Just One Day
Easter Eggs
By Cynical
Winter had been wrapped up a few weeks ago, the wildlife had already gone onto finding food for their next hibernation and the ponies of Ponyville were happily languishing in the sun once more.
All but a few anyway.
Behind the closed door of Sugarcube Corner, voices could just be made out, one scratchy and the other almost bouncy.
“Are you sure that that’s what she said?” The scratchy voice asked.
“Yep,” came the reply
“So she specifically said that the secret could be passed on to me if I dressed up like this and agreed to do that?”
“That’s right, Twilight specifically said that if Rainbow Dash asked me what the secret was, I was to tell you that she told me to tell you that if you dressed as an Easter bunny and helped me for the day, then I would be free to tell you her secret.”
There was a pause.
“Are you sure that it was Twilight?”
Inside the shop, Pinkie Pie stuck her hoof into her mane, drawing out a scroll and letting it unravel onto the floor.
Rainbow Dash blinked, looking at the list and all the items that were still rolling down from the ever-expanding scroll that Pinkie still held. “Pinkie… what is this?”
Pinkie herself was watching the scroll with some surprise as it continued to unravel and unravel, now halfway towards the doorway. “It was a day planner Twilight made for Easter… I think she forgot it when she came by yesterday” Pinkie replied in a slightly worried tone, still watching with almost-morbid curiosity as the scroll reached the door and started filling out across the floor.
Rainbow’s jaw closed itself as she reached for the scroll and tried to stop it from unfurling any further except that didn’t work, the scroll had been bound tightly and enchanted to stay rolled impossibly small, but now that it was free, it wanted to stay that way, and the first thing it wanted to do as a free scroll was stretch.
“Pinkie… I think we should probably evacuate while we still can.”
Surprisingly enough, Pinkie didn’t argue and simply nodded, dropping the scroll onto the floor where it started unravelling even faster, filling up more and more of the shop floor as the two ponies in the room started backing nervously towards the stairs to the upper floor.
As soon as they were up the stairs, Rainbow shut the door behind them with a damning thud. “Alright… I think that was from Twilight,” she concluded, still unnerved by the scroll.
“So are ya gonna do it?” Pinkie asked, her bounce already returning as Rainbow pondered the question.
One the one hoof… this was going to ruin her reputation for good, if somepony saw her, dressed as an Easter bunny of all things… she’d never live it down, she’d have to go and hide out the rest of her days in Fluttershy’s cottage along with that real bunny, Angel, who she swore held a grudge against her, or everypony but Fluttershy for that matter…
And the other hoof? Well that secret of Twilight’s had managed to worm its way into her curiosity pretty deeply now, what kind of secret would Twilight be willing to let her find out if she did… this. Well obviously it had something to do with her and Rainbow else she wouldn’t have found out about this loophole in the first place… but what was it?
“Alright… you drive a hard bargain Twilight,” Rainbow muttered to herself before turning to Pinkie Pie and nodding.
Pinkie beamed before bouncing over to a cupboard in the corner of the room and withdrawing a hanger with a suit hung from it. She laid it down in front of Dash as she dived back into the cupboard.
Dash meanwhile, flicked at the ‘suit’ with the tip of a hoof. It was a purple thing, a much darker shade than Pinkie’s coat, complete with floppy lilac ears and a hole for a tail.
“You can’t be serious…” she muttered to herself, looking at the garment in front of her with distaste.
There was a muffled ‘aha!’ from the cupboard again and Pinkie re-emerged, four pairs of strings in her mouth, each pair belonging to a pink rabbit’s foot. Pinkie trotted back and put them with the costume.
Rainbow Dash just stared at the set, completely oblivious to the bouncing pony next to them, “This is it? Where’re the wing holes?”
Pinkie tilted her head at Rainbow, her expression confused, “Wing holes? Why’d you need those? Come on now, let’s get you into them!” she exclaimed, bringing her head straight again and starting to bounce with far too much enthusiasm for Rainbow’s liking.
Pinkie leant down and took the suit off the hanger before advancing towards Rainbow who started backing away nervously from the ever-present smile on Pinkie’s face.
“Now- Pinkie- let’s talk about this right?” Rainbow said, knowing that some distance behind her, the wall was waiting. Pinkie didn’t reply and just kept coming after her with the suit. Rainbow gulped and looked behind her for a moment.
