Madness, what can I say? The real trouble with being mad is that you're not convinced that you are, in fact, crazy, but you're also not convinced that you're not. Then again I've lived my whole life that way.
It's a fine line anyway and I had enough various reasons to doubt my mental fitness and wish to escape reality anyway.
Any relatively balanced pony with a good conscience, if admitted to a psych ward and fed a steady stream of mind altering medicines and psychiatric malapropisms will probably be sufficiently convinced of their pathology to play along with the system, and for a short time I did as well. It was all strange, ill defined and unreal so I stopped swallowing the meds and everything sorted itself right out.
Then I was in an even worse fix. Being sane and trapped in an asylum is far worse than if you were truly crazy. I kept asking orderlies how I got there and how I'd get out, but they only had bright innocuous platitudes to share.
Eventually a nurse came in and introduced herself. Nurse Tender Heart. She was not so tender hearted as to release me from my straight jacket nor was she brave enough to talk with me without two burly orderlies in white scrubs leaning menacingly against the wall just behind her.
"Why am I here?" Seemed like a good place to start, so I led with that.
The reply I received from the Nurse was less than satisfactory, "Why do you believe that you've come here into our care?"
I groaned, I couldn't believe we were really going to do this, "Really? Do we have to go through all this instead of talking like grown mares? I just want to know how I got here, why, and how I get out."
She grinned a sad grin that told me that yes, regardless of common sense this is a thing we were going to do.
"Fine." I blurted, "I'm here because you think I'm crazy, obviously. Since I don't have any memory of how I got here I can't say whether I was then or not, but I'm not now, nor have I been in the immediate past, pre-hospitalization. How am I doing so far?"
The nurse nodded, "Do you think it's normal for a pony to have lapses in memory such as the one you've had?"
"No, it decidedly is not." I stated flatly. I wasn't about to admit to the Swiss cheese memory of my earlier years, "Now could you tell me how I got here?"
"You self admitted at ten o'clock, three nights ago, claiming that you were a danger to yourself and others and needed to be locked away." Tenderheart fished a file out of her bag and held the admission form before my face. Sure enough it had my hornwriting and signature. Whatever was going on my Mom was obviously at the root of it. I still had in the back of my mind that maybe she had my best interests at heart, somehow, but this was just too far a leap.
All I had to do was tell them about her, about the Elements of Harmony and they'd see that I'd somehow been tricked into signing myself in to keep me out of the way.
There was one problem, everytime I started to talk about Mom, or the Elements or even the reserve base I got unnaturally tongue tied, "The last thing I remember I was going to the...I was with my...I was looking for...and I found...."
"Go on," The nurse prodded, "You're in a safe place here, you don't have anything to worry about."
Try as I might I just couldn't get any useful words out. I had to out think this thing, maybe I could write it? "Could I get a piece of paper and something to write with?"
They supplied me with paper and a marker which I had to take in my mouth as my magic was still restrained. I skipped right over the preliminaries are tried to write 'reserve base,' 'Elements' and 'Mom'. I couldn't force myself to do it. I even tried sneaking up on it, trying to write the letters out of order or draw them in ways that they weren't quite proper letters. It didn't work.
I even had the brainstorm of writing 'wow' and then turning it upside down, but once I'd written the word I couldn't will myself to rotate it around. That's when the realization hit me, there's something seriously wrong and I don't have any way to tell anypony.
It was so shockingly frustrating and I felt so powerless that tears began to well up in my eyes. Then they ran unchecked after my mouth exceeded the speed of my brain and I asked in a plaintive mewl, "I'm not actually crazy, am I?"
Tears rained down and dotted the scribbled upon paper, with only the word 'wow' recognizable, Tenderheart spoke, "We don't like to use that word here, but we do believe you've had some sort of episode from which you haven't recovered. We can help you if you'll let us."
"Okay." I sniffled. I am so Celestia damned pathetic sometimes, it really disgusts me.
Over the next few days Nurse Tenderheart talked to me for maybe an hour a day, it was monstrously unproductive and not just because I couldn't talk about the real issues at hand. Having been in it's clutches, I don't have a high opinion of the modern psychiatric field.
The rest of the time was my own and I eventually was able to calm myself enough to give some serious thought to what was going on. Through the narrow slot in my cell door I watched the nurses and orderlies come and go from the other cells and I noticed something.
"Why does she have those big beefcake orderlies with her when she visits my cell, and not any of the others?" I wondered aloud. I'd talked to myself off and on the whole time, but this was the first time I got an answer.
From the cell next to me I heard, "You don't know? You're the most dangerous mare in Equestria."
