Oh… that’s a tough question.
I never thought I couldn’t leave, if that’s what you mean. I know Spike seems very scary, even if Kimono says he’s trapped inside the mountain. But I think that’s why I stayed, more than anything? It’s not that I was afraid, or because he forced me to, but because there was nothing he could really do at all. The poor boy had nowhere to go, and no one but me to talk to him.
Can you even imagine, Minty? Living in the same place, day in and day out, without any friends to speak to? And… oh! Did I say something wrong? No? Well, I’m sorry, whatever it was, really.
Did you hear what he said about me leaving? It’s fine, so long as I don’t do it selfishly. Well, I guess that’s where I got stuck. Ponyville doesn’t really need a princess, does it? You—we—you all get along fine without one, really truly. Pinkie’s a natural leader, and Kimono, you’re so wise, and all I do is garden, and plenty of other ponies do that! But Spike… Spike needed me, to keep him company. If I was strong enough to give myself to him, instead of living for myself, which is really what staying in Ponyville would have meant… well, wasn’t that reason enough?
I’m sorry, I don’t know if I’m making any sense! Maybe it doesn’t really make sense to me either. You know, at first being Ponyville’s First Princess sounded so nice! Spike meant nothing but the best by giving me the job, and all you girls were so happy for me when you heard the news, and I was happy too! I’d never really felt special before, and suddenly everypony was treating me so wonderfully. I… what? Oh, that’s very sweet of you, Minty. But it’s all right, you can be honest… I didn’t need to be special to be happy.
But then Kimono found her story about Princess Silver Swirl and the others, and how much good they did for Equestria, and how powerful they were. How was I supposed to measure up to that? They trapped Spike in the mountain for a thousand years… if I really wanted to be a really good and proper Princess, I needed to let him out somehow, right? Spike had his princess book, and the three of us—Kimono too, I mean—started studying it. Princesses Don’t Dig In The Dirt, and Princesses Always Floss Their Teeth, and Princesses Are Always Generous, and so on and on.
So that’s a pretty complicated answer, isn’t it? There was more good for me to do here than in my silly little flowerbeds. And if I could be proper enough, maybe I could do a whole lot of good. And those instructions for being proper also were instructing me not to go to Ponyville, unless I had to for Princessy reasons, of course. All those ideas just kept growing and growing, taking root all over my head, until today and I couldn’t even leave unless Spike said it was okay first! I’m sorry, Minty, but I think your poor monarch is really a very silly pony at heart. I just wish I knew what I could do to help with this King Sombra problem.
No, no, of course I don’t want to go back into that cave. I mean, I’ll go back when this is all over, to visit! Hopefully not to start living there again… even after all that stuff I said, I really wasn’t very happy living there. And I have the princess book, and Rarity, to help me figure out how to keep improving myself, but out in the world, where I belong! Like I said, Minty, all those thoughts keeping me there were like a big thick plant growing everywhere in my head. There’s a name for that kind of plant: a weed. Oh, I hate to say that awful word! And there’s only one good way to get rid of, oh, weeds, and that’s to dig them up, but like I said, Princesses Don’t Dig In The Dirt. That’s what you did, Minty. You pulled out the weed that was choking me, and now I can grow freely again, and oh, I hope I’m a really beautiful flower, don’t you?
To Minty’s surprise—and relief—they were not returning to Ponyville the same way they’d come. Spike had remembered a secret passage that led to somewhere around the base of the mountain, and had (somewhat peevishly) insisted that a really proper Princess-rescuing mission should really make use of a secret passage if there was already one to be had. She and Wysteria were both still grateful to Spike for letting her go, and Kimono and Rarity felt pretty neutral about it, so they all agreed to take the secret passage and see how it treated them.
The secret opened into the very back of Spike’s cavern, opposite from the staircase they’d taken to get there, but Minty felt that calling it a ‘passage’ was something of a stretch. Really it was more of a long, semi-convenient hole in the stones: barely pony-sized at all, mostly vertical, and totally lacking in stairs or other features that would appear to have been designed. Curiously, she noticed in the light from Rarity’s horn, the rock surface was all stained with soot. Could this passage have been some kind of chimney? But from what? What kind of crazy pony would keep a fireplace underground, or even live underground in the first place? Heh, no offense to Wysteria, of course! She’d had her reasons… although, Minty supposed, anypony else could have had their own reasons as well.
Chimney or not, it was an unpleasant trip, and Wysteria almost dropped her princess book several times. They all had to stand on their hind legs most of the time, carefully lowering themselves downwards crag over crag. It was steeper than the mountain’s face, but the irregular rocks made it almost like climbing down more stairs, instead of walking down a slope and trying desperately not to slip and slide. If Minty tripped here, she might and did bash her back on the side of the passage, but she probably wouldn’t go falling forever like on the outside of the mountain. Overall she guessed it was an improvement, but neither were great options, and she was glad Wysteria had decided to stop living here so she wouldn’t have to worry about visiting this place ever again.
Not that she’d ever visited it before, of course. Wysteria was right—they had all been happy for her in Ponyville! A simple gardener becoming royalty was such an awesome idea, and she’d been happy too, and they’d all smiled and treated her nicely because they all liked treating each other nicely anyway. Hmmph, for the most part. Princess Wysteria was just a fun excuse to go really all out, pull out all nine yards and go the whole stops! And then… what had gone wrong?
Nothing, she guessed. Or, at least, there wasn’t any time when anything specific had gone wrong. It was way more awful and gradual than that. The less they’d seen Wysteria, the more she’d felt like Princess Wysteria, so much more important than them. If they didn’t see her, it must have been that she was busy doing important royalty things, protecting Ponyville from… something. If there was ever a disagreement, there was the question of whether it was really important enough to bother Her Royal Highness Princess Wysteria about, and the answer was always no. So Ponyville had gone on living exactly like it always had—except without Wysteria to live there with them—and Minty, in the three months after the horrible Winter Wishes Festival accident, had never once thought to talk to her about it. Her problems were normal non-royalty problems, and Princess Wysteria was too busy doing whatever it was she did, which was very very important.
In reality, it turned out, what Wysteria’d been doing was a bunch of sitting around sadly and keeping a weird old dragon company. But she’d done that because she thought it was important, so gosh, maybe they hadn’t been so wrong after all? Hmm! Not the protecting Ponyville from unknown enemies part, of course, but the important royal duties part? If nothing else, how Wysteria had spent her time as royalty said a lot about who she was. Minty rather suspected that if she’d been made Princess of Ponyville, she’d have ‘buggered it all for a lark,’ as Puzzlemint would put it. Why spend all her time moping up in a mountain, when she could go roller-skating instead?
