//------------------------------// // Wherein Sweetie Belle Makes a Mess // Story: Straight Answers // by Rebonack //------------------------------// The mind of a child is a wonderful thing. The world around them is learned through imagination and play. Their world is shaped by their games, their visions shaped by their simple faith. Their trust in the adults which loom large in their lives is near absolute. If mother says that the kind reindeer Nicholas brings good little fillies and colts gifts on Hearth Warming, then it is so. If father says to be good lest the ugly old goat Krampus come to spirit them away, they obey with fear and trembling. And so if they met a wondrous pony whose games delve deep into the fantastical how different would she be from the Nicholases and the Krampuses? From the Hog Fathers and the Tooth Faeries? A marvelous, mysterious pony with smiles and songs to spare. ~~~~~ “Quick Sweetie! Grab that cactus and get in the wagon! There's no time to explain!” Scootaloo called to her friend whilst waving a hoof frantically at the potted cactus that had hitherto been minding its own business on the Belle Family's front porch. Now minding its business no more, it was simply another vital cog in an intricately crafted plan. Sweetie Belle was confused, understandably. She and her friends had done some pretty silly things over the past few years trying in vain to earn their cutie marks, but she wasn't sure how a cactus would figure into things. Despite her befuddlement she had faith in her friends and hummed some wordless tune in scarcely contained excitement as she dragged the prickly plant into the Cutie Mark Crusaders' crusadin' vehicle of choice. Surely this would be their finest hour. Surely this would be the day the fillies find their highest calling, their one true destiny. Surely they would, at last, stand victorious with cutie marks proudly emblazoned upon their flanks. “Cutie Mark Crusader Potted Prickly Plant Porters! Yay!” two exuberant fillies cried. “Wait, what?” Sweetie wondered aloud as the wagon lurched off down the packed dirt pathway toward the heart of town. ~~~~~ It should come as a surprise to none that this plan ended in only tears and failure. “Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all,” Sweetie Belle sighed. She had spent the last five minutes trying her hardest to remove the menagerie of thorns, spines, and other sundry pointy plant parts from her poofy mane and tail. It was a sad, futile battle. One that surely wouldn't see its conclusion until later that night under the ministrations of her older sister. No doubt Rarity would be displeased about another otherwise fruitful evening being consumed by the daunting task of grooming away Sweetie's Crusading filth. Applebloom for her part seemed in high spirits despite the disastrous outcome of their latest escapade as well as the state of her favorite ribbon. “Well I think it was plenty fun even if we didn't get our cutie marks! Might have been a little too... ummm... Specialized? Yeah. Too specialized, anyway.” “Nothing's too specialized!” Scootaloo insisted. The tiny orange pegasus turned her head and spit out a mouthful of thorns recently extracted from her equally tiny wings. “Mister Davenport has a quill and a sofa for his cutie mark! How does somepony even get a cutie mark like that?” It was agreed upon that Davenport would have to be questioned regarding his cutie mark story in the near future. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had already complied an account from nearly every pony in Ponyville! Sadly they hadn't gotten the Cutie Mark Chroniclers cutie mark they had been hoping for. Alas, the cosmos can be cruel like that. “Well... What's next on the list, Sweetie Belle?” Applebloom asked curiously. “Oooh! This one sounds fun! Cutie Mark Crusaders Dendrochronologists!” Sweetie replied, an excited squeak causing her voice to crack. Her friends stared at her blankly. “Yay?” Sweetie tentatively added. “Have ya been readin' Twilight's books again?” Applebloom asked as she bucked the last of the cactus remains off their wagon. The poor prickly plants deserved a better end than that. “Scootaloo told me to come up with some Crusading ideas!” Sweetie objected. “I told you to come up with some good ideas, Sweetie. Not a bunch of egg-head stuff! How am I supposed to impress Rainbow Dash with a dendrowhatever it is cutie mark?” Scootaloo inquired whilst securing her helmet once again. “Dendrochronology,” Sweetie began reciting. She hopped into the righted wagon along with Applebloom. Scootaloo, of course, had taken up her position on the scooter