“No, you can’t, you can’t!” Twilight fell on her haunches next to her mentor and friend. Pinkie Pie and the others surrounded the weeping unicorn and the two princesses. Twilight leaned forward and hugged Celestia. Tears were flowing from her eyes onto Celestia’s white coat. “Please, wake up. Please…”
Applejack took of her hat and gazed at the ground.
Fluttershy whispered, “I’ll… I’ll go and check Rainbow Dash,” and flew to the fallen pegasus.
Pinkie gazed down at her hooves, her eyes wet. Why hadn’t it worked? She had healed Fluttershy, why couldn’t she heal them? Or maybe… She stretched out a hoof and touched Luna.
Her hoof glowed on touch, and she felt warmth flowing from her hoof towards her heart. She gasped. “She’s alive!”
Everypony looked at her incredulously. Pinkie stepped to Celestia and touched her. Same feeling. “She’s alive too!”
Twilight sniffled. “Pinkie… she’s… she’s not breathing… How could you say that she’s alive? She’s… dead.”
Twilight was right; they were dead, but… that feeling. Pinkie didn’t know how, but she just knew that the warmth she felt meant life. Pinkie sat down and put a hoof on her head. “This hurts to explain, but she’s both alive and dead. I just know it.”
Twilight looked at Pinkie, then cast a spell. Her eyes went wide. “Pinkie is right! The princess is alive!”
Rarity touched the princess’s chest. “But… how? She’s not breathing, and her heart is not functioning.”
“She’s in a stasis,” Twilight said. She walked to Luna with her horn shining in violet. She touched her with her horn. “And Princess Luna too. They’re between life and death.”
“What? How’s that even possible?” Applejack asked.
“I… I’m not sure,” Twilight said. “I think that at the very same time Agony took away their life, and Pinkie Pie healed them. This caused them to stay somewhere in-between.”
“Can we help them?” Fluttershy asked, supporting a limping Rainbow Dash.
Twilight sighed. “I have no idea.” She stood up. “I’ll try to analyze the stasis and find a spell to break it, in the good direction.” She looked at Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie, I’d like to ask you to go the library and learn everything that you can about your heritage.”
“Yeah, you should really learn how to use that stuff,” Rainbow Dash added. “You actually could do something against that guy.” She raised her front hoof. “He ran like a coward!” She winced and pulled back her leg fast. “Ugh, I wish I could have hit his face instead of the stupid ground. Why does everything have to be made of stone here?”
Fluttershy touched her forearm and gently pushed it down. “Rest your hoof, Dash. It needs time to heal.”
“Can’t Pinkie just heal it?” Applejack asked.
Pinkie looked away and sighed. “I wish I could, I but I don’t know how to.”
“Then please go to the library, darling,” Rarity said while examining the princesses’ bodies. “We really need you to master this, for it might be the key to the recovery of the princesses and the prevention of a great national crisis.”
“Ah can come with ya if ya want,” Applejack said.
Applejack barely read. She would be soooo bored in the library, which was anything but fun. “Thanks, Applejack, but I think I’ll go alone. Maybe…” She spotted the two royal guards, who were beginning to recover. “Check the guards.” She motioned to them.
“Are ya sure?”
Pinkie knew that Applejack was trying to be nice, but she would never let her friends be bored for her sake. “Yep. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a blink!”
She looked at her friends once more. Rarity was sitting with a frown, probably thinking through the situation. Applejack was helping the guards to their hooves. Twilight stood over the princesses, heavily concentrating on whatever her magic did. Fluttershy left for bandages. Rainbow Dash was sitting on the ground, waiting for Fluttershy to return. They were all doing what they should, and she should follow their example; her place was in the Canterlot Library.
She turned and began trotting out of the room.
“Pinkie,” Twilight said.
Pinkie looked back. Twilight was looking at her with worried eyes. “Yes, Twilight?”
“Be careful.”
Pinkie smiled. “I will be.” She turned and left the throne room.
Despite the situation, Pinkie Pie was bouncing happily down the streets. She had to keep her spirit up. If she became sad, then who would cheer up her friends?
It wouldn’t take long before the city learned what happened to the princesses. If that happened… “Oh, don’t be silly, Pinkie!” she said to herself. “Twilight will fix the princesses in no time!” Just as she spoke, she remembered. This had been her hope when Fluttershy had been dying. She stopped smiling and bit her lips. “Okay then, maybe she won’t fix them, but she’ll keep it a secret while I can find out how to heal them.” Satisfied with this conclusion, she nodded to herself and hopped away.
