Pinkie & Eric's Bonding Jungle Trip

by ThePinkedWonder

Chapter 1: A excursion all alone with Energy Incarnate

Welp, chalk up attempt #10 at replicating my mom’s lasagna as another bust. What was I screwing up on?! Too much or too little cheese? Not the right kind of cheese? Did I chop up the wrong kind of parsley or oregano leaves? Maybe there wasn’t supposed to be any parsley at all?

Sure, I had never tried to bake lasagna till attempt #1 a couple of weeks ago. Then again, even if I wasn’t a rookie lasagna baker, Mom always kept part of her lasagna recipe a secret, so there would be no choice but to pitch blind on some ingredients. The aroma of attempt #10's freshly baked, molten cheese, mixed with tomato sauce, did hug the ‘ol taste buds and nose with a "B" grade. However, it wasn’t Mom’s lasagna sitting on the kitchen table. Not even close.

On the bright side, attempt #10 was a lot better than attempt #2. How bad was #2? Let’s just say Starlight had a good laugh watching me break personal records running to the toilet.

“Hiya!!”

“Whoa!” I jumped almost half a foot in the air. My heart needed a moment to stop screaming. I swung around and two big, blue eyes met me.

Yep, they were Pinkie Pie’s eyes. If you’re wondering how we could literally see eyes-to-eyes, adult Equestrian ponies are – somewhat surprisingly – roughly my height, so there you go. Anyway, I gently pushed Pinkie back a little and yelled, “Pinkie! I told you to never do that again!”

“You did?”

“Yeah! It was after your ‘surprise friendly greeting’ two weeks ago when I got off work from the Ponyville Spa.”

“Oh, that, but you told me to never shout ‘Hi!’ behind you when you’re leaving the Spa. You never said I couldn’t shout ‘Hiya!’ behind you when you’re cooking in Twilight’s kitchen.”

“But…I…you…” I hate it when Pinkie throws in a technicality to shut me down. “Fine, then promise to never shout any kind of greeting to me if you're right behind me. Calling out to me in your regular voice would be fine, though.”

“Okay, I promise.” Pinkie hopped to my newest lasagna AKA attempt #10. “Ooh, this smells good! I didn’t know you cooked lasagna.”

“I’m trying to recreate my mom’s lasagna, but I only know more or less half of her recipe. This one is the best yet, yet it’s still nowhere good enough.”

Pinkie cut a piece of lasagna and swallowed it in one, big bite. It was meatless, so she had no qualms about wolfing down a piece. “Even so, this is pretty tasty. You even made it by yourself without a full recipe to go by, right? It reminds me of when I baked my first-ever cake with no recipe.”

“Maybe. You can have some more of it later, but my mom’s lasagna would blow this out of the water.” I blew a long, heavy sigh. My fists tightened. Equestria has done well as my new home, but sometimes it doesn’t feel quite like home. Being the only one of my species here sure didn’t help the “home” factor.

“Man, Pinkie, I miss her cooking. Even if Twilight could figure out how to send me back to my old world safely, well…let’s just say I still wouldn’t be able to eat my mom’s lasagna again. One way or another, I’d be missing her cooking and her anyway.”

Pinkie gently laid a kind hoof on my back. “Aw, Eric, please don’t feel–wait, I have an idea. I’ve heard of a spice that is said to make any kind of meal tastier. If you had some, it might turn your lasagna into more like your mom’s if hers really is that good.”

My fists loosened from their tight, hope-losing ball. Yes. Hope was alive! “I’ll give anything a shot for even a chance to finally eat lasagna comparable to Mom’s again. What is this spice called?"

“I don’t remember what it’s called, but you can’t buy it from stores.”

“Why not?”

“Its taste is also said to only last up to three days after the fruit it comes from is plucked. Not only that, the fruit is extremely rare, just like one of Maud’s favorite rocks. You have no idea how long it took me to find one of those rocks for her birthday four–”

I slapped my hand over Pinkie’s mouth, or else she might have kept yapping for a while. She does that. ”Uh, you can tell me your rock hunt later. Go back to that spice.”

