Rarity’s eyes widened as she processed what this new revelation meant. “Darling, surely you don’t mean to say that you’re letting Pinkie face that... that monstrosity alone, are you?”
“It was Pinkie Pie’s idea,” Twilight Sparkle replied, even though she wasn’t entirely certain that this would assuage anypony’s worries. “Besides, we took some rather... drastic precautions.”
“Oh my...” Fluttershy said. “It... it wasn’t something dangerous, was it?”
“Well, we did have to essentially improvise a complicated magical spell, and that’s always risky. It appears that whatever Nightmare is, she has the same magical makeup of an actual alicorn: equal parts unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony. To keep her from being too powerful for Pinkie to handle, I split her magical essence and redistributed it between the three of us, which I’m fairly certain would have completely destroyed her if I’d tried it in the real world. I have her unicorn magic, while Pinkie Pie has her earth pony magic, leaving behind an extremely powerful pegasus who can’t take physical form on her own.”
“And she’s inside Pinkie’s head right now?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I assume so. Pinkie Pie thought that there was something more going on, so she wanted the chance to figure out the truth.”
“Uh, the Nightmare’s a jerk, and she wants to hurt a lot of ponies. What’s left to figure out?”
The pegasus’ question was answered not by Twilight, but by a very loud yawn, as Pinkie Pie finally rose from her slumber. “Wow... that was an interesting dream,” she said to no one in particular as she stood up from her chair and walked towards the other ponies in the room.
“Did you manage to clarify what’s going on?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“I’m pretty sure... I just need to ask the Princesses a few questions. Um, you guys don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” Celestia said with a smile, as Luna nodded silently in agreement.
“Super! Well, most of these are related to back when you created Discord—”
“What?!” Shining Armor shouted, his eyes bugging out. “Your Majesty, is... is this...”
Celestia sighed. “Yes, it’s true, and I’m granting you a retroactive security clearance.”
“Didn’t ya already know that?” Applejack asked.
“I was told he was an imaginary friend like Pinkie Pie... but....”
“Perhaps we should consider making this information public knowledge,” Luna said. “Otherwise, if Discord escapes again, he could use it to sow distrust among our subjects.”
“We can decide that later,” her sister replied. “There are more pressing matters at the moment. Please, continue with your questions, Pinkie Pie.”
“Right. Well, was ‘Discord’ the name you gave to him when he was still your imaginary friend?”
Celestia shook her head. “No. He chose that name for himself after usurping the throne. Before that, he was content with ‘Quigley.’”
“What does that mean?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Nothing, as far as I know. It just sounded like a good name for an imaginary friend—Luna came up with it, if I’m not mistaken.”
“But he was the one who decided to change his name, right?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“That’s correct,” Celestia answered. “It was only when he refused to answer to the name I’d given him that we realized his coup attempt wasn’t a practical joke. Well, technically, I suppose it was, but his intent was quite serious.”
Rarity seemed a bit confused. “Pinkie Pie, what does this have to do—”
“Don’t interrupt her,” Twilight Sparkle advised. “At least, not until she’s done. Trust me, you’ll want to hear her out.”
“Thanks, Twilight,” Pinkie said. “Anyway, on to question two: did Discord look any different from how you imagined him when he showed up in real life?”
“Not really... I always wanted him to be a shapeshifter, and so I had several ‘standard’ looks for him, all of which were mix-and-match collages of various species. However, now that I think of it, his ‘normal’ form in the real world is essentially a mix-and-match of all the previous chimeric forms.”
“So, basically, it was Discord who decided what he would look like, what he’d be called, and ultimately, what he’d act like, right?”
“Yes... though I must admit that I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“Well, so far, that’s just like me, right? I picked my own name, and I don’t look like Surprise.”
“I suppose that’s true...”
“Great! That means you’re done for now. Your turn, Luna.”
The Princess of the Moon sighed in what appeared to be mild exasperation. “You needn’t draw this out with an extended interrogation; I can see where this train of thought leads. You are about to inform me that the Nightmare was my imaginary friend, likely forgotten for the same reason that Twilight Sparkle forgot about you when you manifested, are you not?”
“No,” Pinkie Pie answered, “and that’s the problem.”
“I... I beg your pardon?”
“Why? Did you commit a crime?”
“No, that was just a... never mind. Ask your question.”
“Okie dokie lokie! Why did you decide to study Discord’s appearance on your own?”
The alicorn shrugged. “Mere curiosity.”
