Twilight felt something stir deep inside of her brain. It was as if something was just out of her grasp, and she was struggling to reach it and pull it aside. She began to mumble to herself in an effort to organize her jumbled thoughts. “When I talked to Fluttershy this morning, my secret dimmed. When we both talked to Rarity about her secret, her secret disappeared and mine reappeared…”
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was still an absolute mess behind her. Fluttershy and Rarity were doing as much as they could to comfort the wallowing mare. Fluttershy could not help but to pity her for reasons she held close to her own heart. She ran her hoof through Pinkie’s mane in a tender effort to get her to stop crying. Fluttershy frowned when she realized that her efforts were in vain.
“Dear… do you want to talk about it?” Rarity asked. She was sure that the mare would, but even if she said no, Rarity would get her to talk some way. Pinkie’s secret may be gone, but perhaps talking could get her to calm down a little bit, Rarity thought.
The amount of pent-up sorrow inside Pinkie was almost too much to bear. She had not let herself cry sincerely since she was younger. It was as if her eyes were raining the freedom that she so desperately desired.
“I… I- I don’t want to be hyperactive like that anymore.” Pinkie choked, mustering up the strength to wipe her tears away with a soggy hoof. “I’m tired of acting happy when all I want to do is cry. I don’t want to be forgiving when somepony is mean to me.” Pinkie Pie cast a knowing glare upon Rarity, who took the hint. She nervously smiled, and made a mental note to never wrong Pinkie again.
“Have you ever noticed how they treat me?” Pinkie Pie asked, staring up at Fluttershy with eyes that now glistened in the fog.
“Who?” Rarity asked. Pinkie did not even turn her head.
“Everypony.” she replied despondently. Rarity was almost heart-broken at her words. She had never seen Pinkie so depressed. Though, she figured no one truly had before now. She was a shell of her former self. What pony wouldn’t be after living a lie and suppressing their true selves for so long? Rarity’s head bowed and she pawed at the ground. She understood entirely.
“They call me names behind my back,” Pinkie continued. “They all think I’m too dimwitted to understand, but I hear and recall every single word, and I can never forget them.”
Pinkie’s gaze fell back to the ground, and Fluttershy and Rarity feared the inevitable when Pinkie’s mane and tail straightened out. In her position on the ground, she almost looked like she was in the embrace of a bright pink blanket.
“Pinkie explained her secret, and now Rarity’s is showing again…” Twilight was still quietly mumbling to herself. The answer was right on the tip of her tongue, she could feel it. “When you reveal one, the one revealed before gets brighter? But that doesn’t make much sense…”
“It’s alright, Pinkie. Courage is something that ponies are born with.” Fluttershy added with a genuine smile. “Much like myself, being brave isn’t something somepony can just do. Especially when it comes to telling everypony something so secretive and personal.”
“No…” Pinkie began coughing for breath when the tears managed to choke her up again. She was letting her mind speak for itself, for once in her life. “You’re not like me in the slightest.”
Fluttershy’s mouth parted, and she flashed her wings for a brief moment in surprise before sighing softly, “If you… If you’re different than what you set out to become...” the pegasus mare smiled encouragingly. “Then who are you really?”
Pinkie Pie’s head perked up, and her ears stood at attention. “W-What?” Pinkie was not sure whether to feel hurt, insulted, or miserable. So she just went with a strange combination of the three. “What do you me? I’m me. Always have been, always will.” she gave the two an insincere, and obviously forced grin. Nopony fell for it.
“But what about the real Pinkie? Not the facade Pinkie that you’ve been doing. I’m talking about the actual you.”
Pinkie Pie could only hold back so many tears. “She’s a stranger to me.” she choked out.
Rarity, whose conscience was heavier than ever, turned to watch Twilight. She could not bear seeing Pinkie so distraught. However, she felt even worse because she was the one responsible for stealing Pinkie’s medication in the first place. She couldn’t help feeling like some of Pinkie’s suffering was her fault. Whether it was some sort of domino effect, or Pinkie blaming Rarity herself, she would never know, but her guilt was too much to bear. Twilight gave Rarity a cursory glance, before returning to her thoughts, leaving Rarity to turn back to Pinkie and Fluttershy.
