A Study in Pinkie
It came as something of a surprise to Big Mac that Ponyville, town of his birth and upbringing, was unfamiliar to him at dusk. Oh, he’d seen it at this hour on the rare occasion, but those had always been just that: special occasions. Without the colours and costumes of Nightmare Night everything looked so...strange.
Not wrong, mind you, just...different. Things that by the light of day were familiar and known he saw for the first time. It was a realization that came as more of one about himself than about his town, and Big Mac was not sure what he felt about it. Eeyup and Nope crawled up in his mind, giving him the puppy eyes and wagging proverbial tails at him expectantly.
All about town, particularly the walkways and parks that edged it were benches, and it was on one of these that the stallion took a seat to ponder his situation. He had already faced Rainbow Dash, but that had come through as much from the wit and cookery skill of his Granny than anything Big Macintosh himself had brought forwards. If anything, he had hesitated, and maybe even now would still be bumbling about in his words and thoughts were it not for that crafty old Apple forcing the situation upon his metaphorical, and literal, plate.
He rubbed at his gut and sighed, while moths and the curious little flying things of the evening danced around him. What was with mares and feeding him, really...? If today could be anything to go by, he’d just as likely show up at the library and be subjected to a full course meal. While he didn’t expect such a thing from Twilight Sparkle...well, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what to expect from her, and this time Granny wasn’t here to drag his big slow head along to the answer.
Sighing again, the stallion gently brushed some of the friendlier moths away from his face, careful in the utmost not to damage their powdery fine wings. The real party was dizzily fixated on a nearby street lamp in a hundred eccentric, wobbling little orbits, but enough of the insects had drifted over to him to make him mindful of his breathing, as much for his sake as any of theirs.
At least nothing was biting at him, save for his own thoughts. Big Mac pressed a broad hoof to his forehead and rubbed. If this were a field, he would set his plough to a corner and pull, tilling the earth into a neat row before turning about and doing it again, then again and again, ‘til the job was done. If this were a tree to buck, he’d spy out that enigmatic spot in the bark, the one you either saw or didn’t, and kick it for a shower of apples.
He just had to think. There was Rainbow Dash and Applejack, flashing blue and orange in his mind’s eye, bright and full of sunshine despite the quiet shadows of the hour. At the back of his mind he supposed he started with them because they were the simplest to ponder out. Applejack was his sister and Dash was, much like his own family, straightforward in her dealings. Likewise, he could count them as chores done. There was no need to fear either mare dropping in on him at this point. Even if they did, he didn’t expect much issue of it.
There was Granny as well, grinning at him teasingly from within his head. She was definitely on his side, if only she wasn’t so esoteric about what that actually meant. Still, if he couldn’t trust her than he couldn’t trust anypony at all. Besides, she’d be in bed at this hour, or at least tucked into her rocking chair. Her meddling for the day was done. Probably.
Further on the track the lights of Ponyville glowed, street lamps and windows alike. As he watched one winked out, and Big Mac knew that some pony, one he more than likely knew in at least some passing acquaintance, was calling it a night and winding down to sleep.
The next thought came unbidden to him, but it was no less true. It was just about his own bedtime, he realized. Not that anypony had him adhere to such a curfew, only his own unbroken routine of bedding down and rising early.
To be honest, he wasn’t as fussed about this as he might have expected himself to be. He didn’t feel tired. At least not in the sleepy sense, in the same way that you didn’t feel sleepy when you were halfway through bucking a field. Tired, maybe. Sleepy...not quite as much.
But it still meant that he was earliest to bed of the Apple family most days of the week, sometimes every day. Even Granny stayed up some nights to do this or that, because Granny Smith had hobbies. Applejack did too. Apple Bloom and her friends maybe had more hobbies than the three fillies knew what to do with, but there it was all the same.
Big Mac shifted his weight on the bench, stretching his legs by turn and easing the tension that had built up along his neck and shoulders best he could. His mind was wandering, he knew it. If this were a field under the plough, he’d have carved a great curved furrow of a thing across it. He tried to start over.
He had talked to Rarity today, and Twilight too. In their own ways, both had left quite the impression on him. Big Mac still wasn’t decided on how he felt about Twilight being as invasively friendly as she’d been this morning, and he hadn’t the faintest notion on where her eccentricity would have taken from that point in the intervening hours. Her intent was good, undoubtedly, but weren’t there sayings about good intentions?
When he tried to envision their next encounter, he couldn’t quite get it to sound good. Maybe he was missing something. Maybe he was being oblivious to something obvious, something that followed him and swirled around him and he noticed it not at all.
Like the mare scooching along the woodwork, for instance.
It didn’t escape Big Mac’s notice that Pinkie Pie had slid more than halfway along the bench before he’d noticed her, but whether that was her stealth or his inattentiveness he’d never now.
“Wow,” Pinkie Pie said, her limpid blue eyes ghostly in the waning light. “You must have really been lost in thought. I was doing the sound effects for that and everything.” Okay, so he would know. Inattentiveness it was. She leaned closer, but otherwise didn’t move. “What were you thinking about?”
