On the same night that Travis was having his guy time at the bar, Pinkie was out with her own group of friends, trying new activities that one of them picked.

Tonight was Twilight's turn, and she decided that the six of them should attend a pottery class that she'd heard about. That didn't exactly go over well with some of them, particularly Rarity, who had gotten her hooves done that very day.

It must have been a slow night at the pottery class, because when they arrived, they found that they were the only ones who attended. Nonetheless, the instructor was delighted to see anypony arrive at all.

She gave a brief oration about the beauty and art of crafting pottery before actually getting to the lesson itself.

It took the mares a few tries, but they soon got the hang of it, and were crafting their masterpieces. That is, if you could call them masterpieces.

"Look what I made, everypony," Pinkie gleefully declared as she held in her hooves what appeared to be just a small, circular construct that looked something like a wheel, though no spokes could be seen on it. "It's a picture frame! See?" She held the pottery in front of herself, letting her face show through the hollow in the middle. "Smiles!"

"It's wonderful Pinkie," Fluttershy said as she carefully worked on the smaller details of a ceramic flower garden she was crafting. She turned her attention to her fellow pegasus. "How's your project going, Rainbow Dash?"

"Rrrrgh--mgpf--son of a--" Was Dash's response to Fluttershy.

She had been working with a very unruly glob of clay that was giving her more trouble than the class was worth. In the beginning, she was apathetic to the idea when Twilight announced it, but now it was a messy pain in the flank. Clay speckled her her face, and stains were all over her chest and fore hooves. She had been furiously trying to mold it into a shape of her liking, but to no avail.

"One of us is going down, and it ain't gonna be me, sister!" Dash said to the mass of clay.

Right next to Dash, Rarity was having a much easier time. Despite her earlier protests to the class, she as having a wonderful time. As the minutes carried on, she was busily making various pieces of jewelry out of her portions of clay.

Every necklace, broach, bracelet, manepin, cufflink, amulet, ring and pendant turned out more marvelous than the last one, and Rarity decided to keep them so she could use their designs for her own work.

She looked to her side to see what Applejack was working on. What she saw was that Applejack had already created an entire stack of horseshoes.

"Pardon me, but don't you have enough of those at home," Rarity asked her friend.

"Sugarcube, trust me when I say that ya can never have enough horseshoes. Matter o' fact, a horseshoe can save yer life in a pinch when ya need it the most," she answered as she worked on another horseshoe. Only Dash could understand what she was talking about, regarding the usefulness of a horseshoe.

"You can throw them at bad guys in the air and bring them to the ground," came an abrupt reasoning from Pinkie.

Everypony rolled their eyes at the seemingly arbitrary statement.

All but Applejack, who still wondered how Pinkie did that, even after all this time of being her friend, and hearing every bizarre eccentricity that escaped from her mouth.

The whole time the friends were happily discussing their works, Twilight was busy working on a bust of Starswirl the Bearded, though not very enthusiastically. She had something important to say, and didn't know how to say it. Or even if she could convey it.

Twilight stared at Pinkie with a heavy weight on her mind, knowing it would hurt her if she told her what she had to say. Even though knew it had to be done, it was going to be so difficult when Pinkie looked so happy. When the truth was spoken, Pinkie was going to be devastated.

"They're all very nice, but why are you making so many picture frames," Fluttershy asked Pinkie as she molded the edges of the flower patch she had crafted.

The frames Pinkie had made were all shapes and sizes, some small and simplistic, some large and ornately decorated. But all of them were made with care.

"I'm using them to hold all the special moments we have together. These ones are for me and Travis," she said as she held two small, oval frames in her hooves, "We can keep them on our bedside tables, so that when we wake up, we'll be the first thing that we see, even if we aren't sharing the same bed!"

"Are you ever gonna stop braggin' 'bout havin' a new coltfriend," Applejack wondered.

The two had been dating for weeks, but Pinkie was still acting like they'd just met.

Twilight bit her lip as she psyched herself up to tell Pinkie what was on her mind.

"Um, Pinkie," she said quietly, almost as quietly as Fluttershy normally spoke. Naturally, this did no good for her.

