“How did I get stuck with the broom again?” Lyra asked, though without any real anger.
Vinyl was lying close to the ground behind her music equipment, getting ready to connect the last cord. “Because Ditzy’s not here, we had to get my amps down here, and I have to hook everything up for the party,” she explained.
“So basically, because you didn’t want to sweep anymore,” Lyra said.
“You know me so well, Ly,” Vinyl chuckled.
A knock at the door interrupted them. The two mares paused for a moment until Vinyl broke the silence. “Password?”
There was a sigh at the other end of the door. “Vinyl, just let me in.” It was Octavia’s voice. “And you never even told me the password!”
Vinyl’s horn lit up and she opened the door. As she stood up she said, “Give me break, Tavi. I’m just trying to make sure Tiiiiiii…” Her response slowed dramatically to a stop when she saw her friend; there were several pink splotches all over her coat and mane. She couldn’t be sure what they were, only that they looked… “Sticky” was the best word she could come up with. She looked at Lyra, who seemed just as confused as she did. “Um…” she started.
“Nopony says anything,” Octavia interrupted, “nopony gets hurt.”
“Could you at least tell us what happened?” Lyra asked.
“Only that Pinkie Pie was involved,” Octavia replied frankly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll just drop off this cake, take a shower (with Vinyl’s permission, of course), and never speak of this again.”
“Upstairs, second door on the right,” Vinyl said. Octavia nodded her thanks and went toward the kitchen.
“Oh, and you probably won’t have to worry about Turner dropping by,” she called back. “Last I saw, he was on his way to Sugar Cube Corner. Bon Bon said she’d keep him busy.”
“He almost caught you at the Corner?” Vinyl said. “Would this have anything to do with—?!”
“Drop it!” Octavia snapped. “At any rate, Bon Bon’s going to try to keep him there until we’re ready. She also said to tell Lyra to ‘call her,’ whatever that means.” She looked at unicorn in question at that last part.
“Oh, that’s my comm spell,” she explained. “Something I found in high school. It allows me to keep in contact with any one pony of my choosing, and since she’s my roommate…”
“Sounds handy,” Vinyl said.
“Like I said, though, only one pony at a time. And it has to be a conscious link; I had to cast the spell with Bon Bon there to make it work in the first place.”
“Eh, probably not for me, then,” Vinyl admitted. “Too many ponies to choose from to be practical.”
By now, Octavia set the cake box in the kitchen and was on her way upstairs. “By the way, where’s Derpy?”
“She’s out getting the rest of the food,” Lyra answered. “Come to think of it, she should have been back by now. The market’s not that far, and considering you had to watch Bon Bon make and frost a cake…” She was interrupted by a knocking sound. It didn’t come from the front door, however. After a few seconds, the knocking continued.
“It’s coming from the back door,” Vinyl said.
“You’re sure that’s not Turner, right, Octavia?” Lyra asked.
“Positive,” Octavia replied, though her voice showed a little uncertainty.
Vinyl walked, slowly but not so much, toward the kitchen and her back door. She lit up her horn and slowly turned the knob. She opened the door slightly and looked through the small space. She saw a grey coat and blonde mane and an eye that looked slightly off center.
“Ditzy! We were wondering where you went,” she said as she opened the door fully, allowing Derpy to walk in.
“Sorry I’m so late. I nearly ran into Turner at the market.”
“Whoa,” Vinyl exclaimed. “He see you?”
“For a moment,” Derpy replied. “Just barely lost him.” She sighed. “Although I’m not sure I did the right thing by running away from him.”
“You’re trying to throw a surprise party for the guy,” Vinyl pointed out. “Acting all secret-like is just part of the gig.”
“Yeah, but after what happened in the TARDIS, maybe he just wanted somepony to lean on.” Derpy bowed her head.
Vinyl was silent for a moment, but finally said, “Hey, you know what I learned from being a DJ?” Derpy looked up at her, confused. “No matter what you do, there’s always going to be that one thing that makes you go, ‘Why the hay did I think that was a good idea?’ I’ve had my fair share of compositions that didn’t click with audiences, even though I thought they were gold at the time.”
“Is there a point to this?” Derpy asked.
“All I’m saying is,” Vinyl replied, “you never really know what’s a good idea and what’s not until after the fact, at which point, you just gotta keep movin’ on and do better next time. That make sense?”
Derpy thought for a moment. Soon, she smiled slightly and said, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Besides,” Vinyl pointed out, “once Timey gets here, it’ll more than make up for whatever disappointment he got through the day.”
