//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: The Spark to Light a Candle // by SPark //------------------------------// It was dark in the throne room. It was usually dark in the throne room. A beam of moonlight streamed through a single skylight, from the moon which hung directly overhead. It illuminated the throne, but all else was pitch black. The mare who lounged on that throne did occasionally provide a light for her subjects, but she often preferred to keep them in the dark. Their fumbling was amusing, which was more than she could say for the sight of their faces. They were graceless things, full of tawdry emotions. They showed mostly fear of her punishments and greed for her rewards, and both emotions bored her to tears. Moonlight shimmered over her jet black coat, and glimmered brightly on her crescent moon cutie mark. It fell into the starry expanse of her mane without a trace, but gleamed softly on her polished ebon horn, and gently caressed the velvet black of her feathered wings. She never grew bored of the moonlight. It was cold in the throne room. The ebon mare's breath was as chill as the moon itself, but her guards exhaled plumes of cloud as they stood flanking the door, awaiting her command. The chill had grown deep enough that a faint tracery of frost was beginning to form on the stones of the palace. The alicorn seated on the throne regarded the frost with something like fascination. The branching, delicate, infinitely varied tracery was beautiful. She sent a spark of magic, cold and pale, threading along the curls and whorls of frost that adorned the floor of the throne room. It was so much cleaner and purer than anything else she knew. Ice was very close to perfection, she decided. Water was purified by freezing, after all. And its crystalline lattice was every bit as convoluted as anything living, but without all the messy complications of life. Ice was simple. "Your Majesty!" A servant dashed into the throne room, stepping on the tracery of frost that the alicorn had been examining. Her eyes narrowed. "Guards! This peon interrupts my meditations! Have him killed." "But... but... your majesty! I have important news!" "No news is so important that it can't be delivered in an orderly fashion, you pitiful excuse for a lower life-form. Guards?" "Your Majesty," said the unicorn guards in unison. Their horns glowed, and they dragged the unfortunate servant away. "This is really creepy," said Twilight. Luna couldn't help but agree. Ponyville seemed to be utterly deserted. A few of the houses were burnt out shells, but most were simply empty. Moonlight cast strange shadows over the deserted town, and things seemed to move when nopony was looking at them. The air was chill, though it wasn't really the cold breeze that made the trio of ponies shiver. It felt like late autumn, not late summer, and the occasional gusts seemed as though they should have stirred up rustling piles of fallen leaves, but there were no leaves, only rotting, slimy remnants covered in mushrooms that grew on everything with sickly enthusiasm. "Let us be going," said Luna. "Lets." They trotted quickly through the town. When they reached the bridge leading towards Sweet Apple Acres all three of them let out sighs of relief. But though it wasn't quite as spooky as the abandoned husk of Ponyville, the vast expanse of rotting apple trees wasn't exactly cheerful. The barn was still standing, but it was obviously deserted as well. The little group continued past it, and eventually reached the borders of the Everfree Forest. That was nearly as creepy as the town had been. The rotting trees overhung the path, which was choked with dead branches and molding leaf slime. Mushrooms had been everywhere, but here they were gigantic, some taller even than Luna. A few glowed faintly, sprinkling the ground with patches of unwholesome green light. The trio found themselves walking so close together their flanks brushed. Luna hoped that Twilight couldn't see her blushing. They had been in the forest less than an hour when from nowhere a voice shouted, "Halt!" All three of them froze in place. Four ponies stepped out from hiding places on either side of the path. They all were armed, with hoof axes or knives in their teeth. And nearly straight in front of them a fifth emerged, with a knife sheathed on one foreleg. Candy-pink with a magenta mane and tail, all three of them knew her well. "Pinkie Pie!" exclaimed Twilight. "Intruders!" said Pinkie Pie. "Why have you come to the Everfree Forest?" "We came looking for you," said Twilight. "Pinkie-" "You're minions of Nighmare Moon, seeking to crush the rebellion!" "What? No! Just the opposite! We're fighting against her!" One of the flanking ponies, looking fierce, growled, "You've come here with that cutie