Still a bit dazed from Pinkie Pie’s... whatever that was, I wandered my way into town.
By this time of the morning, Ponyville was wide awake, and the streets were comfortably filled by cheery ponies of all sorts. I saw a few pegasi preparing some puffy afternoon clouds near what could only have been the town hall, and heard snippets of several conversations from vendors chatting with their early morning regulars as I passed by.
As I had hoped, no one seemed to notice me, and I found my way to nowhere in particular, idly observing the motions of the citizens of Ponyville. Finding a conveniently located bench near the market square, I took a seat, and allowed myself to take in the city for a moment. This, for better or worse, was where I would try to find that which had eluded me for so many years... My special talent.
Mind you, I had absolutely no idea how to go about doing so. I didn’t know anything about this town, or anyone in it (except a crazy earth pony, and I still wasn’t sure how to feel about that). I also didn’t know where I was supposed to start finding my cutie mark. If I knew that, I would probably have gotten it a long time ago.
My thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling noise. I hadn’t had anything to eat since the lunch cart on the train yesterday. I would need to get something to eat soon. I looked at the vendors on the street around the square, but nothing peaked my interest. I decided to ask a local.
I stood up and trotted over to the nearest unoccupied pony, an earth pony with a blue and pink mane. “Um, excuse me?”
She turned to me. “Hmm? Oh, hello.” She seemed distracted.
“Hi. Um, could you help me? I’m from out of town, and I’m looking for a good place to get something to eat. Would you know anyplace around…?”
“Oh, yeah.” She lifted a hoof and pointed behind me, down one of the main roads. “Head down that way a few blocks. Sugarcube Corner. It’s hard to miss.”
“Is that why they call it that?“
“Huh?” She gave me a dumbstruck look.
“Sugarcube Corner. Because… it’s on the corner?” I really needed to work on my conversational skills. Thankfully, this pony didn’t seem to notice my fumbling, due to her distracted state.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” She was looking around for something, or maybe someone.
“Is everything alright?”
“What? Oh, yeah. I’m just waiting for my friend is all. She’s usually here by now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll leave you to find your friend.” Relieved that the awkwardness of the conversation wasn’t entirely my fault, I took my leave.
“Yeah. Thanks. Have a nice day,” I heard her call absently behind me as I headed down the street she had indicated.
I hadn’t gone very far before my nose told me I was going in the right direction. The smell of fresh bread and cake batter wafted its way down the road, growing stronger with each step. My stomach gurgled in anticipation. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until now. I quickened my pace.
Finally, I came around a bend, and there it was. I knew it was the right place, even though it sat in the middle of an intersection, far from a corner. I knew it before I saw the sign hanging from the front door. The whole building looked like it had been baked instead of built, a gingerbread-and-birthday-cake treat on a life-sized scale. It sat in the middle of the street, beckoning patrons inside its delicious structure with tempting smells and fresh goods visible through its frosted windows.
I stood for a moment and tried to take in the sight of it, but decided I could examine it after I met the need that had brought me here in the first place. I headed inside to eat.
Moments after poking my head into the shop, I was shocked to hear somepony call my name. I looked around, and when I spied her, I let out a long sigh. I really should have expected this...
Waving to me, from a table at the far end of the room, sat Pinkie Pie. “Yoo hoo! Over here!” She wasn’t alone; two other ponies were also occupying the table. The first, a unicorn with a purple mane, turned her gaze towards me as Pinkie began waving. Our eyes met, and I watched her blink several times, and then she smiled at me strangely. The other pony met my gaze for only a fraction of a second before hiding her eyes beneath her long pink mane.
I was very hungry, and like it or no, Pinkie Pie was currently the only Pony in town I knew by name. I weaved around a few tables, and sat down in the remaining seat, next to Pinkie. “Uh, hi there, Pinkie Pie.”
“Hiya!” She turned to her companions and pointed at me. “Rarity, Fluttershy, this is the pegasus I was just telling you about! Chaser, these are my great friends, Rarity and Fluttershy!”
