"Fluttershy, would you be a dear and fetch me those banners?" Rarity asked, pointing at a box that Fluttershy knew would be just out of her telekinetic reach. The two ponies were out in the castle courtyard, working on the decorations for the upcoming Festival of Love.
"Of course," Fluttershy said, already in the air. She picked up the box in all four hooves and flapped her wings to lift it. It was heavier than she had expected, but she got it to Rarity without crashing into the grassy ground.
"Thank you ever so much," Rarity said, before opening the box to telekinetically pull out a large, rolled-up banner. "Whatever would I do without your help?"
I don't know, walk? Fluttershy pushed the thought aside. That wasn't fair – she knew nopony worked harder than Rarity to make sure everything would be perfect, except maybe Twilight and Cadence. Besides, if Fluttershy's friends knew how often she got the urge to snark at them, and how much fun she thought it would be, they might not like her anymore.
Twilight and Rainbow snarked at their friends all the time, but that was different. They were likeable ponies.
"Oh, it's no problem. The birds were ready to provide the music for the festival, so there wasn't much left for me to do," Fluttershy said instead. It was a better response, one that helped keep up the ruse that Fluttershy was a pony worth liking. She hated how naturally it came to her.
Rarity unfurled the first banner with her magic and frowned. She rolled it back up and unfurled a second. The frown deepened. "It seems we will have to re-order the banners. There must have been a slight misunderstanding."
Rarity turned the second banner around so Fluttershy could see. At each end of the banner was a drawing of a pony on a beach, sun shining above. The ponies were each on their hindlegs, leaning backwards to walk under a low horizontal pole belly-up without using their forelegs. It looked ridiculous. Between the drawings, elaborately designed red text said, "FESTIVAL OF LOW".
A part of Fluttershy wanted to laugh. She hated that part.
"Oh my," said the part of Fluttershy that was a better actress. She hated that part even more. "I hope they have time to redo it."
"So do I, Fluttershy. The Festival of Love is only a few days away. But if they can't do it in time, we may have to call in the ace up our sleeve." A hint of trepidation in the voice told Fluttershy that Rarity would prefer it didn't come to that.
"Ace up our sleeve?" Fluttershy asked, unsure what Rarity meant.
"Pinkie Pie."
As though on cue, the party pony fell out of the sky. She pulled her face out of the grass and said, "Hi, Rarity! Hi, Fluttershy!"
"Hello, Pinkie," Fluttershy said gently but distractedly. She was looking up into the sky in an effort to work out where Pinkie had come from. All she could see was the sky and the castle, but Pinkie hadn't come in from the direction of the castle. Fluttershy shook her head and decided not to question it.
"Pinkie Pie!" Rarity exclaimed. "Are you alright?"
Fluttershy mentally kicked herself. Right, that was what an actually good friend would say. Not just "hello, Pinkie" like some insensitive mule who didn't give a flying feather about whether or not her friend was injured after falling however far and crashing face first into the ground.
"Never better," Pinkie Pie said with a grin.
She was probably lying so Fluttershy wouldn't feel bad for being such a bad friend, because Pinkie was a good friend like that. Fluttershy didn't deserve it. At least whatever injuries Fluttershy might have been horribly insensitive about didn't show on the outside.
Pinkie continued, "Sooo, how are things going with the decorations?"
Rarity said nothing and simply unfurled one of the banners again, this time facing Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie laughed. Should Fluttershy have laughed?
"Other than this little… mishap, I think things are coming along nicely. We got this," Rarity said, looking at Fluttershy.
"You got this," Fluttershy corrected automatically. It wasn't like she was really much help, and the decorations were officially Rarity's task. Fluttershy didn't deserve any credit for it.
"We got this together," Rarity insisted. "How about you, Pinkie? Is the baking coming along nicely?"
"Yup!" Pinkie said cheerfully. "I have a few dozen cakes in the ovens right now!" She pulled a single small kitchen timer out of her mane and checked it, then put it back in. "Have you ever tried baking in the royal kitchen? It's great!"
"I can't say I have tried that, no," Rarity said slowly, clearly sidestepping the fact that she never would. While she wasn't as impressively bad at it as her sister, Rarity was not one for baking. Neither was Fluttershy, but then, Fluttershy wasn't one for much of anything except knitting and taking care of animals.
"Me neither," she said. "Um, have you talked to any of the others?"
"Oh yeah! Rainbow's been practicing her Cupid's Arrow maneuver with the Wonderbolts. Can you believe she's trying to make a heart-shaped Rainboom?"
"So that's why there's been a Rainboom every ten minutes for the last few hours?" Rarity asked, a tinge of irritation in her voice. The Sonic Rainbooms had a habit of briefly supercharging unicorn magic, which threw off Rarity's telekinetic aim while she was placing the decorations.
"Yep! Still no heart shaped ones, though."
"I'm sure she'll get it eventually," Fluttershy said. "If anypony can do it, it's her." She regretted the dumb statement immediately – of course only Rainbow Dash could do it. She was the only pony who could perform a Sonic Rainboom in the first place, after all.
Pinkie Pie pretended not to have noticed how obvious and stupid Fluttershy's sentiment was and moved on. "The Apples have made lots of apple treats for the Festival, and they're making good progress on building the stage. They weren't actually asked to do that, though, so there were a couple annoyed construction workers skulking around, until I gave them some cake to cheer them up."
Rarity nodded in approval.
"That's nice of you," Fluttershy said.
"And Twilight's thing with the artificer seemed to be going well too, but I didn't really get a chance to talk before the magic explosion sent me here."
"Magic explosion?" Fluttershy asked, shocked. "Is everypony alright?"
Pinkie waved it off. "Oh, it was just a harmless little burst of chaos. Turns out artificing is delicate work that goes boom if somepony distracts the unicorns. Whoops!" Pinkie shrugged. "I'm pretty sure me going flying was the worst that happened, but I think I saw Twilight sporting a fantastic mustache before I shot through the roof. And if you see Shining Armor, try not to mention spoons." Pinkie leaned in close to Rarity and Fluttershy, then whispered so loudly that somepony at the other end of the courtyard would probably hear it. "He might be sensitive about it!"
"We'll keep that in mind," Rarity said. "It sounds like everypony has the preparations well in hoof."
A ringing sound caught Fluttershy's attention. She quickly identified the source when she saw it shaking.
"Uhm, Pinkie? I think your mane is ringing."
Pinkie looked up at her vibrating mane. "The cakes! I have to go!" Before Fluttershy or Rarity could say anything more, she vanished, briefly leaving behind a pink blur where she had stood.
"Did…" Fluttershy hesitated. "Did you actually see her move?"
Rarity's eyes said "no", but her mouth simply said, "It's Pinkie Pie, darling."
"...yeah," Fluttershy agreed. "It's Pinkie Pie."
Neither of them fully knew what they meant by it, but they both understood. If there was one thing Pinkie Pie was, it was unique.