"Allow me to see if I understand: Pinkie Pie had you watch the Cake twins so you would be tired at the end of the day, and spill a faux-flammable liquid on yourself, before she ignited it, and you, as punishment for breaking a Pinkie Promise?"

"That about sums it up."

Rarity shakes her head in disbelief as she works on a new shirt for me. "I simply cannot believe that. I adore Pinkie Pie and know she would never harm anypony intentionally, but even I think she went entirely too far."

"Oh, ya think? I'm not going back there if I can help it! I don't even want to see the color pink ever again!” I sigh. “I'll find my hands dirty somewhere else."

"Who can blame you?" she says sympathetically. "And don't you worry; I'll talk to Pinkie Pie about it."

"You really don't have to do that. The two of us are permanently done with each other."

"Well, admittedly, no, I don’t," she shakes her head, "but I want to all the same."

I groan and rub my temples. Of course she does. I sigh and stand up from the chair I had been sitting in.

It has been a few days since the Pinkie Promise incident, and I haven’t been anywhere near Sugarcube Corner since then. Heck, I was out of that basement before Pinkie could so much as breathe in to say another thing, and there was a supremely ratty resignation letter on the counter top about six seconds after the flames went out. I was a block away from there by the time I heard my name being called by the maniac.

If I never see that pony again, it'll be too soon. The only reason I didn't begin wailing on her, right then and there, is... well, Demon Pinkie Pie is scary Pinkie Pie. She got me more focused on flight than fight.

I stretch a bit as I look out the window. "Are there any places you know of that would hire a human?"

Rarity sighs with a shake of her head. "Honestly, I don’t know. I know Twilight vouches for you, so I'm sure she can find you something to do, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head."

I grimace at the news. "Well, I gotta find something! I mean, I kinda want to find my own place here soon."

Rarity nods. "Yes, I can see how you would want to. It must be difficult living with a pair of ponies."

"Uh...yeah, yeah it is."

I think the thing I'm going to love the most about having my own place is having a bathroom all for myself. Rarity's twelve trillion beauty products don't really leave a lot of space for, well, anything else… including my toiletries.

I shake my head at the wasteland that is her bathroom just as Sweetie Belle, Rarity's kid sister who I'm admittedly slightly fond of, comes downstairs for school. "Hey sis, hey TD, how's it going?"

I shrug at the question. "It goes."

"TD had a rather rough day at Sugarcube Corner the other day," Rarity explains. "Apparently Pinkie Pie attacked him in retaliation for breaking a Pinkie Promise."

Sweetie Belle gives a small gasp after I give a small conformation nod. "That's terrible!"

I snort in half amusement. "Ya think?"

"I do think!"

"Yes, it was,” Rarity nods, “and I will be talking to Pinkie Pie about it later today. In the meantime, it's time for a certain little filly to get to school. Do you have your show and tell object ready?"

A look of pure horror crosses Sweetie Belle's face. "Oh no, show and tell is today!" she squeaks out.

Rarity groans and face...uh, hoofs...facehoofs at her sister. "Sweetie Belle, how many times have I told you to prepare your schoolwork before it’s due?"

"I'm sorry sis, I forgot!"

"Clearly. So what are you going to do about it now?"

A contemplative look crosses Sweetie Belle's face, right before she lights up and points at me. "Him! I can take him for show and tell!"

My eyes widen and I back up a step. "Uh, I don't know if that's such a good idea, Sweetie. I'm not really a 'thing' so much as a 'person'. Wouldn't it be awkward to bring a living thing for show and tell?"

"No way!" she responds. "I brought Rarity a few weeks ago!'

I go from surprised to deadpan in half a second. A new record. "You brought your big sister for show and tell."

"Yep," she says proudly. "And she had a lot of fun, didn't you, sis?"

To my confusion, Rarity nods. "It wasn't a chore to be there, and I did get some enjoyment out of being in the classroom setting once again."

"But won't they be freaked out by me?" I ask doubtfully.

"We can't know until we try!" Sweetie Belle insists. "I know Apple Bloom and Scootaloo already like you, so the others can’t be too far behind!"

I am about to flat out say no, but a thought crosses my mind: I legitimately don't have anything better to do today now that I am unemployed, and on top of that, elementary education was my major in college. Maybe it won't be so bad. "Okay, I’ll go."

