Pinkie Pie hopped all around the storefront of Sugar Cube corner, throwing red-colored streamers, heart-shaped confetti, and placing cutouts a little winged pony with a bow and arrows on the tables and windows. While the store did not produce chocolate, Mr. and Mrs. Cake still expected customer turnout to be huge for the next day, Hearts and Hooves Day, and knew the bakery should look appropriate.
The Cakes had gone to buy ingredients for a few new festive recipe ideas, and to stock up for the old ones. As such, Pinkie was left in charge of the decorating, but they knew she wouldn't mind; it seemed to be her favorite thing to do anyway.
"Some more streamers over there! A little confetti over there! Another Cupid over here! Oh! This is just so much fun! I know all the happy little couples will love coming in here tomorrow!" Pinkie was always a little over-exuberant about decorating, and planned everything out loud. After throwing all the confetti in her hooves, she moved over to her small pile of balloons and a helium tank and started to inflate the balloons one by one. She only had six balloons, but the storefront was small, so that would be enough.
After all six were inflated, she stood in the middle of the floor contemplating where to put them, tapping her chin with a hoof as she did so. All the possibilities of optimal positions entered her head at once, and soon she found the perfect one. She placed two on opposite sides of the inside door, one near the banister to the stairs, two on opposite sides of the order counter, and one just inside the window. When that was done, she walked to inside kitchen to retrieve some more streamers, only to be met by a thin balloon string floating in front of the door when she was coming out.
"Oh!" she said, startled. The balloon by the stairs had floated over in front of the kitchen door. "Silly balloon!" she giggled. "I put you over by the stairs!"
The balloon stayed in front of the door.
"Oh, come on now!" she said. "You look good there!" With this, she led the ballon back over to the stairwell, put some streamers in that area, and left again for the window to hang some from the top window pane. When she was done there, the balloon again was right behind her.
"Ack!" she yelped, slightly more startled this time. "Hey, stop that! I told you already you look good over there. Don't you want to please our customers?"
The ballon again did not move.
Pinkie softened. "You're not making this any easier," she said slightly annoyed, but again led to the balloon back towards the stairwell. She left it there and started to walk away, but she sensed that something was following her, and whirled around to come face-to-string with the balloon.
She sighed. "You just can't sit still, can you?" she asked, but got no response. Pinkie could sympathize with the balloon though, knowing how it felt to sit still. She shivered, and looked up at the balloon, smiling. "If you're so eager to be out and around, you should come with me! I just ran out of decorations, and Celestia knows this needs some more decorating!" She gestured to the room, which was almost completely covered in streamers and confetti.
Wrapping the balloon around the wrist of her left foreleg, she trotted towards the door to leave, before she realized a horrible truth and gasped loudly.
"WAIT a second!" she yelled, stopping dead in her tracks. "What if ponies ask about you? I can't tell them anything! I don't even know your name!" She stopped and thought for brief moment. "I know! I'll call you...Ballonso!" Pinkie looked up at Ballonso, and said "Whaddya think?" Hearing no response, she took this as 'Wowie, Pinkie Pie! That's the greatest name ever!' and replied, "I know right? Everypony will be so excited to meet you!"
After naming her new friend, she trotted out the door and made her way to the arts & crafts store a few blocks down to get some more supplies, keeping Ballonso safely tied around her leg as she went. She bounced happily inside through the double doors, and started to look for the decorations aisle, which at this time of year was filled with paper hearts and love letters. Gathering all she needed, she made her way to the register at the front, arms full of packages.
The checkout pony looked disappointedly at the giant pile, and the pony behind it. She didn't like long checkouts or small talk, and this was exactly the pony who would engage her in both. She started to quickly scan the packages, trying to get as many through before Pinkie walked up and tried to talk to her.
"Hiya, Bar!" Pinkie vociferated loudly.
She was too late.
"How's you're day going?" Pinkie asked nicely.
Bar Code put on a happy face. "Oh, y'know, same ol', same ol'."
"You need to add some spice to your life, Bar! Maybe you should take a vacation," Pinkie suggested.
"A vacation? Ha! Even if I could afford it, I doubt I could get the time off to travel," Bar responded in contempt.
Pinkie tried to cheer her up with a smile. "You never know! Maybe some day."
This did cheer up Bar slightly. This cheer, however, went away almost instantly when she discovered that Pinkie was no longer listening, and staring up at a balloon tied around her leg.
"Who's your friend, Pinkie?" Bar joked.
