//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Dreams of Loyalty // by Professor Coruptus //------------------------------// Dreams of Loyalty Chapter 7 In which Pinkie has a revelation, there is a lot of rhyming, and someone is very sneaky. (Author's Note: Super big thanks to jcel4569 for helping out as an amazing prereader since the last chapter!) Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy sat quietly together in the waiting room of the Ponyville Medical Center. What they were waiting for, none of them knew. Perhaps they were waiting for Applejack to return so they could tell her Dash was going to die in less than three hours. Perhaps they were waiting for Pinkie to come out of the almost comatose state she had entered upon hearing the news. Perhaps they were just waiting for a miracle. Rarity had struggled briefly with herself over waking up Fluttershy, given how badly she had taken Dash’s hospitalization, but the unicorn had needed somepony else there with her. Pinkie had completely locked up after she had heard the nurse’s diagnoses, and almost needed to be dragged out of the hospital room so the nurses could set up equipment they hopped might give Dash more time. The demure pegasus had been surprisingly calm once she heard the news. Perhaps it was due to her element of harmony, or maybe just her natural veterinarian instincts, but upon hearing Dash’s life expectancy she had immediately switched to 'Doctor Fluttershy' mode. Rarity was thankful for change; she just couldn’t handle having to be the strong one any longer. “Do… do you think there’s any chance at all, Fluttershy?” the unicorn asked. The silence in the dim waiting room had become oppressing, and, though she dreaded the answer, she needed to hear the sound of another pony’s voice. “I think there’s always a chance. We just need to believe in our friends. Dash has always been very strong, I just know she’ll hold on until Twilight gets back.” “But there must be something we can do until then?” the frantic seamstress pleaded. “Maybe if we go back to the library we could find something to-“ “I think that if there had been anything at the library Twilight wouldn’t have gone to Canterlot. Um, of course you can go look if you want, but I think the best thing we can do right now is wait here until the nurses finish so we can go in and be with Dash. As long as we’re with her, she’ll be alright.” “How can you say that with such confidence, Fluttershy? Has this happened before?” “Well, I do take care of all the injured animals I find. I’ve pulled lots of hurt bunnies and sparrows over the hump with only a little bit of medicine and a lot of care,” the pink maned pegasus answered soothingly. “Sometimes, just showing that you care is the best thing anypony can do.” There was a pause as Rarity mulled over the veterinarian’s words, and then, “Say that again.” Fluttershy jumped as Pinkie Pie’s voice came from behind her. Turning around, Fluttershy saw the enigma less than an inch away from her face, and staring at her as if she held the power of life and death. “I… I said that sometimes the best thing anypony can do is show that they care.” “Any… pony?” Fluttershy and Rarity could almost see the gears turning inside the earth pony’s head as it worked overtime to unlock the secret of that phrase. Her eyes darted from side to side, her brow furrowed in concentration, and they could almost hear the snaps and clicks of the synapses as thoughts were connected together in ways only Pinkie Pie’s brain could, until… Pinkie’s face shot up, and her hair sprang into large, poofy curls as she grabbed the startled pegasus by the shoulders and screamed, “FLUTTERSHY, YOU’RE A CHICKEN! I mean, GENIUS!” And with that completely nonsensical 'eureka,' the once again pink and fluffy maned mare shot out of the hospital like a bubblegum colored bullet. As she burst out the door, a familiar southern voice cried out, “What in tarnation!” “Applejack! Is that you?” the fashionista exclaimed as she quickly got up and made for the door herself, Fluttershy following close behind. Just outside the door, lying on her back in the middle of the road was a very startled and confused orange earth pony, her Stetson clutched to her head as if she were afraid a tornado might blow it off any second. “Rarity! Wha’ in Equestria was that?” The unicorn reached down to help her “friend” to her feet. “I think,” she answered slowly, looking off in the direction of Pinkie’s dust trail, “we may have just gotten Pinkie Pie back… and perhaps that means we’ll be getting Rainbow Dash back too.” Applejack followed her gaze. “Well, ah don’ reccon ah know what she s’pects ta find in the Everfree Forest, but ah sure hope she knows wha’ she’s doin’.” Rarity smiled as she realized where Pinkie was headed. “I think she does, Applejack, and now I’m sure we’ve still got a chance after all.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie skidded to a halt in front of Zecora’s exotic and out of the way home. Five minutes her flank; she had made that trip in record time. Rapping her hoof on the door like an overzealous woodpecker, the earth pony waited desperately for the zebra to open it. “Oh please be home, oh please be home, oh please be home,” she repeated over and over again as she danced on the tips of her hooves. “A pink pony at my door? This sight is most rare.” The cotton candy maned mare turned at the sound of the voice to see a cloaked figure exiting from the woods, carrying a covered basket atop her back. Flipping back her hood, Ponyville’s most exotic resident smiled warmly at the anxious pony on her door step. “What brings you to my home, my unusual mare? “Zecora!” Pinkie rushed to the zebra and began explaining the situation. Of course, being Pinkie Pie, the lyrical minded pony couldn’t resist doing so in