'A Day In The Life'
Pinkie descends the stairs in the low light of morning. It's quiet and still in the empty shop, which means it's a good time for humming. She finds a bouncy tune to match her bouncy gait while she turns on the lights and the ovens. There are some ponies who take half a morning of being awake to actually become awake, but Pinkie Pie is not one of them: she is the dictionary definition of a morning pony, bursting with energy from the moment her eyes open each day.
Sugar Cube Corner looks different in the way that all active places seem less themselves when they are still. The counters are free of flour dusting and icing spatter, the displays empty, the ovens cold. It's like the cake store is asleep like almost everything and everypony else, and Pinkie has to pour some of her own boundless energy into it to bring it to life.
A mixing bowl goes up on the counter. It's large enough and reflective enough for Pinkie to clearly see her face, warped by the curved edge. Up next is a flour sack, then the sugar, then the trio of milk, butter, and eggs from the fridge. These are the building blocks, the raw materials, the unshaped clay. They could become cakes or muffins or pancakes or anything! They are potential, Pinkie thinks as she ties her apron on. One egg may not look different from another to begin with, but one gets cracked and mixed and baked and the other has the white separated and beaten to make icing, and you would never know they were the same to begin with. Potential.
Pinkie checks her buoyant chef's hat in the big bowl's reflection, and starts mixing dough, still humming.
-/-
A knock at the door comes before it's time to flip over the open/closed sign.
"Just one teensie moment!" Pinkie calls. She slides a tray of raw muffins into the oven and bumps the door shut with her flank, then springs over to the open window by the door. One of the best smells to smell in the morning is things baking; Pinkie has woken up this way for many years, and now that she's working more and more of the morning shifts at Sugar Cube Corners she wants everypony to experience the same joy and comfort that comes with the warm smell of baking that she does.
Pinkie pops her head out of the window, her chef's hat wobbling. "Hi!"
"Mornin', miss Pinkie," Big Macintosh says. He's hitched to a cart, and on that cart are a pair of barrels with a familiar apple image stencilled on their sides. "Apple delivery." He tilts his head to indicate the cart.
"Great! Meet you 'round back?"
"Eeeyup."
Pinkie bounces her way to the storage room, where stacks of barrels and shelves of smaller containers line the walls. She opens the back door and Big Mac comes through, the two barrels of apples destined for cakes and danishes and fritters balanced on his back. He sets them by a nearly-empty barrel with an identical stencil on its side.
"It's a good thing you're so super-strong," Pinkie says in amazement, "I couldn't lift even one of those barrels on my own!"
"Miss Pinkie..." Macintosh starts. His cheeks colour faintly, though it is difficult to tell.
"Maybe not even half of a barrel..."
"Miss Pinkie, are you tryin' to embarrass me?"
"Yes," she says, grinning, utterly guileless.
"I'll see you again in a fortnight." He tries to remain stoic as he leaves, but there is perhaps a faint smile on his lips, too.
"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie exclaims as she waves from the doorway.
-/-
It isn't long after opening that the first customer of the day comes through the door.
"Good morning, Cheerilee!" Pinkie greets her cheerily, then pauses to take a breath. "Hey, I like your mane!" Cheerilee has her mane tucked back in a simple ponytail, different from when Pinkie last saw her yesterday morning. "I tried that with my mane once to keep it out of the cookie dough I was making but it kept poofing free, and nopony wants cookies with hair in them, so now I keep all my mane in my hat." She points to her hat with a floury hoof. "But it looks good on you! Piece of carrot cake and coffee to go, right?"
Cheerilee blinks, and then begins to smile after she digests Pinkie's greeting. "Well, thank you, Pinkie Pie," she says, "and yes, carrot cake and coffee." She slides her bits across the counter.
Cheerilee's order is already bagged. "Have a nice day," Pinkie beams at her.
"You too, Pinkie," Cheerilee says, smiling.
As she leaves the store on her way to the school, Cheerilee pauses to glance at her reflection in the window of Sugar Cube Corner. She trots away satisfied, the package of coffee and cake warm in her saddlebag.
-/-
The bell above the door tinkles again. It's been quiet for a little while. Pinkie looks up from arranging the display of cupcakes by size-to-frosting ratio to see Ditzy Doo.
"Deliveries done for the day?" she asks.
"Uh-huh." Ditzy nods.
"Half a dozen muffins?"
"Uh-huh." She nods again and smiles.
Pinkie scoops a number of muffins into a bag and hands it to Ditzy. "Here you go."
Ditzy peers inside the bag. A puzzled expression crosses her face. "Why is there half a muffin in here?" she asks, holding it up for inspection.
"Baker's half-dozen," Pinkie replies without missing a beat.
Ditzy's brow furrows, then realisation blooms and she snorts laughter. "Half-dozen! Right." She takes a bit of the muffin that's been neatly bisected. "That's a good one, Pinkie," she says around a mouthful.
Pinkie just smiles.
-/-
It's the middle of the day when Mrs Cake comes to take over for Pinkie. Mr Cake follows after her, with Pumpkin and Pound in a stroller.
"You have no idea how helpful you are," she tells Pinkie.
"It's no problem, Mr and Mrs and baby Cakes!" Pinkie hangs up her hat and apron. "You know I love helping out here."
