"Gyaaahhh!"
Pound Cake bolted upright in his bed, chest heaving. Pinkie Pie was rubbing his back and whispering soothing words to him. As his eyes adjusted to his dark bedroom, he saw that her blue eyes were worried and her brow was wrinkled.
"Hi, Pinkie," he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. As his heart rate slowed down, he fell back onto his pillow, eyes wide open. He willed his hooves to stop trembling.
"It was the dream again, wasn't it?" she asked sadly, touching his forehead with the back of her hoof as if he had a fever. Not trusting himself to answer, he nodded and swallowed hard.
"It's not getting better, is it?" she whispered, looking him right in the eye, making it impossible for him to lie. "Your parents think that it is, but . . ." She trailed off. "It's not your fault, Poundy."
"Uh-huh," he whispered, burrowing underneath his covers. He closed his eyes for her benefit, attempting to fool her into thinking that he was asleep, but she stayed by his side.
"It's almost morning," she whispered, pointing to his clock. Squinting, he could see that it was almost four-thirty. "If you want to, you can come down and help me bake." When he cringed, she shook her head. "Or watch me bake. Your parents say that you need to sleep more often, but it'll only be an hour or so till you get back up—if you even manage to fall back asleep."
He yawned and nodded, kicking his sheets off of the bed. "Why were you up in the first place?" he said in a whisper as they passed his sister's bed.
"You were screaming," she said, subdued. He blushed and hopped down the stairs silently, avoiding Pinkie's eyes. No matter what he did to curb his nightmares—and worse, the screaming that came with them—he could never do anything to stop them. He found it humiliating that Pinkie had to wake him up and soothe him, like he was a crying baby.
Pinkie hummed softly as she stirred chocolate icing. Pound relaxed, falling into a chair and watching her bake as if she didn't have a care in the world. To her, the oven was just a tool needed for baking. It didn't seem to bother her if her tail crept too close to a burner or her hoof practically got shut in the oven.
When Celestia's light crept in through the windows of the kitchen, Pound stood up and hovered a couple of inches off the ground. "Pinkie?" he asked softly, not wanting to startle her. "Um, I'm going out to fly. If that's okay."
"Fine," she said casually, blowing on the cupcakes and barely glancing at him as he flew out of the bakery. That was the thing he loved most about Pinkie—she cared about him, but not enough to follow him everywhere and smother him.
Once outside, he didn't skim along the street, smiling at other ponies the way he usually did. He rocketed up off of the earth and flew as fast as he could, over the rooftops and treetops. His heart beat faster than a hummingbird's wings, and when it felt as though it might burst, he slowed down and dipped down a bit. The cool spring air in his lungs loosened a bit of the tension in his wings, allowing him to fly more gracefully. The lack of wind in his ears allowed him to catch snippets of sounds—birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the sound of several mares. Slowing down even more, he allowed himself to slowly lose altitude until he was close enough to make out full sentences. Ignoring his guilt at eavesdropping, he perched himself in the tree and held his breath, staring at the three ponies walking by.
"I don't get why you turned down that deal with DJ-P0n3," grumbled the orange pegasus, rolling her eyes. "Instead, you chose to sing weird light rock songs."
"DJ-P0n3 is way too old," countered a white unicorn with a long, curly mane. "It's like Granny Smith is a DJ. Besides, I don't want to wreck my voice with electronics. Do you have any idea how lame that would sound?"
"No way!" argued the orange pegasus, snorting.
"Will y'all stop arguing?" asked the third mare, a yellow earth pony. "Ah want to get to Sugarcube Corner before Pinkie Pie runs out o' cupcakes."
At the sound of a familiar name, Pound Cake startled and lost his balance in the tree. Before it occured to him to use wings, he felt himself hit the ground—but it wasn't the ground. It was something much softer than the ground. Slowly, he opened one eye and sought the source of the padding.
It took his brain a moment to register the fact that he could see a curly purple mane out of the corner of his eye. When he heard a muffled squeak and felt something twitch beneath him he flailed his hooves violently and leapt several feet away from the thing he had landed on—or, rather, the pony he had landed on.
He took in the scene, eyes growing wider. The pretty white pony, the one who had turned down the deal with DJ-P0n3, was lying on the ground, eyes twitching vaugely. A scratch ran down one cheek, and a bruise was already beginning to form around one eye. A small trickle of blood ran down her face, staining her pure white coat. Her friends rushed to her aid, but Pound Cake stood stock still, frozen with the horror of the act he had just committed.
I'm sorry, he tried to say. It was an accident. But his vocal cords remained as frozen as the rest of his body, allowing him to only let out a small, pathetic whimper.
