Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 20: Shut

Behind the locked door of Pinkie Pie's room, with caring Twilight at her side and focused Rainbow Dash sitting further away watchfully leering, the distraught pony's counseling session began.

There was nowhere left to run and hide, and nothing to be gained by burying her troubles more, so Pinkie Pie timidly opened herself up before her friends. She shared again her own side of the tale of unrequited friendship, riding her emotions up and down as she went. Sometimes she was low, speaking frighteningly soft but with plain conveyance; a sad show of strength on her part. At other times she fell into moods of fearful horror. Her voice occasionally rose to desperate heights, as if she needed to urgently plead with her friends for them to accept her story, and she blubbered and gasped often whenever she touched upon the many most terrible things she felt she had been through. Over the course of her bloodletting she came around to every hurt: sorrow, grief, pity, and despair; all of them cobbled together in a randomly erratic and almost goofy way like only she could possibly deliver.

Mostly her story matched the one that she had related to Twilight weeks ago. It was the sad tale of a pony who had started out with so much gleeful hope for a new friendship but had been passively beaten back again and again; a pony whose happy resolve had been chipped away at such an unnoticed pace that she had become covered over in hairline cracks by the time the final tiny blow had shattered her into dust. Her descent had started with the man's implicit rejection of the very first party she had organized for him, and from then on none of her efforts had ever moved forward anything between her and him. Every time she had tried to take a single step ahead she had somehow fallen two backwards.

And, as she repeatedly made clear through many little interjections which she poked into her rambling tale, it wasn't that the man had ever been shamelessly nasty, outwardly awful, or openly cruel. He hadn't ever been a monument to rudeness who had carelessly swung around blunt disrespect, or a mean-spirited foe who had aggressively rebuffed her friendship efforts with uncalled-for harshness. No, he had always conducted himself with a full politeness of a deferring sort. When working with her at Sugar Cube Corner he had done everything he had been asked to do without any real complaint. When helping her host parties he had bowed to her commands without any backtalk. Whenever she had asked anything of him he had given no lively resistance.

No LIVELY resistance. No life. That had been the problem. To her he hadn't ever opened up and shared himself as alive.

For all the personal interactions where he had been nice, and polite, and respectable, they had felt like a veneer to smooth over all the hours which he 'had' to spend with her to fulfill his weekly schedule. It had felt like a mockery of character, worn in order to meet his social obligations only. Nothing genuine had come out to match the true offerings of her own that she had given him. Doubtless it would have been absolutely heartbreaking to the friend-loving pink pony if the man were to have come straight out and honestly said that he wasn't going to have been her friend. But in a backwards way that wouldn't have been nearly as hurtful to her.

At least such a denial from him would have been genuine.

That was how Pinkie Pie tried to express her inner pain to her friends, albeit of course in her own bizarre and devastated way. The indelible marks of her zany, circus-like reality were able to press themselves into her explanation even though she was suffering through sadness. It was all part of the lens through which she viewed those things that were most important to her.

"A-And... and he... he never sings! NEVER, EVER sings! Not once!" she wheezed, chattering her teeth in sorrow and sucking the snot back up her nose. "I've tried to teach him so many songs and he never sings them! The most he'll do is sort of quietly hum the words or play along when singing in groups, but he NEVER sings from his heart!" The insanity of it tore her world apart. "HE. NEVER. SINGS. Or... not for me anyway..."

Twilight had a hoof around her forlorn friend's shoulder, patting the pouting pony tenderly, and she consoled, "Pinkie, I know you said he told you once that he likes to sing... but I don't think ANY of us have heard him sing. So maybe it's just not something he shares with other ponies? I don't think you should make it your big determinant for friendship."

Pinkie Pie shuddered because she knew she had a deeper meaning in mind, and her unicorn friend hadn't grasped it. But she also understood how much of a very confused distance lay between the essence of what she wanted to say and what had actually come out of her mouth.

"No, Twilight...," she moaned, "... there's real music inside everypony. There's a special sound that only plays when their heart is open and free. If you find just the right song... then you can get anypony to sing along."

In her head she could count up all of her many, many friends, from nearest and dearest to the most casual of friendly, one-time acquaintances. She could count them like the hairs of her mane, and she had memorized the pure, undiluted, unique sound each and every one of them could make. So beautiful...

She hummed sadly, "And if they're really singing it... really really really truly singing it... then you can hear it. You can always hear it. You can hear that special something that's really inside them."

The unicorn choked through hesitation while trying to get her words out, "Pinkie... I... I don't... understand what... what you're-...?"

The pink pony couldn't bring her unhappy face up to meet Twilight's, and her scratchy throat felt unwilling to try explaining everything all over again. Oh, but it was so clear in her own head!

