You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.
That freedom, however, comes at a cost. A cost higher than the lofty and perilous jagged crags of the bleakest mountains. A cost deeper than the crushing blackness of the lowest unsearchable abyss. A cost that wounds more surely than any blade.
If everything you believed was a beautiful, comforting lie, would you want to know?
Would you stand in the burning light of the Truth and yet not be blinded by it?
Or would you flee into the dark, familiar embrace of ignorance?
Or perhaps descent into blissful madness would rescue you from the profound cosmic dread?
Pray upon the mercy of whatever gods you serve that the Truth never finds you.
~~~~~
Word spread fast in Ponyville. Hearsay and gossip were a sort of currency in such small towns, words passing from ear to ear as bits changed hooves around the market. It wasn't long at all before uneasy whispers were traded between citizens. They had heard the barest inklings at first, an off the hoof remark from Rarity to Dewdrops. That remark was spread and built upon as oft gossip does. What began as a wholly innocent comment had quickly mutated into something altogether different as the malefic meme crept through Ponyville with all the virulence of the feather flu.
Rainbow Dash had learned something from Pinkie and was acting strange. Rainbow Dash was stepping down as weather captain and moving back to Cloudsdale. Rainbow Dash had locked herself in her home and wouldn't come out. Rainbow Dash was trotting around the train station yelling at the support posts. Twilight was studying Pinkie Pie again. Twilight had discovered what Pinkie Pie was. Twilight had summoned a monster from Tartaurus to help her restrain Pinkie. Twilight had gone mad when she dug too deep into things that nopony ought to know. Pinkie had evaporated like dew on a warm day as soon as Twilight learned the truth. Pinkie had devoured Twilight as soon as she learned the truth. Twilight was already conjuring up hundreds of gallons of banana custard for what was to come.
More than a few ponies swore they could smell sauerkraut on the air.
Some ponies were quite worried and opted to be open about their fear. Others nervously dismissed the whole thing as nonsense. And still others went about their days doing what they could to ignore the nonsense. There was always nonsense of some kind going on in Ponyville ever since she moved in. Not that anypony would be open about it, of course. But trouble had a way of following Princess Twilight.
One thing was certain, though.
A storm was coming.
~~~~~
Berry Punch jittered behind the counter of her punch bar, the various rumors whispering over and over in her head. She had spear-headed the plea for Ponyville's eccentric librarian to drop the subject of Pinkie Pie altogether during the last disaster.
After all, nopony wanted a repeat of the Banana Bread Incident.
While for most it was simply a heartfelt desire to prevent their town from being burned to the ground, Berry held a much deeper fear. A fear that clutched her heart with cold, clammy talons and made her seriously consider breaking out the wine despite the early morning.
She was afraid that the Truth would find them and all of Ponyville would be subjected to its burning light. Would they be blinded with madness, reduced to gibbering shells of the ponies they once were? Would they shriek and laugh and cry as they gazed into that pink abyss? Would that endless, howling gulf swallow up their whole town and leave not a trace upon the face of the world to mark its passing? Berry really didn't want to find the answer to that question.
Berry shivered, poured herself a small glass of heavily fortified pinot noir, and knocked it back. Despite its sweetness, the drink burned all the way down. So sweet that it burned. Burned the mind and the body alike. Berry's gaze was soon lost to the middle distance while her thoughts were displaced through time and space.
It was years ago when she had met Pinkie Pie, if that was even her name. The moment she laid eyes on her Berry knew something was wrong. Something was horribly and fundamentally wrong. When Pinkie held still it wasn't as noticeable, but when she moved... When she moved she moved in all the wrong ways. It was subtle, so subtle that anypony who wasn't paying any attention would miss it. A twitch that shouldn't be. A twist that wasn't possible. A stretching like taffy that should rightfully break the bones of any natural pony. That little pink filly's colors were too bright. Her voice too clear. Her edges too sharp. It was as though she was sucking all the vibrancy out of the world around her until it was a drab morass of hazy shapes.
Nopony else at school seemed to notice. Everypony else could only see her disarming smile. They could only see what they wanted to see. They could only believe what they had to believe to protect themselves. How Berry longed that her own perception had been that dull.
Despite the creeping, slinking, slithering terror that hung thick about Pinkie like a musty grave shroud, Berry had tried to be friends with her. Berry was just that kind of filly. She tried to be friends with everypony. Even ponies that were different. Especially ponies that were different. And Pinkie was very... different.
When she was actually speaking to Pinkie the lurking dread dissolved away. The silly pink pony's laughter banished fear and doubt. For a time Berry thought that maybe, just maybe, she had been wrong about Pinkie. Maybe she was just being overly sensitive. Maybe there was nothing wrong with Pinkie at all. Maybe she was making a big fuss over nothing.
Then Pinkie began to regularly partake in the impossible.
