//------------------------------// // Chapter Three: The Breakfast // Story: Language Barrier // by ViolinAnon //------------------------------// With the ringing of a small bell, you finally enter the gingerbread house with your purple guide. The first thing that you notice, is that the designer of this place clearly had candy on his mind when he built it. You can see candy canes-style red and white stripped columns, the walls are painted with different shades of chocolate and a large cloud of pink cotton candy is behind the service counter. Wait... Is that cotton candy moving? Upon closer inspection, it appears to do so. It twitches and bobs slightly as you stare at it for a few seconds, until you notice that it's a tail. The owner of the pink poofy appendage raises her head to look over the counter and begins to utter what you assume is a high-pitched greeting. However, she stops halfway through a word when she notices you and lets out a gasp so deep, that you're pretty sure half the air of the entire shop must now be in her lungs. She bolts to your side in a ridiculously fast pink blur, and starts speaking at an even faster pace. She uses the fact that you're stunned by her speed to run around you, inspecting your person. You feel her touching your left shoulder and, by the time it takes you to turn your head, she's already poking around on your right arm. This continues for about a minute before you grow tired of having her jabbing at you in various places. You manage to grab her by the tail and lift her up to eye-level, before putting a finger to your mouth and shushing. Nope, that didn't work, she's still blabbering at super-human speed. You slowly bring your hand to her muzzle, muffled muttering being the only thing that now leaves her mouth, and twist your head around to look at Twilight with a perplexed expression on your face "" She sighs. You nod and turn back your head towards the pink ball of energy, before settling her down back on her hooves. You then point at your face and give her your name. While the bubblegum pony paused briefly to look at you with wide eyes while you spoke, she immediately began to speak again, albeit with a much slower pace. It's still twice as fast as any other pony you've heard, but it's not like it matters, since you can't understand anyway. By her tone, you can tell she's most likely asking you a barrage of questions. You can see Twilight's about to interrupt her, but your stomach is the first to object with a loud grumble. Chuckling nervously, you try to calm your belly with a few pats. The unicorn at your side uses the brief moment of silence that was caused by your rumbling stomach to quickly get a word in and talk to the pink poofy pony. The hyperactive pony lets out another comically exaggerated gasp and begins to shove you towards a small table. Twilight joins you at the table as you try to make yourself comfortable on a miniature wooden stool. The aroma of freshly baked pastries is almost driving you insane as you see Pinkie Pie bouncing away to another room, mumbling. Although, you're pretty sure being in a building that looks like it's made entirely out of sweets isn't helping either. Soon enough, a platter of cupcakes appear on the table in a pink flash. Good thing too, because you were about to go gnaw on the walls. You grab one of the cupcakes, take a bite and- Sweet sugar-soaked Satan on a stick! Just how much sugar did she put in those things?! They're good, but you swear you can feel an aura of pure diabetes emanating from it. The two ponies in your company each grab a pastry and begin to idly chatter. Unable to participate in the conversation, you just sate your hunger by stuffing yourself with cupcakes. They haven't even yet finished their first that you were already done eating the rest of the platter. Those things are delicious, but not really filling. Pinkie Pie eventually notices your silence and brings a hoof to her chin, pensive. She perks up a few seconds later, squeaking out an exclamation of success as a light bulb appears of her head. Wait... what? You blink and shake your head in disbelief, unsure about if you really saw something of if there was something weird in those cupcakes. During that moment of ponderation, Pinkie Pie had time to rummage behind her back with a hoof, pulling out a few crayons and some paper from seemingly nowhere. Where were those a minute ago? How did she get them? Why does it suddenly feel so natural to see that kind of actions, yet.. Why does it look so.. off? As you are lost in your thoughts, Twilight jumps off her stool with a look of sudden realisation on her face. She picks up one of the crayon with magic, which makes you realise that you are really way too 'okay' with magic being a thing, and she hastily scribble down some doodles on the paper while blurting out something to the pink pony. Before you can even think about saying something, the unicorn bolts out of the bakery, which leaves with you a deeply confused look on your face. You decide to direct your baffled facial expression towards Pinkie Pie, hoping she would shed a light on Twilight's action. It's only met with a giggle and her pushing the papers towards you before she up and leaves the table to go serve some customers that just entered the gingerbread bakery. "Right... Let's see what this