"Call me Jenny," Donnybrook said, knowing that they wouldn't. No creature ever did. Not for long, at least...

"Sure thing, Jenny!" The earth pony's pink coat stood in sharp contrast to the dark gray clouds overhead, and she was hopping in place on the cobblestone street. This brought her massive grin up to Donnybrook's eye level before dropping back down over and over again. Donnybrook wasn't sure, but she thought she heard a sound like a rusty hinge creaking every time the pony's head moved.

"Jenny?" The cider-colored earth pony looked up, onde eye squinted under the brim of a battered hat. "Ain't that just what you lady donkeys're called? You're like a pony named 'Pony'?"

"Duh." The blue pegasus with the rainbow mane rolled her eyes from where she was hovering beside the other two. "Maybe you remember Pony Joe? We only eat donuts at his place, like, every time we're in Canterlot."

The cider-colored pony's squint got squintier, and she turned it toward the pegasus. "You? Saying 'duh' to me? Really?"

"Hey!" The pegasus swung around till she was snout to snout with the earth pony. "What's that s'pposed to mean?"

By now, teeth were bared on both sides, growls rumbling from both throats. Donnybrook couldn't stop her ears from falling. She'd only just passed the Ponyville City Limits sign, the green fields and shady woods giving way to cheerful little cottages and shops, and she was already starting to cause—

"Oh, now!" The pink earth pony jumped or squished or floated from where she'd been hopping to push herself between the other two. Donnybrook hadn't quite seen how she managed it, but she was definitely now keeping the other two apart while grinning and batting some very flappy eyelashes. "I'm Pinkie 'cause I'm pink, and look at Rainbow's mane! And you can't deny that you've got that whole apple cider thing going on, Applejack."

Another blur, and the pink pony—named Pinkie, apparently—was pressing herself against Donnybrook's right front leg. "So if Jenny here wants to be called Jenny, who's to say she shouldn't?" Pinkie pulled away and touched a hoof to her chin. "Or should that be 'who's to say we shouldn't'? Call her Jenny, I mean."

Applejack rolled her eyes, though a smile was tugging at her lips now instead of a scowl. "'Sno skin off my nose either way." She brushed the brim of her hat. "Pleased to meet'cha, Jenny, and welcome to Ponyville." Her smile went sheepish. "Sorry 'bout raising a fuss." Her hoof flashed over to poke the pegasus—Rainbow, Pinkie had called her—in the flank, pushing her several inches to the left. "This one just gets me riled up sometimes."

Rainbow blew air through her lips. "If you weren't so sensitive..."

"Sensitive?" Applejack's squint started narrowing her face again. "I'll tan your hide for you, RD, if'n you wanna start talking 'bout sensitive."

"Yeah?" Rainbow darted to practically shove her snout once more against Applejack's. "Any time and any place you wanna try—"

"Okay!" Clapping her front hooves together, Pinkie gave a smile just as wide as before, but it looked a little ragged around the edges, Donnybrook thought. "I'm sure AJ's got farm stuff to do, and Rainbow, I mean, that sky won't weather itself, right?"

Barely a whisker's width seemed to separate the two other mares' muzzles, then their eyes went wide, and Applejack leaped away just as Rainbow backwinged, kicking up a little cyclone of dust from the street. "Yeah," Rainbow said, her blush turning her blue face purple. "I, uhh, guess I got other places I should be."

"Yep." Applejack turned, her blush giving her a sunburned look. "Reckon we'll see you at the welcome party Pinkie throws you, Jenny." And she trotted away from the gathered buildings, probably headed toward the apple orchard Donnybrook had passed on her way in.

"Hey, yeah!" Rainbow's ears perked. "Pinkie's parties are the best, Jen, so you've definitely got something to look forward to!" She gave a sort of salute and swooped upward toward the solid gray filling the afternoon sky.

"Those two!" Pinkie wasn't hopping anymore, her neck not creaking now either as she moved to look back and forth between both departing ponies. "I don't know what's gotten into them lately."

Donnybrook puffed a sigh, not wanting to admit it but wanting even less to keep it hidden. Trying to deny it never worked out well, she'd learned. "It's me," she said, not able to keep her head from drooping.

"You?" A rustle brought Pinkie to the edge of Donnybrook's peripheral vision. "Whaddaya mean?"

"My real name is Donnybrook." She sighed again, kept her gaze fixed on the street. "And I know us donkeys don't have cutie mark abilities like you ponies do, but, well, everywhere I go, I..." She swallowed. "I make fights break out."

