Half-Hour Horses

by HoofAndQuill

The Biggest Party of the Year [Slice of Life, Comedy]

(The prompt: The busiest day of the year.)

It was early for Pinkie Pie to go to bed, but she had been hoping to catch up on a little sleep. This time of year was always big on birthdays for ponies, and despite how everypony thought she could just pull parties out of nowhere, all those hats and cakes and decorations took time! There was some kind of nagging doubt in the back of her mind about going to bed early, but she pushed it aside as she brushed her teeth, brushed her mane, and brushed her Gummy. She settled down into her nice, warm, fluffy bed, and looked over to the small calendar next to it.

Tomorrow was... the seventh of Hay.

The seventh of Hay.

Pinkie's eyes, half-lidded with sleep, snapped wide open. No! Not that day! There was no time for sleeping if tomorrow was that day!

In a matter of seconds, Pinkie Pie had kicked the covers off of her bed, jumped up, apologized to Mister and Misses Cake and told them both that she totally had enough money for everything, but she sort of needed all the ingredients in the store, and then rushed downstairs to begin preparations. She paused a moment, Granny Pie had told her to always make a plan before she made a party. Let's see, she would need how many ponies attending? All of her friends, of course! So that was... the main five, of course, and also Mister and Misses Cake, Roseluck, Daisy, probably her friends' sisters too... Pinkie counted on her hooves, quickly ran out, and began counting on various objects in the kitchen. Then she ran out of those, too.

A lot. A big lot. Maybe even a whole lot, if she was stretching it a bit.

There was no time for planning! She'd just have to make a whole lot plus maybe a small bit of hats and cupcakes and decorations and work out all the details later! The Cakes ran a professional bakery, and they had nearly a dozen ovens of varying types. But nearly a dozen wouldn't be nearly enough! Thankfully, Pinkie Pie was friends with everypony, and maybe she could manage to borrow some ovens. Paper for the hats would be easy enough, and the scraps would make for confetti. Streamers she always had.

All night long the Cakes slept fitfully as the sound of crashing pans and snipping scissors and tape and all sorts of things went on downstairs. They awoke the next morning to a shop that looked fully like a warzone, covered in cooling confections and neatly stacked huge piles of decorations and party paraphernalia. But Pinkie, as haggard and worn as she looked after staying up all night, was not finished.

It wasn't enough! She was barely through a quarter of a whole lot of work and that simply wouldn't do! She could ask her friends to join in, but they always thought she was being silly with this sort of thing. They'd waste time telling her it was stupid and not worth doing, and then she'd have to waste more time convincing them that it wasn't, and then any help they gave wouldn't be enough to make up for the lost time.

So, no friends. But Pinkie knew who liked parties, even stupid and silly and not-worth-doing parties. Kids! Foals and fillies and colts liked parties! They could make hats and confetti, it was easy!

It didn't take much time to convince the beleaguered Cheerilee to let the class take a field trip to Sugarcube Corner for an arts and crafts assignment. The hats were being taken care of by the clumsy but capable hooves of a couple dozen students! Now she could focus on the cakes. The Cakes! That was it!

The store already in a huge chaos, and so the Cakes were fine with helping Pinkie sort out the baking situation. After all, she was purchasing all this stuff anyway, so it was a good day for business even if they didn't sell anything to other ponies. Besides, most of the school children were spending their allowances on random goodies to eat while they made hats anyway. So, the cake situation was handled. Also the Cake situation.

Pinkie Pie was helping out with icing on a set of cupcakes when Misses Cake asked a very important question. How would she decorate for a party this size? Surely the one party cannon wasn't nearly enough. It wasn't!

Pinkie had to sit down a moment and think. She could widen the bore of the cannon a bit to fit more in there, but last time she overloaded it she'd only ended up with charred and slightly sparky confetti. That wouldn't do. So when she couldn't go bigger, she simply had to go for more. It was a good thing the food and hats and confetti were all handled, because this was going to be a big job. Maybe it was even worth bringing in other Pinkies for. But no! No, this was something Pinkie would have to do alone.