When she looked back, Pinkie was right in front of her and her grin was all Rainbow could see as Pinkie brought her hooves and the suit down over Rainbow’s head. She reared back and tried to scrabble at the garment on her head, only to find that it was making its way down her body instead, revealed to be encouraged by Pinkie Pie as Rainbow’s head popped out the top, meeting Pinkie’s cheerful grin with her own unhappy grimace.
“Not cool… don’t you have anything a bit bigger anyway?” Rainbow asked, looking down at herself and the sleeves which only came halfway down her own legs. “And I think my tail is sort of stuck…” she murmured to herself as she tried to move it.
Pinkie just smiled and bounced back to the four paws she’d left, a moment later she was back in front of Rainbow with all four neatly and evenly spaced in front of her.
Rainbow glared at the shoes with hatred before sighing and stepping forwards into the first paw.
Then she felt herself being lifted bodily and saw a glimpse of pink as her rear raised itself off the floor, the only hoof still in contact with the ground being the one with the paw on. “Wuh, hey, what gives?” she protested loudly, although finding herself dropped a moment later into all four paws as Pinkie started dragging Rainbow’s tail through the hole in the back of the suit, completely ignoring Rainbow’s protests.
Then Pinkie let go of Rainbow’s tail, leaving her free to try and turn around to see what had happened to it, only to trip and fall over Pinkie as she held one of Rainbow’s legs tightly.
Once Rainbow was on the floor and groaning slightly, Pinkie smiled once more and started tying each paw to the respective sleeve.
Rainbow lifted her head from the floor blearily and looked around at her surroundings again, seeking out the pink menace that had dropped her. After looking around her and finding no sign of the pony, she groaned, shutting her eyes and getting back to her hooves, wings shifting restlessly under the suit as she sat back against her haunches.
She opened her eyes to see Pinkie dragging what looked like a large curtain from a closet, hiding something from view. She carefully wheeled it over to where Rainbow was still sat, looking at Pinkie curiously. Eventually Pinkie brought it to a stop just in front of Rainbow, the curtains facing her as she looked questioningly at Pinkie who just smiled and pulled a cord at the side, opening the curtains and revealing the mirror behind.
Within the mirror, there sat a… well, a purple rabbit for want of a better description.
Rainbow could see the purple paws and the purple body and the purple and lilac ears, she could also see her own cerulean blue face poking out of the suit along with a generous tuft of her hair. Turning around slightly revealed the finishing touch, her tail had been rolled, scrunched, twisted and manipulated into the tight ball befitting the outfit she wore. The only difference being that this tail had all seven colours of the rainbow.
“And remember,” Pinkie said, oddly serious and breaking Rainbow from her reverie, “If it becomes too much, then you can stop.”
Rainbow nodded absent-mindedly, she wouldn’t fail, that was for losers, she wasn’t a loser. Still… she gulped audibly as she looked at the ‘rabbit’, already hoping that it’d rain and no-pony would be out to see her.
“Now let’s go and have some fun!” Pinkie shouted, poking her head out from behind the mirror, now wearing a suit identical to Rainbow’s save for the colour, lilac and white instead.
Rainbow blinked, she was sure she’d been staring at herself for less than a few seconds, “Pinkie… how?” she started, before Pinkie just giggled and hopped in place.
“I got changed silly, now come on, you have to help me today remember.”
Rainbow sighed to herself, “Alright… fine, let’s get going then,” she said, hoping against hope that the skies would have darkened and brought the rainy day she so desired in the time she’d spent upstairs.
Sadly that wasn’t the case. After finding that the lower floor was completely blocked by the scroll of untold proportions, the two made for the window instead, letting themselves out and from there onto a nearby cart and onto the street.
Thankfully for Rainbow, there was no-one about yet, the streets completely empty for now as Ponyville continued to wake up. She breathed a sigh of relief before realising that Pinkie had already started bouncing towards the park, still facing Rainbow as she waited for her, “Come on silly, we don’t have all day, well we do, but I want to make the most of it as possible!”
Rainbow just nodded and started running to catch up with her friend, already condemning herself to being the laughing stock of the town for the day.
She caught up quickly enough, then asked, “So what are we doing today anyway?”
