The moment Roseluck stepped into Sugarcube Corner, she heard the sharp ringing in her ears. She froze in place—lingering for a few too many seconds. With a sweaty cough, she urged herself forward once more in a steady gait. There were many bodies already inside the bakery. Most of them remained still. They tried to be, anyway.
Roseluck chose to act naturally. She had to. With a joyous canter, the mare approached the front counter. She rang the bell. Her skull instantly ached. There was a twitch to her eyes—the sting of fresh tears. Scarlet. Roseluck flicked her ears and—after a solid breath—rang the counter's bell once more. Smiling this time. Smiling hard.
“~Where's Ponyville's favorite party planner at?!~” she sing-song'd.
In the brief silence to follow, there was a coughing sound, followed by a foal's muffled sobs from somewhere behind. Roseluck heard a low, prolonged scraping in front of her. Her eyes jerked towards the swinging doors that led into Sugarcube Corner's kitchen. A familiar fluffy tail was emerging into the counterspace, its follicles frayed in sporadic pale patches. As Pinkie Pie backed into view, she appeared to be dragging something.
“~There she is!~” Roseluck smiled. Then she smiled more. “~You're up bright and early, as usual!~”
A hiss, a shudder, and Pinkie hopped a half-pony space backwards. As she pivoted towards her customer, the kitchen doors swung shut behind her, obscuring a lump of fuzzy flank that was lying on the floor.
“Good morning dawnbuds to you, oh purveyorette of flora!” Pinkie Pie chirped, a bit more exuberantly than normal—if that was possible for her. There was a gloss to her eyes. The air rattled, cold and metallic. She wiped a fetlock across her face and leaned against the counter, grinning through labored breaths. “What can I get for Equestria's finest petal peddler?”
“Oh you know me, Pinkie Pie.” Roseluck winked at her. “The usual.”
Pinkie Pie winked back. “Banana bread! Comin' right up!” She side-stepped awkwardly through the swinging doors, tripping as she exited Roseluck's sight. There was a sharp squeak from beyond—a gasp—and the rusty taint in the air intensified.
A dark line formed in the ceiling. Then two. Then four. Roseluck's head tilted—like a limp compass needle—towards it. But the moment her sight graced the black edges descending, she ripped her gaze off and threw her vision across the Bakery. She reeled. The ringing intensified in her skull, then faded in time with the evaporation of an obsidian spot within the dead center of her vision.
As the fog went away, she became aware of Thunderlane standing across from her, stabbing a fork repeatedly into the center of a ceramic plate. Two halves of a muffin lay in tattered remnants on opposite sides of his table. Everything in between was crumbs and stab marks. But he continued rhythmically poking the table with religious persistent. He was sweating profusely and his forelimb looked red and raw.
“You're looking...” Roseluck clenched her teeth as another high-pitched hiss rattled through her molars. She timed her breaths, flicking her ears beneath a swimming shadow. “...rather h-handsome today, Thunderlane.” A gulp. The mass was hovering over him now. She kept her eyes trained with Thunderlane as she lowered her voice to a cold tone: “How do you keep so fit?”
“I... uhm...” Thunderlane sweated more. His forelimb was stiff and sore to the point of snapping, but he kept stabbing at his plate. “I just...” His eyes glossed over and his ears drooped. The black mass lingered directly above him. The edges broke off and snapped back in place at odd peripheries. Between each shudder of the geometry, a bitter wind blew in from a rusty source, carrying with it the serenade of unseen trillions of swarming locusts. “I just guess I'm... g-good at keeping... a rigorous exercise sch-schedule...”
“Well...” Roseluck's brow furrowed. Her voice was low, but strangely melodic and hopeful. “~Keep it up, Thunderlane~” Her nostrils flared. “~You're doing good.~”
Thunderlane's stabbing of the plate slowed. He held his breath.
Soon thereafter—following a buzzing click or two—the shadow passed over him. The stallion exhaled with relief. He and Roseluck remained fixated on his massacred muffin as the shadow rippled over the far end of the bakery. A filly in the corner started whimpering in high-pitched yelps, her bright yellow eyes pouring over red. With a strong forelimb, her mother covered the foal's face, blinding her—but practically suffocating her all the same. As the child's muffled cries trilled in protest, the parent turned to smile sweatily at a neighboring patron's newspaper.
“Four across? A seven letter word meaning the opposite of pain?? Why, that's 'ecstasy'!!!”
Edges fluctated. Lines changed shape. Buzzing and buzzing.
The creak of a swinging door: “Oki doki loki!”