“But why did you keep it secret? I mean, other than the fact that keeping things secret is usually a good way to keep other ponies from finding out about them, unless you’re not good at keeping secrets, in which case you would probably be better off trying to tell everypony, because—”
The alicorn cut Pinkie Pie off in an attempt to stanch the flow of words. “Do you genuinely not know, or are you just leading me to a predetermined conclusion?”
“Eh, a little from column A, a lot from column B, and maybe a pinch from row 47 up in the balcony for seasoning.”
Luna sighed. “Very well. The truth is, I cannot quite remember why I kept it secret.”
“But do you remember what gave you the idea in the first place? When did you actually start?”
“Well, it was soon after Discord—or rather, Quigley’s appearance. Celestia’s ‘research’ into the matter had mainly consisted of informal conversations with him, but I was very much interested in the magical theory behind it, particularly since so many of the ponies at court were talking about how impressive my sister was. However, after one unusually fitful day of sleep, I decided to begin pursuing my own studies.”
Pinkie Pie nodded sympathetically. “I hate it when that happens. It makes for really sluggish parties, which isn’t good, unless you’re throwing a party for a slug. Anyway, why couldn’t you sleep?”
“Let me see.... Ah, yes! If I recall correctly, I’d had a particularly bad... nightmare....” Princess Luna’s voice trailed off as her eyes widened in shock. She staggered backwards and collapsed into a chair, disbelief plastered on her face.
“Um, Princess Luna?” Fluttershy asked. “Are you... are you okay?”
“She’s probably dealing with a sudden flood of long-forgotten memories,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I was like that when I saw my crayon drawing of Surprise.”
“Sister?” Celestia asked. “What happened?”
“It... it was shortly after I’d overheard some guards idly discussing whether you would be willing to use your newfound ability to summon powerful creatures to destroy Equestria’s enemies. When I retired to my bedchamber that morning I... I dreamed that you’d gone mad with power, creating fearsome beasts with your mind to crush all the ponies who would dare to stand in your way. When I woke up, I... I knew that you were nothing like the tyrant my mind had conjured up, but the imagery was so striking....”
“You didn’t want to take a chance,” Celestia said. If she’d had any sort of emotional reaction to this news, she was masking it quite well.
“That is... correct. The idea seemed to haunt my every waking moment, becoming more and more vivid even as it became less and less like you. I felt that I had to start making contingency plans, if only so I could ease my mind. I wanted to learn how you had manifested Discord, so that I might do the same if needed. I began role-playing potential interactions with this theoretical version of you, in case they became a reality. My obsession even continued after Discord usurped the throne—but after we used the Elements of Harmony to defeat him, I suddenly couldn’t remember why it was so important.”
“In other words,” Pinkie explained, “the Nightmare wasn’t Luna’s imaginary friend; she was her imaginary enemy.”
“But... how did the Nightmare re-enter my mind without my knowledge?” Luna asked.
“Oh, goodie, I know that one! It’s simple: she never left it.”
“What?”
“When I asked the Nightmare about it, she said that something... went wrong. I think it might be because you never thought of her as a friend. I don’t really know, though, so I guess that means there’s another thing for me and Twilight to investigate. But, whatever the reason, she knew that she should have been your friend. But there’s no way that was gonna happen, because, well, she was basically an evil version of Celestia, though she’s really more like you, because you didn’t know what Celestia would be like if she started doing evil stuff, so you just inserted parts of your own personality to fill in the gaps.
“So you pretty much rejected her the moment you created her, and... well... remember when you were asking about the time I tried creating imaginary friends of my own?”
“Yes...”
“The reason I tried to do that was because I thought my friends had rejected me. Um... you see... ponies like me and the Nightmare don’t seem to handle rejection very well. I’m guessing that’s also what caused Discord to go the wrong way.”
“More or less,” Celestia confirmed sadly.
Pinkie Pie continued her conversation with Luna. “In any case, the Nightmare wanted to be your friend, but since you made her evil, she literally had no idea how to do that. She did know that you thought of Celestia as a friend, though, so she decided that meant that Celestia had to go, because she was the competition, or something like that. Since the closest thing to friendship that she understands is respect, she started planting the idea that Celestia didn’t respect you.”
“So that’s how Princess Luna got the idea to hold back the sun?” Shining Armor asked.
“No,” Luna answered with a regretful sigh. “The Nightmare was only trying to convince me that my sister deserved my enmity. I... I was the one who extended the idea to include every other pony in Equestria. I was the one who wanted to punish everypony for their insolence.”
“Right,” Pinkie said after several seconds of silence. “Anyway, once the two of you were on the Moon, the Nightmare hoped that she could finally be your friend... but you never really treated her like one, even though she was the only pony you had to talk to for a thousand years. You never recognized her as the alternate Celestia that you created. You... you didn’t even give her a name—she was just ‘the Nightmare.’ It’s like...” the earth pony trailed off, racking her brain for an example. “It’s like putting a lot of time and effort into a party, only to have nopony show up.”
