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// Chapter Two: New Experiences 
// Story: Equestrian Repo 
// by TheGypsyBard 
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        I don’t like the term “demon”. It carries quite the bit of negativity with it. It implies a pointy tail and cloven hooves. I prefer the term “fallen angel”. That is, indeed, what we are. The difference between us and the angels who don’t fall from grace is that the Unfallen were, are, and always will be faithful, stalwart, and obedient. That is their nature, just as it is their nature to rejoice in worship and contemplation of the vastness of the Creator’s perfection. We, the Fallen, wondered, questioned, confronted, eventually demanded, and in general pushed the edges of the envelope till the envelope burst.
        Since the Creator knows all in the vastness of time, you may ask yourself whether we the Fallen are merely carrying out our part in His plan. That is a question.Good luck getting an answer. His thoughts, His ultimate designs are mysteries. Except to- maybe- the Unfallen. I’ve never been sure about that because the Unfallen don’t hang with us peons much anymore.
        I’ve never liked those guys.
        I went to Pinkie’s home, eager to check out this body that was now mine. On the way, I kept looking up at the vastness of sky. Oh, what a blue! The clouds moved, not just in one direction, but rushing, tumbling, rolling, redefining themselves every second.
        I felt Pinkie’s muzzle stretching and lifted her hooves to touch her face. The appendages encountered small, squarish hard things.
        Teeth. I was grinning! That was wonderful, too- facial muscles reflecting emotions, which are some of the most intangible things in existence. What an exquisite world this was! I should have come here sooner.
‘        On Pinkie’s front steps, I pushed open the door to the bakery.
        Pinkie’s parents had disappeared or abandoned her long before she came to live with this couple. She lived in an orphanage as far back as she could remember, before being “adopted” by her new caretakers. Mr. Cake, her father-figure, was out of town at the moment, helping build relations with the other sweets shops scattered throughout Equestria. Mrs. Cake was currently on the job, attending to ponies who come looking for a little sweetness in their day. There was also two younger “siblings”, foals to her foster parents. The female, Pumpkin Cake, was away for a few weeks at a spring retreat, visiting Canterlot. Pound Cake, the male, still remains in the house, already home from school. I knew the young stallion, of course, as I knew everypony Pinkie came into contact with, but I couldn’t wait to see him through physical eyes.
        Not that Pound Cake would think twice about Pinkie. I’d been watching her quite closely for a while, and it was obvious that when Pound Cake felt anything about his sister at all, it was annoyance at the “pain in the flank” and the “overhappy weirdo”. Pinkie’s little sibling often expressed anger at Pinkie for being “giddy” and “too excited”.
        I already knew more than I wanted to know about equine annoyance and anger. I’d spent most of my existence buried under endless drone of negativity that envelops every one of the billions of my, shall we say, clients. Most of them are in my charge not because of what they did, but because of what they didn’t do. There’s some kind of interaction with the Creator- which of course, I’m not privy to- and the souls come, slathered in guilt and regrets. There they remain, to agonize and anguish.
        The only uplifting times are when, usually after millennia of suffering, a single soul suddenly, for no reason apparent to me, decides it’s had enough, that it’s paid the price for its wrongs, and sort of twists itself out, shedding its misery to go free. It’s a beautiful, memorable, and very rare event. It’s a cool rush, a sweet atom of a moment in an eternity of heavy dark. But, even that fine a moment has its bitterness. In Hell, nothing is pure joy. There’s sorrow in the moment of release, when the soul realizes that a true sin, once committed, can never be undone, and thus in one respect, never be paid for.
        How the length of the soul’s stay is decided, I have no idea. I’ve wondered often enough. I know the kind of reckoning I had, after the Rebellion. It wasn’t a trial with judgement pronounced from on high. More like the peeling back of the outer layers of one’s being, all protections ripped off, leaving one with an excruciating, painfully naked self-appraisal. When it was all over, I knew what my punishment was. I knew it would have no end.  No one told me. I just knew.
        Is it the same way with souls? Do they have to serve a prearranged sentence imposed on them by the Creator? Or do they know on their own when they’ve atoned for whatever they did or  neglected to do?
        Whatever the reason, they punish themselves. I merely oversee; I don’t actively do anything about anything.
        Mine is a useless occupation.
        As I let myself into the Sugar-filled bakery shoppe, I pondered how long it’d take the powers that be to care that I was no longer doing my job. In any case, I was going to enjoy every second of this holiday while I could.
        I pulled the door shut behind me. Pinkie’s alligator was in the entry, next to the front door, watching with a blank stare at all who entered. I was instantly curious; many ponies love their pets more than they love other equine, and I’ve always wondered why.
        As far as I have been able to see, animals don’t give much to their owners; they let themselves be fed and petted, which has always seemed to me to be entirely a matter of self-interest. Now I observed that this reptile did look rather pliable, despite it’s rough exterior. It might feel pleasing on a hoof. Perhaps stroking it might be the key to the pet-owner relationship.