tethered to the wagon's bit and was already revving up her wings. “Is using trees to figure out how old something is! Twilight said it's a fascinating subject!” “Twilight says everything is a fascinating subject,” Scootaloo groaned. “Fine. Let's give it a shot. Maybe it would look like a tree and an hourglass? I guess that would be kind of neat...” The orange pegasus revved her wings and the trio of friends went zooming off down the road once more. Sweetie gave a serene little smile as she watched the shops and homes of Ponyville racing past. At least looking at trees would be peaceful. ~~~~~ “I've never seen a tree explode like that before...” Applebloom muttered, her mane slicked back with pitch and peppered with pine needles. Truth be told, they were all covered in tree sap and pine needles. It was, sadly, the most common outcome of their Crusades. The uneventful Statistical Analysis cutie mark attempt had proven that with ninety seven point three eight five percent certainty. Twilight had suggested that line of crusading, of course. “That was scary...” Sweetie mumbled into her hooves. The pitch and pine needles had joined forces with the thorns in her mane to produce a matted, sticky series of snarls that would give pause to even the most battle-hardened of hair stylists. Rarity probably wouldn't be pleased. “That was actually pretty awesome!” Scootaloo laughed. “Way cooler than I thought dendrowhatever would be! And I wasn't scared! Not even a little bit!” Her shaking wings suggested otherwise, but those were just minor details. “Too bad we didn't get an exploding tree cutie mark. Why do you think it did that, anyway?” “Who knows? How does Sweetie manage make black goop instead of toast?” Applebloom replied as she pried her bow off a stray chunk of wood. “Hey!” Sweetie protested. “I worked really hard on that toast! It even tasted kind of like toast!” The silence of her friends spoke volumes. “Okay, it tasted like burned oatmeal that wanted to dream of being toast. But trying still counts,” Sweetie insisted. Scootaloo opened her mouth, no doubt to say something snarky, when a new voice drew the attention of the Crusaders. “I heard an explosion!” A familiar purple princess cantered around the corner, a look of concern on her face. Though- “Is everypony al-oh. It's you three.” As soon as she spotted the Crusaders the concern dissolved away into a sort of exasperated resignation. Twilight gave the exploded pine tree a skeptical look. “What happened here?” “Dendrochronology,” Sweetie said. “Dendrochronology,” Twilight deadpanned in reply. “Dendrochronology,” Sweetie confirmed. Twilight managed a small smirk. “You girls know you're just supposed to take a coring of the tree, right? Not blow the whole thing up. Might want to keep that in mind next time.” “I don't think we're havin' a next time on this one,” Applebloom huffed. “What are you doin', Twilight? Can we can help?” That is the single most horrifying question anypony in Ponyville can be asked. Twilight gave a nervous chuckle. “Oh, well, I was just going over to talk with Fluttershy about Pinkie. Some new data on her unusual abilities has come to my attention and I wanted to look into it.” Now it's Sweetie's turn to stare in horror. Her friends react in much the same way. “Um... Twilight? I thought you weren't going to study Pinkie anymore? What if you-know-what happens again?” came Sweetie's gentle reminder. Nopony wanted a repeat of the Banana Bread Incident. “Hey! Why don't we research Pinkie's weird magic, too?” Applebloom suddenly blurted out. “We might be able to get magical investigator cutie marks!” At that Twilight laughed. “Where would you girls even start? Do you have a hypothesis regarding Pinkie nature?” “Well...” Applebloom hemmed. “Uuhh...” Scootaloo hawed. “She's a cartoon!” Sweetie exclaimed. That earned the little unicorn some interesting looks. “Like the ones they show at the theater? They do all sorts of silly, impossible things like Pinkie does. Maybe Pinkie is a cartoon, too?” Sweetie reasoned. “That's absurd, Sweetie. If Pinkie were a cartoon then that would imply that we're all cartoons as well. Our whole world would be one big illusion,” Twilight laughed. And then suddenly looked very thoughtful. “Though... don't some of the qilin hold to a philosophy of an illusionary universe? Hmm... I should look into that, too...” Twilight began muttering to herself and she set off toward Fluttershy's cottage again. Applebloom yelled an uncertain, “Bye Twilight?” after her. “Let's give it a shot,” Scootaloo suddenly spoke up. “The figuring out Pinkie thing. If she's a cartoon that means everypony