“Right, so I need a few things to make the camp!” Pinkie Pie explained to a less than enthusiastic Rarity, who was sat awkwardly on a log, tapping her hoof; Pinkie Pie had insisted that Rarity helped in order to have the camp up by nightfall.
“Fine...” Rarity sighed in reply, thinking that there better not be anything that requires that she gets dirty or sweaty, or she is definitely not helping out.
Silence.
“...I guess that means you want me to get them,” Rarity mumbled un-cooperatively under her breath, sighing, she asked, “what do you need?”
“Well, where do I start? I need candy canes and chocolate cake, ice cream, lolly pops and candy! Oh and...”
“Wait, let me just stop you there. Candy canes? ...And chocolate cake? ...With ice cream?”
“Well, that’s what I’d like!” Pinkie Exclaimed.
“Ugh,” Rarity huffed in frustration, “I said what do you NEED, not what do you want.”
“Oops, well, err, I’m sure a few smallish logs for a fire and a tent or two would be good, but that’s taken care of, I’ve got loads of tents in my backpack! Which colour would you like? I’ve got purple, and green, and orange, and blue... oh, you can’t have the blue one, I want that one, but I’ve got orange and yellow and white, I’ve even got brown! ...Although I’m not quite sure why you’d want a brown tent, but, I guess it would be terrific camouflage if you’re going to sleep in a... really-really brown place!”
“I’ll just take the purple one,” Rarity said bluntly, anything to stop that incessant rambling rampage, “I’ll work on getting some small logs then, you make the tents.”
“Oki-doki!” Pinkie replied, delving deep into her pack to find the correct colour tents, (she was good with colours, Mrs Cherilee said so!)
“Hold on a second,” Twilight said, breaking the immersion, “since when was Cherilee in the game?”
“Since like half an hour ago- duh!” Pinkie pointed out the seemingly obvious.
“You can’t just go around adding everypony to the story,” Twilight explained, “you would have to get their permission first, somepony might not want to be in our...”
“I have got permission Twilight, you dummy! She’s right here!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, pointing at Cherilee, who, since a time unbeknown to Twilight, had been in the room and had been immersed in the game herself.
“When did... What’s going on?” a rather confused purple unicorn asked.
“Oh, about half an hour ago, I saw...” Cherilee tried to answer, however, Pinkie Pie had out voiced her.
“When we went to get a drink, I decided to go outside for some fresh air, and then I saw Miss Cherilee here and decided to invite her in to play our game with us!”
“...Yes, I am quite a fan of this series of role-playing games, I even let the children play some of the junior stories, they just love it! It sets their little imaginations free!” Cherilee stated with a smile.
“Okay, I’m sorry; I didn’t see you come in...” Twilight admitted.
“Oh, I do apologise, I can leave if you want,” Cherilee offered.
“No- no, not at all! Please stay! It would be wonderful to have another player!” Twilight praised.
“Greetings over, lets carry on!” Rarity demanded insistently, forcing the story book into Twilight’s face.
Rarity soon discovered that the forest was a very awkward place to acquire some ample sized logs for the fire, especially when it was pitch black- you couldn’t even see your own hooves right there in front of your eyes. Rarity also discovered that the forest was definitely not as clean as the kingdom of Canterlot; her greaves were already tinted in dirt and muck. Through this, against all odds of hygiene, she persevered, searching blindly for the wood she was required to find, after all, no wood lead to no fire, and no fire yielded no food.
Applejack turned to Miss Cherilee, whispering in her ear (rather loudly I might comment,)¬ “you might not get a chance to play for a while,” she said rather sympathetically, “Rarity and Twilight have sort of taken over the story at the moment.”
“Its fine,” Cherilee replied, “I’m used to it, what with the children and whatnot.”
Rarity heard this comment; however, she chose not to argue with this pony as she remembered how kind she was to her in her childhood; Cherilee was a truly wonderful teacher.
Rarity returned to the camp later than she had hoped; she had spent hour after hour fumbling in the shadowy woods for some logs, only to finally capitulate to the dirt, taking a ‘needs must’ attitude at long last, getting her hooves ridiculously dirty to retrieve a bundle of logs from the fetid forest floor. Due to this prolonged absence, what was once a small clearing had been transformed (rather crudely in Rarity’s eyes) into a cosy encampment, two vibrantly coloured tents set up side by side, one blue, one purple, with a blazing camp fire a stones-throw away from them, the golden light raising out from the flames, flickering around the surrounding tree trunks, dancing with the shadows they cast behind them.
