This chapter is dedicated to Doctor Whooves.

1971–1965

He will have been a great pony.

“What?” Pinkie said. “I’m on? Um, as you can see here, unless you’re reading the text version, in which case you can’t see here, I’m playing an online game called 4tress 4mers. I’m 4tifying my 4t 4 attacks from lastusername’s 4est. Did you know that 4tify 4 and 4tify against mean the same thing? Choices 4tw!”

“That’s in4mative and all,” camerapony #4 said, “But your contract says you need to do stuff 4 us.”

“Fine. I guess I’ll confess to Zecora.”

“Didn’t you say you were over her? And you said it with so much finality, too. It would be alienating to the viewers if you loved her again.”

“Well, you know what they say: all toasters toast toast. Um, I mean love works in mysterious ways. Yeah, that’s the 1 I was looking 4. That really took me 2 long. Can I just tell her, though? I feel like it would be better to deceive her into doing something with me. If the point of this is to be interesting so I can keep my job—” Pinkie suddenly froze for four seconds. “Um, sorry, I just had a flashback to chapter 7. Anyway, if the point is to be entertaining, I need to trick her into something, then break down and confess later on. But make it look real. Wait a minute, I’ll feel so bad about doing it to her that I’ll feel guilty anyway! There’s no way this can go wrong! Fuck, now it’ll go wrong. Oh well, I’m doin’ it anyway. But b4 I do anything else, I 4most need to injure myself so it’ll seem like that’s why I came there.”

Pinkie went downstairs. It was 4:44 PM on December 4, which meant nothing special. She went into the kitchen 2 c Cup Cake.

“Hi,” Pinkie said.

“Hello.”

“What type of actions are you currently per4ming?”

“Baking some cupcakes.”

“That’s, like, all you eat. How do you not gain weight?”

“I don’t know....”

“And even if you don’t gain weight, that’s not a very balanced diet.”

“It’s not important.” Although it will become important when (spoilers) she dies of a heart attack when she’s forty-four.

“Anyway, do you have a reasonably sharp knife?”

“There’s a cake one there, why?”

“I need to stab myself.”

“What?”

“I need to stab myself.”

Cup Cake walked more closely to Pinkie to make the conversation more dramatic. Well, I don’t know if she meant 4 that 2 h4ppen, but that’s the effect it had. “Why do you feel like you need to do that?”

“Because I need to go to Zecora’s 4 something.”

“Oh. I thought you were depressed or something. Can’t you just walk over there?”

“I don’t want her to feel like I’m coming over there 4 no reason. She generally likes to be alone.”

“Well, you shouldn’t hurt yourself.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Just go over there and do whatever it is you need to do. You shouldn’t hurt yourself.”

“Okay, if you think she won’t be mad at me....”

“You’ll be fine.”

And so Pinkie did the arduous journey to Zecora. Knock-knock!

“Who is it?”

“Pinkie Pie.”

Zecora opened the door. “How are you hurt?”

“I’m not.”

Zecora slammed the door, only for Pinkie to open it again.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” Pinkie said.

“What?”

“Are you hungry?”

“No. Why would you ask me that?”

“Because I got a couple coupons 4 25% off at Amicable’s and they’re going to exπre today. It doesn’t matter, though, I 4got them anyway.”

“You came over here to tell me you forgot a couple coupons?”

“No. I came here and then realised it.”

“Why would you want to bring me anyway? Do you secretly love me?”

Pinkie froze up for a second. “Noooooooooooooooo... why would you even suggest that? That’s just ↓→ creepy.”

“Maybe in a couple hours, we can go.”

“Really? That’s awesome! I mean, um, why would you want to go with me when you just asked about why I’d want to go with you? You’re going to drug my drink and rape me.”

“I just want to know how you chose me for this.”

“Because... obviously... I don’t get to spend enough time with you. I’d like to be with—well, not be with, but see—you in a situation that doesn’t involve me with three fourths of my legs.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it? Why are you so happy to do this? Don’t you like being alone?”

“I don’t have anything to do, so I might as well.”

“Do you secretly love me? Maybe you’re just attracted to me. I mean, the only reason you’d do this is to—”

“Pinkie Pie, if I wanted to drug and rape you, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

“But I obviously wouldn’t remember and you wouldn’t get caught by anypony, so I bet you’ve done it already.”

“You know, if you think that’s what I’m going to do, then we don’t have to go.”