Besides that the strangest mare in town had taken her equally strange habit of unexpected and unprecedented sudden appearances to a new level? But that would be rude, and Big Mac was anything but rude, and he knew that sentiment really only stemmed from his confusion and surprise.
“Just...thinking, I suppose.” Dusty and underutilized, he clutched at what social graces he could improvise on the spot. “You?” he asked quickly.
Pinkie Pie didn’t answer right away, which was as strange as any answer he could imagine coming from the mare. “Not really,” she said at last. “Just resting a bit now. Mhmm.” It was something like a sigh and something like a yawn, but definitely a sound someone could imagine the mare made when she snuggled into her pillows at night. “I’ve been everywhere in town today.” The few times he’d seen her, she had been constantly on the move. Nor did it sound like her usual hyperbole.
Pale as they were, there was a brightness to Pinkie’s eyes, like twinned moons. She seemed as much as anypony could be one caught up in her own ruminations. “Do you trust me?” she asked and leaned closer still, but there was no contact between them.
Eeyup coiled up on his tongue, so natural that he didn’t even think to stop it, but she moved faster. “No,” she suddenly said, shaking her head, dispelling the treacherous, beautiful word from Big Mac before he could utter it. “Not like that.” She frowned, her hooves gesticulating intricate geometries in the air.
She paused, huffed, and continued. “I mean...” she began again, like a mare translating one language to another and wary of all the misunderstandings that could spring from that. “I mean like, when you meet a new friend and they say ‘come by anytime, Pinkie Pie’ but you learn that while they’re super genuine what they're actually saying is ‘come by any—when it’s good and we’re not too occupied and maybe give us some forewarning as well and everything it’d be appreciated because no offense Pinkie Pie but we weren’t really expecting you at all and we had plans—time.’ Like that.” A quick gasp got the mare’s poor lungs back up to standard operating capacity.
At Big Mac’s bafflement she groaned and rubbed her temples, two opposing circles bordering a furrowed brow. “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” he hazarded, but as he heard himself speak he wanted to facehoof. She gave him a flat stare, then cracked a smile and leant back into the backrest.
“Eeyup and Nope, ‘cause there’s something I’m trying to tell you but something else I won’t tell you because if I did you wouldn’t get it and change everything. Besides,” she added more playfully, “I put a lot of work into what I did. Not many ponies could find all the fiddly little windy metal thingies I had to use.” She nodded and her mane bounced in turn.
Big Macintosh blinked. One. One normal, reasonable, rational, uncomplicated mare. Was that too much too ask for? His mind harrumphed and conjured up a Cheerilee in response, but faced with Pinkie Pie he quickly brushed aside the distracting notion.
The pink mare slumped somewhere between resignation and relaxation, and for a moment neither pony said anything. Big Mac wondered if he should leave it at that, a mystery not meant to be solved, but she spoke as if in answer to that very thought.
“You’re planning on visiting Twilight tonight?” She quickly waved away his inquisitive glance. “I’ve been everywhere in town today. Everywhere,” she said, emphasizing it with overtones that made it equal measures silly and spooky. In a return to completely normal conversation, she explained that she’d heard about the matter from Rarity.
For a minute, the pair watched moths dance drunkenly around the streetlamp.
Pinkie broke the relative silence gently as could be done. “I’m not entirely sure what we’re doing,” she whispered. “I sorta kinda maybe have a plan and an idea, but mostly just a feeling.”
“Me too,” said Big Mac, because the words had roughly the right shape and feel to them, though truth be told he could barely follow what sense there might have been in the mare’s words.
And now Pinkie put her hooves on him, gently rocking forward and back as she pressed her weight against Big Mac’s shoulder. “Don’t be too mad with me, okay?”
“I don’t—” he started, but Pinkie bunched up her legs under her, sprung like a spring with an audible sproing, planted an apologetic kiss on his forehead and was gone, sudden as that.
The only thing to move for a while were the little fluttering things, both in his stomach and their cousins carousing about the streetlamp.
Finally deciding that he wasn’t all that good at planning anyway, Big Mac stood and marched solemnly into the night, towards the winking lights of Ponyville.
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I feel as though this story, as great as it has been, has been meandering and is starting to drag on now.
I kinda want Big Mac to lose so he can dance in a bonnet in town
2832695 I hate to agree with you but it has gotten kind of unfocused. Wasn't there supposed to be a bet going on? I know it is but it hasn't brought it up nearly enough.
*They're
Good
2832734 OK but really, there has always been an undertone of self-discovery on the part of Big Macintosh as a result of having to resist using his favorite words, and what the difficulty of doing so says about him, and is it really so shocking to find that he is also discovering other things as well?
This chapter certainly feels to me like the story, like the day, is preparing to wrap up, albeit in its own good time, and that's good enough for me.
This is too good. *favwatches*
2832695
2832734
I think you guys have called out something very correctly, and it really pins down the reservations I couldn't quite name yet still had about this chapter. Good indications that the story wants to finish up, and soon at that.
2832847
I'm glad you see it that way, and say it so concisely. Yes, the story is definetly moving towards resolution, and while it isn't going to sprint the final spurt, nor do I intend for it to linger and dawdle.
congrats, I think you just summed up all of life into one convenient sentence
Loving the story by the way
Big Mac needs to get some guy friends. There are some around town if he went and looked. He could spend time at the gym with that Snowflake pegasus. The gym is kinda like farm work but recreation.
