//------------------------------// // Panic, Parties, and Pinkies // Story: The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash // by Ponibius //------------------------------// The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash Chapter 3: Panic, Parties, and Pinkies The world had gone crazy. I didn’t understand, everything had been fine this morning. I had my job that was cool enough, my awesome friends, a radical fillyfriend, and my parents were nicely all the way back in Cloudsdale. But then... I don’t know what happened. My parents visited and then everything went horribly wrong. I was the coolest, most radical, and awesomest pony in Equestria. How’d I come to date a pony who was exactly like one of my moms!? This wasn’t happening. I would’ve said it was a nightmare, but even my nightmares couldn't have come up with something as terrible as this. How did I not see it earlier? Pinkie and Awesomom... They were almost the same pony. How was that even possible? I blasted over Ponyville, screaming at the top of my lungs. I wanted to go ... somewhere, anywhere, just someplace that made sense. A place where I wasn’t dating one of my moms. Maybe if I flew fast enough I could smash my way into a universe that made sense and wasn’t filled with mom-dating madness? I wondered if I could actually do that. Could I be so awesome that I could just smash through the walls between dimensions? Then it dawned on me, about by the time I had flown high enough to feel the chill and it was starting to become hard to breathe. Of course, Twilight! She was the pony to talk to! She was an egghead and she had lots of magic. That was like the perfect one-two combo for fixing my problems. Eggheads and magic were good at making things better. Maybe good enough to fix whatever the hay was wrong with my life. I flew towards the library as fast I could, dodging all the other pegasi on the way down with my awesome flying. There was no sensation that could replace the feeling of the wind whipping through my mane, my muscles burning from intense effort, or the exhilarating thrill that came with going at top speed. The problem was that I was going pretty fast, considering I was flying almost straight down towards the earth, a little too fast. The ground and I weren’t on speaking terms half the time. I blame the ground, it kept hurting me. It’s not my fault I kept crashing into it, the blame for that fell on gravity’s shoulders.   My issues with gravity and the sudden stops that're associated with it aside, I really was approaching the library way too fast. Not that I didn’t want to get to Twilight as fast as possible—I was a busy pony trying to make sense out of a mad world—but breaking bones wasn’t exactly fun. Plus, Nurse Redheart had put me on a strict “no crashing” regimen due to my eye issues. Really, she never liked to hear about me slamming into things at high speed, go figure, but she was going to chew my ear out if I hurt myself now of all times. On reflection I should’ve just turned, circled around, and took more time to land at the library instead of taking the direct line, point to point approach. But I had my reasons for not thinking thing through as well as I should’ve—I was dating my mom! You try thinking straight if you find out something as uncool as that. To my credit and flying skills, I did fly through an open window instead of crashing against the side of the library like I had a couple of times. Unfortunately, I did collide with one of the bookshelves and I bounced off painfully. The shock of my hit caused most of the books to fall off the shelves. The books and I tumbled to the floor and landed among the ponies in the library. “Rainbow Dash!” I heard Twilight say in a scolding voice. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” She and the other ponies stood up from the literary avalanche and started to grumble. Once the world stopped spinning quite so fast—it had been doing that ever since I put the Pinks-Awesomom puzzle together—I jumped to my hooves and grabbed Twilight to start shaking her. I saw no reasons to dance around what had brought me to the library, so I did what I always did and jumped right in. “Twi! I’m dating one of my moms! Make me unthink things! Help me! Help me now!” I might’ve been yelling just a tiny bit. Can you blame me? I kept trying to shake answers out of her when she didn’t immediately answer. I guess that didn’t work, because she didn’t say anything I could understand between the vigorous shakes.  She slapped my hooves away and glared at me. “Upstairs! Now!” The other ponies in the library were looking at the two of us now and were muttering as they pulled themselves from the piles of books. I couldn’t wait that long. That would have taken a ground-pounder like Twilight at least a whole minute to get up the stairs. “But I need eggheady-magicky answers five minutes ago! This is an emerg—” I was cut off when a zipper suddenly zipped shut over my mouth. I was then surrounded by Twilight’s magenta magical aura and I was lifted into the air. “We’re going upstairs,” she said with finality. “Spike! Watch the library, I’ve got something important to deal with.” With that she walked up the stairs to the second story of the library. Once we got to the private section of the library she dumped me onto the floor. I tried