Sweetie Belle's eyes light up and she promptly rushes up to give me a gigantic hug. "Thank you so much, TD!"

"Uh, yeah, sure, kid." Frankly, I'm beginning to regret it already.

A few steps away, Rarity is smiling. "That was a very generous thing of you to do."

I frown ever so slightly, as I don't quite want to be generous like that right now. But again, maybe it'll be enjoyable.

Minutes later, Rarity gives me a new set of clothes that she completed the previous night, Sweetie Belle puts her saddlebags on, and we're out the door. Since I am the one walking Sweetie Belle to school, Rarity has told us that she will not accompany us, since she has a lot of orders to fill and she wants to make up for the lost time. Uh-huh, sure. She's just glad that someone else could do dirty work that she wanted to avoid.

At any rate, it is kind of amusing to see Sweetie Belle prancing happily forward, leading me eagerly to her school. If her expression is any indication, I'm one of her best show and tell subjects ever. To be fair, if an inter-dimensional being was living in my house when I was her age, I'd take it to show and tell, too. I mean, wouldn’t we all?

As we approach the schoolhouse, which is about ten minutes from Rarity's at walking speed, the first word that comes to my mind is... quaint. It looks like a stereotypical schoolhouse, like one would see in a cheesy TV show...

Oh, right.

At any rate, it looks quite simplistic and almost inviting, if a bit childish. In the schoolyard, there are a bunch of happy kids, or whatever young ponies are called, playing whatever kid games the few precious minutes of their recess allow. I manage a smile at the sight. It brings back memories.

Sweetie Belle and I walk up to the schoolyard where, surprise surprise, the kids all stop playing and instead move on to staring at me.

Gosh darn it, not again. "Uh, hi," I said with a nervous half-wave to the collection of kids.

Their comically large eyes continue to stare at me, all of them unblinking. However, there are exceptions to every rule: I see that Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both have happy looks on their faces. The duo comes up to us. "Hey there, TD,” Apple Bloom greets me. “How's it goin'?"

"I've been better…"

"Pinkie Pie getting you down?" asks Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle huddles up to them and whispers, "She set him on fire yesterday for breaking a Pinkie Promise."

Apple Bloom is awed by this. "Whoa! Ah knew she didn't like it when you broke a Pinkie Promise, but Ah didn't think she would do that!"

"That makes two of us," I mumble.

She opens her mouth to respond, but instead a highly cheerful voice cuts her off. "All right, class, recess is over! It's time to... oh, hello there."

I turn to the source of the voice to see an adult pony whom I can only assume is the teacher. She walks up to the four of us with a friendly grin on her face.

"Hi," I greet her back.

"You must be TD, right?” she asks curiously. “I've heard a lot about you from Sweetie Belle."

My eyebrow curls a little. "Have you now?"

"Indeed. But where are my manners?” she asks herself with a shake of her head. “My name is Cheerilee. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

She extends a hoof in greeting, which I am quick to shake. Finally, a pony who isn't a total sociopath. I just can't see this one snapping and murdering a bunch of ponies like Pinkie Pie might. "Nice to meet you, too, Cheerilee.”

She pulls her hoof back when I let it go. "I take it Sweetie Belle brought you in for show and tell day?"

"Such is the case," I confirm.

The mare beams. "That is simply wonderful."

"Hope so."

Satisfied, she turns back to her students. "Alright class, it's time to get the day started! If everypony could go inside, we can begin the show and tell!"

The class sluggishly files into the building, with me and Cheerilee not far behind them. It takes a few minutes for them to get settled in their desks, and when they’re done, Cheerilee motions for me to sit down on the chair behind her desk, which, while still a bit small for me, is better than the desks themselves.

"Good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon, Ms. Cheerilee!" they respond in unison.

"As you all know, today is show and tell day, so I hope you all brought something from home that you can give an at least three-minute-long oral report on."

I look around the classroom and see that the students all have various knick-knacks on their desks. Every one of them looks immensely proud of their various items, something that amuses me. Children will be children, regardless of species.
"Alright then, who's first?" Cheerilee asks and, almost instantly, a dozen forelegs shoot up into the air. She stares thoughtfully at them, lingering on a few until she stops on one. "Okay, Diamond Tiara, you can go first."

One of the kids stands up with the most obnoxiously smug look I’ve seen so far on her face. It seems that being chosen as first is a great honor for her.

