“Surprise!” shouted Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash.
The inside of Sugarcube Corner was tastefully decorated with glittering streamers and sparkling balloons to commemorate Pinkie’s exit from the emergency center. A towering cake frosted with the words “Welcome Home, Pinkie” sat on a long table set with pink plates and cutlery. Presents stacked to the ceiling made the still bandaged pink pony cry with overwhelming glee.
“Oh you guys, this is the most amazing thing anypony’s ever done for me,” Pinkie said, breathing heavily from the exertion of excitement evident from her happy little jumps.
“Well, don’t tire yourself out, darling,” said Rarity. “There’s a lot more party to be had!”
“Oh, oh! Can we play my favorite game, pin the tail on the pony?”
“Of course,” answered Fluttershy. “This is your party, and you can do whatever you please.”
“Except not have a part because this is a party, right?” snorted Twilight. Everypony except Pinkie Pie rolled their eyes.
Pinkie Pie walked slowly admiring the gleaming decorations that dressed Sugarcube Corner from top to bottom in festive attire. She paused at the cake and noted the sugar crusted cutie marks of all her friends lining the bottom ridge.
“You do like the decorations, right Pinkie?” asked Rarity, fidgeting her hooves.
“Of course I do,” Pinkie replied smiling.
“Oh goodie!”
“But, there’s something missing…”
“Missing?” All eyes were on the recovering pony.
“I miss Applejack,” Pinkie said with a sigh.
A fierce silence pierced the colorful room and stole the breaths of all present. Each looked to her own front hooves until a purple unicorn came to Pinkie’s side and wrapped a hoof around her.
“Oh Pinkie. Applejack has been gone for weeks now, and nopony has any clue where she might have gone.”
“I even went to check with Big Mac at Sweet Apple Acres almost every day,” said Fluttershy, blushing slightly.
“And she hasn’t turned up?” asked Pinkie Pie.
Fluttershy shook her head.
“We all wish that she could have been here to celebrate with you Pinkie. Isn’t that right everypony?” announced Rarity.
Everypony nodded in agreement except Rainbow Dash.
“Rainbow? You don’t wish she was here, too?” asked Rarity.
The rainbow maned pegasus scratched her leg uneasily and darted her eyes to the floor.
“Rainbow,” said Rarity sternly.
“I. Well. You see. Um. Hey, anypony thirsty?” Rainbow bolted to the large punch bowl filled with sarsaparilla and began serving several cups with the drink, spilling small amounts with every spoonful.
“Rainbow?”
The clumsy server looked up from her hooves and saw Pinkie wearing a look of sadness and concern on her face. She took a long, deep sigh and placed a hoof on her pink friend’s shoulder.
“Pinkie, I can’t lie to you. You’re too good a friend for that.”
“Well, duh,” Pinkie said, tilting her head.
“The thing is I’m still mad at Applejack for what she put you through. For the boneheaded decision she made to let you ride that rickety old machine.” She looked over the head wound still penetrating Pinkie’s head bandage. “For hurting you. I will never forgive her for that.”
“Oh Dashie, is that it?” replied Pinkie to everypony’s surprise.
“How can you say that?” said Rainbow Dash.
“With my mouth, silly!”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Rainbow Dash facehoofing.
“Then what do you mean, Rainbow?”
“She almost killed you, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow screamed. “Your life could have ended the day she pushed you off the cliff and I would’ve lost a dear friend.”
“It sounds like you already did that,” said Pinkie reflectively.
Rainbow Dash glanced over to the others. Everypony held back tears as they witnessed the words emanating from the cracked lips of the one wounded. The pegasus gave a final sigh and let her hoof fall to the ground.
“Pinkie…”
“Ponies make mistakes, Dashie,” said Pinkie. “Have you never made a mistake before?”
Rainbow paused before answering. “Yes, I have.”
Pinkie smiled. “Mistakes are a part of life. Nopony controls who makes them, only how they react.”