“Well…” Pinkie said before taking a deep breath, still bouncing along merrily, “We’re going to be going around and planning an Easter egg hunt for all the foals in Ponyville and for any of the adults that want to come along too, it’s going to be so much fun, they’re going to be like ‘Where’re all the eggs?’ and we’ll be like ‘Here’s a clue, you’ll find an egg there, you’ll also find an egg if you go and look at Fluttershy’s coop, but you’ll only find non-chocolate eggs there.’”
Rainbow kept walking, looking at Pinkie, “So we’re running an Easter egg hunt? Sounds interesting I suppose, anything else while we’re at it?”
Pinkie shook her head, causing Rainbow to duck as the unruly mane almost smacked her in the head, “Nope, that’s all, it’s a full day activity after all, and that’s why it’s called the Easter Egg Day Hunt”
Rainbow nodded, “Alright, so we need to set the eggs up, right?”
“No silly, I already set them up last night so we could spend the whole day hunting for them, then I told everyone I know that the hunt was going to start in five minutes from the park.”
Rainbow gulped. At least she had her answer for where everypony was.
“Erm Pinkie… just how many ponies are we talking?” She asked nervously, her reputation hanging in the balance.
Pinkie stopped for a moment causing Rainbow to do so a moment later, “Well let’s see,” Pinkie started, tapping a hoof to her chin, “We have Archer, Rumble, Snips, Snails, Featherweight, Twist, Pipsqueak, Bloo, Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara, Dinky Doo, Silver Spoon, Berry Pinch and Sweetie Belle I think… don’t know about any of the adult ponies, I think they’ll just turn up with their foals.”
Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh and Scootaloo too, how did I forget her?” Pinkie mused out loud, already bouncing towards the park again as Rainbow stood stock-still, her relieved breath long gone.
Muttering darkly under her breath, she started after Pinkie again, telling herself that it would all be over in a day, she just had to endure the taunting and the teasing and the laughter. She knew she could back out any time she wanted, but that wasn’t an option for her, she would find out what Twilight’s secret was… even if it ruined her reputation for the next year and a half, she’d find out…
Twilight’s secret had better not be something stupid like not following the decimal system in the library or something.
Rainbow gulped and headed after Pinkie Pie, still bouncing happily along towards a group of around thirty ponies, all waiting patiently by the lake in the middle of the park. She broke into a sprint, lamenting the loss of her wings as she sped after her companion, reaching her just shy of the group.
Pinkie turned, offering Rainbow a quick smile before turning back to the group at large and producing a megaphone from a bush next to them. “Hello everypony and welcome to the Easter Egg Day Hunt!” she yelled down the megaphone, causing some of the foals stood at the front to drift backwards against the noise. “Are you all ready to go and hunt for the evil lord Donkey?” she asked the gathered ponies who all looked back in varying states of confusion, weary acceptance and blown-back mane-styles.
Rainbow leant across to Pinkie, tapping her on the shoulder and whispering “It’s the Easter eggs they’re hunting Pinkie.”
Pinkie turned to Rainbow, her mouth open with a gasp and megaphone still clutched to her mouth, “What? You mean the evil Easter eggs right?”
Rainbow cringed as her own mane and floppy ears were blown back against her head, resigning herself to nodding slightly to assuage Pinkie’s doubts.
The megaphone cut a path back towards the ponies gathered there, “Alright, who’s ready to go and hunt the evil Easter eggs?” it yelled to a chorus of cheers, whoops and a few tired smiles.
Within the cheering group, three fillies talked amongst themselves animatedly.
“So who’d ya think is gonna get more eggs?” the small yellow filly asked her two comrades, a pearly white unicorn and an orange pegasus.
“Obviously me, I mean the eggs are just going to fall into my hooves,” Replied the orange one, exuding confidence as Sweetie Belle, the unicorn next to her, snorted.
“Along with your ego?”
Scootaloo growled under her breath, only to stop when a much larger Orange pony in a stetson joined them within the throng along with an alabaster unicorn who sported an expertly styled mane.
Sweetie Belle immediately perked up, bouncing over to her sister and giving her a hug as Applebloom simply opted for hopping up onto Applejacks back, each sharing their own private greetings with their family.
Scootaloo scoffed and turned back to where Pinkie was stood with her assistant.