"Hey!" said the orange pony, leaving her friend's side and stalking close to Pound. "What's the idea? Where'd you even come from?"
"I-I . . . ." He fell silent, taking a step away. His brown eyes were locked in her lavender ones, making it almost impossible for him to look away.
"She could be really hurt! Don't you know that she's got a concert in a week or so? She's gotta look pretty for her adoring fans! And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly find a black eye attractive." She matched him step for step, her eyes growing more menacing with every word.
"Scootaloo, he's just a foal," called out the yellow earth pony, rubbing the white mare's back. Her expression was just as angry as the pegasi's.
"Right," grunted Scootaloo, halting her steps. "Sorry," she said, adressing the yellow pony, not Pound. She turned away and knelt down next to the unicorn, sending a parting glare at Pound.
The white unicorn shakily sat up, rubbing her forehead. "Guys? Is everypony okay? Where's the—" For a split second, her eyes met Pound's. Then, jerking his head away so that he wouldn't have to get a good look at her injuries, he sprinted away as fast as his short, skinny legs could carry him. He turned at the first corner he saw, not wanting to feel their eyes boring into his back, and collapsed next to a bush, puffing from exertion.
"That was stupid," he said aloud, ignoring the strange stare he got from the stallion passing him. His voice was slightly strangled from the enormous lump in his throat. "Beyond stupid," he added, hoping that the words would stop his guilt and soothe his panic.
Ponies go to jail for hurting other ponies badly, he thought, growing frantic. Even if you don't mean to hurt them, an injured pony means trouble. He had a vision of himself sitting in a jail cell, his family and Pinkie Pie staring sadly at him through the bars.
He heaved himself off of the ground, noticing the stares of the ponies on the sidewalk. He lazily hovered several feet of the ground, slowly moving towards the outskirts of Ponyville.
Maybe if I had my cutie mark, I'd screw up less, he thought miserably. Pumpkin never messes up. She's destined to be a baker, just like Mom and Dad. I know that I'll never get my cutie mark in baking, so what else is left? A thought popped into his head, but he shook it off quickly. Nopony got their cutie mark in ruining stuff.
Right?
Pound rolled his eyes and flew faster, as if he could fly away from the thoughts invading his mind. Growing faster and faster with each pang of horror, he felt the wind blow through his chocolaty brown mane so that it got in his eyes. He wrinkled his nose and squinted, trying to get the hair to stop blocking his vision, but before he could stop—
CRACK.
Dazed, Pound Cake barely felt himself hit the ground. He was vaguely aware that he had just hit a tree, but the pain didn't come until a split second after his vision cleared.
"Aah!" he cried, tears welling up in his eyes. He held one hand to his rump, which was burning with pain, and one hand to his nose, which was bleeding freely down his lips.
"Oww," he whimpered, tilting his head back in an attempt to stop the flow. He winced as he tasted the fresh blood.
I'm even with the white pony, I guess, he thought wryly, attempting a smile, then wincing as pain shot through his nose.
Was there some sort of potion or spell that could make his nose stop bleeding? For once in his life, he wished that he was a unicorn. Pinkie Pie would probably know how to fix it. Sighing, Pound got up and took a few unsteady steps in the direction of Sugarcube Corner.
After only a couple of steps, a chill passed over him, as if somepony was watching him. He turned around slowly and sucked in startled breath, terrified. Somehow, he had ended up right next to the Everfree Forest.
Like every other foal his age, he had heard the stories about the Everfree Forest and the incidents that had happened there. Everypony knew about the filly who had walked in years ago and never came back. His parents had never let him go anywhere near the forest when they could help it, and even when he was alone, he never came near the forest.
The stories that Pinkie had told him about the Everfree Forest were very different from the stories he heard from schoolcolts, though. When she was younger, she had ventured into the Everfree more times than you could count on the hooves of several ponies, and she had come out unscathed. There was the one time that she had stepped into the poison joke, of course, but she had managed to save herself from being unable to talk forever by taking a bubble bath. Though he wasn't always able to tell what she was talking about, he was fairly certain that there was a zebra named Zecora somewhere in there, along with a manticore and a long-forgotten temple. It was where she had defeated Nightmare Moon and became friends with the five other ponies. Simply put, it was a place where ponies found out what they were meant to be, even if they discovered who they were in a fairly dangerous manner.
He froze and went back in his brain to scoop up the words he had silently uttered. A place where ponies found out what they were meant to be.
The answer was so obvious, he almost slapped himself for not thinking of it earlier,
Sniffing a few drops of blood up his nose, he turned around and planted a hoof into the boundaries of the Everfree Forest.
He would get his cutie mark and stop hurting other ponies, or he would die trying.