Statistically The Worst Birthday Ever

by Seer

Applejack's Day, or: "That Sacred Night! Where We Watched the Fireworks!"

Applejack didn't need the cockerel to wake her. Every day she was up and working long before it even started the trial runs. Much different. She'd be out in the fields bucking trees before the sun Celestia herself rose, but today was a little different than usual. She was still up early, and she was still working, but working meant something other than tending to the farm. Today she found herself at her desk, after getting out of the bath no less.

The farmer usually just had a quick run underneath the shower head before heading out onto the grounds. This day, however, required something a little more special. She'd even secretly gone to the shops to buy some product. As in, actual beauty product. She'd ran a brush through her coat and washed the whole thing from top to bottom. Her mane and tail felt softer than ever after she'd shampooed them both thoroughly. She'd used a deep pore cleaner lotion, then a water activated gel cleaner, then a honey almond body scrub. Then... some other stuff, I don't know. I don't even like films.

Normally, the thought of applying so much noxious goop to her body would have her escaping out of the bathroom window, but today was Rarity's birthday and as such, she braved it for her friend. The unicorn was always trying to get Applejack to do this, so arriving all dolled up would almost be a gift in and of itself.

She had an hour before she was due to arrive at Sugarcube corner, and as much as she would have liked to sneak in a bit of farm work, she couldn't risk getting sweaty. She took a last look at the present for Rarity, it was a gorgeous, antique-looking tome Twilight had helped her track down. The golden text on the front read 'The Essential Clothes-Horse Spellbook: 101 Incantations to Give Any Fashion Designer an Edge!'. She slipped it into her saddlebags and took a steadying breath.

The earth pony opened her door and decided to fix up another batch of apple-fritters. Granted, they currently had enough party-food to feed everyone in a small third-world nation to the extent of them politely refusing yet another helping. But, provided you didn't mind a little dash of type two diabetes, you really could never have enough food. Taking one glance out of the window, Applejack saw the sky. Gorgeous. Pure, deep, uninterrupted blue. Applejack wondered whether Dash had pulled some strings for that. In any case, it was shaping up to be glorious. Still, sorting a party for the fussiest mare in the whole town... it was going to be a long day.

---

Dragging an absurd Eiffel Tower of food piled into a wagon, the farm-pony had departed Sweet Apple Acres. She had fixed a tarp over the food to keep it safe, however it did make her look incredibly suspicious. Lone pony, dragging a covered mass through the town, this was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

She had left early enough to take the scenic route through the park. It really was turning out to be a lovely day, even better than she had initially predicted. The earth pony shook off the wagon for a second, and allowed herself a moment's indulgence on the grass.

The various sounds and scents of a Summer's day at the park lulled her into a relaxed stupor. So stupid of a stupor, in fact, that Applejack didn't even register Fluttershy standing about three inches away from her. The pegasus had been quietly saying Applejack's name for a good thirty seconds to no avail. In the end, it was a butter coloured hoof prodding into Applejack's back that shook from her from her daze. Her eyes fell from the sky and she wheeled around to be met with Fluttershy's chest.

"Oh! Um, sorry about that Fluttershy," AJ said with a slight blush, the pegasus giggled.

"Oh don't worry about that, I can see what got you so distracted," Fluttershy took a look around the park, "Are you heading over to Sugarcube Corner?"

"Sure am! You gonna come with?" Applejack replied,

"Oh, not yet. I need to head over to the spa. I shouldn't be too long though,"

"Oh right." Applejack said, her slight chuckle doing nothing to mask her audible dissapointment. "Was rather hopin' you'd forgotten about that,"

"Oh hush now, you'll probably end up loving it," Fluttershy teased back.

"Oh ah dunno. Last thing ah need after getting myself all fancy is to go and get more fancy,"

"Well, Rarity will love it," Fluttershy smiled, and Applejack agreed. The two of them said their goodbyes and departed. It only took Applejack about five minutes to get from the park to the bakery. The sign read 'Closed for Private' event, and AJ let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Ever since Rarity had asked for something low-key, Pinkie had been trying to convince everyone in their little group that this was merely a devious attempt at reverse psychology, and Rarity in fact wanted to invite quite literally everyone. In the world.