Although she guessed mountain-moping wasn’t a built-in part of princessitude. It sounded like Rarity’s parents were in charge of Unicornia, so she’d probably gotten to be a princess through them instead of by picking a thousand-year-old flower. So maybe a Princess Minty could still get away with roller-skating, except she’d be able to say a whole day was devoted to roller-skating and everyone in Ponyville would have to participate, and there’d be a roller-skate parade, and candy, and socks, and green streamers, and green balloons, and yeah she’d probably get called out for abuse of power preeeeeeeeetty quickly. Heheh, oh well. But there had to be some kind of middle ground!
“Hey Rarity!” she said. “What’s it like being a princess? Do you have to sit in a cave all the time, or do you get to throw cool parties?”
“Oh, it’s awesome!” said Rarity. Kimono began to say something about trying not to trigger unhappy memories, but Rarity kept on going. “I have loads of fun! Everypony knows I’m super special, so I get to do whatever I want!”
Minty frowned. That… didn’t really sound any different from life in Ponyville? Sure, Sweetberry had her Sweet Shoppe to take care of, but if she wanted to, there was nothing stopping her for closing it for the day and going fishing. And Minty couldn’t think of the last time she’d followed anypony’s drummer but her own. But if all the unicorns were supposed to be serious ponies who ran Equestria’s weather, maybe they had a really different society? She squeaked at the sudden mental image of countless unicorns strapped down to tables, forced cruelly to control the weather but not allowed to do anything else with their lives. Rarity seemed nice enough, but she was really only a filly…
“So, uh…” Minty floundered for a careful way to ask her question, and almost slipped and fell onto a sharp point in the rocky wall. “Is that… weird? Doing whatever you want?”
“Nah! Everyone in Unicornia does that. But I’m the princes, so I’m too special to ever get in trouble, no matter how much I goof off.”
Wysteria caught Minty’s worried eye in the flickering horn light. “Do most unicorns get in trouble for goofing off?” she asked, softly.
Rarity blew air out between her teeth and giggled. “Just for goofing up. But, uh, Cheerilee says that I whenever I goof off, it turns into goofing up! Sometimes I don’t really listen to her, and then I get some magic wrong and there’s a big puff of smoke, and she scowls, but I know she loves me. Everyone loves me!”
“Oh,” said Wysteria. Minty could just see her chewing on her lip. “Um, my book says that Princesses Never Make Mistakes. Do you not have that rule in Unicornia?”
“I dunno.” Rarity jumped downward onto another rocky ‘step,’ moving her light too far away for Minty to see Wysteria anymore. They quickened their descent after her—this wasn’t a very nice place to get separated in. “I’m not really into rules,” Rarity was saying. “Except sometimes I make Cheerilee teach me a rule so I can break it! Does that count?”
Wysteria laughed. “I’m sure I don’t know,” she said. “But I can tell you and Minty will be great friends. She goofs up all the time, and nopony gets mad at her either.”
Minty coughed violently, but managed to turn it into a giggle fit. “Eheh, wow, yes, heh, me, yeah! Wacky Minty, that’s right! …what are you talking about?”
“Oh, you know!” Wysteria was visible again, and she looked quite amused. “You’re always bringing amusement to Ponyville, Minty. Remember when we were putting together Pinkie’s birthday surprise?”
Minty felt her ears go flat against the sides of her head. That had been a goof up, all right. She’d misread Razzaroo’s birthday book and thought Pinkie Pie’s birthday was the day before it actually was, and everyone in Ponyville had gotten together to paint the town pink a day early. But that wasn’t really an amusement thing, so what was Wysteria talking about? Unless… oh. Minty’s cheeks erupted into scarlet. “You mean when I kissed Sparkleworks.”
Rarity stopped short, and Kimono bumped into her. They both flailed for a moment, but neither ended up falling. Recovered, Rarity turned up toward Minty, face literally aglow. “You’ve got a boyfriend!” she cried. “You didn’t tell me! Are you getting married? When? Can I be the priest? Cheerilee says I’m the best at marriages, and I only set the bridal vows on fire one time! What’s he like? Does he have a nice house?”
Minty tried very hard to creep into a crevice in the rocks and disappear. Unfortunately it was at least five times smaller than she was. “I’m not marrying Sparkleworks!” she said instead, as Wysteria and Kimono started to laugh.
“Aww.” Rarity’s face looked genuinely unhappy. “Why not? Are you afraid of commitment?”
“No, I mean yes, I mean… Sparkleworks isn’t even a boy!”
“Oh.” Rarity stared up at her, clearly confused. “But you, you’re… and she… but…” Her eyes went wide. “Ewwww!!!”
Minty glared at Wysteria, who was still laughing, though maybe hopefully now at Rarity instead of her. “Gosh, really, it was an accident! I was turning around, and my lips were on my face, and she had lips too, and we crashed. You’re saying none of you’ve ever kissed anyone by mistake?” Nopony said anything. “Oh, come on! Really?” Still nothing. “Not even a little?”
Wysteria raised a cautious hoof. “I, uh, might have kissed one of my flowers once? And, oh, for what it’s worth, I thought it was a very nice kiss. There were pink flowers and glitter in the air all around you two.”
“Oh, eheh, yeah, I guess.” Minty had to smile at that one. Of course, there was pretty much always glitter in the air when you crashed into Sparkleworks—she carried it around as often as not. And the flowers had been Wysteria’s fault for a change. But she and Sparkleworks were just friends, and not even very close ones, even if she did hang out with Sunny Daze. She said as much, and Kimono and Wysteria laughed again, and Rarity looked less freaked out.
“Actually,” said Wysteria after calming down, “I was talking about the paint can.”
“Ohhhhh!” Minty giggled, and they all resumed their slow trek down the secret passage. “Heheh, that was so weird! I was painting a sign, and everypony was laughing, and the next thing I knew I’d fallen in a big bucket of pink paint!”
Rarity gasped. “Wow! I’ve never fallen in a paint bucket before! Was it fun?”
“Uh… mostly!”
“Awesome!” Rarity’s laughter was innocent and infectious, and Minty joined in, happy to move on past talking about the kiss. Not that Sparkleworks had tasted bad—though she had nothing on mint ice cream, heheh—but still, golly, awkward! “I’ve never fallen into paint,” said Rarity. “Oh, but I did wrap myself up in lights last year! It took a whole bunch of unicorns to get me out, and we were nearly late for the Rainbow Lights Party too!”
“Oh my!” Kimono put a hoof to her mouth in surprise, and Minty and Wysteria shared a quiet laugh. Minty could just imagine how excited Kimono must be to hear about Unicornia, after her years of wistful stories about the unicorns of old. “Is that one of your unicorn holidays?”
“Yeah, you don’t have it?” Kimono shook her head. “Whoah, you’re missing out. The Rainbow Lights Party is only the most spectacular night ever! All Unicornia gets covered in lights, and I bet we could be seen from space! We do it every year the night before the first rainbow, so... well, we’d be doing it tonight, if King Sombra hadn’t shown up. But we’re gonna kick his butt, right? Two princesses, and a hero, and… uh, what’s your deal again?”
