A/N: This just isn’t going to work. I tried—really, really tried—to salvage this fic. But my first outline for this story is scuppered, and none of my backup ideas are coming together at all.
To the critic who made me see the problems with this story: Once again, I’m sincerely sorry for everything I wrote. I’ll be thinking about this incident long and hard to make sure it never happens again. (Also, your “Apology accepted” cake tastes amazing.)
And to my readers out there who really wanted to see where all this was going (both of you!), I’m also sorry for letting you down. It would be in poor taste to share the rest of my original story plan, but as a consolation prize, I can give you the last draft I wrote for chapter 2, before abandoning it:
Morning sunlight pierced through Twilight Sparkle’s haze of unconsciousness, and a pink blur hovered before her.
“Aaaugh!” Twilight struggled, as the dregs of her dream splattered against waking reality. The dark void was just her own bed; the limbs immobilizing her were merely her blankets. And the pink blur was, obviously, Pinkie Pie showing up uninvited and jumping on the bed. Twilight calmed down and stopped thrashing—just in time to lose her balance and slide off the edge, landing with an “Ooomph!” on the crystal floor.
“Happy Breakfast In Bed Day to you too, Twilight!” Pinkie proclaimed, bouncing a few more times on the mattress.
“Morning, Pinkie.” Twilight rolled onto her hooves with a groan. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not a real holiday.”
Pinkie’s grin just grew wider. “You might say so, and the calendar might say so, but these waffles say otherwise!” From seemingly nowhere, she produced a mini-table with two plates of waffles, still steaming and topped with whipped cream and raspberries. “You kinda look like you could use a delicious breakfast anyway, Twilight. When I came in, you were tossing and turning like you weren’t getting any rest at all! Did you have a bad dream?”
“I did, actually,” Twilight said, climbing back onto her bed. “Worst one I’ve had in years.” She grabbed the nearer plate of waffles with her telekinesis. “It was so vivid.”
“But even the worst dreams fade to nothing in the light of the Sun, right?” Pinkie devoured an entire waffle in one bite.
Twilight giggled. “Good friends and good food help, too.” She took a bite of her waffle, and her face lit up as she chewed. “And these waffles are very good.”
“Aw, thanks!”
“The fresh berries make a big difference,” Twilight said, munching on another bite.
“Only the best for my friends! All the better for chasing away bad dreams about icky monsters, right?”
Twilight gulped her mouthful down. “Pinkie,” she said, setting her plate back on the mini-table. “I didn’t say anything about monsters. How did you know there was a monster in my dream?”
“Oh.” Pinkie’s eyes widened, and then her grin stretched so far, it seemed to extend beyond the sides of her face. “Lucky guess?”
With a flash of light, Twilight teleported away.
“Aw, phooey,” Pinkie said, to the now-empty bedroom.
Ditzy was midair, halfway to the office, when Twilight found her—and promptly tackled her to the ground in a hug.
“You’re okay!” Twilight cried, squeezing the pegasus even tighter. “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay!”
“No I’m not!” Ditzy shot back, squeezing her eyes shut. “You flipping blinded me!”
“Oh.” Twilight leaped off and backed away, blushing. “Sorry about that.”
“Sheesh, warn a pony next time.” Ditzy stood back up, shaking her head. Her golden eyes, alert as always, darted every which way—except towards Twilight. “So, what’s all this about?”
“Nothing, nothing, hehe! Just glad to see that you’re doing well this morning. Anyway, I really gotta get going!” And Twilight dashed away.
Ditzy shrugged and continued towards the office, on hoof this time. “Heh. Ponies in this town …” she muttered—but she smiled as she said it.
“Good morning, Nurse Tenderheart,” Twilight said, trotting up to the hospital’s front desk. “Great to see you alive and well this morning!”
Tenderheart raised one eyebrow in response.
“Hehe,” Twilight continued. “Is Nurse Redheart available? I need to speak to her for just a minute or so.”