mark and expect us to think you're not with Nightmare Moon?" He pointed at Luna, whose eyes went wide before quickly darting over to look at Twilight in mute panic. It had never crossed her mind to even consider her cutie mark's similarity to Nightmare Moon's. Twilight, though, simply made an exasperated noise at the accusing pony. "That's ridiculous! Luna has had her cutie mark much longer than Nightmare Moon has been around! I mean seriously! How many ponies are there who have some kind of lunar cutie mark? My own father has one, and he definitely isn't her servant. Surely you know good ponies who have moons on their flanks?" The warlike ponies surrounding them exchanged uncertain glances, and Luna continued to stare at Twilight. Clearly she had already thought of this. It was a little embarrassing, but the rigorous research and preparation were two of the things that Luna... really liked about Twilight. She shut down that train of thought and quickly fixed her eyes forward before she could start blushing.. Pinkie Pie cleared her throat. "We will take you to our leader to be judged!" "Look, Pinkie... we came to talk to you." "We will take you to our leader," said Pinkie implacably. Luna shivered; Pinkie hadn't smiled even once this entire time. That wasn't the Pinkie that she knew. Maybe this wouldn't work. Maybe... maybe the laughter had gone out of her entirely. The other ponies fell in around them, and Pinkie led the way deeper into the forest. It wasn't until they reached the gorge, crossed by a decrepit bridge, and Luna saw the crumbling walls beyond, that she realized what their destination was. They were headed for the ruins of the old palace. She was prepared to use her magic to float everypony without wings to safely if the bridge fell, but though it creaked alarmingly beneath her hooves, it held for the whole party to cross. On the far side Pinkie led the way into the palace itself. They went across the grand entrance chamber, where the Elements of Harmony had once rested, through several hallways, and up a flight of stairs to the old throne room. It looked only slightly changed from when Luna had been there as Nightmare Moon the year before. The difference was that now it showed signs of occupation. A half dozen ponies greeted them as they arrived. Some of them looked vaguely familiar to Luna, ponies she had seen around Ponyville. There was an unmistakable huge red stallion, Applejack's brother Big Macintosh. And the tan mare... wasn't that the mayor of Ponyville? Luna caught a glimpse of a scroll cutie mark as the mare rose. Yes, it was her. "How was the raid, Pinkie?" asked the mayor. Then she stopped and stared at Luna, Twilight and Dale. "And who are these ponies?" "Trespassers!" said Pinkie in that same implacable voice. The mayor sighed. "I see." "And possible servants of Nightmare Moon. See?" She pointed at Luna's cutie mark. Then she pointed at Dale, who didn't have a cutie mark. Then she pointed at Twilight as well. "Pinkie..." "I brought them to see our leader." "Oh Pinkie." The mayor sighed again. "You're the leader?" asked Twilight Sparkle. The mayor smiled, a faint, long-suffering sort of smile. "No," she replied. "Pinkie is." "Surprise," said Pinkie flatly. All three of them gaped at Pinkie Pie. "What?" said Twilight, looking completely confused. "No, wait. I shouldn't be surprised. You are definitely still Pinkie Pie." Luna wondered if that was a hopeful sign. Pinkie seemed to still be a little crazy, but her chaotic nature wasn't what they needed, they needed her laughter. "I certainly couldn't be any other pony," said Pinkie Pie. Her voice was no longer hard and implacable, and she even had a hint of a smile, but it was a grim sort of thing, not the easy smile that Twilight and Luna knew so well. "So. What is your business here?" "Like I already told you twice, we came looking for you." "I don't know you. The only ponies who would be looking for me are the minions of Nightmare Moon, who want to kill me." "We are not servants of Nightmare Moon!" Twilight's voice showed her frustration. "No wait..." Pinkie peered at Twilight. "I do know you! You're the mare who knew Black Snooty!" Twilight blinked. Of course. In this world she hadn't become Pinkie Pie's friend, but she had still been there when Nightmare Moon appeared at the Summer Sun Celebration. "Well, I am and I'm not. You see, we come from a different version of this world. I'm not the Twilight Sparkle you saw. I'm pretty sure Nightmare Moon killed her." Pinkie tilted her head to the side and blinked at her, and Twilight could almost see the wheels spinning in her mind. "A different version," she said softly. "We've come here to defeat Nightmare Moon, and we have a way to do it. But we need you." Twilight plunged into her explanation. "You see