//------------------------------// // Sugar Plum Slumber // Story: Friendship is Magic Ad Libbed // by Powderjaggy //------------------------------// At the top of a sheer cliff, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike held on to one end of a rope. Attached to its other end was none other than the brash bolt of brilliance... Rainbow Dash. "Alright, don't let go until I give my signal!" the rainbow-maned pegasus called, powering up her wings. "Ummm, ar-rre you sure this is safe?" mumbled Fluttershy. "Ah have to agree with ya there, sugarcube," said Applejack, siding with Fluttershy. "What kind of zany scheme are ya up to now, Rainbow?" "Whaddya think?" Rainbow Dash replied. "Obviously trying to beat my speed record. It's not enough to just have a sonic rainboom. I have to be able to get a sonic rainboom even while, say, strapped to a mountain." "Then why don't you, you know, strap yourself to a mountain?" Twilight pointed out. She quickly stuck a hoof in her mouth, realizing that she had just given Rainbow Dash another really bad idea, but it was too late. Luckily, another interruption soon came their way. There was a sudden crashing noise in the distance, followed by several more. Then there was an eerie silence. Pinkie Pie appeared behind the other ponies out of nowhere. She was bouncing uncontrollably, making even greater leaps than usual and crashing into things. "Look at meeeeeeee!" she shouted. And sure enough, the other ponies were distracted just enough to accidentally let go of the rope. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she was sent flying. In the same instant Pinkie Pie rocketed into the sky, out of sight. "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" At the peak of Pinkie's bounce, however, she lost consciousness and dropped like a stone. The other ponies rushed to her side, but, alas, she had fallen asleep. "PINKIE PIE!" yelled Rainbow Dash as she flew back to the cliff. "YOU, YOU... SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Alright, what happened now?" "Well, if you bothered getting off your high pony throne," said Twilight irritably, "you'd realize that she's fallen unconscious." Pinkie twitched in her sleep. "Cupcakes..." she muttered. Instinctively, Rainbow shoved a pile of freshly-baked cupcakes into Pinkie's mouth. "Uhh, where did you get those...?" Twilight asked, baffled. "Just a little trick I learned," Rainbow Dash replied. Pinkie chewed the cupcakes in her sleep, swallowed, and let out a loud snore. "Wasn't she supposed ter watch Sugarcube Corner today?" Applejack remembered. Twilight gulped at this reminder. At Sugarcube Corner, crowds and crowds of ponies had... crowded the place. "Wasn't Pinkie supposed to help out today!?" Mr. Cake asked frantically. "Oh, uh, I gave her the day off, let her relax a bit..." Mrs. Cake answered. "DAY OFF!?" cried Mr. Cake. "This is the busiest day of the year... Well, not really, but look at all these ponies!" Just then, five other ponies burst into the bakery. "Cake family, we have an emergency," Twilight announced. "It was dreadful," Rarity added. Pinkie, who had been borne on the backs of her friends, flopped to the ground, still in deep sleep. The Cakes gasped, as did the crowd of customers and the very bakery itself. The crowd flooded out of Sugarcube Corner, horrified at what they'd just seen. Pinkie licked her lips and drooled on the floor. "Come on, give her the works," instructed Twilight. "I'll try to find a spell." The other ponies brought a variety of food in front of the slumbering Pinkie Pie. Miraculously, Pinkie ate everything in her sleep, but still didn't wake up. BAM. After a while, Twilight slammed down her spellbook. "I've... got... the spell..." she gasped as she charged up her horn. Just as she cast the spell, she collapsed from the effort. When Twilight awoke, she saw that her spell had worked. She and the other ponies (besides Pinkie) had shrunk down to microscopic size. "'The shrinking spell'... designed for your everyday microscopic maneuvers and misdemeanors," Twilight explained, ignoring her friends' worried expressions. "I have determined that Pinkie is suffering from a sugar-overdose-induced sleep. To wake her up, we'll have to get inside her mind. Follow me." The ponies made their way up Pinkie's face and crawled under her eyelid, effectively getting inside her head. They found themselves in a strange land. It was made completely out of brightly-colored felt. "Quite an astounding piece of work..." Rarity remarked. "All this... stitching..." As she looked down at the felt beneath her feet, she saw two familiar eyes pop out. An orange patch of felt swelled and grew upwards, becoming a small hill. At its peak rode Pinkie Pie. She, too, was made of felt. The felt Pinkie Pie skipped merrily down the newly-formed hill towards the other ponies. "You all came!" she exclaimed excitedly. Twilight screamed, and in her sudden surprise she blasted the felt Pinkie to smithereens with a beam of