//------------------------------// // 1.4 Surprising Developments... The Party Kind That Is // Story: Side Effects // by Blue Insomniac //------------------------------// I decided that surprise parties weren't that bad. Yeah sure, this one in particular most definitely shaved off some years from my total life span but it was worth it. So, so worth it. "...Were you surprised? Were ya? Were ya? Huh huh huh?" Was not quite yelled by the most hyper being I've ever seen. She was also decidedly the most pink thing I have ever seen, with both her coat and mane being (different) shades of pink. I mostly ignored her as she hopped in place for a bit as I slowly chewed the most delicious and delectable cake I had the absolute pleasure of eating. It was a pure chocolate cake with many layers of different types of chocolate within it. Even the frosting was made of chocolate and had little flakes of chocolate sprinkled atop it just in case if it didn't have enough already. In my personal opinion, it didn't have enough chocolate. But that was probably just me. Sipping a bit of hot chocolate from the mug so kindly provided by one of the surprisingly few adult ponies present, I couldn't help but think back to the bland hospital food and how desperate I was to get literally anything else. That was a very embarrassing day, and as such I will never speak of it again. As I munched happily I couldn't help but feel grateful to Fluttershy and the other mare who made all of this. Even if the latter was being an annoyance that was happily bouncing right next to me. As such I continued to politly ignore the kind mare who set this whole thing up in favor of eating my holy slice of cake and look around at the many decorations plastered across the room. The first thing that came to mind was the sheer amount of streamers scattered around the place. I also couldn't help but notice that all of them were distinctly colored white and blue. In fact, the whole place seemed to be themed around the colors of my new body. The table cloths, napkins, party hats, hell even the balloons that were tied to several chairs laying about had the theme of white and blue. I guess she wasn't kidding when she said she was Ponyville's number one party pony, everything to the food and the entertainment seemed professional and of extremely high quality. Even the damn banner stating 'Welcome to Ponyville Aerial Ace!' just oozed a welcoming vibe. Though I still couldn't help but question how she did all of this in such a short amount of time. I have now long realized that she was the pink blur I saw while walking to Fluttershy's house. So that meant she set up and did everything that needed doing in under the eight or so minutes it took to get here. Then again Fluttershy could have told her earlier and this was set up way beforehand, but it didn't really matter. The party was great, even if all that I was doing was eating cake. I turned my attention back towards the bubblegum pony as she kept talking about why she threw this welcome party for me. "...And if you just got out of the hospital, that meant you haven't met anypony yet, and if you haven't met anypony yet, you must not have any friends, and if you don't have any friends then you must be lonely, and that made me so sad, but you might also not want to be crowded by too many ponies! You live with Fluttershy after all," I paused my chewing for a bit as she kept talking. "So then I had an idea. what if instead of throwing a great big ginormous super-duper spectacular welcome party and invite everypony in Ponyville, I just bring some of my friends and they bring their sisters. See? And now you have some friends! And they're also your age! Isn't that great!" She finished, then she finally took the first breath I heard throughout all the time she had been talking to me. I started at her ear to ear smile for a bit before simply nodding in agreement. "Great! Have fun!" She exclaimed, before running off to a different location in the building. She seemed nice for a pony, even if she had just started talking to me out of the blue. Picking up my fork with my completely flat hoof (don't think about, don't think about) I started eating again with gusto before noticing someone else had walked up to my table. It was then that I noticed who exactly was the one to walk -or should I say bounce- up to me. Then I proceeded to ignore them entirely as I simply kept eating my little slice of heaven. From the angry squeaks that caused, I'll say it was a success. At least before the little jerk gave out a final squeak of anger before jumping up to the table, then proceeding to use my head as a nest. I merely sighed as I adjusted my seating position to account for his weight before going back to eating my welcome cake. He'll get bored eventually and hop off in a few minutes anyway. Until then I could bear the weight of a single bunny rabbit. Unfortunately, the little devil kept up his hat impression for far longer than I thought. If I hadn't heard his mocking snorts and squeaks every now and again I would have thought he had fallen asleep up there just to spite me. I shook my head a bit. "So you just gonna move soon?" My only answer was some shuffling and a louder than necessary yawn, before a single squeak rang about my ears. For the life of me I could have sworn I heard 'make me' but that was probably me just putting meaning behind his annoying sounds. Although he had most likely