There was something strange about that morning, and Pound Cake didn’t like it.
Auntie Pinkie was gone, and Dada and Mama were running around more than usual. Pound could hear them downstairs from where he sat by the door to his and Pumpkin’s room. There were urgent cries to finish cleaning, and baking, and to get everything ready for the Play Date.
Pound Cake didn’t know what to expect from the strange thing his parents called The Play Date. He especially didn’t know what to expect when his twin sister refused to get out of bed that morning, moaning like she had the Tummy Ache and rubbing her pointy bit with her hoovsies.
Sometimes Pound and Pumpkin both had The Sniffles, or The Tummy Ache, or The Fever, and would stay in bed together until Dada and Mama came and gave them medicine. But Pound didn’t have any of those that morning, and yet Pumpkin didn’t want to get up. When he tried to wake her, she’d just turned away, and pulled the blankie over her head.
Pound was not crying. He didn’t even have an owie, even though there was something strange going on in his tummy just then. A feeling of not-rightness that totally didn’t have his eyes stinging.
Dada had come in and looked at her, and had gone out and spoken to Mama, and before long the Doctor had come and looked at her and said she had The Nubs, and that she had to go deep within herself and fight tiny little monsters that were trying to make her into something else. Or at least, that’s how Pound had understood it.
So Pumpkin had to stay in bed forever, until the Nubs had been defeated, and until then he had to leave her alone.
Pound had a hard time wrapping his mind around this concept. Bed was not for staying. Bed was for the Nap Time, and for jumping up and down until a big pony told you to stop. Plus, forever seemed to Pound like a very long time to stay in bed, but Pumpkin didn’t seem to want to do anything else anyway. All of which meant that Pound was alone for the Play Date.
Pound knew play. Pound liked play. He wasn’t sure about ‘date’ though. And he didn’t know what to do if Pumpkin wasn’t there as well. They’d been together forever, and the toys were nowhere near as much fun to play with by himself.
While Dada and Mama were busy, Pound, bored and wary, sat outside his bedroom upstairs and played with Gummy. He rolled a ball around the toothless gator, bouncing it off the walls and catching it, kicking it back, until he heard the bell ringing downstairs, and the sound of ponies talking.
“Hi, Mister Cake! Oh, you know you don’t have to call me ‘Princess’, I’m still Twilight… So, Mister Cake, meet Princess Cadance, Cadance, Mister Cake.”
“So nice to meet you! I’m Cadance, and this is Sunburst, our Crystaller. I’m so glad we could arrange this play date while I’m visiting my sister-in-law… Something’s wrong? …Oh, I’m sorry to hear that… No, that shouldn’t be a problem for her.”
Pound left the ball and the gator behind and trotted – he didn’t feel like hovering – to the top of the stairs.
And that was when he saw Her.
She came in on a golden chariot carried through the air by one of the pointy ponies, and the sun was shining on her face. There were big ponies with her, they were talking to Dada and Mama, but Pound ignored them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the filly in the floating carriage.
It was true that Pound had seen Auntie Pinkie’s friend Twilight, who was both a pointy pony and a flappy pony at the same time, but that fact slipped his mind when he saw Her. She was a pointy pony and a flappy pony, and She was the same size as Pound himself, and She was sucking on Her hoofsie just like Pound did and he couldn’t stop looking at Her and She saw him and She said “Hey look, it’s another me-sized pony! Hey look! Hey look! Hey look!”, only to the big ponies it sounded like “Phhhbt wa ba da” and they didn’t really notice because the were talking to Dada and Mama.
While she was talking she spread her flappies, and she had the biggest flappies Pound had ever seen.
“Pinkie, you can look after the foals? Thanks, Cadance and I will be right here if you need us.”
The pointy pony unbuckled her from her chair and lifted her down to the floor, where she wobbled a bit before falling on her rump. She resolutely flapped her flappies and rose up in the air. Pound spread his flappies and glided down to hover in front of her. “Your flappies,” he squealed, “they’re amazing!”
Flurry Heart glanced back at them, and the motion unbalanced her and sent her flopping down on the floor. She yipped and mumbled self-consciously and closed her flappies tight across her back.
“No, really,” Pound continued, swooping around her. “I’ve never seen a me-sized pony with flappies so big. They’re like…” He strained his mind to express himself. “Like big pony flappies!”
Flurry Heart looked uncertain for a moment, then blushed, and giggled.
“And your eyes...” He stared at the filly sitting directly in front of him with rapt adoration. “You have big pony eyes too! They’re so pretty…!”
She looked confused for a moment, then focused on his eyes and gasped. “Your eyes are adorable!”