“Applejack?” Scootaloo asked, not turning away.
“Aye sugarcube?” came the accented reply.
“Is that Rainbow Dash standing next to Pinkie over there?”
Applejack’s brow creased as she came to stand next to Scootaloo, her expression turning slack a moment later. Applebloom on the other hoof, scrambled up her sisters neck, hanging around her ears as she yelled across the gathered ponies, “Hey Rainbow Dash? Is that you?”
All four ponies cringed slightly as Applebloom shouted, causing Rarity and Sweetie Belle to make their way over to the others.
Then again, if they were cringing, then Rainbow Dash probably wanted to sink down into a hole somewhere and hide for the rest of the month. She offered a grim smile and a small wave to the calling ponies, carefully avoiding Applejack’s and Rarity’s eyes.
“Well I’ll be damned…” Applejack murmured quietly to herself, “So it is.” After a moment, a smirk broke out onto her face, there were few enough events that Applejack got to rib Rainbow about, this one was just too perfect to pass up.
For now though, she’d sit and wait as Pinkie lifted the megaphone again, “Alright everypony, I’ve hidden eggs all over Ponyville, does every team have their riddle-me-dee sheets?”
The same chorus of cheers, agreements and nodding passed through the crowd.
“Alrighty then, the first team back with an egg from each spot with all their questions answered wins the super fantastic secret prize to be revealed later. On your marks, get set, go!” Almost immediately, the shout was lost in the almighty scramble to be the first team on the move.
Rainbow waited for a minute to let the dust settle, eventually revealing just her, Pinkie and amazingly Fluttershy and Spike.
“Fluttershy?” Rainbow sputtered, looking at her in barely-concealed amazement, “What are you doing here?”
Fluttershy squeaked, flinching back before looking at Rainbow directly, “Rainbow? Is that you?” she asked timidly, peering at the face in the bunny suit.
Rainbow sighed, looking at the floor, “Yes Shy… It’s me.”
Fluttershy looked down. Then she looked up again, then a bit further up.
“Yes, yes, I’m dressed as a rabbit, you can get the laughter out the way now,” Rainbow snapped, glaring daggers at Fluttershy who shrunk back.
Evidently she still had some courage left in her, “Um… I was going to say that it looks really nice on you Rainbow,” She all-but whispered.
Rainbow fixed Fluttershy with a glare before snorting and asking again, “So what are you doing here anyway?”
“Oh, Pinkie asked me to come and treat anypony who hurts themselves over the day,” Fluttershy replied, gesturing to the bag that Spike was clutching to his chest, a green affair with a white cross on the middle.
Rainbow glanced briefly at Spike, “Well that explains one thing anyway, Where’s Twilight anyway, she’s the only one who isn’t here by the looks of things,” And under her breath she muttered, “I expected her to come and see what she’s accomplished anyway.”
She broke herself from her reverie just in time to hear Spike start speaking, “Twilight? She left early this morning, something about going to think for a while, haven’t seen her since. Also she mentioned that Pinkie Pie might have a day planner of hers and if so then she said not to open it.”
Rainbow glanced towards Pinkie Pie, “Yeah… slightly too late for that, it’s currently filling up the lower floor of Sugarcube Corner,” Rainbow said, turning back to Spike, “Speaking of which, how-”
“Magic,” Spike interrupted, leaving it at that.
Rainbow shrugged before turning back to Pinkie again, “So what am I doing anyway Pinkie?”
Pinkie smiled at Rainbow and jumped forwards, spinning her on the spot and halting her with a yank, leaving Rainbow incredibly dizzy and looking at ten baskets arranged in two rows. She shook her head slightly to clear it before looking questioningly at Pinkie.
“You’re going to be the Question-Master-Egg-Counterer Pony,” Pinkie said with unmatched enthusiasm as Rainbow let out a groan.
“So I’m meant to stand here all day, count eggs and check questions?” she asked, already contemplating napping.
“Yep, and you’ll have us three with you all day too, it’s going to be so much fun!” Pinkie shouted, hopping again, “We can play Eye-Spy, Pin the tail on the tree, spot the cloud, truth or dare, monopoly and so many more games, just thinking about it is making my head explode,” she eventually concluded, falling flat on her back and looking up at the sky.
“Hey look, that cloud looks like a tree.”
