I was suddenly lying in the diner's trash. The one behind the counter, not the one out back---thank Celes- no, now that I had reason to believe she was real, I could hear Connery's voice as he reached out to slap my head. "That'sh for Blashphemy!"
She was real. They were real. I didn't have time to ponder any further, however---my reappearance had been noticed. The woman who never brought me my coffee leaned over the counter, saw me, and seemed angry.
I stood, looked back at where I'd been lying, and saw my comic crumpled in the crushed trash can. I grabbed it, and I ran.
I think she yelled something about the police as I went, and some of the patrons wanted to know whether I was alright, but that didn't matter; my thoughts were on the mare that had saved me a moment ago. I had to know her fate.
Outside, it was raining---pouring, cascading. I ran for home, just a block away, for somewhere dry to read the comic and try to contact Pinkie.
My fingers were shaking so violently that I could barely enter my PIN at the door. I passed a neighbor or two on my way in without saying hello, shot up six flights of stairs at a sprint, and collapsed against my door, taking advantage of the time I needed to fumble for my keys to heave a few panicked breaths.
With the sort of grace that comes from years of practice, I entered, flipped on the lights, and tossed my rain-soaked trench coat on the hook in a single movement. Three steps later I was flattening out the final pages of the comic, trying not to drag the ink around with my damp fingers.
She was on the ground, broken and bruised. The changelings that had followed her were nowhere to be seen. The pages showing the fight were ruined, but the result was clear---Pinkie had lost.
I recoiled. She'd not only saved my life, she'd died to save me. Was there a way to tell her friends? ...Was there a way to tell mine? They'd never believe me, and the Equestrians would never know. How had I been such a coward? Why did I run and leave her behind?
"Because she said she would follow you," some part of me recalled.
Tears began to well up, but through the haze I saw some movement on one of the panels I'd flattened on my table. I blinked them away and saw Pinkie moving again! She was throwing herself against the walls of a different panel. Hard. As I watched, I felt like I could hear her thudding against those walls.
No, I could hear her.
Behind me.
Looking back, the little entry way was occupied now by Pinkie, still a scribbled outline, bashing against the walls as though they were the frame she was trying to escape from. She braced herself and leapt at one wall, smashing into it violently, crumpling to the ground, and then hurling herself at the opposite wall. Each time her tiny frame crashed she'd flicker briefly into quasi-realistic full color.
I found myself frozen in place. Should I leap forward and help her, or was her tenuous link to my world so fragile that I could break it by interfering? She was flickering into color for longer, now, so the violent wall-banging seemed to be working...if indeed she was trying to enter my world, as I hoped, but it looked so painful.
I had almost made up my mind to run forward and risk the consequences of trying to pull her through whatever odd barrier there was, when, in a final leap, she threw herself face first into one of the walls and collapsed. The semi-conscious pony on the ground was solid and pink all the way through. She lifted her head, her mane drooping with the sweat of exertion, but her blue eyes sparkled up at me. I smiled, and suddenly her face lit up, her mane was pulled by some happy, etherial force back into it's typical, puffy chaos. She just grinned her beautiful, mad grin at me. I found myself returning it. We laughed and laughed, and laughed some more: relief and joy and excitement and...probably some kind of magic.
Friendship, of course. How stupid of me.
The party has lasted, at this point, for seven whole hours. My cranky landlady, who lives upstairs on the whole 7th floor, came down to complain about half an hour in. She and I had two dances, throughout the night, and now she's sleeping against a cop who came about an hour after she did. Pinkie covered them with one of my spare blankets when she saw me looking at them just now.
I've done a lot of talking with her since she got here. Apparently it isn't her first time—she told me some of the stories, but those ones belong to her and those other people she helped. What I will say is this: apparently, she's taken some of us back with her. Celestia, she says, doesn't mind if she does it only infrequently.
I pointed out that from what we humans could see, there were not any humans in Equestria.
She just giggled.
What would it be like to start over? What would it be like to go to a completely different world?
What would it be like to give up my fingers?
She seemed to notice me worrying: I can see her tossing popcorn for some of my guests to catch.
When did the mayor get here?!
Pinkie's confident grin has decided me.
I'm going.
I have a few things to arrange---not many, I'm mostly alone in the world, but I do have some ties: I can, at least, get my meager savings transferred to a charity. I won't be needing it: I'll be gone in a day or two.
I leave this comic here, in the hopes that any who care about my disappearance might follow me someday, if there is a way in. If not, farewell.
Elsewhere, having had the story related to her through a long and confusing letter, Princess Celestia was defending her decision to have Pinkie race.
"Not at all!" Her Highness was saying, "He legitimately needed help!
"I concede that, sister. Mine only question beeth one of thy timing and method," Princess Luna replied.
"The timing worked out fine, Luna, and as to the method, even I can only pretend to understand how Pinkie Pie does it, I just knew she could. I am sorry about the changelings...a little."
"Art thou indeed?"
The sun princess ignored the question, instead responding “Besides, I love that song.”
Somewhere far off, Pinkie yelled "A-ha!".
In a daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay~!!!!!
And fade to black.