After the months of failing to connect with the man she had almost wanted to believe that maybe breaking through to him wasn't even actually possible. Maybe PEOPLE, unlike ponies, just didn't have that indescribable magic sound inside; that imperceptibly pure light which came out once they were ready to share themselves freely. True that it had seemed like he had shared at least something a little special with almost all of her friends but maybe that had been an illusion. Maybe she hadn't actually failed as a friend. Maybe he simply couldn't succeed as one.

But then she had seen him with Poppy.

After Twilight's first round of advice at the library Pinkie Pie had gone for a stroll with her head held high, freshly optimistic that things would have worked out in the end. If Twilight had believed that she and the man could have scrubbed away all the obstacles blocking their potential friendship then who would she have been to have doubted her smarty-smart friend? But having caught sight of the man and his little Drypony laughing together had trampled all over her merry cake. Then only a few days later he had brought the filly along with him to Sugar Cube Corner for his weekly Pinkie day and she had used the opportunity to push them together so that she might have observed them up close, and that experience had splattered her cake all over the floor into a thousand messy crumbs.

When baking with a pink pony he had followed every instruction dispassionately. When baking with a small Drypony every little step had been a celebration.

All that happiness inside of him which she had never seen before... happiness which her deranged hope had almost wanted to make her believe hadn't existed... happiness which for months she had failed to summon... there it was. Plain as vanilla ice cream, there it was. Drawing it out of him had not only been possible, it had been BEAUTIFUL. Amazing! Incredible! THAT was what he looked like as a true friend. THAT was what he sounded like as a true friend. THAT was how wonderful his song could have been if he had ever chosen to sing it.

And all it had taken to bring out such inner bliss was a filly. An ordinary filly had in a day effortlessly found the friendship which all her months of endeavors, themselves backed by years of friendship experience, had altogether failed to unlock.

Quiet lament sunk its fangs into her, trying to drag her to the floor, and envious fear provoked her into helplessly whispering, "Do you think... do you think he ever sang for Poppy?"

"I don't know? Maybe?" Twilight hiccuped. She still held a hoof around her frightened pink friend yet she felt so separated; almost swept away by confusion. "I'm not sure what difference that makes!"

"The difference is...," Pinkie Pie spoke in a hush, "... if she can do that... then she's a good friend..." Darkness pressed in all around the pony, crushing her shrinking form and collapsing her mane over her face. It squeezed even more silently running tears out of her. "... She's a good friend... and... and I'm not..."

"Okay, okay," interrupted Rainbow Dash at last. She had been sitting rather quietly aside the whole time, attentive with her eyes and ears. Rising up, she marched in front of the pink pony, dismissively rocking her head back and forth while uttering, "Blah blah blah blah blah, NO."

Once in front of her friend, any roughness within her faded into loving and loyal sternness. One of her wings reached out and picked up the fallen pink mane, enabling her to look right into the pair of watery blue eyes.

"You're a good friend, Pinkie," she emphasized. "You're been a good friend for as long as I've known you."

"To you! B-But...," Pinkie Pie again shivered, her own freezing disbelief whipping about her. Her mane couldn't hold itself up; it almost tried to worm its way around the wing which kept it lifted. "But... if he won't sing, and if he won't smile, and if he won't be HIMSELF when I'm around... then I'm NOT a good friend TO HIM!"

Rainbow Dash pointedly shrugged and, exceptionally matter-of-fact in tone, she said, "Well... then maybe you're not his friend?"

The spongy clumps of the pink pony's mane melted right through the wing holding them up, falling and slapping her wet face with a rubbery smack.

Twilight was aghast. "Rainbow!"

"What?" the pegasus shot back with crude innocence. "I'm serious. Maybe she's not." She staked her position out, standing herself somewhere between bold truthfulness and frank disregard.

But she wasn't devoid of compassion, and more to Pinkie Pie than to Twilight she stated, "It's not like that means she CAN'T be his friend."

The blind, pink pony threw her forehooves onto Rainbow Dash and reined herself in, pulling her listless form up against the pegasus. "HOW?" she ached for the secret. A quaking energy ran through her legs and assaulted her friend with a vigorous shaking. "I've tried EVERYTHING!"

Rainbow Dash used her wings as wedges to force a release from the pink pony's grip. All of the recent stories detailing the many overtures of friendship to the man were still fresh in the pegasus' mind, and she managed to keep her sarcasm down to only a flutter as she remarked, "Yeah, you've definitely tried... uh, things, all right."

"You're his friend, Rainbow Dash," Pinkie Pie said, still leaning up against the other pony. "HOW?"

The usual layer of self-assured certainty that so often sheltered the rainbow-maned pony began to peel back slightly, fading as she gave the matter of her friendship with the man a rare amount deep thinking.

"I WASN'T his friend. Not in the beginning," she said at last. "I definitely didn't WANT to be his friend after what we first saw of him." Even the faint remembrance of that violence gave her a defensive shudder, though she held onto her lessons and pushed passed the old fear quickly. "Me and him, though...," she slowly expressed, nodding her head to the regular clicking of the gears which churned inside as she searched for the right way to put it. "... we had to come to an understanding first, and then we were able to be friends."