As Fluttershy and Spike looked up in polite interest, Rainbow put a hoof to her head and sighed, so much for sleep.
Most of the day passed with barely a whisper in the breeze, Rainbow was kept awake thanks to the incessant efforts from Pinkie as she ‘entertained’ the three of them with numerous games of Eye-Spy and pin the tail on the Dash. Rainbow hadn’t been a fan of that last one.
After a particularly difficult game of Eye-Spy, courtesy of Fluttershy who’d seen a Lesser-spotted-Woodpecker that had kept all of them guessing, the first team arrived back as the sun started its way down to the horizon.
Within moments, Pinkie was stood at the front of the baskets with a wide grin as the first pair approached. As it turned out, it was Rarity and Sweetie Belle, the former running ragged as she approached the table, Sweetie Belle huffing and puffing as she fought to catch up with her deranged sister.
“Hiya Rarity,” Pinkie greeted, only for Rarity to shoot past her and race for the sixth spot, rapidly dumping a basket with a fair amount of eggs and a small sheet inside. Sweetie Belle slowed down as she reached the gathered ponies, starting to totter on her hooves before falling over sideways, breathing deeply as she attempted to catch her breath.
Fluttershy immediately started forwards, accompanied by Spike who brought a bottle of water.
Rainbow looked back to Rarity who’d finished dumping everything she had into the basket, and had gone to stand next to Pinkie, a triumphant gleam in her eyes, “We’re first right? So we won?” she demanded of Pinkie who had stopped spinning and was looking at Rarity innocently.
She turned to Rainbow and said, “The Question-Master-Egg-Counterer will see about that. Count the eggs and check the questions Master Counterer.”
Rainbow sighed and made her way to the basket, sitting behind it on her haunches and glancing at the contents. Lifting out the question sheet, she decided that it would have been much easier if Pinkie had told her what the answers to the questions actually were. There were some very obscure questions on there.
‘What colour is the third fence from the right on the south-west corner of Sweet Apple Acres?’
‘What kind of tree is the library?’
‘Where can ponies go if they want a cupcake but don’t want to go to Sugarcube Corner’
Rainbow scratched her head before yelling, “Pinkie!”
The chirpy reply sounded a moment later, “Yeppers?”
“What are the answers to these?” Rainbow asked, flapping about the question paper within her hoof. Pinkie just laughed.
“Oh there are no answers silly; I just said that they had to answer the questions.”
A small tic made itself known to Rainbow as she ground her teeth slightly.
To make matters worse, Rarity finally deigned to notice her, “Rainbow- darling- I couldn’t help notice that you were wearing a bunny suit.”
Rainbow didn’t look up from the basket, “What of it?” She asked, hoping that Rarity would notice the venom dripping off the words.
She heard a barely-suppressed snort, no such luck apparently. “It just seems so… out of character for you dear, you never let me near you when I want to use you for clothing emergencies, yet you’ve allowed yourself to be dressed up as a bunny rabbit to help Pinkie?” Rarity continued between snorts that were becoming more and more noticeable.
“Yeah, yeah… laugh it up,” Rainbow muttered to herself, still not looking at Rarity as she moved away to check on her little sister. She had barely any time to mull on anything else before the next team arrived back.
This time it was a couple of ponies that Rainbow didn’t recognise, a dark-grey and a pink filly were perched on the backs of two local workponies, their eggs held within the basket that the one on the right carried. Some distance before the finishing line, the two jumped off the backs and one of them took the basket, bringing it over and depositing it at team one’s station before stepping back expectantly and looking at Pinkie, their rides, already forgotten, moved away to stand awkwardly by a bench.
The dark-grey one spoke up, “So where’s the prize?” she asked in a haughty tone, looking around for something suitably prize-like.
Pinkie put a hoof to her head as she thought, “Well I’m pretty sure that I told Big Mac to hide the prize somewhere that no-pony could find it,” She stopped and gasped, drawing stares from those who’d returned, “Oh no, maybe that means that he can’t find it either and then there’d be no prize for no-pony whatsoever! It’d be like The Worst Possible Thing, except it actually would be the Worst Possible Thing this time!”
