Twilight Sparkle dragged herself down the stairs of her tree home, towards the kitchen and the hope of food. The thought of breakfast was the only real reason she had even bothered getting up that early in the morning. The very word, "breakfast" had consumed her thoughts entirely, leaving nothing but empty, gnawing hunger in its wake.
As she staggered, still half asleep, into the brightly-tiled kitchen, she was met by the bright smile of her number one assistant, who was at the moment carrying a rather large basket of groceries in his tiny claws.
"Heya Twi," he said into the basket of food, "I didn't really expect you to be down here this early." He somehow managed to set the massive basket down on top of the counter and began to unload the goods as he talked to Twilight.
"Yeah, I'm just really hungry," she admitted a bit sheepishly. "Perhaps skipping dinner last night wasn't the best idea." Her stomach, not wanting to be left out of the conversation, made its presence known with a low growl.
Spike chuckled. "Yeah, I can tell. Let me see what I can whip you up." Accepting a short nuzzle from the unicorn, he began to dig through the basket with muted ferocity. "Let's see... I can make some oatmeal, or fry up some haybrowns, or cut some fruit-"
"Yes. Fruit sounds good," Twilight cut him off, drooping her eyelids as she imagined the myriad of apples and oranges and grapes lined up in front of her, patiently waiting to be devoured. They danced in her mind’s eye, so tantalizingly close - yet so far away.
So entranced was she by her fruit fantasy that she hardly heard Spike utter a quick, "You got it," as he went to work preparing the meal for the two of them.
As he began to gather up the array of brightly-colored fruits, one in particular caught Twilight's eye. "Hey, Spike... what the hay is that?" She pointed a hoof in disdainful curiosity at a medium-sized, cylindrical object he had just pulled out of the bag.
Spike picked up the item in question, turning it a bit as he looked it over. It was a radiant yellow in color, about two-thirds of a hoof long with a tapering stem on one end. "Oh, this?" said Spike. "This is a banana. I-"
Before he could continue, the yellow fruit was wrenched from his claws, floating over in front of Twilight's face as she studied it with amused curiosity. "Ba-na-na..." she rolled the word around in her mind, allowing it to bounce around a bit in her head.
"Yeah. Somepony was selling them at the market. He actually tried to give me his entire stock for free." Spike glazed his eyes over, remembering the... unusual conversation he had with the street vendor. "He seemed really eager to get rid of them."
Twilight, too lost in thought to hear Spike, nodded absentmindedly as she continued to absorb the exterior details of this strange new food in front of her. At last, she tore her gaze from the fruit and settled it on her number one assistant. "Well, it seems safe enough." She angled the cylindrical fruit in front of her. "Let's see how it tastes."
"Wait, stop!"
The fruit stopped, suspended several inches away from Twilight's mouth, caught in a wavering purple blanket of magic. "What?"
"You can't eat it like that." Spike very visibly restrained himself from faceclawing. "The fruit is inside, you need to take off the skin first." He held up an already peeled banana with its soft, fleshy insides exposed. "See?"
"So," Twilight muttered, "the fruit is inside... I just need to remove the outside."
The baby dragon nodded. "In simplest terms, yes. Just peel off the skin, and bam!" He waved his arms around in a tiny mock flourish. "Fruit."
With a nod, Twilight angled the banana, searching tentatively for the most advantageous angle of attack. As she held the firm fruit with one forehoof, she gripped the tapered stem in the other and pulled down, expecting the skin to peel right off.
It didn't.
Instead, the stem collapsed downward, rewarding the purple unicorn with a disheartening squishing sound. She muttered a bemused, "Huh," as she frantically played with the stem, jamming it around like it was a malfunctioning gear-shifter.
"Uh, Twi-"
"Not now Spike." She continued to tug uselessly at the yellow stem with vigor, her face contorting with annoyance as she attempted to open the enigmatic fruit.
"You know, I can open that for you if you'd like-"
Suddenly, Spike was staring into an inferno of mild annoyance as Twilight bore holes into his head with her desperate glare. "No! I can do this!" Summoning an alarming amount of magical energy, she encased the banana in a furiously glowing orb of purple magic. With a grunt of effort from the unicorn, the radiant ball of light exploded with a muffled whomph, sending several books tumbling from the shelves.
Both Twilight and Spike peered curiously at the small, charred patch on the floor that her destructive magic had caused. In it sat the banana, smoldering and a bit blackened, but otherwise unharmed. The skin was still firmly in place (much to their chagrin).
Picking up the offending fruit, she gave one last, valiant tug on the stem before wilting in subdued anguish, her ears and her confidence deflating with disappointment.
“Oh, it’s ok Twi. Here, I’ll get it for you-”
Before Spike could even reach for the infuriating fruit, a small explosion rocked the library. The resulting shock wave knocked several loose books to the floor, along with a scared and downright flabbergasted Spike. Before anypony had a chance to recover from the shocking blast, a pink blur shot into the room with the force of a small freight train, defying most known laws of physics by stopping right in front of an equally surprised Twilight Sparkle.
