Flash worked for the Pies for a whole week, and for the next six nights Flash would return from the mountains exhausted but alive. Fortunately, he seemed to be getting used to the work which meant he was able to get more done with each day, and by the end of the week, he had earned the equivalent of one silver piece and then some. Furthermore, the Pies were gracious enough to give him one day off, and that day was the one day when Limestone would go to town to sell.
Flash spent his day off by joining his brother for Cadance’s lessons in the morning, and in the afternoon, he helped Shining Armor and Night Light bring their wares into town to sell. Like the week before, the three of them stayed close to Limestone, reluctantly profiting from her domineering presence. Flash couldn’t help but frown as he looked around the dreary town and its wary townspeople. He wished that he had a way to change everything for the better, but what?
As if in response to his gloomy thoughts, Flash felt something hit him on the back of his head. He reached up and grabbed it, feeling that it was a piece of paper. Flash brought the paper in front of his face and took a good look at it. On the paper was a crayon drawing of a small, cozy house with two faces, clearly that of children, drawn at the windows. Flash couldn’t remember the last time he had seen, let alone made, a crayon drawing, but even he knew that those kinds of pictures were supposed to be bright, colorful, and happy. The picture that he held in his hands was the exact opposite of that.
The house was drawn in enough detail for Flash to see that it was falling apart, and everything except the children’s faces was colored in various shades of gray. The most disturbing details of the drawing were the bars drawn on the windows and the giant frowns drawn on the children’s faces. Upon closer inspection, Flash realized that he had passed by that house earlier. He also could have sworn that he saw two boys living in that house who looked like less crudely drawn versions of the children in the drawing.
“Excuse me,” a voice snapped Flash out of his thoughts and back to reality. He hurriedly stuffed the drawing into his coat pocket and looked up. Sunset Shimmer was standing in front of him with a strangely sweet smile on her face and a brown paper package in her hands. “I need a package delivered, and I was wondering if you could give it to the postman for me.”
“Um, he’s right over there,” Flash noted gesturing towards Night Light, who was waving goodbye to a customer, not that said customer seemed to notice or care.
“Oh, I know, but he just seems so busy, and I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Hey! Whaddya want, ya vicious tart?!” Limestone interrupted, taking notice of the two of them. She looked down and saw the package in Sunset’s hands. “You know the postman doesn’t take packages from you and your ilk. Now, you either buy something or git!”
Sunset scowled furiously and shoved the package into Limestone’s hands before running off. Limestone scowled back before unceremoniously tossing the package a good distance away behind her. Weird. Where did that ticking sound suddenly come from?
Before Flash even had a chance to ask Limestone about the exchange, the package exploded in a cross between a boom and a splat, spraying paint everywhere like globs of congealed, green blood. Flash grimaced at the sight and turned away. That explosion explained a whole lot more than he wanted it to.
The next morning, Flash woke up too early. He tried to go back to sleep, but every time he shut his eyes, an image of the sad, gray crayon drawing that was still in his pocket would drift to the front of his mind. Meanwhile, in the back of his mind, Sunset Shimmer’s paint bomb kept splattering its carnage before rewinding back into a seemingly harmless brown-paper package only to explode again.
After a good five to ten minutes of not sleeping, Flash got up, put on his coat, and decided to start his trek into the mountains early. A nice 2-hour walk into the brisk mountain air ought to clear his head. If it doesn’t, maybe an hour pacing aimlessly in front of the Pies’ cabin might.
When Flash reached the Pies’ cabin, however, he spotted Pinkie Pie stealthily climbing out the second-story window with a dim lantern in her hand. She didn’t seem to see him as she silently scaled down her house, so Flash ducked behind a tree near the side of the trail and continued to watch her secretly.
Pinkie lightly jumped off the cabin’s outer wall, landing on her feet. The two inches of fresh snow muffled the sound of her boots hitting the ground. Then, she tiptoed away from the cabin further into the mountains. Flash’s curiosity peaked; he quickly yet quietly followed her.
Pinkie Pie crept past the cave entrance to the Pie family’s mine and stopped in front of a barely noticeable fissure in the uncut stone wall. Then, as lithe as a rabbit, she crouched down and slipped right into the fissure. Flash ran up to where Pinkie had been standing, bent down, and took a closer look at the fissure. Even though it seemed no wider than a hair from afar, Flash saw that the fissure was, in actuality, just barely wide enough for a person to crawl through with a bit of finagling.
Flash thought about following Pinkie inside, but every bit of common sense that he had was telling him not to. He didn’t know where that fissure led, and if he got lost, he might never come out. At the same time, Flash couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a secret someone like Pinkie Pie could have that she needed to hide it behind a barely noticeable crack in the wall. Besides, he still had an hour to kill before he had to show up for work, and discovering Pinkie’s secret seemed far more interesting and more distracting than aimlessly pacing in front of the Pies’ cabin.
