Scarlet Mane's Diary, Entry 4: The Tale of Muffins and Cupcakes

by Madame Minty

Effectuation

"What's this?" curiously said a opal colt, poking something lodged in a small bush until it fell out.

"It says Ma-gic Ru-nes for Dumm-ies," read aloud a lavender white unicorn filly of superbly curly lavender purple and lavender pink mane. "I love magic runes!" she added as her eyes, green like dewy lavender leaves, grew round in pair with her craving for the tome. No pony would be surprised to hear her name was Lavender.

"What? But... oh... I need that book..."

"It's mine!"

"I'm a bigger dummy than you!" the colt said as he grabbed the book. At the same time the filly started to magically pull it away from him.

"Mine!"

He held on it as strong as he could and she focused so hard green sparks shot from her horn, one trying to take the book from the other. Finally, they tore the book in two and they fell onto the ground.

"Now look what you've done," they said in unison, then tilted their heads. "I didn't like it anyway," they both added and promptly blushed.

#

Everypony tried their best in the past two rounds, but when Plum sisters unlocked a small strongbox and took out ingredients they kept in secret for the final round some ponies gasped, others just whined. No pony quit the contest, but surely at least considered it.

"We have no chance against that," in a resigned voice said Shirley Daisy, an older mare of parsley green coat and long, messy alabaster mane with chartreuse yellow streaks and azure eyes. "I think I'll just give up."

"But Daisy, there's no point in quitting now. What if we team up?" Leaflette said, a sandwisp unicorn of short, neatly cut bistre mane and golden eyes. Her left ear was dropped, as always.

"Well, you're right, we could at least try. But don't call me lazy!"

"I said Daisy..."

"I'm not crazy!"

"Oh golly..."

"Very good you're sorry, you shain't treat your elders like that!"

"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed way too loud, then got back to making cupcakes just like nothing ever happened.

"Zap plums?" Jelly Joy said to Pistacia as the shenanigans continued. "Ay, ay, ay indeed!"

"What now? This is over, I think those are the first ever zap plums. How did they even make them? It's not a zap season!" Pistacia said with a hint of dismay in her voice and clearly very upset.

"The Plum family always was good in the art of growing magic food. Maybe they just figured out the thing that makes their fruits go zap and bling?" Cinnamon Cream said. Pinkie Pie overheard and yelled from her stand.

"Wow, this is funny, do you always talk like that? I know other pony who rhymes all the time. Well, not exactly a pony, but—" she cut off as a piece of cake splashed on her face.

"I'm not rhyming at all! Stop being such a foal!" Cinny said in anger.

"Anyway... we can't win by ourselves, not against zaps. We have to work together," Pistacia said reluctantly. Her previous attempts at undermining others' work had hurt her own efforts, so it was a lesson she had learned the hard way.

"We have to make something... superb!" Jelly Joy yelled, momentarily forgetting how loud she was speaking and nodded in agreement. "Something combining every good feature of what have we all planned."

Stacie again laughed out loud ominously and a sudden reddish thunder rolled and crackled above the ponies. Even she was surprised, but tried to keep that fact for herself.

They gathered in the middle booth and everypony presented their idea. Joy, the host, planned to make a new generation jelly of unparalleled taste and wobbliness, or, as she insisted on calling it, wobblicity. Cinnamon Cream wanted to bake the most confusing hybrid of cupcakes and muffins—so that no pony could definitely say it's one or the other.

"Huh, I recall something relevant," Pistacia said, "There's a conflict of epic proportions. The whole Equestria is divided in two—Cupcake Connoisseurs and Muffin Mavens. Both parties secretly wage war on each other as throughout many millennia the strife grew far past a petty squabble. What most ponies notice is just one of the sides trying to recruit somepony."

"It seems a very dangerous thing to know. But... that's unbelievable, literally so," said Cinnamon Cream, "I'm not convinced that's really true. I guess you haven't thought that through," she went on, narrowing her eyes ever more slightly with each word.

"Wouldn't that just cause Connoisseurs to say the hybrid is a kind of cupcake and Mavens to say it's a muffin?" Joy said to no pony in particular and rubbed a hoof against her chin.

"I made it up as I went, the same with my idea for the last round. I wanted to make ice cream," Pistacia said as she rolled her eyes.

Jelly Joy and Cinnamon Cream got closer in anticipation, making Stacie a little uncomfortable.

"That's it. Just very good ice cream. I'm good at ice cream," she said nervously. "Why do you stare at me like that? Ice cream."

