She could almost still feel it.
She could almost feel the familiar graze of her fingers on the blanket, or the texture of her own palm. She missed the clunky nature of both gauntlets, or the mere reason to have two gauntlets now. Aside from that, she could almost hear the voices of Pyrrha and Penny in her mind...chanting her name like some kind of sadistic song ;She missed them more than her stupid stump of an arm. But there was one thing that she didn't miss and currently hated with every fiber of her being and all of her heart, or what was left of it anyway.
Yang despised the misery that was her life.
Everyone kept trying to get close to her again after what happened, especially her determined sister...half sister. She kept visiting her every day with a tired, hopeful grin that she kept thinking would make her older sibling crack a smile. She made jokes sometimes or talked about a funny thing that happened to her in that day. Actually, Ruby hadn't done that in days because the last time she visited Yang actually struck her.
It was almost funny; the blonde was greatly torn between feeling satisfaction from having pushed away the horrible attempt at helping her and feeling woe from having pushed away the one person actually trying to help her. Her sister was only there to finish a long story, and it trailed off into silence as she stared at Yang's stump in guilt. She remembered that she started to say sorry, but the next thing she knew the girl was on the floor and offering the most heart wrenching look in history. A red spot was on the side of her face, so the dots were connected quickly.
Yang never ate much in the last day because she didn't leave the slight comfort of her bed. She just wanted to stay there until her life faded away from her right in that bed, and not stay there a second longer. She could overhear people outside the door sometimes saying that she needed to adapt to this or be strong about it. Yang didn't want to adapt to her missing limb- she didn't want to adapt to the forever empty beds of her friends. She wanted all of it back, that's all.
Whenever Yang felt like she was beyond tears, her body would almost immediately prove her wrong. She rested her head against the wall as she sat up in bed and sniffled, wiping a few of her tears with the back of her remaining hand. It wasn't loud enough to be heard outside of the walls of the room, but she did whimper for a while while memories of her talking with Pyrrha flashed through her mind. Not long before her death, Yang remembered hearing that she was having trouble finding herself and learning what she was supposed to do in life. The teen wished she could said something important to her, but what good would that do now? She'd still be dead.
Yang shifted her knees up and buried her face in them in preparation for the onslaught of tears coming her way. It hadn't even been half a minute into her saddening sobs when a single, foreign voice shredded through the relative silence of the room like a ln explosion. It made her completely freeze and it turned her sobbing into quiet, confused sniffles. "Aw, Don't cry yet! I haven't even gotten started!"
The blonde sniffled one last time and slowly looked up from her knees. She flinched to the side, eyed widening impossibly at the person who'd spoken...or rather animal. A giant pink horse was standing in the middle of the room, or right next to her bed to be more specific. It wasnt extremely giant perse, but it was about the size of a fairly large teddy bear or maybe a dining room chair. It's sheen cost was a blinding shade of pink as for mentioned, while its mane looked and smelled like hair-shaped cotton candy. But something about this horse seemed different than a regular one: it's body seemed strangely cartoony in comparison with any other pony. It had longer eyelashes, a small snout, perky ears and expressive large blue eyes. The most noticeable thing about it was the huge grin settling just under it's cute little nose.
"Hi there! How ya doin'?" The pony spoke with an obviously feminine voice, laced with sugar-hyperactiveness. "You must be...Yang, right? What a romantic name."
Yang wasn't sure what to make of the sudden, alien visitor in her room. Despite it's harmless looking nature it could be there to harm her, and she was too far away from any weapon to protect herself. If it was here to hurt her, whatever it was, she'd have to stall for time by talking to it. "...w...H-How do you know my name? W-what are y-you?"
"I'm a pony, silly goose! M'name's Pinkie Pie!" The horse giggled frantically for a second and cut it off with a snort. "As for how I know you: Well, I've been watching you for a looong time..."
Yang paled considerably, but the pony eventually laughed again. "Just kidding! Unless you count two days and a half as a long time... You don't, do you?"
The teen shook her head in fear; was she going insane from all the stress she'd encountered? She never expected to be this insane, if at all. "W-What a-are you doing here? What do...d-do you want with me?"
The pony sat down with a resounding plop, her forehooves placed on the floor between her legs. She cleared her throat dramatically and the smile on her face slightly fell. "You haven't been doing well, Yang. I've noticed that in the last day and half I've been studying you. Don't get me wrong though. I can see why you're slowly falling into...depression."
