Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

A Brief History of Pink, by FoME

Being friends with Pinkie Pie wasn't easy. It certainly wasn't relaxing; even Rainbow Dash could feel exhausted watching Pinkie go for too long. But sometimes the exhaustion was more mental, especially when they had to work together on school projects. Pinkie could be fun, yes, but getting her brain to wrap around a given concept when it didn't want to could be a tremendous struggle.

Performing a scene from Zothello had seemed like it would be simple at first, but when it had taken their entire social circle twenty minutes to convince Pinkie that "the Moor of Veneighs" didn't refer to the harbor and another twenty to assure her she wouldn't have to perform it in stripeface, Dash knew she'd be in for the long haul.

Still, they needed to rehearse, and between the two of them, Pinkie was the one with the backyard. As such, Dash landed on the Pies' front step one balmy November morning—okay, afternoon, but that basically qualified as morning on weekends—and rang the doorbell.

Marble answered the door, which Dash knew was a big step for someone who was basically Fluttershy squared. "Hey," Dash said with a small wave. "Here for Pinkie."

"Mmhmm." Marble moved aside, letting Dash in as she went upstairs.

Five seconds later, Dash found herself both terribly bored and terribly curious. She spent almost no time in the Pie household outside of Pinkie's room, and the overall effect was like being in an old timey photo, all blacks and whites and beiges. And a lot of rocks. Every surface seemed to have at least one, some of which appeared to be furniture in and of themselves.

Then, in a moment that might have been surreal somewhere where Pinkie didn't live, Dash realized that part of the old-timey photoness came from a wall of mostly old timey photos. They formed a timeline of the Pies going from left to right, and it was hard to tell when color film got involved. It was still gray people in gray clothes against gray backgrounds, only now there was the occassional bit of brown. Pinkie's baby photos were the only thing to break the trend.

Dash frowned. Well, not quite. There was one woman in some of the photos, her complexion what Rarity might call a pale rose, her hair in giant ringlets. She was big; not obese but scaled up, normal proportions but just bigger than most people.

She trailed the woman back and found her mother, a woman with a much more wiry build but with a smile on her lips while the other's was mostly in her eyes. And as Dash trailed that one back, she settled on what must have been a dance club almost a century ago. The picture was yellowed and cracking beneath the frame, but the girl in it was full of energy. Familiarly so.

In fact...

Dash squinted and leaned in closer. She had plenty of firsthand experience with the limits of the human body, and the girl's arms seemed to extend past those limits, acting more like rubber hoses than flesh and bone.

"Yeah, it skips a generation sometimes."

"Wha!" Dash flinched back, putting a bit more distance between her and Pinkie, who'd said that directly into her ear. "Say what?"

Pinkie was still looking at the photo, looking more thoughtful than Dash had ever seen her. "The pink. Mom didn't get it, but Nana Pinkie did, and Great-Nana Pinkie before her. And it took Mom and Dad three or four tries before it cropped up again, depending on how you count it."

"So Pinkie's like a family name?"

Pinkie shook her head. "Not like with Twilight. We did a little genealogy research over the summer when she heard the pink was hereditary. You go back in her family tree and you've got Twilight Velvet, Twilight Twinkle, Twilight Realm, this big long line of female juniors. But Nana Pinkie's real name was Rose Quartz." She pointed at the large woman. "It was just that she was pretty much the only pink person in the family other than her mom, Pink Spinel."

Dash looked along the right edge of the wall and smiled. "And until you came along," she said, pointing out an image of Rose Quartz gone gray and smiling down at a beaming little Pinkie Pie in her lap, both wearing party hats.

Pinkie nodded, looking at the wall without seeming to see it. "Long, long line of miners and prospectors and quarry owners, and every so often they got someone who... wasn't."

"You okay?"

"Nana Pinkie passed on when I was eleven." Pinkie said it matter-of-factly, like they were studying for history. Except even then she'd be excited when she said an answer. "First funeral I ever went to. And Granny Pie was a few years later. After Sunset broke us all up."

Dash waited for Sunset to show up, apologize, break up the awkward atmosphere, and take over talking about people's feelings. Sunset did precisely none of those things. "Oh."

"Yeah. It... It was kinda rough for a while." Pinkie noticed Dash looking at her and gave a desperate smile. Or at least exposed her teeth. "But everything's okay now!"

"You sure?"

Pinkie bit her lip, but nodded. Then she latched on in something even Dash could tell wasn't a hug. It was the same thing Scootaloo had done when her parents had been stranded in Mozebrique for a few weeks with no way of contacting her.

It was clinging on for dear life.