The two foals are giggling at Pinkie, which is strange because she hasn't done anything like pulled them any funny faces or told them any funny jokes. She looks at herself to see that, in spite of the apron, she is covered in flour.
"I think I need to take a bath."
-/-
Pinkie's mane is a soapy mass of bubbles rather than its usual frizzy mass of curls. She carefully and methodically cleans Gummy, who is just a pair of eyes and nostrils on the surface of the bathwater.
"Who's the most ferocious alligator in all of Equestria?" she asks him. "Who has the scariest bite and the shiniest shiny scales?"
Gummy's only response is to blink up at Pinkie.
"That's right!" she giggles, and she starts washing his bumpy snout.
-/-
Pinkie is humming again as she makes her way through Ponyville. Her path takes her by Carousel Boutique, where Rarity's little sister is standing outside.
"Hey, Sweetie Belle!" Pinkie says, and picks up her humming where she left off.
"Oh, hey Pinkie." There is a note of dejection in her voice.
"What's up?"
"Rarity's busy," Sweetie Belle says with a glance back at the door, "so I'm staying out of her way. Outside."
"I love being outside! All the best stuff is there."
"I guess." She scuffs a hoof in the dirt, then looks up at Pinkie and asks: "Hey, what's that song?"
"What song?" Pinkie says, and resumes humming.
"That one."
Pinkie stops to consider. "Oh! That wasn't a song, it was more like background music."
Sweetie Belle giggles. "Hey, um, Pinkie..."
"Yeah?"
"When you do that thing where you sing a song, and then the whole town joins in too... does that take much practice?" she asks.
"I don't know," Pinkie says, "it just kind of happens! I guess it comes naturally."
"Oh, okay." Sweetie Belle gives this a moment's thought. "Thanks, Pinkie."
"No problem!"
As she bounces off, Pinkie can hear Sweetie Belle singing a proto-song with do-do-dos and la-la-las. It sounds similar to Pinkie's humming.
-/-
A small crowd has gathered by the bridge. Pinkie looks around to see why they've gathered, and spots the multicoloured blur swooping overhead. A couple of oohs and aahs come from the crowd, and some polite stomping.
"Come on, ponies," Pinkie shouts, leaping into the crowd's focus, "is that how you cheer on Ponyville's number one flier?" She takes a deep breath, and bellows up at the sky: "YAY DASH!"
When Rainbow Dash comes back down to the ground, she is greeted by rigorous stomping, whistling, and a loud 'Woooo!' from Pinkie. She grins and bows. "Thank you, thank you," she says as the crowd disperses, "I'm here all week." After a moment, only Pinkie is left standing by the bridge.
"That was some impressive support there, Pinkie Pie," Rainbow says, "but I don't think they heard you all the way in Canterlot."
"No," Pinkie says, "I'm pretty sure they did."
Rainbow laughs. "Hey, you wanna hang out? If you're not busy, or anything."
"Nope." She matches stride with Rainbow as they head towards the main street. "What are we doing?"
"I dunno." Rainbow glances sidelong at Pinkie. "Is doing sometime cool good with you?"
"Always!"
-/-
At the end of the day, Pinkie Pie retires to her room above Sugar Cube Corner. The moon is up, and it shines through Pinkie's bedroom window, providing ample light to see by. Her bed is unmade. Gummy peeks his snout out from a pile of party supplies. There is a calm in the room that can only exist at the end of a day.
Pinkie moves across her room towards the window, then pauses as if she's suddenly remembered something.
"Hey there," she says. It takes a moment, but then the realisation comes that Pinkie is talking to someone who is not in the room with her. She is, in fact, talking to you.
"I knew you were there. I can sort of feel it when you're watching." She feels about at the back of her head. "It's around here somewhere, that little buzzy tingly feeling that lets me know. It's been there all day."
She smiles and climbs up on her bed, and manages to look right at you with her big bright eyes. "I can't exactly see you properly," she says, squinting a little, "but I know you're there. So. How's it going?" She pauses to think a moment. "I bet things aren't quite as good as you want them to be, right?" She sighs. "That's usually how it is.
"Listen, whatever you want to happen – it totally can! I was pretty sad most of the time when I was a little filly on the rock farm, but now look! I live above a bakery! That's like one step away from living above a candy factory where all of the candy is free. And I can throw super-duper amazing parties all the time, and I have so many great friends to invite." Pinkie's smile softens a little, and a serious expression crosses her face.
"You have a lot of friends too, you know. All those other people out there I can feel when they're watching in, they're there for you. They'll help, if you ask, and they'll accept if you want to open up, and they'll love you, because those are the things friends do. So if you ever need it, they're there to lend a hand." She slides off the bed, then cocks her head in thought. "Or a hoof. Me and my friends, we can help too! If you need a bit of strength or a bit of peace or a bit of a smile..." Pinkie pauses to beam up at you. "...You can think of us."
She walks over to the window, and places a hoof on the curtain. "But it's the end of the day," she says, pulling the curtain shut and putting the room in darkness, "and it's been a long day – well, I guess you know that, huh? - and this little pony needs to get some sleep." The sound of sheets rustling.
"Hey, maybe I'll dream about you! Wouldn't that be weird?
"Goodnight," Pinkie says with a smile you can hear.