“Are you sure this is smart, Pinkie? I'm not the brains of the group, but this seems a little...” Dash grimaced, rolling a blue hoof as she thought of the word. “Oh, I don't know, crazy!?”

Pinkie smirked and gave a condescending shake of her head, her curly hair jiggling like pudding, and moved over to Dash.

“Dashie...” she smugly stated, smiling sagely. “Crazy is what everypony called the stallion that made the light bulb and look! We've got lights everywhere!” Throwing a hoof out across the wide expanses of the Gala's dance floor, she winked towards Dash. “Even indoors!”

“She's right. There are lights inside,” Maud Pie agreed, her flat, distant expression making Dash unsure if it was dry humor or complete agreement.

Dash brushed off Pinkie and took a few steps back “You're nuts! Remember what that stuff did to Twilight and Celestia?”

“Different things affect different ponies differently. Like how Fluttershy's tummy hurts after carrots! And like what happens when I eat hot peppers!” Pinkie said in a sing-song voice.

“A gastrointestinal nightmare that I can't wake up from when she's at home,” Maud stoically agreed, offering a rare blink for emphasis to her words.

“But... Smooze?” Dash asked, putting her hooves to her face.

Pinkie reached down, scooping a heaping hooffull of the goop Smooze left everywhere he scooted. Striking a pose, she stared at Dash. “I must!” she proclaimed. “I will not be able to rest until I find out exactly what it tastes like! It's my duty as the most reliable and dependable pony in Ponyville!”

“That's Applejack!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“Only because I let her have it!” Pinkie brought the gristly aftermath of Smooze... smoozing around towards her mouth.

“That stuff is probably poisonous,” Maud said. Pinkie waggled her free hoof in her direction.

“Then why does the inside of his cute hat say 'non-toxic'?”

"I don't think that's talking about him, Pinkie," Dash said.

"Whatevs!" she exclaimed. So saying, she opened her mouth and wolfed it down. Pinkie paused, amazed.

“Girls. This stuff is great!” she squealed out, reaching down to take another hoofful. “It's like eating a rainbow!” She paused, “Not like that time I tasted a rainbow, better than that! It's super yummy!”

Pinkie swallowed another mouthful. Maud gave a disinterested poke into the gel, then decided to have a small taste of her own.

Pinkie looked over to Maud.

“It's good,” Maud flatly agreed after what felt like generations. “Maybe as good as rock candy.”

“That's some pretty serious praise from you,” Dash said, scratching her brow.

“Maud nodded. "Yes."

“We should scoop this up so we can have it for months!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing across the floor zealously. “I'm putting it on every bagel I ever eat! It's impossible to describe just how good it is, Dashie, so I'll just say that it's really, really, really goo—“

She froze mid hop as the world began to dance sway around around her, dissolving and fading into a multichromatic, pulsating sea. The walls melted, revealing a moonlit wilderness that, in the same breath, vanished, replaced by endless sands.

“I...” Pinkie said to herself, the words funny sounding enough that she giggled. Looking down a pink cup was in her hooves and she nodded, pleased to see it was firmly attached to her hoof.

“It clings to my hoof,” she announced sluggishly, turning and letting her vision be washed over with colors. She smiled at her dancing companion, a lobster named Clippy and she offered a hoof to the lobster's strong grip. Clippy clapped his claws in excitement and they pranced across the sands of the gala.

"Here's lookin' at you, kid," Pinkie said, giving a small, playful shove of a hoof against Clippy's strong, handsome mandible, just as a plate of spaghetti appeared and they chased after it, laughing.

---

“Love you ooze...” Pinkie drawled out, still vacantly staring up to the ceiling.

“Wow. That's, uh, wow,” Twilight Sparkle stammered out amid the rest of the girls. She looked towards Dash. “So she was eating what Smooze left behind and it caused this?”

“She tried to eat my mane to,” Dash whined. Twilight paused.

“Did Maud have some too? How is she feeling?”

Dash raised a hoof. “Looks fine.”

Sure enough, Maud stood, a statue of a mare embodying focus and stoicism.

“You ok, Maud?” Twilight asked, moving to the mare.

“I'm fine,” she agreed, “aside from the spiders crawling up my legs and mane. It could be worse.”