Pinkie pointed to her mouth. Right–my hand was still clamped over it.

“Sorry.” I yanked my hand from her mouth. “Okay, let’s try this again. If I can’t nab that spice or its fruit, why did you even tell me about it?”

“Because I know where it’s supposed to grow, so I could go get it for you. If it’s out there, I will find it, or my name’s not Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

“Interesting. That’s a Grand Slam-level game-changer, Pinkamena Diane Pie.” I picked up my lasagna and set it in the refrigerator. Spike enjoyed even attempt #2, so he’d definitely want to chow down on attempt #10. “Still, you don’t have to fetch it for me. I’ll track it down myself.”

The corners of her lips sagged. “Uh…sorry, but I can’t let you look for it alone.”

“Why not? All you have to tell me is where it is and how it looks.”

“But its fruit is said to grow reallllly deep in a huuuuge jungle, and could take hours to find one, if not a whole day. I know how to get through it by myself, but you could get lost forever.”

“But–”

She groaned and stared sternly at me. Her feel of her eyes shook me up a bit. The usually airheaded Pinkie Pie entered serious mode, which always stole my full attention on the spot. “Eric, listen to me. You have been my friend ever since we met, and I don’t want to see you sad. So, let me find that fruit for you and your lasagna.” A vastly more fitting - for her – giggle eeked from her mouth as she patted my head. “Haven’t you learned helping friends is what friends do, Silly-Eric? Or should I make you a student in my next class?” She ended with a friendly, playful wink.

“Heh, didn’t expect to hear a friendship speech from you today, Teach.” I “blooped” her muzzle. As she always did when she got “blooped”, she giggled. “I’ll pass on being student for a day, but I’ll tell you what: instead of one of us going alone, we could fruit-hunt together.”

“Works for me! Whee!” The pink one grinned and did her signature, admittedly adorable, hopping. Upbeat music suddenly started playing. Whenever music played out of nowhere, it only meant one thing: a song was coming on! "♪ It’s just you and me. We’re going to a jungle, we’re going to a jun– ♪“ She stopped hopping. Her song must have been canceled; the music died. “Wait, I’ll sing a make-up song later. I just remembered that we’ve never gone on a trip with just us before!”

“Oh…right. I would be all alone in a jungle with you for hours, if not the whole day. Uh…maybe we should ask the gang or at least Twi to tag along with us. Uh, for safety purposes.”

“Nah, we can handle that jungle on our own. Besides, this can be our Pinkie & Eric bonding jungle trip! It’ll be fun, fun, fun, and fun!”

“Fun, fun, fun, and fun” she said. Now, Pinkie is (most of the time) a lovable and fun pony but just…excitable. She’s not the Element of Laughter for nothing. Still, being stuck alone with Energy Incarnate for too long could be sanity-risking.

“Yeah, fun, so we’ll go it alone. When do you want to head out?”

“Why not now?” Pinkie pushed me from behind with her muzzle toward the kitchen doorway. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Wait, right now? It’s dangerous to travel through jungles at night, especially by ourselves!”

She halted her pushing. Guess that goofball forgot it was early evening, not early morning. “Oh, hehe, right. Then how about tomorrow morning? You’re off work from the Spa tomorrow, right?”

“I am off, but tomorrow’s out too. The Princess of Teaching wouldn’t appreciate her laughter teacher or ‘bridge to pony society’ going jungle-trekking on such short notice.”

“Oh. Saturday morning then? Our school would be closed and Saturday’s another of your days off from the Spa.”

“Now Saturday morning sounds like a plan. We just gotta be out of that jungle before Celestia lowers the sun, fruit or no fruit.”

“We will, so starting Saturday morning, our Pinkie & Eric bonding jungle trip will begin! Whee!” Pinkie wrapped a foreleg around me. “Come on, say ‘Whee!’ with me too!” her smile snuck into a sly one. “You know you want to...”

“Heh heh, why not? It beats you trying to get me to sing.” I started a countdown with my fingers. “3, 2, 1…”

“WHEE!!”

