I tried with all my might, but it wouldn't budge. I couldn't understand. She wasn't holding it down, and I think if it was tied down, she would at least react. It was like some strange force just made it impossible to move with my magic. I briefly thought of simply walking over there and tearing the mangy thing off her head. Then she turned into the spa. I gasped. She was not only missing our appointment, but now she was coming on her own? Why? It doesn't make any sense.
"Hello Rarity. By the way, I'm awesome. Have I told you that yet today?"
I was about to berate Rainbow for such a ridiculous and sudden boast, but when I looked up it was not at all what I expected. First off the cloud she was laying on was clearly a cheaply made stage prop that only vaguely resembled a cloud. The paint job and craftmareship was far better than Scootaloo's attempts at stage props, but still not very good. If the light blue supports were viewed from just the right angle the sky might disguise them, but from most angles they stood out all the more against the backdrop of the building.
Yet the real oddity wasn't the cloud, but the rough facsimile of Rainbow Dash that lay upon it. First and foremost she was pink, a very familiar shade of pink in fact. The mane was also not quite right. The red was replaced by an also familiar magenta, the blue matched the color of Dash's fur more than her mane, the yellow was faded but fairly close, and the purple was lighter and more pink but not too bad. The green though was absolutely dreadful. A sickly shade that may exist in nature, but most certainly should not. The orange was the sole color not washed out, but was such a vibrant shade it almost felt like just looking at it caused my eyes to burn.
"Pinkie, is that you?"
She giggled, complete with snort. "How did you guess? I mean didn't I get the voice like just perfect?"
"Yes, you certainly did. You still need to work on colors however dear. Though I must admit, you certainly have the shape down."
"Yea, I look at Dash really closely a lot, so it was easy. I think it's even better than my Twilight. Wanna see me do you?"
"No thank you."
I laughed, then sighed. I was fully convinced Pinkie would one day wake up with a mare to one side and a stallion to the other, then let out a long drawn out "oohhhh" as she realizes what is already obvious to me. However until that day comes I'm sure she will remain completely oblivious to her own nature, and possibly oblivious to the nature of such things entirely. She then hopped down off the most likely hastily constructed cloud. It then slid down the side of the building and crashed to the ground in a heap.
"You didn’t' nail it to the building?"
"Yea, I figured somepony might not like that, so I just had hooks and stuff. It worked really well for a while."
"I see. So, I don't suppose you'd like to help me take Fluttershy's hat?"
"Nah. She told me it's not hiding anything, and nothing is totally boring. One time Inky got me to give her a box of toys for her box of nothing, but I learned my lesson. Never again. Though studying all that high quality nothing was helpful in the long run, so maybe it wasn't that bad of a deal, but it was still nothing and I don't need anymore of that, because it was a really full box of nothing, ya know?"
I just stared. The speech was actually made all the more bizarre by Pinkie's current imitation of Dash. I then took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
"Pinkie, did you ever consider she might be lying?"
"Pfft, Fluttrershy doesn't lie silly."
"Then she didn't tell me she enjoyed being a fashion model?"
"Oh." Her ears dropped. "Uh, well it's not like…" Pinkie then paused. "She meant well but that was a lie and that other time was almost the same. That one time she…"
"Obviously she is just trying to spare our feelings, and means well, but I simply must know what's under that hat."
"But on my birthday Twilight said I should trust my friends have my best interests at heart." Then she blinked. "Wait, maybe that was a voiceover to Celestia and she wasn't talking to me."
"What does that mean? Voiceover to Celestia."
Pinkie raised an eyebrow. "Why are you asking me?"
"Because you just said…" I sighed. "Pay it no mind. You should trust we have your best interests at heart, but at times it's best if secrets are shared. Like that mess with Fluttershy and her modeling career. If she had just told me the truth from the beginning…"
"You both would have been much happier. I love happiness." Then she giggled. "Well, duh, you know that. I mean element of laughter here." Then she blinked. "Uh, but how does taking her hat help?"
"We will bring her silly little secret to light and then we can all laugh at how utterly silly it was to keep it in the first place."
"Hmmm."
Pinkie was suddenly back to normal, hoof on chin. After a while she let out an evil cackle that mimicked Nightmare Moon spot on right up until the snort. This caused her to stop entirely of course.
"Ooops."
"So you'll help?"
"Yeppers peppers. So, what's the plan?"
Pinkie then saluted. I realized I wasn't sure what to try next. I began to walk toward my shop. It was time to do some serious planing.