“No, no, we should. We will. I’ll go and get the coupons right now.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you at Sugarcube Corner in a couple of hours.”

“Sounds well. See you then.”

“Bye.”

Pinkie went back to Sugarcube Corner. Un4tunately 4 her, she had completely made up the coupons, and so she went to the Amicable’s site (she tried amicables.com, which turned out to be a Japanese wire company, then she looked it up on Google), desperately hoping there was something resembling coupons on it. There was not, however, so after four minutes of panickedly trying to think of something, she thought to look in the newspaper. Then she remembered that all of the newspapers that ever served Ponyville went out of business years ago and the mail workload was reduced so much that the mailpony got replaced with a retarded mentally challenged pony who was willing (and now able) to do the job for lower wages.

“Okay, Pinkie,” she told herself, “Don’t panic. Panicking never improves anything. Remember that time you panicked because you thought the best way to persuade Zecora to do something was to lie to her and she found out and you lost her forever? Wait, that’s now! Shit! Um, okay, focus. Focus. Focus....” She took a few deep breaths. “Okay. That was calming down instead of focussing, but it still worked. What to do, what to do....” Even after saying that, she didn’t come up with anything. “Um... I don’t know what to do. What sources of coupons could possibly be left?”

Of course, this wouldn’t’ve been a problem if Pinkie used Groupon! Groupon: it’s groupalicious.

“I don’t know what to do. I’ll have to tell her. She’s going to kill me. I’m going to die. She could brew something up and kill me if she wanted to. I should just tell her. It’s the right thing to do.”

Two uneventful hours passed until Zecora entered Sugarcube Corner. Well, she tried to enter, but it was closed.

“Well, this is inconvenient,” Zecora said. She banged loudly on the doors.

“L-fuculokinase,” Pinkie said. “That’s probably Zecora. I’ll have to tell her. Fuckminsterfullerene.”

She ran downstairs and 4wards to the door.

“I’ll be back,” Pinkie said. “Wait here.”

That time she wasn’t lying, as came back with a key in her mouth, and subsequently applied said key in order to unlock the door.

“Hello,” Zecora said.

“Hi. Look, I’m sorry, I mean I’m really sorry, but I lied to you. There are no coupons.”

“Why would you lie to me?”

“Because I love you.”

“You love everybody, what’s y—”

“No, in a romantic way. I was trying to trick you into a date. I’m so sorry, I should’ve just told you, but I was afraid that you’d just reject me immediately and I’d need to trick you for me to get an actual chance. I’m sorry, I wish I hadn’t done any of that, and I know that’s what sorry means, but I’m sorry.”

“I can’t believe you’d do that.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I feel really bad. I mean, I love you, and this is how I treated you. If there’s anything I can do 4 you to 4give me, I’ll do it.”

“You said you were over me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said... I lied. So to summarise, I love you, I lied to you, and I really regret lying to you and I’ll do anything.”

“Well, love can make you do stupid things, and I like to tell myself I’m forgiving....”

“I was trying to not lose my job again. Like I’ve said before, I’m really not that confident in Sugarcube Corner’s ability to not metaphorically explode right now, so that sort of swayed my decision away from just telling you... so... will you give me a chance?”

“No.”

“Come on, we can still go. I’ll pay for everything. Free food!”

“May I abuse this promise by ordering more expensive food than what I would normally get?”

“Anything you want.”

“I thought you were in reasonably dire straits with your money.”

“That’s one of the points, I love you so much that I’m doing it anyway.”

“Well, I suppose I won’t turn down an offer of free food if I can abuse it.”

“You’ll be too moral to abuse it anyway.”

“We’ll see.”

So if we just skip to right outside the res—the fic is not under acceleration for Faust’s sakes! Um, okay, right outside the restaurant, when stuff started happening again....

“Are you all right?” Zecora said, saying “all right” instead of “okay” to seem sophisticated even though her company was Pinkie Pie.

“Yeah, do I not look like it?”

“You seem content, which by your standards is melancholic.”

“I’m fine.”

Pinkie was so distracted by talking that she walked into the door.

“Fuck,” Pinkie said.

“We’re going into a restaurant with a high concentration of foals, you know.”

“I know.”

“So just be care—”

“I will.”

And so they made it to the front thing and got seated. You want detail? Too bad. You know, back in my day, if we wanted detail, we had to walk ten kilometres uphill through snow, get the detail ourselves, then walk ten kilometres back uphill to get back home. We lived on Penrose stairs. But kids these days just get spoon-fed detail without havin’ to work for it. Um, anyway, they got seated. I think they ordered water, too, I was paying more attention to my rant.