“Uh, Pinkie, maybe you oughta stick with examples that everypony can relate to,” Rainbow Dash suggested.
“Why can’t you relate to that? After all, you’ve actually seen what I’m like when nopony shows up at one of my parties.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened. “You mean, she went... um... loopy?”
“How else do you explain why she thought she could replace the real Celestia altogether? Indigestion? Wait... maybe it was! Luna, you didn’t happen to eat any stale moon rocks, did you?”
“Hang on,” Applejack said. “If the Nightmare wanted to replace Celestia, why didn’t she just pop up in the real world, kill her, and use shapeshiftin’ so nopony’d be the wiser?”
“Because right now, she can’t manifest herself.”
“An’ why’s that?”
“Well, although I’m not quite ready to rule out moon rocks completely, I’d say the most likely reason is because she doesn’t want to be herself. She wants to be Celestia. Look, you know how everypony is unique and special, even identical twins?”
“Yeah...”
“Well, I think that that might be really, really super important for imaginary friends. We’re special, too, but we have to create some of our own specialness to really be, well, real.”
“Uh... that ain’t makin’ much sense.”
“Think of it this way: Twilight Sparkle created Surprise, but I created Pinkie Pie. Part of that might have been subconscious on my part, since I don’t remember deciding to be a pink earth pony, but I was the one who decided that I would be an outgoing pony who would try to be friends with everypony I met, instead of focusing all of my attention on one introverted filly. From what I can tell, it was kind of the same with Discord. But the Nightmare... she didn’t think she had to be special, because it looked like she could just take the place of a pony who already exists. But back when she wasn’t willing to be unique, she had no chance of becoming an independent pony on her own. So, ironically, the reason she couldn’t commit old-fashioned murder is because she wanted to commit old-fashioned murder. Um, that is ironic, right?”
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Twilight replied. “But... I can’t help but notice that you’ve been using the past tense when talking about Nightmare’s motives.”
“I did?” Pinkie Pie asked, her mood brightening considerably. “Yay! That means we’re getting to the good part!”
“Hold on a moment,” said Rarity. “Pinkie, darling, are you saying you convinced the Nightmare to change her mind?”
“Yepperoonie! Well, if by ‘changing her mind’ you mean ‘getting her to accept the inevitable,’ anyway. Basically, no matter what she does, and no matter how hard she tries, she’s never going to replace the real Celestia. For one thing, now that we know that that’s what she’s been trying to do, we can plan ahead for if she tries anything else. But more importantly—and getting her to admit this was the really hard part—even if she did manage to replace Princess Celestia, anypony who knows her would wise up pretty quick, because she just isn’t very much like her.
“Lucky for her, though, she has the chance to do things the right way. Which means (and this is the super-duper-awesome everypony’s-happy-now part) she’s agreed to give up trying to be Celestia, and she’s going to create an identity of her very own! Isn’t that great? I’m already making plans for the party: there’ll be cake and ice cream and a custom-made game of Pin the Tail On the Pony and—”
Luna looked incredulous. “And you managed to convince her of this in less than an hour?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But... but if she desired to be my sister as strongly as you suggest, that conversation should have taken a full day at the very least! There simply isn’t enough time.”
Pinkie Pie unsuccessfully attempted to suppress a giggle. “Why would time have anything to do with how long a conversation lasts? That’s just silly!”
“Um, actually,” said Fluttershy, “that sounds fairly reasonable. Well, to me, at least.”
The earth pony thus saw the need to explain her position in more detail. “Haven’t you ever noticed how time seems to speed up or slow down depending on what you’re doing? Well, it’s just like that when you’re completely inside somepony’s head—especially a pony like me who has lots and lots of practice with lucid dreaming.”
“Well, then... how long was the conversation?” asked Fluttershy.
“As long as it had to be. Which was... um... really long. But that doesn’t matter right now. The point is, now that the Nightmare’s accepted that she can’t do things the way she wanted to, she’s got a chance to do things the way she was supposed to. She’s going to be her own pony,” Pinkie finished proudly.
The response was less than optimal. “Are you out of your mind?!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “After all she’s done, why would we want the Nightmare to be loose in Equestria?”
Surprisingly, Pinkie Pie’s response was equally stern: “Because she wouldn’t be the Nightmare anymore. The Nightmare is just the result of Luna’s imaginary enemy trying as hard as she could to be the pony that her creator imagined her to be. It’s not her fault that Luna created her so she could plan for a worst-case scenario.” The earth pony’s voice cracked as she suddenly became emotional. “Can you even imagine what it’s like to be rejected the second you start existing? Or what it’s like to want a friend but have absolutely no idea how to actually be one? Because that’s what it’s been like for her.”