Flash took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and wormed his way into the fissure. The other side of the fissure didn’t seem to have any standing room, so he had to continue to crawl for the next eighteen inches or so. That’s when Flash’s hand slipped down a slick, sloped surface and pulled the rest of him down with it.
Flash cried out in surprise as he slid down the cold stone. The literal rockslide went on for what felt like miles, twisting and turning as it continued. Eventually, the slide deposited him on the floor of a massive yet brightly lit cave.
“Ow!” Flash cried as he belly-flopped onto the ground.
“Flash?” he heard Pinkie say to him. Flash looked up and saw Pinkie Pie staring at him, her face uncomfortably close to his.
“Oh, hi, Pinkie,” he stuttered awkwardly. “Look, it’s not that I’m not glad to see you, but do you mind stepping back just a bit?”
“Oh. Okay.” She complied, giving Flash room to pick himself up and look around the cave. He could see tables piled with noisemakers, balloons, and streamers. Crates upon crates were stuffed with party hats, confetti, paints, and brushes. Cupboards were carved into the walls of the cave and filled with well-crafted, colorful toys.
“Whoa, is all this real, or did I hit my head pretty hard?” Flash asked.
“Oh, this?” Pinkie replied. “This is just my party cave. It’s where I keep all the stuff that I’ll need to throw a party. That is,” her shoulders slumped forward with an unusually sad sigh, “if Limestone and my parents ever let me throw one.”
“Why won’t they let you throw a party?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’m here too early anyways, so I’ve got time to kill.”
“Time to kill what?” said Pinkie, looking thoroughly confused.
“It’s just an expression. It means I have enough time to do something, in this case, listen to your story,” Flash explained.
“Oh, okay, well, it’s like this,” Pinkie began. “My family and I aren’t from here. We actually used to live near a different mountain that was near a city, and that’s where my Granny Pie used to live.”
“Wait,” Flash interrupted, frowning as he thought back to Limestone and Mr. Pie’s prejudiced behavior towards him and Night Light’s family, “your grandmother was a city person?”
“No, silly. She wasn’t a city person. She just lived there. She was more of a ‘travel all over the place spreading smiles wherever she went’ person, and I wanted to be just like her when I got older,” Pinkie recounted with a wistful yet bright smile. “Oh, Granny used to throw all the best parties, bake the best cakes, and make the most amazing gifts.”
“What happened to her?” Flash asked.
“The same thing that ends up happening to most people,” Pinkie continued, her smile dropping into a glum frown. “She got old and died, and after that, well, everyone in our family just missed her so much that we wanted to just get away and forget, so we did, and we ended up coming here. The problem is we’ve been forgetting for so long that I think we’ve forgotten too much of her. This cave and all these party supplies are all that’s left of her and what her life meant to everyone.”
Flash glanced around the cave one more time, his face matching Pinkie’s.
“I think I understand how you and your family feel,” Flash replied, looking back at Pinkie. “My brother and I lost our whole family, and now, we only have each other.”
“Aww,” Pinkie whined sympathetically. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’ve got me. We are friends after all. I mean, I know I haven’t met your brother yet, so right now, I’m friends with just you, but I can be his friend too if he’d like.”
Flash couldn’t help but chuckle a little despite the feeling of sadness and loss he and Pinkie were sharing.
“Yeah,” Pinkie prattled on. “And you’re friends with the postman and his family too, right? You’ve got them.”
“I don’t know about that, Pinkie,” Flash gently disagreed. “I mean, Mr. Light and most of his family have been more than kind enough, but I don’t think his daughter likes me very much.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll come around eventually. It’s not like she’s totally heartless or something, right?”
“I mean, I know she has a heart,” Flash agreed, “but it’s pretty deep.” He and Pinkie shared another laugh before a comfortable silence fell.
Flash took another look around the cave, letting the cheerful, festive atmosphere brighten his spirits. He stuck his hands into his pockets and to his surprise, felt paper inside one of them. Then, he remembered what he had put in there, carefully brought it out, and uncrumpled it. The happy colorfulness of Pinkie’s party cave made the sad greyness of the crayon drawing even more pronounced. However, the gears inside Flash’s head began to turn as he looked from the drawing to the toys in the stone cupboards.
“Hey, Pinkie,” Flash said to his pink companion with a magnificent smirk, “how would you like to help me make a few people smile?”
“Oh, I would love to,” Pinkie chattered obliviously, “but how am I supposed to throw a party without Limestone and my parents finding out and getting mad?”
“Actually, a party wasn’t what I quite had in mind.”