there are six things, called the Elements of Harmony, that can defeat her. And those six elements are embodied in six ponies. I'm one of them, the Element of Magic. And you're one too. You're the Element of Laughter. If we can get the six ponies together and attack Nightmare Moon, she'll be destroyed easily. As long as you can still laugh..." Pinkie's expression snapped in an instant from thoughtful to enraged. "As long as I can still laugh? Over the last year I've seen my home destroyed, most of my friends killed, and everything I ever loved ruined! You can't even throw a party anymore because there's no food! I haven't had a cupcake since the rebellion in Ponyville! We eat mushrooms until we're ready to turn into mushrooms we're so full of mushrooms and the only time we get any other food is when we steal it from Nightmare Moon's minions, and doing that means you might die just so you can have real food and not even a cupcake! I try my very hardest to keep smiling, Twilight, I do. I know my little ponies need hope and smiles to keep going. But there are limits! Everything is awful and horrible and just keeps getting worse the longer we go on. And I'm supposed to still be laughing!?" Pinkie stood glaring at Twilight and panting slightly. Twilight flinched back from her gaze. Was their quest going to fail just like that? No more laughter? How could Pinkie Pie possibly stop laughing? She was the one who had taught Twilight how powerful laughter was in even the darkest of circumstances! And then suddenly Twilight knew exactly what to say. "Pinkie... in the other world I come from, you taught me something about laughing. You sang me a song about it. It goes 'When I was a little filly and the sun was going do-own," Twilight hesitated, not quite remembering the next line. All the anger disappeared suddenly from Pinkie's face, replaced by a faraway look as she picked up the thread where Twilight hesitated, "The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me fro-own." Her voice was no more than a whisper. "Yes!" said Twilight, and kept singing, Pinkie joining in now. "I'd hide under my pillow, from what I thought I saw. "But Granny Pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at all. "She said, Pinkie you gotta stand up tall, "Learn to face your fears. "You'll see they can't hurt you, "Just laugh to make them disappear. By now both mares were singing in full voice, with every other pony in the room staring at them. Twilight laughed and just kept singing. "So giggle at the ghostly! "Guffaw at the grossly! "Crack up at the creepy! "Whoop it up with the weepy! "Chortle at the kooky! "Snortle at the spooky! "And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if he thinks he can scare you then he's got another think coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna... Laugh!" Twilight had to drop out at the end, she could never remember how that last bit went, but Pinkie was still singing strong, and when she finished she broke into delighted peals of laughter. "Oh Twilight! Now I understand! You really do know another me from another place, don't you? And, and—oh! Everything makes sense now! I always knew that the world was supposed to be full of sunshine and laughter, and cupcakes with frosting on them and streamers and balloons, and that mean old Black Snooty wasn't supposed to be here! This whole world has gone wrong, and I thought that meant that I had gone wrong, because how can I be the only one all full of bubbles and happy and laughter, when the rest of the world isn't? So I stopped laughing because what was the point, if I was wrong and the whole world was supposed to be darkness and mushrooms and ponies getting killed? But it's not that at all! I was right, and everything is meant to be good, only it went bad. In your world you took laughter and magic and everything nice and you beat Nightmare Moon right away, didn't you?" "Yes," said Twilight, suddenly feeling very confused. But then she was used to feeling confused around Pinkie Pie, so that was actually heartening. This was the friend she knew! "So I've been living in the world where everybody has goatees all along! I should have known. Or no, wait, not the goatees, otherwise you'd be Black Snooty, or Celestia would be or something. But whatever! Don't you see?! This means that everything I always knew was right really was, and if you're here that means that it's going to be right again! So I'm in! I'm with you! I'll go and laugh right in that mean, mean, meanypants Nightmare Moon's face, even if it gets me splatted across half the palace!" She paused and then said more soberly, "Which I guess it might. You don't change the story from grim-dark to happy-fluffy in just one page. But... that's okay. We have a chance now, so I'm going to take