Seeing the Pattern
Part 2: Lickity Split

Pinkie Pie bounced along the lane, her saddlebags full of fresh supplies for that week’s work. Carrot cakes had become all the rage lately, and they’d been getting plenty of requests for more. Carrot cakes and banana bread. Though neither were particularly healthy, they did have a healthy food in their names so who knew? The bubblegum-colored baker was there to supply what the sweet-toothed public wanted! Chuckling, she stopped at one last stall to get a hoof-full of carrots and winked playfully at the shopkeeper before turning to go on. She turned, bending her knees to keep bouncing along through the market, and ended up launching herself straight into Lickity Split.

“Ommph!” The stallion fell with a grunt, several bunches of bananas falling out of his saddlebags and mixing with her carrots and bananas. His eyes were in swirls for a moment, until he shook his head. “Oh, sorry about that. I must’ve not been watching where I was going.” He leaned to help Pinkie Pie up, but she’d already launched herself to her feet with a charming giggle.

“Its okay Lickity!” she said, her cheeks a little darker shade of pink. “I was bouncin’ along and didn’t even watch where I was going which I totally should’ve been since I need to get back to Sugar Cube Corner and make some totally—” while her run-on sentence went wayyy past the capacity of any normal pony’s lungs, her eyes were wandering down Lickity Split’s handsome back to study his flank. The cutie mark there was a banana split with a cherry on top, telling of his great work at the ice cream parlor. Sure, it was one street over from Sugar Cube Corner, but it didn’t make him any less handsome. Though the bouncing pink pony would never voice it, she certainly didn’t mind eyeballing the stallion on the street now and then. The wild and rather heat-inducing ambition of ice cream cake boiled up inside Pinkie Pie until she felt something tickling her nose. She blink-blinked and found Lickity Split tickling her nose with the green parts of her own carrots.

“You okay Pinkie?” he asked good-naturedly. “You sort of trailed off there. Do you need help getting back?” he scratched his mint-green mane a little bit, smiling politely. Anypony passerby could cut the rather blatant tension with a rusty ice cream spoon.

“Nope! I’m okay!” said Pinkie Pie quickly, checking herself over for bruises and then getting everything back into her saddlebags. Lickity Split leaned past her head to put her carrots in to, and she caught the quick scent of chilled vanilla off of him. Her tail suddenly EXPLODED into a frizzy shape and she was launched into the air by a nervous reaction!

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lickity asked rather worriedly.

Pinkie nodded, trying to calm her tail. “That was the Pinkie Sense!” she announced to him with a gabbing smile. “That frizziness explosion means to watch out for falling ice!”

Like any other pony in Ponyville, Lickity Split acknowledged the power of the Pinkie Sense. Although its seemingly random implications meant little until something actually happened, he knew better than to question. “Is it gonna hail later?” he asked, cocking his head skyward. Midsummer didn’t seem the time for such a thing.

“Nope, just that something is gonna fall from somewhere!” she said, turning to skip away down the street. Lickity Split sighed and shook his head as she bounced away. An older mare SMACKED the back of his head when she saw him nodding up and down to watch Pinkie’s backside go up and down. He smiled apologetically, but then went about his business. It would be hours later when he cursed himself in the freezer of his own ice cream parlor, having buried himself in an avalanche of ice cream buckets and shaved ice on accident. The Pinkie Sense was never wrong. Only his hoof stuck out, and he was unmoving.

=-=-=-=

It was 10:00pm. Pinkamina’s eyes snapped open with a certain ferocity. Pinkie Pie had gone to bed early that day, so she felt slightly better than normal. Still grouchy and teeth-grittingly annoyed for no real reason, but better than normal. Pushing her hanging mane behind her ear, she studied Pinkie’s diary. Another Pinkie Sense event had occurred, this time upon scenting Lickity Split’s mane.

Pinkamina frowned severely, flipping the diary back a few pages and cocking her eyebrow. There was a scrawling of some stick ponies here and there, perhaps. Oh yes, there he was. She knew she’d seen the name before. Lickity Split was the stallion Pinkie Pie eyeballed on the street sometimes. She’d even drawn a little picture of his cutie mark in her diary. A banana split with a cherry on top. Pinkamina rolled her eyes. Stallions were few enough as it was in Equestria, surely he could’ve picked something more masculine to— feh, what did it matter? She groaned at the little scrawling at the bottom of the page ‘Pinkie’s Pie + Lickity’s Splits = Ice Cream Cake?’ Pinkamina swore if she ever awoke in the middle of the night with that stallion atop her she’d kick his ass right out through the tiny basement window. Snarling and flipping back to the more recent diary entry, she studied the happenings.