“You rang?” Redheart trotted by, pushing a cartful of covered platters. Her coat was pristine white, completely free of blood spatters and life-threatening lacerations. “I’m on breakfast detail right now, so we’ll have to walk and talk.”
“Sounds good.” Twilight fell into place at Redheart’s side. “So, how are you this morning?”
“Can’t complain. I barely got any sleep last night, so now my head is killing me. And I need to work even though I feel like death warmed over, because we’re understaffed this week.” She gave Twilight a wry smile. “So you know, the usual. Could be worse.”
Twilight laughed a little too hard at that. Redheart ducked into a room on the right, to deliver a breakfast platter—and when she came back out, Twilight was still chuckling.
“Hahaha … so,” Twilight said. “I don’t suppose you have any strange new patients? No mystery stallions with mystery illnesses from the Everfree Forest?”
“No.” Redheart gave Twilight an askew glance. “Should we?”
“I hope not.”
“Hmmm …” Pinkie stared at Twilight’s plate, leaning closer and closer to the uneaten waffle portions. “Hmmmmmmm …”
With a flash of light, Twilight teleported back onto the bed. “Pinkie—Oomph!” A pink hoof rammed a waffle into her mouth, cutting Twilight short.
“Twilight it’s an emergency you need to eat your waffles RIGHT NOW or they’ll get cold!” Pinkie shouted, roughly shoving the remainder of the waffles down her friend’s throat.
“Mmrph!” Twilight gulped down the rest of her breakfast, then coughed before continuing. “I should be angrier at you, but those waffles are too delicious for that.”
“Great!”
“And now that breakfast is out of the way …” Twilight cleared her throat. “Give me the key that locks your tired eyes …” Sign.
Pinkie’s ears flopped as she answered, “Brighter than painted books that make me wise.” Countersign.
Twilight cast her spell, enveloping her whole bed in a soundproof bubble. “So, once again,” she said, “you and I remember events that distinctly didn’t happen. Disturbing events, but still completely imaginary, as far as anypony else is concerned.”
Pinkie nodded and fidgeted with her forehooves.
Twilight continued, “I … wasn’t in the best condition to see how everything played out. What happened after I, uh, changed?”
Pinkie took a deep breath. “Wellllllll, after I saw what happened to you, and to Ditzy Doo, I got scared. Then I realized that I’d just lost my two best friends in the Service, and I got angry. So angry that I ran away. Far away. Really, really, really far away.”
Twilight furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand.”
Quieter, at nearly a whisper, Pinkie said, “I ran through the Wall.”
Twilight gasped.
Pinkie perked up as she continued, “And on the other side, I made a new friend! And we had a very nice conversation, once he stopped screaming and I convinced him he wasn’t going crazy. And … we fixed the story.”
“What story?”
“We fixed us. Ponyville. Equestria.” Pinkie help up her hooves, as if embracing the empty air. “The whole world! I convinced my new friend to make it so none of that horrible stuff ever happened!”
“Pinkie …” Twilight grabbed her shoulders. “You mean you used the magic from beyond the Wall?”
“No, not just me. It was a team effort. Didn’t work at all when I tried on my own.”
“This … is …”
Pinkie flinched.
“Amazing!” Twilight hugged Pinkie. “This is a huge breakthrough!”
“Oh. That sounds good?”
Twilight pulled back. “You don’t seem very excited that you’ve just single-hoofedly—”
“It was a team effort.”
“—accomplished possibly the biggest paradigm shift since the unicorns took control of the Sun and Moon.”
“Yeah.” Pinkie waved one hoof aimlessly. “But didn’t Princess Luna say that this magic couldn’t unmake anything? Did I just prove her wrong?”
“Oh. Oh.” Twilight leaned back in to hug Pinkie again. “It sure looks like it.”
Pinkie returned the embrace.
Twilight continued, “So this magic is even more powerful than we thought before, and now we know ponies can control it. Or at least you can.”
“Team effort!” Pinkie sighed. “So what can we do now?”
Twilight perked up. “Well, first of all
A/N: That's all of it.