Expecting the usual horrified gasp, Donnybrook almost gasped herself to hear Pinkie giggle. "Oh, you silly!" She slid straight into Donnybrook's line of sight, then, the pony lying on her back in the road and grinning. "That's not a real thing!" Flipping onto her hooves but still crouched down, she didn't break eye contact, Donnybrook's stomach clenching. Because every time some pony didn't believe her, the next thing that pony did was always—

"You come with me!" Pinkie straightened from her crouch, forcing Donnybrook to raise her head so they wouldn't bonk noses. "I'll show you how to turn that frown upside down!"

"Umm," Donnybrook said. She took a step back, but that old, impossible yearning burst over her innards. It would be so, so, so, so nice if something could break this curse that had made her a wanderer for most of her life. Every time she'd tried, though, it had all gone horribly awry, and she'd ended up back on the road, alone and often slightly singed or bruised.

But looking at this Pinkie—the gleam of her grin, the spark in her eyes, the puffs and curls of her mane—Donnybrook wanted to think that maybe, maybe, maybe just this once...

By then, Pinkie had flashed over to start nudging her shoulder against Donnybrook's legs. "You just step, step, step with those little donkey hoovsies, and we'll get this whole thing cleared right up right now!"

Donnybrook's hoof slipped forward.

"Yay!" Pinkie cried, and she flipped all the way up and over Donnybrook's withers to push against her front leg on the other side.

This time, Donnybrook moved it herself, and the next thing she knew, she was walking toward the center of town, Pinkie leaping back and forth from one side of her to the other. A brass band started playing a sprightly march somewhere, and Pinkie broke into song:

"That's the way! Seize the day!
Don't allow your heart to stray!
Take a chance! Join the dance!
Reaching out, our skills advance!

"Squash despair! Don't you dare
Cling to lies that overbear!
Truth will out! Raise a shout!
Friendship wins without a doubt!"

Other ponies appeared from the houses and shops they were passing, their eyes and grins bright. High stepping, they joined in marching and dancing on either side—

Until one stallion stomped down right where another stallion's hoof was. "Hey!" the second stallion shouted. "Watch where you're going!"

"Me?" The first stallion glared at the second. "Maybe if you had some actual rhythm, you wouldn't keep getting in everypony's way!"

"What?" And the second stallion leaped at the first.

The two of them, mixing it up, rolled right into a whole line of other ponies, knocking them sideways and spinning them like bowling pins, and the music broke up into yells and screams.

Donnybrook froze, watching it happen the way she should've known it would, the way it always did, the way her curse invariably dictated...

"Hey!" Pinkie's voice shouted, and a weight dropped into Donnybrook's back. Cranking her head around, she saw Pinkie standing upright there, her front hooves waving, "Everypony! Take it easy! There's no need to—!"

A bucket flew past Pinkie's head.

"Yow!" Pinkie dropped flat onto Donnybrook's back. "Giddy-up, Jenny! Straight ahead to that big building that looks like a cupcake! Hurry!"

Facing forward, Donnybrook saw the giant pastry; she lifted her hooves, leaped over the line of flopping ponies between her and it, and made a break for it.

---

"Okay," Pinkie said.

Donnybrook looked over at her, the two of them hunkered down behind the bottom half of the giant cupcake's door and peering out the open upper half. To Donnybrook's surprise, things hadn't spiraled into a town-wide free-for-all as had happened so many times before in places she visited. The two stallions had taken a few swings at each other, but the ponies they'd knocked down hadn't joined in, mostly scattering back to their homes. The bystanders had run away, too, instead of egging the combatants on, and the stallions had pretty quickly stopped, snorted at each other, and gone their separate ways.

"Okay," Pinkie said again in the weird, staticky silence that had fallen over the town square outside. "That was...that was...I dunno what that was."

"Me," Donnybrook whispered, not raising her voice in case she might trigger another bout to break out. "This must be a pretty friendly town you've got here since I wasn't able to cause more than that one little fight. But if I stay, I know that my power will—"

"No!" Hooves seized the sides of Donnybrook's face, and she found herself looking straight into Pinkie's big blue eyes. "Cutie marks aren't destiny! I mean, they are, kind of. But not really! And you haven't got a cutie mark anyway!" Pinkie's face disappeared, and Donnybrook blinked to see her now pacing across a wooden floor; a quick glance around showed her that they were in the dining area of what seemed to be a bakery.

"Think, Pinkie, think!" Pinkie was saying as she paced. "Now that Twilight's off being the big princess in Canterlot, we've gotta solve our problems ourselves! So you'll need to—"

"Pinkie?" a female voice asked, and a rotund mare stepped through the doorway behind the bakery counter. "Is everything all right?"

