The sun shone over Ponyville. It was a pleasant, cheery celestine bauble of light and warmth, which just went to show the power of perspective considering it was, in reality, a hundred tonnes of seething cosmic plasma.

From Pinkie Pie’s perspective, for instance, there was a temptation most terrible right under her nose. Literally. There under her nose, in a basket hung from a ribbon she held in her mouth, was a Black Forest cake.

It was cylindrical as such things often are, wider than it was high, but still quite small as cakes went. Its frosting coating was poor protection indeed, and with each bounce the scent wafted over her once more, awakening to the fullest extent her inner sacchrivore. For her ravening hunger, given voice by her grumbly tummy, the delicious snackrifice was protected. More than locks and chains—neither of which would have hindered her anyway—it was protected by a promise.

A promise she’d made. A promise to not eat the cake. It had been so easy to make, but the last fifteen minutes—also the first fifteen minutes, in fact—were really testing her resolve.

Purple magic lifted the basket and its cloying scent into the library. Twilight rustled her wings unconsciously from the doorway before pressing them tightly to her sides. “Um, Pinkie? You’re kind of zoned out there.”

“Oh, hi Twilight! I brought the cake! Aww, you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed of being an alicorn.” She gave Twilight’s crown-free head a vigorous noogie. A familiar envelope of smooth magic slid over the pink pony, kindly yet firmly removing her from Twilight’s noggin.

“I’m not embarrassed!” Twilight said with a clear blush. “I just haven’t gotten used to...you know...the stares. I know it’s a big deal, and it’s important that Equestria sees me and everything, but I haven’t been able to just read a nice book ever since this whole thing happened!”

Pinkie gave her a flat look. “You haven’t read a book in three days?”

Twilight sighed with pent-up exasperation. “I know, I know! At least it’s starting to calm down now, a little bit anyway. I’m glad Celestia and Luna are so understanding, I don’t want to be cooped up in Canterlot all the time—“

Pinkie wriggled with excitement and her eyes went wide. Wider, anyway. She pressed past Twilight, willfully oblivious to any such thing as ‘personal space.’ “When you can be cooped with friends! It’s so awesome!”

The door closed behind them. Twilight was able to sigh away some anxiety, and even chuckle a little. “There’s no stopping you, Pinkie.”

“Of course not!”

Smiling, Twilight wandered around the room, her hooves drifting slowly over the floor, eyes often lingering on this shelf or that memento. “They’re letting me keep the library, you know. Or, I suppose, I’m letting me keep the library. It’s so strange that I can do that now. But it makes me feel better about it that everypony agrees on it, too.” She turned a coy eye to Pinkie. “And I am genuinely surprised you haven’t thrown a party about this yet.”

Pinkie only smiled. “The biggest, bestest ones take time and planning. I still have to get word back from the Empire, you know.” She winked.

“You’re...you’re inviting Cadence? And my brother?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“And a few others.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes, but her lip turned up in a smirk. “How many is a few?”

Under Twilight’s withering gaze, Pinkie burst into a snortle. “Okay! A lot.”

Twilight, ever hungry for the quantifiable answers of life, but knowing full well it was pink futility, only smiled. “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, right?”

With the widest of smiles, Pinkie patted Twilight on the back. “I knew you’d learn that sooner or later.”

A purple hoof brushed the pink one away. “Okay, Pinkie Pie. You know what this is about today?”

“Yes—” Pinkie began enthusiastically.

“Beyond you bringing a cake here and promising to not eat it until I say you can?”

“No. Don’t know a thing in that case!” Pinkie Pie finished with equal delight. She saw that in the comfort and security of her own place, Twilight let her wings hang much more laxly from her sides. It wasn’t a bad look for the alicorn. The wings swept through the air as Twilight turned.

“It’s actually quite simple, and I’ll explain the principle if you’ll just come with me to the basement.”

It was only a couple of steps and a couple of sentences, but Pinkie filled it by imagining that Twilight, being in full lecture mode as she was, was wearing funny glasses and lab coats and doing the classic mad scientist routine. Words like ‘intrinsic’ and ‘morphic resonance’ popped up here and there in the monologue like strange, foreign fungi with certain illicit but sought after properties.

In a moment they were in the basement. Twilight’s rather impressive machinery stood ready and waiting, blinking with greens and yellows. “Did you understand everything I just said, Pinkie?”

“Uh-huh.”

Twilight turned a scrutinizing eye to her friend. “Would you care to repeat it back to me, then?”

“You want to see if I can use magic if I use a fake horn but pretend really hard that it’s real.”

