//------------------------------// // Ending Pages and New Chapters (part 1) // Story: The Truth About Girls (Vol. 2) // by TheMareWhoSaysNi //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash parked her scooter in front of the building’s railings. It was a beautiful starry and clear night, with a wind from the South to warm up the cold air of January. Behind her, Pinkie Pie was snoring under her pink helmet, her mouth wide opened and her cheek against her friend’s back. As soon as the purr of the engine stopped, she jumped and muttered an incomprehensible sentence made of words with no connections together, and deprived of any verbs. “Hem… We’ve arrived, Pinkie.” “Oh yes, we’ve arrived! Dashie, you’re driving soooo fast, you’re a champion.” “I know I am. But I haven’t driven that fast.” “Yes! Go, go Wondercolts, go, woooo!” Under her friend’s dumbstruck eyes, Pinkie Pie, obviously back on her feet, mimicked the steps of majorettes throwing sticks in the air. Thankfully, no one was around the parking lot at such an hour… Well, once thought through, it was rather easy to understand since there were only four occupants left in this small apartment block for students, which emptied slowly when the university dormitories had been renovated. Rainbow Dash liked her friend very much, but she kept on being amazed, and quite often embarrassed by the treasures of enthusiasm and madness the curly-haired teenage girl was able to display. What was the thoughts on her mind looking like? Wondercolts didn’t even have majorettes but cheerleaders, just like almost every sports team in Equestria, whether they were professional or amateur. “What I’ve always thought is true: you’re even more random when you’re plastered!” “It is true-ue!” she chanted soundly. A few hours before, CHS lacrosse female team had disputed the third game of the season and had won. Their victory had even been overwhelming, one of the biggest score ever recorded during an interschool championship. To celebrate this, Rainbow Dash had invited the whole team and her bunch of friends to have a drink at the Bellehorse Bar, where they had been welcomed as heroines. Since they were there, they had taken an advantage from it to eat and the party had extended so late that Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack had all gone home when the last girls had left the bar. One week before, Rainbow Dash’s gastroenterologist had warned her… The state of her liver had deteriorated, and she had to learn how to live avoiding alcohol as much as possible if she didn’t want to go through the experience of having an ablation at the age of twenty-five. Because of this, she had only drunk one beer, and had spent the rest of the party sipping ice-tea and juices… which gave her the strange feeling of being Twilight Sparkle! Pinkie Pie hadn’t controlled herself at all. She even poured her heart into the party and had drunk unreasonably. Broken because of her excesses once it was over, she was unable to drive home or to pay for a taxi. This was how she’d found herself sleeping against Rainbow Dash’s back, riding her scooter with her. She was lucky that the latter always kept an additional helmet inside the trunk of her vehicle, just in case. “Pinkie… It’s almost midnight, you should go home and rest. And take an aspirin.” “Do you want to sleep here, Dashie? You live so far… so far… so far… Out there, in another galaxy. Just like Captain Harlock, whee!” “In your small singled bed? Thanks, but no thanks. If my father’s home and he realizes that I’m not, he’s going to beat the shit out of me.” “Well, too bad for you. We could’ve eaten ice-cream and laughed until the break of dawn!” “Yes, yes, Pinkie”, she answered, patting her back. The young woman took off her helmet, and laughed at herself at each of her clumsiness, then she zigzagged until her building’s front door. Seeing it even was difficult for her to find her keys, Rainbow Dash suggested she could help her, but Pinkie Pie assured she could do this on her own. Yet, the teenage girl stayed and watched, to make sure she was home, safe and sane. While starting her scooter, she took a glimpse at the desolate façade of the building, grey and in an advanced state of decaying. Ivy unceasingly climbed along the walls, the frames of the windows were rotting away, and the roof urgently needed to get repaired. Even the main front door was painful to look at, with orange scotch tape stuck to keep together the broken upper glass. Inside, the building didn’t look much better. The janitor didn’t seem to bother herself with cleaning the communal areas, and the corridor’s wooden floor was in ruin. The apartment in which Pinkie Pie was living wasn’t even ten square meter. Her very small kitchen touched the low table she was taking her meals on, itself neighbor with her bed, which was stuck against her desk, which gave way to a tiny bathroom composed of a tiny shower cubicle. How could she manage to bake delicious