"...no kidding." Yang said warily and sank a little lower into the bed, trying to hide her stump. This was by far turning out to be the weirdest day of her life...and she'd had quite a few weird ones to recall. " Is that all you've been watching me for?"
A serious nod was the response. "Yep, and I took some peeks at the people it's affected to. I'm just as worried for them as I am for you."
"...I must really be important, if everyone's bothering me like this...even ponies from other worlds." The young woman brushed some frustrating bangs of yellow out of her eyes and glared at the pink pony. "I don't need your sympathy right now. I just want to be left alone, okay?"
She didn't allow time for an answer, because she immediately flipped onto her side with her back facing away from the annoying equine. She shut her violet eyes tightly and curled into a small ball in her attempts to forget seeing the thing. Silence slithered through the darkness of her shut eyelids for a long time, and Yang sighed in relief. It was all just in her head, and wasn't real at all.
Yang opened her eyes and found herself almost nose to snout with the salmon mare, grin and all. "Do you have a coltfriend?"
"What?"
"Oh right, silly me! A boyfriend?"
Yang sat up in bed and sneered at the animal lying dowon on the bed next to her, crossing her arms as best as she could. "No. Why would you ask that insanely random question?"
Pinkie shrugged sideways. "Well, your name is Yang...I figured you had a Yin around here somewhere."
"...No, not right now. I'm not really thinking about my love life right now. " She rolled her eyes with another, more agitated sigh. "So are you just going to stay here and try to get me to stop being sad over my arm and...m-my friends?"
"Actually, my main objective is to make you laugh!" Pinkie Pie explained and bounced off the bed like a little rabbit, her hair bouncing in time with her own leaps of cuteness. "Because I'm the kind of pony who just wants that! Back home, I always make even the most hard boiled pony crack into a giggle fit."
Yang watched as the pony reach into the empty space behind her and pulled out a primitive cannon painted pink. She was about to ask where in the world she got that cannon from, when Pinkie tugged on a string attached to it and confetti blasted out noisily into the air. Yang nearly whimpered; it would take all day to get this out of the rugs. "Okay! Now I shall begin trying to make you laugh!"
"Oh joy."
"That's the spirit, Yang! Now...where to start...?" A tiny light bulb impossibly flashed over head, only for the equine to grab it in her hooves. She started string up the light bulb at the top of her ceiling and then pull more tiny light bulbs out of the empty space of the room. Her lightning fast movements made everything a blur to Yang, and she watched in growing interest as the lights were all bonded together by wire and hung from the ceiling. Eventually, Pinkie scooted to a halt below the light bulb ornament. "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell? Whaddaya think?"
Yang scrutinized the giant ornament and noticed that it was actually a giant image of her face made out of light bulbs. Her 'hair' took up the most light bulbs while the place where her skin would be was mostly empty space. A bright smile was the only thing differing herself and it. "I think it's a waste of light bulbs."
Pinkie Pie and the light bulb face frowned deeply, while Yang stared in growing confusion. Pinkie impossibly stuffed the bulbs back into her cannon and tapped her hoof against her forehead in deep thought. Another idea was quick to come to her. "If that didn't get your facial muscles to spasm, then maybe this will!"
The horse slammed a kiddie pool down in the center of her room and then rushed to the ceiling fan...while seemed several stories higher for some reason. The pony let go of the fan and plummeted from such a height, quietly making sounds of excitement as she went. Once she was within two feet of the kiddie pool, she slowed down impossibly fast and gradually sank so much into the water that she disappeared. Yang's jaw dropped. "...How did you do that?"
"Did you say something?" Pinkie emerged from the water, wearing a scuba diver mask and oxygen tank. Her eye narrowed through the goggles at the blonde. "Ugh! Still not smiling, huh?"
She leaped out of the water, tossing her costume aside first and then her pool...both disappearing into thin air somehow. Pinkie stretched her arm to the left and reeled in a microphone along with a stand, and a bow tie. She pretended to shield her eyes with an arm and d cringe softly.
"Yikes! Is it sunny today, or is that just Yang's hair?" The pony zipped over to a magically appearing drumset and performed the joke snare. She rushed back over to the microphone. "Thank you! Thank you! You're a wonderful crowd!"
"What are you doing?" Yang questioned her through gritted teeth; clearly she didn't like that obviously hilarious joke.