Rarity looked a bit dazed as she offered a hoof in greeting. “Charmed,” she breathed, “Absolutely charmed, Darling.”
I shook her hoof gently. “Um, likewise.” Rarity giggled girlishly when I spoke.
“H-hello...” The yellow pegasus spoke so softly, I had to lean in to hear her.
“Hi.” I let go of Rarity’s hoof and offered mine to Fluttershy. She quakingly reached out and shook it, “N-nice to meet you,” and then returned quickly to her drink. She certainly seemed to live up to her name.
I turned to Pinkie Pie. “Uh, Pinkie, you seem, er, the sort of pony that probably frequents this place-”
“Oh, I do more than that! I live here!”
That explained a lot. “Uh-huh. Well, I was wondering how I’d get something to eat? I’m really hungry. Do I go to the counter, or is there-”
She leapt like a pony with a fire under her. “Don’t you worry about a thing! Be right back!” And she dashed off to the counter, leaving me alone with her friends.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Rarity was sitting next to me, staring at me and fussing with her hair absently, and Fluttershy was glancing between her lemonade and me, trying not to meet my gaze.
“Fluttershy?”
“Y-yes?” She looked up, and her right eye disappeared beneath her mane.
“Um, is everything ok?”
“...” She shrank a little in her seat.
“Oh, don’t mind Fluttershy, dear,” Rarity interjected, propping herself up on her hooves and leaning in towards me. “She takes a while to warm up to handsome new friends.” She laughed airily, and began blinking rapidly. She must have been allergic to something in the air.
I turned to Fluttershy and offered a weak smile. “That’s okay. I’m not exactly the most social pony myself. Don’t feel bad about it.” I tried to think of more to say, but my mind was as blank as my stomach. Or my flank...
Pinkie Pie returned at that moment, preventing me from having to say anything more. She was wielding a tray full of still-warm muffins, and a bowl of hot oats with cinnamon and apples. For the first time that day, I was thankful for her appearance. “Here ya go! It’s on the house!” She set the tray in front of me. “Well, actually, it’s on the table. If it was on the house, it’d be a lot harder for you to eat any of it. Well, maybe not a lot harder; I mean, you’re a pegasus so you could just fly up on top of the house to eat, but that would be really silly, don’t you think? It would probably-”
I wasn’t paying much attention to her ramblings. The food was very good. The muffins had some kind of fruit in them, but I had eaten one of them so fast I hadn’t had time to figure out what kind. I bit into a second muffin, and discovered that they were blueberries.
“- but then you’d have to keep building new houses every time you ate the old one!”
“Yes, Pinkie, that’s fascinating, but shouldn’t we be learning about our new... friend?” The way Rarity kept looking at me was making me feel a little warm under my cloak for some reason. “So, Chaser, dear... What brings you to our humble village?”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to lie (I was a terrible liar), but did I have to give away my secret already? I took a swig of water from the glass on the tray. “Uh, well... that’s sort of a long story.”
“Well, I don’t have anywhere to be,” Rarity purred at me.
“But, Rarity,” said Fluttershy suddenly, “I thought you had a big order you had to-”
“Plenty of time for that, Fluttershy, dearie,” Rarity cut her off, “I’m more interested in hearing about why Chaser’s here.” Fluttershy withered a bit. “Oh, Fluttershy, I’m sorry. Please don’t be like that. Don’t you want to know about our new friend?”
“Um, well, I mean, I suppose...”
“Rarity,” I started to say.
Her head snapped towards me when I called her name, and she resumed her large-eyed staring. “Yes?”
“... Er, it’s really okay. I’ll be here for a while, if you have things to do.”
“You will?” Pinkie asked, “That’s great!” She jumped atop the next table over, which was thankfully unoccupied, and started singing. “Oh, Chaser’s staying in town. Yes, Chaser’s staying around. Oh, Chaser’s come to our town... And we’re gonna have lots of fun! YEAH!” She punctuated the end of her song with a flourish and some confetti, the origin of which I couldn’t quite discern.