"Cup?" a male voice called from out of sight behind the mare. "Could you please keep stirring here?"

A scowl flashed across the mare's face, and Donnybrook's stomach did some more tightening. "In a minute, Carrot," the mare said without looking back. "Something's got Pinkie all in a tizzy out here."

"It's just," the other went on, "that I've put the baking powder in, and we need to get the cakes in the over before it starts—"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" The mare stomped a hoof and spun to glare back into what must've been the kitchen. "I know how to bake a cake, Carrot!"

"I didn't say you didn't!" More than a touch of testiness had entered the male's voice. "I was just pointing out that these cakes'll be ruined if you don't—"

"Eeep!" Pinkie squealed. Spinning, she leaped over Donnybrook's head and landed on her back again. "Out the door, Jenny, and make a left! I know just where we've gotta go!"

---

"Another left!" Pinkie cried in Donnybrook's ear, and Donnybrook stretched out, galloping through the streets. The overcast skies of earlier had clouded up even further, an ominous-looking front looming from the dark woods off to one side of town.

Not something that usually happened even though it was the way Donnybrook always felt when entering a pony town: she was the storm, and all the pegasi in Equestria couldn't stop her from bringing rain, thunder, lightning, and who knew what else in her wake...

"Now a right!" Pinkie shouted this time, and Donnybrook took the corner without slowing, not caring where they were going as long as it was away from everything else.

And indeed ahead of her in the graying light, she could see the buildings of town thinning. But further ahead, two larger buildings sat side by side. One was definitely a castle though it had an odd, gangly look to it like a tree that had petrified to crystal after surviving a storm. But the other building was something else entirely, built atop a hill with a couple waterfalls flowing out of it, the water filling a pool between this building and the castle.

"Straight ahead!" came the instruction from behind.

"Umm..." Donnybrook didn't want to be more of a bother than she was already being, but— "Into the pool?"

"Oh! No! I mean, unless you wanna go for a swim?"

"Not particularly." Slowing carefully, Donnybrook nodding forward. "Are we headed toward the castle or the other building?"

"That's a really good question." The weight on her back disappeared, and Pinkie trotted into view. "Let's find out." She reached a hoof into the raspberry bramble of her mane and pulled out a megaphone. "Hey, Starlight!" she shouted through it, and if Donnybrook had thought the pony was loud before, this gave a whole new meaning to the word. "Are you at the school or the castle?"

"Pinkie?" a voice answered, and movement on the top balcony of the castle caught Donnybrook's attention: three ponies up there with a telescope and some other equipment. The lavender-colored pony suddenly grew a coating of light-green fire—a unicorn, evidently—and climbing over the balcony rail, she proceeded to drift down to alight on the grass beside Pinkie. "We're trying to get some readings on that storm that's brewing over the Everfree, so is this something that can wait a half hour or so?"

"I don't think so!" Pinkie said into the megaphone, so the new pony winced back from the flood of sound. "Sorry!" Pinkie said it through the megaphone again, but then she shook it off her hoof and went on. "Jenny here's got a real doozy of a problem, and I think it might be something weird and magical." That grin burst over her face again. "So naturally I thought of you!"

The unicorn—Starlight, Pinkie had called her—sort of scrunched up her snout. "Well, this storm's about as weird and magical as we can deal with right now, but I guess I can spare a minute."

"Starlight!" a stallion called from above, an orange unicorn and a blue one looking down over the railing. "I think it's moving!"

"No, it's not!" the other unicorn yelled in a much shriller voice. "I tried telling him he's imagining things, but—"

"Just look!" The stallion waved a hoof at the clouds over the forest. They did seem to be roiling a bit, but Donnybrook couldn't tell if they were actually coming closer. "They've shifted at least a quarter of a hoof width!"

The unicorn mare rolled her eyes so dramatically that Donnybrook could see it clearly even from so far away. "That was just you leaning forward."

The stallion switched the target of his waving hoof to the mare. "I compensated for that! It's simple enough to do if you know the proper formulae!"

That got a gasp from the mare. "Are you impugning Trixie's mathematical capabilities?"

"No!" Donnybrook couldn't stop from shouting. "It's too late! My quarrel-creating miasma's affecting them!"

Starlight blinked at her. "Your what?"

"Y'see," Pinkie started, but then a giant burst of lightning and an almost immediate blast of thunder cracked the clouds.

And it actually seemed as if something had cracked, too, the clouds suddenly pouring across the already-overcast sky as fast as spilled ink seeping into a tablecloth. Wind kicked up, swirling Donnybrook's mane into her eyes, and the next instant, rain was pelting down all around, another flash of lightning and roar of thunder striking somewhere ahead beyond the school.