Derpy’s smile became wider and she put a hoof around Vinyl. “Thanks for cheering me up.”
Vinyl looked a bit uncomfortable for a second and said, “Yeah, sure. So how about we work on cheering up Timey? You got the food, right?”
With Derpy back and Octavia having finished her shower, the cleanup of Vinyl’s house and setup for the party went much quicker than before. Lyra and Octavia took care of the remaining dust and litter on the floor. Vinyl had finished setting up her music equipment and was going through some of her records, trying to decide what to play during the party. Derpy set up the main table and laid out the food she got from the market, as well as the cake Octavia brought.
After that, they set to decorating. Lyra and Derpy worked together to hang streamers along the corners between the walls and ceiling. Vinyl placed three confetti launchers above the door; Octavia was a bit upset that this would cause all the cleaning to be all for naught, but Vinyl pointed out that parties were not inherently neat affairs. And that, given Vinyl’s reputation, the cleanliness wouldn’t have lasted much longer, anyway. Octavia reluctantly agreed.
Finally, the four mares stood back and admired their work. Everything looked perfectly placed. It wasn’t lavish, but it would work quite well for a gathering of six.
“All that’s left,” Derpy said, “is the pony of the hour.”
“Lyra,” Octavia said, “if you’ll do the honors.”
Lyra nodded. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her horn lit up.
“And then she just ran off,” Turner said after finishing off his milkshake. “I tried catching up to her, but trying to catch a pegasus is… well…” He sighed.
“No, I think I get it,” Bon Bon said.
“I think she hates me now,” Turner said softly.
Bon Bon’s eyes widened. “What?! Turner, that’s crazy-talk and you know it!”
“Then why did she run?” Turner’s voice never raised in volume. “She stopped when I called out to her, so she had to have heard me. But then she runs away? Into an alley, no less.”
Bon Bon stammered for a brief moment. “Um… um… maybe she had something important to do?” She didn’t sound too convinced of her own story.
“What could be so important that she couldn’t even talk to me for a few minutes? And why down the alley?”
Bon Bon said nothing for a while. “Okay, fine, maybe I don’t have a good answer.” Turner just sighed again. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” she stated firmly. She put a hoof around Turner’s shoulder. “Look, I won’t claim to have known Derpy for very long. Hay, I doubt any of us knew her until you came to town. But from what I’ve seen, she’s a good friend. I doubt she would have left you behind unless she had a good reason.”
Turner wasn’t sure if Bon Bon’s explanation was satisfying enough for him. However, he could tell she was trying her best to help him. And perhaps she knew what she was saying.
Suddenly, a strange look crossed Bon Bon’s face. It was small, so slight that nopony could have noticed it, but Turner was sure he saw something. It was like she had something else on her mind.
He didn’t have much time to wonder, though, because soon, she said, “Hey, tell you what? I was going to go over to Vinyl’s pretty soon. You want to come with me?”
Turner was confused by Bon Bon’s suggestion, both because of the activity itself and the timing. “What is she doing?”
Bon Bon paused for the slightest moment before replying, “Oh, you know, she’s got some music she wants us to listen to.” There was something off about her answer, but Turner couldn’t place what exactly. “Come on, after the kind of day you had, you deserve a little fun.”
“But what about your shift?” he pointed out. “It’s not over for another hour or so, right?”
“Eh, we’ve had a slow day today,” she argued. “Still, I’ll just get Pinkie to cover for me. I’ll go get her, and we’ll head on over.” She didn’t wait for Turner to respond as she went up the stairs.
Turner couldn’t help but notice that Bon Bon was acting kind of weird today. Unfortunately, reading ponies was never his strongest skill, probably less so than repairing a TARDIS. First Derpy, now Bon Bon? What is going on here? I mean Derpy I can understand, she was there, but Bon Bon just heard about it. Turner had a feeling that there was something else involved in everypony’s actions, but not knowing what exactly was killing him inside.
“I’m not saying it isn’t possible, Pinkie.” Turner heard Bon Bon’s voice coming down to the shop. “I just never knew it could be used as a trampoline.”
“That’s what everypony says at first,” a second voice, likely Pinkie Pie, said.
Turner got the feeling he was better off not asking.
The trip to Vinyl’s house was uncomfortably quiet. Bon Bon didn’t seem too eager to talk much, and Turner couldn’t come up with a fitting starting point to break the ice. If there was one good thing about this silence, though, it was that it gave him a chance to think about the day’s events, to try to make sense of everything.
