Chapter 3: Friends

Pinkie waited behind the counter, bouncing happily as she waited for her friends to arrive. Recently Rarity was given an order from somepony that was holding a high class party in Canterlot, and so Pinkie decided to hold a party for her to celebrate. The first pony to arrive was Rainbow Dash, who had just finished her cloud clearing duties for the day.

"Hey Pinkie" Rainbow said tiredly as she flew through the front door. Pinkie bounced around the counter to greet Rainbow with a hug, but Rainbow held her off with her hooves.

"Sorry Pinkie, but I'm not in the mood for hugs right now" Rainbow said with her eyes half shut. She had a tough day clearing the sky today because of a mistake the other members of the weather team made at night when a rainstorm was planned. Pinkie sighed sadly and walked back to behind the counter, waiting to see if somepony would come in to buy something, but no pony did. The next pony to arrive was Applejack, with Fluttershy just behind her.

"Hey there Pinkie" Applejack said with a nod as she went over to the sleeping Rainbow, who had passed out in one of the chairs. Behind her Fluttershy slipped inside, giving Pinkie a smile as she trotted over to the table next to Rainbow. Applejack decided to wake Rainbow up, and Pinkie was going to go give them all a happy welcome, but somepony came in so she had to stay at the counter. As she took the pony's order she could hear Applejack and Rainbow arguing playfully, much to Applejack's delight. Once the pony had left with his order of blueberry muffins Pinkie wandered over to them, getting Applejack's attention when she turned to run back to the counter as another pony came in.

"Hey Rainbow, does Pinkie look different to you at all?" Applejack whispered, her eyes focused on Pinkie's stomach, which had gotten slightly larger over the past two months. Rainbow looked over as well, now noticing it because it was pointed out to her.

"Yeah, that's strange" Rainbow whispered, now interested in this change in Pinkie. Pinkie saw them looking at her out of the corner of her eye, knowing full well that they were looking at her stomach. It had been two months since the night with Discord, and with Mr and Mrs Cake's support she was able to keep it a secret from everypony. While getting the order for the pony that had shown up she thought of an excuse, quickly thinking that she could tell them that she was just gaining weight, but she knew that excuse wouldn't last forever. When Pinkie came back to the counter she saw Twilight sitting with the rest of the ponies that had shown up already, meaning they were just waiting for Rarity to show up.

"Hi girls" Pinkie said as she finally got to walk over to them, making them end their conversation suddenly, "What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing to worry about Pinkie" Rainbow said quickly, noticing Applejack's troubled look in the corner of her eye, "Anyways, how was everypony's day?"

"Fairly good" Twilight said with a smile, "I had to reorganize every book in the..."

"Good, except for the Cutie Mark Crusaders running around me while I worked" Applejack said, ignoring Twilight's long explanation about how she reorganized the entire library with everypony else. In the background Fluttershy shrugged, her work with animals not bringing up any issues bigger than one of them getting hungry. Pinkie shrugged as well, the hardest part of her day was planning Rarity's party, but she had fun doing that so it didn't count as something bad.

"Hello everypony!" Rarity said from the doorway, posing dramatically as everypony looked at her.

"...and then Spike-" Twilight froze mid speech, "Hi Rarity"

"So, are we going to celebrate MY achievement?" Rarity asked, looking around noticing the absence of party decor. Within seconds Pinkie had her party cannon in front of her, and with a pop of the cannon the entire room was decorated appropriately, with pearly white and royal purple balloons and streamers everywhere. After a few seconds Fluttershy shyly looked around Rainbow's shoulder and saw that everything was okay, and the party was started. As the party went on the talk about Pinkie's slowly growing stomach circulated around the room until it got to Rarity, who decided to come right out with it.

"Pinkie, what is going on with you, why are you getting bigger?" Rarity asked, making Applejack and Rainbow Dash shoot her a look of disbelief, surprised that she of all ponies was the one that let it slip. Pinkie stopped what she was doing and turned to face Rarity with a strange smile on her face.

"Oh, I think I've just been eating way too many cupcakes recently" Pinkie said, looking at her own stomach to make it look like she hadn't noticed that she was getting bigger. Applejack raised an eyebrow as she watched Pinkie shrug it off, her short explanation pleasing Rarity enough that she dropped the conversation. For the rest of the party Applejack watched Pinkie closely, noticing something was off, but Rarity was making it hard with her antics. Most of the party after that was spent with Rarity talking about her big job, making it sound like some amazing tale about her becoming successful. Once she was finished the story everypony started to leave because it was getting late.

"Hey Pinkie, are you sure you eating too many cupcakes is all that's going on?" Applejack asked before she left, being the last pony there.

"Yeah, of course, why do you ask?" Pinkie said with a happy smile.

"It's nothing, forget I asked" Applejack said with one last look at Pinkie before she left. Pinkie followed Applejack with her eyes as she left, having an odd feeling that Applejack knew something was up, but Pinkie didn't really care about it. After saying goodnight to the Cakes, who were working on some orders they had for a party that was coming up, she headed to bed, where Discord was waiting for her in a dream. Tonight Pinkie hoped that she would get to swim through a giant banana split while Discord floated around adding chocolate sprinkles.