“Hiya Twi! My Pinkie sense just told me something crazy was going on here!”
For her part, Twilight just gawked as Pinkie Pie’s two massive, blue orbs gazed right through her. As she stared, she noted that the wall behind her contained a rather... Pinkie Pie-shaped hole. “Pinkie... this tree is at least six feet thick. How did you just-”
“No time!” The overzealous pink pony clamped her unusually strong hooves onto Twilight's jaw, shaking her a bit. “My Pinkie sense says that whatever’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be a doozy!” Donning a detective’s hat that had simply been pulled out of thin air, she began snooping around the library, glaring at any offending objects with a carefully observant eye. “What were you just doing?”
“Um... I was just trying to open this banana... But I couldn’t get it open, so Spike was about to get it for me.” She huffed. “Until you tore a hole in my wall, that is.”
Once again, Twilight felt the eyes of her friend on her. This time, however, they gazed at her with curious befuddlement. “What the high-hay’s a banana?”
Spike, now somewhat recovered from his episode, walked to the pair of conversing ponies, holding the same charred, slightly squashed fruit at an arm’s length. Pinkie stared at it for a moment, bobbing her head from side to side before reaching out a tentative hoof and poking it. “Wow,” she mused. “What does it do?” Whatever concern she had for her Pinkie sense’s prediction was now lost, replaced only by utter fascination with the mysterious yellow object in front of her.
“It’s a fruit,” replied Spike matter-of-factly.
“So... you eat it?”
“Yeah. Only the fruit is on the inside. You need to peel off the outside part first-”
With a swipe of the hoof, Pinkie grabbed the banana firmly in her hooves. “Oh, why didn’t you just say so, Twilight? I could’ve gotten it for you.” She tut-tutted her unicorn friend playfully. “You really should’ve just asked me the first time, silly.”
Ignoring the bemused look from Twilight, she turned her attention to the fruit in her hooves and began to grapple with it in a similar fashion to Twilight’s frenzied struggle a moment ago. “You, just have to, pull, really super-duper hard,” she grunted in between strained tugs at the stem of the banana, “And, then, you... Profit!”
She gave the stem a final, wrenching yank with all of her boundless strength and energy, expecting to be rewarded with the seemingly impossible to reach insides of the fruit. Instead, all she succeeded in doing was propelling herself into the opposite wall, leaving another Pinkie-shaped hole in Twilight’s house. As she was peeled off the wall by gravity, she huffed exasperatingly. “Well, that certainly is one conundrum you got yourself there, Twilight! I don’t think that there’s any way to open that baby short of-”
She paused. As Twilight and Spike stared on in confusion (and mild horror), a satanic smile spread across Pinkie Pie’s face. She rubbed her hooves together menacingly as a devious cackle bounced off the walls of the library. Her hair ominously deflated, swaying slightly as the now-mad party pony laughed. “I know just what to do!”
Just as soon as her manic phase had come about, it ended. Her hair sprung back to life with an audible poof, and her face once again returned to its normal, energetic, and smiling self. “Uh... Pinkie,” Twilight stammered, slowly retreating from her friend as she gave her a scared glance, “are you ok?”
“Oh, just peachy! No, I’m even better than peachy! What’s better than peachy... Maybe cupcakey! Wait, is that a word?” Pinkie paused for a moment in thought. “Oh well, it’s a word now. Anyway, yeah Twi, I’m just cupcakey! Plus,” she added, “I know how to open that silly ba-na-nana-nana thingy!”
Twilight’s face went from “disinterested at Pinkie’s rambling” to “Pinkie has a solution yay!” with all the speed of Rainbow Dash in a nose-dive.
“Pinkie, that’s great! What is it?” An ecstatic purple unicorn ran up to the party pony and grabbed her, shaking her a bit too violently in her rush.
Once Pinkie had recovered from her mild shock from Twilight’s overenthusiastic jarring, she disentangled herself from her friend’s grip and cantered over to a particularly sparse space in the corner. “Why, this of course!” From out of nowhere, she produced a large cloak draped over some unknown object. Whatever it was, though, it was very large and very ominous.
“Pinkie... What is that?”
Instead of answering, she yanked away the cloak with a flourish of random party streamers and a small shower of confetti. “Ta-da!” The space under the cloak had somehow been filled by Pinkie’s one and only party cannon. A small blizzard of confetti shot from its barrel, eliciting a joyous squeak from the pink mare commanding it.
Twilight, who had watched the event unfold with skeptical apprehension, now stood in utter confusion (and a good bit of fear). “Wait, how’s your party cannon gonna help? What are we gonna do, throw the banana a ‘please open up so we can eat you’ party?” She chuckled dryly at her own joke.
“Why, no silly!” Before Twilight could react to Pinkie’s deranged plan, the pink party pony had snatched up the banana and stuffed it down the barrel of the cannon.
Only as Pinkie was lighting the fuse did Twilight manage to stammer out in a terrified voice, “What are you doing?”
“This!” With a manic smile and a salute, Pinkie laughed as the fuse ran down, heralding some unforeseen force of banana-esque destruction the likes of which Twilight Sparkle had never seen before.