The farm-pony had almost been expecting her to have asked the whole town along, but this was good. Everything seemed to be going to plan. Finishing off Rarity's present, getting a head-start on the baking, the day being so glorious and now this. It was shaping up to be a great Birthday for Applejack's best friend, and the earth pony couldn't be happier.

Applejack pulled her wagon up the steps and pushed the bakery door open. Inside the main room were Twilight and Rainbow, and both were far too engrossed in their respective tasks to notice her. Rainbow was blowing up balloons while Twilight wrapped a present. It was a well-intentioned but utterly obnoxious picture of Rainbow Dash, thereby eliminating all doubt about who it was from.

The décor's theme was unashamedly Rarity. Deep, vibrant purples and pristine whites. Decorations made the room look like it was encrusted with gems. Then of course were Pinkie's master-stroke. Equinequins with various fancy looking accessories were spaced around the room, each bearing gratified messages from Rarity's friends and family. It added a modern, yet classic vibe that was entirely centred around the birthday girl. Perfect.

"Howdy gals, the place looks great!" Applejack exclaimed cheerfully. Both sets of eyes snapped up to her, and she was immediately greeted happily.

"Well, it's only got the most awesome pony in Equestria decorating it," Rainbow replied with a puffed chest.

"Second most awesome today Dash, it's Rarity's birthday after all," Twilight interjected with a chuckle. The conversation petered off and the unicorn and pegasus started to get back to work.

"Hey Twi'," AJ began, causing Twilight to look up from her wrapping once again, "Would you mind wrapping up mah present to Rares?"

"Sure AJ, that's fine," Applejack smiled gratefully before retrieving the book from her saddlebag. She placed it down carefully next to the other non-wrapped present, which was a needlessly complex looking box. She was somewhat surprised she was the one giving a book this time and not the librarian. Applejack had gotten more books from birthday presents from Twilight in recent years, than in her entire life previous. Granted, a home-schooled pony whose entire educational programme was centred around apples was never going to have a lot of books in the first place but... I forgot where I was going. Twilight liked books, that's the main thing.

"Is Pinkie around? I promised I'd help her finishing off the cake?" asked the earth pony, and Rainbow replied that she was in the kitchen. Applejack said her thanks and began dragging her wagon to the door. However, less that two steps through and her breath was taken away.

Everypony knew Pinkie was good at making cakes. She got a lot of experience with all the parties she planned. Every other day it was 'Happy Birthday', or 'Have a Great Anniversary', or 'It's the second Monday of the month', or 'Someone thought they had to sneeze, but it turned out it was that really irritating thing where you keep thinking you have to sneeze but you actually don't then it keeps happening repeatedly over the next hour, so let's celebrate'.

However, she had truly outdone herself this time. Applejack had always been a big fan of Pinkie's Nightmare Night Cake from three years ago, and had long since accepted the fact that the party-pony may never top it. However this could very well be a contender. A large, sparkling white, six tier masterpiece. Each different layer was separated with pillars, and on top of each different section was an icing mock-up of important events from the birthday-filly's life.

There was a filly Rarity getting her cutie-mark. A diorama of the day when their little group of five friends became seven made an appearance. There was even a recreation of the first time Rarity got to design for royalty. Each was recreated in pain-staking detail and each looked fantastic. Along the sides of the cake sections was purple script. Words like 'Generosity' and 'Fabulous' popped up, each term was a different testament to the fashionista that she would no doubt love.

The door creaked shut, getting the attention of the baker. Pinkie had her back to Applejack and appeared to be working on something out of view. She turned around and gave AJ a toothy grin.

"Hey Applejack!" She exclaimed giddily, before casting an eye to the Wowee! That food looks great!"