“I just want to sleep... to rest… and for once in my life I want to eat something green…” Pinkie muttered. Rarity rested a reassuring hoof on Pinkie’s back, and opened her mouth to agree with the mare’s first point. But she closed her mouth a moment later after thinking a little more carefully about it.
“You can, Pinkie. You can do all of that starting today-” Fluttershy squealed and jumped back when Pinkie Pie launched into the air and raised a hoof, as if she wanted to swing at her timid friend.
“No!” she screamed, her voice grating at their ears like gravel. “I don’t want to!”
Rarity spoke up from behind Pinkie, who was scowling for the first time in years. “E- Excuse me? Pinkie, I thought you said-”
“I know what I said!” she said through gritted teeth. Something in Pinkie snapped, and Twilight decided to set aside her thoughts for a moment.
“Nopony is going to say anything about this. I’m Pinkie Pie, the one and only party pony extraordinaire!” Pinkie purposely ignored the loud ding in the background. “I’ve worked too hard for this! Slaving over the happiness of others for years... I’ve spent most of my life building myself up, and I can’t let some paint ruin that for me!”
Pinkie Pie was scowling like a menace. Her mane swayed dangerously close to the ground, shielding much of her face from her friends’ startled gazes. She stood precariously on all fours, although all of her legs were spread wide. At first glance, one would think that Pinkie Pie was bracing herself for something.
“Pinkie… calm down…” Rarity said as soothingly as she could manage while backing away with a shivering pegasus at her side. Rarity raised a hoof, as if to gesture to Pinkie. “We can work this out, dear…”
“Please!” she spat. “You don’t care about me. If you did, you wouldn’t have asked any questions.”
Fluttershy lifted up a hoof to take a step forward, but decided against it. No matter how much she insisted that they all cared for her, Pinkie would most certainly not want to hear it.
“That’s ludicrous!” gasped Rarity. “We’re your friends! Of course we care about you!”
“You ‘cared’ about me enough to steal all of my pills.” Pinkie shot back. Rarity’s eyes widened, and she stammered, looking for a proper response. “Do you know what happens when I don’t take those pills? Bad things, Rarity! Bad things!” Fluttershy was hiding behind Twilight at this point, shivering like a madpony.
Twilight looked at Pinkie’s letters, which were slowly returning, and turned to Rarity’s letters way off into the distance. She felt another light bulb warm up inside her head. “Pinkie, what’s the matter with your secret? Just show everypony the real you.” she spoke calmly.
“No! I’ve worked too hard! I already explained this!” Pinkie spat out. “Creating this new Pinkie Pie was a way for me to be more social. Ever since I’ve gotten my cutie mark. Ponies only like the hyper, dumb, random Pinkie. I couldn’t be myself if I tried.”
Twilight turned her view to the letters, which were slowly starting to dim again. She then looked at Rarity’s words directly behind her, which seemed to get a little brighter.
Hmm…
“I’m not going back. There’s no hope back there. So you three better keep quiet about this, or I’ll broadcast your secrets all over Equestria!”
Twilight watched as Pinkie’s words brightened immensely, bathing the four of them in a scarlet glow. It turned the fog into a bloody mist that Twilight found uncomfortable to look at. When she turned to Rarity’s letters, they were still shining, but barely visible. Twilight grinned. That’s… that’s it!
“I got it!” Twilight suddenly shouted. She had forgotten that Fluttershy was directly behind her, which resulted in the pegasus toppling over. Pinkie Pie’s scowl disappeared slowly as she stared at Twilight with an intense curiosity.
“You have what, dear?” asked Rarity, whom was fairly glad that Twilight had managed to temporarily halt the arguing.
