Here We Go!

Hi again! I’ve missed talking to you, and boy do I have a big story to tell today!

I know this might seem a little strange -- normally I don't talk to you directly very long at all! But my Granny Pecan Pie always said that stories need telling, and this isn't really exactly a secret? I just -- well, I don't think anypony else should know, because it affects them, but it doesn't affect you at all!

It all started back when I was a little filly. No, not even when I got my cutie mark -- before that! When I was an eensy teeny tiny little Pie, practically a Pie-let! Or a tart, I guess? Except I know some Tarts, and I wasn't ever a Tart. We're related, though.

Sorry! Got a little off-track!

I was a little filly. I know you heard the story about how I got my cutie mark, so you remember how boring the rock farm was, right?

Well, it was really boring before that.

My little sisters Blinkie and Inkie hadn't been born yet! And when I was alone -- I mean, alone with just Momma Shoofly and Daddy Humble -- I had toys when I was a foal, but then I grew up.

When we moved rocks, we were trying to get mineral deposits to develop in them. The minerals we needed to make things like quartz into things like amethyst or citrine came from erosion and rain. Some years we had a good mineralization the year before, which meant all the rocks we’d buried for seeding would have a lot of gems, and we could sell them to unicorns and magic shops.

But the year before I was four, the last year’s mineralization was really bad, so that meant that we didn't have much to sell. It was a really tight year, and Mom and Dad couldn't get me a lot of toys. For a while, I didn’t have any, because my old toys broke.

One day while I was moving granites to the south field, I found a pretty rock, one I'd never seen happen before. Well, that's not quite right, because I'd seen all the parts of it, but I'd never seen them combined that way! It was multiple layers of colored quartz -- amethyst, two different red jaspers, a bright yellow citrine, green prasiolite, and even a thin little layer of blue jasper! It was sort of like a rainbow, except not quite.

What if that rock was a pony?

Once I thought that, wow, I started thinking all sorts of things! Like, I figured her mane would be super pretty and cool, but she'd be all about, like, racing! And pranks. And being fast, faster than anypony else -- but I could still outrun her! It'd be so awesome!

So I took the rainbow rock and brought it back home when the sun went down, and imagined what it'd be like if me and the pony were talking. I even kinda nudged the rainbow rock. But she didn't have any friends! Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

Anyway, I got a whole bunch of the rocks that couldn't be mineralized any more, and couldn't crystallize any gems. Then I got a bunch of the leftover gems that weren't going to be sold because we didn't have enough.

Another was citrine, but yellow and orange, not just yellow or brown! I figured she'd probably be another earth pony like me, but maybe she'd work on a farm where stuff grew instead of petrified, like an apple orchard or something! The rock seemed pretty mature, too. Like stuff had happened to it, but it became a better rock -- pony, sorry -- because of it.

And another one was milky quartz but it had a beautiful streak of amethyst in two spots, like a pony's mane and tail! That rock -- pony, sorry -- seemed like it would be really pretty all the time, polished more than the others, and it would know all sorts of other ponies! Not having friends would be really sad.

So there were all these rocks -- ponies, sorry -- and they'd all talk. I mean, I'd talk for them, but they'd all talk to each other with me talking for all of them!

I had another rock that was yellow and pink, and figured maybe it was nice to all the things that weren't rocks but was kind of scared of the other rocks. Maybe pretty scared in general, about things that seemed strange to be afraid of, like a pegasus who was scared of flying. But she knew the rock with all the colors, so she had some friends. Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

Anyway, a lot of them were friends, or at least knew each other. Soon I had a whole town! I even put up a little sign that said "Rockville", because duh, where else would rocks live?

I'd move them all around and do loop-the-loops with the rainbow one, but the pink one didn't like flying so much. And I kind of figured the really pretty one was a unicorn, because horns are pretty and things, but the orange one who'd had sad stuff in her life was an earth pony like me, only awesome, because apples are pretty awesome and she'd be pretty super at growing them! She’d have a family, and even some friends. Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

After a while Mom and Dad asked me about all the rocks in my room.

I explained about how they were toys now, because I was imagining them, and Mom and Dad kind of looked at each other for a second before they smiled at me, but it wasn't really a smile.

Anyway, they got me some other toys after that, but I didn't care about other toys. I had my friends to talk to, and I couldn't just leave them alone! Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

Eventually they asked me about the other toys, but I told them I couldn't stop talking to my friends, because then they wouldn't have any friends except all the other rocks -- I mean, ponies. So of course I had to keep talking with them and playing with them.

Mom and Dad did that smile that wasn't a smile again, but they nodded.

I knew they wanted them to go away.

