*Side note: This chapter will contain some violence/gore, so be warned if you're going to read it and you don't like that sort of stuff.
Another grey day in Equestria. Strangely, Midnight sunset had vanished without a trace. I just hope she's alright, wherever she went. Hopefully not back to the forest though, unless it was to take her stuff somewhere else. When I got out of bed, I looked out of the window, and saw that the snow had risen higher than ever. It was Hearth's warming today, but it didn't look like anypony would be spending time together. I don't think we'd be going to Appleoosa any time soon either.
I made some breakfast out of anything that was left, ate, and went to the living room. I lit the fireplace carefully with my magic, and curled up on the rug, as there was nothing else for me to do. Just as I was drifting off, there was a knock at the door. I went to open it, and saw that it was none other than Pinkie pie herself.
"Come in, please. You must be cold." I politely said, while lifting a hoof, implying for her to come inside.
"Thank you Blue, I saw how much snow there was and you're the closest to me so I dug my way here because I want to celebrate Hearth's warming with somepony at least and you were the first pony to pop into my head." She put her shovel down next to the door, and I took her coat. When I shut the door, a mountain of snow fell from the roof and blocked us from getting out.
"Well, thank you for the thought, and it's nice to see you, as I rarely get to see you. Any news on the visit?"
"Applejack said to me last night that if there's more snow then we can't go anywhere until it's gone so we're stuck here for a while."
"I see, well, it gives me some time to settle at home, as I'm usually out. When I'm at home I only have time to eat or sleep."
"Well now that I'm here we can have a party and celebrate Hearth's warming together! Does that sound fun?"
"Oh yeah, it does, but... what do we actually do on this day? I've never been here before to experience Hearth's warming."
"Well we remember how everypony learned friendship and how to get along with each other no matter what our species are and we give each other gifts to keep the tradition of love and generosity going. Here, I made you something Blue!"
She pushed a small, wrapped up box into my hoof. "Go on open it!" She said.
I unwrapped the wrapping of the box, opened the top, and saw that it held a cupcake. This cupcake had rainbow swirled decorations, and chocolate and vanilla sprinkles were scattered all over the top. It looked so delicious.
"Eat it go on! I made it especially for you!" She encouraged.
I took a bite out of the cake. And another. And another. In a moment, it was all gone. I've never had anything so sweet and tasty in my life before.
"Wow, that cupcake was amazing Pinkie! I don't know how you do it! Thank you so much for that!"
"You're welcome Blue!"
"Oh, now I have to give you something in return. Wait there, I'll see what I can find."
I panicked a little, as I don't really have anything of value. I looked in all the drawers, wardrobes, cupboards and closets, but couldn't find anything of particular interest. But then I remembered my bag, containing all of my possessions. I went to look inside it, and took out everything that was in there. I pulled out clothes, photos of Anne and her friends, stationary, a digital camera, and a "mobile phone" which was what ponies used to call ponies sometimes. At the very bottom, I noticed that there were six coloured, glowing orbs. I took them out as well, and showed them to Pinkie pie. "Here, take your pick, you can choose one of these strange orbs, as I have nothing else that would mean something to you."
"Ooh, shiny! And they glow too! I'll take the pink one, because it matches my coat!"
"Wait a minute... take a look at the colours of al the orbs."
I noticed that each of them had colours of the group's coats as well. One was orange, one was yellow, one was pink, one was blue, one was white, and the last one was purple. All of them matched the groups orbs, as I and Pinkie had observed. But why would I own these things?
"I must examine these much more later, but you can take yours, Pinkie."
"You sounded just like twilight then Blue! You both are really intelligent!"
"Nah, I'm not as intelligent as her, I'm just an average pony..."
"You're more than that Blue! You're magic without being a unicorn, you used to be pony, you know all these things and you do so many things! You're a wonderful filly Blue!"
"Well, thank you for that Pinkie. I appreciate it." I blushed and gave her a tight hug.
"You're welcome Blue! Anything to cheer up a friend!" She hugged me tightly back, almost crushing me with her strong grip.
"So, what else do you do on this day?"
"Well why don't we party! We can make food and eat food and dance and sing and play games and everything! What do you say? It'll be fun!"
"Oh yeah, why not? Let's have a party!"