That’s one I already dislike.

She stands up in front of the class and pulls her namesake, a diamond-encrusted tiara, off of her head. "This is my diamond tiara," she begins, and boy is her voice even more obnoxious than her smug grin. "My daddy bought it for me three years ago because I was the first in the class to get my cutie mark. It's very expensive and it's my prized possession."
She points her hoof at the stones in the front. "These are all real diamonds here on the front, and each one of them proves that my daddy is the best dad in Ponyville, much better than all of your dads!"

"Diamond Tiara,” Cheerilee interrupts sternly, “let's not dissolve into petty insults, please."

"Sorry, Ms. Cheerilee." Her voice proves she’s anything but.

The snooty brat continues talking about her stupid headgear, which is actually something that I've taken a slight interest in after a more in-depth look. Something seems… off about it.

I tune back in just in time to hear her finish her obnoxious rant. "Any questions?" she says.

I raise my hand and she gives me a confused look. "Can I see that?" I ask, pointing to the tiara.

"Absolutely not!" she complains, hugging the item close to her chest. "You're gonna break it with those clumsy hands of yours!"

"Diamond Tiara, this is not how we treat guests at our school.” Thanks, Cheerilee. “He's not going to break it, are you, TD?"

“Why should I?” Aside from taking this nuisance down a peg, that is.

The kid downright growls in frustration, but she lets me take the so-called ‘diamond’ tiara, and I begin to examine it. I look at it from above, then spin for a check from below, but I can't quite put my finger on what’s wrong with it. Now all that’s left is to look at the diamonds themselves.

The big, central one… Ah-ha, that's the issue.

Despite myself, I break out into a gigantic grin, something that doesn’t go by unnoticed. "What's so funny about my tiara?" Diamond Tiara asks nasally. I do a thorough once-over on the other ‘diamonds’ on the tiara as well, hoping to back up my hypothesis.

I’m right.

Rhinestones, every last one of them. I wouldn’t be able to see the bedding behind the stones otherwise; a real diamond isn’t that perfectly clear.

"Oh, nothing," I said as I hand the tiara back to her. "Nothing at all."

She shoots me an arrogant glare before she moves back to her seat. I chuckle quietly to myself as she leans in to whisper to an equally snooty pony next to her. Bless her. If only she knew just how much the 'best dad in Ponyville' spends on his daughter’s personal treasures…

The next bunch of kids is far nicer that Diamond Tiara. Unlike her, they don't use the show and tell to prove that they have better stuff than the rest of the class; they are genuinely proud of their prized possessions.

Scootaloo shows off her scooter and the class even gets to go outside for a minute for her to give a demonstration, which turns out rather impressive – I know I certainly wouldn't be able to do what she does on my scooter on my best adventurous day. Apple Bloom presents a hammer that she got from her sister for her last birthday. Some boy named Snips shows off a drawing he made. Another one, Snails, shows off his pet – surprise surprise – snail.

Show and tell continues like that, and I find myself enjoying it. It's interesting to see how these kids act; it reminds me of why I was an Elementary Ed major back home in the first place.

And then, finally, Sweetie Belle's turn comes. She stands up in front of the class and beckons me to stand next to her.
The class looks at me with awed expressions, like I wasn’t there for the whole day.

"This is TD," she declares proudly. "He's an inter-dimensional being called a 'human' that was brought into our world somehow."

"Somehow?" asks a colt in the back row.

Sweetie Belle grimaces. "Rarity won't tell me how he got here…” She blinks twice. “Anyway, he walks on his two rear legs and wears clothes all of the time. He has some devices that came with him. He calls them 'computer' and 'cellphone'. But they’re out of batteries right now, so we can’t show them."

They all ‘oooooh’ in unison, much to my amusement.

"He's living with me and my sister Rarity at Carousel Boutique while he gets on his hooves and gets his own place."

"Uh,” I cut her off, “if I may interject, I don't have hooves. These are hands, and those are feet." The explanation, complete with pointing out the corresponding appendages, elicits another awed chorus from the class. I smirk to myself at their interest. It's a nice change from the way the Mane Six have treated me.

"What's your cutie mark?" one of the kids in the front row asks, stopping my introspection episode.

“My what?"

