Chapter 13
There was a low and distant rumble of thunder that made Boomer let out a keening wail. Without needing to be told, Twilight closed the window and soundproofed the room. It had been almost quiet as the evening settled in, though the festival continued outside. Twilight, who felt a little better, was in the company of two tuckered-out foals, two dragons, (one of which was now terrified) and one Pinkie Pie.
The Pinkie Pie was stuffing her face and Twilight knew that it was from nervous worry. The Pebble Pie was also stuffing her face, but was trying to look like she wasn’t doing it. Twilight didn’t know why she thought of them the way she did, but suspected that some of Pinkie’s influence had worn off on her.
It was strange, but Twilight was enjoying this trip. She had learned a few things, gained some insight, and she had survived an epic hangover. With some help from her friends, she had discovered that the old hurt from long ago, her crush, it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe time had healed it or maybe she had just allowed herself to grow up. Maybe alcohol had killed the brain cells responsible for keeping that particular memory.
Either way, it was time to move on, and maybe experiment a little.
It was also time to return the favour.
“Pinkie Pie…”
“Yes, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie licked electric blue frosting from her lips but missed a good sized dollop sticking to her snoot just above her nostril.
“I think I can look after Pebble, Pinkie. I’m feeling better. Why don’t you go and see if you can find a nice Sandwich to satisfy you.” Twilight grinned, feeling both proud and ashamed of her pun.
“I dunno if I should,” Pinkie replied.
Sitting on the floor, Pebble looked up at her aunt, blinked once, and swallowed what was in her mouth. Her tongue flicked out for a moment, clearing her lips of frosting, and then she looked over at Twilight. After a moment, her ears pivoted forwards and with a sigh, she turned to look at Pinkie once again.
“Just go,” Pebble insisted. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, Pebble, I don’t think I’ll be fine.” Pinkie Pie sat there on her pudgy bottom with frosting on her nose looking at her niece. She had eaten so much fudge that her belly now had a pudge and she didn’t dare budge.
“Two slices of Pity Pie,” Pebble sighed while her eyes rolled.
“Are you kidding? With as fat as I am, I count as at least two slices all by myself.” With her hoof, Pinkie poked her stomach, once, twice, and on the third time, she poked a little too hard. A thunderous belch filled the room, causing everything to rattle, and Pebble’s mane blew back away from her face. “Ooh, more room!”
Boomer, still a little spooked, stared at Pinkie Pie with unabashed, seething envy.
“Pinkie, the time you have with Cheese is short. You should make the most of it. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Pebble reached up and began to fix her mane, which was now a mess.
“I’ll regret it if I do…”
Hearing the pain in Pinkie’s voice, Twilight winced.
“If you’re going to break this off, at least have the courage to say goodbye and make this memorable for the both of you. Aunt Pinkie, Cheese is your friend. It really hurts when your friends avoid you and don’t tell you why. Olive did that to me for a while and I wanted to punch her skeleton right out of her body.”
With a sigh, Pinkie nodded and appeared to deflate. She slumped over and rested her front hooves against the floor while avoiding Pebble’s gaze. For a brief moment, the two of them looked very much alike, and it was more than just family resemblance. Seeing her aunt’s distress, Pebble rose from the floor, took a few steps, leaned in, and kissed Pinkie Pie on the snoot.
The blue frosting was now smeared on both of them.
“I gotta go,” Pinkie Pie announced. “There’s a party I have to throw.”
“Good luck.” Pebble gave her aunt a pat.
“Yeah, Pinkie, good luck,” Twilight said, echoing Pebble.
Lifting a hoof, Sumac waved, and was joined by Spike and Boomer.
A brave smile spread over Pinkie’s muzzle as she rose to go to the door.
It was easier to face the crowd with Rarity and Fluttershy followed close behind her friend. Lightning flashed off in the west, in the direction of Mount Maud, and her ears pivoted towards the sound. With the dark of the night came a blessed coolness and Fluttershy walked with her wings flared out from her sides, just a little, but not enough to look aggressive. Looking aggressive might give a pony the wrong idea, and then poor Fluttershy would be mortified.