"How's that?" I asked the unseen voice, "I've been nothing but docile the whole time I've been here."
"Maybe the whole time you've been here in you were in your right mind," The voice chuckled, it was definitely a stallion, an old one by the sound of it, "But when they brought you in you attacked nurses and orderlies alike and screamed your fool head off. They eventually had to use the firehose to bring you down. I didn't see it myself, wrong angle, but I heard every bit of it."
"They say I checked myself in, why would I attack anypony?"
"I couldn't say, but I heard through the grapevine that you confessed to a murder spree when you were a foal and two recent murders besides. Gave them all the details, but no proof, so it'd be hard to prove one way or another." He said.
"Who am I supposed to have killed? Can you tell me that?" I demanded. So far as I knew I had only killed one pony and it was an accident, though I'd rather not admit to it at all.
"Um...there was some undercover agent from Canterlot, and just the fact of what he was makes me think he needed killing." This answer gave me pause, but there's many a pony who views the government as antagonists and I'm not in any position to judge one way or the other, "I believe the other was supposed to be the local reserve commander. She disappeared the night you checked yourself in and I heard you chopped them both up and fed them to a manticore."
Buck. It all made sense now. Here I'm wallowing and even considering that I might really be insane and she dumped me in here to cover her escape.
"Did you do it?" He asked gently, "Did you really kill those ponies."
I tried to answer and explain it all away, but I just couldn't get the words out. In the end all I could come up with is, "I can't say." Because that was the simple truth. As soon as I said it I recalled that being Pinkie Pie's response as well and I knew she'd done something to the both of us to keep us silent, "What about you? Are you crazy?"
"Well...as long as I take my meds I'm not. I always thought I made pretty good sense when I was off them, too, but I did some rather eccentric things." He chuckled, "I guess the main one that landed me here was when I went and cut out my cutie marks with a knife."
"That's terrible!"
"Oh yes, I agree. It took a hundred stitches to get that sorted out and my coat never grew back quite right, but it made sense to me at the time. It's really sort of crazy that we're all bound, for the rest of our lives, to do something which is ordained by a magic brand on our posteriors. I mean even if you try not to do what you were destined to it creeps it's way back in, compulsive-like."
"Does it? Couldn't you just not do it if you hated your destiny that much?" I asked. I was very good at not doing things and should it ever come down to a head to head struggle between destiny and my inherent laziness the latter would courageously win the day everytime.
"For instance, I was a banker, had a three quarter view of a gold bar artfully rendered on my flank, but I grew to hate being a banker. Nevermind why, but I retired and bought a farm with the intention of growing a bland and innocuous crop, feed corn. Things went well the first year. In fact they went better for me than with my neighbors, but that was mostly because it was still a play farm for me and they had to make a living at it."
"Come spring the family right beside me didn't have enough seed corn to plant what they needed to and they didn't have the bits to buy it so I loaned them some corn with the promise that they'd give me the same amount back at harvest time, plus twenty percent. Next year they did the same thing and the other neighbors down the way joined in."
"Well by the third year I was loaning seed to everypony and I had far more coming in from that than I could ever grow and I realized that damn cutie mark had turned me into a banker again, only with seed corn."
"So what's wrong with that? It sounds like they needed someone to do what you were doing." It actually sounded like a good deed the way he presented it and I couldn't fault him for it.
"Bah. First, twenty percent is usurious and usury is a sin, Celestia herself will tell you that, but I was compelled by that mark to loan it out at whatever the market would bear. Second and more importantly it wasn't what I wanted to do but only what I was forced to do and I rebel on that principle if no other!" I could hear him pound his cell door with his hooves. It's padded lining only yielding the thumps of a pillow fight for all his fury, "That's when I excised the wretched marks and shortly after they had me in here. I've been in and out ever since."
"Did it work?" I asked, intrigued.
"Are you kidding? Everypony asks me that and they should already know the answer. Those marks are more than skin deep. If that wasn't the case ponies could cut them loose, trade them back and forth and graft them on. Maybe have mismatched ones on either side or a whole slew of them for versatility's sake. I didn't know that then, though, but it's obvious when you think about it a bit." He said and then fell silent, not saying another word for more than an hour despite my entreaties.
I got to know him fairly well, even with his propensity for protracted silences. He was a bit of a nut and prone to fits of rage, incoherence and abrupt instances of extreme depression that would just as rapidly dissipate. I was relieved at on the grounds that I would have lost hope if the ponies in the asylum were sane.
He told me it was fortunate I hadn't been admitted a few weeks earlier because the calm that permeated the ward was a recent thing. Apparently a long time inmate had taken the phrase 'barking mad' seriously and had taken the persona of an aggressive, yapping cur. She had evidently been cured and was in a halfway house now, so that's some minor endorsement for the facilities and faculty.
