An earth pony donning a crude dragon costume fled several screaming foals armed with cardboard swords and helmets. One of them bumped into a blindfolded pony just as he tried to pin the tail on the griffon, causing him to pop the balloon with the pin. "Did I win?"
Suddenly, horns and trumpets blared through the yard, and everypony turned their gaze toward Pinkie Pie as she made a bright and high-spirited entrance. The exuberant cacophony of the mulititude of instruments she carried was met with cheering and applause from the rest of the gathering.
Meanwhile, Scootaloo stood off to the side, observing the scene as she leaned on the handlebars of her scooter. She scanned individual parts of the scene, making out so many different things while occasionally turning back to Pinkie Pie and her happenings.
“What you up to?”
Scootaloo jumped. “Eep! Apple Bloom! Don’t jump me like that! Sheesh.”
Applebloom smirked. “Alright, alright. But seriously, Scoots, why are you starin’ at them?”
Scootaloo groaned. “I’m just sitting around, you know? Like, I’m just here. Sitting. Okay?”
Apple Bloom gave her a patient look.
“Okay, fine! I’m trying to find Pinkie Pie, alright?”
The look did not change.
“And she’s busy! And I don’t want to bother her!”
"Bothering Pinkie Pie? Is that even possible?"
“But I want to ask something and it’s been bothering me and I’m waiting to talk to her but she looks so happy so I need to wait but I can’t wait but I have to wait and–” Scootaloo stopped abruptly and paused for a breath, “I’m afraid, ‘bloom. Of bothering her when she’s working.”
“Scoots’,” Apple Bloom placed a hoof on her shoulder, “she’s working all day. Every day. Someponies say even while she sleeps.”
“Yeah, and I don't want to— Wait, even when she's sleeping?”
“Yup. Every night. You know she always finds time for everypony in town, and you know she knows their names, their homes, their birthdays!” Apple Bloom pointed at the gathering below. “That party's for a stallion’s one hundred-eleventh birthday. Nopony knows him, but Pinkie Pie's got time for him. And she's got time for you, too.”
“But—”
“Talk to her. Now!”
---[({x})]---
There was an excessive amount of balloons, as well as stands full of food on display and games to play. There was even an enormous cake covered in a huge number of candles, and an equally enormous line for those hoping to get a bite.
There was Spike, a purple-scaled baby dragon with green spikes carrying a large, pink box with bright blue ribbons tied around each side, who Scootaloo thought was humming the beat of Pinkie Pie’s one-mare-band.
Scootaloo decided this: go see if Spike could get Pinkie Pie for her.
However, getting to Spike was proving a challenge as she struggled to get past the hooves of the adults and swim through the schools of foals. After several attempts, Scootaloo remembered what Apple Bloom said. A hoof on her face, she groaned. “Pinkie, can we talk?”
“Yes?”
Scootaloo jumped. Before her was a chubby, bright pink mare with an even darker colored, cotton-like mane. Her instruments gone, there was a neutral smile on her face that almost seemed like she just happened to bump into her rather than possessing all that energy a party would naturally give her. Startled, Scootaloo did her best to regain her composure.
This is Pinkie Pie: she knows all.
“Um, I was wondering. I think– well, after all you’ve done… how do you stay, um, happy?” there was a weak smile. A nervous, weary smile from knowing that that might’ve been the most vague question in all of Ponyville.
Pinkie Pie, however, was serious. “Wanna go to Sugar Cube Corner for a bit?”
“What? Why?” asked Scootaloo.
“Because I’d like to have some quiet for this one.”
---[({x})]---
Sugar Cube Corner was a familiar place to Scootaloo. Ponies mainly went there to socialize, but they certainly wouldn’t frown on having those great sweets the Cakes make. It looked like a gingerbread house, a rather flat and lanky building that pointed as high as it could.
She was unsure if anypony would miss her or if the party would fall apart, but she saw no reason to question Pinkie’s ways.
They stood outside the building, the party still buzzing a distance away but still quiet enough to talk.