to talk through the zipper, but it did a pretty good job of muffling what I tried to tell her. Stupid unicorn magic. It was supposed to be solving my problems, not make things harder. Twilight put her hoof on my mouth. I guessed she really wanted me to shut up. She leaned in towards me and spoke in an annoyed whisper. “Okay, considering you’re probably going to blather whatever comes to your head first, we’re going to try a different method. I’m going to ask a series of questions to help make sense of whatever you were screaming about downstairs. I just want you to nod or shake your head to say yes or no. Do you understand?” I nodded my head. I thought this was silly and I couldn’t help but look at Twilight with narrowed eyes. But there wasn’t much I could do if she wasn’t even going to let me talk. “Here we go then. Are you still dating Pinkie?” I nodded my head. Twilight took a slow breath. “Okay, are you dating anypony else besides Pinkie?” I fixed Twilight with a scowl of my own and shook my head. What, did she think I would fool around Pinkie’s back? Twilight closed her eyes and started to rub the side of her head. “Did Pinkie somehow go back in time to become your mom and is your fillyfriend in the present as part of some sort of convoluted time loop?” I shook my head. At least I didn’t think that is what happened. Well ... there were those pretty convincing disguises Pinkie was wearing earlier. No, no, that was crazy talk. Right? Twilight rubbed her chin. “Has Pinkie Pie somehow been cloned, resulting in one of the clones giving birth to you and another becoming your fillyfriend?” What? That couldn’t happen, could it? What mad science pony or mage would come up with the stupid idea of cloning Pinkie? I don’t think Equestria could handle more than one Pinkie. Maybe Twilight was being weird again. I shook my head. She gave me a level stare as she continued to rub her chin. “Is Pinkie in any way mocking the laws of gods and ponies—anymore than usual, I mean?” I shook my head as I growled at her with annoyance through the zipper. Twilight let out a frustrated breath. “Okay, so it sounds like Pinkie isn’t threatening to destroy all of reality today, so it sounds like we are dealing with something more mundane.” She looked me in the eyes intensely. “I’m going to remove the zipper, but—but—I don’t want the first thing out of your mouth to be a series of incoherent ramblings. If you start screaming your head off I’m putting the zipper back on. And—” she pointed a hoof at me, “—no grabbing me. That isn’t polite behavior.” I rolled my eyes and nodded. Twilight gave me a pleased smile and her horn glowed. “Good.” I reached up to my mouth and found the zipper to be gone. “Now let’s try this again, calmly and rationally.” I reached out to grab Twilight, but I managed to stop myself short of her. Her glare might have helped me with that. I swallowed as I tried to force down the terror and madness that was threatening to overwhelm me. “Twilight, I need your help. I’m dating a pony exactly like one of my moms.” She raised one of her eyebrows at that. “Exactly the same how? Remember, you said they weren’t clones.” “They’re just...” I rubbed my hooves together as I tried to think of a way to explain how weird and wrong everything was. “The both of them are super similar. They both snort the same way when they stop laughing, the fact they both like to put hot sauce on cupcakes, the bone-crushing hugs...” Twilight rubbed the side of her head. “That doesn’t sound so bad. You sure you aren’t getting worked up over nothing?” You’re one to talk about not getting worked up over nothing, Twilight. “No! You don’t understand. Pinkie and Awesomom are almost exactly the same in ... everything!” She cocked her head to the side. “Wait, Awesomom?” I let out a frustrated growl. This wasn’t important! Why couldn’t Twilight just tell me how to fix all this? “Yeah, that’s what I call one of my moms.” “Ah, you have two of those.” Twilight nodded in a sage manner. “Magic of Love or adoption, if you don’t mind me asking?” I facehoofed. How many times did I have to explain this to ponies? “Magic of Love. You know, when two mares love each other very much and then the magicky stuff knocks one of them up and...” “I know how the Magic of Love works,” she cut me off. “I wrote an essay on it during sex ed.” I resisted the urge to grab Twilight again. I needed to do something. I was a doer, not a ‘sit around and talk’ pony. “Twilight, we need to focus. Point is they’re almost exactly alike, and I need help.” My mind desperately tried to think of explanations of how things could have gone so wrong. I tried to think what an egghead would come up with. That kinda hurt my brain, but I did think of something. “You didn’t mess up a spell that threw me into an alternate dimension where this type of thing could happen, did you? Some kind of zone of Twilight?” Twilight looked at me as though I had grown two heads. “What? No. I haven’t done anything with space and time for a couple weeks now. Not since I somehow created a stable time loop ruining an attempt to warn myself not to worry, but instead only causing myself to worry myself sick for a week. But that doesn’t make sense considering what caused me to start worry and go back in time to warn myself not to worry, was what caused me to start worrying in the first place. So—” I clapped my hooves in front of Twilight’s face to snap her out of it. She was getting that far off look she sometimes got when she started doing some sort of egghead rambling that made my head hurt. Twilight was cool and all, but it could be annoying when she went off into egghead land. Population: Twilight Sparkle. “Hey, can we focus here?” Twilight blink and shook her head slightly. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that I somehow caused a time paradox and I’ve been trying to figure out how it happened to start with. Would you like to see my chart and notes? It really is quite fascinating stuff.” “No,” I said firmly. I stomped my forehooves on the floor out of frustration. “Look, can you help me with my problem or not? I really need you right now.” She rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated breath. “Right, back to your issue. But really, how similar could they be?” “Hiya, Twilight!” Awesomom said as she popped out from where Twilight blocked my line of sight. I’m not quite sure how she got there considering I had been looking right at Twilight almost this entire conversation. Her poofy mane alone should have made it impossible for her to hide there, but it was my understanding that Awesomom had a messy divorce with making sense a long time ago. “Nice to meet you. Want a pre-party dessert before the party starts?” Awesomom pulled out a tray filled with cookies and muffins from my blind spot behind Twilight’s back. “Yeah, sure Pinkie, sounds good,” said Twilight in a droning tone she usually used when she wasn’t really listening to what Pinkie was saying. Everypony needed a defense against Pinkie’s ramblings, and this was Twilight’s. It probably said something that Twilight had become so numb to Pinkie suddenly appearing that she didn’t even bother looking back at my mom. I decided to cross my forelegs over my chest and let what was going to happen happen. Twilight put up a hoof without looking at Awesomom, and my mom placed a cookie onto her offered hoof. “Here you go,” Awesomom said happily. “So many ponies arrived early for the party, and who knew there were so many ponies in Equestria? So Pinkie and I thought it would be best to give out some treats to all these ponies so that they don’t get grumpy.” She leaned in to whisper in Twilight’s ear, but more than loud enough for me to hear. “Don’t tell her, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but Pinkie forgot to account for time zones on the invitation lists and it’s confused a lot of ponies. It’s a rookie mistake, so tell everypony not to hold it against her.” Twilight took a bite out of her cookie before she blinked a few times. Her chewing slowed and she slowly turned her head to look Awesomom right in her grinning face. She couldn’t have been more than a step away from Twilight. “Ah!” Twilight let out a surprised scream and teleported behind me. “Who are you and what are you doing in my home!?” Awesomom giggled and snorted. “This is a library, silly. Anypony is allowed to come into a library.” “But not my bedroom!” Twilight objected, one of her ears twitching. I let out a little bit of a snicker. It was kinda funny to see Twilight be surprised like that. I decided to jump in before this got out of hoof. I pointed a hoof at mom. “Twilight, this is my Awesomom, Surprise. Awesomom, this is my friend, Twilight.” Awesomom hopped over and grasped Twilight in a big hug. Twilight grimaced in Awesomom’s vice grip and managed to put on a strained smile. “I always wanted to meet Dashie’s friends here in Ponyville! But we never seemed to get out here for some reason. Whenever Rainie and I said we were coming to Ponyville, Dashie always said that she was already planning on visiting us, or that there was a big storm or tornado over Ponyville, or that she needed to save the world.” She tapped her chin as she looked up at the ceiling. “It’s almost like she didn’t want us to come to Ponyville... But that would be silly—of course Dashie would want us to see her friends and show us around town.” Okay, that one kinda hurt on reflection. It’s not like I didn’t want them coming to Ponyville and meeting everypony I knew. It’s just ... I didn’t want them to embarrass me to the point that I would be afraid to stick my head out of my front door. Twilight gave me a level look. “It’s a mystery, I’m sure.” Darn it, Twilight. Don’t you turn up the guilt on me too. “But we’re here now! And boy has it been a great day!” Awesomom let go of Twilight, and Twilight staggered from the sudden release of pressure and toppled to the floor. “We’re going to have a massive party, it’s going to be so fun, and Rainie and I are going to meet everypony!” She offered the tray of cookies to Twilight again. I’m not sure where or when she put the tray down to hug Twilight or picked it up again. Maybe Awesomom was really good at hoof tricks and I just never noticed because she was just that awesome at them? “Want another cookie?” Twilight stood up from the floor and picked a cookie up with her telekinesis. “Sure, why not?” Her eyes widened when she took a bite. “Mmm, these are pretty good.” Awesomom gave a quick nod. “That’s what I like to see, a smile on a pony’s face. You’re plannin’ on coming to the party, right?” Twilight finished swallowing her cookie before