Letters

by joe mother

8: Dissimulation

Author's Note:

Sorry for the super long wait between chapters. Trying to work on it, but it's going slow.

LETTERS - CHAPTER EIGHT: DISSIMULATION

“Wake up.”

She lifted her head to see Mrs. Cake over her. The mare smiled, but inside Pinkie Pie did not smile. The dreams had bitten cruelly in her sleep, sending her into a state of fear. The demon had to be close. It wouldn’t just leave.

She had seen the eyes of her father, reflecting softly in a dim light, but slowly they had changed from them. They had not changed color or size, but their reflections became rougher, and slowly became an evil glitter.

It spoke through his body, and it paralyzed her. Seeing her father as a demon who wanted to harm her tore her emotions apart; she didn’t know what to do but watch in silent horror as it grabbed her foreleg and twisted hard, and feeling her bone snap under her flesh.

“STOP!” she yelled as pain filled her body, and the shock sent her sprawling to the floor. It laughed and merely pressed down on the broken bone as she screamed in agony, unable to fight her voice like she had before.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Cake asked, seeing the worry in Pinkie’s eyes.

“I just a bad dream,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to eventually,” Mrs. Cake said, grabbing Pinkie’s shoulder and giving her a stern look. “You can’t keep pretending you can keep it hidden away forever, especially if it hurts you this bad.”

Pinkie looked away and tried to steady her breath. She didn’t want to tell them. She didn’t want them to be in league with the demon and then have it show back up here. The wish for release pushed her to say, but she didn’t know what side of her brain to take.

She opened her mouth to speak.

- - - - - -

There were no other times where Pinkie could say she had forgotten all of her problems at the sight of one pony. As she hugged her father, the world around her grew brighter. She didn’t stop to consider any problems with the moment, like the possibility that her father could even still be alive after years of her being away from home.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she said, crying heavily.

“I am, too!” he said, kissing her on the forehead.

The two released and they looked at each other happily. However, Pinkie’s father soon developed a worried look. Pinkie looked at him quizzically and felt a rush of forgotten emotions run through her.

“My friends,” she whispered, piecing it together again. She relived her discovery again. “They’re gone...”

“Friends?” he asked.

“I was coming up here with my friends, and they got k-killed,” Pinkie said in disbelief. She had seen it, but it was impossible to truly believe. “They died... They died... my best friends died...”

“It’s okay,” her father said, giving her a hug as she stared blankly, unmoving, at the cave wall. “They’re fine.”

“What?” Pinkie said, losing the poof in her mane. “They’re not fine! They’re DEAD!” She threw him off and glared at him. “They’re not okay, and they won’t ever be!”

“They’re alright,” he said, standing, looking her in the eyes. “Trust me.”

“How can I trust you?” Pinkie replied, trying to think. “You were possessed by a demon, so how do I know you aren’t still possessed and you’re just trying to hurt me again?!”

“Because I died.”

The silence deepened as Pinkie heard those words and let her eyes widen, “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said.”

Pinkie rubbed her head and tried to focus, “How are you dead? How can I see you?”

“I died when the demon possessed me,” he replied, showing her a small patch on his fur where the hair was gone and replaced with a symbol burned into his flesh. “It pushed my soul into the afterlife and merely took my body. I watched you as it hurt you. It was pretending to be me to make it hurt even worse than it already did.”

“Bu-but,” Pinkie stammered, processing the information. “How could you see me then? If you were a spirit, how could you see what was happening?”

“Spirits can see into the real world, but the real world can’t see into ours,” he explained. “In all of life, you’ve been surrounded by the spirits of the dead.”

“Wait, so if I can see you, that means I died?” Pinkie said, sweating a little as her breathing grew quicker. “But, when?”

“A long, long time ago,” he said. “You died with the demon, and you’ve been dead for a long time. However, you would not have realized since the spirits of the living can still see you and interact with you. You still aged like a normal pony, and nopony suspected a thing.”