“I wish I had had the 4sight to 4mulate a plan that didn’t involve lying to you,” Pinkie said.

“It’s okay, we’re still friends.”

“Seriously, I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already apologised and subsequently been forgiven.”

“I have been? I didn’t sound very 4given b4.”

“Well, you are. It’s okay that you were a little shy about telling me, I just wish you didn’t lie.”

“I know, that was stupid... I just really want to spend some time with you so I can know about whether I should make a big deal of pursuing you or not.”

“Like you said, you wish you had done something else. You don’t have to keep apologising for it.”

“Why do you have to be so nice about it? You’re making me feel guilty.”

“I thought that’s what the abusable food offer was for.”

“That was to get you to come here. I still feel like a jerk.”

“Well, don’t. I understand that you didn’t want to just come up to me and say you loved me.”

“That’s what I should’ve done, though. It would’ve been sudden and awkward, sure, but it would’ve been better than lying to you.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“I will beat myself up over it.” Pinkie took her butter knife and poked herself in the spleen.

“If you really want to punish yourself, I can make something for you later.”

“Thanks.”

Other ponies talking in the background, during which a waitress came by to deliver water and pose a very important question:

“Are you ponies—um, pony and zebra ready to order?”

“We haven’t even looked at our menus yet,” Pinkie said.

“Okay. I’ll get back to you in another couple of minutes.”

“thx”

And so she left for the next table.

“Should we actually look at the menus?” Zecora said.

“It’ll seem weird if she comes by again and we still haven’t decided.”

“That’s why we should decide what food we want?”

“Yes.”

They looked at their menus, and their menus looked at them. Everything went quiet as they calmly went over one of the hardest, not to be confused with most important, decisions in both of their lives. Remember that time you wanted to see a couple of the characters read restaurant menus for five minutes? Then let’s move on.

“I decided,” Pinkie said, “So now we can talk again.”

“We could’ve talked anyway.”

“Well, that’s behind us. We have to look toward the future.”

“I haven’t decided yet, so if it really takes that much concentration, we still can’t talk.”

“Fine. It’s not like I can go back on it now.”

Meanwhile, Spike was sleeping and Twilight was watching him. Wait, by Spike, I mean Rainbow. And by him, I mean her, obviously. Spike was sleeping, though, that much is still true.

“You’re getting that really expensive thing in the corner, aren’t you?” Pinkie said.

“That saffron bread soup?”

“Yeah.”

“Good idea.”

“I h8 you.”

“Then I guess the whole finding out whether you love me thing is settled.”

“You know what I mean, it’s meta4ical. I just didn’t expect you to actually get the una4dable stuff.”

“So you don’t actually—”

“No, I do love you enough to spend a bunch of money on you, I just didn’t expect you to actually make me do it.”

“But you are still willing to do it.”

“Yeah.”

“Even though I’m obviously not interested in you?”

“I’ll take that risk.”

After another conversation, mostly involving agreeing with each other about politics, the waitress came by just as Pinkie was about to say something unintentionally racist.

“hav u decided on ur orderz” said the waitress, different from the previous one.

“im geting the grillt cheese,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Terrible choice. And you?”

“The Xtreme Saffron Bread Soup® with Xtra generic Xpensive Xotic plant.”

“Mediocre. I’ll be back with half the table’s food in a slightly long time.”

“Coolioseroni,” Pinkie said.

And so the waitress disappeared into thin air since she was a unicorn.

“I like pie,” Pinkie said.

“I like tau.”

“You’re a tauist?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe I ever thought I liked you.”

“Call me about that when you can’t remember if that formula was π or 2π.”

“Call me when you have to work with half τ. I mean, two is much less troublesome to work with than half.”

“I’m not saying we have to exclusively use pi or tau, I’m just saying we replace 2π with τ.”

“And leave single pi alone?”

“Yes.”

Pinkie didn’t respond.

“Is there anything you want to say?” Zecora said.

“Appeal to tradition.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Pinkie’s food was delivered.

“So now that you tricked me into this date—” Zecora said.

“I didn’t trick you. I lied to you, I confessed, I apologised and offered apology food, and you took it. When did I trick you?”

“When you lied to me. Our entire relationship is based upon a lie.”