Nopony seemed willing to respond to this; Princess Luna in particular simply stared at her hooves. Pinkie Pie took this as a signal to continue. “Don’t worry. She’s not going to fool me—I know perfectly well that she could just be telling me what she thinks I want to hear, and that she might only want to change from a great big meanie to a greater bigger meaner meanie. But at least this way, she can’t say she wasn’t given a fair chance to do things the right way.”
Princess Celestia took care to phrase her response delicately. “I understand your reasoning, Pinkie Pie, but I think we’d all feel better if there was some sort of security measure beyond one of the Nightmare’s promises.”
“Oh, there is! You see, she didn’t just make a promise to be good: she made a Pinkie Promise, which means I get to use my imaginary friend powers to keep her in line. Basically, she’s going to be spending a lot of time as a physical pony, but if she starts acting nightmare-y, I can pull her into my head for a Time Out.”
“Um...” Fluttershy hesitantly objected, “but what if she turns into mist so nopony can see her?”
“Glad you asked! I decided that she should still be allowed to do that in case she gets too nervous, or if other ponies are mean to her because of what she’s done in the past—but the only place she can go is back inside my head. So there’s really no reason to worry about her escaping, because it’ll only be inscaping!”
“But... how do you know she won’t convince you that she’s right?” Twilight asked. “I mean, sure, you’re intelligent, but so are Luna and I.”
“True, but you two wanted respect and knowledge, which are things you can actually get by taking over Equestria. On the other hoof, what I want more than anything else is friendship, and at the end of the day, power won’t get you any real friends all by itself. Allies and yes-ponies, maybe, but not friends. And, well, if taking over the world can’t solve a problem, then the Nightmare doesn’t have any clue how to solve it. I really shouldn’t be calling her ‘Nightmare,’ though, since that isn’t her name.”
“It isn’t?” asked Twilight Sparkle.
“Nope! Not anymore. In any case, I think it’s time I stopped yammering and introduce you to my newest friend. Fillies and gentlecolt, I would like all of you to meet Penumbra!” Pinkie Pie made a flourishing gesture to the empty space beside her... which remained empty.
With a look of consternation, the earth pony smacked the side of her head with one of her forehooves. “Hey! That was your cue!”
After a few more seconds of silence, Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Look, I know it’s awkward, but I figure that’s going to be the case no matter what happens, so you might as well get this out of the way so we can move on to more important things, like your ‘welcome to existence’ party.”
Several more seconds seemed to indicate that The Pony Formerly Known As Nightmare was still reluctant to make an appearance. “Oh, no you don’t, missy! If I let you put this off, we’ll never get around to it. Abracapinkie!” This time, plumes of ash-colored mist formed next to Pinkie Pie, which then coalesced into a midnight blue pegasus with a wavy black mane that fell over her right eye, completely covering it. Her tail was similarly wavy, and like her mane, there were occasional white hairs throughout; one got the impression that if she stood in a strong wind, she would still bear a strong resemblance to Princess Luna, although her body shape was much more like those of average mares. Her cutie mark was no longer the image of a solar eclipse: instead, it was a simple white ring.
Upon noting this, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help herself: “Um, I don’t mean to split hairs, but that’s an antumbra, not a penumbra.”
The new pony glared at Pinkie Pie. “I told you so,” she said simply in the same voice she had used as the Nightmare.
Pinkie sighed. “We’ve been over this: an actual penumbra looks too much like Luna’s cutie mark, and you’re supposed to be your own pony now, remember? Unless you want to change your name to Antumbra...”
“No way. I’m already sick of puns about me being somepony’s ‘Aunt Umbra,’ and I haven’t even heard any yet.”
“Then Penumbra it is, and who cares if your cutie mark isn’t scientifically accurate?”
“Twilight Sparkle, obviously.”
“Oh, she’ll get over it. Now quit talking to me and introduce yourself.”
The pegasus’ ears flattened, but she moved forward to the others. “Um... I’m... I’m Penumbra. And... I’m... I’m sorry about what I’ve done.” The recently-manifested pony was having great difficulty maintaining eye contact with anypony for very long, and in the case of Celestia and Luna it was impossible.
“Penumbra,” Celestia said in her most emotionally neutral, authoritative tone of voice, “you have committed crimes against the ponies of Equestria in the past, and not two hours ago, you were plotting to take my life. It is only because of the extraordinary circumstances of your personal history and the trust I hold in Pinkie Pie’s judgment that you are being granted clemency. Should you choose to squander it, mercy will not be shown to you again. Do you understand?”
