Flash plastered himself against the door, terrified of the featureless faces surrounding him. Each was similar to Mulberry, a ponyquinn with no discernable parts, but where Mulberry had been a rather pleasant shade of purple, these ponyquinns were not. He spied one that was a shade of green similar to puke. Another a yellow that reminded him of pus. The others were as equally skewed towards colours that reminded him of funerals, hospitals, and sickness.
This nauseating display was made worse by a strong sickly sweet scent that permeated the entire room. It was like being dumped into a pile of cotton candy. The source appeared to be coming from the drinks and appetizers held by the ponyquinns. The drinks were transparent wine glasses filled with bubbling bubblegum pink liquid. The appetizers were sandwiches of weird combinations like hay fries and custard, and peanut butter and chives.
He tried to focus on the walls to push past his queasiness, but they were coloured an obnoxious bright pink and patterned with sterile white… flowers? Card spades? Fancy Prench symbols? Flash wasn’t entirely sure what it was supposed to be just that it was impossible to discern its exact shape.
Speaking of, he couldn’t seem to figure out the dimensions of the room. The ceiling seemed to stretch far away from him. Far enough that he couldn’t tell if what he saw was the ceiling or just an extension of the walls. The seams between were impossible to discern putting the very nature of the room in question, as if it couldn’t decided between being solid or something akin to a rolling wave.
There was a groaning underneath the floor, a loud creaking and snapping that filled Flash’s ears despite being pinned to his head. It gave the illusion of the room being in a constant state of stretching, expanding and undulating to a seemingly random rhythm.
Flash was adrift in a sea of pink. The ocean heaved against the door he stuck himself to, the only stable part of the room. The ponyquins watched him as he struggled to not capsize.
Waiting for the moment he would be pulled under the wooden waves.
Bile roiled in his stomach threatening to climb up his throat. He was marooned in a place that was wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong —
All at once, they ignored him. The ponyquins turned their backs to him and continued their prior conversations. The creaking of the room was quietly muffled by the sounds of murmured discussion and hushed whispers.
Taking a deep shaky breath, Flash collapsed to the floor and covered his head with his wings, hiding within their embrace. He whimpered as he huddled within relative safety, exposed with no armour in a strange place with zero preparation. His drill sergeant from basic would have a field day reaming him out for how much he’d screwed this up.
Another few more breaths and he felt calm enough to think back to Mulberry’s instructions. They had said to be social, which, through context, probably meant he needed to talk with the ponyquinns. Which meant he needed to get off the floor.
He really didn’t want to get off the floor.
But he didn’t have any other option.
Pushing himself back onto his hooves, tucking his wings to his sides and ignoring the persistent need to vomit, he gazed across the nauseating ocean and picked out the least problematic of the lot: an off-yellow ponyquinn standing by themselves.
Cautiously swimming through the clashing waves of bodies, Flash approached his target and offered a hesitant wave of his wing, pointedly not acknowledging the shaking of the feathers. “Hi,” he greeted.
The ponyquinn (Flash mentally decided to call them Sunny) gazed down indifferently upon him, boring a hole through his head with the mere suggestion of their expression. “Hi, yourself,” Sunny answered curtly.
“So…” Flash coughed into a wing to give him time to decide on what to say, “how are you?”
“Terrible,” Sunny bluntly replied.
“Oh, um, sorry to hear that,” Flash grimaced, feeling his nausea redouble its efforts at his expense, “why’s that?”
“You are aware this is a funeral, right?” Flash stared back blankly. Sunny scoffed. “Wow, real classy, colt.”
“I-I didn’t—!” Flash scrunched up his face “—sorry, I didn’t mean to be so insensitive.”
“Then learn to read the room. Seriously, why are you even here if you have no idea what’s going on?” Sunny took a sip of their drink, the pink liquid staining the fabric around the approximation of where their mouth should be. They eyed the drink before tossing it to the ground, the liquid staining the wood dark. “You wanna meet the deceased?”
“Meet the deceased?” Flash furrowed his brow. “That doesn’t sound right. Isn’t this supposed to be a funeral?”