speaking. “I think Pinkie would come in here and drag me out of the library if I didn’t.” Pinkie Pie opened one of the windows to the library and poked her head in. “Righty-dighty I would. I’m not letting one of my bestest friends ever miss out on my biggest, bestest party ever that I’m throwing for my fillyfriend’s parents.” Twilight glowered at my fillyfriend. “Pinkie, remember that talk we had about how you are supposed to come in through my front door when you want to come into the library?” Pinkie tapped her chin and then shook her head. “Not really.” “Right, par for the course.” Twilight facehoofed. “I don’t know why I bother sometimes.” Pinkie lept through the window to land right next to Twilight. “Ooh, don’t feel bad.” She patted Twilight on the head. Twilight gave her a look that made it pretty clear she was quickly reaching her daily quota for Pinkieness. “We all know you try hard.” Pinkie suddenly swiveled in place to face Awesomom. She actually frowned at my mom. “And what do you think you’re doing?” Awesomom tilted her cookie tray for Pinkie to see. “Hoofing out treats to make everypony happy.” “No you’re not!” Pinkie threw her forehooves up in the air. “You’re talking to Twilight. That’s not like passing out cookies! That’s not like passing out cookies at all!” “I gave Twilight a couple of cookies.” Awesomom gave Pinkie a strained smile. “But then you stopped giving out cookies,” pouted Pinkie. “And now you also met Twilight ahead of schedule! I wanted me and Dashie to introduce you both to everypony at the party, but now that’s ruined! Everything was carefully choreographed for the party and now everything is already starting to come apart.” Pinkie eyes had widened and she started trotting in place. “What if the cakes aren’t ready in time? The food, not Mr. and Mrs. Cake and the foals. That’s always a bit confusing when I have the Cake’s making the cakes for a party." She put hoof under her chin while she looked up. "Though come to think of it, they need to be ready too! What if the Cakes need me to help with Pumpkin and Pound and I'm too busy planning the party? I'm supposed to be their go-to foalsitter! What if they can’t come to the party because they don’t have anypony to watch the twins because I’m running the very same party!” “Um, Pinkie—” I tried to interject. Big surprise, Pinkie could get herself worked up sometimes. Pinkie gasped. “And what if Tight Line’s ankle really isn’t healed enough for the trapeze act, or some ancient evil gets released again and becomes a party pooper who refuses to smile and makes everypony all sad?!” She pulled a paper bag out of her mane and started to breath heavily into it. Awesomom started rubbing Pinkie’s back. “Hey, don’t worry. Everything will be fine. You’re doing a super-duper job.” She motioned with her head for me to come over. Oh yeah, I guess comforting your fillyfriend is one of those things you’re supposed to do when dating. I wrapped a wing around Pinkie. “Hey, don’t worry. We can always just wing it.” Pinkie perked up and grinned. “Oh right, silly me, that’s what I always do anyways!” She tossed the paper bag to the side. “Enough of all this saddy-waddy stuff. I’ve got a party to finish preparing for.”  She stood up and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for being the bestest ever fillyfriend, Dashie.” “Um, you’re welcome?” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I’m not good at the touchy-feely thing. “Okie dokie lokie, I’m going to keep working at the party.” With that she ran back towards the window she had come in and lept out of it. Most earth ponies I would be worried about leaping out of windows, but this was Pinkie Pie. “And I’ve got more cookies to give everypony.” Awesomom tossed the cookie tray into the air and it landed perfectly onto her back, cookies intact. Maybe that’s where I got some of my athleticism from? She gave me a kiss to the forehead before walking away. That kiss went running right past embarrassing to creepy now that I had discovered that Awesomom and Pinkie were so similar. It just wasn’t right anymore. After Awesomom went back down the stairs, I turned back towards Twilight. “See that right there?” I pointed a hoof after my mom. “Did you see how similar those two are? They’re all but the same pony. Do you have any idea how wrong this is?” “Now calm down, Dash.” Twilight sat down on a cushion by the desk that was in the room. “Let’s think this one through.” I slammed my forehooves on the table. “What is there to think about? I’m dating my mom!” Twilight put her forehooves up in motion to tell me to calm down. “Okay, so they are similar. Remarkably so, but this isn’t the end of the world.” I paced back and forth and I fought the urge to go flying off. I need to make Twilight understand and fix all of this. “How can it not be? This is so ... weird and wrong. I can’t look at either of them without seeing the other one. It almost made my skin crawl when the two of them kissed me a minute ago” Twilight rolled her eyes. “You probably just have an oedipony complex.” I blinked at her for a moment. “First, I’ve no idea what that is, and second, I’m pretty sure you made that word up.” Twilight let out an annoyed huff. “It’s a real word, I assure you.” She used her telekinesis to pull a book off a shelf and levitated it in front of me and opened it. I looked where she jabbed her hoof and saw that oedipony was really a word. I guess I shouldn’t have tried to call an egghead out on whether a word was real or not. “An oedipony complex simply means that you use one of your parents as a template for desirable traits in a partner. The term originates from an old grecopony play where a pony killed his father and married his mother.” Leave it to Twilight to say that many words without making much sense. I moved my hooved in a circling motion with one another. “Could you de-egghead that for me?” She stared levely at me for a good, long second. “You want a fillyfriend who is like one of your parents.” My jaw dropped at that. “Wait, you’re saying I want to date my mom!?” Twilight put a hoof up to stop me from ranting on. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m trying to tell you is that you probably see some positive features in your mom that Pinkie also has.” I set myself down opposite of Twilight and cross my forelegs in front of my chest. “It’s more than a few, Twilight. You saw them. It doesn’t help that I have the same name as Cool-Mom, and—” I stopped when a terrible thought struck me in the head. “Oh no! We have both the same name and look almost exactly alike. I’m my mom dating my mom! How does this keep getting worse!?” I found myself shivering on the floor. This was way too much for anypony to handle, even somepony as awesome as me. Twilight walked over to me and started waving her hoof in front of my face. “Dash, are you okay there? Look, you aren’t really dating your mom. Pinkie and your mother are two completely different ponies. You were just surprised by how similar they are. Lots of ponies are fairly similar to others.” I did not whimper on the floor. If Twilight says otherwise she’s lying. Twilight sat down next to me and sighed. “Look, I don’t know what else to tell you. But I can assure you there is nothing wrong with either you, Pinkie, or your parents.” I looked up at Twilight. “Can’t you just magic all this away or something?” She shook her head. “Speaking as a pony who has studied magic for most of her life, magic doesn’t solve everything. Not everything can be made better by looking up a spell in a book and casting it. And like I said, there isn’t anything wrong with you. You’re as you as you’ve always been.” I pushed myself up into a sitting position. “You really think so? There isn’t anything weird or unnatural about me?” Twilight gave me a big smile. “I know so. As wary as I am to suggest asking Pinkie for advice, why don’t you go talk to her? I’m sure once you take a little bit of time to think about it, you’ll realize there isn’t anything to worry about.” I flapped my wings to lift off into the air. “Yeah, I think I might do that. Thanks, Twilight.” “Not a problem,” she said, giving me a nod of her head. “And one final thing.” “Yeah?” I asked. I had started to move towards the window, but I turned around to face Twilight again. Twilight pointed at me. “Why are you wearing a dress?” I looked down at myself and facehoofed. I was still wearing the very, very pink dress Rarity and Cool-Mom had made me put on. In all the madness I had completely forgotten I had it on. Rarity probably wasn’t going to be happy that I had probably kinda-sorta stolen her dress ... and broken down her front door, now that I thought about it. I guessed my bit purse was going to be a little lighter this month. “It’s a long story. Look, I need to go.” I gave her a salute and flew out through the open window. “And what did I tell you about using my windows as a door!?” I heard Twilight yell after me. I smirked. If ponies didn’t want pegasi flying through their windows, then they shouldn’t build them big enough for a pony to go through. *** I flew towards the giant curtain Pinkie and Awesomom had set up to hide whatever super-party they were cooking up. I figured that would be the best place to find Pinkie. At least I guessed so, considering Pinkie must have been spending some time getting the party ready between all the times she had been popping in on me. It wasn’t as easy as it normally would have been, given I had to keep slowing down to maneuver around groups of pegasi to get around. I couldn’t think of any other time it was this hard to fly around Ponyville. Even Cloudsdale only got this bad around stadiums during sporting events. I slowed as I approached the curtain wall. I didn’t want to get caught up in the curtain, or worse, crash into something I couldn’t see on the other side. Crashing once into the library had been enough, and hopefully I wouldn’t get an earful from Nurse Redheart over it. Plus I didn’t want to make my bad eye any worse than it already was. Not when I had that surgery coming up. Despite being a couple of stories off the ground, Pinkie popped her head out of the curtain right as I nearly reached it ... but given I couldn’t see on the other end of the curtain, this was far from the least possible thing I had seen from her today. She gave me quite the unwelcoming glower and jabbed a hoof towards a pony sized sign hanging from the curtain a few paces away from her. It read: “Party at 6pm, Please Wait Patiently. Yes, even you Dashie.” I could see similar signs hanging here and there on the periphery of my vision. It looked like Pinkie didn’t want anypony to