Pound squealed in excitement and sat down on the play mat in front of her. “Hi! I’m Pound Cake. I live here. Wanna play?”
“Yeah!” she said. “I’m Flurry Heart. My auntie Pinkie says I’m a really strong flier!”
Pound’s mouth dropped open. “My auntie Pinkie says I’m a really strong flier too!” This was too amazing. His heart was pounding and his whole body felt warm. “Where did you come from? I’ve never seen you before. Where do you live?”
“I live in the Shiny Place,” Flurry Heart said. “We came here on the Choo Choo Train.”
His jaw dropped again. “On the Choo Choo Train?”
He knew of the The Choo Choo Train, of course: a great spirit-beast that tore through Ponyville on roads of metal that nothing else could follow. His Dada had warned him and Pumpkin never to go near the Choo Choo Train. It was huge, it could be heard from all over town, and whenever they saw it pass in the distance Dada and Mama would point to it, and say, ‘Look, kids! There goes the Choo Choo Train!’
“You’ve been on the Choo Choo Train too?” Flurry asked him.
“I didn’t know anything could be on the Choo Choo Train,” Pound admitted. He wracked his mind for something to say. “But sometimes Mama and Dada call on the Choo Choo Train when we have numnums. They say ‘here comes the Choo Choo Train’ when they put the spoon in my mouth.”
Flurry gasped, and said “me too!”, and Pound was overcome with joy.
If something so great as the Choo Choo Train can be mastered, he thought, then surely anything is possible in this world?
Then he thought of his sister, and his heart fell.
“My sister is in bed,” Pound said. “She has the Nubs, and has to stay in bed forever.”
Flurry Heart nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had the Nubs once. It’s like the Nap Time, but bad.”
“She should be here too,” Pound grumbled, frustrated. “You’d like her. She’d like you. She has a pointy bit too, like you. She can do all kinds of things. She can fly too, even though she doesn’t have the flappies! I only have the flappies.” He waved his flappies and looked back at them, uncertain. “They’re not very big.”
“I think your flappies are cute,” Flurry Heart said. “And you can fly really good too!”
Pound blushed, biting his lip to try to stop from grinning. “You fly really good. We both fly really good!” Pound zoomed around in circles before coming to a stop in front of Flurry. “I’m fifteen moons old.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Flurry said. “I’m three moons old.”
“Fifteen is a whole lot longer,” Pound said, thinking hard. “It’s the most longer there is, I think.”
“Wow…” Flurry Heart almost lost her breath.
Pound felt himself flush from her adoration and struck a dramatic pose. “I’ve been around a while,” he said. “I’ve been on many picnics. I’ve seen the Blue Flappy Pony Team fly over the clock tower. I’ve been to a wedding, and I’ve seen Dada win a prize for his cupcakes. Once I played the Zombie Game. I’ve even seen a winter.”
“I think I made a winter once,” Flurry Heart said, and Pound instantly deflated. “Wanna play with blocks?”
They set about playing with the toys of the Cake House. They played with the blocks, and Pound Cake pretended to lose a fight with the big butterfly while Flurry Heart laughed and clapped her hoovsies together. They both flew up to the ceiling and crawled around upside-down together.
Half an hour after they had first met Pound steeled his nerve, drew a deep breath, and prepared to do the most frightening thing any colt can do: talk to a filly. “Flurry Heart… You’re amazing. I’ve never met anypony like you before in my life. Do you...” He thought back to what he had seen and heard of how big ponies acted, to the gossip he had heard Auntie Pinkie spread. “Do you want to be my special somepony?”
Her eyes opened wide, and then her mouth spread into an enormous smile. “I’d love to be your special somepony, Poundy!”
“That’s amazing!” Pound Cake shouted, lifting off and hovering two feet off the floor. “What do special someponies do?”
“I don’t know!” Flurry Heart flapped her flappies and flew around in small circles. “Do you wanna play?”
“Yeah!”
They held hoovsies and flew around in circles side by side.
They played for hours, until it was time for numnums. They sat in the high chairs side by side, and Pound ate from the bowl while Flurry Heart had a bottle, and they both laughed at Auntie Pinkie making funny faces for them. Then they played for hours more, until they got tired, and the Nap Time took them.
When Pound Cake woke up, Flurry Heart was gone.
– – –
When Flurry Heart woke up she was on the Choo Choo Train, with her Mama and the pointy pony with the beard and glasses. Pound Cake was nowhere to be seen.
The wailing would have derailed the Choo Choo Train, but the magic prevented it.