"Your cutie mark. You know, this." The kid points to her flank, which has a kind of tattoo thing plastered on it. "We all get them when we discover our special talents. What's yours?"

"… I don't have a cutie mark," I state with a raised eyebrow.

Immediately the two snobbish kids break out into smug grins and point their hooves at me, chanting "Ha, blank flank!" in unison.

"That's enough!" Cheerilee angrily quiets them down.

I sneer hostilely at the two of them. "I don't have a cutie mark because humans can't get them. I've never met a person who magically got a tattoo when they discovered who they were meant to be. I know I didn't."

"What is your special talent, then?" Scootaloo asks.

"Well, I was going to college to become a grade school teacher before I came here."

Apple Bloom seemingly gets excited at that. "You wanted to teach kids like Ms. Cheerilee does?"

I nod. "That was the plan."

Cheerilee raises her own eyebrow in interest. "That’s very interesting. In this case, would you consider coming back sometime to give the class a full lesson?"

I shrug and nod at the same time. "I can’t see why not. I don't have anything better to do anyway."

Saying that earns me a smile from Cheerilee. "It's settled, then. We'll talk later about the details."

"Cool."

Cheerilee opens her mouth to continue, but gets cut off by the piercing cry of a ringing bell and the following stampede of kids running out of the room. "That's recess time," Cheerilee explains to me. "They'll be back here in about twenty minutes for the second half of the day."

"Ah yes, recess…" I mutter fondly. "I have nice memories of them."

"You had recess back home?"

I nod. "It was the highlight of my day back when I was a kid. It seems that doesn't change between dimensions."
"It does seem like it," she says with a quiet laugh. "You can go out there with them if you want. I need to get things organized for the next few classes."

I nod and follow the class out of the building. As I walk out to the schoolyard, I see the entire class all standing in a circle. They seem to be arguing about something.

Curious, I move to see what the commotion is about.

"I say we play tag!" someone says.

"But we played tag yesterday," Apple Bloom complains. "Why don't we play hide and seek instead?"

Diamond Tiara groans. "Not that stupid game again!"

"Hey, I like that game!" That’s Scootaloo.

"But I wanna play tag today!" Snips. I realize he was the first voice.

"Why not both?" I interject.

The crowd of kids looks up at me, unanimously confused. "How can we play both?" asks Diamond Tiara.

"You can play hide-and-seek-tag," I answer matter-of-factly.

"Hide-and-seek-tag?” Sweetie Belle parrots. “What's that?"

"Oh, really?” I utter in disbelief. “Come on, you can't tell me you don't know what hide-and-seek-tag is! Isn't that game, like, required knowledge?"

"How do you play?" another kid asks.

A faint grimace grows in my expression. How on Earth can a bunch of kids not know what hide-and-seek-tag is?! It was my favorite game at their age! Well, guess I’m gonna have to be the one to break it out to them. "Okay, the rules are quite simple. One person is 'it', just like in tag, and they have to cover their eyes while everybody hides, just like in hide and seek. When the person who is 'it' has counted to thirty, they have to go find the people – or ponies in your case – who are hiding.
“Now, the job of the ponies who are hiding is to get to the home base, where they are safe from the person who is ‘it’. The job of the ‘it’ is to tag as many of the hiders as possible. The first person he or she tags is ‘it’ for the next round."

Scootaloo is beaming by the time I finish speaking. "That sounds really fun!"

"Yeah, let's play that!" Sweetie Belle agrees. "And you can be 'it' first, TD!"

I shrug. "Sounds good to me. In that case, home base is that tree right there,” I say, lifting a finger to show the place. “Don't go finding a hiding spot right next to it: you gotta give yourself a little challenge."

The kids all nod, eager to start, and I limber up a bit before covering my eyes. "Alright, here goes. One... two... three..."

I hear the group of kids scatter like leaves in the wind. It only takes a few moments for the surroundings to go completely silent. I allow myself a smile.

"Twenty eight... twenty nine... thirty! Ready or not, here I come!"

I open my eyes to see a completely deserted schoolyard. Dang, these kids sure can hide when they want to. I crack my neck and begin the hunt.

Unfortunately for them, there aren't too many good hiding spots. Case in point, I aim for a large bush that no doubt houses at least one of them.