"That's right," Twilight attempted to piggyback off of Rainbow Dash's start. She remembered well the man's specific confession: he didn't 'get' Pinkie Pie. "You two seem to have a hard time understanding one another," she instructed the pink pony, "but you really have to understand each other in some way if you're going to have a working friendship. So I really think that if, instead of playing all these indirect games, the two of you just sit down and honestly talk it out-"

"Woah, woah, woah," the pegasus jumped in, nearly appalled at the suggestion. "Let's not get carried away, Twilight."

The unicorn's face was conquered by an stunned stillness. "... What?" she flung the unbelieving word out, wet as a soaked rag.

"They've been hanging out at least once a week for months!" Rainbow Dash raised her voice. "If it hasn't happened already then, at this point, I don't think just TALKING is going to do it."

"B-But... honesty... and friendship... and... you...," Twilight sputtered, before she quickly locked onto the biggest obstacle blocking her comprehension, "... you JUST said that you only developed a friendship with him AFTER you two came to an understanding!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we like... called a meeting, and made points of order, and drew up contracts or something," grunted the pegasus, unsympathetic to anypony who couldn't keep up with her marvelous deductions. "I know YOU got to be his friend by yakking away with him until it just suddenly happened. But that wasn't really how it was with me and him. I mean, there was SOME talking... but it mostly wasn't talking."

She turned her head away from the unicorn and scrutinized the distraught pink pony. Pinkie Pie had been jerking her frightened face around at the other two ponies as they had gone back and forth in disagreement, growing increasingly worried with each fighting line they threw about. Every sentence they had exchanged with each other had still somehow turned into a strike against her, slapping her about and beating her deeper and deeper into her despairing hole. The doomed, defeated desperation came out with every one of her broken breaths.

"And," Rainbow Dash shook her head at the pitiable sight, "I don't think just talking is going to work out for them, either. I mean, look at where Pinkie is right now! She's been trying her hardest and she's miserable!"

"Yes!" Twilight groaned sternly. "Because they haven't once spoken to each other OPENLY about how they feel."

"Exactly!" The pegasus smacked a hoof against the floor in affirmation.

"I... you... but... and... huh?" the unicorn babbled, the intellectual wind knocked out of her by the other pony's maze of circular insanity. She gripped her dizzying head to keep the room from spinning.

One wing came out and leveled flat, forming a surface upon which Rainbow Dash's other wing pounded as she repeated her points again one at a time: "Months. Casually hanging out. No friendship. Pinkie Pie miserable." Both wings sprawled out wide behind her and she tossed her head once. "You know, the only reason I'm NOT flying over to his room right this second to kick his teeth in for making Pinkie Pie so upset is because I've gotten to really KNOW him and..."

The first true signs of saddened exasperation appeared in her as she broke her statement to give a heated sigh.

Wings tiredly folding up, she turned her face just a little towards the floor and said in a soft voice, "... and I don't think he's been doing anything that's... not himself. Her too." She pointed a hoof at the absent man. "He's just been being HIM." Her aim swung towards the broken bundle of pink. "And she's just been being... you know... Pinkie Pie. And them being themselves wasn't enough. Look where it got'em."

She returned to boldness and shrugged once, lamenting roughly, "I think if they talked openly to each other about how they actually feel they might wind up going BACKWARDS."

It was more than enough to shove Twilight into a short, open-mouthed silence. She had to shake her head to reacquire her voice, and it could only weakly seek confirmation, "You're saying that... who they are fundamentally... are incompatible?"

The crushed Pinkie Pie had an altogether worse interpretation. In wide-eyed, lip-trembling, broken-hearted dread she squeaked, "I'm... too awful to be his friend...?"

"No, no," Rainbow Dash denied the idea with such head-shaking force that it flung her mane about like a cracking whip. She seized her suffering friend from the front, taking a strong hold with her hooves and bringing her true-hearted eyes close. Full of firm resolve she declared, "Pinkie, you have like... a million friends. Everypony in Ponyville is your friend. And all of their friends are your friends. And even all of their not-friends are your friends! I don't know how you do it! But I guess that's just who you are." Once more one of her wings swept aside the fallen pink mane, pulling the tangled mess out of the other pony's eyes, and one of her hooves wandered down and tapped truthfully on the pink pony's hurting heart. "That's who Pinkie Pie is; you're a friend maker."

The pegasus spent a moment to fold the soggy, tear-soaked mane up and to the side, where it hopefully couldn't fall on Pinkie's face again.

"But...," she sighed, still with a steadfast hold on her friend yet dropping her glance away for a scant second, "... maybe... maybe this guy is the one pony that you can't... you know... Pinkie Pie your way into a friendship with?"

