//------------------------------// // A quiet time // Story: Awakening // by punisher143 //------------------------------// “I’m sorry I took so long. Is it still down there?” Rarity nodded and motioned for The Doctor and his companions to follow. Ponyville, being the small town it is, has pretty much already known about Pinkie’s breakdown for a while. Nopony really wanted to bring the royal guard into this for fear of what would happen to Pinkie, so they went with the next best choice. “So, would ya mind explaining again why we got the town’s watch maker, dentist, and mail mare to look around?” Applejack asked Rarity. “Don’t let their looks fool you darling, they’re really good at investigating these sorts of things.” “Like when?” Rarity shrugged a little. “I don’t know, but do you have any better ideas?” “…Well, no I guess.” Their discussion was broken when Pinkie let out a sad moan from the corner of the room. They turned to see her crying into her forelegs with Fluttershy rubbing her back. “How long has she been like this?” The Doctor asked. “About a week or so,” Applejack answered, “she spent most of that in bed.” “The poor dear only barely got up about two days ago,” Rarity added, “We’re all really worried about her.” “Colgate, can you check on her while we look around?” The Doctor asked and Colgate nodded and walked over to Pinkie and Fluttershy. “Alright, lead the way ladies.” Rarity and Applejack led the way and shivered at the sound of Pinkie’s cries. The bakery’s atmosphere, usually so full of cheer, seemed that much heavier with Pinkie like this. The two mares led The Doctor and Ditzy down into Sugarcube Corner’s basement and cringed again at the sight of all the red liquid, even they knew none of it was real. “I assume this is more or less how it was when you found it?” The Doctor asked looking around the room while Ditzy wandered off to the broken table. “I tried cleaning this up a little, but I’ve had my hooves full with Pinkie,” Rarity said. The Doctor walked over to the table in the middle and examined its lone occupant. “And this is the dress you spoke of?” he asked. “Horrible thing ain’t it?” Applejack said and joined The Doctor in looking at it, “but we checked all over town and everypony whose cutie mark is on that are all fine and dandy.” The Doctor spotted a gray patch with seven bubbles on the dress and looked over at Ditzy who was staring very keenly at a punch bowl. “Yes, that is a good thing.” The Doctor sniffed at the main part of the dress and narrowed his eyes a little. “Is this made out of candy?” he asked. “Mhmm,” Rarity said and motioned around the room, “and most of the *ahem* redness is food coloring.” “Why would that be?” “I know one thing,” Ditzy said batting at a red and slightly slimy looking streamer, “If I woke up in a room like this, I’d be scared out of my mind.” “I have to agree Ditzy. All of this seems to be just scare tactics.” “What do you mean?” Rarity asked. “Well, best and worst case scenario, all this is just to distract from the main intent.” “Huh?” It was Applejack’s turn this time. “Well, best case is it would make for a great surprise party or prank. Worst case…” The Doctor couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. Ditzy did though by making a hoof motion across her neck. “Wha- how dare you even think of suggesting that! Pinkie is a victim in all this!” Rarity shouted at him angrily. “I’m not doubting that, her state right now is more than enough proof. There’s something else going on here.” “Doctor, I’m done.” The assembled turned to Colgate, who made a face when she entered the room. “Ugh, this place is a mess. We gotta clean it up.” “Did you find out anything new?” The Doctor asked and Colgate sighed. “Apparently, two weeks ago, she was frolicking near Everfree and was attacked by something. She woke up a week later but was still active in the interim. Unfortunately that’s all I could get, the poor dear has been shattered by this.” The Doctor rubbed his chin in thought. “Maybe whatever attacked her possessed her. I’ve seen that happen before and it would explain the amnesia.” “You…what?” Applejack asked. “It would, but there aren’t any known creatures in Everfree that can do that,” Colgate said. “Do…what?” Rarity asked. “In any case this is all conjecture. We’re still missing one big piece of the puzzle.” “And that would be?” “Exactly what happened here. If what Pinkie said is true, then only Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie herself know what happened, but until either Pinkie remembers or Twilight and Rainbow get back we won’t know for sure.” The Doctor sighed and looked away from Applejack and Rarity. “I hate to say it, but there’s not really much I can do without resorting to extremes. If anything else comes up, it would probably be good to let us know.” He looked around the room, “We should probably clean this up.” We’ve made it to Hoofington relatively unharmed. It’s a lot smaller than I thought, but we aren’t planning on staying for long. We’re just going to stop for supplies before moving on. I’m a little worried. Carver hasn’t shown up for a while. Twilight was standing at the register in a grocery store waiting for the cashier to finish bagging her purchases. “…three hay tins, five apples, and two canteens of water. Anything else?” The cashier asked. “A copy of the Daily please.” The cashier placed a copy with the food. “That brings your total to 57 bits.” Twilight levitated her bit bag out and placed the money on the counter. “Have a nice day,” the cashier said and pushed the bag of groceries to Twilight, who nodded her thanks and left with the bag. Once out of the store Twilight walked over to Rainbow Dash, who had been leaning against a wall. “Did you get it?” Rainbow asked. Twilight nodded and said, “Let’s go sort through this somewhere.” Twilight led the way with Rainbow in tow and sat on a bench in a nearby park. “Here’s the Daily you wanted,” Twilight levitated the newspaper to Rainbow. “Great, maybe now we can get some decent news,” Rainbow said and started looking through the paper, “how are we doing on bits?” “Well, no hotel rooms are helping but we’re still running low. We’re going to have to find a way to make more bits soon.” Twilight had finished sorting through the groceries and started placing them into both hers and Rainbow’s bags. “Anything interesting in the news?” “Eh, there’s tax laws, fashion news, one of the editors has another restraining order against him. Not much else otherwise.” Rainbow flipped a page and leaned forward, “Wait, there’s something in the freelance section.” “What is it?” Twilight asked. Rainbow moved the newspaper so Twilight could see it. New species in Equestria? Scattered reports have reported a new creature in the area of western Equestria. While details of its appearance are sketchy at best, the unknown creature has been sighted causing property damage in the city of Fillydelphia. Whether or not this creature means ill intent remains to be seen. “That’s not good,” Twilight said and looked at Rainbow. “Why? If more ponies know about it, it could be good for us,” Rainbow said. “Or it could cause a mass panic. You know how ponies are when it comes to these kinds of things.” “Does this have to do with that emotion thing you were talking about?” Carver displayed so far out of character behavior at the sight of a successful proposal, specifically disgust. If happiness and generally positive emotions are detrimental to it, then maybe negative emotions empower it, although this is just guesswork for now. Rainbow pointed out that if that’s true, then we could just use the Elements of Harmony to take care of it. While that’s most likely true, I don’t think it could happen given what happened to Pinkie. All it takes is one out of synch element to ruin any chance of the Elements to work. We learned that with Discord. “Maybe,” Twilight said and tapped her chin in thought, “but for now let’s get moving. This story might not mean what we think and maybe ponies will forget about it.” “If we’re lucky,” Rainbow said and put the paper in her saddlebag, “and we haven’t had much of that lately.” “Yeah.” The two got up and walked away, Rainbow taking the lead this time. We left Hoofington later that day and headed for Manehattan. We were two days into the trip when Carver showed up again. I guess if we travel fast enough we might be able to rest for a day or two without having to worry about him. About a week after that we got a reminder as to the time of year. Twilight and Rainbow walked down the road and took in the sight of the trees, their once green leaves now turning to a variety of reds, oranges, and browns. “It’s fall already?” Rainbow asked and flew up to one of the trees to inspect the leaves. “Man time flies.” “Yeah, and that means winter will be here in a few months,” Twilight said, “It’ll be a lot harder to get around then.” “Yeah, we may have to find a more permanent place to stay when