Nonetheless, and even though there were no flappy ponies to arrange it, it did start raining overhead, and the rain followed them all the way back to the Shiny Place.
Days passed without word.
Pumpkin Cake defeated the Nubs, and got back to normal, but it wasn’t like before anymore. Something had changed between them. When Pumpkin was healthy and wanted to play, Pound would only sit in the window, waiting for the sound of the Choo Choo Train as it passed by in the distance, hoping it would bring Flurry back. It never did.
Once he flew out the window and down the street, but Auntie Pinkie found him before he was two houses away and brought him back, kicking and screaming.
Numnums didn’t interest him anymore, and the Nap Time was a mighty struggle as he fought Dada and Mama and Auntie Pinkie to stay awake. They would try to put him down, and he would fight, and cry, even though he had no owies.
Far away in the frozen north, Flurry Heart’s cries could be heard throughout the entire Shiny Place. The Crystal Heart slowed its spinning, and clouds filled the sky with sadness, and all the Princess’s horses and all the Princess’s friends couldn’t fix it again.
Hours passed, and then days, and from opposite ends of Equestria Pound Cake and Flurry Heart both looked up at the sky as their heads grew heavy and full of fog.
– – –
When Pound Cake opened his eyes he was no longer in the Cake House, or in any house he had ever seen. He was in a great open hall, all alone, and all was silent. A thin mist hung in the air, and it glittered faintly all around him.
“Pumpkin?” he asked, turning around. “Dada? Mama? Auntie Pinkie?”
“Pound? Is that really you?”
He turned to face the voice and stood stunned. “Flurry Heart?”
The two of them looked at each other in shock for a moment, then Flurry Heart launched herself into the air and launch-hugged him. “Poundy!”
Pound Cake was overcome with happiness he could barely contain. His tiny legs wrapped around the filly and they both rose into the air, hovering with their flappies.
“What happened to you?” Pound said, his eyes tearing up from seeing her. “After the Nap Time you were gone!”
She nodded, clinging to him tightly. “When the Nap Time was over I was back on the Choo Choo Train, and it took me back to the Shiny Place,” Flurry said, sniffling. “I didn’t know where you were, Poundy, and I couldn’t find you anywhere!”
Pound held her tight, blinded by his tears. “I missed you so much,” he whispered, and she held him tighter.
They stayed like that for a while until they’d both hugged out. Gradually, Pound opened his eyes and looked around, and was mesmerized by the sights all around. It was all so shiny, so incredibly, incredibly shiny. “Where are we?” he asked.
“This is my home,” Flurry Heart said. “This is the Shiny Pointy House That’s Really Really Big.”
Pound stared. “Wow.”
Flurry flapped along the hall, pulling on Pound’s hoof. “Come with me. I’ll show you around.”
They held hoovsies as they went, flying down the hall together. “This is great!” Pound squealed excitedly, his flappies going fast. “Now that we’re together we can do the Play Date again!”
“I can’t do the Play Date,” Flurry said sadly. “I have… the Nubs.”
Pound gasped. “Then… You have to stay in bed forever now?”
“Uh huh,” Flurry said gravely. “But the Nubs made my pointy bit act funny.”
“Pumpkin said something about that,” Pound said, thinking back and regretting that he hadn’t been listening to his sister. “She said… She said her magic started doing things on its own. Things she didn’t even know how to do.”
“Me too. And my magic is...” Flurry frowned, her face scrunching up as she struggled to find the words. “I think it’s because I’m a flappy-pointy pony. Mama and Dada and Auntie Twilight have told me about it, and… I think the Nubs found you, and brought us together. We’re inside the Nap Time.”
Hanging on the walls were great pictures of ponies, many of them shiny. There were pictures of flappy-pointy ponies, and of the shiny heart, and of Spike, the dragon-pony Pound knew was one of Auntie Pinkie’s friends. There was a great big picture of Flurry Heart, with a bigpink flappy-pointy pony, and a white pointy pony in a red shirt.
“That’s Mama and Dada and me,” Flurry Heart said, and led him further on.
One of the portraits stood out. It showed a dark blue flappy-pointy-pony, lying on a great big cushion, surrounded by stars.
They looked at the portrait. “Who’s that?” Pound asked.
“That’s my great aunt,” Flurry Heart said. “She’s the pony who rules over the Nap Time.”
Pound looked up at the painting. It hung still, uncaring, and the flappy-pointy pony’s face was stern and powerful.
“The Nap Time tore us apart before,” Flurry Heart said, head head drooping low, seeing the tears in her reflection on the shiny floor. “And so long as we fall to the Nap Time, it can do it again. I cried out to her to help me, to let me keep you in the Nap Time, but she didn’t answer. If she won’t help us—”
Pound put his hooves around her and held her tight, cutting her off. Tears were streaming down his adorable pudgy cheeks.