My sessions with Nurse Tenderheart, however, weren't getting me any closer to going home and she deflected all my inquiries towards that end.
Now I'd like to get all angsty and and recount what emotional torture it was to be trapped in a padded cell, restrained twenty four hours a day, and I'd have to admit it's frustrating, maybe even harrowing for a few minutes at a time. Mostly it was boring, and actually it was calming in that in real life I always felt like there was something I should be doing, even when I was just trying to relax. If I read a book or went for a swim I was just shirking some other thing I was actually meant to be doing. Now I was sedentary with no particular choice in the matter and it let me calm my mind and reflect.
Ten days since Mom had left with the Elements of Harmony, or pieces of them, secreted in her guts. Even if somepony knew where she was headed she had a headstart sufficient to lose herself quite effectively.
In my ponderings I came to realize something obvious that I should have come up with way sooner. Since my mother is a known liar, why should I believe her when she said I killed all those ponies as a little filly? Why should I believe that I killed that guard? I certainly didn't feel any strange magic on my part. At worst the truth was still up for grabs. At best she'd shifted the blame for things she'd done onto me and though it gave no explanation for my holey recollections at least it was something.
I thought it more plausible than her being a secret savior of all Equestria as she'd presented herself.
Reassured in this way I felt confident and started looking for a way to escape. The window was perpetually half open to let the breeze through, but it's grillework was exceedingly stout. The cell door was built just to resist my tampering, so that was right out. With the straight jacket I couldn't peel the padding back to look under it, so the first thing was to get the jacket loose.
It proved to be easier than anticipated. When I used the restroom, under close observation, which does not thrill me (nor will I discuss that humiliation any further), they loosened it and I simply puffed out my chest when they put it back. It gave me enough slack to wriggle out of it. Having no further plan I was forced to wriggle right back into it, but at least I knew how, now, and that's a start.
I asked my blank flanked neighbor for advice, but on this subject he only had hearsay and it was little enough help. If I had either my magic or some piece of steel maybe I could have come up with an ingenious method of escape, but real life isn't the same as prison stories and I didn't have anything stouter than my teeth. Under the padding was cinderblock, and I figured that with enough time and an implement I could scrape the mortar loose and free the blocks, but I wasn't looking forward to it.
Fortunately a minor eclipse changed all my plans. The sunlight flowing through my window was abruptly interrupted. By the time I turned to look the obstruction was gone, but out of the corner of my eye I was certain I'd seen somepony peeking in my window.
I scrambled to my rear hooves and pressed my face against the window bars, but no one was visible. "Hello? Is somepony out there?"
No answer came, but mere minutes later I heard a familiar voice in the hallway, getting closer. "See? I told you she was in here, and so did he, you just weren't listening."
Another familiar voice spoke up, "Sugarcube I did listen, but on account of him bein' a dog all I heard was 'woof!' So I 'spect you'll have to forgive me for doubtin' ya. Aside from that ain't nopony put in here on just a lark, so...don't get your hopes up, just 'cuz she's your friend. Might turn out she needs ta' be in here for a spell, who knows?"
"I know, but we have to find out for ourselves." The first voice, quite obviously Pinkie Pie by this point said, "Plus I'm not just her friend, I'm her super specialest best friend."
"But you're everypony's best friend, so I'm not sure if that can really be counted." Applejack countered just as they reached my door. Bright blue eyes graced the small slot in the door.
"That's her! Oh, open it open it!" Pinkie yelled and the door was unlocked and swung open. The traditional pair of orderlies along with nurse Tenderheart preceded Applejack and Pinkie Pie making the small cell quite crowded.
Behind them I saw Cappy fitted with a leather lead. If what I heard was accurate he'd led these two ponies to me but now that he was here he stared disinterestedly in another direction, yawned, and flopped on the floor.
With a massive grin Pinkie bounced up to me, ignoring the straightjacket and my current environs to tell me, "We found your dog! Ooh, and your dog found you and then we found you! It's like hide and seek crossed with a game of telephone! You're a really good hider too, at first these ponies at the desk didn't want us to come in here at all, but then we told them it was super duper important because we found your dog."
"Then they told us they were two of the Elements of Harmony," Nurse Tenderheart clarified, "So we decided to let them visit even if it is against protocol."
"Visit?" I said in shock, "You mean you're not here to get me out?"
"'Fraid not sugarcube, we don't have any particular authority in this sorta thing and they say you're a dangerous pony." Applejack said sadly.