magic. Everypony gasped in horror. But then the felt Pinkie Pie showed up on the horizon, bounding along the path towards them. "I'm so glad you're here!" she said, as though nothing had happened. "Look at this!" A cone of cotton candy materialized out of nowhere, hovering in the air. Pinkie ate it in one gulp. As the other ponies looked around, they realized that their surrounding were reminiscent of something familiar... and that something was not good. "Uh, sugarcube, you don't think it could be..." Applejack wondered out loud. "That's ridiculous," said Rainbow Dash, catching on to Applejack's thoughts. "We sealed him away!" "Oh oh oh!" shouted the felt Pinkie Pie. "Are you talking about Discord?" Poof. As Pinkie spoke, a felt Discord appeared beside the ponies. PEW! Before the felt Discord could do anything, Twilight instinctively shot him to bits. "Sorry, force of habit," she said through gritted teeth. "You were saying?" "Don't worry, Twilight," said Pinkie. "I can fix that." Chocolate rain began to fall from the clouds. "See? Isn't this place wonderful?" The other ponies exchanged glances. "Pinkie Pie!" yelled Rainbow Dash. "We need you to focus. We have to find your brain!" "My brain?" Poof. More brightly-colored chunks of felt appeared on top of the landscape. "Why do you need to do that?" "We've determined that the source of your sleep is from something... afflicting the mind," Twilight answered. "My sleep? I'm not sleeping," said Pinkie with a giggle. "Are you tired though?" Poof. A felt version of the Golden Oaks Library appeared, followed by felt versions of all the other ponies' homes. "See?" Pinkie said. "It's just like home!" Deciding that consulting the felt Pinkie Pie was no use, Twilight led the others discretely past her. However, the felt Pinkie was keeping up with the others even more effortlessly than the real Pinkie usually did. "What should we do first?" she asked. "Party at my place? We can celebrate your first day here in this... this.. in..." She searched for a suitable name. "In... Feltyfeltpalooza!" Annoyed, Twilight decided to delegate duties to her friends. "First, I need a distraction," she declared, casting a glance towards Rarity. "Of course," Rarity replied. "Pinkie Pie dear, how about you come over to my, uh... place first?" She cast an eye over the felt Carousel Boutique. "Oh, goody." Pinkie nodded enthusiastically and followed Rarity to the boutique. Even that, however, did not satisfy the brash, multicolored-maned pony that was Rainbow Dash. "COME ON, PONIES!" she shouted. "Let's move it!" She sped far ahead across the felt land, leaving the remaining three ponies behind. "Rainbow, no!" yelled Applejack, but it was too late. "What do ya'll reckon we should do now?" she added, turning back to the others. "Chase after her, of course!" cried Twilight, rolling her eyes and giving Applejack a tap on the head. Applejack took off in the direction Rainbow had gone. "Umm, is there something I can do?" Fluttershy inquired. Twilight was exasperated by this point. Sounds of mild violence ensued. As Twilight and Fluttershy trotted along a felt path, some distance behind Applejack and Rainbow Dash, an odd foreboding gradually came over them. Some dark clouds drifted overhead, and they could hear the sound of frosty wind. In the real Sugarcube Corner, the real Pinkie gave a single painful twitch. In the felt Carousel Boutique, the felt Pinkie Pie was conjuring up more felt snacks and gulping them down. "Do hold still, darling," Rarity told her. The unicorn had hoped to make some new outfits for Pinkie to try on while the others were off doing whatever it was they had planned, but found herself to be largely superfluous. Every time she started to make a new dress the felt pony would just make a fully-formed one poof into existence. Rarity couldn't help but cringe at the felt Pinkie's taste in fashion. At one point, Rarity happened to glance out a window. "Those are some awful weather conditions outside, Pinkie," she observed. Pinkie took a look. "I don't see any awful weather," she said. "It's still nice and sunny! Just the way I want it to be!" She conjured up a large cake and ate it. More dark clouds gathered in the sky. "Get out... we don't want you here..." said an ominous voice. "AAAHH!" screamed Twilight, awaking from a brief nap she didn't remember taking. Worryingly, the cold wind that'd been present in her dream began to blow through the felt world. "Looks like it's not a hallucination..." Twilight thought out loud. "Things are getting rather hectic..." Further along the path, Applejack just made out Rainbow Dash as a speeding speck in the distance. "It sure is getting chilly here... Rainbow, where are you going?" she called. Real Pinkie Pie gave another twitch. A soft tap on the shoulder made Twilight jump. "Oh, it's just you, Fluttershy. What's wrong?" Fluttershy's eyes were gaunt and wide. "D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DRAGON!" It was true. A large felt dragon was in the air