“... and then that crow was all like, ‘BWAHAHA, I’ll make Equestria into a new Burning hell,’ and I was like, ‘Nope, [party seal; Blink]’, and-”
Twilight was starting to have some serious doubts about her earlier plans in researching Pinkie, mostly out of concern for her own mental health. The two of them (meaning, Pinkie while dragging Twilight along) had decided to have lunch at one of the few small restaurants Ponyville had, so now Twilight was trying to just eat her lunch in quiet contemplation of whatever new knowledge she had obtained that day, while Pinkie was mistaking her silence for attentive listening to what she was saying.
Twilight had managed to some degree to block out Pinkie’s rambling aside from the occasional bit of information that somehow had managed to get past her mental walls and disrupted her thought process. Still, Twilight felt a little guilty ignoring her friend like that, even if paying attention would probably only serve to drive her insane all that much faster. For this reason it was almost a Princess-sent when she noticed Pinkie gesturing to some other pony, since it would probably mean that her pink friend would go over to the other (vaguely familiar) pony and leave her alone for a minute. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. What were you saying?”
Pinkie chuckled. “Were you reading some invisible book, Twi? I said, didn’t you help Lyra over there earlier today?” she said as she pointed in the same general direction.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Besides, isn’t it rude to point at other ponies?”
Pinkie replied with her trademark smile. “She won’t mind. But now that I think about it, you did serve her while I was baking that cake. Let’s just say hi to her. Hey Lyra! Over here!” Pinkie shouted as she waved at the mint-green Unicorn.
Hearing somepony shout her name, the pony with the lyres on her flanks turned her head, smiling as she spotted Pinkie. “Hey Pinkie! How are you?” she said as she trotted over to where Twilight and Pinkie were sitting.
“Great as always! I’ve come up with a few new ideas for recipes, so I wanted to get some input from Bonbon. Ooh, by the way, the cake is going to be great!” Pinkie turned to Twilight who, once again, was lost in thought and currently looked as if she was considering at least ten different ways to turn her daisy-and-daffodil sandwich into a bowl of hay-and-rose soup. “Also, have you met my gal pal Twilight yet?”
Twilight was once again unpleasantly roused from her thoughts as Pinkie mentioned her name. “sorry, what?”
Lyra’s expression turned slightly awkward once more. “Yes, we’ve met. Briefly.”
Pinkie’s smile got wider. “Great! Anyhow, have a seat, because we’ll have to discuss a few things about the cake you wanted.”
Lyra sat down, ordering a glass of water as the waiter popped up beside her. “So, what did you want to know?”
“Well, I was thinking of covering the sides of the cake with stripes in your and Bonbon’s coat, with a lyre made of crystallized sugar surrounded by bonbons on top. Sounds good?”
Lyra thought about it for a second “That does sound good. But the cake is supposed to be a bit of a surprise, so are you sure you can get all that without Bonbon finding out?”
Pinkie nodded, turning comically serious for a moment. “I have... contacts that can get me the stuff, nopony any the wiser. So no worries there.” She then returned to her usual, cheerful self. “So, how has life been treating you lately?”
“Well, I’ve been training for the Grand Galloping Gala. This year they’ve already booked this four-pony band, but I hope to make the cut next year. So far I’ve been practicing a piece from old Greins.”
“Sounds interesting. Hey Twilight, what do you think?”
Since the last interruption, Twilight had given up on letting her thoughts roam and had instead been idly paying attention to the conversation, hoping to not again be taken by surprise by a question from her friend again. “I don’t know. I’m no musician. I mean, I did learn a little about playing the piano to get better control over my telekinesis, but other than that I’ve never really looked into music,” she said with a shrug.
Pinkie raised her eyebrows at this. “You can play the piano, Twilight? You never told me. Anything else, like painting or juggling or juggling paintings?”
Twilight chuckled, a bit embarrassed at being the center of attention. “Well, I can play a few basic tunes, but nothing fancy. I was more focused at getting more control over my telekinesis, learning about music was just a way to do that.”
Lyra frowned at this. “’Just a way?’ Making music is an art! Each song and every tune an image painted by the sweet notes from your own hooves! You don’t just learn a few notes and call it a day!”
Twilight shied away a little, startled by the sudden passionate outburst from the mint Unicorn. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.”
Lyra’s expression softened a little at this. “No offense taken. It is just, music is my passion and joy, so I sometimes get a bit overexcited when others... talk about it.”
Twilight smiled a bit. “I get it. Everypony can be a little overzealous when talking about what their cutiemark represents.”
Pinkie cut in. “I know, right? I can talk about parties for hours! Ooh, speaking of which, do you need any help organizing your anniversary? I’ve already got some great ideas for party games and snacks!”
Lyra chuckled. “No, I’ll be fine. Besides, Bonbon and I agreed to keep things small this year. Just the two of us, plus Bonbon’s parents.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What about your parents, can’t they come as well?”
The conversation screeched to a halt, Lyra’s expression turning gloomy while Pinkie made a face as if Twilight just had told Rarity that a green mane would probably look good on her.
