//------------------------------// // The Close of All Hallow's Eve // Story: Awakening Pink // by Masterweaver //------------------------------// Have you ever been unable to figure out what to say? Don't answer that. Seriously, don't, these are just words on a screen and answering them will make you seem crazy. Which isn't a bad thing, per say, but unless you have proper experience being crazy it can be a bit overwhelming. So there I was, standing outside next to a yellow pegasus and not saying anything at all because whatever I wanted to say wasn't forming into workable words in my head. Some parts of it were, but I wanted to carefully construct whatever came out of my mouth; Erishy deserved that much, after all she'd been through, and... well. I was about to offer her help with the heavy bag of hers, but somehow she managed to open her mouth first. "Relative fictionality." Concern held her face hostage. "It should make me feel better, it really should. I should be happy that we might be able to fix this..." "This is a very vague word," I pointed out. "Are you referring to Discord, the mental merge, our potential relationship, the oil crisis, your car's hubcaps, my persistent insanity...?" Erishy rolled her eyes, a small smile forming on her face. "In order; yes," duh, "kind of," understandable. "I'm too scared to address that," girl you have no idea, "that is something I've stopped worrying about because I don't think it would do any good," I have taught you well young padawan, "what the heck is wrong with the three hubcaps I have left?" Well, I know nothing about cars, I was just throwing that out. "Oh, and you aren't insane. Silly pony." I decided not to violate her naivety by pointing out how my own neuroseses had begun an unholy breeding program with Pinkie's own forms of unique crazy and started to warp our logic into something comprehensible but utterly terrifying, instead focusing on a griffon who posed on a car for Ginny to photolize. "No matter what the crisis is, there's always one person who's willing to do a photoshoot." Erishy smiled at that. "A spot of normalcy." Samantha Grent rolled her luggage out the door, bringing it to the curb and looking at the photoshoot with some amusement. "The taxi should be here soon, all ready to go?" she asked as Jackie and Harold belatedly followed her. I noted their frazzled hair with some amusement, just barely keeping Pinkie from laughing. Ian shrugged. "Let me get mah things... er..." His eyes drifted to the trunk latch, now too high for him to reach. "Ah may need help with that." "I'll do it," I offered quickly, crawling into the car hatch and pulling out suitcases. "That's yours, that's mine, that's yours, that's yours, that's yours..." One by one I took out Ian's things for the trip ahead. The trip without me. ....wow. Gilda hopped off of the car. "So... What are these... round thingies on the car called again?" She poked a tire with her talon. I was going to answer her, but the taxi pulled up and distracted me. Black and white squares, why? What was the point? Couldn't they be blue and orange or something... Erishy blushed a bit, trotting up to me. "Well," she whispered, "it looks like we are out of time." Her plaintive eyes lingered on mine. Come on, kiss her! Or something! The ball's in your court, Reid, you've just gotta-- I took a deep breath, putting the last suitcase down as I crawled out of the hatch. I... Nobody was looking. Quick as a flash I closed the distance, nuzzling Erishy gently. "Good luck." I... I can't say it. Not yet. Just as quickly, I pulled back. Reid you are a total coward. Pinkie, I am well aware of this. "Thank you." Erishy looked at me as though she wanted to say something, but I could see the confidence fade just as it had in me. "I'll see you again, soon." I looked around for something to break the awkward moment. The taxi driver opening the hatch at the back of his van, loading everything up... a random cat hopping across the lawns... Gilda poping a tire with her talons. Yeah, that should work. With a melodramatic sigh I turned to the griffon. "Mythbusters aside, Gilda, that's kind of what a car needs to drive. But hey, now Harold and I get to teach you how to change a tire!" And then I caught sight of Ian, standing next to his last bag, and on a whime I pulled him into a hug. "Stay safe, bro." He smiled back up at me and rolled his eyes, returning the hug. "Ah'll try." "You two!" I jabbed a hoof at Jackie and Ginny as I released him. "Take care of my yellow ponies, got it!" Ginny fired off a salute. "Will do, commander!" "And I'll keep her in line," Jackie added, nudging her with a grin. "Missing you already Harold!" "I'll try my best to survive without you," the big man rumbled. "It'll be difficult, but I'll try." Soon enough everyone who was going was in the taxi. Me and Harold waved as they drove off to a building where they would wait for a while to get on a metal tube that zoomed around so fast it could fly on two relatively thin aluminum planks. Then we turned around to teach a mythical creature how to replace a rubber circle she just popped. She popped the replacement, too. I gave her a flat look. "Whatever Discord's bribing you with, it's a lie. Now stop being so petty and help change the tire." She pulls the spare out of the other car. Gilda blinked, attempting to convince me she knew nothing about what I said. "What's a Dicksword?" "A dicksword is the primitive predecessor to the primary weapon used by the characters in the fanfiction 'thirty H's'," I deadpaned. "Discord, on the other hoof, is a spirit of chaos and disharmony responsible for ponies and griffons suddenly being on the earth, usually appearing in the avatar form of a goat-headed mish mash of multiple animals. Lion's paw, eagle's talon, dragon's tail, things like that. Last night he visited me in a dream and I told him off. This morning you appeared, mysteriously healed and teleported quite a fair distance from your previous position, and have thus far tried to encourage us to stay away from New York. Somehow I have come to the astonishing conclusion these two events are related." I pulled out a secondary spare tire, glowering at her. "I'm silly, not stupid." Gilda shrugged, knowing that the jig was up. "Eh. I knew you knew. Was pretty damn obvious. What I can't figure out is why Discord would do that if he knew that you would know, which he would know, since he knows you, since he sent me here to delay you, which means that he wants me to be with you guys because he knows something that we don't that involves me being around, and or he's insane and messing with us and while he did know what we didn't know, he knew that we would quickly know what the reaction would be." She paused, trying to stare at her own beak. "...What the fuck did I just say?" "I have no idea," Harold replied as he jacked up the car. "What, you couldn't follow that?" Pinkie asked in astonishment. "It was entirely logical!" I rolled my eyes. To us, yes, but to them it was probably confusing. "To answer your question: Discord has a pathological need to not make sense. Even if a course of action is tactically sound, he will only follow it in a way that's completely confusing. He could have delayed us with rocks on the road, and instead he chooses a stubborn griffon." I pointed helpfully at a piece of metal. "You use that... cross shaped thing to unscrew the nuts." Gilda shrugged again, picking up the object and using it. "Why doesn't he have us all die horribly from a fan of the show colliding with us, then?" "Irony makes sense," Pinkie replied simply. "Don't lose the nuts." "So..." She gave us a calculating look. "Would me killing you right now be considering ironic?" I snorted at that. "No. And if you tried I'd crush your talons and make sure you remained awake all during the ride to the hospital." "Of course you would..." The griffon muttered something entirely unflattering under her breath, her feathers ruffling up. "... Let's just change out the tires. Sure. Whatever." "Hey, I'm only human." I patted Gilda gently on the shoulder, giving her a reassuring smile. "And that means dealing with threats in the way that I assume would best remove the threat. So long as you don't try to kill me, I see no reason to hurt you." I gave the tire a once over and nodded in satisfaction. "Now come on, let me introduce you to Mythbusters." And the rest of the night was spent on netflix.