Granny Pie came to visit soon afterwards, which was pretty great because Granny Pie is always great to be around, and she's always fun. I told her all about how Mom and Dad didn't like my friends, and she got one of those smiles that wasn't a smile for a second too. But then she hugged me and told me it'd be okay, because she was pretty sure I'd have a new friend really soon.

See, I know now that she was talking about my sister Blinkie, and that my mom wasn't just getting fat, but I didn't know that then. I didn’t know that Blinkie would become one of my best friends, not just my sister.

So when I got back to my room and all my friends -- I mean, the rocks -- were gone, I was pretty upset. They'd left! I got really sad and started crying, because they didn't have any friends now! They were all gone. Not having any friends would be pretty sad and I didn't want them to be sad.

Mom and Dad came to my room and told me it'd be okay, and they were trying to smile but they weren't really smiling but then they were kind of smiling but not in a nice way, and I don't think they were trying to do anything bad but they'd gotten rid of all my friends and I was so sad that I galloped off into the field. Even when they came looking for me, I hid, and then when they were gone I kept going away from the farmhouse.

I may have gotten a teensy bit lost once I got into the forest. The forest around our farm was pretty scary! But Granny Pie told me not to be afraid, so I wasn't. I was afraid for all my friends! I knew I wouldn't find them here -- Mom and Dad were pretty smart, so they wouldn't have left my friends anywhere I could find them -- but I wished I could, I wished I could find them out here in the forest and then we could all be together and have yummy things and talk and dance! That would be way better than being out in the forest alone and scared.

I'm pretty sure that's where I got the idea of a party, or at least the seed crystal for it, but I hadn’t even invented the word ‘party’ yet.

I was crying a lot, but after a while I was getting cold and worried. I started galloping in the direction I thought I needed to go, and fell into a pit.

It was cold, and weird, and smelled like dirt and worms, but I could still see the stars in the sky through the opening. The pit wasn’t that deep, but I was only an itsy bitsy Pinkie Pie, so it didn’t take much of a pitsy for me to be stuck there.

I was wondering if I’d ever get home when I heard something I’d never heard before. It was like the voices I imagined all my friends having, sort of, but -- different. Louder. Strange.

CREATURE.

"Hello?"

CREATURE, HELLO.

I saw something glow, which didn't seem possible down there, and turned my head. There was a rock in the side of the pit, an amethyst with deeper purple colors than I'd ever seen before. It even had a stripe of rose quartz with a deeper pink than I'd ever seen before. It was a pretty amazing rock, and it seemed even more amazing when it started to glow again.

Somehow, I knew that the voice and the rock were connected.

"What kind of rock are you?"

I AM THE WISHING STONE, CREATURE. I WAS CREATED LONG AGO TO FULFILL THE DESIRES OF THOSE WHO FIND ME.

"Fulfill the desires? What does that mean?"

I GRANT WISHES.

"Ooooh, so, like, you can have whatever you want?"

I DO NOT WANT. I SIMPLY AM. WHEN CREATURES FIND ME, THEY WISH, AND IT IS GRANTED.

"Like, magic? Magic's pretty awesome."

IT IS OLDER THAN MAGIC. THE WISH IS WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC OF REALITY ITSELF. IT IS NO ILLUSION, NO CONJURATION, NO METAMORPHOSIS.

"Illu -- what?" I didn't know a lot of big words back then.

THE WISH IS NOT GRANTED WITHIN THE WORLD. IT IS GRANTED WITH THE WORLD.

"Oh! So, sort of, like . . . using a rock you already have, and not one you haven't found yet?"

TO SOME DEGREE, THAT IS CORRECT.

"Neat. It's too bad that you don't get any wishes, though. You could wish for all sorts of things!"

WHAT IS YOUR WISH?

I blinked. My wish?

I was only a little dinky Pinkie Pie but I knew what I wanted. I wanted everything to be brighter. I wanted my friends to be ponies, not rocks. I wanted us all to be happy and I wanted us all to be friends with each other and we’d go on big adventures and maybe even save Equestria and I wanted to actually see them and be able to hug them and I wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh forever and always make other ponies laugh and I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be happy and that's what would make me happy, if Rockville were real and filled with ponies! If the things I imagine were real!

I took a big breath.

“I want everything to be brighter and I want my friends to be ponies instead of rocks and I want us all to be happy and be friends with each other and we’ll go on big adventures and maybe even save Equestria and I want to see them and be able to hug them and I want to laugh and laugh and laugh forever and always make other ponies laugh and I want to be happy, I want them to be happy, that’s what would make me happy, if Rockville were real and filled with ponies! I wish the things I imagine would become real!”

VERY WELL.

