There we are, darling, how is that? Not too snug?" Rarity adjusted the gem-encrusted light halter on her friend but there was a strange calmness in the normally overly distracted mare. "Pinkie Pie? Are you alright?" Rarity waved a hoof before the pink party pony's snout, noting her pupils were focused down to pin-pricks that didn't follow the motion.
Pinkie didn't hear her friend. The feel of the halter, the slightly tight grip it held on her head cracking a shell inside her head. Memories spilled out.
She was a happy filly, but not extroverted. Pinkie was working the rock farm, on the farthest field from the farmstead. There was an annoying batch of wild tomato’s that had gotten in the way of some fine limestone crags. "Come on, move you stupid-heads."
Leaning down, the filly wrapped her strong jaws around one of the stems and yanked. Hard. Falling backwards, as the might that even a young earth pony can bring to bear ripped the plant from the ground, Pinkie was suddenly hit square in the face by a big, overripe tomato. "Hey!" She swung out at the plant, only succeeding in bursting another of the juicy fruits and having it drip on her. She giggled. "Oh, you think you can beat me?"
The yelled words echoed off a nearby canyon, but they weren't what led the predators to her. It was the giggle, the taste of the hint of happiness in another.
Pinkie kept yanking up stems, giggling and struggling through the work, showing a tiny hint of the joyful mare she would later become. "Oh, not so tough when you are all out of the ground, huh?" She stomped all over the green stems, licking her lips clean.
"PINKIE!" Rarity panted but she saw her yell got the desired result. "Oh dear me, Pinkamina, what came over you?"
Blinking away at her eyes, Pinkie turned to look at Rarity. "Huh? What came over me?" She lifted a hoof to her mouth. "I… was remembering growing up on our rock farm. Silly tomatoes!" Giggling madly, Pinkie looked to her confused friend with some worry.
"Darling, you have been standing there, rock still, for hours." Rarity deposited herself on a couch, levitating a small fan over to start cooling herself. "I nearly yelled myself hoarse trying to snap you out of it. I don't know what I would have done if that hadn't worked… I might have even doused you in water!"
The tone, and her friend's wordiness, tipped the pink mare off to something being wrong. "Hours? But I…" She looked around, the big dress Rarity was fitting for her was sitting aside on a poniquin, as was the elaborate, halter-like head-dress. "Oh I am sure it was nothing! Did you get all the pins and things in where you needed 'em?"
"Well, yes." Rarity gave a little harrumph. "You really should go and see Twilight… or maybe Zecora. Pinkie, I was really worried about you." Rarity gave Pinkie a look that spoke volumes to accompany the heart-felt words.
"Tomorrow I will go and let Twilight hook me up to all her machines again. Maybe she will find something this time." Pinkie gave a huge smile to her friend. "I am sure a good night's sleep will fix it, that is what Applejack always says!"
As Pinkie settled in to bed that night, she was snuggling down between the pink sheets, under the pink blanket, in the middle of the pink bed, when it hit her. "I never remembered that before… I wonder if there are any other bits I don't remember?"
Her eyes grew heavy, tiredness overcoming her. Just as it did, she felt herself stiffen in the bed.
"Are you going out to that field again?" Maud's dull tone was anything but to Pinkie, she could feel her sister's very soul speaking through the minute tonal shifts. "Be careful, Pinkie."
"Maud, of course I will be careful, but I need to make sure those nasty tomatoes don't come back." Pinkie gave her sister a tight hug. "Besides, this is Equestria! We are perfectly safe!" She squeezed her sister tighter, knowing the other filly was certainly strong enough to take it, and got back as good as she gave.
"You should smile more." Maud reached up and, in the most unsurprising way possible, booped Pinkie on the nose, managing to get the pink filly to smile. "There you go."
Maud led her sister to the bathroom and had her sit up before the big mirror. "Hold still." Pinkie loved this, it was one of the things that could really get the filly to giggle. Maud lifted a brush, first, and started working on her sister's mane. The flat, lifeless hair was teased and brushed up, worked into tangles and swirls. She really got into it until, at last, the pink mane was a riot of mass and body, curls and tangles everywhere.
Giggling, Pinkie was almost bouncing in place. Maud moved down her body and started on her tail. Non-stop, the dour gray filly had her sister all fluffed up and ready to face the day. "There you go." To anypony else, the voice was monotone, but to Pinkie it was full of love.
"This is great." Pinkie got up from the stool she had been sitting on to bounce down. Her head felt lighter, all of her did. Feeling happier than she had in weeks, the filly grabbed her lunch-bag on the way out and trotted for the far field again.
She didn't make it all the way.
Pinkie jerked up in her bed, eyes wide and her body matted with sweat. "Where was my rainboom?"
Rolling off the side of her bed, her mane and tail flat and lifeless, Pinkie paced around the room. "That was right when I should have seen Dash's rainboom, where was it?" It wasn't just her demeanor that was serious, for the first time in as far as she could remember, Pinkie really knew worry. As she turned one more time, she caught sight of herself in the mirror of her room and felt joy flood her. Happiness washed away all the scared thoughts, all the worry. It was like the pink just shoved delight back into her. Her mane sprung up into curls and she grinned at the pink mare that grinned back.