The plan was set. Three days later, on a Saturday morning, Pinkie and I departed Ponyville for our mystery dung–I mean, mystery jungle excursion. We both carried backpacks stuffed with food, bottles of water, and some outdoor survival supplies. Last but not least, as I normally did anyway, I wore my hat with designs of the gang's Cutie Mark on it, as well as carrying a green geode hanging from a necklace Sunset had given me. In a way, they were all coming along with us.

Even if Pinkie curbed her “Pinkieness” – a big “if” as is – taking a trip deep into a jungle set this day up to be a long one.

---

Ugh. Our mystery jungle excursion was gearing up to be even tougher than expected. My feet weren’t just sore; they were pounding!

Energy Incarnate and I had been treading through this jungle barely fifteen minutes, yet sweat was already gathering on my forehead like an uninvited guest. Figures the air in a tropical-ish jungle would be heavy and moist, but not this constricting! It wasn't all bad though. The view was pretty sweet; the sun punched pockets of light through the “sky” of towering treetops and their long, snake-y vines – some vines swayed side to side. Bushes, some of which bloomed flowers, joined the trees as junglemates. The crunches of brown leaves underfoot/underhoof were oddly cathartic.

Of course, the view or leaves didn’t negate the swarming, bullying heat in the muggy air trying to suffocate me! The weight from my backpack pushing down on my back turned this trip from normal mode into hard mode. And not the fun kind of hard mode. I hoped I wouldn't need it, but a pink-glowing baseball bat stuck out of my backpack, which Twilight had infused with a bit of her magic. Thanks to its partnership with alicorn-brand magic, this bad boy packs a far harder wallop than a normal bat.

As for Pinkie, despite her natural pink coat, she still seemed unaffected by jungle hard mode. She was hopping along with as much energy as ever while somehow balancing a backpack on her back despite her hops. In fact, ever since we reached the jungle, she evolved from “merely” being talkative to yapping non-stop!

“...there is more thick grass growing by that blue bush. Ooh, the tree behind us has a squirrel couple standing on a branch. And there’s–”

“Okay, Pinkie, I get it! I know I’ve never been in jungles before, but I’m not a little foal who’s clueless about them! Just focus more on leading us to our target fruit and less on being my jungle teacher.”

“Okie-dokie-lokie!”

“Oh, and can I see the book from earlier? I want to check pictures of that fruit again.”

“Sure-kie lokie!” Pinkie stopped hopping and reached into her backpack. She pulled out her fruit book and showed a page holding pictures of a red, slender, slick fruit growing on a particularly thick green bush. Another picture on the same page had it dangling from a stalk off a tree branch. Apparently, it can grow from a type of bush and tree.

“I’m good. You can put it back now.” I wiped my sweat-ridden forehead. The strain from my backpack and the thick, muggy air’s attack drilled through my dwindling energy reserves. It was too early in the hunt for it to happen already, but my increasingly sore muscles and feet crept closer to tapping.

---

Welp, it happened. It took forty minutes, give or take, but the bite from the jungle’s thick air and heat, the weight from my backpack, and the burning of my feet from non-stop walking forced a tap out. My dry, cracking lips sure assisted in the shameless taps. Going by how Pinkie was still hopping, she was nowhere close to tapping, but she would just have to let me submit.

A tree we were about to pass under looked like a nice spot for a break, so I sat down under it. I slid my backpack off and lay back against the tree. Its rough bark wasn't the most comfortable thing to lay your back against, but the relief from just being off my feet alone paid any deficits. Man, sitting had rarely felt so good!

“Eric?” Pinkie stopped her bouncing and stared down at me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m resting. What else?” I pulled out a bottle of water from my pack and gulped some down. It washing down my desert of a throat felt like heaven on steroids.

“But we haven’t been here for an hour yet! I thought humans could walk for at least an hour or two on hoof–uh, foot. I guess Starlight was right when she called you lazy.”