The two fillies shared a glance before the pink filly spoke up instead, “Come on Silver Spoon, we’ll find out when she announces it,” Then the two moved away without a second glance to Rainbow or Pinkie. Rainbow shrugged, she wasn’t exactly complaining, she was just glad it wasn’t-
“Oh hey Applejack, welcome back!”
Well… not her, but Applejack was probably bad enough as it was. Rainbow looked up to see her rival approach Pinkie with Applebloom perched on top of her head still, looking around curiously. They exchanged a few words before Applejack muttered something to Applebloom, causing her to jump from Applejack to the ground below and almost-immediately start racing towards her fellow crusader. Then Applejack turned towards Rainbow, a smirk playing around her mouth as she dropped the basket she held into team four’s area.
Rainbow opted for straight-on glaring at Applejack, daring her to comment on her own appearance. Sadly it seemed that a lot of her hints were going unheard as the next thing she saw was Applejack, collapsed on the floor, and laughing her hat off.
Rainbow remained resolutely silent, fixing Applejack with her best death-glare as she continued to chortle on the ground, drawing one or two stares from the surrounding ponies.
“Done yet?” she asked icily, still glaring at her ‘friend’.
Applejack postponed her laughter for a moment to look into Rainbow’s death-glare at last. Then she smirked again and shook her head, resuming her laughter a moment later as Rainbow grit her teeth and looked away.
More and more teams were arriving back, some of them without adults and some with. Rainbow thought she recognised one or two of the adults, she definitely recognised Derpy when she landed haphazardly from above with a small foal within her ever-present mailbag.
Aside from the odd one or two though, most of them remained strangers to Rainbow, even as Pinkie greeted each and every one of them with a cheerful smile, a congratulatory hoofshake and a tangent.
‘Hiya Bloo, hope you’re not feeling blue anymore after before like that donkey I met just after I met you again, what was his name?’
One more basket was placed in the area, then another, then another. Each cycle just moulded into one. Listen to Pinkie greet another team of foals, smile wanly as the team placed their basket, carefully ignore the laughing Applejack who was attracting a lot of worried stares now.
All-in-all, Rainbow thought, today hadn’t been that bad, sure the ponies who actually knew her could see the joke in it, but aside from that, all she’d had to deal with was Pinkie’s… weird sense of humour and games, and everything else had gone brilliantly, well… she hadn’t found any reason to hide from the populous yet at least.
“Hi Scootaloo, how ya doing, didya find all the eggs? Didya? Didya?”
Pinkie’s incessant talking finally cut a path straight through Rainbow’s ears as she looked up to see her number one fan standing by herself in front of a bouncing Pinkie Pie.
Just like the others, she carefully made her way around the snorting Applejack and headed towards Rainbow and the rest of the baskets. After dropping her own basket into the rapidly declining number of spaces, she looked up at Rainbow who closed her eyes, bracing herself for more laughter.
“What’s up with Applejack?”
Rainbow opened her eyes to see Scootaloo looking back towards Applejack, now being dragged away quietly by Fluttershy and Rarity, both of whom were trying very hard not to look at the giggling mess within their hooves.
Rainbow blinked before turning back to Scootaloo, “Probably too much time outdoors,” she said conclusively.
“What’s with the suit?” Scootaloo asked, looking up at the ensemble.
Rainbow just shrugged, trying very carefully not to stress herself out as she thought of the perfect excuse, “Pinkie Pie,” she replied with some finality.
“Oh…” Scootaloo said, “Well, nice seeing you anyway,” she finished, then walked away, joining the crowd of expectantly waiting ponies, all chatting amongst one another, leaving Rainbow to thank her lucky stars that that hadn’t turned out worse.
A little later, after the final team arrived back at the park, Pinkie took the stage again, clasping the megaphone to her mouth, “Everypony here? Excellent!” came the amplified shout from the megaphone, causing some more foals to duck behind their parents, only re-emerging when they were sure they weren’t going to get blown off their hooves.
“After going through all the baskets and notes and eggs, the Question-Master-Egg-Coutnerer and me decided that you all did so well that you’re all getting a free Easter cake from Sugarcube corner tomorrow,” Pinkie had to pause for a moment to let the wild cheering die down as many of the foals started whooping.
“But the winner of the super-fantastic-secret prize… was team Sweetie-Belle!”