"Jokes, silly! I know you've got a funny bone in there somewhere, eh? Eh?" Pinkie'shrugged smirk battled Yang's frowned for a moment or three. " y'know what I've noticed? I've noticed that the worst thing you can hear when you're wearing a bikini is 'Good for you!' Am I riiiight?"
Yang kept frowning, and Pinkie kept smiling enthusiastically. "Ha! Almost got you on that one! That reminds me: I know a psychologist who's selling a book that teaches you how to test your dog's IQ. Here's how it works: If you spend 67 bits for the book, your dog is smarter than you!"
"..."
"...Hmm. Crowd's turning out to be a killer...Speaking of killer: one of my bestest friends in all of Equestria told me to take a spider out instead of killing it! So we went and had a few drinks! He's really cool; wants to be a doctor someday."
"...*sigh*..." Yang gripped the bridge of her noise in weary silence, but it was short lived. "Why can't you leave me alone? In fact, why can't anyone do that? Is it because I'm being sad?"
Pinkie's face fell a bit somber at the questions and the distraught tone of her voice. "Well...kinda."
"What do you expect me to do?!" Yang half snarled at her, swinging her legs to the side to sit facing the horse. She waved her arm in exasperation. "What do you all expect me to do?! Just suck it up and go around skipping like I just got a piece of candy?!"
" No, That's not it! I didn't come all the way from my world to make you act like nothing happened!" Pinkie suddenly spoke with the same tone as her, adding in slightly narrowed eyes." I'm here because you needed help remembering!"
Yang scoffed in disbelief. "Help remembering? Remembering what,huh?!"
"Your family." She responded, much quieter. "The part you have left."
When she opened her mouth to snap, she was surprised to find that she had nothing to say. If anything, a spark of curiosity blossomed in her mind at the equine's words. That curiosity made her quiet just long enough for the pony to continue. "Your sister, your other team members, your friends and mostly everyone else you know have collectively grieved over you in this past week. Some have become so afraid for you that they mull around for hours, all gloomy, thinking about what they could do help you...uh, your friends...er...what're their names again? The one with white clothes and the one that kinda looks like an emo?"
Yang bit back an amused snort and reluctantly answered. "...W-Weiss and Blake."
"Oh yeah! Them. They used to work pretty efficiently during this week...although the deaths of your friends might've slowed that down a lot." Pinkie explained slowly. "But now they can barely work well because they keep thinking about you. Heck, most conversations in this place are about you."
"...*sigh*..." The girl lowered her head to her feet, idly kicking aside confertie with her toes. "...what about Ruby?"
Pinkie Pie nervously rubbed the back of her head. "Yeeeeeah, maybe it's just me...but I don't think she's been sleeping so well lately. Then there's the sad stares she gives at the picture she has of you both...and I have a pretty decent idea over who gave her really nasty bruise."
"...I...I-I swear I didn't mean to do it!" Yang responded sorrowfully, her eyes glistening with tears. "I don't know why i-I hit her; I've never been angry like that before!"
"We all have those moments, Yang! You can regret it all you want, but everyone has that one split second." Pinkie trotted over, hopped onto the bed next to the blonde and lightly patted her shoulder with a hoof. "I don't think I've had one yet, but it'll eventually happen to me. The point is, I...we all understand your pain. We also understand that this pain is eating you alive."
"...It's not even this sometimes. I know I'll never be able to do things that I used to..." She gestured to her missing limb halfheartedly. "It's Pyrhha. It's Penny. I-I can't talk to them anymore...I can't laugh with them or cry with them. I can never team up with them again...Do you know how terrible that feels?"
"...No. But do you remember Jaune?"
Yang cringed at the memory of him, and felt a bit more saddened when she imagined what he was feeling right now. Pinkie took the liberty of explaining that imagination. "He loved Pyrhha more than anyone else, or so I've seen and heard. He hasn't got there yet, but he is starting to move on. Maybe it's time for you to move on too."
"Hmm. It sounds so...cruel when people say it."
"Yeah, but it's totally not like that. Ponies...er, people just want you to move forward with them fresh in your heart. They're not saying that you have to forget them altogether. " Pinkie offered a hopeful grin and tilted her head. "I don't want to see you continue to live this way, or affect other people by living this way. I hear it makes you age badly. Wrinkles and everything."