“My deal?” asked Kimono, as Minty ran her tongue nervously across her teeth. “Ah, young one, I’m no adventurer. Books call to me far more than the open road. But please, tell me more about your holidays?”
“Well… all right.” Rarity shook herself and skipped carelessly downwards. “I guess we can make do with three. Let’s see, okay. There’s the Spring Festival, that one’s totally old. There’s lots of dancing and flowers and stuff. It’s even older than Hearts and Hooves Day, Cheerilee says, but I mean, who really knows at this point?”
“Oh… hold on,” said Wysteria. “Did you say Hearts and Hooves Day, Rarity?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh, we have that one too!” She sighed happily and just missed hitting her head on a big flat stone. “Everypony gives each other presents, to signify how important our friendships are. I gave Daisyjo and Desert Rose flowers! Of course, they gave me flowers too…”
Minty nudged her. “Ooh, hey, don’t forget the photos! Everypony gets their photos taken and put in a big box in the castle, so we can see how much we’ve grown up since last year! Gosh, heheh, Rainbow Dash refuses to look. She says she—“ Minty preened herself and put on her best Rainbow Dash impression “—cannot look at photos of those hideous old hairdos, darling!” She laughed, and Wysteria and Kimono joined in. “Is it the same in Unicornia?”
“No.” Rarity sounded distant. “We, uh, don’t do any of that. Or anything. It’s just a day where everyone sits around and is kinda sad. Cheerilee says that Hearts and Hooves Day is about remembering how we unicorns got split off from the rest of Equestria, except nopony actually remembers, so we just act unhappy instead. When I rule Unicornia, I’m gonna kick it right out of the calendar!” She kicked hard at the rock wall, and Minty winced empathetically. “…hey, books pony,” she continued. “Do you know what happened way back then?”
Kimono ducked her head, and Minty thought she sounded embarrassed, like not knowing something from a couple thousand years ago was something to be ashamed of. “I’m afraid not. No one still remembers what happened to split the ponies apart into our separate tribes… this is the first I’ve even heard of Hearts and Hooves Day being connected. As Princess Wysteria and Minty said, in our village it has become purely a day of celebration.”
“Aww, that sucks. Hey, I… whoah!”
Rarity, then Kimono, then Wysteria, then finally Minty stepped out of the long and cramped secret passageway and onto a wide plateau of crumbly blue rock. Minty wandered few feet away from the passageway, to where the rocky platform ended, and stuck her head down. There was nothing but blackness below. She wasn’t remotely sure how high up they were, relative to Ponyville, but the immense black pit in front of her felt like it went down even farther than that. She grabbed a loose bit of rock and tossed it down; there was no sound.
“Oh, Minty, look at this!” Wysteria sounded delighted. “Sparkleworks would love this place!”
“Huh?” Minty turned around and gasped. The wall from which they’d come wasn’t the same blue or gray stone as everything else. It was reflective instead of dull, smooth instead of bumpy, and brilliantly shiny under Rarity’s enduring magic light. Individual columns broke off from the wall at all angles, even descending from above, and always ended in sharp points. Minty thought back to certain decorations in the Petal Parlor and made the connection. “Crystals?”
“Crystals,” said Kimono. “We seem to have stumbled into an underground grotto of crystals. I wonder if it’s natural, and how far it extends.”
Rarity bounced up and down, sending her light all over. “Let’s find out!”
It extended for forever. One time Minty had agreed to help Desert Rose prepare her gardens for the Spring Parade—Desert Rose asked if she could help out a bit, and Minty explained that she liked candy over vegetables, but Dezzy reminded her that vegetables were often green, and Minty had quickly gotten on board—and one way or another she had ended up with potato-peeling duty. That would have been fine, if only the door to the potato room hadn’t blown shut from the wind and locked itself, leaving Minty in the dark for hours with nothing to do but peel, peel, peel, peel, peel. Desert Rose had been really sorry, of course, but she’d still had nightmares for days of living in a world of potatoes and nothing but potatoes. The point was, this new place they’d found themselves in was a lot like that, as long as you took out all the potatoes and replaced them with crystals.
At least crystals were shiny. Potatoes? Not so much.
Crystals grew out of the floor, poking their sharp ends into the musty air at odd angles. Crystals hung from the ceiling above, to the point that Minty wasn’t sure there was any ceiling that wasn’t crystals. Crystals stood by themselves or in clusters, lay in fragments underhoof, and dotted the walls. Rarity’s light bounced off of flat crystal faces to reveal more crystals, and from there yet more crystals, until it finally died out in the distance. Minty was bored silly.
As for Kimono’s other question, it was pretty clear that other ponies had been there before them, though that didn’t mean the crystals themselves hadn’t shown up all on their own. From time to time they came across wooden crates, labeled with a light green “IC” logo and often full of strange tools. Other crates held what had probably once been food, but most definitely wasn’t food anymore, and hadn’t been for a really long time. Kimono mentioned wondering if they could find a map of the shining caverns as well, but there was no map to be found, or at least none that had survived however long it took to turn food into definite not-food. It certainly didn’t look like anypony else had been there recently, and Minty hoped they didn’t run into any, uh, remains, especially not with little Rarity along.
After what felt like hours of getting totally lost, they managed to find a large mine cart, easily wide enough to sit all four of them, though Rarity snorted and said it didn’t compare at all to her crystal carriage back in Unicornia, which was much bigger, and could fly, and she was bored and wanted to go home. The mine cart rested at the top of a long track of rails that spiraled down into the darkness below them, and felt sturdy enough when Minty tried kicking it. There was some argument, but eventually they all agreed that wherever the cart track went, it had to go somewhere, and by intentional design, no less, and it wasn’t as if they had any better plans for how to get out of these caverns. The four of them clambered into the cart, and with a little push from Rarity’s surprisingly powerful magic, they rolled off into the unknown at a terrifying clip.
“What did you do this time, Minty?”
“Mmmmfrlarrflrluhhnmmmmfffffhuh?”
Minty rolled over and blinked the sleep from her eyes. She was not in her house. She wasn’t sure she was in a house at all, actually—there were way too many pillars and ceremonial windows for that. Also the bed was too big and fancy, and there weren’t any socks around. So yeah, not her house. “Where am I?” she asked, having regained control of language.
“Celebration Castle, in the bedchamber. That looks like Kimono over there… I haven’t checked the rest of the room yet. What’s going on, Minty?”
“I dunno, sleeping, I guess?” Minty yawned hugely. Kimono? Oh, right, she remembered hanging out with Kimono. There’d been a princess… no, two princesses, one of them a little filly, and one of them their very own Princess Wysteria. And the filly, she’d had a horn on her head, hadn’t she? Wait, but what was going on now? Minty blinked. “Where are you? Heheh, who am I even talking to?”
A sigh. “I’m right behind you, Minty. Just roll over again.”
Minty rolled over again. “Ooh, gosharoonie, Pinkie Pie! Hi!”
“Hi,” said Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie didn’t look happy, so Minty guessed she must have done something wrong. “I dunno why I keep asking you questions, since you’re not answering me, but what are you doing here?”