“Yes!” the loud shriek caused many of the gathered ponies to jump backwards quite suddenly as Rarity shot forwards from the crowd, coming to a halt right in front of Pinkie Pie, Sweetie Belle bringing up the rear and panting slightly. “So what’s the prize, tell me, tell me!” she demanded of Pinkie, bouncing up and down on her hooves slightly and completely oblivious to the snickers she was drawing from the crowd.
Pinkie just kept smiling and turned towards the lake, calling through the megaphone again, “Bring the prize Master-Prize-Pony.”
Rainbow looked around, confused, then spun around again as someone spoke up, “Ah’m here Pinkie,” Big Mac emerged from the back of the crowd and trotted over to Pinkie and Rarity.
“Thanks Mackie, here’s your prize team Sweetie Belle, your very own egg-factory,” Pinkie exclaimed, still through the microphone as Sweetie Belle was blasted back somewhat. Rarity on the other hoof, stayed stock-still, staring at the prize.
“It’s a chicken,” she deadpanned, looking at Pinkie accusingly, “I thought you said it was going to be a ‘Super fantastic’ prize.”
Pinkie just kept smiling, “Yep, you get your own egg-factory, what could be better than that?”
Rarity's ear flicked.
Sadly, any further argument was discouraged when the chicken, perched happily on Big Mac’s back for most of the day, spotted a much better nest on the top of a walking white post.
Rarity's scream followed her all the way out the park along with the rest of the competitors who all wished Pinkie Pie and Rainbow a good night, thanks for the egg hunt, we’ll see you tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera. Rainbow kept her smile fixed until the last pony left the park and the sun met the horizon.
“Alright Pinkie, you’ve had your fun, so tell me what the damn secret was?” Rainbow asked, turning towards Pinkie as she waited impatiently for the answer.
“Oh that? Twilight said that Ponyville hill east is a really good stargazing place and that she went there a lot to think about things,” Pinkie rattled off.
Rainbow thought for a second, then set off at a run towards the hill, leaving Pinkie Pie waving merrily after her as the moon started its ascent up to the sky.
It didn’t take an idiot to figure that one out; Rainbow only hoped that Pinkie’s classification of a day wouldn’t have caused Twilight to leave already. She tried to increase her speed, growling under her breath at Pinkie’s disregard for helping her out of the suit, wings would make this much easier.
Eventually, the hill started to rise up in front of her, but having no idea which way was which, she continued straight up the hill, heading for the top. She reasoned that once she was up there, she’d be able to see wherever Twilight was down each face.
Of course, that meant she had to get to the top of the hill in the first place, and after a day of Pinkie’s antics, she was already bone-tired, climbing the hill by virtue of grit and determination alone. She wouldn’t give up here though, she’d make it to the top of the hill, see if she could see Twilight or not, then go if she wasn’t there.
As it turned out, she wasn’t. Rainbow stood, panting on the top of the hill, looking out all around her down the slopes, looking for the patch of Lavender fur which would foretell her friend… yet she didn’t see it. She did see a patch, halfway down one of the sides, where all the grass had been flattened, the reeds snapped and the flowers crushed or picked.
She made her way carefully down there, trudging on leaden hooves as she moved past the deserted hill.
She stopped a few paces from the grass, looking down in defeat. She’d been too late, Twilight had already gone home. She probably thought that Rainbow had given up earlier that day, Rainbow could hardly blame her, she’d come close to doing so a fair few times. Still, it sucked.
She sighed, sitting down against the grass and laying back, filling the imprint that Twilight had presumably left. Maybe… maybe there was something else to the secret she told Pinkie, what was it again?
‘Ponyville hill east is a really good stargazing spot; I come here to think sometimes.’
Or something like that anyway. She sighed again and looked up at the night sky, the moon barely clearing the horizon yet. There were so many stars… she’d never been one for stargazing, not openly anyway and not much. But still… there were stars as far as the eye could see, stretching out in every direction.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
Rainbow jumped, scrambling back from the voice and landing in a heap a moment later. She looked up to see Twilight laid there, as if she’d always been, looking up at the stars.
“Twilight?”
Instead of answering, Twilight’s horn started to glow softly and a moment later, the suit Rainbow had been wearing was gone, leaving her tail to explode out again and her wings free to stretch. Rainbow sighed in relief as she shook herself, flapping her wings once or twice to get the feeling back into them. Twilight patted the ground next to her again, turning to look at Rainbow and smiling softly at her.