Pinkie Pie gave Applejack a dirty look and rolled her eyes, "Well you may not have, but I came to spring you. I even made a cake with a hacksaw in it! But then I ate it. Sorry."
"Pinkie, they can't just cut her loose on your say so." Applejack chided, "For all we know she really needs help."
"Huh. I never thought of that." Pinkie advanced instantly and pressed her nose to mine, looking me directly in the eyes, "Have you gone loco in the coco?"
"Er...no?" I answered uncertainly.
"Insane in the membrane? Dumm in the kopf? Just plain cuh-razy?"
"Not especially." I answered.
"Good enough for me!" Pinkie chirped and made to hoist me up by the strap of my straight jacket. She was stopped by the orderlies who nudged her away.
"Miss Pie," Nurse Tenderheart said bemusedly, "It's not as simple as that..."
"Oh, but I think you'll find that it is." Pinkie sat back on her haunches and screwed up her face, "Sea Swirl, how did you come to be here?"
"I...I signed myself in more than a week ago, I guess." I would have said more but my affliction kept me from going further.
"Yes," The nurse stated, "She signed herself in saying she was a danger to herself and others and proceeded to confess to some very serious transgressions."
"Serious enough to inform the authorities?" Pinkie asked.
"Indeed."
"So they filed charges, then?" Pinkie prodded.
"No, they haven't yet. They said that without more evidence they couldn't bring a case yet, even with a full confession. The mentally ill can't testify against themselves, by Equestrian law." Tenderheart admitted.
"So what you're telling me," Pinky got up and paced, hoof to her chin, "Is that since there's no evidence and no case you're holding her solely because you believe she's a danger to herself and others?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"Has she done anything...untoward, in her time here?"
"She was ranting and lashing out when she was admitted, but no, she's been quite docile on the whole." Tenderheart said.
"So...She's not a danger anymore? Because that's what it sounds like you're telling me." Pinkie continued to pace, looking deep in thought, then stopped and turned towards the nurse, "Oh, one more thing. If you DO admit she's not a danger and she admitted herself, who is required to sign her out?"
At that I looked to Nurse Tenderheart. I finally knew what Pinkie was getting at, "I can sign myself out, can't I?"
"Yes, but you're still very ill, we would recommend..." I interrupted the nurse as I shuffled to my hooves and danced a silly little jig, which is out of character for me, but I was feeling a burst of pent up joy. I should have been angry that I could have signed myself out this entire time if only somepony had told me, but no use crying over spilt milk. Pinkie joined in right beside me for a few steps until I tripped and collapsed heavily to the ground.
"No, no, I'll have that release form now." I said and wriggled my shoulders until I could get my hooves free and shed the straight jacket right in front of everypony. It visibly irked the orderlies, but buck 'em. I pounded my hooves on the cell wall, "Ya hear that you old blank flanked codger? They're gonna let me loose!"
I heard muffled congratulations from his cell and promised myself I'd come visit from time to time once everything was sorted out. Nurse Tenderheart protested, but Pinkie was insistent that I had my rights and couldn't be detained against my will any longer. Applejack even joined in with a veiled threat that the Princess might find out about this. Tenderheart could see the tide was against her so she resigned herself to releasing me and took the three of us and Cappy up to the admission desk to sort out the paperwork and lose the enchantment that cut off my magic.
Then I stepped back into the bright sunlight and fresh air, a free mare once more.
"You knew tha' whole time they hadta let her go, didn't ya?" Applejack asked as we walked down the path towards Ponyville proper.
"Yuperoo!" Pinkie Beamed, "When I first came to town somepony said I was crazy and they put me in there so I know how it works."
"How'd you get out?" I asked.
"They said I was taking advantage of the padded room and that bouncing off the walls was meant to be a figure of speech. Then they changed the paperwork to say I wasn't crazy at all and threw me out." Pinkie giggled. "I tried to get them to let me keep the jacket, but they wouldn't. It was neat because it was just like you were hugging yourself all day!"
Applejack rolled her eyes, "I was here when you moved to town and ain't a lick of that true."
"Maybe I saw it in a movie?" Pinkie offered, but I don't think there's actually any movie like that in reality so I'm still baffled as to the truth on that one.
"So Cappy led you to me?" I asked and Applejack nodded, "Is that the whole reason you came to find me? So you didn't have to look after the mongrel?"
"Nopey dopey. I was looking for you because Peachy Sweet told me you disappeared and then Twilight was looking for you. Oh, plus what kind of best friend would I be if I let you languish away in there until you shriveled up like a raisin on a radiator?" Pinkie patted Cappy's head affectionately, "It's just lucky that this old boy showed up when he did and led us right to you."