No one in the shop seemed to take much notice. This must have been a regular occurrence.
“Um,” Fluttershy looked up from her lemonade as Pinkie sat back down, “Mister Chaser?”
I smiled, and felt my cheeks growing red. “Please. It’s just Chaser, Fluttershy. What is it?”
“Well, I was just wondering... I’ve never seen a cloak like that before.”
I looked at my father’s old cape. “Oh, this thing?”
Rarity reached over tentatively, “May I? I was about to bring up the same point. It’s-” she ran a hoof over the surface of the cloak, “- very beautiful. A cloak with history, from the look of it.” She looked up at me, waiting for me to explain.
I ran a hoof through my mane embarrassingly. “It is. It’s a hunter’s cloak, actually.”
Rarity and Pinkie Pie looked over at Fluttershy, who suddenly looked as though she might be ill. “Um, I-I... Excuse me!” She pushed back her chair, and galloped out the door.
“Fluttershy, wait! ...” Rarity called after her, to no effect. “Oh, dear,” she murmured after Fluttershy had run out the door.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh,” Rarity sighed, “Chaser, you couldn’t have known.” Rarity put a hoof on mine, trying to be comforting. “It’s just that, well, Fluttershy is very sensitive about animals.”
“Oh... Oh, no! I’m not, I mean, this isn’t...” Oh, boy. An hour in town, and already I was making a mess of things. “This is a big misunderstanding. I’m not a hunter.”
“Oh? Then why do you have a hunter’s cloak on?”
“It’s an all-weather cloak my father used when he was a hunter, back before I was born. He gave it to me when I left home.”
Rarity put a hoof to her mouth. “Oh, my. This is a misunderstanding.”
Pinkie Pie was looking out the door after Fluttershy. It was the first time since I’d met her that I’d seen her without a smile.
“This is all a terrible mix-up.” I stood up, and pushed in my chair. “Thanks for breakfast, Pinkie. I need to go apologize to somepony.”
She looked up at me. “Who?”
Rarity and I looked at her incredulously. “Fluttershy,” we said in unison.
“Oh, right!”
I started to leave, then realized I had a small problem. Turning back, I asked, “Do... either of you know where I might find her?”
Pinkie raised a hoof. “Oh, oh, me, I know! Pick me!”
Rarity answered, “She’ll probably have gone back to her cottage. It’s on the edge of town, out by the Everfree Forest.” She pushed in her seat, and used Pinkie’s raised hoof to pull her up as well. “We’ll all go.”
“Oh, you don’t have to-”
“I insist!” she said as she started for the door. “I feel partly responsible for this. I inquired about the cloak as well. Besides,” she turned back to me, fluttering her eyes, “You don’t know your way around town. It would be awful of us to just throw you out into Ponyville without any clue where you were going.”
I hesitated, but had to concede. She was right, after all; I didn’t know hardly anything about Ponyville, and I could use all the help I could get right now. “Alright, Rarity. Lead the way.”
“Oh, boy! Follow the Leader! I love this game!” Pinkie Pie bounced behind us as we left Sugarcube Corner. “Not as much as Pin the tail on the Pony, or Celestia Says, of course. But who doesn’t love a good game of Celestia says? Am I right?”
“Uh-huh.” As we crossed the threshold of the door and stepped outside, I froze. A thought had just hit me square in the face, and I whirled around to Pinkie Pie. “Wait a second!”
Pinked stopped and looked around. “What is it?”
“Pinkie Pie... I never told you my name. How did you know my name?”
Pinkie grinned and giggled. “I checked the story title!” She hopped cheerily past me, following Rarity. “C’mon! We have to follow Rarity! She’s the leader, remember?”
I tried to decipher her meaning. Story title?... What?
Ah, to hay with it. I had to find Fluttershy and apologize. I made a mental note to ask Pinkie again later, after I had cleared all this up.