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// Intermission: I Need A New Word For Confused 
// Story: Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced 
// by Cordial Nova 
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The back streets of Ponyville, about halfway to the Carousel Boutique

"Hi!"

Cordelia took a quick step back from the pink apparition that had arrived in front of her via... some method that didn't involve passing through the intervening space, whichever space that happened to be.

"I'm Pinkie Pie! I haven't seen you around before or seen anyone like you around before, and that means you're completely new! But not completely, because yesterday I got a twitchy tail AND a rumbly tummy, so I knew my Pinkie Sense was telling me something really big was going to fall from the sky but then nothing did! So I asked my friends and they said you fell out of the sky in your sky-ship, but that your sky-ship was all broken. And then I thought that'd make you all sad, and that made me sad, so I thought to myself, 'Pinkie, you need to help cheer her up!', so I started asking ponies to help me put together a 'Welcome to Ponyville!' party for you, and I wondered 'do aliens like parties?', but that was silly, because everypony likes parties, but some ponies were scared because of all the fire and crazy rumors around town, and that's not going to cheer anypony up, and then I was thinking 'But how can I make everypony happy and not scared?' so I told myself that I just needed to have an extra big super-duper 'Welcome the Not-At-All-Scary Alien to Ponyville!' (1) party and introduce her to everypony in town and then everypony will be friends and there'll be lots of cupcakes! And here's your invitation! Isn't that awesome?"



1. Cordelia would later discover that Twilight had included "Attend Pinkie's 'Welcome the Not-At-All-Scary Alien to Ponyville! Party'" on her checklist for the day all along. When Cordelia asked her about this, she just shrugged. "Some things are inevitable", she said.



Cordelia took a somewhat dazed moment to reflect.

"Um, I think so? But I'm not sure my translator caught all of that. If you wouldn't mind, could you say it again, a little slower?"

Grinning as if she'd been expecting that, the pink mare sucked in a deep breath and began repeating herself in a parodically slow and deep voice.

"Hiiiii! Iiii'mmm Piiiiinnnnkkkkiiieee Piiiieeee...."