a few feet away. "You are never getting out of here!" it bellowed. At Applejack and Rainbow Dash's end of the path, a gigantic wall of thorny vines erupted from the ground, darkening the skies further. Applejack was still too far away to stop Rainbow Dash from hurtling into the vines. In Carousel Boutique, the felt Pinkie had finally chosen an outfit. As it happened, it was the most awful of dresses she had conjured up so far. "Thank you so much, Rarity!" Pinkie said, her mouth full. "You're... welcome..." Rarity managed to say. Just then, Pinkie's dress turned into acid, sloshing over the floor. Rarity leaped back, automatically screaming at the damage, in spite of it not occurring in her real boutique. "Oh I know!" Pinkie exclaimed, evidently oblivious to the acid. "I'll have a party in honor of this wonderful new dress. You're all invited!" Poof. The other ponies were teleported to her side. This was the last straw for Twilight. "ENOUGH!" she shouted, charging up her horn with magic and aiming at the felt Pinkie Pie. "Take us to the brain now! Or else we'll... we'll break a PINKIE PROMISE!" "You shouldn't have done that, Twilight..." warned Applejack. Poof. The beam Twilight had been charging up dissipated harmlessly. In the same instant, steam spewed out of the felt Pinkie's ears. "Twilight, you silly filly!" boomed Pinkie with a demonic echo. "This! Is! The! Brain! And breaking a Pinkie Promise!? APOLOGIZE!" Pieces of the floor the ponies were standing on began to fell into nothingness. "Hey, did I even make one yet?" Twilight pointed out, thinking quickly. "Don't go jumping to conclusions yet." The steam from Pinkie's ears dissipated. "Oh, you're right," said the pink mare, brightening up again. Well, you can all stay here then." More pieces of the floor vanished. "Hey, what did I just say?" asked Twilight, bemused at how easy it'd been to calm Pinkie down. "You reminded me that you hadn't made a Pinkie Promise yet, and you can't break a Pinkie Promise if you didn't make one, Twilight! Lalala~" Outside though, dark clouds were gathering more thickly than ever, and the real Pinkie Pie was jerking in spasms. "Alright. I'll make a Pinkie Promise," Twilight announced. "I promise that I will always break any Pinkie Promise that I ever make." "You can't do that!" Pinkie cried out in shock. "You can't use a Pinkie Promise to break another Pinkie Promise. It's against the rule!" "What rule?" inquired Twilight with a smile. "Paragraph #3/4 under rule #6.347." Pinkie pulled out a huge list, titled "Rules on Making Pinkie Promises". "Gee, I thought everypony already read this." "Hurry, Twilight, take it," said Applejack, wrapping a lasso around Pinkie's list. The wind outside was getting stronger, and the ponies could hear it whistling loudly past corners. Meanwhile, the shadows in Pinkie's mind grew larger until the felt dragon Twilight and Fluttershy had encountered earlier burst into the boutique through a wall. Thorny vines sprouted from the ground, surrounding the entire building and shrouding it to near darkness. As all this transpired, the real Pinkie was experiencing a burning fever. "Who are you?" Twilight addressed the dragon. "I am here to prevent you from leaving," the dragon replied. "Huh, straight to the point isn't he?" Applejack noted. "Stay here? In this place?" said Rarity in disbelief. Even as she spoke, walls started to crack and disappear. If not for the surrounding vines, the building would have resembled Swiss cheese. The felt Pinkie Pie stuffed her face with a chocolate cake, clearly unaware of the destruction. "This better work," Twilight said to herself, having come up with a desperate plan. She inhaled deeply. "PINKIE PIE!!! WAKE UP!!!" "But I am up," the felt Pinkie remarked. The real Pinkie sweated profusely and stirred, but did not wake. And back in the felt world of her mind, there was no visible change. "Pinkie Pie... doesn't need friends!" the ominous voice Twilight had heard in her dream sounded. Pieces of the sky vanished, and even the thorny vines were shriveling up. Two gaping holes opened up in the dragon's wings and it crashed to the floor. "Don't get any ideas," the dragon growled. "I can still perform my charge." The moment's distraction, however, had been all Twilight needed. "Too bad, I've already come up with an idea," she retorted smugly. The purple unicorn pulled Fluttershy over and held the pegasus in front of herself like a shield. "Huh, if you think that can..." the dragon began to sneer, but it broke off and backed up almost immediately. "No!" it yelled. "Fluttershy, the tamer of dragons!" Poof. It morphed, first into a cockatrice, then into a manticore, and then into Cerberus, before finally settling on a hydra. "Ah ha!" said the hydra triumphantly, looming over the ponies. "As long as Pinkie wills it, you can never escape!" "Nuh uh uh..." Twilight reproached. "You've never pranked Fluttershy, have you?" Poof. The hydra disappeared. "Whew. Quick thinking, Twilight," Applejack approved. "But