"Oh, silly ol' me, I didn't even introduce you! Bar, meet Ballonso. Ballonso, meet Bar!" Pinkie answered brightly.
Bar blinked. She hadn't actually expected Pinkie to introduce her to the balloon. She simply thought Pinkie had the ballon with her for another party, whether she had just been or was going now, she could not tell.
"Er...nice to meet you?" Bar tried. The balloon just floated there.
Pinkie answered for him. "He says nice to meet you too!" She looked back at the balloon. "And he says that your mane looks fantastic today!"
Bar blushed. "Oh, why thank you Ballonso, I did do a little something..." She stopped. She was talking to a balloon. She kept scanning.
Finishing off the whole lot of packages and stuffing them into small paper bags, she handed them over to Pinkie Pie. "That'll be 25 bits," she told her. Pinkie produced 25 bits from no where, and handed them over to Bar. She then impossibly balanced all the bags onto her back, and walked out of the doors with no effort at all.
Bar rubbed her forehead. "I have got to get a better job."
Outside, Pinkie bounced her way happily back to Sugar Cube Corner, finally with enough supplies to finish decorating for tomorrow. She hoped the Cakes were as impressed with her decorating as she was. Joy filling her body, she bounced higher and higher, feeling the sunshine on her face, the cool breeze through her mane...
...and a striking absence on her leg.
Pinkie stopped bouncing and looked to investigate. Ballonso's string was no longer wrapped around her leg. Instead it was following him as he drifted off into the sky!
Pinkie tried to jump up after him, all the while yelling for him to come back down. "Ballonso! What are you doing? Get back down here right this instant, mister!" He wouldn't listen, and drifted farther and farther into the sky, until he snagged on a wooden post protruding from a house under construction. Pinkie was relieved, but she still needed to think fast. The winds were strong, especially among the rooftops, and he would soon become dislodged and travel farther into the sky, too far away to follow any more. She looked around, and found a low-drooping roof where she could reach the rooftops and make it to his level. Ascending her way to the roof, she hopped, skipped, and jumped her way across the rooftops of Ponyville, making her way closer and closer to Ballonso's position. Just as she was about to make her last bound, Ballonso was pushed by the wind off of the post, and slightly closer to Pinkie Pie, where she was able to grab him while in the air and plummet to the ground below.
The problem wasn't over yet. Pinkie pulled Ballonso closer to her and turned so her body would protect his fragile surface from any harm upon having contact with the ground. Only a few moments passed before Pinkie's back made it's greeting with the ground, and had enough time for tea as she lay there for several moments with the wind knocked out of her.
Coming to her senses, she checked on Ballonso. He was intact.
Pinkie breathed a great sigh of relief, hugging Ballonso for several moments on the ground before getting back up. She said nothing, only glad that her friend was still alive. She went back to the place where she had left her packages in a disorganized jumble, and slowly and safely made her way back home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pinkie pushed open the door to Sugar Cube Corner, placing her bags by the door, and sitting down on a chair near one of their many tables. The Cakes weren't yet home, which she very much preferred, as she didn't want them to see her in her battered state and become worried.
She unwound Ballonso from her leg, and pulled him down to the from of her face.
"Had quite an adventure, today, huh?" She managed a laugh. "You know you should be more careful, you had me all worried...I could have lost you! Nopony wants to lose somepony they just met! Especially somepony they really like..."
She directed her attention briefly towards the pile of bags at the door, and draped her head across the back of the chair. "Suddenly, I'm not in a very 'decorating' mood," she sighed. "I'm in more of a 'sleeping-for-nine-hours' mood." Looking back at Ballonso, she realized that she should probably put him in his place back next to the stairs before she went to sleep. As she left him by the stairs, she looked back. The light from a nearby lamp reflected off of his surface, forming what seemed to be a frown on his face, and Pinkie simply couldn't take it.
"Oh, Ballonso," she grabbed him and held him out in her arms. "I can't leave you alone downstairs! Thinking of how lonely you'd be..." she looked at him straight. "Why don't you stay in my room? Would you like that?"
The light now reflected onto Ballonso's surface gave him a warm smile, which seemed to say 'I love you.'
Pinkie brought him in for a quick kiss. "I love you too, little guy."
Pinkie yawn'd wide, and made her way upstairs. Tying Ballonso's string securely around her bedpost and making sure her window was locked tight, she turned out her light, and rolled over to look at him, shining in the moonlight that was beginning to seep through her window.
"Goodnight," she giggled. "Boyfriend."