see what she was up to until she was ready. I rubbed my face as I hovered in front of her. “No, I’m not trying to sneak in, Pinkie. Honest. I just need to talk with you.” Pinkie’s demeanor immediately went from a fierce glower back to her usual cheerful smile. “Oh, okay.” She looked back behind the curtain for a moment before looking back at me again. “Can it wait, or be real quick? I still have a ton of things to do to get this party ready. Like, a literal ton. Or several.” “Watch it with the crane!” I heard Awesomom yell from behind the curtain. There was a loud crash and Pinkie winced. Pinkie looked behind the curtain and her face came back with a grimace on it. “We’re having a bit of a crisis here.” I didn’t particularly like taking Pinkie away from her party stuff, but this was super important. I looked behind me and at least a couple dozen ponies were looking our way. I was sure plenty of them were close enough to eavesdrop on us. “Listen, can we go someplace private? It’s kinda important.” “Oooh, I see.” She gave me a conspiratorial wink. “‘Private.’” “Yeah, as in just you and me.” I pointed back behind me at the ponies taking interesting our conversation. “Without everypony watching.” I would really prefer not talk about my platy-pony issues out in the open. Pinkie covered her mouth with a hoof as she let out a delighted giggle. “I’ve got just the place. Just close your eyes and I’ll take you there.” I hesitated and hovered in place. This sounded a bit fishy. It was hard to think Pinkie doing anything malicious (thank you Daring Doo for that nifty word), but you never really knew what she was up to sometimes. “Where exactly are you planning on taking me?” Pinkie giggled in a conspiratorial manner. “You’ll see,” she said in a sing-song tone. “You trust me don’t ya?” Crap, she pulled the “trust” word out. I’m not relationship expert, but even I was pretty sure that was a big one with a fillyfriend. I felt my resolve slowly eroding as Pinkie looked at me with expectation. I didn’t really want to upset her by telling her no. “Um, alright then. I trust you, Pinks.” I closed my eyes and Pinkie grabbed onto my shoulders. She did that giggle that made me uncomfortable again. “You eyes are closed, right?” “Yeah, they’re closed. Trust kinda comes with the Element of Loyalty th—” I was cut off when I felt ... I don’t know. How do you describe feeling like you are suffering vertigo and being turned inside out at the same time? Though it might have just been another symptom of the world spinning I’d been suffering from since I learned I had a what-you-call-it complex. “You can open your eyes now,” Pinkie said seductively. Fighting the urge to empty the contents of my stomach, I opened my eyes. Looking around, I saw a plush room dominated by a large, heart shaped bed at its center. Red and pink pillows lay all over the floor, and black curtains with red lining circled the room. Pinkie was lying on the bed with a rose in her mouth and was giving me one of those looks. I think this might’ve been one of those times Pinks and I had a bit of a miscommunication. “Sooo, what’s the deal with all this?” I kicked one of the pillows over. “An emergency make-out room,” Pinkie said in a tone that told me that she was pleased with herself. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake said they didn’t want us doing extreme cuddling where the twins could hear. Which I thought was kinda weird considering they’re always talking about needing their personal space and ‘us time,’ but I’m pretty sure they’re just having sex.”  “Ya don’t say?” I said with more than a little sarcasm in my voice. Luckily, either my sarcasm went over Pinkie’s head, or she just never cared enough to be bothered by it. Even Twilight’s level of sarcasm rarely affected her. Pinkie nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yepper-depper-roonie. So I set up this room just for the two of us.” I wasn’t sure I liked where this conversation was going. I liked Pinkie and all, but this was something else. “So this is all for...” Pinkie hopped up and started jumping on the bed. “Banging, doing the horizontal and the vertical, kissing the muffin, playing patty-cake, shagging, going for a happy ending, enjoying an eclai—oh wait, that one doesn’t work for us, does it? No wait! We can use an actual eclair!” Pinkie’s brow furrowed as she tapped her chin. “We should probably make sure that one doesn’t end up back in the shop after we’re done.” I found myself rubbed the back of my neck. “Uh, yeah, that.” This whole subject of banging made me uncomfortable. Especially when it started involving things I normally ate. “So you were wanting to do ... that?” She stopped her bouncing on the bed and gave me a concerned frown. “Is something wrong? I thought you wanted to...” “Bwah?” I took a couple steps back away from the bed. “I don’t remember saying anything like that!” “But I thought the reason you wanted to meet in private was to be with me?” Pinkie sat down on the bed and looked downcast as she looked down at the floor. “I figured you were just having that problem where you have trouble saying what you really mean again.” “What? No, I don’t want to bang you.” My ears fell flat on my head. I immediately regretted how that came out. “Oh.” Pinkie looked down at the bed and started scraping her hoof along