"Forget the food Pinkie... how long did this take you," Applejack gasped in response. Without taking her eyes off the cake, she wheeled the wagon into a corner of the kitchen.

"You like it?" Pinkie giggled.

"Well sure I do, it's amazing!" the farmer replied, still gaping at the artisan feat of cakitude before her.

"Well I just hope Rarity likes it," the party-pony admitted.

"It's covered in words and scenes all about her. That filly's gonna love it Pinkie. You need any help?" Pinkie turned around and resumed working, periodically turning to her friend with a scrunched brow.

"Could you maybe set the fireworks?"

"The what?" AJ replied. Pinkie didn't reply, rather she gestured for Applejack to follow and left her work station. With Pinkie out of the way Applejack was finally able to see what she had been working on. It was yet another icing sculpture, however this one was much bigger than the ones found in the Rarity dioramas. This one was a foot tall. Rarity in her gala dress, her right foreleg raised in her classic display of class. The sculpture was simply breathtaking. All proportions dead on, every curve and contour in perfect place. A dead ringer for the birthday girl.

"Pinkie..." Applejack went to speak, but found no words. The baker giggled at her friend's awe.

"The drooling's supposed to come later silly," Pinkie quipped. Applejack registered the comment a few seconds later and shook herself back into focus.

"Heh, sorry 'bout that. Now what was all this your were saying about fireworks?" Pinkie didn't respond, rather she grabbed a small black stick in her mouth and trotted over to the cake. She pointed said stick at a candle and her brow furrowed in concentration. After a few seconds the candle lit up with what looked like a firework display in miniature.

"Well don't that beat all?" the farmer laughed. Pinkie spat the rod into her hoof and passed it to Applejack, who tried and failed to be discreet in wiping it.

"Twilight made it for us so we could do the spell ourselves," she began to explain, "All you need to do is point it at the candle, will it to work, then presto! You got fireworks."

"Alright, I think I got i-"

"BUT!" Pinkie leaped up onto the counter and pressed her snout to her friend's in a completely unnecessary attention grab, "Don't will it too hard. You have to be small. Like tiny, Like really tiny. Otherwise the cake might go 'BANG'!" Pinkie slammed two pans together for effect, "...and then the party's ruined. Meaning Rarity won't be our friend anymore, causing a rift in our friendship that may lead to somepony going insane, and I don't want to point hooves because that would be mean but it would totally be Fluttershy because remember how upset she got when that beetle died? And all of this could have been avoided by the two of us not making Rarity hate us and-"

"Pinkie!" Applejack interjected, "I think yer overthinking this. I'll be careful but there ain't no need to get yourself as worked up as Twilight over one of her study deadlines. I'm not going to destroy the cake. But even if I did Rarity ain't gonna hate us. Sure, she's a fussy filly but I really don't think she's that dramatic..."

"Hey Rares! Thought I might see if you want to come out for a picnic?"

"Oh Applejack that would be divine! I've been working ever so hard throughout the morning and I could really do with a break."

"Well ah can see that! Don't think I've ever seen this place so out of sorts, you must have been really going at it!"

"You... you think it's a mess Applejack?"

"What? No! It's just... well you can see you've been working hard?"

"So it's me who looks like a mess?"

"You know I didn't mean that-"

"Right that's it. I'm selling the boutique."

"...Applejack!" the apple farmer felt a hoof slap her across the face.

"Wha?!"

"Sorry, you sort of zoned out there... you okay?"

"Yep. Just remembering something. You know, on second thought I'm going to be as careful as possible with this firework business." Applejack said mechanically

"Erm... something you need to tell me?" Pinkie enquired with a raised brow, more than a little confused at the very abrupt change of heart.

"Nope," AJ replied curtly. She didn't want to worry Pinkie further by telling her about the time she had to rip all of the estate agent numbers from Rarity's yellow pages, and so she simply elected to end any further chance of the conversation continuing by walking straight over to the cake, wand now safely perched in her mouth. Pinkie simply shrugged and went back to her icing construction, while Applejack lined up her rod.