I growled and pointed a finger at her. “Okay, she only meant how I’m slow to get out of bed and…fine, my room is messy a lot. But I’m not being lazy this time; we also walked for over an hour after we got off the train, so we’ve been on the go for nearly two hours straight.” I swatted my forehead free of sweat again. “You could outlast even the fittest humans, let alone a normal one like me.”

“Hehe, you have a point,” Pinkie said with her usual smile returning. “Sorry if I was a big meanie just now. We still have a long way to go, but you can re–wait, I know!” She lowered herself halfway to the ground. “You can ride on my back. That way, you can rest up while I get us closer to where the fruit is said to be. You can just hold our backpacks in front of you while you ride.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Nope! My back is your back! Ooh, you said some ponies in your world sometimes carry humans on their backs, right?” A smirk curled on Pinkie's lips. “In case you forgot, I am a pony, so...”

“Heh heh, I accept. You make a strong argument.” I stuffed my water bottle back in my backpack. “Still I don't want to take advantage of you, so I’ll ride for ten minutes tops. That should be long enough to recharge my batteries.”

“Then hop on the Pinkie Pie Express!” She put her forehooves to both sides of her mouth and cheered, “Choo choo!”

Okay, that was cute as all gets out. Some of Pinkie’s playful antics are stinking adorable. After I pushed myself to my still-aching feet, I climbed on the "Pinkie Pie Express." I positioned the Element of Adorableness’s and my backpacks in front of me. Heh, shouldn’t be too surprised because she was Pinkie, but her back was soft, tender, almost pillow-like.

Hold on–I nearly forgot something important!

“Wait, before you stand fully up, make sure to not hop while I’m on your back. I don’t want to fly off you and break my back. Deal?”

“Deal! I won’t hop while you’re my passenger.” She stood up to her full height. “Now, let’s go, cowpony–I mean, cowcolt–uh, that is–”

“It’s ‘cowboy’.”

“‘Cowboy’ was gonna be my next guess! Okay, let me try this again. Let’s go, cowboy!”

True to her word, Pinkie walked, not hopped along, with leaves crunching under her hooves with each step. I could get used to the soothing crunching of leaves. As well as riding her.

However, a question flashed in my noggin. Crushing dread enveloped my chest. It was nuts how the question didn’t flash sooner, though I was kinda scared to ask. “Uh, Pinkie? Quick question: are there any cragadiles in this jungle?”

“No, I don’t think there are cragadiles around.”

My heart and chest knocked that crushing dread out of the park! Metaphorically of course. “Whew! I was almost worried!”

“There may be just one somewhere.”

“What?!” I shouted. No! Even a single cragadile anywhere close is too many for me! That previous dread rushed back into the park and had a baby packed with paranoia, forcing shakes from my hands. “I should have asked you before we left Ponyville!”

“Why?”

“You forgot that ever since one almost had Sunset and me for dinner, I’ve been terrified of them?”

She stopped walking. “Ohh…right. You did say you became scared of them and won't go into the Everfree Forest anymore. Well, we probably won’t run into it, but we can go back to Ponyville if you’re scared. Or, since I’m not scared, just let me find that fruit for you on my own.”

Man. Oh man, was I dying to turn tail! But, the chance of eating lasagna like my mom’s again was too good to pass up. Sure wasn’t gonna let Pinkie go it alone. “No, I can’t chicken out or leave you by yourself out here. Fluttershy faced her fears when she was terrified, so I’ll…*gulp*...try to follow her example.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. But if we do see a cragadile, I’ll have us out of here faster than you can say ‘Okie-dokie-lokie-pokie-bokie-cookie!’”

“Uh, yeah, whatever you said last, and thanks. Let’s keep going.”

With that, Pinkie and I continued our hunt while, for the moment, I rode on Pinkie’s back.

‘Be brave like Fluttershy. Be brave like Fluttershy.’

The good news: since the jungle was huge, we might not run into that beast.

The bad news: a storm of anxiety still freed butterflies into my belly. For some reason, it felt like cragadiles might not be the thing I would be most worried about.

Author's Note:

Odd feeling Eric had. Do you have any guesses on what he might be sensing could be in store for him and Energy Incarnate?