//------------------------------// // Consequences // Story: Can You Keep a Secret? // by cleverpun //------------------------------// Consequences BY: cleverpun Hello again. I know I haven’t told you anything in a while. It’s not easy getting to Manehattan with no bits though… Shoulda grabbed my purse or something. Guess I didn’t think this through. Well, okay, obviously I didn’t think this through, but I couldn’t stay in Ponyville. When Twilight confronted me I had no Idea what to do, and I just panicked and… well, here I am; in some cave in some forest a few miles away from Manehattan. It’s not that bad though, most animals don’t want to come near me, disguise or not. And I haven’t really gotten hungry, not yet. Guess I have a lot of energy left over from… that incident. I just wanted to say, it’s really lonely out here. Another thing I didn’t consider when I ran off. But being alone is easier than confronting my friends, I know it. Just thinking about them, how they must feel about me after Twilight told them what I’ve become… no, I just gotta put them out of my mind, I can never go back after all. I can never go back, and I’ll miss them, but it’s better this way. Just have to get to the city and build a new set of lies. It’ll be easier this time, my new friends will never know anything was wrong, never know what I used to be like… Okay, I should go, I’m really tired for some reason. Hope I get there soon, regular food just doesn’t have the same… kick ever since I became a changeling. Twilight had been putting off entering the building for a while now. She was happy Rainbow had recovered, but it meant she had no excuse not to tell her friends what had happened to Pinkie. Oh, I’ll just wait until Rainbow recovers so I can tell them all at once. She had told herself. She should have known better; now it was time and she wasn’t ready. But it had to be done. She took a deep breath and walked into the hospital, making her way up to Rainbow’s room. They took it well. Or rather, they took it much better than Twilight had expected. “So lemme get this straight Twilight… Pinkie is… has bin a changeling for over a year, and when you found out you confronted her, without telling any of us, and now she’s run away?” Applejack was surprisingly calm as she asked. “Yes.” Rarity began to tear up and Fluttershy quickly followed suit. AJ and Dash were more stoic, but clearly upset by the news. “So the reason I fainted in that restaurant…” “Yes, she… overate.” “Huh…” Rainbow absently rubbed the bandage where her IVs had been, but didn’t say anything else. “So… yeah…” Applejack brought her hoof up to her face, although Twilight couldn’t tell if she was rubbing her eyes or was just exasperated. “Twilight, I don’t know which is worse; that Pinkie has bin lyin’ to us this entire time, or that when you found out the truth you didn’t bother to tell us about it!” “You think I didn’t want to!? But you didn’t read what Pinkie wrote in that journal; she was incredibly unstable, I was trying to be delicate. If we had all confronted her who knows what she would’ve done!” “Gee I dunno, maybe she would’ve run away?” “Fine, maybe I didn’t handle it as well as I could’ve…” “You didn’t handle it well at all! Our friend is all alone somewhere and we have no way to find her or help her!” “Aha, luckily I’ve been working on that.” Twilight levitated some crumpled, wrinkly scraps of paper out of her bag. “What are those?” “These are what’s going to help us find Pinkie. They’ll lead us right to her, but it might be a long trip, and I’ll need all of your help to bring her back.” The four ponies exchanged glances. “What?” Silence. Rainbow Dash finally cleared her throat. “I’m not saying I don’t want her back but… What if something like this happens again?” She waved a hoof at the various medical monitors around her bed. “Dash how can you say that!” “You’re not the one in the bed Twilight, don’t look at me that way.” “Well, I’m definitely goin’.” AJ grabbed her hat. “What about the rest of y’all?” Well, it’s been a month or so since I’ve been in Manehattan. I found a job at a bakery pretty easily, and I moved into a cheap apartment downtown. Kind of… unfurnished, but it’s not bad. My coworkers are alright, there’s this one who’s really serious about everything, it’s pretty funny! I’m tempted to try and be friends with him but I’ve restrained myself so far. Nopony suspects a thing. I’m just an upbeat chef to them. And I’m being much more careful this time. Whenever anypony asks to hang out, or if I want to go to a party, I tell them I’m busy, or that I’ve got work to do. I don’t want to get too… attached to anypony. I can’t let something like what happened to… what I did to Rainbow Dash… I’ll never let that happen again, I can’t let that happen ever again. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt someone, or worse... I miss Gummi and my friends. I keep telling myself to forget about them, that even if I saw them again they wouldn’t want anything to do with me, but it’s hard… I still have you though, and nopony needs to know about how much I miss them except you and me. Maybe now that I’ve admitted it to you it’ll be easier to lie to myself… It gets kind of boring around here, but I’ve been throwing myself into my work, seeing movies, that sort of thing. I tried visiting the library but my mind wanders too much when I’m reading. That might be my fault for picking a book about this group of friends getting into wacky adventures… I’ll forget about them one day, I have to. Sometimes I wish it could go back to the way it was before, where I didn’t need to rely on lies to survive, but… after so long I think I’m starting to get used to it, at least a little bit. I tried taking that creative writing class, make these entries less illegible, but wow, all those ponies are just so full of themselves. I mean, this one mare wrote a 2 page poem about this time she messed up her perm, at least Rarity never, Rarity… There I go thinking about them again. I try to let it all out so I won’t think about it, but I don’t know anymore… does it really work that way? I reread that other one I wrote, it just made me sad. But secrets are all I have now, I’m nothing but disjointed, shallow bag of secrets and lies… Don’t judge me. I know you can’t, you’re a book. You may not be able to keep a secret, but at least you don’t judge me… Pinkie’s doorbell rang, which was odd since she wasn’t expecting visitors. She closed her journal and took a deep breath. Whoever it was, at least it was better than being with herself…even if there was a layer of lies in between her and them. She got up to answer the door, and put on her best fake smile. The charade would continue, it was all she had left.