it!" "Pinkie... I didn't understand half of that. But I'm glad you're with us. Thank you." "If Pinkie is with you, we're with you too," said the Mayor. "You are?" asked Twilight, suddenly confused. "But..." "We've followed her this far, and she's kept us alive and free, when most of our friends are dead or enslaved, or have gone over to Nightmare Moon's side. We'll follow her wherever she goes, even to go laugh in Nightmare Moon's face." "Aww, thank you Marie. You all don't have to go though. I don't want to drag you into danger for no reason. We don't need an army, do we?" She looked at Twilight Sparkle, who frowned and looked at Luna. "We did not plan on having an army," said Luna, "but we might be able to use one. Though I am not sure a dozen ponies counts as an army." She surveyed the room. "Then again, we were planning on going ahead with just eight." Twilight nodded. "The rest of you might come in handy, but you won't need to go laugh in Nightmare Moon's face, for that we need the other four Elements of Harmony. You might be able to help us find and rescue them though." "Let's have a council of war then!" said Pinkie Pie. "Marie, get Big Mac and Ditzy Doo. And fetch some mushrooms so everypony can eat. Maybe it's not a proper party, but we have a reason to celebrate now." "Actually..." that was Dale, breaking in. Luna knew, the moment he spoke, what he was going to say. It might be foolish, but she wasn't going to stop him. "We brought some food. We'd be happy to share. And it's the sort of thing that might be good enough for a proper party, or closer to it than you've had in a while." Pinkie's whole face lit up. "Really? Really and truly, a party?" "Really. We don't have any balloons, and we didn't bring any cupcakes, but we have a little fresh fruit, lots of dried fruit, lots of grain, and even some muffins." "Muffins!" shouted a voice, and a gray pegasus mare shot across the room to land with her nose practically touching Dale's. Her eyes were intently focused on his as she asked, "Muffins?" Dale smiled. He recognized Ditzy, though he hadn't known the mailmare very well back in Ponyville. But everybody who knew Ditzy knew how she felt about muffins. "Yes, we have muffins. I think enough for a muffin for everypony." "Muffins!" shouted Ditzy, her eyes wandering off in different directions, but her expression otherwise almost pathetically hopeful. "I call that a party!" said Pinkie Pie. "Then let us party," said Luna with a grin. Her horn lit and she started to lift Dale's saddlebags off his back. "NO MAGIC!" shouted Pinkie Pie, so loud Luna felt her ears ringing. She instantly stopped, dropping the saddlebags back down. "Sorry," said Luna, looking chagrined. "I should have realized. I can sense magic from a great distance, of course Nightmare Moon can too. And with nopony out here except outlaws, of course she would notice any magic at all." Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yeah. No magic, unless we're in a city where the authorized unicorns around us can hide us." "I shall remember that." Pinkie looked at Luna with a serious intensity that was doubly unsettling coming from the pink party pony. "You're Black Snooty, aren't you," she asked quietly. "Uhm." Luna tried to formulate a response. "That's okay, I know you're good. You're the one without a goatee. And I won't tell! I can keep a secret forever. Now, let's get to that party!" Luna smiled in relief. "Right." They unpacked the food that Dale had brought, and distributed all the perishables that the trio had meant to eat over the first few days. The dried fruit and grain, meant to last them the next two weeks, would be gone in only a few days, among so many ponies, but none of them objected. Pinkie's rebels had been living on mushrooms for months, the newcomers could certainly survive on the same diet, so keeping the better food for themselves was too selfish to even contemplate. Soon everypony there was chewing happily. Pinkie produced a few strands of colored paper from somewhere and hung streamers. Then she led the gathered ponies in an enthusiastic sing-along. It was acappella, nopony had saved any instruments, but the ponies seemed cheered by it all the same. Eventually the party began to wind down. Ponies started seeing out their beds, though "bed" was perhaps too generous a term for the piles of rags and ragged, battered mattresses tucked along the walls of the room. There were more beds than ponies to fill them, a mute testament to past losses. But Twilight and Pinkie Pie were both still awake, sitting together at one edge of the room, and talking quietly. "Tell me about what happened here. I haven't been able to look into the past, only the present. And I first looked just a couple of weeks ago. I know that the 'me' from this world failed in her