---

For the second time that day, Applejack found herself being slapped alert by Pinkie's hoof. But this time the sensation felt different, much less an action of playful force and more an action of 'You're a twat, so I'm going to strike your face with my hoof, and that's because you're a twat just in case you forgot'. The farmer came to suddenly. It didn't at all feel unlike the times that she had been awoken after a long night on the cider by Granny Smith chucking a bucket of cold water all over her.

The farmer looked around, her movements made sluggish by tiredness and confusion. She had been helping Pinkie with the baking, hadn't she?.Something about the cake. The candles on the cake. The lovely, painstakingly crafted cake meant for Rarity's birthday celebration that would be commencing very soon. You know the one don't you? The one that was currently splattered all over the walls of Sugarcube Corner's kitchen. That cake.

Oh shit.

All sense of fatigue was immediately vanished from Applejack, like quality from this story. She sat up in an instant and cast her eyes to a desperate looking Pinkie Pie. She had the the demeanour of someone who was suffering thirteen simultaneous heart-attacks. Sweat poured down her forehead in rivulets and her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Her chest rose and fell with each panicked, ragged breath she took.

"Pinkie what in tarnation happened to the cake?!" Applejack yelled. Within a second the baker zoomed over to Applejack and placed a hoof over her mouth.

"Don't shout anything, we can still save this, for the party! For Rarity! I'm going to explain to everypony, you need to try and fix the cake!"

"Pinkie! What do you... I can't fix this! What happened to the-" The grip on her lips returned ten fold. Pinkie leaned into and gave AJ a dangerous and unhinged look.

"NO TIME," She somehow screamed and whispered at the same time, "Ponies say you're the best baker in Ponyville, so bake!" With that, the crazed mare dismounted her friend's chest and bolted through the door. Applejack got up onto all four hooves. She surveyed the damage with growing dismay. Over half of the cake was still intact, it was the rest that was the problem. A good third of it had been blown from the rest of the structure

She could hear screaming from outside already. Either something else had gone wrong or Applejack had underestimated her friend's love of cake, which was entirely possible and probable. She knew she should have probably gone out to help her friend, however the earth pony had enough on her plate, or not enough anymore... you know? Her plate? Considering the cake was destroyed? Forget it.

She decided to let Pinkie deal with whatever fresh hell had spawned behind those doors. Grabbing a couple of pieces of kitchen roll, Applejack stuffed her ears, and even allowed herself a weak smile at the silence that followed. Just like her father had said when she was a foal, 'If there's no way solve a problem, try your hardest to pointedly ignore it'.

A quick survey revealed the extent of the damage, and it wasn't a good survey. It was one of those terrible ones, like when the pony doing the survey keeps sucking air in through clenched teeth and claiming you're going have to pay to ship the parts from god-knows-where. Applejack felt like that right now, as her teeth became bone dry and she realised she'd probably need welding equipment to fix this mess.

If she were in her right frame of mind, Pinkie would certainly have known she was infinitely better equipped to sort out this mess. But she wasn't in her right frame of mind, not even close. She had just leapt from a cake-splattered room into the hall and immediately caused some sort of screaming. Does that sound right to you? I should hope not.

And it didn't sound right to Applejack either, which is why instead of trying to convince Pinkie to work on the cake, she grabbed a spatula and unenthusiastically began scraping icing and ruined cake off the wall. It was hard, unpleasant, humiliating and depressing work. Gathering up destroyed birthday cake and piling it into a hideous sculpture, like some sort of violent metaphor for how we're all going to die or whatever.

After around a minute, which would henceforth be known to Applejack as 'The Dark Times', she had accumulated a unappealing mount-crumpet-esque monolith of despoiled baked-goods on the counter. She allowed herself a small-breather, and it finally dawned on her that she had no idea how this had even happened.

One minute she was helping to finish off the cake, the next she was slapped awake by her frantic friend. What happened in those few minutes that dismantled the cake and all but ruined the entire day? She racked her brains, yet was able to recall nothing telling. She woke up, walked over with her present, helped Pinkie finish of the cake and then was being beaten back to conciousness.