The stone glowed bright, brighter, brightest --

"Pinkamena!"

I looked up. It was Dad.

I looked back at the rock. The light was gone. It still had brighter colors than any other amethyst I'd ever seen, but it wasn't glowing, and when I said things to it, it didn't talk back.

Dad pulled me out of the hole and I was pretty happy to see him, but I made sure I got that magic rock. Magic rocks need friends too, even if I didn’t really get my wish.

Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

When I got home, Rockville was back. I hugged Mom and Dad and then hugged all the rocks and added the other rock to them, and figured it'd be the pony who was best at magic, like almost better than anyone else ever, and definitely the best around Ponyville! All the other rocks thought the magic rock was a little strange, and at first she didn’t have any friends, but they wanted to be her friend, and soon they were her friend and she was their friend, so she was happier and they were all happier.

Mom and Dad and Granny Pie were so happy to see me that they didn't care that I'd run off, but I knew I didn't want to get lost in a forest again, ever. If I went, I'd have to make sure I went with friends! And of course, if one of my friends was going to go into a forest, I'd need to come with them!

I tried to talk to the wishing stone a few more times, but it never really talked back, not for real. I could make it talk, talk for it and nudge it, but that was all. I knew it needed a friend, though, because everypony needs friends.

A few days later, Mom was screaming a lot in the other room, and Dad and Granny were in there, talking a lot. Everybody yelled 'push' over and over again! I know now that I'm grown up that she was having my little sister, but back then I kind of wondered why it was so hard to move the bed.

Then mom called for me and showed me my little sister Blinkie. She was so cute! She's actually pretty awesome. I found out after a while that she was like having a friend who was related to you!

I never got rid of my other friends, though. Sometimes I'd think about what the magic wishing rock said to me when I first found it, when it was glowing, and wonder about what it meant, and whether I’d just imagined it.

A year or two later, Dad started showing me the paperwork that had to be done for the farm, and I found out there was a town called Ponyville! It seemed kinda weird, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It was just another place, like Canterlot or Vanhoover. We didn't even send a lot of gems and rocks to Ponyville!

A while after that, I got my cutie mark. You already know about all that -- the rainbow in the sky, and when I finally figured out what that thing with lots of ponies and smiling and dancing and food was. (A party! Duh. But I know you already know that story.)

Everything changed when my Mom and Dad showed me how to make pie crust. For Pies, you learn how to make pie crust when you get your cutie mark. So I had mine, and that meant I had to learn it!

That's when I discovered how good I was at baking. My first pie crust came out flaky and delicious, better than my mom's first pie crust, she said. The filling we put in it was triple berry -- raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries! It was so good!

After a while, they realized there was nothing I couldn't bake. They'd show me a cake, and I'd make it better. They'd show me a tart, and I'd make it better.

Well, I thought I was pretty amazing. I guess I am, really, but when I finally met up with the Cakes I found out I still had so much to learn. They showed me how fondant works and different kinds of frosting and all sorts of new kinds of flour -- did you know there's not just cake flour and bread flour and all-purpose?! There's all sorts of different kinds of flours for all sorts of different kinds of cakes and pies and breads!

Sorry! I kinda got off track again. You know all this stuff! You see everything.

Well, when Blinkie and Inkie got old enough to help on the farm, I asked my dad about going to see this Ponyville place. He said we had family there, a cousin of his named Carrot Cake!

I went to live with the Cakes a little while after that, and I met Applejack there when I was getting apples for our apple crumb cakes. I thought it was a weird coincidence that she had the same colors as one of my rocks, but orange and yellow weren’t rare pony colors or anything.

I met Dash after that, walking back from Sweet Apple Acres with apples for Sugarcube Corner, and I thought that was even weirder, but what was I going to say to her? That she might have been my imaginary friend once, and I sort of made her real with a wish? She'd think I flipped my wig or something! Even though I don't wear a wig.

I hadn't really thought about my rock friends in a long time at that point, but I had brought them with me, so after I saw Dash, I got them out. The yellow pegasus who always came in and didn't speak up about her morning danish? She was one of my rock friends, and she was just the same! She took care of things that weren’t rocks -- I mean, ponies -- but she was scared of other ponies. And Dash was exactly like the rainbow rock I imagined, all about being fast and pranks and awesomeness! The mare who bought all those crystal berry eclairs and made dresses was Rarity, and she was one of my rock friends too. Even the Cakes matched up, because I had always thought this one jasper and citrine stone was a baker pony who would teach me things someday, and Mr. Cake taught me all those things about fondant and unusual baking techniques and all sorts of ingredients!