For what seemed like years the washed over eyes of the pink pony stared into her friend's, still leaking little teardrops as she did. She couldn't see anything in the light of Rainbow Dash's gaze that didn't shine as true, genuine, or heartfelt, and in some deeper place she understood that if the pegasus had given the magical, problem-solving answer that she had so longingly wanted then it would have been only a false promise. All the melancholy weights on her started to drag her down and she shrunk, depressed. Depressed, but intact.

"Rainbow Dash," the reserved, thinking Twilight called slowly, "I'm still not sure I follow."

"She's just too much for him, Twilight." For a pegasus who so often openly flaunted her brash, cocky side, even she seemed to be full of a simple and quaint confidence about her assertion.

It made the unicorn stop and think, bringing her mind to step through everything she had done to try and unite her two isolated friends. She had known that no force but her friends themselves would have ever truly bound them in friendship, so she hadn't ever tried to manufacture some sort of false fellowship between them by herself. Always she had endeavored to push them in the direction of opening up to each other; to get them to find the hidden friendship on their own. But from Pinkie Pie she had only heard tales of honest, if sometimes indirect, efforts that had repeatedly failed. The disheartened pink pony had been thrown into dysfunctional disarray, unable to understand why she hadn't successfully reached him. And the man... well... the man had taken his sweet time to even fully open up to Twilight about the issue. Twilight, whom he had always called his friend. When at last he had turned completely truthful he had been fairly unambiguous about how he had chosen to conceal himself from the pink pony; to save himself from the trouble of dealing with her.

Twilight remembered exactly how he had appeared on the street of Ponyville as he had revealed how he just didn't 'get' Pinkie Pie. The crisp image returned to her so clearly now: how visibly frightened the man had been of the other pony's exuberance. How much the pink pony's unstoppable, incomprehensible energy had put him in a place of uncomfortable, silent, controlled distress.

Somehow Pinkie Pie really was too much for him.

Rainbow Dash muttered, "If she really wants to be his friend then I think she's going to have... scale herself back or something." Uncertainty took a preeminent place in her statement.

"Be LESS of herself?" questioned Twilight sceptically.

Popping up, the pink pony squawked in worry, "B-But I want Pinkie Pie to be his friend!"

Twilight, somewhat perplexed, reached and tightened a hug around the other pony. "I'm sorry, Pinkie," she said. "We didn't mean to talk so much like you weren't here-"

"No!" the pink pony shouted in a painful whine. She kept throwing her hooves against herself, pointing inwards. Spouting her fears she rambled, "If Pinkie Pie gets to be his friend by not being Pinkie Pie then is Pinkie Pie even his friend at all?"

"Oh...," the unicorn let out a realizing whisper.

"It's not like that," Rainbow Dash tried to insist. Very obviously she was struggling to pull her thoughts together on the issue, trying to formulate a plan of some sort. But she was a pony who usually preferred to simply go with the flow, and being mired in the minutia had her at an inarticulate loss.

Twilight was rattled. The more she thought about it the more a raw anger creeped in from the cracks, teasing her with increasing viciousness. She had heard both sides of the conflict straight from each of her friends several times now. The pony had always been more earnest, and tearful, and devastated. The man had always been more... uninterested... and aloof... and uncaring. Both had been too frightened to face the situation directly but Pinkie Pie had at least never stopped genuinely trying. But the man... he hadn't ever genuinely STARTED trying, had he? And now Rainbow Dash had suggested that the only way for them to meet halfway was to not go halfway at all! Her pink friend had to be dragged down to his level?

Only minutes earlier Rainbow Dash had whimsically mentioned kicking the man's teeth in for upsetting Pinkie Pie, merely a joke for the pegasus, but now Twilight almost felt like marching up to him and doing it herself. His unfair condition for friendship was to require Pinkie Pie to throttle herself? He would only give up the small little bit of friendship the other pony wanted if she surrendered her spirit? That was his repayment for Pinkie's faithful sacrifices at the altar of friendship? That was how much he appreciated all of her sincere efforts?

Grinding her teeth slightly, the unicorn's comforting hold on the pink pony underwent a defensive turn. Up at the pegasus she looked and then she demanded harshly, "Why does Pinkie Pie have to be the one to change for them to be friends? Why can't James be less... James?"

"Seriously?" Rainbow Dash coughed, giving Twilight an askew eye.

The unicorn couldn't let her jealous hug go, and she snapped back angrily, "It's hardly fair for you to ask Pinkie to be less of the incredible and unique pony she is! After all she's already done? And when he hasn't done much at all?"

"I told you, it's not exactly like that," groaned the pegasus.

"Then what is it 'like,' Rainbow Dash?!" Twilight very nearly snarled. "Because from all I've seen and heard it sounds like you're saying she has to surrender and stop being herself just because... because... James is... is... too STUBBORN to give her a fair chance!"