cakes in such conditions, no one but herself knew. She got the key off her lock with difficulty, then made the few steps separating her from her bed, on which she let herself fall. Pinkie Pie knew she had to take her makeup off, to wear her pajamas and to wash her teeth, but now that she was lying, she didn’t feel in the mood for moving at all. Too bad for all this. It was knocks on her door, violent like in nightmares, which woke her up. From the moment when she sat up in a jump, she felt her head like in a vise, with the sensation that each knock was going to blow up her brain. Her head span as soon as she put a foot on the floor, and her stomach was knotted like a salad in a spinner. When she tried to slip her fingers through her hair, she struggled with a huge knot, and Pinkie Pie knew just by the way her skin stung that she’d let her makeup drip along her face. While she was surfacing, the knocks went on. She looked at the time on her cupcake-shaped clock above her door… Who could knock on her door at seven and a half in the morning? “Yes?”, she asked in an unusual hoarse voice when opening her door ajar. In front of her, there was her cantankerous janitor, Miss Sour, dressed in a silky bathrobe which made her look like a badly stuffed sausage, her huge pink bun already backcombed. Well, at least, when it came to having an awful makeup, Pinkie Pie was feeling less alone… “What is it for?” “You’ve made an awful lot of noise when you came back last night!” “Oh yeah, that was exceptional. Sorry… “Whatever. I’m here to give you this. I wanted to give it to you yesterday, but you were home very late…” She took a folded crumpled piece of paper out of her bathrobe, put it in her hands, and not even waiting for her to say “thank you”, Miss Sour turned around to go back home. Her head like cotton, and her stomach still as traumatized, Pinkie Pie closed the door behind her, and leaned against it in order to unfold the paper that had been given to her. Her shock was huge when she saw her address above the mention “eviction notice”. Was it because she was a bit too noisy last night when she played majorettes in the parking lot? Because it was a little not worth it… -------------------------------- What was Pinkie Pie doing? Since this morning, Rainbow Dash sent her messages to which she never answered. She wanted to know wether she was recovering from last night’s bender, and hoped she wouldn’t spend her entire day in bed, although she had to admit it was nothing like her. Surprise to see that the girls and Twilight weren’t in the corridors, she took off her headphones and took a glimpse inside her classroom… The door was closed. Something important probably was happening and the others didn’t know. Shrugging, Rainbow Dash sent another message to Pinkie Pie, and walked in the direction of her own classroom, in which her other friends most likely were already. As soon as she opened the door, an outburst of plaudits welcomed her. First, the teenage girl opened her eyes wide, then blushed, and eventually ended up taking poses of the winner intoxicated by the ovation. Obviously, the Wondercolt’s crushing victory hadn’t stayed confidential, only exchanged by lacrosse amateurs, such as an insiders’ trend. Undoubtedly, that was because her team aimed for the interschool championship’s cup for the third time in a row, and a lot was expected from her and Pinkie Pie. While she was going to her table, she received compliments which made her feel prouder and prouder at each step. When she put her bag to sit, she saw Applejack looking at her from the corner of her eyes, like only she could do when she could sense something was coming around. “Ah hope ya won’t start telling us ‘bout how good ya been all day long!” “Hey! I haven’t said anything yet!” she protested. “Ah know ya. It’s for prevention.” “Can’t I be at least a little happy? We smashed those Trottingham’s Lambs! When you have a team of a sport such as lacrosse, you don’t call yourself the “lambs”. That was so obvious we would kick their asses!” “Yeah, ya can be happy but look at Sunset, when she wins at volleyball, she doesn’t bore us all day long with how good she did.” “We’re in no way as good as the female lacrosse team”, the latter said, embarrassed to find herself thrown into this conversation she hadn’t taken part in yet. “I can’t help it if we’re the best. No team has ever made an All-Kill of three victories in a row at the interschool championships and I’m willing to do anything for us to be the first ones.” “I’m sure you girls can do it”, Fluttershy said timidly. “So do I. Especially as we also have Pinkie Pie… she’s the best goal of all Equestria!” “By the way, where’s Pinkie? She was really drunk last night.” “Yeah. I think she might be struggling with one hell of a hangover. I’ve sent her at least five messages and she hasn’t answered to none of them yet.” They all had seen how many drinks she had gulped last night… So many they couldn’t tell the exact