//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: A Glimpse Back Home // Story: Heir To Darkness // by Leafdoggy //------------------------------// “Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash called out as she pounded impatiently on Fluttershy’s door. “Hey, Pinkie, you in there? C’mon, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She tapped a hoof on the ground and waited in silence for a moment, hoping to get a reply. When none came, she groaned and tried the handle. “Seriously, where are you?” The door swung open with a low creak, and Rainbow Dash stepped inside. The air was stale, and the house unclean. Not unnaturally unclean, Fluttershy had never had the cleanest house and that only got worse when Pinkie started staying over, but unclean nonetheless. Blankets were piled in heaps rather than folded neatly or draped over furniture, dishes sat in the sink, and a pile of unread mail filled a sizable chunk of the coffee table. Nothing Rainbow Dash hadn’t seen before, but still enough to catch her eye. Upbeat music pounded from behind the closed bedroom door. “Ugh,” Rainbow Dash grunted. “Seriously?” She walked over and knocked on the door, a bit harder than she had meant to thanks to her annoyance. “Pinkie, we had plans! How am I supposed to chill if the pony who’s supposed to chill with me doesn’t show up? That’s not—” The bedroom door groaned as it opened, and Rainbow Dash’s thoughts fell away. The room was dark, with the lights all shut off and heavy curtains drawn over the windows. Not even a sliver of sunlight made it into the bleak interior. The music was loud enough that she wasn’t surprised Pinkie didn’t hear her at the front door, and there were dirty dishes stacked up next to the bed. Most notably, though, Pinkie herself looked awful. Her eyes were sunken, and her ears drooped. Her mane had fallen flat, and the only small volume it had was from the knots and tangles in it from lack of care. Her eyes didn’t seem to have any shine to them, and when she smiled at the sight of Rainbow Dash, the expression seemed utterly empty. “Oh, hey Dashie,” Pinkie said in a slow, quiet voice. “What’s up?” “I—” Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure how to approach this. She was never very good at dealing with Pinkie’s worse moods. “We had plans,” she finally said, her voice low to match Pinkie’s. “I got worried.” “Huh?” Pinkie thought for a moment, then gasped in horror. “Oh no, I completely forgot! I’m so sorry, Dashie, I hope you’re not mad…” “Nah, I just couldn’t relax if I thought you might be having a bad time.” Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “What, um… Where’s Fluttershy?” Pinkie frowned. “She left.” “Left?” Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow. “What do you mean, she left? She would have told us if she had plans.” “She’s gonna go live somewhere else,” Pinkie mumbled. With a sigh, she trodded away and slumped down onto the bed. “Somewhere where I’m not allowed.” “What?” Rainbow Dash walked in after her and stood next to the bed. “That can’t be right, she loves Ponyville! She loves you, there’s no way she’d go live alone somewhere else.” Pinkie shrugged and rolled over to face away from Rainbow Dash. “C’mon, talk to me Pinkie. At least tell me what actually happened.” “I told you. She left.” “Okay, but why?” Rainbow Dash rounded the bed so she could look into Pinkie’s eyes. “She had to have a reason.” “Does it matter?” Pinkie rolled over again. “Ugh.” Rainbow Dash hopped up onto the bed and stood over Pinkie so she couldn’t be ignored. “Of course it matters. She might be in trouble! That girl would do anything for you, there’s no way she’d just leave you here.” Pinkie huffed and pulled a blanket up over her head. “Just leave me alone. She doesn’t want me there, and I don’t want you here.” “You know none of that is true. Come on, let’s go talk to the others and—” Pinkie growled and kicked blindly up at Rainbow Dash, who just barely jumped out of the way. “I said leave me alone!” Rainbow Dash’s face was starting to redden with anger, and she forced herself to take a step back. “Look, I… I’m gonna go get Twilight.” “Don’t come back.” With nothing else to say, Rainbow Dash sighed and walked slowly out of the house. Once she heard the door click shut, Pinkie grunted and kicked the blanket away. “Stupid Dashie,” she grumbled as she jumped off the bed and stomped over to peek through the window and watch her friend fly away. “You always do this.” Once Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen, Pinkie headed for the front door. She stormed outside, squinting her eyes in the bright sunlight, and slammed the door shut behind her. Then she turned and made for the forest. “If you’re just gonna run away, don’t come at all,” Pinkie muttered under her breath. She walked pointedly into the woods as soon as she could, then turned in the direction she knew went deeper into the Everfree. “Whatever,” she growled. “I’ll just go somewhere you can’t bug me.” Pinkie knew the path she wanted to take well. It was all through dense forest, hopping over shrubs and pushing vines aside, but she always seemed to find her way without getting lost. It was like the place called to her, and ever since she first found it she’d been going there when she needed time alone to think. Soon enough, just as she always did, she stumbled upon the entrance into the wide-open cave. She followed the winding path down, and before long could see the glittering surface of the still pond. The light that reflected from that water lit the entire cave in a brilliant blue light that shimmered along the walls like she was in a dream. She was too frustrated to gawk at the scenery, though. She wasted no time in sitting down at the edge of the water and looking down at her reflection. A bright, bouncy pony smiled back at her. The image made a knot tighten in her stomach. “Stupid happy Pinkie,” she grumbled. “Why’d you let her get so important to us?” “Of course she’s important,” she heard herself argue in the back of her mind. “We love her.” “Well, we should know better.” “You’re just down in the dumps,” her voice said. “You know we’re glad we can love her so much.” “Of course we’re glad,” she decided, “but that just makes it hurt even more.” “She’ll be back, though, and things will go back to normal.” “Unless she doesn’t come back,” Pinkie argued, “or she changes while she’s there, and because we’re not there we can’t change with her, so she stops liking us.” “There’s no way that would happen,” she told herself. “But we don’t know that. The whole time she’s gone, that worry’s gonna be stuck in our head. What if we change? What if worrying for so long breaks us even more than we already are?” “Those thoughts don’t help anypony. We just have to put on a smile and everything will be okay.” Pinkie scowled. “I’m sick of making myself smile, though. I don’t care if it works, it’s still fake.” “Well…” Her optimism was starting to run thin. “I don’t know what you want, then.” She said the first thing that came to mind. “I want Fluttershy back.” “Well, then, I guess we gotta go get her!” Her reflection grinned wide. “But Dracula—” “Since when do we care what Dracula says? That boring old pony wouldn’t know fun if it bit her on the neck.” “Hm…” Try as she might, Pinkie couldn’t think of a retort for that. “I guess… You really think we should?” “Yup!” “Well, it’s better than sitting around here I guess.” Pinkie stood up from the water and turned to leave. “Wait!” She turned back to her reflection. “What?” “Make sure you go apologize to Dashie! You said a lot of mean things, and—” Pinkie kicked some rocks into the pond, and the ripples tore through the reflection. Then she turned and started to walk decisively out of the cave. “They’ll come find me if they care.”