Pinkie Pie sadly snuggled up to Twilight, who responded by pouring more devoted and defending love into her hug. She had landed squarely on the pony's side.

Resistant, Rainbow Dash asked "Isn't giving her a fair chance what he has already been doing this whole time?"

"What? No!" the unicorn bristled at the suggestion. After all, she had even asked him to broach this whole subject with Pinkie Pie and what had he done? He had barely mentioned it once and then had given up. It had finally become clear to her that all the best wishes she had been holding on to had to be thrown out. "He hasn't been trying to be her friend at all!"

"Sort of, yeah," the pegasus neutrally agreed, but she maintained, "He's still been fair though." Tiny drips of sarcasm leaked out of her as she said, "I mean, he's only shown up once a week every week to spend the whole day with her. And never turned her away or blew her off. And always been nopony but himself every time."

Twilight was quite shocked at the continued and frankly unanticipated opposition from her loyal friend. Rainbow Dash had an especially close camaraderie with Pinkie Pie, so how that pony could be standing up for the man like she was seemed so completely unthinkable.

"He's thoughtlessly spurned every one of Pinkie Pie's efforts to be his friend, without even so much as a 'no, thank you!'" she shouted. "Actually, I'm fairly sure he even resents what she's done!"

"So I guess you're the one who gets to pick and choose who he makes friends with now?" Rainbow Dash thrust her words out, intently making a point with them.

Exasperation tried to pound its way out of the unicorn's body, producing a strained grunt from her as she fought to hold it in. In a heavy effort she challenged her colorful friend, "Why are you being so defensive of him?"

Surprising Twilight, the pegasus gave an answer which was coated in a kind of candid uncertainty. "I guess," she said slowly, "because... maybe I know him in a way that you don't?"

It finally brought a stillness upon the unicorn's boiling anger. Many times before she had noticed how the man had allowed different parts of himself to connect with different ponies. He was like most ponies after all: complex and full of many facets, with not everypony able to learn enough about him to gain a clear picture of the whole. But his special circumstances and his uniqueness made him, compared to others, a pony especially fractured; he gave out his composing elements with much more selective choice than most usually did. Perhaps that was only a temporary state resulting from his emotional wounds? Unbelievably enough it had been only three months since his trans-world experience.

However, for some reason, Twilight was most especially reminded of the man's own words: his strange assertion about how Princess Celestia wasn't a princess to him but something else entirely. And now apparently also such between her, him, and the pegasus. Again she realized she was keeping down a small amount of envy: Rainbow Dash was something to him that she was not.

The agitation ate her up inside but she decided to sit quietly and take it. It was hard to accept the pegasus' argument but maybe it was something that she just had to do. Maybe her friend really did have a better understanding of this aspect of the man, more than she did.

"Look..." Rainbow Dash spoke upon seeing Twilight's surrender. She stepped forwards and sat herself down in front of the other two, collecting all three friends close together. She addressed the troubled Pinkie Pie, "... I want him to be your friend as much as anypony, because I know what a great pony you are. But I'm... you know, not really surprised that he hasn't been responding to you or trying to be your friend. I'm not. You're both very different, and where you're sort of super-charged and go-go all the time, he's really kind of... super slow and low key about a lot of stuff.

"Not about everything, though. Like... that fighting stuff he did before coming to Equestria. And how he lets himself loose against me, joking around and standing up to my challenges even though he'll never beat me. And how he gets really stupidly serious about hero stuff, like preaching about ethics or whatever. And how much more alive he was with Poppy; that surprised even me!" A strip of color welled up on her nose and she turned away to half mumble, "And also, like... I mean... all that crazy... STUFF... he was yammering about in the garden? That was gross and weird, but he was super into it for whatever reason. That's a freaky monkey guy for you."

She was able to shake herself free of the embarrassing memory quickly, and she continued, "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that he's usually a pretty mellow dude but there is something that's more... life-like inside of him. And maybe THAT'S the side of him you can build an understanding with, Pinkie. But he's just not using that part of him a lot right now.

"And..." She sat herself up in readiness. Usually she disliked dwelling on things of such a personal nature but there was something relevant to all this that she had been observing for a long while now. "I really get the feeling that it's because he's still... searching, you know?"

The other two ponies stared at each other for a moment before Twilight came back and questioned, "Searching?"

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash nodded. Everything felt like it was falling into place for her, with new ideas joining old observations to create retrospectively obvious thoughts. Increasingly assured, she went on, "Like... trying to find out who he IS to Equestria. That's easy for us to do cause we already know who we are, but he doesn't have anything like a cutie mark to discover. He's new here to everything and he's just sort of... trying to grow into it. Like... a pony's first day a flight school. Just... trying to figure out what his life is now. And that means taking it slow. So like, when he's with me and he always just wants to play a game or chill or whatever, I'm like, 'yeah, that's cool.' I'll let him have that."

