Now with better theme music!
Charlie’s asleep right now, so I’m having Middler write this for me. I have to learn to read and write one day. I wonder if I had known how to write if I’d write backwards now? Charlie writes backwards sometimes, but he says that’s because he has a dyslexic, not because he used to be a dream. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m not a dream anymore, so when I do learn to write it will be real-life-wake-up-writing.
Which also makes me wonder, who am I writing this for? I mean, I can’t read it. I know I don’t want the other changelings reading it. Don’t get me wrong, the changelings here have been super nice to me. And the place kind of reminds me of home… and maybe that’s the problem.
I tell myself it’s different here. And it is. And I know it is, because I can see it. It’s somehow… cleaner than the hive back home. Maybe it’s because he’s not here. But what if I just brought a new Nopony with me? Charlie made him. No matter what, I can’t forget that. I thought Nopony was different to at first, too. I thought I’d finally found somepony who could see past my smile.
I know Charlie’s different from him, because… why? Nopony was always super nice when we first met. He fell out of a broom closet in the basement of the hive, and he seemed to know so much about the world. It was like he knew all the ponies personally. And he told so many stories, and I thought they were all super-fun because I thought they were all just stories he made up. And then the Queen started listening to his stories. And she made him into a changeling and he became a part of our hive. I was really happy then.
I guess I knew things weren’t what I thought they were when the Queen told me I had to stay out of sight. Nopony said I was scaring the customers. That’s when I started staying in the broom closet. Then one day Nopony put another pony in the closet with me. He said they were doing bad things and hurting our hive. He said the Queen needed me to find out their secrets. So I did. It became my job after that, and I left the closet less and less. Ponies didn’t want to see me, and the only ponies I ever saw were were the ones Nopony gave me to play with.
I started hating secrets. If ponies didn’t have so many secrets, then he wouldn’t make me find out their secrets, and I wouldn’t be a bad pony. I didn’t want to be a monster, but it didn’t matter, because none of those dirty little ponies would even look past my smile. They just wanted to cling to their dirty little secrets. So I hid away in my little closet, hoping someday maybe I could fall out and be in a better place, just like Nopony had.
I don’t know how long it went on like that. How long it had been since I’d seen the sun and the sky. It wasn’t like they locked me in the closet. I could leave. I think Nopony wanted me to leave. I think the Queen and the other changelings wanted that too. But I didn’t leave, because where would I go? Equestria was just like the factory. It was a dirty place full of dirty ponies who looked away when I smiled. And it went on like that until one day Nopony threw Charlie in the closet, and told me I couldn’t break this one. Which was odd, because he normally didn’t care if I broke anypony he gave me to play with.
Charlie was different, right away. It was like he knew me. Not just ponies, but me personally. He called me the wrong name, my name was never Diane. My name had always been Pinky Pie #7. But it was okay, because I could tell somehow that he wasn’t telling me I couldn’t be Pinky Pie. Somehow, that name meant that to him I really WAS Pinky Pie. Even after he figured out that I wasn’t really the real Pinky Pie, he still called me Diane, because I was still Pinky Pie to him.
Charlie was so different from the ponies Nopony usually gave me to play with. He didn’t just tell me his secrets because he wanted to make the game stop. Charlie told me his secrets because he really felt bad he had kept them from me in the first place. And then Charlie told me the biggest secret of all, and I knew that somehow, there was a way out.
I knew things. More than Nopony ever gave me credit for. When ponies don’t want to see you they pretend you’re not there, and you hear things. Just because because you ignore somepony doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I knew Nopony had made a deal with the goat. I knew the deal was supposed to take him somewhere better. I knew it was going to make the whole world go away and he was going to let me go away with it. The goat called it a dream, but I knew it was really the whole world.
But who could I tell? What changeling would listen to stupid, broken, ugly Cupcake? I hated that name. That name meant I wasn’t really Pinky Pie. It meant my sister wasn’t really Pinky Pie, and my best friend wasn’t really Rainbow Dash. It meant everypony thought I was just a stupid, silly little bug who couldn’t even change right. It meant I belonged in a cold, dark place in a closet in the basement.
But I could tell Charlie. And Charlie never called me Cupcake, or told me I was stupid or broken. But we were still stuck in that cold dark place buried beneath a giant party that was nothing to us but the tombstone over a forgotten grave. And Charlie said he knew what Nopony wanted, and that maybe he could get away, and that he’d take me with him.
A Lot of ponies said they’d take me with them if I helped them get away. I had learned pretty quick that they were lying. That’s why I didn’t believe Charlie. Even though I helped him anyway, when he fell out of the world to make a deal with the words, I knew he was just leaving me to go away with the rest of the world. And that was going to be the end of it. Pinky Pie #7 was just going to disappear right along with her stupid closet. And then something magical happened. I really did fall out of the closet and into somewhere better.
And Charlie says he’s going to take me to Canterlot. And that I’m going to get to ride on a train. And that I can smile whenever I want. And this time I really do believe him. But I worry sometimes because I thought Nopony was different too. Well, I think Charlie’s about to wake up, so I’m gonna put this up for now. I still don’t know who I’m writing this for. Maybe one day when I learn how to read I’ll read it to Charlie. I guess now it’s just Mine and Middler’s little secret. It feels nice to have my own secrets that I didn’t have to take from anypony. And I know Middler will never tell.