"But—" Joy started.

"Ice cream!"

"Okay, relax."

"Very good ice cream," Pistacia repeated.

Cinnamon Cream stood up and stomped her hoof down. "Then let's work together to make a fresh design. Merge all these ideas into something divine!"

The intentions were good, but also apparently the pavement of the road to Tartarus needed a major refurbishment.

It didn't go very well—everypony tried to make whatever they wanted to do in the first place instead of devising a common goal. It's hard enough to imagine combining muffins and cupcakes, not to mention ice cream and jelly as well.

After long and exhausting mixing, cooking, baking, freezing, decorating and other -ings the ice cream cuffincake with jelly was finished at last—just a moment before jury approached their stall.

"This is... not even bad," Poppy Roll said. "In the negative way."

"I agree. I imagine your entries would be substantially better if you would stay separated and simply make what you are good at," Mr. Truffle nodded.

Wysteria didn't say a word and just lifted a 3. Others looked at her, expecting a comment.

"It doesn't even fly," she finally said.

"But wait, I mean... but... that's not how it should..." Cinnamon Cream stuttered in disappointment and then tried their creation for herself.

"Who the hay made it sour? Didn't we plan to make it of pears' taste?" she exploded, "It seems we spent an hour, making something that belongs in the waste."

The jury finally approached Plums and got presented an incredibly good smelling plum tart. Shirley Daisy suddenly appeared between the jurors, as if she'd sprouted from the ground.

"These ain't zaps!" she yelled, causing many ponies to gasp and murmur. "Those are just regular plums that got painted!"

Wysteria looked closer at them for the first time and wordlessly looked at Mr. Truffle, then at Poppy Roll, nodding.

"How can you say that so surely?" asked Poppy, as she never saw a zap anything before. Wysteria opened her mouth to speak, but Shirley was first.

"See, if you take a magnet, you have a north pole and a south pole. When you cut it in half, you get two pieces with south poles and north poles, not one piece with south and zero pole and another with zero and north pole. I've seen enough zap apples to know if they're cut in half they retain red and violet poles, they don't have a green pole. Even if you make jam out of them, the jam still has a red and a violet pole and a full rainbow between them as the magic field interferes with electromagnetic field and excites part—"

"Thank you very much for your in-depth explanation. I am sorry to interrupt you, but we would rather hear one from Plums," Mr. Truffle said.

"We never said they're zaps," Boggly Plum said meekly while Cuddly Plum expressed it with a slight air of smugness. "No pony asked, too. Check your clipboard, we claimed it to be a plum tart, not a zap plum tart."

"That's true," Poppy Roll said. "But—"

"We're not responsible for ponies giving up good ideas only because somepony tries to look impressive," Boggly said.

"And impressive appearances have nothing to do with impressive work," Cuddly added.

"We didn't have the slightest idea for something original for the last round," Boggly admitted.

"So, we went with something we knew the best."

"Not our fault others didn't do the same."

"We just wanted to make it tasty rather than spectacular or shocking."

"So, you want to try it?" they both asked.

"Or not?" Boggly added.

As it turned out, Plums were completely right. Everypony tried to make something peculiar and forgot to make it delicious in all the commotion. Plums celebrated their victory by eating the most successful yet the most typical plum tart they ever made and wondered why the trophy, a statue of Raffaella Icing, has an impressive moustache. At the same time, Jelly Joy, Cinnamon Cream and Pistacia were checking out other contestants' works. Poppy Roll approached them.

"You could've taken the whole podium with what you initially declared," she said. "Everypony panicked except that gray pegasus and Pinkie Pie, that pink blabbermouth. I remember her name probably only because she repeated it a dozen times within my earshot," she said and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, they made ordinary muffins and cupcakes and took second and third places."

Pistacia sat down, facehoofed and groaned.

"Oh well, what do we do with this... thing? And with the remains from the second round? There's a lot more than the last time we had a Nom," she said.

"Think fast!" Joy yelled as she threw a jelly dragon at Pistacia, but it flew away on its wings before it hit her. Cinnamon Cream rolled on the ground in a laugh. Poppy chuckled and expecting major shenanigans inconspicuously trotted away to safe distance. Not long after Stacie picked up a piece of mushy cuffincake and flung it at Cinny. Sour pear jelly made a distinct splat as it hit the target right in the face.

"Food fight!" Pinkie Pie yelled and tossed a cupcake at Derpy, who devoured it mid-air.