The pegasus was a pony who LOVED naps, and she loved them even more when she was supposed to have been doing something else. But she also knew unquestionably that she was the greatest thing since the invention of pet turtles, and she could do anything and everything as needed if it really came down to it. That was why she never had a problem lazing about as she liked to do; call it a reward for being so awesome.

However, ever since befriending the man, granting him the same allowance for laziness had NEVER been because she had believed similarly heroic things about him. It had simply always been as clear as the blue sky to her: he had NEEDED it. He had needed a regular sort of hanging out, drifting through afternoons with a friend. And looking back... it was kind of like how he had needed a regular sort of intellectual stimulation, wandering through big thoughts alongside Twilight; had needed a regular sort of physical rhythm, laboring slow, hard, and steady on Applejack's farm; had needed a regular sort of fuzzy cuddling, caring gently for Fluttershy's animals. All his time with her and her friends had been filled with regular things that moved so predictably calmly that he could still REST while living life; while still healing.

"That's why I think that... if you want to reach an understanding with him... it's something YOU'VE got to do, Pinkie Pie," she concluded. "He's gotten along with a few of us cause that's just who he is and that's just what he needs. But right now that's all he'll do, you know? Just get along. We'd probably never get anywhere asking him to step up and... sing with you or whatever. He's not ready. Equestria is still so new that he probably feels like he has so little to hold on to here, so he's not going to risk anything just to try and make friends with a pony he doesn't get along with right off the bat."

Silence seized the room as the pink pony tucked her eyes into her own chest.

"Does that make sense, Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash sought verification, resting a hoof on the other pony's shoulder. "He probably would treating me in the same casual way as you if I didn't reach my understanding with him."

Pinkie Pie never looked up, lingering in a motionless trance for so long that her air became stale. Finally, in a weak murmur she spoke back, "... I guess it does..."

Twilight regretfully felt the same exact way. Her sympathy and pity wanted to grant the man such a generous allowance, but her love towards her pink friend was still outright indignant at how poorly he had handled the whole situation. She also oddly burned at how it seemed like he was going to 'get away with it.'

She made herself clear to Rainbow Dash in a capitulating, reluctant voice, "I don't like it."

"Yeah, I mean, it's not a super great situation or anything," admitted the pegasus. "But that's kind of just the way it is."

To the pink pony she emphasized, "And hey, remember: 'doesn't want to be your friend' is a different thing than 'can't be your friend.' You might have to hold back a little now but, if you get things right, then I know that you can get him to be friends with you. The ACTUAL Pinkie Pie you."

The distraught pony absorbed the thought, owning the silence of the room. Then, on her own, she let go of Twilight and sat straight. Her mane, still tangled in tear-soaked clumps, actually pulled itself upright and into shape with some amount of weary strength. She sniffed once or twice while rubbing any remaining bits of snot away.

"... So what should I do?" she asked her friends. Altogether she was far from well, but the desperation that had rocked every last fiber of her being had at least greatly diminished.

Having no enthusiasm for the reality that Rainbow Dash had laid out, neither hopeful nor bitter, Twilight was bare of suggestions. Or at least she didn't want to be the one to propose what she knew the pegasus would.

"I guess... you should just sort of... back off from him for a little while," Rainbow Dash predictably said. "And I don't mean like, stay out of sight or something. Just... don't be on top of him like it's your day to host him. You can join when he's doing stuff... just don't try to MAKE him do things with you. Or go overboard trying to do things for HIM. When he's around... just try really hard not to get all super-excited-spazzy-explodey. Just take it easy."

It was such a sour pill. Pinkie Pie fumbled with a broken frown.

Attempting to slap everything with a positive spin, the pegasus threw on a healthier, more upbeat air and changed around her approach, saying "You've been trying hard to make friends with him for months. Well, we're ON VACATION now! Take a break! Relax!" She snapped herself around like a acrobatic frog, whirling over to the pink pony's side. One leg she dropped over the other pony's shoulder like a drunken pal, and one of her wings she rolled gently like an ocean wave, casting a kissing breeze over herself and her friend. "Play quietly on the beach, rest and look out at the ocean view, take some naps in the sun; slow yourself down a little and enjoy your time off. I know that's not exactly how you like to be... but it's kinda like how I had to stop being so extra loyal to you guys so I could learn to trust him just a little bit."

Her hooking leg squished Pinkie Pie tighter. "So don't forget about him; just forget him a little bit," she advised squarely. "Don't go all out enjoying your trip; just start to enjoy it a little bit." She swung her free leg out, directing everypony's eyes to the room which surrounded them. "Normally this whole 'going somewhere, meeting somepony' deal would be your thing! So have a little fun with it! Like, look at this great room you-"

Somehow she herself really witnessed the state of the chamber for the very first time. The balloons swarming around like ants; invisible to her before. The streamers racing a circuit around the walls; absent in her memory. The homemade welcome sign which was a billboard above the bed; unlettered to her previously.