the zebra’s own style of communication. “Zecora, please listen, we’re in need of your aid. Dashie is dying, and I am very afraid. She’s plagued by such nightmares, so evil and cruel, That her life’s now in danger, of this I don’t fool. She’s trapped in her mind, by fiends we can’t reach. Is there any cure that you know, so her sleep she might breach?” Zecora nodded her head and moved into the house. Pinkie followed inside, watching, still as a mouse. She watched as the zebra hung her hood on a stand, and gathered up herbs, rare spices, and… sand? “We will have to work fast, if a life’s on the line, I know of only one spell that that could be ready in time. I must warn you, it’s dangerous, both for her and for you, But if your feelings are as I see them, then I’m sure you’ll pull through.” “For Dash and for me? What do you mean? But if it can save Dashie, then I totally keen!” The zebra lit up the fire beneath her great giant pot, While she worked and explained of the dangers it brought. “It is a mind melding potion, from my ancestral home. For the nightmares in her mind, she must not face alone. You must travel in spirit, to source of her fears, And knowing you, pony, you will leave them in tears.” “So I’ll go into her mind, and kick those bad dreams right out? Well that sounds pretty cool, and your right, I’ll win without doubt. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be indebted forever. Though this rhyming thing’s hard… wow, you must really be clever.” “Focus pink pony, we have little time, Though you get better with practice, when speaking in rhyme. This potion is called, in your native tongue, “Star Crossed Lover’s Slumber,” but not the Hoofspearean one. It is a potion for lovers, to share together their dreams, So that they might be connected, however far they may seem.” “L-lover’s connected?” Pinkie Pie stammered in shock, “But I’m not… We aren’t… Whatever you’ve heard is a crock!” Though it was tricky to see, Pinkie was blushing quite hard, Though the zebra was smiling, as though she had played a trump card. “My pony friend please, you cannot be serious. If you mean to say you don’t love her, then you are completely delirious. It has been clear to me almost from the first, once I meet all of you, That you were completely enamored, with that pony of blue. Have you not longed for her company? Not treasured her touch? If you cannot be true to your heart, then all hope I must crush. To the one who hides from her heart, this potion is poisonous. Drink it like this, and you’ll find death waiting most ravenous.” The potion was lethal if drunk by those who loved not? That kind of plot twist came only in books Rarity bought! Pinkie looked at the cauldron as its contents swirled ‘round. Then her gaze fell to her hooves, and she pawed at the ground. “I guess… I might… like her…” the earth pony said. The potion hissed briefly, and then turned a pale red. The zebra frowned down at her bubbling brew. If this mare could not be honest, she knew not what to do. “Why must you deny it, my pink pony friend? If you cannot speak your heart, then of Dash this is the end. I have watched many ponies, secretly from afar, So that I might better fit in, and your town I not mar. Please, forgive me my spying, but your customs are strange, Though there is one thing I see, no location can change. The quite glances of love, that you pony folk share. And I have seen such looks shared between you and that mare.” Pinkie was speechless, rooted right to the spot. The game was now up, whether she liked it to or not. Bowing her head, she took in a deep sigh. Then she spoke, her voice sullen, as if ready to cry. “You’re right. I do love her, with all of my heart. She means so much to me, I… I don’t know where to start.” Though the admission was muddled, it was more then was needed, For the brew suddenly frothed, sparked, then receded. The two equines watched the liquid smoke and reduce, Till just a small portion was left, only enough for one use. “Then your mind, my good pony, please put at rest. This reaction comes only, when true love is confessed. Your feelings are right, though your mind is unsure. But there is no cause for doubt, of this I can assure.” Pinkie stared at the zebra as she worked without tarry, But though she wished to believe, her heart was still wary. “But she doesn’t love me, not in the way I feel for her. I’m just her best friend, nothing more… I am sure… She’s stuck by me through it all, even if I was my worst, But… Gah! All this rhyming’s so hard! I can’t be angsty in verse!” The zebra smiled in good humor as the poor pony conceded. She had rhymed well, for a beginner, but more practice was needed. “The potion’s almost complete, so you need no longer speak. But I must give one final warning, else your future look bleak. For just as you have done now, she must too realize, that she loves you in kind, or else one of you… dies.” “Now hold on a minute!” Pinkie Pie cried, aghast. “You mean if she doesn’t love me, then she still will not last?” “While it’s true that this potion, is a dangerous brew, I think I can promise, that she loves you too.” Pinkie Pie stared at her blankly. This was too much for her brain. But her options were thin, and she had no time to refrain. The zebra dipped into her cauldron, a small transparent vial, She filled it, then corked it, and let it cool for a while. “In my home country, to love but not act, Is considered by all, the most distasteful of tact. Remember always my friend; life is short for us folk, And in matters of love, you may as well go for broke.” Pinkie heard and took strength from the sage zebra’s advice. She knew she could do this, and would not get this chance twice. “Now, take this cooled vial back home to your mare, Give her three drops, and three for you, if you dare. Lay down and be