“Pinkie!” the young alicorn cried. “That brief and easily understood working analogy is not at all what I...Oh nevermind.” She sighed. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Fortunately for us, I’ve managed to adapt some of my existing equipment into what I hope should give us some very interesting results. If you’ll stand here, please.”

Pinkie did just that, humming to herself as Twilight strapped various bits of metal and tubing onto her. She gave an experimental wriggle. “You could make these tighter if you want. I don’t mind.”

“You sure, Pinkie?” Soft concern lit up the alicorn’s face. “I wouldn’t want it to be uncomfortable for you.”

The earth pony laughed lightly. “It’s hardly the first time you’ve got your stuff all over me. I know you like it tighter rather than looser.” Again, Pinkie Pie gave a wiggle. Doodads, thingermajigs, and whatchamacallits slid about on their loose strappings.

Twilight nodded thoughtfully. “Well, yes, it certainly helps me record the findings if things aren’t sliding around, and the diodes are kind of fragile, too. Don’t want them clanging off each other. Okay then,” she said. The various straps and carabiners slid and clicked until they were snug against Pinkie. “All systems looking good to go.”

“I bet I look ridiculous!” the silly mare chortled. “Oh! Oh! Make lightning in here so I can yell, ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’ ”

“Pinkie, no. No.” The pony in question went puppy eyed, and made the appropriate whimpering sounds. Twilight rolled her eyes. “Fine.” A tiny sizzle of lightning fizzled out harmlessly in the air.

Pinkie only shook her head. “I just remembered, it has to be in a thunderstorm at night. Otherwise it just doesn’t feel the same, you know?”

Twilight laughed. “No, Pinkie. I really don’t. Let’s get onto actual science and actual magic now, okay?”

“Sure thing!” Blinkers blinked and beepers beeped. “Wait...where does your cake come into all this?” Pinkie gasped. “It’s not a lie, is it?!”

“Actual, it’s the subject. See, the most basic unicorn magic is moving objects. That’s where the cake comes in.”

There was magic, lights and sweet music as the cake was set, whole and pristine, upon a pedestal just out of Pinkie’s reach.

“You remember your promise?”

Pinkie looked dazed. “Mhmm,” she intoned.

“The Black Forest cake has a soft, malleable form that’ll show if there’s been any force exerted on it.”

Pinkie Pie stared rigidly at it. “I want it.”

Twilight nodded. “Mostly that, though. Consider it motivation.”

A speckle of saliva welled up at the corner of Pinkie’s mouth. Her breathing quickened. “Consider me motivated,” she said huskily. Her belly rumbled.

Twilight fiddled with a dial. “Wonderful!” she said gleefully, and her wings unconsciously beat at the air a few times. “Focus, Pinkie Pie. Try to focus.” She swept along to her friend’s side. “Try to reach out with your self-awareness.” Pinkie Pie clamped her jaw, trembling slightly as a low keening started under her breath. “Feel the Black Forest cake. Reach out to it.”

“I’m...trying!”

“Feel it Pinkie! Feel it moving through you, and you through it!”

Pinkie spoke through her panting. “I...I feel something!”

Lights blinked more excitedly, bits whirred and things went ding. They only went ding when there was stuff.

“Yes, yes!” Twilight cried in delight. “We’re getting a reading. Keep going. Harder!”

Pinkie moaned. She whined, a high-pitched wail under her breath then gasped, and her whole body went rigid. “Ah!” she cried.

The maraschino cherry split open with a great and ponderous slowness, then blew apart with a tiny pop of air.

The mares looked at each other. They looked back at the cake. They looked back to each other. They broke into jigs and shrieks and prattling nonsensical delight simultaneously.

“That was amazing, Pinkie!” Twilight’s wings poofed open fully. “A clear and definite causation-reaction thaumaturgical event! Astounding!”

“I popped your cherry! I popped your cherry!” Pinkie Pie singsonged, shaking her mane to music nopony else heard. She was next to Twilight now, naked and bare of the burdensome equipment, dancing away. The young alicorn didn’t even think to ask how that’d happened, nor would have particularly cared anyway. They danced and laughed for joy. Pretty soon though, what with the bumping and bouncing, it was apparent that it simply wasn’t feasible to constrain Pinkie Pie to a basement lab full of delicate equipment.

“I could be up all night going through these recordings and still have half left over!” Twilight sounded euphoric about it. “Thank you, Pinkie! Thank you so much!”

The pink pony said something incomprehensible from the depths of the rapidly demolished Black Forest cake. “That. Was. Awesome!” she cried as she came back from the sugary layers, many of them plastered across her face. “I gotta go tell everypony! See you later, Twi!”

“See you,” said Twilight, a bounce in her step and humming a jaunty little tune as she cleared up the lab space.