that happens.” Rainbow said and landed next to Twilight. “Yeah, but we may also get lucky. Maybe Carver will be less active during winter.” “Only one way to find out about that.” Twilight nodded and the pair continued walking in silence. After about an hour of walking, Rainbow’s stomach started growling loudly. “Heh, I guess it’s time for lunch?” “Yeah, I’m getting kind of hungry myself,” Twilight said and moved to the side of the road and sat down. Rainbow joined Twilight and started going through her bags and pulled out a couple tins of alfalfa. “Not the best, but it should keep us going,” Rainbow said and used her teeth to open one of them while Twilight just used her magic to open it. “You know what my mother used to do to make me eat alfalfa when I was a filly?” Twilight asked. Rainbow shrugged and took a bite of the food. “She used to put peanut butter on it.” “Pfft, really?” Rainbow asked. When Twilight nodded she looked at the canned food and raised an eyebrow. “Huh, we might have to try that and see if it’s any good.” Twilight took a bite of alfalfa and had to agree. “You know what else is good? Taking hay strips, laying them in a weave, and making a flower burrito out of them.” Twilight swallowed and looked curiously at Rainbow. “A weave?” “Yeah, you lay down some strips in a line, fold some back to lay down some more strips, and just repeat that until you have a square weave of strips.” “But why don’t you just buy a regular slab of hay and make it with that?” “That’s not the point Twilight. Sometimes you have to do things just because it’s unconventional.” Rainbow ate the last of the alfalfa and put the empty can in her bag. “I guess, but that’s the first time I’ve heard of it.” Twilight put her own empty can in her bag and settled into a more comfortable position. “You know I’m curious now, how do you usually eat a cupcake?” “What?” “Well, do you have a method on how to do it?” “I just eat it. Why, do you have a method?” “That kind of depends on how much icing is on it; if there’s not that much then I’ll just eat it normally, but if there’s a lot I find I usually pace my bites to get an equal amount of icing in each bite.” “Yeah, that does sound like you. What about pizza? I know there are some ponies that like to eat the crust before the actual pizza.” “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess I eat the whole slice, crust included, at the start. But that tends to fill me up faster so I end up eating less with each slice.” “That’s exactly why I never eat the crusts. If you get too full you end up with leftover pizza and that always has this weird stiffness to it. You know what I mean?” “Mhmm. Have we seriously been talking about food for three minutes?” Rainbow snickered a little. “Yeah, I guess we have. C’mon, let’s get going.” “You know what else is good? Taking cheese flavored crackers, crushing them, and putting them on a salad.” “I’ve never thought about doing that,” Rainbow said, “Where did you get that idea?” “Well… Pinkie told me,” Twilight said sadly. “Oh…” Rainbow said and looked down at the ground. “Hey, how do you think she’s doing?” “I don’t know,” Twilight replied, “and it really hurts to think about it. We should be there for her and if anything else was different I’d be there in a heartbeat. I just…” Twilight trailed off a little and felt some tears gather in her eyes. Rainbow couldn’t really think of anything to say so she settled with draping a wing over Twilight. Twilight moved a little closer to Rainbow and was thankful for Rainbow’s company. The two of them didn’t say anything for the rest of the day. I’m so tired right now I can’t even think of anything to write. I already got down those food ideas we talked about earlier and not much of interest has happened. I can sort of see where Manehattan is from the cloud we’re on. It shouldn’t be more than a day’s travel until we- Twilight growled and looked down off the cloud. “Will you shut up! I’m trying to write up here!” she shouted at the ground, where a familiar shadowed mass was circling the area around the cloud. Red eyes looked up at her and Twilight rolled her eyes and continued writing. “-Until we get there. I’m going to stop writing now and try to get some sleep.” Twilight closed the journal, put it away, and curled up to catch some sleep. When it’s growls didn’t provoke a response, Carver sulked a little before walking away. Towards the city lights. Let's hope I don't forget the plot to my own story next time, yeah?