The Truth about Heaven
Chapter 7 – The Truth about Heaven
We are anathema
the pariahs of reason
Twilight Sparkle’s class looked expectantly at the blank chalkboard. Three times now, she had attempted to write the name of the book she had planned her lecture on. Three times now, she had tried to start her talk about contextualising Daring Do. Three times now, she had tried to address her class, ask them a question or make conversation. Each time she failed.
“Hey, Ms Sparkle? What’s going on, yo?” one of her students, Pesse Jinkman, shouted from across the room. “Ain’t you gonna write some shit down? I got plans, biatch.” A few of the other students sniggered. Everypony knew what Jinkman’s “plans” consisted of: getting high and banging teenage fillies.
Twilight Sparkle shut her eyes and put her head against the chalkboard. Teaching had a high drop-out rate: it was one of the most stressful jobs anypony could do, especially at college level, they’d told her that the day she’d signed up for the job when she was all passion and ideas. That had faded very quickly after the start of the first semester and job became routine. She glanced at the notes she held in one hoof and the chalk in the other. She tried to formulate what she wanted to say but couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t leave her tongue.
“Yo, Ms Sparkle,” Pesse Jinkman said again, standing up and waving his hooves as if he were some kind of hip-hop icon, “I’m payin’ for this education, yo, and my family’s taxes ain’t payin’ you to horn-fuck that chalkboard, man.”
More sniggers, louder this time. With an unresponsive Twilight pressing her head firmly against the blackboard, the classroom quickly descended into chaos as the students started chatting and throwing crumpled pieces of paper across the room.
“Yo, this shit blows, man,” Pesse Jinkman exclaimed, standing on top of his desk as other students started shaking it. “I ain’t learnin’ nothin’ today, biatch. You owe me like, your fuckin’ salary or whatever man. This bombs.”
The classroom exploded into laughter. Twilight could feel the anger rising in her body.
The chalk snapped in Twilight’s hoof, crumbling into dust. She head butted the chalkboard, knocking it over and the classroom became instantly silent. Even Pesse Jinkman had stopped mouthing off at another pony from across the room. Twilight dropped her papers on the floor and stormed out of the classroom. Another few seconds and she might have turned Pesse Jinkman into a bucket.
Pesse Jinkman stood up and looked around perplexedly, “hey what the fuck just happened, yo?”
*
Why am I on a cloud? I’m not a pegasus.
That was the first thought that entered Pinkie Pie’s head when she opened her eyes.
She was lying down comfortably on all fours, floating on a fluffy, white cloud amidst a sea of similar white clouds. She stood up, half expecting her hooves to sink through the cloud, but to her surprise, it was quite sturdy. She hopped up and down.
Bouncy!
Gleefully, she bounced up and down on the cloud until she had exhausted all the fun from that activity. Pinkie Pie sat down and looked at her front hooves while trying to remember how she had got here. All she seemed to be able to remember was having a strange dream about falling from a bridge.
*
Twilight Sparkle came home to find Rainbow Dash asleep on a sofa. She crossed through to her kitchen to make a pot of tea, which she carried back into the living room. She poured out two cups and sat alone on an armchair, sipping hers slowly.
Rainbow stirred and rose into a seated position on the sofa. She looked straight at Twilight with a set of dark, sullen eyes and forced a smile. “You look like crap.”
“Thanks,” Twilight replied. “I feel even worse than I look.”
“What happened?”
Twilight didn’t know how to respond. “I think I quit my job.”
Rainbow dipped her head. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I don’t think I can cope anymore,” Twilight said. “Teaching is hard.”
“But you’re so good at it,” Rainbow insisted, taking her tea.
“How do you know?” Twilight asked, “you’ve never sat in one of my lectures.”
“I know you’ve talked about me in them!” Rainbow said, a thin smile spreading over her face.
Twilight nodded, “let’s just say you make for an effective pedagogical anecdote.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. Twilight had the tendency to use large words when she was agitated. “Can we talk about last night?”
“I was hoping we could,” Twilight said. “Which part do you want to talk about? The part that happened after you barged through my window or the part before?”
“The part before,” Rainbow said, pouring herself some more tea.
“Go on then,” Twilight said.
Rainbow looked at Twilight for several moments before finally speaking, “I killed a diamond dog.”
*
The clouds had formed a solid landmass upon which Pinkie Pie now walked. It was a vast, barren plain of flat land.
“Hello?” she called, looking around. “Is anyone out there?” She couldn’t see below or above and had no way of knowing how high up she was. Two questions burned in her mind: where was she and how did she get there? She couldn’t decide which one to focus on first, but logic told her that answering one would provide the answer to the other, so really, it didn’t matter.