Fluttershy still hadn’t worked up the courage to go on the ferrier wheel, it was scary and no doubt, it would give her vertigo. She had gone on the carousel with Rarity—Fluttershy had ridden upon a mustached, bespectacled walrus—and the swift up and down motion of the carousel had left her dizzy.
Where Rainbow might give her some good natured teasing, Rarity was gracious and she understood. Of course, Fluttershy no longer minded Rainbow’s good natured teasing, that was just Rainbow’s way of being affectionate.
“Oh goodness, darling, they have a collection of pickled punks… how ghastly!”
“Oh… oh my, I don’t think I could look.” Fluttershy paused in front of the tent with Rarity and looked at the sign. It promised pickled punks of all shapes and sizes, chimerae, monsters of all stripes, all manner of grotesquerie was on display. Shivering, but not from the cool air, Fluttershy looked at the tent flap that led inwards, and then at the pony sitting on a stool and collecting bits for entry.
“How positively gruesome… but also irresistible. I have to look… how could I not?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed, “how gruesome.” If Rarity went in, Fluttershy would follow. If necessary, she would peek out from between the feathers of her wings. She would be brave. She would be bold. Into the gallery of pickled punks she would go, a shy, sweet pegasus in a display of horrors.
Oh, who was she kidding, she would probably faint.
When she saw him, her heart lept up into her throat and Pinkie Pie wondered if her heart climbed up just a little bit higher, what would it taste like? The thought was distressing but it persisted, because her heart was thump-thump-thumping away in her windpipe. Her tail twitched, her knee jiggled, and she felt her frogs grow damp with sweat.
Just what was her Pinkie sense trying to tell her now?
The notorious pink pronker stood there for a moment, pondering, heart-farting with a dreamy expression in her eyes. Cheese was sitting at the bar, drinking a mug of cider, and there was a plate full of grilled cheese sandwiches in front of him. He was handsome, he was perfect, and somewhere, deep inside of her, Pinkie Pie still had hopes that it would work out somehow.
After heart-farting for just a few moments more, Pinkie Pie found the pep in her step that she needed, and she pronked her way over to the bar. She climbed up onto the barstool beside Cheese, settled in, and waved at the bartender.
“One butterscotch rum on the rocks,” Pinkie said, blurting out the first thing that came to her mind, with no knowledge if it tasted good or was even a real thing. “Make it a double!”
With a grunt, the mustachioed bartender nodded and shuffled off to get Pinkie’s drink.
“Say,” Pinkie Pie said in a sing-song voice to the pony on her right. “What’s a handsome fella like you doing in a dive like this?”
“Hardening my arteries,” Cheese replied with a straight face as he gestured at the grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Well then… how’s about when we get done, we go to your room, and we’ll see if we can get something else to harden… I’ll sit in your lap and then we can have a talk about the first thing that comes up.”
Eyes wide, Cheese Sandwich did not reply, but gulped down his mug of cider.
Cheese Sandwich’s hotel room wasn’t what Pinkie expected for a guest of honour. She and her friends had great hotel rooms—Cheese Sandwich had a closet with a foldaway bed in it. It was a bit warm, had one narrow window, and a bare naked lightbulb hung down from the ceiling.
Was this how he lived? An endless series of terrible hotel rooms, when he wasn’t resting his head beneath the stars? Just thinking about it made Pinkie’s barrel feel tight. She stood near the window and Cheese stood near the door. She gave him a coy smile—she did so without even realising she was doing it—and her bright blue eyes twinkled.
“There’s something I want from you,” Pinkie Pie said to Cheese Sandwich in a chirpy, somewhat sultry voice.
“And what would that be?” Cheese replied, playing along.
“I realised on the way over here that I can’t have you…” Pinkie’s words trailed off and her lips puckered as she did her best to be flirty. “But then I realised, if I can’t have you, I can have the next best thing. A little reminder of you.”
Cheese’s smile vanished.
“You don’t look as excited as I thought you’d be.”
“Well, Pinkie… I—”
“Hear me out, Cheese,” Pinkie insisted as she turned herself around to look at him directly. “No strings attached. No obligation. You give me what I want, I give you a little something special in return, something to remember me by, and then we go our separate ways.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Cheese’s sides expanded and he exhaled through his nose. He looked at Pinkie, and she at him, and the two stood staring at one another for what felt like a long time. All of Pinkie’s flirtiness vanished and she stood there, a pleading look in her eyes, her loneliness evident and plain to see.