I almost had the same skills of baking as Pinkie pie, as we both tasted our cakes, and both kinds were delectable, but obviously, Pinkie pie had more experience. We danced the day away, playing music as loud as we could, and even if it was so loud, even the nearest neighbour couldn't hear us because of all the snow. Thanks to Anne, I had all these special talents to rival Pinkie pie. I could even sing as well as her. I felt so alive with her. Since Pinkie couldn't escape the comfort of my home because of the snow, and it was also getting dark, the only decision was to let her stay. As I wasn't fully unpacked yet, I asked her to help me.
"Do you mind getting my house filled with stuff from the boxes? I just want to get more settled."
"Sure Blue, anything for you!" Pinkie gave her trademark smiles to me, ran to the pile of boxes filled with clothes and household items, and started to take things out and put them into place. I was amazed that she knew where everything could go, and how fast she could go to do this. I could only manage to get one box unpacked because of her quickness. And then I saw something, right at the bottom of this box. It was half of a peculiar fruit of some sort, with a tiny bite taken out of it. What was this? As soon as I picked the thing up, I grew heavy, and my legs gave way. My vision blackened. It was another long awaited flashback.
I was in a forest. The same forest of where the same tree house was. Luckily this time, it wasn't all on fire, it was peaceful. I had control of my body, strangely. I noticed that I was much smaller, like a little filly. I began to walk up to the tree house. I climbed up the ramp. There was the other filly that I had remembered. She started talking to me, but I didn't hear a voice. I didn't hear anything at all. Just a strange, static type whisper. I glanced at the large table beside her. There were two items on the table, one that looked like the complete star shaped fruit, which resembled the one I found in the box, and the other was something that resembled my cutie mark. It was strange that these two things were just placed in somewhere as deserted as this. I looked around the walls of the tree house. Writing, symbols and pictures were scrawled all over, and bits of paper hung from pins on the walls, high enough for me to reach at them. Most of the papers had drawings of me and the other filly, while others had very informative notes of the environment, the inhabitants, and the animals. One caught my eye aggressively, so much that it actually gave me physical pain to look at. There was a big title saying "Dreams" on it, and unidentifiable lists were written below it. Was this related to me? But then I saw the name of Anne and Glais in tiny scribbles on the piece of paper. All this made my head hurt, and my body in the flashback stumbled. Every second I stayed in this strange flashback, the other filly turned angrier, and the static got louder and louder until it was transformed into an ear-piercing screech which obscured my vision. Wind howled in the background, and I felt like I was being swept away. Suddenly, I was torn from my position, and dragged out of the tree house, and down the ramp. I was being pulled backwards, and this caused an immense pain, like I was being ripped apart by sharp claws. A trail of blood came from under me as I was being pulled, and the sky turned a burning red. I tried screaming, but it only made the static screeching and the pain worse. I couldn't take much more of this, as I felt so drained of blood and energy, yet this flashback kept going on, and the forest I was being dragged through got darker and more intensely red. I felt like I was on fire. Finally, the pain stopped, the noises stopped, and everything was black. I heard a last voice call out,
"Live or die, it's your choice. You have freedom, but some don't like giving others freedom. Like me, your arch rival. You didn't want me in your life. I want you dead because you chose that."
And then I regained consciousness. My heart felt weak, and yet it was beating so fast. I could feel sweat and tears. When I staggered to get up, I saw Pinkie pie standing in the doorway. But something was different about her. She had a frown. Her coat was a darker shade of pink. Her hair was down and straightened out. She was holding a knife. She sprinted at me with tremendous speed, and I dodged out of the way with the little strength that I had. She crashed into the bed. I struggled to run out of the room, shouting, "What's happened Pinkie pie? Have you gone crazy?!"
"Oh no, I'm only doing what's necessary. Ha ha ha!" Her voice was slowed down to a normal pace, but it sounded much more dark and angry.
"Please, stop it! I don't want to be hurt!"
She swung her knife at me, cutting some of my skin of my flank. It burned and bled. I felt weaker and slower, but I had to keep avoiding her. Though no matter how I tried, she kept slicing at me, causing more blood to be spilled from my almost torn up body. I fell helplessly in front of her. I could do nothing but cry. She slashed at my flesh, pulled my hair and tore some out, laughing as she went. I couldn't even feel anything anymore. At least the aching and fire couldn't be felt anymore, but I was at the mercy of her menace and her blade. My final thought was that this was going to be the end for me. I let out a last, whimpering yelp, and fell unconscious.