Roseluck shook in place. Startled. In swiveling her head back towards the front counter of the bakery, her eyesight caught a full obsidian swath. Her ears instantly rang as punishment. She lurched toward, gasping for breath. She felt a chilled stinging behind the meat of her eyes, threatening to carve its way down the length of her muzzle and burst out her tongue. Just as she started seeing red—
“Rosey Girly?”
Panting and wheezing, Roseluck batted her eyes dry and looked forward. She could see clearly into Pinkie Pie's earnest face. The moment both mares came into focus, the party planner shoved the plate of delicious goodness across the counter.
“Banana bread...” Pinkie Pie whispered. “Just like you asked for~” Louder, more melodic. There was a heroic warmth to Pinkie's voice. It fought back the chill of the shadow that Roseluck knew was haloing her with a charcoal kiss yet again. “~Don't you just love banana bread?~”
At first, she whimpered—but it soon turned into a delicious coo. Like a newborn lunging for the teat. “~More than anything in this world, my friend~” She grasped a fork and knife in opposite fetlocks and began digging in, like the stallion a table away from her. “~I'm just so happy to be here~”
Hoofsteps. Another pony was entering.
Pinkie Pie looked up, and her usually bright muzzle darkened in despair. She threw on a smile beneath the souring expression, raising a hoof with a warm greeting. “Hiya, new neighbor! It's... … … about time you showed up!”
Roseluck sniffed the air. A touch of lilacs was just now piercing the deep sea rust. Roseluck was a mare who knew her floral scents, and this could only come from Valley Wreath, a middle-aged pony from Fillydelphia who had just moved into Ponyville two weeks ago.
She was so new.
“Hi there... uhm... Pinkie Pie, was it?” Valley Wreath could be heard stammering. Her voice was like dry chalk rattling down a tin washboard. There was a clicking, followed by an abysmal buzz all above. Once it ended, silence reigned—far too long than was healthy—and eventually the mare's hoofsteps resumed. “It's... it's awfully busy in here...”
“~No busier than usual~!” Pinkie Pie chuckled and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled. Only once Valley Wreath's plump shape had arrived in Roseluck's peripheral did the baker shift her vocal chords. “Soooooooo what can I get for you today?”
“Actually... uhm...” Valley Wreath shifted, her head and tail pivoting. “...now that I think of it, I-I'm not really hungry. Maybe I should just leave—”
The entire room shifted, as if the bedrock of Equestria jerked greedily towards an onyx ceiling. Off in the distance, the filly let out a scared huff into her mother's smothering grip.
“I think—” Pinkie Pie breathed, dissipating the ringing noise before it could intensify. “...that you should stay for a while, Missy Wreath~”
A breath. Two breaths. The newcomer turned to face the counter yet again.
Everything shifted back and bright, sliding back down an invisible hill. A sea of sighs embraced the moment.
“Yes... uhm...” Valley Wreath shuddered, stepping up to the counter just left of Roseluck. “...perhaps I should.”
“~I know~!” Pinkie Pie hummed. “How about a drink?”
“Uhm... er... lemonade? I guess?”
“Oooh! That's your favorite, isn't it?”
“I... guess...?”
Clicks. A storm broiled inches overhead. Gnats could be heard divebombing from a colossal distance.
“I mean... yes! Yes! Absolutely! I completely and utterly adore any beverage you put together, Miss Pie!”
“Absolemonlimeytoodidoodily!” Pinkie Pie bounced off into the kitchen. “Don't you go anywhere!”
Standing at the counter, Valley Wreath breathed and breathed. She looked over towards Roseluck.
Roseluck didn't look back. She made the primary incision into her loaf of banana bread.
“Uhm... hi there! That is...” Valley Wreath fought the urge to hyperventilate. “...what a good morning this is!”
Roseluck said nothing. The top of her eyeballs was being kissed by a constant black. She cut a new line into the bread, perpendicular to the first, forming the edges of a fresh slice.
“I've seen you in the marketplace, haven't I?” Valley Wreath stumbled to make casual conversation.
Roseluck breathed in. “Maybe.”
“You're...” Valley's muzzle leaned in, a vague yellow shape against the surmounting darkness. “...you're Roseluck, right? Is that you're name?”
Roseluck breathed out. “Maybe.”
Valley Wreath's eyes narrowed. She opened her lips to speak—
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaand—” Pinkie Pie pirouetted back into the counter space. “—ice cold lemonaaaaaaade!” She winked at the patron standing beside the flower merchant. “Your favorite!”