“But when I was in Ponyville, when did I talk to dead ponies?” Pinkie asked, thinking back. Nothing had ever seemed odd to her, nothing at all like dead ponies.

“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head. “I only saw you for a little while.”

“I-I don’t know what to say about this,” she said, her mane falling straight. “I’ve been dead for all these years and I never knew... How can this happen?”

“I don’t know, since you seem to be a special case. I have never met a dead soul who could be seen by the living. Of course, I haven’t met many dead souls.”

Pinkie fell down and sobbed. Her mind was rattled after her long journey, after all her losses, and she came back to find this. If it wasn’t for those stupid letters she would’ve been okay and never known she was dead.

“The letters!” she whispered, looking back up at her father, who seemed to just be waiting for her to recompose herself. “Who sent the letters?!”

“What letters?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I came back here because I got some letters in the mail,” she explained, starting to pace. “They were from here. I told my friends about my past and came up here because the letters told me to. They said that I needed to visit.”

“And you do need to visit.”

- - - - - -

Her eyes were glittering with tears in the small ray of sunlight that broke through the tiny window. Mr. and Mrs. Cake were looking at each other with great concern.

“A demon?” Mr. Cake asked, completely incredulous. “A real demon?”

“Yes,” Pinkie replied, refusing to look at them. “It’s okay if you don’t believe me, since I doubt anypony would believe it.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe it, dear,” Mrs. Cake said. “It’s just that it’s a lot to take in.”

Pinkie turned on her side across the mattress, wanting nothing more than to disappear into the bedding.

“I’m worthless,” she said.

“No, you’re not!” Mrs. Cake said quickly, reaching out for her.

“Yes, I am,” she replied, swatting Mrs. Cake’s hoof away. “My cutie mark is to make ponies happy, and here I am only feeling hurt and pain and telling you about it. How am I supposed to help ponies get happy when I’m sad and crying?”

“You have to make yourself happy,” Mr. Cake said, which got him a quizzical eyebrow from his wife. “It’s hard to help other ponies when you’re too busy helping yourself. Make yourself happy before making other ponies happy.”

“When did deep thoughts become your forte, honey?” Mrs. Cake snickered jokingly.

“Am I not allowed to have deep thoughts every once in a while?” he replied, indignantly.

“It’s just strange.”

Pinkie smiled a bit as the two toyed with each other, seeing them as her own parents. Her parents had begun to do that after she had gotten her cutie mark, but they hadn’t been able to for very long.

“Could I stay with you?” Pinkie asked. “Since I have nowhere to go.”

The couple nodded immediately. “But,” Mrs. Cake replied. “Don’t think you can just stay. You’ll have to learn how to bake and work in our trade.”

“I can do that,” Pinkie said, smiling. “I used to help my mom bake.”

Mr. Cake laughed and started leaving, “I’ll leave you two to planning what she’ll do and where her actual room will be. I can’t say I’m particularly interested in those things.”

“Come back here!” Mrs. Cake demanded as she followed him, grabbing his mane and trying to pull him back. “We are both going to deal with this filly! You want her to stay here as well!”

Pinkie laughed and stood from the bed. She already felt more at home, and back into a family.

Comments

[Drifting Heart]

Dun dun dun! wow now I can't wait for more.

[superfun]

When's the next chapter coming out?

[joe mother]

5723286

Eventually. I don't even have a chapter title yet.

[superfun]

5726852 Oh...

[TheLoneScribe]

I don't understand. If Pinkie Pie is dead, then she couldn't be the Element of Laughter. Wouldn't the element would have gone right through her. And wouldn't she have been able to walk through ACTUAL walls? This is quite the problem you have here Mr.Author.

[joe mother]

6334098

I have never made her able to walk through things (at least I don't believe so, it has been a while since I've looked over it), and I have had a statement that she is not a generic ghost. She still lives as though she was alive, she's just dead.

[FrostVortex]

Okay... I'm officially confused. Still, this is a great story, and I'm eager to see how it ends.