As I approach the plant, I hear a rustling noise behind me. I turn around, only to see Snips and Snails desperately bolting towards the tree, and with an amused battle cry, I give chase. It becomes clear that I am the faster being right as I tag both of them, Snips first, before they make it even halfway to safety. The two of them walk dejectedly over to an out of the way spot, but I can see smiles on their faces all the same. They had fun while it lasted for them.

I set my sights once more on the bush, but this time I jog over to it not to waste time. Sure enough, I see Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon hiding behind it, and they see me, too; with twin squeals of fear, they bolt in the opposite direction, with me giving chase. Unfortunately for them, they’re even slower than Snips and Snails, and much to their irritation, I catch the slowpoke duo quite readily.

However, in my haste, I fail to notice two of the students that take me chasing the girls as the perfect opportunity to run off themselves, and I turn around just in time to see them touch home base. They high-five each other with their hooves, and I shrug; a fair defeat’s a fair defeat. Besides, there’s still half of the class for me to catch, and oh they're all close. I can feel it.
I glance towards the sign in front of the school and see four pairs of hooves behind it. I grin like a predator as I run towards it, and sure enough, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom are both hiding behind it. They give more playful shrieks than the others when they see me coming, and, also unlike the others, they do the smart thing and split up.

I dive to the left to try and catch Sweetie Belle, but she jumps over my outstretched arm in a surprising display of agility, and all my fingers close around is grass. I quickly push myself off of the ground and run towards her; she’s definitely faster than her counterparts, too. Apple Bloom has made it to the tree by this point, but I am closing in fast behind my target.

It's going to be close.

I pick up the pace and reach for Sweetie Belle just as her outstretched leg touches the safe point. There’s only enough time for me to move my hand away so that it simply glances her mane instead of shoving her muzzle into the bark. That would have hurt.

"She's safe!" Apple Bloom hollers gleefully.

"Curses!" I yell theatrically, and they giggle.

However, I don't have time to dwell on it, as the last kid has just come out of her hiding spot. I grin evilly as I sneak up to her. "It's over, Scootaloo. Surrender now and I will tag you out quickly," I ham in my best Bond villain voice.

She narrows her eyes as she turns to face me. "You'll never catch me! I am far too fast for the likes of you!" Heh, she's getting into the dramatic side of this too. That’s pretty cool, actually.

"We shall see, my dear. We shall see."

She grins smugly. "I'm standing right here! Come and get me!"

I grin back, accepting the challenge. "Easy money."

"Why don't you put your bits where your mouth is and give it your best shot, slowpoke?" She’s limbering up herself by now.
"Slowpoke?” I mock frown. “Oh, that does it, you're going down!"

I zoom towards the orange pegasus with outstretched arms. Scootaloo licks her lips in anticipation… and dodges to the left just as I swipe at her. She's even more agile than Sweetie Belle.

Good, I like a challenge.

I recover quickly from catching air and swipe at her again, just in time for her to slide between my legs. I wheel around to see her zooming towards the tree with a speed that only someone being chased by a monster is capable of. But instead of dwelling on my memories of a certain pink menace, I book it after Scootaloo with a dramatic war cry.

I make a head first dive towards the retreating form of Scootaloo, fully expecting to catch her like the others. However, it seems like that girl has a sixth sense of some sort: she actually side rolls from a running position, something I never thought possible, and it makes me miss her by a mile. I end up sliding on the ground – on my good shoulder, thankfully – with a distinct lack of Scootaloo on my hand.

By the time I stand back up, she’s casually leaning against the tree with her friends. "Grrr, curse you, Scootaloo! I'll get you next time!" I say with a comical shake of my fist.

"In your dreams, maybe,” she boasts, “but even then, I wouldn't count on it!"

As the class excitedly cheers and chatters, setting up for the next round, I dust off my shirt while looking around the schoolyard for a good hiding spot. One is not what catches my eye, though: instead, that honor goes to a familiar bookworm unicorn with her purple forelegs draped over the fence. I don’t see why she would come to the schoolhouse other than to talk to me, so, with a resigned sigh, I walk over to Twilight Sparkle.

"That looked like it was a lot of fun," she says when I get close enough.

"Some of those little buggers are agile, I'll give them that."

"You really seem to be adjusting to your life here quite well."

The grin that I had been wearing so far fades fast into a neutral almost-grimace. "There's a difference between ‘I’m having a fun game of hide-and-seek-tag with a bunch of innocent kids’ and ‘I've resigned to stay away from home’, you know. I still want nothing else than to go back to my world."

