The Cakes slowly walked up to Pinkie.
“There you are!” Mrs. Cake said cheerfully when they reached the top of the hill.
Pinkie turned to see the two approaching bakers. Fluttershy flew away in fear. Mrs. Cake was dumpy and squat, like a dumpling, where as her husband was the exact opposite, tall and lanky like a stick bug.
“What’s all this Rainbow dash has been telling us about you going colt crazy?” Mr. Cake asked glaring down at her as if he had just caught her trying to sneak and extra slice of cake.
“I’m not colt crazy, I’m in love, well at least that’s what everyone has been saying, but I still don’t really know what that means! Twilight said it’s a bio-whatchamacallit, Rarity says it’s someone who completes you, whatever that means, and Apple Jack said it was getting married, but I still don’t understand!”
Mrs. Cake sighed.
“We knew this day would come, we thought we could keep you as the sweet little filly who walked in our shop lonely and hungry forever.”
“Why would you want me to be lonely and hungry?” Pinkie asked shocked.
“That’s not what I meant sweetie.”
“The point is,” Mr. Cake interrupted, “Is that it is mostly our fault that you are so confused right now, we didn’t want you to grow up, so we didn’t talk to you about grown up things like Love.”
“Can we talk about it now?” Pinkie asked.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Mrs. Cake said sitting down next to the filly. Mr. Cake did the same on Pinkie’s other side.
“So, what do you want to ask us? In one sentence,” Mr. Cake said interrupting pinkie as she opened her mouth.
Pinkie thought and tried to condense all of her questions into one sentence.
“What happens when you fall in love?”
Mrs. Cake thought, rubbing her hooves together.
“Well, whenever the fella’s around, you get all excited and nervous.”
Check, she got nervous just thinking about him.
“Also, you spend a lot of time thinking about him.”
Double check, she had spent the entire day, practically, thinking about her friend.
“And you will want to do nothing but spend the entire day with him.”
TRRIPPLE CHECK! This was looking good!
“What happens then?” she asked excitedly.
“Well,” Mr. Cake said, “You go on dates I guess, although we didn’t date much before we got married.” He said scratching his chin. “But then again we were able to spend a lot of time together anyway, because we both worked at the old bakery.”
Quadruple loople check! Pinkie knew that they had definitely spent a whole lot of time together at the convention. That must count as at least seventy hundred bazillion dates!
“Then he asks you to be his fillyfriend-.”
“A SPECIAL FRIEND!?” Pinkie sat up excited, interrupting Mr. Cake.
He looked to the sky, thoughtfully.
“I suppose you could call it that,” He said.
This was getting better and better!
She sat down and let them continue.
“After a while,” Mr. Cake said sagely, “I suppose if he’s the one who you are destined for, you would get married, have children, and live together forever.”
Pinkie couldn’t believe her ears! This was the most supper amazing wonderfulrific thing she had ever heard of.
“It’s not all lollipops and gumdrops though,” Mrs. Cake said, breaking Pinkie’s train of thought. You’re only a pony, you will get angry at each other, you will fight and get on each other's nerves. But if you truly love someone, you will be able to put aside trivial matters and remind yourself why it is you love this pony.”
Pinkie pulled out the note book she had been writing in, that didn’t line up with her notes! She From Mr. to Mrs. Cake in confusion.
“What!?”
“Don’t worry, if you work hard, the good times will greatly outweigh the bad.”
Pinkie sat quiet for a moment, letting all she had learned sink in. A wonderful special friend, just for her, someone who she spent all her time with.
She smiled wide, it sounded fun!
“PINKIE!” the excited voice of Rarity echoed up the hill as she dashed up Twilight in tow. She seemed to be carrying a graceful blue dress, made of a light fabric that flapped about wildly as she charged up the hill.
She skidded to a halt in front of the family, panting with exhaustion.
“He *gasp* A.J.*pant* train*wheeze* more time.”
“Wait, what’s going on?”
Without explaining Rarity popped the dress over pinkie’s head.
“No time to explain, darling. Oh dear, I should do something with that bird’s nest on your head.”
She pulled a comb and spray bottle, seemingly out of nowhere and went to work attempting to tame the wild mass of hair that served as Pinkie’s mane. Pulling out tangles that popped right back into place.
She sighed, admitting defeat.
“I suppose that’ll have to do,” she muttered dispiritedly.
Now it was Twilight’s turn, she did what Rarity had failed to accomplish using magic to not only tame that mass of pink hair, but shape it into a quite pleasing top knot. Next, Fluttershy returned with a Dragon Lily from the flowers outside her house for Pinkie to put in her hair. Rainbow Dash, came armed with a set of costume armor, that she said would look great with everything else, put the rest of the group voted her down.
“What in equestrian is all this for?”
“You’ll-,” Rarity started but quickly fell into a burst of excited giggles that kept her from speaking.
“Let’s head to the train station,” Twilight said “A.J.’s bringing in an important shipment from Canterlot.”
Pinkie didn’t understand what was so important that they had to get her all dressed up for, more so then the Grand Galloping Gala. *gasp*! Was A.J. bringing the GGG from Canterlot?! But if so why weren’t her friends dressed up?
Her pinkie sense told her to trust her friends so she followed the group down the quiet streets now lit with the sleepy light of evening. The arrived at the train station Rarity looked up and down the tracks to see if the train was coming.
“There!” Rainbow dash called from her vantage point in the air “I see it!”
And indeed in a few minutes the train came chugging down the tracks.
“PONYVILLE! LAST STOP! EVERYPONY OFF!” The conductor called from the engine.
At this point Rarity looked ready to explode with excited laughter. But Twilight helped her to calm down.
The out of the train stepped two figures. One was a very tired, very disgruntled looking A.J. and the other was…
“BUCKWHEAT!” Pinkie gasped as the Stallion stepped out of the train.
“Pinkie! It really is you!” The stallion gasped galloping over to the shaking pink pony.
He was just as she remembered him. Dark brown coat and mane the color of melted chocolate, but with bright eyes that looked like green diamonds set into a cake. His cutie mark showed a rubber spatula and mixing bowl.
The two stood in silence for a while, just looking at each other, making sure they were rally there. But swift kick from A.J. got the filly crazy stallion going.
“Y-you look beautiful,” he said stiffening and looking everywhere but his charge.
Another kick from the farm pony.
“P-Pinkie, I-I wanted you to know, the days at the convention that we spent together were some of the best days in my life.”
Pinkie felt heat rush too her cheeks, she had never blushed like this before, not even when she told that one bad joke that nopony got.
“A-And I didn’t want it to end, so I decided to move my bakery here, I wasn’t having much luck in Fillydelphia anyway. And I wanted to know…”
Pinkie tensed, this was it!
“Will… Will you be… my fillyfriend?”
Pinkie covered her mouth with both hooves; she felt something wet drip onto one of them. She was crying, but she wasn’t sad?
Unable to muster any words Pinkie simply nodded and was immediately embraced by the stallion.
After a very long hug A.J. approached them.
“You have no idea what a problem your beau was to find, took me next to all day. Wouldn’t stop talking about you on the train!”
She took a deep breath.
“I reckon I should give you my advice on love now, it’s not much, but I remember a wise old pony once told me this,” and she began:
“‘Love is patient; Love is kind; Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.’”
Pinkie looked up at her friend, no, her clotfriend, her special somepony just for her. He looked down back at her smiling.
“Well,” he said. “Do you want to show me around?”
“Do you promise to stay?” Pinkie asked.
“I do.”
And he did.