“It's... it's...” Valley Wreath's pupils shrank. The clouds gathered tightly above her, edges sharper than black diamond machetes. She closed her eyes, took a long and meditative breath, then sipped from the ice cold glass of liquid. The whole room held its bones, counting the clicks as the lines zigged and zagged within place overhead. At last, when Valley Wreath was finished, she exhaled through a sweaty smile and purred: “It's the best glass of lemonade I've ever tasted...!” She beamed at Pinkie Pie, Roseluck, and Thunderlane within her proximity. “~Oh how I love living here in Ponyville~”
The clicking stop. The rusted kiss of metal receded—as did the cloud above, sinking upside down once more into the ceiling. The air circulated: the result of every resident exhaling at once in thunderous relief. The stallion to Roseluck's side paused in his fork-stabs, slumping forward to lean against his ruined muffin.
“There's no place I'd rather be than right here... in this beautiful town...” Pinkie Pie mewled through a fractured smile. “~Serving refreshments with the friends I hold dear.~”
To this, Valley Wreath blinked. With the next flash of her teeth, she chilled every soul in the room who had ears. “Are you flippin' kidding me? With that madness floating about?”
Pinkie sucked her breath in. Thunderlane jerked upright.
“I mean... there's nothing to worry about any longer, is there?”
Pinkie did not answer. Thunderlane did not answer.
Roseluck was just trying to finish cutting her slice of banana bread.
“Why's nopony saying anything??” Valley Wreath hissed. She turned towards Roseluck directly. “Miss Roseluck?” She leaned forward, eyes wide and earnest. “...did you see it?”
Roseluck refused to look at her.
“Am I going crazy?” Valley Wreath gnashed her teeth. “Please, somepony, anypony...! Tell me that you at least saw—” She spat out bile and lemonade. Her hooves flew to her throat. “Hrkk... snrkkgllgll...!!” A pale sheen washed over her as she hobbled backwards, collapsing on her flank. “Grhgggh... shnnno... frhsssshh-no pleassssse...”
Metal scraped against air, spilling invisible sparks of sulfur. A square inkiness sank straight back down from the ceiling. Roseluck did not see it—but, rather, caught the faintest facsimile of it, reflected in Pinkie's eyes. Tears streamed out, steaming, tainted red.
“Pinkie Pie...” Roseluck hummed above the gurgles of the collapsed mare beside her.
“Mrnnnghhh—” Valley Wreath was convulsing on the floor, banging her head repeatedly against the wooden finish. “Hrkkk—hrkkk—” Lumps of snowy mane hair and melted scalp meat loosened with each throe. “Celesshkiiiaaaaaaaaaa...!!!” Her sockets melted into red pulp as jaundice billowed from her nose and mouth. “Helpffffff mheeeeeeeee...!!!”
“Pinkie.” Roseluck repeated, bravely, against the ringing. “Look at me”
Pinkie Pie jolted, locking her gaze with the flower merchant. The redness in her eyes dissipated in the ensuing seconds, but the tears remained. Flowing.
The ringing intensified. Skull-crushing. Brain-cooking. But—soon enough—it was over. And as the silence descended, a rancid curtain of steam rose in its place, issuing from the carbon stain that remained of Ponyville's newest resident to the left of Roseluck.
“~Thank you for the banana bread~” Roseluck said, smiling dearly, absorbing herself within the baker's sapphire gaze. “~It's my favorite treat in the whole wide world.~”
Thunderlane coughed to the side, struggling to keep from wretching.
But Pinkie Pie kept her focus on Roseluck. A few more tears rolled down her cheeks—but they were smiling cheeks. “Well... of c-course” A sniffle. Pinkie got a horrible whiff of burnt flesh, but she chortled past it: “~Anything for a dear friend~”
Roseluck nodded. She sensed a cylinder filling up black from the top down. Her eyes darted briefly—daringly—and realized it was the half-empty glass of lemonade still sweating on the table.
In the container's fish-eye reflection, a solid cube lowered over the remnants of Valley Wreath. There was a triple click, and its otherwise immaculately black surface separated, parting in the form of dozens upon hundreds of smaller cubes. They were held together by flashes of pink viscera beyond, and the guzzle of locust wings issued between each shift of the spasmic geometry. Once the shape had spent a good ten seconds levitating in place, its many-many composite solids clicked shut into a black mass once again. Half-a-breath later, the bottom lid of it rippled open like a voxelated sphincter. A rhumba of serpentine necks issued outward, ending in over a dozen equine faces with barbed wire blindfolds. Their teeth were knives that sliced and stabbed and dug at the upper vertebrae of Valley Wreath's corpse until the essence of her skull joined theirs. Once they had seized their prize, they retreated back into the otherworldly box. The lid shut on the locust howl, and Roseluck saw the black shape ripple out from the glass' surface and linger once more overhead.
But she knew better than to dwell on it any longer, even as the black marble chill brushed against Pinkie's mane and hers. Lingering. Dwelling. Watching.
Roseluck ate her banana bread and cried. Alive to hear the ringing another day.