Me saying that completely dismantles Twilight’s smile, and she looks down. "I know… and I'm sure the Princess is working on it."

"Uh-huh, yeah, sure."

Twilight frowns at my disbelief. "You do know she feels bad about it, right?"

"Maybe she does," I state, “but I can't shake the feeling that she sees me as some chess piece right now. Remember when she said she wants to figure out why I'm here, like I have some sort of purpose to her? I don't think she wants to send me back just yet, Twilight."

Twilight keeps silent for a few seconds. "Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about that. I came to ask you to come with me back to Rarity's. We have some important things to discuss."

"Of course we do," I say flatly.

She accepts the answer and beckons me to follow. I give a brief glance back to the schoolyard. The second round has already started without me, but they’re having fun nonetheless. I smile to myself for a moment before I move to follow Twilight back to Rarity's house. They should be fine without me for a little while.

As we get close, I start to get an increasing vibe of dread. Something is up, I just know it. I don't foresee this talk going very well.

The minute she opens the door, I see all of the other mane six standing in the main room… including Miss Pink Menace. Speaking of her, as soon as Twilight shuts the door behind us, as if by a signal, she starts to approach me in a slow gait, but stops dead in her tracks when I brusquely lift up a finger pointed to her face. "Don't you dare come any closer to me." It’s not a surprise to me that I’m pretty much snarling by this point.

Her ears curl back. "But I just wanted to–"

"No, you don't get to say anything to me, you lunatic.” I feel my voice begin to rise. “You freaking torched me! I don't give a rat’s tail what kind of promise I broke, that’s not something you do!"

One of her forelegs lifts up in front of her like a shield. "But I–"

"But freaking nothing! Stay away from me!" I jab the finger in her direction, and she takes a step back. Good for her.

"TD, darling,” Rarity politely interjects, “just let her talk her part, please."

I glare at her in turn. "I don't want this psycho to talk, I want her out of my sight!"

Pinkie's eyes begin to water. "I didn’t mean to hurt you!" she cries out. “In any way!”

"That doesn't change the fact that what you did was FUBAR like a war crime!"

"FUBAR?"

"That’s German, Dash," I say, waving the pony off without looking directly at her. "But that's not important. What is important is that I do not want to be around your friend Pinkie Pyromaniac over there anymore. My days are already messed up as it is without a loon to scare me stiff."

I get a second dose of pleading, teary puppy dog eyes, along with a quiet whimper.

Rarity clears her throat. "TD, we know you are upset with Pinkie Pie, and you have every right to be, but she is legitimately sorry for what she did."

"Yeah, just like I was legitimately sorry for breaking the Pinkie Promise and still got lit up!" A second of silence later, I stare pointedly at the unicorn playing peacekeeper. “You said you’re upset with her, but you’re still taking her side.”

"We're not taking sides!" Rainbow Dash butts in. "We're mad at her, too!"

"Yeah? Doesn’t seem like it.” I scoff. “You know what, I shouldn’t be surprised. It's not like any of you have any moral ground whatsoever."

"What do you mean?" Twilight asks, genuinely baffled.

I have been waiting to say this for a really long time. This train is on a roll, and not about to stop. Oh, this is gonna feel great! "What do I mean?” I deadpan. “I mean that, in my first day in Equestria, you,” I jab a finger almost into Twilight’s nose, “threw me around like a rag doll with every intention of causing me more bodily harm than I already was sustaining, and you and you,” I point to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, “joined right in on the fun!"

Applejack steps up. "You attacked Princess Celestia!"

I don’t back down. "And I'd do it again! Notice how she didn't atomize me to the bone at the time, or any time afterwards?"

"We were just tryin' ta–"

"Trying to what, protect her?” I spit out acidly. “You thought the immortal sun goddess of Equestria needed protecting from a half dead human?!"

"But–"

"But nothing!” I cut her off. “You had no need to do that; you did it because you wanted to!"

"So we lost our tempers!" Twilight yells as well. "It's not like you didn't lose yours!"

I give her a withering glare. “Oh, so now you did it because I did?! Rich excuse!”

Before any of us can continue the shouting contest, somepony who’s feeling the tempers rise from outside the argument speaks up. "Please, darlings, must we really do this?” Rarity pleads, trying to calm us down. “There’s no need to be bad blood between us!"

