4: Fun While It Lasted [Sad]
((Prompt: Maybe it's better that way...))
It's really kinda silly, if you think about it.
But then again, 'silly' is the word you would use to describe the whole day in which I've lived. Born in a silly place from a silly mare who had a silly wish. Lived a silly life doing silly things. About to die taking a silly test.
Oh, I shouldn't put it like that. I'm not going to die when they send me back. I just... don't know what I am going to do instead of dying. I won't keep the memories I made today, or else I would remember the other lives I've lived. I won't keep these lovely pink hooves, or else that pond would be full of hooves of every shape and color. So if I'm not dying, but I don't get to keep anything from my life, what do I call it?
Look at her. Bless her, she's managed to convince herself she's one of us. So worried that she's lost herself and become nothing in this sea of pink. It really is obvious which one is the rea—the original Pinkie. If her friends just paid a bit of attention, they wouldn't need to do this test.
I bet I could do it, if I tried. I bet I could outlast her. It's sorely tempting. Just keep this borrowed life, keep the lessons I've learned and the memories I've formed. I've spent aeons being nothing, I could almost certainly beat this mare in a contest of patience.
Because between me and her, that's all this test really is, is patience. It's meant as a test of her love for her friends, and that might work to separate her from the rest of my sisters, but it won't sort me out. I love her friends, too.
That's silly, I know. I've only had a day with them, whereas she has had years. What makes me so special that I think I can form as close a bond in a single day?
I don't know the answer to that. I only know that the first thing I saw of this world that truly touched me was the way her friends look at her—or at who they thought was her. Just a moment's glance conveyed so much love, such concern. I saw how much they cared for her, and I found something far beyond fun.
I wanted it. In the same heartbeat that brought my first taste of love, I had my first taste of envy as well. Maybe they had been looking at me, but that look had been meant for her. She gets friends. She gets love. I get a hot bolt of magic that makes me forget my dreams and desires and love. It isn't fair.
Maybe I should try for it after all. Does she really deserve all these things, just because she was here first? Why shouldn't it be me? Why can't it be me?
Ah, but then there's her friends. The whole reason this life would be worth fighting for. Taking her place wouldn't make them love me. They would still love her, and just never know the difference. If I ever told them what I had done, they would not wrap me in teary-eyed embraces and say they forgive me. Their faces would go pale in heart-breaking horror, and I would become the Thing That Took Pinkie Away.
If I love them like I say I do, I can't do that to them. If I love them like I say I do, then I must admit that they deserve to have their Pinkie, not some imitation. Not some copy that came up with something she thinks of as profound in her one day of life and thinks that earns her a spot at their side.
If that's it, then I suppose there's no need to keep up with this farce of a test. But I may as well take a few pretenders along with me. You're a lucky pony, Pinkie Pie.
“Hey, look what I can do!”
It's been fun.
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Geez. I liked a lot of the stories posted in this 30 minute thing. I've most of the time felt like "This is great, if only this was a full story!"
This one? I honestly feel like it could be submitted to EQD as is. Excellent stuff.
Also, am I right to assume Maybe it's better that way made you think of Paper Jam?
2745101 Heh, thanks. I think that some of my best ideas have been inspired by these prompts. I am really grateful to the folks who run TMP.
Minimum word limits are the sticky part to publishing any of these on their own. Very few of these reach the 1,000 word minimum required by FimFiction, and none of them come close to the 2,000 words required by EQD. I have been working on editing and polishing an expanded version of No Storms In Canterlot to submit as the first standalone story to come out of this, but it's a challenge to expand these things while retaining the original feeling of them.
And actually, I don't believe I have ever heard of Paper Jam.
Glad you liked this one, though!
I love the Pinkie clones. A theory of mine is that at least one of the clones could escape the masacre (it was a masacre and nobody can convince me otherwise)
Anyway, I adore what you did with the prompt. I'm a sucker for stories about "happy" resignation.
Ok...was she the one who made fingers on her hooves?
Take all of my upvotes... wait, I can only give you one?
2746183
2745101 Paper Jam Dipper
NEVER FORGET
2012-2012
2911130
Um, actually, I think you’re right. I thought she was the one who pulled a G3 face, but no, her last words were “Have you ever seen a silly face like this?!”, not “Hey, look what I can do!”
2877899
And then there came an episode titled “The Saddle Row Review”, and we all knew, you were right all along.