The scent of vanilla had sprung the Pinkie Sense to warn of falling ice. Narrowing her eyes, Pinkamina went to the vanity mirror, found the hidden button and pressed it. Bzzzt. The corkboard on the wall shifted, the bed replaced by a long table, the desk extended, and her posters flipped for photo’s. Everything slid into place until finally her workshop was ready for another night of Pinkie Sense pondering. Scrawling the new event onto a scroll, she frowned dangerously. Five events had happened. Tonight, another disaster would strike. Sighing and hating to do such things at the last minute, she took a brush to her mane as she went over what facts she had in her head.

1. Violently crossing eyes in front of the Ponyville china shop, staring at glass snowflakes.
2. Itchy butt at the small produce section of the market. Cherries, berries, and small fruits.
3. Tingly snout next to a humming air conditioner at town hall.
4. Sudden seven sneezes at the library while staring at a book on the shelf about small businesses.
5. Explosive frizziness after smelling vanilla with Lickity Split the stallion at the market.

Pinkamina sighed. Some of the signs were so similar. Itching a certain spot of the body didn’t seem to hold any context beyond the moment it happened. Last time it had been itchy nose. Growling and scratching out some of her cryptology notes from the last few nights, she returned to her chaos theory. Though Pinkie Pie seemed to have some sort of omniscient knowledge of the smaller events of the Pinkie Sense, only Pinkamina could see the bigger picture. So, they both had opposite problems. Pinkie couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and Pinkamina couldn’t see what kind of trees were in the forest. Or something. She growled again, looking up locations. The five new Pinkie Sense events were all over the place, and didn’t make a criss-cross for a location this time around. It couldn’t be that easy twice, she sighed inwardly. Using the crimson thread, she connected the five locations and stared at them. Perhaps they created some sort of drag-net? That the disaster would happen inside the perimeter of the five forecasting events? It was a thought.

Squinting, Pinkamina crunched on a cracker. She’d finally thought to hide a box of them under the nightstand where Pinkie kept her diary. The pink mare never looked there, so it was a good spot. Salt was nicer than sugar anyway. There had to be some sort of pattern. Training her eyes on the locations, she squinted and slowly went through all of them again. And again. 11:07pm, she didn’t have long. Locations and sometimes objects helped… glass snowflakes, small fruits, air conditioner, small business book, vanilla scent. Or was the trigger Lickity Split himself, and the scent memorable? She didn’t know.

Pinkamina paced, deep in thought. 11:15pm. Working her mind feverishly and rushing the brush through her long mane over and over to give her hooves something to do, she stopped. Wait. The Pinkie Sense was never activated by a pony before. Not so explicitly. Smell or otherwise. The dull pink mare rushed over to her map, glaring for… yes. Lickity Split’s Ice Cream Parlor was within the perimeter of the other five events.

It was a small business. With fruit flavors. With a powerful air conditioner to keep the treats cold. Snowflakes were a… possibility, with a freezer that powerful. And Lickity Split? Or was it the vanilla scent? She couldn’t decide what the fifth sign was. She glanced at the clock. 11:17. It was a shaky theory at best but she didn’t have time to dink around and try to come up with something else. Going with her gut she grabbed her saddlebags and rushed out into the night.

=-=-=-=

Lickity Split lay barely conscious in the freezer, buried beneath hundreds of pounds of frozen treats and shaved ice. If ever there were an ironic death situation, this had to be it. Killed by his own product. He’d lost feeling in his legs, nose, and ears long ago. Was he going to get frostbite? He didn’t know. He wasn’t strong enough to move the pounds and pounds of delicious ice cream buckets, the hill of shaved ice, and the blocks of snowy treats. He was literally pinned, crushed beneath the very products he used to bring joy to others. He sighed, shivering and whimpering quietly. Why hadn’t anyone come looking? His store was still open, and none had come looking? What if they’d made off with what ice cream he had in the display, that was hundreds of lost bits! Then again, what time was it? He didn’t know. His mind was… ohh, just slowing down, he was so very sleepy. But if he fell asleep he might not wake up again. But, he didn’t feel as cold as he did before, he just wanted to… just a short nap, he decided. His eyes started to slide closed, his breath a quiet foggy huff from his nostrils.

