Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Reality

by Andy Soshal

Chapter Two: Research

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So I spent the next few days reviewing everything I knew about Pinkamena Diane Pie, including some information I had gathered from a very reliable source during this phase—the very next day after the incident at the Boutique, I contacted Maud Pie, who proved to be a rather talkative person, at least in writing.

She had been borne to a family of rock farmers out in the countryside. Having been there myself and met family of hers (Maud Pie had dropped in for a day on her return visit from her big trip...with scads of new poetry to read to me about the different variations of igneous rocks. Needless to say, I had been...I suppose overjoyed would be a bit strong), I could corroborate this, even ignoring the small, rough patch on her nose gained from pushing said deposits around.

Having come into her Cutie Mark during her stay there (I ran into many conflicting reports on this count—the Cutie Mark Crusaders seem to swear by one version that revolves around Rainbow Dash's first Sonic RainBoom, but given the hero-worship Scootaloo employs, this is rendered rather suspect. Pinkie herself is no help; even before my investigation, it appeared that she invented a new story about her Cutie Mark whenever the notion struck, and Maud was away at school when it happened), Pinkie proved to be a bit much for the staid and conservative atmosphere around her house, so she was invited to stay with her distant relatives, the Cakes, for a time. However, there appeared to be a mix-up regarding which branch of the Cake clan she would be staying with; this devolved into her being shunted around amongst different families between Fillydelphia, Manehattan, Coltlanta, and even Canterlot for a period of about three years.

This is where things began to get interesting. Each time she was welcomed into a new family, everything would be relatively normal for a period of about two weeks. Then, without any warning, Pinkie would be shipped off to a new set of Cakes or Pies or Tarts (this last proved to be the shortest stay for her—three hours and twenty-six minutes, though by all accounts, the Tarts were rather...tart to begin with. I got the feeling bad blood existed there, at least from the way Maud wrote about them) with no reason being outwardly given. Eventually, the Cakes of Ponyville agreed to take her in and give her free room and board in exchange for working in the bakery, and the rest is history. Pinkie had only been here a few months before I myself arrived, and by that time, the residents of Ponyville, understanding and tolerant in the way only small towns or very, very large cities can be, had fully accepted her within the fold.

Maud was unable to tell me why poor Pinkie was first sent away from her own flesh-and-blood, and then swapped around from relation to relation so many times for so long (unable...or unwilling? The language she used to answer these questions seemed to run in a loop, hedging, delaying, or just downright denying knowledge of anything that happened. Given thought, this may be plausible, as Maud was away at school for long periods of time, and thus away from her parents and siblings, but I find it hard to believe that her family, Pinkie included, didn't send her word of any strange goings-on), but she did drop certain clues, intentionally or otherwise.

Apparently, soon after Pinkie's Mark manifested, several things began to happen. Pinkie Pie's diet, which subsisted around rock candies and such (just like her other family members...I still don't know how their teeth are intact...) suddenly switched over to the soft-and-chewy department, mainly things like cupcakes and pastries, items so utterly and completely chock-full of sugar that even looking at them gave Maud a toothache. Her nighttime habits became erratic, her daytime ones unpredictable.

The Pie family (that branch, at least) was a stoic one; smiling was rare, and enthusiastic expressions of any kind were even rarer, if Maud's word and own personal habits are to be anything to judge by. Pinkie turned, almost overnight, from a slightly-sad and morose little filly into a curly-topped superball, physically unable to keep from grinning and shooting all over the place in a sugar-crazed frenzy.

However, all this could be easily explained away as a phase in a young pony's life. Maud, according to herself, went through something similar at the age of six where she actually skipped through the lower forty acres in the eastern fields for fifteen minutes and was exhausted for a week afterwards (apparently it wasn't the physical exertion of the skipping, but the sheer emotional toll it took. I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I ignored it). But this was merely the beginning of something stranger.

It was during Maud's last visit to the family whilst Pinkie was still living there that she witnessed the only real thing that would first expose her to the phenomenon that I have dubbed (with credit to Applejack) "Pinkie Stuff". Maud had just gotten off the train to see her family, and immediately she could tell something was wrong.

Emotionally conservative and reserved, the Pie family may be, but they are a tight-knit bunch. Family ties with them are almost as important as they are with the Apple Clan...so why Mother and Father Pie, along with Marble and Limestone (the other two siblings) were standing almost two feet away from Pinkie with very strained looks on their faces immediately escaped Maud.

Beside Pinkie was a suitcase, and a ticket was in her mouth, a ticket for Fillydelphia. Maud, a bit perturbed to see her baby sister setting off, and alone, when she herself was just getting home, turned to her parents to find out what the hay was going on...

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"Pinkamena," said Father Pie slowly, "is going to be spending some time with Great Uncle German and Great Aunt Strawberry Cake." He shifted an eye to Pinkie, who was busy doing that bouncing from hoof-to-hoof thing. Seeing his gaze, she smiled enormously at him. Again. He swallowed. "She, uh...appears to be going through a bit of a..."

Catching her husband as he trailed off, searching for words, Mother Pie stepped in. "A bit of a phase, Maud, dear...remember when you skipped through the fields that one time...?"

Maud blinked. She remembered the sudden whirlwind of emotion that had taken her completely by surprise, the large grin on her face as a sudden outpouring of affection nearly swelled her heart right out of her chest, the massive love and joy she felt at having such a wonderful, solid family who supported her no matter what, at having a safe and pleasant home to be at, a warm bed at night, and good, honest work to be done in the day. She had felt a kinship with everything around her then, a connection with the rocks of her land, the hearts of her family, and this had sent her skipping gaily through the fields, barely resisting the urge to whistle!

