Minty grunted as she slid herself into her yoke, and started pulling her wagon forward. The wagon was painted a shade of orange that-- Pinky said was "rust colored"-- but it had always made Minty think of persimmons, and painted on the broad sides with the cutie marks of various ponies Minty considered friends: Pinky's three balloons, Starcatcher’s heart with a comet tail, Rainbow Dash's... well, rainbow, and her own three mint candies, to name a few. It had never been difficult for her to pull, even with more weight than was presently in it, but something in her made it feel lighter than air. Probably the new sense of purpose, she thought to herself as Pinky Pie trotted up beside her.
"All ready to go?" asked Pinky, adjusting the belt of her saddlebags with her maroon magical aura.
"Yuppers!"
“Absolutely, definitely, positively?” Pinky asked, as she raised an eyebrow and smirked a bit.
“As sure as you’re ‘absolutely, definitely, positively’ pink!” Minty giggles, and Pinky rolls her eyes before joining her.
“Alright, but I wanna go over the checklist one more time before we take off.” Pinky’s horn glowed as she telekinetically floated a clipboard and pencil in front of her, and began to read from the list. "Dried oats?"
"Check!"
"Rope?"
"Check!"
"All the bits you can carry?"
"Check!"
"Canteens?"
"Check!"
"Aaand, lastly, my crystal ball?"
"Check-eroni!"
"Alright, then she should be all set!"
"Yeah! Wait, no!"
"Really? What are we missing?"
"New horseshoes. I've had the same ones on for... Well, I don't remember how long, and you don't even have any!"
"Minty, I don't want or need horseshoes. I can't imagine having some iron hoop-thingies nailed into my hooves making it more and not less comfortable to walk on rocks."
"Oh, no, sweetness, you absolutely do! I spent half my life walking, that I haven't spent making bracelets at least, and I can tell you for absolute certain that you need horseshoes for a big thing like this."
"This is just so you can flirt with Bloomery again, isn't it?"
She scoffs, "well, not just that!!"
Bloomery had always been a ferrier, as every stallion in her family had been. Bloomery wasn't a stallion, though, at least not anymore, though some parts of her work did make her feel stallionish at times. All the hammering, hefting, filing, and grinding left the already large pony with too much muscle to effectively fly as other pegasi could. Bloomery's beautiful, golden mane had to be tied back all day as not to pose a fire hazard, and her glossy chestnut coat had to be saturated with sweat, and grease, and filings of iron and steel; and these things hurt her heart, but she was a ferrier, and she was never short of work in a town populated by ponies-- ponies need horseshoes, after all!
Bloomery’s ears pricked up at-attention as the heavy door to her shop swung open. The bell dangling above it rang its soft little twinkle. Starshine above, she was proud of that little bell.
“Hellooo, Bloomie!” a familiar, nasal voice rang out after the bell had settled, and Bloomery saw Minty and Pinky Pie enter.
“Oh, hey, Minty!” Her face lit up as she spoke, with a distinct lack of the Butterfly Island accent that normally seasoned pegasus-speech, “didja finally get Pinks to agree to some horseshoes?”
Bloomery had always liked it when Minty came into the shop. The little green mule often tried to trade her little bead bracelets and necklaces for buckles and buckets of nails, then Bloomery would explain that she wasn't able to accept anything other than actual money for the goods she produced, only for Minty to try again the next time she came in. Actually, come to think of it, Bloomery had no idea why she looked forward to Minty's visits. They were almost always stressful, especially if Minty was having a clumsy day and knocked things over-- which she did, often-- and insisted on helping to pick them up; which invariably resulted in more dropping. In spite of this, there was a certain, unquantifiable charm to Minty that the pegasus-blacksmith (or "Pegasmith" as she had sometimes been jokingly called by the enigmatic little molly) found difficult to resist; even if Minty was a pain-in-the-neck.
“Actually…” Pinky looked down in slight embarrassment, and Minty nuzzled her reassuringly, “yeah.”
Bloomery looked back and forth between the couple, needing a moment for disbelief to subside. “...Really?”
Minty got up on two legs to hug Pinky around the neck. “Yup! We’re going on an adventure!”
“Well,” the blacksmith began, “you’d better tell me about it while I get you two ready to go!”
“Goodness, the Queen of Chaos, huh?” Bloomery said with a wince, and she used a file to smooth down the jagged points of the nails coming up through a blindfolded Pinky Pie’s hoof. “That sounds pretty serious. I certainly don’t envy Skywishes, no matter how boring it gets around here.”
“Ya got that right, for sure, hehe!” Minty chuckled. She seemed so often to find humor where nopony else could; just one of her multitudinous quirks.
“Um,” Pinky began, apprehensively, “I know i’ve asked this about a kajillion times by now, but… are you done yet?”
Her answer came in the form of a brown hoof pulling the blindfold off her head, and holding up her pink foreleg in front of her face. Pinky was astonished to find that she didn't feel any different; no pain from the nails driven through her, and not nearly as gruesome an appearance as she might have expected from what she perceived as a barbaric practice. Actually, the polishing Bloomery had done resulted in Pinky thinking she looked better as a result of this horrid procedure. “Oh my gosh…”
“See, silly?” Minty taunted, “I told you it wasn’t gonna hurt!” She then turned to Bloomery, with a devious little smile. “Aren’t we so lucky to have such a big, strong, talented Pegasmith in town?”
Bloomery blushed furiously, and turned away for a second to collect herself. Pinky rolled her eyes and scoffed in mock offense at Minty. “W-well,” Bloomery started to speak, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof, and trying much too hard to act casually, “Um… I need to practice a bit more, really… uh, i-if I’m going to possibly be shoeing the next Queen of Chaos…?”
Bloomery clearly meant this as a joke, even if it was very forced, but it got a look of confusion from the other two mares. “Oh, I’m sorry, I-I was just trying to be silly--”
“No, Bloom you’re fine, it’s just… what did you say?” Pinky asked, brow furrowed in concern, as she stepped slightly closer to the smith, as did Minty.
“Well, I was just thinking, since Skywishes and I grew up together, maybe she’d still come by after she, ya know… takes the current Queen’s place…?”