Luna lost track of time. The hospital lacked any worthwhile activities. The cheap books and food and bedsheets offered only brief annoyances. Nothing could distract her from her thoughts. She occupied her time with memories: of her conversation with Celestia, of her encounter with Pinkie Pie, of Nightmare Moon’s activities.
Luna’s ear flicked. The door had opened, and Pinkie Pie had returned, clipboard and pen at the ready.
“Good morning, sleepyhead! Are you feeling better today?”
“Is it morning already?”
“Not quite. But it would be kind of silly to say ‘good night’ when you were just waking up, wouldn’t it?”
Luna turned her head. Pinkie Pie still seemed like the standard Celestia intern. “You seem… chipper,” Luna said.
“Thanks!” Pinkie Pie jotted a few notes down, then turned to a different monitor.
“I mean, aren’t you still upset about when I insulted you yesterday?”
“That was two days ago, silly!” Pinkie Pie jotted down a few notes, but the pen did not hamper her speech. She seemed an experienced multitasker. “And no, of course not. Why would I still be upset?”
“I questioned your competence, comparing you to a clown.” Luna sunk her head into the pillow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to let that slip out.”
Pinkie Pie adjusted a dial, scribbled another note. “Oh, don’t worry. We all have our bad days. Sometimes our emotions just get the best of us. That’s one thing about working with children. They get scared, and confused, and angry. They don’t always know how to control their emotions. So we need to help them, instead of taking things personal.” She turned from the machine and smiled. “Apology accepted!”
Luna stared absently at Pinkie Pie. “Might I ask you a question? A personal question?”
Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Sure, I guess. As long as it’s not about my favorite ice cream. Nopony could pick just one flavor.”
Luna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Do you ever find it…difficult?”
“Working with kids?”
“No.” Luna bit her lip. She had rehearsed the question in her head many times. “I mean, do you ever find it hard to…maintain a facade? To continue pretending that the pony you present to everyone else is the real you?”
Pinkie Pie waved a hoof. “Oh, don’t be silly. I don’t have one of those.”
“I saw it slip yesterday, when you were whispering to yourself.” Luna adjusted her back, but the bed and catheter restricted her movement. “And it almost slipped again, when I insulted you.” Luna glanced at a window. “It is not an insult. It is an honest question. You do not have to answer, if you do not want to.”
Pinkie Pie’s ear flicked. She turned to a machine. “I suppose…I wouldn’t say it’s hard, not really. It’s just, sometimes it makes me tired. It can take a lot of energy, to be me.” She turned to Luna. “But that’s okay. Because when I think about the alternative, I’d rather be this version of me.”
“I see.”
“What about you?”
“I would rather not.”
Pinkie Pie waggled her hoof. “Nuh-uh, fair’s fair. I answered, so you have to, too.” She stepped over to Luna’s bed. “Besides, somepony doesn’t ask a question like that out of nowhere. That’s the type of question you ask so you can answer it.”
Luna looked down at her hooves. The catheter had been placed in the same spot she had injected herself with the elixir, but on the other leg. Perhaps the nurse had noticed the needle mark. “Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
“What?”
“It’s a Pinkie Promise. Like I tell my kids, no one can ever break a Pinkie Promise.”
Luna sighed. Pinkie Pie seemed trustworthy, if eccentric. Celestia’s taste in interns could not be that bad. Besides, the alternative seemed unbearable. “Of course it’s hard.” She closed her eyes. “That’s why I made that elixir. I wanted to make it easier for myself. I thought, perhaps enough magic could make that facade into the real me. Could make me better. That it could take all my darkness, all my resentment, and just stick it somewhere, make it easier to keep up my masquerade. I wanted everyone to like me, to respect me.” Luna scrunched her eyes shut. “And now look at me. The board was right. Everyone was right.”
Her eyes snapped open. Pinkie Pie’s hoof rested on hers.
“You don’t believe that,” Pinkie Pie whispered.
“What else am I supposed to believe?” Luna turned her head away. She considered pulling her hoof away, but the catheter prevented such dramatics. “You heard what that monster said. She’s what I am underneath my facade. She h—she wanted to hurt ponies, to hurt my sister, to take power and control away from others.” Luna scrunched her eyes shut, and she felt tears dampen her cheeks. “All my research, all my work, all it did was bring that creature out.”
Luna felt Pinkie Pie’s other hoof rest on her shoulder.
“I was there for most of it, you know.” Pinkie Pie said. “When that Nightmare Moon came into Celestia’s office, we were all there. She said so many nasty things, so many hurtful things. She said the same thing. That she was you, under the mask.”
Pinkie leaned in, lowered her voice. “But Celestia didn’t believe her. She said, nothing that vile could ever hide in her sister. She said that her sister was one of the strongest, smartest ponies she knew.
“And the doppelganger paused. It believed her. And that was just enough of an opportunity to use harmonic magic on it. And when the spell cleared, you were there. Just you.” Pinkie grasped Luna’s hoof with both of hers. “Are you any less, now that she’s gone?”
Pinkie withdrew. “You don’t have to answer right away. Think it over. The answer might surprise you. But I imagine that Celestia already knows it, and that you do too.”
Pinkie turned to the door. “Get some rest, Doctor. I think you earned it.”