ready, for you will fast fall asleep. There will you fight your mare’s demons, so her life she may keep.” Pinkie picked up the vial, on which all her hopes lay, Then looked back at the zebra as though trying to say, “Thank you Zecora. For all you’ve done for us today. I swear to Celestia, this… I cannot fully repay.” The black and white equine smiled back in turn, Then she noticed the time, and began quickly to spurn, “You must go, hurry, be quick! You must now make great haste! The sky is starting to darken; you have no time to waste!” Seeing that the shadow’s outside we beginning to become longer then they should have been, even by Everfree standards, Pinkie gasped and ran out the door, the sealed vial containing the precious concoction held carefully in her mouth. Zecora smiled fondly as she watched the pony race back to Ponnyville. Though many might have said it was ill advised to the mare to give the pony such a dangerous potion, but she felt certain she had done the right thing. She had felt a growing disturbance in her meditations of late, and was not to difficult the surmise that that it was the pegasus’s grievous nightmares that had cause the spiritual upset. As she put away her ingredients, taking stock of which ones she would have to replace, she thought back to the event she had witnessed that made her so sure she was right about the two mares' feelings for one another. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It had been late in evening on the day she had received her official citizenship of Ponyville from the mayor. Deciding to check up on little Applebloom and perhaps share her good news, Zecora had stopped by Sweet Apple Acres of her way back from town. As she approached the farm house she noted that somepony else had been celebrating there earlier, judging from streamers spreading out from the barn door and the lingering smell of cake and punch. Not wanting to disturb, or frighten, any party goers that might still be inside, she elected instead to travel around and behind the barn rather than cross in front of it. It was perhaps rude, but she always avoided being seen if she could help it. It was a habit that had been taught to all amongst her tribe at a very young age and one which had saved her life one more than a few occasions while living in the Everfree Forest. While she crept quietly in the shadows around the barn, her sensitive hearing picked up two voices speaking in hushed tones behind the building. As she got closer, she recalled them as belonging to two of the ponies who had become infected by poison joke and then broken into her home some months previous. “I still can’t believe you had to see me like that, Dashie… I don’t know what came over me I just… I couldn’t handle you guys not wanting to be my friends anymore.” “Hey, don’t worry, Pinks. I mean, we all crack up a little sometimes. You should have seen me right before the Best Young Flyer’s Competition!” “Oh? Were you talking to rocks and vegetables?” “Well… no. Okay, so you kind of took things to a whole n'other level. But hey, you always go all out on everything; that’s something to be proud of, right?” “Yeah, everything except believing in my friends…” There was the sound of wings unfurling and then the second voice continued in almost a whisper. “Listen to me, when we first met, I thought you were just some totally annoying, random, weirdo who’d only ruin my reputation if I hung out with her. “ “…Dash, have you been taking lessons in tact from A. J. again?” “But as I got to know you,” the second voice continued, “I started to see the real you. You’re amazing Pinkie Pie! You can do things I’ve never even heard of anypony ever doing before! I mean, you can predict the future with your weird twitches, you can create all sorts of crazy contraptions to do anything you want, you can even out race me! Me, the fastest flyer in Equestira! I don’t know how you do it Pinkie, but you have to be like, the best pony ever!” “…better then Twilight?” “Psh, way. No offence to the egghead of course.” “Of course.” “What I’m trying to say, Pinkie, is that you’re… special. Really special! To me, to Twilight, to Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Spike, Gummy, to all of us! So I don’t ever want you to think that we’d ever not want to be friends with you again, cause that is just totally not gonna happen.” Zecora frowned as she tried to work out what the voice had just said. And they she spoke strangely. “…Thanks Dashie. That means a lot to me, especially coming from you.” “Wha’da ya mean? “ “Well, it was your Sonic Rainboom that made me the Pinkie Pie I am today! I know it affected all of our friends but-“ “Yeah, that was kind of weird. Awesome, but weird.” “Like me?” There was sudden spout of laughter between the two. “Yeah,” the second voice laughed. “Exactly like you.” Once they’d finished their giggles the first voice continued. “Anyway, I know it helped all of our friends discover their special talents, but for me, it was like I was discovering my life.” “Wow, Pinkie… I don’t-“ “Let me finish. I wouldn’t be Pinkie Pie at all without you, just boring old Pinkamina Pie, and… I like being Pinkie Pie a lot better.” Zecora’s curiosity finally got the better of her and she peeked her head around the side of the barn. On a nearby hill, two ponies sat silhouetted against the low moon and the star lit sky. One a was a very curly maned earth pony, the other was a pegasus who’s rainbow patterned mane and tail were visible even in the dim light. The pegasus had her wing around the earth mare, who was leaning down to rest her head on the pegasus’s shoulder. “I like Pinkie Pie better too... but I’ll take you anyway I can get.” “Really?” “Really.” “Thanks Dash. You’re… you’re the best friend a pony could ask for.” “…You too Pinks, and happy birthday.”