Pinkie stepped out from the group hug and embraced Eris, making her look into her crystal blue eyes.
“Hey. Hey Eris. Thank you for being kind enough to me, to let me be real, and… and not just fixing me with magic.”
Eris sobbed, as Pinkie hugged her.
“I… But I did though. I broke you…”
“You didn’t know how to help,” Pinkie said. “You tried, and then when you found it didn’t work, you tried something else. You think I know everyone’s favorite flavors of cake on the first try?!”
“Yes,” Eris answered immediately.
“No!” Pinkie insisted. “No I don’t! It takes trial and error, learning, research, it’s a lot! And I’m glad you kept trying for me.”
Rarity stepped closer, shaking a little.
“Can I be next?” she asked.
The group of ponies came in closer, comfort for Rarity and in a way for Eris as well, while Eris sat up and clasped her hands together anxiously.
“I knew what Pinkie needed, I…”
“I’ve got Rarity,” Rainbow said unexpectedly, everyone looking at her with a bit of surprise. “I do. I know how to help. Just… Free her first.”
The group of six creatures huddled close in the middle of a half-abandoned ponyville, while Eris steeled herself and finally raised her claw, snapping.
Though they weren’t looking, many of the ponies of ponyville returned from wherever they’d been hidden away, back in their daily routine as though they had never gone away. At the same moment, Rarity started to cry, looking away.
“Hey, look at me,” Rainbow said firmly.
The two grayed out ponies faced each other amidst the huddle of their friends.
“You’re looking at the truth of everything, and that truth makes it feel like joy isn’t real,” Rainbow says slowly. “Right?”
Rarity nodded, her mascara running down her cheeks as her lower lip trembled.
“Okay, but the Truth isn’t brutal,” Rainbow said firmly. “The Truth has a lot of nuance that we don’t think of, we think of the Truth, and it’s… the… It’s all the things we haven’t been able to prove wrong, but look at what you have proven wrong.”
Rarity looked up at her, confused.
“I… I haven’t proven anything wrong. I’m just struggling to… to break even,” she whispered.
“You have broken even though,” Rainbow insists. “You’re the best known clothes-pony seamstress whatever in Ponyville and the surrounding areas! Whenever absolutely anypony in the area needs a dress, they ask you. When they want to look nice, they ask you. When a school wants to give a lesson on fashion, they ask you for tips. I know you’re in the middle of the struggle, yes you haven’t been in a national magazine yet. You haven’t earned enough to not worry about bills, but you’ve obviously and truthfully come further than you ever thought you would have.”
Rarity sniffled, and looked away, struggling before she finally asked the question she was struggling with.
“But… But I’m not feeling good about it anymore… I create and throw parties to make other ponies happy, but lately I just feel tired…”
“Then you need to stop doing the routine, and figure out what to do, to make yourself happy,” Rainbow snapped. “No excuses. Something is wrong. If that something is deep and painful, like feeling your parents have abandoned you to raise Sweetie alone, then deal with it. If it’s something less difficult, deal with it too.”
But it was pretty clear to everyone that Rainbow had hit the mark as Rarity trembled and shook, sobbing, and leaning against Rainbow, as everyone supported her. A dim flickering white light flowed around her.
“It’s ok to not be full of joy,” Eris spoke up, putting an arm around her. “It’s ok to admit you’re not ok, and we will support you, and if that means you need someone to be by your side when you confront your family, then we will.”
As Rarity cried, maybe the hardest she’d ever cried in her life, her dim white light burst outward and her coat and mane returned to their brighter colors.
“Thank you,” Rarity sobbed, hugging them all, one by one. “Thank you so so much, thank you, I… I should have spoken up… I didn’t know how…”
“It’s ok,” Eris repeated. “It’s ok, Rarity.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” AJ whispered, as she watched Rarity cry, wide eyed.
“Darling, I will drag you through it kicking and screaming if you try to run,” Rarity huffed, before sniffling.
