The door to a small Ponyville house slams shut with way more force than is necessary, causing the entire house to shake. There is silence for just a moment before heavy hoofsteps begin to echo through the house. Those steps slowly make their way through the living room, down the hall, and into the master bedroom. Meanwhile, another creature present within the quiet home simply looks up from his newspaper with a look of mild concern on his face.
This is Anon, the only human in Equestria. He also happens to be the husband of a very upset Pinkie Pie.
A gentle smile on his face, he places the newspaper down on the table and walk towards a nearby closet. He carefully retrieves several items from said closet and gingerly places them on the floor outside of the master bedroom. Said bedroom's door is shut tight, but right now, that might be for the best. Nodding to himself, Anon walks into the kitchen, grabs a mug, reaches into the kitchen's handy dandy chocolate stash, and gets right to work. A few minutes later, he grins and prepares to face his lovely wife.
Before heading to the bedroom, however, he carefully scans the rest of the house. He's looking for the house's third and final resident, though said resident tends to be kind of hard to track down sometimes. Eventually, Anon feels something fall onto his head with a heavy "thud." There is nothing on the ceiling above him, but he knows better than to question these things. Chuckling to himself, he reaches for his head with his free hand and retrieves the culprit, a small, toothless alligator.
"Hey there, buddy. I'm gonna need your help soon, but you're going to have to wait for your cue. Think you can do that?" The alligator silently looks in two directions at once, neither of which are towards Anon. One of his eyelids slowly closes, followed by the other a few seconds later. "Thanks, Gummy."
Now ready to go, he gently places the alligator down on the floor and heads back towards the bedroom door. The grin never leaving his face, he brings his free hand to the door and carefully knocks three times.
"Go away."
"You sure you don't want the company?"
"Abso-posi-lutely," Pinkie mumbles with a noticeable lack of energy.
Anon leans against the door while continuing to grin. He's seen this before.
"Well, I guess I'll just have to drink all this hot chocolate by myself, then."
"..."
"I even got the silly straws out and everything."
"..." After a few moments, the distinct sound of the bedroom door unlocking graces Anon's ears. However, it does not open. "Give me a second, I'm not decent."
"Honey, you don't normally wear clothes anyway."
"Oh yeah."
With a shrug, Anon opens the door. In the brief span of time between her unlocking the door and him opening said door, Pinkie has somehow made it back into her bed. She wears a fuzzy, light-blue robe as she lies flat on her back. Although she is still pink, the color in both her coat and mane seems to have dulled a bit. Her aforementioned mane is also lacking its usual poofy quality, and is currently drooping straight down over her shoulders and chest. Her eyes have a slight red tint to them, indicating that she has been crying. All in all, she looks quite miserable.
A gramophone playing soft rock rests next to the king-sized bed. Last Anon checked, they don't own a gramophone, but again, he knows better by now than to question these things.
Giving her a warm smile, Anon takes a seat on the edge of the bed next to her. She stares at him with her bright blue eyes, though there isn't much energy in her expression. Gingerly, he hands her the still-steaming mug, as well as a little green silly straw. She sits up just enough to take them from him and begins to sip from the straw.
"Thanks, Nonny." Her voice is quiet, and she sounds like she's on the verge of tears.
"Something happen today?"
"...Yeah."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"...No."
The smile still on his face, Anon slowly reaches over and strokes Pinkie's mane right behind her head. He isn't all that used to it being as straight as it currently is, but by the way her shoulders relax when he hits just the right spots, it seems that it's just as effective as ever at getting her to calm down a little bit.
"That's okay. If you change your mind, I'm still willing to listen."
She gives him a smile, but the smile is obviously forced. She doesn't have to force smiles all that often, so he's gotten extremely good at recognizing when she is.
Similarly, she doesn't get like this very often. There isn't some grand "Pinkie Pie conspiracy" or anything like that, of course. She legitimately is Ponyville's Super Duper Party Pony. She adores bringing smiles to others. She takes pride in the work she does spreading joy and laughter everywhere she goes, and she's extremely talented at it. However, not even she is immune to the dreaded Bad Day™.