In the distance, she could see a set of gates. Excited, she broke into a run and galloped as fast as she could towards the gates. Where did they lead? What was behind them? Who did they belong to? What were they like? Were they a pony or something else? Did they have a mansion? Or maybe a castle! Yes, they had a castle, Pinkie decided, but who were they? Pinkie wanted to meet them!
A single pony stood in front of the gates. He had a white mane that flowed from his brown fur and he wore a long, white robe that completely covered his body and almost touched his hooves. As Pinkie Pie approached him with an air of reverence, the pony reared his front legs.
“Stop there,” the pony commanded, raising his hoof. He spoke with a very sophisticated accent. Upper-class Trottingham, perhaps.
“Hi!” Pinkie chirped. “What’s your name?”
“I am the Gatepony.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened and she started to hop in place, “Oh wow! What’s behind the gate Mr Gatepony? Is it a castle? Or a palace?”
“No, Pinkie,” the Gatepony interrupted her.
Pinkie’s smile faded and she cocked her head to one side, “Hey, how do you know my name, Mr Gatepony?”
“It’s my job to know your name,” the Gatepony replied irritably, “and you need to listen to me carefully.”
Pinkie sat down and smiled sweetly, “Okie dokie! Let’s hear it, Mr Gatepony!”
The Gatepony looked down at her with a bemused expression. “Behind these gates lies the afterlife,” he explained. “The place that ponies go when they die.”
Pinkie Pie nodded excitedly and bounced up and down, “Wow! That’s so cool!” then she stopped suddenly. “Wait a second.” She trotted right up to the gates and pushed her head in between the bars. On the other side was just another vast expanse of empty cloud. She tried to pull her head back through, but the bars caught against her ears. “Hey, can you help me?” She struggled against the bars. “I’m stuck!”
“You can’t get through that way,” the Gatepony sighed, tugging the pink pony away from the gates until her head came through. “Only I can open the gates, and I’m under orders not to let you through.”
“Why not?” Pinkie asked, leaping out of the Gatepony’s grasp. “Are they having a party? Because I love parties! Except when I don’t get invited... then I don’t like parties.” She made a sad face.
The Gatepony sighed, unable to maintain eye contact, “I take it that I’m going to have to spell this out for you, Pinkie Pie?”
Pinkie Pie looked curiously at him, her eyes wide with perplexity.
The Gatepony let out a final, huge sigh, “You’re dead.”
*
When Rainbow Dash had finished her story, Twilight Sparkle continued to pace the room, deep in thought.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Rainbow whimpered, holding one of Twilight’s pillows close to her, “I just...”
“You needed an outlet for your anger,” Twilight reasoned, “and instead of directing it onto us, you directed it onto what you viewed as a lesser species?”
“No!” Rainbow yelled suddenly, “That’s not right at all! I went out looking for a fight and the dogs gave me one. I just went too far. I think maybe I was secretly hoping that I wouldn’t come back.”
Twilight Sparkle stopped pacing and looked at her, “You’re going to have to make this right somehow.”
“How?” Rainbow asked.
“You can try apologising,” Twilight offered.
“They’ll kill me!” Rainbow protested, “they eat ponies.”
“Then I don’t know what else to say,” Twilight said with a shrug, “you murdered a diamond dog in cold blood because for a long time you’ve been bottling up your feelings about Pinkie Pie. I don’t blame you for it, Rainbow Dash, but you’ve still got to make it right.”
“I know,” Rainbow said miserably. “I just wish I could find a way.”
“You can start by forgiving yourself,” Twilight said, “telling me about it was a good first step. Now you have to find a way to obtain their forgiveness.”
Rainbow nodded and lay sideways on the sofa.
“I wish we’d seen it coming earlier, you know,” Twilight said, snivelling slightly as she sat down.
“Pinkie?”
“Yeah. She must have been hiding that for so long,” Twilight reasoned, “Especially if even you didn’t know.”
“Well...” Rainbow said, “there were signs.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow, “signs?”
“Yeah...” Rainbow sat up and put her hooves together. “I never told you about the party with the bucket of turnips did I?”
Twilight raised a perplexed eyebrow, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Pinkie’s birthday. The surprise party we planned.”
“The one where we spent the whole day evading her?”
“Yeah. She had a major psychotic freak-out that day,” Rainbow explained, “When I found her, she was talking to a pile of rocks and a bucket of turnips. They were all wearing party hats.”
Twilight didn’t know whether to laugh or not.
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, looking at her face, “that’s exactly how I looked when I saw it. At first, I thought it was a joke, but then I realised, holy shit, she’s actually talking to a bucket of turnips.”
“And you didn’t mention this to anyone?”