“It is. For a mare that already thinks she’s dead,” Sunny replied dully. “She gave up and now we’re throwing a party for her to celebrate it.” They snorted. “Such a damn waste.”
“Why does she think that?” Flash asked.
“Because she believed a bunch of doctors whose best solution is to tell ponies is to give up.” Sunny stared into the distance before jerking her head back to Flash. “You know what? You should meet her.”
“I-I’m not sure—”
“It’ll be fine, come on,” Sunny interrupted before trotting into the sea.
Flash raced after her, jostled and churned by the ocean of ponyquinns who paid no attention to the colt chasing after the bright spot of yellow in the crowd. Soon enough, he was dumped unceremoniously by the waves onto the floor next to Sunny.
In this small island of respite were them and another ponyquinn the colour of baked bread. She smelled of baked apples, a scent that wafted so strongly from her it cut through the sickly sweet scent of the room.
“Behold, colt. The living dead. Be careful,” Sunny loudly whispered, “she might infect you with her fatalism.”
The brown ponyquinn (Baked, Flash mentally called her) hung her head, facing away from Sunny.
“Nothing to say?” Sunny exclaimed. “No comeback? Not even some grunt of acknowledgement? You used to write so much when I didn’t want to listen to you, but now, when I actually want to talk, all you do is mope!” They hissed the last words, venom underlying her tone.
Baked shrunk in on herself, head tucked, hooves snapped together. It reminded Flash of something, a long buried memory with a bitter haze around it.
“You got nothing to say anymore? Just giving me the silent treatment now?!” Sunny growled in frustration, stomping her hooves on the floor, leaving small fractures in the wood. “You sure do like to nose into my business, but when the spotlight is turned back on you, you keep everything to yourself!”
“H-hey—” Flash tried to interject.
“I’m so sick of this!” Sunny yelled. “We have to analayze and pick apart everything about me, but you get to hide behind your stupid illness whenever it’s time for you?! How is that fair?!”
“She can’t help it, though!” Flash wedged himself between the shivering form of Baked and Sunny. “It’s not like she chose to have a fatal illness!”
“What do you even know?! You don’t even what she has!” Sunny retorted.
“I-I can figure out context,” Flash replied. “And you shouldn’t be so mad at her! People mourn bad stuff differently.”
“So, you’re telling me I should just let her accept that she’s going to die?”
“No! You just need to—” Flash faltered, the memory of smoke filling his nose and reminding him of worse times. “—look. It’s hard. No one copes the same as anyone else.” Closed doors. The same walls. “But yelling at her doesn’t help. All it does—”
“Is what? Get her flanks moving?!”
“—is make that pony close themselves off even more!” Lectures. Monologues. Anger. “You need to listen—”
“She won’t even talk—” Sunny paused, “—write, whatever! There’s nothing to listen to!”
“You just need to be patient.” Time passing by. The same motions. “She’ll come to you when she’s ready. Just let her take some time to breathe. Offer support—”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?!”
“—and let her tell you how you can help.” Flash grit his teeth, his tail lashed behind him. “Making someone feel better faster never works.”
“Then I should just lie back and let her give up?!” Sunny laughed, a harsh edge to her tone. “That’s some of the dumbest advice I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m just trying to help!” Flash shouted back.
“Unasked for, I might add!” Sunny harshly retorted. “You don’t know us! You didn’t even know this was a funeral until I told you, now you’re some sage dispenser of wisdom? Look, I don’t need assistance from some col—” Sunny paused, scanning Flash over, “... stallion who thinks he knows better!”
“But all you’re going to end up doing is push her away and make it impossible to be there for her when it matters,” Flash pleaded. “If you keep doing this you’ll—”
“What? Help her?”
“No!” Flash roared. “You’ll just ruin whatever relationship you have left!”
Sunny took a step back from Flash as he flared his wings and panted in place, rage causing his body to shake from the sheer adrenaline coursing through him.
“Ugh, you ponies are all the same!” Flash continued, his agitation growing. “You see a pony in pain and think you need to shove their rump back to happy as soon as possible without letting them actually take the time to get there. It’s always about how you, you, you can help rather than listening to what the pony actually needs! You’re just like my—” Flash stopped, the words dying on his lips.