“After the Play Date I was afraid I’d lost you forever,” Pound said in a whisper, pouting. “I waited for you. I listened to the Choo Choo Train, and every time I thought that maybe this time you’d be there. I almost gave up hope.” He loosened his hug and looked into her eyes, his lip quivering. “I thought, maybe you and me weren’t supposed to have the Play Date at all. How could we, Flurry? We’re so different! You’re a flappy and pointy pony, who lives in the Shiny Pointy House That’s Really Really Big, but I’m just a flappy pony who lives in the Cake House. Dada and Mama make sweeties, and yummies, and numnums, but you know the pony who rules the Nap Time! You get the bottle and I eat solids. You have pretty big pony eyes and I have adorable button eyes. I don’t always wear nappies anymore but you’ve been on the Choo Choo Train! How can two ponies who come from so different worlds hope to be together? But we’re together now, Flurry! And I’m not losing you!”
“I don’t want to lose you too!” Flurry Heart sobbed into his arms. She looked up at him with an agonized expression, her soft pink fur streaked with tears. “I couldn’t find you anywhere,” she whimpered. “I looked so hard, Poundy! I looked under the bed, and in the closet, and out from the balcony, and even in the secret darkness under the house that Mama thinks I don’t know about, but you weren’t anywhere! And now I can only see you in the Nap Time, but once it passes you’ll disappear again! I don’t want to lose you again!”
“Then… then we’ll beat the Nap Time!” Pound Cake pouted and stomped his hooves on the floor. “We won’t let it control our lives! And the Nubs, and the Choo Choo Train too! We’ll overcome everything that stands between us! You and me, Flurry! So long as we have each other we can do anything!”
“But how?” Flurry asked.
Pound opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His mouth closed, opened, closed again. “I don’t know.”
Flurry sniffled wetly and rubbed her muzzle with her hoofsie. “I dunno either.”
They were both quiet, Flurry blinking away her tears, Pound feeling powerless, and angry.
“I’ve seen fifteen moons rise and fall,” Pound said. “I’ve seen picnics, and a rodeo. I have seen a winter. I’ve had so many owies I hardly even cry from them anymore,” he said bitterly, as a lone tear ran down his muzzle. He paced back and forth. “I don’t get it! Why is it that two ponies like us, who have seen so much and who can do so much, can’t hope to be together? Why can’t we defeat the Nap Time and the Choo Choo Train, and bring the Cake House and the Shiny Pointy House That’s Really Really Big together?”
“I don’t know!” Flurry Heart wailed. “I can’t do it, Poundy! I don’t want to think about losing you any more…” Tears were welling up in her eyes. “We don’t have much time. If we can’t be together once the Nap Time comes, then let’s just take what we get, okay?”
She took hold of him and led him to the balcony. From there, the whole of the Shiny Place lay spread out beneath them, and beyond it, endless grassy fields and distant mountains under a clear sky. “Let’s just sit here together and watch the lights in the sky and hold hoovsies together, until the dark flappies of the Nap Time find us.”
Pound nodded, unhappy, holding her hoofsie like his life depended on it.
They sat down on the balcony together, and leaned in to each other. Up above them the sun, the moon, the stars, and the shimmering aurora all hung together in a sky that was alive with many colors above the Shiny Place.
They watched it side-by-side until their thoughts grew heavy and slow, and they could feel their inescapable enemy draw near once again.
“It’s beautiful here,” Pound said, and Flurry Heart murmured her concurrence.
He wrapped his ankle tight around hers. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he could hear her sniffles.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, his voice weak. “So much.”
“Me too,” Flurry Heart said.
And then darkness fell on them.
– – –
“Princess Luna…” Shining Armor glared at the Princess of the Night. “My baby girl has been very unhappy lately, and I don’t know why. I asked you if you could look in on her dreams and try to find out what’s troubling her. Because my daughter’s happiness, needless to say, means a lot to me.”
Princess Luna nodded nervously.
“So why,” Shining Armor said through gritted teeth, “do I now find out that after I asked you, you invited my sister and Princess Celestia to join you in my baby girl’s Dreamscape and, I quote, ‘bring lots of popcorn’?”
The three alicorns all sat like extremely guilty deer caught in the headlights.
Luna cleared her throat. “Well… You see, Sir Shining, the thing is… and I’m very sorry to have to say this, but… Your daughter’s suffering is the most adorable thing I have seen in my life!”