Not having to throw a party was evidently too much to hope for. So there Fluttershy was, standing right in front of me. Ruining my day.
“You were going to help me throw a…” Fluttershy said, and hesitated. “Superiffic Breakfast Fun Party for my animals. Are you sure you’re okay? You seem…” she trailed off uncertainly.
“Super-duper!” I said excitedly, and beamed a smile that probably exposed every single one of my teeth. “Just give me some time to get all my funeriffic party stuff!” The smile stayed on my face until the door was securely shut. It slid off pretty quickly after that. A party. A “Superiffic Breakfast Fun” party, no less. “I’ve never even been to a party!” I despaired silently. I slumped against the closet. Huh.
PINKAMENA DIANE PIE’S CLOSET OF REALLY AWESOME PARTY SUPPLIES
How did I not notice that the day before?
I grabbed a bag of balloons and decided that would do it. I turned towards the kitchen- maybe I could find some sort of breakfast for Fluttershy’s party—but then glanced at the door again. Pinkamena Diane Pie.
It fit her. It didn’t fit me. I don’t think it ever will.
In any case, I hurried out to follow Fluttershy. I had no idea where I should go for this party, and it wouldn’t look good to have to ask her where it was. She noticed the sound of me bouncing towards her, and turned around, only to look a bit confused. What now?
“Is there a problem?” I asked sweetly.
“No, of course not, but…”
“But?”
“You always throw the best parties, Pinkie, but I, uh, sort of expected you to bring more supplies than a bag of balloons.”
Oh. Apparently there’s more to parties than balloons. Hmm. I could have played it off as having been tired and absentminded, but that would have been entirely too logical. “Why would we need anything more than balloons?” I said with enthusiasm. “Balloons are fun!”
Fluttershy didn’t look too sure about this, but she evidently decided to defer to my—well, Pinkie’s—expertise and didn’t object. So far, so good, but she would still probably expect me to pull a fun party off with just balloons. That wouldn’t go well.
“What else would you like me to bring to the party?” I said, although in a tone that suggested that we didn’t really need anything else.
“Your parties are always lovely, Pinkie. I’m sure…” Fluttershy started, then thought better of it. “On the other hoof, it’d be nice if we could have games and dancing and… well, not ice cream and punch, since it’s breakfast, but—“
“Got it!” I said eagerly. “Be right back with you!”
I ran back to the closet, still aware of the necessity of not losing track of Fluttershy. Hmm. Games. There was a bucket on a shelf labeled 'apple bobbing,' but in the absence of any apples, I opted to take a poster marked 'Pin the tail on the pony'. I’d spent enough time on this already, and I ran out the door towards Fluttershy. Or at least I would have, if it weren’t for the door slamming hard into something in front of it. I left it slightly ajar and walked cautiously outside. The purple unicorn from earlier was, improbably, slammed flat against the door.
“Are you okay?” I asked, although sort of hoping she wasn’t. She groaned, but managed to extricate herself without any apparent injury. “What happened to ‘ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch’?” she asked, exasperated. “Never mind, doesn’t matter," she said in a clipped sort of way. “We need to block off the Mirror Pool.”
“What? Why?” I said, confused. In my defense, I was still trying to figure out what had happened between her and the door.
“If I’m right, the duplicating effect might not be confined to ponies. If, say, Discord got to the pool somehow, there could be hundreds of him all over Equestria! You need to lead me to the Mirror Pool.”
A bit taken aback, I said “Uh… can it wait? I’m sort of… working on a party thing with Fluttershy.”
“Pinkie Pie, of course it can’t wait! We’re going to go get Big Mac and close off that Pool as soon as we can. Fluttershy will just have to wait.”
“Okay!” I shouted enthusiastically, suddenly aware that I hadn’t been sounding anything like Pinkie during this conversation. Besides, anything to get out of the “Superiffic Breakfast Fun” party.
---
Several weeks later
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Rainbow Dash asked disbelievingly.
“I mean she’s gone. No one’s seen her since yesterday,” Twilight Sparkle responded.
“The Cakes?” Fluttershy said quietly.
“Ditto,” said Applejack. “I went to find out if they’ve seen her.”
“And?”
“Haven’t seen Pinkie, but they found this in her room,” Applejack said, retrieving an envelope. “It’s addressed to all of us.”