Rainbow Dash looked up at Pinkie with tears welling in her bright fuchsia eyes.
“I choose to not let them bother me and have fun. How about you?”
“I’ll try Pinkie,” replied Rainbow, weakly smiling at her wise friend.
“Alright then, who’s ready to partay!?”
* * *
At about nine o’clock, the festivities at Sugarcube Corner had come to an end and all of the ponies pitched in to help Mr. and Mrs. Cake clean. Over at a corner, Pinkie Pie rested on an inflatable mattress tired from a wonderful time spent with all but one of her dearest friends. When the last bag of trash was disposed of, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash gathered at the entrance where Mrs. Cake gave them thanks for their help.
“It was no trouble at all,” said Twilight. “We did use your bakery after all.”
“Well, I’m off to bed then. We have a huge engagement tomorrow at Canterlot early morning and we need to find a babysitter for the whole day, and poor Pinkie Pie is in no condition to watch the two foals.”
“I’d love to offer my help, but I’m currently conducting a special study for the Princess on the practicality of utilizing magic in logistics,” Twilight said with a short squeak of delight.
“I-I have a previous engagement with Big Macintosh tomorrow I’m afraid,” said Fluttershy.
“I thought we were going to the spa together, Fluttershy!” said Rarity.
“I-I know, and I’m really sorry, but Big Mac said he would take me to his favorite fishing spot by the lake and prove that he really does put the fishes back.”
Rarity sighed. “Well, you are an animal activist so for that I won’t judge you. That just means I’ll have to spend the entire morning alone at the mercy of both Aloe and Lotus’s spa treatments.”
Mrs. Cake turned to Rainbow Dash. “What about you, dearie?”
“Sure, I’d be glad to help,” she replied. “In fact, I was wondering if it was okay with you and the hubby if I could spend the night with Pinkie. You know, just to make sure she’s okay and all.”
Mrs. Cake smiled at the idea. “Why that’s perfect! That way you can stay home with the little ones, too.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Twilight.
Upstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Cake settled into bed while Rainbow Dash took the initiative to get the foals ready for bed. After a brief struggle getting them to stay in their crib, Rainbow lulled them to sleep with a warm bottle and a gentle back rub. Downstairs, Pinkie Pie placed blankets over the inflatable mattress and filled a large glass pitcher with fresh water.
“Phew, all this bed making is thirst making,” said Pinkie to herself, pouring a glass of water.
“Tell me about it,” said Rainbow coming down the stairs from the foals’ room. “Those guys are impossible to make stay put.”
“I know the feeling,” said Pinkie Pie, handing the tired pegasus a glass.
The two friends fell on the mattress and looked up at the ceiling, each taking periodic sips of their crisp refreshment. Out the window, a shooting star blazed across the night sky and vanished behind the peaks of the Equestrian mountain range.
“Oh, oh, a shooting star,” Pinkie exclaimed. “Hmm, let’s see. I know! I wish for a large rubber ducky. No, a million parties. No, forty days and forty nights of nonstop chocolate rain.”
“You would, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash chuckled.
Pinkie turned on her side. “What do you wish for, Dashie?”
Rainbow pondered. “Well, I know a few things I wish didn’t happen.” She looked at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie grabbed her friend by the hoof and smiled.
“Hey Rainbow Dash.”
“What?”
“You think you can go upstairs and get a book from my room for a bedtime story?”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Lemme guess. 'Underwater Basketweaving for Dummies'?”
“No, not that one. That wasn’t as useful as I thought since it kept breaking apart in the pool.”
Rainbow Dash got up from the mattress and made her way to the stairs. “What’s it called?”
“The Prettiest Ponies,” Pinkie said.
