Thirty Minute Pony Stories

Pinkie Pie stared at the translucent lump of green moss resting at the corner of Cupcake Corner. The moss convulsed rhythmically, as if it were a heart. Pinkie Pie continued to stare blankly at it. Pinkie Pie stood still.

She hasn’t seen the moss that clouded her vision move lately. Her Sense hasn’t acted up lately as well, so maybe the moss’ stillness was a good sign.

The moss beat faster. Her tail flicked to the left. Pinkie Pie frowned, but hid her sorrow by nibbling on an extra cupcake leftover from yesterday’s morning shift. She watched the moss carefully.

The welcome bell chirped happily. Pinkie’s eyes shot towards the door.

“Hi, Twilight! I’ve got your order right here! I mean, as in under the counter. By which I mean with a bunch of other orders.” Pinkie Pie said.

The pony at the door waved and let herself in. Pinkie Pie shuffled between pink paper cardboard boxes with the names of ponies written on it. She found a box with Twilight’s name written in pen. She pulled out the box and passed it to Twilight.

Twilight put a neat stack of coins on the counter. Pinkie Pie smiled warmly at her friend, but her eyes contused to watch the green spore. A faint trail of mist trickled from the lump of mysterious moss. Pinkie Pie hid her trembling hooves from behind the counter.

“Is something wrong, Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie Pie looked back at Twilight. She shook her head furiously, but Twilight turned around and stared at the corner.

“Do you see them, too Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked. 

“Of course I do.” Twilight said after a moment, “Rarity will have a fit if she notices that.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened. There was another pony who saw the strange plants. But Twilight didn’t grow up on a rock farm. Did she discover a way to see the spores? Did she stumble upon a colony from inside the old books in the Canterlot library? They were as old as the rocks Pinkie Pie harvested as a child, perhaps even older.

“The paint’s chipping pretty badly.” Twilight noted.

Pinkie Pie’s head shot back. She tried not to scowl.

“Oh. I… um, I knew there was something wrong with that corner.” Pinkie Pie forced out a laugh.

“If you need any help, let me know. Spike and I are more than happy to help you renovate, considering that this happens often.” Twilight said as she lifted her box full of sweets. “Goodbye!”

Pinkie Pie waved goodbye, but did not watch her friend leave. She watched the bulbous sac sag as a fine green smoke lifted from an open hole.

Twilight still did not notice the spores that lined Cupcake Corner. Nopony noticed. Not even the Cakes, who owned the shop. All of the customers paid no attention to the fern-like growths that covered the shop in its fleshy roots.

Even her sisters and parents at the rock farm did not know of this plant. When she turned over a mossy rock, she could see that the entire world was covered in green moss.

They did, however, know it as another force. “Pinkie Sense,” they called it. But to Pinkie Pie, she knew it was a warning signal that the moss was growing, slowly taking covering the world in green.

The trails of smoke disappeared. Pinkie Pie’s spine shuddered. Her eyes shot towards the kitchen.

Long leaves wrapped around a container of baking soda and flung it across the room. In its place, the leaves converged to create another bulb of spores. It was another reproductive bloom, Pinkie Pie realized. If she stayed inside Cupcake Corner, the ferns would simply die from overcrowding, but at the cost of half of the glass inventory and almost all of the stored ingredients covering the kitchen in a mixture of shards of glass and flour.

She hoped that the moss would leave her alone if she moved away from the rock farm. But instead the moss followed her. Instead of the isolated world of the rock farm, the moss thrived in Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie’s stomach churned. The walls of Cupcake Corner sighed balefully.  To the others, it meant a strong, swift storm outside the control of pegusai. To Pinkie Pie, it meant that the translucent moss would be at its largest number for a week, which also meant a week of catastrophe caused by the unseen creatures.

Norse Pony’s comments: Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Sense being caused by an outside force is an interesting idea. The invisible moss/ferns reminds me of something that would be found in Mushi-Shi, which is a good thing to my mind. I would have liked to know why the moss/fern reproductive cycle creates storms in Ponyville, because that seems like an interesting plot point.