Appearing where she shouldn't be. Moving in ways that couldn't be. Knowing what nopony should know. And all the while she laughed and smiled, ponies giggling along with her. 'Oh, that Pinkie', they said. 'She's such a silly pony.'
Blinded.
They were all blinded.
For a time Berry had just avoided Pinkie. It wasn't as though she was causing any harm, right? But it wasn't too long before Berry realized that nothing could be further from the truth. Before long she began to notice changes in her friends. When Pinkie was around they were all bright and smiles and cheer. But when she was gone they gradually slipped into a despondent, ill tempered funk. As if all the brightness had been stolen from their lives and the only brightness they could express was toward and through the exuberant antics of Pinkie.
The realization had hit Berry in a singular, horrifying instant of epiphany.
Pinkie was devouring their joy.
So she confronted the self-proclaimed 'Party Pony' about what was happening. Pinkie dodged any direct questions like she always did when her oddness was brought up, but Berry was insistent. Something was wrong and she was going to see it stopped. She wasn't going to give up. She wasn't going to give in. She wasn't going to be shaken. She wasn't going to be broken.
Pinkie had asked her if she really wanted the Truth.
Berry had said yes.
Pinkie locked her gaze with Berry's own.
Eyes are a window into the soul, the old saying goes. And Berry had been granted the briefest of glimpses of what lay behind Pinkie's eyes.
She had fallen catatonic for the next week and a half.
And now? Now all these years later she still saw it when she dreamed. Not when she passed out though, no. That sleep was blissfully dreamless.
When the bell above the door jingled Berry was pulled gasping back to the present. With shaky hooves she poured herself another glass of wine, her tremors causing her to spill much of it over the counter. “Welcome to the Very Berry Bar, what can I get you today?” Berry recited robotically and then downed her wine.
“Hello Berry. I'm not sure yet, but running all over town trying to find Pinkie has really left me parched!” Twilight Sparkle said. She sniffed a few times and raised an eyebrow. “Is that... wine? It isn't even noon yet.”
Berry briefly considered pouring another glass just to make a point. Unfortunately she already had before she could finish considering. Not one to waste perfectly good, already poured wine she guzzled that glass, too.
“Yes.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. Berry could tell that the alicorn was debating whether or not she should say anything further on the subject of early drinking, but thankfully she left the topic alone. “Well, how about a cherry strawberry apple smoothie?”
Berry was already working on the drink, doing her best to glaze over Twilight's rambling about her newest research project. Berry already knew what it was. What else could it be? She set the smoothie down in front of Twilight and then grasped the rambling alicorn's cheeks between her hooves.
Grabbing a princess by the face was probably illegal.
Berry really didn't care.
“Drop it,” Berry said.
Twilight's eyes flitted back and forth. She looked surprised. Nervous. A little frightened.
Good.
“Drop what...?” Twilight asked uncertainly.
“Pinkie. Drop the entire subject in a deep, dark hole somewhere where it will never see the light of Celestia's sun. Bury it and never think about it again,” Berry said. “No good will come of learning about her. There are things ponies aren't meant to know.”
Twilight used her wings to shove Berry's hooves away and leveled a rather cross glare at the earth pony. “It's just knowledge. Knowledge isn't dangerous. Besides, Pinkie is my friend. There's nothing wrong with knowing more about your friends. Pinkie's one of the nicest ponies in Ponyville and you're making it sound like she's some... some kind of monster!”
Heh.
A monster.
If only.
“A monster is just a spooky story with imagined sharp teeth and claws to scare foals into behaving,” Berry snorted. “Pinkie is something altogether different. She's no pony. She's only pony-shaped so long as the stars restrain her.”
Twilight's look of vague offense suddenly bloomed into curiosity. “Oh! This must be another hypothesis about Pinkie's nature that I haven't heard yet!” The pretty purple pony princess clopped her hooves together eagerly. “Can you give me some more details? What are you basing your hypothesis on? Are you familiar with the ghost, cartoon, mirror spirit, or draconequus hypotheses? How would you contrast them with your own?”
Berry leaned away from the eccentric mare who was suddenly invading her personal space. Though to be fair she had grabbed her face just a few moments prior. Turnabout is fair play and all that.
“You just don't know when to leave well enough alone, do you princess?” Berry said. The words were sour in her mouth. Or maybe that was the acidic burp had just suffered through...
“Please, just Twilight is fine,” she insisted.
Berry gave a long sigh and eyed her bottle again. She longed for some more. She longed for the chance to just erase this whole morning. With any luck she would wake up when the mess was over. But no, no she couldn't do that. She needed to be coherent for what she was about to say.
Or mostly coherent, at least.
“Ponies see what they want to see or expect to see in Pinkie,” Berry said, doing her best to sound as convincing and sane as possible. Sane was hard, considering the subject matter. “All those other things you mentioned? Ghosts and spirits and what not? Ponies believe what they believe to make sense of things. But all they ever see is a shadow of a shadow. There's far more to our world than anypony understands and it would be in the interest of everypony if it stays that way.”