---
To be completely honest, Derpy, I don’t think you’ll ever read this. I left Ponyville last night on the train to Manehatten. I don’t know much about it other than it’s far away from Ponyville and there are a lot of ponies there. It seems like a good place to get lost in the crowd.
So add this to the list of things you have to forgive me for. You might never know why this happened to you. I’m so sorry.
You know, I had intended to hold out until you woke up, at least. That’s not to say that it’s easy being Pinkie Pie. I’m reminded of the first time I tried to host a party. Rarity finally insisted that I help her put together a “fashion soiree” despite my claims of… what was it that time? Hay fever, I think. Anyways, it was a complete disaster. I thought Rarity was going to kill me.
“What on earth were you thinking?! Bobbing for apples at what was supposed to be a sophisticated event like this?! I’m fortunate they didn’t walk out on the spot! After that dreadful party, nopony will ever respect me again! I’m ruined! And that music!” and so on.
I didn’t get much better at it, which brings me to why I had to leave, I guess. Not being able to throw a good party was one thing. But my cutie mark is disappearing. So I had to leave. I just…
You know, I came to see you in the hospital before I left. You looked so beau
I'm not gonna do this right now. I'm ripping this page out of the notebook.
---
“Open it already!” Rainbow Dash cried.
“Hold on, sugarcube, I’m workin’ on it,” said Applejack patiently.
Dear friends,
I’m so sorry about this, but I’ve felt for a while now that I have to get away. It has nothing to do with you; this is just something I have to do. I’m leaving, indefinitely. Please don’t try to follow me, and take care of Gummy for me.
-Pinkie Pie
---
It was all lies. Well, most of it. I did want them to take care of the alligator, and I was leaving.
---
Twilight Sparkle slumped at her desk, despondent. It was finally getting through to her. Oh, sure, she had understood that Pinkie was gone, intellectually, but it was that first terrible day of complete absence that had broken through the layers of denial to reveal the one solid truth about the situation: Pinkie had left them. Pinkie had left her. Still, she couldn't help but smile when her friends came in.
"Oh, hi girls. What's going on?" she said.
Rainbow Dash started talking excitedly. "Twilight, we think we have an idea about why Pinkie left! Did you—"
"Idea is maybe a bit much," interrupted Rarity. "But surely you noticed that Pinkie started acting odd after that incident with the duplicates?"
"You think that might be connected to why she left?" Twilight said, curious. Rarity and Rainbow Dash nodded.
"Speakin' of which, what have you learned about that Mirror Pool, Twi?" Applejack said.
"This book does an adequate job of explaining what the Mirror Pool does, but it doesn't really explain how."
"Magic," Dash stated flatly.
"Well yes, obviously, Rainbow," Twilight said, a bit annoyed. "But it's not the sort of magic I can do."
"What do you mean?" asked Rarity.
"Umm. There are a number of spells that duplicate things, but none of them really work on living things."
"Why not?" asked Fluttershy, causing Twilight to cringe a little bit.
"They, uh... don't come out right, Fluttershy," Twilight said carefully.
"Oh?"
"There's..." Twilight tried to respond, but putting it in a way that wouldn't upset the pegasus too badly. "Fluttershy, with the duplicate animals, there wasn't really anything going on. All the lights on, nopony home."
Fluttershy seemed placated for the time being with that response. Please don't let her think through that too quickly, Twilight silently pleaded.
"That's basically what I figured the duplicates were: just sort of... Pinkie-shaped shells," Twilight continued. "But now, I'm not so sure."
"Are you kidding?" Rainbow Dash said disbelievingly. "Do you remember what they did to the town? Or to Derpy? Pinkie would never have done that!"
Twilight suddenly looked very tired. "I don't have all the answers, Rainbow. It just seems less likely that our Pinkie would leave us than that we got the wrong one."
The implications of what she had just said didn't immediately register on Twilight, but Rainbow was somewhat quicker to the punch. Still, she couldn't do much more than pose those five terrible words as a question.
"We got the wrong one?" Rainbow Dash said, in a voice suddenly devoid of certainty. It made sense, even if it was unthinkable. “Then where’s Pinkie Pie?” she added in a sort of broken desperation.
These three words were difficult for Twilight to say at any other time: under these circumstances, it was almost impossible.
“I don’t know.”