“Well, I’m not sure if I have everything, but I think I’m onto something. Look at Pinkie’s letters.” Twilight pointed behind the mare in question. Her secret was excessively bright.
“Now look in the distance.” She pointed a hoof behind her, at the very dim letters that protruded through the fog. It was blurry, the letters were legible, for the most part.
“Is… is that my secret, now!?” Rarity looked like she wanted to faint, and everypony else watched as she dramatically swayed. She even put a hoof to her forehead theatrically, making Twilight want to roll her eyes.
Twilight continued before the unicorn passed out completely. “Pinkie, say something truthful about your secret, and I need everypony to watch what happens.”
Pinkie rudely stuck her nose in the air.
“Truthful? Like that’ll ever happen…”
Ding!
All four mares watched in surprise as the words on Sugarcube Corner grew brighter. However, the mares were all rendered speechless when Rarity’s words disappeared entirely. The only thing that they could see was the same old fog that had been plaguing them all morning. Twilight felt a newfound sense of accomplishment that tickled her pleasurably. She knew it. Her hypothesis was wrong before, but she knew she was onto something now.
“W-What just happened?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight turned to Pinkie, who appeared to be finished with her angry tirade.
“I think I’m onto something.” she said again. She cleared her throat. This was going to be good. “These secrets are somehow connected.” Pinkie and Fluttershy furrowed their brows, and Rarity seemed to lose focus. Her mind was on other things that were, at least to her, more important than what was currently at hoof.
Twilight began explaining her theory. “I bared my secret to Fluttershy this morning, and from then on it started to get brighter or dimmer, making me believe that the secrets are almost neutral before they’re explained. It’s why no one could see Pinkie’s before this, and why we haven’t seen Applejack’s or Rainbow’s yet.”
Fluttershy cocked her head as Twilight continued. “However, when Rarity told me her secret, our secrets connected. Or something like that, at least. When Rarity told me about her addiction, hers dimmed, and mine shone brighter.”
“So… you’re saying that only one secret can be dim at a time?” Pinkie asked, quizzically. Twilight took one look at Pinkie and held back a shudder. The old Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, and the new one just stared vacantly at whomever was unfortunate enough to step into her line of sight.
“That’s what it seems. So, when Pinkie revealed her secret, mine got kicked out of the connection, and Pinkie’s connected with Rarity’s, which is why when one gets brighter, the other gets dimmer. The only part that eludes me is why they’re connected in the first place, and why mine was thrown out of the connection so easily Twilight tapped her chin lightly, as even more questions entered her thoughts. Fluttershy and Rarity nodded their heads in unison. Pinkie, unfortunately, was having a little bit of trouble.
“I… they- what?” Pinkie asked.
“What we need to do is find Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Once all of us are together, maybe this will make some more sense.” Twilight turned to Fluttershy, and shook her head gently. Fluttershy knew what that meant, and dipped her head sullenly.
“But… but…” Fluttershy stuttered.
“So then what do we do now?” Pinkie asked. She rolled her eyes only halfway, then let them rest on her friends. Twilight was slowly regretting coming to Sugarcube Corner.
“...I just said we should find Applejack and Rainbow Dash. We need all of us in order to figure this thing out once and for all,” Twilight said, starting off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Her friends trotted behind her, while one resorted to grumpily dragging her hooves.
***
Twilight was starting to get a little nervous about all of this. She could honestly say that she was unnerved before, but now she had a whole new feeling of dread welling up in her belly. She hadn’t seen anypony other than Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in a while, leading her to believe that everypony had resorted to either holing up inside their homes, or had left altogether. The latter was the most unfortunate, but made the most sense.
Fires still burned from when the townsfolk had set fire to their homes in a panic, and most of them had succeeded in getting the letters off of their buildings. It seemed that if the house was not in completely and utterly destroyed, the secret would still shine over the black smoke that the fire created.
Rarity had passed the time by reading the secrets that filled the air in the distance. She figured that if she didn’t know whose house the secrets belonged to, then no harm would be done. Besides, Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away, and she needed something to distract her.