I move my head to stare doom into her eyes. "Too late for that, miss! You already raised the bad blood when you thought using me as a dang mannequin without my permission was a good idea!"

She looks taken aback, most likely because of how her appeasing attempt got turned on its head. "What was I supposed to do?!” she protests. “You ran away from me!"

"I sure did, because for all I knew, you were gonna shove me into a get-up too ridiculous for even a costume party! Of course I’d panic!” She bristles and deflates at the exact same time, but I don’t stop to wonder how she can do that. “You didn't tell me that you would try to make something fitting my tastes; you just froze me instead of trying to explain! All you needed to do was tell me that you would just show me your designs before you would make anything definitive, and we would have been fine! But no, instead you preferred to use me like a talking object!"

Rarity purses her lips in a tight frown, but doesn't say anything.

"The only one out of all of you that I am not remotely mad at is Fluttershy,” I continue, back to a less loud voice. “In fact, she is the only one who really seems sorry for what I went through. But the rest of you? All you kept doing was trying to justify both your actions and Celestia's.” I tap my chest with my index and middle fingers, feeling my mood flare up again. “But you haven't stopped to think about what I am going through here! So put yourselves in my shoes for just one measly second and see how you like the calluses!"

I have to take a moment to wind down after the rant ends, and a lot less straining, too. When I look back ahead, I have no eye contact with anyone; all I see are six pairs of droopy ears on the heads of six sullen ponies that are facing everywhere but my way. Okay, now I do feel that I’ve gone overboard. It makes me rub my temples to relieve the headache that is forming under them.

"Anyway,” I say much more calmly, which prompts most of them to look back up, “Rarity.”

She faces me, a little unwillingly.

“Look, despite our falling out episodes, I appreciate the fact that you gave me a roof for these past few days. But I'm going to be moving out as soon as I can find a job and a place of my own. Especially after… this," I finish, a little guiltily.

She nods a little stiffly. "I always assumed that was the plan, darling."

"That's actually one of the things I wanted to tell you," an uncharacteristically humble voice speaks.

I have to look twice to confirm it’s not Fluttershy speaking. No, that would be another pony with pink hair.

I shoot Pinkie a surprised look. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well,” she explains, “when Rarity came to talk to me about how you were super-duper mad at me for the fire prank, she mentioned that you wanted to have a place of your own. So I...” she hesitates for a fraction of a second, and I have the impression that she’s not used to talking slowly. “I went down to the Town Hall to see if there were any empty houses around here."

She walks over to a saddlebag with her cutie mark on it and gently pulls out a piece of paper with her mouth. "I found this one."

I take the sheet from her, and my eyes widen as soon as I begin giving it a once-over. “Pinkie Pie… this is a lease agreement. You got me a place to stay?"

Said pony nods a few times. "I paid the down payment on the house, too."

I have to admit, she just left me utterly speechless. This is far from any expectations I had for… well, ever. "I'll, er… I'll pay you back when I can," is all I can speak.

"Okay,” she says back with a faint smile. “No rush, though, I know you don't have a job yet. Unless…” then, she goes back to being unusually meek and hesitant. “… unless you want to come back to Sugarcube Corner?"

Those last two words bring me back to reality faster than a bucket of icy water. "Heck no, forget that. I'm not going back to working with you, house or no house."

Pinkie winces just a little, but looks me in the eyes. Her expression tells me she must have been expecting my answer. "Do you still hate me?" she asks with a hint of resignation.

It’s a very simple question, but one that increases the pounding in my head. "’Hate’ is a bit of a strong word, Pinkie. I didn’t forget that you saved me from the hay allergy, or that the fire didn’t burn. Heck, I can’t even feel that mad at you for all this. But,” I say with a lifted index finger before a grin can grow on her mug, “that doesn’t mean I trust you… at least, not right now. I mean, it’s all a little too recent."

She sighs. "That's fair..."

"Then I think that settles it,” I say with a lame attempt at finality. Why do I have to feel so bad for giving them a deserved chew out, darn it? “Now, I don’t really think we want to be close to each other now, so if you don’t mind, I'd rather get out and go see my new house. What’s the way to this address, Pinkie?"

Author's Notes:

(Editor’s note: Sad Pinkie is worst Pinkie)