Ever since electricity made its way to Equestria, Pinkie Pie had been fairly big on video games. The controllers there were necessarily different from their draconic origins, and using them was a lot more like typing than the traditional holding of the controller, but other than that, things were very much the same.

“Why is the ceiling talking about game controllers?” Pinkie Pie said. “Hey, ceiling, can you hear me? I know you can, just admit it.”

She wasn’t exactly lonely, but her need for interaction was so high that Pinkie Pie had recently had several hallucinations about a voice coming from the ceiling if she was inside, or the sky if outside, which was narrating her life. She would sometimes respond, but the voice would never explicitly enter a conversation, although it would sometimes say things heavily suggesting it heard and understood her.

“See? You know what you’re doing. Just admit it and we can have a lovely friendship.”

The Cakes knew about the things she would sometimes say when there were no customers, but they never thought that much of it; it was just Pinkie being Pinkie. She was just trying to entertain herself, like anyone would, and it wasn’t like she actually had any hallucinations, much less ones she thought were real. Right?

“I still don’t know what this whole denying yourself thing is all about. You seem to like me, or at least find me interesting, so just admit you know everything I’m saying. I want to be your friend.”

There was no response from “the ceiling” to that.

“Yes, there was. You just said ‘there was no response from “the ceiling” to that’.”

Meanwhile, the other world-saviours were reading, having sex, editing dress designs, or hosting a rambunctious drinking game party. At Fluttershy’s door was a pale blue unicorn with a white mane that almost went down to her knees and a white tail that was a few centimetres away from the ground.

“Who’s there?” Fluttershy said.

“A murderer. Are you really that paranoid?”

She opened the door. “Hello.”

“Hello, I’m baker and ice spell specialist Permafrosting. You’ll know me from such shows as ‘Permafrosting’s Gradual Elimination Baking Challenge’ and ‘Apparently She Does a House Hunting Show’, and I’m here to drown you unconscious and teleport you to a secret dungeon never to be seen again unless you do something interesting within the next ten minutes.”

“I don’t know what I could do. Do you have to take me away to a dungeon?”

“Yes. I don’t want you stuck in a dungeon either, but I should’ve looked over my contract better.”

“Well, I don’t know what I could do. My life probably wouldn’t be that interesting to other ponies.”

“It doesn’t have to be something you always do, just something violent or sexy.”

“But I’m Fluttershy.”

“If you can’t think of something interesting, you’re getting imprisoned. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Well... I could donate food to Scootaloo.”

“Sounds hood. Good. Wow, can we do that again?”

Fluttershy went upon making soup. It was all very routine, although the vanilla extract probably looked odd to non-Equestrians. She made the journey across town to Scootaloo, with a plastic bag around her neck containing a thermos, spoon, and giant hairband to hold the spoon. Houses, fences, and the occasional tree made the scene for an extremely ordinary residential area, and Scootaloo was at her typical corner, sitting beside her cardboard box against a chain-link fence, accompanied only by an empty water bottle. Fluttershy put the bag down.

“For me? Thanks, I’m starving. Literally.”

“I was threatened to do something ‘interesting’ or I’d be locked in a dungeon.”

“So you only did this because you had to?”

“Well...” she paused as Scootaloo opened the thermos, “Yes.”

“Well, I’m happy you decided to spend it on me. I’m not offended you had to do it, it probably sounded like that. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Should I stay?”

“Well, you might want these back. You don’t have to talk with me, I won’t think it’s awkward.”

Scootaloo may have been fine, her soup giving her something sufficiently distracting to do, but Fluttershy didn’t have such a thing and was forced to feel the awkwardness. She knew she had to say something to break it as she felt the air around her get thicker, but she couldn’t think of anything and didn’t even last a minute before collapsing and bursting into tears.

“Fluttershy? Are you okay?”

“It’s too much....”

“Well, that’s what happens when you spend all your time by yourself when you’re a foal and never build up a resistance to awkwardness. I mean I feel bad for you.”

“The only ponies I ever spent time with were my parents and Rainbow Dash, and our conversations never had that kind of thing often enough. I’m not blaming them, you couldn’t expect them to make things awkward on purpose. I wouldn’t have done it back then if I had known about it.”

“Yeah, you can’t. It’ll be okay, though. After all, it can only happen so many times before you start to resist it.”

“I know. I’ll be fine.” There was a brief pause. “Is the soup all right?”

“Yeah, it’s good. Almost as good as Ched-R Bitz.”

She got up. “What?”

“Ched-R Bitz: whatever we did to this milk, it’s orange now.”

“Oh, you have sponsorship.”

“They’re paying me in Ched-R Bitz.”

Later that day, Fluttershy received the news.

“Permafrosting who?”

“The same one from before.”

She opened the door. “Was I interesting enough?”

“Yep. You’re not getting thrown in a dungeon.”

“That’s good.”

“‘That’s good’? I thought you’d be a bit more excited. Anyway, I’ve got to go.”

“Bye.”

She teleported away and normal life resumed. Next Chapter: Chapter 42: My First Killing Spree Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 37 Minutes