I’ll munch you first!”

Then something strange happened. A shadow loomed overhead; Air Miles looked up through tear-soaked eyes, whistled a sharp tune, and made some odd gestures.

The troll winched at the sound. “SHUT UP, annoying little horse; I’m eating here!”

“Eat THIS first!” Air Miles cried. But it was too late— the troll tossed poor Pinkie Pie in his mouth and swallowed.

Maud yelled in shock, then felt a jolt go through the troll’s body. The behemoth wobbled on his knees, rocked back and forth, and then slammed onto the ground, head first.

Maud didn’t waste a second and freed herself and Air Miles from the troll’s limp hands. Filled up with adrenaline, she rushed over to its head, ducked underneath, and opened its enormous jaws. “Pinkie!” she yelled inside the dark mouth, “are you alive?”

No answer came.

“Pinkie Pie!”

Still no sound.

“Pinkie, please!”

Maud’s fore hooves began to tremble as her muscles lost strength—even her vision shook as her eyes filled up with desperate tears. Maud blinked hard. Suddenly the slick teeth slipped from her grasp and the troll’s heavy jaws slammed shut with a clang. She wiped her eyes with a hoof, and then turned her head over to the place where she had seen Miles working. There was rusty fuse box with a few loose wires sticking out of it. “Miles!” she yelled with a croaked voice.

“Yes.”

“Let’s petrify this monster!”

She grabbed the pilot by a fore hoof and rushed over to the box. There was a big panel with many wires and switches. Two wires were sticking out: red and blue. Air Miles stripped the insulation off both, twisted them together and flicked a big switch.

Nothing happened. But after a minute, the lanterns of northern Reinkjavík woke up with a jolt—but so did the troll.

“HEY! Where are my ponies!” he bellowed as he rubbed his throbbing head. He started sniffing the air and turning in every direction.

Then the lanterns of eastern Reinkjavík started shining.

“I know you are here…”

Southern Reinkjavík was next.

“AH! There you are!”

Western Reinkjavík was lighted up.

“GOTCHA!”

Then central Reinkjavík exploded with light. The lanterns flared up on every street corner, shining incredibly bright—maybe even brighter than Celestia’s sun. There was also an intense warmth radiating from them, which felt like a thousand cozy campfires, or a hundred active volcanoes.

The troll staggered back, covering his eyes with his hands. He yelled in agony and kneeled down on the ground. Smoke started protruding from his body and he shuddered like baked potato. It was like the troll itself became blazing hot, and the falling raindrops sizzled to vapors on his bulky back. Slowly, his skin turned black and gave off a piping sound. A black color started spreading slowly from his toes to his knees. The troll stood up in his full length and gave a last, deafening roar as the stone crept to his belly and his neck until it finally enveloped his ugly head, making it look even more menacing than it already was.

The rain stopped, the black smoke subsided and the two ponies dared to walk towards the hideous statue. They stopped a few hoofsteps away from it.

After a minute of silence, Maud started crying softly. “She was my sister,” she sobbed. “My little sister.” Maud dropped to the ground and covered her eyes with her hooves. “She saved us all. What would I… What would her friends… What would Ponyville be without her?” Her shoulders twitched up and down a few more times, and tears streamed down the corners of her eyes. She continued crying for many minutes, lost in dark thoughts and memories of her sister. Hopelessness enveloped her, but still Maud tried her best to fight against it, mournful, though, as she was. Slowly she reclaimed her will and energy, and used it to scramble back up without taking her eyes off the statue. Maud breathed in deeply, then breathed out again. “She saved us all… and all of Reinkjavík.” She sobbed one more time. “Now cast in stone forever; a statue forever unseen; a heroine forever unknown.”

Air Miles shifted closer to Maud and put a hoof on her shoulder. He too felt intensely sad, although he did his best to stay strong. Miles was searching hard in his mind for positive things; things that would lessen the burden of the loss. “Stay strong, Maud,” he said after a while. “Pinkie Pie was a unique pony; I could see that outright, even though I haven’t been that long with her and you.” He sighed, fighting back tears. “You know,” he said in a shaky voice, “we can still remember Pinkie, and tell the city of Reinkjavík about her, so they can remember her too.” He wiped his eyes with his hoof as he lost the battle against the tears—still he found some strength to continue, “The fact that she has been turned into obsidian doesn’t have to mean that nopony will ever know her.”

Maud lowered her head and sniffed. “It’s black basalt, not obsidian,” she said, although she knew it didn’t matter. But suddenly, her head shot up. “Basalt!” she exclaimed.

“Whatever,” Air Miles said sadly.

“Basalt sometimes has geodes,” Maud said, her voice swelling.

“What’s a geode?”

“When air gets trapped inside basalt, it can create a cavity filled with crystals from groundwater or hydrothermal solutions!”

“Huh?”

But Maud wasn’t going to clarify her explanation. She braced herself, swung her front hoof and hit the troll’s basalt belly with all her might, smashing it to pieces. Pink dolomite crystals mingled with basalt flew through the air. Maud looked at the crystals. “Calcite with magnesium and a trace of manganese,” she muttered, but then she turned around, focused and peeked inside the hollow belly, straining her eyes. There, barely visible against the pink crystals, was Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie!” Maud yelled, but her sister didn’t stir.

The statue of the troll started leaning dangerously far towards the front—there was a sound of cracking stone.

Maud jumped inside the troll, snatched Pinkie out of it and jumped out again, faster than the eye could follow. As soon as her hooves touched the street again, the petrified behemoth broke in two and crashed to the ground behind her in a cloud of gray dust.