number. However, they also knew it took much more to defeat the young woman. Her energy was so overflowing she kept on bouncing and hopping in the corridors while the others were dragging their feet and stuffing themselves with medicines in order to get rid of their headaches. Her absence had nothing very surprising, conversely to the fact she’d answered to no message yet. It was nothing like her not to give any news when the others were worried about her health. They all were reassured when they saw her on the doorstep. But it was quickly cut short. In front of the outburst of plaudits, her reaction was none; no smile nor enthusiastic thanks. Even more dreadful, her hair was straight, and it never happened of her own free will. Each time it had happened, it was a phenomenon that even Twilight and Sunset Shimmer, the group’s scientists, couldn’t identify. Indeed, she was the only person they knew whose mood could be determined thanks to her hair. Seeing the worried looks of her friends, she dropped her bag on the floor and buried her face inside her arms. The jolts made by her shoulders finished to convince them something was wrong about her. From memory, they had seen Pinkie Pie this way only when she was pushed to her limits, or in a particularly distressing state of panic. They all gathered around her desk, and rubbed her back and shoulders in a way they thought was comforting. They were waiting for her to stop crying before asking what was happening, but had to resign seeing how long her crisis was. “Calm down, Pinkie Pie, and tell us what’s wrong”, Fluttershy whispered to her. “Yes, we can’t guess if you don’t tell us”, Sunset Shimmer went on. “And we can’t help you neither”, Applejack added. “We’re all there for you if you need, you know this”, Rainbow Dash finished. Her cheeks still flooded with tears, and her vision blurred, Pinkie Pie took a crumpled paper out of her bag and put it between her teammate’s hands without a word. This piece of paper was rather meaningful on its own, anyway. The five girls all gathered around Rainbow Dash in order to read what their friends had just given her. And the shock was the same for them all. “An eviction notice in the middle of Winter? They can’t do that! It’s forbidden by the law. I can ask Mr. Habeas if you want, he will confirm us… “No, Dashie”, Pinkie Pie finally managed to mutter between two hiccups. “Not in this case… The owner is in a situation of personal bankruptcy and the building has been sold to auction. The new purchaser is going to destroy it and to build a private pay parking lot instead, so he has the right to evict us in so short a time because of this. I’ve searched information on Internet this morning, and I’ve called the Society of Free Attorneys who helped me after I got arrested with the Rebellious.” Each of her friends were so bewildered by this news that none of them dared to say anything for a few seconds. Undoubtedly, it explained why the building was falling apart completely… And this explanation didn’t bring any relief on their friend’s suffering heart. Yet, there might be a solution to this problem. “Did ya call yar parents?” Applejack questioned. While sniffing, Pinkie Pie nodded, and wiped away her tears, finally calmed down, with the back of her sleeve. “I’ve tried but they’re studying Zoroastrian Granites from the Grand Canyon. There’s no telephone network where they are. I don’t know what I’m going to do…” “I can ask my father to rent you a room in our house. There are plenty of it which are empty and he’s never home, anyway. Well, except when he decides it’s been a while since he hadn’t yelled at me for the fact that I’m existing, of course…” “Thanks, Dashie, but I can’t.” More than anything in the world, she didn’t want to become a burden for her friend, who already had a lot of domestic and personal issues to deal with, though it would probably have given her the presence she was obviously longing for. The problem was that she really didn’t want to be stuck between Rainbow Dash and her father during their unceasing arguments. “There’s still Sweet Apple Acres. We got enough room for six…” “I’m sure my parents would also accept to accommodate you for a little while. If you can put up with Zephyr.” “Go at AJ’s, Pinkie”, Rainbow Dash hurled. “I’d be more than glad to lend you our guest room until you find something better”, Sunset Shimmer finished. They all were ready to take her at their places. It was adorable, and Pinkie Pie was glad, more than words could say. Nevertheless, she refused to become the official squatter of her friends’ spare rooms, to impose herself in their daily life, among their habits, and take an advantage from a shelter and food provided by others. Even if she surely would have enough many to participate to these family life… Precisely, this was their family life. She would feel embarrassed to impose herself this way, and would feel in the way, even with the greatest of kindness surrounding her.