One time Discord had come into my store.
He had been accompanying Fluttershy on some of her errands.
I think she had wanted me to make her a saddlebag that could accommodate some of her animals, bunnies and mice mostly, when she went to town.
Or perhaps she wanted a light dress she could wear to parties in the summer.
Although you wouldn’t know it looking at her, that pony had a keen eye for fashion. Actually, I am sure that time she had asked for a dress.
In any case, Discord used his magic to wreak havoc.
Discord being Discord, that sort of thing tended to happen.
First he made the all the shelved dresses dance around, and then he made them pick us up in their armless sleeves and whirl us around the floor of the boutique.
All set to a jaunty waltz number, which blared out from some summoned speakers.
Eventually Fluttershy calmed him down, but not before I had some very stern words with him.
At least, I think I had stern words with him.
But it is difficult to speak stern words when one is being dipped and twirled by an overcoat.
Honestly, I think I enjoyed the experience to some degree.
That was the day that I sold Cheerilee some custom rainbow-print leggings and hoof-warmers.
I only remember that because I remember that she cowered in the store when Discord entered.
And then her leggings had caused her to frantically tap dance, as if she had caught the cutie pox.
Of course, other ponies were still very frightened of Discord.
Even though they knew that he had been reformed. A similar thing happened with Princess Luna, I believe.
As for example on her first Nightmare Night, on which apparently ponies had all cowered, shivering, when she arrived in Ponyville.
I was in Manehattan, though, and so I cannot confirm that that is what happened.
Anyway, Cheerilee had come to me because she wanted to go and relive her glory days.
In her youth she had been a wild party pony.
I remember that she would go out to nightclubs and dances every weekend.
She would often ask me accompany her. By then I had become obsessed with fashion, though, and so rarely went out with her.
Nonetheless when I did the experience was fun.
We would meet the party crowd—Pinkie, Berry Punch, and others—and dance through the night.
I suppose by buying the leggings Cheerilee hoped she could recapture some of that old wild spirit.
She had settled down by the time she became the Ponyville schoolteacher, I think, but the desire to party was always there in some part of her.
I should mention that my crop of rhubarb is looking sickly.
I have very little idea how to cultivate crops.
Right now they are under the shadow of an awning I constructed.
I have to take care to give them water every day, though admittedly I often forget.
Well, in any case I’ll pick some of them now, just to be on the safe side, and make a pie.
And by pie I mean just apple and rhubarb stewed together.
Which is not a pie but really just a pile of mush, naturally.
In any case, it tastes good, and I do not have the patience to cultivate flour for the crust.
Of course, once upon a time I tried to use flour I found in the local store, but it was expired and didn't taste quite right, which was disappointing.
Discord ordered a suit from me, that day.
Of course, I was very suspicious of this, but despite that I tried to remain civil, and asked him about the style he would like.
He snapped his fingers and said like this or this or this, while different suits materialized onto his body.
It struck me as odd that he would commission a suit when he could just snap one into existence, but then again he was the oddest creature I knew.
I don’t know, of course, but perhaps he bought it because Fluttershy had bought a dress, and he wanted to follow suit.
Sometimes I would see him meekly following Fluttershy around town, holding bags or herding ducklings with her.
Other times, though, he would be a flurry of chaos all around Fluttershy, metamorphosing a dozen times before I could blink.
The suit I made him was half tweed and half pinstripe, with numerous patches in various colors and styles.
I also made him a giant top hat with a feather glued to it, and gave it to him gratis, which I think he enjoyed.
I have written that inaccurately.
Meaning he enjoyed the hat, not the fact that it was free.
Measuring him for size was an interesting process.
As I wrapped the tape measure around his waist his tail tickled my nose until I sneezed.
When I measured his inseam, he made his leg stretch and curl around the boutique.
Nonetheless he wanted the suit.
He paid me in full when he picked the suit up, which I was also unnecessarily suspicious about.
Maybe I still doubted how much he had changed, to be honest. But he was no trouble.
I should mention that he was wearing the medallion that had been Twilight’s key to the rainbow power box.
How strange to see one of our greatest foes accessorizing with a crucial part of Equestrian defense.
Come to think of it, it would’ve had to have been a replica.
After all, the keys along with the box grew into Twilight’s castle.
Oh how the mind forgets.
Of course, he was not wearing that medallion, but another one, with a picture on it of himself giving a thumbs-up next to Twilight.
I remember it now.
Outside again for the little filly’s room, I noticed the tree where Applejack had grown her giant prizewinning apple.
And of course I am aware outside cannot be a room, and that what I have said is nonsensical.
Nonetheless I prefer to use the euphemism. A lady must keep her sense of class, even if there is nopony around to witness her lady-like mien.
Anyway, that tree has not grown any more giant fruit.
I wonder what exactly Applejack did to make the fruit so big.
At first, I thought that the apple had been magically enhanced.
Maybe a growth potion or maybe a spell.
However, after Applejack assured us that it was all home-grown and there was no magical assistance, I had to believe she was telling the truth.
After all, she was the element of honesty.
And if anypony could grow an apple taller than a pony, Applejack could.
Once Pinkie Pie had tricked me by painting a bit on the floor of my boutique.
She had made it look so real that I tried to levitate it, obviously to no effect.
Opalescence, however, walked past the bit without so much as a glance.
Which does not imply that Opalescence was more intelligent than me.
Even though I was a little exasperated, I must admit I had a good laugh after Pinkie revealed her trickery, and washed the bit off the floor with water.
If she hadn’t cleaned up after every prank, Ponyville would be full of stories about Pinkie Pie pranking ponies.
In Ponyville today I noticed that a chimney had fallen off somepony’s house.
It had collapsed across the road that I was trying to traverse with my cart.
I had to reverse the cart and go down a side street.
Down that alley somepony had left a travelling puppet show cart which I believe I had decorated once.
If I remember correctly the patron was something of a difficult customer.
I was amazed to see his cart here, so close to home, when its owner had told me he would travel all over Equestria with his show.
Although of course it was nothing more than coincidence.
Inside his cart were flyers which advertized a showing here in Ponyville.
There were no bits on the floor of my boutique, just like there was no owl in the apple orchard and no Opalescence in Manehattan.
Except insofar as the events reminded me of them.
The pennant flapping at the doorway once made me think that there was some winged animal there—possibly a bat.
Even though, of course, I was the one who put the pennant there.
Only when I went to investigate had I realized my mistake.
Right now the pennant is not flapping.
Nor am I thinking of a bat any longer.
Then again I must’ve been thinking about one while I was typing that sentence, even though the sentence says the opposite.
Surely if I am writing a sentence about how I am not thinking about a bat I must be thinking about the bat I say I am not thinking about.
I should stop this train of thought.
For the life of me I cannot remember where I found that pennant.
Was it a souvenir from the Equestria Games that I had bought, or did I find it in the Crystal Empire much later, after this dreadful business began?
Once, in Fancy Pants's penthouse in Canterlot, I signed a mirror.
I wrote my name in mauve lipstick.
What I was signing was a picture of myself.
Of course, if anypony else came to see the mirror it would be a picture of them that I had signed.
Though in fact the name I wrote was actually Pinkie Pie.
Whenever I go to a grocery store I look at the bread rolls, crusted up and rock hard, and think, if only.
I have been craving carrot hotdogs for some time now.