quest, and almost certainly was killed. I know that Nightmare Moon rules here. I know the ponies I need to gather together are still alive. But that's about all I know." "Well, you know about when Black Snooty appeared at the Celebration, then. After that for about a week nothing happened. Then she turned up again, this time with pegasus guards, like Celestia's, with her. She said she was the Queen, and everypony needed to bow to her. Nopony liked that very much, and there was some grumbling and shouting about it, but the guards went out and dragged out all the ponies who complained and killed them. That kind of shut everypony up. "She basically bullied us all into saying we'd do what she said. That lasted for all of three days, I think, before Rainbow Dash came back from Cloudsdale." Pinkie Pie smiled sadly. "She was there when mean old Black Snooty came here, and got to here by the time Black Snooty reached there, so she didn't see any of those speeches. Good thing, I think, or she'd have been killed right away. I don't know if you know her?" "I do. In fact she's another one of the elements I'm here to gather." "Then she isn't dead?" "No. She's... she's not doing very well, but she's still alive." "That's really peachy keen! I'm so glad. We never knew what happened to her. She started saying that it was wrong to just let Nightmare Moon rule, that she was evil, that we were Celestia's subjects, and that we should fight. She got pretty much the whole town of Ponyville all worked up. Her and Applejack, they were the ringleaders. I was with them, and the ponies you see here, and a good part of the town. The ones that weren't either ran off and hid, or they ran to Canterlot. Which of course brought Nightmare Moon and her guards right here. She came with pegaus and unicorn ponies, lots of them. There was a huge battle right in town, and for a little bit it looked like we might even win, but then old Black Snooty started throwing around really powerful magic. And that was that. When we knew it was all lost most of us ran for it, but Rainbow Dash and Applejack weren't having any of that. They said they'd hold off the guards as long as they could, so everypony else could make it to the forest and hide. And that was the last time I saw either of them. "Most of the ponies who made it here to the forest were all full up to here with fighting, so they went off to try and live in other cities and towns, and pretend to be good little ponies for Nightmare Moon. But some stayed. And I thought to myself, 'self, even if we can't have a real rebellion, we can still do something.' So that's what we've been doing. Something, but not much. We steal food, we burn down guard posts, and do whatever other things my little brain can think up to do to cause chaos for Black Snooty and her Snooty guard. But sometimes a pony gets fed up and leaves, and sometimes one gets killed, and so we get smaller and smaller. I didn't know what else to do! I didn't want to join the meanypants brigade, but I didn't want to sit on my tail. I worried myself into a worrywart! And I started getting kind of crazy-sad, but not like I used to. I used to get a little bit crazy-sad, thinking my friends didn't really like me. But... I can't ever think that anymore. The first time you see a friend die for you, you know they're not just pretending to be your friend. But crazy-sad-grim isn't any fun either." Pinkie had grown progressively quieter and looked progressively more downcast as she spoke, staring at the stones in front of her feet and missing the tears that were welling up in Twilight's eyes. But then all the sorrow evaporated from her face, swept into some secret place deep inside, and she grinned at Twilight. "Just plain crazy is okay! Maybe now I'll try crazy-mad. Because Black Snooty does make me mad! Really mad! So mad I just want to shoot steam out my ears sometimes!" Twilight surprised herself by choking out a giggle. The image was so silly, even if everything behind it was so serious. "She makes me pretty mad too. But we're going to stop her, no matter what it takes." Pinkie Pie sat up straight, assuming a slightly exaggerated air of being all business. "So what other ponies do you need? You said six. So there's me, and you, and Dashie, that leaves three." "Applejack is one." "Yay, she's alive too!" "And Rarity." "Rarity! She was one of the ones who left to try and live somewhere else. Will she join us?" "She may have tried, but she failed to be a good enough subject of the Kingdom of Night, because she's working as a slave in a gem mine now." "That's good. Well. It's not good that she's a slave, but it's good that she's not on Black Snooty's side!" "Yeah. And the last pony we need is Fluttershy." Pinkie's ears fell and her eyes went wide as saucers. "Oh, cupcakes."