Title:           Climbing Mt. Gāteau
Author:          yak-mcguffin
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/VHc6uCsG
First Edit:      Sunday 26th of April 2015 09:42:08 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Sunday 26th of April 2015 09:42:08 PM CDT

>"Twilight, we need to hurry!" Pinkie Pie cried against the wind. It howled around her, and she shook sprinkles out of her hair. The marzipan cracked as she drove the ice pick into the wall above her.
>Twilight's purple hoof grasped the top of the ledge, and she pulled herself up. Her eyes were bulging behind her tinted goggles. "Pinkie Pie, where are we? What's happening?"
>Pinkie grit her teeth in concentration as she fussed with her ropes, which Twilight noted were made of bright red licorice. Her scarf waved in the wind crazily. "Twilight, I thought you knew! This WAS your idea, after all." She turned around and looked Twilight in the eyes, holding her chin up with a hoof. "Hmmn. Maybe the altitude is getting to you..."
>"PINKIE!" Twilight shook her friend off. "All I want to know is, why are we on a cake!?"
 
>Pinkie sighed, and dug her hoof into the spongy pastry beneath her. She took a bite of it and swallowed. "We're on an expeditionary grant. We need to make it to the top of Mt. Gāteau before sunfall, or we'll never be able to sample the Summit Cherry."
>Twilight looked down behind her at what she had just climbed and blanched. She tried to forget both how small the rocks at the bottom looked and the fact that some of those rocks looked like giant cupcakes. "Pinkie, please, if this is some kind of prank, I'm really impressed and amused and everything but can we please go home?"
>"Of COURSE not, silly!" Pinkie fiddled with her ropes. "Going back to Bake Camp --" Twilight's eye twitched "-- would take far too long! We can't even go back to Camp IV like this, not when we're so close! If we turn back now, we might not get the chance to make another run!"
>Pinkie turned away from the wall and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders. "And you remember just how hard it was in the first place, convincing the grant committee that we could do it! We can't let those neighsayers be proven right!"
>Twilight shook Pinkie off, very aware of the steep ledge that she'd just climbed up immediately behind her and the sharp-looking cocoa curls at the bottom. "R-right. Sorry, I'd just forgotten all that stuff."
>Pinkie nodded and cleared her throat before shouting up into the wind. "Maud, belay on!?"
>"Belay on." Maud's voice was its usual monotonous pitch and tone, but Twilight could still hear it over the wind.
>"Thanks Maud! Climbing!" Pinkie began to move up the wall, stepping gingerly.
>Twilight looked at the surface Pinkie was climbing. It was made up of small, gritty looking rocks.
>She leaned forward and nibbled one. It was made of Oreo chunks.
>Pinkie was disappearing into the winds of lemon ice, now, and a couple of minutes later she heard the affirmative "Belay off!" from up above that indicated that Pinkie was off the rope. Twilight put a hoof to her forehead and pondered how she ever made such a strange friend in the first place before clicking herself in.
>...
>Twilight pulled herself up to the top of the ledge, breathing heavily. Regardless of whatever kind of mountain "Mt. Gāteau" was, Pinkie was right. It WAS high up, and she'd been climbing for....
>She still couldn't remember how exactly she'd started that day, but it must have been several hours by now.
>The cookie crumbles crackled under her hooves as she shakily stood up next to Maud and Pinkie. Pinkie's head was slumped down, and her eyes were closed.
>Twilight felt uneasy. "Girls? Is everything all right?"
>Pinkie Pie raised a hoof and pointed glumly into the west without opening her eyes. The sun was just above the horizon now. She sniffled. "N-no."
>Twilight moved in to hug her friend just as Maud did the same. Pinkie sniffled again. "Now we'll never prove those grant meanies wrong! They were right... we couldn't do it."
>Twilight blinked. "Wait, Pinkie...."
>"I'm sorry, Maud. I thought we could do this together, but I was just a big dumb dead weight the whole time...."
>Maud spoke: "Pinkie."
>Pinkie sniffed again. "What?"
>"Weren't we close to the east face of the mountain?"
>Twilight stopped patting Pinkie on the back. Pinkie stopped sniffling.
>As one, all three mares looked next to them at the huge rock that they thought they would have to climb next.
>Just then, a ray of light from the setting sun hit the thing in front of them, and the three ponies beheld the sight of the Summit Cherry glowing from the sun's light.
>"W-wow," stammered Twilight. Red light fell over all of them as the sprinkle storm blew around the two amateur pony mountaineers and the rocktorate student.
>Pinkie said nothing. She just approached the cherry and embraced it. Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw Maud smiling.
>"Enjoying the show?"
>Twilight turned to the whisper in her ear to see Princess Luna floating effortlessly in the wind despite the whipped-cream flying through it.
>"P-Princess!?" Twilight quickly put two and two together. "Really? So this is all just Pinkie's dream?"
>"It is."
>"Then why am I here?"
>Luna winked. "Celestia has been telling me all about 'pranks,' you know. Apparently, they are quite 'fun' so I decided to try one first hoof." Luna gestured at the celebrating Pies. "Pinkie regularly has such odd dreams. I thought that introducing you to one of them would be suitably disorienting to constitute a 'prank,' and I must say that it HAS been fun. So, success!"
>Twilight sat up as Princess Luna floated off into the distance. She was going to have a talk with her mentor when she woke up.