“I popped Twilight’s cherry!” Pinkie Pie sang in the library proper.

“I popped Twilight’s cherry!” she sang as she bounced in the street.

“I popped Twilight’s cherry!” she sang to the incredibly surprised-looking Rainbow Dash who broke into a fit of coughing for entirely no reason whatsoever and spun careening out of control before bombing into Applejack’s market stall. It went down like kindling, a yelp from the mare within. Bystanders turned to look at the commotion.

For all that, Dash sprung back to her hooves in an instant. “Pinkie Pie! What in the hay are you saying?!”

“Woah nelly!” Applejack whipped a hoof around each of her friends’ heads and dragged them into a huddle. “First, pipe down, ‘cause the whole town’s here to listen in on...whatever this is. Second,” she hissed, “what is this?!”

Dash flared her wings, inadvertently slapping them over both her friends as she did so. “Applejack, did you hear what she was saying?”

“I popped Twilight’s cherry!”

Rainbow’s mane whipped left and right as she growled. “Stop saying that, Pinkie!”

“What did I do to deserve this...Right.” Applejack cleared her throat loudly. “The way these sorts of things usually go, I’m bettin’ misunderstanding. Pinkie. Tell me what exactly you mean when you say...what you're saying...”

The pink mare gave a happy, full-body wiggle. “Twilight had me come over and she put all these straps on me and—”

Rainbow Dash winced. “Pinkie Pie!”

“Let the girl talk,” Applejack said, her face becoming hidden under hat and hoof.

“—she had me try really hard to get at her cake with magic and it worked and the cherry popped!”

Applejack let loose a big sigh of relief. “See, Dash? Misunderstanding. The whole shebang was just a misunderstanding.” She grabbed Dash by the tail and dragged her away. Now help me fix my stall.”

“But—”

The farmer’s eyes narrowed. “No buts.”

Grumbling, the pegasus started hefting timbers and picking up fruit. Pinkie Pie went on her merry way, simply happy that she had, indeed, popped Twilight’s cherry.

From a nearby storefront, two mares went back to their business. “What was that about?” Lyra asked.

Bon Bon tsk tsk’d. “I think Pinkie Pie’s got her facts wrong.”

“Oh, why’s that?” Lyra asked. Bon Bon gave her a look. “Oh. Oohhh. That one time...right.” Lyra grinned. “I can’t believe Twilight actually said yes. Turned out to be the best. Birthday. Ever. Lyra gave her marefriend a kiss.

“I think the cider helped things along.”

Lyra’s cheeks burned a happy, rosey red. Bon Bon’s were similarly flushed, but with embarrassment. “And I had no idea Twilight could be so limbre,” the unicorn added. “Sure, she didn’t have a clue what she was doing, but she was very willing to learn.”

“Very willing,” Bon Bon mumbled.

They watched Pinkie Pie bounce away. Lyra gestured to her. “You think she means, like, her being an alicorn now? Does it work that way?”

Bon Bon pouted. “I don’t know. Maybe? Pinkie Pie seems pretty thrilled in any case.”

Lyra rubbed at her chin in thought and threw a hoof over her marefriend’s neck. “I think we should accidentally intentionally buy Twilight a drink next time we see her out on the town.”

“Your birthday was last week,” Bon Bon said flatly. “I’ve said it before. That kind of thing for special occasions only.”

“This is true,” Lyra pondered ruefully. Then she grinned wolfishly. “Your birthday isn’t too far away, though, and I’ll give you three reasons you can’t say no to: Twilight. Sparkle. Alicorn. Eh, eh?” Lyra winked. “Think of the feathers, my dear!”

Bon Bon thought of the feathers. “Just the one drink then,” she said shyly. “Twilight would probably want a little break from her new life anyway. And she’s always been very friendly.”

Lyra nudged her marefriend along, nodding all the way. “And we’ll invite her back to our place, so that the the new alicorn can have a bit of privacy and relax.”

“Right, right,” Bon Bon nodded, more eager than she wanted to admit. “With ponies who know her and aren’t going to grovel at her hooves like in Canterlot.”

“Unless, you know, she’s into that. I’m totally willing to try.”

Bon Bon blushed all the more scarlet. She barely squeaked out her next thoughts aloud.

“Think we can get Pinkie Pie along, too?”

“Along to what?” Pinkie said suddenly, springing out of veritably nowhere. “Did you wanna pop cherries with me? Maybe we can even do it with grapes, and carrots, and bananas too!” She gasped in epiphany. “We’ll need the big strap-on pieces to do it. I hope Twilight shares them all.”

Bon Bon fainted, a dizzy smile plastered across her face.