Shine was having a hard time to sleep this night. He looked at the clock standing on a table next to his bed each time he woke up, 12:03, 12:45, 1:37, 2:59. As his little clock made three slightly louder ticks, announcing another full hour had passed, Shine was feeling wide awake, yet tired. He sat up and shook his head, feeling a lesser headache building up from the lack of sleep. With a strained look on his face, he conjured a cup of tea in front of his face from thin air. He drank the content of the cup all at once. Feeling the warm liquid crash down into his stomach, he fell backwards down on his flattened pillow, instantly falling asleep.
Waking up from his blank, empty dreams, Shine looked straight upwards and into the blue eyes of a very familiar pink pony standing above him.
- Wakey, wakey, you sleepy-head, it's Saturday. You promised we were gonna do something today.
Pinkie Pie was bouncing out of happiness and excitement before she was pushed off the bed by Shine who only grumbled and turned to lay on his right side, facing away from the pink pony who already had gotten up to her hooves.
- Pinkie! What are you doing here? Don't you know what time it is?
Shine looked at the clock on the table in front of him, 11:41 it said.
- Of course I know what time it is, silly! It is time to play with Pinkie Pie.
Saying this, Pinkie Pie grabbed the quilt and yanked it away, revealing a very messed up Shine who instantly sat up and glared into Pinkie Pies clear, blue eyes with his own blood-shot blue eyes. Caught by surprise, Pinkie Pie dropped the quilt on the floor.
- Look, Pinkie, I'm not in the mood today, so could you please just turn around and leave and let me sleep away this horrible week?
Shine picked up the quilt from the floor and lay down on his bed once again this time with the quilt covering his head.
- B-but... you promised...
Pinkie Pie sat down on the floor next to the short end of the bed with deflated hair and a sad expression. Hearing the hint of soon-to-happen crying, Shine sat up and took the attention of the pink mare.
- No, Pinkie, I never said the words ''I promise'', therefore, I didn't promise anything. This day was nothing more than an agreement, an agreement I no longer have the energy to fulfill. So could you pretty please just get out of my house from wherever you entered since I remember locking the door before going to bed.
Pinkies mood, as well as her hair, poofed back into its normal erratic state.
- Easy peacy, you always leaves a window open, easy to climb through, too.
Pinkie Pie bounced to the closes window and pulled away the curtains covering it. Just like she said, the window was ajar. Shine had by now sunk his head deep in his palms, mumbling to himself. Realizing he no longer could sleep and Pinkie Pie wasn't the pony to take a no, he slowly pulled away the quilt from his lower body as he even slower stood up next to the bed and stretched his cracking limbs.
He transformed into his pony form and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking tiredly at the pink excited mare.
- Well then... what do you wanna do today? Can't sleep anyway so I might as well get this over with.
- Oh, I got tons of fun stuff we can do over at the Sugar Cube Corner, why don't we get over there?
The pink pony bounced behind Shine and began pushing the orange tired stallion all the way from his bed to the door. She paused quickly to open the door before she resumed her pushing.
After a short walk, the two ponies arrived to the building in Ponyville that looked like a giant ginger-bread house, clad with various kinds of candies. Shine often laughed to himself at how ironic it was that such a hyperactive pony would live in a house clad with treats that had the power to make even the most calm and relaxed creature such as himself to go nuts from all the sugar one would digest in the process of ingesting mentioned treats.
With tired eyes, Shine rose his head and gleamed at the candy canes on top of the roof of the building. His stomach rumbled loudly, shrieking for something to extract the nutrient his body needed to properly work.
Pinkie Pie heard this rumbling and quickly went into the house, rummaging through the kitchen for something. In the meantime, Shine shook his head and slowly began walking into the house as well, mumbling to himself about all the various dishes he couldn't get to enjoy in fear of his friends getting afraid of him if they ever found out that he actually loved to eat meat.
He stopped as a delicious looking cupcake was put in front of his face, balancing on top of Pinkie Pies hoof.
- Here, maybe this will silence that tummy of yours.
Pinkie happily smiled at Shine who just stood there, examining the cupcake. The sweet scent from the freshly baked goods found its way into Shine nostrils, making his vision blur from hunger. His stomach rumbled loudly, almost yelling at Shine; ''Eat it! Eat it!''. However, no matter how hungry he really felt, the pastry almost shoved into his mouth didn't feel as tempting as one would expect. His stomach screamed for any kind of food while his mind kept being a bit more specific in screaming after the very same dishes he knew would be taboo in a place such as Equestria.
- Uhm... n-no thanks, Pinkie, e-eating sugary treats without any proper food in your stomach first ain't no good, trust me on that.
Getting her treat turned down, she ate it herself and looked at Shine who seemed to look back at her, but not with the normal conversational look in his eyes. There was this discrete intensity in his eyes, that kind of look that made it obvious the other wanted something they couldn't tell you of. Pinkie Pie took this as a hint as she began walking behind Shine with a relaxed smile.
- Oh, I see what you are hungering for. You could just have asked, silly.
- I'm hungering for meat! Such a nice juicy piece of meat!
Shines movement suddenly got very twitchy as he transformed to his human form, emitting soft growling. Pinkie Pie, still standing behind Shine pat him on the back.
- No, no silly. Only ponies are allowed to eat me out, you naughty thing. Where's the change button on you?
Pinkie Pie kept poking on Shines back until she hit her hoof between his scapula. It was just as if she had hit a button as the muscles on Shines back quickly tensed up. Shine slowly turned around with a ferocious look in his eyes, glaring at Pinkie Pies flanks. Pinkie Pie still stuck in her little mind game playfully wiggled her flanks, teasing Shine. She put a hoof to her pouted mouth and talked with a silly, playful tone;
- Turn back into a pony and you can have as much of me as you want.
