Falling · 5:42am Nov 12th, 2014
In a way, Pinkie Pie had always been falling. Sometimes she just forgot to look down.
She couldn't remember when she had started falling. What she meant to say was, she had no memory that were specifically of falling. She had memories around falling. Memories where she was or wasn't, dreaming or asleep. The falling was not a thing she could measure. She had no idea how far she'd fallen, how far left she had to go. There was a bottom, certainly, and she was moving towards it, but aside from that it was all a mystery.
She would land, of course. Everypony landed later or sooner. Sometimes near the top, sometimes on one of the craggy promontories jutting out from the cliffside behind her. Always at the bottom. She didn't know when she'd land, just that eventually she would. She supposed that was what was supposed to make it bearable. The not-knowing. The not-wondering.
She didn't think she'd reach the bottom, though. The promontories came up too quick, stretched too wide out from the cliffside. Sometimes she barely missed them, skirting past by the tip of her nose or a few hairs on her head. Sometimes she wondered if she should. After all, she could steer herself enough to dodge them. After all, she certainly wouldn't miss falling. It left a nasty feeling in her belly: weightless, nauseating, frustrating. Falling was hard. Falling was exhausting.
Sometimes she'd fall asleep. Sometimes she'd dream for weeks, live in a place where the wind didn't tear at her mane and suck the life out of her eyes if she dared to squint them open. Sometimes the promontories would shrink down into pebbles, into pustules easily plucked off as she passed. Sometimes she knew they'd never be big enough to land on. Sometimes she wondered why she ever woke up at all.
She didn't know when she'd land, just that eventually she would.
Sometimes she not-knew what she should probably do. Sometimes she not-wondered how hard landing would be, how painful, how scary. She wouldn't do it today, definitely not tomorrow, probably not even next week or month or year. She didn't think she'd reach the bottom, though. Maybe someday she'd misjudge how big a promontory was. Maybe someday she wouldn't. Maybe someday she'd just want to go back to sleep. Maybe someday she'd just get sick of falling.
Maybe someday. Just not today. Today she was falling, and she hadn't decided whether to go back to sleep.
• • •
If you have to ask, it's only a metaphor.
• • •
It's only a metaphor if you have to ask.
I'll probably regret this in the morning.
I learned a new word today.
So... are you okay?
I wonder if Pinkie could produce a parachute from the secret dimension hidden behind her mane to help ease her descent. It wasn't said the landing had to be hard, after all.
A sharp pain in her hoof sucked her back to herself. She barely had time to cry out before the ledge she'd nicked it on receded above her and out of view.
Every now and then, this happened. Exposed roots had snatched at her mane and tail a couple of times before. A pebble would fly up from below, catching her on the chin. Sometimes these insults snatched her from her dreams, so that when she woke she was more hurt by the shock of losing them than any blow her body suffered.
Every touch was a harbinger, but none would tell her when the last would arrive. She would rend the abyss below with her eyes, sometimes yelling for it to take her--take her, and let it stop. Sometimes she yelled out loud.
And just when she thought she found the end -- a monolithic blade of rock to split her from time and ponies, her head would tilt upwards and she could see out.
And every time she did, she saw her dearest friends. And it wasn't just the ones without wings appearing before her -- Applejack, Rarity, Spike. Sometimes Fluttershy would fall with her, or Twilight Sparkle. Most of all she saw Rainbow Dash, shedding pinions in the gale. Every meeting was different -- sometimes they would come over, put a hoof on hers and guide her to the places where the promontories thinned out and the wind relented. And sometimes she would find them tumbling, screaming in rage or in terror, and she knew to go to them with a song and a hug.
Every time she saw them, they always parted saying the same thing. And then they were gone, swallowed by the clouds and the howling wind. But the words they said to each other remained in her ears, and so long as she held onto them the horrible squall in her belly subsided just a little. Just enough to pass that terminal crag and keep going.
You're not alone. And you'll never be, so long as we're here.
Whoa.
2589494
Whoa.
Ooh. Reminds me of
Chromosome'sThe Maverick's Pinkie Pie is Dead. I love it. Do go on.Oh.
2589494 I haven't words as eloquent as yours. I can only offer what I possess, meager as it may be.
Say whaaaaaaaa?
But sometimes there would come an updraft, a wondrous glorious updraft that would resist the ever present falling. As she would fall she could look forward to them and the warmth that would spread across her when they came. In those moments she didn't care she would land. The wondering and the not-wondering stopped and she could rest. In these moments Pinkie didn't mind whether she was awake or asleep, either way her experience was pleasant.
You've got a talent for writing Aquaman.