Everyone has had a Bad Day™ at some point. It's one of those days where, from the very beginning, every little thing goes wrong. You wake up feeling tired, or perhaps with a headache. You're out of milk when you try to make breakfast. It's raining on your way to work. You have to deal with problematic people throughout the day, or something else outside your control goes wrong and you're blamed for it. You have to work overtime, and it's cold when you go home. Then, when you finally make it back, you find out Gummy ate the leftovers you'd been saving in the fridge. Well, maybe not exactly that, but the point stands. A Bad Day™ is bad news, and it usually takes someone special to help you out during those days. Someone like a Super Duper Party Pony, in fact!
But who is there to help when the party pony in question is the one having a Bad Day™? Her husband, of course! Anon has seen this before. When a Bad Day™ hits Pinkie, it hits hard. And she never likes to talk about why, either. Is it because she doesn't like to recall bad events that happen to her, or is it because Bad Days™ tend to consist of many small things that are hard to talk about instead of one big inciting incident?
Either way, Anon is on the case.
"Wait here for just a moment, okay?"
"I don't think I'm gonna get out of bed ever again," she says before taking another long, drawn-out sip of her hot chocolate.
Anon smiles at her as he stands up, walks over to the doorway, and reaches around the corner to the pile of stuff he left outside. The first thing he retrieves is a large, bright-pink blanket. He steps back into the bedroom, revealing the blanket to his waiting wife with a grin. A tiny smile creeps its way to her face.
"Nonny..."
"I applied the scent and everything~!"
Anon happily hurries his way to Pinkie's side, and with the small smile still on her face, she lets out a fake exasperated sigh.
"Come on, I don't wanna burrito!"
"Too bad, you're burrito-ing."
"Nonny!"
They both laugh as he wraps the blanket around her small, relaxed body, leaving only her head exposed. He carefully reaches in and retrieves her straightened-out mane, letting it flow behind both her and the blanket. She takes a deep breath, relishing the strawberry scent Anon has filled the blanket with. How he does it, she doesn't know. But that doesn't change the fact that it's her favorite scent.
"Comfy?"
Although there is still little energy in her voice, the gentle smile she gives him makes her appreciation clear as day.
"Yeah. Thanks for this."
"You say that like I'm done."
"You didn't!"
"I did!"
Once again, Anon rises from the bed and struts over to the doorway before grabbing the other item he had prepared: a book. Well... "book" might be an understatement. It is a veritable tome, vaguely cyan in color with yellow and purple details. The text on the front is gaudy and almost illegible, but it says "Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery." Said book is filled with hilarious antics, but most importantly, it's Pinkie's favorite.
"Nonny, I can't even read that. You burritoed me!"
"I know. That's why I'm going to read it to you!"
"Noooooo, you always get the punchlines wrong!"
Her voice is a whine, but the smile on her face is all Anon needs to know that she's faking it. She loves it when he reads to her, perhaps because he only does so on special occasions.
And you know what? Pinkie having a Bad Day™ sounds like the perfect occasion.
One last time, Anon sidles up to the side of the bed, but unlike before, he doesn't just sit down. Instead, he crawls onto the bed and places himself directly behind Pinkie while placing the book in front of her. He rests his head behind hers and reaches around her on both sides, pulling the burritoed Ponk into a warm embrace before grabbing and opening the book to where they can both see it.
"How's this?"
"..." She sighs. "You didn't have to do all this."
"I know, but I wanted to. Only the best for my Pinkie Pie."
Anon begins to read from the book, but after a few seconds, he cuts himself off.
"Oh! I almost forgot something!"
"Hm? What did you-" Pinkie is interrupted by something falling from the ceiling onto her head. Anon chuckles and removes it before placing it next to her. Pinkie looks down and beams at the sight of Gummy, who has once again somehow fallen from out of nowhere. "Gummy! Are you trying to cheer me up, too?"
Wordlessly, he opens his big, toothless mouth and clamps down onto a part of her long, straightened-out mane, causing both Pinkie and Anon to laugh.
"Looks like he is!"
Suddenly, there is a sound like a party horn echoing throughout the room. Anon looks down to see Pinkie's coat pop right back into its usual vibrant pink color. All at once, her mane practically explodes back into its usual poofy shape, causing Gummy to hold on for dear life. There is still a quiet sadness in her eyes, but it seems like she is, at the very least, starting to feel a little better.
"...I love you guys."
"I love you too, Pinkie."
Time seems to fly by as Anon reads to Pinkie. She may not get better for a while - we rarely do so quickly - but with her family there to support her, even she can overcome the blues caused by a Bad Day™.