"It must have been nothing, just a silly, billy, dream!" Turning back to her bed, Pinkie pronked into it with expert precision, shimmying down under the covers again. "All a silly, bad dream."
Twilight held the magnifying glass up to one of Pinkie's eyes, staring deep into it. "Rarity said this looked serious, Pinkie." Twilight didn't bother with the normal restraints, Pinkie would slip from them like a greased pig. "What happened?"
"Oh, it was just a silly, billy, dream!" Pinkie giggled at her joke. "I dreamed I was back on the rock farm, when I was little…"
Recoiling from her friend, Twilight blinked. Pinkie's eyes had focused down to dots, her breathing had started to grow slower and she looked like a statue. "Pinkie? Pinkie are you there?"
"Pinkie? Pinkie are you there?" The words came from a rock, a big one.
"Rocks don't talk, why are you talking, rock?" Pinkie trotted over to the big rock, the recent growth spurt she had experienced having given her a quicker trot. "Now, tell me what you are doing?"
"Catching you." The voice was no longer 'rock like' at all, but there was a slight hiss at the end of it. A black creature stepped out from behind the big rock, its pony-like shape sporting a glowing horn.
It was the lasso, flying toward her, that Pinkie was worried about. "Hey, that's not nice!" Pinkie jumped to the side, avoiding the throw. "You should introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Pinkie Pie!"
Another of those hissy-voices came from behind Pinkie, just as a lasso landed around her neck. "No, you are food." The lasso was yanked, the noose tightening around her neck. Pinkie bucked and kicked, her earth pony nature making her less than an ideal target to catch. "Get her!"
Focusing on kicking and getting out of the lasso around her neck, Pinkie missed as the second one dropped around her too. "Got it!" The first of the creatures yanked on his rope, just as Pinkie decided that it was time to test their grip.
The two black, pony-like creatures yelped in shock when their prey took off at speed. One lost his grip and fell while the other dug in his hole-filled hooves and braced with his magic. Pinkie's eyes bulged as she was stopped dead at the end of the rope. It became a little harder to breathe for a moment, until one of the odd ponies came up to her and loosened the lariat. "Hold still, pony!" The voice sounded mean to the filly and she quickly teared up.
"Ugh, that tastes horrible, are you sure this was the right one?" Chitin trotted up to his hivemate, Pincer. "I mean, she tasted good yesterday, but-"
"Yes I am sure. Queen Cocoon said she would be the perfect food for her new daughter, and the first test subject. Now stop gawking and help me bind her!" Pincer tried to remember why he had brought the big and dumb Chitin along. Of course it hit him quickly, Chitin had dug in and dragged the filly down, a full-blooded earth pony.
Pinkie trembled as the two strange ponies tied ropes around her legs, binding them, front and back, together, then leading a loose rope from the front to the back. "No kicking, pony." Chitin gave a chittering giggle. "Or kick all you like, it will be funny."
"Stop baiting her, she is not for us to have fun with, she belongs to the queen." Pincer pushed Chitin away and grabbed one of the lasso ropes. "Get up, pony."
"Don't want to!" Pinkie was petulant, and she guessed if they couldn't move her, they couldn't get her away from home. Maud would come and kick their patooties all the way to the sea.
"If you don't, I will make you." Pincer looked at the filly, narrowing his blue eyes. When the filly just jutted her bottom lip out the drone sighed. "Look away, Chitin."
"But… okay!" Chitin turned his back, he didn't want to get whammied.
"Little pony, look here." Pincer pushed power into his eyes. Pinkie, feeling like she was winning, wanted to show the meanie up and glared up at him, just in time to see green flood his eyes. "Good, now relax, calm down, you are not in danger, noling is trying to hurt you."
Pinkie smiled. That her legs were hobbled, or that nasty ponies had her tied up, meant nothing. The nice voice had said she wasn't in danger. Nothing was trying to hurt her. Pinkie calmed down.
"Good, better. Filly is good filly." Pincer fed more power into the little pony. "Filly will follow everything changelings say, it feels good to do what we say, little filly. Really good."
Quivering as that voice spoke deeply into her, Pinkie felt her ears perk forward, her whole body straining to hear what the strange ponies would tell her.
"Stand up, filly." Pincer's command was followed before he got the last word out and he smiled. "Feels so good to do what I say, doesn't it? You can talk, filly."
"It feels nice, I like it." Pinkie noticed an odd green tint to everything now, not just the strange pony's eyes. "Please…"
"Please what, pony?" Pincer eased back on his power, he was nearly spent anyway. "Tell me what you want."
Pinkie beamed in delight, the pony had asked her to do something and it plastered a smile across her face. "Tell me to do something, please."
"Chitin, it's safe. Filly, you just have to do one simple thing, well, two. Just follow us, and don't try to run away. If you do those things, every step you take will make you happy."
The strange pony backed up, the rope loose in his magic. Pinkie pranced after him, her hooves snagging on the hobbles a little, but each step widened her smile, made the green glow everything had, feel much nicer. "Yay!"