it. “I was hoping I was finally going to get the gold under the rainbow.” “No—it’s not that, it’s just...” I let out a frustrated groan. “I’m just bad with words sometimes.” Pinkie let out a long, remorseful sigh. “I know, and ponies keep telling me I should do a better job listening.” “You’re fine, I lo-love you for who you are.” Dangit, I messed up again on the L-word. I’ve said it to her before! I walked over and sat next to Pinkie on the bed. I just sat there staring at the floor for awhile before I could bring myself to talk again. “Listen, I said that all wrong. I didn’t mean I never wanted to have ... to do that with you.” I took a moment to think about what I was trying to say. “I guess what I meant was that I didn’t really want to do it now. I’m just not comfortable with doing things down there because of ... you know, what happened at Flight Camp.” Pinkie leaned against me and wrapped a leg around my shoulders. It felt nice, having her right there. “I understand. You’re just having some trouble, that’s all.” I swallowed as it felt like something was catching in my throat. “I’m just so tired of hurting you and everypony else for something stupid I did. You all deserve better than that.” She slowly leaned in her head to rest against the side of mine. “We talked about this. You need to let it go if you want to get better.” I leaned against Pinkie so that we supported each others weight. “I know, it’s just so hard.” I started rubbed at my face with a hoof. Old, stupid memories started coming back. “I got really messed up at Flight Camp, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I’m tough, I can deal with pain. What really hurts is what I did to Cloud Kicker, Fluttershy ... my parents, everypony. And now you.” Pinkie kept rubbing around my shoulder and hugged me closer. “When I was at the hospital, that was the worst.” My eyes started to sting making it hard to see. “When my parents came in to see me, all hooked up to those machines keeping me alive ... I don’t like thinking about it. You’ve seen them, they’re normally so happy, supportive, and stuff, even if they drive me up the wall sometimes.” My chest seized up when I thought about what happened. “I don’t think I’d ever seen Awesomom cry, not like that. She was just wailing and crying and begging the doctors and nurses to make her little filly better. Cool-Mom ended up having to drag her away even though she wasn’t in much better shape.” My eyes and cheeks were wet and I rubbed at them to get the moisture out. “And I did it to them. It wasn’t like it was an accident. I did it to myself, to them. All because I rushed ahead and did something stupid without thinking.” I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hooves. I didn’t want to see how Pinkie must have been looking at me. “Then I saw them after they heard the news about what I had done. I saw it in how they looked at me, and they knew that I knew. Could you imagine what they must have thought? About their innocent filly beating another filly halfway to death and nearly killing herself in the process? First they had to worry about me surviving, and then me possibly going to jail... I made my moms cry, Pinkie.” I couldn’t go on, it hurt too much. I just sobbed while Pinkie held me. “Shh, it’s okay.” Pinkie rocked me comfortingly. “It’s all in the past now. It’s all turning out alright, and your parents still love you. Anypony can see that.” I sniffed as I leaned my head against Pinkie’s shoulder. “I know, it took a long time to get that through my thick skull, but I never wanted to hurt them to start with. They deserve better than that.” Pinkie gave me a shake. “Now don’t you say something dumb like how they deserve a daughter better than you, because I’m going to tell you right now that they love you and wouldn’t have anypony else as their little filly.” I slowly wrapped my forelegs around Pinkie for comfort. “Thanks. That means a lot to hear it. Um, Pinkie?” “Yeah?” Pinkie asked. I nuzzled against Pinkie’s shoulder. “Can I just have a bit more time before we ... do stuff? Like that? It’s just that everything’s been happening all at once, and I think I just need a little more time to get my head on straight. I want to make you happy instead of messing this up.” Pinkie rested her head against mine. “That’s fine, I understand. I don’t wanna rush you.” I smiled while we sat there next to each other. “Thanks, you’re the best.” Perhaps I could talk to Cloud Kicker about the whole banging thing? I’m sure she would just love that. But I think a little bit of awkwardness would be worth it to make Pinkie happy.   Pinkie gave me one of her goofy smiles. “No, you’re the best.” She started to tickle me in the ribs, and I reflexively jerked away. “Well, yeah. I just thought I’d be modest for once.” I flapped my wings to get some air and distance away from Pinkie and her tickling. I had a feeling I was going to have to deal with random tickling assaults from now on thanks to Awesomom letting the secret of how ticklish I was out. I felt my ears lower as I remembered what had brought me to Pinkie to start with. “So, um, Pinkie, can I talk to you about something?” Her eyebrows rose inquisitively. “Sure you can, you know you can talk to me about anything.” I rubbed my forehooves as I tried to bring myself to talk. “So have you noticed that you and Awesomom are ... kinda similar?” Pinkie rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well duh. Why do you think we get along so well?” I stiffened at that response and landed on the floor. “And you don’t think the whole thing with Awesomom is all weird and stuff?” Pinkie gave me an amused snort. “We’re still two different ponies, Dashie. I mean sure, there’re lots of things similar between us, but there are plenty of things that set us apart. For starters, she likes to put pineapple on her cupcakes, and I’m like, ‘eww, that’s gross.’ And don’t even get me started on how different our philosophies are on birthday parties. She says my parties are way too immature for adults, but I keep telling her everypony loves the games I set up for them.” “Hey, I like your games,” I said encouragingly. That was true enough. Even if they could be kinda silly and foalish at times. But I’d rather be able to let loose and have some fun rather than be all uptight. Not that there was anything wrong with Awesomom’s parties either. I can like both. Pinkie nodded appreciatively. “Thanks, that means a lot to hear that from you.” She leaned in whisper conspiratorially into my ear. “And don’t tell her I said this, because I do like her, but she can be a bit overbearing at times. She’s been all, ‘Pinkie, you need to bake the cookies at three hundred and twenty-five degrees, not three hundred and fifty.’ And, ‘Pinkie, you need to color coordinate your table decorations and streamers.’ And I’m all like, ‘yeah-yeah, Awesomom, I hear ya.’ And she’s all like, ‘honey, if you want to call me that you need to put a fancy piece of jewelry on my daughter.’” She let out a short, frustrated scream. “That pony can drive me crazy sometimes, and I’ve only known her for most of a day.” I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, Awesomom can be like that at times. Part of the reason I moved out here to Ponyville was so that I could get some space. You know how hard it is to do some crazy stunt training when your mom will pop out of nowhere to lecture you about not doing anything dangerous? I know she just doesn’t want me to get hurt, but I’m never going to get into the Wonderbolts if I let her smother me and keep me from practicing as hard as I can.” Plus I didn't like the idea of Awesomom or Cool-Mom having to see me in a hospital again. At least out here in Ponyville I can keep hospital visits for the minor stuff like sprains and broken bones from becoming big dramas. “I think she understands why I do what I do, both of them really. But I wanted some space to be my own mare.” “I think they understand.” Pinkie nuzzled me on the cheek. “They let you move out to Ponyville, didn’t they?” I smiled when I thought about my parents helping me get a cloud-home and everything else I would need when I packed up to move out. There had been a lot of crying—by my parents, that is. “Yeah, I know it hurt them a bit to not have me home all the time like when I was a filly, but they supported my decision in the end when I explained all my reasons for wanting to move out to Ponyville. They’re kinda cool like that.” “I really like them.” Pinkie bounced happily in place a couple of times. “We should have a party to—oh, right, already working on that. Sorry, this party really has me all frazzled out.” “It’s fine, Pinkie.” I scrapped my hoof on the ground. “So you really don’t think this it’s super weird how much you’re like Awesomom?” Pinkie giggled and poked me in the ribs. “Don’t be a silly-willy. I already told you’re two different ponies. Besides, you’re parents are cool, right?” I ran my hoof through the back of my mane. “Yeah, I guess they’re cool enough. For parents that is.” “And you think I’m cool, riiight?” she asked, batting her eyes at me. “Well, yeah, of course.” I thumped myself with confidence in the chest. “I couldn’t have just anypony as my fillyfriend, right?” She bumped my flank with her own. “So if we’re all cool, then what’s the problem?” That made sense in its own way. Which was kinda scary considering Pinkie and making sense normally didn’t go with one another. Maybe she was starting to rub off on me? “Yeah, if everything is cool, then there isn’t a problem.” Pinkie ruffled my mane with a hoof. “Righty-o, now are you done being all saddy-waddy and silly-willy?” I ran a hoof through my mane to put it back in place. “Yeah, s’cool. Talking with you always seems to help.” She gave me one of her patented silly grins. “What can I say? I’m good at putting a smile on a pony’s face.” “You can say that again,” I said, giving her a playful push. “I’m good at putting a smile on a pony’s face,” she parroted herself. I facehoofed. “Oh come on, you know you walked right into that one.” I sighed and slowly lowered my hoof from my face. “Yeah, I guess I did.” Pinkie gave me a friendly nuzzle to the cheek. “Loving the dress, by the way.” She rubbed her chin as she gave me an appraising look. “Though Rarity was a bit mad that you kinda stole her dress ... and broke her door down. She was yelling a lot of very unladylike words when you left.” Looking down at the dress, I was kinda already starting to run it ragged. Which Rarity was not going to like when she saw it again. I reapplied my facehoof, I seemed to do that a lot around Pinkie. “Yeah, I think Rarity’s going to kill me.”