Minty yawned again and stretched both forehooves out above her. Pinkie Pie carefully backed away an inch or two. “Hmmm… there was a mountain,” she said, and scratched her chin. The story was gradually coming back to her. “Uh, we went up the mountain to find Wysteria, right! Heh, and there she was, right where we were looking for her. Then we came back down, but inside the mountain, see, we found this big mine cart, and it took us to another mine cart, and some stairs, and another mine cart, and so on, heh, and so on, so, on, so, and then finally there was this big door and we opened it and we were here in the castle!” She yawned a third time and smiled happily at her best friend. “I think we came out behind this big tapestry thingy in the pantry! Kimono said it was a secret passage. Gee, did you know the castle had secret passages?”
Pinkie Pie sat slowly down beside her, taking care not to rest her hooves on the fancy castle pillows. “Not really? Look, Minty, while you were on top of or inside of this mountain… you didn’t break anything, did you? Maybe something that looked incredibly magical?”
“Uh, no? Not that I noticed!” Minty started wriggling out of the covers. They were really comfy, but Pinkie Pie definitely looked unhappy, so she had better act serious instead of lying around in bed all day. “Why? Did you lose something?”
Pinkie Pie pointed out the nearest window. “Does the sun look a bit high in the sky for morning to you?”
Minty squinted. “Oh, yeah, a little! Heheh, we must have slept a while, huh? Gee, but let me tell you, we had one humdinger of a day yesterday, with the mine carts, and the dragon, ooh, and I fell in the river, did I tell you that? Um, say, you haven’t seen Seaspray lately, have you? She isn’t with you, is she? Tell me she’s not with you.”
“Minty!”
“…yeah?”
Pinkie Pie flattened her forehead against one hoof. “Minty… the sun’s not way up there because you slept in an hour or two! It never went down yesterday. Okay? We waited all night and the sun didn’t even move. Nopony knows if time’s stopped or what happened.”
Minty’s eyes went wide, and she suddenly remembered part of Rarity’s story about where she’d come from. If her parents were in charge of moving the sun and moon, even though that sounded totally weird, if they’d been captured by that King Sombra guy, then no wonder the sun had gone haywire! Heheh, haywire, she’d have to keep that one. So, but wait, if the sun wasn’t working right, then what about… “Has the party started yet?”
“The Rainbow Celebration?” Minty nodded. “Yeah, it started all right. Couldn’t finish, though… the first rainbow of the season never showed up! It’s pandemonium out there, Minty. I came in here looking for any kind of clues, and all I found was you.”
Minty groaned and rocked back and forth. This was bad, this was bad! What were they going to do without a moon, or nighttime, or rainbows, or however many other things it turned out the unicorns had been in charge of this whole time without anypony knowing about it?! “So what’s the plan?” she asked.
“Plan?” Pinkie Pie stared at her incredulously. “I don’t have a plan, Minty! The sun stopped moving! The rainbow’s gone! What the hay do you think I’ve ever done that gives me a plan for something like this? I can’t throw a party to get rid of the sun!”
Minty winced. “Ooh, gosh, Pinkie Pie, come on, don’t shout, I think the others are still asleep.” She looked meaningfully at Kimono, who did appear not to have noticed anything just yet. “What does everypony else think?”
Pinkie Pie shifted awkwardly. “Er, I might have mentioned that I hadn’t seen you since yesterday morning, and now half of Ponyville thinks that you went and broke the world while I wasn’t looking. Maybe a bit more than half, honestly.”
“The world?” Minty stared, eyes wide. Why the hay would she have mentioned that? Was she trying to get everypony else to hate her now? Was that how she was going to go about becoming everypony’s best friend? “Pinkie Pie, how could I break the world? I may be clumsy, but gosh, the world’s awfully big, and…”
“I don’t know how you broke the world! How could the sun stop moving!?”
“Magic!”
“That’s not specific enough!”
“No, I mean…” Minty stopped. Eww, darn, now they were both shouting. She took a few deep breaths while Pinkie Pie glared at her. “It’s kinda complicated, and we should probably wait for everyone to wake up first so you can get the story better, but…” She stopped again and thought about it. “So, like, you remember Rainbow Dash talking about unicorns yesterday?”
“Minty, if you know something, you need to tell me what it is! I can’t go back outside and tell Ponyville that Minty knows what happened to the sun, but they can’t find out yet because Kimono’s still sleeping and we don’t want to wake her up! Oh, and would they be interested in a nice fairytale about unicorns while they wait? They’re out for blood out there!”
Minty clutched at Pinkie Pie’s leg in terror. “Blood? My blood?! All that blood that’s inside me, that I’m kinda using right now?”
“Well… okay, not blood. Figure of speech. But there are a lot of ponies who want you to leave town at this point, Minty, before you can mess up anything else.”
“Oh yeah?” Minty glared out the window while Pinkie Pie nodded dumbly. “And what about you?”
“Minty, I…”
“What do you think?”
“…I think it couldn’t hurt,” said Pinkie Pie, looking only at the floor.
Minty exploded. “Why do you keep trying to get me to leave Ponyville!?” Pinkie Pie started to say something, and Kimono was visibly stirring now, and maybe the others too, but she kept on going. “Pinkie Pie, you’re supposed to be my best friend! My best! Friend! You even told me just yesterday you want that! But whenever I do something wrong, now you just try and get rid of me!” Pinkie Pie cleared her throat, but Minty totally ignored her. “Is this what it was like when I missed your birthday? We painted the whole town pink for you, Puzzlemint made you this awesome puzzle hunt thing, and all you were thinking was how much better it’d be if I wasn’t here? Huh? Is that it?!”
There was a long pause. Kimono was definitely awake, but hadn’t chosen to join in the conversation. Finally, “…may I talk now?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“Yeah, go ahead! Talk at Minty the clown! Throw a little party! Tell her why she’s not welcome!”
Pinkie Pie paid close attention to one of the walls. “Minty, I don’t hate you. You’re my friend.”
“If you don’t hate me, why are you telling me to leave?”
“Because everypony else hates you!”
“That’s what Sweetberry said!” Minty turned away and stalked off in disgust. “Gee, Pinkie Pie, you’re everyone’s best friend… do you think you could introduce me to somepony? Because I’d really like to meet this everypony else pony someday, y’know, she sounds cool! I know you like her a lot, after all. I’d like to meet somepony who isn’t afraid to tell me what she thinks, instead of hiding behind Scooter Sprite thinks this, or all of Ponyville thinks that. Then the sun would really have a reason to stop moving, just from surprise, don’t you think?”
“Heeheehehehe!”
Minty spun around again, furious. “Now you’re laughing at me again?!”
“No, that wasn’t me!”
“What?” Minty stopped in mid-stomp. “So… Kimono?” She turned to see, but Kimono was shaking her head. “Then who… ohhhhh.”