“Maybe I’ll just leave right now.”

“Amicable’s isn’t expensive enough for you to storm out of it and look like the mature one.”

“Dammit, you’re right.”

Silence but for the clinks of stainless steel on... plate.

“You should actually eat your food,” Zecora said.

Pinkie took a bite of her clichély triangular grilled cheese sandwich.

“Cheer up,” Zecora commanded.

“No.”

“You’re Pinkie Pie. It’s OOC of you to be unhappy.”

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not constantly on massive amounts of antidepressants so I can be what my friends expect me to be.”

An ellipsis from Zecora! This could be it!

“Anything you wanna say?” Pinkie said.

“You win.”

Pinkie triumphantly took a bite of her sandwich.

After an acrimonious argument about an aviation academy arguably (accordingly, actualising an argument) acting amateurish and amoral, Zecora’s food arrived. Was delivered, rather. It didn’t get there itself.

“That appears as an amazing aliment,” Pinkie said.

“You know that word?”

“It’s actually a... an atypical... anecdote.”

“You’re making me feel like I should rhyme again.”

“You should.”

Zecora ate a spoonful of the soup.

“That’s not a response.”

“I don’t know, rhyming is so much trouble. I still do it when I’m working on ponies I don’t know that well.”

“Yeah, but that’s the only reason you’re loved. I mean, sure, you’ve saved all our lives and stuff, but the rhyming is what’s really memorable about you.”

“So is that why you love me?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Pinkie took a bite of her sandwich.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Mm-mm.”

“You can’t think of any reason.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Nothing.”

Pinkie swallowed her food. “I think it’s for around the same reason you love Fluttershy.”

“Then why can’t you just love Fluttershy?”

Beat.

“Oh Faust,” Zecora said, “That’s weird.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I’m flattered, but I don’t love you.”

“Just wait until dessert when you get another expensive thing.”

And so some eating, including Pinkie Pie using the soup which came with her grilled cheese, something which she got a creepily high level of satisfaction out of.

“i don’t have much 2 say,” Pinkie said, about two thirds of the way through her sandwich, “But I feel like I should say something just ‘cause it’s been a while since we’ve talked.”

“Is there any more alliteration you’d like to do?”

“I think I’ll 4go that 4 the rest of the night.”

“Sounds good.”

“What if I didn’t 4go it?”

“That would also sound good.”

“So it really doesn’t matter to you.”

“It really doesn’t matter. Should it?”

“Well, no, but... y’know... it just seems like a cool thing to do something like that.”

“You’re not suddenly about to use some gimmick in your speech, are you?”

“Well, maybe, if you want me to....”

“Why would I want you to?”

“Well, I want to impress you.”

“You mean I’m shallow? Is that what you’re telling me? I’m quite insulted.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, I just... I’ll do anything to make you love me. And don’t say it’s cliché to be willing to do anything. It’s required to be a good dramatic lover. That’d be like saying it’s cliché to have an engine in a car.”

“I never said it was.”

“Sorry. I just anticipated you would.”

“No.”

She took a moment. “I’m sorry,” Pinkie said, sounding confident and satisfied with herself.

“Don’t be.”

More eating ensued, then some lines that really weren’t interesting, then the first waitress came by. “Are you ponies—pony and zebra—having dessert tonight?”

“I’ll have the Gritty Bittersweet Ending Sundae,” Pinkie said.

“Gr8. And you?”

“Um, the Rhodium Leaf Octuple Designer Chocolate Ice Cream with the Stop Pronouncing Acai Wrongly Smoothie,” Zecora said.

“Decent choice, I’ll get those out for you.”

She went off to do that.

“So do you love me yet?” Pinkie said as if the answer was going to be positive.

“No.”

“Come on. You know how much this is goin’ to cost, you can’t tell me I did all this for nothing.”

“You said you were willing to take that risk.”

“I know....”

“So shut up.”

“Fine.”

Pinkie shut up for about one minute. “Is there anything I can say to make you love me?”

“‘I have the same opinions as you, just more extreme.’.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, but that’s not to say I care.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“I thought you were haikuing.”

“No.”

“Oh. So... why do you love Fluttershy so much?”

“She’s sweet and stuff.”

“Exactly. She’s such a generic pony to love. You should love somepony fun and energetic and exciting and social.”

“That’s the opposite of Fluttershy.”