Ever since the explosion in the TARDIS, Turner had a strange feeling in his gut, one that was all too familiar: guilt. Ever since he started living in Ponyville, he had tried to rid himself of the memories of all the times he’d hurt somepony because of his carelessness. At first, he tried to distance himself from everyone, believing that the best way to not hurt ponies was to not form attachments. After he became friends with these five mares, however, he instead focused on the positive memories and determined to have his new life be just as positive, which seemed to rid himself of feeling the guilt even better than the previous method.
But after the explosion, it all came rushing back to him. He tried looking for Derpy today to keep this newfound guilt from ruining his new friendships. But from the look of things, it failed miserably. Bon Bon seemed to think otherwise, but even she was feeling a little off around him. He could sense that she wasn’t trying to repulse him completely, but there was something in her directed at him. And he had a feeling that he would find out what was going on once they reached Vinyl’s house.
Because Ponyville was not a very large town, it didn’t take long to reach their destination. Turner went ahead of Bon Bon and opened the door, standing just to the side. “Ladies first,” he offered.
Bon Bon hummed in thought. “Actually, that whole ‘ladies first’ thing never made sense to me. You go ahead.”
Turner stared at her for a moment. “Seriously?”
“Hey, what’s wrong with a little variety?” she argued. Turner didn’t know what to make of this, but he decided that fighting over who went through a door first was a pointless, and downright silly, argument. He sighed and walked in.
The entryway and living room were completely dark. The lights were out and the curtains on the windows were closed; the only light coming in was from the door, and with the sun shining from another direction, it wasn’t much.
“What’s going on here?” Turner wondered aloud. Suddenly, he was blinded as the room immediately lit itself all at once. And if the visual shock wasn’t enough, the auditory shock was.
“SURPRISE!” four voices shouted. A series of pops came from above him, as well. Turner finally opened his eyes and, beyond the confetti fluttering in front of his face, he saw his other friends. He mostly paid attention to Derpy, however, who was in front of the others.
“Derpy,” he started after several seconds of stunned silence, “what is all this?”
“It’s a surprise party,” she answered.
“I can see that, but why?”
“I just didn’t want you to feel sad after what happened today.”
The gears started turning in his head. “You mean you…?” He paused.
“I what?” Derpy asked.
Turner gulped and said quietly, “…don’t hate me?”
Derpy took a step back in shock, her eyes jumping away from each other. “What?! Why would you say that?”
Turner sighed. “When the TARDIS… exploded, you could have been hurt. And when I saw you in the market, I thought you were running away from me.”
“I was running away from you,” Derpy said, “but not because of that. I just wanted to keep the surprise party a surprise.” She walked up to him and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Turner, you’re my friend,” she said sincerely. “And it’ll take more than an accident like that to make me hate you.”
Turner smiled a little at this. “Really? What would it take?”
Derpy thought for a second and said, “I don’t know. Maybe if you blew up the planet or something…” There was another pause. Soon though, everyone in the room heard chuckling, which eventually became laughter.
“Oh, Derpy,” Turner said between laughs. “you always know just what to say. Thank you.” He placed his own hoof on Derpy’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug.
“Hey, Ly,” Vinyl said in the background. “Did you make pancakes?”
“Pancakes?” Lyra repeated. “Why would we—?!”
“Because we gotta do something with all this sap,” Vinyl explained. Turner and Derpy took this as a sign to let go. “Now that that’s outta the way,” Vinyl said, “let’s get this party started!” She practically flew to her stereo system and placed a record on the turntable. “Fillies and gentlecolt, for your listening and dancing pleasure, I give you ‘Wubstep Dishwasher’!”
“That title makes absolutely no sense,” Octavia said.
“Exactly!” Vinyl responded. She pressed the play button and the music started, playing a heavy bass and distorted melody that still seemed coherent. The five ponies were dancing and bobbing their heads, even Octavia after a few seconds.
For the first time since the accident, Turner felt happy and extremely lucky to have friends like these.
As he danced, however, he noticed a whiff of something… sweet. He turned to find the source of the smell and found himself looking at Octavia, who was next to him.
“Octavia?” he said, trying to be heard over the music.
“Yes, Turner?”
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I was wondering why you smell like strawberry shampoo and…” he sniffed again, “bubble gum.”
“NEVER AGAIN!” Octavia’s response was so loud, it caused the music to skip a beat.