Rainbow sighed and joined Twilight, laying back into the cool grass again and looking at the sky. Twilight repeated herself.
“The sky? I’ve… never really thought of it like that, it’s the sky, it’s always been there. Twi… what was today about?”
Twilight ignored her, “It makes me feel small when I think about it, Celestia explained it to me once, if you look at an empty patch in the sky, it’s not actually empty, it’s filled three-times over with stars that we can’t quite see because they’re too far away” she continued in an almost awe-inspired voice.
“Twilight?” Rainbow asked, slightly worried by how introspective Twilight was being.
“It’s a pretty good analogy for ponies actually, if you think about it for a while. How everyone has hidden depths, brimming with untapped knowledge and potential, I prefer it to the old one of you can’t judge a book by its cover, much more scientific.”
Twilight paused before continuing, “But then… would the pony be able to see into their hidden depths themselves? That’s what makes this analogy much better. I think I’ve found the answer for that anyway.”
Rainbow waited expectantly, just opting for letting Twilight get it over with. Then again, she was actually understanding what Twilight was saying for once, so she wasn’t about to complain.
“We don’t see what we hide until we look for it, that was a little bit what today was about I suppose, whether you were willing to look for the secret I gave to Pinkie.”
“So today was just an experiment?” Rainbow asked, confused.
Twilight looked across at Rainbow, “Sort of, I can see why you’d think that… but it sort of was but wasn’t. Sorry for making you endure today by the way. But you did… why?” She asked, fixing rainbow with an open stare.
Rainbow shifted restlessly under the stare, looking back up at the sky in an effort to evade Twilight’s gaze. “Well… for one thing, I suppose I was curious about it, I mean, you really do know how to make me wonder, I’ll give you that.”
“But why did you continue through the whole day? I doubt curiosity is that powerful?” Twilight interjected.
Rainbow paused before answering, she wasn’t too sure herself. After a little while, she just shrugged and answered “I wanted to find out what the secret was.”
Twilight breathed out a heavy sigh before turning back up to the stars, “That’s fair enough I suppose; maybe I don’t give curiosity enough credit. So did you still want to find out that secret?”
“But… wasn’t that what Pinkie told me earlier, that this was the secret?” Rainbow asked, confused.
Twilight just looked at her with a slight smile, “I suppose that was one secret, yes. But not the one I’m talking about now. So… would you like to hear it?” she asked again.
“Is this something to do with what you mentioned earlier… that stuff about hidden depths, you said that was only one of the reasons for today?” Rainbow replied, trying to figure out just what it was Twilight was getting at.
Twilight just smiled and replied quietly, “Yes… I suppose so. I said everypony has hidden depths and that no-pony knows quite how deep those depths are until they go and look?” Twilight paused, waiting for Rainbow to nod before continuing, “Well I’ve been looking into my own depths lately, and… well… I…” Twilight’s voice mumbled off into silence, leaving behind the eerie quiet of the hillside.
“You…” Rainbow hinted, confused.
“I think that…” Twilight started again before her voice tailed off into incoherent mumbles.
Rainbow snorted, giggling slightly, “You think that you’ve turned into Fluttershy?” she said in-between fits of laughter.
Twilight ground her teeth and muttered “Oh screw it,” before rolling over onto Rainbow and pinning her to the ground within her hooves, then while she still had the upper-hoof, she leant in and kissed the suddenly-silent Rainbow lightly on the mouth.
The kiss lasted for less than five seconds, and Twilight made sure to quickly disentangle herself from Rainbow, sitting back on the slope again and worriedly facing the still-prone Dash.
“Rainbow?” Twilight said hesitantly after Rainbow kept lying flat on the ground, refusing to move.
Rainbow suddenly leant herself up on her forehooves, looking at Twilight with an expression of wonderment, “But- you-“
“That’s what I found,” Twilight interrupted her, not quite meeting her eyes, “I’ll… understand if you want to leave, if that wasn’t what you found,” she continued quietly, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere to the right of Rainbow.
Rainbow paused for another moment before standing and moving next to Twilight, laying a foreleg around her shoulders and hugging her close. “Everything’s going to be fine,” she whispered, trying to reassure her. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”