is all about." You mutter to yourself. You can see a scroll, a.. crown? Or at least you think that's what it is, and it's settled over the sun. A purple arrow also points the scroll towards the crowned sun. What sort of crazy non-sense is this? Twilight Sparkle just left to do god knows what with a scroll and the sun, and while you were trying to decipher the cryptograms that were presented to you, the line at Pinkie's counter kept getting longer and longer in what you assume to be the morning rush. You're left sitting alone in front of a now empty platter of cupcakes. Maybe you could just leave and go on an exciting ADVENTURE! And by adventure you mean getting more food. Those four cupcakes were delicious, but not very filling and all the sugar was starting to upset your stomach, so you'll be looking for something a little healthier. But first, you need to explain your sudden departure to Pinkie. Using the wide spectrum of crayons you were offered earlier, you try to draw something to explain the situation, but due to the combination of your meager drawing skills and the ever-growing sugar induced tummy ache, the result is not much more than a bunch of colored squiggles. As you sigh with frustration at your awful doodling, a puff of pink pony hair pops up next to you. You stagger in surprise at the sudden apparition, as Pinkie begins wildly pointing and yelling at your scribbles, apparently trying to guess what they represent. She seems completely absorb by this new task, as she completely ignores the customers waiting in a line at the counter. You decide that this is a good time to eclipse yourself, and stand from your stool before walking towards the exit. Even though she's still shouting and flailing at the drawings, you wave her goodbye and walk out, hoping the the ponies waiting in line are patient, both for her sake and theirs. Now that you're out of the bakery, you stop to wonder where you could head to next. You guess you could go back to Minty and CandyFlank's- you mean Lyra and Bon Bon's house, but you don't want to impose. Although... You think you forgot your violin back there, so it wouldn't hurt just to pass by to grab it. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. That way, even if you can't find some food later on, at least you'll have something to do to pass time. As you start walking towards your destination, you pull out the book Twilight gave you earlier and leaf through it. Your belly growls lightly as you flip to a page with a big, red, juicy apple on it. Cursing under your breath, you rub your stomach, who's been complaining since you woke up. It's only then that you notice that a yellow pegasus is flying by your side, keeping herself at eye-level with you. "What's wrong little guy?" She asks softly. "Heh.. 'Little'." You think to yourself before pointing to the the fruit you had your eyes on in your book. "Oh? You're hungry for some apples? Well, one of my good friends own the orchard over there, I'm sure she won't mind a little visit." She says, pointing a hoof at the horizon, where you can distinguish a large apple orchard. "Oh god, yes!" You reply while grabbing the yellow pony, who looked shocked at your voice, in a hug. As soon as you let go of her, the pegasus squeaks and flies away hurriedly. Guess she's a pretty shy pers- pony. You can't really why you just hugged her, it's not exactly something you usually do, especially not to a stranger. You just felt... comfortable doing it. Wait... Did that pony just spoke to you with... coherent words? ...Naaaah, all that sugar must be getting the best of you. She just saw the apple in the book and then pointed to the orchard. Yeah, that's all that happened. Anyway, since it's only a small detour to the orchard, you might as well go pick up your violin at Lyra's place on your way there. As you walk towards your destination, you take your time to look around at the town and its colorful population. There really seems to be no limits to the hue their coats can be; blue, green, pink, brown, white, purple, yellow, another blue, gray... You name it, they've got it. It's also somehow easy for you to tell their gender with only a glance, for some reason. Or at least you hope so, otherwise you've been wrong for a while about a lot of them. Oddly enough, there isn't that many of them that look at you like you're different, or even look at you at all. Most of them simply ignore you, going about their daily business like you weren't even there. As you approach the residence of your mint and cream hosts, you notice the door opening. Oh hey! It's Bon Bon! And she's bringing out your violin case out for you, what a nice gal. How did she know that you were coming to get it? No matter, you wave at her and start to walk faster towards her. She looks up at you and nonchalantly drops the case and re-enters her house, closing the door behind her. ...Well. You guess she must be busy at the moment or something. Maybe she's cleaning the house or something? Anyway, those apples aren't going to eat themselves. You walk the last few feet separating you from your instrument and open the case to make sure it's alright. Fortunately, everything appears to be in order and unharmed. You put on the case, hanging on your back like a backpack, and looks off in the distance towards the apple orchard. Onward!