Rarity and Wysteria were walking toward them, both clearly only very recently awake. While Wysteria’s eyes managed not to look bleary or baggy at all, her long, flowing hair was heavily tousled from the night, which Minty noticed only made her look even prettier. She sighed internally; life just wasn’t fair. Rarity’s mane was too short and curly to show signs of sleep, but she was walking a little unsteadily. More to the point, though, she was giggling helplessly, and Minty felt a new surge of anger flash through her. What was she laughing at?
“Princess Wysteria!” Pinkie Pie dropped to the floor, front hooves spread out in front of her. “You, er… you honor us with your presence on the day of this Rainbow Celebration!”
Wysteria sucked in a breath. “Oh, Pinkie, please don’t be like that! You’ve known me since we were newborn cuties!”
“Nah, heehee, let her do it!” Rarity, still giggling, trotted unevenly over to Pinkie Pie’s side and leaned against her head. “Dad always said there are some ponies who simply enjoy using all the proper titles and stuff, and if you wanna be their friend, eheehee, just let them do it!” She grinned toothily. “Hi! I’m Princess Rarity of Unicornia, by the way! What’s your name?”
Pinkie Pie looked up, and her face instantly passed through so many images of confusion that Minty would have been laughing on the floor had she been any less angry. “Wha… but… who, what are you?”
“Oh, look,” said Minty. “Pinkie Pie doesn’t know everything.”
Kimono, having gotten out of bed, laid a hoof on Minty’s side. “Hush, my friend. Further anger will solve little, and it seems our royalty may have new ideas for us to consider.”
Minty tried not to roll her eyes. Kimono was really smart and had loads of clever ideas, but she did seem to have developed this habit of letting princesses tell her what to do, and it was hard to tell which of those two was going on. Also it looked like Rarity’s idea was just laughing at her, which wasn’t much better than telling her to leave Ponyville, except at least it wasn’t her best friend doing it. She guessed if Pinkie Pie was telling her to leave and laughing at her, that’d be even worse. She didn’t even know what she’d do then.
“I’m a unicorn!” Rarity was explaining. “One of the most important unicorns, even! And, like, me and Princess Wysteria are in charge and all, so I order you and clumsy candy pony to stop arguing over something this silly. Why fight when you can giggle, right?”
Pinkie Pie raised herself up from her bow a little. “Your Highness… I assure you, this is very serious, and—“
“Uh, nope!” Rarity waved her young hoof around imperiously and giggled some more. “Motion denied! Nope, I was snooping on you, and I’m pretty sure this all falls into silly. After all, silly rhymes with Lily, and we all know what she did!”
Minty glanced at Kimono, who looked back at her with equal confusion. Wysteria answered instead. “I don’t think we know anypony named that, Princess Rarity.”
Rarity laughed. “Well, of course you don’t! She’s a unicorn! And, you know, Lily Lightly used to have trouble laughing too, because her horn would start glowing whenever she had too much fun, and she was worried we’d all make fun of her! Heehehee. But we didn’t, of course! Her glowing was really cool, and later she taught me how to do it, and now I can even lead you lot around under a mountain for hours! But pink pony, green pony told you she didn’t break anything and this isn’t her fault. It was silly to think we’d make a fuss about Lily’s horn glowing, so isn’t it even sillier to really make a fuss about green pony not doing something?”
Minty felt her mouth turn up a little. When Rarity put it that way, gee, it did sound a little silly. Convincing the rest of Ponyville was another story, of course, and they did have other stuff to worry about, but fighting about something that never happened? Heheh, gosh. She still didn’t feel very happy with Pinkie Pie, not for overreacting, and not for that stuff about wanting to be everypony’s best friend, which sounded awfully impersonal! But Rarity did have a point that arguing about it wasn’t going to help them just then, not with the sun and stuff messed up. To hay with it. Slowly she began to laugh, somewhat half-heartedly, followed by Kimono and Wysteria, and at last Pinkie Pie. It didn’t last as long as most group laughs, and it was quieter, but she did feel a bit better afterwards.
“But… Princess Rarity,” said Pinkie Pie, once calmed down. “The sun’s still not moving. The rainbow’s still missing. Do you know what’s gone wrong?”
Rarity’s smile faded a little. “Um, yeah. King Sombra.”
“Who?”
“I dunno! Nopony really seems to know where he comes from or anything. But we unicorns of Unicornia are in charge of the weather and the moon and sun and stuff, and he took over Unicornia, so it looks like it’s daytime from here on out until we find a way to take him down.”
Pinkie Pie blinked. “Unicorns… in charge of the weather? Minty, when you told me there was magic to blame, I thought you were just being Minty! Okay, but how did he take over this Unicornia place, then?”
“Well, he’d already taken over the Crystal Empire, so that probably made it a lot easier.”
“Where?”
“You know, where the jewel ponies live.”
“The what?”
Rarity gave a long, overdramatic sigh, while Minty and Wysteria tried not to start giggling again. “Okay, okay, but I’m not explaining all this a third time, got it? The jewel ponies! They’re, uh, a lot like you girls, but more crystal-y, or jewel-y, or whatever. Their coats are kinda glittery, and their eyes are all gemmish, and, uh, they have big blue shiny helmets and armor, and really sharp-looking spears, and there’s purple misty stuff coming out of their eyes, and they don’t look very happy…”
Slowly the other four turned around. Two new ponies stood there, just as Rarity had described them, one yellow-coated with a variety of reds and pinks in her mane, and the other all pink but with white highlights. Their armor shone brilliantly from the unmoving sun and the many colors of Celebration Castle, but Minty found most of her attention fixed on the spears strapped to their sides, which were pointing right at her and her friends.
Kimono cleared her throat. “Princess Rarity… does your royal wisdom perhaps extend to confrontations with heavily armed jewel ponies intent on our injury or death?”
“Uh… yeah! Totally. Yeah, I’ve got an idea for this.”
“What do we do?” asked Wysteria.
Rarity swallowed. “Run!”
They ran.
The two jewel ponies’ armor was light and not very bulky, but it couldn’t help making its wearers at least a little heavier. Plus they were all lop-sided from their spears, and there was probably something hokey about running for one’s life as opposed to running because one is ordered to do so. Or… brainwashed to do so? That purple mist leaking out of their eyes did look pretty weird. One way or another, though, Minty and the rest were able to escape the attacking jewel ponies, though not without being split up along the way. Minty found herself running alongside Pinkie Pie, with no idea where the others had gotten off to, though she was pretty sure they’d be fine.
“What now?” she asked Pinkie Pie, breathlessly. They were still inside the castle, but running for the front gate, which was thankfully down and serving as a drawbridge.
“I don’t know! This is definitely another thing that parties didn’t prepare me to make plans for!”
“I don’t think socks are going to help either!” Minty cried, and then skidded to a stop as they reached the open air. “Oh… heavy hooves, this is bad.”
