Don't Ask About the Gerbil
Once upon a time there was a pony called Lost who, even though her name was Lost, could read maps just fine, which was weird, because names usually suit ponies a lot better than that. She was a unicorn and wore glasses that sometimes slipped down her nose until she pushed them back up with magic. Her special talent was using bad words in creative ways, which didn’t get her a lot of credit from polite society but made her great fun at parties. Anyway, Losty – I’m going to call her Losty from now on because it’s cuter - lived in the absotively posolutely wonderful town of Canterfornia. She had lots of friends and she played with them all the time. She was real, real, real popular. Like super popular with a cherry on top!
There was a big problem though. Losty, even though she was super-duper popular with the ponies of Sunny Town, felt really icky squishy lonely on the inside. I don’t know if you’ve ever been lonely on the inside, but it’s worse than gas from too many gummy candies mixed with shaken up soda pop. She didn’t know why she felt so lonely, just that she did and that she didn’t like it, so she set out to fix the problem.
She worked at a bunch of different places in case that was what would make her feel better. She tried the Post Office, but she wasn’t a pegasus the mail was always late and ponies got mad at her, and her manager yelled about targets and stuff, so she got mad and yelled back at him and quit. She also put gerbil pee in his coffee, but nopony is supposed to know it was her who made him spit it right into the whirling blades of his desk fan, so you didn’t hear that from me.
She tried working at the local library but kept reading the horror books instead of shelving them, which got the librarian mad at her. She liked that job better than delivering mail, so she kept it by volunteering to read to foals in the afternoons (which didn’t work out too well and kind of involved an electric bracelet, but that’s another story), but the stories she picked were too scary and she used to turn off the lights and shine a flashlight under her face for extra scares, which made a whole bunch of foals wet themselves and got their parents so mad at her that the librarian said she couldn’t work there anymore. Losty didn’t put gerbil pee in her coffee though. She said she’d had quite enough of pee, thank you very much.
When changing jobs didn’t make the icky squishy feeling in her tummy go away, Losty thought hard and decided to try something different. So she tried baking cookies to give to every pony in town as a token of friendship, since she’d heard from someplace that friendship is magic, and maybe the magic would make the sicky feeling go away. This didn’t work out too well, since she mixed up sugar and salt, and somehow some cat litter got into the mixing bowl, and also some little brown things that came out of her gerbil that she swore she didn’t realise weren’t chocolate drops. The friendship cookies turned out not so friendly and a lot of ponies kind of sort of got sort of pukey afterwards.
Losty was sad, so the day after the baked bads incident she closed her door, hooked up her wagon, put her gerbil in his carrycase and trotted off to find her fortune. She travelled far and wide, and wide and far, and left to right, and up and down, and under and around and … well, everywhere, really! Her hooves got really, really sore, and she kind of got tired of singing A Million Green Bottles, but she kept going because no matter where she went, she never managed to get rid of that nasty feeling in her tummy.
One day she came to a town hidden away on the other side of a dark castle, a huge forest and a town with a cash-grab castle with its very own princess living in it. This town was called Narratorville and it was a welcoming place, so long as you brought cider or something stronger. The ponies (and others) who lived there greeted her with waves and smiles and Losty’s hooves didn’t hurt so much as she walked down its streets. She decided she’d stay in Narratorville a while and soon she was renting her own little house and building a gerbil castle in the living room.
Once she was set up, she set out to find a job. The local librarian was a pony with a funny accent, feathers on her butt and make-up on her eyes that always made her look kind of like she had been punched. She said Losty could work at the library if she liked, since she had experience. Losty was more cautious this time and didn’t volunteer to read to any foals – not until she came to work one day to find the librarian reading about dead princesses and ‘hoo-mans’ to a small audience of ponies in the middle of the library.
“It’s Storytime,” the librarian explained. “Storytime is the most important time of all in Narratorville.”
And indeed it was. Each day, another pony from town arrived at the library to read something to whoever chose to come and listen that day. Losty made friends with nearly all of them, laughing and joking and drinking so much that she sometimes fell over from happiness (and cider), and when they asked her if she would like to be part of their Storytimes, she jumped at the chance. She had super-duper sorts of fun! And she thought that maybe, just maybe, she had found something that would make the icky sicky feeling go away.
Except that it didn’t. Not completely, anyway. Not when Serenade brought her beers and they laughed at Neighrator trying to pull off a Lyrish accent. Not when Wuten hid a raunchy romance novel inside the dustjacket of a fairytale book and made Solar blush and Scribbler chased him all around the library. Not when Thorny and Emogak had to act out a scene from Rodeo and Mule-iette and all the other narrators catcalled from outside the library window. Not even when Goombasa brought Sammy to try reading and he and Losty had a cussing competition that turned even Wuten redder.