Pinkie Pie flinched when she realized Shine didn't hunger for her marehood meat but that he did hunger to eat her instead when Shine began snarling loudly, flashing his teeth. Pinkie Pie saw that Shines teeth was not of the ordinary Pony, but much pointier.
- Uhm, Shine... I-i don't think you are doing this ri- Ow, ow, that hurts, you brute!
In a split second, Shine had grabbed Pinkie with his right hand on her back, just bellow where the ribcage stops. Shine widely opened his mouth, licking his teeth.
Pinkie began hyper ventilating at the sight of one of her friends getting ready to eat her. She kicked Shine in the stomach out of panic which sent him flying, hitting the wall hard. By now, Pinkie Pie had already dove behind the kitchen counter and armed herself with a saucepan on her head and a frying pan, tightly clenched in her front hooves.
- Stay back you monster, I know how to use this in more ways than just cooking!
Pinkie Pie shouted across the room at Shine who had turned back into his pony form and was just sitting there next to the wall, slightly writhing as he mumbled under his breath.
Minutes of complete silence passed. Very slowly, out of curiosity, Pinkie Pie began crawling closer and closer to the orange unicorn who didn't move a muscle. When she was so close she almost could touch Shine with the frying pan in her hooves, she accidentally hit the two pans together causing a metallic sound to end the silence in the room.
Shine quickly looked up and reached out his right front hoof towards Pinkie Pie.
- P-please, stand back, I still might be unstable.
As he said this, a purple force-field surrounded Shine.
Surprised as she got, Pinkie Pie took a step away from the force-field that appeared right in front of her face.
- Woah! Unstable? What was all that? Why'd you even act like that? You scared me good!
Pinkie Pies facial expression was stuck somewhere between scared, angry and questioning.
- I'd really like to answer all of your questions, sadly I vaguely have any answers, answers I do not even know are the true answers.
Shine looked down on the tile floor.
- Come again?
Pinkie Pie sat down a hoof length from the force-field.
- I don't know for sure why I acted like I did. I've never felt such a craving for blood. I mean, sure, I appreciate a nice juicy steak as much as the next human but...
Pinkie Pie cut of Shines sentence.
- WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! Hold it right there, mister. What's a ''steak''?
Pinkie Pie looked rather serious as she was standing on the purple force-field with her front hooves.
- Keh... you sure you even wanna know, Pinkie?
Shine looked up at the pink pony straining the force-field he cast on himself.
Pinkie Pie nodded rapidly multiple times, every time hitting her head on the force-field.
- It's a slice of meat slowly grilled over a nice bed of coal. The steak itself is seasoned with various spices and relish. Along with the steak you can serve some boiled potatoes. To this a nice dill sauce would be very appropriate.
Shines stomach growled loudly at the thought of this magnificent dish.
Pinkie Pies eyes narrowed at the description of a dish she only could think of a macabre. She slowly stepped away from the force-field and picked up the frying pan she had put down a small distance away. With terror in her eyes, she shouted at the orange unicorn licking his lips and rubbing his stomach.
- IT'S OBVIOUS WHY YOU ATTACKED ME! YOU WANTED TO ENJOY A ''NICE'' PINKIE STEAK!
Pinkie Pie backed slowly towards the door of Sugar Cube corner.
- You stay right where you are while I go tell Twilight about you so she can send a letter to Princess Celestia so that she can banish to to the Everfree forest.
Shine began laughing loudly at the paranoid pink pony clinging to a frying pan.
- Hahaha! No need for it, Twi already knows that I am an omnivore.
- Omni- what?
Pinkie Pie looked confused at the scoffing orange unicorn.
Eventually Shine settled down and wiped a tear that had formed in his eye from all the laughing.
- Omnivore, it means that my overall diet consists of both plants and meat. Sure, I'd prefer fruit over plants but I don't think it is impossible for me to digest plants. How would you otherwise explain how I could have survived all this time here in Ponyville without eating any meat?
Pinkie Pie seemed to calm down slightly as she sat down on the tile floor next to the door, still firmly holding the frying pan with her front hooves.
- Come on Pinkie, relax. I'm not gonna hurt you, again.
Pinkie suspiciously looked into Shines eyes across the room and replied.
- I don't know. If you've done something once, it's easy to do it again.
- Look, I'll tell you everything you need to know about humans so that you don't have to fear me. I still think of you as a friend, you know.
Pinkie calmed down even more now as she put down the frying pan and took a step towards Shine.
- Ok, but you gotta promise that you won't do anything wacky on my watch, mister.
- I promise.
Shine put his left hoof to his chest while holding the other high in the air.
- No, no, no. You have to PINKE promise, do you know how to do that?
Shine raised an eyebrow and began reciting.
- ''Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!''
Pinkie looked closely at the orange unicorn just sitting there, blankly staring back at her in his own purple force-field.
- Hmm.... close enough.
Pinkie walked up to the force-field and sat down a few hoof lengths form it.
- But keep the shield-thingy going, just in case you start feeling funny again.
Both of the ponies smiled at each other and began their long conversation about humans, all ranging from the human in general to Shines own preferences.
As the conversation progressed, Shine had inch by inch opened up the force-field just above his head. Once he got an opportunity when Pinkie Pie looked away, he had quickly dispelled the force-field without Pinkie noticing. Or maybe she no longer cared about it, Shine couldn't tell.