//------------------------------// // 178. The Music Stand - Part 2 // Story: Blaze the Pony Tale // by Wolven5 //------------------------------// “Pinkie, are you sure this is a good idea?” Cheese’s ears pressed down in uncertainty as he watched Pinkie sitting before the typewriter she had on her desk. After meeting up and comparing what both Party Ponies had learned about the problems in Cranky and Matilda’s relationship, Pinkie had put on her thinking cap (which was an academic cap that had a light-bulb that turned on by tugging the tassel on top, by the way) and came up with what she thought was the brightest most bright idea ever to brighten. “No worries, Cheese!” Pinkie assured as the device dinged and Pinkie pulled the carriage return lever, resetting it before she continued. “And just to make sure they don’t catch on, I’m using this typewriter because they might have recognized my hoof-writing.” “By the way, why do you have a typewriter to begin with?” Cheese asked. “Doesn’t everypony?” Pinkie replied with a giggle. Seeing the roll of Cheese’s eyes, Pinkie added, “Relax, Cheesie! Love letters are perfect ways to help relationships, it worked in ‘Fifty Bales of Hay’!” Cheese facehooved as he realized Pinkie was following an idea from such a corny teen romance story! “But isn’t this still lying to them?” “Woe your woes there, woeful,” Pinkie assured with a smug look, “All these love letters gotta do is help remind Cranky and Matilda what they mean to each other! Just imagine it… Matilda, all by her lonely lonesome in her home, Cranky out, thinking he’s having the time of his life, they both receive a letter from the donkey they know in their hearts means the world to them… They read the letters, the embers of their feelings are stoked and ignite with renewed passion! They race off to see each other, and literally kiss and make up!” “Pink-” Cheese tried but Pinkie cut him off. “Done!" she declared. "They’re perfect! Pass me those envelopes and stamps, would you, Cheesy?” Cheese sighed again and reluctantly did so, watching Pinkie fold the fake love letters into the envelopes, lick the stamps and placed them on, “C’mon, Cheese! We got a romance to save...!” Cheese followed Pinkie downstairs and out Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie bouncing excitedly, Cheese in reluctant tow, having a feeling this wouldn’t turn out as Pinkie hoped. His worry for the long-term turned immediate when he saw Pinkie was headed for somepony. “Pinkie, look out!” However, Pinkie had been too excited and had her eyes closed in fantasizing the moment of her two friends making up, smiling with enlightened happiness, giving their most heartfelt thanks to their good friend Pinkie- “OOF/EEP!” *Bump/flop/scatter!* -that she didn’t see Ditzy Doo coming her way to get to the mailbox the pink party pony had just stepped in front of. The resulting bumping into each other caused them both to flop onto the ground, along with Ditzy’s mailbag, causing the mail inside to scatter. “Oh! Ditzy! I’m so-so sorry!” Pinkie flabbergasted as she stood up and started picking up the scattered letters. “Oh, no, it was just a little mishap, Pinkie,” Ditzy assured as she grabbed her mail-carrier hat and her bag. “This eye of mine can sometimes throw me off.” “Here, I’ll help too,” Cheese stepped in, and soon enough, both mares were back on their hooves, letters ready to be delivered. “We were just on our way to find Cranky and Matilda.” “Yeah, Cranky’s out going crazy and Matilda’s the one being cranky,” Pinkie added. “So we’re gonna help them remember how much they care about each other.” “Well, I’m sure things will work out,” Ditzy said encouragingly before continuing her route, “bye-bye!” “Y’know, Cheese, maybe we should both take one of these letters and deliver them,” Pinkie decided, slapping one of them into Cheese’s hoof before he could protest. “I’ll go deliver the one for Cranky, you take the other to Matilda!” “But Pinkie-” Cheese tried to say, but Pinkie already bounced past him. “Meet you back at Sugarcube Corner! La, la-la, la-la, la-la…!” Matilda sat grumpily in front of a café as she stewed over her beau's annoying new lifestyle. A few of the other café patrons were making sure to stay clear lest the donkey snap at them while the staff all drew straws in the kitchen as to who should serve her. She had been like this for a while now, and it didn't seem to be stopping any time soon. "Hi there Matilda, I