It was mid-afternoon when Mayor Mare took the stage and walked solemnly up to the podium. To her right stood Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight. To her left was a small group of very important nobleponies who more importantly had quite a lot of money to donate to a small town if they believed it would make them look good. Behind her was a patrol group of royal guardsponies, who she could not dissuade from being onstage while Princess Celestia was there. They stood against the fine applewood backdrop to the stage, presenting a lovely outdoor sort of theater for this occasion. Before her, in the audience, were a few dozen reporters from various papers and magazines across Equestria.

This had all been arranged far in advance, of course. There was even a small reception area discreetly placed off to the side where the wealthy guests could retire to after the ceremony, and pose for pictures with the huge checks they would hopefully be signing over to Ponyville. Mayor Mare allowed herself a small smile, and began her speech.

"Stallions and gentlemares. Princesses, nobles, and associated press ponies. We are here today to mark the occasion of the centennial--"

"HOOOLD ON A SECOND!"

Mayor Mare could swear she actually heard a record player scratch as the pink, poofy-maned, and perhaps a bit baggy-eyed pony pronked her way onto the stage. Princess Twilight's left eye twitched slightly in annoyance, and Mayor Mare could only barely convince herself that Princess Celestia wasn't smiling a little about the interruption. The guards behind her made a slight movement, but stopped obediently at Celestia's gesture. Pinkie Pie took the podium from Mayor Mare, just as though there was no reason to defer to her at all.

"That's not what we're all here for! 'Mark the occasion' sounds so boring! We're here to celebrate the day that Ponyville is one hundred years old! You know what THAT means!"

Pinkie Pie kicked back with one hoof, and the elegant and altogether very well-built backing to the stage simply toppled over backward. Even Princess Celestia's eyes widened at what appeared to be an entire, thankfully unmanned regiment of siege weaponry, brightly painted blue, and pointed to some indeterminate point some distance above the stage. Dozens of cheap party tables sat all around the town square, each with several cupcakes sitting on them. Princess Twilight sounded resigned to failure, but still spoke the mare's name. "... Pinkie."

When the assorted ponies all turned to look away from the cannons and toward the disruptive mare, they found her inexplicably dressed in a sharply pressed army general's dress uniform, complete with appeared to be an antique riding crop hooked in her pastern. Pinkie Pie gave Princess Twilight a slightly annoyed look. "You forget yourself, Twilight! I am Funnery Sergeant Pie, the mare in charge of this Partillery Battery! This kind of boring speech and those little cucumber sandwiches over there aren't enough for an occasion of this magnitude! Every pony in Ponyville is invited, I just sent them out by filly messengers! Everypony will be here in just a few minutes!"

There were several long moments of dead silence as all the gathered ponies tried to contemplate exactly what how to respond to this.

Eventually, the quiet and calm voice of Princess Celestia broke the silence, and all eyes were immediately upon her. "Pardon me, Funnery Sergeant Pie."

Pinkie's voice was peppy and entirely without worry as she smiled at the princess. "Yes, Princess Celestia?"

"I will fire off the barrage. It's the only appropriate way to start a birthday party this size, after all."

Pinkie Pie gave a sharp salute, her hoof clonking against her skull before she took a step back, and allowed Princess Celestia to take a few elegant, perfectly sure steps up to the hoof-controlled trigger on the floor of the stage, that hadn't been there even a moment ago. Princess Celestia smiled out to the ponies around her, and the others that were approaching the stage all around.

Princess Celestia's hoof pressed down, and the town was wracked with a deafening fusillade of a hundred party horns as confetti, streamers, and party hats rained from the sky. Pinkie Pie jumped up into the air, and let out a call that started the biggest birthday party Ponyville had ever had.

"Happy Birthday, Ponyville! Leeeet's PARTY!"

Comments

[TheDoktor]

Great work, with what I feel is the hardest pony to write correctly.