The door of the freezer burst open and Pinkamina shuddered inside. “I thought so.” She said, using her shoulder and shoving a good deal of the weight off of the fallen stallion. Snorting steam and grunting with effort, she shuddered as she mare-handled the shaved ice mounds off of him. Using her hooves, she dug him out as best she could. He had shifted from his normal off-white to a rather sickly, shivering grey. His eyes were closed. Was she too late!? Gasping, she thrust her ear down upon him. His heart was still beating. Turning, she kicked the freezer door open and dragged him out with all her strength. Despite being a simple ice cream parlor owner, he was actually quite well built. And heavy.

She didn’t have the strength to drag him to the hospital, nor did she want to be discovered doing what she was doing. Pinkamina wouldn’t be able to explain to anypony how she knew to go look for Lickity Split in his own freezer in the dead of night. Though the Pinkie Sense was openly acknowledged, divining disasters with it would be something else entirely. Nopony could see the future. Well, almost nopony, Pinkamina thought as she grinned wryly.

Her brow lowered into a frowny growling expression, and she stared at the limp stallion. What could she possibly do with him? This was not like Zecora. He would not thaw on his own accord. Sighing, she studied the ice cream parlor. Most ponies lived at their place of work, so…ah, there. There was a door leading into a backroom. Pinkamina discovered a sitting room, a tiny personal kitchen, bathroom, and so on. She dragged him inside, then came back to the front of the parlor to hit the lights, lock the doors and pull the shutters. No witnesses to this madness.

Lickity Split lay sprawled out on the cold wooden floor, shivering violently and unconscious. Though his body worked hard to keep him alive and warm, at least in his chest area, the rest would sacrifice itself to aid the vital organs. Pinkamina was not a nurse, but she knew how dangerous hypothermia and other cold-related injuries were. She peered about, then saw he had a fireplace. Thick smoke from a chimney in the dead of summer would draw attention. No doubt his winter blankets and such were tucked away in some obscure corner of his attic. She saw a clock on the wall. 11:50pm. He would die before midnight if she did nothing.

Sighing, she gritted her teeth and gulped a little. She’d set out to prevent a death or disaster, and it wasn’t finished yet. Pulling the limp stallion up onto his own couch, she pulled the quilt that was on the couch’s back up and around herself like a shawl. Then she laid on him. His fur and body were chilled and she shuddered, trying not to look at him. She shivered and stared out the window for a long time. Then at the artwork on his walls. Then she counted the tiles in the ceiling and wondered why his ceiling fan had three blades instead of five. Then, the scent of vanilla wafted up into her muzzle. She looked down at him with a furrowed brow. He really did smell like vanilla. What a feminine scent for a stallion to have, pffft! She found herself rubbing at the base of his mane, hoping to help the circulation or something.

Color was slowly returning to his cheeks. The presence of another warm body was certainly helping a lot. In some dark corner of Pinkamina’s mind, she understood why Pinkie Pie found this stallion so attractive. She didn’t care for him, personally, but he was not exactly ugly or anything. He didn’t stink of sweat like Big Macintosh, or seemingly disappear at random like Dr. Whooves. He seemed normal and honest enough. He gave a quiet moan, and Pinkamina pressed him down again so he wouldn’t wiggle under her. Sighing grumpily, she returned her gaze to the clock after a time. 12:13. She let out a long and relieved sigh. Disaster averted.

Lickity Split stirred a little, groaning and his eyes fluttering. What was that sugary scent, that warmth pressed up against him? Somepony… laying on him…? “Who—?” There was a flash of movement and his window was blown open from the inside by an unseen force. A black shape leapt out into the night. The stallion lay there, confused and mostly thawed from his icy tomb. The straight-maned Pinkamina pressed herself into an alley, watching Lickity Split come to the window and peer out eagerly. He didn’t see her pressed into shadow. She held her breath until he closed the window again. Disaster averted.

She returned to Sugar Cube Corner in a huff, locking her door behind her and restoring the room to Pinkie Pie’s normal gay colors of celebration. Flopping down on the bed, exhausted, Pinkamina treated herself to another cracker. Brushing her mane behind her ears again, she allowed herself a small smile before sleep took her. The next morning, Pinkie Pie awoke having no idea why her fur had the distant smell of vanilla to it. Odd! Oh well. Time to make some carrot cakes and banana bread!

End of Part 2