Pinkie Pie's Excellent Adventure

by dashingrainbows

Fluttershy Loses Her Keys

Step on the smooth side (not this one) and say your temporispatial destination in a clear voice. Temporispatial, that’s a word, right?
You get seven turns. The last player gets to see something beautiful.

This was bad – no, terrible. Probably the worst thing that had happened since Pinkie Pie threw a party for that griffon. Fluttershy was trapped. She would never see the inside of her house again. The sweater she was knitting would never be finished. The dust would accumulate until it filled the interior. Fluttershy gasped. All the milk would go sour!

A rational, comforting part of her mind tried to talk her through the situation. “Calm down, Fluttershy. You can handle this. This has happened before. What did you do then?”

A louder, more influential voice answered the question. It was a voice that was rarely heard nowadays, but to which every mental voice gave heed. “Cry? I guess we should cry,” said Despair.

If they had been actual ponies, instead of abstract mental models of various debating aspects of her personalities, Reason would have been driving her hoof into her own forehead. “I mean after that! And after begging all of your friends to help you, and after spending the night at Rarity’s house?”

“I double-checked under the tenth rock from the door on the right-hoof side when facing towards the street.” Despair didn’t like where this was going. It was starting to sound like a practical solution, and after solutions, she usually had to stop talking and go hide somewhere in the folds of Fluttershy’s brain tissue until something else came along.
“And what happened? “

“They were right there”. It was a solution! Despair silently cursed Reason and slunk into a cozy nook near the bottom of Fluttershy’s prefrontal cortex. Satisfied, Reason spoke to the all right figurative mental representations of the mind in the Department of Motor Skills and took the helm. It felt good to be right.

Fluttershy stepped over to the rock under which she usually hid her spare keys. This was her last hope. If they weren’t there, she would be locked out of her house forever, with nothing but a set of possessions (currently stowed in her saddlebags) designed to making living outside of one’s house comfortable. Slowly and carefully, she nudged the rock out of its place with her hoof and began to roll it away. She saw the tiniest crack of dirt underneath, but no metallic gleam of her key ring. Despair looked up from her newspaper and considered going for a jog.

Fluttershy couldn’t watch. She shut her eyes tight and bravely pushed the rock out of its place, crushing the nearby grass. The mare made a mental note to apologize later to the grass, but this was urgent. Hesitantly, she prepared to open her eyes to see if those lifesaving bits of metal were in their proper place. She bit her lip, drew up the resolve to go on, and-
“SURPRISE!” Fluttershy fell flat on her back, making a box of matches and three first-aid kits spill out of her bags, as a familiar pink tail brushed over her. “I sure got you, didn’t I?” Panic sped down a neural pathway in her stylish figurative sports car to meet up with Despair, who literally figuratively jumped into the figurative passenger seat. But unfortunately, Trust and Relief pulled them over and inquired about their knowledge of the speed at which they had been figuratively traveling.

“Y-yes, you did. And it was very nice of you to try and surprise me like that, but maybe next time you could give me a warning before you surprise me” Reason was, for the second time in the past five minutes, symbolized by a pony her hoof in her face.

Fluttershy righted herself and looked at the mare who had just jumped over her head. Pinkie Pie was smiling, her eyes practically sparkling, the noon-day sun illuminating every curl of her fluffy mane. Pinkie was a smart pony, maybe she could help.

Reason stomped on Politeness’ chest. “Pinkie, I really need your help. If you’re not too busy unpacking, I mean.” Reason hadn’t noticed Politeness’ hoof curl around her leg, tripping her. I’m so sorry, can you forgive me, Reason?

“What’s wrong? Ants in your pants? Except you’re not wearing pants – ants in your mane?”

Down at Fluttershy’s 18th Precinct, Panic’s lawyer was about to arrange for her to phone the adrenal gland for bail money, but Officer Self-Restraint isn’t known for her adherence to the rules. Or her existence, for that matter.

“Um, no. See, I can’t find my house keys, and I was hoping maybe you could, um… never mind” It didn’t bother Reason to give this concession to Politeness, after all, she’d given the conceptual construct quite a symbolic beating and the two had worked together extensively in the past. Besides, she knew Pinkie Pie wouldn’t simply ‘never mind’, so no harm done.

But, instead of being upset at being asking for a favor, as Politeness had worried, and instead of being concerned for her friend, like Reason had predicted, Pinkie Pie appeared positively pleased upon parsing her pal’s predicament.

“I have just the thing!” Pinkie Pie reached deep into the curls of her mane, past the balloons and confetti, beyond the pieces of the disassembled party cannon, and through what she had termed the Sea of Candy, to pull out a rock. “This will fix all your troubles!”

Fluttershy looked at the rock. It was octagonal in shape, about an inch thick and fifteen centimeters wide. It didn’t seem like it would fix anything. Turning it over, she saw that the reverse face was covered with tiny engravings. She leaned in to read, struggling to make out the miniscule, messy writing.

You get seven turns. Probably rules for another one of Pinkie’s games? Fluttershy looked up.

“Um, Pinkie Pie? This is very kind of you, but how will this help me find my keys?”

“You’ll see. Lay it down on the ground, put your hoof on the flat side, say “ten minutes ago”, and let the magic do the rest!”

Fluttershy did as instructed. “Ten minutes ago”.

All of a sudden, Pinkie Pie disappeared. The shadows shifted slightly.

Ten minutes ago
Fluttershy’s wings burst out in surprise, and she recoiled from the rock she was beginning to suspect was more than it seemed.

“You’re safe,” she reassured herself. “Pinkie Pie wouldn’t do anything dangerous to you. She knows about all sorts of things. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. It’s probably just a game – a game, that’s it! The rock had rules on it, didn’t it? About turns or something like that?”