Oh, how she remembered, how she wanted to share the simple, foallike wonder of that little slice of time with everyone she met so they could understand...

"Yes," Maud answered her mother.

Mother Pie nodded and turned to Pinkie, who was now balancing upon one of her fore-hooves. "Pinkamena, go use the restroom before you get on the train. And do try to get your mane in some sort of order, it's a horrid mess."

"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pulling a backwards hoofspring to an upright position, the bubbly little filly skipped past them all, humming excitedly to herself. Maud watched the door to the facilities slam closed, and she turned to her parents and siblings, who all looked as if they had just been put through a wringer.

"How has school been, Maud?" asked Father Pie, a rather forced smile on his face.

Maud blinked. "It has been interesting."

"I see. Learn anything new?"

"Yes."

"Good, good. I remember back when I went to Tectonic Tech, we had to learn to—"

Maud's view of her father was suddenly obscured by the sight of extraordinarily wide and extraordinarily blue eyes surrounded by extraordinarily pink frizz. "OH-MY-GOSHIES-MAUD-YOU-NEED TO-CHECK-OUT-THE-BATHROOM-HERE-THE-SOAP-TURNS-INTO-FOAM-WHEN-YOU-PRESS-THE-BUTTON-AND-IT-LOOKS-ORANGE-AND-SOAPY-IN-THE-THINGIE-BUT-IT-TURNS-WHITE-AND-FLUFFY-WHEN-IT-COMES-OUT-AND-IT'S-SOOOOOOOOOO-MUCH-FUN-YOU-NEED-TO-TRY-IT-NOW-NOW-NOW!!!"

Maud, to her credit, did not give much of a reaction to this sudden inexplicable appearance by her baby sister, opting to merely blink her eyes and give a sharp intake of breath.

Her parents and other siblings, however, jumped like scalded cats, Father Pie clutching his left foreleg and turning pale, and Mother Pie trying to hide a screeching Limestone and and whimpering Marble behind her, despite their best efforts to escape beneath a nearby bench.

It was at this moment that the train decided it was time to pull out, for the conductor made his appearance and loudly called for all passengers to Coltlanta, Cloudsdale Ground Station, and Fillydelphia.

"Oh, wow! Oh, wow, oh, wow, oh wow! That's me!" Jumping neatly from her older sibling's head and landing lightly on the wooden boards, Pinkamena Pie trotted over to each member of her family, kissing them on the cheek.

Mother and Father Pie managed to cobble together immediately-transparent looks of regret at the arrival of their daughter's departure, but Pinkie did not seem to notice this. Marble and Limestone, on the other hand, didn't bother hiding their looks of distress and relief as she bid them goodbye.

Maud was the last to be told farewell, and Pinkie accompanied it with a promise to write them all and see them again soon.

The conductor having taken her bag aboard, she showed him her ticket, and he took her to the appointed seat, which just happened to be by a window immediately before the remaining family members.

Maud watched her baby sister wave goodbye as the train pulled out and disappeared over the horizon.

Father Pie and Mother Pie had taken the still-panicking younger ones on to the wagon already, and Maud used the opportunity to go to the restroom.

She let them wait as she slowly walked to the door of the facilities.

A pull of the handle told her it was still locked, and a knock on the door told her that nopony was inside.

A quick (for Maud) trot around the sides and back showed no other ways to exit the little building.

Maud made her way to the wagon, deep in thought. As slow and deliberate as she was, she was not stupid, not at all. She had been gone for three months, and in that time, Pinkamena had turned from a little sack of sad into a walking, talking battery.

A walking, talking battery that had somehow gained the ability to exit locked rooms without opening the door.

She knew better than to try and ask her family what was going on—they were far too spooked to speak about anything worthwhile right now, and they would never admit to something wrong, even if their actions said there was.

It was all very strange, to be sure...and Maud wasn't sure if she wanted to know what had happened to turn her family against Pinkie.

Needless to say, though...she was going to keep in touch with the little one...if only to keep an eye on things...

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This was the only incident that Maud would share with me. Apparently she had learned, through further dealings with Pinkie, to take these things in stride and ignore them.

However, she did admit to not knowing exactly how they were accomplished, unless a little filly had somehow become an escape artist or there was some Unicorn blood in the family that had surfaced within Pinkie and Pinkie alone (Maud had already researched this and it seemed extraordinarily unlikely). Any questions she asked her family, however delicately put, were met with typical rock-farmer stonewalling.

Having recorded as much information from Maud as I could, as well as having sent her a thank-you letter (along with an invite to a poetry class I was giving—the poor dear could use the help), I decided to go ahead and make a list of all the known, yet unexplainable, phenomena known as "Pinkie Stuff":

1. Ability to enter or exit spaces otherwise inaccessible to other ponies

2. Ability to appear in two places almost at once (discounting the incident with multiple Pinkies)

3. Ability to appear in places before or at the same time as other ponies, despite having been seen elsewhere and/or left a considerable distance behind

4. Ability to appear in front of ponies in inexplicable angles

5. Ability to sense imminent danger/when associations are in imminent danger ("Pinkie Sense")

6. Ability to produce items of varying size, shape, and weight from thin air/spaces otherwise too small or the wrong shape to hold them (Confetti, party items, etc)

7. Ability to physically contort oneself in impossible ways (twisting the neck at least 720 degrees without breaking of the spine, etc)

Numerous other items could have made it to this list, such as the inexplicable ability to make perfect animal noises whilst lacking the appropriate vocal organs without peripheral apparatus. However, they are not as constant (dare I say commonplace?) as these other events, though doubtless they share a common root.

As for what this root was...well...just let me get a new quill and I'll continue with my story...