Pinkie decided that the scronk when she blew her nose was the sound of sadness.

It was just a guess, really, but she supposed it was a pretty good guess. Supposing was guessing too, but it was a different kind, like when Pa supposed it was going to rain over the north forty, or when Maud supposed that Pinkie was going to go spend the afternoon listening to Granny Pie's wild stories again. Granny said that when you supposed, you were making a little suggestion to the world, so it was important to make suggestions the world liked. Pinkie supposed that her whole family was good at that.

Pinkie scronked again, dropping her soppy tissue in the overflowing trash-bin by the bed, and stopped sipping Granny's soup long enough to inhale a breath of it. The steam rising off the clear golden broth cleared her nostrils for a moment. There didn't seem anything inherently sad about being sick, but her nose was leaking the same way that eyes did when ponies cried.

None of her family had ever cried, but she'd read about it, first in Granny's Manehattenite magazine stories and then in the book she'd stolen from the quartz dealer's cart. It had fallen off while they were loading and she had set it aside on the shelf by the door like he'd asked—but she had deliberately put it behind a big chunk of rhodite where Mister Geode wouldn't see it, and when he had left without it, she had snuck it up to her room. It was called Of Mice And Mares, but there was only one mouse. When one of the ponies in it cried, she felt a strange and uncomfortable tightness welling up inside her, and wondered whether that was water forcing its way from her tummy toward her eyes.

Pinkie picked up the bowl of soup with both hooves and took a long drink of the rich liquid, which went down like a hug to the throat. She stared out the window toward Granny's cottage. Granny was probably back there already. She always was, every time Pinkie wanted to find her. The few times Granny showed up at the house, it was because Pinkie needed Granny, even if she hadn't known she did.

Today, Granny had knocked on Pinkie's door a few hours after the doctor had left. She'd placed the soup on Pinkie's nightstand, sat down on the edge of her bed, and stroked her sweating forehead with a hoof.

"Pinkie," Granny Pie had said, "you know what the Gray Flu is?"

Pinkie hadn't said anything to her parents, or to the doctor. But for Granny, she swallowed through a swollen, parched throat and said, "No."

"The doctor thinks there ain't no hope left. Once it takes over your body, it gets in your heart an' steals all the color away." She had curled her pastern over Pinkie's. "Only one cure I know. You want to get better?"

"Yes," Pinkie had lied.

Pinkie took another long drink of soup, feeling the warmth spread through her chest. She took her first deep breath in days, closed her eyes, and remembered.

Granny had tilted her head and stared silently at her. Pinkie had swallowed, and something had stirred inside of her through the exhaustion. A tiny voice whispered that giving up meant not seeing Granny again. "Yes," she said again, forcing some tiny sliver of conviction into it.

Granny had smiled, then abruptly changed the subject. "You remember what I said when you asked about laughter?"

Pinkie weakly nodded. "Yes'm. It's what's left behind when everything that makes sense in the world falls away."

Granny had tousled her mane. "Good filly. That's the key. You sit up and think about that, now. I'll be knappered if I'm gonna let the flu take you without a fight." She had stood up and hobbled to the door. "And land sakes, drink some soup. I'm sick of your ma worrying you ain't eaten in four days."

Pinkie finally drained the bowl, then leaned back with a contented sigh. She still hadn't figured out what Granny's talk of emotions had to do with this, but the soup alone was making her feel a million times better. She was glad Granny had brought it.

As Pinkie returned the bowl to the nightstand, though, she glanced at its dregs. Her eyes shot wide.

"... Is that chicken?"