Sometimes it was a little off -- or sometimes I hadn’t thought much about certain rocks -- but those rocks turned out to be awesome too. Like, the rocks I had that I decided were twins, one pegasus and one unicorn? I bet you can guess who that turned out to be! I didn’t know that they were going to be Pound and Pumpkin, but I realized afterwards that those stones were pretty small compared to all the rest, almost pebbles! So it made sense in a way. That magic stone must have even had a sense of humor.

After a while, I noticed that I always kind of saw when something was going to happen. I’d seen it happen with my rocks! Well, imagined it happening, anyway. I could predict things, just a little, here and there. It was pretty cool! I could even do a lot of neat things when I was baking, because I could always catch stuff or know when something was going to be overdone or when a souffle would fall.

Eventually, looking at my rocks and all the ponies in town, I realized that everypony in Ponyville matched up to one of my rocks, and every time I met someone new in Ponyville, they matched up to one of the rocks I had left over. Every. Single. One!

For a long time I wondered if the magic wishing rock was maybe an exception, but then Twilight Sparkle showed up one day!

Not only did she match the magic rock, and not only was she a unicorn who was really great at magic, but the green-tourmaline-and-amethyst fragment that seemed really polished, the one I found the day after the magic rock? She had a dragon with her, a little baby one! He matched up perfectly, and even had shiny scales!

I knew I had to make her party that night super-duper! The story I made up about the magic rock was that it was lonely in the dirt, so far away from other rocks, because it was busy being magic. That meant Twilight didn't have any friends before me and the others. Not having any friends would be pretty sad.

I got it all in gear really fast -- I didn’t even have time to say hi to her! It was a little rude after I thought about it but I knew she was important, so I had to get into my emergency party stashes all over town and get enough supplies together!

I’d just kind of figured the magic rock had only given me all these friends and a great place to live, but then we went on a huge adventure! Even that part of the wish came true! We all went into the forest together -- because you always go into the forest with friends, going in alone is a bad idea. And the Everfree Forest was way scarier than the forest around our farm, but we got through it and got to the old castle ruins! We even defeated Nightmare Moon, and gave Princess Celestia her little sister back!

The rocks I’d talked to the most -- the rainbow one, and the milky amethyst, and the citrine-pink, and the orange-red -- they all became my best friends!

Not only all that, but we even saved Equestria! Well, actually, we save Equestria pretty frequently. Like, about twice a year, seems like. I think we’re due for it again soon, now that I mention it. I’ll have to refill all my party stashes and be ready for anything again! Heck, in one of our big adventures, we actually had to throw a huge party to save a whole bunch of ponies! I can’t think of anything more fun than that!

Anyway -- I know it's not really a story I can tell anyone in Ponyville. I don't even want to guess what would happen! Can a wish fall apart? I wouldn’t want Ponyville to go away, and I wouldn’t want to freak out any of my friends. They’re all pretty happy, and I know I am! Sometimes I wish I could invite my family to Ponyville, but what if they notice the way all the rocks matched up to all the ponies? So I usually just visit my family as often as I can. Mr. and Mrs. Cake are great bakers, and great bosses, so I can get time off when I need it.

None of them know you're watching, though, and you've always been there, so I can tell you anything, even though you probably already know it. You were my first imaginary friend ever, the invisible one from before the rocks! You never showed up, but I guess maybe it’d be hard to see someone invisible? I still talk to you, though, so you probably remember that I’m your friend if you became real, I guess.

I hope you liked my story. I’ll talk to you again soon! Have fun watching if you’re there!

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TalltalePony

TalltalePony #1 · Oct 11th, 2013 · 7 · ·

Oh my...

This is wonderful. Certainly deserving of its placement, if not more. Like n' favorite; I hope to see it in the feature box soon.

And of course we're friends, Pinkie. A friend is a friend, no matter how visible.

The Elusive Badgerpony

The Elusive Badgerpony #2 · Oct 11th, 2013 · 8 · ·

When we moved rocks, we were trying to get mineral deposits to develop in them. The minerals we needed to make things like quartz into things like amethyst or citrine came from erosion and rain. Some years we had a good mineralization the year before, which meant all the rocks we’d buried for seeding would have a lot of gems, and we could sell them to unicorns and magic shops.

The Rock Farm, ladies and gentlemen, now utterly and irrefutably legitimatized.

Einhander

Einhander #3 · Oct 11th, 2013 · 6 · ·

This story is such a fragile, beautiful, disturbing, happy thing.

Anyway -- I know it's not really a story I can tell anyone in Ponyville. I don't even want to guess what would happen! Can a wish fall apart? I wouldn’t want Ponyville to go away, and I wouldn’t want to freak out any of my friends.