The two jewel ponies from the bedchamber had not come to Ponyville alone. The floats of the Rainbow Celebration lay before them in shambles as armored jewel ponies fought with the citizens of Ponyville, flowers and candy and other decorations forgotten beneath their hooves. Spring Fever had brought down a light blue jewel pony and was trying to wrestle its spear away. Triple Treat and Cotton Candy stood back to back, tossing cakes and smaller treats at the enemy from a rapidly shrinking supply of goodies. Apple Spice and Coconut Cream had fallen to the ground and a trio of jewel ponies were tying them up with rainbow-colored ribbons, which happily suggested they weren’t planning on using their spears on anypony. Twinkle Twirl made fighting look like a dance, darting and weaving gracefully between foes, but Minty suspected she wasn’t getting much done in the process. Most of Ponyville, though, by Minty’s rough count, was cowering behind upturned carts and decorations, on the run, or already disappeared. She was pretty sure she could faintly hear Razzaroo chanting “no no no!” somewhere.
“Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie, “bad’s a good word for it, all right. Come on, let’s get to Sunny Daze where it’s safe.”
“Huh? Is she… oh, gosh!” Sunny Daze stood on top of what must have been Rainbow Dash’s old rainbow float and was wearing jewel pony armor herself, though her brilliantly colored mane, spilling out of the helmet in all directions, made her impossible to confuse with any of the invaders. She didn’t have a spear strapped to her side, like the jewel ponies did, but instead held one in her front hooves and swung it wildly back and forth at any foolish enough to try to bring her down. Other jewel ponies attempted to reach her from behind, but were targeted by fast, powerful kicks from her hind legs. Minty stood stock-still in awe until she felt Pinkie Pie tugging her forward, and then broke into a gallop behind her.
“Yo, Mints, Pinkie!” Sunny Daze could not have looked happier if she’d suddenly received eternal sunshine… which, come to think of it, she had. “Isn’t this awesome?!”
“I’m with you on the first syllable!” said Pinkie Pie, as they climbed on top of the float. “Sunny, what are you doing?”
“Having the time of my life, that’s what!” Sunny Daze’s eyes shone more than the simple fact of the sun overhead would allow. “We seriously need to think about opening up a fencing parlor in Ponyville! Or, no, brain flash, get this: surfing, but with swords.”
Minty chuckled nervously. “A fencing parlor! Yes, that sounds like a fun idea, but, um, eheh, don’t you think it’s a little soon! I mean, gosh, here we are under attack and all, and, y’know, planning fencing parlors…”
“Oh, ideas are cheap, it’ll keep… whoah!” An orange jewel pony mare with a poofy yellow mane, who’d almost made it onto the float beside them, was knocked back by a sharp spear thrust to her breastplate. She topped noisily onto one of her fellows, and Minty winced. “Pinkie, want me to get you a spear?”
“Wait,” said Minty, “what about me?”
“Mints, we’re tight as thieves, but I am not giving you a deadly weapon.”
Pinkie Pie only sputtered, her hooves waving at the scene around them. Cotton Candy had run out of things to throw and was now hiding behind Spring Fever, who wielded her own stolen spear with more enthusiasm than skill; Triple Treat was nowhere to be seen, and neither were Apple Spice and Coconut Cream. More jewel ponies were still arriving, outnumbering Ponyville’s population by far, and many of the ones that were already there were leaving the square, presumably searching for the ponies who’d run away already. “What… what’s going on?” asked Pinkie at last. “I went into the castle to try and figure out what’s wrong with the sun, and when I came out, this was happening!”
Sunny Daze kicked another jewel pony in the face before shrugging. “No idea! These guys just showed up and attacked us, so I’m attacking them back, and it is awesome! Okay, new brain flash: bumper cars with swords.”
Minty sighed. She liked bumper cars, but if Sunny Daze took them over and also forbade her from handling weapons, well, that’d be the end of that. Not that there weren’t much more important things to worry about. “What’s next?” she asked.
“Don’t ask me!” Sunny Daze lashed out with her spear, knocking a dark purple jewel pony squarely off her feet, and crowed in satisfaction. “Mints, I love story club with you and all, but really I’m more a bruiser than a schemer. Tell me where to go and I’ll do your fighting, but beyond that, not so much. What’s the plan, Pinkie? How do we win back Ponyville?”
“Plan?” Pinkie Pie stared up at her, plainly terrified. “Why do you ponies keep expecting me to have a plan?”
Oh! She’d figured it out, even if Pinkie Pie was too busy freaking. “Because of what Sunny keeps saying,” said Minty.
Sunny Daze frowned. “More swords?”
“No, before that, ‘brain flash.’ Pinkie, what we need is a Squink!”
“Yeah… remind me what those are again,” said Sunny Daze, and spun around to wallop another jewel pony closing in from her side. “Some kind of weird inspiration ritual?”
“Exactly!” Minty smiled happily at her sometimes best friend, and… well, maybe her other best friend, to be fair. “It’s a special trick Pinkie Pie does to come up with great ideas! First Pinkie squishes her eyes shut… then she winks… then she thinks.”
Quietly, shaking, Pinkie Pie sat on the float and closed her eyes. Little blue shimmering specks of light began to pop into existence in the air, and spiraled around her head in elaborate patterns. Minty trembled as a trio of shimmers flew straight for her head, only to sigh in relief a moment later when they passed harmlessly through her and continued to fly. Sunny Daze’s attention wandered, and she returned to beating back the more daring jewel ponies, but Minty only had eyes for Pinkie Pie as she squished and squished and squished.
Pinkie Pie’s mane lifted up from her neck and flowed around her head in faltering waves, doing its best to follow the blue shimmers in their magical dance. Still her eyes remained fast shut, and still her body shook silently, and still her shimmers flew about her, but Minty couldn’t help but feel they were slowing down. In a normal Pinkie Squink, Pinkie Pie would have begun winking long ago, and might even have finished up and given them all a wonderful new idea. This time she was stuck squishing, and couldn’t stop shaking either. But it was springtime, and the middle of the day—according to the sun, anyhow!—so she couldn’t be cold. But maybe she was scared?
Squinks solved problems. When a band wasn’t playing together, a Pinkie Squink could find a song for them to play, and even maybe a costume for them to wear. When quiet gardener Wysteria suddenly became Princess Wysteria, a Pinkie Squink could transform a simple Spring Promenade into an extra-special Princess Promenade. But those were simple problems. The sun stopping, or the rainbow never appearing, those weren’t so simple. Ponyville under attack by armored jewel ponies, not so simple. Hardly anypony there even knowing how to fight back, not simple at all! And when all that was going on at the same time, golly, a Pinkie Squink would need a Squink of its own even to decide where to begin!
There was no such thing as a Minty Squink to offer; Minty didn’t even have the first idea how Squinks worked. It was just something Pinkie Pie had always been able to do, whenever things got confusing. But she had to help somehow! Whatever her issues with Pinkie Pie at the moment, golly, coming up with an idea to save Ponyville was way more important. So Minty did the only things she could think of, and sat in front of Pinkie Pie, grabbed her best friend’s hooves in her own, pressed their foreheads together… and then squeaked as the world disappeared.