Berry closed her eyes. She willed with all her might to still her shaking hooves.
They wouldn't obey.
“I gazed into that bottomless pink abyss and it gazed back into me. I saw the Truth of things, Twilight Sparkle. I saw what lurks just beyond the edges of perception and scrabbles at the threshold of the world. I saw our place in the vast unfeeling emptiness of the cosmos and I comprehended. How I wish I hadn't,” Berry said. Her shaking grew markedly worse as her fevered dream-visions began rousing in the dark corners of her mind. She crossed one hoof over the other to hold them still.
It didn't help.
“Do you really want to know the doom that waits for us, Twilight Sparkle? Do you really want to trot where nopony ought to go?” Berry asked.
Twilight gave a hesitant nod.
“Then follow me. Maybe a glimpse of the shadow that casts the shadow will convince you to give up this fool's quest before it breaks you,” Berry said as she pushed aside a rug behind the counter and lifted a concealed cellar entrance.
Twilight flattened her ears and followed Berry down into the darkness.
~~~~~
Twilight had an itch in her ear and no amount of flipping would dislodge it. She considered briefly raising a hoof to scratch herself but the stairs leading into Berry's cellar were narrow and steep. Almost as if they had been cut out for a creature that didn't walk as a pony might. She quickly pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Visions of spooky inequine monsters were the last thing Twilight needed in her head right now. After all, this was research. She needed to remain as neutral and rational as possible.
It was cold, Twilight noticed.
Far colder than it had any right being. They were in the early days of autumn, but there was still plenty of warm weather left. Nightmare Night was still more than a month away, after all. And yet she could see her breath. Why was it so cold in Berry Punch's basement?
“So, uh, what's this basement for, anyway?” Twilight asked nervously. The foreboding chill was starting to get to her and she desperately needed to hear sound aside from hooves on cold stone. “A wine cellar or something?”
“Or something, yes,” Berry replied absently. The earth pony stopped at a fairly intricate looking door at the bottom of the stairs. It was carved from a shiny stone of some kind that Twilight couldn't quite identify. The surface was adorned with images of ponies and griffins and... other things... Things that made Twilight feel uneasy trying to imagine how they might look in the flesh. Berry glanced back at Twilight. “Last chance. Are you sure you want to trot down this path?”
Twilight hesitated. Was she?
She wanted to know what was going on with her friend Pinkie and what had so shaken Rainbow Dash. As a princess she was responsible for other ponies. And besides, they were her friends! If something dangerous was going on she should know about it. But the more she thought about it the more it seemed clear that Berry Punch had a similar experience to Rainbow's.
Maybe identical.
And...
And Twilight just wanted to know.
“I think so?” Twilight replied. She tried to mend the broken silence with a lame smile. “Is this the part where you tell me not to be afraid?”
Berry gave a mirthless laugh. “Of course not. That would be terrible advice.”
The earth pony stuck her hoof into a depression in the door and began to slowly turn it this way and that, mechanical clicks sounding from within as tumblers fell into place. The tense nervousness in Twilight's gut gradually coiled tighter as the minutes ticked away until at last it was too much for her.
“Okay, you win,” Twilight gasped. “You've made it painfully clear that whatever this,” she waved a hoof at the strange door. “Is could be troubling to somepony who isn't prepared. I'll just send a letter to the princess instead. I'm sure she'll be able to explain.”
Berry heaved a sigh of relief, the tension lifting from the claustrophobic chamber in an instant. She pulled her hoof out of the door and it locked back into place. “Better to just forget it all, but that's an improvement. Thank you.”
The two mares walked back up to the bar in silence.
Pinkie Pie was waiting for them.
“Hiya Twilight! Fluttershy said you really wanted to talk to me.”
There was a moment.
The briefest of inklings of something else. Something all twisted in on itself hidden behind Pinkie's adorable bubblegum-colored outline. Something moving. Something alive. Something that didn't belong in the lighted hours of the sane waking world.
Something wrong.
Twilight's vision began to tunnel in on Pinkie, the party pony growing brighter and sharper while all else faded into a muddled, indistinct haze.
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and when she opened them the strange duality of her friend was gone.
She took a step back without thinking about it.
“Oh, ah, hi Pinkie. And yes. I did want to talk to you,” Twilight said, trying her hardest to to sound calm and collected. She could feel loose strands of her mane springing free. Twilight fumbled for her smoothie on the counter, the sweet treat still untouched. That would help her to seem casual, right? “Rainbow was really out of sorts this morning after talking to you. I was hoping maybe you could shed some light on, well, on why she was feeling that way?”
Pinkie smiled a cheerful smile.
A smile far deeper than any smile ought to be.
Twilight felt herself drowning in it.
“Sure Twilight! Anything for a friend."