else would be a cartoon, too. What sort of cutie mark would we get for figuring out the secrets of the universe?” “Ultimate ontological enlightenment cutie marks?” Sweetie offered. “Well, I reckon that's better than Cutie Mark Crusaders grout repair,” Applebloom muttered. They had really been scraping the bottom of the barrel for a while now. “But how are we going to test reality to see if it's a cartoon or not?” Scootaloo asked. “That sounds like some really tough egg-head stuff to me.” “Oh! I know!” Sweetie squealed. “To the Apple Barn!” ~~~~~ In retrospect this plan probably wasn't thought through quite as much as common sense would demand. Was that one of their failings, Sweetie wondered. Maybe their inability to acquire cutie marks was fed by their lack of patience? They would leap hooves first into one misadventure after another, each causing them plenty of trouble rather than providing any insight into their destiny. Rarity kept telling her to settle down and find something that feels meaningful to her, but try as she might Sweetie and her friends kept coming up empty. It was almost as if somepony were having fun watching them mess everything up over and over and over again. Maybe they're just trying to hard? Sweetie gave a little huff and let her mind wander over the past few minutes. She and her friends had argued over how best to test their theory. Eventually they settled with dropping an anvil on Scootaloo. Dropping anvils on the funny talking animals always made everypony laugh at the theater since the cartoons would just scrunch up like an accordion and then spring back. Sweetie was pretty sure she had seen Pinkie do something like that at least once. The Crusaders ran into trouble when they realized that they couldn't actually get the anvil very far off the ground. Shoving it around didn't work so well. And roping it over the rafters didn't work either. Eventually Scootaloo suggested using their catapult to launch it! Hefting the anvil into the catapult wouldn't have been nearly as hard as hoisting the anvil all the way to the ceiling. They had to test the catapult first, of course. Jumping into the bucket really hadn't been the best idea, Sweetie thought. She had been thinking about a lot of things since the catapult launched her skyward. It was funny. Sweetie was sure that she should be feeling frightened right now, but she wasn't. Despite Ponyville zooming along below her she felt a sense of peace. That everything would be okay. Without hesitation she waved a hoof at a pony strolling through the market. “Hi Rarity! Bye Rarity!” “Hello Sweetie,” Rarity did a double-take at the flying filly and totally forgot about the bolt of fabric she had been inspecting. “Sweetie Belle!” It was shortly there after that Sweetie's flight came to an abrupt end. She never would find out who had left that huge vat of maple syrup in the middle of the market, but the goopy fluid broke her fall marvelously. She struggled to the surface, heaved herself over the lip of the tub, and landed on the dusty Ponyville streets with a sticky splat. Sweetie's graceless dismount jostled a nearby stand selling glitter, causing a large jar of sparkles to topple over. The shiny powder sprinkled over Sweetie like a baptism of stupidity. “I think I'm going to be in trouble,” the little unicorn filly muttered. “Sweetie Belle!” And lo, she was in trouble. ~~~~~ “Honestly, I can't imagine what you were thinking, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity huffed. She had escorted her sister back to the boutique and was engaged in an epic battle against the sticky, dried on grime that the young unicorn had been doused in. Syrup and tree sap and pine needles and glitter. Ghastly, simply ghastly! “We were testing our catapult to make sure it still worked,” Sweetie explained moments before getting dunked under the sudsy surface of the bath water again. “You were testing the... Of course it was the catapult. I must speak to Applejack about keeping a closer eye on her building materials. You girls get yourself into enough trouble without building brutish siege engines,” Rarity said. Goodness knows she loved her sister, but Sweetie and her friends were just so... so gauche. Sweetie took after their father in that regard. Maybe, Rarity thought, she should be a bit more insistent that Sweetie develop her lovely singing voice further. Now that was a respectable hobby for a lovely young mare. “I'm afraid to ask, Sweetie Belle, but why were you and your friends testing the catapult?” “Well... we needed to get the anvil high enough to drop it on Scootaloo to see whether or not the whole