"Oh, you know me, Twilight," Pinkie said with an almost wistful sigh. "I am what I am. And what I am is a lesbian."
I snorted. "That's not what I asked."
"Is too!" Pinkie beamed. "That's how I see myself: a lesbian."
I squinted at her over my book.
Pinkie just kept on smiling. Eventually, she returned to her own reading.
She was an enigma. That we could all agree on.
Memories of hooking my friend into a massive vitals-measuring device, desperately trying to understand why she did the things she did… why she was the way she was… if I was honest, I still had a desire to get in there and poke around at Pinkie's mind. Just to see what made her tick.
But I was better than that, now. I knew better than to treat friends like a science experiment.
When Pinkie had stuff she wanted to say, she'd say it. Or she'd act on it, and I'd just trust that she knew what she was doing.
In my musings, I had scanned over a whole paragraph and gotten exactly nothing from it. I backtracked carefully, and re-read:
The practice of wearing a "royal beard" (often referred to as ktesios in Old Ponish) was born out of class disparity in pre-industrialized Equestria. For poor, working-class ponies, wearing a beard permanently was often a bothersome hindrance during manual labor; long beards had a habit of being caught in machinery, and therefore had to be trimmed. For those not working with machinery, the tending of a beard was an expensive endeavor-- more expensive than merely doing away with the beard entirely.
I sighed and put my book down again. "Pinkie…"
"Mm-hm…" Pinkie turned the page of her own book.
"Really," I said. "What do you see yourself as?"
Pinkie looked up slowly. She gazed at me with grave concern, as if worried some of my brain had leaked out of my ear. Or perhaps grow out of my chin.
"A lesbian," she said.
I grit my teeth. "No, but… if you had to describe yourself, you would say…?"
"Um…" Pinkie tapped her chin thoughtfully with one hoof. "Gay?"
"No!" I smacked my face with one hoof. "You! Just you! How would you describe yourself?"
Pinkie's jaw went slack. She looked up at the ceiling, allowing her eyes to run over the many roots which hung over the cutie map.
"Gee…" Pinkie mumbled. She tugged her mane down on either side of her head. "Uh… I dunno."
For a moment, my heart swelled. Finally, another pony who got it, who understood, who--
"I'm stumped! What's the answer?"
I put my face in my hooves. "It's not a quiz, Pinkie!"
She scoffed. "It sure feels like a quiz…"
"It's not!" I insisted.
The little glimmer of hope was snuffed out, and I melted down onto the table. It was cold and hard as ever, but somehow it felt comforting in its discomfort. Like the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl after you toss your cookies.
Pinkie mimicked my motion, resting her own chin on the table and staring back at me. "Is this about your beard?"
I sighed. "Yeah… I mean, no! I mean…" I rolled my head to one side, allowing my cheek to rest on the crystal. "I dunno."
"Well, I like it," Pinkie said.
"Thanks…"
"Does that help?"
I moaned softly. "No…"
"Oh. Darn."
"It's okay," I said. "I think I'm just… having a hard time understanding what everypony else has. Because I feel like I don't have it. Y'know?"
"Mm…" Pinkie's eyes rolled back up towards the ceiling. "I guess so."
"But I feel like everypony I talk to is also confused," I said. "I mean, Shining Armor seems to feel a lot like me! And Rainbow… Now you…"
Pinkie was quiet. She seemed to be digesting the information, as little as there was.
"So… you wanna know if I'm a mare?" Pinkie asked.
I sat up. "Um… I guess."
She giggled. "Well, why didn't you ask me that, silly?"
"I did!"
"No, you didn't!"
"I did, too!"
"No!" Pinkie shook her head. "You asked how I see myself. How I see myself is a lesbian! You didn't ask if I was a mare."
I blinked.
It occurred to me, for what was probably the first time, that some ponies just… weren't concerned with the gender in the least.
"Well… are you?" I asked softly.
It still felt wrong to ask.
"Sometimes!" Pinkie responded brightly. "But only when I'm a lesbian."
My mind ground to a halt.
I felt like the words were becoming this great big mass of letters, without much meaning or direction. It all seemed to contradict itself, or… or something…
"But…" I paused. "Um. Aren't you always a lesbian?"
Pinkie considered the question. "Well, I'm never not a lesbian. Sometimes I'm more lesbian than other times, though."
Oh, sweet Celestia.
"Like… which times?" I asked.
Pinkie heaved a sigh. "When I like another mare, or when I'm on a date with another mare, or when I kiss another mare, or--"
"I got it," I said quickly. "So… you're only a mare when you like another mare?"
Pinkie squinched up her face. "No…"
"So you're a mare other times?"
"No, I… I don't think I'm ever a mare mare…" She paused, then made a face like she was in pain. "Ugh, I've never really thought about it before…"
I put my face back down on the table. "I'm sorry. I guess my anxiety's catching."
Pinkie didn't respond. She was squinting slightly, staring at the wall on the other side of the room.
This happened to her sometimes. Pinkie was the type of pony who did a lot without thinking. I don't mean that in a bad way, of course; impulsiveness was something I sorely needed in a friend. But Pinkie had a tendency to go with her gut on things, and rarely did she question that.
Which was only fair. Her gut tended to be right.
But, given the right push, she would think things through. And, to her credit, she was very good at detangling her own thoughts.
Pinkie gasped. "Ooh! I know!"
I cocked my head. "Uh… you do?"
"It's just like reading!" Pinkie said cheerfully, rapping her hooves on the table.
"It… is?"
Pinkie nodded. "When I read a book, sometimes I think about what it would be like to write my own book. Do you ever think about that?"
I shrugged. "Sometimes, I guess."
"I don't really think about writing a book any other time. It's not important to me," Pinkie continued. "And I probably never would write a book, even when I get all inspired from reading. But… reading is the closest I get to writing. And it's fun to imagine, even if I don't really want to write a book."
I blinked.
Pinkie blinked back.
Wow.
"Does that help?" Pinkie asked, flicking her tail happily.
"Yeah," I said softly. "It does."
Pinkie gasped, a huge and comical sound. "Do you feel that way too?!"
I giggled. "No. I don't think so."
"Aw," Pinkie relaxed a little. "Well, that's okay. How do you feel?"
I smiled. "Better."