said that anyway, not that I was going to Fluttershy to make sure. Speaking of my Disney princess of a guardian, where was she? Picking up a napkin and wiping away any excess chocolate that might have been stuck on my face. I got up from my chair and started exploring around the house. Seeing as my chosen location was stuffing myself in a corner to eat my cake in peace, I had no problem staying near the sides of the party that was going on. Of course almost immediately after I got stopped by one of the fillies that the pink mare had said come with some of her friends. "Hiya there!" She yelled. "Uh, hi." Was my genius reply. We stood there for an uncomfortably long amount of time. With us awkwardly staring at each other waiting for one of us to say something. Just before I could try to break the awful silence we had going on, the red and cream fully abruptly said, "My names Applebloom!" She flushed before hastily adding, "What's yours?" Well, that's one way to break the ice I suppose. Putting on what I hoped was a smile on my face I stuck out my hoof in greeting. "My name's Aerial Ace." I didn't realize my mistake as she took my hoof and began to shake like a demented jackhammer as she further introduced herself. "Nice ta meetcha Aerial Ace. How's yer day goin'?" She didn't stop shaking my hoof as I answered her. "I'm DoInG wElL tHaNkS." Make the pain stop make the pain stop! Mercifully she let go of my hoof as she smiled at me. I rubbed my shoulder as she just sat there like she didn't just flail me around like a pair of nunchucks. "You're quite strong." Was all that I said after I was able to recover. She nodded as she kept talking. "Yup. My folks own a farm near the edge of town, I help out sometimes with the harvesting and all that." "A warning would have been nice." Dear God my shoulder was killing me! "Huh?" Oh shit did I say that out loud? "Nothing." I then added, "Hey. You know anyone else here?" She gave me a weird look for a second before answering. "Not... not really. The only pony I kinda know is Sweetie Belle, she goes to my class at school. Everypony else is somepony my big sister knows, her name's Applejack. She's standing near Twilight over there." She pointed her hoof towards the far side of the room where another mare stood in the ponyfied stance of a traditional cowboy. Well, cowgirl in this instance. She was similar in color to Applebloom, but instead of having a red mane she had a blond one. She also wore a cowboy hat on top of that. Well, if you lived and worked at a farm might as well look the part no? Looking back at Applebloom I saw her wave at her sister before she too looked back towards me. She then glanced at me head as she finally saw my passenger. "Is that a rabbit on your head?" I almost nodded before I remembered what was on top of my head at the moment. "E'yup" She giggled at my response. "Heh, that's what my big brother always says." "Really? How big is your family anyways?" "Oh. Well, first there's Granny Smith. She's my grandma, she's not here though. She's back looking after the farm with Big Mac, uh. That's my big brother. Then there's..." We talked quite a bit after that, she told me all about her extended family all around Equestria. Especially the family located in some area called Appleloosa, and some fellow called Braeburn. Although she did avoid talking about her parents and based on what I could glean from what she said. It sounded like she never knew them. Not that it was my business to pry, but it was sad that a child didn't know her own parents. Eventually, after she told me all about her family she invited me to play some games that (Now that I knew her name after Applebloom told me) Pinkie Pie had set up for the party. I took it upon myself to invite the other filly that Applebloom talked about to... play...with us. All in all. Despite the childish nature of the games and me having to deal with all the arguments that children have while playing said games, I had a lot of fun. At least, as much fun as one could have while playing the pony version of monopoly. I'm never playing that again, not with Applebloom at least. Her stubbornness alongside surprisingly good business skills made it almost impossible to even gain the two hundred when I passed go. And the less said about the rage of Sweetie Belle the better. I've never seen a plastic toy embedded itself against solid wood. But after everyone had left and the welcome party was well and done, I couldn't help but think back to everything that had happened so far. One solid month. One month since I had woken up in a forest from hell, found myself transformed into a species not my own, nearly got eaten by hounds from hell, stayed far too long inside a hospital, and finally somehow made my way into the home of a pegasus named Fluttershy. It was almost too much to take in at once, but I'll manage somehow. As I laid down upon the new bed Fluttershy had set out from me I let myself be immersed within the insanity that has been my life for the past month. At least I was safe now, and I could finally start to find a way back home. As my eyes slowly closed and my consciousness faded away, I heard a quiet squeak from above my head. Instantly I jumped up as high as I could and swung my head forward as hard as I possibly could. The panicked cries of one Angel rabbit were music to my ears as his small frame smashed into the soft cloth of my new bed. "AND GET OFF OF MY HEAD!"