"Yeesh." She stuck out her tongue. Incredulously she asked, "Twilight, did MY room look like this?"

"I don't know," the unicorn responded, struck by a similar sense of amnesia. "I was in such a rush to get you that I don't really remember what was in your room."

"... I kinda like it...," Pinkie Pie spoke of her own room. Her voice had a hoarseness like she was really pushing to get herself above dismal whispering.

The tone had such a tiny but unexpected spark of life. It drew happy attention from both of the other ponies instantly.

Rainbow Dash squeezed the pink pony even tighter and rubbed a hoof in her sloppy, pink mane. "You goofball!" she falsely chided.

Twilight threw herself over the pink pony in a delightfully crushing hug, nabbing the pegasus as collateral damage.

Pinkie Pie hardly minded how tightly jammed she was in the middle of the pony sandwich. It was a hug baked just right, really.

"Thanks, everypony...," she was able to say, laced somewhere inside with a hidden giggle.

"Hey, don't mention it," Rainbow Dash spouted. "Just take a deep breath, unwind, and focus on taking it easy for awhile.

"And you know," she tacked on as a final boost of hope, "maybe a vacation is just what that guy needs, too. I know I said he was still searching, but I think Poppy proved he was kind of getting there. (And that whole garden thing definitely shows that he has a crazy side...) Maybe between a little careful calmness from you... and this wacky magic island paradise thing that the ponies here won't shut up about... it will turn him around just enough to get you two understanding each other. They said they were going to bring us all closer together, after all! Who knows what they can get you two to do?"

The pink pony gave a hug right back to each of her dear friends with as much strength as her tired will would loan her, embracing their hopes and borrowing them for herself.

After a recovering minute of holding each other and exchanging warm words or laughs the three ponies finally broke apart. Pinkie Pie picked herself up and shook some of the wet sadness out of her mane, and a minute amount of springiness came back to her tail. Unwelcome sighs continued to invade her breath and blink-inducing droplets of tiny tears continued to poke out from the corners of her eyes, but overall she was in a more peaceful place.

It really was a wonderful room, so full of such grin-worthy party things. But... she wasn't ready yet to enjoy it yet. She took a look instead towards the curtain which was sealing off the balcony.

Making an accurate guess at Pinkie Pie's desire, and to further encourage the pony along, Twilight used her magic to sweep the hanging cloth aside.

Fresh sunlight, sleepy with evening color, gently wandered into the room. The easygoing wind which had been politely waiting on its side of the curtain also took a curious peek in through the new opening, exploring the space with its lightest touch. And Pinkie Pie, flinching at first from the warmth of the light and the tender caress of the cool air, stood still a soft moment before she gave in to a tentative lean towards the free passageway in front of her.

"Remember," Rainbow Dash called to her, "you got friends!"

Thanking them again with a minimal, nodding smile, the pink pony picked up her hooves and went out onto the balcony to spend some decidedly un-Pinkie-like time quietly observing the sunset.

Back in the room the two remaining ponies worked some of the stiffness out of their legs, and wings where applicable.

"Well," Twilight said. She let the word sit lonely for a thoughtful moment as she stretched some more. Eventually she continued, "color me surprised, Rainbow Dash. Despite the fact that I don't fully endorse everything about your outlook, I still have to admit that you certainly dished out... something that I guess approximated wisdom."

"Uh, duh?" the pegasus responded with her usual bluster. Her nose and wings tipped up. "That's why you came to get me to begin with, remember?"

"Right," the unicorn discarded her agreement.

"Come on," the pegasus scoffed at the other pony's almost flippant reply. "If anypony was going to know each of her different friends perfectly enough to have an answer for this mess, it was definitely going to be me of course." Her wings dusted each other off with a show of haughty, but not terribly serious, disdain.

Twilight pushed right back with a grunting smirk before she fell silent to let everything recent in her head catalogue itself. Things hadn't gone the way she had hoped; not initially, not before, and not now. But hope, it seemed, had somehow become all she had left with respect to this dark matter.

"I still dislike how passive we have to be through this," she wiggled her head back and forth minimally, unable to wipe away her worry. "I understand we can't solve everypony's friendship problems completely on our own, so it's bad enough that we have to sit mostly aside while a friend is hurting... but Pinkie herself having to draw back TOO? Having to hold herself back and let everything fall where it will?" She allowed it another moment of hard thought, as if that would change her opinion. But still she complained, "It really gets to me."

Preferring not to dive back into everything all over again, Rainbow Dash searched for a shortcut out of the conversation. She had a flash of Ponyville that popped in her head as loudly as a starter pistol, and she got to spitting it out faster than she could fully evaluate the contents of what she was saying.

