In her life, Pinkie Pie had faced many challenges. She had faced hydras and ants and parasprites and housefires and fire ants and parahydras. She had bourn scorn and spite and hatred and ponies who couldn't decide exactly how much frosting they wanted on their cupcakes even though they were just going to eat the frosting anyway and it didn't really matter. What really mattered was the strawberry on the cupcake. The strawberry was the heart of the cupcake – the soul – but some ponies just couldn't see the strawberry for the frosting.
Vaguely, she was aware that she was getting distracted. More pressingly, she was aware that she really, really wanted cupcakes. For a long moment, she pondered. Would she do her job, or fill her stomach? It was never an easy choice, but today it was even harder because today was important. Today was the day that she – of course.
She didn't need to decide. Today was one of those rare, perfect days – the kind that just didn't happen too often these days. Today, she could fill her belly, replenish her smile, and perform her super-duper important duties all at once!
Pinkie Pie grinned. She had never faced a challenge quite like this one – but she had faced lots of other challenges and done okay, and they had almost all been less likely to produce delicious treats for her, if only by a little – except for that adventure in the candy mountains, but those had been dark days. Dark days she preferred not to remember.
Not like today. Today was a bright day, in large part because of the flames periodically erupting from the various pots and pans precariously positioned all around her. Pots and pans that housed simmering, delicious hope. Hope for the future. The next generation – a generation shaped by her. Not literally, like Rocky or Mr. Cookie, but in spirit, like Granny Pie and the Cakes had helped to shape her.
Like the Cakes would never be able to shape their own children. But that wasn't the kind of thinking she needed to be doing today. Her thoughts needed to be happy and clever and focused and all those other things! She wasn't entirely sure she was capable of most of those things, but she figured that if she made up for the cleverness and focus and not having any clue where to start with happiness and enthusiasm things couldn't possibly go wrong.
She spun on her hooves, taking in the chaotic kitchen all around her. In the corner Pound was huddled over a huge pot, stirring some sort of mystery concoction that she was pretty sure had started out as a batch of cookies but was now some kind of soup. Her grin grew wider as the perfect little pegasus cast a nervous glance at her, and she gave a nod of encouragement. He was so inventive – and really, that was the mark of a good baker. Talent could be learned, or stolen, or bought or baked or obtained in questionable deals made in the dead of night with passing unicorns on the outskirts of a tiny rock farm...well, there were lots of ways to get good at baking.
On the other side of the kitchen, whistling quietly to herself as she worked, was Pumpkin – ingredients danced through the air, moving in time to the music. There were radishes and pickles and a month old banana and the leftovers from the pie Pinkie had gotten from Applejack the day before, all topped with lemon and tomato spread. Pinkie wasn't quite sure what Pumpkin was making – the unicorn had insisted it was a secret – but she was pretty sure that it couldn't possibly be as disgusting as it looked or smelt, and that could only be a good thing!
She let her eyes drift closed, taking in the aromas of the questionably baked goods around her, and she was happy. For the first time since the Cakes had died, the twins seemed content. They weren't bakers yet – they weren't even close to bakers yet – but that was okay, because they were smiling – little, hesitant smiles, but real ones.
And with her as their teacher, they would become great – they would become bakers, or anything else they wanted to be, and they would be proud of themselves just like she was proud of them. Like their parents had been proud of them. Like their parents had been proud of her.
Today they were bakers, and she was their teacher. But more importantly, today they were a family. And it was enough. For the first time since she had become the guardian of the two perfect ponies, Pinkie Pie felt sure she had done a good job.
Today, she had done herself proud.