Chapter Thirteen: Pinkie Slips Up
Logically, Cup knew why Carrot and Pinkie constantly buzzed around her like a pair of extremely worried bees. After all, she'd already pushed herself too hard once and collapsed, ending up in the hospital and threatening her pregnancy. Since ten, they'd learned that she was in a much more high-risk situation than they'd originally thought. The Earth pony mare was pregnant with not one, but two non-Earth pony foals. Furthermore, one was apparently a unicorn and the other a pegasus, which presented some rather unique challenges. Cup knew that it was important that she not over-exert herself and that she remember to take her vitamin supplements and avoid undue stress, but her husband and her employee didn't have to constantly nag her about it!
Things had fallen into a fairly predictable routine. Cup would get up in the morning around 8:30 and take her magic supplement with a bite of breakfast. At 9:00 sharp, she would open the shop. And at 9:05, Carrot would come in and start giving her the third degree.
“Did you take your Chanalin yet? It's really important that you take it in the mornings with breakfast- aren't you supposed to take it at the same time every day, too?”
“Yes, Carrot, I already took my medication.”
“You took it with food, right? It says on the bottle that you need to take it with food.”
“Yes, I took it with food.”
“Well, what did you eat?”
“Does it even matter, Carrot?”
“Of course it matters! If you only eat things like sweets and potato chips and instant soups, you won't get the nutrition you need for one pony, let alone three!”
“Fine. I had a bowl of avocado and a glass of orange juice. Does that pass the muster, O King of Breakfast?”
Of course it was passive-aggressive, but Cup was just completely out of patience. She was a grown mare, for Celestia's sake! She didn't need her husband hovering around like she was a little filly who didn't want to eat her alfalfa! A similar conversation happened at the exact same time every single day, and one would think that by this time, Carrot would have learned that Cup knew how to take care of herself.
At lunchtime, Pinkie Pie would step up to the plate.. “Mrs. Cake! Mrs. Cake! Don't forget to take your calcium supplements! And you should have some foods with a lot of calcium in them! Like spinach or sundaes or Swiss cheese or strawberries- well, maybe not strawberries, I don't know how much calcium they actually have-”
“Pinkie Pie,” Cup sighed. “I know that. I'm having some yoghurt, it's fine.” Pinkie didn't look convinced.
“At least gave a glass of milk or something!” the pink mare exclaimed. “You can never be too careful! I oughta know-”
It was an innocuous comment- Cup wouldn't have paid any attention to it if Pinkie hadn't reacted the way she did. Immediately, the hyperactive pony clamped her mouth shut, mane deflating rapidly, like a popped balloon.
“I... I'm sorry,” she said stiffly, before turning and cantering out of Sugar Cuber Corner, not bothering to clock out first.
“Pinkie! Wait!” Cup called, following her employee (albeit at a much slower pace). “You didn't do anything you need to apologize for! I'm used to you and Carrot lecturing me! I know you're just looking out for me and the foals!”
But Pinkie either didn't hear or didn't care, and before long, she'd completely disappeared from the vicinity of the shop, heading towards the Everfree Forest, at least as Cup could tell. Cup stood outside of the cafe, looking blankly off in the direction that her employee had headed. Carrot, hearing the commotion, wandered out of the kitchen to stop next to his wife.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I honestly don't know,” Cup replied. “I said that I was going to eat yoghurt for lunch, she said I should have a glass of milk too, and then she just ran off! Was it something I said?”
“It's probably just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie,” Carrot said placatingly. “She might just have gotten another one of her strange ideas and dashed off to go do it. You know how she is. She'll probably be back by closing time.”
Pinkie Pie did not come back by closing time. She didn't return by the time Cup and Carrot decided to go to bed, and she hadn't showed up when they got up in the morning. By this time, both of the older ponies were beginning to get worried.
“She's never just disappeared like this without at least telling us where she was going,” Cup fretted. “I must have upset her somehow. I must have been too harsh on you two.”
“I think it is too early for us to really start worrying,” Carrot replied, although he didn't sound convinced. “She hasn't been gone for twenty-four hours yet. The EBI only starts considering somepony missing if they've been gone for seventy-two. We'll see if she comes back today- if she's not back by dinner we'll talk to her friends. They might know what she's up to.”
It placated Cup temporarily, but the blue mare still worried about Pinkie. The had been something so... sudden about the way Pinkie's mood had just changed so rapidly. It was like a switch had been flipped. And on top of that, Cup still remembered the way that Pinkie had gone from happy-go-lucky to enraged and wrathful in seconds when the pink mare thought her boss was cheating on her husband. She wasn't sure if she could logically connect the two incidents, but if she was being perfectly honest with herself, Cup had to admit that they were startlingly similar in both suddenness and intensity.
That day, it turned out that business was incredibly slow. Deciding that both she and Carrot did not need to work the empty store at the same time, Cup told her husband that she was very tired and was going to take a nap. Carrot agreed that it was a good plan, and so Cup went upstairs to the living quarters above the shop.
Instead of going up to her room, though, the blue mare carefully nosed open the door to Pinkie Pie's room.
As usual, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Party paraphernalia was all over the place, combined with strewn-around books and half-eaten cupcakes. Cup let out a little cry when she tripped over something green and leathery, which turned out to be Gummy, Pinkie's pet alligator. Gummy watched unblinkingly as Cup went through his mistresses' personal belongings, then yawned and padded off to curl up next to the air vent.
Cup spent several hours going through the stuff in Pinkie Pie's room, hoping to find some hint as to what had upset the pink pony so much. Unfortunately, all she found were piles and piles of random party equipment, books in various stages of being read, remains of snacks, and for some odd reason, stacks of old newspapers from Hoofington. But nothing that would tell Cup what had triggered such an extreme reaction from Pinkie Pie.
Sighing, the mare got ready to leave the room when one of the old newspaper fell off of Pinkie's desk and hit the ground with a soft “thump.” Cup walked over to the desk and picked it up with her mouth, placing it back on the desk. Glancing briefly at the headline, she read: “Hoofington Rock Farm Infidelity Scandal Ends in Tragedy.”
She didn't think anything of it, other than to make sure that the newspaper was placed more or less the way it had been before, then left the room.
TBC
Author's Comments:
I know, I know, this chapter took forever to get out. To make a really long story short, I participated in a different fandom contest, which had a deadline, and, as usual, I've been called into work a lot more often as well, since my dumbass coworker got caught stealing money. I actually have to travel again in a couple of days and may not have Internet access, but I promise I won't take as long to get the next chapter out as this one did. I am so sorry for the delay, and I feel bad about putting up a short chapter after all this time, but the next one is going to be a doozy in length and plot importance, so hopefully that will make up for it.
-Kaboom