"Wow!" Pinkie's mane looked like bunches of pink moss clumped along her head and shoulders. "That is weird and magical!"

More lightning crashed down, and Donnybrook was about to ask if it might be better if they were inside somewhere when the biggest explosion of lighting yet slammed from the clouds behind her. Whirling, she saw it hit the ground on the other side of Ponyville, the brightness making her start back and squint.

A dozen or so blinks cleared the afterimages from her eyes, though, but she had to blink a few more times at the sight of an orange glow flickering against the dark clouds.

"No," Pinkie whispered. She was standing in front of Donnybrook again—she must've spun in that direction at the same time that Donnybrook had. "That's Sweet Apple Acres." And she took off at a gallop.

Without even needing to think, Donnybrook took off as well, her longer legs outpacing Pinkie quickly and carrying her through the town along the path she'd come in by. Those had definitely been apple trees she'd passed on the road coming into Ponyville...

Unfortunately, the glow got brighter and brighter, Donnybrook leaving the city limits again and pounding through the rain. She rounded a hill then, and fire was clawing at the treetops, three or four pegasi darting around, spinning the rain into big blobs of water and dropping them onto the flames.

"Con sarn it!" Applejack's unmistakable voice shouted off to Donnybrook's right, and she looked to see Rainbow holding the other pony back. "Lemme go! I gotta save my trees!"

Rainbow didn't move. "Us professionals got it covered."

"Us professionals?" Applejack's whole face bunched up, her attention swinging away from the trees and slamming into Rainbow. "You're just standing here!"

"You telling me how to do my job?"

"I'm telling you I ain't never seen you do no job at all long as I's known you!" Applejack shoved Rainbow aside and charged toward the fire.

"No, you don't!" Rainbow flashed like lightning, clipping Applejack from behind and tumbling with her into the mud beside the road. "I'm here to keep you outta the way! So you don't get hurt!"

"Hurt?" Applejack screamed. Lightning flared across the whole sky, thunder shaking the ground under Donnybrook's hooves, and the muddy pile of ponies flipped, Applejack spinning Rainbow onto her back and pinning her. "You wanna talk about getting hurt?"

Frozen, Donnybrook wanted to cry out, wanted to leap forward, wanted to stop them before she would be responsible something more horrible than any of the fights she'd caused in the past. Because looking at these two, panting and glaring and soaked with mud and rain, she was sure they were going to—

They both moved, then, Rainbow wrapping all her legs and her wings around Applejack, Applejack pulling Rainbow tight against herself, their lips locking and their bodies clenching together.

"Oh!" Pinkie giggled beside her, and Donnybrook started sideways to stare at her and the three drenched, out-of-breath unicorns. "So that's what's been going on here!"

---

Inside the farmhouse at Sweet Apple Acres, Donnybrook sat beside Pinkie and the three unicorns with a blanket around her and a cup of the best mulled cider she'd ever tasted on the table in front of her. But she just plain couldn't look away from Applejack and Rainbow, sitting cuddled under one blanket, hearts practically popping up in the air around them.

"So with the fires out," Applejack was saying.

Rainbow leaned over to rub her cheek along Applejack's. "Speak for yourself," she muttered.

Applejack's face took on a bronze tone. "I wanted to thank y'all for everything today." She turned, and Donnybrook found herself starting right into Applejack's eyes. "And specially you, Jenny. I dunno what it is, but all the times these past few years I been wanting to kiss this chowderhead..." She leaned over and touched her lips between Rainbow's eyes. "I never had the nerve to. But after meeting you earlier, I felt like...like—"

"Like I was gonna blow up." Rainbow tucked her head against Applejack's neck. "I mean, like, literally. My insides always get all wiggly when I'm with AJ, but today? They were gonna burst right out everywhere if I didn't get my lips on hers."

They looked at each other and kissed, Donnybrook mixing her sigh with that of the other four sitting around the table.

Pinkie nudged her in the ribs. "'Cause there's fights you're gonna win, fights you're gonna lose, and sometimes, when everything comes together just right, a fight you'll win and lose at the same time." She sighed again. "And that's what we call love."

Donnybrook blinked at her.

"So!" Applejack straightened and pointed a hoof at Doonybrook. "I reckon you're some kinda good luck charm, Jenny. How'd you like to come work here at the Acres and keep sending your good vibes or whatever out all over me and RD?"

A part inside her brain shouted No! Because that would be a disaster like no other disaster in the entire history of Equestria!

But looking at the two ponies and the invisible hearts filling the air around them, Donnybrook let herself hope for once in her life. "I'd love to," she said.