The girl received that statement so unexpectedly that she actually grinned, and then uttered a short laugh. She knw what she had done and therefore made it a short giggle, but Pinkie's highly expressive ears caught it. And thus, another big smile formed in that room. "Ha! I knew I'd get you to laugh eventually! Who knew it'd be after such an emotional conversation?"
Yang shrugged at her question and brushed a lock of yellow out of her hair again. "No one. But...I needed that talk. It's embarrassing to know that I needed to be told this, especially to the point where ponies from who knows where have to tell me. This is the most embarrassing day of my life."
"Don't worry! It'll be our secret!" Pinkie smiled a bit wider. "Besides, it was fun helping you cope with this!"
"...Why would you come all the way out here, anyway?"
"Aside from what I just said: I'm the kind of pony who will focus on making one grumpy mule smile just slightly in order to make my day. I'll literally spend countless hours concocting ways to create the slightest grin from said mule." The pony elaborated definitively. "In short, I try to be everypony's friend, and by default I must make them happy each day...My 'pinkie sense' detected all the gloomy depression flowing through this place and tracked it down to you, no offense."
The girl thoughtfully considered the reasoning behind the visit, a blush coming to her cheeks at the thought of being cared about enough to be visited. Even she could be flattered- a hothead like her. "Eh, none taken. I can't take offense when I'm supposed to be thanking you for this."
"No problem, marefriend!" The pony hopped off the bed and onto the floor. "It's what I do!"
"So I hear. What are you gonna do now that I've smiled?"
"I gotta head home." Pinkie looked down st a watch that suddenly appeared on her wrist. "I'd hate to miss my 4:00 tea with my favorite Draconequus. You wouldn't know what that is."
Yang nodded slowly, in confusion. "Yeah...I guess I wouldn't. Uh...thanks again. You know, for reminding me...It won't be easy..."
"That's what friends and family are for. You don't have to go through this alone." She and the equine shared a friendly gaze for seemed like eternity, before the kind animal gave a salute to her. She turned to the side, gripped a random floating zipper and pulled downwards to open a hole in the air. "Welp! This is my ride, Yang! I hope you feel better and have fun doing it!"
"W-Wait!" Yang managed to push past her confusion over the hole to interrupt the pony. She bit her bottom lip slightly. "Am I gonna see you again?"
Pinkie Pie trotted over to her once more and wrapped her forelimbs around her rightly. It took a while for her to realize it, but Yang found that she was receiving a hug...a rather warm hug at that. The human eventually returned the long, peaceful embrace until Pinkie slowly pulled back. "I definitely think I have time in my schedule for another visit or two. You?"
"I think I'll pretty busy!" She giggled despite herself. "But I can always make time, Pinkie."
Pinkie Pie giggled, bouncing happily towards the hole in midair before leaping through it. The hole shut behind her in an instant and left the blonde alone with her thoughts once again. She was still sad about what happened to her, but she somehow wasn't as sad as she was before. She was more confident in her friends, and moreso her family now.
Ironically, a knock on the door prologued a familiar voice. "Y-Yang? May I come in?"
She gasped, rushing at top speed to the door and swinging it wide to view the surprised face of her little sister. She hugged her as rightly as she could with one arm, but wasn't conscious of her missing limb this time. Her sister moved her own arms out if the way with a gasp, and from the corner of her vision Yang could see a plate of something in her hand. She pulled back to look into her sister's eyes. "I am an idiot, Ruby!"
Ruby blinked once, then four times. "You are?"
"Yes! And not only that, I was heartless. I don't even know how to begin apologizing for what I did, but I HAVE to make it up to you!" Yang's hand brushed over the small spot on Ruby's cheek. "It doesn't hurt too much does it? I didn't mean to hit you that hard I swear!"
"You never mean it, Sis. "Ruby finally smiled at her and rolled her eyes. "I'm just glad that you're actually okay and not slowly dying in here...now that means we can eat these cookies I made for us!"
Yang tore her eyes away from her optimistic sibling; the cookies were slightly charred and a little green. It didn't matter to her though- they could be three weeks bad and she'd still ESR them. Anything to start making things up to her sister. "I'd like that a lot, Ruby. Thanks."
Ruby bashfully beamed in response, but that grin vanished in a heartbeat when she looked past Yang and into their room. "Uh...Sis?"
"Yes?"
"Where did all that confetti come from?"
"...It's a long story, and you'll call me crazy by the end of it. Come in, please."
Fin