"Darling, please. Don't you remember your first coltfriend," Rarity asked. "It's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

"Righty-o, Rarity," Pinkie agreed, "And I'm going to make it last for all time."

"Pinkie, please listen," Twilight tried again."

"Me and Travis are going to be together, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever--"

It was becoming unbearable for Twilight. She decided it would be easier to spell it out plain and simple for Pinkie, without regard to her ramblings.

"Pinkie! Travis can't stay!"

The entire room went dead quiet after that. Everypony stared at Twilight in disbelief at her outburst.

Pinkie was shocked the most of all. In the instant after Twilight finished, her entire demeanor changed to a saddened surprise.

"What," she said, staring wide-eyed at Twilight.

Everypony else felt the sudden change in the room's atmosphere and took a step away from Twilight, eagerly awaiting her explanation.

Rarity gestured for Twilight to go on.

Twilight thought that she ought to explain how the machinations of summoning magic worked to Pinkie, but when she remembered all of the times that her friends stared blankly after doing so, or cut her off so she would give a shorter explanation, she decided to get right to the point.

"A summoning spell stops working after the summoned creature has done their job. Once it's done, they go back where they came from," she said, summarizing the workings of summoning spells. A longer explanation would have only hurt herself just as it did Pinkie. She decided she had better try to soften the blow with comfort, "But it's okay, Pinkie: you can still be happy with him as long as he's here."

That didn't help at all. The more she spoke, the more Pinkie's mane deflated.

"I could go with him, couldn't I," she asked hopefully.

Twilight mulled over the answer before she spoke.

"You could, but then you'd be leaving all of your friends in Equestria behind."

That sounded like a pragmatic answer to Twilight, but she only realized how terrible it really was when she heard Pinkie's pitiful whimper.

"You should...try to make your remaining time with him count. And be happy that you met him at all."

Pinkie didn't say anything, but Twilight knew exactly what she felt. Though she herself never experienced heartbreak, it was all there in Pinkie, and it was despairing the minds of her friends as well.

They went back to their individual projects, and not another word was spoken by anypony for the rest of the class.

The class ended, and Pinkie promised herself to have a talk with Travis about their limited time together. She knew that Travis didn't exactly have a strict schedule when it came to coming home for the night, so she could only hope that he'd be there.

When she arrived at his house, she entered his bedroom without knocking and checked his whereabouts.

First try, she found him in bed, on top of his covers, fast asleep, and not even undressed for the night.

Pinkie crawled into bed with him, as she had done a few times before, and gazed at his peacefully sleeping face.

As she looked on, she began to miss him, even though she was right next to him.

In her mind she replayed their entire time together, from when he first arrived in Equestria, to that very moment when she was lying beside him, feeling the warmth of his body against her's and listening to the gentle rhythm of his breathing.

It felt like only a short time ago that she had met him, and now she learned that in a matter of time, they'd lose each other forever.

Pinkie knew that Travis needed her, because without her, he'd go back to a life of quiet hurt and arbitrary slaughter. And in some ways, she needed him as well.

She gently stroked his mane, and then slowly traced her hoof down the side of his face as a single tear fell from her eye. After so little time, Pinkie wondered if her being with Travis at all was worthwhile.

She felt her spirits raise slightly when Travis's hoof unconsciously slid over her side and held her close to him. It was clear then that everything with Travis was worthwhile. From now on, it had to be.

Author's Notes:

Just as a reassurance to any of you who think I might be making shorter and shorter chapters, you have nothing to fear, the next chapter is going to be much longer than these last two I've written. I just kind of wrote these as a spur of the moment kind of thing. I might even just merge the two of them if I feel so inclined.

And no, the next chapter is not an assassin chapter, but it does involve some action, so I hope you have fun reading it as much as I have fun writing action scenes.

And as a note: I don't really know if that's how summoning magic works on the show, I haven't seen any episodes where summoning magic is focused on, but what the hell, that's what an Alternate Universe tag is for. It allows us to be creative and fill in the gaps on our own. Should any of you feel so inclined to write a fanfic, but don't know the ropes of the show, just tag it as Alternate Universe.

That's all. Rock on, everypeoples. \m/