“Oh, look at the time, our shift is on in a minute! Let’s go, Twilight!”
“Ok, just let me grab my sand-” Twilight didn’t get to finish her line as Pinkie swiftly pushed her away from the table.
--------------
“Ow! Ouch! Please slow down, Pinkie!” Being pushed down a rough cobblestone road by a hyperactive pink pony apparently intending to either get you away or sent to a hospital was not a very pleasant experience, Twilight had found out the hard way. The two of them had been moving towards the library, Pinkie racing along as if they were being chased by a herd of angry manticores.
As they barreled through the front door, Pinkie gave Twilight one last push that sent her flying into the table in the middle of the reading room while she herself turned around to shut the door.
Rubbing her head, Twilight lifted her head and opened her eyes, finding an uncharacteristically serious looking Pinkie Pie standing no more than one inch away from her. “Why did you have to bring up her parents, don’t you know about what happened?!”
More confused than ever, Twilight tried to scurry back a little. “No, I just found it strange that only Bonbon would invite her parents, so I asked. Did I say something wrong?”
Pinkie blinked. “You really don’t know? Have you been getting out at all? Everypony in town knows!”
“I’ve been busy. But can you tell me what this is all about?”
Pinkie gave a sad sigh. “You REALLY need to get out a lot more, Twilight. Anyway, Lyra’s parents are some very traditional nobles from Canterlot, so they didn’t take it well when she married an Earth pony. According to Bonbon, they sent her a letter saying that until she would divorce and marry some Unicorn instead, she would no longer be their daughter. She didn’t take it very well, so most ponies just steer clear of mentioning her parents.”
Twilight looked shocked. “But that is terrible! I mean, legally they could do that thanks to some outdated laws nopony ever bothers to get rid of, but how can they justify such a thing?!”
“You probably know that better than I do. I mean, you’ve lived at Canterlot for longer than I have, surely you know a thing or two about how things work there?”
“I was... Busy.”
Pinkie’s eyebrows shot up. “For all those years you were there? Did you never go to a party or something like that?”
Twilight shook her head. “My studies were the most important thing back then. I just didn’t have time for partying.”
Pinkie’s face grew a bit sad. “No time for parties? But that is terrible! I couldn’t even begin to think how sad that must have been!”
“I went to one party, a few months after Princess Celestia decided to accept me as her own student. It was terrible!”
“How can a party be terrible? Didn’t you try to have fun?”
“Trust me I tried. Thing was, everypony there was at least twice as old as I was at the time. Plus, when the Princess told me to look around for a bit, they all started to either demand I ask the Princess for all sorts of favors, or treated me like I would personally banish them to the moon if they said something I didn’t agree with!”
“That does sound pretty bad,” Pinkie replied as she scratched her chin with a foreleg. “But that was then, right? Ponyville is nothing like that, so don’t worry about just walking up to somepony and have a chat with them!”
Twilight sighed. “I can’t just do that, Pinkie. I hardly know anypony here aside from you girls, so I’d probably end up saying all the wrong things. Look at what happened with Lyra just now!”
“Right...” Pinkie grew silent for a moment. “Anyway, you said you had something that you needed to do today?”
“Today? What do you...? Oh, right! That important thing I had to do!” Twilight mentally scolded herself for almost forgetting about her earlier attempt at sneaking away from Pinkie, her thoughts going a thousand miles per hour in search of a valid excuse to sneak away for a moment. “Well, I, umm, I have some experiments in the basement I needed to check up on. Hold on a moment, I’ll be right back!”
Pinkie hopped over to the entrance of the basement. “Sounds interesting! Can I help? I could give you the right beakers or keep notes or-”
“NO! I mean, no Pinkie. Those experiments are extremely sensitive, so I need to keep the number of ponies near them as low as possible. I’m not saying that you’d do something wrong, but one stray hair could already ruin the result of several days of hard work, so I’d rather do this alone, ok?”
Pinkie nodded, stepping aside to let Twilight enter the basement.
Twilight was a bit puzzled. “You are not going to complain about me keeping you out?”
“Of course not, silly! When I try to make a new recipe, I also keep everypony out of the kitchen. Same thing right? Besides, we would hang out together all day tomorrow anyway, so it is not a big problem anyway!”
Twilight didn’t catch the last of what Pinkie had said, having already gone down the stairs to the basement. Note to self, maybe Pinkie does listen to reason.
////////////
Ray10k here.
First of all, I want to say that my parents are AMAZING! They helped me move, they support me in just about everything I do, and they don’t mind me being a brony (my mother even watched a few episodes with me). Also, they read this, so please give them a warm internet applause.
Second, the reason it took several weeks to write this is because I just moved into my new house, so I was busy packing/painting/planning/other verbs that start with the letter P. Also, this chapter was hard somehow to write.
Third, if songs are hard, pony/horse puns are even harder. I mean, is there such a thing as a fandom-official version of Greece yet?
Title translation: old wounds.