Memoria

by Takarashi282

Chapter V - Home

Pinkie Pie was surprised. She didn't know what to make of the Messenger as it slithered to the center of the room, toward the blue light of the platform. Slowly, she stood, studying the Messenger through hazy eyes. "Please..." she whimpered. "Please! At least do something!"

The Messenger didn't respond. It stared at the dull blue light, green liquid puddling around its feet. Then, its tail uncurled over its head, and with a mighty blow, it pierced the skin of the organism, more of the green liquid bursting out of the puncture wound. The Messenger's tail then moved back the way it came, the flesh being brought together.

Pinkie Pie didn't understand at first, but through the neediness clouded in her mind, she realized it. The Messenger is healing the organism, she thought. The Messenger stabbed into the organism again and again, doing the exact same thing, sealing the wound. The dull blue light of the organism began to brighten, slowly, but surely. This is its home, she thought. The Messenger... it's caring for it like...

Maud.

---

It was a hot summer's day, there at the mouth of the badlands. The red rock spread for miles and miles, covering the valley in a blood-like color. There was no comfort for Pinkie Pie then, save it the light breeze that ran across her back and whispered in her ear dead nothings that she could only hope to hear.

She stared at her left hoof. New red lines traced there, and her eyes followed them, like she was reading what exactly happened. Dad yelled, was the only thing she could think of. Dad screamed. Dad hit. Dad drank. Things that he said he'd never do... he did. Her mother was barely different. Blood trickled from these lines as her vision started to haze, and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping, somehow, for lost hope.

And yet, here she was, sitting outside nearly a mile from her home. It was a needed flight. She couldn't have known what would've happened to her had she stayed in the household. She didn't want to know. All she knew was that confusion. Dad drank. Dad hit. It was all true... but it was inconceivable.

She just wanted to escape. Escape from this hell she'd walked into. Escape everything that proved her to be a filly that she wasn't. And she knew it meant certain death.

"Pinkie?" called a voice behind her, but Pinkie didn't look. The monotone voice she'd grown familiar with throughout her entire life. Maud couldn't see the cuts. Pinkie didn't want her to. She didn't want Maud to worry, to grieve.

Regardless, Maud kept coming, and tears came rolling down Pinkie's face along with sickening sobs. Maud came and sat by Pinkie Pie, nuzzling her, shushing her. Just like her mother did when she was just a little younger, before the incidents. Maud didn't press her about the marks on her hoof, nor why she galloped nearly a mile away into the rock farm. She just sat there and nuzzled, just shushing her like a babe.

And, somehow, it worked. Pinkie's tears dried a couple minutes later, and she started to coo into her sister's cheek. Tears were shed between the two of them, one of the few times Pinkie ever remembered her crying. They sat there in the enveloping heat for moments on end, then Maud stood.

"Come, Pinkie," she said, still whispering. "We must get you home."

Pinkie was shocked. "W-why?" she asked in horror. "Why w-would I ever return there?"

"Where else can we go?" Maud looked down at Pinkie, a trace of sympathy still present in her dull expression. "I'll protect you, Pinkie," she decided. "No matter what Mom and Dad throw at you, I will protect you from it. I promise this, from here on out." Maud, for the first time in what seemed like ages, smiled. "Come on. Let's go home."

---

Home...

Pinkie's eyes widened in realization. The Messenger was still at work in front of her, healing up its home, like Pinkie did hers. "Home," she mumbled. "I need to get home." Pinkie stood, staring at the alien blue light with a different respect.

It was all coming back to her. It was all complete. Her life up until recently, her friends, their adventures. Ponyville, Canterlot, the Crystal Empire; it was all there now. She remembered she hadn't fallen back into old habits for about a year now, and that she was at the top of her life.

Though, one question still remained: why was she here? Why wasn't she with her friends, drinking coffee at the Sugar Cube Corner Bakery, or with Twilight, studying? Or with Rainbow Dash, pranking? Or with Maud, having a great family reunion though just between the two of them. Why here?

Reality wavered before Pinkie. It was like watching a rock fall into a lake, how the ripples made everything so blurry. She blinked. What's happening? she thought as more ripples formed around her. They tore through the very fabric of reality, a tiled ceiling rushing past above her. The Messenger disappeared, the organism faded into the white light, and one dizzying moment later, she was lying down.

The wheels screeched beneath her, tortured by the weight as raised voices resonated through the halls. A flurry of voices bandied around, bickering even.

"We need her hooked up to an I.V. right now," commanded a voice to her right.

"How long has she been abstemious?" asked a voice to the left.

"Mrs. Cake said she'd gone into her room for a little more than a day," the voice to her right recounted, female.

"And she was found unconscious," the voice to the left concluded.

"Yes," the voice to her right confirmed. The white, tiled ceiling burst into a darker room, a curtain flying behind her.

"What..." Pinkie rasped. "What's going on?" she asked louder.

A doctor appeared behind her, tan coat, reddish eyes, with a white facemask and cap. "Don't you worry, Ms. Pie. You'll be nice and strapped in soon."

"What happened?" Pinkie asked again.

"We do not have that information at the moment," the tan doctor said. "We will get you in the know shortly. In the meantime..." The doctor parted the fur on her left hoof, and he froze for a second, then came back. "... rest," he said quieter, as a short, pinching pain filled her left hoof, twice. The world began to spin and she floated before her eyelids lost the strength to hold themselves up. The world faded to black.

---

Pinkie awoke to a small room. It wasn't the same as before, with the curtains or the blankness of the emergency room, but it was filled, a radio to her left on a nightstand whispering news, a sink to the left corner with filing cabinets below. To either side was the I.V. and the heart monitor, beeping a constant rhythm.

Beside her was a familiar face. A middle-aged mare sat on a chair next to her, looking out a window. Her cyan coat contrasted with her red peppermint-swirled manedo. Earrings of the same color hung as orbs to the side of her head. Strapped around her chest was a light green apron, pink fletchings like wings fanning out to either side.

"Mrs. Cake?" Pinkie slurred, the sedative still messing with her head.

Mrs. Cake's head turned, and she nearly jumped out of her seat. But instead, she smiled, though Pinkie could see that she was having a hard time resisting the temptation to leap up and hug her. "Bless you, you're awake!" She sighed for relief.

"Yeah..." Pinkie agreed. "But, what happened, Mrs. Cake? Why am I here?"

Mrs. Cake's face suddenly turned grim. "Oh," she tried to laugh. "Uhm... you were abstemious for quite a while. When I found you, you were unconscious from lack of water and food... and... uhm..."

Pinkie Pie sat up, the heart monitor beeping faster and faster. "What is it?" she asked. Again, there was that dread to know what the truth was, but she pushed it aside. "What happened?"

Mrs. Cake's eyes fixated on the ground. "I'm sorry, Pinkie. I told you this a couple days ago... and..." She gulped. "Your sister, Maud... she's dead."