we still need to get Pinkie to wake up, and fast!" More than half the landscape in the felt world had fallen apart by now. "Hey, Pinkie!" Twilight called, inspired by her success in getting rid of the dragon. "Stop pranking Fluttershy! She's gonna cry!" "Pranking? I'm not pranking her," Pinkie responded quizzically. "In fact, I think we should get around to throwing that party!" She skipped out the door, narrowly avoiding a hole to nothingness that had just opened up on the floor behind her. "Ummm, well, I think you're pranking me!" Fluttershy chimed in, realizing Twilight's plan. "... And it's, ummm, very hurtful." She mustered a hurt frown on her face. Seeing Fluttershy's expression, Pinkie's smile faded. "Please let me make it up to you. I'll.... I'll throw the party in your honor!" Pieces of the sky rained down. "Y'know... I think we'd really appreciate it if you got us all out of... this place," Applejack prompted. "Why? You don't like this place?" "WAIT!" Twilight cut in. "First off, we want you to WAKE UP! THE MAIN BODY!" The unicorn was nearly fuming. "But... that would mean... leaving," said the felt Pinkie sorrowfully. "And why would anyone want to leave?" The other ponies glanced about at the dissolving terrain and listened to the chilling wind and ominous voices surrounding them, all of which appeared to be undetectable to the felt Pinkie. "I mean, look!" Pinkie continued. Poof. Chocolate rain showered down once more. This time, however, half the raindrops vanished before they hit the ground. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Startled, Twilight turned to see Fluttershy bawling her eyes out. Water sprayed everywhere. In between the water works, however, Twilight could've sworn she saw the pegasus give her a tiny wink. "You're... you're not happy, are you?" Realization dawned on Pinkie. Icy wind whirled around the ponies, getting colder every second. "I... I don't like to see my friends unhappy," Pinkie said out loud to no one in particular. The wind was blowing faster and faster, and the felt world seemed to be disintegrating more rapidly as well... The felt Pinkie closed her eyes and concentrated hard. "Happy!" she shouted, her voice rising above the shriek of the wind. "I want you all to be happy!" Poof. Twilight groaned groggily as she got to her feet. "I don't feel so..." She quickly reached for the nearest bucket. After that was taken care of, the purple unicorn was finally able to take a good look at their surroundings. They were all in the real Sugarcube Corner again, and had been restored to their original sizes. "My, my..." Twilight heard Fluttershy say. "It appears I feel similar..." She heard the scraping of another bucket against the ground. On the floor, the real Pinkie's eyelids fluttered open. "I don't... I don't feel so good either," she moaned. "So we... all... don't feel too good? What happened?" "Yeah, we're all disoriented from trotting around your innards!" Twilight snapped. "Never wanna do that again." "Don't be silly!" Pinkie laughed."Why would you ever have to do that?" She skipped away, humming a tune. "Don't worry too much about her, Twilight," Applejack reassured. "She's just bein' Pinkie Pie." "I guess so." By now Twilight was regaining her spirits, and managed a smile. "Wait," the unicorn suddenly noticed as she looked around at her friends. "Where's Rainbow Dash?" "Ah followed her down to the end of a path..." Applejack recalled. "Didn' she get transported to the boutique with the rest of us?" That night, as Pinkie slept a far more restful sleep, the felt Pinkie in her head was busy at work. Summoning a quill and parchment, she began to write. Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned a very important lesson. I learned that your friends may not always enjoy what you think they will, and that you cannot force them to change their preferences. When you do, that ends up being no fun for anypony, and nopony likes that! Oh, and also, it really is best not to eat too many sweets, but I still think it's impossible for that to ever happen. Pinkie Pie The felt Pinkie Pie trotted down a felt path, the landscaping and climate in her felt world now back to normal, as the real Pinkie was no longer suffering from sugar overdose. At the end of the path, a small clump of thorny vines still stood, a blue pegasus still tangled in its creepers. "Rainbow Dash? What are you doing here?" Pinkie asked. "I guess those vines must have worked a little too well!" she reasoned with a smile. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was somewhat less amused. After dispelling the pegasus from the real Pinkie's mind, the felt Pinkie conjured up a dragon as her mount and flew off into the sunset, on her way to deliver her friendship letter to a felt Princess Celestia. Role distribution for this story Kirensia: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Mr. Cake, Mrs. Cake, Applejack Powderjaggy: Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, the dragon/hydra