"This is not how it works," Pinkie complained.

"Yes it is!" said Derpy and fluttered.

Cinny's face was covered in goo and she didn't dare to open her eyes. She blindly moved her hoof around to find something suitable for a projectile and finally picked up a piece of biscuit deeply soaked in Scarlet's glowing cream.

Pistacia's and Jelly Joy's eyes widened as she threw the biscuit. It turned into a fireball almost instantly.

"Take cover!" Joy yelled and ducked involuntarily.

After the fires were hastily put out and the irritating smoke had dispersed, Joy, Cinny and Stacie stood besides each other and watched at the mess they caused. Joy spoke first.

"I promise, no more being jelly."

"I promise, no more making incen/dairies," Cinnamon Cream said with a nod. "So life will be just a bowl of cherries."

"I promise, no more being uncool," Pistacia agreed.

"Brohoof!" Pinkie Pie said, appearing from nowhere and sticking her hoof out. They all giggled and clicked their hooves together.

#

It was agreed Pinkie Pie was to sleep in Scarlet Mane's room. She got into her bed and blew out the lamp. It didn't became completely dark as moonlight seeped in through a windowed ceiling.

"Oh, hi, you must be Scarlet Mane! We haven't met before. You know, the contest. I'm Pinkie Pie," she said, then continued. "I heard you are an expert in magic, is that true? Twilight is good at magic too, but you know that already, after all you send letters to each other, right? I like party magic if anything, Rarity makes so pretty colorful dancing lights! Thinking about dancing makes me hungry. Do you want a cupcake? With or without chocolate? Hey, could you cast a spell for me? I wonder if you can make a muffin out of a cupcake. Oh, or turn it into a kumquat cake, or maybe a small pickle—"

Moment later the ground trembled and a blazing light shone through the slit under the door for a fraction of a second.

"What was that?" said Moonbeam, who was in the main part of the workshop, sitting by a table and opening a large paper bag.

"What was what?" Twilight said, apparently not having heard or seen anything.

"Oh, Pinkie stopped talking," she added a few seconds later and got up to peek inside Scarlet's room. "Huh, she must be dead tired after the competition," she said, seeing Pinkie sleeping sweetly.

"Plum sisters won anyway. Frankly, I got surprised. They are good, but Cinnamon Cream looked like the best bet," Moonbeam said, then took out several poppy rolls out of the bag and bit into one of them. Twilight licked her lips and followed. Soon they ate them all and in the middle of the night lay down on the floor. They were staring at the ceiling mindlessly.

"They're so awesome. Like magic," Twilight said with amazement in her voice, delighted by the rolls' bright red taste.

"Do you think Poppy adds some magic?" Moonbeam said sheepishly, wondering why the walls are made of violin music.

"She's not a unicorn."

"Maybe she is, but in secret?" Moon whispered theatrically.

"And, uh... what, hiding her horn?"

"Uh-huh."

"How?" Twi asked and giggled, snorting once or twice.

"With magic," Moon said in conspiratorial tone.

"Spike, take a letter!" Twilight said.

"Right away!"

"Dear Princess Celestia. Today I've learned—" she stopped as Pinkie's upside-down head appeared in her view. Her mane was deflated and her eyes filled with horror.

"It was like a millennium of Nightmare, above it, besides it... I gazed deep into this dark light and I was blinded by its blackness. I believed I knew the world of dreams, yet what I saw... I saw infinity... so many, and I saw everypony everywhere everywhen... also Sweetie Belle playing just outside the workshop with some colt, what is she doing here?..." Pinkie Pie droned in an unusual, low voice. Moonbeam just rolled her eyes.

"Here, have a cookie."

"Tis' not a cookie!..." Twilight protested, prolonging ie part far beyond reason, then tee-heed and crossed her eyes.

Pinkie stood there with glassy eyes, not moving in the slightest, mouth agape. Moonbeam without thinking took advantage of the latter and stuffed a poppy roll inside, then pushed Pinkie's jaw up and down several times with her hoof.

"Infinity!..." Pinkie mumbled. Her eyes closed slightly and she relaxed. She tumbled onto the floor just as her mane poofed back up, providing some cushion for the head. Moonbeam snuggled into the pink fluff and soon fell asleep.

#

Moonbeam woke up upon hearing Spike screaming in shock.

"Holy guacamole, are those bite marks? Why would you eat furniture? To what end? And why that cactus looks like it's holding a piece of parchment and a quill?"

Oh bugger!