“No, Pinkie, I don’t think this is a good idea—”
“Why not?” Pinkie demanded as she stomped her hoof.
“Because, I feel like you’d use whatever I left behind to lure me back to Ponyville. You’d find reasons. A birthday. A cute-ceañera. That’d be terrible for the both of us, and even worse for your little reminder. Pinkie, I’m sorry, but this is a rotten idea.”
Blinking, pondering the words said to her, Pinkie replied, “You’re right. What was I thinking?” Now looking a bit panicked, her nostrils flared and Pinkie Pie pawed the floor with her hoof. She let out a wicker and her gaze dropped down to the weathered, dusty grey floorboards. “I just didn’t want to be lonely anymore, Cheese. I thought if I couldn’t have you, I could have the next best thing. I want what my sisters have… I want to be an earth pony and I have earth pony needs—”
“Pinkie, not all of us feel that way. Some of us earth ponies have some powerful wanderlust. I can’t stay in a place much more than a few days without feeling that powerful pull to move on. I can’t fight it. I feel it even now, right now, at this moment.”
“Maud has it, but she always comes home.” Pinkie felt a case of the sniffles coming on. Even worse, she felt stupid, because she had made a fool out of herself. As she stood there, watching, trying to hold herself together, she watched as Cheese Sandwich began to toss his few possessions into a pair of weatherbeaten saddlebags.
“Leaving so soon?” Pinkie asked and she felt her throat go tight. She saw Cheese’s eyes squeeze shut and he swallowed. Why did she ask a question when she already knew the answer? Of course he was leaving. He was leaving because she was staying, she was staying with her friends, the place where she belonged, and he was heading off to the frontiers, where he belonged.
The frontiers were his prison, Pinkie realised, as she suffered a thought so deep that she couldn’t understand it. It was incomprehensible, painful, and Pinkie Pie realised that the basement of her mind had some very scary depths indeed. She had been scared of the cellar when she was a foal, and she was terrified now. The staircase leading down to her subconscious was long and dark. A pony could take quite a tumble if they weren’t careful.
There was a lot more to her than she realised, depths that she had not yet explored.
Not a word was spoken as Cheese cinched his saddlebags shut. He slipped them on, put on his poncho, and placed his hat on his head. Tilting his head, he looked at Pinkie, and Pinkie peered back at him. With hesitant, jerky movements, she raised her hoof, waved, and watched as Cheese stepped out the door.
The door closed with a click, leaving Pinkie with the feeling that this was an act rife with painful, unwanted symbolism that she just didn’t understand. She listed to the sound of hooves out in the hallway, stunned, maybe in shock at what had just taken place. Her loneliness had driven her to this, and right now, she felt it, it was like a caged, ravenous animal trapped in her guts.
Sighing, Pinkie Pie knew that there was only one cure for loneliness.
Stats
Page generated in 0.026 seconds
Total duration
665 users online
1,011,636 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Pour, Pinkie.
I mean, poor, Pinkie!
Wow, this is freaky timing. I just commented on the last chapter. Wanted to do that yesterday, but yesterday was hell.
I was wondering why Boomer was scared before I reread the part about the thunder. I had a joke about Spike's story traumatizing her. But I guess I don't get to use that now.
Poor Pinkie Pie. Has she ever considered adoption? I'm sure there's plenty of little foals that would love to have a Pinkie Pie in their life. I wonder what her solution to loneliness is? I figure either alcohol, "alone time", or trying to seduce Rainbow Dash like Twilight attempted. Fortunately in that last scenario, Rainbow Dash is The Best, so she'd be just as understanding.
Seriously, this story is getting me pumped for Skyreach, if only so I can watch Rainbow's growth in action.
You know, I'm really hopeful that things will work out with Pinkie and Cheese coming together in the end. I did have this story placed in one of the CheesePie groups after all.
7950946
This is the last chapter with Cheese in it.
Thank you for posting this after I finished the rest of the coffee that hadn't come out of my nose at Pinkie's flirting. Now I wish I had something alcoholic... I'd drink with the Pink.