“Like what, colt? Like—” Sunny looked past him and stomped their hoof on the ground. “Dangit, she’s gone!”
“What?” Flash said dumbly.
“She left!” Sunny pointed past Flash.
“Oh, she did. But, still you need to—” Sunny rushed past him, racing into the sea once more. “Hey! We’re not— she’s already gone.”
Snorting angrily, Flash stomped away, forcing the sea to part before him, cracking the wooden seabed as he went with each impact of his hooves. He ignored the protestations of the waves, his mind solely focused on his prior conversation.
He was mad. Angrier than he had ever been in a long time. He’d overstepped. He knew that. It was wrong for him to say what he did, but he knew what kind of pony Sunny was. The selfish kind that helped by shoving their solution onto others’ problems. Doing so without even taking a moment to consider the other’s feelings. She was the worst kind of pony. Just like—
“Having a bad time, big guy?”
Flash whipped his head towards the source of the voice. Another ponyquinn (dirty white plaid with saddlebags heavy with paint supplies) greeted him.
“Is that a joke?” Flash snarled, his already sour mood souring further.
“Just a hello,” the ponyquinn (Flash named them Paints) replied. “You seem kind of mad, and I thought you could use someone to talk it out with before you end up—” they waved a hoof in a circular motion, “—doing something you regret.”
“Yeah, well, pick a different nickname,” Flash growled. He stepped into their space, towering over top of them. “That was pretty mean.”
“Sure, sure,” Paints waved a hoof dismissevly. “But you really should calm down. You’re gonna get too big for this place at the rate you’re going.”
“Excuse me?!” Flash snorted. “What does that even mean?”
“Exactly what I just told you,” Paints replied.
“That I need to calm down?”
“Yep.”
“Me?”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” Flash stomped his hoof on the ground, frowning firmly at Paints. “I won’t!” He shouted. “And I shouldn’t have to!”
“That’s valid.”
“That’s—” Flash sputtered. He drew himself up, his vantage point becoming higher and higher. “I can be mad! I have that right! You don’t even know what I’ve been through today! I got stuck in a dumb dollhouse, after being shrunk to a dumb size, and now I can’t leave this dumb place, and I’m sick of it!” He yelled, his frustrations pouring out of him. “Everything has been Tartarus and let. Me. Tell. You. I am NOT going to— ow!”
Flash rubbed back of his head with a wing where he had impacted with something. He tried to turn his head to see, but found it difficult as his panicked mind took in the sounds of the wooden ceiling creaking against him.
He looked down and found he’d hit a growth spurt. A huge growth spurt. The ponyquinns that had once been above him, now looked like mere dolls. He raised his wings and hooves to try and keep them away from the protesting ponyquinns, but found the walls closing in on him, forcing his limbs closer to his ever growing body.
“Told you!” Paints called up to him.
The ceiling groaned, creaking against him. His heart pounded. He whimpered, panic and stress causing small tears to prick the corner of his eyes. Even worse, his anger had already grown — now redirected at himself.
His emotions had gotten away from him like some colt to the point he hadn’t even noticed this had been happening. How irresponsible could he be to endanger others like this? He had felt so righteously angry before and now he just felt disgusted with himself.
Dust fell from the ceiling and coated the top of his head. He spied out of the corner of his eye a small hole in the ceiling caused by the continuous pressure of his head against the wood. A panic-stricken idea flashed through his mind.
Acting quickly, he smashed his head against the ceiling, the wood giving each time he hit it. After a few whacks, the hole grew to grant him passage to the upper floor. It would be a tight squeeze, but better than crushing the ponyquinns underneath him.
Grabbing the edges with his hooves, he pulled himself up and out of the room.
Collapsing backwards onto the wooden floors that were relatively normal to his body size, he sucked in panicked lungfuls of air, forcing himself to calm his beating heart. He flicked his ears as the sound of soft steps echoed of the walls of whatever place he had found himself in. A purple ponyquinn filled his vision.
“Great job, Flash!” Mulberry greeted him. “Now, you need to get up! We have more work to do.”