But there was more, wasn't there? Something niggling and deceptively tiny. Something small and huge and guilty and oh my God. The wand. Applejack's pupils shrank to pinpricks surrounded by red spider-webs of veins. She gulped and felt her cheeks begin to burn furiously. She began scouring for the stick, desperately hoping that finding it may somehow make the obvious facts screaming at her sound a little less loud.

Hooves were flung every which way, opening cupboards and exploring each different part of the kitchen. Her eyes scrutinised every surface to no avail, the wand had gone... but hold on. If it wasn't here, did that mean that Applejack didn't in fact destroy the cake with a polychromatic expression of wanton destruction to make Guy Fawkes proud? Maybe.

She felt a little light-headed. The sudden burst of activity so soon after being knocked out and then waking into the most high-stress situation of her life thus far had easily taken its toll. She went to lean on the counter, but, in her haze, ended up finding the floor to be a much more enticing prospect. Applejack eased herself down to catch her breath, the cool of the tiles soothing her flushed skin, slowing her thundering heart and thankfully sapping some of the anguish from her body.

She started to formulate ideas on how the cake may be salvaged, and unfortunately found herself drawing an uninspired power-point presentation of blanks. The earth-pony began to feel her cheeks redden again. She turned her face to the side and rested her muzzle against the cooling tiles, sighing while they worked their therapeutic magic.

Applejack rolled her head over to switch cheeks, turning the opposite way. And there it was. Under the cooker was a small, slender shape, and it would have gone totally unnoticed by anypony other than Applejack. Yet it sat there, almost mocking in its inanimate nonchalance. She reached a quivering hoof underneath the appliance to grab it. There was some sort of noise in the distance, like a dull thump and ripple effect. Like witnessing an iceberg breaking underwater. Probably just some of the commotion outside.

Her hoof made contact, and the wand was withdrawn from the shade. One end was splayed out and broken, reminding Applejack of a blunderbuss, or maybe a dead flower. The wood was blackened and charred at the damaged end, and was still slightly warm to the touch. The jury was in, the signs all pointed to one thing. Applejack realised, in the least surprising twist in literary history, that she had damaged the cake while attempting to set the fireworks.

Her hoof trembled, and the rod fell to the ground. The earth pony, with no small measure of guilt, regarded her self made kingdom or ruin. Or, in less dramatic terms, the kitchen she'd fucked up with a cake explosion. The tight, steel ball of nervousness she'd felt before flourished and extended its tendrils, filling her with remorse. She'd done this. She'd ruined the party, and it wasn't just any party. This was Rarity's party, and Applejack was the entire reason she would hate it.

Her lip quivered as her mind went through the images of what was soon to be. Rarity turning up, asking where Applejack was, her mascara running when Pinkie sheepishly revealed the state of the kitchen. A purple tail, and a mare turning on it to flee the bakery and, oh god, the looks Applejack would get.

But as quick as they arose, the images were ceased by the forceful stamping of an orange hoof. Applejack's brow hardened, and she stopped her lip from quivering. She had two choices, either wait here for the next few minutes wallowing in whatever it was that ponies wallowed in. Or she could buck up, and try to salvage this cake, for Rarity.

Only the bottom three layers had been affected, leaving three tiers perfectly edible. Whereas these were the smallest levels, the size of the cake had been for show more than anything, as six mares, one dragon and three fillies would hardly be able to finish off the gargantuan treat. Added to this, the three top layers held the large sculpture Pinkie had created, as well as the dioramas depicting Rarity and her friends. These were by far the best and most relevant, and it was some thankful good news.

The earth pony began to formulate a checklist in her head. First off, get the top three layers off the damaged part of the cake. Lifting them from the elegant columns Pinkie had implemented would create some structural damage, so the next step was to fix that. Then, if she added the finishing touches to the top sculpture of Rarity everything would be fixed. Thankfully, they hadn't removed the tarp from Applejack's wagon, meaning the rest of the party food had been shielded from the delicious explosion. The farmer nodded to herself, this could be done, as long as nothing else went wrong.