have something important to give you." The irritated look on Matilda's face did seem to reduce slightly at Cheese's presence. "Oh hello again, Cheese. I hope this won't take too long. I don't want to seem rude but I’m just far too wound up to hold a decent conversation right now." The party pony just gave a positive nod of his head. "Don't worry, Matilda, I'm just here to drop off a letter for you from Cranky. He asked me to pass it along to you. I'm not sure what it is, but he seemed happy about them, so maybe it's some sort of apology." The idea that it might be an apology definitely lifted Matilda's spirits a little. She accepted the letter from Cheese's outstretched hoof and carefully opened it up to see inside. However instead of the positive reaction that Cheese had been hoping for, Matilda immediately grew even angrier. "JUNK MAIL!?! That son of a mule gave me junk mail!? He probably got it delivered to the house and then passed it along to me to punish me for not agreeing with his new activities. Ooh, that Cranky is going to have an earful waiting for him when he gets home!" Then without waiting to order, the young donkey rose from her seat and stormed off back towards her cottage leaving the envelope and its contents on the table. Cheese was extremely confused here. Junk mail? Pinkie had written out a love letter from Cranky. Why would Matilda think it was junk mail? What exactly did you write, Pinks? Cheese wondered, as he looked at the letter, halfway out of its envelope, and realized it was a catalog from Filthy Rich's Barnyard Bargains with its current specials on patio furniture highlighted and bright. The party planner grabbed the junk mail and gave it a confused look before heading away. Perhaps Pinkie had given him the wrong letter? Pinkie hopped through town with gusto searching for her target. She was a mare on a mission. Nothing would stop her from fixing her friend's relationship, absolutely nothing. Suddenly she felt the familiar feeling of her tail twitching, her most recognizable Pinkie Sense. "TWITCHY TAIL!" she screamed, making a mad dash for ever under a nearby market stall. Every pony else in the vicinity knew that calling sign by heart, and with that classic Ponyville style, they all ran off screaming in an unorganized mess. The entire market area was silent for a few moments before a hang glider zoomed down from the clouds and made a spectacular crash and splash into the water fountain in the center of the plaza. The wet crumpled mess gave a groan before pulling itself apart to reveal Cranky underneath it all. "Whoah, that was some flying! I think next time I'll listen to the instructor a bit more carefully before taking off. Still that was epic! I wonder what I should try next?" As the donkey pulled himself out of the fountain and started to shake himself dry, Pinkie Pie deemed it safe enough to leave her shelter and discover what had fallen. At seeing her friend she immediately perked up and zoomed straight for him. "Hi Cranky, it's good to see you again since you disappeared since the last time I saw you which may have only been an hour or two but it was still longer than a few minutes which means it was still too long since I last saw my friend so I hope you’re doing well, but enough about that. I have a letter for you from Matilda that she asked me to give you and even though I don't know what it is, it looks like she worked really hard on it and I think you should read it and see what it is and then you two can be in love and happy again and everything will be back to normal!" *GASP* Cranky was still a little unused to Pinkie laying out a large message like that without stopping or taking a breath, but he figured he'd either get used to it or learn to ignore it eventually. He waited a moment for Pinkie to finish gasping for air and to hand him the letter. "So from what I got of that, Matilda has written me a letter that she asked you to deliver to me. I wonder if she's finally decided to live a little or at least get off my back about all my new hobbies." Without any prompting from Pinkie, the young donkey opened the letter up and pulled out a small coupon book, to Pinkie's confusion. "Oh sweet, a coupon book! Look, there's even a discount for rock climbing lessons! I can't believe Matilda gave this to me, she must really be over the whole settling down thing! I am so excited! Thanks for delivering the message, Pinkie! I’m gonna started on this rock