With a thunderous boom that threatened to tear the tree off its roots and dislodge any remaining books that still clung to the shelves, the cannon belched forth a massive explosion of confetti, streamers, and pieces of banana. Unfortunately, the poor fruit had not survived the brief but forceful trip, scattering into a million tiny, sticky pieces upon leaving the cannon. It flew through the air for a fraction of a second at humbling speeds before splattering all over a very shocked and angry Twilight Sparkle.
Instead of her normal purple hue, Twilight now found herself covered in a patchwork of sticky yellow polka-dots. As she stood there, speechless with anger and covered in banana, the last of the confetti rained down from the ceiling, sticking to Twilight’s banana-covered coat. Great. Just great. Just add insult to injury, why don’t you?
Pinkie Pie bounded up to her, unbridled joy on her face. “Wow! That was super-duper-extra-funerific! Where’s that silly ba-na-nana now?”
“Oh, it’s on my coat.” Twilight paused. “And in my mane. And just about everywhere else!” Twilight locked eyes on her oblivious pink friend with a glare of righteous fury.
If looks could kill, poor Pinkie would already be six feet under. “So... the party cannon didn’t work?”
If looks could kill, all of Equestria would be silenced forever by the terrifying stare of Twilight Sparkle. “No! It didn’t work at all! You not only blasted me with projectile fruit, you covered half of my library with banana goop and confetti!” She motioned to the walls of her library which were now coated in a thin, glossy banana sludge. Several million tiny pieces of colored paper were trapped in the gooey embrace, their cheerful, colorful shine belaying the fact that it would take days, if not weeks, to clean it all up.
“So... This was a bad thing, then?” Pinkie Pie, oblivious to her unicorn friend’s utter rage, stared on contentedly as Twilight ground her teeth in anguish.
“Yes. Yes it is!” If looks could kill, the very universe itself would cease to exist, crushed by the unceasing weight of Twilight's hysterically angry gaze.
“Oh!” Pinkie replaced her oblivious blank stare with one of happy realization. “That must’ve been the doozy that my Pinkie sense was telling me about!” She let out a gleeful cheer as she cantered around Twilight in happiness. “I knew it would be big! Looks like this place’ll need weeks to clean out. Maybe months!”
The pink pony stopped for a moment beside from Twilight and, with a quick flick of her hoof, scooped some of the banana goop off of her peeved unicorn companion. As she tasted the stuff for the first time, her joyous grin grew even wider as her pupils dilated in delight. “Oh, wow! This is really good! It’s like... sweet, but in a ‘you know it’s good for you so it’s ok to eat twenty of them’ kind of sweet!”
She motioned to Spike, who had taken cover under one of the nearby tables as soon as the destructive pink mare had wheeled out her party cannon. “Spikey! Do you have any more bana-nana’s? They are just delicious!”
Hesitantly, the baby dragon climbed from his safe haven and into the destroyed battleground of the library. As he did, he gave his adoptive sister an apprehensive look. “Um, should I-”
“Just... give her one.” With Twilight’s begrudging approval, Spike double timed it to the kitchen, where he proceeded to grab one of the remaining bananas from the counter. To be sure that Pinkie didn’t get the opportunity to peel this one like she had the last, the purple dragon had the dubious honor of removing the skin. After the task was complete, he brought it out to the main foyer of the library.
Twilight was still in the exact same position as she was before; eyes locked angrily on the bubbly pink mare across from her, legs planted more solidly than tree roots to the aged hardwood floor, eyes twitching slightly. Pinkie, never one to stay in the same place for more than a few seconds, sat across from the ticked unicorn with her trademark toothy grin plastered on her face.
The tension in the air was as thick as the walls of the tree. Fortunately, Pinkie could easily break both on a whim. “Oh, yay!” she squealed as Spike hesitantly presented her the banana. “Thanks Spikey!”
Pinkie snatched the fruit from the dragon’s claws without a moment’s hesitation and held the ripe fruit to her mouth. Right before she bit down on the tasty treat, however, she halted. “Hey Twilight?” She asked almost tentatively.
“What, Pinkie?”
“Do... do you want a piece?”
A disturbing mix of angry, boiling rage, and crushing defeat coursed through Twilight’s face in the space of a few seconds. The display was too much for her, however, and she rocked back onto her haunches with a dismayed and apathetic sigh. “Fine,” she relented, “I’ll have a piece.” She spit out the words like they had somehow offended her tastebuds.
With a satisfied squeak, Pinkie hoofed her friend a piece of the rage-inspiring fruit. Twilight accepted it with a grunt, popping it into her mouth with a quick flick of her hoof.
The worst part about eating the banana wasn’t the fact that she would probably be spending the next few weeks scraping its sibling off the walls of her library. The worst part wasn’t that the very pony who had directly caused all the destruction was now sitting next to her, silently snacking with an obviously chipper smile on her face.
No. The worst part was that it tasted absolutely delicious.
As the two munched on the sweet yellow fruit, Twilight uttered miserably, “I hate bananas.”