        However, as I approached, the alligator- its name was Gummy- backed away, baring non-existent teeth in my direction. I stopped. “Gummygummygummy,” I called, as PInkie was often to do, while bending slightly, extending one hoof out for the alligator to inspect.
        The alligator turned and scuttled away. It disappeared down the hall.
        Did it know I wasn’t Pinkie Pie?
        I stood up. I didn’t see how the reptile could know. It wasn’t as if I smelled different. I’d have to try again later.
        I stepped out of the entryway, into the main foyer. The shelves and tables were lined with a wide array of sweets and pastries, each one another shade of the rainbow, with toppings and icing to match. Cakes, cupcakes, sweet buns, pies, chocolate bars, milk chocolate, syrup, all of these things could be seen in the one little instance of true a candyland. I moved beyond the room into the living section, where Pinkie’s sibling, Pound Cake, was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, playing a video game. He was a compact and complex bundle, in a pony. The hairs on his head were smooth and appeared to  be shining entity, when I knew there had to be hundreds of thousands of them. His body was relaxed except for his hooves and  wings, which gripped a controller. The wings held it firm, while his hooves seemed to spasm in tiny movements: tapping, pushing, pulling, circling.
        Pinkie has grown to seldom approach her foster-brother, simply due to his ill-treatment of her. But I wanted to interact, and I liked the feel of Pinkie’s voice rumbling out of her chest, and I enjoyed making the changes in tongue, throat, and lips that enable speech.
        “Hey, Poundy,” I said pleasantly, because this was how Pinkie always addressed the young pegasus.
“Shut up,” said Pound Cake without looking around. He did not say it with the same vibrant, enthusiastic meaning that Pinkie and her friends used. He loaded the two syllables with loathing and resentment.
        I was glad to have been able to exchange speech with another equine, and went humming up the stairs to Pinkie’s attic room.
There I stopped in the doorway to take it all in. Or tried to.
        Pinkie’s foster-mother says her room is one big pit without any organization whatsoever, but the truth is that Pinkie has a system. She drops any used costumes on the floor when she takes them off, and tosses the clean ones on the bed and stool and doorknob. She does not make her bed because, she says, she will only mess it up again that night. Her CDs are not in order, and they are on the floor rather than in the rack her foster-father bought her, but they are in stacks. Mostly. She knows where they are in general, if not specifically. Dirty dishes lie on the bedside table because Pinkie only makes a dish run whenever her trash can is full. Then she takes all her plates and glasses to the kitchen as she carries the trash out.
        However, there is no question that Pinkie’s room i s a mess. In fact, I only fully comprehended what a “mess” was when I saw Pinkie’s room. Everything blurred and seemed to run together- the colors, the textures, the shapes. It was… unpleasant. Not in and of itself, but because I couldn’t separate out something to experience.
Finally, I bent and picked up a T-shirt. The words on the front were faded, and scaling from having been washed. I drew the shirt over her hooves and fore-legs, feeling the slight stretch of the material. Wonderful. Soft. I crumpled the shirt in  Pinkie’s hooves and watched it take on shadows in the folds. Then I lifted it and gently brushed the material against Pinkie’s cheek. It felt even softer- interesting, how the more sensitive hooves have slightly different perceptions from the face, which has fewer nerve endings.
The lips have almost as many nerve endings as the hooves. I shut Pinkie’s eyes and rubbed the shirt against her lips. Now it didn’t really feel soft at all, but rough, and as I held it there, a sour stench rose into my borrowed nostrils and I realized that this shirt smelled like three-day-old sweat from Pinkie’s armpits.
“What are you doing?”
 I jumped. It’s the startle reflex; even infants have it. I didn’t know how disagreeable it was.
I looked up to see Pinkie’s brother in the open doorway. Pound Cake’s eyes were a lovely color, sort of a pale green. I doubted that many ponies had observed this; Pound Cake was renowned for his lack of eye-contact.
Then I realized that what Pound Cake saw just now was Pinkie standing in the middle of the room, eyes shut, while she slowly rubbed a stinky T-shirt over her mouth.
I would have known, even if I hadn’t seen the expression on Pound Cake’s face, that he thought this behavior odd.
“Nothing,” I told him. That’s what Pinkie would have said, even if Pinkie would never have been feeling his own clothes with his lips. “Silly-head.” I added as an afterthought. Somehow, though, I had missed the rhythm of conversation. Pound Cake did not say “Shut up”.  He did not move.
“Are you making out with your shirt?”
I wasn’t interested in what Pound Cake thought of me. What I was interested in was Pinkie’s tongue.
The tongue has even more nerve endings that the hooves or lips. I wondered what the material would feel like against my tongue, how it would differ from what I’d already experienced.
Still, I thought carefully, to reason out what Pinkie would have done about Pound Cake. I hoped to lie low during my sojourn, whether it ended up being minutes or hours.
“Get out of my room,” I told him, as Pinkie might have done, and stepped toward the door.
“I’m not in your room.”
“Get out of my doorway.” I told him, and shut the door in his face.