She was still in Ponyville, but the Ponyville of Pinkie Pie’s surprise birthday party, not the Ponyville being destroyed by jewel ponies. She couldn’t even hear the fighting anymore. All she heard was fireworks going off above the bright pink buildings surrounding her, kazoos not being held by anypony she could see, music boxes and jack-in-the-boxes playing their merry tunes, and constant happy laughter. Minty could tell it was the greatest party ever thrown, and that there was nothing it could offer to help her.
She started to explore, running helplessly with no idea how long she had or even where she was. She didn’t think anypony had ever entered a Squink before, but that had to be what she was doing, running from pink house to pink house in search of… well, she’d know it when she found it! That was how Squinks worked, right? The squishing was pretty silly to watch, and the winking was really cool, but it was all about that flash of brilliance, finding the idea that had been refusing to show itself. So… where? Where was an idea?
Where was Pinkie Pie?
The world wasn’t empty. When she stopped to look, there were familiar faces everywhere, skipping gaily down the streets in pairs, playing hopscotch, dancing, singing, laughing, doing everything but thinking of ways to save Ponyville. Sunny Daze and Scooter Sprite flew past her on roller-skates, spinning and somersaulting in beautiful moves that Minty was positive they’d have trouble with in real life. Sweetberry worked on a massive strawberry cake that stood twice as tall as the nearby houses, adding cherries to the top while standing on a cherry picker that rolled around the cake without anypony driving it. Spring Fever walked slowly past, squinting and writing in a little book called ‘7000 Things to Try Today.’ The book was bright pink, and there were three balloons on the cover under the title, two blue and the third yellow. Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark.
“Spring Fever!”
“Hi Minty! What’s up!”
Minty tackled her before she could get away, and the two fell to the cobbles below. No dust sprung up around them, and Minty could tell that Spring Fever wasn’t even hurt. Life was so much simpler in this Squink world. She pointed at the book. “Where’d you get that?”
“This?” Spring Fever smiled up at her from the dustless road. “Oh, Pinkie Pie gave it to me! Isn’t she wonderful? I’ve been filling it with idea after idea, and now I don’t forget what I’ve already done anymore!”
Minty nodded, not really listening. “When did you get it? Ooh, or do you know where she is now?”
“No, sorry.” Spring Fever got back up to her feet and patted Minty apologetically. “Is that all? Sorry I couldn’t be any more help, but there’s a robin across town whose eggs are about to hatch! Goodbye!”
Spring Fever walked away, whistling, and Minty felt her shoulders slump. That hadn’t helped at all! Although, come to think of it, hadn’t Scooter Sprite’s roller-skates also been pink? And maybe the wheels had been blue and yellow, for that matter? Sure, Ponyville was all pink, but maybe there was something more than that going on…
“Isn’t Pinkie Pie wonderful?!” Minty turned and saw Wysteria… no, this was definitely Princess Wysteria, wearing a big golden crown with little balloon-shaped jewels on top, and with a long velvet cape clasped around her neck. “She hosts all the parties, and talks to anypony who’s unhappy, and all I need to do is sit on my throne and be a Princess! My life is so simple!”
Wysteria wandered vaguely away, and Moondancer and Twinkle Twirl came dancing along, each wearing bright pink ballet shoes. “Were you just asking about Pinkie Pie?” asked Moondancer. “She spent hours with me yesterday, helping me design my invitations! Nopony’s ever going to pass up one of my slumber parties now!”
“You know, Pinkie Pie arranged for her Ladybug Jamboree band to play for my next dance recital!” said Twinkle Twirl. “With that kind of pony-popping music behind us, I know we just can’t fail!”
“Pinkie Pie made these for me!” said Daffidazey, out of nowhere. “See? Of course you can’t, they’re called contact lenses, and they’re much too small and transparent to see, but now I won’t need to worry about forgetting my glasses ever again!”
“Pinkie Pie rummaged about in Storybelle’s library and found this map!” said Applejack. “Think it’s time for an adventure!”
“Pinkie Pie gave me these pills for motion sickness! Now I can ride the rollercoaster anytime I want!”
“Pinkie Pie went to medical school and cured my crippling social anxiety disorder!”
“Pinkie Pie helped name my new puppy!”
“Rainbows, darling, rainbows!”
“Yes yes yes! Yes yes yes! Yes yes yes!”
“Enough!”
Minty fell prone to the ground and clutched her hooves over her ears, and in an instant, the throngs of happy ponies vanished away into the air. A few of the blue shimmers from the Squink flew past, but were gone before she could figure out where they were going. Nothing she saw was helping her in the least… all these ponies, happier versions of her own friends, had seen Pinkie Pie but weren’t with her right now. All she’d done was confirm that Pinkie Pie just wanted everypony to depend on her for everything.
Well… that wasn’t quite fair, was it? Minty’s face scrunched up in thought. How dependent could everypony really be, if Pinkie Pie wasn’t even with them anymore? If Daffidazey could see now, that was a permanent change. Puppies didn’t need to be named more than once! When Pinkie Pie had said she wanted to be everypony’s best friend, a part of Minty had assumed the worst… but the point of being somepony’s friend wasn’t getting them to need you for everything, was it? All that Pinkie Pie had done here—what she wanted to do, in real life—was find ways to make everypony happy. That didn’t sound nearly as awful. Rarity’s infectious laughter flitted through Minty’s head again, and she couldn’t help but smile just at the thought of it.
“I’m sorry, Pinkie Pie,” she said. She didn’t know if Pinkie Pie could hear her or not, but if she had built this whole Ponyville in her head in the first place, then why not? “I think I might have goofed up. Heheh, and you know I do that all the time! But knowing you want everypony to be happy… that doesn’t do me any good if I don’t know where you are!”
“Righto, that is a puzzle, isn’t it?”
Minty raised herself from the street. A portly white pony stood thoughtfully in front of her, her wavy mane a shambles of purple and pink and yellow hairs all mixed indiscriminately together. She shifted her weight from one side to the other, and Minty got a look at her familiar symbol with its magnifying glass and jigsaw puzzle piece.
“Puzzlemint!”
“No kidding! You know, I’ve been hearing you’ve landed yourself in a bit of a fix, Minty.” Puzzlemint produced her favorite pipe and blew several pink bubbles into the sky, as she liked to do when solving puzzles. Minty watched, happily despite her situation, as the bubbles flew gently up into the pink trees above and popped merrily into oblivion. “Sun gone wonky, jewel ponies nipping at your heels, and now you’ve leapt into your best mate’s noggin, only you can’t find her. No kidding, that’s a puzzle, all right!”
Minty hugged Puzzlemint, struggling just a bit to reach all the way around her. “Gee, you’re right! Puzzlemint, Puzzlemint, solve it for me, please!”