"You must be strong; you must never give up the fight. You keep me alive. You saved humanity, and you can keep it going, if you ever go back there. Take life for all it's got, even if the ones you know and love aren't with you. Please, try."
Suddenly, I regained my consciousness. I was in the same place still, with Pinkie still chopping me up. But then I felt a huge increase in strength, and grabbed her arm. I twisted it, almost breaking her bones, and threw her out of my way. I stood up immediately. She ran at me with the knife again, but I stopped her in her tracks by giving her a hoof to the face, causing an instant black eye to appear on her mad face. She stumbled, but raced towards me again. I saw the blood rushing from my wounds, but I just felt invincible. I quickly turned around and bucked Pinkie pie into the wall, shattering her ribcage and leaving a large pile of bricks to fall from the wall and bury her. I then lost all strength and dropped to the floor. I wept loudly, and pulled myself towards the wreckage. I removed the bricks from Pinkie pie's mangled body, and tried with all of my might to shake her out of paralysis. Nothing helped. I lay down on her body and cried even more. "Please Pinkie, wake up. I'm sorry for hurting you; that wasn't me fighting you. Please wake up!" I collapsed again, helplessly wailing and bawling uncontrollably. I never wanted either of us to come to harm, and I really didn't want to fight my friend, no matter what state she was in.
I was there for hours, trying to wake her. I didn't want to give up, even if I was bleeding to death. I even gave her a kiss on the cheek out of desperation, but there was still nothing from her. A while passed, and I saw her eyes slowly flicker open. I sighed with relief as I knew she was still alive. "Pinkie pie? Are you okay? Please say you're going to be okay!"
"I... I... I'm sorry... I'm... so sorry... please forgive me..." Pinkie struggled to say, drifting in and out of consciousness.
"I forgive you, I forgive you. Please, it should be me asking for your forgiveness, as I hurt you more."
"But... you... have so many... cuts..."
"I'll... be fine. I think I broke your bones though... please let me help you."
"Okay... you can help me... but please... take me out of these bricks..."
"Of course, give me your hooves."
Pinkie pie grabbed on to my hooves, and I pulled her out of the rubble. I could only help but cry more as the event rushed through my head, but she wiped my tears away. I rested her on my bed, and ran a bath for her. When it was full up, I helped her in, and she let out a sigh which was soothing for the both of us. After that, I tried to remember the spell to fix broken bones.
"Lorem ossibus..." I called out to her.
"Ooh... that tickles... but I feel much better now. Could you get in here with me? It's warm, and it will help with your wounds."
I blushed, and slowly and painfully got in the big bath with Pinkie. She was right; it did help to ease the pain. I then said to myself, "signa vulnerum" and my wounds closed up; I felt much better.
"I'm really sorry for my violent outburst Pinkie pie; I should never have done that to a friend."
"It's okay, I'm sorry for ever showing my bad side to you."
"I didn't know you had a bad side to you..."
"It only comes out in extreme conditions, and since you were unconscious, and we're snowed in, I panicked and went crazy as I have claustrophobia, and without anypony's help I just turn... crazy."
"I see, well thanks to me and my flashbacks, that's happened to you, so it's my fault that I made you that way. I'm really sorry."
"It's not your fault, it's mine. I have some bad personality problems sometimes, which I can't show anypony, so you're the first one to see who I really am."
"But you're not really that Pinkie; you're a wonderful, happy pony that brings laughter to everypony. I must remember to never leave you alone when we're together, so you can stay on top. We're two fillies that have to stick together when we're together, and nothing will change that."
"Thank you Electric blue, that really means a lot to me. I hope I will never have to show that side again, as it only causes pain. I hope we can stick together forever too, as we all need each other in some way or another."
We blushed, smiled, and gave each other tight hugs again, never letting go.
"I'm always going to help you Pinkie pie, no matter what. I'm going to help everypony here. Especially you and the rest of the group."
After our make up session, we got out of the bath, drained the water, and prepared for bed. Seeing as there was no way the mail could get anywhere, I didn't write a letter to Princess Celestia, but I kept what I had experienced today close to my mane thoughts. I accompanied Pinkie to bed, gave her a small kiss on the forehead, which made us both smile and blush, and we were both falling asleep at the same time.
"Good night Pinkie pie, and happy Hearth's warming."