//------------------------------// // Chaos [CANON] // Story: Ciderfest 2023 Mane Story Saturday Morning - "Realization" // by Vivid Syntax //------------------------------// “Hey Barley,” Caramel asked as she sipped from a flower-shaped teacup labeled “DrInK mE.” She shrunk to half her size, but she took a bite of the “EaT mE” cake and regrew. Besides the vertigo and nausea, it was actually pretty fun. “Yeah, Caramel?” Barely sat in a rocking chair made of licorice. He tried to pour the two of them some tea from a teapot, but all that came out was bubbles. Barely harrumphed. “At least it wasn’t scorpions this time. What’s up?” “Oooh!” Pinkie Pie squealed, adjusting her oversized hat. “Bubble tea! Bleeeeh…” She held her mouth open with her tongue sticking out and feverishly bit at the bubbles that flew by. “Mmm. Needs more sugar!” She reached across the table at the massive spread of cakes, candies, confections, and carefully crafted confit. The table hovered and the chairs bounced along a checkered landscape like it was made of rubber, but none of the four of them seemed to mind. “You having a good time, Izzy?” “No,” she growled in her purple-striped kitty costume. Before Pinkie could answer, she leapt onto the table. “I’m having the best time! Hey, do you think I can melt down those rock candies into a pretty glass chandelier?” Pinkie gasped. “That would be perfect! And then when the party gets really intense, you can swing from the chandelier and eat it at the same time!!!” Izzy and Pinkie giggled and continued their planning, and Caramel finally turned back to Barley. “Do you think we’re the bad guys here?” Barley recoiled. “Caramel, look around: would the bad guys be bouncing along a weirdly-colored countryside, having a tea party with friends while the fate of the world is in the balance?” “I’m not sure the good guys would be doing that either…” Her head hung low. “And besides, you only agreed to this because Pinkie said she’d give us some of her pages afterwards.” “Well, yeah…” Barley cast a glance aside. “But it’s important. And you said you wanted to have fun with it, right? And we both could use a break after all the craziness at the convention yesterday.” “But I feel so bad for Fizzy. The way we treated her, how we shot down her ideas… That doesn’t feel like something that the good guys would do.” “Yeah, but is it just that? Was that the only reason she did all this?” Barley fidgeted as he tried to pick up a jelly doughnut, but he bit in and found it was just a rice ball. “I felt bad about the whole thing, it really was my fault, but this has gotten out of hand. We have to do something to convince her to fix all this.” Out of the corner of his eye, he looked into a glass of purple lemonade, and he could swear he saw a nirik face flash in the reflection. “Hey!” Izzy shouted. “You’re not playing with us!” Pinkie’s gaze grew icy cold. “You Pinkie Promised you’d have a tea party before I gave you the page.” Caramel waved her hooves. “We’re sorry, Pinkie. We’re having fun, but we’re worried about Fizzy Glitch. It’s hard to party when we’re so concerned about our friend.” Pinkie brightened up immediately. “That sounds like a good ol’ fashioned friendship problem, and lucky for you, I know just mare to help!” “Is it you?” Barley asked with a wagging tail. “Nope!” Pinkie grabbed a page from a stack in her back, then slammed it on the table. “I’d really love to, but it turns out that when you have the ability to throw parties in multiple dimensions simultaneously, your calendar fills up really quickly. I’m gonna throw a party for everypony in the multiverse!” “Sounds ambitious.” “Thanks! And speaking of ambitious, there’s a certain princess that’s always happy to help.” Izzy clopped her hooves together. “Ooooh, can I do it? Can I summon her?” “Sure thing, Izzy!” Izzy grabbed a page and a bright blue crayon and began writing. As she did, she narrated, “Of course, the party wasn’t complete without a princess in attendance. Fortunately, they had sent an invitation to none other than…” “Wah!” Twilight Sparkle screamed as she appeared in a puff of green, fiery smoke. She crashed onto the table of treats, spilling cream and sugar all over her plain blue-and-white dress. She rubbed her head as she stood up. “Where am I?” “Party!” Pinkie shouted while Izzy stared at her page, confused. “That checks out.” Twilight reoriented herself on the bouncing table. Barley leapt onto the table with her. “Princess Twilight! We need help with a friendship problem.” Twilight straightened herself up. “I’m all ears. What’s wrong?” Caramel leapt up to join them. “We think we might have messed up. We had a bad night with our friend, Fizzy Glitch, and before we knew it, she used the Book of All Stories and now all…” Caramel waved a hoof at the quite mad tea party they were in, “...this has happened!.” “Hey!” Pinkie frowned, adjusting her tophat, irritating the caterpillar that had made itself comfortable on top. Barley nodded. “We want to figure this stuff out, but we don’t know how.” Twilight rubbed her chin. “Hm… Well, have you talked with Fizzy Glitch?” Both Barley and Caramel looked away. “Not since all this happened,” Caramel explained “Well, clearly you need to find her and talk with her about everything,” Twilight said, sitting straight. “Communication is the core of any good friendship!” “Yeah, but we don’t know where to begin! I’m sure she’s angry at us for the way we forgot about her idea, but there has to be more to it. It’s not like we can just… ask for help…” Barley trailed off, his eyes going wide. “Well, why do you think we called in Twilight, silly?” Izzy giggled as she popped her own head off and began juggling it in her own hooves. “That’s it!” Barley turned to Caramel. “The con guests! We can get them to help us figure out what to say to Fizzy! She’s been running the con, they’ve had to have interacted with her!” Caramel beamed. “That’s a great idea! They can go talk with her, enter into pages about her, and even do activities related to her!  Maybe even do stuff to show they appreciate her! Every little bit will help us figure this out and get through to her. ” Barley flapped his wings and hovered with joy. “Yeah!” He dropped back onto the table. “Oh, but that’s going to be tough, especially without any pages.” Twilight took a step forward. “No problem.” Her horn glowed, and several pages flew from her bag. “I’m here to help.” Caramel and Barley cheered, and Twilight quickly opened a green portal with her magic pages, which all three of them leapt through with haste. Izzy froze. “Did they… just break a Pinkie Promise?” “That’s okay,” Pinkamena said. Izzy whipped her head around to see Pinkie, mane straightened and eyes pointing in different directions, sitting between figures of Barley and Caramel that were made of candy. “I made us some new friends.” Izzy gulped.