She felt a lot better, but deep inside, Losty still had a little bit of that icky squicky sicky yicky feeling. It came out on days when the sky was a bit grey, or her gerbil escaped and pooped in her bed before she could catch him, or she stood in the middle of her crowd of friends and felt suddenly alone.
Then one day, a new pony arrived at the library and asked if she could join a Storytime. Losty was busy filing books and trying to filch away all the good horror stories, but she listened while the new pony told her story. She was surprised when the new pony started singing, and stopped to listen as she sing-songed her way through a tale of epic epicness and unprincessly princesses.
“Hi,” said the new storyteller when the listeners had gone home and she was packing up to go too. “I’m Birdpony. Who are you?”
“Birdpony?” Losty said in surprise. “What kind of name is that?”
“Actually it’s Magpie, but everyone just calls me Birdpony.”
“Huh. Well, I’m Lost.”
“Lost? What kind of name is that?” Birdpony laughed. It was a nice laugh. Losty liked that laugh.
She discovered that she liked to make Birdpony laugh too. She liked it best when Birdpony came to the library to read. She would stop and listen, and watch her dance around and sing. Sometimes Birdpony got her to join in, but it felt different than when her other friends got her to take part in their storytelling – and not just because they didn’t try to make her sing.
“I can’t sing!”
“Sure you can. It’s a pony birthright.”
“Bullshit.”
And Birdpony laughed, even though it wasn’t a very good joke, or even a joke at all, really. She seemed to like laughing as much as Losty liked making her laugh.
Eventually, Birdpony asked if Losty would help her carry her things home from Storytime. She only had two bags, which didn’t really need a second pony to carry, but Losty helped her anyhow. She started walking Birdpony home every Storytime. And then Birdpony started meeting Losty to walk her home from work every day there wasn’t Storytime. And then they started meeting up for lunch on Losty’s days off.
And one day, when Losty was watching Birdpony eat a chocolate sundae at an outdoor café, she realised with a shock like an ice-cream headache that her tummy didn’t feel icky sticky squishy anymore. She looked, and felt around inside herself, but the loneliness was gone.
“Oh my gosh,” she said out loud. “I’m … I’m …”
“You’re what?” said Birdpony, licking whipped cream off her nose with her tongue. “Fabulous? Adorable? Endearing in a don’t-tick-her-off-of-she’ll-cuss-you-into-next-week kind of way?”
“I’m not lonely anymore.”
And Birdpony stopped and looked at her. She put down her sundae, came around the table and held her face in her pink hooves. “Well, what do you know?” she said, looking into her eyes and deep, deep inside her. “You’re not Lost anymore. You’re Found.”
And they had smoochies, and then more smoochies, and then ice-cream (because ice-cream totally makes everything even more awesome) and then some more smoochies, and finally Found and Birdpony lived happily ever after.
The end.
…………………
Rainbow Dash put down the notebook.
“So?” Pinkie Pie bounced below her. “What do you think?”
Rainbow let one hind hoof dangle off the roof beam. “It’s, uh, sure interesting, Pinks.”
Pinkie stopped bouncing. “Is that interesting like ‘really good’, or interesting like ‘oh my gosh I don’t know what to say because it was so awful’?”
“Um …”
Her tail drooped. “You don’t like it.”
“No, no, I didn’t say that!” Rainbow waved her forehooves. “It’s just … I guess I just don’t get why you wanted to show it to me so much.”
“You don’t?” Pinkie’s mane drooped too. “Oh.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. She launched herself off the beam and landed on the kitchen floor. The smell of bubbling sweeties was even stronger down here. Pinkie had left a pan of something on the hob. “Spill. What’s with the story? I never figured you for a novelist.”
Pinkie’s neck drew in a little. “It’s … for our … mmrrfrrr.”
“Huh?”
“Our anniversary.”
Rainbow blinked at her. “What!?”
“Of the day we met.”
Rainbow stared. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
She looked down at the notebook, studded with little stick on gems and hearts drawn in crayon. Pinkie had greeted her with it that morning, disallowing any morning muffins until Rainbow had read the whole story. Rainbow looked back at Pinkie, and then back down at the notebook again. “Pinks … is Birdpony you?”
“Um …”
“So does that mean Losty … is me?”
“Kindasortamaybepleasedon’tbemad.”
Rainbow opened the book at the end and scanned the last few lines again. “Hmm.” She snapped it shut, set it on the worktable, and took a breath. “Okay then.”
“Okay … what?” Pinkie asked hesitantly. “Whuff!” She shot backwards as a pile of blue pegasus launched itself at her and fastened onto her mouth.
“The ending had smoochies in it.” Rainbow lifted her face away and waggled her eyebrows. “So much better than muffins.”
And finally Ponka and Crash lived happily ever after.
The end.
Again.
“Why did you give me a gerbil for a pet?”
“I don’t know. It seemed right at the time.”
“Pinkie Pie … you are so random.”