“Ouch!” She glanced at her knee. Pinchy. That meant something scary was going to happen. But something scary had already happened. What could be more scarier than what had happened to the princesses? Her muscles tightened as she darted her eyes around her surroundings, searching for the trigger, and places to hide in case the scary thing appears. Since nothing happened—and her friends were waiting for her—she decided to continue her bou… Stupid knee! Well, it seemed as the rest of the way would be walking. So, she decided to continue her walking, glancing around nervously.
After fifteen minutes, Pinkie stopped. She had three ways to go now, all leading to the library. “Okay, now which one should I choose?” She put out her tongue as she was thinking.
Tail twitch.
What the? What was gonna fall this time? She heard somepony running towards her at her left. Pinkie Pie glanced towards the noise.
Then she saw it. From the edge of her vision, a knife reflected the sun into her eyes as it stabbed down. She didn’t even have time to scream.
The running pony crashed into something behind her. The knife fell with blade downwards.
Into her back.
Pain.
She couldn’t breathe.
The world tilted.
Her friends...
Something clinging.
Dead?
Her sisters...
…
...
Something touching her belly.
Green eyes.
Male voice. “Don’t worry, miss. I’m here to help.”
Being lifted. Pain.
Something warm under her belly.
“You’re hurt, but not lethally. I have proper equipment at home that I can mend your wound with.”
Moving.
“If I’m too fast, just say so. I’ll slow down.”
Not lethally? Knife? Magic? Kill?
She opened her mouth, her voice shaking, “He… he tried to kill me!”
“Yes, that bastard. I wish I could see some guards or somepony to send for them.” His head moved. “Hey, miss!”
A dark-yellow pegasus mare entered Pinkie’s vision.
“Call the guards! This mare on my back was attacked by an assassin.” She felt him motion behind. She moved her eyes in the direction. An unconscious unicorn was laying there with a blood-covered knife near him.
The pegasus gasped. “Oh my! Is she alright?”
“She is, just got a shock. If the guards ask where she was taken, my name is Brown Peg, and I’m bringing her to my home at Greenleaf Street 23. I’ve got medicine there for her injuries.”
The pegasus nodded and took off.
“Now, that’s at least taken care of.” Brown Peg continued walking.
They arrived at a furniture shop, and Brown Peg carried her to the first floor, laying her on her belly on a bed. He left the room and came back with a bowl full of water and a kerchief.
“An... assassin?” Pinkie faltered. “But why? I’m… I’m everypony’s friend!”
“Everypony has enemies, miss,” Brown Peg said as he dipped the kerchief into the water. “Or friends who have enemies, which makes them a target. But don’t worry, you’re safe now.” He touched her back with the cold kerchief.
She scrunched her face at the pain and sucked her breath.
“Sorry, I have to clean the wound first.” He continued the cleaning. “You’re lucky. The guy lost control over his knife when I hit him. It hurt the muscles in your back, but didn’t cut deep enough to pierce your lungs.” While he was cleaning her, she could examine him a little bit. The stallion had a dark-brown coat and a short, light-brown mane and tail. When he turned to dip the kerchief, she also caught a glimpse of his cutie mark: a wooden peg. After he finished, he left the room.
Pinkie’s thoughts went back to the assassin. How could a pony hate another pony so much that he would want to take their life? She looked at her own hooves. Could… could she do it? She shook her head. No, of course not! She wanted everypony to be happy; she couldn’t even hate, let alone kill!
Brown Peg returned with wound-contracture, sterilizer and some bandage. He applied them on her back. “Now, looks much better. Give it a week or two and you’ll be jumping around like a little filly.”
Despite her situation, Pinkie chuckled. “I like jumping.” She looked up at Peg. “It’s so fun.”
Brown Peg stared into her eyes but didn’t say a word. What was that look? Admiration? Why would he look at her like that? Ponies usually gave that look to Rarity, since... Rarity!
Pinkie tried climbing down from the bed. “Thank you for your help, Peggy, but now I need to go. My friends need me.” The pain in her back came back, and she collapsed again. “Oh, bummer!”
“You can’t go running around like this. I suggest you to get some rest. If you want, I can tell your friends where you are.”
Pinkie shook your head. “Oh no no no, you don’t understand. We got a big meany that almost killed the princesses, but he couldn’t because I healed them, but I don’t know how so…” She took a deep breath. “I have to go to the library to master my healing ability, or it’ll be really really bad because the princesses will never wake up.” She tried to get up again, but failed the same way. She hung her hooves down the edge of the bed. “I wish I’d know how to use this thing. I mean, I can’t even heal myself, when I really really need it.”
She glanced at him. Brown Peg was staring at her with a mixture of confusion and surprise. She’d said too much, hadn’t she? His reaction made Pinkie remember how Twilight usually acted when Pinkie released a flood of words at her. Twilight was always—
“You’re a fainsaarn!” Brown Peg cried out.
Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “What? How do you know that?”
“Your hooves are glowing,” he pointed at them.
She slowly brought her front hooves in front of her eyes. “Wow, they really are! It’s working again! It’s working again and I don’t know how!” she yelled and let them fall on the bed.
“Touch your back where the cut is!” Peg said, almost yelling.
“Wha?”
“Just do what I said!”
Pinkie obeyed. The closer she moved her hooves, the less she felt the pain. She touched the wound and felt her skin contracting. Peg walked to Pinkie and took something from her back, then showed it to her. Her bandage. She didn’t feel any tearing when he pulled it off.
“It’s healed... completely.”
Pinkie jumped out of the bed and began bouncing out of the room. “Whohooo! Now I can go to the library and learn to—” She stopped at the door and looked back at Peg with frown. “Wait. How did you know I was a fainsaarn?”
“Uhm… because your hooves were—”
“No! How did you know that if my hooves’re glowing, then I’m a fainsaarn?” She pushed her muzzle to his. “Are you a spy?" Wow, that sounded so much like Dashie! She wondered what Dashie was... No! She had to focus! This guy knew too much. “Are you?” She pressed Peg’s muzzle even more.
Peg gulped.
Pinkie’s face eased. “No, you can’t be.” She stepped back. “Spies don’t carry their foes to their homes to heal them.” She looked behind her. “And how in the frosted banana cupcake am I here, when I was standing at the door?”
“Need.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Your ability is based on need: what you, or the others around you need. You felt that you need to push your face into mine, so you teleported here to do it.”
Pinkie slightly blushed. “Yeah, sorry about that. But you still didn’t answer. How do you know this?”
He walked to a closet, opened it and took an old book out of it with his mouth. He put it down in front of Pinkie Pie. “This is my great-grandfather’s diary. He was a fainsaarn, just like you.”
It was a mid-sized brown book with three white waves on it. Pinkie opened it. The Diary of Eternal Breeze.
“I’ve read the book several times, trying to figure out how to use those powers.” He gazed at the floor. “I hoped that maybe I didn’t need a rare talent to use some of the techniques to help my daughter, but none worked.”
Pinkie’s eyes lit up. “You have a daughter? Can I see her?”
Brown Peg smiled. “This way.”
They walked into a room. A little filly with dark-pink coat and long, light-pink mane was sleeping on a bed.
“She has leukemia.”
Pinkie’s smile curved down. She felt a knot growing in her throat as she was watching the filly breathing peacefully. This filly in front of her would… die. She would die before she even got her cutie mark. She had to do something. “You told me that my power is based on need, so…” Pinkie raised a hoof. “I need to heal her.”
Nothing happened
“Your ability is not based on incantation, but the need in your heart. Have you ever activated your ability consciously?”
Pinkie shook her head. “It just happens.” She fiddled the floor with her hoof. “It always just happens.”
She caught a few words from Brown Peg whispering behind her, “...I selfish? … too much… hope… nothing bad…”
Selfish? Bad? “What did you say?”
“Her name is Lilly.”
Pinkie glanced at Brown Peg.
“She’s eight years old. She was seven when we learned of her sickness. She was playing outside of the school with the other fillies. She was always smiling. Her friends loved her so much for her smile; it was refreshing, full of life. Then, she suddenly began to feel weak.”
Pinkie saw her hooves glimmer from the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t care.
“An hour later, she was in the hospital. The teacher came to my home to tell me the news. I almost collapsed on the spot.” He was crying now. “Her mother died of leukemia two years before. I couldn’t believe that it appeared so early in her body. She now only has a few weeks left.” He sniffled. “She… she wanted to be a nurse, to help other ponies. She wanted to make other ponies smile, even in their afflictions.” He sniffled again. “Her friends need her, I need her, the sick ponies will need her. Please, Miss, don’t let her die.”
Pinkie’s hooves were now shining like the sun with small particles orbiting around them. She saw her eyes glowing blue in a mirror behind Brown Peg. “I won’t,” she stated in a firm, echoing voice.
She raised her hoof and touched the filly. Her hoof flashed, and at the same time, she began shaking.
The filly opened her light-yellow eyes. “Daddy?”
Brown Peg ran to them. “Lilly!” He took her out of the bed. “How do you feel? Everything okay?”
Pinkie felt a little dizzy.
“Y...Yeah. It’s fine. Nothing hurts and… I feel fresh,” Lilly said, blinking. “What happened?”
Pinkie’s hooves stopped glowing, and she couldn’t help but smile at the pair, even if she could barely see them. Everything was blurry.
“This wonderful lady… Oh, what a horrible pony I am, I didn’t even ask your… Oh no.”
