//------------------------------//
// Pinkie runs away 
// Story: By way of Friendship 
// by Prisoner 24601 
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            Five months. That's how long it took for Pinkie to realise that her family wasn't doing too good. Five months. That's how long it took for the rock farm to get run out of business. Five months. That was how long it had been since her party, when Pinkie ran away.
After they learned to smile, Pinkie Pie's family became a bit overly friendly. Their clients were interested in their stern personalities and their efficiency. Now, with a party almost everyday, the usual work of one day was taking three, and the work of a week, almost a month. Pinkie wasn't a stupid filly; she could see that their business was being run into the ground. So she decided to split with her family. She left a note on the warm June morning she left, that read:

 Dear family,
I have decided to do what's best for all of us, and leave. I've seen my enthusiasm run the rock farm's business into the ground, and I don't want that to happen again. So, I 'm leaving for Ponyville. I don't know where I'll be staying, so don't come looking. The company will be better off without the constant partying.you don't need to thank me, just try to save the business.

Sincerely,
Pinkie

This was all she left behind when she started out her new life in Ponyville. She walked for days and days, smiling and singing about her new life the whole time. She reworded old tunes to say things like, "I'm going to Ponyville", or, "My life is about to get a gazillion times better." You know, things along those lines. She walked till her little filly legs gave out, and she decided to take her first sleep in days in a comfy looking giant tree hollow. It was comfy enough, but tinged at Pinkie's emotions as she thought of how it wasn't as good as her old home, getting tucked into bed gently by her loving mother, but those days were over. She tried to keep herself happy with thought that tomarrow, she would get to Ponyville, and everything would be alright.
Bright and early, Pinkie got up from her tree hollow, and stepped back onto the road. But something was odd. the rocks seemed to be hopping, and the ground was vibrating. She put her hoof to her chin in wonder as she started also hearing hoofsteps. She looked one side of the trail, back home, and then the other, to see a cloud of dust rising from the distance. She couldn't see because of glare, but she assumed it to be a stagecoach. She started flailing her little pink hooves, and shouting, "Hey! Hey! Over here!"
Once the carriage reached her and stopped, Pinkie stood to the side of the street and admired it: The driver was a handsome earth pony in a woodcutters shirt with wood chippings all over it and rugged hair. But Pinkie couldn't care less about the driver. She wasn't yet to the age when she started caring about colts. Instead she stood in marvel at the red velvet coach before her. It was fit for Celestia, though modest enough to be driven from Ponyville into who knows where? She looked up at the driver in hopeful eyes.
She didn't even need words to convale her desire. The tan stallion nodded his head into the direction of it, and Pinkie's eyes lit up with more exitement than she knew she had. She dashed in there quicker than a bolt, but the stallion cleared his throught, and said in a kind farmer's voice, "Aren't you gonna tell me where to?"
Pinkie popped her head out the front and beside the driver, and she said, "Oops! Ponyville, please."
"Ponyville, huh?" said the stallion, looking down in wonder at the tiny pink head poking out of the coach. He thought for a moment, before he said, "Sure, kid. HYEAH!" he shouted as he whipped the reigns on the ponies pulling the stagecoach. They made a U-turn and headed back towards Ponyville. Pinkie opened the curtain between her and the driver as she sat back in the passenger area.
She asked, "SO, what's you're name?" Her voice had been a little horse when she'd woken up this morning, but now it was fine.
The driver was a little taken aback by the ponies enthusiasm and social speed, but he gently replied, "Uh... Sawdust." he then focused his attention back on the road, thinking Pinkie wouldn't ask any more questions.
But he was wrong, as she said, "I'm Pinkie Pie! I come from the rock farm down the street. But now I'm on my way to Ponyville. Where are you from, Sawdust?"
He leaned back, expecting this ride to be filled with questions and talking, and replied, "Well, Pinkie Pie, I'm from Ponyville. I started my stagecoach business there, I met my wife there, and I'm planning on spending the rest of my days there." he took a pause, making sure Pinkie had nothing to add, then said, "So, if you live on that rock farm, why ever would you go to Ponyville, and leave your family behind?" Pinkie explained the whole situation to him, from the day she got her cutie mark, to the day when she left that note on the table, up until right then, and Sawdust said, "Well, how do you know it's your fault that the business went bankrupt?"
Pinkie was almost offended by this, and she replied, "well, DUH! I'm not stupid. I watched my daddy try and work something out with a customer, but they said that, 'Our service was slow and quite frankly pretty scary.' he also said that, 'We have parties everyday, and we greet our customers a little too fondly.' So, if I didn't tell my familt about a party, they wouldn't have gotten happy and gotten to keep their business, so I left."
When she was done again, Sawdust just assumed that the pony wouldn't understand reason, so he just stared at the road and waited for her next inquiry.
*****
It had taken almost six hours, but the stagecoach finally stopped in Ponyville at about noon. Sawdust opened the door, and said, "Here you go, kid. Ponyville. Now go run along."
Pinkie climbed out of the carriage at no charge, and started happily bouncing and zooming from place to places with exited, "What's that?!"s, and "Oh my gosh!"s, and even a few "Holy sweet Celestia!"s. Sawdust couldn't resist a smile as he climbed back up on his Stagecoach, and rode off into the east.