Rainbow made her way up the stairs, careful not to wake the Cakes. When she entered Pinkie’s room, she looked over the short table she was referred to the day Pinkie asked for the other book but could not find “The Prettiest Ponies.” She looked under her bed, on her desk, and even in the personal bathroom but it was nowhere to be found. She was about to leave to tell Pinkie about her failed search when a flick of blonde mane caught the corner of her eye.
“Lookin’ fer this, are ya?” said a mare’s voice with a thick southern accent.
Rainbow looked over to find Applejack leaning against the wall with Pinkie’s book up in one hoof and a sharp knife near her flank in the other. She threw the book at Rainbow’s hooves and began slowly walking towards the nervous pegasus.
“What are you doing here?” asked Rainbow, stepping backwards.
“I came to see Pinkie,” Applejack said. She held up the knife and gave Rainbow a frightful grin. “Looks like I’ll be getting two things done at once. Lucky me.”
“Applejack, you don’t want to do this,” said Rainbow, still backing towards the door. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Oh, we’re gonna fight Rainbow. Cuz I ain’t flyin’ no more!”
Applejack swiped her hoof across Rainbow’s face, but the fleet footed pegasus dodged the attack. The farm pony lunged three more times at the weaving Rainbow Dash, the last coming inches to gouging one of the pegasus’s eyes. Rainbow made a dash towards the entrance, but was detained by a coarse rope lassoed expertly around her legs.
“Say yer last words, pardner.” Applejack approached the helpless pegasus grinning from ear to ear. She raised the knife in the air and gave Rainbow a mischievous wink.
“Applejack, please. Think of Pinkie Pie.”
Applejack brought down the sharpened knife about halfway to Rainbow Dash’s chest before she was distracted by an unexpected visitor.
“Rainbow, what’s all the commotion? You’re not tearing up the room just to look for…” Pinkie came in the room and immediately froze with her mouth agape. “A-Applejack?”
“Pinkie Pie!”
Thinking quickly, Rainbow Dash kicked her four hooves towards the knife, cutting the rope that bound her legs clean and sending Applejack back on her flank. The pegasus got up quickly and turned to her pink friend.
“Pinkie, you need to get the hay outta here and call the police!”
“Dashie, look out!”
Rainbow Dash turned to see Applejack’s hoof slashing the knife towards her throat. The farm pony came merely centimeters from ending Rainbow’s life had it not been for a pink hoof blocking the trajectory.
“Ah!”
“Pinkie. No!” Rainbow Dash knelt next to the pink pony. Nauseating amounts of blood spilled all over the laminate floor and a severed hoof landed at the hooves of the attacker.
“No. This was not s’posed to happen!” Applejack looked up at Pinkie piercing the former peaceful silence with her screams of intense pain. Out in the hallway, the sound of clopping hooves got louder and louder.
“I’m sorry, Pinkie!” Applejack turned and jumped out of Pinkie’s window and vanished into the black night.
“Applejack, where are you going?” screamed Rainbow.
“What in the hay is goi-. Oh my heavens, Pinkie!” Mrs. Cake fell to her knees next to the amputated pony. She removed her nightgown and pressed the area of severance to stop the bleeding as best she could. She looked up at Rainbow Dash whose hooves dripped with Pinkie’s blood.
“You!”
“What? No, Mrs. Cake I can explain..”
“How dare you do this to my darling Pinkie Pie!”
“You don’t understand, it wasn’t me. Applejack was…”
“What in tarnation is going on?” Mr. Cake arrived with both foals crying hysterically in his hooves. As soon as he saw Pinkie’s leg and Rainbow’s dirty hooves, he turned to leave.
“Honey, where are you going?” yelled Mrs. Cake.
“I’m putting these foals down and I’m calling the authorities on this filthy horse.”
Rainbow Dash gave a light gasp and turned towards the window. Before she leapt, she took one last look back at Pinkie Pie. The earth pony's eyes pleaded with the fleeing pegasus to stay and console her. Knowing the consequences, Rainbow flew out of the second story window and darted across the cold, dark sky, tears streaming through the sides of her eyes.