Dash stood paralyzed, unsure if she should hold Pinkie or not. Before she could decide, Pinkie let go, wiped her eyes, and said, "Come on. We have a scene to rehearse."

"If you ever need to talk—"

"You're here for me. You all are. I know. It's just memories." Pinkie managed something that at least resembled her usual smile. "Come on, you need to convince me my wife's cheating on me."

Dash tried to suss out what Pinkie really felt and knew there was no way she was going to manage it. "If you're sure."

"I am." Another embrace, this one far less desperate. And one that Dash instantly decided to reciprocate. "Thanks."

Author's Note:

"Moor" derives from Moroccoats, and historically from those who invaded this world's Iberian peninsula from across the Marediterranean. The following centuries of cultural, political, and religious shifts in medieval Espoña are beyond the scope of this short.

I know I reversed the relationship between certain holographic space rocks, but if you deny an instance of Spinel the opportunity to do the Charleston in a Roaring Twenties jazz club, why even bother using the character? Besides, Rose Quartz as Cloudy Quartz's mother makes more sense, inasmuch as pony naming conventions ever do. And no one said she was that Rose Quartz.

On the topic of naming conventions, the concept of the female junior, i.e. a daughter named after her mother, is lovingly borrowed without permission from Fylifa's Terms of Forgiveness.

Also, the mental image of the Bearer of Loyalty as Iago is too amusing for me to not do it.

Comments

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

Having seen a movie adaptation of the play, and even knowing who you were talking about, there still was a moment where my mind went to the parrot first.

[Daedalus Aegle]

I love every element of this, even if I am now wondering which Shakespeare play would make the best SU crossover.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

So Steven Universe is Pinkie's cousin? That makes so much sense.

[FortunateKitsune]

I imagined exactly what your AN describes. My ribs hurt now.

[FanOfMostEverything]

9909061
At least you didn't imagine Rainbow Dash with the voice of Gilbert Gottfried... until I mentioned it.

9909070
King Lear with the Diamond tetrarchy would certainly be interesting. Midsummer Night's Dream might well have been inspired by the Crystal Gems on the SU Earth, with Pearl and Rose as Oberon and Titania. (Amethyst is Puck, naturally. Garnet is trying to stay out of it.)

9909152
Given that I'm correlating Nana Pinkie and Rose, he'd actually be her uncle. Which may be an even better mental image.

9909831
Which part? Rainbiago Dash, flapper Spinel, or medieval Spain in the EqG world?

[FortunateKitsune]

9910429
Flapper Spinel, flapping away. It's 10am and my chest still kind of hurts. So congrats, you're hilarious!

[Jordan179]

Spinel from the movie was basically an abused and crazy Pinkie Pie to begin with.

[garfan]

reading through some of the old chapters and old comments. i can't believe I'm not the only Celestia/Optimus shipper out there although mine is the princess and the Autobot leader

Also I have a story idea. I kept meaning to post it and now it's a week past Halloween where it might have been cute. We know that this Sunset has seen Midnight Sparkle thanks to intersecting realities and dreams. Has anyone else? Has Sunset ever gotten the full story of it? Imagine if she got to pick out Twilight's Nightmare Night costume and just dressed her in that outfit

[FanOfMostEverything]

9927130
Could you cite your source on that? From what I can recall, this universe only knows of Midnight Sparkle through the fevered imaginations of Warlocks on the Mount game designers.

Mind you, Sunset could still design Twilight's costume based on the illustrations...

[garfan]

9927536

Chapter 19: Noise Complaint. You wrote it yourself. A universal convergence leaves Oversaturated Sunset talking to a more ordinary version of herself who is dreaming about Twilight going nuts again but also Twi is trying to seduce her to the darkside

[FanOfMostEverything]

9927542
Ah. In my defense, I wrote that three and a half years ago. But yeah, go nuts.

[B_Munro]

"another twenty to assure her she wouldn't have to perform it in stripeface"

The implications of that are positively alarming.

[BenRG]

It's a long-known tradition that the greatest clowns have the greatest sadness within them. Pinkie is no different in that and I've long wondered if she's struggling with depression or bipolar disorder a lot of times.

[FanOfMostEverything]

10189347
There's definitely something darker lurking under the cheery, pink veneer. I deliberately left the details vague. This could've just been a bit of melancholy or a sign of something deeper. I'm not going to tie Pinkie to a specific diagnosis in a sub-kiloword minific.

[DraconequusInLove]

Dash squinted and leaned in closer. She had plenty of firsthand experience with the limits of the human body, and the girl's arms seemed to extend past those limits, acting more like rubber hoses than flesh and bone.

squeaks