climbing course, then I'm going to swing around to new movie theatre and catch the latest Daring Do film, the Arc of the Lost Raiders! See ya!" The donkey trotted off, whistling a merry tune and looking like he didn't have a care in the world, completely missing Pinkie's shocked, annoyed and completely bewildered expression as he left. Cheese and Pinkie met up out the front of Sugarcube Corner to discuss their love letter failures. "What happened, Pinkie, I thought you said those love letters would work! They should have read them and fallen back in love and made up and lived happily ever after and stopped fighting. Instead I passed my 'Cranky' letter to Matilda and it was filled with junk mail! How did that even happen?" "The same thing happened to me, Cheesie!” Pinkie added, “When I gave Cranky his letter from 'Matilda' it was filled with coupons for fun extreme sports! He thought Matilda had just 'got over' the whole settling down thing and then raced off to try rock climbing. I don't understand - We wrote those letters to get them to make up, but instead they just got pushed further apart!" Cheese just rubbed his chin in puzzlement. "Wait… Your letter had coupons and mine had junk mail. So… Where did the real letters go?" The two pondered for a moment before a bubbly grey mare trotted past them carrying a mailbag. Ditzy headed passed Sugarcube Corner to the home of Cherry Fizzy, Ponyville's number one seller of fizzy soda drinks. There was only two letters left in her bag and she knew that one was definitely for him. She gave a brief rap on his door and pulled the letter from her bag. A moment later the light brown coated, black maned stallion answered the door, his cherry cutie mark plain to see. "Hi Ditzy, is the mail here for today?" Ditzy gave a bright grin and nodded her head as she passed over the letter. "Yep! I think it might be that new catalog for Barnyard Bargains you wanted. This week’s special is on patio furniture." Then the cross eyed mare gave him a sly grin before leaning in close, "If you spruce up your back porch a bit, I can think of a special mare across the street you could invite around for dinner." Fizzy blushed and broke eye contact, but a tiny little smile crept out over his muzzle at the idea. He gave Ditzy a polite nod of thanks before turning to open the letter. As he did this the mail mare turned and cross the street to the house opposite. After knocking on the door a pretty unicorn mare stepped out onto the doorstep. Her light lilac coat and blue mane streaked with violet was looking brushed and smooth. Upon her flank was the mark of two dolphins in a yin-yang position, symbolizing her love of the sea and other aquatic locations. This mare was the lovely Sea Swirl. Seeing that Ditzy had brought her mail, the unicorn smiled brightly. "Ditzy, good to see you. Is the mail here for today?" The blond pegasus handed the last letter in her bag over. "Here you are Sea Swirl. I think it might be that coupon book you wanted." As the unicorn took the letter from Ditzy, the pegasus leaned in, her earlier sly grin returning. "Those coupons probably have a lot of two pony discounts. I can think of a stallion that might be interested in joining you on a few new activities." As she nodded her head across the street to Cherry Fizzy, who was reading over the letter he had been handed, Sea Swirl's face lit up in a fierce blush. She sheepishly thanked Ditzy and started to open up the envelope she had received. However instead of the coupon book she had been handed, a letter was inside. Ditzy started to make her leave, but just as she reached the street she heard two gasps from her final mail recipients of the day. She watched as Sea Swirl looked up from the letter in her hooves to the stallion across the street, who was looking back at her with the same look in his eyes. A look of complete fluffy affection. Timidly the two ponies left their doorways and approached each other to meet up in the centre of the street. "H-hi, Sea Swirl... I um... I think your really pretty." "I-I always thought you were r-really cute, Fizzy." "Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?" "I'd love to." Ditzy watched with a wide smile as the two ponies leaned in to give each other an affectionate nuzzle, the warm glow of budding love surrounding them. However another sound drew her attention towards Sugarcube Corner and the two ponies standing in front of it. The sound of facehoofing.