I CON PONIES AT FRUIT STANDS SO THAT I CAN GET FREE FOOD
“Hm.” she mumbled softly to herself. That secret wasn’t that bad when she thought about it. She would willingly trade the words on the boutique for something like that pony’s instead.
I HAVE NOPONY THAT WILL VISIT ME WHEN I’M ON MY DEATHBED
Rarity sighed. Well, that was certainly depressing. Rarity had never felt loneliness on that level before, but she sometimes would wish for somepony to cuddle with at night. But even she knew that was nothing compared to real loneliness. Just the thought of dying with nopony by her side, suffering in solitude… she couldn’t bear that, and a part of her wondered who that pony was, if only so she could offer them her friendship and give them the attention they needed.
I TOLD HIM TO DO IT. I FELT NO REMORSE WHEN I SAW HIS NAME IN THE NEWSPAPER THE NEXT DAY
“I… I think that’s enough…” she mumbled to herself. I shouldn’t be reading those anyways, she thought. Twilight wasn’t lying about the fact that some of these secrets could land ponies in jail. They were approaching the Acres, anyway, so she had better things to focus on, now.
The cobblestone of the town roads quickly turned to gravel as they passed under a large sign that read “Sweet Apple Acres!”. It was a new sign that Pinkie had been nice enough to build for Applejack and her family. She said it took her “only a few minutes”, but Twilight sincerely doubted that. She was sure that Pinkie started making it a few days beforehand.
“Applejack?” Rarity asked, beating Twilight to the punch. With the fog in the way, and the road to the orchard being a rather meandering trail, Rarity was unsure whether the farmer was there or not.
Fluttershy had kept her head down the entire walk, her mane draped over her head. Every now and then she would nervously twitch her tail. Twilight was mere muscle movements away from asking what was wrong, but looking back at how Pinkie reacted to the same question, she set it aside. It was almost as if Fluttershy was having a panic attack.
Pinkie walked grumpily down the trail, stomping her hooves on a leaf or twig whenever the opportunity presented itself. She had been taking to her new ponysona quite well, really. Fully embracing the fact that she did not need to be hyper or silly anymore. Rarity could not help but wonder if the mare would ever smile again.
They rounded the corner to Sweet Apple Acres and saw the newly constructed barn easily overcoming the fog. For some reason the fog was less dense in that area, and even though they were still walking down the path, they could see a bright orange pony sitting in the front yard.
“Applejack!” Twilight yelled. Somehow, the mare in question heard her friend’s shout and turned her head towards them. She pulled off her Stetson and waved slowly. Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie sped up their pace to a quick gallop, leaving Fluttershy to trot nervously behind them.
It was only when they had come within actual speaking distance that the group could read the sentences tattooed on the walls. There were two of them. One was on the roof, while the other was written across the windows and door.
SPEAKING PHYSICALLY HURTS ME
Everypony assumed that was Big Macintosh’s, however the only pony who really paid any attention to this was Rarity. The other three were much more focused on the words on the roof.
I USE MY WORK AS A WAY TO GET MY MIND OFF OF MY SADNESS
“Howdy, girls!” For some reason, Applejack was chipper given the circumstances. “Mighty weird day, that’s for sure. Somepony had the guts to vandalize the farm last night!” she threw a hoof in the air towards the barn, and stuck her hat back on her head angrily. Nopony said anything, and Fluttershy refused to look in Applejack’s direction at all. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
“Big Mac’s been inside ever since he read them. I think it hit ‘im hard, seeing that out here in plain sight. The nerve of some ponies!” she growled. “When ah find out who did this, they’re goin’ to pay!” Once again, nopony said anything. She tilted her head in confusion. “What’s gotten into you girls, and didn’t ah see Pinkie walkin’ with you?” Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight looked around only to see that Applejack was right.
Pinkie was gone.
“Applejack…” Twilight began slowly. “We need to talk to you...”