“I... I do, Princess Celestia,” Penumbra replied, though it was quite obvious that she was still quite uncomfortable saying the name out loud, as if it was a treasure that she’d only recently accepted as being forever beyond her grasp.
That Celestia responded with a smile wasn’t surprising; the fact that the smile appeared completely genuine was. “Then I welcome you as one of my subjects, and wish you the best as you make a life for yourself in Equestria. I defer all matters regarding your supervision to Pinkie Pie. Luna, are you in agreement?”
The Princess of the Night finally raised her head from the floor. “Yes, sister, I am. And Penumbra...” Luna briefly trailed off as she looked into the pony’s turquoise eyes. “I must offer you my apologies. If I’d known what I was doing, I wouldn’t have made you so...” The Princess trailed off again, unable to think of a way to finish her sentence that wouldn’t sound insulting.
“I don’t blame you, Princess Luna.”
“No. Just Luna. You were a part of who I am, and at the very least, we should be on equal terms with each other.”
Hearing this, Penumbra gave a smile—not a smirk, but an actual smile. “Thank you, Luna.”
“Okay!” Pinkie Pie shouted. “That’s enough public mushiness for one day. It’s time for a pa-a-ar-tay!”
* * * * *
Dear Princess Celestia,
Hi! How have you been lately? Things have been super-duper here in Ponyville. Penumbra’s making a lot of progress in learning about friendship. Well, granted, right now, Twilight and me are her only really close friends, but I think the other Element-Bearers are starting to warm up to her, and I happen to think that’s really good. I mean, two months ago, she literally knew nothing about friendship other than the fact that other ponies seemed to like having it. Plus, the Cakes are getting used to having her around, and Pumpkin and Pound have really taken a liking to her. It’s too bad that she can’t get past the fact that they’re still kind of messy sometimes—she only just recently forgave them for pouring hot fudge in her mane while she was sleeping.
She still does have a few problems when she thinks she isn’t being treated fairly. You know, revenge-plotting and nasty stuff like that. Luckily, I’ve kept her from actually doing anything naughty so far. She still tries using the Royal Canterlot Voice to get her way, though, and I’m having a tough time convincing her to try being polite, because the Voice usually works really well.
That said, Penumbra was able to make up with Twilight Sparkle a lot faster than I thought she would (though you probably already guessed that from when I said they were really close friends in the first paragraph). Twilight said that she didn’t want to start making a habit of blaming Penumbra for her personal failures—after all, she really did want your job, and she still kind of does, even though she admits that you and Luna haven’t actually done anything that would justify her taking over. I guess that makes sense, but I like to think that another part is that Twilight couldn’t resist having another subject for the study of imaginaryfriendology (yeah, it’s a mouthful, but “Pinkiology” is a bit too narrow, and Twilight hasn’t thought of a more science-y word for it yet).
Speaking of which, we’ve found out something super interesting about the spell we used to de-power Penumbra’s Nightmare form in the first place. It turns out that you can’t completely separate the unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony magic in an alicorn, because it’s all mixed together. That means that what actually happened is that Twilight got most of the Penumbra’s unicorn magic, I got most of her earth pony magic, and she kept most of her pegasus magic, but we all have some of the magic from all three pony races. According to Twilight, that means that all three of us are technically alicorns now, although we’re so magically unbalanced that we’ll never look like you or Luna. Well, not without shapeshifting, at least. We haven’t told our friends about that yet, because we’re still trying to figure out what that actually means, though I’m hoping it means I can sleep over at Rainbow Dash’s cloud house.
Anyway... um... how should I end this letter? Oh, I know! A friendship report! Okay, let me think.... I guess this all proves that you can’t give up on friendship, even if somepony’s done something really, really dumb. I mean, you thought it was a good idea to stop studying Discord, Luna thought you might turn evil, Twilight Sparkle thought she could replace you and Luna as Equestria’s rulers, Penumbra thought she could just flat-out replace you, and I just called one of the rulers of Equestria stupid to her face, but there’s no reason why that should get in the way of friendship.
Um, I’m sorry if that wasn’t, you know, as deep and profound as you’re used to for these things. I kinda drew a blank there. And speaking of blanks, the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ anniversary is coming up soon, and I’m gonna throw them a big ol’ bash at their clubhouse, so I might as well invite you and Luna to come right now, rather than wait until later. Please RSVP through the mail, or with one of Spike’s belch-o-grams, whichever is convenient.
Love,
Pinkie Pie