"APPLEJACK!", the earth pony nearly had a heart attack when someone ripped the kitchen roll from her ears and screamed her name.

It was instinct unfortunately, that made Applejack emit an embarrassingly girly shriek and immediately buck her assailant with both hindlegs. What is really important to remember though, and I really can't stress that whole 'Important' thing enough, was that happened next wasn't really anypony's fault.

Rainbow Dash had been driven to drastic measures after shouting Applejack's name at the top of her lungs had failed to get the earth pony's attention, and Applejack had no idea the pegasus had even come into the kitchen, let alone was trying to talk to her. So when Rainbow startled the farmer, and said farmer kicked in return, it wasn't really a situation that called for blame.

The only thing it called for was a look of hopelessness and dismay, as Rainbow's slender frame was thrown across the room... towards the cake. You know when you see a child drop an ice-cream? And you think 'there's nothing that can be done to stop it now, so I might as well just enjoy the soon-to-be-revealed misery like the sad, hollow individual I am'? Well for Applejack, this was pretty much the opposite of that.

Rather than slipping into that most dreamy of nirvanas that is 'No Longer Giving a Shit', she instead felt her stomach plummet down... down... down. Out of her body, down through the ground and finally in the deep end of Satan's swimming pool. Rainbow just sort of sailed confusedly. Not even the pain of being bucked was able to overpower the sheer disorientation she was currently going through.

However Rainbow was nothing if not fast, and there was just this beautiful moment of pure comprehension in record time. As she span, she saw the cake oscillating with Applejack's expression of dismay, and she recognised just where she was going. She snapped out a wing to adjust her course. But she was moving with such momentum, and in such a small space. There was only the option of reducing the damage, not avoiding it.

At the last second the element of loyalty was able to stop her body from pulverising the cake, but she was unable to stop her outstreched wing from slicing through the middle-layer. Applejack saw the tower lose it's centre structural integrity, and she leapt. The top layer buckled with the sudden loss of its foothold. And it swayed. And it wobbled. And it eventually fell from its perch.

Applejack was in the air before Rainbow even made contact with the wall. Her frame thrown by legs of steel, her forelegs ready to catch the cake-tower's penthouse. Her belly hit the ground with a light slap, but this was nothing compared to the sickening whack of Rainbow against the side of kitchen. The pegasus reverberated from the wall, and was subsequently winded as her midriff was slammed into an adjacent counter-top. The earth pony was much more fortunate in her landing. The momentum slid her along the tiles, just far enough to catch the falling baked-good.

She didn't rest though, within a second she was up, the cake was on the counter and Rainbow was being tended to.

"Rainbow! Are you okay?! Ah'm so sorry!" AJ hoisted her friend off the counter, and was relieved to hear a breathless laugh.

"My God AJ, you kick hard," the familiar raspy voice chuckled. Rainbow gently pushed the earth pony away and stood up. Her legs were still a bit shaky and she had ruffled more than a few feathers, but Rainbow had survived much worse than that. Aside from the bruises she could already feel coming on, she was fine.

Which was more than could said about the cake. The middle section of the already-downgraded three-tier treat had been sliced open and was spilling its contents for the world to see. Any relief Applejack felt for Rainbow quickly devolved into a sinking feeling of dread upon seeing the further damage to the cake.

Both took a long hard look at its current state, and it wasn't pretty. Each element gulped and the scent of perspiration became more defined. Finally, Rainbow was the one to vocalise what was going through both mare's head.

"So, what the hell are we gonna do now?"

Comments

[meerkat8472]

"So, what the hell are we gonna do now?"

Um, downgrade the cake even more?... Maybe?

[nemryn]

"So, what the hell are we gonna do now?"

Panic

[Seer]

4330050
That's your answer to everything!

[Yami Vizzini]

You've got a talent for setting up the disaster dominoes.