//------------------------------// // Fullness and Hunger // Story: To Serve Bronies // by Fuzzy Necromancer //------------------------------// Pinkie Pie lined up the pineapple chunks carefully in the batter and gently bent the neutrinos around it. She liked baking complicated things, but it was harder to get the words to rhyme. "What rhymes with neutrinos?" she said, in between spurts of humming as the tune bubbled up. “Doritos? Tangerinos?” Reiko suggested before lapsing into silence. She scratched at the edge of a scab on her arm and then winced. The human girl’s ear looked pretty red and puffy too. If she wouldn’t let Nurse Blueheart look at it, Pinkie would have to borrow some leeches from Fluttershy. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? Only I remember the time when I thought I just got a little scratch but I didn’t want to put any iodine on it, sort of like the caramel and the dentist, but there was a lot of nasty pus near the end. After that I learned to clean up after playing.” Pinkie Pie giggled. “No hospitals unless it gets really, really bad. I can keep it under control and I’m good at self-applied medicine.” Reiko frowned at her ear in the mirror. That would make a good lyric in a song, Ear in the Mirror, maybe for a bit about the tragic flaws of Van Goat, only she would make it into a more comic piece because she didn’t like tragedy, and Twilight Sparkle said you were actually supposed to pronounce it “Van-“ and then make little noise like you were trying to cough out a bit of fried hay caught in the back of your throat. Reiko reached up and gave her ear a little squeeze. She didn’t cry or scream, but her face got really tight, like Twilight Sparkle when she was trying to twist the world back into shape inside her head, or like Rainbow Dash pretending she wasn’t afraid of something. It looked a little purple around the edges, like a sugar plum. Most ponies had only heard of Sugar Plumbs in monotheist carols left over from the pre-Hearthwarming winter holidays, but Pinkie Pie got to sugar some for a royal party order. The actual fruit had to be shipped in all the way from Saddle Arabia. “So, what’s the Pinkie Pie Plan?” Reiko said, smiling wide and leaning over. “Are you going to smuggle me out of Equestria in a party cannon or something?” “Pff, that would be crazier than Oatmeal!” Pinkie Pie scoffed. What did this human girl thing she was, a unicorn sorcerer? “I’m going to throw a really big PARTY!” Reiko jumped back and squealed a little. “Oh. Wow.” She vibrated slightly and got a far-away smile, like when Twilight Sparkle sniffed the spine of an obscure First Edition anthology. “That would be really cool. But how would it help my, um, situation? Like, with your friends and stuff? Especially Rarity.” “Isn’t it obvious?” Pinkie said, twisting open a jar of cold fire to caramelize the edge of the sixth-dimensional strings that aligned to create the illusion of cake batter. “Well, pretend I’m really slow and bad at making connections,” Reiko said with a little giggle. She barely seemed to notice the seeping around her partially-healed leg wound. Pinkie Pie shoved the batter into the oven, then pulled it out, turned it around, and stuffed it back in again. “I’m making Pineapple inside-out cake, Neutron pound cake with heavy-water, Genocide-by-Chocolate cake, deep-fried caramel-corn whipped-cream truffles, apple turnovers, and a bunch of other really dense, filling treats, and I’m going to invite everyone over, but in waves, just a trickle at a time, so by the time you’re introduced to everyone they’ll be too stuffed silly to try taking a bite out of you!” Reiko crossed her legs and frowned at the oven for a while. “Well, it’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard, and even if it doesn’t work out it would be a great way to go. If I was born in the dark ages I’d have died in childbirth years ago.” # Rarity stared at the table. Beads of sweat pooled her mascara into the corners of her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and let out a controlled, genteel snort. “I will be strong. I am a Lady of Quality. I am respectable and in control. I am not a slave to biology.” The bag of apple chips sat there. She slit it open with a razor-focused pulse of magic, levitated out just one, and crunched it up. Then she let the bag drop. She breathed in and breathed out. She let the last drops of mana ebb away and scraped the floor with her left rear hoof. “Your move.” “Whatcha doin sis?” Sweetie Belle squeaked. Rarity flinched, then regained her composure. “I’m just doing a little exercise in self-control.” She sighed. She couldn’t believe she lost herself when that…human creature came along. What happened to the plan to use the rarest beast in the world as a sign of true love, or a gateway to a royal harem of stallions and geldings? She couldn’t just snaffle up a prize straight out of song and legend like a codependent changeling or a drooling wyvern. “Can I help?” Sweetie said, her eyes lighting up. “I mean, if I wouldn’t be getting in the way or bothering you or anything,” she added, averting her eyes and scraping her front hoof on the ground. “I think it’s more of a one-pony job, but thank you for offering. I just have to master my unicorn urges and get a grip on myself. For example, everypony knows you can’t eat just one apple chip. So I’m going to sit here, after eating the first one, and stare down this bag without eating any more for an hour.” She reached up her tail and settled her false eyelashes into place. “I’m sure I can manage it.” “Oh. That doesn’t sound very interesting,” Sweetie Belle said apologetically. “I’m trying to prepare myself in case a very rare chance comes across again,” she said, trying to hide the regret in her heart. Somepony else had probably gobbled the two-legged mutton up, just like she was about to. Still, just like her grandma always said, “one of anything is no use to anyone.” There had to be more…somewhere. “Well, if you’re not going to eat those apple chips, can I have some?” Sweetie Belle said, reaching out a hoof. “No, I need the bag here to tempt me. I will be strong!” Sweetie Belle stared at her for a while. Rarity stared at the bag of apple chips. Her stomach started growling. She smiled fiercely. “I can keep this up all day.” “Uh-huh. I’m going over to visit Scootaloo. I found a new pentagram and some vials of-I mean, we want to try out for crocheting cutie marks.” Rarity glared at the savory bag of crisp chips. Her blood demanded that she feast and gorge to store up fat for the long, desolate winters. Her body insisted that it needed the savory flesh of fresh prey. Her supremely-honed mind overruled them all. A wanton carnivore was a drooling beast, a crude creature. She was a true lady.