But AJ looked to Eris, and Eris remembered the anger in AJ’s eyes before, the violence in her heart.
“We’ll prepare then,” Eris said confidently, standing. “You need your family for this, don’t you, AJ?”
AJ winced, looking away, but she nodded.
“Then that’s what we will do,” Eris said confidently. “We all need different things to be healed. Or to get better. Come on.”
As she guided them to turn and head towards Sweet Apple Acres, she saw a white alicorn standing on a hill over Ponyville, watching.
Eris hesitated, wanting to ask her why she was letting her fix her friends, why the alicorn wasn’t stopping her, hurting her, lashing out. Eris deserved it, she felt, but the figure didn’t move. Eris took a slow breath and focused on her friends, following them as they traveled to the Apple family home.
AJ spoke quietly and quickly with Applebloom, who wouldn’t quite look her in the eyes, and then spoke with Big Mac more anxiously. Eventually, Big Mac and Granny Smith sat on either side of AJ as her friends gathered in the barn, facing her.
“Are you sure you want to be here?” Eris asked Granny softly.
“Ain’t no granddaughter o’ mine gonna be relivin’ this without me by her side,” Granny said in a hushed wheeze, putting a hoof on AJ’s shoulder.
Eris nodded in agreement, and snapped her fingers.
AJ trembled, her head dipping until her hat hid her eyes, then she lurched and Big Mac moved faster than anypony had ever seen him move, pinning her to the ground.
“Get. Off. Me.”
The growl didn’t even sound like AJ, like a completely different pony was speaking through her.
“Eeenope,” Mac said, frowning as she struggled. “Say it.”
“I’ll break you,” AJ snarled.
“Say it, Sis.”
They struggled in silence for a moment, until Big Mac had clearly won, and they both laid there, breathing heavily.
“I was robbed,” AJ hissed, her head tilting up so Eris and her friends could see the tear streaked face of the cowpony under her hat, and the rage in her eyes. “Robbed of childhood. Robbed of parents. Robbed of freedom. Lost everything to a filly left behind by a drunk and his mare, who went and got themselves killed on a yacht.”
She said the word ‘yacht’ with absolute disgust, and she spat on the ground after she said it, sneering.
“Nothing. Got nothing but a hat to show for it, and then I done gave it all away, didn’t I? Gave everything I had, till I’d lost it all a hundred times.”
The barn was silent, and as Eris opened her mouth to speak, there was a sound that drew her attention away.
Apple Bloom had been listening in, and everyone stared in shock as she revealed herself and walked closer.
AJ started to struggle with renewed energy, trying to escape frantically, but Granny joined in, holding her down with her brother.
“Hey AJ,” Bloom whispered, sitting down in between AJ and her friends.
AJ let out a keening wail, her bitter furious expression contorted into something barely equine, as she tried to get away.
“I didn’t know dad was a drunk,” Bloom continued quietly. “I… Wish I knew. Makes sense now you didn’t talk about him much. Just mom.”
AJ went limp, sobbing and shaking.
“But… I know you didn’t have a childhood,” Bloom sighed, looking down at her hooves. “I know… But you gave me one. So… So thank you.”
Bloom then stepped up to AJ and hugged her, as AJ cried, and Big Mac carefully let go of his sister, letting her be embraced, waiting to see what would happen.
AJ sat up, dazed, and as Bloom hugged her, she put a single arm around her for a moment before Bloom let go, wiping her eyes.
“I… I’m gonna go, sis,” Bloom sniffled. “See ya at dinner.”
And just like that, Apple Bloom trotted out of the barn to collect her own feelings.
AJ numbly looked around at everyone else, unmoving.
“Can't fix what's been done," Granny declared. "True enough. But you gotta reckon with the limit of yer givin, Jack. Already loved by all of us. Don't need ta give, for that."
AJ closed her eyes, and a deep golden orange light rolled over her.
"You're right, Granny," she whispered as she struggled to smile.
And slowly, the group all stepped in for a family sized hug.