Sat by the roaring campfire was a familiar pink pony, at the knowledge of Rarity’s return; she was quick to greet her, “Hey! You’re back!” she exclaimed, elated to see her new friend return, “I would say you were quick, but you really weren’t- what kept you?”
“Wait... why did you want these logs again?” Rarity asked.
“They are to make a campfire of course!”
“Then why do we already have a campfire?” Rarity said in a marginally annoyed tone.
“Well, to tell you the truth, you were taking soooo long, I decided to use some of the logs which were around camp, I thought that the closer the logs were to the camp- the better, after all, the less travel you have to do, the less dirt you have to walk through, but I guess you had other ideas.”
“There were logs here already?” Rarity growled, her patience wearing dangerously thin with this new pony.
“Well duh! Or I wouldn’t have any here for the fire!” Pinkie pointed out.
Rarity sighed deeply, and then decided to just go straight to sleep before she did something to this pony she may later come to regret, (although she hadn’t the slightest clue why she would possibly come to regret anything like that- it is Pinkie Pie after all!)
“Hey, don’t you want any food?” Pinkie asked Rarity as she disappeared into her tent, “I’ve got beans! Magical beans! They even taste like chicken!” the slightly deluded earth-pony imitated such an animal with a hearty cluck, strutting around camp.
The two ponies were awoken the next morning by a blundering character rattling around the camp, muttering to herself as she did so, “where- where did ah put that? Oh darn it! Oops, err- anypony there?”
Pinkie shot out of her tent like a rabid Manticore, “Hey! I know you! You’re that pony that didn’t save my life yesterday!”
“Uh... sorry ‘bout that sugar-cube...”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Pinkie Pie!” Applejack found herself being frantically hoof-shaken by this strange pink pony.
Before any more greetings could take place, the regal paladin strode wondrously out of her purple tent, “Hold on, you are that tracker we met yesterday, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s me- I’m Applejack.”
Pinkie jumped up in-between the ponies, facing Rarity, “And I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“Yes- Pinkie, I know, we met yesterday.”
“So we did!” Pinkie replied.
Rarity scanned the tracker, a look of diluted horror appearing on her white face, “My, you don’t look too good for wear do you? What in Equestria happened to you my dear?”
“Yeah; your hair is all like ‘poof!’ and you eyes are like saggy sacks, what’s up with that?” Pinkie Pie added, acting out all of her descriptions with dramatic body movements.
“Well, ah was just travellin’ through this forest, and ah came across this big camp- it was really... big. There must have been at least a hundred solders there... it’s about five miles that way,” Applejack pointed her hoof in the rough direction of her descriptive area, “so ah decided to search around to see what they were up to- you don’t just get soldiers out here for nothin’ do you? And so ah heard somepony tellin’ some others about their ‘target’ they said. They said she was white, and had a purple mane. They then said that they wanted this pony for some evil plans...”
“They said that? That sounds weird- I’d at least keep the whole evil plans bit a secret... I’m really good with secrets you know!” Pinkie jabbered.
“This is... worrying,” Rarity said, (oddly enough, she said it in a worried tone of voice... obvious, right?)
“That ain’t all,” Applejack continued, “They said something about you workin’ for them Rarity- and the legion ain’t exactly known for bein’ good as gold now are they?”
“Y-you’re sure they wanted me? Couldn’t they just want another pony that is a little bit like me?” Rarity suggested.
“Yup, they had posters and everythin’...”
“Oh my, was my hair alright? I mean, err, why in Equestria would anypony so evil want me?”
“Ah don’t know sugar-cube, you tell me.”
“Oh please! Stop with those ‘pet names,’ they make us sound like children.”
“O-o, I can be like a child! Wait... what’s wrong with that?” Pinkie asked with a giggle, although a slight frown also appeared on her brow soon after.
“Ah barely got away myself, one of the guards on duty around the camp caught me goin’ through their papers,” (Applejack didn’t know why she was going through their papers- she can hardly read,) “ah had to run back into the forest- took me a good ten minutes to lose ‘em.”
“Hey! You didn’t answer my question!” Pinkie screamed expressively.
A thunder of metal arms and armour slowly encroached on the camp while Rarity was lecturing Pinkie on how to be like a grown-up and the qualities of being sensible. The sound slowly became near and louder.
“Err- that’ll probably be them! I think ya’ll better hide your hide before the skin your hide!” Applejack suggested, forcing Rarity (who really didn’t like being in contact with such a dirty pony) into her tent.