world's a cartoon!” Sweetie declared. “A cartoon? Why on Earth would you suspect such a silly thing?” Rarity asked incredulously. “Twilight is researching Pinkie Pie again and she asked us what we thought and I thought Pinkie might be a cartoon because she does lots of cartoon things! Twilight said that was preposterous because it would mean everypony is a cartoon and we don't know it and so we're going to test that to see if it's true so we can get our ultimate ontological enlightenment cutie marks!” Sweetie explained. The (mostly) clean filly clambered out of the tub and began toweling herself off. Rarity was still caught at 'Twilight is researching Pinkie Pie again'. “Doesn't she remember what happened...” Rarity gave her head a dainty shake. Of course Twilight remembered what happened last time. How could anypony forget such a horrid disaster? Why, the rainbow stains alone took weeks to wash out and the scent of banana bread still made Rarity queasy. “Something new must have come up, I imagine...” “Rarity, can I go now? We still need to drop an anvil on Scootaloo,” Sweetie pleaded. “Yes yes, of course, dear,” Rarity assented. “Just be sure to tell Applejack about your plans. Experimental safety and so forth.” There was no way Applejack would ever allow them to do such a thing. And Applejack saying no would allow Rarity to remain the good sister! Rarity gave a prim nod. “And I shall be having a little chat with Twilight about this Pinkie Pie business.” “Oooh, I'm a business now? Entrepreneurial or corporate?” Pinkie Pie's head was sticking out of Rarity's saddlebags. Somehow. It spoke volumes that Rarity was neither surprised nor particularly worried. Though there was some degree of fear that Pinkie might get mud on the fabric she had purchased at the market. Or cupcake frosting. Or confetti. Or something else equally inexplicable. “It's you!” Sweetie squealed with delight. “It's me!” Pinkie agreed with equal glee. “Are you really a cartoon?” Sweetie asked curiously. Pinkie looked thoughtful at that question. “Well, I do try to keep an animated attitude!” “That's wonderful, darling,” Rarity sighed. “Would you mind being animated outside of my saddle bags?” “Oki doki loki!” Pinkie said as she hopped out of the bags. Rarity couldn't help but notice that the bags felt heavier after Pinkie's departure. Against her better judgment Rarity looked inside. Aside from the things that were supposed to be in her saddlebags there were also several pairs of white gloves adorned with three black stripes on the back. Gloves with fingers, mind. The sort of gloves one might expect a griffin to wear along with a dashing tuxedo. The style was all the rage in Germaney. Though that didn't explain why Pinkie had them, nor why she left them amongst Rarity's things. “Pinkie, are these yours?” Rarity asked. She levitated out a few of the gloves. “Yep! A super-duper good friend of mine had a bunch of extras and decided to give me some! And since I only need two I decided to give you the rest! He's always going through old ones since tunneling all the way to Albuquerque takes a lot of work!” Pinkie didn't-explain. Rarity knit her brow at that. Tunneling? Was Pinkie friends with a Diamond Dog? After Rarity's previous encounter with the ruffians at Rambling Rock Ridge, Twilight had explained that some Diamond Dogs were quite civilized. Leave it to Pinkie to find and befriend them. “Well, thank you Pinkie. I'm sure I can make a handsome ensemble for little Spiky Wikey with these. Though, I must say I'm curious. What good would gloves like these be to you, Pinkie? You don't have any claws.” Rarity said. Shortly there after she regretted bringing up the subject. “Oh! I wear them just fine, watch!” And with that Pinkie shoved a glove over her hoof, puffed up her cheeks like a garishly colored blowfish, and exhaled sharply into her other hoof. The glove over her hoof inflated and the fingers began twitching. Pinkie grinned at Rarity wiggled her digits. Rarity looked on with equal parts shock and horror as Pinkie stuck another glove over her other hoof and repeated the process. “I really must speak with Twilight about this...” she muttered. “Hey Pinkie, want to help us do some experiments to find out whether or not the world is a cartoon?” Sweetie asked. She was either oblivious to Pinkie's unnatural behavior or she simply didn't care. “Ooh, that sounds fun. I'll supply the silly props!" Pinkie declared. As she and Sweetie trotted out through the door the pink pony did an abrupt little twirl, faced an unoccupied wall of the boutique, and addressed apparently nopony. “T-th-the th-that's all folks!”