Post War Pinkie Pie
By Foxgear
“Pinkie… um… Pinkie it’s time to wake up. Please wake up. I don’t want Limestone to yell at you again.”
“Is she not awake yet? Tell the freak to get out of bed and do her chores!” Limestone Pie screamed from outside. Marble flinched from the volume and tried to wake her twin again.
“I’m awake Marble,” Pinkie Pie said neutrally, her usual boundless energy nowhere to be found. Not anymore, not after what happened.
“Oh… um good morning Pinkie, do you want some breakfast before going out for work?”
Pinkie shook her head as she rolled out of bed; she stood on wobbly legs and sulked to the bathroom to wash up. The room filled up with stream as she turned on the shower. She placed her hands on the wall to help her balance. Her legs still didn’t feel right; they never would, because they weren’t her legs. She looked sadly at the stitching on her thighs, where her pink skin suddenly changed to grey. Slowly she brought her right hand in front of her face, it was also grey.
“Maud…” Pinkie whispered as she let the water pour her head, the water mixing with her tears.
Limestone wasn’t wrong to call her a freak. She was a freak. What kind of sane person would steal her sister’s limbs!
(That’s not true Pinkie, I gave them to you. You needed them.) Maud’s voice said in her head.
Quickly Pinkie shut off the water. She stood in front of the mirror wide eyed and scared. Her right hand trembled as she picked up a strand of her flat hair, it looked like Maud’s.
(Pinkie just because you have my arm and legs it doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to become me.)
“I know.” She said a loud. “I’m crazy, not stupid. I’m just slowly going crazy.”
“Pinkie get out here!”
She sighed, “Coming Limestone!”
Back on the rock farm again, funny how life takes you right back where you started sometimes. Course after the war Pinkie didn’t feel comfortable in Ponyville anymore. No. That’s not right. She loved being Ponyville, but the people there, they weren’t as comfortable with her has they had been. Not when she walked back into town with different limbs. That was jarring enough. Telling people they were her sister’s arm and legs, that… that was mistake. The rumors about her spread throughout the town faster than a dragon could set a forest on fire. People for the first time ever were avoiding Sugar Cube Corner and it was because of her. She didn’t want to Cakes to suffer because of her so she left and come home. Her reception was lukewarm at best.
Marble had embraced her instantly and cried. Limestone… well Limestone was Limestone, but worse. She was hard before, but the war hardened her even more. Maud’s death made her harder than a diamond and seeing her with Maud’s limbs made her as angry as volcano.
With her right hand Pinkie smashed a boulder to bits and then into smaller bits. Once the bits were small enough she scooped them up and dumped them in the rock wagon. There was a lot rebuilding to do and people needed conceit for roads and cement for buildings. Business what booming for the rock farm, so much so that they actually started the Pie mining company, well Limestone did. She and Marble were just helping out. Limestone did give them shares in the company, even though she wasn’t very happy with Pinkie right now.
“Family is still family. I’m sure she’ll come around, right boulder? Yeah I know she will get over it… someday, she just needs time. Limestone was excited about being in Maud’s unit, but she was transferred to a different unit instead and I was placed with Maud. I think Boulder, Limestone blames herself for not being by Maud’s side. I know I do.” Her fist tightened. “I should have listened to her Boulder.”
It was towards the end of the war. An army of golems, monsters made of dirt and stone, appeared controlled by a demented man named Crowley. He made hordes upon hordes of golems. They roamed and stumbled like zombies, but they were much, much deadlier. They came in all shapes and sizes and in different species.
Some were lumbering humanoids with large claw hands, others had swords for hands, some shot beams of magic from their cannon shaped hands, and some even flew. Those were just the basic ones. The closer they got to breaching Crowley’s fortress, the more monstrous the golems became. Some were even bigger than a house and they could take a beating.
The foot soldiers were nothing to worry about for her and Maud; they could turn them back to dust with a single hit! In fact they basically bulldozed their way through the front lines into the depths of Crowley’s fortress. There they were met with stronger opposition. She still remembered the look on Maud’s face when her fist failed to shatter huge golem. She had been afraid.
“Run Pinkie!” Was what Maud said, but she didn’t listen. She had thought as long as they were together they could pull through anything, so she held her ground. Maud stayed by her side, not to advance, but to keep her safe. She did a good job too. Until that one monster got between them.
Pinkie shuttered as she fell against Holder’s boulder. She still felt them, her limbs. She could feel the pain, the felling of disconnect, the feeling of knowing something was there and knowing it was gone. The phantom pain they called it. Even with Maud’s limbs her mind could tell something wasn’t right.
The monster had been faster than the other golems. Its three blades tails thrashed around like a whip. Pinkie never saw them coming till she was on the ground, her legs and arm several feet away. Maud jumped in to protect her, fighting off the beast for hours and many more till help arrived. Maud stood there, panting, covered blood and sweet. She smiled and said in her same usual tone, “I’m glad you’re still alive. Don’t worry about you limbs, you can have mine.”
Then Maud just died right in front of her. The doctors said the battle drained her to the point of extreme exhaustion. She had been fighting for days before hand, with little food or sleep. Her body just gave out.
Pinkie didn’t remember much afterwards. She remembered bright lights and masked faces looking down on her. The stinging of the needle as they sewed Maud’s limbs to her. They said since they were sisters the transplant had a higher chance of success.
She just tried to get the image of them cutting up Maud’s body out of her mind. They had laid Maud’s body next to her, there wasn’t time. They had to take the limbs right away. She wished they had the decency to cover her eyes before they started sawing with the bone saw.
Her motivation to work gone with the flood of bad memories, Pinkie Pie staggered over to Holder’s boulder and placed her back against the hard cold stone as she slid to the ground. The cold felt good against her hot body, she realized now that she was sweating a lot and it wasn’t just from the heat. She shivered despite herself and then realized something.
She was wearing Maud’s shirt. Not only that, she was wearing nothing but Maud’s shirt. Sure it was long enough to be mistaken for a short dress, but how had she not noticed? She didn’t even remember putting it on! She… was she losing her mind? This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened, but it’s happening more and more often. She’d do something and forget the events that took place before and after, like someone else was moving her body.
Was… was she becoming Maud?
(No)
“Hearing your voice in my head doesn’t help Maud.”
(Pinkie you need help.)
She snorted, “Thanks for stating the obvious! I know I need help! I hear voices in my head!”
(Pinkie…)
“Leave me alone Maud!” Tears swelled up in her eyes. She loved her sister. She was grateful for her gift to let her walk and be normal. She wasn’t arguing with Maud’s disembodied voice!
(Pinkie please, it’s time to move on.)
“Lalala! I’m not listening!”
(Pinkie go and see your friends!)
“…”
Her friends... her best friends, she hasn’t seen them since the end of the war. She saw Rarity in her wheelchair, Applejack silently crying in her cot, Rainbow Dash crying as she came back to base, Fluttershy covered in bandages, and Twilight… looking utterly destroyed as she held a crying Flurry Heart and there she stood in the middle of it all, the element of laughter, the bringer of happiness and good cheer, she could do nothing for any of them. She hadn’t even tried.
Pinkie laid her head against Holder’s Boulder and lifted her right hand to the sky, as if trying to catch the sunshine, because she could really use some right now. A lot of people could.
“I’m a worthless friend.” She croaked letting her hand fall. “I can’t make anyone happy, not when it matters most.”