Ya know, despite how this story is beginning to drag on, I'm still enjoying it. Sure, this chapter was almost like a continuation of the interlude in how it had no real purpose, but it was still fun to read. Not sure what to say other than that.
Pinkie's got a plan. She may not know what that plan is... But, it's a plan nonetheless.
~Skeeter The Lurker
You write the same way I do.
2834006
There is something very pleasing about Skeeter the Lurker comments.
Part of it absofrigginlutely involves being treated to Aku, and the tagging your name despite everything to the contrary is somehow fun
2834156 what we can nickname the VPP or Variously Positioned Pants method?
2834251
You're the first to actually say something about the signing thing.
Most tell me to stop, you? You didn't. Thank you.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I don't see why the others say it's dragging along, you have to remember that the day isn't over, and a lot can happen in a short time.
i've really enjoyed this story, and the way you portray Big Mac really fits with his challenge
There should really be a comma after "it"
2834265
I've never had to delete a comment on any of my stories before, and I'd like to not start now, but please don't say things like this again.
I'm well capable of defending my own work if I ever felt it was being mistreated, and that's a comment that's the best part of a year old. Just leave it be
2834251
I call it the "DM Method", as I basically just come up with circumstances and set pieces and then throw my characters into it and see how they react. I generally consider the characters as personalities I'm emulating on my neural hardware like virtual machines so I try to preserve their free will and all. I've come up with some interesting ideas that way.
I enjoyed this quiet, introspective and (once Pinkie came along) confusing chapter. That's not to say that my inner Milhouse isn't whining "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?!" but then I can ignore him for a while. One of the things I find very interesting about the story at this point is that I have no real idea where it is ultimately going. Why does Twilight weigh so heavily on his mind? I'm ultimately not sure why he even feels the need to see her again today, but Rarity and Pinkie both seem to think that she's somehow important to things as well. So I've been waiting through a few updates to figure her role in things out, but it still eludes me.
How many stops before getting to Twilight's place and will he spend the night there?
2834609 It's because they feel that the last chapter or two were rather dull when compared to the rest; perhaps more stuff should be elaborated into this last one?
2834986
Isn't it obvious? Then again, it could be something so deep, he doesn't realize it's there.
That's the whole point, to keep it a mystery; part of the payoff coming at the end.
2835064
Honestly, its not terribly obvious to me... As there is no "romance" tag on the story (not that there has to be one in my opinion to introduce some in the course of a story, but still its absence raises the question of whether we're supposed to be reading such things in or not.). Big Mac's attitude towards Twilight started at only generally positive while then leading to an embarrassing and awkward encounter. While I have no problem seeing some sexual tension in their encounter, Mac left it mostly shaking his head at how odd Twilight could be. I'm not entirely sure why/when revisiting her became such a necessity before the end of the bet, but most everyone seems resigned to the idea that she is something he must face.
derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTIvMTIvMTQvMjFfMDBfNTlfNTg0XzE3NzQzM19fVU5PUFRfX3NhZmVfYXBwbGVqYWNrX3dhdF9zbGVlcGxlc3NfaW5fcG9ueXZpbGxlX2FydGlzdF9vdGFrdWFwX21vdGhfZ2lhbnRfbW90aCJdXQ/177433__safe_applejack_wat_sleepless+in+ponyville_artist-colon-otakuap_moth_giant+moth.jpg
2857699 It's not that he's hard to find, it's that it's been a while since last I saw him.
2835064
Bow chicka wow wow?
2631946
i both understand and do not understand this chapter... i think?
much like pinkie's plan, i have a feeling... maybe
still confused but that's ok, i'm enjoying it.
thanks for another awesome update. the impending end of this story makes me sad, as most endings do
Argh, Pinkie... My mind cannot conceive... What the....
Ok, I have literally no idea what she's cooking but it's going to be hillarious. I like this story and the little intermission with some borderline AppleDash. Looking forward to more.
Well, Let me say just this. Before reading this chapter, I was a sleep deprived creative brony about to hit the hey, knowing tomorrow i had to write a chapter. I first wanted to get a bit of leisurely reading in before doing so to came a few thoughts. That plan doped out of the sky, dead as a geese flying into a jet terrine. (sorry for my bluntness) Now I have to reconsider what this book is, what Mlp is, what life is.
But all in all, good chapter!
In Ponyville? Eeyup
I knew Pinkie was up to something. Nice to actually hear her acknowledge it. I still say she's nowhere near as crazy as everyone thinks she is; she just looks at the world through a very different porthole.
And now the conversation Granny had with Big Mac about her visit to Sugarcube Corner is ringing in my head. Again. If this all plays out to be some delightfully convoluted puzzle that snaps together nice and neat, I will be more than just a little impressed. BUT... I did read your Author's Note about your writing method, so I doubt it. On the other hand, if you still pull it off...
Yes. Yes, it is.
What is it with you and metaphors?
I don't think mares can be any of those things Big Mac.