“No, the opposite of Fluttershy is Rainbow Dash. Is she fun and... wait, shit, she is those. Does that mean we should be together? Pinkiedash can’t be true.”

“I’m not saying I support it, but why not?”

“Because it would involve me changing my worldview.”

“Why does that relate to—”

“I don’t know, okay? I just... I like Rainbow, she’s a really good friend, but I don’t love her.”

“You should ask why she doesn’t love you later.”

“Well, that solves why we shouldn’t be together, but that doesn’t solve why I shouldn’t love her. There’s even kinda evidence with the pranking episode.”

“When did FiM ships care about evidence? They’re all about personalities matching up logic.”

“Still, our personalities match up. However you cut the pie, it seems like I should love her.”

“Then love her.”

“Well, I can’t just suddenly decide that I love her.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would involve a massive, sudden shift in my worldview.”

“Why does that relate to—”

“I don’t know, okay?”

The second waitress appeared with the desserts.

“ty,” Pinkie said.

“Thank you,” Zecora said.

“aisle git hte bil 4 u in a min”

“Okay,” Zecora said.

“wut”

“ok,” Pinkie said.

“o”

She went off to do that.

“Your thing looks like fancy chocolate ice cream with gold leaf on top of it,” Pinkie said.

“Your thing looks like unspecified flavour ice cream with unspecified topping,” Zecora said.

“Should we make obvious statements or eat some ice cream?”

Zecora took a sip of her smoothie.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m never going to love you when you have that attitude.”

“You weren’t going to love me anyway.”

Pinkie took a mostly whipped cream, at least by volume, bite of her sundae.

“This whole you loving me thing isn’t really working out,” she said, “But I’m still having a nice time with you. And, you know, maybe something will happen with Rainbow Dash.”

“I still like you as a friend. Really, how could anyone have any opinion on you other than ‘she’s a good friend’?”

“I guess. I just wish somepony, and by pony I mean zebra, really loved me, but the same time I like how nopony really hates me.”

“I just don’t want you to take my rejection of you to mean that I don’t like you.”

“No, I understand.”

After that, I think it went nomming, uninteresting talk, nomming, references to obscure anime, nomming, then they had finished the desserts.

“Do you want to look at the bill?” Zecora said. “I know you’ve been deliberately ignoring it the whole time.”

“I guess I have to see sometime.” Pinkie looked at the paper of ultimate destiny. “Oh. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot less than I expected.”

“So you won’t starve, then?”

“I won’t starve.”

And so the relational status of Pinkie Pie and Zecora didn’t change.

But wait, there’s more! For only four easy payments of... wrong thing. Pinkie still had to go to Rainbow Dash about the love thing. Of course, she had no idea where Rainbow was, but she realised that it was nighttime so three places were possible: Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight’s house, and a cloud. She travelled to Twilight’s house under the surprisingly bright moonlight and knocked the door.

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight said as if she was slightly confused, since she was. “You’re not Rainbow, why are you at my door?”

“Do you know where Rainbow Dash is?”

“She’s here, but she’s asleep.”

“Well, I’m waiting here until she wakes up.”

“Right there or inside?”

“...Right here.”

Twilight closed the door. Five minutes later, the clouds started raining. This caused Pinkie to knock on the door again, which caused Twilight to answer it.

“Did you change your mind?” Twilight said.

“Yepperoni.”

“Well, if you make any noise, you might wake her up. And you’re all wet, so try not to touch the floor either.”

“Fine. I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

“Good.”

Twilight closed the door and Pinkie went over to a nearby tree for cover. She stayed there longer than she expected, by which I mean she stayed there for five hours, fell asleep, then woke up to find herself in Twilight’s bed. She got up and headed for the lavatory, being spotted by Twilight along the way, who got in a “hi” which was completely ignored. After lavatory stuff, she went back to Twilight.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said, not bothering to get off her monitor-facing chair.

“Where’s Rainbow?”

“She’s not with us anymore.”

“What?”

“She went to the big race flying course in the sky.”

“I can’t tell if she’s dead or not.”

“She’s alive last time I saw her.”

“Good. But she’s not here. I wanted to ask her something.”

“There’s always Facebook.”

“I guess, but it’s dramatic, so I need to do a letter at a minimum.”

“Then make a letter out to her.”

“Where’ll it get sent?”

“Sweet Apple Acres.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s happened.”

“Sounds good. I should, um, probably go to Sugarcube Corner now.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bivalve.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 150: Around the World Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 13 Minutes