“Pinkie?”
Oddly silent, Pinkie Pie contemplated on how to begin. The rock farm was a dark place in her mind. While she could come back and still be happy to see her family, she still could not help but feel sad thinking on her days as a foal when life seemed pointless. Rolling rocks, storing them, watching them ship away, occasionally migrating them for the season. It was a loop she would have never escaped from if it weren’t for her spark. That day when she saw that rainbow and she was overwhelmed by color…
“It takes a lot of work to be who I am. Parties, cheering, meeting everypony everyday, being happy… I had to push myself everyday to be happy. When I was a filly, I had to push rocks around everyday.” Scootaloo was visibly confused. Pinkie only chuckled. “Yeah, that was what I did. My family did, too.” she looked a bit nestolgic. “We all had to work hard and not play all day long just to process, store…” she shook her head and forrowed her brow, “I wasn’t happy Scootaloo. I never was. But one day, I saw a rainbow and knew what color looked like.” She looked up with a tinge of excitement and wonder. “It was amazing! That day, I threw my first party. It took them a while, but they began to like it. Making them happy…” She looked down with a small smile. “Well, it made me happy! So I did so every week. More neighbors wanted to try it and it became a big-town thing, even though everypony had to travel miles just to… and that was amazing!”
Scootaloo was amazed at this. She never knew Pinkie Pie wasn’t always the happy-go-lucky pony everypony all ways knew. Could she really do that? Start making other ponies happy? Maybe like how Rainbow Dash amazes everypony with her cool tricks! That would make her important!
Pinkie, always intuitive, somehow saw through the amazement in her eyes.
“But it got old. When I was, I dunno, seventeen? I was nothing but tricks and cheers. I amazed everypony but it no longer amazed me.” Pinkie looked at Scootaloo for a moment and wondered if she should tell her the rest. The bridge she looked at every passing, the scene in her head every night, that day that mare caught that one joke in passing. She was not sure how to explain that sort of thing to Scootaloo. “I got lonely. Started, um, not doing the right thing! A lot of not-right-things!” she rapidly started narrowing her memories down to the core of it. “I tried to find a fast way to feel better. But it always passed by, just as fast! And one day, I knew I didn’t need to see rainbows or to always feel good. I decided to eat right, wash myself, only meet nice– no, good ponies, a-and I journaled… I saw,” she hesitated, “I saw a very nice and professional pony who knew how to help you with your problems!”
Scotaloo was shocked. “You mean…” she processed, unable to believe she’s saying this, “a therapist?”
“Yes! And they helped me work out my, um, well… the feeling of not being worth anything.” there was a nervous smile.
“You felt sad all the time?”
Scotaloo’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you didn’t want to be alive!”
Cat’s out of the bag! thought Pinkie, “Yes! I had to, no, I have to work everyday just not to slip. I had been in a treatment center for months because I really was going to–... well,--”
“Kill yourself?...”
Pinkie Pie paused. “Scootaloo, I want you to listen to me. You matter. Everypony here matters, at least to me.” she pondered for a moment. “See that party over there? That’s for Bird Keeper. Do you know who he is?”
Scootaloo tilted her head. “The old stallion no pony sees?”
“He’s more than that. He was the pony everypony came to whenever they needed their animals taken care of. I wasn’t even here when he became one of the brightest parts of Ponyville for twenty years before he started burying himself in books. Other than regularly visit the library, ponies started seeing him less and less until they forgot about him all together! So he stays at home all day. Until today, though, since we’re having his one hundred eleventh birthday!”
Scootaloo looked down.
“Hey, you don’t have to feel that way. It’s okay. You just have to try. That’s all I can say…” with a pause, a revelation came to her. “Say, how about we go back to that party and have some cake?”
---[({x})]---
The alarm clock ringed off. Scootaloo slammed it shut and yawned. She pulled herself out of bed, blinked a few times, then made her way to a mirror. The first thing she noticed was her ruffled mane. With an intrigued hum, she grabbed for a brush and started brushing.