"Yeah, well, I guess it's kind of like trying to win the heart of your special somepony," she said, clipping some of the words with dainty slices of awkwardness. Simultaneously while speaking it was dawning on her just what kind of comparison she was making, but it was too late to stop herself. "Normally I'd be all about encouraging Pinkie Pie to go whole hog and do something over-the-top-spectacular to show off what kind of an amazing friend she could be. Kind of like trying to impress, you know, a pony you LIKE like."

A pause came over her. Sometimes in the reveries of night, before full sleep came to her, she still heard the menacing clucks calling for her blood, and felt the vengeful pecks digging into her body. 'Remember your lesson!' the nightmare phantoms of foul fowls always cried at her in their haunting bakaws.

"But sometimes, I guess...," she shared her lesson, buying herself peace of mind, "... it's better to take a step back and wait for the right time to say the right thing."

She looked down and twisted her mouth a little. What a weird time to think about P.V. and Star Glitter.

"Okay? And since when did you start giving DATING advice?" Twilight's eyebrow rocketed up. "You've never even had a special somepony, unless you've been keeping something from the rest of us."

Fastest pony in Ponyville, the pegasus blitzed her emergency defense.

"I haven't! I mean, you're right: I've never had one! I could have a special somepony if I ever wanted! I'm THE Rainbow Dash! Who's going to turn ME down? But I'm too busy for dumb lovey-dovey stuff! Who has time for love when the Wonderbolts are gonna be calling my name? Special somepony? Pfft! I'm too awesome for that!"

Again the unicorn smirked, putting out quite a bit more amusement than before.

"On that fascinating note...," she quipped. She was quite ready to test the waters of another concerning matter, though she wasn't exactly predicting miracles. "... How are things between you and Applejack, by the way?"

Rainbow Dash wholly disliked the question as much as Twilight's last remark.

"Fine," she looked away and grumbled. "Applejack's just a big grouchy idiot and that's all there is to it."

Twilight let loose a prepared sigh, allowing the other pony's comment to pass unchallenged for the time being. Applejack had promised due diligence in resolving the matter diplomatically, and she had to allow her farm pony friend that chance.

Problems, problems everywhere. But it seemed like there was little for a loving friend to do about them except take a step back and wait.

She moved her gaze past the pushed aside curtain, examining her pink friend out the balcony.

The recovering pony stood there with hooves hooked over the rail as she watched the ocean melt into a warm orange glow under the growing evening's light. A laughing, life-loving pony always before, but now so uncharacteristically still.

Listening closely Twilight could hear the breeze sweeping across the front face of the Passion's Embrace, and as it did it picked up an added sound. Something long, and longing, trickled lowly from the lips of the pink pony. It was so low that the wind, even tumbling pleasantly as it was, ran away with almost all of it before it could be heard.

Quietly Pinkie Pie was singing to herself. Something about her chosen song was very stretched out. Whispered notes played out unnecessarily slow, each one forced to fit within the confines of a dragging and dejected, but not yet defeated, structure. Softly she moaned to help equally diminish her bleeding and shore up her courage:

You just smile...
Like a crocodile...
Don't shed a tear...
Your friends are near...

Comments

[Jack Kellar]

I can't say I like how Twilight feels like FORCING James to accept the freak of nature that is Pinkie, much as I don't like how Jim evades and stays passive about the issue (and everything else, in fact), and how NOBODY has the common sense of putting both parties DIRECTLY offering their issues with the situation, in front of each other.

Doesn't anybody in this universe understand the power of a simple bloody open dialogue?! Are all of them so stupid?!

[Cracked Egg]

6268921 I would agree, but then again, this is Pinkie Pie we're talking about.

Plus, common sense is not common.

[Jack Kellar]

6269844 Perhaps, but also Twilight and Dash? Though yes, the two of them aren't the brightest solution seekers: one gets neurotic, the other goes so far out of the way in an effort to keep her tough façade, she loses herself along the way.

[Cracked Egg]

6270117 Because of certain reasons.

[Jack Kellar]

6270158 Pretty much.

On the other hand, there's a good thing about Pinkie being a centerpiece in this drama rather than Dash or Sparkle. While she may start off ignorant and oblivious, she eventually has a subtle epiphany, and then she learns. "Too Many Pinkie Pies", "Baby Cakes" and "Party Pooped" all show us that.

[DreamKitsune]

Yeah, well, I guess it's kind of like trying to win the heart of your somepony special

You've never even had a somepony special,

I could have a somepony special if I ever wanted!

Somepony special? Pfft! I'm too awesome for that!

These should be special somepony.

[Neildoc]

maybe and I like Rainbow saying "Maybe he's the one pony you can't Pinkie Pie your way into being
your friend". read: the one pony whose throat you can't SHOVE YOUR FRIENDSHIP DOWN!" accepting
the freak of nature that is PP is basically enabling her.

[DerpTape]

Yeah, Dash, leave the evil bastiches to their own devices.