"That is lucky, too. I thought he'd gone off with..." I forgot I still couldn't mention Mom and trailed off.
"Off with who?" Applejack asked, conversationally, not realizing the importance of this slip.
"I can't say." I answered.
Pinkies eyes grew to saucer size and she stopped dead in her tracks, "You can't say? Sea Swirl, do you know who's fault it was that you were in there?"
"I can't say." I answered again, but something occurred to me, "Do you know?"
Her face nearly split with an understanding grin and she replied, "I can't say! Oh we've got to go see Twilight!"
Applejack was confused and turned to glare at us in incomprehension, "What are you two on about, what have you got to see Twilight for?"
"I can't say!" We both answered in unison and broke down laughing, much to Applejack's annoyance. To her it was complete nonsense and we couldn't explain a bit of it to her, she was left out of the joke, lucky for her.
I realized then that Pinkie's manic depressive behavior when I'd first gone to her for help was due to the very spell that afflicted me now. It made me feel a strange sort of bond or kinship with her and I was excited enough that I joyfully nuzzled her as we walked.
She immediately took this as permission to give me a rib cracking bear hug from which I may never recover.
I admit it was stupid, but it was a relief for both of us that we weren't in our plight alone and even if we couldn't outright tell anypony what was going on, maybe we could hint at it loudly enough between the two of us.
Twilight, though irritated at first, caught on quickly that something was off with both Pinkie and I.
She had been wanting to question me as both Sea Breeze and I had disappeared on the same night and I was known to have been looking for her. When the questioning headed that way and I became unaccountably standoffish Pinkie butted into the questioning and made it obvious that neither of us could be made to discuss Mom.
Her natural predilection towards magical solutions was exhausted with nothing more than an admission that she'd never seen anything quite like this before. "I don't even know what I'm dealing with here. I can just barely sense the spell and it seems to be entwined completely with their consciousness from what I can see." She said to Applejack, more as a way of organizing her thoughts than actually to convey information, "It may even be some form of dark magic. Sea Swirl, do you know who cast it?"
"I can't say."
"No, no, of course not." She pondered it for a moment, "I don't suppose this is changeling mind control of some sort? There's rumors of them being behind all this weirdness lately."
"So far as I know it's got nothing to do with the changelings." I was thankfully able to answer the question and eliminate one whole species from the list.
"So it was a pony that cast the spell?" Twilight asked.
"I can't say."
"Which means yes, doesn't it?" Twilight asked, then shook her head, "Don't try to answer that, of course it does. That gives me an idea. Was it somepony we know?"
"I can't say."
"Right, well that's actually inconclusive, isn't it? Was it...no that won't work. Give me a minute. This is like one of those logic puzzles, if I can just think of the right way to phrase my questions..." Twilight trailed off, deep in thought.
"Hey, Twi?" Applejack suggested, "How about we take a page from the ol' librarian handbook and try alphabetizing? Is it some pony who's name starts with A?"
"Negatory morning glory!" Answered Pinkie Pie.
"Nope. That's a good trick, Applejack." I replied. She went down the alphabet and when she got to 'S' Pinkie and I both answered, "I can't say."
Truthfully I was worried that since I knew my mother as Ocean Song that I'd get a hit on the 'O' and screw up the whole thing, but I knew her real name too and it happens to start with an 'S' as well.
"Spike!" Twilight yelled at the top of her lungs without even looking to see where her assistant was, "Bring me down the Ponyville directory, will you?"
Moments later little dragon feet pitter pattered down the stairs and the book in question flopped down on the table. Twilight thanked Spike and flipped the directory to the 'S's and indicated name after name until she got to 'Sea Breeze' and Pinkie answered "I can't say." Obviously I did not, but nopony noticed.
"That's impossible Pinkie! She's Captain o' the reserve, why I've known her for years!" Applejack protested, "I was mighty upset when she went missing the other...oh. Oooh! She wern't took like the other ponies, she skipped town, didn't she?"
"I can't say." I answered this time. Applejack caught on quick, too. Mom's spell had been clever enough to buy her some time but we'd cracked it in a round about way. It made me wonder, though, what it was that Pinkie knew that caused her to hex her?
Twilight pondered with a hoof to her chin, then said, "So, does this mean she had something to do with the disappearance of the missing ponies?"
"I can't say." Said Pinkie morosely.
"What about the Elements of Harmony, does she have anything to do with them disappearing?"
"I can't say." I replied and with that Twilight Sparkle gasped and finally knew what I'd been dying to tell her for more than a week.
Now we just needed to figure out what to do about it.