Pinkie Pie’s eyes rolled back in their socket, and she collapsed on the floor.
Soft.
“Daddy, she’s waking up!”
Hoofsteps.
She opened her eyes. Brown Peg stood in front of him and sighed in relief. “Thank heavens that you’re okay.”
What had happened? She tried to remember. Princesses, healing, assassin. “Uh…” She put a hoof on her head. “This hurts.”
“Here, water,” Brown Peg gave her a glass.
She drank it all, then gave back the empty glass to Brown Peg. It felt so good. “Lilly, is she okay?”
The little filly was standing at the door with concerned eyes. “Yes, I am Miss. Thanks to you. But are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine I just… Uh.” Why did her head hurt? “What happened?”
Brown Peg sat down on a chair and hung his head. “I’m so sorry miss. I… I wanted my little Lilly healed so much that I didn’t even think of…” He sighed.
Pain jolted through Pinkie’s head. Make it sto… Wait, wasn’t this something she had already heard somewhere? Ah yes, Twilight! She always said that when she used too much magic her head began to hurt. “I overused my magic, didn’t I?”
Brown Peg nodded. “And it’s my fault. I know how your abilities work and I overloaded you. I thought you would be able to manage it, concerning how I’ve met you.”
How he… Ah yeah. He had been the one who knocked out her attacker. He had came in the last second. But why… “Why did you think I’ll manage?” She tried to speak gently, not to make him feel accused. All she wanted for him to be happy. After all, he had saved her.
“I was walking on the streets to cool myself after some unsuccessful business with a noble. The stupid unicorn felt offended by how I was handling him. Spoiled brat. Then a flash blinded me, and when I could look again, I saw a small, colorful orb in front of myself. When I tried to say a word, it flew away, so I began chasing it. It stopped sometimes, but when I was about to catch up, it always flew away. After I rounded a corner, it suddenly disappeared, and I saw you ahead of myself and a cloaked unicorn walking towards you with a knife in his magic grab.”
He paused for a moment. “I thought you were sent by the heavens, as an answer to my prayers, to heal my little Lilly. At the same time, I knew that an untrained fainsaarn might exhaust herself so much that she could even fall into a coma.”
A coma? Now that sounded serious. She glanced at Lilly, then smiled at her. “Don’t blame yourself.”
Brown Peg looked up, and Pinkie gazed into his green eyes. “If I’d been you, I also would’ve done everything to see my little filly smile again. And I’m awake, so everything turned out fine in the end, right?”
Brown Peg gave her a weak smile. “Thank you.”
“What’s your name?” Lilly asked.
“Oh, yes, I completely forgot to ask.”
“My name is Pinkie Pie.”
Lilly gasped. “Pinkie Pie? The Pinkie Pie who defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon with her friends?!”
“Yup!”
Lilly screamed. “I knew I saw her before! I can’t believe it! The real Pinkie Pie! And she healed me! Wow! Wow!” She ran to the front of Pinkie and looked up at her with wide eyes. “Have you made any super parties this month? Had any cool adventures? What’re you doing in Canterlot?”
Pinkie chuckled. “Let me see: yes, I made a party for Fluttershy; I haven’t had any cool adventures—well, I still had a fight in the throne room—and I’m here because some big meany decided to send dark wisps to some farmers and killed the princesses.”
The little filly’s face turned from amusement to shock. “What?”
“Don’t worry, they’re fine. Well… except that their bodies are dead, but Twilight said that they were in a stasis so they still can be revived. We just have to find a cure.”
Lilly slumped down. “That sounds really bad.”
Pinkie sighed. “Yeah, it is. That’s why I have to learn how to use my abilities properly.” She climbed out of the bed. “And that’s why I have to go to the library.”
Brown Peg snorted. “You won’t find anything useful there.”
She turned her head towards Brown Peg. “How do you know?”
“Because I went through them: every book, every pergament that mentioned fainsaarns. I once even broke into the res…” He stopped.
Pinkie opened her eyes wide. “You broke into somewhere?!”
He flinched at her sudden voice raise, then stared into her eyes. “I was desperate.” He raised his forearms high. “And it’s not like I stole anything! I’ve just read a few books in the restricted area!” He sighed. “But in the end, it didn’t matter.”
Pinkie glanced at Lilly again. “I won’t tell anyone, but why didn’t it matter?”
“The only book I’ve found to be detailed enough was my great-grandfather’s diary.” He stood up. “I’ve read the book several times and even practiced the movements. If you want, I can teach you the basics.”
Pinkie’s face lit up. “You really would?”
“After what you’ve done for my little Lilly, that’s the least I can do.”
She bounced on the spot. “Wheeee! So, when do we start?”
“Right now.”