Yup, kudz is being real here.
People like that just can't settle. They simply must move on.
Maud gets away with it because Tarnish wanders as well.
Damnit! Im depressed again.
Pinkie Pie is an earth pony with earth pony needs but doubt Dash would indulge those needs given she would consider Pinkie emotionally compromised. Twilight maybe considering they are both lonely and in need of some physical comfort no strings attatched. Pinkie hasn't shown any fondness for mares though.
7950947 In this story or ever?
7951036
In this story. That is why I used the word 'chapter.'
I really feel sorry for Pinkie Pie here. She's a good mare who deserves to find love and raise a family of her own. I truly hope she can find someone soon.
7951000
Plus, I doubt Kudzu could afford Weird Al that much longer.
7951070
Cheese: Double my pay now or I am leaving this chapter
Kudzu: But I'm not paying you anything and double of nothing is nothing.
Cheese: Let's go Boneless #2. *Puts on hat and poncho and slams door on the way out, with it making a squeaky toy noise*
Pinkie's going to stuff herself into shape.
Round is a shape. Pebble may be in a bad place soon.
May cheese get run over by a herd of wild club footed gophers.
Damn, smooth operator right there.
That bit of conversational appreciation aside, dang this is sad
When everything clicks but nothing works.
Damn. Poor Pinkie.
Sighs. Pinks wants to settle down, but old Cheese ain't ready for it. not yet.
I think it was a pretty great pun, Twilight.
Geez, poor Pinky. That pun is feeling a little less fun, now.
Poor Pinkie. I would give just about anything to settle down with a culinary minded earth mare. Then again, settling down is easier when you only have three legs and a degree in Mycology.
7950947 Yes, I'll be stringing him up between this chapter and the next for breaking Pinkie's heart (again). Be sure to check the local trees, kiddies!
7951109
SNERK, that did it, follow for you.
Anyhow Cheese does only have a limited shelf life, sooo....
7951768 cdn.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/clint-eastwood-quotes17.jpg
cheesemaking.com/images/recipes/36Caciocavallo/Pics/pic03.jpg
7951323 That's your arthritis talking!
7952167
Haha, well played.
7952187 You made it too easy, besides that's about how my neck feels after sleeping on it crooked again.
7952228 Oof, no bueno. That can be the worst.
Aie. The hairs on the back of my neck shot straight up at Pinkie's offer. GIRL NO. JUST NO.
"Get me pregnant" is the worst dealbreaker EVER. I'm surprised he didn't break the soundbarrier getting out of there.
If a person doesn't want to stay, trying to create reasons to *make* them stay is an awful, awful idea for everyone who ends up being involved. The resentment from the person who's now tied down....
Well, at least she made the request OPENLY. Faust knows what would have happened if she sprung a surprise on him later.
(and now I have this mental image of Pinkie naming the kid Surprise. Because shut up, she totally would.)
1. Curl up.
2. Try not to cry.
3. Cry a lot.
Poor Pinks, she deserves better. Damn you Cheese! D:
Poor Pinkie. And poor Cheese.
I knew there was going to be relationship drama between the two from blogs, but I didn't actually expect them to also have some pretty serious chemistry when they weren't worried about their relationship.
I understand why Pinkie would hold onto hope that it is going to work out, because I feel the same way.
This was just too sad T_T
Just a shame for pinkie. Here she's lone but in the chase universe she's with him if I recall correctly. I like the silly pink horse. n.n
7951195
The wanderlust isn't something ponies seem to be able to fight effectively in the Weedverse. Like a cutie mark feeling. Hell it might even be part of his cutie mark. Do we not remember Silver Lining's mother, drifting in the wind?
Pinkie realized it, even said it herself. The frontier is Cheese's prison. He loves her, wants her. She loves him, wants him. Neither of them are capable of fully committing to the relationship. Not just because they're being selfish, but potentially because they're magically incapable of it.
I'm crying!
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lyrics+green+green+far+side+of+the+hill&&view=detail&mid=7C2B0A58FFB5ABCEEE207C2B0A58FFB5ABCEEE20&&FORM=VRDGAR
8972305
Seing that song, now I am too.