Rainbow shook her head, “I just figured it was Pinkie being Pinkie. Guess I was wrong.” She bashed herself in the face with her hoof. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!”
Twilight almost smiled, “you know, I’ve been thinking a lot recently. All the times Pinkie did something strange or weird and we just dismissed it as Pinkie being Pinkie. She probably didn’t feel she could reach out because we’d never take her seriously.” Twilight’s eyes were welling up and she could feel her throat tightening. “She was harbouring something truly insidious that was eating away at her, destroying her will to live, corroding at her very soul and we didn’t even notice until that week she disappeared.”
“Some friends we were,” Rainbow said glumly. “I thought I’d hate her after this, but I don’t. I don’t blame her for wanting to leave this shitty existence.” She wiped her eyes with her front leg.
Twilight nodded, her own eyes on the verge of streaming. “Wherever she is now, I hope she’s found peace.”
*
So it wasn’t a dream.
Pinkie looked down at her hooves. As much as she didn’t want to believe the Gatepony’s words, she knew deep down it was true. She thought hard and could vaguely remember how she had felt in the months leading up to her death, but it seemed alien now.
“The sadness you felt is gone,” the Gatepony said, “You are free from that which caused you anguish. You are the very essence of your essential self – perfect Pinkie. Fully in tune with your wants, needs and desires. In time, you will learn to become one with the afterlife, and everything you ever wanted will be yours.”
Pinkie nodded.
“But because you died by your own hoof, I cannot let you enter the afterlife,” explained the Gatepony.
Pinkie lowered her face in sadness. So it was true. She could still remember Granny Pie’s words: “suicide is a sin. Sinners go to hell.” Pinkie was a sinner.
“Your death caused a lot of ponies a lot of pain,” said the Gatepony, “and because of that, your soul is impure, but since your heart is good, you won’t be damned to Tartarus.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” Pinkie asked nervously.
“You have a choice to make,” the Gatepony informed her, “you can remain here in limbo for the rest of eternity or you can travel back to the physical realm as a spirit and put right your mistakes.”
“A spirit? You mean like a- ”
“A ghost, yes,” the Gatepony finished her sentence for her, “none of your friends will be able to see or hear you. Should you choose to return, you will exist as a ghost in the physical world. You cannot return to limbo until you have accomplished your task.”
“And what is that task?” Pinkie wanted to know.
The Gatepony smiled and there was an air of sadness to it, “Only you can decide that. Right your wrongs and when that is done, you can depart to the afterlife. But be warned – your spirit is the pure essence of your consciousness. You cannot feel pain here in limbo, but in the physical world, old feelings can and will return if you allow them.”
“Are you saying that if I return to Equestria, I’ll become depressed again?” Pinkie asked.
“I’m saying that you are more vulnerable,” the Gatepony explained, “My advice is to figure out what you need to do quickly and do it. The longer you stay in the physical realm, the harder it will be to leave. Believe me when I say that you don’t want to spend the rest of eternity wandering Equestria as a restless spirit. You can’t die when you’re dead. It’s very easy to become a lost soul.”
“Are there other spirits down there?” Pinkie asked, “or will I be alone?”
The Gatepony considered her question for a few seconds before answering, “you may encounter other ghosts. Many of them will be lost souls who have been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They are the ones who did not find their way to the afterlife.”
Pinkie envisioned it – faceless blobs walking the surface aimlessly. That would be her if she didn’t fix her mistakes.
“Are you ready to make your choice?” asked the Gatepony.
Pinkie nodded, “I choose to return. If I can’t fix my mistakes, then I don’t deserve the afterlife.” There was no hesitation in her decision. “I’m ready to go back.”
“I thought you would say something like that,” said the Gatepony. “Then I wish you the best of luck, Pinkie Pie, and I hope that you will return.”
“How do you expect me to get do-?” Pinkie was cut off by the sound of her own scream as Gatepony waved his hoof and she suddenly dropped through the clouds and plummeted back down to earth.
But that's not why I'm here
I came down here to tell you
it rains in heaven all day long
Stats
Page generated in 0.019 seconds
Total duration
851 users online
1,247,528 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'm rather intrigued by this story though I don't often look for stories that refer to this topic mainly due to the depressing mood I can get in after I read them. I'd like to ask without spoilers if you plan on making this ending maybe a happy one or if you do have something planned to make the ending less of a downer then say if she understands what she did wrong and finally proceeds to heaven leaving us with a understanding or at least end of a good note. Feel free to message me if you'd prefer people that read the comments don't get any spoilers for this.
Thanks
Very interested in this story, its well written too. I'm eager to read more
Annnnnnnnnd with that you lost me...
Really awesome, cant wait for next chapter! im reading it now!