Puzzlemint quirked a dark purple eyebrow at her. “Cor, that’s blatant, innit?” Several more bubbles escaped her pipe and vanished into the endless blue sky. “Pinkie Pie’s gone and helped everypony you see with their hang-ups, but she’s still busy. And why’s that?” She grinned cheekily. “Could be there’s somepony she can’t fix, no matter how she tries.”
Minty tried her best to adopt Puzzlemint’s thinking pose, though her lack of bubble pipe made it a lot more difficult. Who was there she hadn’t seen in that whole crowd just now? Desert Rose? No, Dezzy hardly had any problems. Graceful, dancing Loop-De-La? Warm, cheerful Piccolo? Bouncy Fiesta Flair? No, but maybe… oh.
“You’re talking about me, aren’t you.”
In a moment, the sky had turned to blackest nighttime, the ground had begun to quake, and Puzzlemint had vanished without so much as a ‘no kidding!’ to say goodbye. Minty shielded her head as the pink houses around her sunk into the earth, leaving a clear path between her and the center of town. She walked forwards, stepping gingerly on the sunken roofs of the homes of her friends and neighbors, and shivered at the sound of cruel laughter she heard growing louder from in front of her. At least the laughter didn’t sound like Pinkie Pie’s, she didn’t think. She didn’t want another angry confrontation with her right now, not while they were supposed to be doing a Squink together.
The heart of Ponyville was colored minty green, a bright spot of change in the middle of the vast pinkness. Minty couldn’t help but chuckle to herself at the sight. Who’d have thought, a bit of green right here inside of pinkest Pinkie Pie? And there, there was Pinkie Pie herself, rushing frantically around a raised platform in the very center of the clearing, though it was too dark to see what was on top of the platform. Still she walked forwards, and still the cruel laughter got louder.
“Pinkie Pie?” she asked.
“Hi!” Pinkie Pie didn’t so much as look at her, too busy running around and around the platform, pushing back at whoever or whatever was going on. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you right now, whoever you are. But we’ll have a party later, I promise!”
A bit of wetness had appeared in one of Minty’s eyes, and she was surprised to notice it was a tear. Well, no time for that! She had heroey things to do! “What are you doing?”
“Helping,” said Pinkie Pie, and the light came on over the platform. Minty—another Minty, with the same wild mane and the same cute little nose—was on top of it, a goofy smile on her face, walking around in circles. She was surrounded by brambles, and every few seconds would look delighted and rush curiously towards them, only for Pinkie Pie to push her back to safety in the nick of time. Or else the platform would start to crumble beneath her when she stepped, and Pinkie Pie would have to pat it back together. Both ponies looked like they could keep the dance up for quite some time, and Minty wasn’t sure she dared wonder just how long it’d been going on already.
The light grew, and Minty could see the faces of the other ponies in Ponyville, no longer dancing happily along with Pinkie Pie’s gifts and solutions, but distorted into hate, laughing, and throwing things at the other Minty. Old fruit, sticks, thorny flowers, and more were hurled at her, and she winced each time they hit but kept on romping atop the platform. The throwing ponies were too high up for Pinkie Pie to stop them, and besides, Minty could tell she had her hooves full keeping Minty safe from the brambles, and the crumbling, and… herself.
“That’s my best friend,” said Pinkie Pie, sounding exhausted, and Minty felt her heart give a funny lurch. “Her name’s Minty, and she gets in trouble a lot. Have you met her?”
Minty looked up at herself: clumsy, overcurious, helpless, but forever cheerful and trusting, at least on the outside. “Um, I think I might be beginning to?”
There was a great rending noise, and a piece of the sky fell off. Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to notice, but where the sky had been, Minty could see Ponyville—the real Ponyville—as she’d kinda sorta left it just a few minutes ago, with Sunny Daze just visible, still smiling and in constant motion. Was the Squink beginning to fall apart? Was Pinkie Pie giving up thinking of a great idea?
“Pinkie Pie, don’t give up now!” She rushed forwards a few steps, but then halted again, not sure if she should get in the way or not. “Ponyville’s in trouble, remember? The jewel ponies are attacking? I mean, gee, don’t you think that’s a little more important?”
“More important than Minty?” Pinkie Pie’s voice was tired now, her motions slower, coming closer and closer to not rescuing the other Minty in time. “She gets in so much trouble, and she doesn’t mean to, or even know she’s doing it half the time. But this time it’s bad. She broke something, something really important, and now the town’s turning against her.” Another mad dash, and the other Minty was just pushed away from her thorny barrier in the nick of time.
Minty looked up at the ugly, snickering faces, and realized they must not always have been there. She’d done this at the Winter Wishes Festival, hadn’t she? Broken something inside of Pinkie Pie’s head? “What does she need to do?” she asked brilliant, helpful Pinkie Pie.
“I don’t know. I think maybe leave town.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t find a way to help her this time.” Pinkie Pie leaned against the platform for a moment, and it almost broke beneath the other Minty’s hooves before she could patch it back up again. “All my friends, I tell them and tell them she didn’t mean to, that it was an accident, but it’s no use. And what if someday they turn on her—really turn on her? And there’s nothing at all I can do to stop them? I can’t help her… so maybe she needs to get out while she still can.”
Minty felt what she needed to do next. Maybe it was something heroes felt, or maybe it was how Squinks worked, but there was no doubt in her mind. If Pinkie Pie wanted to have a Minty running around in her head, then using a fake Minty wasn’t going to do her any good, not when the real one was right there and ready for action. A single leap, and Minty had cleared Pinkie and the brambles and all the hateful laughing ponies and landed right in the center of the platform, and then she was the only one there, and the other Minty didn’t exist anymore.
A tomato flew towards her from the laughing crowd, right at her shin, but Minty snatched it out of the air and took a big bite from it instead, winking merrily. For a moment the laughing stopped… and then it started again, but happy, and mixed with cheering and the sound of invisible stomping hooves.
“…Minty?” It was the first time Pinkie Pie had recognized her.
“Gee, Pinkie, if you can’t help me out of this one, maybe I need to help myself instead!” She chuckled. “Eheh, doesn’t take a big ol’ Pinkie Pie brain to think of that one, right? And gosh, if you’re not worrying about me all the time, maybe you could take a moment and Squink us up a way out of the jam we’re all in?”
“Huh? I… oh! Of course!” With all the noise of a thunderclap, Pinkie Pie’s curly mane erupted into a sparkly fountain of blue Squink shimmers, which quickly filled all the air around them. The platform, and the cobbled streets, and the houses, and all of Ponyville crumbled away, but Minty didn’t fall; the shimmers had lifted her and Pinkie Pie both, and were carrying them up, up, up through the hole in the sky and back to the real world. Sunny Daze kicked a red jewel pony to the side; the shimmers disappeared; Minty let go of Pinkie Pie’s hooves; and Pinkie Pie’s eyes snapped back open.
“This is gonna take more than a clever idea,” she said. “We need a miracle. We need Skywishes.”