The only sound of strained breaths broke the still of the otherwise quiet bedroom. Standing in the center betwixt two statues sat Pinkie, hooves pressed firmly against either side of her head as she desperately sucked air through her tightly clenched jaw. The mare’s eyes bounced from statue to statue like balls in a tennis match, but these were no ordinary statues.

The first was clearly Starlight Glimmer, balanced perfectly on one hoof with forelegs reared back, and a jovial laugh frozen upon her face. The [i]ponk[/i] of a hollow ball almost rang audible when Pinkie’s pupils flicked over to the adjacent pony. A stoic, unblinking Maud Pie stood tall with the faintest hint of a smirk threatening to break through her surly facade.

Pinkie screamed again, voice cracking and coarse, both mares’ manes flailed helplessly in the frosting-scented breeze as the grating sound shook the very crystal of the bedroom. Seconds turned to minutes with Pinkie’s face shifting from pink, to red, and finally deep indigo when her primal shriek finally faded into voiceless hiss.

She took a deep breath. Suddenly her hoof dropped to the floor. She snatched up a knickknack before shoving it in Starlight’s still-laughing face. "How am I going to fix this?" she cried. In her hoof sat a golden watch with a cracked face and lone spring poking from a split in the scuffed exterior. "I didn’t mean it, I swear!"

Starlight didn’t move a muscle.

Pinkie dropped the watch and snatched Maud by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "I’m sorry, okay? I’ll stop giving you two friendship advice and I’ll never in the way of you making friends again! [i]This[/i] time I mean it!"

When Pinkie let go, Maud simply froze where she stopped.

Her eyes darted between the frozen ponies, but neither moved.

"Oh, no…" Pinkie said breathlessly. "I’ll have to live in an time-stopped world. I’ll go crazy—end up pretending everything’s normal when [i]clearly[/i] it’s not!" Pinkie covered her mouth in horror. "I don’t want to make up voices for [i]all of Equestria[/i] when I inevitably go insane!"

"Cheer up, Pinkie," she said from behind her hoof in a flat, tone. Her eyes jumped to Starlight. "You’ll get this all sorted out," she added, mimicking the unicorn’s voice.

Pinkie gasped. "It’s already started!"

A sudden burst of tears exploded out like fountains from Pinkie’s eyes. But as puddles took form on either side, she abruptly stopped the waterworks.

"Somepony has to be able to fix this!" Pinkie shifted on her haunches, head rattling like a rattle before it snapped firmly into place. Then a light bulb flicked on next to her head. "Twilight! Maybe Twilight isn’t frozen!" She jumped up. "Or I can find a book on watch repair!" 

In a Pink blur she zipped out of the room, scooping the watch, and knocking Starlight over on the way out. Once the door slammed behind her, caught in the tailwind, the two ponies were left alone.

Starlight sprung up onto her hooves, letting out a sigh of relief. "See? I told you that’d keep her busy." She snickered and immediately winced. Her horn lit up, and she plucked free two ear plugs from deep within her ears.

"It only took her two hours of screaming at us—" Maud pulled two plugs from her own ears "—to finally go look for help with the watch," she replied with a flat tone. "It would have been quicker if we had snuck away while she was distracted with Pinkie things." She only stared with an occasional slow blink. "Like when she starts jumping around the room looking for improv material."

"Yeah, but she’s catching on to our tricks." Starlight gingerly massaged her cheeks, eyebrow furrowed as she did.

"I’ll never smile again," she muttered to herself.

"I suppose." Maud glanced to the door for a second before flicking her eyes back to Starlight. "This won’t give us much time though."

"How do you figure?" Starlight raised an eyebrow.

Maud glanced to the door once more. "We have twenty minutes for her to find Twilight, be overjoyed she’s not frozen, and explain the situation before Twilight tells her the world isn’t frozen." She gave the smallest shrug. "Or less."

Starlight nodded idly for a few seconds. "Less it is, Twilight’s in the next wing over. Let’s bail before we’re stuck pretending this is a contained temporal anomaly."

"As fun as it was doing my Boulder impression, I agree."