She held the strange artifact in her hooves and concentrated on reading the practically illegible writing. “During your turn, you will not be injured. You are not invulnerable, you just won’t be wounded. The magic of the rock will not protect you from fire, but events will be arranged so that you aren’t exposed to fire. That’s a relief.”

“If you want to end your turn, place your hoof on the smooth side and say “Home”. You’ll be back wherever and whenever you are/were/will be before your turn started. Maybe I should. But the rules say that I’ll be protected, and I can go back at any time. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look around.”

So the mare stopped the near-impossible task of deciphering the scribbles and took a walk around. It seemed exactly like her home, down to the detail. Fluttershy attempted to go inside, but the door was still locked. So, naturally, she checked the hiding place for her spare key – tenth rock from the door, right hoof side. There it was!

“Yay,” exclaimed the delighted pony. Although she wasn’t usually the type for making a scene, nopony was around, and this was very good news, so why not? Fluttershy took a deep breath and cried out at the top of her lungs. “Woo hoo!”

A nearby bird turned his head to look at the source of the almost imperceptibly faint noise. It was that pony, the one known in their tongue as Shaserah, “Sensitive To Bees”

Then, in the very peak of her jubilee, Fluttershy heard hoofsteps. Panic, who had only just paid her bail money, took off to her conscious mind like a discredited doctor to Tijuana, and implemented the usual defense mechanism.

Remembering to grab the key ring, Fluttershy jumped into a nearby oak. Focusing on the technique she had spent so long perfecting, the pink-maned mare held perfectly still, clutching her wings to her body and wrapping her legs tight along the branch, until she had blended in with her tree brother so much that she was undetectable. She watched another yellow mare, still laden with camp gear, search frantically around her house for the key. Was it another mare? Or was it her? But she was nestled safely in the branches of the mighty oak, how could she walk down on the ground there?

Then a rose blur streaked across the down-there-mare, and suddenly Fluttershy understood. “Ten minutes ago,” she whispered so softly that even bird which had unwittingly nestled in her mane did not notice, “It’s ten minutes ago?” The rock had solved her problem! She had needed to find her keys, and it had taken her to before she had taken them, so that now she had them. She watched herself step onto the Rock (really, it deserved capital letters at this point) and vanish.

Immediately, Pinkie Pie looked up, straight into Fluttershy’s eyes. “Found you! Did you find the keys?”

Startled, Fluttershy twitched, redistributing her weight ever so slightly, which the oak took as a sign that she was ready to leave. He knew they could never be together, that this moment could never last, but he hadn’t expected it to end so soon. For a split second he even considered wrapping his branches around her, holding his darling pegasus forever, but it was selfish. He couldn’t. So, with a creaking sigh, he let fall the lucky limb she had graced with her delicate presence, and Fluttershy descended safely to the ground, shrieking with joy.

All of a sudden, the branch she was clutching began to creak, and before she could react, Fluttershy’s weight had snapped the wood right off of the tree. Shrieking in terror, she hit the ground before she could even spread her wings. For a moment, on the ground, Fluttershy feared she had been paralyzed; she couldn’t feel the pain. Then she realized it was because there was no pain – she had been less than half a cubit off the ground.

Standing up, Fluttershy flicked her head so that her mane covered even more of her face, so that Pinkie Pie would not see just how red she had turned. “Yes, they’re right – “ Where were they? She had been holding them in her mouth when she had fallen, they must have been lost when she opened her mouth to shriek, meaning that she was right back where she started. Fluttershy was so frustrated she could just – right on the ground in front of her, of course. “Right here.”

“Was it fun? How did it feel? Did you go on an adventure!?” Even though she loved Pinkie Pie, and had just finished a fun camping trip mostly organized by her, Fluttershy was too exhausted by the events of the past ten minutes (or was it twenty minutes?) to encourage her curiosity, so she merely crawled to the door of her house and unlocked the door.

“Did you say anything to yourself?” Fluttershy dragged herself weakly into the front room, to her favorite sofa, just perfect for resting from overly exciting events on. “Did you see something beautiful? Were there aliens? Zombies?” Shedding her gear, she pulled herself up onto her beloved sofa, and was about to take a well-deserved nap. “Read your letter first!”
Fluttershy turned to see her friend holding a scroll in her mouth, clearly addressed To Fluttershy. Breaking the seal, she unrolled the scroll and began to read.

Dear Dweeb
I can’t believe you went crying to Dash just because I yelled at you. You’re hopeless, you cost me the best friend I’ve ever had, just by standing in the wrong place. This is all your fault, loser. I just want you to know, since Dash is gonna be pretty depressed about it for a while, that it’s all your fault, your fault, your fault! You told her something that was none of her business, and now we all have to suffer because you couldn’t take it. Probably your pony friends are going to tell you that you’re okay, that you did the right thing, that it’s all my fault. But they’re lying to you. They all know what I know, and what you better figure out, which is that YOU are the reason Dash lost a friend, YOU are the reason she betrayed me, and YOU YOU YOU are the reason that she will never be able to think of you as anything but a whining little baby ever again!!!
Go die,
Gilda

Comments

[01019928383]

haha interesting..

[TheBronyPictureShow]

awwesowme i hope the next part arrives soon

[dashingrainbows]

Thanks all! Chapter two is being edited, and I'm about halfway through chapter three.

[Campi the Bat]

Pinkie forgot to mention that, no matter what Fluttershy did, no matter where she went, the clock in Ponyville would always be running.

[dashingrainbows]

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Pinkie Pie's full explanation of the rules of time travel